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“You’re sure?”
Sullivan didn’t bother to answer the question. “The Yusef is opening rear torpedo doors, sir.”
Strilzuk joined Halberg at the tactical. “Strange place to be running a drill.”
“I was just thinking the same thing.”
“Torpedo in the water!” Sullivan said loudly.
“Battle stations,” Halberg said without wasting a second. The order was repeated throughout the ship in a matter of seconds. Halberg was about to order the sub to flank speed when the bearing of the torpedo showed up on the tactical. The torpedo was clearly headed for the Iranian frigate Sabalan.
“Sully,” said the captain, “confirm that bearing.”
Sullivan reconfirmed the bearing of the torpedo. Strilzuk said, “Are we sure that’s the Yusef?”
“It isn’t one of ours.”
“Twenty-one seconds to impact,” Sullivan announced.
Halberg looked at Strilzuk. “I want visual.”
Strilzuk ordered the photonics mast raised and joined Halberg in front of the color monitor. Sullivan began counting down from ten. As he reached two all five sonar men took off their headsets. Halberg increased the magnification on the camera and the Sabalan went from a spec to a clearly visible ship plowing through the water. As Sullivan’s countdown reached zero, Halberg watched a geyser erupt from under the Sabalan’s bow. For a moment it looked like the entire ship had been lifted out of the water. As she settled down her back broke and the front third of the frigate started sinking.
“Send a flash message to CTF 54,” Halberg said. He paused to look at the sonar monitor. The Yusef was passing the container ship in front of her and sprinting toward the Persian Gulf. “Set course to follow the Yusef.”
44
MOSUL, IRAQ
Rapp walked through the short sandbag tunnel and into the trailer that housed the offices. He was looking at the last of the six photos he’d taken. The colors were growing more vivid with each step. The castration speech had gone over swimmingly. He’d delivered it to each of the three men, and they all took it differently. The first one, the one who Rapp had punched in the mouth, went into shutdown mode. Before the speech the man had been cussing up a storm and acting as defiant as a teenager. As Rapp described how he would dissect the man’s groin, he watched the fight drain out of him. He had either decided it was not wise to antagonize Rapp any further, or he was working to come up with a plan. More than likely a lie that would keep him firmly in the sexual category of his choice.
The second man, the policeman, was either a great actor or an absolute crazed lunatic. With each increasingly descriptive word about what Rapp planned to do, the man only laughed harder. He had a kind of crazy, bring-it-on attitude that Rapp had seen before. He was the type that either cracked right away or never did. There was very little in between. Rather than waste time, Rapp decided to find out if the guy was a pretender or a crazed, true believer.
The army medics had cut away the man’s pants so they could bandage the bullet wounds to his knee and butt. He was still on a stretcher, his lower body covered with a drab green army blanket over which he was bound by restraints. Rapp yanked the blanket out from under the straps, exposing the man’s genitals. He drew his knife and held it in front of the man’s face.
“What’s your name?” Rapp asked in an easy, even tone.
The man laughed hysterically and refused to answer. Rapp placed the tip of the knife against the man’s left testicle and repeated the question. The man’s laugh turned into a crazed cackle. Rapp forced the knife downward, twisted it and jerked it back up. A hunk of flesh flew from the tip of the knife and smacked against the cold, steel wall of the cell.
The man twisted back and forth on the gurney, struggling against his bonds and screaming at the top of his lungs. After ten seconds the man stopped his wailing, looked at Rapp through moist eyes, and continued to laugh maniacally.
Rapp looked down and simply said, “I’ll be back for the other one in five minutes.”
With that he left the cell and went to find the last prisoner. This was the one Rapp had knocked out rather than kill. Rapp guessed since he was younger than the other two by at least ten years he would be the easiest to break. After delivering the castration speech, Rapp stood, took a second photo, and told the man he’d give him a few minutes to think about life without a pecker and then left.
Rapp entered the reception area and found Stilwell and Ridley standing behind a desk looking at a large flat-screen monitor. Rapp held up a photo of the man whose left nut he had just cut off and said, “There’s no way in hell this guy is a cop.”
Ridley pointed at the screen and said, “I just got off the phone with Chuck O’Brien, and I think he’s right.” Ridley pointed at the screen. “You’ve lost it.”
“What in the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about,” Ridley pointed at the screen in front of him, “you cutting off that guy’s testicle. You think we’ve only got one work station to keep an eye on the prisoners?”
“Oh…don’t tell me you’ve gone soft too.”
“It has nothing to do with going soft, although I’m not so sure about your methods…it’s about the fact that this is a U.S. military base. This isn’t some dark facility in the Stans. The military keeps records, they keep track of who comes and who goes, and these GIs gossip more than a bunch of goddamn sorority sisters. Then there’s the press, and I don’t even want to think about what’s going to happen when that guy ends up with a lawyer someday.”
“That guy is never going to end up with a lawyer,” Rapp said forcefully.
