As he closed in on the target, Seth kept low and advanced slowly. Five hundred meters ahead, a shack rose up out of the swamp, looking like something out of Deliverance. He’d be so unsurprised to hear banjo music starting any second. If he were with his old team, Bowie, his spotter, would have even hummed a few bars from the famously creepy “Dueling Banjos” scene and they would have shared a silent laugh over it.
But Bowie was dead.
So was the rest of his old team.
Now here he was, slogging through a swamp without a spotter, doing what was normally a two-person job by himself. All for a new team that didn’t accept or trust him.
Yet, he reminded himself. They’d come around.
The shack was quiet. No movement. Intel said two HTs—hostage takers—were supposedly arriving with their principal at 1400. Their mission was to neutralize the HTs and get the hostage out. It had to be quick and quiet, and they had to be en route to their exfil before dark.
Seth shimmied closer, now less than four hundred meters from the place, and found a good firing position behind a thick, half-rotted log. Stretching out flat on his belly, he used some of the local flora to cover himself and his rifle.
Then he settled in for a wait.
The buzzing of bugs got louder, almost deafening, and he suspected a swarm had gathered over his head, but he didn’t look away from his scope to confirm his suspicion. A half hour into the watch something with many legs crawled across his back, and the mud coating him from head to foot started to really fucking sting. Still, he didn’t move a muscle.
He waited. Watched. Listened. Just as he’d been trained to do in sniper school.
Remaining alert and vigilant during long stretches of inaction was always the hardest part of a sniper’s mission. He’d never had much problem with it before, but…well, yeah, that was before. Now it took everything he had in him not to fidget or give in to the creeping sense of paranoia that made him want to glance around. He knew there was nobody behind him. Every sense he had told him so. But his heart raced and his gut told him he had to check, had to make sure. He hated having his back open to attack. That was how he’d lost his original team.
The sound of a motor caught his attention, drawing it away from the constant, nagging paranoia. Relief coursed through him. Finally something else to focus on. He scanned the trees through his scope.
Nothing. No boat, although the sound continued to get closer. And then, there it was. An airboat skimming over the murky water, clearing a copse of trees and easing up to the shore near the shack.
Two HTs, just as their intel had said. One operating the boat, one scanning the surroundings holding an AK-47, both wearing camo and face paint.
“Alpha One to Alpha Two,” Seth whispered, finally breaking the radio silence. “I have eyes on two HTs arriving by boat. No sign of the hostage.”
“Roger that,” Jean-Luc’s voice said in his ear.
“Are you in position, Alpha Two?”
“Affirmative.”
“Hold your position.” And just like that, as the words left his lips, they transported him out of the swamp. He heard himself screaming those words, the command echoing around between his ears. “Hold your positions!”
The heat surrounding him no longer moved through his lungs like soup—instead, it was a dry heat, like breathing sand, parching his throat with each inhale. The buzzing in his ears wasn’t from bugs, but from bullets as they rained down on his stranded Humvee from overhead. His remaining men—Bowie, Link, Rey, Cordero—scrambled to find cover and return fire. Lance Corporal Joe McMahon was already dead, slumped over the steering wheel.
“Seth!” Omar Cordero’s panicked voice filled his head. “We’re under attack. Holy shit! There’s hundreds of them.”
“I got no comms, sir,” Link shouted.
“Your orders?” Rey asked. Young and terrified, he was all but shaking in his boots.
Seth hadn’t expected the ambush, hadn’t prepared his men for the possibility of it. And with their vehicle disabled by an RPG, they were sitting ducks as another wave of insurgents swarmed down the mountain.
Dammit, they couldn’t hold their positions. “Fall back! Get to higher ground!”
“Go,” Bowie said. “I’ll draw their fire. Go, go, go!”
“Alpha One? Alpha One, do you copy?”
Jean-Luc’s voice in his ear brought Seth slamming back to the here and now with dizzying force. His breath sawed in and out of his lungs and a cold, sticky sweat coated his skin, raising goose bumps despite the muggy swamp air.
Fuck.
By sheer force of will, he quieted his breathing, quashed the lingering fear and horror. His paranoia had amped up to terror alert level red, but he was not going to give in to his mind’s games and look behind him. At this point, any unnecessary movement could give him away.
He. Could. Do. This.
“One to Two,” he said and his voice sounded like he’d scoured his throat with glass shards. He didn’t bother clearing away the hoarseness. “I didn’t copy. Say again. Over.”
“I have visual confirmation of our hostage. Do you want to engage?”
Seth refocused on his scope. The two HTs pulled a hooded figure up out of the boat and all but threw him over the edge. He stumbled when he landed and face-planted in the swamp mud until his captors yanked him upright again. The guy jerked against the ropes binding his hands, tried to break free and run. His shoulders heaved under a wet and muddy business shirt like he couldn’t catch his breath.
“Alpha One, do you want to engage?”
Another breath. In and out. Goddammit. He had to focus. He was not the captive here, but if this was a real situation, he was the only thing standing between the hostage and the kind of memories that kept a man up playing online poker all night. He scanned the distance, calculated, and wished like hell he had a spotter to double-check his calculations. He had a shot.
“One to Two, move in.”
All right. Moment of truth.
Seth’s heart pounded so hard he heard nothing but the thudding rush of blood in his ears. Cold sweat ran like a river down his spine, but he forced his hands to steady as he checked the scope, adjusted the dials one last time, and sank into his prone position until his bones held him up rather than his muscles. His rifle rested in a natural groove on the log in front of him. Ready. Waiting for his command to do its job.
He took aim, breathed deep. In and out. In and out. He had the HT directly in the crosshairs. All he had to do was breathe and let the rifle take over. Breathe and tighten…his…finger.
Something round dug into the base of his skull.
Arctic water spilled through his veins, sending racking shivers through his body. He knew the feeling of a gun barrel against his head all too well, had lived with it day in and day out for fifteen months, wondering every time if it would be the last time his captors tormented him with the possibility of death.
“Bang,” his attacker said, and he flinched. The muzzle lifted away from his head and Ian Reinhardt stood over him, usual scowl firmly in place. “You’re dead, Harlan. So’s your team. Again. You gotta hold the record for most teams killed by one operator.”
The door to the shack burst open and Gabe Bristow limped out into the clearing without his cane. “Reinhardt, enough.”
Ian grunted and shouldered his paintball gun. “Boss man’s coming to your rescue yet again, noob. When will you grow some fucking balls and stand up for yourself?”
Seth climbed to his feet. “Back off, Reinhardt.”
“Or what? You’ll put a bullet in me? You miss half the damn time.” Ian scoffed. “Where’s the Hero Sniper the media went on and on about? ’Cause I sure as fuck haven’t seen him.”
A sour taste filled Seth’s mouth as it always did when someone mentioned the extensive news coverage of his rescue. Half the news outlets had lauded him as some kind of hero and the other half had rifled through his past, looking for any speck of dirt they could find. Some of
the more heartless tabloids—one in particular—had even insinuated he had gone AWOL and killed his men, and the whole rescue was all a giant government conspiracy to cover up his crimes.
Fucking reporters. He had no love for them.
“Reinhardt!” Gabe said again, his voice all Navy SEAL commander. “Hit the deck and give me a hundred. Now.”
“Yes, sir.” Ian flashed a grin full of malice and almost cheerfully dropped into the push-up position right there in the mud.
As Ian counted out the reps, Seth scanned the remnants of their training mission as the rest of the team converged on the clearing.
Harvard, who had been playing the part of the hostage, stood beside Marcus Deangelo and Jesse Warrick, the two HTs. Jean-Luc emerged from the underbrush without any paint on him to indicate he’d been hit, but that wouldn’t have lasted. Seth was supposed to have been Jean-Luc’s lookout and also provide cover fire. Without him, Jean-Luc was as good as dead.
“All right, gentlemen,” Gabe said, addressing the group as Quinn, the team’s XO, came out of the shack where he and Gabe had been watching from monitors. “What went wrong?”
“The Hero Sniper wasn’t aware of his surroundings,” Ian said between push-ups. He paused in the up position and added, “I’d been tracking him for two klicks, ever since he bit it in the mud. Stood right behind him for a good ten minutes. He never noticed.”
Seth’s stomach dropped as Gabe’s gaze landed on him. He lifted his chin and faced his commander, careful not to let any of the guilt swirling around inside him show on his face. “I fucked up.”
“Yeah, Harlan. You did.”
“I didn’t listen to my instincts. Won’t happen next time.”
Gabe made a noncommittal sound and addressed the entire team. “Pack up, gentlemen. We’re done here for today.”
There were a lot of good-natured jabs, some cursing, and some laughter as everyone headed toward the boat. Seth shouldered his rifle and followed in the group’s wake. Nobody spoke to him, which was A-okay as far as he was concerned. He got the feeling deep in his gut—and fuck him if he’d ignore it again—that Gabe’s dismissive attitude meant he’d screwed up one too many times for the former SEAL’s liking.
He was done.
Chapter Three
Niazi Village, Afghanistan
As the sun sank behind snow-frosted mountain ridges in the distance, Phoebe Leighton raised her camera and stared through the lens. Her finger hovered over the shutter release, but she didn’t snap the photo. It wasn’t the right shot. Not yet.
The valley below was dry and cold with the approaching winter, and the pink-gold rays of the sun caught on particles of dirt in the air, streaking the sky with wide dust motes. Shadows cast by the mountains lengthened, spilling darkness over the valley. Still, she waited. She didn’t know what for—never did until she saw it.
There.
A lone farmer trudged up the hillside to the skeleton of an abandoned tank left over from the war between the Soviet Union and the mujahideen fighters. A scruffy herding dog bounded in his wake, and when he paused to tie the animal up to what was left of the main gun, her gut told her that was the shot she’d been waiting for. She pressed the shutter release and snapped several quick photos in succession.
Dramatic. Haunting. A dichotomy of past and present, perfectly representative of this beautiful, rugged country caught in a war between tradition and modernization.
Lowering the camera, she stared past the man and his dog at the village. Somewhere down there, a very brave sixteen-year-old girl was standing up for her rights, rights that little girls in America took for granted. Already Phoebe was amazed by young Tehani Niazi and she had yet to meet her.
“You ready? We don’t want to be up in these hills after dark.”
Phoebe glanced over her shoulder at Zina Ojanpura, an American relief worker who planned to take the girl to a shelter in Kabul. Zina was a pretty woman with long pale-blond hair and vivid green eyes made all the brighter by the red-and-gold scarf wrapped around her head.
On impulse, Phoebe lifted her camera, her gut telling her this was another photo she’d been waiting for.
Snap.
Against the backdrop of the rocky, ragged landscape, Zina was a striking picture. A collision of East and West—just like the war that had ravaged this country for far too many years.
Zina made a face. “I really wish you wouldn’t do that.”
“Then stop being so freaking gorgeous. I mean, seriously, nobody should look like a runway model after trekking through the mountains for three days.” Phoebe tucked her camera away in her bag and adjusted her own scarf to recover the mess of kinky, frizzy red hair that she’d given up trying to tame two days ago. “All right. Let’s go meet Tehani.”
Zina nodded and led the way back to their guides, two of the local district’s police officers, who waited impatiently with their little caravan of horses. Phoebe wasn’t entirely comfortable on horseback but there were no roads in this part of the country so the only available mode of transportation had four legs and hooves. And a horse was definitely preferable to a donkey.
“I’m glad Tehani’s family contacted us,” Zina said as they guided their mounts down the hill. “It’s progress at least. They could have just as easily forced her to go back to her husband.”
Sixteen years old and already married. It was disgusting and happened far more than the rest of the world knew. But maybe Tehani’s story would be the one to finally reach Western ears. Maybe this brave girl would be the vehicle for change.
“Thanks again for inviting me along,” Phoebe said, pulling her mount up alongside Zina’s mare. “I really appreciate it.”
“No, the appreciation is mine. I admire your work and what you’re trying to do for these women. You tell their stories with no bias, no agenda. Honestly, it’s refreshing. Nowadays, wartime journalism is almost as corrupt as—well, the Afghan government.”
“My work?” She scoffed. “Girl, I’m just a storyteller. It’s your work that’s making the difference here. Girls like Tehani wouldn’t have anyone to turn to if not for you. The things your group has accomplished in such a short time are amazing. Courageous. Selfless. And that’s why I take your picture. When I look at you, I see all that and I want my audience to see it, too.”
Zina’s cheeks filled with a pretty shade of pink and dang it, she wished she had her camera out. Talk about selfless—a photo of that fleeting moment would have perfectly captured the essence of Zina Ojanpura and the women’s shelter she’d single-handedly founded.
Oh well.
Some moments were too perfect to capture in a photo.
Phoebe scanned the mud homes as they emerged into the village by the community well. The houses were almost stacked one on top of the other, often with little more than a blanket covering each front door. Still, this wasn’t a sleepy place with everyone tucked up inside out of fear. Kids raced up and down the hill, kicking a ball. Mothers sat in doorways watching their older children with weary eyes while soothing fussy infants and sewing. In front of one of the homes, old men huddled together around a well-loved chessboard, smoking and laughing. She didn’t see many able-bodied men and assumed they were up in the hills with their goats. Or, possibly, they had joined the Taliban, which was still very much alive in these hills. Or, even worse, they had become opium runners.
How many of these exhausted women were opium widows? She hated to guess.
“Here we are,” Zina said after a quick conversation with their police escorts, and stopped her horse in front of one crumbling house. A man stood in the doorway, his skin tanned and wrinkled, leathered from the unmerciful Afghan climate. He eyed them both with suspicion.
“Salaam alaikum,” Zina said and dismounted. Phoebe followed suit, but let the relief worker take the lead. She was only here to document what happened and did her best to fade into the background.
“Are you here to take my sister?” the man asked.
Phoebe felt
her eyebrows climb toward her hairline. Sister? Wow. She’d pegged the man for an uncle from the looks of him.
She lifted her camera. “May I?” she asked in Pashto.
He eyed her with open suspicion, but then his face lit up when he spotted the camera. He nodded and grinned, striking a pose against the door. His gap-toothed smile showed his youth in a way that his weathered looks couldn’t.
Snap.
“We’ve come from Kabul. From the women’s shelter,” Zina explained.
The old-looking young man nodded, his smile vanishing. “She will be safe there.”
Their conversation started drawing attention from the others in the village. The group of old men had stopped laughing and watched them with disapproving frowns.
Under the weight of their stares, Tehani’s brother shuffled his feet nervously. He motioned to the house. “Come. It’s not safe to talk here.”
The main room was small with an ornate carpet spread over the floor and pillows scattered along the walls. A woman sat on one pillow, her chador wrapped around her head to cover all but her eyes. In her lap sat a toddler boy, watching everything with innocent fascination. She poured chai into small cups and passed them out to everyone in the room. Usually the chai ritual included small talk before getting down to business, but they were apparently nervous enough to eschew that part of the custom.
“My wife, Darya,” Tehani’s brother said. “And son. I am Nemat. I will get Tehani. We’ve been hiding her.” He disappeared through a doorway draped with a floral-printed sheet.
Phoebe took the opportunity to ask the woman if she would mind having her picture taken. She nodded, but was shy about it and wouldn’t look directly at the camera. Nothing usable for the story, but the photos would make nice additions to Phoebe’s personal collection.
Honor Reclaimed Page 2