No bodies. No tracking signals.
And no faction, hostile or otherwise, ever came forward claiming hostages.
Missing in action, presumed dead.
He’d no longer presume anything.
Steve returned. Took a swig of his beer. “Thanks.” He saluted with the bottle. “And thanks to you and those three MiGs you shot down…that day, I’m getting my shot as a retread. Got orders to train with the F/A-18 Hornets.”
“I’m happy for you, Steve.”
“But you’re not happy, are you, Ace. Feel kind of guilty myself, you know?”
Zach didn’t have to answer. They both knew what he meant. When had they started referring to it as that day? As if everything that should follow those two words had never happened. That day your wingman was shot down.
By the time the bartender finished passing out the round of scotch, their Air Wing arrived, making the bar fifty-fifty Air Force and Navy.
The bartender handed the open bottle of scotch to Zach. “On the house.”
“Thanks.” Zach poured it out onto the polished bar surface, creating a stream that ran the length of the bar. Then he lifted his shot glass. “To Sara Daniels!”
“To Sara,” Air Force and Navy echoed in salute to their fallen comrade.
Zach lit the liquor trail at one end. The alcohol ignited. Flames danced along the surface to the other. They tipped their shots.
This drink was for Sara.
The liquid fire burned in his belly. And burned along the bar until all that was left of their tribute was another char line.
Zach’s pager beeped.
1300 Monday
PENTAGON NAVY ANNEX,
Washington, D.C.
“GENTLEMEN, let’s not stand on formality. We all know why we’re here.” Admiral Dann stood at the head of the conference table in a large sealed-off room in the basement of the Pentagon-Navy Annex. “Please take your seats.”
Settling into one of the plush leather chairs, Zach popped a piece of Bazooka in his mouth and looked around the room. With one phone call and in considerably less than four hours, the admiral had indeed amassed a roomful of Navy SEALs and intelligence officers. Though Zach had the impression this wasn’t the first time a special task force had convened in the past month.
There were commanders from SEAL teams Seven, Six, Four, Two and One. They had names like Cage, DJ, Animal and the Exterminator. Brad Bailey, commanding officer of Team One, and Marc, had flown in from California without so much as a hint of their business with the admiral. As the CO of SEAL training, one of the most important aspects of his brother-in-law’s job was causality assessment.
While Zach had spent a month wasting time as a disorderly drunk, the admiral had been busy. But every minute spent in this room was another minute wasted. Sand poured from the hourglass. Zach didn’t know how much time he had. Only that he intended to make the most of it.
“Sorry I’m late.” A soft-spoken commander, looking very much out of place among the kick-ass Navy SEAL brass, entered the room. The marine posted outside the door had allowed him access.
“Come in, Chaplain,” Admiral Dann said. “We were just getting started. Gentlemen, I’d like you to meet Chaplain Rashad Abd al Matin. Commander Matin is our resident expert in Muslim studies and the Middle East.”
Chaplain Matin sank into the nearest empty seat as the admiral continued around the room with introductions. “I think everyone here knows the retired Captain Prince either by association or reputation. I’ve invited him to sit in as a special adviser to these proceedings. Lieutenant Prince, our newest BUD/S recruit, is here strictly as an observer.” Admiral Dann pinned Zach with his stare, letting him know he should feel privileged to even be there.
He and the admiral had come to an understanding of sorts. He’d agreed to stay for the briefing. And the admiral agreed not to courtmartial his insubordinate ass.
In other words, he didn’t have a choice.
If he played by the rules for a change, as soon as the meeting adjourned, he’d be on the next flight to the Middle East with the rest of them.
The admiral’s aide, Alan Ogden, moved around the table, passing out folders marked TOP SECRET. Maybe the briefing wouldn’t be a waste of his time, after all.
“I see the party’s started without me.” A brash young “suit” slipped into the room just as the marine moved to secure the double wide doors. A female lieutenant commander followed hot on his heels.
“Chester ‘Chess’ McKenna, Central Intelligence Agency. And Dr. Sloan Trahern, Psych Ops.” The admiral acknowledged the latecomers, and the marine allowed the pair to pass unchallenged. “I didn’t know you were back from the Middle East, McKenna.”
“Came straight from the airport. You want me at this party, Mitch,” McKenna said with deliberate disregard for military protocol. He tossed a four-inch-thick folder onto the table and handed a videotape to the admiral’s aide.
“I’ve asked Dr. Trahern to consult because of the nature of this tape.”
“Token female,” the doctor said, depositing a slide projector and other visual aids onto the table. She sat down in the seat across from Zach.
McKenna remained standing. “I heard your guys recovered a body?”
“The RIO, Sara Daniels,” the admiral confirmed.
Ogden aide handed McKenna the remote control to the television set. “Have a seat, Mitch,” McKenna said. “You’re going to want to see this tape sitting down.”
McKenna clicked the play button.
Michelle’s battered and bruised face appeared on the TV screen. The room became deathly quiet. The expensive upholstery creaked beneath Zach’s uneasy movements as he leaned forward in his seat.
“You can see by the dated tape that this was made five days after your daughter’s plane crashed ten miles outside of Arbil, Iraq, approximately one hundred miles from the Turkish boarder.” McKenna adjusted the volume.
“Lieutenant Michelle Dann, United States Navy,” she said to the camera. Michelle wore her flight suit and looked straight into the lens with a discipline that burned through brown eyes Zach remembered so well. But she had difficulty speaking because of a swollen cheek and split lip.
What had they done to her?
Her gaze shifted to the paper in her hand. “I renounce my country, the capitalist United States of America, her capitalist president, her government and her people for crimes committed against a peaceful Islam. Free my Shiite brother, Sadiq al Mukhtar, from your prisons or suffer the consequences as foretold by the prophet Mohammed.”
The tape rolled over to static.
Zach could barely contain himself. He wanted to crawl over the table, reach into that TV monitor and bring her home where she belonged.
Everyone in the room remained silent a few seconds longer. It was obvious the statement had been beaten out of her. Not a man among this roomful of battle-scared combat veterans wanted to see a woman treated that way.
Then everyone sitting around the table began talking at once. Where is she? Who’s holding her? The same questions raced through Zach’s mind along with about a dozen others.
How soon can I leave to go get her?
“Are we holding a terrorist by the name Sadiq al Mukhtar?” Team Seven’s commander asked.
“We’re holding him, but not as a terrorist,” McKenna answered. “Sadiq al Mukhtar was picked up for drug trafficking in New York a few months ago. Convicted and sentenced to fifteen years.” McKenna passed around an eight-by-ten blowup of a mug shot. “He should never have been allowed in the U.S. We can place this guy in the city of every major international terrorist incident spanning the last two decades.” McKenna knuckled the folder in front of him. “Sadiq has long been a suspect in the bombing of the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut. This guy is one bad dude.”
“Obviously we’re not going to release him,” the CO of SEAL Team Two added.
“We can’t. A week ago Sadiq sent word to our agency that he wanted to deal. He
was knifed to death in a prison fight before we ever got a chance to talk to him. Someone didn’t want us to hear what this guy had to say.”
“So some person or group connected to Mukhtar is holding Michelle?” Zach asked. He looked from McKenna to the admiral. His godfather stared at the open file in front of him, listening but removed from the conversation going on around the room.
“Or they’ve killed her,” Team leader Four said. “If this guy is dead, they don’t need her anymore.”
Zach glared at the man responsible for the comment, a captain sitting to the right of Dr. Trahern.
The doctor looked equally uncomfortable with the soldier’s assessment. “She’s more valuable alive than dead.”
“We have reason to believe she’s still alive.” McKenna stated.
Zach’s heart pounded. He knew it to be true. And not just because he wanted it to be true.
Michelle was a survivor.
“Did everyone catch the ‘free my brother,’ on the tape?” McKenna continued. “Sadiq considered himself the chosen one. But he was an extremist with few followers left even among his own tribe, though he did have at least one brother living in Iraq. We think this brother was responsible for making the tape. We have a satellite photo of Ihassan Mukhtar near Karbala, Iraq, yesterday morning.” McKenna flipped on the slide projector and impatiently waved the admiral’s aide toward the light. Then the agent clicked through several slides of an Arab in black robes standing near a white van, each one increasing in size until the picture focused on the man’s thin face.
A face that looked enough like the one in the mug shot for them to believe they were indeed brothers.
“My team’s ready to go. Let’s move on Karbala and bag these guys,” Brad Bailey said.
“I’m afraid someone beat you to it.” McKenna brought up a slide of two dead bodies. “Ali Ra’id. We’ve identified the other man as being from the al Ra’id tribe. Ra’id and al Mukhtar served and deserted the Iraqi Republican Guard. It’s possible Ra’id adopted the al Mukhtar tribe as his own. In connection with the death of Sadiq, I dispatched one of our shadow operatives to the area as soon as I confirmed the satellite photo. Both Arabs were dead when the agent arrived. Bodies still warm.
“My man found this tape, made but never circulated. Perhaps awaiting word from Sadiq. There was evidence someone had been held hostage in the basement where the men were found. We think that someone was Michelle Dann.” He dumped the contents of a small manila envelope on the table. A single dog tag fell out, along with Michelle’s leather wings.
Zach automatically reached out for the strip of leather that had been ripped from her uniform. He remembered her touch down after that first solo flight. He’d soloed earlier that same day and had waited around for her to finish. She’d walked off the flight line straight toward him with a big smile on her face.
And when she took off her helmet and whipped that full head of hair around like someone in a shampoo commercial, he knew right then she’d passed.
“Nice going, Rapunzel,” he’d said, tagging her with the call sign.
Then their instructor had come along and ruined the moment. “Yeah, nice solo, Rapunzel.” He’d patted her bottom in passing.
“Hey, asshole!” Zach had challenged him.
The guy turned. “I know you’re not talking to me, hotshot.”
“Zach, please.” Michelle held him back.
“Are you just gonna put up with that?”
She turned on him. “Are you just now noticing what I have to put up with?”
“If you don’t report that guy, I will.”
“You’ll only make it worse. I can handle it!”
That was in the days before the Tailhook scandal, before sexual harassment became politically incorrect. And that was when Zach realized she was so desperate for acceptance from these guys, she’d put up with anything.
His fist closed over the worn leather.
She’d earned her wings, the hard way.
But somewhere along the line Michelle had learned to handle it by being cool under fire, whether the barrage came from a 20-mm canon or the mouth of some insensitive jerk.
She’d never gained their acceptance. But she’d earned their respect.
Zach was counting on the fact that Michelle knew how to hang tough.
Just a little while longer, sweetheart.
He clenched his jaw around the question he was afraid to ask but wanted to know the answer to just the same.
The admiral spoke for them all. “Who has her now?”
“We’re not one hundred percent sure. Just how resourceful is that daughter of yours, Mitch?”
“Very!” the admiral answered.
Brad Bailey spoke up. “Enough to bury her RIO so that the grave wouldn’t be stumbled upon by some shepherd out for a Sunday stroll. We missed it the first several passes, which is why we never recovered the body before now.”
McKenna nodded. “Here’s where it gets really interesting.” He freed a photo from another manila envelope. “This morning’s satellite pass of Saudi Arabia, several hundred miles southwest of Iraq. A real hot spot we’ve been keeping an eye on. I didn’t have time to get the picture made into a slide,” he apologized, handing it to the admiral.
The admiral pushed to his feet. “Why the hell didn’t you show me this first?”
“I thought it was more dramatic my way. We don’t have the whole story. But we do have a problem here, Mitch. Yesterday your daughter was missing in action. Today she’s right in the middle of it. And we have no idea how long she’s actually been free. As of 0855 this morning, Lieutenant Michelle Dann is on the CIA’s most wanted list of terrorists.”
The admiral threw the photo onto the middle of the table. Zach and the rest of the room got a good look at Michelle in black robes, toting a Russian-made AK-47, running headlong through a Bedouin camp. He could sense her movement, feel her urgency in the still photo.
“Are you implying my daughter is a rogue warrior?”
“She’s wearing the robes of the al Mukhtar. The tribes have very distinctive dress, which is how they identify friend from foe. She’s in the camp of their enemy carrying an assault weapon during a raid. We just want to find out why.”
No shit. The understatement of the year! Zach hung on the man’s every word. But didn’t believe for a minute the man’s assumption that Michelle was a terrorist.
“She’s wearing a dead man’s robes,” his dad spoke up. “Click back to the picture of the guy by the van.”
McKenna complied.
“Now ahead to the slide of the dead guy. What happened to his clothes? Take a good look at what your fugitive is wearing. You’ll notice a dark stain about chest high. She’s not bleeding from a chest wound.” Tad Prince’s mouth curled into a smile. McKenna had missed that small detail, and his dad was only too happy to point it out.
“You want me to believe that in the last forty-eight hours Michelle Dann broke out of her prison, scrounged an assault weapon, took out two bad guys and escaped Iraq into the desert of Saudi Arabia? Where, I might add, she just happened to stumble into the camp of the al Ra’id wearing the robes of their enemy—and they didn’t kill her?”
“You have a better explanation?” Admiral Dann asked. “Because I’d really like to hear it.”
Dr. Trahern spoke up. “Although I don’t agree with Chester, I think what he’s trying to say, Admiral, is that he believes your daughter never escaped the al Mukhtar, but rather joined them.
“Shades of Patty Hearst. It’s not unusual for captives to bond with their captors. Under extreme conditions it becomes a means to endure the abuse.”
“There are more al Mukhtar tribesmen out there. Not to mention the al Ra’id,” McKenna added. “We don’t know that these two were the only ones in contact with her. And because she’s a woman—”
“Not because she’s a woman,” Dr. Trahern interjected. “The phenomenon is known as the Stockholm syndrome. In 1973 four Swedes held
in a bank vault for six days during an unsuccessful robbery attempt became very attached to the robbers. I’m sure you’re familiar with the case and others like it, Admiral.”
“Yes, thank you, Sloan, for reminding us. Everyone here has heard of the Stockholm syndrome.” The admiral and his father exchanged looks. “Let’s just say I buy into your theory, McKenna—”
“There’s no other explanation,” McKenna interrupted.
“I don’t give a damn what the explanation is. I’m sending a team in after my daughter. Alan—” the admiral addressed his aide “—I want this morning’s crop of satellite photos. Anything within a hundred-mile radius of this one.”
“Already on it, sir.”
“Marc, brainstorm a contingency plan and a backup. I want it within the hour. Brad, your entire team is on standby. Have them ready to move within four.”
Marc nodded.
Brad responded enthusiastically. “You’ve got it.”
“Admiral?” Zach pushed to his feet.
He didn’t need to ask. The admiral already knew what he wanted.
“All right, Zach. You can ride along with Team One, but you’re to stick to the background.”
“I’m afraid I can’t let you mobilize to the area,” McKenna said. “The al Ra’id and the al Mukhtar are at war. The U.S. has to appear neutral.” McKenna stood his ground in the face of several angry Navy SEALs ready to defend their admiral’s honor, Zach being one of them. How dare the agent contradict the admiral’s orders just when Zach had gotten his godfather to concede.
“I don’t recall asking your permission, Agent McKenna.”
“That’s why I went over your head, Mitch, to the Chief of Special Operations Command. The CIA is charged with this mission, not the Navy SEALs. There’s someone missing from this puzzle, someone higher up the food chain than Sadiq Mukhtar, someone who wanted him dead.
“I believe your daughter has led us straight to him. We don’t care about the three dead terrorists. We want al Ra’id!” McKenna spoke passionately.
“Would you mind if I interjected something here, gentlemen?” the soft-spoken chaplain asked. “Khanh Asad al Ra’id is not a terrorist. Prince Asad can trace his bloodline back to Moorish kings. He’s considered a leader of his people. They call him the Lion Prince of the Desert.”
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