by Don Bentley
After a bit, the Irishman intervened and stopped the beating. The good news was that Oliver hadn’t had the time to do any serious damage. The bad news was that he might have played forward for Manchester United before joining the military. One of his more inspired kicks had caught me squarely on the cheekbone. I still had all my teeth, but a couple were now kind of wobbly.
But worse than my injuries had been the sound of Laila’s screams as she’d watched me take my lumps. For terrifying my wife, these men would pay with their lives.
Every last one of them.
“I feel obligated to say this once,” I said, using the wall to push myself to my feet. “Let her go. Now.”
The Devil smiled, revealing a row of perfectly even white teeth. “And if I do, then what? You’ll let bygones be bygones?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “But I’ll give you a head start. Take your money and go to ground. Maybe I’ll forget about you.”
“Matthew, you still don’t know what this is about, do you?”
“Last chance,” I said. “Walk out of here now and live. Otherwise I swear to God that by the time I get through with you, there won’t be enough left to feed the dogs.”
I wasn’t yelling, but there must have been something in my voice all the same. Though I could barely stand, the Irishman tightened his grip on my arm, while the Devil’s two bodyguards slid in front of their principal. Even Oliver got into the act, pointing the Glock at my forehead one-handed.
The Devil maintained his jovial grin, but something that looked like uncertainty slid into his eyes. Dad always said that one predator could recognize another. Maybe that was what the Devil saw. Or maybe it was something else. Something more primitive. Either way, I knew that in that instant I’d gotten to him. I’d rattled the Devil’s chain.
And that was my mistake.
“Matthew, Matthew, Matthew,” the Devil said, shaking his head. “For some reason, you still don’t understand the lay of the land. But I have to say I admire your passion, even if it is wrongly placed.”
Turning to the bodyguard on his right, the Devil let loose a rapid stream of Arabic. The words came too fast for me to translate. I got something about her, but then quit listening in favor of devoting my mental energy to figuring a way out of this mess.
Another mistake.
While I was in a mental twilight zone, one of the Devil’s bodyguards crossed the hallway to a door set in the wall. Pulling it open, the man barked a command in what sounded like Farsi. A moment later, three men spilled from the room dragging a woman between them.
Virginia.
FIFTY-FIVE
Matt,” Virginia said as she saw me, “I’m sorry. I—”
Her sentence was cut short as the jackass from the strip club backhanded her with the casual disregard one might show a misbehaving dog. The blow rocked Virginia, her hair billowing in a curtain of auburn. To her credit, she didn’t cry out, but her eyes filled with tears as angry crimson marks erupted on her face.
I shifted my gaze from Virginia to the man who’d struck her and then locked eyes with him.
“You’re a fucking dead man.” I paused between every word, enunciating each syllable to ensure my Arabic was flawless.
His brown eyes flashed. He opened his mouth to respond, but the Devil didn’t give him the chance.
“This posturing is both tiresome and time-consuming. Allow me to speed things up,” said the Devil.
The Devil reached toward Virginia as if to stroke her cheek. She reflexively jerked away, opening space between her bruised skin and the Devil’s probing fingers. Her terrified gaze found mine. I’d started to whisper something encouraging when I noticed the Devil’s hand moving.
His other hand.
Light flickered across steel.
I ripped free of the Irishman’s grasp, screaming a warning, but I was too late. A single shot rang out. The report amplified a thousandfold as it ricocheted off the stone walls and ceiling. One moment Virginia’s eyes had been locked on mine. The next they were staring vacantly into space.
She slumped against the wall and then slowly slid to the ground.
I howled, stumbling toward her, trying to convince myself that what I’d just seen had not really happened. That the sassy girl from East Tennessee wasn’t actually lying crumpled on the floor like a pile of discarded laundry.
“Motherfucker,” I said, spittle flying from my lips as I turned from Virginia to the Devil. “Motherfucker, motherfucker!”
As smooth as silk, the Devil swung his pistol from Virginia to Laila. “Careful, Matthew. I’d hate to have to continue our lesson. But I will.”
He pushed the stubby pistol into Laila’s face, the barrel inches from her mound of black curls. I froze, my breath coming in ragged gasps. To her credit, my wife didn’t say a word. Instead, she just stared at me, her striking green eyes unblinking.
Slowly, deliberately, I walked back from the edge of madness. Retribution would come, but not now. Not yet.
“What do you want?” I said, each word ripped from my soul.
“I want you to go to America and kill someone.”
“Who?”
The Devil actually smiled. “That is the ironic part, Matthew. I want you to kill the man who has caused you so much pain—Charles Sinclair Robinson the Fourth.”
“Charles?” I said, trying to wrap my mind around what the Devil was saying. “You want me to kill Charles? Why?”
“Because he’s sloppy, and sloppy is bad for business.”
“You have business with Charles?”
“That is not your concern,” the Devil said. “Your concern should be your beautiful wife.”
The Devil reached over to squeeze Laila’s shoulder in an almost fatherly manner. “I made a mistake in our earlier arrangement. I’ve underestimated you, twice now. Once when I thought you would be more useful to me dead than alive. The second time when I entrusted your supervision to one of my associates. I won’t make those mistakes again. These three gentlemen are Quds Force members and business partners. Your wife will remain their guest in the Islamic Republic of Iran until you’ve killed Mr. Robinson. Then and only then will she be allowed to leave. Are we clear?”
“Crystal,” I said. “Let me say good-bye.”
“Quickly,” the Devil said.
I moved closer, and the Devil responded by shoving his pistol into Laila’s face, the barrel dimpling her cheek’s soft skin.
“From there, if you please,” the Devil said, his smile almost manic. “I’ve always heard that distance makes the heart grow fonder.”
Turning to Laila, I tried to think of everything that I wanted to say. To tell her how much I loved her. That I was sorry. That I was a fool for letting her walk away that night in Austin. That our six years of marriage had been the happiest of my life.
But as usual, my wife beat me to the punch.
“You are my husband, Matthew Drake,” Laila said, her eyes now dry, her voice steady. “My husband.”
The emphasis on my was subtle, but I heard it all the same. I’d loved Laila before, but what I felt for her now was all-consuming.
“It will be okay,” I said. “I promise.”
“I know.”
“All right,” the Devil said, nodding to the Iranians holding Laila. “I think that’s about enough. You know what you have to do, Matthew. Do it.”
The Quds Force operatives, who’d moments ago escorted Virginia to her death, gathered around Laila. But they didn’t have to drag her away. Instead, my wife walked with her head held high, as if the Iranian thugs were an honor guard rather than kidnappers. She crossed the narrow hallway with confident strides and passed through the now-open door without a backward glance.
“My, my,” the Devil said as the door swung shut behind Laila. “She’s quite a handful.”
I
n spite of everything, I had to fight the urge to smile. The Devil was more right than he knew. Laila was a handful, but the trait seemed to run in our family. In an instant, our train wreck of an anniversary dinner came back to me as Laila’s scent faded behind her.
I just want my husband back. When you find him, please let me know.
I’d come to Iraq to find a sex-trafficked girl, but I’d found someone else in the process. Me. And now, in our darkest hour, my wife wanted me to know that she saw me. That she saw the man I really was. The one with blood on his hands and vengeance in his heart. At this moment, Laila might have been walking through the valley of the shadow of death, but she feared no evil. Not because she was fearless, but because she knew in her heart I would come for her.
And she was right.
“Ready?” the Devil said, intruding into my thoughts.
I didn’t answer right away. Instead, I took a long look at Virginia lying motionless on the ground, her black niqab now stained crimson. I looked at her face, at her half-lidded eyes staring into eternity. And then I burned every detail into my mind until the anger I’d fought to keep in check ignited. Rage surged through my veins like napalm, consuming everything in its path.
With my heart thundering and my fingers trembling in anticipation of the havoc they would wreak, I took a deep breath. And then another. I harnessed the wrath, bending it to my will like a wild mustang I was breaking to saddle. I needed the white-hot fury, but I also needed control. What had to be done next required cunning, not just anger-born strength.
The Devil would pay for his sins, but like the planning for any good ambush, his retribution needed to occur at a time and place of my choosing. Clenching my quivering fingers into fists, I took one last breath before looking deep into the eyes of a man who was already dead.
“I’m ready,” I said.
As my gaze again found his, the Devil’s ever-present smile soured. He took a step back while his hands fluttered as if warding off an imaginary blow.
I stood without moving.
Waiting.
Watching.
The Devil’s face flushed, and he covered his embarrassment by snapping at my minders, “Why are you still standing there? Get him to the airport. We’re on a timeline.”
“Certainly,” the Irishman said, pushing me toward the empty hallway. “Let’s go, love, shall we?”
I let myself be herded toward the exit, but like Laila, I didn’t bother to give the Devil a backward glance. Why bother?
The Devil was already dead.
FIFTY-SIX
There comes a time in any engagement when planning and strategy must yield to violence of action. When the potential energy created by rehearsals, operations orders, and precombat inspections becomes kinetic. The moment when you stop setting the conditions for the ambush and execute it instead.
My moment had just arrived.
After leaving the Devil and the corridor of death, we’d entered another winding hallway. The palace’s maze of passages played havoc with my internal compass, but judging by the murmurs of raised voices ahead, we were moving closer to the room where the sex auction was being held, which in turn meant that with each step, I was moving farther away from Laila.
I had great faith in my ability to rescue my wife, but I was not Superman. If her three Quds Force captors were permitted to link up with the advancing Iranian army, my ability to reclaim Laila without a troop of Unit assaulters backed up by a company of Rangers would be close to zero. Since I had neither, I needed to act before Laila’s kidnappers spirited her away.
Which meant that the four men guarding me needed to die.
Quickly.
The noise of the crowd swelled as we drew closer to the door at the far end of the hallway, and I knew what that noise represented. Hundreds of thugs and their bodyguards, not to mention dozens more of the Devil’s private militia. In that room, I wouldn’t stand a chance.
I needed to act.
Now.
I was outnumbered four to one, but the dimly lit narrow hallway forced my overconfident captors to move in a rough single-file line. Even so, the situation wasn’t exactly ideal. Then again, neither had been the weather at Pointe du Hoc during the Normandy invasion.
Such was the life of a Ranger.
I closed my eyes, picturing the coming engagement as if I had a God’s-eye view of the battlefield. Four captors walking single file with me stuck in the middle. Oliver with his broken wrist in front, followed by the commando from the strip club, then me, then Commando Two, with the Irishman bringing up the rear.
Last time I’d looked, the Irishman had been carrying his sawed-off beanbag shotgun at the low-ready position. Unlike the other minders, he was still expecting trouble. And because of his attitude, my gut said that he was the most dangerous one in the group. Ideally, I’d take him out of the equation first. But since he was trail in our little formation, that wasn’t possible.
I’d have to improvise.
“What’s your name, Irish?” I said, still following behind Commando One.
“Why do ye ask?”
“You look familiar to me.”
“I very much doubt it.”
“I’m a spy, Irish,” I said. “And spies have a way with faces. We’ve never met. I’m sure of that. But I’m also sure I’ve seen your face before.”
“So what, then?” the Irishman said. “We’re to be friends now? Is that it?”
“Depends on you,” I said. “I’m offering you a second chance. Right here. Right now.”
“What? A second chance just for me? And why am I so special?”
“Because these monsters have already forfeited their souls. The Iraqis sell little girls into slavery. The Brit has dishonored his service and uniform for money. There’s no hope for them. But there may be for you.”
“Quiet,” Commando Two said, poking me between the shoulder blades with his shotgun.
“Ah, lad,” the Irishman said. “If you truly did recognize me, then ya’d understand you’re just wasting your breath.”
The doorway to the palace common area materialized out of the gloom, just steps away. That door was an inflection point. If we walked through it, my tactical advantage would be lost. But as we drew closer, the group would naturally bunch up as Oliver stopped to open it. Bunched-up targets meant it would be harder for my new friends to shoot me without hitting one another.
But if I waited too long and Oliver opened the door, reinforcements would come pouring through, further tilting the odds in an already lopsided melee.
“Nolan Burke,” I said. “Former member of the Real IRA. Last seen in Northern Ireland in November of 2007 after an attack in which two policemen were killed. How am I doing so far?”
“Quiet, I said.”
This time the bastard speared me in the left kidney with his shotgun. I nearly pissed myself as pain racked my still-sore abdomen.
“A bad bit of business that lot in Northern Ireland was,” Nolan said. “A bad bit of business indeed. But if you know about that, then you should know that me soul is just as far gone as these others’.”
“Maybe that’s so,” I said. “Maybe it isn’t. There’s only one way to know for sure.”
And then the time for talking was over.
Oliver reached for the door handle, and the jackass from the strip club bunched up behind him. At the exact same moment, Commando Two lanced the shotgun into my other kidney. But this time, I was ready. Pushing through the pain, I spun the length of the barrel, deflecting it to the side even as I rocketed an elbow toward the commando’s head.
I was going for his face.
I missed.
Rather than the pleasant bone-on-bone connection that happens when you shatter someone’s jaw, I felt his windpipe give way in a pulpy squish. The commando dropped the shotgun, instinctively reaching for h
is throat. I snapped a thrust kick into his now-exposed chest, putting all my weight behind the movement. The space-creating blow lifted him off his feet, sending him crashing into Nolan.
Not what I’d been going for, but as Mom liked to say, when you have lemons, make a lemon-drop martini.
I scrambled for the shotgun, but a boot to my ribs convinced me I had other priorities. Commando One had joined the fight.
Folding around the foot in my stomach, I trapped the knee and wrenched the commando’s leg to the side. I tried to find his back foot with my leg, intending to take him completely off his feet, but he stepped over my sweep and clocked me in the head with a straight jab.
The blow rang my bell, but I held on to his knee. Before he could follow up the jab with a cross, I swam my hand up his leg until I found testicles. Then I grabbed them and twisted, wrenching backward like I was pulling the starter cord on a lawn mower.
The big, tough commando who liked to rape teenage girls gave a decidedly untough-sounding scream as I did my best to separate his ball sack from his body. I followed up by slamming my shoulder into his solar plexus and then reached for his chin, intending to hip-throw him into a head dump.
I found his eyes instead.
Digging the fingers of one hand into what felt like half-congealed Jell-O, I hooked his eye sockets. He screamed and thrashed, but I kept digging even as I wormed my other hand up his shoulder until I cupped the nape of his neck. Then I torqued my hips, sending him over my shoulder. Using my hands as guides, I plowed him into the unforgiving floor headfirst, my body weight added to his.
The dull thud his skull made as it impacted the floor will stay with me for the rest of my days. Two of the Devil’s men were now out of the fight.
Which unfortunately still left two more.
I caught motion to my left just in time to see Oliver pointing the Glock at my face, one-handed.
The key to fighting more than one person at a time lay in evening up the odds as soon as possible. I’d done pretty well in that arena, but still come up short. I thought about trying to talk my way out of this, but the look on Oliver’s face said that he wasn’t much interested in talking.
