John Ringo - Ghost 01 - Ghost

GHOST

John Ringo

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any

resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

www.baen.com <http://www.baen.com>

ISBN-13: 978-14165-0905-9

ISBN-10: 1-4165-0905-4

Cover art by Kurt Miller

First printing, October 2005

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ringo, John, 1963-

Ghost / John Ringo.

p. cm.

"A Baen Books Original"—T.p. verso.

ISBN 1-4165-0905-4

1. United States. Navy. SEALs—Fiction. 2. Retired military personnel—Fiction. 3.

Terrorism—Prevention—Fiction. 4. Florida Keys (Fla.)—Fiction. 5. Siberia (Russia)—Fiction. 6.

Middle East—Fiction. I. Title.

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PS3568.I577G48 2005

813'.54—dc22

2005019119

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Production & design by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH (www.windhaven.com)

Printed in the United States of America

Baen Books by John Ringo

Ghost

Princess of Wands(forthcoming)

A Hymn Before Battle

Gust Front

When the Devil Dances

Hell's Faire

The Hero(with Michael Z. Williamson)

Cally's War(with Julie Cochrane)

Watch on the Rhine(with Tom Kratman)

There Will Be Dragons

Emerald Sea

Against the Tide

Into the Looking Glass

The Road to Damascus(with Linda Evans)

The Prince Roger Saga with David Weber:

March Upcountry

March to the Sea

March to the Stars

We Few

BOOK ONE

Winter Born

Prologue

Hamid Halal stepped past the two teenage mujahideen, pushed aside a flap of rotting canvas and

ducked to enter the low doorway. The room beyond was small, no more than three meters on a side,

dark and dirty with a litter-strewn, packed-clay floor and granite walls covered in Arabic graffiti. The

only light was from the doorway, blocked by the canvas and his body, and a small paneless window on

the south wall. Despite the size, five heavily armed mujahideen were packed along the sides leaving only

a narrow spot in the middle. In this narrow spot a tall, spare, figure squatted behind a low table, typing on

a laptop computer.

"Great One," Halal said, dropping to both knees and bowing his head. "It is good to see that you truly

survive!"

"Did you believe that Allah would permit the forces of the Great Satan to kill his most valiant leader?" the

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man said, soberly, his piercing eyes meeting those of Halal with a real question behind them.

Halal recognized what the question implied. Only true belief could bring about the Final Jihad and the

destruction of the Dar Al Harb. Questioning the survival of the Great One, surely Allah's most important

sword in the battle against the Dar Al Harb, implied a lack of faith in Allah Himself. And the slightest

trace of lack of belief, in this place, in this man's presence, could lead to immediate martyrdom. Halal

bowed his head and nodded in submission.

"Great One, my faith has been tried by the events of the last two years," the mujahideen commander

admitted. "We battle the Great Satan daily and yet our numbers dwindle. Again and again the mujahideen

fearlessly attack them as we are instructed in the Words of the Prophet. To put aside fear of death and

think only of the Will of Allah. Of the Glory of Paradise and the spread of the Dar Al Islam. And, again

and again, we are not only defeated, but destroyed. Their technology, their training . . . their faith in their

false Gods, seems to be beyond even the Will of Allah to defeat. But, your presence fills me with

renewed hope. If you can survive when all their forces search for you, anything is possible. Forgive me

my trial of faith and look upon my actions. I have sought battle without fail. As Allah is Merciful, have

mercy upon his true servant."

"Very pretty," the tall man said. "And very common. Everywhere I go, the faith of the mujahideen is

tried. And, everywhere I go, they profess renewed faith. It is with these weak tools that Allah's Will must

be worked. But, Halal, the Jihad has need of you. You have skills that are needed in a great mission. We

still can bring the Great Satan to its knees and teach the Lesser Satans of Europe and Asia that Allah's

Will is great and powerful beyond even that of Satan. And you will be the tool that shall show that will. In

one stroke, we will break the will of the Dar Al Harb, which is divided even in the lands of the Great

Satan, and bring the banners of Islam, once again, to the lost Dar Al Islam. And all the jihad needs is

your skills."

"I live in submission to Allah," Halal said, nodding. "What is the mission, Great One?"

"We shall strike at the Satan's greatest weakness," the tall man said, his eyes lidding heavily. "The love of

its whores."

Chapter One

Mike Harmon stuck his laptop in his jump bag and tossed the latter over one shoulder, standing up and

stretching his back. He had been sitting in the coffee shop for nearly three hours and he wasn't as young

as he used to be. Fifteen years in the teams had left him with degenerative damage in half the major joints

in his body and a back that was compacted enough for a fifty-year-old.

As he wandered out of the shop, he glanced at his image in the plate glass window and grimaced. Brown

hair, brown eyes, a "regular" face, neither handsome nor ugly, shoulders a bit wider than the norm, middle

beginning to bulge a bit despite regular exercise. Not the most prepossessing figure and certainly not, by

any stretch of the imagination, a big man on campus.

He'd thought that going back to college would be a cinch. With both his career and his marriage

foundered on the rocks, time to go find some time in the sun. After years of eighteen-hour days, how

hard could homework be? And then there were the lovely young coeds, long legs flashing by, skirts

swirling and flirting, practically begging to be snapped up by a not particularly bad looking former SEAL.

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Well, the homework wasn't actually that bad, or it wouldn't be if it weren't for the classes he had to take.

History. How bad could it be? Greeks and Romans and Persians and the Renaissance. Egyptians and

feudal lords and maybe memorizing a bunch of dead guys' names.

Little did he know. That was "old history." His current major course was "An Introduction to African

Pre-Colonial History." As far as he'd been able to determine, his definition of what constituted "history"

and the definition used by the University of Georgia History Department didn't come from the same

dictionary. Sure, the old time historians made stuff up. Livy read like something written by Tom Clancy

and Julius Caesar'sGallic Warswas written with political image in mind with only brief touches on reality,

something like a Democratic stump speech. But it hadbrieftouches on reality and it was at leastwritten.

Prior to the "colonization" period, Africahadno writing and, apparently, no problems worth discussing.

His professor attributed every ill of Africa to the colonialism of the White Man, ignoring the ongoing tribal

wars that dated back thousands of years, not to mention the Arab slave traders that benefited from them.

He'd had to see the first episode of the mini-seriesRootsand had been loudly shushed when he started

laughing in the first fifteen minutes. Slave traders didn't get off their boats and go chase bush-bunnies

around. Theyboughtthem from Arabs, not fucking "Islamics,"Ay-rabs. And the Arabs bought them from

the tribes, who were constantly at war with each other.

Sometimes it was all Mike could do to not stand up and punch the stupid bastard, especially when he

got started on "modern colonialism," by which he meant the War on Terrorism. Mike wanted to scream

"Have you everbeenin Mogadishu you ignorant son-of-a-bitch?" Hell, the conditions in Africa werebetter

when the English and the Germans and even the French and the Belgians had been in charge. He'd read

Conrad'sHeart of Darknessa couple of times during down time on the teams. And he'd been in Congo,

not that there was any trace of it going in or out. And Congo now was "Heart of Darkness" on fucking

steroids. The only thing worse than having the Belgians in charge was having the fucking gomers handling

things.

But, of course, the problem with the gomers wasn't that they were totally fucked up gomers. Oh, no, the

problem with the gomers was all the fault of colonialism and "western military adventures." Well, he'd

been on one "western military adventure" in Congo and as far as he was concerned the best thing to do

was spray the whole damned place with anthrax, including the fucking gorillas, shoot anyone that tried to

leave and start over.

Attitudes like this, of course, didn't sit very well with his professors. It also didn't fit very well with the

pretty little airheads that were being fed a steady diet of leftist propaganda bullshit. And no matter how he

tried, he'd always end up opening up his mouth and pointing out that itwasleftist propaganda bullshit. That

the problem with the gomers was their fucking culture, which was totally fucked up and had beenbefore

colonialization and was going to stay that way until somebody beat some sense into their heads. At which

point terms like "militarist" and "baby-killer" and, with the real intellectuals, "myrmidon" would start getting

tossed around.

What was funny was that some of the most leftist, ball-busting, bitches seemed to get off on his being a

former team guy. There was one little brunette wearing a beret just like that fucking terrorist Che that he

swore was getting ready to go down on him right in the middle of the damned argument. But he'd blown

her off instead. The hell if he'd get told he was a mindless myrmidon and then fuck the little bitch.

Sooner or later, something was going to give. Hisreallybad side was starting to peek out and that was

something he feared more than failure. It violated the warrior code. Courage in Battle, Loyalty to the

King, Protection of the Innocent. Sometimes it seemed it was the only thing he had left. He wasnotgoing

to become a fucking rapist.

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He'd always managed to restrain that side of himself, even with the Filipino B-girls and the Thailand

whores, when it didn't matter what you did, as long as you paid the mamasan. One of the reasons he'd

just left the little bitch in the beret hanging was if he'd taken her home it would have been a grudge fuck,

with emphasis on "grudge." And she'd have gone home sorry and sore. Which was all well and good if it

was lined out in advance and agreed to by both parties. But that wasn't where that particular relationship

was going.

So his right forearm got overdeveloped, his anger got hotter and hotter and there didn't seem to be any

release in sight. He very much needed to kill someone. Just about anyone would do, but one of the little

airhead bitches was getting even farther up the list than his professors.

Thoughts like that had carried him, unthinking, to the areas by the library and the English department

buildings. His path wasn't even vaguely in the direction of his apartment; in fact it was in the opposite

direction. But there were quiet pathways where occasional young ladies wandered by, most of them so

totally fucking oblivious they wouldn't have noticed if he threw a rock in their direction. It was a sick

addiction with a very specific name: "stalking." He'd pick a dark spot, stand still as if he were simply

drinking in the night and wait. Sooner or later some brainless bitch would walk past, totally defenseless.

Sometimes, just to get a rise out of them, he'd cough. And they'd notice the dark figure in the shadows,

their eyes would get wide and they'd hurry past. He never looked at them then, he'd totally ignore them,

but he could tell by their hurried steps, quite often clicking away in their high heels, how much he'd

frightened them. Sick, but oh so very fun. And he considered it to be instructional for the little idiots. It

might teach them to keep some situational awareness.

He also considered it keeping in training. There were plenty ofnon-idiots among the girls on campus, girls

who knew damned well that college campuses had the highest rate of rape in the U.S. And, nine times

out of ten, even with the ones who were alert, he could avoid being seen even standing in plain sight. His

team name was "Ghost" and it had been hard earned. It was an ability he'd had even before he was on

the teams and one that he'd raised to a high pitch in various third world shitholes. He could just . . . blend.

If he put on local clothes and spent some time watching local moves, he could move among the populace

of half the world unnoticed. A little heavy-set, jaw a little square, shoulders a little broad, but nobody

seemed to take that into account. Grow a little stubble, cover his haircut and he was anything from an

Arab to an Afghan. As long as he didn't open his mouth: he'd never had language training and his Arab

extended to "where's the bathroom" and "lie on the floor and put your hands on your head."

The spot he'd chosen overlooked Baldwin Street, which ran between the English building, Park Hall,

and the Military Science Building. He'd thought about going ROTC and maybe bucking for an Army

commission. But even with his background his physical damage—he was paid for being "50% disabled"

and might go as high as 100% in time—made it unlikely that even the Army would give him a

commission. And if he did get one, at his age, he'd probably end up in supply or civil affairs or some such

bullshit. Better to eat the shit at the college, get his history degree and go looking for a teaching job.

Coach track or swimming, teach history and just . . . veg.

He stopped vegging as he spotted a nice young quarry, blonde, nice tits in a midriff top, ruffled miniskirt

revealing long, shapely legs and black high heels clicking along on the sidewalk heading west on Baldwin.

The fashions had come together nicely in the last year with just about everything a heterosexual male

wanted to see women wearing being the "in" thing. It was like some over-sexed ancient Greek god had

told fashion designers exactly what he wanted them to push. She was probably coming back from some

of the clubs over on Broad—she was "club" dressed—headed down to the dorms along Lumpkin. And

too stupid to stay to the more traveled and lighted ways.Probably a freshman, he thought.

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It was as professional a snatch as he'd ever seen. The late-model custom van slowed down, the door

opened, a man stepped out in a trot, the bag went over the blonde's head, she was lifted into the van

before she could even start kicking, the door closed and the van started to accelerate. It took no more

than a couple of seconds. As far as Mike could tell there was no one in sight of the snatch, certainly no

one in easy view and if you hadn't been looking right at the girl you probably wouldn't have been able to

process it. Whoosh. The girl was just . . . gone.

Except the van had to stop at the west end of Baldwin Street, where it intersected Lumpkin, and Mike

realized he was already down the hill in a sprint, off the low wall by the sidewalk, his jump bag banging

on his back as he accelerated down the middle of the road, no cars in sight and it kept him out of the

view, mostly, of the driver. The van started to pull out onto Lumpkin and Mike leapt upwards, landing

lightly on the ladder at the back of the van, crouched. If he lost track of the van the girl was going to

disappear, probably into an unmarked grave.

He knew that, at heart, he was a rapist. And that meant he hated rapists more than any "normal" human

being. They purely pissed him off. He'd spent his entire sexually adult life fighting the urge to use his not

inconsiderable strength to possess and take instead of woo and cajole. He'd fought his demons to a

standstill again and again when it would have been so easy to give in. He'd had one truly screwed up

bitch get completely naked, with him naked and erect between her legs, and she still couldn't say "yes."

And he'd just said: "that's okay" and walked away with an amazing case of blueballs. When men gave in

to that dark side, it made him even more angry than listening to leftist bitches scream about "western

civilization" and how it was so fucked up.

The van was an older modern custom van like Mexicans tended to drive and from inside he could hear

the struggle going on and the muffled cries of the girl followed by slaps. While it made one side of him

angry as hell, another side was so turned on he could barely stand it. But the good news was unless

somebody saw him on the back of the van and vectored in the police, he stood a good chance of being

able to kill someone and not go to jail. This was probably a bunch of fucking illegales who'd decided they

wanted to party with a coed. And they were going to be seriously fucked up, armed or not, as soon as

this damned van stopped. He might even get laid out of it, if not by the blonde, who was going to be

pretty fucked-up from this experience, then by some girly who'd take pity on the poor hero.

The van headed south on Lumpkin through the university area and towards the south side of town. It

was late and if anyone saw him he couldn't tell. There weren't even any cars behind the van or he'd have

waved at them or something. He wanted to get his mad out by killing some of the bastards in the van,

they were ripping cloth now, but he figured at leasttryingto be the "good citizen" instead of the "vigilante"

would be a good idea. He couldn't bring in the police himself; he'd left his cell phone charging by his bed

before going to class and hadn't been home to pick it up. And unless someone saw him soon, the van

would get into darker, and less populated, areas where he might never get spotted.

He kept hanging on to the ladder, swinging through turns, crouched down to stay out of sight, half hoping

some cop cruiser would pull up behind them and half hoping it wouldn't. Most of the cops stayed up

towards the center of Athens on Friday and Saturday, closer to the action. And, proverbially, there was

never a cop around when you needed them. This time, especially. Not even any fuckingcars. The van had

gotten off of Lumpkin and into neighborhoods that were mostly dark this time of night. Neighborhoods

with speed bumps that were a realbitchto hang on through. The route appeared to be planned and he

started wondering if he was really dealing with a group of Mexes. The snatch looked professional, to his

trained eye, and the egress also looked professional. Which either made it a group of long term serial

rapists, even funner to kill, or . . . something else.

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The van finally pulled into an industrial complex, closed and dark, and slowed through a series of turns.

Mike got a look at a dead end, a parking lot with a few cars, a person standing in the shadows and . . .

He was off the back of the van, tumbling as quietly as he could into a roadside ditch, before his mind

fully processed the MP-5 the sentry was holding. He hadn't seen any phone booths in miles; the buildings

around the guarded one were all dark which meant no getting to a phone easily. And a sentry meant that

this wasn't just a simple snatch for pussy, this was . . . something else.

He dropped the jump bag and leopard crawled down the ditch, heading for the building. The sentry was

at the front and his brief glimpse hadn't spotted one on the side. But there were some windows. He

needed more intel before he figured out how to call in support and the windows might tell him something.

As soon as he was around the side and out of sight of the front sentry he leopard crawled across to the

wall of the brick building and crouched in the shadows at the base. The window was about eight feet up,

which was a long damned jump for a guy who was five ten and a bit out of shape, and he knew he didn't

dare make much sound. He squatted and then sprung upward, his hands clamping onto the narrow sill,

the entire evolution completed in near perfect silence. He waited for a moment to listen for reaction, then

slowly chinned himself up to the window.

The room was mostly open with some metal boxes that looked a bit like coffins lining the walls. The van

was parked inside and there was a container vehicle pulled in with its doors open. The blonde, now sans

everything but bra and panties, tied hand and foot with fast-strips and with a gag stuffed in her mouth,

was on the ground near a table in the middle. One of the boxes was being loaded into the container

vehicle and, as he watched, the doors were closed and the vehicle pulled out. It was a red container with

"OCCP" on the back and a symbol like a flower. The doors were dented towards the top. The license

plate was out of view. He got all of that in one brief glance and then went back to examining the room.

There were seven subject males of apparent Middle Eastern extraction in view. One was at the table,

talking on what appeared to be a satellite phone. Three were standing by the van, between it and the

blonde. A fourth sitting in the open side door. There was an additional subject female on a metal table

like a surgery or butcher table, naked. She appeared to be unconscious, had had an IV inserted and

something like a cloth diaper put on her lower regions. As he watched, two more subject males lifted her

up and lowered her into one of the "coffins." The IV was inserted into a pouch in the top and the top

closed and latched from the outside.

Mike started to lower himself, having seen enough, when he heard a light hiss to his lower right. He

closed his eyes, willing his night vision to come back, and then looked down. A man in a light jacket was

pointing an MP-5 at him and gesturing for him to come down.

Mike, briefly, wondered why the guy hadn't shot him already. In a way the former SEAL wished the

target had done so. He was embarrassed. He'd mentally been bitching at the girls on campus about their

security and here he'd gone and completely lost situational awareness. It was . . . annoying.

He nodded at the man in agreement, smiled nervously, dropped down, apparently stumbling on the fall,

and rolled into the man's legs. Reaching up, Mike gripped the barrel of the submachine gun and rotated it

upwards, ripping the grip out of the man's hands at the same time, then slammed it into the target's

stomach before he could cry out. As soon as he had partial control of the weapon, which was attached

to the target's body with a friction strap, he rotated it, pressed it into the man's chest, rotated the safety

lever to burst and triggered three rounds.

The entire action had taken no more than three seconds and the whole noise had been a grunt from the

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target and the sound of the MP-5's action. In the middle of taking down the target Mike had noticed,

from the ribbed feel of the barrel shroud, that the weapon was an MP-5 SD, one of the quietest silenced

sub-guns in the world. Highly illegal in the U.S. without the appropriate permits and uncommon among

terrorists. On the other hand, Mike had spent more time with one in his hands than he had with school

books, including high school. He searched the target's body and retrieved three more magazines,

checked the level in the one in the weapon, reached up, tugged the collar of his T-shirt down hard, then

snugged the weapon into his shoulder and ghosted towards the front of the building.

There was a sentry at the front and this one was apparently a rover. He knew he'd made two mistakes,

one in not checking for the rover and one in losing situational awareness. Part of it was eagerness. He

really wanted to kill these sons-of-bitches and he wanted to save the girls. From what he'd seen, they

were being transported. Where was a big question. But terrorists, as these clearly were, weren't going to

negotiate. If the police tried to handle this like a normal crime, all the girls were going to die. Terrorists of

this type would only negotiate so as to get maximum news coverage and then kill the girls in the worst

way they could manage.

He did a mental check and decided that this constituted a mission that he could do with a good

conscience, if not legally. "Protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies

foreign and domestic." Kidnapping was a de jure and de facto stripping of civil rights, and local

authorities, however much they were the legal group to handle it, were not going to be competent to do

so.

Mike knew it was so much bullshit. But he also knew that if he managed to extract the girls, nobody was

going to give a shit how he'd done it. The prosecutor that tried him would get tossed out of office so fast

the door would hit him, or more likelyher,knowing liberal bitches and their incredible stupidity, in the ass.

Fuck it. If he went for commo, the sentry would be found, the two girls would die and so, probably,

would the others, wherever they were going. Then the whole operation would just up and disappear. It

was take-down time.

With that in mind, he shouldered the MP-5 and ghosted forward along the wall. Nearing the corner he

actually let himself make some noise, as if he was the roving sentry coming up to the corner. No reason

to startle the guy until he had to.

When he came to the corner he stepped outward, still at tactical present, and leaned to the left. The

target was standing by a personnel door, smoking a cigarette. Marlboro from the drifting smell of the

smoke. The cigarette spun out of his lips and into the grass by the side of the entrance pad as the three

nine-millimeter rounds impacted with the side of the target's head.

Twenty-one rounds left but only two spare magazines. Mike stopped at the target and found three more,

including the one in the target's weapon, and stuffed them in his back pockets. The night was quiet, still

no sound of alarm from the terrorists in the building. There was probably some sort of rotation schedule

for the sentries. Time to get inside the decision cycle.

He gently checked the handle on the door and determined that it was unlocked. Then the decision had to

be made, slow or fast. He finally decided on slow and casual. One of the sentries coming in for some

reason. He pulled the door open and stepped through looking unconcernedly to either side. The view

from the door into the room was blocked by a stack of the "coffins." When he cleared them to either

side, he'd be in view of the terrorists. Time to go tactical again. He lifted the MP-5 to his shoulder and

stepped to the side quickly.

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Party time.

Chapter Two

"Yes, Hamid," Hazzah Bud said, nodding as he talked on the phone. "The delivery has been made on

time, on my honor. The shipment will be at your warehouse no later than tomorrow night. We had trouble

finding sufficient stock, but at the last moment we found a significant amount and not only have fulfilled the

first order but have stock left over to start the second. Yes. Yes, we will ensure that the cargo arrives in

good condition. Go with God, Hamid."

Hazzah had been a member of Hezbollah since the outbreak of the civil war in Lebanon. A member of

the Joharra tribe, he had fought the Amal and the Hamas, the Irish and the American Marines. He had

been one of five potential drivers for the attack on the Marine barracks but at the last minute his best

friend, Murtaza Batatu, had been chosen for martyrdom instead. Over the years he had waned in his faith

in the jihad and these days he was just happy to awake each morning alive. Martyrdom was for the

young. But a job was a job and failure in this one would mean martyrdom for sure.

Bud looked up at Abdul Mohiuddin and shook his head.

"Halal is unhappy that it took so long to round up the full cargo and he already wants more. In good

condition."

"That means we cannot rape these infidel bitches," Kahf Shishakli said, angrily. Kahf was a youngster

among the mujahideen and full of the work of Allah and the chance for martyrdom. A student from the

Emirate of Kuwait, majoring in business, his family was fiercely Wahabbist and he had been raised to

believe that death in the fight against the Dar Al Harb was the highest of callings. But he was young and

the bitch on the floor was pretty. Like all the American whores she went not much more clothed than she

was now. All such whores deserved to be raped.

"Are either of them virgin?" Bud said, grinning at the girl on the floor.

"The one who is packaged was not," Abdul said, settling into the open door of the van, then gesturing at

the blonde. "These are all whores, are they not? None of them have been virgins."

"He said in good condition," Bud replied, pulling a pistol out of his waistband, and walking over to the

blonde. "He didn't say unraped. I think we'll rape this one. If she is in bad condition when we are done,

we'll send her soul to Satan and find another."

"In'sh'allah," Shishakli said, reaching down to grab the girl's hair and twist it. "It is as Allah Wills. Women

taken in battle are allowed to be raped and these women are taken in the Great Jihad against the

Americans. Let us rape them to the Glory of Allah."

As Mike stepped to the side he heard males speaking in what he was pretty sure was Arabic and then a

muffled scream from the girl. He stepped around the coffin, at present, and targeted a male holding the

hair of the girl. Three rounds to the chest put the target down, the silenced 9mm rounds punching into his

chest cavity and blasting blood and bone out to cover the cowering girl.

Hazzah Bud had been fighting one group or another most of his adult life and had the scars to prove it.

But it was a long time since he had had to fight for his life and the attack was unexpected. As Kahf's

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chest erupted in blood, he turned towards the faint "thocks" from the silenced submachine gun, raising his

pistol as quickly as he could. In his haste, he actually triggered a round into the floor and he prayed to

Allah that it would disturb this djinn who had appeared long enough for him, Hazzah Bud, Allah's servant

for most of his life, to live.

Mike shifted to a male holding a pistol in his hand. The male was rotating to the side to fire and actually

triggered a round into the ground in his haste. Mike ignored it and serviced the target with a burst, then

shifted to the group by the van.

Abdul Mohiuddin grabbed his AK and rolled into the body of the van for cover. If this was an American

police assault team they would soon find that those who did not fear death were dangerous to battle!

Allah would be with them in this battle!

The one that had been sitting in the doorway was gone, presumably into the cargo area; the other three

had reached for weapons that were scattered on the ground. One was raising an AK variant assault rifle

and was serviced as was a second reaching for another AK. At that point, an automatic part of his brain

told him to cover and reload so he pulled back behind the coffins, ejected his magazine down the front of

his shirt, and slapped in another. He wasn't standing still while he did it, but moving counterclockwise

behind the cover of the coffins, looking for another shot.

Murtaza Saqqaf was amazed. He had gotten but one brief view of the assailant and it was not the heavily

armored tac team they had expected. Indeed, there appeared to be but one American who had already

killed many of his brothers in Allah. It was infuriating!

"There's only one of them!" he shouted. "We can trap him! Come around the coffins; he is hiding in

there!"

There was shouting from the coffins behind him and he ducked into a space between two stacks, waiting

a moment. After shouting the person was trying to move stealthily but it was nearly impossible in this

echoing room. Mike followed the cautious movement and then took a coin from his pocket and tossed it

over the coffins beyond his present position. The metal coin made a loud bong as it hit, too loud really,

but the target sped up, actually passing his position in a quiet trot. Mike waited a moment and then leaned

out . . .

There was a metallic sound, like a magazine being dropped accidentally, well down the south wall, and

Murtaza sped up, closing on his quarry. Allah was with him and he smiled.

"Allahu Akbar!" he shouted as he spun around the corner and emptied his magazine into the space

where the sound had occurred. But there was nothing there and as he realized that, over the ringing in his

ears from the firing, he heard a faint sound behind him. . . .

Mike wanted to laugh at the actions of the target but, instead, as the tango turned to check behind him

he fired a three-round burst into the "sniper triangle" of the head and upper body, where there were

numerous critical blood vessels, then began moving again, heading clockwise to his previous firing

position.

Ahmed Rabah nodded as he heard the shout from Murtaza. There had been no flood of police into the

warehouse, which meant it was likely to be only one American, thinking he was Rambo and trying to

save the Satan's whores. Well, the mission was probably a failure, they would have to pick up and move

elsewhere at the very least. But the purpose of the Warriors of Jihad was to spread fear amongst the

infidels of the Great Satan and killing the bitch would do that well enough. So he darted out of the cover

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

John Ringo - Ghost 01 - Ghost

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