“We don’t know how many more Taliban are in that cave complex,” Wyatt admitted. “It could be none. It could be just the soldiers who drove the women into the cave. They may be waiting for another group to come and transport them across the border. We basically have to wait and see.”
“But,” Dilara said, her voice rising, “think of the women in there! What are they doing to them?” She choked up, looking anxiously at Robert.
Wyatt took a deep breath. He’d just told Tal the list of possibilities. There was no way he was going to tell a mother whose child was captive. He just would not.
“Mom? Don’t go there,” Tal said, and reached out, patting her hand, giving her a pleading look.
“What if they shoot them?” she asked, anxious.
“The SEALs are close enough,” Wyatt told her, “that they’d hear any rifle fire. The sound, first of all, would echo like crazy throughout the entire complex, and so far, we’ve not heard any report. No pistol or rifle has been fired.” And he hoped to God that none would be.
“I want to see that drone video feed on Alexa,” she said to her husband quietly.
Nodding, Robert stood. “Come on, we’ll go to another room and I’ll show it to you.”
Dilara tried to prepare herself as her husband led her to a smaller room off the War Room. One of the video technicians had quickly set up a screen about half the size of the other. Robert sat his wife down at the round table and asked the tech to take it back to the beginning. He wasn’t sure Dilara could handle seeing it all, but if he cheated her of it, she would never forgive him. She sat, legs crossed, hands in her lap, gripping her handkerchief, strangling it. Robert ached inside, but there was little he could do to soften what his wife was going to see.
He sat down next to her, his arm around her shoulders. In as few words as possible, he painted a scene for her so that seeing the video would not be as shocking.
As he sat there, feeling his wife’s shoulders draw up and tense as she watched Alexa and the other women struggling, climbing up that steep mountain slope in snow with ice beneath it, he saw her repeatedly dab her eyes. He knew every parent of every one of those women had, by now, been told that their daughters were missing in action. But unlike Dilara and Robert, they would not know the truth of what was happening to them.
Their big, high-tech security company showed everything possible, but Robert wondered how many parents were seriously prepared to see their child in this kind of dangerous predicament. He could see what it was doing to Dilara—tearing her up inside. She was trying so hard to sit there stoically, watching, but he’d been married to her for thirty years and they had a telepathic connection.
He could always feel when she was out of sorts, anxious, hurting, or joyous. And like their daughter, Alexa, Dilara wore every emotion on her face. Out in public or at her charity, she was a smooth, even-keeled, confident manager of people, showing only what she wanted them to see. But here, the suffering in her eyes, the anguish radiating from around her, washed powerfully through him, making him want to protect her—and he was unable to do so.
As Robert watched Alexa, he was proud of his daughter, because of all the women, she was the strongest of the group mentally, emotionally, and physically. Dilara winced when the Taliban soldier connected solidly with Alexa’s hip as she slipped and fell. His daughter had been rolled onto her back, and he saw the rage in her face as she glared up at the grinning soldier. No, his daughter was a fighter, and that’s what Robert had to hold on to. That is what would get her out of that hellhole.
Dilara made a mewling sound as Alexa was kicked again. She winced, turning her head aside.
“I think you’ve seen enough,” he told her roughly, nodding to the tech to turn it off.
“Oh, God,” Dilara whispered, laying her head on his shoulder, her face pressed against his hard jaw. “They’re hurting her!”
“She’s tough, pet. She’ll get through this.” It was all he could say. He couldn’t promise that she’d live or even be rescued. As much as he wanted to give her those assurances, Robert knew he couldn’t, and it savaged him as nothing else ever had.
Pressing the handkerchief to her eyes, she turned into him, wanting his other arm around her. “Here I am crying for her and I’m warm, no one is threatening me, I’m safe,” she sobbed against him. And then she began to weep in earnest.
“Alexa came from us. She’s got backbone and she’s got guts. She can’t be an A-10 pilot and not have those qualities, Dilara,” her husband pointed out.
“Haven’t you been able to get ahold of Matt yet? Does he know what’s happened to Alexa?” Dilara asked.
“Not yet. I talked to his captain, but they’re on a top secret op that’s in motion, and he can’t pull Matt out to tell him.” His voice thickened. “Dilara, telling our son what’s happened in the middle of his op could get him killed. You realize that, don’t you? If he knew about Alexa’s predicament, he couldn’t have a hundred-percent focus on his mission. It’s a distraction. And Delta operators have to have that kind of focus to survive what they do.” He touched her cheek, wiping her tears away. “As soon as Matt’s team has completed their mission, he’ll be told. I promise you that.”
Sniffing, she mumbled, “Will they let Matt help get to Alexa then?”
“No, they won’t. He’s too emotionally involved. He won’t be thinking clearly. Don’t forget, they’re fraternal twins. They are so much alike in some ways, so attuned to one another.” Shaking his head, he told her, “His CO will make him stay at Bagram and wait it out.”
Jerking in a sigh, Dilara nodded. “That sounds as if it would be best.”
“Listen, Matt’s fiancée is coming over to see you in the afternoon. I talked to her and told her what was going on. She said she’d like to be with you for a while. To keep you company.”
Giving him a wobbly smile, Dilara whispered, “Dara is so sweet that way. She puts herself out for so many.”
“Would you like her company?”
“Yes, I would. I’ll make us some good Turkish coffee.”
Robert smiled briefly. “Dara loves your Turkish coffee.” He patted her shoulder. “Come on, I’ll have your driver take you home. I promise, if anything changes regarding Alexa, I’ll call you immediately.”
“What must the parents of those other women being going through, Robert?”
“Hell,” he grunted. He stood, taking her hand, easing her from the chair. “Artemis Security is giving us the most information possible regarding this mission. But sometimes,” he murmured, wrapping his arm around his wife’s slender waist, “it’s better not knowing anything at all.”
*
Gage knocked back two ibuprofen to dull the throb of the headache caused by the shrapnel cutting into his skull after that RPG landed ten feet away from him. Now he sat crouched with the SEAL team, hidden behind bushes near the entrance to the cave complex. They were a good one-tenth of a mile away, close enough to hear and see but not so close that someone could suddenly come upon them.
Earlier, a drone had shown the women captives being herded into the cave. They’d arrived on scene an hour later. The men were in winter snowsuits, and they’d loaned him one for this mission. He was amazingly warm, considering that the wind was howling above them on the ridgeline and they were only about a hundred feet below the spine of the mountains. They wore camouflage white, light gray, and dark gray across their faces and necks. The white parkas and trousers had them blending into the two-to-three-foot snow.
Chief Nolan McQuade kept his men in a diamond pattern as they watched and waited. There was no way they wanted to be discovered by the enemy on any flank. It could get the women killed somewhere inside that cave complex.
Impatience gnawed at Gage. His heart felt raw, and he ached with concern for Alexa. When he’d come to, a Navy corpsman bending over him, he’d jerked into an upright position. The corpsman had gripped his shoulder, ordering him to remain sitting, but Gage pushed to his feet, wildly loo
king around for Alexa. When he didn’t find her, he turned on the corpsman, who told him what had happened. When he realized she’d been captured, his knees went suddenly weak. Good thing he’d been leaning heavily against the mud wall of the village.
He’d seen the two doctors who had come with the medical teams sprawled out on their bellies, dead, their heads partly blown away. All the women were gone. Deep, muddy hoofprints were everywhere, the whole area chewed up, showing the charge of the Taliban on horseback, their focused attack, to capture them. Four of the Marines had taken bullets. And right now, a medevac was flying in to take them back to the Bagram hospital.
He had sat down before he fell down, rage tunneling through him as he looked at that wadi. This had been a well-planned assault, no question.
Gage had wanted to do something, anything, but Sergeant Jameson came over and told him what was going on. The best news was that the drone had them in sight and was following the three fleeing white Toyota trucks with their female cargo in the beds. Gage felt nauseous. He knew what could happen to Alexa and those other innocent women. None of it was good. He was supposed to protect her. But he hadn’t been able to. He told the sergeant he wanted to stay with them, but the Marine nixed the idea, ordering him back to Bagram to be checked out in the ER. He had a concussion and needed to be examined. Gage snarled that he was fine, but the sergeant outranked him, and in the end, Gage had climbed on board the medevac.
When Gage left the medevac, he turned and walked half a mile over to SEAL HQ instead of heading to the ER at the hospital. He met with Chief Nolan McQuade, who had been chosen to take in a team of SEALs to intercept the Taliban with their captives. Gage insisted on going, and because he was a sniper and the SEALs were trying to get every sniper they had on this op, he was a welcome addition. McQuade was fine with it. SEALs often worked hurt but could continue to carry out a mission, and McQuade was more than happy to have Gage with his team, because he had been there when the attack had taken place. And there was no way Gage was going to tell him that there was a personal connection between him and Alexa. He’d have been thrown off the direct action mission in a heartbeat.
As a sniper, Gage could set his emotions aside and become a cold, efficient killing machine, if needed. And he wanted to kill those bastards who had taken Alexa and the other women. He wanted them bad. As he’d stood over the mission-planning board, the maps spread out along with a PowerPoint presentation, Gage wanted to get moving. Every minute wasted was one more minute that something horrible could happen to Alexa.
Just as the DA mission wrapped up, a sat phone call came in for him. Surprised, Gage had taken it and spoken to Tal Culver, CEO of Artemis Security in Alexandria, Virginia. He knew Tal, and she knew him. They’d had a casual friendship, because they were both snipers and were therefore members of a brotherhood. He’d filled her in on everything, in detail. Knowing Tal was Alexa’s older sister, Gage hurt for her. He could hear the strain in her voice, and sometimes, her emotions came close to the surface. His were right there, too.
He was glad that Artemis was in the mix. From what Alexa had told him about this cutting-edge security firm, it had the best technical support and gadgetry in the world. Gage had never been so glad because anything that could help get Alexa and the others home safely, was all that mattered.
When he found out the warlord of the area, Daud Zadgal, was connected with Zakir Sharan, he nearly threw up. Now he knew why those women had been abducted. They were to be sold right out of those caves as sex slaves to the highest bidders from around the world. After being bought, they would be transported either by helicopter or truck across the Pakistan border and to the nearest international airport.
His mind raced over the near impossibility of finding Alexa if she were taken across the border. The sex slave trade was centered in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, and Gage resisted what he knew about it, because two of his HVTs in the past had been slave traders coming across to pick up girls, women, and little boys to transport them across the border.
Further, he’d worked with a SEAL team three different times undercover in that dirty city that throbbed with power and manipulation. Because he spoke Urdu and was a sniper, and had been dropped with the SEAL team of four men behind the border to find their way there, Gage knew a helluva lot more about it than he ever wanted to remember. Corporate jets from around the world sat at the international airport, waiting to have their newly purchased slaves hustled on board under cover of darkness. There was no Pakistan Customs, no security. Officials were bribed to look the other way. The unlucky woman would be placed on a jet and taken to her new life. And she might last weeks—maybe months, but not much longer—until she was dead, and then a new replacement was bought. It was a filthy, secret world, and Gage felt bile crawl into his throat.
While the SEAL team wanted to move into the cave complex, Gage knew they couldn’t do a John Wayne charge. They had no idea how many Taliban were in there. His last mission involved waiting for his slave trader HVT to ride across the border in a white Toyota Hilux truck. The CIA had picked up cell phone chatter about the trader’s whereabouts and his objective. It was always an Afghan village near the border. Gage had to set up his op near that village, hoping that the intel was legitimate, and then wait for the sick, perverted bastard to show up.
He had tried to wipe his mind of what he’d seen on the last mission involving a slave trader. Through his scope, thirteen hundred yards above the small, struggling Afghan village, he’d seen a truckload of Taliban drive in with their white Toyota truck. Gage hadn’t seen his HVT among them. Was this a preliminary force? Would the HVT show up later? Often, people from other nearby settlements would kidnap a young girl, take her back to their own village, and keep her prisoner and wait for the slave trader to come by and inquire if there were any girls who could be bought.
Through his scope, he had seen a young girl of ten, her hands tied with a rope, screaming and crying, being dragged forward by an angry Afghan farmer. He watched as people from that village peeked out their doors after he passed with the weeping, fighting child. But no one would stop him. No one would help the innocent little girl. It had taken everything Gage had not to put a bullet into that bastard’s head. But if he’d done that, then it would have tipped off the soldiers in the truck who were waiting for their boss to arrive.
It sickened him as the farmer dragged the girl, who wore a simple black gown from head to toe, up to the truck. When he grinned, four of his front teeth were missing. He grabbed the girl by her long brown hair, making her shriek, and lifted up her dress, baring her naked lower body to the guards in the truck. Gage’s finger itched to take him out.
But damn it, he couldn’t.
In the end, thirty minutes later, a second Toyota truck pulled up with the HVT in it. Gage watched the fat, arrogant bastard slide out of the truck. The farmer was bowing and scraping, holding on to the fighting child, who would not stand still. The farmer cuffed her several times as the slaver approached her. It was then that Gage took his shot. A head shot. One bullet, one kill. And then he had two more bullets in the cartridge for his Win-Mag. He aimed for the farmer next and killed him along with one of the soldiers. And then, as the soldiers started running, yelling, and screaming, looking for where the bullets were coming from, Gage released the mag and slapped in another one.
By the time he was done, eight Taliban lay dead, the little girl standing, crying, her hands against her mouth, unsure what to do. Gage saw a woman come warily out of the village toward her. She was clearly frightened, looking around, gesturing sharply to the girl to come to her. It did Gage’s heart good to see the little girl suddenly sprint on her bare feet, arms open, running to the woman, who bent down, taking her into her embrace. As Gage got ready to vacate his hide, he was sure the woman wasn’t her mother, but maybe a relative. As he shrugged into his heavy ruck after putting his Win-Mag in a nylon sheath and securing it, he hoped the woman would take the girl in. Maybe she would care for her, fin
d out what village she came from, and somehow get the child back to her parents.
He could only hope. Because this was a country where hope rarely existed.
CHAPTER 10
Alexa heard the other women, all of whom were in individual wooden cages within the cave, sobbing or quietly weeping. A kerosene lantern near the cave entrance was all the light available. Two soldiers stood guard at the tunnel leading out of one end of the cave. The smell of urine and fecal matter and the taint of old, dried blood sickened her, and she sat on hard-packed earth in a primitively constructed cage six feet tall and five feet wide. At least her hands were untied and she felt the circulation coming back into her numbed fingers.
Next to her was Cathy, a blond twenty-year-old, frightened out of her mind. All she could do was sit with her back against the cave wall, legs scrunched up against her body, and weep. Alexa felt sorry for her.
Her gaze moved around the fairly large cave. At the other end of it was another tunnel with no soldiers guarding it. As a military officer, she had to look for an escape route. An unguarded tunnel could offer that possibility.
Her cage was the first of fifteen that she’d counted in the gloom. The rocks bit into her back where she leaned up against the dry cave wall. Each cage had a rusty padlock on it to keep them from escaping. The soldiers had blindfolded the women and herded them like cattle into the main cave. Each had been forced to put her hand on shoulder of the woman in front of her, all in a line, and a soldier with a flashlight had led them through the maze.
And it was a maze, Alexa realized. When they finally halted, they jerked the blindfolds off all of them. They had put them into the cages and thrown each of them four plastic bottles of water. She’d been so thirsty that she drank two of them right away. There was no place to urinate except in the cage itself, and the acrid stench wafted throughout the cave. It was a filthy place. Worse, Alexa saw rats scurrying in the shadows, moving stealthily here and there.
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