Raptor 6

by Ronie Kendig

  “Knowing what to expect and having it happen to you …”

  Dean nodded. He knew. Lord, help me. I know.

  “Has anyone besides me noticed the bad guys seem to know everything we’re doing?”

  “When don’t they?” Titanis said.

  “Sal,” Dean said, never losing Falcon as the conversation explored options. “What are your thoughts?”

  “It’s crazy stupid.” Falcon rifled his longer-than-regs black hair. “I’ll shoot straight—I don’t think your mind is in the right place to do this.”

  “What’s that mean?” Hawk demanded.

  “No.” Dean gave his longtime friend a nod. “Falcon’s right. And the table’s open for discussion—if anyone can come up with a better plan, I want to hear it. Because believe me, I don’t want them ripping open my back again.”

  “Yeah, we’d have to get you inked all over again,” Hawk said with a mean glare. “But at least, I’d wait till you weren’t drugged up.”

  Dean had to own up. “This mission is hitting very close to home for me. But not for the reason believed. Not because I have feelings for Zahrah.” He met the gaze of each man on his team. “I respect her. She’s intelligent and nice, but I accepted long ago that I’d never get married or involved. This”—he swept a hand around the team—“is what’s important to me. You are why I’m doing this.”

  “Come again?” Hawk asked. “Us over Double Z?”

  “It’s us, my brothers in arms, that I’m willing to lay down my life for.” Dean nodded and looked around. “The—”

  “Captain Watters,” Brie Hastings shouted as she burst into the room. “Check the local news.”

  Frowning, Dean shifted and nodded to Harrier, who already held the remote and changed the channel. A CougarNews special sported a split screen with a news anchor on the left and none other than General Pete Zarrick on the right.

  “Son of a—”

  Dean held up a hand. “Turn it up.”

  “… that’s right. SOCOM is in close contact with me—”

  “Yeah, try the same base,” Hawk sniggered.

  “… and her fiancé is furious. You know how these spec ops guys are.”

  Dean’s jaw slid open as a picture of him in a baseball cap flashed over the anchor.

  “Holy crap!” Hawk shouted.

  Pivoting, Dean glanced out the small window that gave him a view of the short hall. “Where is he?” He stomped out of the room.

  Burnett emerged from his office as Dean stalked by. “Hey.”

  “Where is he? Zarrick just exposed me on Al Jazeera!”

  “What he did,” Burnett said, tugging Dean into his office, “is do us a favor.”

  “Explain that to me. Because I’m missing the whole—”

  “Your face is out there. They know who you are!”

  “That’s the problem.”

  “No, it’s the solution. As soon as we enter the palace tonight, they’ll know who you are.”

  Dean lifted his chin.

  “We wanted them to take you to her, to use you against her … and now, we are guaranteed that will happen.”

  CHAPTER 36

  Somewhere in Afghanistan

  Knees hugged to her chest, Zahrah sat in the corner farthest from the door. Farthest from the place where she’d been the cause of a man dying. Where she watched a man get shot. For no reason other than sharing his wretched moldy bread with her. Even now, the hunger pains gnawed at her stomach as forcefully as the gruesome memory.

  Heel of her hand against her forehead, she cried. Fought the thoughts that urged her to rail against God. The guilt that plagued her for causing a man’s death. Now … now Zuleika’s husband was dead.

  She tossed back her head, stone smacking her wound. Though Zahrah cringed, she welcomed the pain. Deserved it. “God, forgive me, but why?” Shaking her head didn’t dislodge the burning question. “I sought Your will and You wanted me to stay! Why—why would You have me here to take Majeeb’s life? He was so gentle and sweet. He wouldn’t have died if I had left.”

  Tormenting questions like that would do no good. “God’s ways are not our ways.” How many times had her mom said that, and yet … yet her mom killed herself because she could not fathom why she’d had such a hard life. Frustrating. She’d left Zahrah alone. Left Jay. Though she tried to understand and encourage her mom, at the same time, Zahrah didn’t understand what was so bad about her life. She had a husband who loved her—though he was gruff. A daughter who adored her. A son … Well, Jay was their father personified. Terse. Rash.

  Steel groaned against steel.

  As light shot through her cell, Zahrah stiffened and curled into a tighter huddle. A beefy guard with a foul smell—probably too long holed up here in this smelly prison—stood inside the door with Kamran, who leered at her. “Come.”

  At first, she did not move. Did not even meet his gaze.

  “Get up!” He stomped into the cell.

  Zahrah hunched and stiffened her arms around her knees.

  He grabbed her arm and hauled her up, his grip burning as he jerked her toward the door. The momentum sent her sprawling into the fat guard. And his hands—his hands went wherever he wanted.

  Zahrah jerked away. But not before her hand flew on its own—right across his face.

  Shock stunned him for a split second. But not long enough. He slammed his fist into her face. Her neck snapped back and she crumpled.

  “You piece of dirt,” Kamran shouted. “You’ll pay for that.”

  Zahrah expected to feel the full force of his fury against her body. Instead, she heard a meaty thud and saw the guard stumbling. “Remember,” Kamran growled, “no one touches her but me!”

  With that, she was hauled back up to the room by Kamran, who flung her at the desk. She saw the dark spot that stained the floor. Majeeb’s lifeblood.

  Footsteps joined them from behind.

  “Are you ready to cooperate this time, Miss Zarrick?” The slick-suited Chinese guy sauntered around the dirty table, the long jacket puckering to enable his hands to slide into his pant pockets.

  “I will never cooperate with terrorists.” The words she heard almost didn’t sound like her own. “Not when you murder innocent men to force my cooperation.”

  “Innocent?” The man scoffed. “Miss Zarrick, look around you—this is a prison. Where the guilty, the murderers live.”

  “Your premise is faulty—I am none of those, but I am here.”

  “Fair enough, but you are the exception.” His smile almost seemed kind. “And quite the rare exception. But I’m afraid beauty is of no consequence. You have a job to perform here. And we are short on time.”

  “Who will you kill this time, Mr.—I don’t even know your name.”

  He nodded. “Very fluid play, but I’m afraid you only need to know those around you call me Zmaray.”

  “The Lion.”

  He gave a cockeyed nod.

  “I have no friends here, no one you can use to influence me to do whatever it is you want me to do,” she said, eyeing the system on the table.

  “But see, Miss Zarrick, I know that you are a softhearted person. You treasure life, you see it as valuable, so it does not matter who I choose. Someone as gentle as yourself is bred to protect innocent lives. It’s why you came to your mother’s country, to teach children.” He strolled closer and held a hand out to Kamran.

  Zahrah glanced to the side as the creepy man handed Zmaray a silenced weapon.

  “Being the cause of someone’s murder …” His left eye squinted a bit as he seemed to be affected by his own words. “It’s painful. Makes you question your maker, your god, does it not?”

  Her heart skipped a beat. Was there a listening device in her cell? She looked at him, certain her fear was evident on her face.

  “Even for someone who would violate you so openly like this man.” He aimed the weapon at the handsy guard.

  “No!”

  The beefy guard’s cry gur
gled in his throat. She buried her face in her hands. Tried to stop the tears as the sound of him drowning in his blood chipped at her willpower. She covered her ears, desperate to block out the sound.

  “Who will be next, Zahrah? Who will you cause to die next?”

  “Stop it,” Zahrah shouted at Zmaray. “Stop this!”

  With a look and arched eyebrow, he shifted toward the computer and held out a hand.

  Trembling from the murder of the guard, from the callous disregard this man had for life, Zahrah took forever before she trusted herself to speak. “I will not do this. Ever!”

  “Then you will continue to be responsible for the murders of innocent people.”

  “No. Not me—you! It’s your doing. You don’t have to do this.”

  “But I do. Your stubbornness forces my hand.”

  “What you ask of me”—she jutted her chin toward the table—“would cause the murder of hundreds if not thousands of Americans. The choice between one or two dead here or thousands of my father’s people—” Dean. Her chin trembled. “I will never help you.”

  “Then Kamran will teach you to see things my way.”

  A misfire in her heart felt heavy against her breast. She started to look toward the man who’d made her skin crawl since the first day she saw him at the school but stopped herself. If she showed her fear, they’d know they’d won.

  And they had, hadn’t they?

  The Chinese enemy—and that is how she must think of him, not as a lion, one with strength, agility, and power, but as an enemy—handed off the weapon and left the room.

  Kamran hulked toward her.

  Zahrah felt herself cowering inside but kept her spine straight. Chin high.

  Raising his shoulders, he drew his arm up and backhanded her. The hit spun Zahrah around and flipped her off her feet. She scrambled back to her feet and pushed herself way from him. Around the corner of the table.

  “A little cat and mouse?”

  Zahrah dragged the computer toward her.

  Kamran’s lecherous grin faltered as he watched.

  She hoisted it—mercy!—it weighed a ton. Which meant it’d make a bigger dent—in his head! And for all she was worth, she tossed it at him.

  “You witch,” he roared, scrambling to save the computer. He caught it, fumbling and almost dropping it. Then tossed it on the table as if it weighed no more than a tablet. Even as it scraped over the table, he hopped over it and lunged at her.

  His fist connected with her face. With her side. He pinned her to the wall, crushing her chest against the stones. His thick arms bracing her shoulders against the plaster. “It’s time to teach you,” he said, grunting as he used his body to hold her prisoner against the wall. Her cheekbone scraped on the smelly wall. She struggled to get her palms flat on the plaster so she could push back. But even as she did, she realized her strength was no match for his. She cried out and writhed. “Help me!”

  “No one here to help you,” he breathed against her neck. “Not this time.” The jiggle of his belt made her flail.

  Then his hands slid along her hip.

  Zahrah bucked. Slammed her wounded head into his nose.

  He cursed. Slammed her harder against the wall.

  Her tunic lifted. She felt his sweaty palm against her waist. Sliding down.

  She slid her own hand up … up the wall. Then reached back. Dug her fingers into his face.

  “Augh!”

  He pressed himself against her.

  Zahrah clenched a fistful of hair and yanked hard.

  Pain exploded against the back of her head. Her forehead bounced off the wall. Stars sprinkled against her vision. She broke free and scrabbled away from him.

  “Kamran!”

  They both turned, Zahrah feeling the desperate need to don a dozen more tunics, wishing she could bleach the memory of him groping her….

  Belt in one hand, pants knotted and held tight in the other, Kamran glowered. Three red lines across his face bore testament to her fight.

  The Chinese man stood at the entrance, his lip curled. “Must I teach everyone my ways? Torture is far more effective than rape.”

  “But not near as pleasurable,” Kamran said, his face contorted in anger.

  Zmaray snapped his fingers and two guards appeared. “Lock her up.” To Kamran he said, “Come. We have a party to attend.” He sneered at Zahrah. “You might want to sleep tonight, Miss Zarrick. Because tomorrow, everything changes. I will have your cooperation.”

  Presidential Residence, Balkh Province

  “I have to admit,” Jeffery Bain said as he lifted a champagne flute from a silver serving tray ushered through the room crowded with dignitaries, politicians, princes, and other partygoers, “you confuse me, Captain.”

  Dean snapped a glare to the journalist. “No rank.”

  “Oh, come. You can’t honestly think that these men don’t know you’re American military.” He tipped the crystal glass toward Dean’s head. “Not with that buzz cut and the look of war on your face.”

  Dean glared again.

  “Are you going to be this much fun all night?”

  Monitoring Burnett talking up an Arab in a keffiyeh, Dean maintained a constant vigil. Nemazi had yet to show his face, and Dean wasn’t sure if he should be glad or nervous.

  “Look, in all seriousness.” Bain leaned closer. “I’m not sure what you’re up to here, but this is some kind of stupid.”

  “Welcome to the Army.”

  “Cap—”

  “Dean.”

  “Dean,” Bain corrected. “These men won’t hesitate to kill you.”

  “I know.”

  “No,” Bain muttered, his voice lowering. “You’re not following me.”

  Dean met the man’s brown eyes. Studied him—the knotted brows, the sweat in a chilled environment. Bain licked his lips and looked to the side. Dean’s heart kick-started. “What do you know?”

  “They know you’re here.”

  “Who?” Dean’s pulse sped.

  “Everyone. Keep your eyes open. They’ll probably try to take you.”

  That was the point of this mission. But it didn’t make Dean happy. The only thing he could guarantee tonight was that he wouldn’t walk out of here a free man. Whatever tomorrow brought—if he saw tomorrow—was out of his hands.

  “Do you know anything about General Zarrick’s daughter?”

  Bain smiled. “Except that you’re going to marry her?”

  Dean said nothing as he slid his gaze around the room. Noticed the two men near a door watching him. They were trying to be all cool and low-key, but nothing screamed trouble like an Arab playing low-key.

  “You must’ve won a lot of brownie points with Zarrick to get him to let you marry his daughter—and I’ve seen her. She’s worth the death threat.”

  Dean scowled, which forced a bit of contriteness into the journo.

  “Sorry.” Bain sipped his drink as his gaze trolled the room. “My point is, it wasn’t smart to announce your relationship on national television here. It painted a target on your big head.”

  “Tell me about it,” Dean muttered.

  “So the old man didn’t have clearance?”

  “Would it matter to Z-Day?”

  Bain sniggered. “True, true.”

  “Jeff, darling, would you come meet Kismet?” said a woman who didn’t look a day over thirty and yet had the same nose and eyes as Bain.

  “Of course, Mother. If you’ll excuse me,” he said to Dean and started away, but not before turning back. “Watch yourself.”

  Dean gave a breathy snort, realizing he stood alone, though he technically was never more than five feet from Burnett. The reassurance felt hollow in light of what he faced—being captured. Everyone had advice for him, but he got stuck with the gig. The evening played on, Burnett chatting up dignitaries, his position obvious though he wore no uniform. One didn’t end up in DIA and not have facial recognition among the local royalty and power players.
r />   “Who is your friend, General Burnett?” A burly man who stood at least six-three looked straight at Dean. “He looks a bit nervous.”

  Burnett nodded. “You would too if someone just kidnapped your fiancée.”

  Dean’s heart pounded as several of the men clucked their tongues and shook their heads.

  Dogs. Every man in this room probably knew where they were keeping Zahrah. And that heated his veins.

  He also didn’t like this plan of attack, the one Z-Day and Burnett had concocted to hit this gathering head-on, leave little question who Dean was and what he wanted. Didn’t like the open, direct line of talk. Bain had been right—the concentric rings of the target seemed to burn against his chest.

  It was one thing to intentionally walk in here knowing he could get kidnapped. It was another to bait the enemy. If Burnett and Dean pushed too hard, the enemy could smell the trap. Walk away. Mission failed.

  The thought made him itch to leave. To believe they had pushed too hard. It’d be easy. So easy to cross the marble floors, past the pillars and gauzy curtains, and stroll right out the front doors.

  But Zahrah …

  His fists balled.

  “A glass of wine, sir?”

  It took Dean a second to realize the server spoke to him. He finally gave a haphazard glance and shook his head.

  “Very well, sir,” the guy said as he walked past, bumped against Dean’s shoulder.

  Something slid into Dean’s hand. Heat spread across his chest as he casually lifted it. Glanced at the paper. It read: They know what you’re planning.

  He drew straight, his gaze skipping around the room. His mind bungeed back to the server. Who was he? How did he know to give Dean the note? Who told him? Patrolling the perimeter with his gaze, Dean edged his way to the side. All too aware of the heavy firepower and itchy trigger fingers.

  Crap. Why hadn’t they let some of the guys come? He hated this—feeling naked without his team. Without the reassurance of them covering his six. He had nothing now. Nothing but a hollow feeling in the pit of his gut.