The Recruiter

by Roger Weston

  The Recruiter

  By Roger Weston

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, names, incidents, dialogue, and plot are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2012 by Weston Publishing Enterprises

  All rights reserved.

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59

  CHAPTER 60

  CHAPTER 61

  CHAPTER 62

  CHAPTER 63

  CHAPTER 64

  CHAPTER 65

  CHAPTER 66

  CHAPTER 67

  CHAPTER 68

  CHAPTER 69

  CHAPTER 70

  CHAPTER 71

  CHAPTER 72

  CHAPTER 73

  CHAPTER 74

  CHAPTER 75

  CHAPTER 76

  CHAPTER 77

  CHAPTER 78

  CHAPTER 79

  CHAPTER 80

  CHAPTER 81

  CHAPTER 82

  CHAPTER 83

  CHAPTER 84

  CHAPTER 85

  CHAPTER 86

  CHAPTER 87

  CHAPTER 88

  CHAPTER 89

  URGENT

  Author’s Note

  MORE BOOKS BY ROGER WESTON:

  PROLOGUE

  Jungle of Burma

  When the birds erupted from the kapok trees, Lydia knew she was in danger. She didn’t move as thousands of pounding wings shook leaves and beat the sky. If it were mid-day, she would have attributed this to the boys spooking the birds with their sling shots, but it was early. The children of the village were asleep.

  Her pulse quickened, and her chest rose and fell in rapid breaths. Glancing at the bamboo shoots in her hand, she noticed they were shaking. Then the pulsating sound of the birds faded, and silence returned to the fog-soaked jungle. Stillness and peace floated through the vines once again, and she began to relax. She felt the soft kick of her unborn baby and put her hand to her stomach. The birds were just moving on to their next stop. She smiled as the sun created patterns on the dark-green stalks of the bamboo bushes that surrounded her. She kneeled down to pick another shoot.

  Snap.

  Lydia’s body went rigid. She stared at the leaves that surrounded her. They looked like a thousand slashing knife blades. If that sound was from the Karen National Union soldiers, she would be safe, but they never came from that direction. Her fingers opened, and the bamboo shoots floated to the ground.

  As she ran toward the village, her foot caught on a branch, and she tumbled to the thick mat of mulch. Because she was pregnant, she shrieked, more from fear than pain—fear that the baby might have been hurt, fear that they would catch her. The Burmese government troops had no pity on women. She would be better off dead than to fall into their hands. She got up and looked down the river, hoping the noise of the rushing water had covered her cry.

  As she wiped away the wet leaves that stuck to her body she saw movement in the jungle. A government junta soldier with an MA1 automatic assault rifle appeared from around the bend in the river. A shaft of sunlight pouring through a hole in the tree canopy illuminated him. Dressed in green fatigues, he walked slowly and cautiously.

  Another soldier appeared, also carrying an assault rifle. A third man followed.

  Lydia moved faster. She ran up along the river’s edge at the base of a steep bank. As she ran, she kept her hands on her stomach as if she could soften the bumpy ride for her unborn child. The soldiers were out of sight now, and she moved as fast as possible, knowing that if she fell again she was dead.

  “Don’t worry, baby,” she said. “We’ll make it.”

  Following the river as it snaked its way through the canyon she looked ahead and saw the trail end at a waterfall that thrashed down a sheer granite wall. She was trapped.

  “No,” Lydia whimpered.

  She had two options. She could backtrack, but if did, she would run into the trackers. She turned to her only other option—the wall of sharp, jagged rocks that rose next to the waterfall.

  “I’ll never make it,” she said, wiping sweat from her forehead. “Not pregnant.”

  A soldier’s voice carried through the forest. “This way. We’re right behind her.”

  Lydia ran toward the churning waterfall.

  She gasped for breath as she came to the rock wall. Mist from the falls cooled her face as she looked up at thirty feet of vertical, serrated rocks. The middle section was smooth as steel. Grips would be hard to find. Lydia touched the wall, curled her fingers around a stone, and began her ascent. Immediately, she found it difficult. But she was a strong woman, and her muscles were toned from hard physical labor. As she slowly scaled the granite, she was relieved that she was able to climb better than she’d expected. Even with the extra weight of the baby, she was able to pull herself up the rock face from one crag to the next.

  After gaining about ten feet, she came to an outcrop that she couldn’t get past, and her shoulders began to burn. Her rounded stomach was proving to be too much.

  Clinging to the rough face of the cliff, Lydia stretched her leg and brushed her ankle against stone as she struggled to find a solid foothold. She found a bulge in the wall, but it had no edge and her foot kept sliding. The strain in her shoulders drained her strength and left only weakness. Her hands and forearms burned, and a sharp pain ran through her wrists. She stopped struggling for a moment while she caught her breath. She listened for the soldiers, but the thunder of the waterfall was too loud.

  “Don’t worry, baby,” she said. “We’ll make it somehow.”

  Galvanizing all the strength in her left leg, she lunged for a small ledge, just managing to grab hold with her fingers. Pain swelled in her shoulders. The pressure on her stomach frightened her. She dragged her toes up the rock face and wedged them into a wide crack. In spite of her fear, she used her foothold as leverage to push her weight upward. Her right arm stretched, and her shaking fingers wrapped around another protruding rock, finding an edge so sharp that it drew blood as she pulled her round stomach over the outcrop.

  “We did it, baby. We did it.” She was now half way up t
he face and was able to stand on a ledge. She was sweating, but the mist from the waterfall helped to keep her cool. Still, she knew the soldiers were close. There was no time to rest.

  Although her hands shook and needed a break, she forced them to work for her. She moved from one ledge to the next, finding grips where there appeared to be none. Her arms hurt from carrying her unborn baby up the cliff, but a second wind came on and she found an extra bit of strength. Finally, she made it past the flat section of rock face. Now all she had to do was climb up the jagged rocks. Even though her legs shook from the strain, even though weakness filled her limbs, even though her shoulders burned—climbing the rough stone was easy compared to the face. She moved twice as fast, but a warning flashed through her brain when she realized that she and her baby were nearly thirty feet up now.

  She was almost to the top when she heard a man shout. Lydia turned and gasped. The soldiers were fifty meters away on the valley floor below her. All four of them had their guns aimed at her.

  She made a desperate scramble for the ridge and made it, but no gunshots followed. She crouched down for a moment…realizing what that meant. They planned on silencing her with a blade so that the villagers wouldn’t be alerted. As Lydia started to run, she heard voices up ahead.

  Dropping to her knees she crawled into the underbrush. Not far off, branches swished as soldiers made their way through the foliage. Walkie-talkie static filled the silence.

  “She’s moving in your direction,” a voice said. “Stop and hold her.”

  Lydia shivered. She saw a thick bush backing up to a cliff and crawled behind it. Standing behind the cover, she realized that there was a hidden ravine in this new cliff and that she could climb it, too—but not now. A soldier was approaching not twenty yards away.

  Cradling her belly in her hands, she prayed for her baby’s safety. The soldier came closer. Lydia held her breath, and when the soldier came within a few feet of the bush, she could hear his rapid breathing. After a minute, she sighed with relief as the soldier moved on. She was about to climb the ravine when a hand came from behind and covered her mouth.

  “Don’t fight,” the man whispered.

  She recognized his voice. Turning around she saw her father.

  “Stay still,” he said.

  A minute later, two more soldiers skulked past. After they had left the area, her father said, “Okay, follow me.”

  As they climbed the hidden gorge, Lydia heard gunshots. When they emerged on a high plateau, she took in the view of her distant village, a village that they had only lived in for a few months because the Burmese soldiers had burned their old one to the ground making her a widow. She had watched as her husband had been forced onto his knees and shot in the back of the head. Her mother had been locked in a church with her neighbors and burned alive. Not a day passed when Lydia didn’t hear their screams in her memory.

  Now she looked down on their new village that consisted of a dozen thatched huts in a clearing surrounded by thick walls of vines hanging from palm trees. She saw a neighbor woman run for the jungle with a baby in her arms. Three orphan girls followed. A soldier caught the woman and knocked the baby from her arms. As the mother fought, he dragged her back into the house. Three other soldiers followed them in with the orphans in tow.

  Lydia turned her face away.

  The Burmese government forces had been slaughtering the Karen people for years. As Christian minorities, they lived like frightened animals, hunted and killed for sport.

  Lydia opened her eyes and looked at her village once more. Far below, a dozen of her neighbors were lined up and forced to their knees just as her husband had been.

  As her father dragged her away from the horrible sight, she heard twelve shots in a row. Twelve shots exactly. She counted each one.

  ***

  For seven days, Lydia and her father headed south through the jungle. They lived off wild tapioca and roots. Several times they came close to the Burmese government soldiers, and each time they slipped away. Another “four cuts” offensive was clearly underway. The push was always to scatter or slaughter as many Karen Christians as possible. Token survivors were moved to work camps to impress the world watchers.

  Now, ten days after Lydia’s village burned and her neighbors died, she and her father staggered onto a beach on the southern coast of Burma. They would follow the coast for a few miles to Thailand. There they would be safe--if they could cross the border. When a rider on an elephant broke out of the trees a quarter mile away and started in their direction, Lydia’s father reached for her and squeezed her arm.

  “Come, this way.”

  Lydia put her hands on her belly and followed her father down the beach.

  Turning to look at the man and elephant, she saw two more men come out of the jungle to join him. MA1’s were strapped on their backs, “Father, they are coming.”

  “Traffickers for the Thai fishing fleet,” he said. “We must run.”

  Up ahead Lydia saw a fishing boat anchored offshore. She heard a truck in the jungle and knew they were trapped. The men were closing in on them like the claws of a crab.

  “Lydia, run! I will stay and fight.”

  “No, father, I won’t leave you.”

  “You have a baby to think about. Go now. Do not question me.”

  Lydia stared at him.

  “Get out of here. Now!”

  Lydia knew that she had a slim chance of escaping, but her father was right. She had to try for the baby’s sake. She sprinted for the tree line. When she looked back, her father sat down and faced the men.

  He gave up?

  Concealed by the thick trees, Lydia turned to see what was happening to her dad. She could not leave without knowing.

  The truck pulled up next to her father, and Lydia noticed its cargo. Five men sat in the back, their faces swollen and caked with dried blood, their mouths gagged.

  Two men with assault rifles got out and stood in front of the truck. A short man with long hair and a narrow face aimed his gun at Lydia’s father.

  “Where do you think you are going?” he said, snarling his piggish nose. “You are in Thailand now. Where is your passport?”

  “I don’t…”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  “I’m a Thai citizen.”

  The man spat on the sand. “You lie. You are Burmese.”

  “No.” Lydia’s father started to get up, but one of the men lunged at him and booted him in the face, knocking him onto his back.

  Lydia gasped in horror.

  “He’ll be alright,” the trafficker snarled. “Give him a little rice and he’ll make a good fisherman.”

  Lydia’s father ran at the trafficker, and was rewarded with a rifle butt to the face. Even from her place in the jungle, Lydia heard cracking bone, and watched helplessly as her dad buckled to the sand.

  The man with the pig nose gestured to his friend, who came up behind her dad and strapped his hands behind his back.

  “Lucky day,” the driver said. “He’s worth a lot of money.”

  Lydia shook with fear and anger. She wanted to run out and save her father, but she knew that it was only a matter of minutes before they would focus on catching her. She needed to get away. Turning to run, she saw a motorized skiff approaching the beach. It came from the fishing boat anchored offshore.

  The traffickers’ attention was now on the skiff.

  My God, she thought. They’re already taking him out to sea. She would never see her father again. Moving through the bush, she crawled parallel to the beach so that she could see him. After she’d gone fifty yards, she stopped to see who was taking him.

  Even from a distance, Lydia could see that he was a Westerner. When his skiff ran up on the beach, the man stepped out into the surf. From her vantage point, it looked like he was walking on water. He continued up on the sand and looked over at the bound men in the back of the truck, then over at Lydia’s father on the beach.

  She heard him say,
“I heard you boys were selling workers for the fishing fleet.”

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “I’m a buyer.”

  “You ain’t no damn buyer. I think you better come up here tell us what you’re doing here.” The gunman raised his rifle.

  “Alright,” the man said. “Have it your way.” He reached behind his back and drew a handgun. The traffickers opened fire, but the American dove and rolled and emptied his clip in motion. Two traffickers jerked and twisted. One rifle flew up in the air. The gunner fell. Another trafficker fired a burst into the sky as he staggered backwards and twisted to the ground with a final yell.

  After that, the man on the elephant turned his beast and fled. Silence fell upon the beach once more. The men in the back of the truck stared at the American. Lydia’s father stared at the American, and Lydia stared at him, wondering what he would do next.

  Lydia waited, but when she saw the American free all the prisoners, she staggered across the beach and hugged her father.

  When she got up her courage, she approached the man.

  “Who are you?” she said.

  His face looked world-weary, but Lydia also saw kindness in his blue-green eyes. “Name is Chuck Brandt,” he said.

  CHAPTER 1

  A year later, Birmingham, Alabama

  Chuck Brandt looked out the window of the Clearbrook Apartment’s leasing office. He saw nothing unusual, but was not comforted. If they were out there, they were too professional to be seen. If they were out there, he was a dead man. He’d known the risks when he took this job. His former friend and team member, Curtis, was not fooled by his cover. A year and a half ago Chuck hadn’t cared. The loneliness and grief after losing his wife had left him apathetic about his safety, but now he had Lydia.

  He leaned forward in his chair and put his elbows on the desk when something caught his eye. A guy was looking in the side window of the leasing office. Chuck sat back and relaxed. It was just Ted Hyde. He watched as Ted put his face against the window and peered in with paranoid brown eyes. In addition to the many immigrants who lived at Clearbrook, there were also a few tenants with mental disabilities who were living off federal or city assistance. Chuck smiled to himself as Ted headed for the office door around the corner. He was so predictable. Ted cracked the door and put his head in.