Daughter of War

by Brad Taylor

  While waiting for them to go wheels up in Zurich, I’d researched the target. Located in the wine country on the shores of Lake Geneva, in the middle of an ancient vinery called Lavaux, it was a stand-alone farmhouse. At the base of a mountain, Lavaux was, at eight hundred hectares, the largest contiguous vineyard region in Switzerland. Terraced fields ran all the way to the lake, sprinkled with clusters of homes throughout where families for generations had run the vineyards. Our target was a single-story dwelling made of stone. From the size, it couldn’t have more than four or five rooms, and looked to have been built when the Benedictine monks began the vineyards in the eleventh century.

  With the images I had, I couldn’t determine breach points, but I did see that the approaches to the house were good. The entire area was blanketed with roads that looked like God had thrown a handful of spaghetti to the earth, all of them threading through the vineyards and providing cover for a stealthy advance.

  I’d received word that they were wheels up in Zurich, closed the computer, and raced up the A9 to meet them in Lausanne, the road paralleling the lake to the north. I’d called Kurt, dreading the result, but Jennifer and Knuckles had made a command decision to come help me, not telling Kurt they were leaving Zurich, and I wanted to make it official. No sense in all of us getting fired.

  I’d reached the Taskforce, gone secure, and immediately felt the hostility.

  He said, “I’m not sure why I’m even taking this call.”

  I took a breath and said, “Sir, you told me to figure it out, and I did. Jennifer and Knuckles were fine in Zurich. It ended up being a dry hole.”

  “You didn’t know that before you started chasing after the refugee.”

  “I also didn’t know that she was being held by the North Koreans.”

  He said, “What? Say that again?”

  “It’s the North Koreans. They took her to get my team off of the trail. After we saved Yasir, they must have refocused. While we were chasing after his terrorists, the North Koreans were chasing us. The Zurich trip was a deception, and we fell for it.”

  “You’re sure of this?”

  “Yes. Positive. The ransom demand at the meeting wasn’t money, it was time. And the guy asking was Korean.”

  He’d turned the corner at that point, saying, “Thank God. The Oversight Council is going nuts over the loss of two guys with WMDs.”

  “You didn’t trigger the Swiss like I asked for in Zurich, did you? Do they know these guys are loose? I don’t need to run into a trigger-happy ERT that doesn’t know the lay of the land.”

  “No. We never got to the level where we had confidence in the target. Jennifer and Knuckles are still in Zurich trying to pinpoint them.”

  “I need them down here. Immediately. I’m going to assault the house with the beacon. I promise it’s the beehive.”

  “I don’t know. The one thread we have is Zurich. You yourself got a PID on the man from the restaurant in Lucerne. We leave there, and we might lose it all.”

  “Sir, that Zurich thing was a head fake. The one thread we have right now is Amena. If I were going to choose door A or door B, I’d be picking B right now.”

  The phone went silent for a moment, then he said, “Okay. Get ’em moving. What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to hit that house in less than an hour. I’m on my way to Lausanne to meet them right now.”

  “You want me to redirect them from here?”

  “Uh . . . not necessary. What’s the status with the bunker?”

  “We’re building a response right now. The problem is if the threat is as great as you say, we need a capability to safely extract it, but we also don’t want to cause a panic when a bunch of guys in space suits show up at a major tourist destination.”

  “Understood. I’ll keep Brett and Veep on it until they show up, but they aren’t going to coordinate. When they see an official government response, they’re going to pack up and fade away, leaving the rest to the experts. It’ll get us out clean.”

  “Okay. Keep me updated. Let me know something as soon as you can. If your thread is a dry hole as well, we’re going to be in a serious mess.”

  “It won’t be a dry hole for the North Koreans. I can promise you that.”

  I’d hung up without saying the other part: it might be a dry hole for Amena.

  I’d reached the Lausanne airport fifteen minutes before the arrival of the Rock Star bird. As soon as I saw the smoke from its wheels hitting the asphalt, I’d gone out to the tarmac. The airport was small, with no commercial aviation coming in to it, so security was pretty loose.

  The plane wheeled around, and the door opened, lowering down the stairs. I’d sprinted inside, seeing Jennifer and Knuckles unloading all manner of lethal devices. Knuckles looked up and said, “I couldn’t have you get fired all by yourself.”

  I said, “You’re not fired. I talked to Kurt. Amena is the key to this whole thing.”

  Jennifer whipped her head to me and said, “He wasn’t aggravated that we left Zurich?”

  “No. As far as he knows, he gave the order for you to do so after I asked.”

  “Huh?”

  “Later. We need to move. I have the target package done and the route. You guys can look at it while I drive. It’s about fifteen or twenty minutes from here.”

  Knuckles held up a lockpick kit and said, “We have to do this surgically, like in Nice?”

  I pointed to an explosive breaching charge and said, “No. We’re going to use maximum violence. Anyone inside besides Amena is hostile.”

  I picked up an integrally suppressed AR carbine chambered in .300 blackout and snapped the stock open, then began removing preloaded magazines, saying, “If it’s not Amena, kill them.”

  Fifteen minutes later we were on the road, carrying more death and destruction than a platoon in World War II, Jennifer and Knuckles studying the building while I went as fast as possible on the A9.

  Knuckles said, “Careful on the speed. We get stopped and it’s game over.”

  I kept the gas pedal buried and said, “Have to risk it.”

  Jennifer said, “The beacon’s still on. That’s a good sign.”

  I looked at her and said, “Like Knuckles told me, that beacon is a phone, not Amena. I’m afraid they’ve tricked me, and she’s dead already, but if she’s not, I’m petrified she’s about to be.”

  70

  Amena finished her lunch and was allowed to go to the bathroom. She stared at herself in the mirror, seeing the swelling on her face had gone down somewhat. She soaked a washcloth and pressed it against her cheek, the coolness soothing. She closed her eyes and imagined she was someplace else. On a beach she’d seen in pictures, the waves crashing, chairs and umbrellas set in the sand, and kids playing with beach balls.

  A place in America.

  The guard banged on the door, causing her eyes to snap open and her to jump. She said, “Coming,” and opened the door. He waved her forward, not looking her in the eye. He locked her back in the chair, glanced at his watch, and then went into the kitchen.

  She heard him arguing with the badge man in the other room, and feared they were reaching a critical point. It had been hours since she’d triggered the beacon, and nothing had happened. No sign that it had even worked. Maybe she’d done it wrong. Maybe the phone had to be out of airplane mode.

  Or maybe nobody cared.

  She shook that out of her mind. Pike cared, she knew, but maybe there was nothing he could do. Maybe he’d already left Switzerland. Maybe he was flying back to her right now from the United States or some other country.

  But he could call the police, couldn’t he? Get someone to come knock on the door. Get anyone to check this house.

  At least the leader hadn’t returned. Hopefully he would stay gone until it was time to sleep, leaving them alone in the house. After
the beating, she feared him most of all.

  She heard the argument build until they were shouting, then the room next door went quiet. The guard appeared, carrying a length of rope, his face grim. He leaned in the doorway, just staring at her.

  She felt her adrenaline rise, an animal instinct telling her that the danger had come. She closed her eyes, willing her mother to appear. Wanting to see her face and feel the kindness one last time. Wanting her mother to help her.

  Instead, she saw Jennifer, and she began to cry. They were going to kill her because of the man who’d abandoned her. Pike was not coming.

  She squeezed her eyes tight, willing back the tears, chanting in her mind.

  If it is to be, it is up to me.

  She heard the guard’s footsteps and opened her eyes. He reached her and said, “Bow your head.”

  She said, “No, wait. You don’t have to do this.”

  He didn’t even try to hide his intentions, saying, “Little one, it will be quick, I promise.”

  She said, “Wait, wait. I’m going to pee my pants. Please, let me go to the bathroom.”

  He shook his head no, and she said, “One last time. Please.”

  He looked at her for a long moment, then relented, unlocking her arms and pulling her to her feet. He pushed her, walking by the doorway to the kitchen. She entered the hallway with the bathroom, passing the two bedrooms. She felt her breath begin to go shallow, the adrenaline starting to take over. He opened the door to the bathroom and waved her in. She closed the door and stared in the mirror, willing a solution to appear.

  She thought about the door. It opened outward, and the guard was always standing behind it. If she waited until he knocked, she would know he was directly behind it. She could slam it open as hard as she could and fling him back, leaving the hallway open. She could run to the kitchen and then to the back door, where they’d brought her in.

  She furiously tried to remember if that was correct. If the exit she remembered was through the doorway to the kitchen. She could not. She would get one shot, and if she committed to that path and it didn’t end at an exit, she was done.

  But it was all she could think to do. If she made it outside, she would just run screaming until she found someone. Anyone besides an Asian.

  She turned to the door, waiting, hand near the knob, her breath coming in shallow pants, the sweat rising from under her shirt smelling fetid. Before, she had wanted to extend the time of her bathroom visits as long as possible. Now she was begging him to end the anticipation.

  When it came, it was like a thunderclap, setting her brain into the feral fight-or-flight zone she’d spent most of her life in. Time slowed. She watched her hand reaching for the doorknob as if from out of her body, her logical brain screaming at her not to do it. She grasped the knob, turned, and then threw her whole body against the door, feeling it slam into something solid before swinging free.

  The guard shouted, and time sped back up, everything spinning at a furious pace. She hammered the door again, and heard the guard fall to the floor. She leapt out of the doorway and began sprinting, the guard bellowing behind her.

  She took one glance back and saw him on his feet, his face a mask of rage at having been tricked. He began chasing her, huffing like a bull. She turned back around and saw the doorway to the kitchen.

  She darted into it, running headlong into an oven. She bounced off, looked to the left, and saw the back-door exit at the end of the room. Salvation. She began sprinting toward it, closing in to twenty feet, ten feet, five feet. She reached out her hand to the knob and barreled smack into the badge man, him clocking her like a quarterback blindsided by a lineman. She slammed to the ground on her side, the wind knocked out of her. He blocked her path, standing in front of the door. He raised a pistol and she screamed.

  The door exploded into the kitchen with a giant crack of fire and sound, the fragments of wood and explosive force lifting the man off his feet and throwing him across the room into the far wall.

  She blinked. It was a magic act. One second, the terrorist was standing in front of her, a split second later, he was across the room. Her ears rang from the noise, and smoke billowed into the kitchen. A man came racing through the doorway with a rifle, turning away from her. Another man came in immediately behind him and turned her way. He shouted, “PC, PC!” and leapt over her. It was Pike Logan.

  Someone appeared next to her, and she looked up blankly, seeing Jennifer, holding a weapon just like the men, leaning over her and protecting her body. Pike shouted, “Doorway,” and the other man raced to him. She recognized Knuckles. In the span of seconds, they were gone. She heard a rapid string of pops, like fireworks going off, then nothing.

  The badge man rose from the far side of the room, disoriented, still holding his pistol, his face bloody. Her ears ringing from the explosion, Amena tried to say something. Jennifer rotated around, raised her rifle, and fired twice.

  The man collapsed.

  Two minutes later, Pike and Knuckles came back into the room. Pike said, “It’s clear, but there’s no WMD.” He leaned his weapon against the wall and took a knee, helping Amena to a sitting position. She saw the relief on his face, and felt the affection. He said, “Hey, doodlebug. You sure took your time with that beacon.”

  She said, “You sure took your time after I took my time. They were going to kill me.”

  He smiled and gently touched her cheek. He said, “Are you okay?”

  She nodded. “Yes. I’d really like you to meet the guy who did this, though. He left.”

  He patted her head and said, “I’ve met him. He looks worse than you, I promise.”

  She said, “You met him? Where?”

  “Trying to find you. Doesn’t matter. He’s gone. Let’s get you out of here.”

  So he was looking for me.

  She looped her arms around his neck and hugged him, like she used to do with her father. He stood, picking her up off the ground, and she wrapped her legs around him, resting her head on his shoulder, feeling emotionally safe for the first time in . . . forever. And then she remembered.

  She pulled her head up and said, “Wait, Pike, they had those canisters like the thermos. Like the one in Nice. They had them here.”

  He said, “You saw them?”

  “Yes. Three more Asians. They put on business suits, and that guy”—she pointed at the man Jennifer had shot—“gave them badges. They put the canisters in briefcases and left after the leader had gone. The one who beat me.”

  Jennifer went to the man she’d killed and said, “This is the guy from the cable car. The one from Lucerne.” She peeled back his jacket, then pulled a lanyard from around his neck. She came back to Pike and said, “It’s a UN delegation badge.”

  Pike said, “They all had those?”

  Amena nodded, and Pike set her down, saying, “They’re going to the UN. That’s the attack, and it’s going to be near impossible to find them in that multicultural beehive.” Then he stopped, turning to her.

  He said, “You saw them do all this?”

  And for the first time in days, she felt a smile leak out, knowing what he was asking.

  She said, “Yes. I know what they look like.”

  71

  We entered the Lausanne airport terminal at a trot, the three of us dragging Pelican cases full of weapons. Thank God for general aviation.

  Amena said, “What are we doing here? I thought we were going to Geneva?”

  I said, “We are.”

  Jennifer hung up her phone, turned to me, and said, “Pilots are spinning. Plane’s ready.”

  Knuckles put his hand on the mic of his phone and said, “Talking to Creed. He’s doing preliminary work on the UN compound. He can’t promise anything, because they have pretty tight security, but he’ll try to map it. He’s asking for a neck down of specifics. What, exactly, do you
want?”

  I said, “I honestly don’t know. Members, manifests, meetings, room occupancy, office locations, the works.”

  Knuckles said, “That’s sort of broad.”

  I said, “I know, I know.”

  We exited onto the tarmac, and I decided. I said, “How about security cameras? Focus him on that. We’ll figure the rest out ourselves.”

  We crossed the asphalt and walked up the stairs of the Rock Star bird, Amena once again marveling at a piece of luxury she had only seen on television. She said, “We could fly to America right now on this. Nobody would even know.”

  I said, “That requires a passport and a visa. You have either one of those?”

  She scowled and I pointed her to a seat, then said, “Jennifer, get her settled. When that’s done, start mapping the UN building. Get me everything you can find. I’m going to the cockpit.”

  I went forward, passing Knuckles and saying, “As soon as we’re wheels up, stow the long guns and break out some suppressed pistols. I don’t think we’re going to be using kinetic breaching on this one.”

  He said, “Will do. You going to call Kurt?”

  “Yeah. You keep working Creed.”

  I told the pilots the urgency of the situation, and then buckled up in the seat next to Amena. We rolled down the runway and she pressed her face against the window in awe. I chuckled and said, “Before you met me, you’d never been in a first-class aircraft like this, huh?”