THE LAST DECEPTION
A Leine Basso Crime Thriller
By
D.V. Berkom
THE LAST DECEPTION
Leine Basso Thriller #6
Copyright © 2017 by D.V. Berkom
All rights reserved.
Published by
First ebook edition September 2017
Cover by Deranged Doctor Designs
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, any place, event or occurrence, is purely coincidental. The characters and story lines are created from the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously.
Website: dvberkom.com
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Chapter 1
Tripoli, Libya
The predawn call to prayer resonated through Tripoli’s old city as Leine Basso raced along the whitewashed corridor of the medina. She was running out of time. The traffickers had continually changed Munira’s location and finding verifiable intel had been sketchy. The latest report put the fifteen-year-old Yazidi girl at a residence in the labyrinthine maze of shops, apartments, and restaurants near the harbor, but even that information was several hours old.
“Leine, what’s your position?” Lou Stokes’s voice crackled in her earpiece.
“Five minutes out.”
“Hamid?”
“The same,” Hamid answered.
“Copy that,” Lou said.
Minutes later, Leine turned the corner and entered a second corridor leading to the entrance of the trafficker’s safe house. Slowing her pace, she raised a suppressed MP-5SD and followed the wall. Hamid emerged from the other direction through the predawn gloom with his gun drawn. They both paused near the arched doorway to listen. Hearing nothing, they entered the enclosure.
A dry fountain in the shape of an eight-pointed star stood at the center of the empty courtyard. Tiled steps to Leine’s right led to a second-floor passageway bordered by an ornate metal handrail. Two closed doors could be seen at the top. Hamid continued through the lower level to clear it while Leine quietly ascended to the second floor.
She stopped at the first door to listen, heart thrumming in anticipation.
Nothing. When she tried the handle, the catch disengaged easily. She stepped to the side and pushed the door open.
Empty.
Leine backed away from the room and moved to the second door. This time muffled voices filtered through. She leaned over the railing and gestured to Hamid, who had finished clearing the first floor. He nodded and silently climbed the stairs, continuing along the passageway to check the rest of the structure. She removed a tiny fiber optic camera attached to a cable from the tactical vest she was wearing, and threaded the cable through the gap at the bottom of the door. The two-and-a-half-inch LED monitor flickered to life, showing a partially illuminated room with three occupants.
Two armed men were at a table on the left. The third person, a dark-haired female dressed in lingerie, sat on a mattress on the floor with her knees drawn up to her chin and her hands behind her back. A black plastic zip tie bound her ankles. She matched the photograph Lou had given her.
Munira.
Hamid returned and she showed him the screen before she removed the camera and put it back in her vest. They each took a position away from the direct line of fire and raised their weapons. Leine rocked back and forth three times as Hamid grasped the door handle. On three, he disengaged the lock and she kicked the door open. Leine entered first, with Hamid close behind. The first man shouted to the other one and leaped to his feet, knocking the chair back as he raised his weapon. Leine fired a three-shot burst into him and he dropped to the floor. The other gunman tried to do the same but Hamid shot him twice in the head before he could fire.
While Hamid kept watch at the door, Leine lowered her weapon and turned toward the young woman, now cowering against the wall. Dark bruises covered her face and chest, and several angry red welts marked her arms and legs. The bastards burned her with cigarettes. Leine clenched her teeth and tamped down the anger rising in her chest.
Her captors were dead. It was a start.
“Don’t be afraid, Munira,” Leine said gently in Arabic. “We’re here to help you.”
Munira shook her head in confusion. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“We’re from SHEN, an organization that helps people like you.” Leine slid a tactical knife from her vest and bent to cut the tie binding her ankles. “Are you able to turn around so I can cut your hands free? We don’t have much time.”
Munira nodded and struggled to her knees. Leine reached behind her and slit the hard plastic tie, releasing the young woman’s wrists. Leine sheathed the knife as she straightened and held out her hand. The young woman grasped it and pulled herself to her feet. She was tall, though not as tall as Leine, with dark hair that fell to the middle of her back. Leine scanned the room for something to cover the fifteen-year-old.
“What did these men use to dress you?” Leine didn’t think the traffickers would risk taking her from place to place dressed in lingerie.
Munira nodded at the sheet covering the mattress. “This.” She picked up the pale blue fabric and began to wrap it around herself.
“This is taking too much time,” Hamid muttered from the doorway. “We must hurry.”
Leine helped her secure the ends of the makeshift abaya and led her toward the door, giving a wide berth to the dead gunmen. Hamid checked the passageway in both directions before giving the all clear and exiting the room. Leine and Munira followed him down the stairs to the first level.
Leine protected the rear as they advanced to the arched doorway leading to the rest of the medina. Hamid scanned the outside corridor and motioned that it was safe to exit the courtyard. She turned, intending to follow them, when a man with an assault rifle slung over his shoulder appeared on the upper floor, headed for the room with the dead gunmen. His eyes met Leine’s and alarm swept across his face. He scrambled to raise his weapon.
“Eleven o’clock!” Leine yelled and pushed Munira behind her as she aimed the MP-5 at the trafficker. Hamid was faster and fired a prolonged burst, chewing up the tile near the gunman’s feet. The man dove for cover before returning fire.
“Go!” Hamid yelled, ejecting the spent magazine and jacking in another.
Leine grabbed Munira and propelled her through the archway into the maze of the medina. They raced down the corridor through the twists and turns of the old city, retracing the route Leine had memorized on the way in.
“What’s happening?” Lou’s voice came over the mic. “Leine? Hamid?”
“A third gunman,” Leine replied. “Hamid’s engaged, but he should be right behind us. I’ve got her, Lou. We’ll be at the square in under five.”
“Roger that.”
A short time later, the two women emerged from the medina into a small, empty square bookended by two large gates, one of which was open. The sound of tires on gravel filtered through the crisp morning air as an armored SUV screamed through the open gate, coming to an abrupt stop next to them. Dust enveloped the square as the back door opened, revealing Lou Stokes, the silver-haired director for Stop Human Enslavement Now.
“Get in.”
Heart hammering in her chest, she shepherded Munira into the back seat. The traumatized look on the young woman’s face stabbed Leine in the heart. No one should have to endure what she’s been through.
Lou barked into the mic. “Hamid, what’s your ETA?”
There was no answer.
“Hamid?” he repeate
d.
Leine’s stomach twisted as she checked her watch. He should have been here by now. Unease wound its way up her spine.
“I’m going back.” She turned and started for the corridor.
“Almost there.” Hamid’s voice echoed in her earpiece.
Relief swept through her, and Leine let out the breath she’d been holding. She’d never been so happy to hear someone’s voice. Hamid staggered through the archway, gripping his shoulder. Blood saturated his left arm.
Leine slid her knife free as she met him and cut the straps holding his pack. It fell to the ground.
“It’s just a flesh wound,” he quipped, but his pale face and the obvious blood loss told her otherwise. Shouldering the pack, she helped him into the cargo space of the SUV and climbed in beside him as the driver peeled out of the square.
“I’ve got a surgeon standing by at the safe house,” Lou said.
Unzipping the front of the pack, she pulled out Hamid’s medical kit. Alert for signs of shock, she applied a tourniquet to slow the bleeding and packed the wound with clotting agent and gauze. Munira peered over the back of the seat, her eyes wide.
“He’ll be fine,” Leine said, trying to put her at ease. She couldn’t imagine the horror she’d been through. Not only had she been taken from her home in northern Iraq by the terrorist group Izz Al-Din and brutally abused by its fighters, when they’d tired of her she’d been sold to sex traffickers.
Satisfied the bleeding in Hamid’s shoulder had stopped, Leine repacked the kit and stashed it inside his pack.
Lou studied Leine. “You okay?”
She nodded. “Yeah. No worries. I think I stopped the bleeding.” She leaned over and placed a hand on Hamid’s cheek. His skin was cool but not clammy, and his respiration was normal. Relieved that he appeared to be stable, she leaned back and smiled kindly at Munira, who was crying softly. “You’re safe now. Everything’s going to be fine.”
But of course things wouldn’t be fine. Yes, her body would heal, but would Munira be able to live a normal life? Or would she, like thousands before her, take her own life rather than live with the shame of what had been done to her?
Leine leaned her head back and closed her eyes. She’d been here before. The disturbing image of tears streaming down the young woman’s bruised and battered face and the unfathomable desolation that had settled in her eyes would haunt Leine for years to come.
***
Fifteen minutes after the extraction, they reached the clinic where Hamid’s surgical team waited. While they prepped him for surgery, Leine accompanied Munira to an examination room where a kindly nurse attended to the young woman’s injuries and prescribed medication for a severe bladder infection. As soon as the nurse signed off allowing her to travel, Munira would be flown to another facility in Turkey, where she’d be reassessed and monitored, and would participate in a psychiatric evaluation that included individual and group sessions.
Leine had pushed for SHEN to include follow-up care for the victims they rescued. The first several months after the mission were critical for successful reentry into the women’s family and culture. For a large percentage of rescued women, unacknowledged societal and emotional stressors often proved to be their undoing. With new tools in place to help them cope, tragedy could often be avoided.
She said her goodbyes to Munira and promised to keep in touch. Exhausted from the mission, Leine hitched a ride with Lou to the safe house to get some rest. On the way, she gave her cell phone a cursory glance and noticed a text from Janice, a friend who was working at a refugee camp near the Libyan-Egyptian border. Their unusual schedules made being on the same continent, much less the same country, a rare occurrence, and they’d been trying to figure out a way to get together for the last few days.
Too tired to think of a coherent reply, Leine put her phone away. She’d get back to her after she got some much-needed rest.
Chapter 2
Refugee camp, Libyan-Egyptian border
It was the screaming that woke her.
Janice had gotten used to the bombs, could sleep through the sporadic shelling that came within a mile of the camp. But not the screams. She fumbled for her glasses on the makeshift nightstand and lurched to her feet.
Not again.
Steadying herself, she groped to button her pants—she’d taken to wearing her clothes to bed since the last attack—then stepped into her boots. She didn’t take the time to lace them. Amorphous shadows danced before her, forming grotesque figures on the walls of her tent.
Fire.
The screams speared her heart, making it hard to breathe. Who’d been hurt—or killed—this time? Grabbing a flashlight from underneath her cot, she tore out of the tent and raced toward the wall of flames to join the others as they scrambled to salvage what they could of the field hospital.
They did it again. The bastards just bombed another refugee hospital.
Dr. Richard Evans, still in his scrubs with a stethoscope dangling from his neck, motioned her over. The calm intensity of the young surgeon’s expression belied the panic radiating off him.
“Two patients are recuperating in the triage area. We’ve got to get them out.” Earlier that day they’d run out of space in the recovery unit hidden yards away beneath a still-intact tarp of desert camouflage and left the last two patients where they had room—the surgical unit.
Please let them be all right.
“Here—take this.” The doctor handed her an empty fire extinguisher and started for the blazing structure.
“Wait—” Janice grasped his arm as fire billowed from beneath the tent roof. Sections of tarp were fast becoming skeletal remains of what had once been a serviceable operating room. Camp personnel edged closer with fire extinguishers and buckets of water, but the intensity of the flames held them back. Ordinarily shelling didn’t produce so much fire. The bomb must have destroyed one of the oxygen units. Janice glanced toward the east. Eyes wide with fear, a group of refugees stood nearby, watching.
Just then, one of the patients staggered from the blaze and collapsed to all fours. Hacking and choking, his hospital gown slid off his shoulders to reveal his bare back. Two medics rushed to help him.
Dr. Evans broke from her grasp and raced toward the operating tent.
“No, Richard. The oxygen tanks—”
An explosion shook the ground and a plume of smoke rocketed skyward, blotting out the stars and illuminating the bleak landscape of row upon row of white tents, sand, and more sand.
“Correction,” the doctor replied, his tone bleak. “What oxygen tanks?” His shoulders sagged as he watched the voracious flames consume what was left of the structure.
Someone shouted as the burning effigy of a man appeared at the far end of the tent pushing a gurney holding one of the patients. He staggered a short distance before he collapsed to the ground. Janice sprinted to him as the doctor rushed to check on the patient. Someone handed her a blanket and she threw it over the man, rolling him in it to suffocate the fire.
“It’s Ahmed,” she said to the person beside her, her voice catching. Ahmed was the Egyptian liaison and translator who doubled as an administrative genie, dealing with the forms and red tape thrown at them by their host country. He was also Dr. Evans’s good friend.
“Jesus. Quick, take him to my tent,” Evans said. “I’ve got supplies. We can work on him there.” He nodded at two men dressed in scrubs standing nearby.
“Do you need me?” Janice had trained as an emergency medical responder and usually did triage.
The doctor nodded at the patient on the gurney. “He’s stable, but you need to get him to a safe area.” He turned to the two men, both senior trauma nurses. “Let’s go.” The three of them grasped the edges of the blanket and hoisted Ahmed, now mercifully unconscious, and carried him away.
Janice pushed the patient to the camouflaged recovery section and checked his vitals. He’d survive, as long as the shell
ing stopped. She alerted on-duty personnel that he was there before racing to help the others transfer buckets of brackish river water in an attempt to douse the raging inferno.
Half an hour later, nothing remained of the operating tent except the misshapen, blackened metal of what had once been a generator. Janice and the rest of the group watched in silence as the remaining structure gave way and collapsed into a smoldering pile of ashes.
“Why target us?” Marcy, fresh from an internship at a prestigious hospital in San Francisco and the camp’s new recruit, stood nearby with her arms crossed, a deep frown creasing her pretty features. Janice had been glad when Marcy joined the group—in a male-dominated organization such as this one another woman with whom to commiserate was a welcome change.
Janice shook her head. “I don’t know. I want to believe it was a mistake, that someone got the coordinates wrong, but after three years in this place I doubt it.” What earthly reason would either side in this endless, brutal conflict have to demolish a medical facility that only took care of refugees? In all the time she’d been with the group, they hadn’t helped anyone even remotely connected to the Libyan National Army or the terrorists. Not that they would have turned away someone who was injured, but treating them would have been the exception.
“Whatever happened to international law?” Marcy asked. “Don’t sick and wounded people have rights?”
“You mean the Geneva Conventions?” Janice scoffed. “They don’t mean shit in this part of the world.”
Janice was about ready to hang up her long-held dream of helping the victims of war. No matter how hard she tried to convince herself that she made a difference, the incessant doubts erased whatever positive feelings she garnered from doing the work. It was hard to stay upbeat and positive when three-quarters of patients treated at the hospital were sick and starving children, or amputees who’d been on the wrong side of an improvised explosive device.
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