Hidden Threat

by Anthony Tata

  “Please, Mom? Can we just do this before any of us changes our minds?” Amanda’s emerald eyes were pleading as she leaned forward and placed her hand on her mother’s arm.

  Tad leaned back in his chair, letting Amanda do the work. A good salesman, as Tad was, knew that when a family member began to do his job, rule number one was to not get in the way.

  “It’s a lot of money for a house,” Nina chirped. “But if we can make some money on it, I’m in. Amanda will probably have to work, though. Are you sure you want that?” She was talking to both Melanie and Amanda, eyeing each of them with her blackened marbles.

  “It’s just a year, Mom. It would be so cool for all of us to live up there.” Again with the pleading emeralds. She had known coming into this discussion that she would need to be the counterpoint to every obstacle Nina established.

  “Okay,” she sighed, leaning forward. “I must be crazy, but where do I sign?”

  Tad produced the paperwork quicker than David Copperfield could pull a rabbit from his hat. As Melanie was reading, he went back into his closer role.

  “Now, Melanie, if you or Nina have a checkbook handy, I can take the down payment check tonight. We can get a day’s head start on this.”

  After an uncomfortable pause, Nina uncharacteristically came forward and remarked, “I’ve got a checkbook. Let me write it, and we can just get this over with. If it keeps Amanda here another year, well, then it’s worth a hundred thousand.”

  “A hundred and forty thousand,” Melanie corrected.

  “Whatever, once you get over five thousand I lose track. Why don’t you go get us some water, Melanie?”

  Needing a quick break, Melanie walked into the kitchen. As she returned, her mother was handing Tad the check. He folded the parchment and placed it in his shirt pocket.

  “Again, this document,” Tad joined in as he watched Melanie sit and lift the pen, “is irrevocable once you sign it. The house becomes yours.”

  Amanda watched with satisfaction as her mother closed her eyes and signed, the sharp edge of the Mont Blanc cartridge pen sounding like a scratching claw.

  CHAPTER 56

  Kunar Province, Afghanistan

  Wednesday Evening

  Matt felt the MH-47 helicopter settle onto the rocky landing zone along the Kunar River in the province that bore the same name. Asadabad was a way-point along this ancient trading route at the mouth of the Hindu Kush Mountains. To the west and north, spires of granite angled upward, touching altitudes of fifteen thousand feet like randomly constructed temples of nature. Here, shepherds and traders could lay tithe or prayer. Certainly such raw beauty and perfection must have been personally carved by God. As if to counter the point, jagged edges jutted upward and outward from sheer cliffs. Boulders and slabs of rock crouched menacingly in the crevices, ready to avalanche on call as if evil was prepared to offset the cleansing power so clearly resident in these mountains.

  Exiting through a sandy dust field created by the whirring dual blades of the MH-47, behind Matt were Major General Jack Rampert, Van Dreeves, Hobart, and Sergeant Eversoll. They all ducked and then took a knee, waiting for the whirling dervish to lift away and in its wake leave behind an alternate form of solitude. The utterly chaotic, but controlled noise of the hulking machine was dominant. Its giant rotors spun against one another, creating the lift necessary to carry forty-thousand pounds of machine, people, and cargo. Instantly this chaos was replaced by the sounds of the wind through the temple spires above. On the valley floor, the insertion team was only at five thousand feet above sea level; the abrupt rise of the mountains seemed all the more stark and aggressive.

  Rampert looked at Matt and pulled out his map. “We’re right here, about two miles from the village. I think our preplanned route is a good one. There’s enemy in between us and Zach, but we’ve got a Predator flying overhead and an AC-130 as long as we’ve got the cover of darkness.”

  A thin gray film of light was evident from the west, but fading rapidly. End of evening nautical twilight, which occurred well after sunset, was nearly complete and here in the shadows of the Hindu Kush, it was all but gone. Slices of gray hovered around the mountaintops like windward clouds on an ocean island, held in place as if snagged, and providing no light on the landing zone.

  “Moon will be up in a couple of hours, so I suggest we get moving. You know we’re being watched.” Matt talked in a low whisper as he tugged at a knee-pad, repositioning the device to place the hard-shell surface between his kneecap and the rocky ground.

  They stood in unison, Sergeant Eversoll taking point. Through his night-vision goggles, Matt saw Eversoll’s hand rotate a few times and then point to the north, toward Asadabad.

  They followed in single file down a steep draw and then found a decent trail that paralleled the river. Matt could hear the rumble of the water as it shot through rapids and rushed over steep drop-offs. They were maybe fifty meters from the river on its west side. He thought of Bernouli’s equation, the old math formula that described volume as it moved through a constricted space and how its acceleration increased the smaller the space became. Force equals mass times acceleration, he thought to himself. The impulse momentum that resulted from applied force and constrained space was captured in the velocity of the current as the river narrowed against rocky intrusions. Why these thoughts on the properties of physics were coming forward now, he wasn’t sure. Perhaps he needed grounding in reality, in facts and equations, prior to rescuing his brother. Such thoughts may keep in check the blossoming hope that always accompanied, and clouded, such missions. Momentum, he thought to himself. We have the momentum.

  ***

  After an hour of walking they had reached the outskirts of a small village. They took a knee behind a mud wall that was certainly part of some family’s qalat, or walled-in compound. Rampert and Matt huddled while the other three faced outward, providing security against detection or enemy fire. While the town of Asadabad was largely pro-government, and supported the Coalition Forces that were fighting the terrorists resident in their country, the metropolis was infested with indigenous scouts, some armed, some not. These zephyrs provided early warning to the enemy that typically enjoyed sanctuary in the upper reaches of the villages where backdoors led to escape routes into impossibly difficult terrain.

  “The GPS shows we are less than two hundred meters from the grid coordinates for the target compound.” Rampert spoke in hushed tones, his voice barely audible.

  “Soft knock or hard knock?” Matt’s question was one they had discussed earlier. Did they quite literally knock on the door and wait to be invited in? Or did they breach the door with explosives or by a well-practiced battle drill?

  “The guide should be here any moment. That orchard over there next to the river is our line-up point.” Rampert pointed at a grove of fig trees that was barely noticeable in the blackness. The moon was cresting above the eastern mountain range, whose massif ran parallel to the north-south flowing Kunar and whose peaks were the meaningless indicator of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. “The issue is that AQ are here, too. They know he’s being protected, but the village elder refuses to give him up. Pashtun-wali. I give it a few more hours before they decide to take him by force.”

  In the scant moonlight Matt saw a figure emerge from the fig orchard, as if on cue. The man walked toward them holding his hands high so that the Special Forces team could see that he was unarmed.

  “Do you have any figs for us?” Matt asked in Pashto.

  “I have only one fig.” The man knelt down and held out a small fig in his right hand, completing the bona fides and confirming he was the contact.

  “This way,” the man said as he led them toward the front of the compound. “He is inside.”

  CHAPTER 57

  Kunar Province, Afghanistan

  WEDNESDAY EVENING

  Zach Garrett figured his time had come. He had been bewildered by the fact that his hands had not been shackled nor his feet bound—bew
ildered, but nonetheless grateful. He was equally mystified by the apparent care that he was receiving in captivity. The armed men had brought him food, real food. Lamb and rice. He had eaten ravenously. They’d given him water and nursed his wounds.

  He had awakened this evening with two insistent thoughts competing for his attention, like children tugging at his leg. The first siren in his mind was that he had to escape, and now. Despite the seemingly good care he was receiving, he could reasonably conclude it would not continue. Even more, he determined that they, the enemy, were either fattening him up for a television or video appearance or perhaps an International Red Cross visitor to confirm his prisoner of war status.

  The second alarm ringing in his mind was that Amanda was in trouble. He didn’t know why or how, but he could sense her distress the same way an animal tastes distant fear. His dreams had been vivid and true. She was perhaps not calling out to him so much as she needed him. Nine time zones away, he could sense the chaos awakening in her life again. She needed him, and that was all the motivation he required.

  The two instincts were intricately linked, of course. He needed to escape in order to get back to Amanda.

  With that thought, he slowly stood. His left leg screamed with the sharp pain of a break in his lower calf area, probably the fibula. He was able to sustain some weight on the leg, especially if he leaned inward. The fibula was designed to protect its larger mate in the lower leg, the tibia. He determined that with some effort, he would be able to endure the pain. He steadied himself against the wall.

  He noticed a rectangular section of dim light beaming onto the floor. He followed the ray to a high window that he surmised to be about two feet wide in both directions. Reaching with his hand, he took hold of the ledge and pulled himself upward. His ribs—broken, he was sure—came alive with searing heat. Despite the pain, he was able to lift his good leg onto the ledge and work his body into the sill. Moving with more deliberation now, he slowly pulled his left leg through the opening so that both legs were suspended outside of the home. Again his ribs hurt, as they rubbed against the outer ledge of the window, the pain nearly unbearable. He looked beneath his feet as he dangled a few feet off the ground. If someone were to happen upon him now, they might just as easily consider that he was breaking into the home as he was fleeing.

  He let go and dropped mercifully onto his good leg, a one-legged parachute landing fall, which you are never supposed to do, he reminded himself. Nevertheless, he had absorbed the fall with no consequence.

  Immediately he was leaning against the wall, calculating his surroundings. The moon was rising above the mountains in the east. His last memory outside of this building was that of falling into the river. Now he could hear the whisper of the rapids in the distance that perhaps carried him to safety or had nearly drowned him. It all depended on how he considered his fate. In life there was always such a thin margin between luck and skill, winning and losing, good and evil, redeemer and taker.

  As he moved toward the gate in the high mud wall, he felt the sharp sting of the broken fibula with each abbreviated step of his left leg. It was as if someone struck the same spot on his leg with a ball-peen hammer the moment pressure was applied. Once he passed through the gate, he noticed a fig orchard to his right, toward the river. Outside the high walls of the compound, the river spoke more loudly. He felt its presence—perhaps calling him or maybe warning him, he was not sure.

  He limped between two rows of fig trees, wanting to move as quickly away from his previous confines as possible.

  Now the river roared with life. The sound of the water’s rush dominated his environment. Loud and overwhelming, the water actually appeared less menacing than it sounded. He stood awkwardly upon the bank, fig orchard to his back, rising moon to his front.

  The boat lying on its side in the rocks looked like a wooden canoe. Poplar or ash planks ran horizontally like a tongue-in-groove hardwood floor held together by black resin or henna along the seams. This gift that appeared at his feet seemed Heaven sent, and he was thankful. Carefully, he edged his way onto the rocky bank. His left leg was unable to negotiate the loose stones as well as he’d hoped. He slipped once, which caused a brief loss of breath as his ribs pinched him like a vise. Positioning himself behind the canoe, he was able to pull it into the water about a third of the distance.

  Suddenly, the boat began to spin, sucked into the raging current. Out of position, he had to leap from his left leg into the boat, banging the injured bone against the lip of the rail as he slipped into the now-speeding craft.

  Nursing his leg momentarily, he grabbed the one oar that had been positioned in the vessel and began a futile effort of attempting to steer. He remembered Riley’s Thomas Cole painting and thought that he was most certainly entering raging waters to an unknown destination with little more than a makeshift paddle. He was essentially without ability to govern his speed or direction. A better allegory to Cole’s idea, he had not seen.

  So, with little ability to assist in the process of steering through the rapids, he used the paddle as a crutch as he knelt. While upright, he spread his arms wide as if he were a preacher in the pulpit and screamed his daughter’s name against the thunderous and omnipotent roar of the river.

  “Amanda!”

  He desperately wanted her to know that he would not let her down this time.

  Wisely, he lowered himself into the vessel as it went churning through the narrow defiles. After several minutes of scrambling through rapids, he felt something strike the craft. These sensations were followed by barely audible sounds above the din of the water. A few more of these sensations followed. He felt splintering chips of wood strike his face.

  As he recognized what was happening, he noticed the water appeared to pool to his front, perhaps slowing as the banks widened. Jagged mountains on either side of the river reached into the black night with sharp triangular peaks still capped with snow.

  He came to his knees as the boat slowed. Though it was too late, his mind was screaming at him to hide below the upper rim of the canoe. His tactician’s mind had reengaged and realized that the slow water and the high cliffs were the perfect ambush location.

  The fusillade of machine-gun fire tearing through the night air, popping above his head and into the swirling water, came from both sides. The sounds were now more audible as he emerged from the rapids.

  He dove into the water to his left and held his breath for almost a minute. He counted the seconds as he used to do as a child so that he would know how far he could go without breathing. Ninety seconds had been his record.

  Approaching that number he realized that his right arm was stinging with pain, feeling for the moment much worse than the broken leg.

  Ninety seconds passed, and he knew that he was going to have to surface. He prayed he was far enough away from the canoe to avoid detection while still being able to get back to it if necessary.

  He floated toward the surface, pressing his face against the meniscus of the water. As his mouth and nose protruded, he could see the stars, bright pinpricks in the black curtain of night. He noticed some of the towering peaks on either side of the river as if through a thin layer of film.

  Another gulp of air, and he was back under. As he allowed his body to drift with the flow of the water downstream, he wondered why the ambush had been established at that location. Further, he wondered why they would randomly shoot at him.

  The U.S. forces operated under the notion of positive identification, meaning before shooting at someone the soldier had to determine hostile intent and make sure that collateral damage would be minimized if not eliminated.

  Clearly, the enemy operated under no such limitation.

  Strangely, he had drifted back to the boat as he came up for a second breath of air and nearly impaled his face on the stern. He reached up with his left arm and held onto the rim and then floated.

  His world began to fade as weakness overcame him. He was cold. His mind spiraled, registering
that there were several places on his body that hurt worse than his broken leg.

  CHAPTER 58

  Spartanburg, SOUTH CAROLINA

  Wednesday Morning (Eastern Time)

  Amanda awoke with the single-minded purpose of talking to the one man she felt she could trust aside from Jake. While talking to Riley Dwyer had been helpful, she needed an objective, neutral opinion. After all, Riley was an advocate of her father. And Jake’s parents had kindly asked her to refrain from talking to him until the legal matters were resolved. So that left Mr. Dagus. She decided to approach him. At school, though, she was informed that he had taken the day off.

  Instead, she spent the day cleaning out her locker and school supplies. She accepted a few sympathy greetings from friends and then went home. She was thankful, too, that she had not seen Rugsdale today. He was beginning to creep her out. Coming and going, she had not seen his car in the parking lot.

  The day seemed to pass quickly as she loaded her things into her car. As she looked at the growing pile in her backseat, she wondered how the heck all of that had fit into the skinny wall locker. There were five sets of swim goggles she had forgotten about.

  As she arrived back home, she caught her mother in the driveway returning from work. She was dressed in a taupe pantsuit with a silk white blouse. Not her best color, but Amanda remembered her saying something about seeing a “conservative” client today.