by Lynda Filler
What could Zach say? Instead, he nodded and listened.
“I was lost for a few years. I started to help out at the Vet center in Coronado. Then I got lucky and met Beth. She was a social worker at the military rehab center, and she took an interest in this old guy. I don’t know what she saw in me, but she helped me clean up.”
Zach felt tremendous sadness for losing touch with his buddy. Sure, Zach’s life was busy. He’d helped sanitize files and keep the public happy after the Bin Laden affair. Then he took early retirement and Luke Raven reached out to him. And Zach got lucky. He found the home he’d longed for these last several years. Still, he should have reached out before to see how his friend was doing.
He looked out over a high crime neighborhood waiting for a commuter train to arrive on the Northeast side of Brentwood, Washington, DC. He’d done his research on this city when Mike mentioned where they’d meet. The area was known for its gritty violence, shootings in broad daylight, and an overall crime rate that was 179% higher than the national average.
“Why are we meeting? What do you know so far?”
“Katie called me, I called you. She said she needs help. And her exact words scared the shit out of me.”
“What did she say?”
“Dad, I need your help and bring your friends.”
Both men sat in silence for a couple of minutes. In many ways, this was like old times. They’d spent untold hours and days waiting for the enemy to show up. Only this time, the enemy was a complete unknown. But it didn’t matter. Whatever Mike needed, Zach would provide.
“When was the last time you saw your daughter?”
Mike took a long time answering. “Almost thirteen years ago.”
7
Katie
T he train pulled in, screeching to a halt on rusted tracks. A wall of foreign humanity pushed through the doors and filled the platform. Arabic music mixed with hip-hop and Dua Lipa assaulted Zach’s classical ears. Mixed in amongst this group was a scared young woman. He hadn’t seen Katie since she was a kid. He doubted he’d recognize her today.
A petite brunette with piercings in her nose and black knockoff Ray-Bans stopped in front of their bench. An oversized military jacket covered worn shredded blue jeans. A hoarse voice ravaged by years of cigarette smoking extended a tentative query.
“Dad?”
Mike stood abruptly and stepped towards Katie. He hesitated, then reached for her and enveloped her in his arms. Zach had to turn away from the sobs and hysteria in Katie’s voice.
“They stole my baby Daddy! They’ve got my boy!”
They found a run-down diner, two streets over. Panhandlers sat wedged up against the wall, their forlorn expressions screamed years of physical neglect and abuse and their lethargy revealed the intake of recent illegal substances. Their cardboard signs asked for help for a wounded vet. Zach doubted they were vets. Still, he dropped some money in a mostly empty tin can.
They walked into a tired, uninspired restaurant with worn grey linoleum that hadn’t been touched since Eisenhower was president. The oil from the French fry machine smelled rancid, but the place was packed, and that told the guys that the food must be good. Katie was unfashionably skinny like she hadn’t eaten in a month. This time Zach hoped the lack of appetite had to do with her boy and not with drugs. Mike didn’t look like he could stand up to any more tragedy in his life. The boys ordered burgers and French fries for everyone and waited for her story.
“I’m sorry Dad. I know I was wrong, and I messed up. I should never have left you. Mom would have been so mad at me.” Her tears started flowing all over again.
“Never mind that now. We all fuck up girl. I did too. I should have come after you.”
“Yeh. But I wouldn’t have listened to you anyway.” She tried to smile, but it didn’t make it all the way to her eyes.
Both guys waited for Katie to get her emotions under control.
“Tell me what happened Katie.”
Zach took a drink of his Dr. Pepper.
She pulled a sheet of paper from her pocket. “I printed it from my cell phone. It’s the last picture I have of Miguel.”
Mike looked up. “Miguel?”
“Yes, his biological father was Hispanic. I named him after you—in Spanish.”
Mike stopped eating. “Why didn’t you call?”
“I was ashamed. And then Ricardo, Miguel’s dad, was murdered in a gang fight and I was so busy trying to keep my life together and provide for my son. I don’t know Dad.”
Mike reached out for Katie's hand. “What happened?”
“When I got out here, I knew I was screwed up. I decided to get clean and finish high school. It wasn’t easy. I was in pretty deep. But I made it through with the help of some great people.”
Katie stopped and took a bite out of a couple of French fries. Zach wondered if the stress of what she was going through had caused a relapse.
“I got a job at the local half-way house. That’s where I met Ricardo. He was out of jail and trying to re-establish himself.”
She stopped again, only this time she ate part of her burger. A good sign, Zach looked at Mike reading both thinking the same thing.
“We were together for eight years. Then one day he went out on business and next thing I knew the police were at my door. Ricardo was dead. Shot down, gangland style.” She stopped, the memories seemed to wear her out even more, but she continued eating.
“And I had Miguel to look after so I had no choice. I had to figure it out and take care of my son.”
“And my grandson, how old is he?”
“Twelve.”
Twelve wasted years. Twelve years of love lost. Zach looked away from the two of them.
“So, I went back to work at the half-way house.” Katie stopped to wipe tears from her eyes.
“I think everything that’s happened is all my fault.”
“Why?” Zach probed, Mike was too heartbroken to speak.
“I had inconsistent hours. I couldn’t always be home when Miguel was off school. I wasn’t able to monitor his homework. He skipped classes, and I didn’t know. This area of town is pretty sketchy, but it’s affordable. And the inner-city teachers don’t really care. It’s too dangerous in schools today to take a real personal interest in the kids. You never know who has access to guns and stuff, so the teachers don’t enforce the rules or ask too many questions. And unless something major happens, they don’t call the parents neither. They too are just trying to get by, you know?”
She brushed away tears again and tried to keep herself together.
“Next thing I noticed he got a tattoo. He tried to hide it, but I saw the bloody bandages and checked him out one night while he was sleeping.” She hesitated. “Maybe I should have said something then, but I chose to ignore the tattoo. It was already done. And I didn’t really think it could hurt, you know? I guess I should have asked where he got the money to have the tattoo done.”
Zach had a good idea where this was going. The kid was probably selling drugs.
“Then I caught him using a cell phone that I didn’t give him.”
Mike looked over at Zach, they were both thinking the same thing. Gangs. Drugs.
“He started losing weight, and when I asked him about it, he said his stomach had been bothering him. Maybe he had the flu. I took a picture of the tattoo when Miguel was sleeping because, you know, there was something weird about it.”
She took a long sip of her drink, pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her jacket and lit up.
No one spoke. In this kind of diner, there was no use putting up no smoking signs.
Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out a small object. She opened her hand, and a paper with multiple folds in it dropped to the table. Her eyes teared up again.
No one moved to retrieve it.
She stared at it, then looked over at Zach. She couldn’t face her father.
He picked it up and started to unfold the sheet.
/> A classified personal sex ad from BackStage.Com showed a photo of a young Hispanic boy naked from the waist up.
He had Mike’s eyes.
8
Geneva, Switzerland
T he sun had long set over the Gothic spires of St. Pierre’s Cathedral. He admired it’s 800 years of longevity. Himanish pulled out a cigarette and lit up. If he didn’t stop smoking, he wouldn’t make it to eighty.
An accusing pair of coppery eyes glinted up at him in the low-lit room.
“Give it up To’ak. It’s going to take more than your objections to make me quit. And don’t think I’m going to bribe you to keep you silent. You’ve had enough. No more chocolate for you today.”
The cat purred low in his chest and jumped up on the long low seventeenth-century dining table rescued from a junkyard and refinished to exacting standards by a master craftsman. The average looking thirty-something Indian man put out his cigarette and walked back to his computer.
“What do you want? Hmm? I still have work to do. This is looking more complicated than I thought.”
The Bombay beauty, named after her master’s favorite chocolate, knew her importance. She was sensitive to smells and sound but had given up the fight on the cigarettes. They’d come to an agreement. Himanish blew the smoke out the gabled metal window behind him to protect her delicate nature, and she gave a token eye-roll and annoying purr just to let him know that she still didn’t wholly approve. The compromise was sealed with chocolate and the occasional sharing of Beluga Caviar when Himanish chose a shot of vodka and fish eggs for nourishment when he was too busy to cook.
“Sometimes I think you’re more trouble than a woman. But then, you are a descendant of the royal Burmese, and you can be affectionate when you choose to be.”
Himanish looked down at the feed coming in from his agent in the US. Working for the UNHR division had its benefits and drawbacks. His network or connections around the world allowed him to intercept intelligence before it hit the national agencies. Once he made contact, his skills as a life-long hacker meant he could easily create pathways into any system that he felt could be beneficial to his clandestine activities. Anything relating to Human Rights was the focus of his attention.
Right now, disturbing murmurs were coming out of the Far East. It was time to plant a few items in Luke Raven’s ear, and maybe drop a hint into the shared files he had with Samaar. After all, she owed Himanish, code-named Firestorm, for helping her finance her escape from the Mossad, and burying her tracks with the CIA. They thought she was dead. And in a way she was, except to the Raven Group.
Himanish pulled up a photo from an obscure highly secure file on his computer. Samaar’s new face was brilliant work. But then it should be; Luke had paid top dollar to the best surgeon in the world based in South Africa. No one who knew Samaar would dream of taking a chance on risking her real beauty, so the work had to be perfect and understated.
Sometimes late at night, he felt lonely for her company. They’d worked so well together when he was an agent with the Research and Analysis group in India. But after Himanish came across the ruthless drug lord Ivanov, and saw how expansive his connections were, he knew he had to go underground. He and Samaar would always be connected, even if he had gone entirely undercover. They had ways of reaching out as she did when on the run in Mexico, and Firestorm had immediately messaged Luke Raven.
His cover was unique. After pitching the idea to a small group of like-minded security experts, Himanish had formed his brilliant network operationally responsible to no one. Their activity was unprecedented in the world of espionage, a world tightly controlled by government oversight. No one except Himanish knew all the moving parts.
He created a system with no overseers, and he was just beginning.
Right now, his focus was on Ivanov. He would do whatever it took to destroy him and everything evil he controlled.
He closed his computer and nodded towards his companion.
“Do you want to go on a night-time run with me?”
To’ak didn’t bother opening her eyes. She purred, and her sleek panther-like body turned away from him. Himanish laughed out loud as he changed into his workout clothes. He needed to unwind.
It was one in the morning in Geneva. That meant it was morning in Washington, DC. He’d read a recent report forwarded to an obscure mail server created by RB. Something was going on that was important enough for Zach, a Raven operative, to drop everything and head to the national capital. After four hours sleep Himanish should have access to more information. He had a feeling that the Raven Group and Himanish clandestine team were on a parallel course.
He set his watch to record his speed, heart rate, and vital functions. His well-oiled machine had miles to go before it was time to sleep.
He glanced at his unopened Shakespeare books as he headed out into the Geneva dead of night.
9
Kyrgyzstan
H usband and wife sat uncomfortably at the kitchen table, the evening meal was half-finished. Neither had much of an appetite. The children had been put to sleep. Neither could look at the other, their guilt loomed large in the room.
The husband, his body slumped and his voice shaking, spoke first.
“I thought we could protect her by keeping her away from school and safe at home on the farm.”
The wife remained silent.
“I know this is not how we hoped to proceed with her future. The man who has taken her is not the one we chose.”
The wife finally spoke in a whisper, so the other three children wouldn’t hear.
“But who has taken her? It’s been four days, and we’ve heard nothing!” Her voice shook with fear. She waited for her husband to respond. He said nothing.
“We need compensation for her from the groom’s household. When they take her against her wishes, the family must come and intercede on the groom’s behalf. We should have received the white handkerchief by now. This is not normal. This is not how things are supposed to happen?” The wife’s voice rose. The husband feared she might have a panic attack.
“Shh, you will wake the children.” He admonished her as the head of the household but at the same time reached for her hand. The tall, slim laborer, his body tired, exhausted from work in the fields more suited to younger men, tried to put her mind at ease.
“Don’t worry. Zaria is a good girl. She will make certain that we are informed promptly.” The father was very concerned about Zaria himself. But what could he do? He was a poor farmer. He needed to work steadily to provide for the rest of the family. He couldn’t go off searching for her. He wouldn’t know where to look. Both of them had asked everyone they knew, but no one had seen her.
The mother sighed. Her mind wandered to the life they had planned for their children. It was not supposed to be like this. She picked up Zaria's geography book from the edge of the table. She opened at a page where the something had been cut. She checked the page beside it and recognized her daughter's handwriting and hearts around routes to get to the ocean. This was the family dream.
She looked up at her husband, her silent tears running down her face. She feared that now for sure, they would never take Zaria to see the ocean. Her husband looked away but held her hand tighter.
The winds howled and shook the window panes in their small cottage. The man would need to cut more firewood tomorrow. Life was hard, but it must go on. He couldn’t change what has already happened.
“You know our Zaria is beautiful. A man cannot resist taking her. We have to accept that. We will hear from him and his family once she has accepted her fate. It’s in the hands of Allah now.”
He leaned down and extinguished the candle on the table. He reached out for his wife’s trembling body and led her to the marital bed. Together they removed the heated bricks from under their solitary blanket.
10
Maldives Atoll
L uke and Samaar awoke from a late afternoon nap and dined well after dark on crab and oyste
rs on the deck gazing out towards the Indian Ocean. The calming effect of the inky azure seas and the gentle waves flowing up against the teak pilings felt almost surreal to Samaar.
Luke sipped on a glass of champagne and leaned into Samaar inhaling the salty scent of her tawny skin. He willed his body to remain at rest.
“What does that expression mean?”
“Sometimes I forget your rather mixed Israeli/British heritage. It means, what are you thinking? Where do you go when you gaze out to sea?”
“Luke, my mind is all over the place tonight. Sometimes I think about the loss of my parents and wish I had a family, like a brother, to share Alice and have connections.”
That was the last thing Luke expected to hear. Family? Samaar had always seemed remote from familial connections, other than Alice of course.
“You feel content and safe here, don’t you?” Luke was surprised at how much pleasure he felt from knowing he could offer his protection to a woman he loved. But now they were moving into uncharted emotional territory best left for another night. Luke Raven was a hard man, but when it came to Samaar and Alice, he had opened his heart and wasn’t sure he liked this vulnerable side of himself or her for that matter. They were both emotional control freaks, in life and in work. This could create complications. Or it could be almost perfect.
“I challenge you.” Luke gazed into the jade eyes of Samaar.
“What kind of challenge?” She was immediately alert.
“I’ve got an obstacle course set up on the island. I use it for a workout.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Its best done at night by moonlight. We can hit it closer to midnight. It keeps me in shape, and my staff knows that after dark when I’m in residence, it’s not a great idea for them to roam the island. Are you up for it?”
