Chapter 3

Tuesday 04 December

Present — Jens - Hospital — Ramstein AFB Germany

I sit and hold Ben's hand and put wet washcloths on his head for the few hours it takes him to become stable. I watch as nasty looking and smelling fluid drains from the wound in Ben's arm. The recovery room nurse keeps coming in, changing the pad under his arm and then repacks the hole in his arm. She shakes her head every time she looks at it.

The doctor is happy with his vital signs, but Ben is still unconscious. I ask the doctor, "I'm concerned that SM Blaine is still unconscious. Can you explain it to me?"

"I'm a little puzzled by that too. By all accounts he should be awake by now. We're running some tests to see if we can determine the problem. His vital signs, other than a very high fever look excellent," the doctor replies.

"Do you feel it's safe to move him out of recovery?"

"Yes, but we're putting him in the ICU so he'll have one on one care. He's also going to be in isolation to keep the chance of cross contamination down."

I shake his hand, "Thank you doctor."

The nurses come in, make sure everything is secure and wheel his bed to the elevator. We ride down three floors to the ICU, then right into his new room. The nurses stop me at the door and help me put on isolation gear. Liz is waiting and smiles as I walk in the room. "Hey how are you doing?"

I bite my lower lip, "Liz, I'm worried as hell, Ben is still unconscious."

She looks at me, "I'm sure he'll be fine, but I'll go find out more information if you'd like."

Liz is such a good friend and seems to have a knack for finding things out. One day I should ask her how she does it, but I'm not sure I really want to know.

"Liz, don't bother, I don't think the doctors know anything else."

"Okay, how about I take care of Ben for a while and let you get some food, clean up and take a nap." She answers.

"Oh, that would be wonderful. Promise me that if he wakes up you call me right away."

"I promise." She says and gives me a hug goodbye.

I really don't want to leave Ben, but I need to take care of myself so I don't get sick. Ben is going to need so much help and I need to be very strong. I wander down to the cafeteria and load my tray up with a nice salad, some fruit and a hamburger patty. I want a cup of coffee, but hope to catch a nap sitting by Ben so I decide to drink water. I'm starving and eat the food without enjoyment and with tears streaming down my face, remembering all the wonderful meals that Ben and I shared. I stop halfway through my meal when Glen and Evelyn walk in the cafeteria, and come over to my table.

"Jens, it's good to see you taking care of yourself," Evelyn says and tries to kiss me on the cheek. I turn my head so she can't.

"Hello Evelyn, Glen," I say with an icy attitude.

"Do you mind if we join you?" Glen asks.

"I'm not hungry anymore so you can have the whole table." I leave, take my tray to the garbage and throw out the rest of my food. I'm still hungry but I refuse eat with those two.

Damn, I wish I could shower - I'm smelly and need to clean up. I walk up to the receptionist and ask if they have a women's locker room. She gives me directions and I leave to find it. I change my plans and come back to ask about a gift shop, thinking they may have some sort of clothes I can buy.

I head to the gift shop but they didn't have any clothes. They have the toiletries I need so I buy those and head for the locker room. I take a long hot shower and scrub the hell out of myself, trying to remove the last trace of the prison smell lingering on me. I dry, fix my hair, put on my makeup, put on my dirty clothes and head back to be with Ben.

As I step off the elevator at the ICU floor I find all hell is breaking loose in Ben's room. I run to the room but Liz grabs me on the way and drags me off to the side, "You can't go in there right now."

"What the hell is going on Liz?"

"Ben's having some complications and we need to stay out of the way of the nurses and doctors," she replies.

I fight with her, I see Liz wave her free arm, and an MP comes over and asks, "Yes Liz, do you need some help?"

"Can you help me hold Jens so she doesn't get in the room?" Liz asks. The MP grabs my other arm and I glare at both of them.

"I should kick both your asses!"

The MP laughs, "Like you could do that."

Liz answers, "Don't provoke her, or she'll do it. I've seen her kick SM Blaine's ass."

He looks at me with more respect, "Sorry miss, it's just that you don't look very big."

I see things have simmered down in Ben's room and they are all coming out. "Hey, you two had this planned just to distract me."

Liz grins at me, " ... and it worked! Let's go be with Ben."

I grab the doctor as he's heading out of the room, "What the hell just happened to my fiancé?"

"His blood pressure and heart rate dropped very quickly and we thought that he was going to die. Your friend Liz called the nurse right away and we were able to take care of it," he answered.

"What caused this to happen?"

"We think it's the infection. He's got one of the nastiest bugs we've ever seen."

"Can't you give him more or different antibiotics?" I question.

"We're giving him all and the best that we can. If he doesn't start getting better soon we're going to have to amputate his arm," the doctor replied.

We both head into the room after putting on gowns, masks and gloves. I look down at Ben, he looks worse than ever. I touch his forehead and even through the gloves he feels like he's on fire. I want so bad to crawl into bed and hold him, but I know they won't let me do it this time.

Liz leaves to go shopping for me. I pull the chair as close as I can and fall asleep with tears in my eyes and my head lying on this good arm.

Flashback Jens - Incirlik Airbase in Turkey - Sunday 14 October

I was a good girl last night and didn't try to escape, but I have plans to do it later. I also refused to talk to my doctor about Ben. He tried a couples times and I told him I didn't want to talk about it. He fixed my pulled stitches but the bastard did it without numbing the area. I think he just wanted to torture me for hitting him and being a pain in the ass. Pain in the ass - My Ass! - They haven't seen anything yet, once I'm just a little bit better I'm going to really kick some ass.

I acted like I feel more pain than I actually had just to keep fooling them. I refused more pain meds because I needed my mind to be sharp. Liz brought me a computer. She was supposed to bring my computer with her from the base at Jalalabad, but I guess the fuckers took the computer. I bet they had a surprise when they tried to hack into it and had it melt down in front of their eyes. I wished I'd put a fricken bomb in it and blown the hell out of the slimy spook and bastard general.

The first thing I did after Liz gave me the computer was to download a new copy of Linux, wipe the hard drive and install it. I setup firestarter, configured the firewall, then opened a VPN¹ connection to my secure server. I checked the logs: It looked like they did try to hack my laptop and it did destroy itself. Someone had also been trying to hack into my server - fat chance of that ever happening.

¹ Virtual Private Network — a secure means off attaching to another computer.

I downloaded the hardened Linux OS² that I prefer and the script on the server that changed the IP address³ of the server and launched a virtual machine⁴ with the same IP address my server used to have. The virtual machine had a few vulnerabilities that a good hacker could try to exploit. Once they found them and exploited them, I'd have their ass because the virtual machine would grab everything on their hard disk then erase their disks. I'll teach the fricken spooks to screw with my computers.

² OS — Operating System

³ IP address — the numeric identification of a computer connected to a network or the Internet. When you type www.yahoo. com into a browser the DNS server translates the name into four octets ie: 192.168.1.1

⁴ Virtual machine — an OS that runs virtually inside of another OS.

It took awhile for my OS to scan the computer for trojans⁵ that might be loaded into the BIOS⁶ and then install itself on boot up. It did find a one in the BIOS. I stopped the install and looked at what it found. I really was nervous, thinking they might have compromised my passwords, but it was just a program to notify the hacker where the laptop was every time it connected to the Internet.

⁵ Trojans — a small program used to hijack or send information from a computer, came from Trojan Horse.

⁶ BIOS — Basic Input/Output System the tiny program in flash memory that runs when you first boot (start) a computer. It tells the rest of the computer what hardware the computer has and where to boot from.

I FTPed⁷ a new BIOS image from ASUS⁸, saved the old BIOS image to a flash disk, installed the new BIOS image and continued the install of my hardened OS. I needed to ask Liz where she got this computer, because someone's been playing games with it. I kicked back in bed and let the install finish. Soon I'd have the eyes and ears I needed to figure things out.

⁷ FTP File Transfer Protocol — a command line way of downloading files to a computer. Not secure because usernames and passwords travel as clear text.

⁸ ASUS — the laptop manufacturer.

Thirty minutes later the laptop played the wedding march and it was done. I booted my OS, setup all the secure links and was ready to rock and roll. The door opened and Liz walked in, "Wow, you're looking much better today. In fact you look like a woman with a mission."

I smiled at her, "Hey sis, I'm feeling much better and I'm a woman with a mission to find my man. Can I see your purse for a minute?" She handed me her purse and I dumped everything on the bed and started examining it.

"Hey, I didn't know you were going to make a mess out of my stuff," she grumped.

I held my finger to my lips telling her to shush. First I looked at her phone, yeah it had GPS built in and it was turned on so I'm sure they used it to track her. I turned off the GPS, took the battery out and set the phone on the table so they couldn't use it as a bug. I know some phones can have the microphone enabled remotely.

I pawed through her makeup and everything looked fine until I got to her compact - it felt too heavy. I tore it apart and found a bug inside. I took it out and sat it on my bedside table. I found a new, unopened box of condoms and held them up as Liz turned about four shades of red. I ripped the box open to make sure there were no extra surprises. I slipped out of bed, had Liz follow me into the bathroom and closed the door.

"Jens what the hell was all that about?" Liz asked.

"Hey girlfriend, you've got crabs. Where did you get that computer?"

Liz blushed again, "I do not have crabs, I'm more careful than that. I always travel with two computers and that was my spare."

She didn't get my joke, "Sorry, I meant your computer has crabs - probably your phone and certainly your compact have been bugged. You might even have a wire in your clothes."

I saw her get really pissed, "Those sons-of-a-bitches, I'm a member of the news media and they can't do that to me! Who the hell did it?"

"I'm not sure yet, but the job is pretty good. I guess the CIA, NSA or some other three-letter branch of the government did it. I bet all your gear is bugged so you should bring in your other laptop and let me check it."

Liz gave me an evil grin, "Well, shall we give the bastards something to listen to?"

"What do you have in mind?"

"How about some pretend girl-on-girl action?" she said as her eyes twinkled.

"Oh Goodie, this sounds really fun. How about we pretend here in the bathroom and then drop the wire into the toilet?"

She ran out and brought back the wire taken from the compact. We started carrying on as if we were making mad passionate love to each other with lots of screaming and yelling. Finally, it was getting to be too much and I was going to laugh so I dropped the wire in the toilet and flushed.

We both broke into laughter, "I bet that made their ears burn," I said.

"I bet we tented their pants," Liz giggled.

We walked back into the room and I climbed onto the bed. "Let's see what I can find out about the people who did this." Liz watched as I converted the infected BIOS's machine code⁹ into the Assembly language¹⁰ it was originally written in and started to reverse engineer it. I used the diff command to compare the infected BIOS with the BIOS I loaded from ASUS and found the changes right away. I showed her the code, "Liz look here - this is beautiful."

⁹ Machine code — the lowest level code that a computer runs, the CPU (Central Processing Unit) of the computer runs this code directly.

¹⁰ Assembly Language — Probably the lowest level programming language there is.

She looked over my shoulder and said, "It looks like a bunch of nonsense to me, what's all this mov, add and sub crap?"

I giggled, "That's the program that told them where you were when you started up your computer. It's a beautiful work of art. Whoever did this really knows what they are doing. I bet there are only ten programmers I know of that could do this."

"You think it was one of them?" Liz asked.

I laughed, "Hell no they hate the spooks more than I do. But they're going to love to get their hands on this code." I translated the hexadecimal IP address into a normal IP octet to view the address it reported to, did a lookup on the address and it came back as private."

"Hey, you want to have some more fun?"

She looked at me, "I've seen that evil look before, what are you going to do?"

"Watch this!" I downloaded a picture of the cat I had when I was a girl, compiled the hacked code into an executable file and embedded it in the picture. I renamed the picture Jennifer Donaldson's pussy and anonymously uploaded it some pirate torrent¹¹ sites.

¹¹ Torrent sites — websites that let you legally and illegally download files.

Liz grinned, "You are evil! Don't tell me, - when someone downloads and opens that picture it will send the location of their computer to the spooks — who will think I am everywhere all at once."

"That's right, just a few more things then I'm going to find Ben." I wrapped up the code in an encrypted zip file, added a quick email and sent it off to my hacker friends. I asked if they could trace the IP address and get back to me.

I went to Liz's secure server and downloaded the video of the helicopter crash. "Hey how did you do that?" Liz grumped.

I grinned at her, "Your computers have no secrets from me. Yes, I did see the videos of Stockman while I was grabbing this file, and no I won't look at them."

Liz blushed, "You wouldn't want to see what was on them anyway."

I watched the video first in real time as Liz said, "Look, right there, something just flew out of the chopper." I backed up the video and watched it again in slow motion. "Shit! I can't tell what it is."

"We tried our best Jens, to figure it out but we couldn't either. We sent a copy off to the best post production shop I know of to see if they can enhance it."

I made the video to run in a loop on that section and stared intently at it. After about ten minutes I looked at Liz and said, "Liz, I don't know how I know, but I'm sure that is my Ben. It's more a feeling than anything else."

She groaned, "Jens, you're putting a lot of trust in your feelings - are you sure?"

I got pissed as hell, "Liz, I'm fucking tired of everyone asking me if I know what I feel! I know that is Ben flying out of the chopper, I know Ben is still alive and I know someone is torturing the hell out of him. Now if you want to be my friend and my sister you'd better put all doubt out of your mind right now and help me."

"I'm sorry Jens for doubting you, I'm still not used to this whole sensing, feeling thing you and Ben have. I will do my best to believe you and help," Liz humbly said.

I wanted to ask Liz some questions but I wasn't sure she wasn't bugged. "Liz, take a new gown out of the closet and go to the bathroom and change. I'm still concerned you might have crabs."

She stuck her tongue out at me but did what I instructed. When she came out I asked, "So tell me what you have Bernie and Jon doing?"

"Bernie is back in Jalalabad talking to our sources and trying to figure out what the hell Stockman is doing. The mission you and Ben went on and the rescue mission Ben went on were both weird." She said.

"They were both FUBAR!" I interrupted.

Liz looked at me, "You're right, they were. Jon is undercover in Pakistan trying to sneak into the town where the chopper was shot down. It's hard as hell because the whole area is in turmoil. From what we found out, Ben killed a couple of very high ranking Taliban bastards. Now they have the whole area locked down."

I grinned thinking, that's my man!

"These gowns are embarrassing and drafty," Liz complained.

"Now you know why I want some jammies. Liz, let me think for a bit." I leaned back against the bed and started analyzing the situation. I had almost come up with a plan when the room's phone rang, "Who the hell is that?" I asked as I picked up the phone.

"Jenny, this is Mom. I wanted to tell you we're so sorry about your getting sick, oh yeah and about Ben dying. Don't worry, Daddy's on his way and should be there soon to bring you home to us."

I slammed down the phone in anger and it fell off on the floor. Liz looked at me, "What was that all about?"

I was too angry to speak and I couldn't believe the fricken phone call! Mom was more worried about me being sick than Ben being dead. I started crying and Liz came over, sat on the bed beside me, hugged me and held me until I stopped crying. I looked at her, "Liz, that was mom. She hardly said anything about Ben, but she did say Dad is coming here to take me home. You've got to help me get out of this hospital so I can stay here and look for Ben."

She looked at me, "I'm probably crazy for doing this and I'll probably end up going to jail. But I can't say no to you."

I asked Liz to bring me some things as soon as she could. She went into the bathroom, changed back into her clothes, came over, hugged me and took off. I went back to messing around with my computer and slipped off to sleep watching the video.

Current - Liz - Late Tuesday 04 December - Hospital — Ramstein AFB Germany

Telling off Glen and Evelyn just made me more pissed at them. I'm so angry I want to either beat the hell out of something or fuck the brains out of someone. I overhear they're moving Ben to the ICU and decide I'll meet Jens there and surprise her. On the way I run into a cute, young MP and he gets lucky, he gets very lucky! I look at him panting on the floor as I pull my clothes back on, "I'm going to be in the ICU, how about if you come down and hang around just in case I need something?"

He grins at me, "Miss, after that I'll do anything you ask."

I blow him a kiss (he's so young and cute), walk out the door and check my watch. Good I should still beat Jens and Ben to the ICU. The nurse at the ICU station gives me some crap until I pull out my press credentials. All of a sudden, they are more than happy to bend over backwards and kiss my ass.

Since Ben is going to be in isolation, I need to wear a gown over my clothes, with gloves and a mask. As I slip into the isolation crap and go into the room, I realize Ben must be really sick if they are doing this. I make a few adjustments to the room, trying to make it more comfortable and cozy, but there's not much you can do with a hospital room. I flip on the tube to see what's going on in the world, find a news channel and almost throw up. They kept running news about Ben and Jens, the same damn tapes and copy we sold them with very little modification. I turn it off, disgusted at how poor the quality of reporting has become.

Jens finally shows up and she looks like hell - no she looks like twenty miles of bad road in hell. Her eyes are bloodshot with huge black bags under them, her hair is askew and her clothes are a wrinkled mess. The ICU nurses stop her at the door and inform her of the whole isolation crap while the others wheel Ben into the room.

The minute I see him I almost pass out! Damn is he fucked up! If Jens looks like twenty miles of bad road in hell, Ben looks like a million miles of bad road in hell. He has lost a lot of weight, I bet fifty pounds, his face looks old and tired and his hair is long with some gray in it. I curse myself as I start crying again - what the hell is wrong with me, crying all the time like this.

I wipe away the tears and pull myself together before Jens can see me. She needs my strength right now. She walks over beside me and we begin to talk.

She is so worried because Ben is still unconscious and no one knows why. I offer to find out for her. I could really use a dose of 'doctor du jour' right now, strictly for medicinal purposes, and I'm disappointed when Jens turns down the offer.

I do talk her into going to eat and taking care of herself. After she leaves I silently curse myself for not bringing extra clothes for her because she is starting to smell almost as ripe as Ben's arm.

The nurses finally get through screwing around with Ben and leave, so I see my chance. I want to see if what the first doctor, gee I've already forgotten his name, told me is true. I pull the covers loose from the bottom of the bed, raise them and peek at Ben's feet and legs.

Oh My God! I about piss my panties when I see them. The doctor I fucked was right and I hope that Jens doesn't see his legs anytime soon. They are covered with scars, all in the shape of little squares and rectangles and long gash marks. The doctor said he thought they were animal bites, probably rat bites. I quickly tuck the sheets back into the foot of the bed and move to the left side of the bed.

I glance around making sure no one is watching, I raise the middle part of the sheets and gently move Ben's gown aside. Holy shit! He was right about this too, something sure doesn't look right to me. I move his gown back in place and smooth out the sheets.

I step back, drop into a chair and the tears start boiling out of my eyes while soaking the mask. My poor Ben, my poor Jens. Even though they're back together, they still have so much hell to go through. I angrily curse God for letting them go through this. Then I pray, for maybe the first time in my life, promising God if he just lets Ben live and get through this, I will become a good girl.

I finish my prayer, look over at Ben and see his monitors going all wacko. I run out to the nurses' station, "Hey something really bad is happening to Ben!"

The nurse jumps up and runs into the room, she sticks her head out the door, "Call a code blue on room three-oh-two."

Well that lights a fire under their asses! It is announced over the PA and nurses and doctors start running into the room. They even haul in a large cart with a bunch of crap on it. I look over and saw the young MP and wave at him. He smiles and waves back. I slip up to the windows of the room and watch them work on Ben, until a nurse see me and closes the curtains.

I go back to the desk and make some small talk with the unit clerk, "So, does a code blue mean what I think it means?"

"What do you think it means?" she asks in reply.

"I've heard it means someone is dying and they bring in special doctors and nurses to save them."

"Excuse me, are you family." She retorts.

I wave my press pass at her, "That and a whole lot more, now will you answer my question?"

She looks uncomfortable but leans close, "Yes your right. But don't worry, I see this happen quite a bit and they save most of them. In fact it looks like they saved your brother because I see them coming out right now."

I look over and see they are wheeling the large cart out and the doctors and nurses are leaving. I'm glad Jens isn't here to see this since it scared the hell out of me and she might have totally lost it. I see her walking into the ICU, I run over and grab her arm. We struggle some and she is going to get away until I motion for my MP to help me. We distract her long enough that all the doctors have left except one. Jens latches on to him and gives him the third degree without getting much of an answer. I need to find one of the doctors later and screw the truth out of him, so I make a mental note of his name.

Jens barks at me, "Liz why didn't you call me."

We walk in the room and I hug her tight, "Jens it happened so fast that I didn't have a chance to call you. Besides you don't have a mobile phone so how could I call you?"

"Sorry Liz for yelling at you. I'm just so worried about Ben and now this happened. Please forgive me."

"Hey that's what sisters do, we forgive each other." I kiss her on the cheek and pull away from her. "You look better and smell better but those clothes still stink. I need to go buy you some clothes and other essentials."

"Thanks Liz, that would be nice. I have a little makeup and a toothbrush and toothpaste. Would you get me a small purse to carry everything in, some new undies, you know I like thongs. And see if you can scare up a mobile phone. Oh while I'm thinking about it, do you have your extra laptop here?"

I smile at Jens, she's so practical, "Your wish is my command. I do have the laptop and it's still configured for you. It'll take me a couple hours to get everything. I'll probably bring it all in a little suit case to make it easier for you."

She thinks for a moment, "Are you sure everything's secure this time?"

"Yes Jens, we hired one of your geek friends. He travels with us and secures everything. In fact I'll have him come here and scan the room and the clothes your mom gave you."

She looks relieved, "See you soon sis."

I wave and walked out of the room. I stand to the side, watch her put her head on Ben's good arm, and fall asleep. I walk up to my MP friend and smile at him, "Will you do me a favor and make sure no one goes in the room and wakes up my sister. She really needs to sleep."

"Yes miss, whatever you say."

I head towards my room to pick up some of the stuff and go to the Base Exchange for the other things I need. I guess I'll have to find someone to help me at the BX.

Flashback - Liz — Hospital - Incirlik Airbase in Turkey Sunday 14 October

Shit! Things are a mess and I'm right in the middle of it. Jens has me convinced that Ben is still alive and being held captive. Against my better judgment, I'm going to help her get out of this hospital before her fat fuck dad shows up to take her home.

I found the BX and grabbed all the supplies I needed, it's a good thing that Jens and I are almost the same sizes. Then I remembered they won't let me buy things here because I'm not military. I look around and finally see a cute young Airman and walk over by him. "Excuse me, I'm wondering if you could help me." I bat my eyes at him.

He almost drops his basket, "Y-y-yes, miss. What can I do for you?"

"I'm Liz Morgan from the truth network and I needed a few things. But they won't let me purchase them here without being in the military. Do you think that if I gave you the money, you can pay for these few things for me." I gave him a big smile.

He blushed and looked so cute, "Yes miss, I'd be happy to do that for you."

I decided to have a little fun with him, "I need to pickup one more thing."

"No problem miss, I'll follow you."

We walked over to the aisle with the feminine products and I throw a bunch in my basket. "There, I'm all done."

I pulled a wad of twenties out of my purse, hand them and my basket to him, turned and walked away adding just an extra bit of wiggle to my walk. I looked over my shoulder, "Oh, I forgot to mention, I'm in a hurry."

He almost ran to the front of the store as I casually strolled up. He was through the checkout (blushing so bad I thought he was sunburned) and waiting for me. I walked right up to him. "Here you go miss, is there anything else I can do for you?"

"I took the bags out of his hands, letting my hand touch his and said, "No thank you Airman, you've been most helpful."

I walk out of the BX and hotfooted it back to the hospital. We needed to get Jens the hell out of there before Glen shows up.

I walk in the room and she's fallen asleep, still watching the video of Ben's chopper crash looping at the spot when we see something fly out of the chopper. I sit on the bed beside her and gently rub her forehead, "Mmm, is that you honey?" She asks.