More Than Courage (18 page)

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pie like a freak show! No one has the right to violate a mother's mourning."

Stunned by this unexpectedly emotional response, Delmont stepped back. The ops officer countered by quickly closing the distance. "I don't know why the men in RT Kilo joined the army.

I have no idea what motivated them to volunteer for the Special Forces. But I can assure you, Colonel, that it was not to defend the right of some shit-for-brains reporter to invade his mother's home and shove a mike in her face so they could secure better ratings for their program. That, Colonel, is worse than rape."

Realizing that the ops officer's outburst was attracting the attention of officers and enlisted personnel, Delmont decided it was best to simply walk away and say nothing. As an astute student of tactics, he knew there were some battles that were best left unfought. This was especially true in any discussion that centered on military families, who were considered a sacred institution by the Army, and the media, who were, in the eyes of most military men, little more than a collection of immoral miscreants and heartless jackals.

Delmont and other astute members of the armed forces understood that at a time like this the military needed the full support of both. Figuring out how to best protect the privacy of military families while satisfying the insatiable needs of the media was not easy. As he returned to his cluttered desk he found himself thinking how lucky he was that he didn't have that problem to solve. All he had to do was figure out how to retrieve an undetermined number of Americans being held hostage at an unknown location that was being defended by a hostile force of an undetermined size. By comparison, that was a much easier task.

With his mental batteries recharged by a fresh infusion of caffeine, Delmont turned his attention to the OPLAN he had been forking on. Already knowing that the last part of the document he'd written was nonsense because he'd been so tired when he had written it, he scrolled back past the paragraphs of gibberish 140

HAROLD COYLE

and began reading the first complete page that made sense. His review of what he'd previously written before he started writing again served several purposes. It gave him the chance to edit and revise his own work. Often he found that some of what he'd already written didn't make sense or was not as coherent as it could be. Then there was spelling and grammar, about which General Palmer was a stickler. Though Delmont was the author, every OPLAN that left the office of the Directorate of Special Operations did so under Palmer's signature. This meant that the work of his subordinates reflected directly upon their superior to his superiors.

Another reason for the midproduction review after every major break was ensuring that the flow of the OPLAN was maintained.

Whether the project was an OPLAN such as the one he was working on or something as simple as an operational summary, a break in his train of thought often resulted in a loss of coherent narrative or gaps in the unfolding logic. While there was seldom anything wrong from a technical military sense, these narrative defects were detractors, mental speed bumps. Senior officers on the Army's General Staff take in a great deal of information in a short time before moving on to the next item in the stack of papers on their desk. They didn't have time to labor over a paper whose purpose was not immediately clear, concise, and logical. While not as irritating to General Palmer as spelling errors or violations of acceptable military grammar, a flawed staff action usually resulted in its being thrown back at the offending project officer, sometimes quite literally.

Delmont was midway through his review process when the phone on his desk rang. Annoyed at having his train of thought derailed by this intrusion, he hit the save key before staring at the ringing phone. He wondered who could possibly be calling him at this hour. He knew it wasn't General Palmer calling to check on his progress. Palmer didn't do things like that. Once he had assigned a subordinate a project, he didn't want to see or hear about it until it was ready for his review. Delmont knew it wasn't MORE THAN COURAGE

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his wife. While she was a caring soul, she wouldn't interrupt him when he was doing, as she put it, his "army thing."

Reluctantly, he reached over and picked up the receiver.

"Army Special Ops. Lieutenant Colonel Delmont speaking, sir.

This line is not secured."

The caller was the lieutenant colonel from the Army War Room he'd bumped into during his search for coffee. "I thought you'd be interested in knowing that we have established contact with those folks you're so interested in."

Delmont all but leaped out of his seat. "You've what?"

"We have been contacted by your friends in the East. Well, at least some of them."

Even after the coffee Delmont \vas still too exhausted, and now too excited, to realize that the special ops officer in the War Room was doing his best to relay classified information over an

unscrambled line by cryptically passing on all the information he dared. Wanting more, Delmont fired off a series of questions.

Only when he had finished and paused to hear the answers ciid the officer remind him that the information that was coming in was classified. "If you want the answers to those questions I suggest you come down here. I've got a half dozen folks well above our pay grade that I need to call immediately. I just thought you'd want to know before you wasted any more time working on something that will be OEE and yesterday's news before you even send it to the printer."

Before Delmont could say thanks, the officer in the War Room hung up. For a long time Delmont stared at the half finished OPLAN on his monitor, wondering if he should complete it or first seek out the answers to his own questions as the friendly lieutenant colonel had recommended. "Damn!" It was foments like this that make or break a Pentagon staff officer.

Make a good call and you're a hero, a rising star whose name is on the Hps of the Army's movers and shakers. Screw it up and you'll hnd your promising career is in the crapper with your next assignment

more than likely being that of the officer in charge of the 142

HAROLD COYLE

officer's club swimming pool at Fort Wainwright, Alaska. "Damn it to hell. Couldn't they have waited until I finished this OPLAN

and passed it to Palmer?"

Having made his decision to cease and desist until he found out wrhat was going on over there on the ground, Delmont stood and grabbed his coffee mug. "I might as well get a refill while I'm there," he grumbled. "This could turn out to be a long, long night."

I

Damascus, Syria

12:50 LOCAL (08:50 HOURS ZULU)

The sudden onset of pain shot through Sergeant First Class Allen Kannen's body with the abruptness of an electrical surge, jarring

him from the blessed state of unconsciousness into which he had slipped. Waves of insufferable agony'swept over him, overwhelming his befuddled brain's ability to absorb the shock. Blindfolded and manacled there was little he could do but squirm and convulse on the floor of his cell as his high-pitched screams echoed off the barren walls.

Slowly his howls subsided, replaced by muffled sobs and punctuated by pitiful pleas to a deity he had seldom made time for in the past. "Make the pain go away," Kannen wept. "Dear God, make it stop. Make it stop T

The minutes passed but the pain did not. No one heard his pleas. No Savior came forth. Not even God. Ever so slowly it became apparent that he would have to find a solution on his own. "Salvation lies within," he muttered as he finally managed to muster up the presence of mind to resist the panic that was keep mg him from thinking clearly.

Bit by bit he began to reign in his fear and set aside self-pity by recalling his training. He would need to reassert his self control and mental discipline if he were to survive this ordeal.

This effort brought to mind an old memory. It was that of an iniage of a Special Forces instructor towering over him after he Was knocked down during a mock prisoner interrogation. With his feet spread apart and hands on hips, that instructor kept

' yelling for all he was worth while Kannen wallowed about in the 144

HAROLD COYLE

muck trying to catch his breath. "Fear is the real bastard," the instructor bellowed. "Fear and his good buddy, Panic. Give in to them and you're dead. Master them and you'll be indestructible."

"Master the fear," Kannen whispered. "Master the fear."

Gathering his resolve, he managed to calm himself. Having regained his composure, he next tried to gather himself up into a kneeling position. These efforts were not nearly as successful. The pain from numerous injuries was simply too much. The physical damage inflicted by his tormentors had weakened and exhausted him, leaving him no choice but to stay where he was with the side of his bruised and bleeding face pressed against the cold concrete floor. Out of breath from his exertion, Kannen abandoned his attempts to pick himself up off the floor as he drew in deep gulps of air. Even this modest effort brought on spasms that were almost too much to bear as the contractions and expansions of his lungs aggravated several broken ribs while his flaring nostrils caused his broken nose to throb.

As he slowly began to emerge from his stupor Kanncn became aware of the distinctive and pervasive taste of blood but not its source. Whether it was from the teeth that had been knocked out during his repeated beatings or the seepage draining from a nose that felt as if it were swollen to several times its normal size was impossible to say. All he could be sure of was that this bleeding was gagging him. Each time he breathed, another wad of blood tainted mucus was drawn down his throat.

This gagging was made worse by the stench of the air, a wretched combination of stale bodily fluids, foul dust, and other substances he couldn't identify. Simply breathing was enough to take him to the verge of vomiting. This caused Kannen to wonder if he'd been moved to a new location after passing out since he couldn't recall the air around him smelling so bad before.

Then he wondered where he was. His first thoughts were that he was in Damascus, not that this really mattered. What he could remember was that within minutes of being overrun by the Syrian rccon unit the beatings had begun. Only after a Syrian officer MORE THAN COURAGE

145

arrived and ordered that the surviving members of RT Kilo be bound and blindfolded did the soldiers who had captured them cease their beatings, but only for a while. During this process Kannen found himself facing the blazing hulk of Kilo One. That burning wreck and the charred corpse of Airman Jones were the last things he saw before a blindfold plunged him into a world of unending darkness and ceaseless torment.

Almost immediately the bludgeoning recommenced. It wasn't long before he lost track of time. He couldn't begin to guess at the number of beatings he had been subjected to since then, creating the impression that it was one continuous bludgeoning.

The Syrians never afforded him an opportunity to recover from one pounding before the next started. To his befuddled mind it seemed as if their blows ceased only when he had been loaded into a truck and brought to this place. His only salvation came when he passed out during an interrogation session.

Kannen corrected himself. There had been no interrogations.

Since his arrival at this prison none of the Syrians who handled him had said a word to him. They spoke to each other while replacing with manacles the rope and wire that had been used to bind his hands and feet when he was captured. Kannen had listened as the Syrians chattered to one another while they publicly inspected his penis to see if he was circumcised. Yet during this entire process no one had asked him a question, not a single one.

When it was his turn to be beaten the Syrians simply dragged him into a room, shoved him down onto a straight-back wooden chair and commenced whaling upon him while they screamed and

cursed at him. Perhaps this was a preliminary stage meant to break him down? Maybe the interrogation would start when they Were confident that his will to resist had been broken.

Yet the more he thought about it, the more confused Kannen became. Intelligence gained from a prisoner is a perishable commodity.

A soldier's knowledge of the current situation, ongoing operations, and near-future plans becomes stale after a day or two, as do the codes and operational procedures that he was in posses

146

HAROLD COYLE

sion of, since a soldier's superiors change them lest they are compromised by an inadvertent slip of the tongue or forcibly extracted through the use of torture. So if the Syrians were after information regarding current operations, they weren't being smart about their timing or techniques.

Unable to resolve this apparent paradox, Kannen turned his full attention to more immediate problems. First he needed to get his face off the floor before the stench caused him to throw up. If he didn't he'd run the risk of suffocating in his own vomit. Before moving a muscle, Kannen plotted this renewed effort thoroughly, doing his best to figure out how to do so while minimizing his pain. Before he launched into this renewed effort he strove to psych himself out for the ordeal by whispering over and over

||'i

again, "Ignore the pain, ignore the pain."

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When he felt that he was ready he swung his legs around until ii

he was doubled over like a half-folded jackknife. Once set, he I,';

used an elbow to force his upper body up off the floor, clenching

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ji|

his teeth in an effort to keep from screaming out in agony least he I1

alert his Syrian guards. Incredibly he managed to keep the pain in Ijji

check and get himself up into a sitting position. This achievement i!

so exhausted him that he barely had strength to breathe.

i:

During this pause Kannen slowly became aware of some of the more basic human needs, such as thirst and hunger, which he had not given any thought to since his capture. Though he tried, he couldn't remember if the Syrians had given him anything to eat or drink. The only personal need he could recall was a sudden urge to urinate that had struck him not long after he had been placed in the cell for the first time. Unable to hold back but not wanting to summon his captors for fear of what they would do to him, Kannen had simply relieved himself where he lay. With a clarity of mind that he suddenly found unwelcome, he realized that when he had been facedown on the floor he had been lying in his own filth. Appalled by this revalation, he expelled what little he still had in his stomach with a single forceful heave, adding to ji; J