by Ronie Kendig
“Salaam, Khala,” Zahrah greeted her aunt in return, grateful for the warm embrace and concern flowing out of her expression and words.
“Your father has called so many times.” She pressed a kiss to each side of Zahrah’s face then handed her a phone. “You must call him so he will stop acting like an old woman!”
Zahrah laughed then winced as a pang stabbed through her skull. At the same time, she spied her uncle glowering at her from the other side of the room. She lowered her head, a sign of submission, but it also allowed her to break his gaze.
Her aunt didn’t miss it. “Go. Call Peter then rest. I will bring up food for you later.”
“I don’t want to be any trouble.”
“No, no trouble. You are family. It is my joy.”
“Thank you.” Zahrah started for the stairs. At her elbow, she felt Fekiria following her.
“Fekiria,” her aunt called. “Come help me.”
Though her cousin groaned, Zahrah was secretly glad to be alone. She let herself into the room she shared with Fekiria, Laily, and Camila. On the mattress of the lower bunk, she took a moment to compose herself. To sort herself from the chaos of the last twenty-four hours. The explosion. Seeing Rashid so bloodied … wondering if Ara had died. Grief strangled her anew. Zahrah lowered her head. Closed her eyes.
Father, I know You wanted me to come here, but I’m struggling to understand why. There is so much death here. No happiness.
With a slow breath for courage, she dialed her father.
“Zahrah!” The way he said her name radiated his relief, which flooded through the connection and soaked her.
“Hi, Daddy,” she said, feeling unusually American using that term.
“Are you okay? They said you were hurt. What happened? Why did they keep you? Speak to me!”
She couldn’t help the laugh as she pushed back across the mattress and rested against the plastered wall, knees up. “If you’d stop talking,” she teased. Then sighed. “I’m okay, Daddy. I am. Really. They took good care of me at the base.”
“It’s German run, you know. But American personnel are there, too. You shouldn’t have had any problems.” He made a clicking noise. “Then again, it’s German run. If you had problems, I want to know. I can make some calls. Run a few butts up the flagpole.”
Another laugh. Ever the general. “No problems.” She thought of the handsome captain who’d put Fekiria on edge. “I need your advice though, Daddy.”
“Shoot.”
She smiled. Now he sounded in control of himself. “One of the soldiers was asking me about what happened, what I saw.”
“Good. They’d better find out who did this.”
“Your protective side is kicking in.”
“It never kicked out.”
Her father’s protective side unleashed something in her that she’d held close, tight. Her vision blurred. It was the headache. The exhaustion. That’s why she wanted to cry. But what she wouldn’t do for one of his thick-chested, strong-armed hugs right now. “I miss you, Daddy.”
“I miss you too, Z-baby.” His voice cracked. “I …”
“Please, don’t.” She didn’t need his “I told you so” lecture. Not now. He hadn’t wanted her to come to Afghanistan. It was unsafe … it was dangerous. “There’s a reason your grandfather left that place.”
“Fair enough. But what I wouldn’t do to get you out of there, to change your mind,” he said. “But you come by that stubborn streak honestly. In fact, you got a double-barrel dose of it.”
Laughter was good medicine. The Word said so. And she believed it because the cloud that had hovered over her heart and life parted.
“You said you needed advice.”
“Right.” She cleared her mind and throat. “The captain wanted to ask me questions, but Fekiria wouldn’t let me answer him. She was afraid of the men at the school.”
“What men?”
“I … I don’t know who they were.” She rubbed the middle of her forehead, trying to think. “Fekiria and I noticed them before, but yesterday one of them all but threatened me.” She told her dad of the way he’d held Rashid and what he said. How they’d been in the lower basement. “He’s one of those men who makes my skin crawl.”
“Okay, you listen to me,” he said, General Zarrick front and center. Strange comfort always embraced her when he shifted into this role. “I want you to find a way back to that base. Do you remember the name of the soldier talking to you?”
“Watters, Captain Watters.”
“Okay, good. You get to that base and tell him everything you’ve told me.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “So, you think it’s serious?”
“Z-baby, they blew up the school. This is beyond serious.” He grunted. “In fact, I don’t want you going back to the school.”
Zahrah swallowed, thinking about the children. This is how suppression prevailed. What was it they said? All it takes for evil to prevail is for good men—or women in her case—to do nothing. “Daddy, I can’t let the bullies stop me from teaching. They’ll win, but more important, the children will lose. They’ll lose so much.”
“Baby, if you’re dead, who’s going to fight that battle for you?”
Why did he always have to make sense? “I can’t just give up.”
“I’m not asking you to. I’m asking you to arm our troops with information needed to put insurgents away, to give them time to rout this enemy. That’s what this captain needs to do. You need to stay low. You hearing me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s my girl. Now, I’m going to make some calls to a few friends. Make sure they look out for you.”
“Daddy.” Her heart climbed into her throat. “Please. Don’t. It will draw attention.”
“Attention’s already been drawn. We’re beyond that.”
“But … the children—”
“Need protection. That’s why our troops are there, and to help souls of gold like you to stay safe. To make sure innocents stay living and breathing so they can see what freedom is really like.” The clacking of a keyboard carried through the line. “I’m sending an e-mail to an old friend. Now, how do you plan to get back to the base?”
“I …” She searched for a plausible excuse.
“I know your mother’s brother. He won’t let you out of his sight if he can help it.”
“I’ll talk—”
“Hafizah will be your best option.”
“Yes,” Zahrah said with a smile, as if he’d read her thoughts. “I’ll … Rashid.” She smiled bigger. “I’ll try to see him tomorrow. They wouldn’t let anyone see him today. I just have to find a way to keep Fekiria from going with me.”
“Good. Good. Work on it. Hafizah will believe that about visiting the boy. Check in with the family, too. That’ll buy charity points with locals.”
“Daddy,” she hissed. “I’m not buying points. I love these people. They were Mom’s people.”
“I know. I’m just—”
“Thinking like a general again.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He chuckled. “You can take the dog out of the fight, but you can’t take the fight out of the dog. Even one as old as me.”
“That’s because you’re a sheepdog.”
“Hooah.”
“I love you, Daddy.”
“Love you too, Z-Baby. Take care. Talk to Captain Watters. Give him all you got.”
CHAPTER 8
Sub-base Schwarzburg, Camp Marmal
Mazar-e Sharif, Balkh Province
28 May—1845 Hours
Fresh from a workout and shower, Dean sat on one of the leather sofas before the flat-screen TV on the wall at the USO center. Images moved across the display, but his mind had already vanished into the past. He should e-mail Desi.
And say what?
Didn’t matter. It’d been too long since they talked.
Way too long. She’d lecture him about dropping off the face of the earth.
Like
he needed more guilt.
A shout snapped his attention to the partially walled-in area beneath the rec deck, where two tables offered a friendly game of pool. Emphasis on friendly. Which was the opposite of Hawk’s angry, twisted face.
Dean came out of his seat.
Hawk shoved a specialist. “Get off. If you can’t play without cheating—”
“I ain’t cheating!”
Closing the distance in a half-dozen long strides, Dean noted Falcon moving in, too. “Hey.” Dean pressed a hand to Hawk’s chest. “Stand down.”
“Sorry, sir,” the specialist muttered. “He said I was cheating, and I can’t take that sitting down.”
Dean pointed the young kid, who couldn’t be more than nineteen, away from the tables. “Grab a soda or something.”
“But sir, this is my game. I signed up for this hour.”
“Hey, didn’t you hear the captain?” Hawk growled.
Dean rounded on Hawk. “Sergeant. A talk. Outside.”
Fury lit Hawk’s eyes and rippled through the guy’s entire body.
“I think it’d be wise to listen to our commander,” Falcon said, using his presence to push Hawk out of the situation. “Now, Sergeant Bledsoe.”
Hawk thrust a finger at the Spec-4. “Don’t let me see you—”
As Dean turned away, Hawk’s entire demeanor shifted. And Dean knew the Spec-4 had given Hawk a one-fingered salute. Hawk lunged.
Dean did, too. He rammed his shoulder into Hawk’s pec. “No!”
Falcon hooked an arm up and over Hawk’s shoulder, dragging him backward. Boots squeaked against the floor as they herded him out of the room. Something about crowds and competitive sports brought out the worst in the top-notch operator.
The door to the USO building flung open. Hit the wall. Flapped back.
Hawk kicked it. Spun around. “You see what he did to me? And you’re going to treat me—”
Dean stepped into Bledsoe’s personal space. “One more incident, Bledsoe, and I’m writing you up myself.”
“You gotta be—”
“So help me.”
“But—”
“You’re one of the best soldiers I know, but you walk into a place and pick a fight.”
“Me?”
Nostrils flaring, Dean took a step back. “One more time and I’m yanking you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know. God help me, I know.” Dean hauled in a steadying breath. “I don’t get it. You run around with some chip on your shoulder, looking for a fight. Looking for someone to glance at you crossways. What is this? Ego?”
“I want respect!”
“Then earn it! Those guys in there, they’re nineteen. You’re twenty-eight and a freakin’ hero. Special Forces.” He slapped Hawk’s arm with their unit patch on it. “Raptor team. And so help me, if you don’t soldier up and act like you earned that, I’ll rip it off you.”
Hawk’s smirk vanished. “You’re kidding, right?”
“You have to be above the fray, better than the best!”
“It was just a scuffle.”
“Yeah, but you have those scuffles every time you enter the USO or a bar. I’m not sure what’s happening with you, but you need to get it together.” Dean’s secure sat phone rang. He nailed Hawk with a look he hoped warned him not to press his luck then turned as he lifted the phone. “Watters.” He stomped away before he said or did something he regretted.
“Captain Watters, Pete Zarrick.”
Dean slowed, turning away from the congestion of foot traffic back toward the air-conditioned tent that had been his home for the last few months. It took a split second for him to get his bearings on the caller. Which was why his heart rapid-fired for another second before he could answer. “Yes, sir.”
“Do you know who I am, Captain?”
His heart beat a little harder as he stepped off the path and turned a circle. “I do, sir.” What on earth? His number was secure. Only Burnett, SOCOM, and his team had it.
“Then I need you to listen very carefully. I have two concerns right now, son. Do you know what they are?”
Confusion peppered Dean, but the biggest question was why. Why was he having this conversation with one of the fiercest, toughest generals to serve as commander of the coalition forces? A general now retired. “I’d imagine one of them is your daughter. Sir.”
“You would be right, Captain.”
“With all due respect, sir, I’m not sure I understand …”
“Zahrah said you tried to talk to her when she was in the hospital.”
“Sir. You know I cannot discuss this.”
“Bull! I wouldn’t have this number if I wasn’t cleared to talk to you.”
Dean didn’t like being bullied. And he didn’t like being cornered. As ticked as he was, he knew chain of command. Knew this guy could string him up with a flick of his little finger. “I’m listening, sir.”
“Zahrah is coming back to talk to you.”
Lifting his hand in question—why would the man’s daughter need her father to inform him of this?—Dean turned another circle. Met Falcon’s curious gaze. Shot him a wicked scowl that drew the Italian closer. “Very good, sir.”
“My daughter is a brilliant young woman with a good heart.”
And your point is? “Good to know, sir.”
“Don’t you get on your high horse with me, you piece of—” A huff. Another huff. A clank in the background. “Zahrah might need protection she doesn’t know she needs.”
Falcon gave him a questioning look.
Dean shrugged. “Sir?”
“Read her file, son.”
“Already have, sir. Twice.”
“And how many times have you stared at her picture?”
Heat spread down Dean’s neck. “What you are insinuating, sir?”
“You know very well because if you’d paid attention to her file and not her pretty face, you’d know why I’m calling.”
Haidary Residence, Mazar-e Sharif
29 May—0700 Hours
Mission impossible. Small white cup in hand, Zahrah paused and muttered, “Whether or not I choose to accept it.” When the general spoke, the general spoke.
Voices skittered through the narrow hall and drew closer.
She dumped back the last of her tea, washed her cup, then lifted her messenger bag. She swallowed the thick knot of emotion—it was the same bag in which she’d carried her students’ assignments home to grade. She slung it over her shoulder, wrapped a burgundy hijab around her head, and hurried to the rear door on said mission.
She pushed it open and bright Afghan sunlight stabbed her. Ducking, she took a second to let her eyes adjust.
“You are out already then, Zahrah jan?”
Zahrah closed her eyes. Hesitation kills every time, her father would say. If courtesy and respect did not demand she answer, Zahrah would pretend she hadn’t heard her aunt. But she did. She stepped backward. “Yes, I’m …” She would not lie. Not to the only family she had out here. “I … I must hurry.”
“Fekiria went to see Rashid’s family. You will see her?”
Fekiria had left already? So early? Zahrah’s mind blitzed, preventing her from answering. Odd that she’d gone to see Rashid. Her cousin had never shown as much fondness toward the children as Zahrah had.
“She was in such a hurry. Tell her to bring home eggs.”
“I can get some on my way back,” Zahrah said, deftly avoiding a lie and guilty conscience. Besides, she wouldn’t be lying—she was headed to Rashid’s home to visit with his mom, see if she could convince her to go to the base. “Must hurry. Bye!”
And with that, she was out the door and tapping a note into her phone to remember the eggs. Warmth kneaded Zahrah’s muscles, still tense from the explosion and the stress of the entire episode. But somehow, some way, she still felt the peace that had drawn her to Afghanistan, to her mother’s people.
A song about God’s beauty filling the sky
drifted through her mind and sailed across the battered edges of her nerves. God had watched out for her in that explosion. Kept her from further injury. Kept her alive so she could find Rashid and get him help in time. And yet … all those things did not give her the sense that she had completed the reason God had drawn her here.
She rounded the corner and nearly collided with another woman. “So sorry,” Zahrah said with a laugh, then realized—“Razia!”
“Zahrah,” Rashid’s mother breathed then kissed her three times, alternating cheeks. “Assalaam alaikum.”
“Wa ‘alaikum assalaam, Razia. Sanga ye?”
“Not well,” she said with a deep frown.
“Why? What is—?”
“They cannot find Ara.”
Zahrah’s stomach squeezed. “She didn’t come home?”
“She was at the school, yes?” Razia teared up.
Mutely, Zahrah nodded as the knot of dread grew. She’d been right there with her when she and Rashid were knocked to the ground.
“They believe she was … that she is buried….”
Zahrah shook her head, as much to ward off the tears as the possibility of that sweet girl trapped beneath the building.
The woman’s tawny face went pale. “They say it is too dangerous to search for her.”
“And Rashid?”
Razia lowered her head. “Atash …” She swallowed.
Ah. Razia’s husband did not want her going to the American base. Very well. Zahrah had an option for her. “I’m on my way there now. Would you like to go with me?”
Razia brightened. “You would do this for me? Atash refuses to go. He says bad things will happen to me. And he’s very angry with the American soldiers.”
“But—this wasn’t done by the Americans. They are the ones who came and helped—after the blast.”
“I know. He is just angry because there is still no word of Ara.” Tears slipped free. Her long lashes dusted her cheeks as she looked down then back up to Zahrah with a smile. “I need to see Rashid. To touch him.”
“Then let’s not waste any more time.” She hooked arms with the woman who could not be much older than Zahrah.