Gulf Lynx

by Fiona Quinn

  “It makes sense to me, too,” I said. “I was in the safe house after I was attacked by Travis Wilson. Striker’s sister and niece were in danger. Striker, you’ll remember this. You brought me Lynda and Cammy’s photos. As soon as I put them in my hands, I flew from my body. But I had been protected.” Thank goodness, I was protected. “I’m trying to reinterpret that scene in light of this new information. I was surrounded by and lifted by drumbeats. Striker had saved a village of women in Africa. I remember telling Striker, ‘These women perform rituals daily and have cast a prayer of protection over you and yours. This ritual is what calls me through the Veil. Striker, your service to these women is being repaid.’ I thought they meant that I was able to take care of Cammy and Lynda, and that might have been part of it. But no. I really think they were there in the ether protecting me.”

  “Tell me about that protection,” Doc said.

  “That night, their shaman spoke not just through me but for me, moving my lips and tongue. ‘Listen to me and heed every word.’ She spoke in first person. The voice was hers. I had zero control in that moment.”

  “Good,” Doc said, “and what did she have you say?”

  “I hold the fates of your loved ones. Their survival depends on your right action. Obey, or they will suffer, as will I. If you touch me, the rip you would create is a fate worse than death to me. Do not touch! Swear it!” I repeated it easily from memory.

  “Yes, exactly,” Miriam said. “That’s what I felt when I dashed forward to grab the photo. And then you were in a recovery period. You slept for days.”

  “It must have been something that the shaman knew about,” I said, once again in awe of her capacity in the ether. “That must have been something that was expected. My next instructions from Grandmother Sibyl had been ‘Do you understand? No matter what you see or hear, you will not touch me. Striker—you will have to leave at some point, and you may come back. Jack you must not go. And until I can walk out of here on my own two feet, I am not to leave this house.”

  “She must have seen this before. Do you have contact with this shaman?”

  “Only in the ether. She came again to help me when I was held hostage in a jail. She told me I had to be brave and hunt with my big knife.”

  “What does that mean?” Gator asked.

  “She wanted me to leave my body to get information. She said you all couldn’t find me and the only way I’d survive is if I were brave enough to escape on my own. She told me to run when Maria was coming to cut off my fingers to send them to you.”

  “And you’ve never met her?” Doc asked. “When we’re done with this conference call, I’d like you to send me pictures clairvoyantly. It may be that she’d allow me to connect with her and ask her for guidance.”

  “I can do that, Doc. To answer your question, no, I’ve never met her. I don’t even know her name. I call her Grandmother Sibyl just to call her something. She helps me because she says I belong to Striker, and she’s Striker’s protector just as he saved her people.”

  “Wait. She did this while you were still married to Angel?” Doc asked.

  “Well, yes, come to think of it. She came to protect me and help Striker in the safe house. That was October. Angel died in November, then I was kidnapped in January.”

  “She said you belonged to Striker,” Doc repeated.

  “She said, ‘These women perform rituals daily and have cast a prayer of protection over you and yours.’ And other like things that refer to Striker and me as a couple.” I didn’t understand why there was this distinction.

  “That means that she saw what I saw. In this lifetime your bond was supposed to be with Striker. Angel was not supposed to have married you. And she must have understood that that bond would be fulfilled.”

  “Lexi, you had a terrible crush on Striker when you were a teen,” Miriam said. “But you said he didn’t know who you were. If I’m remembering correctly, you still had that crush up until the day you met Angel. I remember saying to you you’re going to give me whiplash with how quick you changed the intensity of your affection. We had that talk the day after Angel stepped into the scene.”

  “He was sewn in. But I hadn’t recognized him yet.”

  “That’s messed up,” Gator muttered.

  I sent him a smile. “I concur.”

  “But this all brings me back to my question, should I repair the tear?” Doc asked.

  “Yes,” Mariam and Gator chorused again.

  “Lexi?” Doc pushed.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Lexi, say yes,” Gator demanded.

  “I don’t know about that. If anything good came out of this terrible experiment, it’s that I gained the capacity to meld with someone else. I saved Striker’s sister twice, his niece, Cammy. I saved you, Gator, and D-day. You would both be dead were it not for this rip. The Strike Force team when Indigo had you all down in the cave with the gas and had shot Striker and Jack. I didn’t get you out, but I got you help in time to save your lives. If Indigo hadn’t left the tear, I wouldn’t have a team. Blaze would be the only one alive. All I know is that I hate to go behind the Veil to become one with someone in dire straits. But it’s a price I’ve been willing to pay. Not always, after all I made promises. But still… No. That’s not something I think I want to give up.”

  “That’s one aspect, Lexi,” Miriam said. “But I think you need to consider the repair. This opening can let other things in too.”

  “She’s right, just like with any cut into a body system,” Doc said.

  “Look, there’s every possibility that I’m not going to survive the operation to separate Angel and me.” I instantly regretted throwing that thought out into the open.

  Gator’s and Striker’s bodies recoiled like they’d taken a physical blow.

  “Maybe we just see if I’m around, then I can meditate on this, talk to General Coleridge and Herman Trudy, Miriam and you, Doc. Gather some information, weigh it with Striker and Gator. If I made new soul agreements after this happened to me, and now I’m tasked with keeping people safe and alive, then if I, willy-nilly, remove that ability, it could upset the whole time-space continuum. I don’t want to make a rash decision.”

  “What do you need to hear, Chica, that would make you decide to close this wound?”

  “I think one step then another. Anything I decide now is clouded by Angel’s soul. Can we start there? Please?”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Striker, Gator, and I made out way back behind the blue sheet to find the rest of our team.

  Jack looked up from his tablet. “What’s happening?” Jack was six feet five and built like a comic strip superhero. It came in handy for intimidation. It made stealth tough. He was Striker’s number two. I wasn’t surprised when he jumped to his feet, looking like he was ready to grab his rifle and run into the fray. The three of us must look shell-shocked. It’s how I felt, anyway.

  “Anything from Mushkila’s unit?” Striker asked.

  “Nothing,” he said, collapsing the space between us in three strides.

  Striker turned to me. “Our next move is to do some outreach, Lynx. I want you to start with Sophia and see if she was able to gather any intel on the slave auction. Then check in with Prescott. We want to make sure he’s looped in on everything we do. Professional courtesy but also we may need more resources than what we’ve got.”

  “I’ll do that now.”

  As I turned to go back to the caved-in room we’d just come from, I heard Jack ask, “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

  “I need you and Gator to go relieve overwatch. Make sure you have plenty of water with you.”

  What could Striker tell Jack? Everything. We should tell the team everything. And I would. Later. Before the surgery. I stumbled over a bent metal drawer and reached out to grab a piece of rebar to catch my balance before I realized it stabbed through what must have been a human hand. I threw my arms wide and managed to stay upright.

&n
bsp; Back on the patch of ground still warm from my body heat, I sat down with the computer, calling Prescott on a line that couldn’t be sniffed. No need to let the enemy know we were coming for them.

  “Lynx, good that you caught me. We’re heading for the airport.”

  “Where are you flying?”

  “Turkey. Zoe programmed her system to let her know if any of the matches pinged in the system. It looks like the eldest daughter went through a humanitarian clinic at a refugee center. They’re now requiring a health assessment before children are moved out of the camp. I’m going up with the analyzer.”

  “There’s no possibility it’s another of Kaylie’s children? A fourth?”

  “Same three names. Same date of birth. According to Zoe, the next five entries in the system all had shared biomarkers, creating a familial cluster. Zoe thinks by age and gender these are the girl’s aunt and cousins.”

  “Will that be a problem?”

  “I don’t know. I’m going to test her with the machine to make sure I’m photographing the right child, then I’ll ask for instructions. This one will certainly be harder than moving the boy back to the US without her mother present.”

  “When will her son been introduced to Kaylie’s family?” I asked.

  “I haven’t heard. That’s going to be complicated. Chances are this is a child of rape and enslavement. Certainly not this kid’s fault. I just don’t know how the family will react. I’m not sure how I would react under these circumstances. We all think we’ll rise to the occasion and then we don’t.”

  “Or do.”

  “Let’s just say that I know this family, and they can be rather rigid about their associations.”

  “Kaylie’s the outlier?”

  “Black sheep.”

  “Still, we shouldn’t assume how Kaylie will feel about these children. No judgement there. We don’t know her circumstances. We’ve never walked in her shoes.”

  Prescott was quiet.

  “So Turkey, the analyzer, vial of blood, then…”

  “We register her with the Red Cross, we ask that she not leave the camp while Iniquus processes the results, meanwhile my team gets ready to look for the baby.”

  “I’d get diapers and baby food together while I was in Turkey, just in case you can swoop in and get her. The last the infant was seen was in Northern Iraq, right?”

  “Yes, it’ll be more of a grab and run then a diplomatic finesse. Have you heard from Sophia? I’m curious about the idea of the permaculture spaces. My gut says that’s how we’re going to find the baby.”

  “I’m calling her as soon as we hang up. I’ll have her forward any images and their coordinates. Let me ask about the CIA’s involvement in this, are they working with you?”

  “We’re in communication. They know we’re operating in the area. Why?”

  “They need to get the ball rolling if there’s any hope of getting a special operations team in to support us.”

  “Honestly? Unless you had confirmation of Kaylie’s identity that’s unlikely. And even with conformation that’s unlikely. I wouldn’t depend on them to go to bat for her.”

  “Copy.”

  After I wished Prescott good luck, I tapped end then typed in Sophia’s phone number. It was 9:42 p.m. here so 2:42 in D.C.

  Sophia popped up on my screen on the third ring with Chance dangling from her hip and food smeared across her shirt. “Give me ten minutes,” she said.

  I laughed at the normalcy of that scene and clicked end.

  Pressing my head back against the wall, I let my mind wander toward Angel. “I need some calm. I need to get through this assignment. I know you’re in Hell. I’m so sorry. I am too, really. I think I found a way to free us both. Get us back in line with who and what and where we’re supposed to be. You deserve Valhalla not Hell. You deserve to be honored and not tethered to me and dragged along. I am so, so sorry.” I let the tears come but pushed down on the raw sounds that quivered in my chest. I didn’t want Striker or my team to come looking for me. Alone felt good. As much as I could be alone under my circumstances.

  I jumped when the computer rang. After wiping my nose on my sleeve, I lifted the hem of my T-shirt to swipe at me eyes, then pressed enter.

  Sophia thrust her face toward the screen. “Are you okay?”

  “There’s lots of debris in the wind. I should have brought goggles.”

  She nodded. “Let me get to this quickly, the boys are in destruction mode, and I need you to have this information.”

  “Ready.”

  “The end of the auction is Wednesday at midnight your time. They plan to begin distribution Thursday morning at nine. That’s your window. I told Brian about this and he took the information to Nutsbe to see if he couldn’t identify the woman’s picture amongst those that are up for auction.”

  “Thank you.”

  “There are about two hundred women. The resource who was able to find the Darkweb site believes that those who are not sold will be killed since they don’t have the supplies to keep them alive.”

  “They wouldn’t just let the women go, or give them away?”

  “They have a minimum bid. If they let the slaves go for too little or nothing, as a humanitarian gesture, then the slaves lose market value. It’s a matter of balancing supply and demand. They talk about the women like they’re livestock, in terms of their cost to profit ratio. You’ve met Mushkila? Are you at her camp yet?”

  “We shook hands, then she needed to go on a mission. We haven’t really spoken yet.”

  “I need you to pass this along to her. There are two hundred and eight women and children being held. Provisions need to be part of any rescue equation. I told you that Mushkila is helping you because you’re not going after the one possible American but all of the women.”

  “I…yes.” Strike Force was tasked with one. What would we possibly do with the other two hundred and seven in a hot zone?

  “Normally, slave distribution starts at the break of day to get everyone sorted before the heat. The city gates are opened after first light. Distribution is scheduled to start three hours later.”

  “How do they do that? The distribution?”

  “They put numbers on the slaves and line them up in order. The man brings his receipt or receipts for his payment, finds his slave, then checks out. It goes pretty quickly.”

  “God.”

  “Looking at satellite images, the auction site is near the south gate. Each gate has a major road and a market space. Following the southern road, by my calculations, the site that Mushkila has identified is three hours away by truck. The two pieces of information line up. That road has to be travelled by light of day because it’s in disrepair, too bad to risk night driving.”

  I understood the axel breaking terrain, having come up one of those roads to find Mushkila. “You have all that for me?”

  “I was working on it before Chance decided to become a Monet with his lunch. I need to get it in a file. I’ll send the data and images to you and Nutsbe and the notes I took from my colleague as well as my own thoughts based on what I know in the area. For example, those women are probably headed for hard labor. There’s an archaeologic tel in the area that has seen some recent action.”

  “You sound like you could use a bit of good news,” I said. “I just got off the phone with Prescott. They found one of the children they were looking for, and they have a good line on the second one in Turkey.”

  Sophia scooped Chance into her lap and hugged him so hard that his little hand came up under her chin and pushed, “No, mama!”

  She loosened her grip but put her nose down to his hair and inhaled, tears spilling past her tightly closed lashes. “Good,” she said, then set the squirming Chance back down and watched him run away. “Which child is still missing?”

  “The eleven-month-old. She’s the one in the hot zone.”

  “All right.” She swiped at her eyes and sniffed hard. Replacing the sympathy she’d just expresse
d with iron will. “Okay. I found something. Two somethings that might help. Looking at the GPS coordinates where the baby was indexed and then following your suggestion about looking for permaculture footprints, I have two locations. One is older than the other. They are the youngest of such indicators in a field of ten that my software has located so far in the circumference I drew based on all three children’s GPS locations.”

  “That’s what Prescott said he needed.”

  “I’ll forward that to you too.”

  “Can you send the slave market data right now? I think I hear Mushkila’s unit coming back in.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  By the time I made my way back through the series of holes to the section of hallway that now made the façade of the building, the blue sheet had been tied out of the way. The women washed their faces and hands. Smiling at each other, their voices chittered with excitement. They must have been successful.

  I followed them into the space. The air was already beginning to cool as the heat radiated off the dirt quickly, now that the sun was going down. Striker asked in Arabic if we, the men, could prepare a dinner for the women.