by Kaylea Cross
He shouldn’t be thinking about her so much, and for sure not when he was on an op. Zaid sighed and looked around him at the pissed-off villagers all going back into their homes. Maybe they’d come too early. Maybe the smugglers hadn’t been able to make it up the mountain in these conditions.
Or maybe Barakat had lied to their faces to throw them off The Jackal’s trail, playing one side off the other and taking money from both.
Zaid wouldn’t put it past the kid. Hell, after the things he’d seen and heard about over here over the past decade, nothing would surprise him in this country.
“All right, let’s get out of here,” Hamilton finally said, and pivoted to head out of the village.
Cold and discouraged, Zaid and the others started down the mountain with the rest of the unit. The reward for their efforts tonight was a long, cold hike to reach the exfil point, where they’d wait for helos that would fly them back to Bagram.
****
“The shipment made it across the border without incident.”
The Jackal closed his eyes and let out a relieved breath at the news from his contact. “God is great.”
“Yes, God is great. I wanted to alert you as soon as I knew.”
He grunted. The intelligence planted through his network had worked, and led FAST Bravo to the wrong location. “Any further word on the boy yet?”
“Not yet. I’m working on it though.”
“I should hope so.” He knew which funnel the informant was working through. Now it was just a matter of time before he found out who it was. “Keep me informed.”
“Of course.”
Setting his phone down on the table, he rose and crossed to the window that overlooked the sleeping city. A gust of wind rattled the glass in its frame. Lights dotted the darkened landscape of Kabul spread out before him as snowflakes drifted past.
It looked so serene and peaceful right now, the darkness hiding the scars of war left carved on the land. Deceptive. But he knew how fragile the illusion was. And how quickly a new offensive or suicide attack by the Taliban or any other insurgent group could shatter the stillness in an instant.
He was no stranger to violence and death. Anyone who posed a threat to him and his operations would earn a swift and violent end. He’d come too far and risked too much to turn back now.
A few more shipments, and with his cut of the profits he would have earned enough to get his son the things he needed. He would be able to get his entire family out of this country to start over somewhere new. Somewhere safe where they could live like kings without the fear of death hanging over them like a constant pall.
A small, rattling cough from down the hall broke him out of his thoughts.
On silent feet, he walked the length of the hallway. His wife emerged from their bedroom and opened the door opposite it. The soft glow of a lamp flooded the dingy hallway and the soft murmur of her voice floated out to him.
Reaching the other bedroom, he paused in the doorway to take in the scene before him. His wife sat on the edge of their son’s bed, propping him up with a few pillows behind his back. The boy’s face was pale and sweaty, a bluish tinge around his eyes and mouth. Just five years old. Far too young to know such anguish.
Those dark, sunken eyes swung up to him as another ghastly cough rattled that thin chest, and The Jackal’s heart clenched with helpless grief. His boy had suffered so much in his young life. Too much.
Putting on a confident smile, The Jackal walked over and sat beside his son while his wife scurried off to get more medicine. “Is it bad tonight?” he murmured to Beena, placing a gentle hand on top of his son’s head.
The boy nodded, his breaths raspy and strained, his eyes pleading for an end to his torment.
Somehow he kept the smile in place. “Well, your mother has gone to bring you more medicine. That will make you feel better and help you rest.”
Another nod, and Beena closed his eyes, as though they were too heavy to keep open.
The Jackal kept his hand on his son’s sweaty hair, stroking his fingers through it gently. “It won’t be long now. Another few weeks at most, and we can take you to a special doctor who will fix everything.”
With a soft sigh, the boy slumped against the pillows.
The Jackal sat there in the pool of lamplight and stroked Beena’s damp hair, unable to do anything more while he listened to each labored breath his son took. Anger and determination swelled until they all but choked him.
It wasn’t right. Wasn’t fair that his son should have to suffer like this simply because the procedure he needed wasn’t available in Afghanistan. Not even from the American and British surgeons at the military bases.
His wife’s soft footfalls reached him a moment before a gentle hand touched his shoulder. Her beautiful face was lined with worry and fatigue, her once raven black hair turned gray at the temples from the constant stress she lived with. She held the prescription bottle in her other hand.
“How much longer?” she whispered, the strain clear in her voice.
He didn’t pretend not to know what she meant. How long until he had the money they needed to get Beena better. “Not long.” He reached up to squeeze her hand in reassurance before pushing to his feet.
In the doorway, he paused to look back as she roused their son from his fitful slumber to give him the medicine.
Resolve hardened inside him. His son needed a life-saving operation, and he would make certain it happened, even if he had to work with the Veneno cartel to do it.
He didn’t care who he had to work with or betray to make it happen.
Chapter Four
December twenty-fourth. Even without knowing the date, Zaid would have been able to guess it was Christmas Eve the moment he stepped into the squad room simply by observing his teammates.
The energy in the room was uncharacteristically low during this downtime before another team briefing. All the guys were quiet and subdued, partly because they were tired from the nonstop op-tempo over here, and partly because they were discouraged by the last two ops being total busts.
But more than that, Zaid suspected it had more to do with them being so far away from their families and significant others at this time of year. He missed his family too. And since FAST Bravo was only a few weeks into its four-month rotation, they had a long way to go yet before any reunions took place.
Jamie Rodriguez emerged from the small storage room at the back where they’d set up a laptop for private calls. They used their personal cell phones most of the time, but it was cheaper to use the laptop to check emails and do Skype calls. “You need in here?” Rodriguez asked him.
“No, I’m good until everyone else has had a turn.” The only people waiting for word from him were his parents back home in New Jersey, and since today wasn’t that big a deal to them, Zaid could call them another time.
“You don’t have a hot online date set up?” Rodriguez teased.
“Wouldn’t tell you even if I did.” And no, he’d given all that up months ago. He was sick of dating and things never working out. He wanted a meaningful connection he could build on with a woman he admired and enjoyed spending time with, not a string of hookups that went nowhere. He wanted it badly enough that he’d even jumped into online dating waters, something he’d sworn he’d never do, and had been matched up with a woman who seriously piqued his interest.
Still skeptical, he’d taken things slow with her, and after five weeks of chatting with her every day he was reasonably sure she was the real deal and had finally worked up the courage to ask her to meet in person when she came into town. She’d agreed and sounded enthusiastic about seeing him, and he’d eagerly anticipated it. Then, the night before they were supposed to meet, she’d canceled on him in a freaking text message and cut all contact.
Zaid had been bewildered, and yeah, hurt. More hurt than he probably should have been, considering they’d never actually met and hadn’t even seen pictures of one another due to security concerns with
their jobs.
Sure he’d withheld certain things from her, like his last name and what he did for a living, but he assumed she’d done the same and thought they’d had a real connection going. They had similar political and moral beliefs; they both valued family and wanted to make the world a better place. They both loved to read and liked a lot of the same books.
He had no idea what had gone wrong, but figured she’d either lost interest or found someone else. Or he’d misread her the entire time. Whatever the reason, he was in no hurry to put himself out there and get his heart stomped on again. Hence his dating hiatus. This deployment couldn’t have come at a better time.
“Well you’re no fun,” Rodriguez said.
Guess not, or she wouldn’t have cut contact with me.
Putting his hands in his pockets, Zaid tried to think of what he could do to raise spirits around here. As the team medic, it was his responsibility to look after the guys’ physical injuries, but he also considered it his job to monitor and help them with personal things too. “How are things back home?” he asked Rodriguez.
“Okay. Charlie’s good, still working hard on cracking more encrypted files on the Veneno investigation with her team.”
Rodriguez’s girlfriend was an analyst working the case back in D.C. The Venenos were a big freaking deal, and a global threat whose tentacles now reached all the way over here to Afghanistan. Rumors said The Jackal was involved with them somehow, shipping Afghan opium back to Mexico. “And your mom?”
Rodriguez hesitated, then lowered his gaze to the floor. “Not good.”
Shit. Her MS was progressing much faster than anyone had expected. Now Zaid was sorry he’d asked. “Sorry to hear that.”
Rodriguez nodded. “Thanks. It’s not critical yet, but she’s getting weaker every day, and losing more function.” He blew out a hard breath and rubbed the back of his neck. “The holidays always make it tougher, especially when I’m so far away. At least she’s got the rest of the family there with her, even if I can’t be.”
“Yeah.” Zaid paused a beat. “Anything we can do?”
His teammate looked up and gave him a half-smile. “No. But thanks for asking.”
It had been worth a shot. “Sure.”
Prentiss walked in and stopped when he saw them standing outside the storage room. “Y’all using the laptop?”
“No, go ahead.” Zaid stepped out of the way and motioned for him to go in. “Got an important call?”
“Trying to set up one with Autumn, yeah. I want to make sure I get to talk to her either today or tomorrow.”
His daughter. “Good stuff.” Aside from their commander, Prentiss was the only one on the team who was a father. Zaid wasn’t a parent and not likely to be one anytime soon even though he wanted that one day, but he could imagine how much it sucked to be away from your kid during such an important holiday—especially if it wasn’t the first or even fifth time.
“My ex isn’t making it easy, of course.” Prentiss shook his dark head, frustration burning in his deep blue eyes. “She’s a great mom, I give her all the credit in the world there, since she’s basically a single parent while I’m gone. But when it comes to me?” He snorted. “She still doesn’t seem to grasp the fact that I can’t just schedule a call and always stick to it. That I can’t opt out of a team meeting or mission to be on the call if something comes up.”
“That sucks. Good luck.” The guy lived for his baby girl, and rightly so.
“Thanks,” Prentiss muttered, and walked past them into the storage room to shut the door.
“His ex is a piece of work,” Maka said from over in the corner where he was busy loading his Nerf gun in gleeful anticipation of hitting another victim with a foam dart.
His latest coping mechanism to stave off boredom and pass the time while they waited for something from command. Zaid swore the guy had ADD.
“Never misses a chance to screw him over when it comes to their kid.” Maka shook his head and didn’t bother looking up, intent on his work with the pile of darts in his lap. “Don’t get why she’s still so pissed at him about the breakup. They’ve been divorced for like, seven years.”
Zaid snorted. “Says the guy who’s never been through a divorce.” Zaid hoped he never went through one. He was a one-woman kinda guy, and when he found The One, he would lock her down with a ring on her finger so the whole world knew she was his.
Unbidden, an image of Jaliya popped into his head. Now there was the kind of woman he’d be proud to settle down with one day. Smart, driven, sexy. They even shared the same religious background.
Not that he was ready to risk his heart again. Maybe after this deployment he’d feel up to putting himself out there once he’d been home for a while.
Maka looked up at him, his dark brows pulled together in a ferocious scowl. “I’m serious. She’s nasty to him. Do you know how many kids out there would kill to have a dad who cared about them that much? Prentiss has done everything in his power to maintain a good relationship with his daughter since the split. But instead of trying to support that, his ex would rather sabotage it to get back at him out of some twisted sense of revenge. And who loses? The kid. Every damn time.”
The impassioned speech took Zaid off guard so much that he didn’t answer for a long moment, and shared a look with Rodriguez. Maka didn’t open up about personal stuff too often, although the team knew he hadn’t had it easy as a kid. It sounded like Maka had just exposed an old wound he’d kept hidden until now. “Was your dad like that?”
Maka’s jaw flexed under the dark scruff and he looked back down at his foam ammo, shaking his head. “Are you kidding? My sperm donor didn’t give two shits about me or my mom. Took off when I was a baby and never looked back. That’s why I’m saying someone like Prentiss, who busts his ass trying to be there for his daughter, shouldn’t have to fight for that relationship. It’s not right, for him or his girl.”
“No, it’s not.” And Maka was right. The daughter was the one who lost out when her mother tried to block Prentiss’s efforts at keeping in touch. Using Autumn as a weapon was wrong, but sadly, all too common in divorces. “Let’s hope things go smoothly for him this time.”
“Wouldn’t hold your breath on that one,” Maka muttered, sliding the last of the foam bullets into his uzi-style Nerf gun. Sucker must have at least twenty rounds in it, after Maka’s modifications. “Things have gotten worse for him since we got over here, in case you haven’t noticed. Man, I’d love to meet her so I could give her a piece of my mind.”
Zaid chuckled. “Are you kidding? One look from you and you’d have her in tears.” Maka had a heart of gold, but he was huge and could be an intimidating son of a bitch to those who didn’t know him.
Maka scowled. “I’m not that scary. Just don’t like seeing my buddy getting a raw deal. Or Autumn either, for that matter. She’s a sweetie pie.”
Zaid smiled at the show of loyalty and protectiveness. Now that he thought about it, Prentiss had been even more withdrawn than usual this deployment. Things had always been rocky with his ex, but something more had to be up with them right now, because Prentiss was the only one who hadn’t received a care package or parcel from home this week. Even Zaid had received a hand-written letter and a tin of cookies from his mom a few days ago, and they didn’t even celebrate Christmas.
In fact, the only guy on the team who seemed remotely cheerful over the past day or two was Maka, prior to this conversation, anyway. Zaid nodded at the plastic weapon in his teammate’s lap. “You better not try to shoot me with that thing.”
A sly grin spread across Maka’s face. “Oh, it’s happening. But don’t worry, you won’t see it coming.” He petted the plastic cylinder lovingly. “They never do.”
“Don’t forget, we shoot back,” Rodriguez told him.
Maka shrugged a broad shoulder. “Just wanted to make sure I was loaded and ready to rock. Never know when the right opportunity will present itself.”
Meaning,
no one was safe, and they’d all be pelted with foam bullets at some point during this deployment. “Can’t you read a book or something like everyone else, play some video games and pass the time in a way that won’t wind up in a brawl?” Zaid asked.
“No.”
Hell, now that he thought about it, maybe a little brawl would be good for them and their morale. Let some steam off. It wouldn’t be long until they got another assignment, but the lag time in between was boring as hell.
The storage room door opened and Prentiss stepped out, looking ready to hit something. His gaze locked on Maka and the Nerf gun across the room, and his eyes narrowed in warning. “Don’t even think about it.”
Expression all innocence, Maka pointed the weapon at him and fired. A foam dart zinged across the room and pegged Prentiss center mass, dead in the middle of the star on his Captain America shirt.
“Asshole,” Prentiss snarled, and took a menacing step forward. Zaid guessed the attempt to set up a call with his daughter hadn’t gone so well. He almost hoped Prentiss and Maka did tussle. It would be good for both of them, and neither one of them would cross the line.
Hooting with laughter, Maka jumped up and ran out the door, whirling to fire another three rounds as he did. Prentiss ducked the first one, but the next two bounced off his shoulder. “Yeah, that’s right, you pussy, run!” he shouted after Maka.
Deep laughter echoed back at them from down the hall as Maka went in search of his next unsuspecting victim. Zaid shook his head. “He’s like a child.”
“Yeah.” A reluctant grin tugged at Prentiss’s hard mouth as he stared toward the hallway after their teammate.
Rodriguez clapped Prentiss on the shoulder. “You can get him back while he’s sleeping. When that guy’s out, he’s like a bear in hibernation.” With that helpful suggestion, he walked out of the room.
