by Ronie Kendig
A thud against her back made her stumble. She struck out a hand to break her fall. Even as Kamran shouted, Zahrah heard a tink-tink. Saw one of the turquoise beads from the bracelet skitter across the floor.
Rough hands threw her forward. She stumbled again but didn’t fall as they shoved her out a rear door. Into the night. Thick mist clung to the grass.
Mist? Dew—predawn.
They guided her toward a shedlike structure, no bigger than a normal American garage. Inside, lights blossomed and dispersed the shadows. Lawn mowers, trimmers, leaf blowers, gas containers cluttered the space, making it feel much smaller. And trickier to navigate.
They nudged her toward a door.
“Where are we going?”
The door swung open. A tunnel, burrowing through the shed and apparently into the back of the hill behind the house, yawned at them. Ready to devour them. Two of the guards went before her. Strange. What was it? An underground crypt? Somewhere they hid the bodies of their enemies? A foul odor trickled out.
If I go in there, I’m not coming back. At least not alive.
“Go!”
Another thrust against her back. But she stomped her foot, refusing to budge. “No.”
Kamran pointed a weapon at her. “In. Now.”
With a quick shake of her head, she said, “No. I’m not going in there.” When one of the grunts inside the tunnel grabbed her hand, she wrestled against them. “No!”
Without a word, Kamran turned. Produced a hand grenade, pulled the pin, and lobbed it at the entrance.
Zahrah’s gaze flicked to the half-dozen bags of fertilizer … just feet away. Kamran leapt past her. Zahrah threw herself into the tunnel.
BooooOOOOOOOooooom!
Sub-base Schwarzburg, Camp Marmal
Mazar-e Sharif, Balkh Province
20 June
The sub-base command center buzzed. Burnett and Hastings focused on sending the feeds to CID and DIA in the hope they could pin down the identity of the man who’d taken Zahrah. Raptor worked feverishly, printing stills of the kidnappers. Nearing four days, best they could tell, since she’d been taken. Yet, they had nothing. No certainty as to why she’d been taken or where.
Arms folded, Dean watched the video again. Something … something nagged at him, but he couldn’t tell what. Not yet at least. It’d come. God … sooner is better. For Zahrah’s sake. Interesting how the more she’d been in his life, though in an indirect way, the more he talked to God. Was that a good or bad thing? He’d tried it for years as a kid. Then his brother took things into his own hands. Later as a teen, he’d begged God to save Sergeant Elliott, a man who believed in Him, heart and soul. Yet … He hadn’t. God took him, just like he took Dean from his family. Which wasn’t a terrible thing. It’d have been a greater loss if he had a good family.
“Find anything new?”
At Falcon’s question, Dean plucked his mind from the past and sighed. “Just four armed thugs and their leader.”
“It’s a precise strike.”
He nodded. “They knew what they wanted. Knew where and when, and wasted no time taking what they were after.”
“Double Z.” Holding a bag of chips, Falcon pointed to the screen. “And that’s three armed thugs.”
Dean stilled. Scanned the image from the video he’d frozen. Sure enough, the guy behind the broad-shouldered leader just stood there. Dean felt a scowl sift through his face. “That’s it.” He hit the fast-forward and watched the men move around. “He’s not armed, and he does nothing.”
“So, why’s he there?” Falcon muttered.
“Cap,” Hawk said as he tapped his computer screen. “I think I have something.”
Pivoting, Dean pried himself from the haunting images. At Hawk’s desk, he leaned forward, a hand on the desk and one on the back of his chair.
“I’ve been tracking video feeds—you know, doing CID’s work for them.” The grin mocked. “Look what I found on YouTube.” He hit the PLAY icon.
The video bounced. Images blurred—green. Grass? Road with potholes. Buildings. Then more grass till it honed in on a teen hopping around on the lawn with a soccer ball bouncing off his knee and ankles as the kid showed his skills.
Like Dean had time for this. “What is this?”
“Some kid filming his friend or brother or something.” Hawk’s eyes scanned the screen.
“Why do I care?”
Hawk grinned. “Check out the background.” He maximized the screen and pointed to a car.
Leaning in, Dean squinted against the hopelessly grainy video. Until he saw a silver Mercedes jerk up in front of the building. “That looks a lot like the dorm parking lot.”
“Score one for the captain,” Hawk said with bravado. “There’s a reason I’m on your team.”
“Yeah,” Falcon said, “because nobody else would have you.”
“All right, be like that. I still owe you jerks for the tattoo,” Hawk said. “But keep watching. It gets better … well, sort of.” He bobbed his head toward the monitor. “Right—there!”
The men from the car vanished into the building. Anticipation of their return leapt through Dean’s veins. He leaned farther in. Just as their shapes reemerged, the video swung away from the kidnappers to the laughing soccer player. “No!”
“Easy.” Hawk sipped his coffee. “It’ll come back around.”
Twenty seconds later, it did.
Just as the big guy tossed Zahrah into the Mercedes. Two men conferred. Big guy—“Isn’t that the guy from the school? The one that punched Zahrah’s cousin?”
“Kamran Khan,” someone said. “We’ve been watching him for a few months. Showed up out of the blue. Trouble wasn’t far behind.”
On the video, Kamran looked away. The other man, lean and tall, poked his chest. Several times. Kamran’s arms went out, in an “I’m ready to punch your lights out, but I won’t” way.
“Kamran’s not the boss,” Dean said, his voice a whisper.
“And Big Guy’s not wearing a mask now—I’ll have to tighten it up to get a good visual on his face, but he’s looking pretty Asian.” Hawk smiled. “I love stupid terrorists. They make my job fun. And easy.”
Dean pointed to the screen. “Send that to Hastings. Find out who that guy is.”
“As usual,” Hawk said with a laugh. “I’m one step ahead of you, el capitan. Sent it her way as I called you over.”
“That was easy,” Hastings’s voice carried loud and clear through the base as she stalked their way. “The man in the soccer video is Lee Nianzu.”
Burnett appeared behind her, his weathered face worn. “And that’s really bad news for you.”
Chin up, shoulders back, Dean waited for the explanation.
“He’s a known assassin and associate of Zhang Longwei, son of General Zhang Guiern, a political envoy who gave hope to a U.S.-China peace accord.”
Dean shrugged. “That sounds like something we could work to our favor.”
“Except Guiern was found dead two years ago. Nobody was charged, but many believed Lee”—Burnett stabbed a finger at the image—“was the guilty party. Impossible to prove.” He rubbed his chin, eyeing the frozen video. “What I can’t figure is why Nianzu would be here, what he’d want with Zahrah Zarrick.”
“A soft target?”
Burnett laughed. “There are a lot softer targets than her.” He clicked his tongue. “No, I’m afraid we’re entering some pretty dangerous scenarios with this revelation.”
The only obvious one that existed, considering the twisted, tangled paths they’d been on the last few months. “SIPRNet.”
“Is there another explanation?” Burnett started for the door, glancing at his phone. “I’ll be right back.”
Dean turned away, looking for something to punch. To hit. To kill. Because that meant … somehow, in some way, their interaction with these guys was what put Zahrah on the enemy’s radar. “How did they know what she could do? It never made it past my lips.”
With a scowl, Dean pivoted. Glared. “Her what?”
Hawk hammered a few keys and pointed to a wall, where a monitor held the Facebook profile of Zahrah Zarrick, sans hijab. Sunlight shone against her dark hair, which hung in waves around her face. “It’s all right there. May graduation with advanced degree in quantum cryptology. Scroll down and she even mentions the job offer. Then at the top—she announces she’s leaving the next morning for her mom’s homeland.” He then whistled. “Check out this picture from her birthday party at the lake.”
When the images of her in a swimsuit with friends splashed over the screen, Dean jerked to Hawk with a piercing look.
Head tucked, smile gone, Hawk changed it back.
“I hope, Sergeant Bledsoe,” came a deep, gravelly voice, “that you are staring at those pictures for research, not to exploit my daughter’s body.”
Dean stiffened.
Hawk punched to his feet. “General Z-Day. I mean, Zeneral.” He coughed, face redder than a gushing wound. “Gen—”
“General Zarrick.” Dean intercepted the bigger-than-life man who only stood about five-nine. No taller than Zahrah. About a half-dozen inches shorter than Dean. “Thank you for coming, sir.”
“You’re thanking me, son?” The general ignored the offered hand and stalked the sub-base, eyes roving data and images and personnel. “I’m about to climb down your throat and rip your kidney up your esophagus—and you’re thanking me?”
CHAPTER 31
Sub-base Schwarzburg, Camp Marmal
Mazar-e Sharif, Balkh Province
20 June—1420 Hours
Chairs scraped. Soldiers stood. Grouped up around Dean as he stared down General Peter Zarrick, most likely feeling like the kid who stepped on a fire-ant mound. A storm raged in the man’s face.
Dean gritted his teeth. “I have done everything in my power to protect your daughter.”
“Except protect her!”
“Out of my control,” Dean countered. “I asked her to leave the country—”
“So it’s her fault, now?”
“Yeah,” Hawk snapped at the same time Dean said, “No, sir.”
Nostrils flaring, Zarrick didn’t remove his seething glare from Dean. “Then whose is it?”
The man’s daughter is missing. He’s overreacting. Dean also reminded himself the man before him, the one whose chest rose and fell in a quick cadence of fury, was one of his heroes. A man with a dozen commendations and as many medals. A general with a stunning leadership record. Heck, Dean would’ve followed him to hell and back if asked.
Until now.
How quickly the hero tumbled from his marble pedestal. Though he still respected the guy, Dean wouldn’t let him decimate his team like this. “Sir, I understand you’re upset—”
“Son, you don’t have the first clue about me and what I’m feeling.”
“I think it’s pretty plain with your disrespect of my team and me, sir.”
“You challenging me, son?”
“I’m questioning your presence on the command floor and your disruption of efforts to locate and retrieve an American citizen,” Dean said, his pulse simmering.
“That American citizen is my daughter, and I have every right to be here!”
“No, sir.” It felt like a bass drum beat against his ribs. He’d never dreamed he’d do this to General Peter Zarrick, a man who had more years serving than Dean had breathing. “You are a retired general and civilian consultant, invited most likely at the behest of my commanding officer, General Burnett. And as such, you may consult with us, but you are not in command, as much as I would have respected and appreciated that.”
“How on earth do you expect to find my daughter when you’re standing around ogling her body on giant monitors?”
“Sir.” Brie Hastings stepped forward.
“Stay out of this, Lieutenant,” Zarrick shouted.
Dean frowned, angry at the way he’d stormed in and rampaged over the team working so hard to find Zahrah.
“And you”—he stabbed a finger at Dean—“if you hadn’t been so lovesick and trying to steal my daughter out from under me, you’d have seen this possibility before it was too late.”
Dean flinched forward.
Falcon cleared his throat, enough of a signal to haul Dean back.
Draw it down. Rein in control. “If you’ll excuse us, sir, we are in the middle of an investigation. And every second you spend here shouting accusations and insinuations”—he moved forward a step—“and demeaning my team is another minute, possibly another day, your daughter is in danger.”
“Don’t you dare blame me.”
“Have you seen a woman tortured?”
“Don’t lecture me—”
“Raped right in front of your eyes while you’re pinned down, eyes forced open by a half-dozen men.”
“I—”
“I’ve lived it!” The muscles in his neck strained against the force of his words. “Watched it—them as they brutally murdered her!” His voice bounced off the insulated ceiling tiles. “And I won’t go there. Not again,” he said, his voice deathly low. “I promise you, sir, I won’t sleep until Zahrah is back on this base, but so help me God, if you don’t get out of our way, I will have you removed—”
“General Zarrick!” Burnett’s voice cracked the tension.
Only as the general stomped toward them did Dean realize he stood less than a foot from the shorter, stockier Zarrick. Surprised at how his anger had taken over, how he’d lost focus, threatened the man, Dean eased backward.
Undisclosed Location
“Yes. Yes!” On my feet, I grab a Butterfinger bar and hold it up like a microphone. “Welcome to the Special Operations Command Center Smack down! In the right corner, you have Captain Dean Watters.”
Excitement thrums through my veins as I watch the two face off. I mean, like one more step and Watters’s fist is going through the general’s thick head. It’s like two guys fighting over the same love interest, only the love is different.
Okay, yeah. So maybe that analogy doesn’t work. Never was any good at English crap. Give me numbers and computers, and we’re good.
I doubt Watters even knows he’s slipping closer to the general and right up to the edge of a slippery slope of disrespect and an Other Than Honorable discharge. Even tossing out the nut jobs, Americans succumb to political correctness.
Still, I practically drool at the thought. Love seeing guys like him, drunk on their own power, brought down by their pride and stupidity. I’ve seen Watters’s type before. And let me say it—this guy will fall.
Hard.
Some of those jerks have some magical shield around them. They walk through life, obstacles crumbling in their wake, disaster knocking down everything in a two-mile radius except them, girls groveling at their feet … nothing fazes or affects them.
That’s Dean Watters. He walks tall with the arrogance of those superheroes.
But every hero has weakness. Superman his kryptonite.
Every hero has his nemesis. Batman his Joker. Spider-Man his Green Goblin.
I am kryptonite. I am Joker. I am Green Goblin.
Dean Watters will fail. I’ll make sure of it. Somehow. Some way. If I have to stay in this godforsaken trailer for another year, I will. Because it’s guys like him that have me sitting in tin cans like this. Boss Man might’ve invaded my space, but he knows I’m indispensible. I have access to mission briefing rooms of the most powerful armed force in the world. And he’ll need to remember how easily I can shift the tide.
Just let him try to find me where I’ve parked the tin beast this time. He’ll find out what I’m made of, what my mad skills can do. The havoc …
Sub-base Schwarzburg, Camp Marmal
Mazar-e Sharif, Balkh Province
Lance had seen a lot of intensity rolling off Watters, but this looked as if he’d stepped from a t
hermal bath.
Holy Mother of— “Pete!”
Fists balled, the retired general didn’t move or respond. One more inch and the two would go to blows.
“Dean,” Russo said, his voice low, shouldering closer to Watters, who shifted back a step, right into the cozy nest of brothers in arms surrounding him.
Didn’t Pete see he was outgunned? Maybe he didn’t care. His daughter was missing. Lance could only imagine the carnage if Hastings hadn’t retrieved him when she had. He might’ve been making a trip to the infirmary.
“Pete,” Lance said as he eyed the man, shoulders and lips pulled taut. “Glad you could make it. Can I have a word with you?”
“Lance. Good to see you again.” Peter’s snarl hadn’t lost any of its bite, though he’d been out of the fight for three years. “Since your men can’t do it, let’s put together a plan to get my girl back.”
Lance followed Pete down the hall and into his temporary office. He shut the door. “You always did like unbeatable odds.”
Peter Zarrick, built like a tank still—a short one—pivoted. “You didn’t think I could take him?”
Lance barked a laugh. “I’d pay to see you try. Didn’t you see his team tighten up on Watters?”
Peter eyed him.
“I’d give you an A for effort … right after I checked you into the infirmary.” He pointed to the door. “Those men are some of the finest warriors I’ve ever encountered.”
“And yet, she’s gone.” Pete dropped into a chair and ran a hand over his face. “Lance, you and I both know how this can end. And how it often does.” Pain pinched his features. “I can’t lose her. She’s all I got left. I can’t lose her the way I did Izzah.”
“Then don’t climb on the back of the one person—”
“Don’t you dare say ‘the one person who wants to find her as much as me.’”
“Never crossed my mind.” But that helped Lance understand a few things. “Watters is one of the best. I handpicked him and his team for black ops. They’re good. They get it done. He’s invested and has been on this since it started.”
Pete grunted. “You mean that kid I just bawled out?”