“You’re giving yourself too much credit. Wolf is smart; so is his team. Even if they walked into an ambush, I have no doubt they’d get themselves out. I’m here for one reason only, back up. And for the record, you are the enemy, and don’t forget it. No one else has.”
I hated that Zane was right. I had turned into the enemy. As soon as I went along with Timothy Clark’s instructions, I’d turned against the country I’d sworn to protect. My good intentions didn’t matter, I’d given into a terrorist. I’d allowed an innocent woman to be kidnapped and used as a pawn to get her father to comply. The only silver lining was a father and daughter had been reunited or brought together as it were. The Attorney General, Peter Newton, hadn’t known his ex had been hiding a pretty big secret. A child they’d conceived before family obligations had separated them. I may’ve given a Bolivian drug lord information to execute a plan to assassinate another drug lord, but I hadn’t hurt anyone. Olivia was fine, and she’d found the father she never knew. That had to count for something, didn’t it? Or was I simply trying to justify my selfishness with pretending I’d done good deeds?
“Good. You’re back.” Zane’s booming voice pulled me to the present. “Time to go hunting.” Then he turned to Jasmin and whispered something to her I couldn’t hear before he added. “Don’t let her out of your sight. If she tries anything, shoot her. She’s expendable.”
Zane, Eric, Faheem, and Jaxon were at the door when Jaxon turned and stared at me. He looked like he had something to say but remained quiet. With a shake of his head and a chin lift to Jasmin, he followed the other three men out of the hotel room. I was thankful he didn’t say anything before he left. Zane’s words of condemnation were enough.
I tried, but in the end, nothing I had done was enough to save my brother or the others from what I prayed was a quick and painless death. Zane wasn’t going to help, and the government didn’t negotiate with terrorists. I didn’t need the sexy soldier to voice
his opinion as well.
“I have a favor,” I told Jasmin after the door clicked shut. When she raised her eyebrow in question, I continued. “If by the grace of God Declan and the others live, please don’t ever tell him I’m his sister. He had a shit childhood and worked his ass off to get to where he is. He doesn’t deserve to be tied to me. He’s a good man. Please, promise me, he’ll never find out who I am to him.”
Chapter Six
Jaxon
“What the fuck did Tex say?” I asked Zane when we stepped into the hallway.
“That woman is a walking disaster,” he started. “You heard Tex; he verified Manuel Ortega has indeed put the list on the black market. He’s taking bids on it now. He also has feelers out for the sale of the drone’s guidance chip.”
“And? We knew that. What changed? What else did Tex say?”
“Wolf’s not the target. She is,” Zane informed us.
“Come again? He didn’t need to get her to Africa to put a hit out on her,” Eric said.
“He doesn’t want her dead. He’s selling her too. A fresh, pretty, healthy, American woman calls for a hefty price on the open market. Two birds, one stone. He gets rid of her and gets roughly five million. Once she’s bought and trafficked, no one will ever find her. Wekesa is a low-level player, no one Wolf would worry about. My guess, Manuel didn’t anticipate she’d come to us. He thought she’d come to Sudan alone. Wekesa’s specialty is trafficking; she was the prize all along.”
“Fuck!” This kept on getting worse. “Can Tex get a lock on where Manuel is?” I asked.
“He’s working on it. We’ll find Wolf and the guys, then hunt down whatever hole Manuel is hiding in. Tex thinks he’s close to figuring it out.”
Thank God for Tex. We had our own information specialist, Garrett, but Tex had skills that were second to none. I had no idea where he’d learned them, or how he’d made the connections he had, but they’d come in handy many times.
“And Violet? What are we doing with her?” I knew Zane, under normal circumstances he’d never allow a woman to be harmed. Especially not be sold into the dark world of sex trafficking, but at the moment I was afraid my boss would throw her to the wolves.
“She stays with us until we can figure out what is going on. I don’t know who we can trust,” he replied, and I exhaled the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
I shouldn’t have felt personally responsible for Violet, but I did. As wrong as it was, she stirred something deep in my gut. She was loyal and protective to a fault. It was asinine I felt that way, considering she was traitor. From the outside it was easy - cut and dry, black and white, she was wrong. Yet it wasn’t, the situation was tinged with gray. I wasn’t comfortable with the hue. I liked things one way or the other, not muddled and dirtied by feelings and circumstances. The only thing I knew for certain was no woman had ever cared so deeply for me she’d give her life for me. And I could admit to myself, as uncomfortable as it was, I wanted to know what it felt like to have Violet care for me enough to risk her life.
***
An hour later we were thirty kilometers north of the city in a war-torn abandoned area. Faheem was positive the team would’ve fallen back and used the heavily damaged area to hide out and regroup. He’d given us a detailed map of the area before we took the last five-hundred-yards on foot.
“Watch your step,” Zane warned as the buildings came into view. “The team would’ve booby-trapped the fuck out of this place. Cookie is a goddamned MacGyver with improvised demolitions. If you want to keep your limbs, I suggest you pay attention.”
No sooner had he stopped talking, Eric called out for us to halt. Zane and I stopped and waited for Eric to clear the ground in front of him. “Detcord, step over it.”
The team was definitely in one of the four dilapidated buildings in front of us. While the bronze-colored cord Eric was pointing to was inert and harmless, what it was connected to was not. There was no doubt if we followed the detcord we’d find it connected to a blasting cap that could be wirelessly detonated. The blasting cap wasn’t the problem either; the IED the cap would discharge would be the ball buster.
We cleared the IED and stopped to take in our surroundings. Even though we’d viewed the latest satellite images of the compound, it never failed to shock me when I saw the devastating effects of war up close and personal. The structures themselves were in shambles, huge gaping pieces of the exterior walls were missing, and mangled metal still stood, now exposed after the concrete had crumbled under heavy artillery.
“There,” Eric said as he peeked around the half-broken cinder block wall. I understood why the platoon had taken shelter in the abandoned compound. They’d have the higher ground in any one of the buildings, and unfriendlies trying to approach would have little to no cover. “Building at two o’clock, top floor, third opening in. I caught a reflection.”
We were in what would be best described as a Mexican standoff. We had no line of communication with the team, no way to confirm that the reflection from the spotting scope was from the SEALs, or if we’d walked into a shitstorm and were getting ready to take fire. It wasn’t like we could call out and ask. If we tried to breach the building and Wolf and the team were in there, we’d likely take friendly fire.
“Fuck. You got any ideas?” I asked Zane.
“Morse code,” he said.
“Come again,” Eric chuckled.
“We’re gonna keep this simple and stupid and go old school.” Zane removed his Luminox watch, spit on the hardened crystal face, and cleaned off the dirt and grime.
“You ever think about updating your nineteen-ninety-four watch?” I asked, surprised the relic could still keep time.
“If it ain’t broke…” Zane trailed off and checked the position of the sun and moved a fraction to get a better angle.
Eric took cover, keeping his HK416 trained in the direction he’d seen the reflection. Zane started moving the watch face, making sure it caught the light just right to spell out the signal h
e was trying to send the team.
Long. Short. Long. Short. Short. Long. He repeated the pattern several times before I realized he’d spelled TEX. Smart bastard. Three letters that would let the team know we were friendlies.
Just when I thought the old school Morse code had failed, there was a series of reflections from the blown-out window.
“He’s asking for the color of the day,” Zane laughed.
“Red,” Eric said, but never moved his position.
The team flashed back, confirming they’d received the transmission and it was go time. We’d acknowledged each other’s presence but there was still a pucker factor when you step out from behind cover, and hope to God you hadn’t just made a grave mistake.
“You both stay here. Cover me,” Zane said as he took off for the next block wall, crouching down behind it before he took off running again, each maneuver taking him closer to the building where the team was holed up.
“Crazy motherfucker,” I said to Eric as I watched Zane zig-zag his way around the courtyard through my NightForce scope. A door on the side of the building Zane was running toward opened a fraction of an inch. My finger went to my trigger and I held, waiting to see who appeared. Thankfully Cookie’s face was devoid of the paint the team normally wore to conceal their identity. I moved my finger back to rest on my trigger guard until Zane had slipped in. A few moments later came three flashes of Zane’s light giving us the all clear.
I gave Eric a sharp nod and we both stepped around the block wall and turned our back to Zane and Cookie. Moving at a fast clip, we walked backwards toward them. Not knowing if anyone else was in the area, both Eric and I kept our guns at the ready. A few moments later we turned and ran the last few feet, slipping in the door behind Cookie.
“Jesus, I’m happy to see you guys. Come on up,” Cookie said.
He took the rickety stairs two at a time and the rest of us followed silently up the three flights of stairs.
Wolf, Abe, and Mozart turned to greet us, but Benny remained at his post as overwatch, keeping his spotting scope trained out the window.
“Dude’s on the next floor up,” Wolf answered the unspoken question we were all wondering. “Do you have comms?”
“Affirmative. Let’s get back to the hotel and we’ll get the fuck out of here. Tex has a jet on standby.”
“Any idea how this cluster fuck came to be?” Abe asked.
This was going to get sticky. There was one thing Christopher “Abe” Powers hated more than anything and that was a liar. Violet Meyers may not have been behind the ambush, but she was tied closely to the situation. The fact she was in country and wanted the drone chip the team was in possession of, was sure to make Abe go ballistic.
Abe didn’t disappoint. After Zane gave the SITREP Abe was seething. “You’re telling me she thought we’d hand over the drone, so she could trade it for a list of names that has more than likely already been farmed out bit by bit. Has she lost her mind?”
“Not that we would give it to her in the first place, but she’s shit out of luck. We caught on to the fact our location had been compromised about ten minutes after we turned the mini drone on and used it to scout out a village. After we took out the tangos that had damn near surrounded us, we smashed every last piece of electronics in the damn thing,” Wolf told us.
“I knew you’d figure out it was the drone,” Zane chuckled. “Not that giving her the hardware was ever an option. It was more of a carrot to dangle in front of her while we could flush out the rest of the intel she knew.”
“Did you say her brother was Declan Crenshaw?” Mozart asked.
“Yeah, that’s one of his alias’,” I answered.
“Wasn’t he one of the Marines that helped us out of Pakistan a few years ago, when the chemical engineer was kidnapped?” Mozart asked his team.
“I think you’re right. His team had a funny nick for him,” Cookie said.
“Flower,” Benny added from his perch at the window. “He has a violet tatted on his chest.”
“A violet?” I asked. Jealousy washed over me, a feeling I wasn’t comfortable with for a variety of reasons.
“Yep. Left side over his heart. Wouldn’t tell anyone what it meant.”
“Fuck me, he knew about her,” Eric said. “You think the story she told about not knowing him was all bullshit?”
“Could’ve been. She is CIA. They train those fuckers to be sneaky. What’s her angle? Play the sympathy card, have us help her get the guidance chip so her and Manuel Ortega can sell it and sail away into the sunset together with fistfuls of cash?” I asked, and a new emotion had taken root, one far worse than jealousy – betrayal. My gut tightened at the thought of her purposely deceiving me. Somehow in my mind I could separate what she’d done to protect her brother from the act of terrorism she’d helped carry out, but having her lie directly to my face was disappointing.
“I’d believe that, if it wasn’t for Tex. He was concerned for her safety. Ortega is taking bids on her now,” Zane explained.
“Double cross?” Wolf threw out.
This conversation reminded me why I’d been happy to step away from taking CIA contracts. Nothing was ever what it seemed, no one was ever who they said they were, and you could believe nothing you were told. There was always an underlying agenda. Lie on top of lie, they were layered so thick and heavy it was a wonder the whole system hadn’t crashed.
“We have company,” Benny said. “One pickup truck, ten tangos visible.”
“Hold tight,” Wolf instructed, and looked at Zane. “Do we have a ride outta here?”
“Yes,” Zane answered.
“Cookie, go upstairs with Dude. Benny stay here. Abe, Mozart, you’re with us.”
Without waiting for his team to answer, he walked to the door leading to the stairs, followed by Zane and Eric.
“Frag ‘em out and dash before more come?” I asked.
“That’s what I was thinking. We gotta be quick. We’re about to announce to the world where we are,” Zane answered, already pulling a frag grenade out of his ruck.
The pickup truck pulled to screeching stop in the forecourt, and before the men could jump out of the back, Zane had the pin pulled and with a perfectly place throw the grenade hit the dirt a foot in front of the truck and bounced under the carriage of the vehicle. Three beats later the truck exploded. Wolf let out two sharp whistles and we waited.
Cookie, Dude, and Benny joined us at the bottom of the stairs and off we went.
Gotta love explosives - fast, clean, and fun to watch.
Chapter Seven
Violet
“I know what you think of me.” I broke the silence.
In the three hours we’d been alone in the hotel room, Jasmin hadn’t said more than ten words to me. They consisted of her asking me if I wanted a drink, which was more like a grunt as she held up a bottle of water, and her telling me to stay away from the window.
Other than that, she’d switched between glancing at her tablet and looking out the window. The silence was driving me crazy. I had a whole new appreciation for sensory deprivation. While I could still see and hear, the lack of conversation left me feeling uncomfortable. Every once in a while, Jasmin would look up and pin me with a stare that made me want to squirm.
I shouldn’t have cared what they thought of me. I didn’t know any of them other than what I’d read and heard about them. Yet, I did. I wanted them to understand I meant no harm. I did what I thought I had to do to save lives. Was it so much different than what they did? They sacrificed the few to save the many. I had done the same thing. I didn’t need nor want their praise, but I desperately wanted their understanding. I was used to being alone, but I’d never in my life felt as lonely as I had these last few months.
“Do you know what the penalty for treason is?” she asked.
“I believe until the sixties it was punishable by death. However, I committed the crime of high treason, which is still life in prison or death. I suppose i
n my case I’ll never see the inside of a courtroom. I’ll be remanded and put in rendition in some faraway place and never be heard from again,” I answered.
Rendition scared me. Being taken to a secret government prison and locked in a cell with the world’s worst terrorists was not something I was looking forward to. I preferred death, but no one was going to give me the option.
“Yet, you still did it.”
“I did. And even now, I don’t know if I would do anything different. I had to try and save those men and women.”
“That’s interesting. Knowing what you know now, you wouldn’t have come to us for help as soon as Timothy approached?” Jasmin moved the curtain to the side and peeked out the window again.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Given my current situation and the fact that none of you are going to help me, I never should’ve come to you. I was wrong to trust any of you.”
“That’s rich coming from you.” Jasmin’s eyes narrowed as she concentrated on what was happening outside. “Go get in the bathroom. Don’t come out no matter what.”
“What’s happening?” I asked.
“Get in the fucking bathroom, Violet,” she barked.
I got up from the chair I was sitting in and moved toward the bathroom door. Jasmin dropped the magazine out of the pistol she was holding, inspected the black plastic, shoved it back in and racked her slide, placing a bullet in the chamber. Then she re-holstered the weapon. The AR15 that was laying on the small table next to where she’d been sitting was now slung over her shoulder.
“Go!” she demanded.
“Do I get a gun?” I asked.
I didn’t know what the hell was going on, but she was arming herself to the teeth. I wanted something to protect myself with.
“Fuck no. You think I’d give you a gun, so you can shoot me?”
There was no time to argue with her or try and reason. Whatever was happening had made Jasmin uneasy. Despite what I’d said about not trusting them, I did trust that she didn’t want to die, so it was in my best interest to follow orders. I shut the bathroom door, locked it, and laid in the bathtub. It wasn’t like the ones we had back in the states; it was heavy cast-iron with blue colored enamel flaking off around the edges. The tub had seen better days; I just hoped when this was over, the tub was still in one piece.
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