AFGHANISTAN

The two vehicles arrived back at the base with little fanfare. The Special Forces contingent had their own section of the base and an MP in a Humvee escorted them to General Harley's command tent. Rapp started to get out of the truck before it stopped. He was so sick of listening to Waheed Abdullah scream he'd actually thought of knocking him out. Rapp had been shot before, and there was nothing pleasant about it, but the man had been screaming, moaning, and crying now for close to thirty minutes.

Rapp lifted the back hatch half hoping Abdullah would roll out and hit the ground hard enough to break his jaw. His wish did not come true. The Saudi screamed even louder once he saw his tormentor. Soldiers began spilling out of the command tent, followed by General Harley. Rapp would have liked to avoid this scene, but there'd been a change of plans. Urda and his Afghani bodyguards grabbed the other two prisoners and leaned them against the SUV.

No one, least of all General Harley, noticed, or cared, or more likely dared ask Rapp why he'd left with five prisoners and returned with only three. There were certain things Harley was just better off not knowing.

"You want medical attention for this one?" asked Harley, as he pointed to Abdullah, who was between shrieks and breathing so heavily he looked as if he might pass out.

Rapp wanted to crack him over the head with the butt of his pistol and knock him out, but doing it in front of all these officers would be a real bad idea. Reluctantly, he agreed to the medical attention for Abdullah. Rapp, at any rate, needed to look at the intel they'd seized from the village before he interrogated Abdullah and the others again. Right now he had no way of gauging what was the truth and what were lies.

A medic showed up and quickly assessed the prisoners' wounds. Urda asked Rapp if they should take the other two prisoners away. Rapp told him no. Showing them that their captors could have some compassion was a good thing.

Rapp walked over to the medic and bent down so no one else could hear. "Give him just a little bit of morphine. Enough to last thirty minutes, tops."The medical treatment might be just the right thing, thought Rapp. A little bit of morphine to dull the pain temporarily, and then when it started to wear off he might become real talkative.

He stood over Abdullah and quietly spoke to him in Arabic. "I am going to check on what you just told me, and if I find out you've been lying to me, I'm going to start cutting your fingers off one by one."

Rapp straightened up and waved Urda over. The two CIA men huddled with General Harley, and Rapp asked the older man, "You have a place where Jamal can continue interrogating these three?"

"It's all set up and ready to go...recording equipment and all. I've also got some Delta boys who are more than eager to assist."

"Good." Rapp turned to Urda, but before he could talk, the general grabbed his arm.

"Listen...if you need to get rough with them I don't want anyone other than the Delta guys in the room, and make sure the cameras are turned off."

Both Rapp and Urda nodded.

"And no executions," Harley whispered. Gossip on a military base was as common as morning PT. "You guys need to resort to any of that stuff you take them off base again." The general glared at both men to make sure they were clear on this point.

"Understood," said Rapp. Urda nodded.

Harley nodded with satisfaction and then turned to one of his men. "Captain, would you please escort Mr. Urda and his..." Harley almost used the word prisoners, but stopped short. "Would you please take Mr. Urda to the place we discussed."

"Yes, sir."

The Afghani bodyguards grabbed Abdullah, while Urda took hold of the other two by their elbows and they were off.

As Harley watched them leave he said to Rapp in a low tone, "I can't believe they've got a nuke."

Rapp still held out some hope. "We don't know for sure what they have, but we have to assume the worst and work our way back from there. Hopefully, all they've got is a dirty bomb, and they never get the chance to light it."

Harley was silent for a second. His people had found another piece of evidence that he hadn't shared with Rapp yet. "I've got family in D.C."

"They haven't beaten us yet, general."

"No, but I can't even believe they've gotten this far." He waved his arm to the south toward the distant mountains. "We need more men, and I'm not just talking snake eaters." Harley used the slang for Special Forces. "We need three combat divisions and a whole lot of support. We need to go up into those mountains and end this thing."

"Well, if they set a bomb off in D.C., you'll get your wish."

The general shook his head, his sense of foreboding deepening. "If they set off a nuke in D.C., this entire region will be turned into a pile of radioactive rubble."

"Well, let's hope they don't succeed."

Harley didn't seem real optimistic at the moment. He waved for Rapp to follow him. "Let's get started."

They stepped into the large tent and the general walked over to a table set up with food and coffee. "You must be hungry."

"Starved." Rapp grabbed a turkey sandwich and tore at the cellophane. When a large enough portion was free, he took a big bite and then poured himself a cup of black coffee. While Harley explained what they were doing, Rapp continued to eat.

Large rectangular tables were arranged around the room in a horseshoe pattern. A morass of cables and chords connected the various computers, scanners, flat-panel monitors, printers, and fax machines. Most of the men and women were wearing desert BDUs, but a few were in civilian clothes, which meant they were CIA.

"This first group over here is working with your people back in Washington to decipher the data on the computers. The other two groups are pouring through the files and separating them by language. More of it is in Arabic than we originally thought." The general pointed to the last table. "Those are Urda's people. Anything we find written in Urdu or Pashto we immediately kick over to them. We've already found several things of interest. Follow me."

Harley walked over to one of the large bulletin boards that ringed the perimeter of the tent. Pinned to its middle was the map of Washington, D.C., that had everyone so worked up. Next to it was another map that Rapp hadn't seen.

"We found this folded up and stuffed in a file." Harley pointed to the upper portion of the map. "Can you read any of it?"

"Some of it." Rapp studied the map. More than anything he recognized the shape of the large blue body of water in the middle. "It's the Caspian, right?"

"Correct," answered Harley. The map was of the Caspian Sea with Iran to the south and Kazakhstan to the north. "Any idea why they would bother with a map of the Caspian?"

Rapp stared at it for a moment. "None whatsoever."

"Well, neither did we." Harley slid over a bit. "These maps need no introduction," he said, pointing.

One was of the entire eastern seaboard of the United States, and the other one was of Florida and the northern part of the Caribbean.

Harley touched the map and asked, "Do you see what's been circled?"

"New York, Miami, Baltimore, and Charleston."

"That's right. The four busiest ports on the East Coast."

"Shit."

"That's not even the worst of it," replied the general. "Come look at this." He walked Rapp around the outside of the tables to the area where Urda's people were set up. The three bearded men were dressed casually and so focused was their attention that they paid no attention to Rapp and the general.

"These are our Pashto guys. They were the ones who found the names of the missing Pakistani nuclear scientists."