Flick (The Black Sentinels MC Book 4)

by Victoria Johns

  The loadmaster touched down with a bang, the pilot’s job done successfully; we were alive. The air was humid, stifling with sand which blasted my face as the door opened. We all trooped off the plane, the atmosphere oppressive, and the soldiers apprehensive.

  The soldiers went one way, I walked in the opposite direction.

  A single army vehicle waited to the side, a man I recognized leaned against the door. It was Gentle, the handler I’d worked with on this side before. The familiar face reassuring, but fuck did he look old and weathered, beaten, dead on his feet.

  “Fuck me! Shadow!” He seemed surprised. “Thought you were out.”

  “Yeah, me too. Let’s get this shit show on the road, I’m wiped.”

  Gentle nodded. He climbed in behind the wheel as I stored my kit in the back and climbed in next to him. As we made our way to the farthest, concealed corner of the air strip, we passed the soldiers I’d traveled with, all in formation, heading to the regular base.

  The young lad I’d sat next to looked lost, a boy in a sea of men.

  But that wouldn’t last for long.

  In the fortified office, surrounded by tech and intelligence, I was reminded of the life I’d lived before. The maps reminded me that Helmand Province was made up of thousands of villages, with nearly half a million in population. After all these years and all the efforts we’d made, all the tech in the world didn’t dissuade from the fact that it was still the most dangerous country on the planet, proving that we’d achieved nothing, a big, fat fucking failure. Nearly two decades of war and still no end in sight. Looking around, I wondered why we hadn’t just left them to it, making peace would never work; we should just let the Taliban fucking rule and come home, after all it was their territory. No one wanted to say it, but no matter how long this went on, they would outlast us. They just wanted their country back, and now ISIS had all but disbanded, they’d joined the Taliban. They claim refuge, but it’s the perfect mindset, control, and launch pad for an attack.

  Despite wishing we’d just walk away, I knew that left unchecked and unmonitored, their numbers would double in just six short months.

  “What the fuck are we still doing here, Gentle?”

  He ignored me and rustled maps, opening them on the tabletop, reminding me that while I’d been out for a while this was still his reality. He couldn’t be blamed for forgetting there was a real life out there worth living; this place was hell on earth. Where good men and women were sent to fight a pointless war.

  “It’s a high price for freedom,” he mumbled.

  “The price is American blood in a pointless war that the decision suits back home need to clue in about.”

  Gentle didn’t respond to my despondency, he just pointed at the map. “Iqbal was last seen here. Agent Poppy’s last check in was over a month ago.”

  “So, his location could be old intel?”

  “Always that risk.”

  I looked at the map, not liking where his finger circled around a rough area of fifty square miles. It was a nasty, lawless part in the middle of fucking nowhere and I was going to have to hunt him out. “How do I make contact with her?”

  “Every third Thursday she works a market here.” His fat finger pointed to a spot inside the fifty-mile square. “She’s the only seller of saffron. If it’s safe to talk, saffron will be on a special deal. If not, there won’t be any saffron at all and you’ll have to wait until the following month.”

  Fucking hell! My plan to be in and out was going awry by the minute.

  “She look Afghani?”

  “No. You’ll know her when you see her, that’s why they watch her. They may have brought her here, converted her faith, but she’s still an import.”

  I nodded. This was risky.

  “If you mention the phrase ‘saffron tulip’ when you talk to her, she’ll know you’re a friendly. Saffron comes from crocus, not tulip.”

  I committed it all to memory as I leaned on the table looking across at him and the lights began to flicker. Yeah, I was definitely back in Afghan. “See the power’s still hit and miss.”

  “No change there. Listen, Shadow, we want you to make a mess. When you find him, display the bounty.”

  “Okay, get in, kill him, parade that fucker’s corpse about, get Poppy get out. Roger that.”

  Gentle stood up and looked me in the eye. “About that, change of mission plan. You need to decommission Agent Poppy.”

  This couldn’t be happening again. I’d done more than my fair share of this type of wet work for the government and it was still the thing that gave me nightmares. I couldn’t go back there. “You’ve got to be shitting me,” I forced through my clenched teeth, “take her out?”.

  “Need I remind you, that if we don’t fight him here, he’ll come on shore and we’ll have to do it there.”

  “Not talking about that, you really want me to take out a female agent who’s probably been abused and had the most hellish time of her life, at America’s expense, and what… now we decide she’s expendable? Fuck. That.”

  “Iqbal’s cell has been unchecked for so long because we didn’t know we were supposed to be checking. There’s no way of knowing which side Poppy is on. And we’re only in this shit because you fucked up last time.”

  “First of all, fuck you and second, because of that, we assume the worst and take her out?”

  Gentle breathed in slowly and released the air just the same. We had the ability to push each other’s buttons and it never ended well, only right now I was working on limited energy sources, never mind, my rage would get me through if I needed it to.

  “We need your ability and skills.”

  I stood back and crossed my arms “Which? Hunting in the shadows or eliminating people you’d rather fell silent, permanently?”

  “Get where you need to be, blend in, do your job and if you need to call in a MOAB then do so. But Agent Poppy is part of your objective.”

  MOAB was code for ‘mother of all bombs’, this was serious shit. Calling in a MOAB was like being under the radar one minute and then dancing on a table like a naked Vegas show girl the next. The world would know I was there, which meant I probably wouldn’t make it out either.

  I bet that was their real objective, and I would be dammed if I’d let that happen. I had a fucking life; I was done taking the lives of innocents, and that’s what mine would be if they got what they wanted this time. They’d bled me dry enough and if I made a mess and had to call in the drone’s with bombs, I’d be signing my own death warrant. There was a time when I would welcome it, rushed towards the peace of my penance, but not now. I had more to lose than ever before.

  I had to come up with a different plan, but I needed to play the game.

  “That pile over there is for you.” He pointed at a stack of crates that would contain enough hardware to blow up a small third world village.

  “That shit’s going to kill a lot of innocents,” I reminded him.

  “We both know there are no innocents.”

  “And, Gentle, we both know that’s not fucking true, and it’s orders like that, and missions like this that have got me right where I am now. Indebted to the system, the government, the men who live and operate in the dark.”

  “Yes, Shadow, men like you.”

  “Not anymore, I was out.”

  “Yeah, heard about your new family. Let’s hope you make it home to see them.”

  I thought about reaching for the knife on the table behind him and sinking it into his chest, but that would be a one-way ticket to hell for me.

  “Shadow, you’ve got your mission, but remember you’ve seen first-hand that dings and dents are doing nothing in this war, we need something that makes them think twice.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Orders are orders. Do your job. We clear?”

  “Clear,” I replied reluctantly.

  A month and a half later, I was well on my way to blending in and becoming Afghani.
Some much-needed seclusion to study maps, landfall, and terrain had also given me time to grow a ratty-assed beard, and the stubble on my head was in full flow. I was running out of time and I knew if I didn’t go soon, I’d be stuck here for another month, just because of the cycle of the fucking market, and doing that in the middle of enemy territory was suicidal.

  The time was finally here to get the show on the road, this was it. As I took a helo to a town outside the base, I made my mental checklist; steal a truck and blend in, make my way across country, practice my language skills, and survive. I was about to be all alone in enemy territory, reliant on myself to survive and no one else. I had a plan, and if it went wrong, I was very much a dead man.

  I sent a message up to God, something I’d never, ever done before, asking for forgiveness for the things I was about to do. I was going to have to kill and harm others to survive, and at the very end I was faced with the decision to slaughter the few to save the many, many more. The problem was, I didn’t know if all of these things were a step too far, and if I did them, would I be able to redeem myself?

  For the first time, I sat and thought about whether I should actually go home at all this time, the darkness might be a little too dark and something I’d never recover from, not even with Flick’s help.

  What the fuck was I about to do?

  Maybe dying was the penance this time, which was ironic because for the very first time, I didn’t want to die, I had something to live for—someone.

  Shadow

  I really hated this fucking place and not just a bit, it was a gut-deep feeling somewhere close to despise on an almost unhealthy level.

  Every bad decision I’d made had been because of this place. The very first bad decision I made was a reaction born out of what happened here, and I only really ended up acting that way because the military never taught us how to deal with the horrors we saw.

  Maybe we should have just gone to prison, at least I’d have spent my life rotting in a cell with a clear conscience, rather than becoming this black infested creature that slowly sucked the life out of me and was still inhabited my soul.

  I’d covered miles and miles of dusty terrain, doing the most circuitous routes I could find just to help avoid interaction with the locals. I knew without a doubt that if my paths crossed with anyone this far away from the main towns and villages, I’d have to end them. They wouldn’t be simple goat farmers this far out, and any of them unlucky enough to meet me would definitely be adding to the tally of crosses tattooed on my body.

  Every time I bunked down at night, the only comfort I got was knowing that somewhere under the same sky, Flick was also probably thinking about me. I just hoped my brothers and the old ladies were softening the blow of my disappearance.

  Fuck, I missed her.

  How the hell she’d managed to dig so deep under my skin in such a short space of time was a mystery. Felicity Peters was the only one who gave me the strength to beat back the darkness that threatened to swallow me whole. That black infested creature was gaining ground every hour, every minute that I was still here.

  My musings were interrupted by the sudden bark of a dog, I’d picked an abandoned out-building, or so I thought, on purpose, and left my old beat-up rust-bucket Jeep a good couple of miles away. It was currently covered in shrubbery and camo nets and that was where it would stay now until I completed my mission. If I was right, Agent Poppy was only ten clicks further on down the valley and I would cover that on foot. I’d planned to do it tomorrow night under the cover of darkness. I felt far more comfortable being Shadow on foot and in the dark, rather than attracting the attention of anyone while rolling on the road, a strange car would be noticed and arouse suspicion.

  The dog barked again.

  Louder this time and fuck, it was coming closer. I wondered whether it had caught my scent, I doubted it, though, part of my prep work along with growing my hair and beard had been to work out and sweat. The Afghani’s worked hard and that was obvious during the day, I couldn’t blend in if I smelled of soap and cologne. The only problem with letting the hygiene slip, was infection, sweat rash or foot rot from the hot conditions. The only exception was my dick and bollocks, I kept them clean; a sweat rash down there was definitely to be avoided.

  Someone shouted at the dog, the odd word I caught in the native tongue was telling it to shut the fuck up. The man was less than twenty feet away on the other side of the make-shift hut wall. I held my breath, trying to picture the guy, his age, build and weight, first from the few words of Arabic I’d heard and then the sound of his voice, step gait and breathing. Part of me prayed the dog would just fuck off, but he barked again, closer and closer, louder and louder until it squealed that sound of pain, the one that made you wince.

  It was looking more and more likely that this guy was definitely not a friendly local. I wouldn’t be able to talk my way into disarming a character who would hurt a dog to the point of squealing.

  This man was another cross on my body.

  Mentally, I was already preparing for the kill.

  The man hollered a command. Now he was really close, nearly on top of me.

  Gathering my strength and will of survival, I breathed in for two and out for two as I slowly pulled my knife from its sheath, positioning it just right so I could see the man in the flawless mirrored surface. He was your typical Afghani, they all dressed the same, smelled of the same tobacco which I could virtually taste in the air—but more importantly than all of that, he had a large gun slung over his shoulder.

  I was definitely going to have to end him, and the fucking dog.

  A few seconds later, the dog sniffed its way around the corner, and I stayed perfectly still. When I saw the booted foot of the desert soldier appear, I closed my eyes and relied on my skill, my God given talent, the one that lived deep within.

  When I heard him jolt his gun to a holstered position, I knew he’d spotted me. I faked sleep and only when I smelled the rank, toxic stench of his breath, did I gently open my eyelids.

  Close enough.

  The knife sliced thought his carotid quickly, leaving me just enough time to roll out of the blood spray. The minute he fell to his knees, I got ready to take on the dog. But, proving my point that the guy was a real fucking asshole, it came and lay down at my feet—a thank you for freeing him from the devil who mistreated him. Animals and kids, the very best judge of a person’s character.

  After I’d covered the body, I tab’d back to my Jeep with the dog in tow, for now he was providing me with a good cover story. This man coming across my path wouldn’t be a one off, there were rarely lone soldiers and I needed to be far away from here before they realized he was missing or found his body. I’d lose the dog in the next village.

  Kill number one was done and dusted, and now I had to rethink my plan. Hide the fucking Jeep again and come at Agent Poppy’s market location from a different angle.

  The day of the market came, and I’d been lying low on the edge of town for about twenty hours, missing the company of the dog. I’d called him Ranger, and he didn’t seem to mind. I’d also made the decision to buy the kids a dog when I got back.

  If I got back.

  At the spice market I blended in well. By now, I was so rough and raw from living for months in the wild, I could have probably walked up to the Taliban and joined them.

  I circled the stalls, praying she still had a touch of a western look to her. If she didn’t and saffron was on deal in more than one place, I was fucked. As it turned out, she wasn’t hard to spot. Poppy’s face wasn’t fully covered and this was done on purpose, the man who owned her wanted everyone to know she was a lesser person, see how her face had taken multiple beatings and abuse, remind everywhere what her position was in the hierarchy and indeed, theirs.

  Agent Poppy’s seniority grade was hovering around the same as Ranger’s by the look of it, she was battered and bruised, reminding me of a little rag doll, but to be fair, I’d see those in better condit
ion, and the firm wanted me to kill her. Hadn’t she suffered enough? Hadn’t she risked her life enough for them, for their intelligence gathering?

  By the time I’d circled twice, my mind was made up, if this woman was Agent Poppy, then I was going against orders. If I couldn’t get her out, I’d kill her, but it would be out of mercy. If I couldn’t get us both out, then I’d pop a bullet in her first, then me. There was no way I’d risk Flick and the kids seeing me be paraded on national television as some war criminal. I’d seen these monsters behead someone live, and although it was ten times worse than when it was beamed via a satellite, it was still fucking harrowing. They didn’t even have the courtesy to use a sharp knife or a saber, this one poor guy was held down, even though he was hardly conscious and had his head sawed off with what may as well have been a butter knife. The suffering was something I’d tried to blank from my memory, but as with everything associated to this place, it didn’t stay locked up inside me for long.

  I approached, and considered the risk involved if she wasn’t Poppy. I was fucked if I exposed myself to the wrong person, no matter what my skills were, this market was crawling with the enemy and I’d never make it out of here undetected. The locals would give me up in an instant, their fear would always seal that course of action for me, and a shootout would only last so long. It would definitely need to be the bullet to the brain option.

  When I was stood in front of her, I murmured, “See you’ve got saffron on special.”

  The woman’s eyes widened. “Is that it?” she rumbled back, the slightest hope shadowing her marred face.

  “They from the tulip?”

  I watched as her eyes flitted to the side, checking her surroundings, although something told me she’d already done this once every couple of minutes for the entire time she’d been sat there, hoping that this month’s market would be the one when someone would come for her. “Red and gray cart, brown and white horse. Be there in twelve minutes.” Her accent was heavier now, but the words and short, abruptness of them were part of the training I recognized.