“He saved my life, you know?” Max said. “He did more than that. I was seventeen, lied about my age to enlist.” He inclined his head to the youngest Marine helping them dig. “I was deployed to the Gulf and scared shitless. Sebastian noticed, never mentioned it, but he kept a watch on me. Made me double check my weapons, that sort of thing. He didn’t cut me any slack either. I dug a lot of bunkers. A real hard-ass, but it wasn’t tough to take orders from him. They always made more sense than the officers’.”
Riley sensed Max needed to talk and while he knew the story, Safia listened.
“My fire team was in a skirmish on the Kuwait border. Iraqis coming in ten directions and they didn’t know what the hell they were doing. Like a bunch of eight year olds playing Army in the backyard. Ran right into the open.” He let out a breath, his shoulders sagging with the weight of old memories. He grabbed another hunk. “I was in charge of the fire team, no hunkering down and waiting. We went looking for it. Shoot everything, drive some more, shoot everything again. The humvee got hit. The mortar tossed that puppy in the air.”
He made an exploding sound and Safia smiled as she gathered and tossed. “Didn’t blow it up though. I broke my shin and my guys were pretty banged up too. Iraqis pinned us down. We ghosted a few, but they had reinforcements bringing bigger ordnance. Saddam was tossing kids at U.S. forces like cannon fodder.” Riley glanced and noticed the Marines listening intently. “We had to get out of there.” He shrugged. “I shot pain killers in my leg, then we threw six grenades at once and ran like hell. We didn’t get far, the enemy pinned us down.” He smiled to himself. “Then a banged up humvee comes flying across the sand, a gunner manning a fifty cal, shooting his way to us. He rides over the dunes, crashes into the enemy fortification. Gunner lays down some cover fire, Sebastian is out of the humvee, firing at anything.” Max’s smile widened. “Crazy bastard. He gets back in the humvee, rolls out and races to us, slams on the brakes—the Vee slides sideways and nearly tips over. They’re heavy things, an iron brick with a motor. It sits down so hard the door opens. He shouts, ‘Need a lift, devil dogs?’” Max looked past her to Riley, smiling.
“Devil dog express,” Riley said.
“So, crazy really is what D-1 is all about?” Safia said.
“That and the hokey pokey.”
She laughed, gripped more concrete and behind her a couple Marines snickered.
Max and Riley tried to lift a chunk of the cement wall, then dropped it, the weight too much. “We need a hoist,” Max said, glancing around. He was about to call the Marines over to help when Riley heard, “Make a hole!”
Men parted for Safia wielding a sledgehammer, and she slammed it down on the block. It cracked, but she wasn’t done, slinging it back and bring it down with a growl. It fractured, and they hurried to move chunks aside and get another layer closer to Sebastian. Marines watched her for a second as she took her anger out on the cement till she couldn’t swing anymore.
The young sergeant glanced. “Wouldn’t want to be on her bad side,” he murmured and continued lifting chunks.
Yes, but her good side is so intriguing, Riley thought, noticing more locals coming to help. Something tightened in his chest when a boy, skinny as a switch with his head wrapped in a blood-stained bandage bent to help.
“David got a triangulation on the last location?” Riley asked Max.
“Cell towers fell, coverage isn’t good, but this is it.” Max moved slowly inside the lean-to pile, the weight above threatening to collapse further. Riley sent the Marines off to find more wood to shore it up and two trotted off. Logan knelt and held the Sonar Shield, a flexible cone-shaped listening device that worked on sound waves. A thank you gift from R&D after the Thailand mission.
Riley ordered everyone back for a moment. It picked up breathing, and Logan aimed the device.
“Mine’s not that small,” Safia said in a whisper.
“The inventor made it.”
Logan glanced to level them a “gimme a break” look, and they stepped further back. Logan had to stop to wait for men to brace broken walls, then crawled deeper. He called out for Sebastian. One time, two, three . . . still nothing. Then Logan said, “Coonass,” and Riley thought the call sign had less syllables, more force than his name.
Logan ducked back out. “Nothing.”
“We keep digging,” Riley said, and went back to work. Logan went to the other side of the fallen structure to find another way in. “Give me the Sonar.” Safia handed it over, and Riley held his breath and aimed. “Coonass,” he said, not too loud. The feedback in the headphones buzzed his head. He grabbed a chunk of cement and hit a pipe once, let it ring, then did it again. His heartbeat slowed as he waited, forced his breathing shallow and quiet.
He waited. Tap . . . tap.
“We have tone!” Riley stuck his head out. “He responded.”
Max, Sam, and Logan smiled, giving each other a shoulder shake, then Max was there, instructing them how to move the pieces. Safia worked the hammer, breaking chunks the Marine quickly carried away. The largest piece shifted, and Max kept vigil on the structure growing precarious the more debris they removed. Furniture and a fridge blocked one portion, an unstable slab hanging over them as Riley dug.
“Where is he?” Riley sat back, swiping his sweaty forehead with the back of his hand.
“Riley! We have another way in,” Logan called and Riley left the tunnel and rushed around to the street side.
The entire upper floor was shoved off, but the staircase was intact. Logan swung an ax to chop it away. Riley pulled the pieces aside, then heard the whine of a power tool. Safia strode over the debris, a small chainsaw screaming in her hand. Men grinned. It looked brand new.
“Yes, I nipped it.” She lowered the engine. “Tell me where.”
He directed her and she cut away at the staircase, the guys moving the remains. When she grew tired, Max took over, but there wasn’t room in the small space. Riley stepped back beside Safia.
“I have a medical chopper standing by, and a room at the hospital,” she said, swiping at the sweat under her chin.
He slipped his arm around her waist, and she tipped her head on his shoulder. “I’ve never prayed before. Not till now.” She met his gaze. “Sebastian, this city. They didn’t deserve this and need some hope.”
She still blamed herself, Riley thought and didn’t try to convince her otherwise. He knew from his own experience, guilt didn’t leave till you let it.
Max cut away at the staircase, his goal the wall beyond that covered the top floor. Riley stepped into it, the chain of Marines removing debris faster than he could hand it over. Spectators gathered, the police trying to keep locals back from the danger. Nothing was stable at the end of the blast zone. They pried dry wall and Logan shined a light, then lurched back and smiled. Sam and Riley moved in with him, and Max splashed light into the small gap. Riley looked in.
Sebastian. He wasn’t moving.
The leanest of them all, Riley stretched over the concrete and touched his throat. “He’s alive.”
Sebastian’s cell phone lay in his lax palm, slats of wood pinned the left side of his body, only his hand exposed, another tumble of trash covered his waist and chest. One leg was free. No telling what injuries he’d suffered and like moving toothpicks, they went slowly. Another hour passed before Logan could get close enough to him to inspect his wounds.
Sebastian still hadn’t moved. Logan handed Riley the phone, then checked Sebastian’s vital signs and probed for wounds. He looked up. “I need a backboard, neck brace, and air casts. His ribs and wrists are broken.” Riley could see the bone pushing through the skin, but took hope that it was the only place he spotted blood.
Max couldn’t stop smiling even as they eased Sebastian onto the backboard. Logan went to work. Max knelt near and said, “Coonass, wake up, you spatula wielding redneck.”
He didn’t move, and Safia grabbed Riley’s hand as Logan injected him.
>
“You still owe me twenty bucks on that Saints game,” Max said.
Still he didn’t move. Max glanced at Logan, then said, “Another week and it doubles.”
Sebastian shifted minutely. Riley let out a hard laugh, grabbing Safia to his side and squeezing. He felt his eyes burn. Thank God.
Sebastian’s lids fluttered and before he opened his eyes, he swallowed, then asked, “How’s my little sister?”
“With Viva,” Sam assured. “Jasmine will be happy it wasn’t a ghost or voodoo.”
Sebastian smiled, then winced. He couldn’t move. Logan had him strapped down and his wrist in an air cast. With the embassy Marines, Dragon One lifted the backboard and slowly carried Sebastian to the waiting ambulance.
“Why call Jasmine?” Riley had to ask, walking alongside.
“Only number I could remember,” Sebastian murmured, his mouth bloody and swollen. “Sometimes speed dial sucks.”
Riley grinned and realized that trapped, Sebastian couldn’t see the keypad and could only dial with his thumb. They settled the board on a gurney and pushed it into the truck.
“Don’t you think you should call Jasmine?” Riley said, nudging Max. He scrambled for his phone and dialed, his grin so tight Riley thought his face would split. Riley couldn’t stop smiling himself and glanced as Safia moved up beside him. “This is a good day.” He bent, kissed her softly.
Logan climbed into the ambulance with Sebastian, promising to call. Max joined them, and put the phone to Sebast-ian’s ear the instant he was inside. As the ambulance pulled away, Riley, Safia and Sam stood on the debris with the embassy detachment, hot, sweaty and happy for the first time since landing in Singapore. Riley let out a loud ooh-rah, the Marines joined and a cheer rose. Locals brought water and food, and for a moment, he enjoyed the relief—and a new understanding of his family’s pain.
An hour or so later, the Marines climbed into the humvee, and Riley thought he was never that young, but only youth and stupidity would have sent him into Serbia with just a sidearm and a radio. Then again, he’d done dumber things and age had little to do with it.
The chime of phones had everyone patting pockets, and Riley answered his just as Safia put her own to her ear. He listened, meeting her gaze.
“You need to get in the air, Odette has already landed once,” Beckham said. “In Norway.”
That was a long flight from the South Pacific not to be noticed. “You didn’t track her moves?”
“They flew under radar over Chinese air space. She doesn’t have the phone with that number and she was on the ground less than an hour.”
Safia frowned at Riley. “Long enough to set a bomb.”
“That’s why there’s a jet on the airstrip,” Beckham said.
Riley was already behind the wheel of the rental truck, turning over the engine.
Safia climbed in. “What do they expect us to do? Shoot it down?”
Sam hopped in the back. “Sounds like a plan to me.”
Offices of Major General Gerardo
Pentagon
“Do you want the short version?” Beckham said, dropping a stack of files and books on the conference table. He crossed to the coffee service, bypassing a teacup for a mug and poured.
Hank’s gaze flipped between him and the stack, then settled in for a debriefing. “Fire away.”
Major Beckham returned to the table. “Haeger Thibaut is older than he looks, that much I’ll say. His bio says he’s the son of a NASA physicist who was among the Nazi-held scientists we smuggled out of Germany during the war. Ring any bells?” He prodded.
“Operation Paperclip. We captured, then smuggled Hitler’s V-2 rocket scientists with the help of the resistance. Then we employed them with the Joint Intelligence Committee for missile defense.” JIC was an arm of the Joint Chiefs of Staff then. Now the government had ten agencies doing the research and development.
“A smart move to have the brain power in our control and away from the Russians then,” Gerardo said, then shook his head, his look doubtful. “It was a moral stretch to hire the same people who’d killed our troops, and expect them to protect our people later. Even Eisenhower’s final address mentioned that bringing them into the country was a mistake.”
Hank supposed it was the Hitler ideology they feared and not the scientists themselves. “We kept tight control.”
“Not enough because Thibaut wasn’t a child then. He was near twenty, a prized prodigy under the tutelage of scientists at Dachau. Like Sigmund Rascher.”
“Oh good God.” A sick feeling worked into his blood stream. The concentration camps were infamous for human experimentation, freezing, poisons, even twisted attempts of sewing twins together to force them to conjoin. “Wait, he’d be eighty, at least.”
From a file, Beckham slipped out a black and white photograph and slid it across the table. It showed a young man grouped with several older. In the background, he recognized the dated gear on the soldiers. End of conflict, WWII. The lineup of scientists numbered over a hundred, yet his attention went to one young man, tall and underfed. Something about the way he folded his arms, almost defiant and turned away from the others made him want to slap him. Another photo slid easily across the table. In color, Thibaut stood with Mandela.
“Does that look like an eighty year old man?” Beckham said. “That was taken six years ago.”
Hank’s brows shot up. Thibaut looked forty-five, fifty at the most. “Where did you find this?” Hank pulled the files close, splitting them with Gerardo.
“Amazing at what people have published on the internet. These photos are from the grandson of a German Jew who was freed from an encampment in the mountains. On My Space.” He chuckled. “Isaac Hieberg, the kid, found them in an old trunk in his grandfather’s home in Morocco. He was on some ‘I need to know my roots’ quest and tried to put the pieces together. When it came to before the war, he had nothing except what was in the trunk. He was kind enough to ship it to me with the promise to return it. He’s an American born and raised.” Beckham searched his pile of books and files, selected a thick leather binder, opening it on the table. Inside was a journal with yellowed papers inked in German. “Eye witness accounts. The translation was as close as we could get. Dialects make it tough.” He shrugged. “Mostly it’s the story of Grandpa’s run to freedom, eating rats, losing a finger to frostbite. However, he goes into detail about the scientists and their journey. He was turned over to the American forces and lived in the U.S. for several years before ending up in Morocco. He writes about meeting this scientist and being terrified of him.” He tapped the photo of Thibaut. “He mentions three times that he’d seen him at the Dachau prison camps. Grandpa Hieberg was a survivor.”
That sick feeling magnified and Hank felt his palms sweat. Donovan tried to warn us, Hank thought.
“I had our analysts do a bone structure match to Haeger Thibaut, born Henrick Knapp. In most recent photos, he’s rarely without that straw hat, but analysts feel its good enough to stand up in court. Fingerprints of Knapp taken before entering the U.S. in the 40’s match the thumb print for Thibaut’s last passport.”
Hank sat back. “Plastic surgery can reverse the clock, but why wasn’t this guy vetted by the Secret Service? He was in the White House.”
“Who would refute him? Without documented corroboration, no one could deny his identity as the elder Knapp, because he’s really the son.” Beckham shivered dramatically. “God, that’s just creepy. No record of any surgery, at least not under either name. No personal documentation like birth certificates, so legal names couldn’t be proven. They were running for their lives in the middle of a war zone then. We made allowances. The father doesn’t show in paperwork or records and I can’t find out what happened to his mother.”
“Don’t bother. If he’s eighty, she’s dead.” Hank still couldn’t wrap his brain around this.
“Knapp or Thibaut did return to Austria to get her, but after that ther
e are no banking accounts nor even a home loan. Last time he used his jet was a month ago, a brief trip to Turkey, although his funding shows up as recent as three months ago to international adoptions or something.”
“He was in Turkey or Odette?”
“Don’t have confirmation yet. Her most likely. Air traffic control recognize flight numbers, not the owner’s registration.”
“Bring in more help,” Hank said. “Get a psychiatrist in here, a profiler. He’s assumed his father’s identity.” When Beckham protested, Hank put up a hand. “It doesn’t matter right now. This is the man turning all the keys.” He tapped the color photo. “If he’s got the fountain of youth, fine, not a concern now. And get a body language expert.” He flicked a hand at the war photos. “He’s got attitude for a kid who just left the laboratories that committed the biggest atrocities of this century.”
Gerardo leaned forward. Hank glanced and saw the quarter rolling again. He waited. “He’s been planning for a long time. Odette did the dirty work and she’s still doing it,” he said with a glance at his reports. “He was on the inside and knows how we work. Procedure might have changed with technology, but he’s informed and worse, knows our handicaps and circumvents every roadblock.” Gerardo was quiet for a few seconds, the quarter rolling evenly across his knuckles. “It’s in the targets.”
“I’m betting on Dragon One’s theory that he’s exacting revenge on all who spurned his greatness,” Beckham said and Hank agreed. “A man who deals in facts, he was ruined for experimenting on DNA splicing and his work on genome with stem cells. Where did he get the stem cells? The DNA to torture into submission?”
“What did you learn about this Odette?”
“Nothing. Not one thing that isn’t connected to Thibaut. There is no birth record for that name and her fingerprint is a manufacture.” Hank and Al looked up at once. “Her passport is a fake.”
Gerardo read the report and said, “She had diplomatic papers for an adoption. To a cabinet member. They let her pass and no search. She could have a purse full of those things to plant.”
Fight Fire With Fire. Page 30