Six

by Charles W. Sasser

  The African on video produced a long-bladed knife and edged it threateningly across the former SEAL’s exposed throat, drawing a thin trickle of blood.

  “—you will see our strength,” the masked Jihadi was saying in accented English. “You will feel the steel of our blades.”

  The briefing room vibrated with tension as the impact settled in. Graves’s face went grim and pale. He didn’t want to see this, but he couldn’t make himself turn away. He fully expected the next move to be Rip’s head severed from his shoulders.

  Instead, the masked man paused for effect while he confronted the camera with the knife at Rip’s throat. “If we do not get ten million dollars in one week,” he warned, “we will cut his head off.”

  One week! Graves shot to his feet. “We need boots on the ground, sir!”

  Caulder tugged Bear back into his seat. Commander Atkins nodded in sympathy with the feelings of his troops. Any of them could conceivably find themselves in a similar crisis at some point in the continuing War on Terror.

  “Joe, take it easy,” the commander said. “We have every available intelligence asset on it. We’ll only get one swing at this, so we let the geeks and spooks develop a solid target package.”

  One week! Perhaps less, according to when the video was staged and released.

  Rip Taggart’s battered and haunted visage stared out from the screen at the gathered SEALs. They stared back at him in strained silence.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Abandoned Village, Nigeria

  Dusk brought with it the threat of more rain to the BH village in the jungle. The detention hut seemed to withdraw from the lowering clouds and the distant rumble of thunder. Inside, the SyncoPetro executive hadn’t stirred in hours except to look down in wretched despair at where his right hand had once been. It looked to Rip as though McAlwain was giving up and waiting to die.

  On the other side of the rebar, little Esther gazed sorrowfully out the broken window pane and waited for Na’omi to return. Her two classmates sought refuge in the corner farthest from the door where they huddled together wide-eyed and alternately weeping and trying to sleep. Young as they were, they were quite aware that no better fate existed for them than what awaited the two who were already being sold into slavery.

  Rip Taggart’s mind was functioning again. He had thought for a while that he was beaten. He wasn’t. He could lie down and surrender as Nick had done, or he could fight. It’s about testing your limits. It’s about mind over body. Na’omi, Esther, the little girls, even McAlwain, Nick, and Hakeem, had no one else except him to depend on. What he must do was what SEALs did when no one else could or would.

  He checked his environment, gathering what intel was available as the first step toward formulating a plan. He logged next to him the gap in the bars separating the male side of the prison from the female, also the broken window that Esther had been gazing through for hours, and the back door to the shack with its boarded-up second window.

  Between trips to the window to look for the return of her teacher, Esther had found a piece of chalk and was busy drawing something on the wall to divert her anxiety.

  “What are you drawing?” Rip asked her.

  “My bird.”

  “I need you to draw something for me—”

  Before Esther had a chance to reply, Chido and one of the other guards opened the front door and brought Na’omi into the hut. Her hair was disheveled, her plaid-and-white school uniform tattered, torn, and soiled. The brown oval face with the wonderful dark eyes that had been so fiery was now bruised and tear-stained.

  Rip’s eyes narrowed as the guards threw the young teacher into the rebar cage and locked the door again. She stumbled and fell to the hard-packed floor, then crawled on hands and knees to the farthest wall where she curled up, hugging her knees to her chest and staring at the floor.

  Chido hurled a thin red cloth headscarf at her. “Cover your head, whore.”

  After the guards left, Esther moved quietly to Na’omi and put her little arms around the teacher to comfort her. At first Na’omi failed to respond. The tiny girl held on tightly until, at last, Na’omi gripped her with one hand and pulled her even closer. She rocked back and forth, clinging to the child and moaning deep in her throat.

  Rip watched. Something about the two of them together stirred a dormant emotion, revived a faded memory of a family and a mother he had once had growing up on a hardscrabble farm. Unfamiliar tears filled his eyes. He had not felt this since he was a child himself. Na’omi looked up and he turned his head away to keep her from seeing him like this.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  SEAL Command, Virginia Beach

  One week. Rip had one week before the bastard with the knife sliced off his head. Less than one week probably. And all the team could do was wait for the geeks and spooks to work their magic.

  Alone on the outdoor firing range, Bear Graves in a rage grimly burned up ammo. With his head lowered like a charging bull, eyes slitted, finger squeezing the trigger of his H&K MP7, he stalked toward the man-silhouette target, blasting out the ten-ring. He left a trail of spent cartridge casings on the ground behind him.

  He kicked out the empty mag, slapped in a fresh, and expended it shooting into the face he had transposed in his mind onto the target, that of the black-masked terrorist in the video with his knife at Rip’s throat. If we don’t get the ten million dollars in one week …

  Slinging the assault rifle across his back, he drew his sidearm and emptied it as well, shredding the target.

  When the pistol’s slide locked open after the last round, Bear caught his breath and slowly looked around. Any observer might have thought him mad. It was just that he owed so much to Rip. If not for Instructor Taggart, he might have drowned in the training pool that time. If not for Instructor Taggart, chances are Bear would never have become “Bear.” He would likely have been a petty officer riding a tin can destroyer in the Persian Gulf or a minelayer off Korea. He would never have been SEAL Team Six material.

  The same thing went for the other members of the team, each of whom owed something to Taggart. Even the FNG Ghetto Chase owed him, if only by osmosis.

  Alex Caulder had had his moments with Instructor Taggart. Sometimes, even back then, Graves had envied Caulder’s devil-may-care approach to life and his grace in the water. He was like a seal, a real seal, the animal. They were in the training pool again, three younger versions of themselves—Graves, Caulder, and Instructor Taggart. Ricky Ortiz perched on the side of the pool, observing and waiting his turn.

  “This evolution is the gear exchange,” Taggart explained. “With your masks blacked out, you will have one air source for the two of you, swapping equipment in a precise order. Is that clear?”

  “Clear, Instructor Taggart.”

  Caulder shrugged into the air tank harness and Graves prepared to hold his breath as they entered the deep end of the pool. Weight belts sank them to their knees ten feet deep. Completely blinded by their blackout masks, they began the process of exchanging the single air tank between them while Instructor Taggart with his own tank treaded water nearby to observe and maintain safety.

  Graves heard Caulder’s escaping air bubbles directly in front of him. He felt the tap. Begin. That brought on a sudden uneasy feeling of water closing in on him. Claustrophobia. He fought it off.

  Precise order, the instructor emphasized.

  Caulder’s hand swept through the water and found Graves’s hand. Caulder removed his regulator mouthpiece and, by touch, guided it into Graves’s hand. Graves sucked air and returned the mouthpiece to Caulder.

  First, your weight belt comes off …

  With their right hands they loosened the heavy belts and let them fall to the crook of their knees while continuing to “buddy breathe” with the one mouthpiece between them.

  Then, Caulder will unsnap the waist strap, then the chest strap, take the tank off and place it between the two of you with the regulator closest to Graves �
��

  After unsnapping both straps, Caulder slipped the tank and harness over his head and, by feel, placed it on the bottom of the pool between the two of them. Taggart swam slowly around them, keeping tabs on the procedure.

  Graves will then put on the regulator while sharing it …

  Graves felt for the top of the tank. It wasn’t right. Caulder had neglected to rotate the tank so the regulator control attachment faced him.

  If you position the tank wrong, you risk losing contact with your buddy …

  Realizing the tank positioning was wrong, Graves rotated the tank himself and took the mouthpiece, exhaling old air and inhaling fresh. However, the weight of the tank during the repositioning caused Graves’s knees to rotate. His weight belt slipped down to his ankles and over them and off, making him immediately more buoyant. Things went to shit fast after that.

  Flailing his arms to maintain balance and stick to the bottom, Graves lost contact with Caulder, who was holding his breath and fast running out of lung. Graves swept the water in front of him, and to all sides, whirling in the water and struggling to stay down without his weight belt.

  If you lose contact, your buddy might die …

  Both swimmers were growing desperate. Treading water, Taggart paused to watch the comedy of errors unfolding at the bottom of the pool. He shook his head, amused at the sight of the two blinded men frantically thrashing their arms about trying to find each other, and missing contact by mere inches.

  If you are out of air, put your arm out straight and give us the UP signal. Exhale on your way up …

  Lungs burning for air, Caulder planted his feet on the pool bottom and threw his right arm above his head, right thumb up. Taggart brought him to the surface, Caulder exhaling spent air on the way up and gasping for air when he ripped off his mask. Graves popped up next to them.

  Caulder exploded. “Jesus, Graves! Forget someone?”

  “You lost contact with me,” Graves retorted.

  “Bullshit! You panicked.”

  “You handed me the tank wrong, asshole.”

  “Okay, okay,” Taggart intervened. “Both of you, tough shit. You have to work the problem in front of you. Deal with your fears one breath at a time by focusing on the here and now.”

  Caulder wasn’t ready to let it go. He glared at Graves. “Yeah. Instead of focusing on your bloated body floating in an estuary. Fish eating your liver. Lovely Lena weeping over you—”

  “Weep on this, smartass,” Ortiz suggested from poolside, tossing his weight belt to Caulder.

  The unexpected weight dipped Caulder’s head underwater. He came back up sputtering and struggling to stay afloat. Graves grinned at him.

  Taggart shook his head, annoyed by the grabassing. “You good?” he asked Graves.

  “Easy day, Instructor Taggart,” Graves replied with characteristic determination.

  “The man’s a bear,” Caulder conceded. “You can’t stop a bear.”

  “Go again,” Taggart ordered. He grasped Caulder by the arm before the swimmers pulled down their blackout masks. “Caulder, you pull that shit again, you put doubt in a teammate’s mind, I will ride you out of the program.”

  Caulder nodded, serious again and his mind back on business.

  This time the gear exchange went smoothly. The two swimmers established a rhythm, passing the regulator and tank back and forth, always touching, keeping in contact. Teammates. Taggart hovering in the water nearby, watching, nodded his approval.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Abandoned Village, Nigeria

  Rip Taggart had a thought that the village might be serving as a fuel distribution point for Boko Haram in the region, perhaps even a sort of terrorist HQ. Rain had fallen again last night, a few light showers, but now the sun came out bright and sultry hot again and sucked up all the moisture. Right after daybreak Rip heard another truck rumble into the village and stop for quite a long spell, perhaps an hour, at the hut that contained the large fuel tank. He assumed it too was either filling up cans to transport elsewhere or replenishing the large tank. What he needed to find out was if there was a refinery nearby, and if it might provide sanctuary against Aabid and his BH thugs. It was a long shot, but a long shot beat no shot.

  Frail little Esther gazed wistfully out the barred window next to Na’omi, who sat on the floor. The little girl hadn’t left Na’omi’s side since Chido dragged the nearly unresponsive teacher back from her ordeal and hurled her into the cell. Na’omi remained closed off inside herself, hugging her knees, face buried inside her arms between her bare knees.

  “Esther?” Taggart whispered. “Come here, Esther.”

  Guards outside the hut, front and back, continued talking among themselves. Inside, McAlwain appeared half-dead already, his bloody stub of an arm hanging at his side onto the dirt floor. Nick remained listless and ready to accept whatever fate dealt him. Skinny Hakeem swiveled his head to peer at Taggart through his thick glasses, one lens of which was cracked and spiderwebbed.

  Still bound upright to his stake, Taggart was unable to get near Esther to explain what he needed. He mustn’t raise his voice either and be overheard by the guards.

  “Esther?” he tried again, a bit louder since the child seemed not to have heard him the first time.

  Esther turned and looked at him with her sad, brown eyes. Her two little classmates huddled together in each other arms against the opposite wall. They stirred and looked at Taggart, and then at Esther.

  “When they take you to the bathroom, Esther, where do they take you?” Taggart asked in a hoarse stage whisper.

  The guards outside kept talking. Esther returned to gazing out the window. Na’omi remained cocooned, as though lost even to herself. After a moment, Esther turned back toward Taggart and moved a few feet closer toward him.

  In a low voice, she said, “A hole in the ground. It’s dirty.”

  “Can you see the road from there?”

  Esther shook her head.

  “Ask to go again,” Rip said.

  The little girl failed to understand. “I don’t have to go.”

  Nick shifted irritably from his place against the far wall. “Leave the friggin’ girl alone,” he flared.

  Taggart ignored him, but he changed his approach toward the little girl. “Esther, do you want to go home? Make sure your … uh … It was a bird, right? Feed your bird?”

  She nodded. Hakeem appeared to have alerted, was beginning to show interest in the exchange.

  “What’s her name, your bird?” Rip asked.

  “His name. Sama. It means ‘Sky’ in Hausa.”

  “Sama. What color is he?”

  “Gray. Sama is a gray parrot.”

  “Listen, Esther. If you help me, I promise you will see Sama again. Okay?”

  That brought the child around. She glanced at Na’omi, but received neither encouragement nor discouragement from the withdrawn teacher. Hesitantly, Esther approached the bars on her side next to Rip’s stake. Rip dropped his voice to an even lower tone.

  “Ask to go to the bathroom,” he instructed. “Look for a glow. Fire on the horizon. Or black smoke. Remember where it is when you walk back. Okay?”

  Unsure of what she should do, Esther cast a questioning look toward Na’omi. “Teacher?”

  Na’omi had been listening after all. She lifted her head and for the first time noticed blood on Esther’s arm where she had cut it yesterday on rebar when the guard threw a tin can at her.

  “Your arm, Esther,” she exclaimed. “Come here.”

  The child hesitated between Rip and Na’omi. But only for a moment. She dashed back to crouch at her teacher’s side. Na’omi retrieved from a pocket of her short plaid skirt the red headscarf Chido flung at her when he brought her back to the cage. As a personal act of defiance, she had refused to cover her head with it. She ripped off a strip with which to bandage Esther’s injured arm.

  “Na’omi?” Taggart ventured self-consciously. “What happened to you, uh … ou
t there …?” That sounded clumsy, even to himself. He quickly tried to make amends. “Look, no one will ever think the less of you.”

  “I don’t need your pity,” she fired back. The woman Rip first encountered at the schoolhouse seemed to have returned.

  Hakeem scooted across the floor on his butt and gripped the bars to eye Na’omi with naked disgust.

  “She’ll never marry now,” he scoffed. “No man will touch her. She wasn’t modest. They defiled her because—”

  “—because I’m a woman.” She savagely ripped another strip off the red headscarf. “And,” she resumed, glaring at the man, “I won’t cover my face for any man or God—”

  Hakeem came back at her. “You should not have taught Western pollution—”

  Until now, Taggart hadn’t known where McAlwain’s driver’s sympathies lay. It hadn’t seemed to matter.

  “Shut up!” he snapped when Hakeem made to further attack Na’omi’s un-Muslim-like behavior.

  He returned his attention to Na’omi. “As soon as I figure out where the refinery is,” he explained, “I’ll get out at night. I’ll come back for all of you before they know I’m gone.”

  Nick the defunct PR man had likewise been listening. “You’re full of shit,” he fumed. “You won’t come back. You’ll leave us out here to rot.”

  “Take the girls with you,” Na’omi pleaded.

  “Can’t. They’ll slow me down.”

  She eyed him suspiciously, unsure whether she should trust him or not.

  Before the plot could further develop, Hakeem apparently glimpsed his own pathway to survival at the expense of his fellow captives. He suddenly sprang to his feet and rushed to the door where he began frantically banging on it.

  “Hey! Sir! Hey!” he yelped through the door at the guards.

  Taggart struggled fiercely against his bindings. “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.

  Hakeem paid no attention and kept pounding on the door, his glasses askew and a deranged gleam of renewed hope in his eyes. The door opened to reveal Aabid standing there, arms akimbo, a pair of armed guards flanking him.