by Anthony Tata
“This man.” He was pointing back at the drawing. At her father.
“You’re too funny, little boy. Now go play.”
“You’ll see,” Kiram said, lifting his drawing and then placing it back on the tree stump. “Time to go. See you tomorrow.”
Then the part they had been practicing.
“Are you good to go?”
“I’m good to go, Kiram. Good job.”
Amanda had taught him the exchange, and Kiram had picked it up easily, as he did with the rest of his English. He could be a leader for these people, Amanda thought. Her heart swelled with pride. Her short time in Tanzania had been cathartic in many ways.
“I don’t know if this is what I’m supposed to do, Daddy, but it’s the best that I can do right now.” She had transformed enormous guilt into positive action. That was something.
She lifted Kiram’s drawing and looked at the image of her father. Tears were streaking her face. In a way they were tears of happiness. Even in his absence he had been able to resurrect her. What she wouldn’t give for a second chance with him.
“Are we good to go, Daddy?” She held the grainy artist paper in her hand and stared at Kiram’s rendition of her father’s face.
The wind shook the tops of the sturdy mahogany trees, a white cloud slid overhead as if it was a speedboat skimming the pristine surface of a crystal-blue lake. The thatch huts in which they were staying suddenly seemed deathly quiet, with no one in eyesight or earshot.
“We’re good to go, baby girl.”
It was as if someone had opened a zipper in time, reached in and somehow dragged him forward. She rose from the stump.
Watching the sun, a bright fireball diving beneath the descending tree lines that ran down the ridge, she mustered the courage to turn. Ever so slowly, she first saw the river flowing with its gentle, peaceful pace. It crossed her mind that her father was supposed to have been killed twice in the last four years. Surely she could not be so lucky as to have a father that resembled a cat in longevity performances.
Before she finished turning, she felt his hands on her shoulder. These were her father’s hands, strong and gentle, protective. Before she came face to face with him, she closed her eyes.
“Daddy?”
Matt Garrett set up the satellite uplink from Mwanza, Tanzania and got confirmation of a secure satellite connection. He wasn’t sure he could handle the emotional torrent that might release if he watched his brother, Zach, reunite with his reformed daughter. So, he got Zach from Landstuhl Military Hospital in Germany to this remote corner of the Serengeti and then removed himself from the picture. This was Zach’s show, not his. Actually, it was Amanda’s and he was damn proud of that young lady for having the intestinal fortitude to persevere.
While Amanda and Zach were embracing, Matt plugged the two hard drives he had snatched from the Yemen raid into USB cables that fed into a master computer that the Central Intelligence Agency could access and monitor. He could see Riley standing in the center of the soccer field, laughing as orphans ran circles around her with a soccer ball.
“Uploading files,” Matt said into his satellite phone as he watched the green bar slide from left to right across the screen indicating upload progress. The files would take encryption experts in some cases minutes and in most cases hours or days to decipher. The haul from Yemen, while considered a bust in the operative communities, was anything but that. CIA Director Houghton had instructed Matt to secure the two server drives he had taken from Yemen until international attention on the raid ebbed.
Houghton was on the line with Matt and said, “Good job. We’ve got Elsie Cartwright, our best techie already telling us you got a more current database than Rahman’s of every Al Qaeda member in the first few minutes.”
“There’s a hell of a lot more there, Roger. And there are probably more databases. We have to keep the pressure on these guys,” Matt said.
“Roger that,” Houghton said.
“I want in on developing the plan to systematically go after these assholes.”
“No question.”
“And you were wrong, you know,” Matt said.
Houghton paused. “About what?”
“Zach. He’s good to go.”
“I heard. I’m always happy to be wrong about shit like that. Now get your ass back here when you can.”
“Roger that, Roger.”
Matt heard Houghton chuckle and hang up. He looked out of the small cinderblock shack that Amanda had steered him toward for his “conference call.”
Next he called General Griffin in Pakistan and after a few seconds got the general on the tactical satellite radio.
“Eagle six, give me a status,” Matt said.
Matt heard a chuckle, then Griffin said, “Well, son, I’m in Miram Shah with my headquarters where Haqqani used to hang out, so I’d say we’re doing some good. But it’s going to take time.”
“At least we’re there,” Matt said.
“Wouldn’t have been possible without you,” Griffin replied.
Matt smiled. No, it surely would not have been.
“Keep your powder dry, General.”
“I’m just about out of powder we’ve been killing so many of these bastards.”
“Stay safe, sir.”
“Matt?”
“Yes, sir?”
“I’d follow you into combat anytime, son.”
Matt paused at the strong sentiment from the seasoned soldier.
“Likewise, sir.”
***
In Yemen, four houses down from the raid objective of the Americans an ambulance arrived with a dialysis machine in the back. The medics disembarked rapidly and carried a stretcher into the suburban house, which was surprisingly unaffected by the blast of the server farm.
They found their way into the bedroom past several AK-74 toting security personnel who had materialized from the vapor. They loaded the tall patient on the litter and immediately hooked him up to the IV bags and heart rate monitors.
Securing him in the ambulance, they got the dialysis treatment underway, and under heavily guarded escort, sped away into the Yemeni desert night.
Make sure to stay tuned for Dark Threat, book four of the Threat Series, where Amanda Garrett runs a clandestine U.S. State Department HIV vaccine program in Tanzania.
International terrorists and American pharmaceutical companies descend on the Serengeti Plain as the secret cure is leaked to the world. Protected by two Tanzanian orphans, Amanda evades the clutches of the Leopard and the Cheetah, a French sniper and Rwandan war criminal escapee, who have teamed up to steal the vaccine.
Matt and Zach Garrett are called into action with Amanda on the run and the vaccine in jeopardy, when a billionaire’s fascination with a newly discovered 30,000-year-old text leads him to believe that Amanda’s prize may not only cure disease, but offer everlasting life.
Author’s Note:
The idea for Hidden Threat came from two places. First, ever since September 12, 2001 I have believed that we under-resourced the fight against Al Qaeda. As you have just read in Hidden Threat, I take creative license and put both Matt and Zach Garrett into the fight in Afghanistan and, more importantly, in Pakistan, where I believe we need to be to win this war.
Secondly, I have seen the impact of war on families and, in particular, on soldiers and their children. Amanda’s struggle on the home front in parallel with Zach’s in combat is symbolic of the agony I have witnessed in many different families and situations. The main point is that it takes courage to be a kid and have a parent in a war.
I would like to thank my editor, Shane Thomson, for his diligence, as well as Tim Schulte and Stan Tremblay at Variance Publishing. Also, thanks to the wonderful Jessi Alexander for allowing me to use her lyrics from the song “This World is Crazy” off her album Honeysuckle Sweet. Also, congratulations to Mary Ann Singlaub for winning the contest to have her name used in the novel during last year’s USO sponsored book release for Rogue Threat.
/> And most importantly, thanks to you, the reader, for your interest and loyalty.
AJT
Also by AJ Tata
SUDDEN THREAT
ROGUE THREAT
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Epilogue
Author’s Note
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAP TER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 4 8
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 5 8
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
CHAPTER 62
CHAPTER 63
CHAPTER 64
CHAPTER 65
CHAPTER 66
CHAPTER 67
CHAPTER 68
CHAPTER 69
CHAPTER 70
CHAPTER 71
CHAPTER 72
CHAPTER 73
CHAPTER 74
CHAPTER 75
CHAPTER 76
CHAPTER 77
CHAPTER 78
CHAPTER 79
CHAPTER 80
CHAPTER 81
CHAPTER 82
CHAPTER 83
CHAPTER 84
CHAPTER 85
CHAPTER 86
CHAPTER 87
CHAPTER 88
Epilogue
Author’s Note:
