by Fiona Quinn
Kira wished she could confide in her aunt, but her Uncle Nadir would know of every word that they exchanged. Kira always had to be on guard. “I’m surprised that—” Kira’s words were cut off when she heard a man’s voice near her aunt.
“Kira, your uncle wishes to speak to you.”
Cold washed over Kira. She could tell from the sudden change from excitement to trepidation in her aunt’s tone that her uncle didn’t wish to say hello; how are you?
He never did.
Her uncle left familial wellbeing and gossip to the women. When he spoke to Kira, it was as the head of household. The man of the family.
Kira had been born to a Qatari man and an Iraqi woman. They had both arrived in the United States on student visas and had been attending Penn State when they met, fell in love, and married. Kira’s dad got a green card when he was hired as a chemical engineer for a small start-up, and her mother stayed home, following the traditional roles of even educated Middle Eastern woman. Life had been fine. Living on her father’s salary instead of his inherited wealth, to prove some point to himself, they weren’t rich, and they weren’t poor. They weren’t particularly happy, nor were they burdened. Kira had been raised in a solidly, decidedly unexceptional way.
She wasn’t brave enough to forge new pathways.
She wasn’t so malleable to let life just pass her by.
Kira, too, was an in-between.
In her youth, Kira had found the perfect way to survive the banality of her existence through stories. She adored Jane Austen as an author. Her biting wit. Her profound intelligence and skill with words.
Trying her own hand at writing, Kira found that her life's ordinariness and predictability didn’t offer much fodder for stories. Even on the subject of love, she didn’t have much to say. She’d had lovers, but no abiding loves. She’d had infatuations, a handful of boyfriends, but those relationships felt dry as time passed, and were never anything that felt like love.
All of it—her whole life was just kind of…normal. She moved from one decision to the next, led by circumstances more than an innate desire to head toward any given destination.
The thing that made her different was that her dad died, and there were ramifications to that death.
Kira and her dad had never been that close. And if Kira was being honest, she didn’t think about him often. When he brushed into her consciousness, it was with a handful of sentimental images, but she didn’t miss him. Not really. Men lived in a men’s world. And women? They lived in a women’s world directed by those men. And because the men were separate, they had very little idea about what it was to be a woman.
Kira knew why her uncle wanted to speak with her.
“My dear, I must congratulate you.” Came her uncle’s voice without even the traditional greetings.
Kira remained silent.
“I have found you a husband.”
While Kira’s parents had met and fallen in love in America, that was not the tradition in their Qatari family. All of her aunts, on both sides of her family, were in arranged marriages. Some of her uncles had more than one wife. Kira was too American to think that was okay.
“You will be his first wife.”
That meant she wasn’t coming into a family and encroaching on some other woman’s relationship—though, of her aunts who were in families with other wives, those aunts seemed contented to either share the marital sexual duties or be done with them all together.
Kira liked being in a sexually active relationship. She had what she considered to be a very healthy sexual appetite. To share her husband with other women? That was a terrible thought. Unless, of course, she didn’t like the guy. But if you didn’t lie with a husband, you weren’t getting laid at all.
Death could well come to a woman who took even the most innocuous step toward a man who wasn’t her husband.
“Uncle…”
“You asked that I would wait for you to be finished with your education.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I allowed you to go all the way through the doctoral level. At least you chose a more feminine study. One that you will be able to pursue in your leisure time once you have established your household here in Doha.”
Kira was silent.
“You will have a home within a walking distance of our family’s compound.”
It had always been her family’s plan for her, and now here it was.
Kira thought back to her last visit to Qatar. It was beautiful there. Kira loved the water and the architecture. She loved the music and food. She loved the traditional Bedouin belly dancing that the women performed in the women’s area of the compound—undulating hips, chest pops, and snake arms were fun and athletic in a graceful, joyful way. It was hard to be sad when you shimmied.
Perspiration shined her skin. Her heart was beating so hard in her chest that it took up the space that would allow her lungs to expand with oxygen. Her lips began to tingle.
This was it. This was what she’d thrust off into the future, hoping to find a way out.
Kira had hoped to fall in love. If she had a reputable husband here in America, this phone call would never happen. If she were married to an upstanding American, she could stay here and pursue her career and interests.
She didn’t want to marry a stranger.
But to thwart her uncle would mean censure. At the very least, she’d be cut off from her family—her Qatari aunts and cousins that she loved so dearly. She’d also be cut off from her mother, who was traditional through and through—except when it came to her own love and marriage. Kira’s mom would impose on her daughter what she had rejected for herself. And that felt unfair.
While losing her family would be devastating to Kira, she might still consider that as a course of action. There was always the possibility that Uncle Nadir would have her captured, brought to Qatar against her will, and imprisoned like the Bahrani princess was if Kira spoke the one word over the cell phone that she desperately wanted to—no.
Chapter Eight
Ty
White pushed through the door, leaving the meeting room, and started at a fast clip down the hall.
Ty trailed along behind her. He wanted to be back with Echo listening to the other CIA officer’s presentation about the mission to capture Omar Mohamed Imadi.
He wasn’t thrilled to be singled out.
Through the next door, they were back outside. With a quicker pace than he might have imagined from someone of White’s stature, they headed past the helicopter. Though it was hidden under camouflage netting, the service members gathered around, curious to see what had just arrived at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti—the only permanent U.S. military base in Africa.
As the two reached an open space where they couldn’t be overheard, White’s boots kicked up dust as she came to a sudden stop and spun toward him.
Ty had to shorten his stride as he came to an abrupt halt.
“I know you don’t want to be here, but you’re the only man for this job.”
Ty stood with his hands at his sides, not exactly standing at attention, but certainly not casual.
“You’ve been chosen for a psyops mission.”
“Ma’am?”
“Psychological operations.”
Ty reached a hand up and rubbed his neck, still sore from his Tarzan act, swinging from his parachute ropes. “Yes, ma’am. I’m aware of what psyops means.” He put his hand on his chest. “I’m a Military War Dog handler. So if the psyops has to do with training a K9…”
“Well…” She stopped and shook her head with a wry smile. “I was going to say it has to do with training a bitch. But that would be wholly inaccurate in any sense of the word. Sorry.” She reached up and tucked the strand of hair that was blowing across her face back behind her ear. “My tired sense of humor.” She offered a tight smile. “I’m running on fumes.” She shielded her eyes as she looked up at him. “This has to do with a woman who is the complete opposite of a bitch. She is alm
ost Disneyesque, as a matter of fact. A Qatari royal family member. Also, an American citizen. She is attractive, intelligent, modest in all the meanings of the word, accomplished in her own right. I could easily imagine that if she held out her finger and sang into the wind, small woodland animals would come to clean her house.”
Ty wasn’t clear what was happening. Was this sarcasm? Disdain? Was this an accurate reading of some woman’s character? He didn’t like this game. Psyops. “Ma’am?”
“Fatigue. Look, there’s the plane.” She pointed down the runway at a private jet. “Grab your…” She turned back to him and waggled her hand. “Grab anything you might need for the next two weeks for you and Rory. I’ll be providing your wardrobe, so no need to worry about that.”
A private ran over to him with a clipboard. “I need a signature, Sergeant.”
Ty took the pen, glanced over the sheet, and tried to sign. The ink failed. He shook the pen down and tried again.
“Here.” White handed him a ballpoint from her pocket.
Ty signed his name, the private took off at a jog, and Ty held the pen out to White.
She batted her hand. “Keep it. It’s a gift.” She pointed back at the plane. “Load up there. My pilot will help if you need it.” White turned back to him. “I think I ate all the peanut packs on the way here, so if you wouldn’t mind grabbing a bunch of MREs for the four of us—you, me, and the crew… Good boy treats for Rory. Or tranquilizers—I’m not sure what’s best. It’s a twenty-one-hour flight if we have the right wind conditions. I don’t know how Rory bathrooms under such circumstances.” She offered a smile in which Ty could easily read exhaustion. “You know what to do. I’ll let you figure it out. I’m going to find a couch in a dark room and take a power nap, then slug an espresso. Thirty minutes, and we need to take off. Every minute counts to get you on your target. I’ll be prepping you for this mission as we get going.”
He turned on his heel and fell in step with her as she moved back toward the guest area. “Where are we flying to, ma’am?”
“Durham, North Carolina.”
“United States? Posse Comitatus, ma’am. I can’t operate on American soil.”
“For the first stage of your mission, you can.” She came to a stop and turned to him. “And you will.” She lifted her extended pointer finger and stabbed at the air to emphasize each word as she said, “Because this is a big fucking deal.” She turned and strode away.
Ty put his hands on his hips and watched her go. Then set out at a jog to grab his Dopp kit and a quick shower.
He was still covered in filth from the last mission.
She called herself Johnna White. This wasn’t the first time she’d shown up in an Echo briefing room. And when she did, the thing that was about to go down was always big and hairy.
Her power and position within the CIA were enormous, and in stark contrast, she was physically tiny—a hundred pounds of athleticism. Her physical and mental strength was evident. It was in the way she moved and the tight muscularity of her frame. He could almost see the thinking cogs whirring when he looked her in the eye. She made him think of Olympic gymnasts. Power. Focus. The ability to be still one moment and explosive the next. Of course, he knew her name wasn’t Johnna White.
It had been a while since he’d last seen her. Based on what D-Day had said when they arrived here in Djibouti, Ty could surmise that D-Day and White had a long history. A friendship.
D-Day and Ty had run into White in the hallway at a FOB—forward operating base—on the Syrian border. Yeah, that had been a year ago, almost to the day.
Ty flipped his bag open, grabbed what he needed, and headed to the shower, half focused on getting mission-ready, half focused on bringing up his mental Johnna White file, so he was primed for dealing with next steps on this new operation.
The mission last year had been about rescuing White’s colleague, John Grey—also CIA. The plan that the good idea fairies had come up with was the kind of thing you’d see in a spy movie with highly choreographed stunt doubles. Without practice or input from the Unit, they were handed their orders and loaded into D-Day’s Little Bird with a Black Hawk watching their six. The operation window had been a narrow one. The consequences of delay too dire to national security for hesitation. It had been the very definition of “a wing and a prayer.”
D-Day had flown her bird up the main street of the Syrian city. A street! A street that had been edged by buildings that towered over their helicopter and stood mere meters on either side of the blades.
It was one hairy flight plan.
She’d flown to the prison. Hovered outside of the correct cell. The right face pressed pleadingly against the glass.
Thumbs up.
It was Ty’s responsibility to get Grey from inside that cell to inside the heli.
D-Day held the bird still. But man…that was a mission for the books.
Ty still couldn’t believe it wasn’t a dream. A nightmare.
And he’d done some crazy-assed shit in his day… Nothing like that.
He’d pushed a ladder out the side opening, knelt, then positioned himself on his stomach. Only his boots were still inside. His Echo brothers held his ankles tight, so he didn’t plummet the number of stories to the ground.
Sure death.
His mouth and lungs had been full of rotor blast debris as he choked his way through cutting the thick metal bars with his plasma torch, broke the window, and grabbed hold of Grey.
Ty had been absolutely sure that at any moment one of two things was going to happen—some prison guard was going to come up under the helicopter wash and shoot him in the gut while he dangled between the helicopter and the prison, or two, the helicopter was going to shift a few inches left or right, the blades would catch on the building, and they would all explode in a hellish ball of fire.
Either way, Ty hoped it was fast.
A sentient being on a mission one second, pink mist the next.
If he was going to die, he’d prefer not to take the scenic route.
Had Ty failed to get Grey out, he had a second set of orders. Orders whispered in his ear with a knowing look by the CIA officer who explained the mission: “Triple tap, make sure it was a final good-bye.” It couldn’t be official, but everyone on the mission would understand his actions.
It sounded cold, but it was for sure what Ty would have wanted for himself. Ty had seen what happened to Americans when they were held and tortured.
Ty set his gear on the stool next to the shower stall and reached in to get the water warmed up while he pulled off his clothes, filled with a collection of twigs, leaves, and red soil.
A triple tap from a buddy? Ty thought, pulling his shirt over his head. He’d beam blessings from Heaven down on the guy for helping him get to the Pearly Gates with all of his fingers and toes still attached and his balls free from electrical burns from the car battery encourager.
In the Last of the Mohicans, Ty’s mother’s favorite, the movie portrayed a scene differently than the book. In this scene, Major Duncan Heyward of the British Army traded his life for that of strong-minded Cora after the tribal elder sentenced her to burn at the stake for her dead father’s actions. The captors raised Heyward by his tied hands until he hung over the woodpile, then they lit the fire. Heyward was roasting over the flame, screaming high and shrill. To save him from the pain, Hawkeye ran out into the tree line, loaded up his rifle, and shot the tortured Heyward in the head to put him out of his misery.
That scene was impactful to a young Ty Newcomb. He had promised himself that even if it brought him dire consequences, he’d do what it took to save a compatriot from an excruciating end.
And he trained hard every day so it would never come to that.
Ty stepped under the showerhead. With his forearms braced against the wall, he bent his head and let the hot water sluice over his aching back and shoulders.
“Lula,” that name came back to him now.
When D-Day had landed at
the base with Grey, she’d walked in and seen White and had called her “Lula.” Lula? Yeah, that name seemed lyrical and happy. It might well be who she was when she was functioning as a civilian, but White—cold, hard, bright—seemed a better fit when she was serving as an officer for the CIA.
Ty probably wasn’t supposed to have heard the name, Lula. It sounded like the women were old friends, life-long friends. White had called D-Day “Christen.” And White had used their relationship somehow. Exploited their connection. White pulled some hat trick that had made D-Day go as ballistic as Ty could imagine D-Day acting.
D-Day was a cool operator. And whatever it was that White wanted her to do had been a big ask.
And it had gone very badly.
D-Day had told them while they were jogging to the helicopter just this morning, that White wanted to get into a meeting. And that somehow, along that timeline, D-Day found out her brother wanted to kill her dad. Ty assumed this was her older brother Karl. That she’d shot her brother, and her brother had lost the leg as a result, was mindboggling. Something you heard on a cable news show, not something that happened to someone you knew.
His mind flitted to his own sister, Molly. Ty couldn’t imagine a scenario—even the one painted by D-Day, in which Molly would lift a rifle toward him and shoot.
Was D-Day on site of that mission a blessing because she was able to thwart the patricide, or was her being there the catalyst?
A lot of questions about those events. The thought processes…
Personalities and thinking styles made a difference in the outcome of a mission.
Ty would never get his questions answered—he wasn’t in the loop of “need to know.” But it made him wonder if White was going to be forthright with him or if this was going to be a replay of the Ugandan mission, the part where he was left dangling in the dark, uncomfortable, and yet also responsible for the outcomes.
As he soaped his hair and lathered his beard, Ty thought about that. White was effective. She went after the biggest and baddest around the globe and her intel made it possible for people like him to operate successfully. He respected that. What he wasn’t so jazzed about was that White didn’t seem to mind using people in any way she saw fit in order to accomplish whatever goal she was after.
