Tucker patted his dog’s side, reassuring the shepherd after the long, noisy ride.
Kowalski merely scowled at the grim surroundings. “Once … just once … why can’t we end up at some beach where women are in bikinis and where drinks come in coconuts?”
Seichan ignored him and stood at Gray’s shoulder. “What now?”
“This way!” Alden answered, heading off, accompanied by the last member of the British SRR team, Major Bela Jain. The captain pointed toward a cluster of thatched-roof huts.
As a group, they crossed through a parking lot of rusted trucks, skeletal sand-rail buggies, and beat-up motorcycles. Guarding them all stood an older Daimler Ferret scout car, painted United Nations white and emblazoned with their blue symbol. It looked like a minitank with a fully enclosed armored cabin and mounted with a Belgian L7 machine-gun turret. A United Nations peacekeeper leaned against the vehicle, eyeing them suspiciously as they passed.
Alden noted Gray’s attention. “Camps like this need to be protected. Raids are common, for drugs, even for water. Drought has devastated much of this region, contributing to famine and death, driving the people to the coasts or up into the mountains.”
They reached the circle of huts to find a French doctor kneeling beside a long line of Somali children. A nurse prepped a syringe and handed it to the doctor, who jabbed it into the bony arm of the first boy in line.
Gray had read how the civil war going on in the southern part of the country had displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians and their children, leading to outbreaks of cholera, dysentery, and hepatitis. But a vaccination program against measles and polio, along with the administration of simple deworming tablets and vitamins, was saving countless young lives.
“Here’s the contact I was telling you about,” Alden said, pointing to the doctor. “He hears everything going around the camp, misses nothing. He’s a great asset.”
Gray studied the French M.D., a middle-aged man with bulky glasses and sunburned nose and ears. But Gray was wrong about the focus of attention.
“Baashi!” Alden called out and waved an arm, stepping forward.
The spy at the camp winced as he was injected in the arm. The young dark-skinned boy thanked the doctor in French. “Merci.”
Pulling his tunic sleeve down, the child headed over. “Ah, Mr. Trevor. You come!”
“This is your contact?” Kowalski mumbled under his breath, plainly not pleased. “What is he, fourteen?”
“Thirteen actually,” Major Jain said softly. She stared at her superior with raw admiration. “Captain Alden rescued the boy from a group of Muslim insurgents outside mogadishu. A child soldier. Only eleven at the time, hyped on bloody amphetamines, brutalized and bearing scars from cigarette burns.”
Gray’s heart ached at the sight of the boy’s mile-wide smile as he rushed forward and hugged Captain Alden, who had dropped to one knee. It seemed impossible to balance such simple joy with the horrors Major Jain described.
Alden hooked an arm around the boy’s thin shoulders and led him back to the gathered group.
“Here are the people I wanted you to meet, Baashi.”
The boy smiled, staring around, but Gray saw the hint of fear in his eyes, a wariness of strangers. He leaned more tightly against Alden. Here were the cracks that exposed the past trauma.
Tucker’s dog squirmed forward, sniffing, wanting to get the scent of the newest addition to their pack.
Baashi’s eyes got huge. A small squeal of terror stretched out of him. “Ayiiii …”
“Kane, come here,” Tucker ordered, at the sound of the boy’s distress.
The shepherd returned to his handler’s side.
“Down.” Tucker reinforced the command with a flat-handed gesture. He sank to a knee next to his dog, but his words were for the boy. “He won’t hurt you. I promise. He’s a good dog.”
Tucker held out a hand, asking the boy to come forward.
Baashi remained frozen at Captain Alden’s side.
“Just let the boy be,” Seichan warned. “He’s clearly afraid of dogs.”
Kowalski made a grunt of agreement, even Jain’s eyes pinched with concern.
Tucker ignored them all and kept his arm up.
Seichan looked to Gray for help. He simply shook his head, remembering the man’s empathy scores. They had been through the roof. Tucker had a preternatural ability to interpret another’s emotional core. And maybe it wasn’t just with animals.
Clearly bonded to the child, knowing the boy, Alden also seemed to share Tucker’s understanding. “It’s okay, Baashi. If you want …”
The boy stared at the dog for a long breath, cocking his head, perhaps searching inside himself for that lost bond children have for all things furry and warm. Finally, he stepped clear of Alden’s legs, trembling a bit.
His gaze never shifted from Kane. “He good dog?” Baashi asked.
Tucker nodded once.
Baashi crept forward, approaching as if toward a perilous cliff.
Kane remained alert, only the tip of his tail twitching with excitement. Baashi reached out the back of his hand toward the dog. Kane stretched his nose, nostrils flaring, snuffling.
Baashi moved an inch closer—it was far enough.
A long pink tongue slipped out and licked the boy’s fingertips. The tail twitch turned into a big wag.
“He likes you,” Tucker said softly.
Baashi’s smile returned, shyly at first, then stronger. He moved near enough to touch Kane on the top of his head. The dog’s nose sniffed along the length of his arm.
Baashi giggled and said something in a Somali dialect.
“Tickles,” Alden translated.
Moments later, the boy was sitting on the ground, ruffling the dog’s fur and trying to avoid an onslaught of licks. Gray stared at them both, remembering Kane’s savage attack on the commando yesterday. Likewise, he tried to picture the boy with a rifle at his shoulder. In different ways, the two—boy and dog—were both warriors, and maybe Tucker had recognized that such harshness needed an outlet of innocence and play—and also trust.
Alden joined Gray. “Baashi is slowly coming around. The base here works with such children. They try to rehabilitate them, to bring out the scared child still trapped within the nightmares of those past horrors.” He eyed Baashi and the dog—then Tucker. “You’ve got a good man there.”
Gray had to agree.
Tucker stood off to the side, studying the distant mountains. After seeing how the handler and his dog had operated back in Boosaaso, how the shepherd had tracked Seichan’s blood trail through the myriad scents and smells of the city, Gray wondered if it wouldn’t be better to simply drop the pair into the mountains, let them hunt Amanda down by themselves, and radio back her location.
But that could take days … days he felt sure the president’s daughter didn’t have.
10:34 A.M.
Cal Madow mountains, Somalia
From the shouts and calls beyond the tent-cabin, Amanda knew something was happening. She heard the coughing choke of several truck engines, accompanied by the barking of orders.
One of the African soldiers burst into the cabin, talked to Dr. Blake, then turned on a heel and dashed back out again. Blake crossed the medical ward and disappeared behind a privacy screen that hid another bed. The outline of his nurse shadowed the screen. They bent their heads together, talking softly.
Amanda strained to hear. If she could’ve slipped quietly out of the bed to eavesdrop, she would have attempted it. But stealthy was not a word that best described her current state. Still, another reason also fired that desire. The outline of the other hospital bed clearly showed someone occupied it.
She had no idea who it was. An injured soldier? Another of the medical staff who had fallen ill? Whoever they were, they’d been slipped into the tent in the middle of the night when she’d been sleeping. She woke to find the privacy screen up and the doctor and nurse going back and forth to attend the ne
w patient.
All she knew was that it was a woman, hearing at one point a small cry rising from beyond the screen, definitely feminine. But the new patient had been silent ever since. Likely sedated.
At last, Blake appeared again and headed over to Amanda with a chart in his hands. He must have read her worry. “Nothing to concern yourself with, my dear.” He waved an arm toward the commotion going on outside. “It seems someone has been making inquiries as to your whereabouts. Practically knocking at our doors.”
Hope surged in Amanda at his words, stirring the child enough to kick. “Shhh,” she whispered, rubbing her belly.
Having traveled under false papers, she feared that no one knew she was the true target of the midnight raid in the Seychelles. She avoided glancing at the cross symbol with the genetic markings, knowing the truth. The high-seas kidnapping had not been random bad luck. It had been purposefully planned and executed.
But now … could someone be trying to rescue me?
Icy water quickly doused that momentary hope as Blake continued, “But they’ll be dealt with swiftly enough.” His eyes settled on hers. “We wouldn’t want to be interrupted. Especially with such good news in hand.”
She understood, looking at the chart he held. “You got back the amniocentesis results.”
Blake flipped through a couple pages. “Your baby tested perfectly. The genetics remain stable. Better than we hoped.” He smiled at her. “You’re about to give birth to a miracle.”
11:42 A.M.
UNICEF camp, Somalia
Seichan huddled with Gray inside one of the huts at the edge of the hospital encampment. Kowalski and Major Jain kept guard outside, making sure no one overheard their conversation—and considering how loud they were arguing, that wouldn’t be a problem.
“Because beef is murder!” Jain said. “Hindus believe that God—”
“And if God didn’t want us to eat cows, he wouldn’t have made them so damn tasty—especially smothered in barbecue sauce!”
“That’s not an argument. You’d probably eat your own shoe if it had barbecue sauce poured on it. I mean look at your ass.”
“What about my butt?”
“I’ve seen cows with smaller rear ends.”
A sputtering sound followed, then, “Quit looking at my ass!”
Tucker stared toward the door. “Diplomacy at its finest,” he mumbled. “Your friend out there sure knows how to mend fences.”
Tucker had been included in the meeting inside the hut—not because his expertise was needed. It was because of the skinny black arm around his dog’s neck. Baashi had taken a real shine to Kane and what had started as terror now seemed a source of strength.
“No, I tell you again,” the boy stressed. “I heard no one speak of a white woman in the mountains. Not here. Not at all.”
A map had been spread out on the dirt floor.
Captain Alden crouched on the far side of it, next to the boy. “Okay, Baashi.” He leaned back and sighed. “I’m sorry, commander. I may have sent you miles out of your way for nothing. Word may have never reached here.”
Gray stared at the map. “It was a gamble,” he conceded.
Seichan heard the tick in Gray’s voice. Without even seeing his eyes, she could imagine the gears turning. He wasn’t giving up, not yet.
And it wasn’t just him.
“I can go out again,” Baashi offered. “Into the camp. Ask questions. Not just listen.”
“No,” Seichan snapped. The vehemence of her response surprised her.
Still, Gray backed her up. “Seichan’s right. It’s one thing just to eavesdrop and pass on what he’s heard, but to actively ask questions will put him in the crosshairs of our enemy. Remember what happened to Amur Mahdi back at Boosaaso.”
“And it’s not just the risk to the boy,” Seichan started. “It’s more than that.”
Gray gave her a concerned look, perhaps hearing the sudden stress in her voice. She gave a small shake of her hand, not wanting to continue, not trusting herself. The boy had already been used and brutalized as a child soldier. How would they be any different if they turned the boy into their spy? It was bad enough that the British SRR was using the kid as an informant.
Seichan stared at her hands and found her fingers tightly bound together. She knew how easy it was to twist such innocence to foul purposes as the strong preyed on the weak, twisting children into monsters, turning them into soldiers or scouts, or even sending them ahead of an advancing army as living mine detectors.
She forced her hands apart. Her fingers found the silver dragon at her neck. She recognized why the boy’s situation struck her so deeply, so personally. The realization made her both angry and ashamed.
She remembered little of her own childhood in Vietnam. Bits and pieces, none that included her father. And what she remembered of her mother she wished she could forget: of being ripped from her arms, of her mother being dragged out a door, bloody-faced and screaming, by men in military uniforms. Afterward, Seichan spent her childhood in a series of squalid orphanages across Southeast Asia, half-starved most of the time, maltreated the rest—until finally she’d taken to the streets and back alleys. It was there, when she was little older than Baashi, that the Guild found and recruited her. Over the course of the next year, the trainers stripped away not only her remaining childhood but also much of her humanity, leaving behind only an assassin.
I was this boy, she thought, abused and tortured into bloody servitude.
But she also knew there was one distinct difference between them. She pictured Baashi playing with the dog, carefree and happy. Unlike her, he was still young, malleable enough to rediscover his humanity.
She let her fingers drop from the dragon pendant, the memory of her mother dissolving away into faded whispers in the night and soft kisses on her cheek—but even then there had been tears, as if her mother knew she was about to lose her child.
The memory sparked a sudden insight regarding their current mission. “She’s a mother, too,” Seichan said, drawing Gray’s attention. “The president’s daughter …”
His eyes narrowed on hers—then widened with understanding. His fingers found her hand and squeezed his thanks, then remained there.
She stared down, wanting to feel more, but at this moment, all she felt was loss—for her childhood, her mother, even Gray. How could she ask more of his heart when she wasn’t sure what was left of her own?
“Amanda’s not only unusual because she’s white,” Gray explained to the others, “but also because she’s pregnant.”
Alden nodded. “Such a condition is rare in a kidnap victim. Someone might have made note of it.”
“And hopefully talked about it.” Gray turned to Baashi. “Have you heard anything about a pregnant woman being moved into the mountains near here? Someone with a large belly?”
To emphasize, Gray pantomimed a swollen stomach.
Baashi twisted his lips in thought and sat quietly for a moment, then slowly sagged. “No. I hear nothing about a big-belly woman with the pirates.”
Seichan studied the boy. He stared too hard at the map, kept his attention diverted away. Even his arm fell from around Kane’s neck.
“He knows something,” Seichan said. Tucker wasn’t the only one capable of reading emotions buried under the surface.
Especially this boy.
I was this boy.
“He wouldn’t lie to me,” Alden said.
“He’s not lying,” Seichan agreed, but angrily. “We’re just not asking the right question.”
Baashi’s gaze met hers. Fear shone there—and resistance.
How many times had the same emotions warred inside her?
Tucker came and sat next to the boy. “It’s okay, Baashi. Kane and I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
A silent hand signal followed: a flick of fingers, a digit pointed at the boy’s lap. Baashi didn’t see it, but Kane obeyed. The dog came forward and rested his muzzle on the boy’s knee.<
br />
Baashi placed his palm on the dog’s shoulders, drawing strength there.
“It’s okay to tell us,” Alden said softly. “No one’s mad.”
Baashi glanced sheepishly up at his father figure. “I no lie. I hear no stories about big-belly woman.”
“I never thought you did, my boy. But what is scaring you? What are you so afraid to tell us?”
He finally broke down. “I hear other stories. Of a demon man in the mountains. He make a place like this.” Baashi waved his other arm in a circle.
“Like the hospital here.”
Baashi nodded. “But he only look after the big bellies on the woman.”
“He takes care of pregnant women?” Alden asked, repeating Gray’s pantomime of a swollen stomach.
“Yes, but they say bad things. Mothers go there. Never come back. A very bad place.”
Tucker patted the boy on the shoulder. “You did good, Baashi.”
The boy refused to look up, showing no relief.
Gray shifted to the map. “Do the stories say where in the mountains this doctor works?”
“Yes,” Baashi said, but he still wouldn’t look at the map.
“Can you show Kane?” Tucker said.
The boy glanced from soldier to dog—then slowly nodded. “I show you. But it’s a bad place.”
As the boy reached for the map, Kowalski burst into the room. “We’ve got a chopper inbound.”
Alden seemed unconcerned. “They have medical drops all the time. Could be another patient, supplies, or—”
Major Jain shoved past Kowalski and dove inside. “Incoming! Get down!”
Gray rolled Seichan to the floor. Tucker and Alden sheltered the boy, pinning him under their bodies. Baashi clung tightly to Kane.
A sharp whistling screamed across the roof of the hut—followed by a massive explosion that shook thatch from the roof.
Jain returned to the door.
Bloodline: A Sigma Force Novel Page 10