Free Brothers In Arms by Marcus Wynne Page A

himself seen with heavy bodyguard protection, all of which serves to be useless on the day the Twins settle their sights on him.”
    “So the Twins thought they were taking Uday out?”
    “Yeah. And they probably intended to take the wife and secretary out, too, as a matter of housekeeping. But I think Uday is number one on their hit parade. So what makes him so important that Saddam himself supervised his torture, and when he escapes out of Iraq, someone hires the most expensive and talented team of hitters you can find to take him out?”
    “Dale reported that Uday had been trained as a biochemist. What about that?”
    “That adds up to a bad scenario. Hussein Kamel was in charge of the biological and chemical warfare program.”
    “And Uday was a biochemist and a close associate of Hussein Kamel.”
    “Which takes us to something about their biowarfare or chemical warfare programs.”
    Ray Dalton leaned back in his leather chair and steepled his fingers. “I can have our people run cross-checks and see if Rahman Uday comes up in connection with the biological and chemical warfare program.”
    Mike Callan shook his head from side to side. “Maybe you do have enough to swoop up Uday and hide him away till he gets well enough to spill his guts about what he was up to.”
    “Like you said, we don’t know if we’d get any more from him that way. It might hamper getting what we need out of him. Better that Dale continue doing what he can to see what comes up in Uday’s therapy sessions.”
    Ray stood up and went to the window.
    “This has the feeling of something spinning out of control. We just can’t see it yet,” he said over his shoulder.
    “I don’t know about that,” Callan said. “You’ve got good people on the ground . . . let it play out a little.”
    “We’ve got a lot of information on the biological and chemical program from Hussein Kamel’s debriefing. It’s been an administration priority . . .”
    “You’ve got a little more, now. See what comes up.”
    “Right,” Ray Dalton said. “We’ll see what comes up.”

TORTURE REHABILITATION CENTER, UNIVERSITY OF
MINNESOTA CAMPUS, MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA
    The best time for a raid is in the darkest hours of the night, in those hours right before daylight, when the body’s rhythm is at its slowest, and the brain struggles in the landscape between dream and waking. It’s an old military axiom that you want to strike when the enemy is at his weakest, and it’s at night that the defender is weakest.
    Jimmy Harrison kept that in mind as he walked the perimeter around the center at 3 A.M. He struggled to keep his mind focused and alert as he patrolled. He and Greg Ford—who was inside, sitting outside the door of Rahman Uday’s bedroom—were working the 6 P.M. to 6 A.M. shift. Dale Miller and Charley Payne were both sleeping in the spare patient bedroom the detail had turned into a security ready room.
    Harrison stretched both hands over his head as he walked and shook them down to keep the blood flowing. Earlier in the evening he’d gone through his own workout between patrolling the perimeter: working with a rubber resistance unit, countless push-ups and chair dips and sit-ups and crunches to keep himself toned and tuned up, ready for what might come their way. It also fought the boredom of the protection lifestyle. He smiled wearily as he thought of all the starry-eyed rookies who came in on the VIP protection circuit,expecting to be taking on terrorists in between fine dinners at the best hotels. It didn’t take long for reality to sink in, and many, in fact most, grew disenchanted with standing outside hotel rooms and pissing in potted plants because the principal was too cheap to hire enough protection. But for those who had the right stuff, and stuck it out and worked their way up the ladder, there were the gigs the rookies dreamed about, and a man could make a decent living with his earnings and still have a good time on the boss’s