Pussycat in Peril (Pussycat Death Squad Book 3)

by Roslyn Hardy Holcomb

  “Yes, he was. But in this case he was right. Colonialism has been devastating all over the world, especially in North Africa. But destroying the ruins was not the answer.”

  Kaeden shrugged. As much as it pained him to see such things done, it had become so common it barely registered with him. Unless…

  “Please tell me Astaria didn’t go back to Laritrea to help her father in some hare-brained scheme over a bunch of old pottery…”

  “No. No. She wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t have allowed her to do that. No. She went back to get them to leave. Especially her mother, who has been ill.”

  “How long ago did she leave?” Kaeden asked.

  “February. Early February,” Lelia said, her soft voice barely above a whisper.

  “Ya Allah, Lelia, that was two months ago!” Kaeden said.

  Lelia gave a quick nod of agreement. “Yes. At first everything was fine. We had regular contact and she was confident that she’d be able to get her family out within a few weeks.”

  “Then what happened?” Kaeden said. The feeling of foreboding he’d had since he’d returned from Syria was growing even stronger. This was bad. Very bad. Astaria would have contacted him if she could. And she certainly would’ve kept in touch with Lelia. Even though they were no longer a military unit, she was Lelia’s second, and took her responsibilities very seriously.

  “We don’t know. We lost contact with her about a month ago.”

  “But that was when…” Kaeden began, only to be cut off by Lelia.

  “When Colonel al-Fariq was dragged out of one of his palaces and beheaded by rebel forces in the Uprising,” she said in a flat tone that betrayed the depth of the emotions she was forcibly holding in check. In the two years he’d been married to Astaria, Kaeden had gotten to know Lelia fairly well. Especially since she was also married to one of his best friends. They even socialized occasionally, but considering the nature of their work they hadn’t in quite some time. While Lelia was typically quite restrained, he knew she cared deeply for al-Fariq despite the way he’d betrayed her and the members of her Amazonian Guard.

  He wasn’t sure if she’d forgiven the man, but the graphic photos coming out of Laritrea after the assassination had to have been very distressing for her, and to think Astaria was actually in country while this madness was going on. Kaeden wasn’t particularly upset by the visual of al-Fariq with his head on a pike, indeed, the man more than deserved it as far as he was concerned, but he knew Astaria had to have been devastated.

  Patrick rose from his seat on the sofa and walked over to where his wife stood. After gathering her gently into his arms he continued the conversation. “The whole country has been in an uproar since. Everyone who could get out has, and now nobody knows what’s going on there.”

  “But you have contacts everywhere,” Kaeden said.

  Lelia shook her head and turned to face Kaeden again. “Not in Laritrea. It’s just too dangerous. Thousands have been arrested. According to some, the streets literally run with blood, but no one knows for sure, because everyone left. Simply put, the country is literally tearing itself apart. They have two separate governments. One is even allied with the jihadists. Then there are various factions within rival rebel groups and the government fighting in the streets. It’s as though everyone has gone mad at once.”

  “So where is Astaria?” Kaeden asked impatiently. It wasn’t like she was telling him anything he didn’t already know. They talked about it incessantly on the evening news every night. He hadn’t paid that much attention—bloody revolution seemed to be the order of the day pretty much everywhere these days. Then again, he hadn’t known his wife was trapped in the middle of the shitshow.

  “I don’t know,” Lelia said sounding as anguished as he’d ever heard her. She walked back over to the sofa and sat down. Then picked up her cup of coffee, holding it in hands that shook. She didn’t raise it to her mouth to drink, but just held it, staring off into nothing as though she took comfort from the heat generated by the beverage.

  Kaeden turned to Patrick who shook his head firmly. “I’ve hit up everybody I know. Called in markers I don’t have and could never repay to people I don’t even know. Practically camped out over at State and even the NSA. Promised to sacrifice my firstborn on the front lawn of the White House. Colonel Brown says she’s never seen anything like it. It’s as though the whole country has simply been wiped from the communications grid. There is absolutely no intelligence coming out of Laritrea. They’ve cut off all contact with the outside world.”

  “Bullshit, Trick. How is that even possible?”

  “Well, North Korea’s been doing it for years,” Patrick pointed out.

  “Yeah, but they were never on the grid in the first goddamned place,” Kaeden said.

  Patrick gave him a frustrated look. “Man when folks are being dragged out of their homes and murdered in the streets, and that’s by the government, people don’t stick around to ask a helluva lot of questions. NSA says there was a lot of chatter in the beginning, but now, except for occasional sporadic noise, everything, and I mean, everything is absolutely dead quiet. They’ve jammed the communications network and the internet.”

  In a country of millions of people? “What the hell…”

  “Her family lived in Amaru, which isn’t far from Laria, the capitol. Most of the ruins her father was excavating are on the coast, and that’s where some of the worst fighting has been. But we have no intelligence from either place,” Lelia said, still holding onto her coffee cup. “You know Laritrea is a large country in land mass, but most of that is desert. The population is quite small, for its size and some of the communities are isolated except on the coast. Except for Laria and Amaru and a couple other cities, there aren’t that many cell phone towers. I doubt there are any in the interior of the country. If the ones on the coast were shut down, it would be quite easy to shut down communications.”

  She said this with the certainty of someone who had evaluated the possibility of doing just that, which, in her previous role of head of al-Fariq’s Amazonian Guard she probably had done more than once.

  “So if there’s no intelligence coming out…” Patrick began.

  “Someone has to go in,” Kaeden said. Good. Now this was something he could handle. Something he could do.

  Lelia gasped in horror. “No. That would be insane.”

  “She’s my wife,” Kaeden said.

  “In name only,” Lelia snapped back. Kaeden met her gaze without lowering his own.

  “Or maybe not,” Patrick said with a raised brow.

  Kaeden had no intention of addressing Trick’s implied question. They’d been friends a long time, but he’d never discussed his feelings for Astaria with anyone and felt it would be best to start with the lady in question. “That’s neither here nor there. I’m the best person to go. I speak Arabic and a few dialects, besides. And I’m Muslim. That’s why you chose me to marry her in the first place.”

  “Egyptian dialect, not Laritrean,” Lelia interjected.

  “Close enough. Hell, there are tons of dialects, but just about anyone can get by with Fusha, or at least I can make myself understood. Besides, Astaria has taught me some Laritrean too. That’s mostly what she speaks at home,” Kaeden said. The number of Arabic dialects was incalculable with many unintelligible to one another, but Kaeden was fluent in Fusha, which was basic school Arabic and the Egyptian dialect that was his first language as a child. Laritrean and Egyptian were closely enough related that he could probably get by.

  Patrick’s brow quirked again, but thankfully he didn’t ask about Kaeden’s marriage. Instead he clarified another matter, “We chose you because you’re my friend and I knew you could be trusted.”

  Kaeden raised his hands in surrender. At the moment he didn’t give a damn. He would’ve married Astaria no matter what. He’d had it bad almost from the first moment he met her and had stopped fighting it a long time ago. “Okay, but either way, I’m the best person t
o go in after my wife. In fact I’m the only person I trust with this mission. I’ve done covert work, and a helluva lot of hostage rescues.”

  “Yeah, including that goat rope in Nigeria last year,” Patrick said with a wry twist of his lips.

  “Fuck you, Trick,” Kaeden said, his annoyance causing him to forget Lelia’s proscription against swearing. “I got the hostages out alive, didn’t I? It’s what I do.” The hostages had been held in a densely forested area in the northern part of the country. The Marines’ intelligence had been inaccurate to say the least, and they’d flown in blind. Their helicopters had been shot down, but they’d still managed to rescue the hostages, some American oil businessmen, and get out of the country alive.

  “It was a near thing, man,” Patrick said.

  Kaeden knew he was only concerned for his safety, but more than anything he wanted to break the other man’s face. “I know what I’m doing, man.”

  “You’ve never done anything on this level. This is not a kick ass, grab hostage and run type operation,” Patrick said.

  “I know that,” Kaeden said through gritted teeth. A vein in his forehead throbbed so heavily he could feel the increase in his own blood pressure.

  “You definitely can’t go by yourself,” Patrick said.

  “Who the hell am I going to take with me? You?” He raised a brow at his red headed friend.

  Patrick made a dismissive gesture. “I do speak Arabic.”

  “Yeah, and you’re about as Arab looking as Captain America. They’d shoot you on sight.”

  “You still need someone to go with you,” Trick insisted.

  “I know how to cover my six. I’ve done more than hostage rescue.”

  “You’ve never gone undercover before.”

  “I’m not a total idiot,” Kaeden said. “Things are really chaotic over there, which should work to my favor. If everyone is busy with the political situation they won’t have time to try to figure me out.”

  “Unless of course, they decide to just shoot you in the head to save themselves the bother,” Lelia said.

  Kaeden choked off a bitter laugh. “A regular optimist, aren’t you? There’s always that concern,” he said with a philosophical shrug. “It is a war after all.” When there was no response he continued. “Look, y’all,” he said. He was tired and hadn’t slept well since he realized Astaria had been gone far too long to be on a simple mission. When he was tired the soft Tennessee accent of his birthplace had a tendency to put in an appearance. “I don’t know anyone else who would be good for this mission. Do you?” he asked, giving Lelia a pointed look.

  Lelia sighed and rose to her feet to resume pacing. “I’ve never knowingly sent one of my people on a suicide mission. Now it’s happened twice.”

  Patrick enveloped her in his arms again. “Baby, you had no idea what would happen in Laritrea. No one thought the Colonel would fall, at least not so quickly. We all thought Astaria would have plenty of time to get her family out.”

  “I’ll never forgive myself if something should happen to you, Kaeden. We dragged you into this situation,” Lelia sighed.

  He shrugged. “I’m a grown man, I could’ve declined. I hardly ran away screaming into the night. I’m going with or without your approval or assistance, so you might as well help me all you can to make my mission successful. And you might take comfort in the fact that I’m not one of your people.”

  “That doesn’t help,” she said.

  He shrugged again. “That’s all I’ve got. Somebody’s got to go find Astaria and bring her home. Might as well be me. You know you can’t send any of your people into such a situation.”

  She bristled at that. “My women are lethal and more skilled than any marine.”

  “I’d be the last person to argue that point, but with this level of violence and some of those groups rivaling the Taliban in their anti-female rhetoric, none of your people could move around freely enough to find Astaria, let alone get her out safely,” Patrick said softly.

  “They could wear disguises,” she said.

  “And if they were discovered? Besides, I thought you didn’t want your people in this? Y’all barely escaped the first time. I’d think it would be the last place any of them should go. They probably wouldn’t live very long,” Kaeden said.

  “For all intents and purposes you are my people. After all we are the ones who got you involved. You did it as a favor and we appreciate it and don’t want to repay you by getting you killed,” she said.

  “Well, it’s not like I was kicking and screaming to get away, now was I?” Kaeden asked with a sudden grin.

  Lelia pressed her fingers to her eyes as though to shut out the world. After a long pause she removed them and gave Kaeden a direct look from her soft brown eyes. Lelia was a beautiful woman, but her unwavering, forthright manner was one of her best attributes. Nobody ever had to guess where they stood with her. He admired the same trait in Astaria. “I know you’re right. The situation is just so horrific. I knew the Colonel would go down someday, and I feared this type of thing occurring, but never did I expect it to come to this. Laritreans slaughtering one another in the street again. Did we learn nothing from the last war?”

  Patrick shook his head and leaned forward to give her a soft, comforting kiss on the top of her head. “Unfortunately, war is not a particularly effective tutor. Even so, I always thought it was crazy that her family stayed after y’all escaped.”

  Lelia shrugged. “I don’t think Dr. Ibrahim thought he was in any real danger. Remember her brother Halil was still a soldier in the Revolutionary Guard, too.”

  “Yeah, but he helped y’all escape. Never thought it was wise for him to stay either,” Patrick said.

  “That’s because you’re an American,” Lelia said.

  Patrick rolled his eyes and Kaeden nodded in sympathy. Lelia’s disdain for Americans had hardly been ameliorated by three years living in the country.

  “Are we really going into that evil empire thing again?” Patrick asked.

  “No. No. And you know I’ve never used that phrase in my life, but your country is stable and has been for many years. No one in your lifetime or for many lifetimes have had to fight for this country,” she said with a mulish tilt to her rounded chin.

  Kaeden interrupted, “We’ve had wars…”

  “Of course you have and people have died. But that’s not the same as a war in your country. Where you see your family killed before your eyes. Where you see your crops destroyed and your children going hungry. Women are raped and carried off by the dozens and sold into sex slavery. Halil stayed to fight for our country. We have some intelligence that he might be fighting with one of the anti-government groups, but yes, he has just disappeared too.”

  Kaeden pinched the bridge of his nose. Astaria hadn’t shared this bit of information with him, and he didn’t have to ask why. And if Halil was fighting with some guerilla group, there was damned good chance Astaria was too. She and Halil were separated only by a couple of years in birth and were very close. She’d wound up in the Amazonian Guard because as a woman she was ineligible to serve in the Army as Halil had done. “So, my wife’s entire family has vanished along with her. This is just great. And you thought it would be a good idea for her to go back?” He couldn’t help the sharp look he directed toward Lelia. Hell, she could have at least told him that Astaria was embarking on this fuckery. And Patrick was supposed to be his best friend. It was all he could do not to beat the hell out of him.

  “No. I thought it was an awful idea, but I also knew there was no way to stop her. Would you not do the same?” Lelia asked.

  Kaeden sighed. Of course he wouldn’t abandon his family. He had two brothers for fuck’s sake. “But why didn’t she tell me? I could’ve gone with her.”

  “Or tried to talk her out of it,” Patrick said.

  “Of course I would have tried to talk her out of it. But I still would have gone with her. She knows…”

  “She knows…” P
atrick repeated with a peaked brow.

  “Never mind,” Kaeden said. No way was he going to admit that Astaria had no idea how he felt about her and it was his own stupid fault. He re-directed his gaze to Lelia. “So are you with me, or not?”

  She sighed then turned to face Kaeden while standing in the circle of Patrick’s arms.

  “What do you need?” she asked, suddenly all business obviously having resigned herself to the fact that he was going whether she wanted him to or not. Kaeden was grateful. Lelia was a past master at logistics and he was going to need all the help he could get to get in country and out with Astaria alive.

  “First I guess I need a cover story. Money and passports too. But mainly a lot of money. When things go to hell in a handbasket money is the only way to get out. Then I’ll need to figure out a way to get to Amaru without drawing attention to myself.”

  Chapter Two

  Faisal Ibrahim was dead. That was one of the first things Kaeden discovered upon arriving in Amaru. Kaeden had a brief moment to grieve the man he’d never met, but whom he knew his wife adored. He hadn’t dared ask openly for the Ibrahim family, seeing as he had no idea what had happened to them. Fortunately, Dr. Ibrahim was well known and loved in the community. He’d even hosted a popular local television show about antiquities and artifacts, so his death was still the subject of gossip even a couple months later.

  Fighting in the area between the LOV, moderate rebel groups and the IJIWO, also known as Islamic Jihad Worldwide had been intense and right now IJIWO was occupying the city. They’d abducted the well-known archaeologist and tried to force him to tell them the whereabouts of the Roman ruins he’d uncovered. As it was their custom in occupied areas, they’d intended to destroy the ruins. Ibrahim was not sufficiently forthcoming as to the location of his life’s work, and they’d decapitated him in the town square. Kaeden had almost lost his shit from that visual, one of the stark unnecessary death of what was, by all accounts, a good man, but also by the fear of what had become of Astaria. He eventually learned that Farah, Astaria’s mother had died in the hospital the same day Ibrahim was arrested, but as to whether she was killed by disease or the militants who were occupying the city at the time no one seemed to know. He suspected it was the former rather than the latter. Farah’s breast cancer had returned after nearly a decade so her death was no surprise, but where the hell was Astaria?