SOAR: A Black Ops Novel

X-Man started to blink rapidly. Sam thought he was having a seizure, until he realized that the security man was transmitting Morse code.

Oh, Christ, Sam thought. He’d learned Morse back at the Farm during his initial training. They’d taught it so case officers could mark dead drops, or leave signals for their agents, or — the instructor had actually once joked—“Just in case two of you are tossed into adjoining cells and you want to communicate with each other.”

Sam remembered how the whole class had rolled their eyes at that one. Which was when the instructor said, “Well, smart-asses, that’s how we did it at the Hanoi Hilton.”

But Sam hadn’t used Morse for years.

He closed his eye and counted to ten, racking his befogged mind as he tried to remember the twenty-six dit-dah long-short combinations. It was useless. His brain was mush. All he could come up with was SOS—three short, followed by three long, followed by three short.

Which jogged his mind a little. Wait a second. H was four short. S was three short. I was two short. And E was one short. That was all the shorts. There was no four long. O was three long — he knew that. What the hell was one long? T.T.T was one long. And M; M was two long.

He opened his eye and waited until it focused on X-Man’s face. He blinked three short, four short, two short, and one long, then waited for X-Man’s reaction.

Three long, followed by long-short-long. O something. OK-OK-OK.

Sam opened his eye as far as he could and nodded. X-Man was transmitting again. Short-short. Long-long. Short-short-long. I-M-short-short-long. Sam shook his head. Negatory.

X-Man cocked his head toward the outside of wherever they were being held. Then he transmitted again. I-M-something.

U. Short-short-long was U. It was the IMU out there. He was telling Sam they’d been snatched by the IMU.

The IMU. That figured. Langley said the IMU was seriously weakened these days. Well, these guys didn’t appear very weak. Sam blinked T, then E, then I-S-T-S, because he couldn’t think of what the hell R was.

X-Man gave him an affirmative nod. Then he started blinking again. “I-s-i-t,” he said.

Thank God he was keeping it simple. But sitting? What if the truck moved? What if one of them outside saw it move?

X-Man didn’t give him a chance to object. He slithered backward to give himself some clearance. Then, knees bent, the security officer rolled onto his belly. And then somehow, incredibly, without garroting himself, he levitated and jerked himself upright, into a kneeling position. The move actually slackened the hog-tie cord between X-Man’s neck and his ankles.

Sam was still holding his breath. Jeezus. It was okay: the truck hadn’t moved. Not a millimeter.

X-Man’s eyes told Sam what to do next. Sam complied, squiggling forward until he’d put his face close up against X-Man’s butt and the soles of his feet. X-Man’s fingers found the back edge of the tape across Sam’s mouth and pried it loose.

The instant it came off his lips, Sam breathed so rapidly he began to hyperventilate.

Quickly, he fought to bring his body under control. “I’ll be okay, I’ll be okay,” he whispered, the sound of his own hoarse voice both reassuring him and giving him back some blessed degree of control over the situation, even though he was still bound hand and foot.

Sam swallowed hard. “X, do you know where Kaz and Dick are?”

Instead of answering, X-Man wriggled his butt and his shoulders at Sam.

Who finally got the message — and got with the program. He buried his face between X-Man’s shoes and worked with his teeth at the hog-tie knot just above the ankles.

They’d used cheap plastic line to do the job, and Sam was able to pull the frayed end out and release the knot in a few minutes without chipping any teeth. Then he attacked the thick roll of dark tape that pinioned X-Man’s wrists and forearms behind his back. He had managed to gnaw through two of the perhaps half-dozen layers of foul-tasting tape when the shooting started and the truck was rocked by nearby explosions.

4

The Oval Office.

1059 Hours Local Time.

National Security Adviser Monica Wirth glanced at the legal pad in her left hand. Then her eyes flicked in the president’s direction. A barely noticeable movement by Pete Forrest’s eyebrow told her exactly what he wanted her to do.

Wirth dropped the pad to her side, crossed the rug with its Great Seal of the United States, and moved behind the president, where she could focus on Ritzik. “I like your overall plan, Major. It’s simple and direct. But there is one huge flaw.”

“Ma’am?” Ritzik was shaken. He thought he’d covered all the bases.