Whole Pieces

by Ronie Kendig

  Mack hesitated, crouched against the dirt wall that rose four feet up. His gaze pinged between Hawk and Stratham. “We’re radio silent. No contact till rendezvous.”

  Head lowered, Stratham said nothing. His jaw popped, and he seemed to grasp for options—ones that did not include killing the kid, no matter what he’d just barked at Jensen.

  “Just let him go?”

  Hawk’s breath backed into his throat. “No. He’ll tell them.” He knew that outcome. “He’s already seen us, knows where we are and how many.”

  “What if he doesn’t say anything to anyone?” Mack suggested.

  “No good. He will.”

  “What if he doesn’t?” Stratham said.

  “He will.” Hawk wished for a breath that didn’t hold the weight of the death of half a dozen men. “Trust me. I know.”

  “How do you know?” Stratham frowned.

  Slowly, Hawk tugged the watch from his pants pocket and held it out. “Don’t ask me to explain it. Somehow, this can show me what will happen.”

  Stratham stilled, eyes on Hawk’s palm, then locking gazes with him. Even in the darkness, Hawk saw his nostrils flare and his eyes narrow. “Is this supposed to be funny?”

  Hawk let out a soft snort. “I wish it were funny—a joke. But it’s not. All I have to do is depress the stem and it shows me time funneling out.” He shrugged. “Like I said, don’t ask me to explain it, but the watch works. I know if we let that boy go, we’ll die.”

  “What watch?”

  Fear coiled around Hawk’s certainty. He held it up a little higher, the silver glinting off the metal. “Right here, the one in my hand.”

  “There’s nothing in your hand, Hawk.” Stratham pushed him back. “Get to work. Eyes out. We’re in the middle of a deadly mission and you’re going to play pretend?”

  Heat blasted through Hawk’s stomach. “There’s nothing in your hand.” It didn’t make sense. The watch was right here, as real as Hawk.

  “What if we convince him to stay quiet?” Mack’s question sliced through the tension. “Maybe buy him off.”

  “Look at his clothes,” Hawk muttered. “He’s not lacking for money. What could we give that he doesn’t already have?”

  Another tactic lodged in Hawk’s mind. In the first time strain he’d threatened the kid, used scare tactics to try to keep him from betraying them. Obviously it hadn’t worked. But maybe this time . . . maybe if he could be kinder with his words, if he could be . . . friendly.

  “We can’t kill him. That’s not right,” Jacobie reiterated.

  “Beg off, Jacobie. We’ve got this.” Stratham met Hawk’s gaze as he spoke. “Right?”

  “Let me talk to him.” Hawk seized his idea, lowered himself to the ground, and sat cross-legged. “My name is Haytham.”

  The boy’s smile flickered as understanding flooded his young, innocent face. “Hawk.”

  Hawk nodded. His name meant hawk.

  “You’re Afghan?”

  “Half. My moor was from Kabul.”

  An ounce of the fear coating the boy’s face broke off. “Your plaar?”

  “American. My mother went to America—” he’d leave out the parts about his grandfather betraying his terrorist-bent countrymen and ingratiating himself with top brass, then getting a free pass for him and his family to DC—“and married my father. She taught me about her people and language.”

  “Do you have sisters or brothers?”

  Protecting his own family was priority one. But he needed to connect with this kid on a deeper level than before. So he gave a partial answer. “I had a sister. She died when she was little—a car accident.”

  Lips pulled down and brow wrinkled, Abda drew back, concerned. “I’d be very sad if one of my sisters died.”

  There. That was his inroad to this boy’s heart. “We want to protect your sisters, too.”

  Hawk resisted the urge to scoot forward and crowd the boy, his mind pinging between the chatter of the team, several of whom still wanted to silence the boy permanently, and Stratham, whose voice bore the strain of the situation.

  “Maybe you can help us, Abda,” Hawk said. This is crazy. I came back to kill this kid, and I’m talking to him like he’s one of the guys?

  His head bobbed in excitement. “I like Americans.”

  Hawk smiled. “Good,” he continued in Pashto, “because we like you too. We want to help Afghanistan be free and safe, a nation where everyone has a voice, including your sisters, when they grow up.”

  “Oh no.” Abda shook his head. “Women aren’t allowed to speak in public. Not even at home. They have to stay in the back room while the colonel is there.” Sorrow scratched through the innocent face. “I don’t like the Sand Spider. He’s mean. Not a good man.”

  The information ricocheted through Hawk’s brain. “The colonel—is that Colonel Tarazai?”

  Abda shrugged; then his gaze locked on something. “My box.”

  When the boy held out his hand, Hawk glanced back. There beside Stratham rested a tin candy box. Hawk retrieved it. “What’s in here?”

  “My prizes.” Skittish eyes danced around the team. “From soldiers—but don’t tell Plaar. He’ll take it away and be very angry.”

  “Soldiers?” Hawk jutted his jaw and popped the top. He aimed his watch illumination into the box. A 1st Special Forces Group patch stared back at him, along with a small plastic American flag, a bracelet-looking thing made out of paracord, a toy GI Joe . . . His gaze rose to Abda’s. So the kid wasn’t joking about liking Americans.

  Hoisting the box, he saw the opportunity. “I’ll give it to you, but on one condition.”

  Wariness crowded the curiosity. “What?”

  “We’ll make a deal.” Hawk patted Stratham’s boot. “Everyone here will add a treasure if you will make us a promise.”

  The boy came to his knees, eyes bright. “What promise?”

  “You can’t tell anyone about us.”

  “Never?”

  “Not ever. Everyone here could die.” Would die, or had died in the original time strain. But somehow he was sure the boy had to live in order to prevent the holocaust-like disaster he’d seen. Letting Abda live . . . letting him go . . . What were the chances the team could survive?

  “But can I tell Plaar about the other fighters?”

  Hawk stilled. Frowned. “What other fighters?”

  “The ones in the valley near the road. They are bad men.”

  7

  “We got a problem.”

  From his position watching the field, Stratham turned. “What?”

  Hawk held a finger up to the boy. “Wait here. Quiet. No talking. Okay?” After the boy gave a slow nod, Hawk crawled over to the team leader. “The boy says he saw fighters in the valley by the main road.” Was that connected to the bloody battle?

  The team leader jerked toward him. “You’re kidding me.”

  So-called freedom fighters meant trouble. Taliban. Pakistani. Iraqi. Afghan. You name it, they came with one objective: stopping anyone from cooperating with the “Great Satan,” America. And even if Tarazai was bad news—that’s what ODA 375 was here to find out—they needed him in play. Not dead. Because that would mean no leads, no connections, and the coalition forces desperately had to figure out where policy was slipping through the cracks, right along with progress.

  Stratham grabbed a pair of night-vision binoculars and probed the night. “Where? How many?”

  “By the road. Uh . . .” Hawk repeated the question in Pashto about how many, but the kid shrugged.

  “It was too dark. They were in the shadows. I couldn’t tell.”

  Relaying the news left Hawk with a deep dread. Things were going from bad to worse. The vision he’d seen had shown a bloody field. Thousands dead. Was that where they were headed?

  So he’d lost his resolution to shoot the boy. Now the kid had complicated things with rumors of freedom fighters in the valley. Of course, if they could send their sniper out there
. . . Whether that would be effective depended, naturally, on the number of fighters.

  “You believe the kid?” Stratham’s gaze rested on the boy. “Ten minutes ago, you were ready to put a bullet through his head.”

  The stark truth punched Hawk in the gut. “I know.” He couldn’t explain his one-eighty on the kid, the vision he’d had, knowing the future. His mind rifled through plausible comebacks.

  I trust him.

  But he didn’t. He knew that in the original time strain the kid went home, ratted them out, and everyone died.

  He has no reason to lie to us.

  He had every reason. Protecting himself, his sisters, his country . . .

  So what in the world was Hawk doing telling the master sergeant about possible fighters? He would kill the kid himself if that would solve it. But according to the secondary vision, it would only make things worse.

  “Okay,” Stratham huffed. “Listen.” He swiped a hand over his mouth. And in the nervous jitters of an impenetrable fortress of a man, Hawk saw some of his own terror. “We’ll send Jensen out. See if he can get a bead on them.” Stratham’s mistrust blasted through his eyes as he studied the kid. “A look-see will tell us whether to believe this kid.”

  Hawk nodded. Sending the sniper was a good choice.

  “Or kill him.”

  “No.” Hawk bit down on the word. “I know . . . I know it’s crazy, but I have a bad feeling about that. Look at his clothes—his family’s well-off. His father is with Tarazai. I just have this feeling—” borne out of a vision of a time-travel-enabling watch— “that it’ll be bad, real bad, if we kill him.”

  But what if the mention of fighters near the road was a trap? The fighters—how did they play into the whole game? Were they even there the first time?

  Stratham gathered Jensen and his spotter, Jacobie, then told them about the possibility of freedom fighters down there. “Find out how many. STK if you can eliminate all of them and stay dark.”

  “Roger.” Jensen and Jacobie rushed into the darkness, moving swiftly and with stealth. Stratham then pointed to the kid and eyeballed Hawk. “Stay on him. Don’t let him out of your sight. In fact, tie him up.”

  Mack’s eyes bugged out. “Tie him—? We can’t keep him here. He’ll see how we work.”

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  “We’re compromising the operation.”

  “It’s already compromised—the second that kid stumbled upon us.” Stratham glowered. “Hawk. You heard me. Tie him up.”

  Hawk swallowed and considered the little guy. Keeping the boy here . . . it was their only choice. Right? Wasn’t it? They didn’t exactly have a way to see the—fu . . . ture.

  Hawk’s hand eased to his leg pocket. With his pointer finger, he traced the outline of the timepiece. Like a whiff of sulfur, the howl of Constant seared into his memory banks, left his hackles raised and heat spilling down his spine.

  Depressing the stem—would that bring Constant? Maybe that’s what had happened before, when he’d leaned down and shifted his leg. Had he depressed the stem then?

  Why hadn’t Constant retrieved his watch? Surely the whole concept of time wasn’t connected to this lone device? The being couldn’t be that limited, could he?

  “Hawk!” Stratham snapped, his voice slamming into Hawk, though quiet and controlled in the secure spot.

  From a pack, he snagged a rope and bent toward the boy. “Abda, you would do anything to protect your sisters and mother, right?”

  Though his lower lip trembled, the bright-eyed boy gave a slow nod . . . and extended his arms, wrists together.

  Hawk’s heart tumbled into his stomach. This was some kind of messed up. It wasn’t right. None of it. The kid, the team . . .

  I should’ve never come back. Had Hawk somehow broken an unwritten rule? Would that rule-breaking snafu shatter his chances to save the team?

  Immediately he regretted the thought. Yanked it back into the void from which it’d come. Any chance to save the lives of his team wasn’t something to regret. It was something to protect. He coiled the rope around Abda’s wrists and ankles, tight but not crushing.

  Shoulders slumped, Hawk shook his head. “I am sorry, Abda.”

  “It’s okay, Haytham. But . . .”

  Hawk angled his head. “What?”

  “My moor. She will worry that I have not come back.”

  Hawk looked to Stratham, who let out another curse.

  “So what’s the call?” Mack asked, prone on the ground, his weapon poking out of their cover and prepped to protect. “We keep him here? He’s right—what if his mom looks for him?”

  “It’s too late. She won’t be about alone.”

  “No,” Hawk said, emotion tightening his words. “His father will. Or Tarazai.”

  Check the watch.

  Though they’d kept quiet, their discussions, arguments, and decision making conducted in controlled whispers and hissed words, the night had thickened with tension and trouble, leaving a noisy din in Hawk’s mind. So much that when he slid his fingers beneath the Velcro closure to retrieve the watch, the ripping noise might as well have been the weapons’ fire.

  He tensed, feeling Stratham’s glare on him. Hawk shifted away and reached for his weapon, the cold metal of the watch chilling him. Or maybe that was the daunting realization that this device could predict—no, not predict, but glimpse into—the future.

  No, not the future so much as it was tugging him back to where he belonged. The present.

  They needed to know, though, whether keeping the boy was good or bad. Right?

  What if Thomas Constant made his way to Hawk?

  Oh, man. The dude would probably hand-feed Hawk to Death. Piece by piece.

  But the nudge to look tugged at him, much the way time itself seemed to rip at his sleeves and clothes, his very skin.

  Hawk shot a sidelong glance to the kid. Trusting but scared, the boy watched him. Rolling onto his stomach, Hawk feigned getting back to work. He should be prepared to encounter Constant once he depressed the stem.

  Moonlight bathing the silver watch, Hawk stared down at the etched number 7. Gnawing his inner lip, he wondered what the slick immortal would do to Hawk for stealing the watch, for playing, as it were, with time?

  “Haytham, my mom will be scared,” Abda whispered in Pashto. “I am scared.”

  You and me both, buddy.

  With that, he depressed the timepiece.

  8

  Wind pulled and yanked at Hawk as if a tornado rushed in and whisked him away. Spinning, twirling, he kept his gaze on the watch. The only element in the blur of time that did not fragment or change. Smudged and bleeding. That’s the way his body looked. Surroundings whipped into a gray clump of nothingness, he resisted the urge to call out. Fought the pull on his mind. His thoughts.

  Why hadn’t he seen anything yet?

  Too much! Too much!

  Hawk released the stem.

  Silence dropped on him. Only the frantic pace of his breathing and heart rate whooshing in his ears rippled through the night. He stared at the watch.

  Do it right this time.

  Wetting his lips and tasting the paint smeared over his face, Hawk retrained his mind on the watch. On peeking into the future. With a slow depression, time once again whirled.

  Slower, clearer, smoother.

  With it—

  Men rushed them. Shouts scalded the night. A cloud of men crested the hill.

  Heads garbed in turbans, some wearing long brown tunics, some in black, they advanced. Freedom fighters! Who were they attacking, though? This wasn’t the location of Hawk’s team. He spun around, assessing, searching, trying to piece together this crazy-wicked puzzle.

  Dressed in black from head to toe, other men fired back. Fought hand to hand. Hawk caught a glimpse of a patch on the uniform. His pulse jackhammered. SEALs? No way. How could . . . ? Where . . . ?

  Hawk tried to look around through the blur of the hiccup in time. T
he houses lining the road and abutting the small hill were . . . Wait.

  “Taking fire, taking fire,” a SEAL cried into a mic he’d keyed.

  “On your ten!”

  Enshrouded in the haze of time ripped from another point, Hawk instinctively ducked and checked to his left. No one. Just black night.

  “Take him!”

  Tat-tat-tat.

  Hawk wondered where he was, if he’d get shot peeking in from the vantage of Constant’s watch. Or was he safe, wrapped in a time that wasn’t?

  Or was it?

  There were SEALs here, watching the same village. With the same mission. How was that possible? Why hadn’t SOCOM or STRATCOM indicated the duplicate nature of the missions? Or did they have different purposes?

  Crazy. Who cared? The SEALs were under attack. Which meant ODA 375 would be mincemeat soon.

  Bullets tore past him. Snagged by the time-stream bubble, they slowed. Hawk’s heart pounded with each report of the guns.

  He looked up, then down. To his left. Trying to get his bearings. Oh, man. The SEALs were positioned to the Green Berets’ twelve o’clock position.

  And Taliban loyal to Tarazai had just found them.

  “No!” He jerked.

  Taut like a rubber band, time snapped back into place. Dropped him back into position with ODA 375. Prone, he gulped adrenaline like air. This was bad. Bad bad bad. Taliban. SEALs. Massacre.

  Three hours left. More than half the time gone, and things weren’t on their way to better. To hell in a handbasket came to mind. Hawk hauled in a breath but felt as if someone had punched him in the chest. He glanced down and froze.

  A bullet was lodged in his Interceptor vest.

  He’d have a wicked bruise come morning—if he survived.

  He slapped a hand to his face and swiped it over his nose and mouth. “We gotta let the kid go.”

  Sand and dirt scraped—Stratham. Probably glancing over his shoulder at Hawk. “Why? Got another bad feeling?”

  This mess went way beyond bad. How did he explain it? Nobody would believe him. Suffocating pressure gripped him tight.

  If they let the boy go, would the fighters go on their merry way, back to the meeting house or, better yet, out of the village? Would that save the SEALs?