by Tracy Brody
She jabbered while Porter searched the kitchen. People in the house next door probably heard her since she was louder than the blast from the hole they blew in the wall.
He shifted her slight figure and held her to his side as he backed into the kitchen. With no viable options, other than to flex-cuff her, which he couldn’t bring himself to do—yet—he dragged the kitchen’s wooden worktable to the doorway and deposited her in the hallway. He wedged the table in the doorframe hoping that would keep her out while he joined the hunt.
Heat radiated from the brick oven to his right. Loaves of bread sat on the rough-hewn shelf along the wall. Four loaves. The hairs on the edge of his scalp bristled. Porter made eye contact, then nodded to the floor-length, crimson curtains that separated the kitchen from another room, likely the communal dining room.
Porter pointed, then held up one finger.
Please, let it be al-Shehri. Tony would take him dead or alive. Preferably alive to see what information they could garner from him, but …
He indicated for Porter to go low.
Behind him, the woman yammered away. Her pitch rose, making it more difficult to decipher her words. As Porter whipped back the curtain, Tony translated her last phrase.
Don’t lay a hand on her.
Her?
Oh, shit!
Too late, he realized he was wrong.
His world shifted to slow motion, and he shoved Porter aside as steaming meat and vegetables flew at them. Hot droplets of broth splattered his face. Food bounced off his body to the wooden floor, some landing on his boots.
“Whoa. Whoa. Wh-oa!” he warned a petite figure clad in a blue burqa. The barely teenage girl clutched the pot with its remaining contents, ready to launch a second round. He shifted from firing stance and raised both hands in a surrender gesture. He searched for the right words in Pashto. “You should save what’s left of your dinner.”
In the back corner of the room, a young boy crouched. His patterned taqiyah cap slipped to the side of his head as the child pointed at Tony. His other hand covered his mouth while he laughed.
Tony chuckled along. “I look funny, huh?” He waved a hand at the bits of herbs and vegetables that clung to his uniform.
The boy laughed harder when Tony plucked dark green leaves and onion strips from his arm. When the girl lowered the pot from the side-armed pitching position, Tony snatched it from her hands. Defenseless, she fled around the low dining table to the corner where she huddled beside the boy.
The room had two small windows high on the wall. Wooden flaps covered the openings, but sand blew in through the cracks. There wasn’t another entrance to the room. It made as good a place as any to corral the house’s occupants while his team cleared home in their search for al-Shehri.
“Watch them while I get the old lady,” he ordered Porter.
His mouth watered like Pavlov’s dog as he set the pot down beside the brick oven. The food smelled better than anything the cook at their forward-operating base had served in the past five months, but he resisted taking a bite since most of the family’s dinner was on the floor. Besides, he’d bet money the old woman watched his every move. Probably gave him the evil eye from behind the veil, too.
She switched her grip to the doorframe when Tony grabbed the edge of the table and pulled it back into the room. He jerked his head to the woman. When she didn’t move, he edged around her and retrieved the fallen crutch from the floor. Her age-spotted hand snatched it away. She tucked the rag-wrapped end under her arm and limped toward the eating area without any prodding.
“Did he touch you?” The woman’s voice crackled with angst.
“Yes,” the girl replied. A single, soft-spoken word in Pashto. And a flat-out lie.
“Wait a damn min—”
Whack!
The top of the crutch made direct contact with his nose. He felt the all-too-familiar pain.
“Fu—” Tony choked back the string of expletives about to pour out of his mouth. White spots of light obscured his vision. Bent over, one hand braced above his knee, he rode out the wave of nausea. He opened his mouth to breathe as blood dripped onto the floor.
Porter grabbed the crutch from the woman before she could strike again.
“Don’t do it,” he ordered before Porter could snap the crutch in half. “But keep it out of her reach!”
She wanted to protect the young girl’s virtue, but he didn’t deserve a broken nose. There were plenty of other things he might deserve a beating for, but he hadn’t laid a finger on the girl. Damn. A low growl rumbled in his throat.
Porter placed the crutch on top of the brick oven, then dug in a side pocket of his pants.
Tony took the offered sterile gauze pads. He rolled one up and stuffed it in his nostril to staunch the blood dripping down his face. Over the communications headset, Lundgren requested status updates.
“We’ve got three non-hostiles contained at our position,” Porter stated.
Non-hostiles, my ass. Tony glared at the old woman while he gingerly touched his nose to determine the damage before it swelled more. He felt the bump from the first break in a high school football game. The second break came from a hand-to-hand combat exercise after he made it through Selection and into Special Forces. Those were both stories he could live down; they even enhanced his image. But conked in the face by a gimpy old lady? Hell, this was beyond embarrassing.
Minutes later, more of the Bad Karma team crowded into the kitchen.
“What the hell happened to you?” Dominguez was the first to take in the bloody scratches, protruding gauze, and damp patches on Tony’s uniform.
Chief Lundgren’s eyebrows rose at his appearance, too.
“Don’t ask.” Tony prayed Porter would keep his mouth shut. His teammates flanked a man in a flowing white perahan tunban over black pants. His hands were flex-cuffed behind his back. It made the throbbing pain worthwhile—until the prisoner faced him. The universe sucked his flash of enthusiasm into a black hole.
“No sign of al-Shehri, and he’s not talking.” Lundgren shifted his gaze back to their prisoner. A muscle in Lundgren’s cheek twitched. “Got a teen in the back bedroom. He’s not talking, either—because he’s in no condition to. Chemical burns on his arms, chest, and face. Wounds are infected. Dad here was praying for him, but he won’t let us take the boy to the base for treatment. Grant’s cleaning and dressing the burns, but …” The grim set of Lundgren’s mouth and shake of his head conveyed paragraphs of information, ending ominously.
Silence settled around them. Tony cast a glance at the shrouded woman, her arms wrapped around the children. He wanted al-Shehri. He wanted people like this family to not live in fear of al-Qaeda or American troops. He wanted to go home without losing more buddies in gunfights or to freakin’ IEDs or mortar attacks.
Tony dug in his pants pocket and pulled out a pack of candy. He caught Lundgren’s eye and jerked his head to the kid. “Let me have the picture.” The idea tumbled out. “Translate for me?”
Lundgren handed over the picture of al-Shehri. “You’re going to have to get your nose fixed this time.”
Tony gave a resigned nod. He signaled for Dominguez to keep the prisoner out of sight before he approached the trio in the dining room. He motioned to the boy, but the old woman held him to her side. Tony pulled off his gloves to unwrap the candy, then popped a purple disk into his mouth. The boy slipped from the woman’s grasp and darted to him, smiling expectantly. Tony handed the rest of the candy to the bright-eyed boy, who turned and spoke to the females, then flashed a gap-toothed grin at the men.
Lundgren snickered. “He told his grandmother not to be scared of you. That you’re funny.” His gaze roved over Tony’s disheveled appearance in concurrence.
While tall, dark, toned, and dangerous drew women to him for one reason, kids saw right through him. They knew they had no reason to be afraid. He was Uncle Tony.
He squatted, getting on the kid’s level. The boy opened his han
d, offering to share the candy. Tony took a piece. The time seemed right, so he showed the picture of al-Shehri to the boy.
The kid’s eyes doubled in size. The hand shoveling more candy into his mouth froze.
“He was here?” Lundgren asked in Pashto.
The boy’s head bobbed in slow motion.
“He’s gone now?”
This time the boy nodded more vigorously, and his features relaxed.
“When did he leave?” Lundgren probed over the chatter of the grandmother. One of his signature stares intimidated her to go silent.
“This morning,” the boy answered.
Crap! Anticipation waned, and energy drained from Tony’s body.
“Is he coming back?” Lundgren remained calm.
Tony’s stomach muscles tightened the same way his fingers gripped his weapon in a gunfight. His trigger finger flexed and released.
This time, the boy only shrugged.
So far, Tony followed the conversation with ease—right to another dead end. Even Lundgren’s shoulders sagged. So damn close. What next? What were they missing?
“How did he get out of the house?” Tony asked in Pashto.
An ornery grin tugged at the boy’s lips. He pointed to the dining table.
Okay, my Pashto needs work. “Ask him how al-Shehri got out of the house,” he asked Lundgren.
“You did.”
Their gazes locked. Both men turned their attention to where the boy had pointed. The low dining table sat atop a deep red rug woven with an intricate pattern.
Tony stood. He ushered the boy to the edge of the room with the women, then handed him another packet of candy. The older woman was strangely quiet now, her head down while she held the girl close.
Together, the men turned the table on its side, setting it against the wall. They peeled the rug back to reveal a hole dug in the center of the room. Lundgren aimed his flashlight into the blackness and let out a whistle. It wasn’t just a rat hole. It led to a tunnel.
“Bring in Dita,” Lundgren said into his communications mic.
The prior adrenaline rush fizzled as every brain cell told Tony that al-Shehri had again slipped through their fingers like the fog and was gone. Long gone.
Two
New York City, NY
FBI Special Agent Angela Hoffman scanned the people waiting for the next train while she walked to the middle of the subway platform. Several faces were familiar. Most she dismissed after assessing their threat level. Two bearded men with long, curled sidelocks and black Hasidic hats and coats were not a threat. Neither was the musician playing a Jimmy Buffet song.
Wish I was wasting away in Margaritaville. As Sabine, she wouldn’t appreciate his music though, so instead of dropping a dollar in his open case, she continued past.
A young man in jeans and navy-blue polo with black hair and a Middle Eastern complexion stood about fifteen feet away. She’d seen him before. Today, he had a backpack slung over one shoulder and a section of folded newspaper in his right hand. His gaze flicked over her before he turned away.
This guy wasn’t included in the pictures the Bureau had of Hakim’s known associates. She’d spotted one of Hakim’s flunkies on the train the day after “meeting” him at the gallery. She’d give up coffee for a month if the guy she spotted outside the mosque two days after their accidental encounter wasn’t there on Hakim’s orders. Was this one the Bureau missed? A recent recruit? Or a regular joe taking the New York subway?
Hakim’s men weren’t half bad at tailing her, but with her background, she had an edge at picking them out without acknowledging their interest in her.
She raised the coffee cup to her lips and snuck another peek in his direction. Though hating to waste perfectly good caffeine, she downed another gulp, then walked to the trash can and dropped the cup in.
Polo Guy shifted his weight and avoided eye contact. From her position, she could make out the Arabic script of a headline. Probably Al Madar but hard to tell which newspaper it was from this distance. If he were running surveillance on her, she’d make it easy for him.
A couple hurried past, a crying child on the young woman’s hip. The stroller the mother dragged behind her bumped, and a stuffed pink bunny bounced out and landed on the platform.
Angela scooped up the toy. “Excuse me. Excuse me, miss,” she called. “Is this your bunny?”
The woman glanced back, then slowed. The child reached for the toy and cradled the animal to her body, rubbing her teary face against the plush fur.
“Thank you,” the young woman replied with a strong Slavic accent.
The glare the woman’s partner unleashed at the sound of the approaching train made her hurry to keep up. Angela recognized several not so nice words in Russian as the man berated the young woman for landing them on the wrong platform. Probably tourists. Navigating the New York City subway system wasn’t the easiest feat for a newbie. Throw in a crying child and an oppressive mate, and sympathy made Angela itch to tell the man to lighten up. However, Sabine wouldn’t confront a man and insinuate herself into a domestic situation, and Angela couldn’t blow her cover when she had a potential tail within earshot. Sorry.
Warm, stale air rushed past, and the subway train screeched to a stop. People pushed forward to board. Deliberately, she headed to a separate car than the young family and ignored the man who may or may not be one of Hakim’s contacts. For all appearances, she was Sabine Deschamps on her way to work at LeBlanc Fine Arts Gallery. She needed to sell that lie for at least one more day.
Angela claimed a seat in the back corner beside an Asian woman who didn’t look up from her e-reader. The car jolted forward, then built speed as it barreled through the tunnel.
At the other end of the car, Polo Guy sat with his back to her, though that didn’t negate the possibility he was following her. With the majority of passengers already fixated on their phones, she pulled out her doggedly vibrating phone to check her text messages.
Three messages in ten minutes? Crap. It had to be important for the Bureau to send repeated coded messages. A shoe sale at Bloomies wasn’t that urgent.
She studied the people around her before she tapped the link that would take her to the supposed sale page. Better to check it now in case they needed her to come into the office before she went to her current “job.”
Please don’t let anything have gone wrong. Not now. She entered her information in the customer login and password fields.
Seconds later, she read the plain text on the secure website for the FBI.
She read it again.
Her lungs forgot how to draw in oxygen. Her heart missed a beat. Then another. It didn’t have to do with her case. Or did it?
Samir al-Shehri.
The name made her shiver despite the late-June heat. Her nervous system forced her lungs to work. In Afghanistan years ago, she’d witnessed the results of al-Shehri’s anti-American agenda. While al-Shehri’s travels throughout the Middle East to recruit impressionable dupes for his cause alarmed her when she was there, his coming to North America made her body go cold.
The alert said he’d taken a flight into Toronto. Only Canada wouldn’t be his target. And if al-Shehri needed money to fund some cause, then Anmar Hakim would be the man to see.
It’d taken two months for her to get close to Hakim. Tonight, it was supposed to come together. Could she get evidence against more than Hakim? If she found something to connect the men … But what if Hakim canceled their plans? Lost in thought, she nearly missed her stop in Soho.
She got off, but Polo Guy stayed on the train.
Tony ambled across the pavement toward the Special Ops command post on their secure part of Fort Bragg. The temperature threatened to break ninety today. It’d still be training as usual. Could be worse. He could still be in Kandahar. The temps were pushing ninety there when they left almost three months ago.
Inside the unit’s conference room, several members of his team sat at the tables.
&n
bsp; “Was that a personal record for ya, Vincenti?” Juan Dominguez smirked. “What, like three minutes before some hot chick made her move on ya?”
Talk about business as usual. Tony ground his teeth together rather than let Dominguez bait him. He took a seat in the back of the room with Mack Hanlon and AJ Rozanski.
Dominguez swiveled around. “Told you the new GQ look worked for you. Even if you still aren’t as pretty as Grant.”
“Don’t drag me into this. I didn’t even go to Jumpy’s last night,” Devin Grant said.
“Where were you?” Tony attempted to shift the focus off his sex life.
“I had class.”
“Class?” Dominguez targeted Grant. “What are you taking now?”
“Finance 354.”
“Finance? Why you taking some lame class like that? Are there any hot chicks in it?” Dominguez was like a dog chasing a squirrel.
“Two or three, I guess.” Grant rolled his eyes and shook his head.
“Just saying … So, Vincenti, the brunette. Was she the love of your life? You two didn’t stay for a second drink. And, man, that woman was smokin’ hot. All long legs and—”
“Shut up, Dominguez. Why all the interest in my love life? You jealous?” No, she wasn’t the love of his life. Just one more woman convinced that hooking up with a Special Ops guy would be the most satisfying and memorable time in the sack ever. He didn’t disappoint.
The disappointment came later. With the realization that if they were more interested in great sex than a relationship, he couldn’t trust they would stay faithful. To do his job, he couldn’t worry about what was happening on the home front while he was deployed.
Dominguez snorted. “Yeah, I like your pretty new look. But don’t ask, don’t tell.”
“Shut up, Dominguez!” A chorus of voices drowned him out.
Rozanski sent a pen sailing. It hit Dominguez in the shoulder; he laughed it off.
The door opened, and Colonel Mahinis walked in ahead of Chief Ray Lundgren, who carried a tablet. The room went silent. Tony’s mission radar lit up.
