SOAR: A Black Ops Novel

NCOs, however, could spend a dozen years or more at the unit, participating in hundreds of operations, drills, rehearsals, and call-outs, and more important, the hot-washes, those no-holds-barred, rank-has-no-privilege debriefing sessions that followed every op or full mission profile exercise. Sergeants were the ones who ran the ops at Delta Force. Junior officers like Ritzik were — as the senior NCOs liked to say — no more than overpaid RTOs (radio telephone operators).

“Mr. Secretary, it’s the truth. When we were in Afghanistan, I was the nominal troop leader. Sure, I worked on developing the unit’s mission concepts and fine-tuning its goals. But once we were tasked I deferred the operational planning to the master sergeant, Fred Yates, who was my team leader back then.”

Rockman hooked a thumb toward a heavy black telephone sitting on his desk. “Then get this sergeant major of yours — Yates, you say — on the line, Major, and do whatever head-shedding you have to do to come up with something workable. I need to hear specifics before we leave for the White House.”

14 Kilometers north of Tazhong,

Xinjiang Autonomous Region, China. 2045 Hours Local Time.

Sam Phillips opened his right eye — which took considerable effort and caused him a fair amount of pain — and tried to figure out just where he was. He concluded, after some woozy seconds, that he was in a dark void, lying on his side, his head drooping into a puddle of something nasty. He thought, That road we were on must have been paved with good intentions, because I have obviously gone to hell.

He wriggled slightly — which caused a sharp twinge in his rib cage — and learned that his arms were bound tightly behind his back. He tried to straighten his legs, which were tied at the ankles tightly enough to hurt, and bent at the knees. But when he moved, a noose around his throat tightened, and he eased up quickly so as not to choke himself. The mothers had hog-tied him.

There was foul-smelling wetness under his face. He tried to open his left eye, but it was fused shut. So he lay there for some seconds, hoping that he’d get some degree — any degree — of vision back in his blurry right eye, and listening desperately for any clue that might indicate where he was. He heard snippets of muffled speech coming as if from a distance. But it was impossible to decipher what was being said.

How long had he been awake? Three minutes? Four? However long it had been, his eye wasn’t getting any better. And so he lay quietly, working hard not to panic, trying to regulate his breathing so he wouldn’t choke on the tape gag, letting his body and his brain recover by counting silently back from two hundred; a Zen exercise to steady himself.

By the time he’d reached zero, the sight in his right eye had finally unblurred enough for him to be able to make out worn floorboards below his nose.

Okay — that meant he’d been stashed in a vehicle or a house. There were no houses anywhere close by, unless they’d been driven into Tazhong. Which from the lack of ambient sounds was improbable. So, most likely, he’d been tossed into the bed of the truck that had been sitting astride the road. Or some other truck. After what had taken place earlier, Sam Phillips was not about to assume anything. Sam rolled right so he could look up. He was rewarded with a fuzzy image of canvas and metal. He raised his head, sniffed, and caught the faint but clear odor of diesel fuel.

A truck it was, then. Sam squirmed to his left, and made contact against something. He had to roll completely over now, scraping his nose across the wet floorboard. But finally his eye settled on X-Man’s photographer’s vest. He fought his way onto his shoulder — Whoa, that hurt — so he could see his teammate’s back. He watched, for a minute or so, and was hugely relieved to see that X-Man was taking shallow but regular breaths.

Then he forced his legs as far up as he could so he could see the security man’s legs without choking himself. X-Man was hog-tied, too.

Forcing his legs to comply, he scrunched forward until his forehead touched X-Man’s back. He tapped the security man’s back twice, knock-knock.

There was no one home.

He prodded the back of the photographer’s vest once more, grunting through gagged lips as he did.

Still nothing.

He squeezed up against the photographer’s vest and smacked his whole body against X-Man until he heard a short, muffled groan from his colleague. Sam moved back, until he’d put a foot or so between them. “Chris, try and roll over,” he said. “But be careful not to rock the truck and attract attention.” Of course, given the tape gag, it didn’t quite come out that way. But X-Man’s body told Sam he’d gotten the message.

It took perhaps five or six minutes, but they were finally face-to-face. Sam wriggled close and examined the cut over X-man’s eye and the bruises on his cheeks. Christ, he was a mess.