Hot Zone (29 page)

The wheel on the first door shrieked as Roo cranked it to the left. The sound reverberated through the halls.

So much for being in stealth mode.

The stench of death filled the air in the first room, old death. Roo could all but see the air he was breathing, thick and damp dust particles clogged his airways momentarily.

Then he saw the bodies.

Two twin beds on opposite sides of the room, each one with a uniformed skeleton upon its mattress.

A great place to hide a charge.

He searched high and low for the charge, in the closets, under the bed, in the drawers.

Nothing.

Then he moved his focus to the bodies.
What if. Would the frenchies really have the balls to put an explosive inside one of the corpses,
Roo thought so. After all, he would.

He stepped over to the first body, looked down at it's empty eye sockets, closed his own eyes, said a quick hail-Mary then pulled out his leatherman. Pulling out the knife component, Roo pushed the blade through the uniform of the corpse around the mid-section and ripped upwards, opening up a view of the body cavity. He could tell immediately there was nothing in there and turned around to face the other body.

Suddenly, an unmistakable sound of a door slamming vibrated through the halls and into the room. Roo swung around, sig aimed on the entrance to the room.

That couldn't be Jansen, he didn't find the charge and get down here that quickly.

Roo paused for a minute, expecting something to come through the door. When nothing happened he slowly made his way out of the door and down the hall to where he thought the noise had come from.

He surveyed the hall, eyes searching for any sign that someone else had walked the hall. The ground was hard, but damp. He noticed his boots were making small but obvious impressions in the dirt. Quietly he edged his way down the hall, then he saw it:

Scuff marks in the dirt, yes!

Coming out of a door that was at the end of the hallway Roo saw scuff marks and two sets of foot prints leading out of a room and down the adjacent hallway.

In the room it didn't take Roo long to identify the charge planted in a crack in the rock wall. The blinking numbers counting down, reminding him he was inside a ticking time bomb. He placed the charge on a hook on his utility belt and began following the footprints out of the room.

The prints were leading Roo back to the main lab where he had left Jansen looking for another charge. Concerned with the stability of the charge on his belt he moved swiftly but carefully, as much as he wanted to break out into a full sprint a trip and fall would prove deadly for him and most likely everyone else in the compound. As he approached the main tunnel that lead towards the lab, Roo's mind flashed back to his Australian Army days when he was stationed on the small island of East Timor.

1:55.00

48

For years there had been civil unrest on the island nation of Timor. Australia had sent in military assistance for the government who had struggled to control the rebel insurgents from Indonesia who were trying to claim Timor as their own. Roo was the lead on a detail for the Prime Minister of Timor. Wherever the Prime Minister moved, Roo and his team followed.

For three months Roo and his four man team drove these men around the island, from their homes to the government building, to dinners, to business meetings. Three months and not as much as a scuffle with the rebels. Roo had begun to question the need for his presence, all had seemed to be quiet on the western front and he desperately waited for the call to pull his team and go home for some much needed R and R.

Then it happened.

It was supposed to be a small event. A birthday party for the daughter of the Minister of Foreign affairs. Invites only, high security, led by Mark "Roo" Ricciuto. All check points had been secured. All access to the building had been monitored and triple checked. No one without the required level of security clearance from Roo himself, or an invitation were allowed access. It was an event similar to many he had over-seen in the past three months.

It was supposed to be a walk in the park.

It was supposed to be a piece of cake.

It was supposed to be!

It all happened in a matter of moments. Roo was shadowing the Prime Minister. One of his top men, Private Dan Lucas was shadowing the Foreign Affairs minister.

But no one was shadowing the daughter.

There was no way Roo could know of course but the daughter of the Foreign Affairs Minister had a rebellious streak. She was turning eighteen and crying out for attention. Secretly, she had been seeing this unnamed boy for two months. He had received an invitation to her party at her request at that last minute. Roo had not had the chance to research the boy's background as he had other invitees. The boyfriend would be present.

Somewhere between the candle blow out and the speeches the daughter vanished. Roo wasn't sure how long she had been gone when Private Lucas brought it to his attention but it was at least ten minutes.

The room went into panic as the lights went out. All electricity had been cut to the building. Now Roo had another situation on his hands. He couldn't even think about the daughter right now. He had the Prime Minister and seventeen other government officials to protect in total darkness. Three months of nothing had turned into chaos in just thirty minutes, all because of an eighteen year olds wish for a birthday party.

Roo's men lead the officials out through the back door, following the emergency escape plan Roo had drawn up. It had worked flawlessly with one exception.

Lucas and the Foreign Affairs Minister hadn't made it out.

Roo called on his communication unit to Lucas, no answer. Instructing his men to stay with the officials behind the building, Roo made his way back inside and placed his night-vision goggles on. He rushed through the hallway towards the room where he had last seen the Foreign Affairs Minister and Lucas with his sig-sauer chambered at arms length.

His heart pumping through his uniform Roo got to the door- way of the room when the worst thing at that moment that could possibly happen did.

The lights went on.

Roo was blinded, a bright flash through his night vision goggles blinded him, his eyes shut down, he collapsed to his knees, tearing the goggles from his eyes. He screamed in pain as is eyes made every attempt to recover from the shocking impact.

He heard the voice before he saw what was before him.

"I'm sorry boss. I never saw it." Lucas said.

Roo, still on is knees shook his head, slowly, the world began to come back into focus. The first thing he saw was the blood. It was everywhere. Then he saw Dan Lucas, cradling the body of the Foreign Affairs Minister, a small puncture wound in his neck, the carotid artery severed. Blood had sprayed throughout the room.

Lucas was shaking. "I didn't see a thing, Roo. It was over a second after the lights went out."

Roo was speechless. His eyes still weren't allowing him to see what he needed to see, but he could see enough to know he had been bested by the rebels. The daughter was gone, the father was dead and he had no idea of how it had happened.

This night started a four week personal mission for Roo. He would not accept defeat for his failure to carry out his job and the weight of responsibility that rested on his shoulders would not allow him to stop until the daughter was found.

Over the course of the first week ransom demands filtered through to the remaining family members and even the Prime Minister himself. With each demand came a more ridiculous request.

One Million Dollars U.S currency. Free seventeen rebels currently being held in jails throughout the island. Relinquish command of your government to Indonesia. Roo instructed the Prime Minister to ignore all ransom demands in order to buy himself and Lucas time to infiltrate into the rebel network.

While the other men in his unit continued to shadow the officials, Roo and Lucas began working away at his informant whom Lucas had befriended at a local bodega four months earlier. In return for vital information Lucas and Roo offered the informant free passage out of Timor to Australia once the detail had been done.

An offer Roo knew he would never have to make good on.

Their informant had lead the two men up into the Timor highlands. Roo had never been to the Amazon before but he envisioned the thick jungle terrain of the highlands was just like it. The air was thick, a hundred wet degrees with mosquitoes the size of small birds buzzing around their heads. Part of him felt as if this may be a one way trip. He had to go by the hunch that his informant wanted out of the country more than he wanted to deliver the soldiers to the insurgents. The fact that Roo was doing it with just one other soldier greatly increased his percentage of failure, if you went by the books.

This mission wasn't one the books allowed for.

Roo thought he had a much better chance of going in stealth with one wing man, who in his own right was a soldier with incredible marksmanship and navigational skills.

After two days of hiking through the hills the men arrived on the outskirts of an insurgent camp, buried deep inside the caved fortress that had been carved out by them years earlier.

It was at this moment that their informant turned on his heels, stating that he could not assist them in the extraction but instead would meet them back in the city.

* * *

For two days and two nights, Roo and Lucas monitored the comings and goings of the insurgents, looking for any signs of the Minister's daughter. With nothing to indicate whether she was indeed there or not, Roo decided to make the move into the caves. He had counted the insurgents coming in and out and estimated that no more than six men would be in there at the time of his approach.

Under the cover of darkness Roo and Lucas approached the entrance cautiously, one guard was all that stood between them and the interior. With a silencer on his sig-sauer, Lucas methodically placed two bullets into the chest of the guard. He collapsed instantly, never making a sound.

Their night-vision goggles firmly in place, the two-some moved quickly through the labyrinth of tunnels that wound and crisscrossed deep into the hills of Timor. Roo didn't exactly know what he was going to come across, all he knew was he was going to shoot anything that moved.

He almost couldn't believe it when he found them.

Five men, all sleeping in one room, makeshift beds lined the walls, each of them sound asleep. The decision had to be made right then. Move on and risk them waking or kill them in their sleep. For Mark Ricciuto this was the hardest decision he had ever had to make.

This was cold blooded murder!

Roo turned to Lucas, a look of resentment for what he needed to do washed across him. Roo stepped forwarded and aimed at the first insurgent when Lucas stepped in, pushing his weapon away.

In a whisper he said: "Leave the room, now."

Roo didn't know what to make of it at first but he understood quickly what Lucas was about to do. He was saving Roo from committing a war crime, and possibly ruining his career.

He did as instructed, the only time he'd ever taken orders from a lower rank, an order he wished he'd never followed.

Five small
pops
from Lucas's silencer was all that Roo could say he witnessed if it ever went public. Lucas emerged from the room ten seconds later with a blank look on his face.