C.O.I.L. Extractions: COIL Short Story Collections, #1

​COIL EXTRACTIONS

A COIL Short Story Collection

Book 1

D.I. Telbat

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Copyright © 2017 D.I. Telbat

All rights reserved

Updated 5/2025

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D.I. Telbat Author Pages

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There is no redemption without sacrifice.

COIL Extractions is a COIL Short Story Collection, a sampling of D.I. Telbat's Suspenseful Fiction with a Faith Focus. The stories are based on themes and characters found in The COIL Series. You can find Short Story Collection Book 2 at COIL Recruits for Christ.

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These stories are a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locals, organizations, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

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Thank you for downloading this FREE ebook. D.I. Telbat prays that you are greatly blessed with these stories. Please send your friends to the D.I. Telbat webpage here to get their own FREE copy of COIL Extractions. If you enjoy this book, please visit the D.I. Telbat Author Pages to discover other works by this author. It would also greatly help the author if you would leave your comments or review wherever you downloaded this book. Thank you, Reading Friend!

​Dedication

To the men and women who give sacrificially

to serve their Christian brothers and sisters

in the hard places of the world,

with no seeming recognition.

But the Lord knows.

Your crowns await you in heaven.

Table of Contents

Title and Copyright Page

Dedication

Extraction: China

Angel in the Bush: Vietnam

Extraction: Eritrea

Mexican Hospice

Extraction: Pakistan

Moved by Kindness

Standing Together: An Alleyway Intervention

Extraction: Colombia

Secure Worship: Belarus & Brunei

Extraction: India

High-Wire Rescue

Operation Afghanistan: Corban Dowler Undercover

Extraction: Vietnam

Other Books by D.I. Telbat

About the Author

BONUS Chapter: Dark Liaison, Book One of The COIL Series

​Extraction: China

by D.I. Telbat

Ruben Lopez checked his bullet wound as he leaned against a brick schoolhouse. He was in one of the many small cities in China's Sichuan Province. The bleeding had stopped, but he feared it would start again if he was forced to move too quickly.

The thirty-five-year-old Mexican-American forced his mind from the pain to the mission he'd been given. The mission that cold night—to extract a South Chinese Christian evangelist from his prison cell and move him to South Korea before he was executed. It had been successful to a point. The evangelist and Ruben's Special Forces team had successfully fled east toward Beijing, but then Ruben was wounded and separated from his team. Left for dead, Ruben considered his options in Qu County. He had to somehow make contact with his team again.

Months prior, the brick schoolhouse to his right had been a pile of rubble from the massive Sichuan Province earthquake. Much had changed since then, but Ruben knew that the underground house churches were running as strong as ever. Ruben's Christian special ops organization, COIL—the Commission of International Laborers based in New York—had even smuggled in hymnals through Hong Kong to a residence not far from where he stood.

With a prayer for guidance, Ruben pushed off the brick wall and walked into a paved street full of cracks and potholes. Around midnight, he'd traded his watch for a Chinese parka, and he now wore the hood and turned up the collar to hide his foreign features. In a holster high on his right side, he carried an NL-1 air pistol, a non-lethal weapon that fired up to thirty tranquilizer pellets. Though it wasn't much against a Party soldier's live ammo, COIL's operatives refused to carry lethal weapons. It would be hard to show Christ's love if they were trying to kill the enemies of Christ.

An hour later, around two o'clock in the morning, Ruben found the address he'd been seeking. The house was dark with boarded windows, but Ruben was too exhausted and weak to go anywhere else. He trudged up to the front door and knocked. Surprisingly, the door had no latch and it swung inward. Ruben felt the warmth of the house hit his cold cheeks as he stepped cautiously inside.

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Pastor Wu couldn't hold back his smile as the thirty people sang a hymn of worship in his tiny shop. Aware that Party agents were always near, the Christians sang in whispers, but the joy they expressed was no less beautiful.

Wu recognized less than half of the thirty who'd arrived for the service. They'd begun to trickle in the previous day from as far away as Shandong Province. As a good host, Wu shared what little food he had, but everyone had brought their own provisions as well. Those with a little rice were given pork and tea by those who had more.

Finally, the service had begun after midnight. In the shadows of flickering candles, they had gathered for prayer. Pastor Wu wouldn't speak until after the whisper singing was finished, which would go on for at least another hour. The service itself would last until dawn, at which time the guests would rest and pray through the day, then depart under the cover of darkness the following night. The thirty here would branch out to visit other underground house churches in other provinces.

Halfway through the third hymn, the shop door swung open. Wu tensed as a man in a peasant's parka shuffled into the room. The man kept the parka hood over his head and the collar covered much of his face. Public Security Bureau agents may have been informed of their gathering. Only a man with something to hide would keep his face covered, and Wu was certain the man in the parka was a Party official.

The pastor surveyed the room for other potential spies, but everyone's lips were moving to the words of the hymn. An agent certainly wouldn't sing. He watched the newcomer closely. It was common for an agent to infiltrate a service and take note of the prominent members in attendance. Wu had already been arrested twice for having unauthorized cultic material since he refused to use state edited sermons and registered facilities. A third offense would mean hard prison time in a labor camp for rehabilitation—if he endured the abusive interrogations.

His wife had been encouraging him to sell their shop and home to become traveling evangelists. Wu cringed at the thought. He'd heard that one such brother had been arrested in a nearby city and was scheduled for execution. Though China had made civil progress, civilian freedoms and rights were still greatly lacking.

Closing his eyes, Wu tried to pray, but he was distracted, listening for the squeal of brakes of the PSB arriving. They would surely arrest everyone and confiscate their small collection of Bibles and literature.

Suddenly, his eyes flashed open as he remembered he'd just received a new shipment of hymnals from Hong Kong. They were still in a box upstairs in their living quarters! If he could do nothing else, he could hide that box and get it after he was released from prison. Glancing at his wife, he tried to get her attention, but she was focused on the