John Ringo: Ghost

So he cooled his heels and took odd calls from international operators.

“Major, this is not a prank call,” the man on the phone said. “Can you do a trace on me?”

“Who is this, please?” Roberts replied, tersely. “I don’t have time for games, buddy.”

“This is one very lost former operator who is sitting in a damned plane in some third world shithole tracking some kidnapped girls. Have you heard any news from Athens, Georgia?”

“Yes,” Roberts said, sitting up and waving to the staff duty NCO. Calls were automatically recorded but he made a motion to do a trace.

“I don’t have much time. The plane took off from Athens airport and is now on the ground. They’re refueling somewhere in the desert area. It’s day, maybe afternoon local time, I can’t get much of a look around. Just… fucking desert shit, you know what I mean? You got any experience?”

“Lots, son, who is this?” Roberts said, frowning at the SD NCO who shook his head and shrugged. The trace wasn’t locking yet.

“No names, Major,” the man said. “I think I’m looking at murder one, okay? And I’m going to try very hard to avoid going to the slammer. So no names. Call me…” There was a long pause and then a sigh. “Call me Ghost.”

“Ghost,” Roberts said, nodding. “Okay, Ghost, what’s your situation?”

“I survived the first flight,” the man said. “I’m in the nose compartment with the wheel. It’s tight and I passed out, but I don’t think I’m bent or too loopy.” He paused then whispered. “Wait.”

Roberts waited, impatiently, hearing faint breathing from the phone, then a sigh.

“Thank God for shitty mechanics,” “Ghost” muttered. “They were checking the nose-wheel assembly but didn’t bother to get off the ground. Just kicked the tires and wandered off.”

“Well, that means you could be anywhere from Morocco to Mongolia, buddy,” Roberts said with a chuckle.

“Tell me about it,” “Ghost” replied with a faint note of humor. “I’m going to try to track and report. What’s your number?”

“813-715-4279,” Roberts replied.

“Got it on my arm,” “Ghost” said. “They kicked the tires now they’re lighting the fires. I got to go back to my hide.”

“Hang in there, buddy,” Roberts said. “We’ve got a warning order on this. The whole fucking world, at least the good part of it, is going to drop on them as soon as we know where you are going.”

“Good to hear,” “Ghost” said, then snorted. “Go tell the Spartans, right?”

“Yeah, man,” Roberts replied, his face set in a hard grin. “Go tell the Spartans. Well, the Spartans know and they’re coming, unlike the damned Athenians.”

“Please, no French,” “Ghost” said. “Out here.”

Roberts leaned back and looked at the SD NCO with a raised eyebrow.

“Satellite phone,” the E-7 said, shrugging. “Couldn’t get a positive lock on position. The satellites it used were generally servicing the western Mediterranean.”

“NSA will be warmed up for the next call,” Roberts said. “Well, we have contact. The day just got much more interesting.”

“Well, you got to listen to the phone call, Mr. President,” the defense secretary said, smiling. “What do you think?”

“Spartans?” the President replied. “I know, in general, who they are. But what is that about ‘go tell the Spartans?’ The colonel seemed to recognize it. Minnie?”

“Two history buffs,” Kern said, turning her face away for a moment and taking a breath. “In fifth-century BC, a group of three hundred Spartans were dispatched to the pass in Thermopylae, Greece, to hold off an oncoming Persian army. Thermopylae, by the way, translates as ‘The Hot Gates.’ They were to briefly delay the Persians until reinforcements from Athens arrived.” She paused again and shook her head, looking at the table.

“The Athenians debated,” Secretary Powers said, his face hard. “And the forces were never sent.”

“What happened to the Spartans?” the President asked.

“They were outnumbered…” The secretary of state paused and shrugged. “Well, it depends upon which history paper you believe. But they were outnumbered by between ten at the low end and a thousand at the high end, to one. And… they held the pass. For three days. Fighting all day long, every day, in that high, unbearably hot, place. I’ve been there, I’ve seen the tablet.” He had to pause, too, and shook his head.

“I take it they didn’t survive,” the President said, looking at the faces.

“They were betrayed by a Greek who led the Persians around the position,” Powers said, nodding. “Each day they would rise, polish their armor, comb out their hair and bind it up, and then do battle all day long. For three days. Until they were finally encircled and destroyed.”

“It’s… legend in… call it the military circle,” Brandeis, the secretary of defense, said, nodding, his eyes bright. “I’m surprised you’ve never heard of it, Mr. President. The tablet translates in various ways. But I think I like Byron’s translation best.”

“’Go tell the Spartans, passerby,’ ” Minuet said, quietly, her head still down, “’that here the three hundred lie, obedient to their commands.’ The Athenians never came.”

“Well, we will,” the President said. “By God we will.”

The second time he woke up it was much worse. He had degenerative damage in both knees, his right hip, his right elbow and his left shoulder. Which was why he was on fifty percent disability. All of those joints, and his back, and his head, were screaming. He knew that pain was weakness leaving the body. He’d been in worse pain in his life. Rarely, but he had. Unfortunately, this pain was crippling enough he couldn’t move.

The plane was taxiing through a blacked out airport. That was as much as Mike could tell from his position. He managed to pull his jump bag around and rummage in the medicinal portion. First he pulled out a handful of Pepcid Complete and chewed them up, swallowing them with just about the last of his saliva. Then he took two eight hundred milligram ibuprofen “horse” tablets. He’d taken so much ibuprofen in BUDS that he’d ended up throwing up blood and his stomach was still sensitive to it; the Pepcids were a necessity not a nicety.

When he’d swallowed the pills, he forced his body to move, grimacing against the stabbing pain in his joints. He wasn’t sure if he’d been bent or if it was just the joints reacting to the pressure change. That was a “mild” form of the bends he’d have for the rest of his life every time the weather changed. More damage or simply pain? It didn’t really matter, he had a mission to complete and he had to drive the fuck on.

He had a feeling this was the final destination. More than one refueling stop would be problematic for the terrorists. They’d probably refueled in one of the “lawless” regions of Algeria. That would make this somewhere in the near Middle East. He wasn’t sure 727s had enough legs to make it from Algeria to, say, Pakistan or Iran. Iran was top on his list of probable spots for the girls to be taken. Not only were the mullahs getting really crazy lately, they’d done the “hostage” game with America before.

The plane coasted to a stop and a “Follow-Me” hooked up and turned it around, backing it into position. Mike could hear echoes and realized they were being backed into a hangar. Which would be a pain in the ass to egress. The “Follow-Me” stopped, though, before the plane was fully in the hangar. The doors were partially closed and he could hear voices shouting in Arabic. That changed things. Iranians spoke Persian, Farsi, and it was close enough to Dari, which he’d heard a lot, to tell the difference between it and Arabic. Farsi was more… liquid. Arabic was a really guttural language like Hebrew with a lot of hawking up loogies involved. These guys were hawking loogies so he probably wasn’t in Iran.