“Of course. One more time, then, from the gas station. Also make sure to track me on your GPS. Give me a five-minute head start to allow separation.”
That night, after a second and successful rehearsal, Liam paced across the length of his hotel room, replaying his mental vision of tomorrow’s ideal scenario for the hundredth time. Then he probed for his thousandth possibility of failure.
The Iraqi girl Dianne planned to replace would stay in the van. The lock would resist the bolt cutters. The truck would run the red light. The traffickers would hear the doors open. A hostile witness would interfere. Dianne would trip over her undersized feet.
He considered a preventative measure for every failure and a mitigation to each unsuccessful prevention. His mind buzzing with tactics and alternatives, he made himself anxious.
He paced faster.
A timid knock on the door offered a welcomed distraction. He darted across the carpet and twisted the knob. “Dianne.”
“Can I come in?”
“Yeah.”
She sat on the edge of his bed. Unsure if he should sit, he walked to the desk and twirled its chair towards her.
As he sank into the seat, she shared her worries. “I know it was my idea, but I’m scared. It really wasn’t my idea, though. It was a vision, or a calling.”
“You mean anything specific, or the entire idea of tomorrow’s infiltration?”
“The whole thing. Just because it’s a vision doesn’t mean it’s a guaranteed success. In fact, a ghost keeps visiting me and saying I need to be ready to surrender myself. Does that make sense?”
Her fear concerned him because everything depended upon her perceptions. “I guess so. I can tell you that what we’re doing is inherently dangerous, and I can tell you that I’m going to do everything humanly possible to protect you, but only you know what’s going on beyond the humanly knowable.”
She frowned. “Does that mean I’m not human?”
He found her hard to talk to, for an empath. “I mean you’re more than human.”
“I’ll accept that.”
“What’s this about surrendering yourself?” He hoped it was metaphorical.
Her gaze drifted towards the ceiling. “The ghost said I needed to be ready to surrender myself. I can’t say exactly what that means, but it could mean everything.”
That cut to his core. “Everything? Like your life?”
“Let’s not talk about it.” She lowered her eyes to his. “But just in case anything happens to me, I want you to promise me you’ll take care of Josh.”
He sprang from his chair. “No!”
She scowled. “What’s wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with you? Stop this bloody defeatist talk.”
“I’m just being real.”
“I don’t want to lose you.” Her silence made his heart pound as his words lingered in the air. He wondered how many sacred lines he’d just crossed with his comment, and he had to break the silence himself. “You know what I mean.”
“I do. That’s the problem. You don’t have me to lose. I’m not yours. You saved my life, but I’m not a prize.” She flicked her wrist towards the dresser. “I’m not some trophy you get to put on your mantle.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“Just promise me.”
He knew he’d find a way to care for her brother if the unthinkable happened to the empath. “I promise. If anything happens to you, I’ll take care of Josh like my own brother.”
She stood and walked towards the door. “Thank you.”
“Of course.”
As she disappeared into the hallway, he committed the image of her beauty to memory, accepting that tonight might be her last in safety.
CHAPTER 27
The next afternoon, Dianne sat in the passenger seat of the unmoving Fiat 500X. She looked beyond her grandmother and out the back window at approaching traffic.
From the driver’s seat, the young hunter grabbed her attention.
“Look at my hands. Watch for the truck from the corner of your eyes.”
She aimed her nose at the console where Liam held his phone. “What are you looking at?”
He thumbed the screen. “Nothing really. Random headlines. I’m just distracting myself since I’m nervous.”
The pit of anxiety in her stomach dwarfed the Grand Canyon. “Yeah. No kidding. What time is it?”
“Three ten. We’re early, but I wanted to be situated.”
Wanting to talk about anything to get her mind off the pending task, she rambled. “Are Josh and Connor ready?”
“Ready and waiting. Hopefully, we won’t need them.”
“Josh looked real funny, didn’t he?” She remembered him wearing a blue bandana over his head, a shirtless jean jacket, and mirrored sunglasses, like a cross between a motorcycle enthusiast and a modern American military veteran. Liam had suggested dressing her brother in drag at first to maximize the visual distraction, but the group consensus had opted for the subtler solution.
“A hoot. Make sure you’re watching the road.”
She yelped. “I am! Just because I’m talking doesn’t mean I’m not paying attention.”
From the back seat, Nana volunteered her support in Aramaic. “You know you’ll get it right. You’re special.”
Her nerves numbing the foreign-language section of her brain, Dianne responded in English. “Thanks, Nana. That doesn’t make this any easier, though.” In her mind, she appended the words “or less dangerous.”
The hunter brought her back to her task. “Do you see it yet?”
“No.”
“Do you feel it yet?”
Despite her fear, she did. “Yeah.”
“Is it getting closer? Can you tell?”
Her connection with the truck’s driver had been weak since seeing the proposed future through his eyes. But it lurked in her mind like the recollection of a pending dentist appointment, an annoying reminder of an encroaching, necessary evil. “Not really. This is intense for me, but it’s business as usual for him. So, there’s no major emotional signals coming from him, and I’m too wound up to notice them anyway.”
“Yeah, like a saturated reception antenna. I get it.”
She ignored the technical jargon and kept her peripheral vision on the approaching traffic.
Exposing his impatience, Liam stole a glance through the Fiat’s rear windows.
“Don’t you trust me?”
“Sorry.” He looked back to his phone.
“You don’t even know what the truck looks like.”
“I said I was sorry.”
Her breathing became shallow. “I see it.”
“How close?”
She saw a truck’s grill in the distance, but she relied upon her empathic ability to identify it. “How should I know? Just start driving.”
“Bloody hell.” He moved his leg and accelerated the Fiat down the shoulder.
The cement barrier crept towards her passenger door as the offramp approached. “What are you doing?”
“Aggressive driving is normal around here from what I’ve seen. Better to drive like an ass than to let another car come between us.”
The side mirror scraped the barrier as Liam whipped the Fiat behind the white truck. An Opel sedan’s horn blared, and Dianne twisted her neck to see a scowling, reddened face and an unpleasant upward-moving hand gesture.
“Don’t worry about him. Our mission’s ahead of us.” The young hunter drew the Fiat into drafting distance of the truck.
Despite her fear, Dianne sensed the Iraqi victims. “That’s it! That’s the truck. I’m sure.”
“I never doubted you.”
While she ran her fingers up her skirt to caress the blade for certainty, she left unchallenged his dozens of historical second-guessing comments. Although the glued dagger provided some insights while attached to her leg, she found its strongest power in her hands. She was right. They trailed the proper vehicle.
Liam brought the 500X to an abrupt stop behind the truck.
Nana protested from the back seat. “Easy!”
“You don’t have to drive like a maniac!”
Ignoring her comment, he raised his voice. “Get out, Dianne!”
“Don’t be an ass!”
Whether she intended to depart or not, he was halfway over the console. “Bloody hell, woman, get your ass on the street.”
Expecting him to carry her if she resisted, she popped open the door and hit her labored stride. With the dagger glued to her groin, she faced strange limits to her gate, but she managed to reach the broad façade of double doors behind the truck.
Carrying bolt cutters, Liam joined her. He aimed the steel blades at the single deadbolt, which matched the image in her prophetic vision, and he snapped it open in seconds. With impressive speed, he slipped the severed lock into his jacket pocket and pulled a door open with minimal squeaking. “You’re in. Go.”
With her knife pinching her, she reached for him. “Help me up.”
His rapid footwork surprised her as he moved to her backside and lifted her from the waist. Like a feather, he elevated her to the truck’s bed.
She didn’t stop to glance back and see if he grimaced with pain in his broken arm or to scowl at him for grabbing her ribs without permission. Time ticked away, and she had to spur one of the young women off the truck into action.
His command was stern. “Hurry.”
She stood in the dim space, illuminated by one bulb. The five women matching her prophetic vision sat on the floor with their legs tucked underneath their skirts. Spying the one she intended to replace, she locked eyes with her and spoke in Aramaic. “I’m here to rescue all of you, but only you now you. I must take your place.”
The woman ruined the plan with one sentence. “I can’t leave my sister.”
Overwhelmed, Dianne turned to the sunlight and the hunter’s silhouette. “She says she can’t leave her sister.”
“Bloody hell. Hold on.” The young hunter pressed the Bluetooth receiver against his ear. “Father, I need more time. I need a distraction.” He moved to the edge of the truck, waved, and tried to give the captives a friendly smile. “Tell them there’s a team of professionals saving them all, but we need to exchange you for just one of them to get you inside.”
Dianne turned back to her body double and explained Liam’s thoughts in her best Aramaic.
The Iraqi woman still refused to abandon her sister, the younger one beside her whom Dianne pegged as sixteen years old.
“She won’t leave!”
“Tell her what I did for you. Tell her how I have no choice but to save them all. Sell it like you mean it!”
“But they’re not your mission. They’re just a means to an end.”
Even with the sun backlighting him, his face showed his resolve. “Can you remotely picture me leaving them behind if I have any chance of stopping it?”
Accepting his commitment, Dianne turned and knelt before the scared Iraqi woman, clasped her hands, and refused to harbor another rejection. “His name is Liam. He and his father risked their lives to save me from a similar problem. He took bullets to his chest and arm. His father nearly bled to death. They will follow me and save you all.”
“Including my sister?”
“Especially your sister.”
“What must I do?”
The truck’s horn honked, filling the cabin with instant anxiety.
Liam’s voice echoed off the cabin’s walls. “That’s Josh and Father pulling off some antics in the crosswalk, but the bloody light’s already green! Hurry up.”
Dianne stood and extended her hand. “Stand and leave. I will take your place. Go with Liam and do whatever he says. Hurry, please!”
The woman accepted her hand and rose with featherlike grace. Dianne escorted her to the back of the truck, cupped her hands under her armpits, and helped lower her to the hunter.
Liam spoke while pulling the new lock from his pocket. “Tell her to get in the back with Nana.”
“Get in the back seat with my grandmother.”
The woman nodded and walked away.
Dianne crouched to the floor and sought an opportunity to kiss her hero goodbye, but he had other plans.
“Take care of yourself, and please communicate as often as you can through Josh.” He swung the door shut and closed it.
As she heard the replacement lock slide into the latch, she stood, turned, and faced her new teammates. She found her Aramaic strong when needing it, although she wondered if the dagger’s enchantment helped her along. “Hello everyone, my name is Dianne. Tell me what you’ve been through together, what village you’re from, and anything else I need to know to make our captors believe I’m the lady who just escaped.”
CHAPTER 28
Liam bumped his knee against the shifter and banged his shoulder against the driver’s door. The truck carrying Dianne had already raced through the light, and he fumbled with his body parts, enduring the repeated horn of the Opel stranded behind him on the curved ramp.
Confident he’d dabbed enough glue in the replacement lock, he watched it hold halfway between open and locked as it held the doors shut behind the departing vehicle. He trusted the traffickers would assume they’d unknowingly left it unlocked, and that the defective device needed replacing.
He also hoped Dianne could pass as a replica of the young lady in his back seat, whether through the trafficker’s ignorance, her dagger’s divine influence, or the empath’s acting.
“Nana, ask her what her name is.”
The Chaldean grandmother engaged the newcomer in a conversation that lasted longer than Liam’s intent.
He let Nana engage the traumatized girl. As he passed under the light, he shot a sideways glance at Josh and Connor, who’d reached the crosswalk’s far side. The autistic young man mimicked a perfect rendition of an American pro-motorcycle, pro-military, open-road bike rider while his father had dressed in the oldest, most unfashionable garb a grandparent could wear.
Liam turned into the corner liquor lot and kept the 500X crawling towards the back. Behind the store, he found his father’s Ford Kurga, and he parked beside it.
“She says her name is Nadine.”
The young hunter twisted himself to face the women in the back seat. Forcing a smile, he tried to put the young lady at ease in his broken Aramaic. “Hi, Nadine. I’m Liam.”
“Hello.”
Nana translated the new arrivals concerns. “She says her sister is still in the van. We need to get her. She also says she knows all the girls in the truck. They’re from the same village.”
Unconcerned about their origins, the hunter suspected Nana needed to expound. “What village?”
“Bazwaiai, right outside of Mosul.”
Liam sensed a convergence of forces ramping up the Chaldean grandmother’s motivation. “You’re from Mosul, right, Nana?”
“Yes! We have to get them all back.”
“Of course, Nana. That’s what I’m doing. I’ve got to move to the Kurga now, since they’ve seen the Fiat.” He opened the door and got one foot onto the pavement.
“No, I’m coming with you. Connor, he gave me my own gun.”
“Again! I think my father’s in love with you.”
Nana smirked and shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Well, it’s up to Father where you ride and what you carry.”
The elder hunter rounded the liquor store’s corner and appeared in front of Liam with Josh at his side. “Nice work, lad.”
“You, too, Father. How’d you manage with the distraction?”
“Oh, it was rather simple really. I just feigned turning my ankle while walking in front of the truck. Then Josh did an admirable job pretending to help me to my feet.”
With his bandana around his head above his sunglasses, Josh looked like a new person, but he still seemed uncomfortable without a tablet in front of his face. “You mean you were faking?”
“Yes, Josh, I was.”
“That’s lying.”
“You’re right, Josh. It is. I shall make amends later with those whom I’ve offended.”
Josh aimed his sunglasses at the elder hunter. “How?”
“If I see them again, I’ll either apologize to them, or I’ll kill them. Perhaps apologize, then kill them. Shall we be on our way now? You’ll ride with Liam.”
Nonplused by the elder hunter’s directness, the autistic man followed Liam to the Kurga while Connor entered the Fiat on its driver’s side.
Without a word, the young hunter shifted the manual transmission Ford crossover SUV into gear and zipped away. “I know you want your tablet, but can you manage the GPS tracker for me, Josh?”
“I can do everything on my tablet.”
“Good point.” Liam whipped his cast and broken arm behind the console and fished for his young companion’s device. “I’m not finding it. Can you get it?”
“Sure.” The autistic man rummaged through the back seat and then faced forward. “I found it.” The tablet appeared in front of his face. “It’s hard to read.”
“You can take off your sunglasses now. You can also take off the bandana. In fact, you should, so that they don’t recognize you.”
Josh removed both items. “I can see better now.”
“Great. Can you call up the GPS tracker? I’m going from memory at the moment.”
“I see the GPS.”
“Can you call up a course to follow it?”
“I already am.”
“Not that I don’t trust you, but can you turn up the volume? I’d like to hear the program call out the turns.”
One thing he liked about his autistic friend was his inattention to subtleties that might offend others. “Sure.”
“Thanks, Josh.”
“Why are all the drones in the back seat?”
“That’s a great question, my young friend. It’s to help get your sister back. Just in case we need to track more than one vehicle, I’ve got GPS trackers mounted on each of the big drones. I can magnetically mount them under trucks and vans if I have to.”
Liam’s companion kept his face in his tablet. “Did you practice that?”
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