“It was Uncle Roan in the dually. He’s okay, too. Where’s your mother? Why didn’t somebody stop you?” The strained note in Clay’s voice was an indication of his fear that their quarry might have someone eluded them and penetrated the house.
“She’s inside. I was running really fast. Jake came after me because he told April and Chloe that he’d watch me. But then, oh, but then…”
“I thought I heard Chloe just now,” Wade said.
“She came after us because Mama can’t run fast with the baby inside her. I heard her calling me but hadn’t found you yet and didn’t want to go back. Then Jake caught up, just before the bad man came.” Her voice broke on a sob. “Oh, Daddy, it’s all my fault!”
Clay went to one knee in front of her. “Take a deep breath, sweetheart. Then tell us exactly what happened.”
“Jake,” she said, the word jerked from her by a hiccuping attempt to follow his instructions. “These men were in the bushes, two of them. They caught us, but Jake fought them so they turned me loose. He told me to run, but I saw the big one hit him really hard. Jake fell down and they picked him up and carried him off. Then Chloe found me. I told her about Jake, and she said that she would see about him. She said I should go this way and find you as fast as I could.”
“What did she do then?” The words were sharper than Wade intended, but he couldn’t help it.
“I don’t know. When I looked back, she wasn’t there!”
“Take Lainey on back to the house, Clay,” Roan said, his voice deadly quiet as he stepped from a dense tree shadow. “I’ll go with Wade.”
“I don’t want to go back,” Lainey cried. “I have to find Jake. He took care of me, and now I have to help him.”
“You did your part. You found us, sweetheart,” Clay said. “Now we have to go home.”
He ended the argument by picking her up and carrying her. Wade and Roan moved with him for a short distance then peeled off, circling in the direction from which Lainey had come.
Wade moved in a rage so consuming that he lost all contact with notions of time or distance. Operating on finely honed instinct, he saw little except what was directly in front of him. He was aware of Roan beside him, knew his objective, but little more than that. He had become the machine that he’d once been trained to be, and was grateful for it.
He was grateful because the alternative was to recognize the fear that ran beneath his surface preoccupation. He was passionately afraid that he was going to be too late. To admit that was something he couldn’t afford. Jake’s life, and Chloe’s, might depend on how well he was able to ignore it.
Abruptly they reached the woods’ edge with the rear of the house looming in the darkness. Just in front of them lay the old Indian mound where he’d played knights and soldiers as a kid.
A man-made hill of earth worn down through the centuries to less than a tenth its original size, it was kept clear of trees and brush because of its supposed historical value. A root cellar and storm shelter had been dug into one side and fitted with a heavy door in the old days, when Native American sites were so plentiful that no one gave them a thought. The heavy door had been wedged open for years, had certainly been open earlier while Lainey and the other kids used it for a playhouse. Now it sagged on its hinges, almost shut.
He and Roan weren’t alone in the tangled undergrowth of saw briers, wild myrtle and huckleberries. Wade was as certain of that as he was of the moon just rising into the sky. He was sure even before he caught sight of Chloe standing a short distance away. A slim figure in the moonlit darkness, she turned toward him and he saw the white mask of desperation that was her face.
“Ahmad is in there, isn’t he?” he asked, the words so harsh he barely recognized them as coming from his own throat.
“I suppose it looked familiar.”
She meant, he thought, that it resembled the caves of Hazaristan, the bunkers of choice during centuries of warfare. “And Jake?”
“He’s there, too.”
Roan stepped forward. “Alive?”
“They wouldn’t have bothered with him otherwise.”
She had a point, though it wasn’t one Wade wanted to examine in detail. Jake’s father, he was sure, would be even less willing.
Judging from the sounds in the woods behind them, the others were moving in their general direction. They must have cleared out the missing jihadis. The whole group would be on the scene in a few short minutes. Whether that would force Ahmad to act or prevent it was anybody’s guess. Waiting to find out was not an option.
Wade looked at Roan. His cousin nodded. Then he swung toward the mound and raised a shout.
“Ahmad! We know you’re in there. Come out now!”
No answer came for long seconds. Wade lined up the Pashtu phrases in his mind to repeat Roan’s message. Then Ahmad spoke with a second voice trailing his words in translation, that of the man Chloe had called Ismael.
“Come out where you can kill us, infidel? We are not so stupid.”
Roan hefted the 30-06 he carried. “It’s the only way you might stay alive.”
“Life or death is of no importance if we carry Benedicts with us,” came the reply in a singsong rhythm like something learned by rote. “What matters is holy vengeance and family honor.”
It was Wade who answered that. “Benedicts know a thing or two about honor, my friend, since we’ve done our share of breast-beating over it. It’s a strange brand that needs the blood of women and children to satisfy it.”
“You are an ignorant American who knows nothing and understands less. Our people were wearing silk and jewels and discussing the mathematical probabilities of the universe when yours were still worshiping trees and painting their faces blue.”
“And what does that matter when you act the patsy for megalomaniacs who think history can be reversed and the worn-out glory of Islam returned? Your kind would rather destroy modern civilization than admit that you can’t keep up with it. I may be an ignorant American, but I live in freedom while you think it’s only a word. I know that you pervert the teachings of Mohammed to legitimize murder without understanding that you can’t build future greatness in a graveyard.”
“Enough!”
“The truth bother you?” Wade jeered. “Tough. It’s time somebody pointed it out.”
“Wade, please,” Chloe said, her voice not quite even.
He was pushing it, he knew, but holding Ahmad’s attention seemed better than letting it return to the boy who shared the dark cellar with that madman.
“I have no need to listen to you,” Ahmad said through Ismael. “We have explosives, more than enough to blow a crater big enough to swallow you and everyone near this place. This pile of earth will become the graveyard of us all, Benedict.”
“Ahmad, no,” Chloe called, stepping from the shelter of the trees. “You don’t have to do this.”
Wade reached out and caught her arm, snatching her back to safety. Chloe flinched, stumbling, and he steadied her with a firm grasp on her upper arms. She stared up at him for a second with all the terror and fury inside her glittering in her eyes. Then she wrenched away from him.
Just behind them, men began to drift in from all directions, a quiet congregating in case of need. Wade glanced around, spotting Adam. “We have two holed up here,” he said as he caught his attention. “You got the others?”
“One dead, one captured. Hopewell was tying the one still alive to a tree when I left.”
Wade nodded. Hopewell was Johnnie’s husband, the nurse who had inadvertently given Chloe a lift earlier. A good old boy of the first order, he could be trusted to make sure the jihadi stayed out of the action.
“Any of ours down?” he asked.
“One, a leg wound.”
“Could be worse,” Wade said. “And may get that way yet, since we have a situation here.” He outlined the details, then invited suggestions.
“We could rush ’em,” somebody said from the back. “It would be over before
they know it.”
“It’ll be over all right, you danged idiot,” came an irate answer. “Didn’t you hear the part about them blowing us to kingdom come?”
Nat materialized out of the undergrowth just then. “No windows in that place, right? No exit except the one door?”
“Right,” Wade answered, grateful that somebody appeared to be bending serious brainpower to the problem.
“No water source, I suppose, no food. We could starve them out if we knew we had the time.”
“We don’t.”
“Right. About all I see is a flanking action, send a detail around to come up from behind, then storm the door at the same time.”
Wade had already considered and discarded that option. “Too risky.”
“For the boy, yeah,” Nat agreed. “But you don’t have much choice here. It’s one life against a chance for the whole clan.”
That same conclusion burned like a hot coal in Wade’s mind. He couldn’t seem to get a good breath. The urge to smash something or someone was so violent that it took most of his willpower to control it. He dragged air into his chest through flared nostrils, before he said, “I can’t make that decision.”
“Somebody has to.”
“No,” Chloe said in simple contradiction. “No, they don’t.”
Wade thought for a second that her objection was a purely emotional reaction. Then something in her voice snagged his attention. “What are you saying?”
“Ahmad might come out if you use the right bait.”
“I don’t think so.” What he meant was that he refused to consider it since he had an idea what she was getting at.
“He did once.”
“Yeah, and look what happened.”
She shook her hair back as she faced him. “It’s worth a try. He’s here because of me.”
“And me.”
“You’re secondary. I’m the one he blames for the stain on his family honor. I’m the one who corrupted his sister, or so he believes. He has promised a more personal revenge for me, so he may be enticed to send out Jake in exchange, or even leave himself open to your fire.”
“No.” It was all he could think of to say, all she had left him with her soul-chilling logic.
She watched him, her eyes dark and fathomless. Her voice when she spoke was entirely too self-contained. “You have no choice, not really. Shall I speak to Ahmad? Or will you offer the substitution man to man, as if I have no value compared to one who shares your blood and your name?”
20
Chloe waited with a suspended feeling inside her chest for Wade’s answer. No particular motive for her question had been in her mind, and yet more than her life seemed to depend on his answer. Her sense of who and what she was, her whole worth as a person and her reason for existence was wrapped up in it. Everything she had done and the reasons for it would be affirmed or denied with what he said to her now.
“I won’t do that,” he said in tones of iron. “I can’t. If it has to be this way, then it’s up to you.”
It was the reply she needed. The gladness of it bloomed inside her, giving her strength and purpose. She had no idea if what she intended would succeed, but she had to try. And if she failed, it would still be worth it to know that for a few short minutes she had been valued as the equal of any male, or any Benedict man or woman.
Swinging toward the dark wedge that was the cellar doorway, she called out. “Ahmad, my brother? Attend to me. What shall I tell these Americans of you before we die? Is there nothing that you want them to know? Are there no last words you would say?”
“Do you imagine that I need such as you are to speak for me?”
The arrogance and prejudice she had expected were there in his words, and the contempt. That was good. “Someone must since you have no eloquence, no poetry at your command. Perhaps Ismael, who has both, will find words for you as well as translate them?”
“Ismael is nothing. He has fallen from grace and seeks only redemption.”
“So you say,” she returned, her voice reflective. “Yet he is a man. He has enjoyed a wife, fathered children. He has loved and been loved. His name will live on as yours will not.”
“Silence, whore!”
Behind her, Chloe could hear whispering and muttering. The Benedicts might not understand the spoken words, but the threat in Ahmad’s answers was plain enough. They feared she might anger her stepbrother so much that the world around them would disappear in a billow of fire and destruction. So she might, but it would happen without fail if she stopped.
Wade moved to stand beside her. His voice quiet, he said, “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“So do I.” She closed her eyes and swallowed hard, tasting suppressed tears. “Ahmad might not notice if you and the others leave one or two at a time.”
“Leave?”
“Or at least get back out of the way as far as possible. Just in case.”
“That won’t help you.”
She didn’t answer because there was nothing to be said. Moving closer to the cellar door as a distraction for any retreat by the others, she lifted her voice again.
“All women are whores to you because of the teaching of the mullahs, Ahmad, or so Treena said before she died. Can it be you despise us so much because they forced you to become one of us? Did you kill Treena because she knew it.”
“It was for honor!” he thundered in answer. “But you will die as she did, for the disease of sedition that you carry and because you have no respect for anything that is not of your benighted country.”
“By your fine bloody knife, my stepbrother? Come and get me,” she invited with all the mockery she could manage. “If you are man enough!” She could hear the stealthy departure of the Benedict defenders from the darkness behind her. However, neither Wade nor Roan made any move to go. She hated that.
Movement shifted in the shadows of the cellar opening. Chloe could just make out two dark forms, one large and one more slight, as if Ahmad had Jake in front of him as he’d used her as a shield in Turn-Coupe. Another shadow emerged after them that had to be Ismael.
“Such is a woman’s bravery, to talk while hiding behind men with weapons,” Ahmad sneered. “You would not dare without them.”
“You think so? Perhaps it’s not I they protect at all. Perhaps they will leave me to your revenge, if you release the boy? You would do it, would you not, if a mere woman was offered in exchange for a comrade?”
“Don’t be a fool.”
“You are the one who suggested it with your talk of protection. But what can such a test hurt when we are all to die anyway?”
“Chloe,” Wade began.
She stopped him with a sharp gesture, afraid that even a small protest might sway the issue. There was less rustling, less shifting of bodies behind her, as if the Benedicts had drifted back into the woods until only a few were left.
Ahmad gave a sour laugh. “You would never dare come close enough.”
“What do I care?” she asked as she moved forward again. “To die one way is as good as another.”
“Come, then,” he taunted her. “Come taste my knife.”
She took another step, even as she heard Wade breathe a curse. On the periphery of her vision, she saw him raise his rifle as if waiting for any false move from the cellar.
“Release the boy,” she said with a firm lift of her chin. “Then I will close the distance.”
“Come close first. Then I will see.”
“Let Ismael bring him halfway, releasing him when I hold out my hand. That is fair.”
“That is stupid!”
“You let him go then, when Ismael has me. What do you have to lose?” She turned her gaze to Treena’s husband. “Ismael? You accept my suggestion?”
“This I will,” he answered as he stepped fully into the light and inclined his body in a bow as he touched his forehead and then his heart. “I swear it on the memory of my wife who loved you, Chloe Madison, as she would a sister of
her blood.”
That gesture of respect was so much more than she expected that she stared at him in the dimness. Then she saw where his raised hand remained, saw what he was doing.
She knew then. She knew, with the bone-deep chill of terrible foreboding, exactly what was about to happen.
The night was deep and warm around them, the air damp and soft, as they stood in their frozen tableaux. Trees sighed, as if shifting in disturbed sleep. Water lapped, endlessly, at the edge of the lake not far away. Clouds drifted overhead, covering the face of the rising moon with dark splendor. Somewhere a mating frog called then fell silent. Life went on, uncaring. It was nature’s way.
“Ismael,” she began.
“It is fate,” he said, “and is right. As you Americans say so often, it is just. It is fair.”
I have my own personal jihad.
“I think I’ve changed my mind,” she said abruptly.
Ahmad laughed, a harsh sound of irony and scorn.
Ismael only smiled with tenderness spreading across his young, aquiline features. “No, sister of my heart, that will not suffice. Do not fear for me. Consider instead my young daughters who may share their mother’s fate. Think of my family harmed years ago. Remember all you taught us about freedom, Chloe Madison, while you were with us. Think, now, of the many ways there are to be free, and the one that is the ultimate. Come. Now.”
He held out his left hand. With his right that was still at his breast, he unclipped the grenade hanging from the belt that crisscrossed it.
“Don’t!” Wade commanded from behind her.
Was he speaking to her or to Ismael? Did he realize Treena’s husband must be the operative who had infiltrated the al Qaeda? How much did he see? He’d spent years in the Middle East, yet what did he understand of Ismael’s long patience or his reasons that were steeped in ancient laws and traditions? Was it enough? Was it? If so, then he should recoil immediately, putting distance between himself and the cellar while there was still time.
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