“I didn’t know that.”
“I don’t know it either, I’m just trying to convince you I’m smart.”
“I already believe that. Um, won’t we have the same problem with the flashlight as the overhead light?”
“Yes, I’m thinking about that. What about a tool kit? A truck this old has to travel with a tool kit.”
“Nothing. Could it be outside?”
Amelia hadn’t taken time to investigate the truck beyond seeing that the cab was empty and the door was unlocked, but Jildiz had a point. She couldn’t remember where or when but she had seen a compartment on the side of trucks like this. “I’m going to check.”
“Is that wise?”
“Probably not.” Amelia looked at the small overhead cab light, found a switch, and turned it to off. She exited a dark cab into a dark night.
“BOSS, WE GOT COMPANY, coming up from the south. Street side. Half a klick.” Doc’s voice was calm as if describing a play made on a baseball field.
“Down,” J. J. ordered. He dropped to a crouch then scrambled to the south end of the building. He dropped his NVGs and the world turned digital green. He glanced across the street and saw Aliki’s team spaced along the parapet wall, barely visible in their black helmets and balaclavas.
“Need me, Boss?” The whispered question came from Crispin.
“Negative, stay with the program.”
A mob of fifteen young men and several middle-aged guys moved up the street. Several carried bottles of booze. A gang of rioters? Looters? If so, they’ll pass by.
They didn’t pass by. They saw the crippled van and slowed, then they did something that chilled the team leader: they split into two groups on a hand signal from one of the older men. Several produced handguns.
Slowly, the armed men advanced on the vehicle. J. J. looked at the roof where the other half of his team took position. He saw Aliki looking back. Neither activated their radios. They didn’t need to. The only solution was to wait. They could dispatch the mob in short order. Truth was, J. J. could do it without help. A simple sweep of his M4 on full auto would leave corpses everywhere. If the rest of his team did the same there would be nothing but human-burger left. That wasn’t their mission. Killing civilians would cause four hundred kinds of trouble. However, should the group turn their attention to the roof, then it would turn into a really bad day.
Wait.
Watch.
Be ready.
“Check north,” Aliki whispered through the radio.
J. J. did and saw another group of about the same size coming their way. He pointed at Doc and motioned for him to check the alley. Doc moved like a cat across the gravel blanket roof. It took only a glance.
“One group, from the south, armed. I make it to be fifteen strong.”
“Roger that. Stick there.” J. J.’s brain spun like a jet engine. This isn’t coincidence.
Another whispered voice. “Boss, Hawkeye. Got her! Whoa!”
AMELIA SLIPPED FROM THE cab, and found a small door with a chrome clasp, or what might have been chrome at one time. Definitely a storage locker. A locked storage locker. “Oh sure, leave the cab open but lock up the tool compartment. What kind of moron does that?”
A sound. Odd. Slightly distant. Fuzzy.
She kept one hand on the locker and reached for the 9mm in her coat pocket.
Buzzing. Electric.
She spun and leveled her weapon ready to unleash a body mass shot, but there was no one there. She swept the gun to one side then the other. Nothing. Just the buzzing noise—from overhead. She looked up and saw a small device hovering a couple of yards away and twenty feet high. Amelia snapped the weapon up and sighted on the thing, ready to squeeze the trigger.
She hesitated. What the . . .
The device dipped its front end then brought it up again as if bowing. Then it moved to the truck, descending to the door. Amelia watched, both fascinated and fearful. It moved from the door then back again, repeating the action several times.
The thing is telling me to get in the truck. How can . . .
It hit her. A surveillance drone. The only question was, was it friendly?
Amelia crawled back into the cab with a big decision to make.
CHAPTER 23
THE KNOCK ON THE door sounded firm but not intrusive, as if the visitor wanted to be heard but felt guilty about it.
“I’ll get it,” Bartley said and moved from the small kitchen table.
Tess let him. The weeping stopped for now leaving her a husk, weak, and barely able to think. The image of the burned car and corpses repeatedly played in her head, an image that became more graphic with each replay. She no longer saw bodies burned beyond recognition—she saw J. J. Tess considered her imagination an aid in her work. She could read reports about military actions and see them unfold in her mind. There were times when her imaginings resembled hyperreal dreams—something she could live without.
The door released a tiny squeak as Bartley opened it. Tess hoped it was a salesman who could be sent away. It wasn’t. She recognized the voice.
“Chaplain. I’m glad you’re here.”
“Come in, Sergeant Major.”
“It’s just Eric these days.”
“And I’m just plain ol’ Rich.”
Tess rose and stepped to the lobby in time to see two familiar people cross her threshold. Eric Moyer was a man who, although fit, looked a decade older. He wore gray slacks and a blue polo shirt. Next to him stood the behemoth Rich Harbison. His size earned him the nickname Shaq, like the seven-foot one-inch basketball player. The large black man wore a patch over one eye, an eye lost on his last mission.
Willing herself to be strong, to remain composed, to show an emotional stability she didn’t have, Tess looked into the eyes of her husband’s former team leader. “Eric. You didn’t need to come. I know you’re busy.” Stupid words. She couldn’t come up with anything else.
“Yeah, I did. I . . . Nothing could keep us away.”
“You two were always J. J.’s friends.” The past tense kicked down the emotional walls. Tears rose. Tears fell. Sobs followed and without quite knowing how, she found herself in the arms of Eric.
He said nothing. No one did. The only sound was the closing of the front door. Minutes had no meaning. The apartment seemed to recede and Tess wondered how many times and how long a woman could cry.
When she looked up she saw tears in the eyes of Eric and Rich, two of the toughest men she knew. Somehow that brought a wave of comfort. “Doesn’t make sense to be miserable in the foyer when we could be miserable in the living room.”
“You were always the smart one of the family,” Rich said. “And J. J. would have agreed with that.”
“Yes he would,” Tess said. “I made him utter that very phrase three times a day.”
They laughed through the tears.
Once in the larger room, Rich moved to Bartley and threw his arms about the man. A taller than average man, Bartley looked tiny in Rich’s arms. “We haven’t forgotten you, Chap. How you holdin’ up?”
“You want the truth or a lie?”
“Nuff, said, sir.”
“You’re no longer in the Army, Rich, you don’t have to call me sir.”
“I am a wonderfully complex man with deeply rooted habits.”
The talk was light but the mood dark. They took seats. Bartley sat next to Tess on the sofa, Eric took a side chair and Rich pulled a chair from the kitchen. The easy chair in the living room remained unused. Apparently, Rich assumed it was J. J.’s. He was right.
“Tess, I have no words. I’ve been on this end of things before but . . . well, J. J. was different.”
There it was again: that horrible past tense.
“We’re here for you, Tes
s. You too, Captain. You ask, we’ll do. I don’t care what it is.”
Can you bring J. J. back? Out loud she said, “Thank you. J. J. considered you more than fellow soldiers. You are . . . were his friends.”
Eric teared up again, but kept the grief in check. “My position kept me from getting as close to him as I would like. Oh the pizza parties and barbecues were one thing, but being team leader required I keep a certain detachment.”
“He knew that. His greatest fear was not being half the team leader you were, Eric.”
“I recommended him for the job because I thought he’d be better than I ever was.” He drew a finger under his nose. “I can’t help feeling partly to blame.”
“Why?” The statement stunned Tess. “Because you bumped him to team leader?” She leaned forward. “You know better than that, Eric. He would still have been on the team even if the brass put someone else in your spot. You have no reason for feeling guilty. He died doing something he felt was important.”
“Guilt doesn’t follow reason, Tess. At least not with me.”
“I shoulda . . .” Rich cleared his throat. “I should have been there for him.” He looked away, eye contact being too painful.
“You didn’t choose to retire, Rich. Neither did you, Eric. Injuries and the attack on Eric’s family made early retirement necessary. I know that.”
Eric shifted in the chair as if sitting on tacks. “Tess, I want you to know you can ask anything of us and we’ll do it. I don’t know, um . . . I don’t know what your financial situation is. I know J. J. made diddly. I don’t know what the War College pays instructors or what you get for consulting. That’s none of my business, but Rich and I make a good living now. The security firm that hired us is generous.”
“Big time generous,” Rich said. “We get five times the coin we got from Uncle Sam.”
“If you need help with the funeral, travel expenses for family, cash to tide you over until Army pays out death benefits, you let us know.”
Rich jumped in. “We’re not talking a loan here, Tess. We want to do something to be helpful.”
“Thanks, guys. I think I’m okay, but I’ll keep your offer in mind. I can’t speak for the other families. Some of them will need more help than me. I don’t have a family . . .”
“Yet,” Moyer said. “That’s what I’m talking about. You need something for the twins—”
“How did you know I was having twins?”
Rich grinned. “You sure you’re married to J. J.? He did everything but put the news on a billboard. I think he called everyone in the white pages.”
A smile crept across Tess’s face, surprising her. “That’s J. J. He had a lot of teenager left in him.”
“And a lot of man too.” Eric seemed to drift to a time and place only he knew.
Tess wrestled with a question. The “wife” side of her felt she had a right to know; the “military expert” part told her she didn’t. She ended the debate.
“Eric, how much do you know?”
The question pulled him from his distant thoughts. He exchanged a glance with Rich. “I was read off once I signed my retirement papers. I’m not in the loop anymore. Colonel Mac can’t tell me anything.”
“I’ve only been a soldier’s wife a short time but I’ve been rubbing shoulders with the brass and intel agencies for half a decade. I also know about the security company you work for. They have a reputation for knowing things they shouldn’t.”
Moyer chewed his lip for a moment. “I have made a few calls. Don’t ask with whom.” He chewed his lip again then directed his attention to Bartley. “Captain, this is awkward. I wonder if you wouldn’t enjoy a little stroll outside.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Eric. I want to hear what happened to my brother.”
Moyer left his lip alone and started pulling at his ear. “I understand, sir. I would want the same thing if I were in your shoes.” He took a deep breath. “The firm I work for has many connections and I still have a few friends . . .” He trailed off as if the last part of the statement shouldn’t have been uttered. “How much do you know, Tess?”
“I know the team went to Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan to do some training and to meet the two new members of the team. From there, they were supposed to fly to Germany so Crispin could demonstrate the new field remote-piloted vehicles.”
“So far, you’re right on the money. Crispin is an expert in nano and miniature air vehicles used for field work. He’s become the golden boy of the surveillance technique.”
“Man, I miss busting his chops,” Rich said. “He was such a great target.”
“Go on, Tess. What else do you know?”
“For some reason they were pressed into a mission. I know there are riots going on in Bishkek, Talas, Osh, and other cities. I saw . . .” The tears in her eyes felt as if they had been drawn from a pot of boiling water. She took a deep breath and looked at the ceiling. Someone told her a person can’t cry while looking up. It sounded like nonsense then and it felt like nonsense now. Still . . . “I saw a news report—”
“Oh, Tess,” Bartley said. “I thought we warned you of that.”
“I’m not in my right mind, Paul.”
He took her hand and gave it a squeeze, delivering a message words were inadequate to convey.
“Anyway, the reporter said the attack happened in Bishkek. I guess that makes sense, since that’s the closest city to Manas Air Base.”
Moyer looked at the chaplain. Tess had enough experience with the military to know he was uncomfortable revealing information he shouldn’t have and doing so in front of an officer and a man of the cloth. Moyer was making a sacrifice for Tess.
Moyer cleared his throat. “A lot of my information is coming from winks and nods, but I do have some solid info. My sources say the team was dispatched to achieve two goals: find and recover an FAO named Amelia Lennon; second, if possible, to rescue a VIP with her.”
“VIP?”
“The Foreign Affairs Officer is an Army-trained captain. Highly trained. Which is one of the problems. She knows how to hide. The VIP is the daughter of the Krygyzstan president. She’s a Western-trained lawyer and the lead counsel for her country on the Manas Air Base problem.” He described the news video and the abduction attempt including the graphic details of Amelia’s use of a car to mow down two armed men.
“So they were on a rescue mission?” Hearing it again gave Tess a bit of relief. Dying on a mission was bad, but dying for something that didn’t matter was worse. J. J. joked that his greatest fear was dying stupid, like forgetting his parachute when leaping out the back of a VC-22.
“Yes. He died doing what he loved. He died trying to save lives.”
Tess could only nod. A wad of grief was stuck in her throat.
“Has another team been sent?”
Eric leaned back in silence. His eyes drifted to Rich.
“No,” Rich said. “At least the best we can tell. Word is the Kyrgyzstan government has forbidden any U.S. involvement on their soil. All forces are confined to Manas.” He folded his hands. “It is our belief the team was sent out very soon after they got word about the abduction attempt. Cell and landlines are down. A message could have been sent by e-mail, but e-mail can be ignored. We have a source that says the locals sent a personal messenger to the base commander. By that time the team was already active.”
“So the FAO is on her own?”
“For now.” Eric grimaced as if the words were soaked in green bile.
“So the local government has police and security searching for the women?”
Eric shook his head. “Possible, but doubtful. They have more on their hands than they can handle.”
“But what about J. J.’s body, Eric? We can’t leave him on the streets. They wouldn’t allow another Somalia, wo
uld they?” She didn’t need to explain the reference to the men in her living room. They all saw followers of a Somali war lord desecrate the bodies of slain soldiers downed in Mogadishu. The thought of it made her sick to her stomach.
“It’s a different group of people, Tess.” Eric didn’t sound convinced by his own words. “I can tell you this. Colonel Mac paid a visit to the president. He’s one of the people who can get a hearing almost anytime.”
“That’s because we saved his fanny in Italy,” Shaq said. “That and he has strong emotions for the team and for you, Tess.”
“But the president said no.”
“Correct.”
“So his hands are tied and my husband is left dead on a Bishkek street.”
“Officially, yes, his hands are tied. Unofficially, well, he’s been known to make up a new rule now and again.”
“Whatever happened to the Ranger creed? What happened to never leaving a fallen comrade?”
“We agree with you, Tess.” Eric rubbed the back of his neck. Tess could see the tension in the man’s face. “We’re just not in a position to do anything about it.”
“I understand.” Tess rubbed her temples. “It wouldn’t be fair to risk more lives.”
“Don’t say that, Tess,” Shaq said. “That’s what men like us do and we’re not alone. This isn’t finished yet.”
“It is for J. J.” Against her will, against her desire, she began to weep again.
Three male voices joined her.
Big men cry.
CHAPTER 24
THIS STINKS.
The assessment wasn’t profound but accurate. Moments before they located Captain Lennon and the president’s daughter, the team found itself on separate rooftops watching their vehicles burn like a pyre. The numbers had grown. J. J. estimated they were outnumbered ten-or-twelve-to-one. At least a third of the men were armed, some with military-grade weapons. He couldn’t be certain, but the body language of some of the men indicated they were military or paramilitary trained. Just one more burr under his saddle.
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