The Relentless Hero

by Angel Vane

“Hey,” Glaze said after several minutes. “I think I’m close to getting a hit on the location.”

  The phone in the war room rang.

  Sunny leaned over, pushing the speaker button.

  “Hey,” Sunny said.

  “Are you alone?” Reggie asked.

  “Yeah,” Sunny said, pressing the volume up on the speakerphone.

  Reggie’s disembodied voice emitted from the device in the center of the round table. “I’m headed to Uganda to rescue Wangari. I have to go. I just wanted you to hear it from me.”

  “Uganda? Are you sure?” Sunny frowned.

  Julian reached over, pressing mute on the phone. “Ask him where in Uganda.”

  Sunny nodded and unmuted the phone. “Where in Uganda?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  “What do you mean?” Sunny asked, swiping a stray strand of her curly black hair from her eyes.

  “Am I talking to the new head of Timothy Irungu’s security team or the woman who loves me?” Reggie asked.

  Sunny hesitated.

  “Doesn’t matter. I’m not going to give you that information. I’ll have a team deployed in less than an hour. You can tell Timothy Irungu that ASF will be bringing his daughter home,” Reggie said.

  The line disconnected. Julian watched as Sunny scratched the back of her neck absently. Something was wrong.

  “Are we going to Uganda?” Hakeem asked, standing.

  “No, we’re not,” Sunny said, her eyes locked onto Julian’s. “Glaze, keep working on getting that location. Julian, I need to talk to you outside … now.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Tubeec Hirad entered the room, shining a flashlight onto her face. Mena covered her eyes from the harsh light. She could still see the pool of Isaac’s blood spreading across the tile. His limp arm was visible from the door opening, a reminder of what could happen to her next. The gunmen hadn’t bothered to move his body or cover it out of respect. Stepping through the blood, they’d spread bloody footprints from the open area to the hallway and into her room as they watched her.

  She’d been separated from Wangari and hadn’t seen her since Isaac was killed. Mena hoped her friend was okay and hadn’t been harmed. The terrorist wanted something from Wangari’s husband, something he’d refused to give Tubeec. Mena had spent the last few hours praying that Okeyo Lagat would comply with the demands, and she and Wangari would be released soon.

  Tubeec walked over and squatted down in front of her, stroking a finger under her chin, lifting her face.

  Mena didn’t want to provoke the terrorist leader. She’d witnessed firsthand how easily he decided that a life should end. Survival was all that mattered now, doing whatever it took to last another minute, another hour, another day until Wangari’s husband paid the ransom for their release.

  Tubeec reached behind his back. Mena shivered in the stifling warm air of the room, bracing herself.

  As his arm emerged, Mena’s eyes settled on the item in his hand. Stunned, she stared as he sprinkled crushed coral peonies petals onto her lap.

  Sliding his hands along her bound legs, he caressed her skin underneath the hem of her trousers. The roughness of his scarred skin against her ankles sent a tremor through her body.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not allowed to harm you,” Tubeec said, tightening the knots, then turned his focus toward her wrists, bound by ropes.

  “Not allowed?” Mena blurted out before she could stop herself.

  “That’s right. Did you think you were just an innocent victim, swept up in the kidnapping of the flower heiress?” Tubeec asked, a curve of a smile on his lips. “You were the primary target. Luckily, your relationship with the wife of Okeyo Lagat presented an opportunity for me to get something that I wanted. I wondered, though, what an art conservator could have done to make someone request my assistance.”

  Mena shook her head. “I don’t know why anyone would want you to kidnap me.”

  Although, that wasn’t exactly true.

  But could he be that desperate to get her back? Did he have the resources to fund her abduction? She didn’t believe that was possible. It couldn’t be.

  “The peonies were sent to you,” Tubeec said.

  “Yes,” Mena admitted.

  “And you destroyed them.”

  “Yes.” When the flowers had arrived, she’d known they weren’t from Julian as her co-workers had suspected. She knew exactly who they were from, and the message on the card had confirmed her suspicions.

  “My men attempted to find the person who sent the flowers, but they were purchased in cash by someone who obviously didn’t want to be identified. But I did find the card on the floor in the midst of the crushed petals. Imagine my surprise when I saw what it said,” Tubeec’s eyes grew wide.

  “You have the card?” Mena asked, her breathing growing labored.

  “January 13th,” Tubeec said.

  Mena looked away. The reminder of the handwritten note and the subsequent text to her phone seemed like a lifetime ago. A threat that paled in comparison to the one standing before her.

  “What does that date mean to you, Ms. Nix?” Tubeec asked, his voice growing cold and menacing.

  Head spinning, Mena leaned back against the wall, trying to sift through the chaotic memories assaulting her mind. The last thing she wanted to do was talk about how the events of January 13th had changed her life. She wished she could erase everything she’d done that day and the months before it.

  Mena gasped as Tubeec’s rough hand clamped around her throat. She struggled to breathe as he squeezed tighter.

  “When I ask a question, I expect an answer immediately!” Tubeec screamed in her face.

  Whimpering, Mena jerked from side to side, trying to loosen the vise Tubeec had around her neck. As quickly as he’d attacked, the terrorist released his grip.

  Mena looked into his eyes, knowing she had to answer, or her silence would be the last act of her life. Inhaling deeply, she said, “Worse day of my life.”

  Tubeec’s eyes softened in a moment, pain and hurt reflected back at her. “It appears we have something in common.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Sunny slammed the back door of the warehouse open and stomped onto the damp concrete of the alley behind the TIDES office.

  “I know I was wrong for what I said to you. I didn’t want you to find out about Reggie and me, and I damn sure didn’t expect you to throw my past in my face. But, I would never, ever do anything to stand in the way of your happiness. You have to believe that I’m not that petty or jealous to stop you from going to Uganda—”

  Julian stepped over broken wooden pallets and a rat scurrying toward the garbage bin. He placed his hands on Sunny’s arms, stopping her. “I believe you.”

  “Do you? Because I have no proof of what I’m about to tell you. It’s just my word. You’ll have to decide whether to trust it or not,” Sunny said.

  “You don’t have to explain what happened back then. I don’t need to know the details,” Julian said.

  Sunny jerked away from him, retreating into the shadows of the garbage bin, overflowing with crumpled food wrappers, empty liquor bottles, and large stuffed garbage bags. Swatting at the flies, she stared into the distance. The hollowness in her gaze tore his heart out.

  “I’ve made my peace with what I went through. The months with Tubeec when I fought every day to stay alive, not knowing if he would ever let me go,” Sunny whispered.

  “But, he did, and that’s all behind you now,” Julian said. She never shared with him the heinous things she’d witnessed as a captive of Tubeec Hirad and his militia. The acts she must have been subjected to month after month. Things that still haunted her.

  A gust of wind rushed through the tight space, sending empty plastic water bottles skittering across the surface. The smell of rotting garbage faded from his senses as he stared at Sunny.

  “It’s not behind me, can’t you see? Every time I think I’ve freed myself from him
, he comes back into my life one way or another. I don’t know if I’ll ever be free of him. But I do know that the time I spent with him, the things I learned can be used for good,” Sunny said.

  “If you say he’s not in Uganda, I believe you,” Julian said. Despite what happened between them in the past, Julian knew without a doubt that Sunny would never manipulate him or lie to him. She wouldn’t risk Mena’s life over the past. Whether it was from direct knowledge or a gut feeling, he’d trust Sunny’s instincts over any intel provided by the ASF.

  Sunny rubbed her arms, then turned toward him. “He’s not there. He’d never go back there.”

  “Okay,” Julian said. Reaching a hand toward her, he took one of her hands in his. “That’s all I need to know. We’ll keep working to get a new lead on where he could be. Let’s go back inside.”

  “I need you to know that I’m not making this up,” Sunny insisted, her eyes searching his as if pleading for confirmation of his belief in her.

  Julian nodded. ”I know that.”

  “I did horrible things back then. Things no one knows. I … did things that I never thought I would, that I will never, ever forgive myself for … but it also gave me information on Tubeec. I know things about him that I shouldn’t—”

  “Shh,” Julian said, lifting a finger to her lips. “We’ve all done things we regret. Actions that we hope no one will ever find out about and decisions we made that we’ll take to our graves, hoping that the truth will die with us.”

  The mission in Central Sulawesi raced to his mind, the worst mistake of his life. The moment that had riddled him with guilt and regret, robbing him of a future he didn’t believe he deserved. Until he met Mena. He’d opened up to her about his secret. Instead of the repulsion he’d expected, Mena had shown him compassion. Her understanding and acceptance of him, along with the letter Broman had written, helped him to move past the pain and forgive himself for the mistakes he’d made. He hoped Sunny would find a way to forgive herself for whatever she’d been forced to do while Tubeec Hirad held her captive.

  “Everyone thinks he and his family were attacked in Somalia, but it didn’t happen there. He brought them to Somalia to bury them in their homeland. They were attacked in Uganda. Tubeec saw his family killed before his eyes in that country, and he’s never been back since. That’s how I know he wouldn’t take Wangari and Mena there,” Sunny said.

  Julian’s mind raced. The insight into the terrorist’s behavior was shocking, something he never would have expected.

  The back door of the TIDES office flung open.

  “ASF got it wrong,” Glaze said, his eyes wild with excitement.

  “Where is Tubeec?” Julian asked, following Glaze back into the war room. Enzo moved quickly, snatching weapons, bulletproof vests, and infrared goggles from the cabinets and arranging them in piles on the conference room table.

  “He’s actually still in Kenya, in Tarbaj, at a registered CSL for USAFRICOM,” said Glaze.

  Cooperative security locations, or CSLs, were not official US military bases or outposts. They were locations that could be used by the US military to support a wide range of unspecified contingencies, with the permission of the local government. CSLs could go untapped for years, leaving them dormant hiding places for rebel and militant groups.

  “Cagey bastard is hiding in plain sight, knowing that anyone monitoring the area would think it’s a secret training run for the US military and not a terrorist who’d kidnapped three innocent people,” Glaze said. “Take a look here.”

  Julian leaned over the monitors, scanning the work Glaze had performed to trace the video call. A sense of dread spread through his limbs as he recognized the combination of patterns.

  In an instant, he was back in the small room of base camp in Central Sulawesi, hunting down El Mago, tracing the location of the shadow facilitator through communications he’d intercepted. The pattern had been there, but he’d interpreted it wrong. It wasn’t until he returned to the camp to find his SEAL Team slaughtered that he realized the scripts had concealed El Mago’s men retracing the communications back to him.

  “A concealer script,” Julian whispered. “ASF didn’t recognize that Tubeec was leading them in the opposite direction of where he was actually located.”

  “Bingo,” Glaze said.

  Julian asked, “How far is Tarbaj from here?”

  “Northeast Kenya. We could get to Wajir County in ninety minutes, maybe less, but it’s an hour or so drive to Tarbaj,” Sunny said.

  “What’s the plan?” Hakeem asked, grabbing one of the bullet-proof vests.

  Zale came over with a tablet, placing it on the table between them. “Here’s a satellite image of the CSL. Looks like three guards on the perimeter of the four or five room structure. No way of knowing how many of Tubeec’s men are on the inside.”

  “I need two men to go in with me and an explosive expert to create a diversion. That’ll provide the cover we need get inside while Sunny operates the drone to be our eyes and ears overhead,” Julian said to Sunny.

  “I’m in,” Enzo said.

  “Me too,” Hakeem added.

  “Not you,” Sunny said, snatching the infrared goggles from Hakeem’s hand. “You have to stay behind and run the operations from here.”

  “You’re joking,” Hakeem said, his voice laced with anger.

  “You wanted to be my number two in command. When I’m not here, you have to be,” Sunny said.

  “Then get Taye to fly us out to Wajir, and you stay behind,” Hakeem insisted.

  “Don’t argue with me. You’re staying here.” Sunny turned to Julian. “Glaze will go with you and Enzo. I already have two explosive experts who can be ready to go in thirty minutes.”

  “That will put us in Wajir in about three hours after we pick up the rest of the equipment from Paul DeFloria,” Enzo said.

  A spike of adrenaline flooded Julian’s body. In three hours, he would be with Mena again. He needed her to stay strong and brave a little while longer. He’d have her home and in his arms where she belonged by sunrise.

  Chapter Thirty

  Tubeec Hirad stood in the doorway, a menacing presence as he spoke a tribal language to one of the gunmen. Mena pressed her head against the wall, sucking in a deep breath as her heart pounded against her rib cage.

  Her abduction had been on purpose.

  Did you think you were just an innocent victim, swept up in the kidnapping of the flower heiress?

  You were the primary target.

  What the hell had happened to her life? How had she gotten caught up with horrible criminals, targeted for a reason she didn’t know? How would she ever make it out of this situation alive?

  She might never see her parents again, or her brothers or Regina and Omar. She might never see Julian again. Never get to tell the people she loved so dearly how much they meant to her and how sorry she was for not being a better daughter and friend to them when she could have been. She’d never get to tell Julian how much joy loving him had brought into her life.

  Clutching her hands together, Mena prayed for a way out. She didn’t want her life to end like this. She didn’t want her last moments to be alone in a dirty, rundown building with a group of gunmen ready to blow her brains out at the whim of their crazed leader.

  Tubeec continued to speak to the gunman, Rahim. The only one who’d shown her any semblance of kindness earlier. Tubeec spoke quickly as Rahim nodded.

  After several more minutes of discussion, Tubeec exited the room, disappearing down the hallway.

  Rahim stepped inside, staring at her with cold, hard eyes. The gentleness and kindness she’d seen before were gone. The man standing before her was the dutiful soldier of Tubeec Hirad, ready to carry out the wishes of his leader with swift efficiency and little regard to her feelings.

  Brandishing a large knife, he came closer to her.

  Hyperventilating, Mena scurried backward, trying to increase the distance between her and Rahim. Pain seize
d her chest as she squeezed her eyes shut, tears spilling down her cheeks. Curling her body into a fetal position, she turned from Rahim, hoping and praying he would spare her life. Allow her to survive the kidnapping. If Tubeec had been truthful with her, she wouldn’t be killed or harmed. Not until Tubeec delivered her to the person who’d hired him to kidnap her. But could Tubeec be trusted? Would he just as easily have Rahim stab her to death if she was more trouble than she was worth to him?

  Rahim grabbed her ankles and jerked her forward. Her eyes flew open as she whimpered, afraid of what punishment screaming or crying out would elicit. Rahim had dropped to one knee, brandishing the knife near her ankles. With a quick motion, he sliced the ropes binding her. A gasp escaped Mena’s lips as Rahim yanked her to her feet. The strong, tight grip of Rahim’s large hand clamped on her arm sent a jolt of sharp pain through her body. Mena gritted her teeth, refusing to cry out despite the pain radiating through her limb.

  His touch was rough as he pushed her forward. Mena struggled to keep up with his long strides. He forced her into the hallway, then slammed her against the wall as two other guards appeared, surrounding Wangari.

  Mena looked ahead into the large open room where she’d been earlier. Isaac’s dead body was gone. A dark red stain of blood pooled near the wall where he’d been shot. Mena’s eyes followed the smears of blood from that room to the cracked and broken concrete of the hallway.

  She turned her head to the right. Xirsi carried Isaac’s headless body down the hallway and into a room at the end of the hall. Seconds later, Xirsi emerged, wiping his bloody hands against the dark green trousers as he shut the door behind him.

  Mena turned back toward Wangari. Her clothes were torn and covered in dirt and blood. She stumbled between the two men, both twice her size as they steered her into a room next to the one Mena had been held in.

  Rahim stepped closer to Mena. The musky scent of his sweat assaulted her as he forced her to walk along the hall toward a door leading outside. Mena tried to slow her movements, terrified of what might happen to her. Rahim was too strong to resist. In mere seconds, the warm, brisk night air raked across her skin, sending a spray of fine dirt into her eyes.