INVISIBLE DUTY (INVISIBLE RECRUITS)

by Buckham, Mary

  Later I’d deal with the horror, with the bile rising in my stomach and coating my throat. Death up close left no illusions. There’d be nightmares for months as a result of the last ten minutes but now was still action time. All else was on hold.

  Once on the relatively safe road, I double-timed it back to the compound, reaching it just as the chopper took off, Mandy and Jaylene covering their faces from the back-blow of dust. No sign of Vaughn.

  One look at their faces warned me they had bad news.

  "Stone?" I asked past parched lips.

  "Doesn't look good.” Mandy was the one who answered, the Latino lilt to her words not covering the fear beneath them. Jaylene looked too sickened to do anything but shake her head.

  "But he's not dead?" Please, please tell me he’s still alive. Alive meant hope.

  "Not yet."

  Thank heavens.

  I shivered even as the hot African sun pooled sweat along my lower back. "And Gahutu?"

  "Dead. One Hutu might make it, in part because he’s a shifter. He’s in the chopper, well-secured in case he changes." Mandy looked after the retreating machine. "Vaughn's heading toward Kenya."

  Rwanda medical conditions were legendary. One doctor for every thirty-thousand people. Stone stood a better chance winning the New York lottery twice in a row than getting decent medical help in-country.

  "Anybody know what happened?" I asked, already gagging on the coppery smell of death wafting from the hut. Too bad I couldn’t have killed the Duna Sorcerer twice. Or even three times.

  "We don't have all the details." Mandy looked around her. "The shifter admitted, after a little persuasion, that the witch doctor found out Gahutu was part Tutsi. Stone stepped in to save the boy. It went downhill fast."

  It sounded like Stone. He was a bad-assed instructor, but the kind of man you wanted guarding your back in a tight spot.

  "And the others?"

  "Falling out of thieves." Mandy shrugged. “Someone figured if Stone was willing to broker a sizeable deal, they should have a larger piece of the cut.”

  "It's a bloody massacre in there." Jaylene stepped away. "Makes gang fights in Chicago look like school kids pissing at one another."

  If the sight sickened street-savvy Jaylene, who'd seen more of the dark side of life up-close and personal than the rest of the team—excepting Stone—then I wanted no part of it.

  But I hadn't signed on only for the wins. "We going to bury them?" I asked, steeling myself for the answer.

  "Not us." Mandy tapped her commset. "We've got orders to move out. They don't want Americans anywhere near this site. A UNESCO crew with local Rwandan officials is on its way."

  Finally, some good news. Except . . .

  “Does that mean we’re through?” I asked, adrenaline still roaring through me, looking for a target, knowing one was still running free.

  “We stopped the arms deal.” Mandy looked grim. “Caught the shifter and, if Stone lives, we might have something that will eventually help to put the bastards away for a good long time.” She looked hard at me. “Isn’t that enough?”

  Hell, no!

  “That’s it?” I asked, feeling like I’d been told just now that there was no Santa Claus or Easter Bunny. Or that my mother had abandoned my brothers and me, all over again.

  “We’ve accomplished what we were tasked to do. Mission over.” Mandy bit off each word.

  Jaylene stepped in to prevent more bloodshed. Mandy was less than willing to cut me any slack. Good thing I had only broken her arm and not a leg. So it was Jaylene who asked, “We did catch the witch doctor, didn’t we?”

  I shrugged, in part to ease the tension through my shoulders. “Yeah, caught, and killed. There going to be a problem with that?”

  “Not from me,” Jaylene said. “After what I saw in that hut, the only good Sorcerer is a dead Sorcerer.”

  “A dead Duna sorcerer,” I added.

  Jaylene glanced at her hand, as if expecting the tell-tale heat to still be branding her finger. “I’ll be damned, so that’s what set off the rings.”

  “No.”

  That had her and Mandy both snapping their attention to me.

  “What do you mean?” Jaylene’s voice sounded a tinge on the shaky side.

  "Blue guy, the Tuareg tribesman was a djinn as far as I could tell."

  Mandy glared at me, fire in her gaze. "And what the hell is a da-whatever you said?"

  “Da-jin though it’s spelled djinn.”

  “I’m not wanting a spelling lesson here, witchy-girl,” Mandy snapped.

  “Fine.” Two can play short and snarky. “They say humans are made from clay and water. Angels are created from light. Djinn are created from smokeless fire.“

  “Are we talking more of your fairy tales?” Jaylene’s voice told me she was only going to give me so much leeway before she walked away from this discussion.

  “Djinns were one of the original beings, lower than angels, higher than humans on the great hierarchy scales, so they were given powers and abilities that make that Duna sorcerer chump change. Which means they’re a whole lot more powerful than the average sorcerer--and a whole lot more dangerous to humans.”

  Jaylene looked toward the hut. “So was he the one behind Stone getting hurt?”

  “I’m sure he was. The sorcerer was his henchman but the djinn was the real bad guy. If we don’t stop him, he’ll keep on killing, feeding his power thirst. These guys are a power vacuum and the only way to stop them is to kill them. This isn’t about an arms deal and some third-world agitation; this is about true evil unleashed unless we contain him.”

  “You mean kill him?” Jaylene always did talk straight.

  I nodded.

  "He'll have to hold." Mandy said. “Kelly’s sending another chopper back to collect us. Ten minutes tops. We’re out of here.”

  “Without finishing the mission?” I asked, widening my stance in a way any Noziak would recognize as itching for a fight. “Didn’t you just hear what I said about the djinn? We walk away now and it’s like walking away from the chance to stop a Hitler, a Pol Pot, a Ghengis Khan before they became too powerful. Nip evil in the bud and you won’t live to regret it later.”

  But nobody seemed to be listening to me. Certainly not Mandy. Then maybe she’d never had to live with regret. Never found herself awake in the early morning hours, listening to her own breathing, wondering if she could have done something different. Said something instead of what she had said. Took a different action.

  Regret was a twin to remorse and second cousin to dark memories. No way was I going to look the other way if there was something, anything, I could do now.

  Gahutu had died trying to stop what he’d thought were a few bad guys. How could I do less?

  Ling Mai be hanged. Mandy be stuffed. This djinn dude was a time bomb waiting to explode and I couldn’t turn my back and ignore him.

  “Let’s table the discussion until we get somewhere away from here.” Jaylene said, turning to walk back toward where our gear had been abandoned.

  I ran to catch up with her, not caring if the ostriches still in the area scattered. "You okay?" I asked her, as she glanced at the hut over her shoulder.

  "Get me away from here and I will be." She straightened her shoulders. Showing emotion was not in this woman's vocabulary. But her voice was rock hard as she added, "If Stone dies it'll be another matter."

  And if we didn’t stop the djinn? One more unresolved issue. But I bit my tongue and instead asked, "Vaughn holding together?"

  "The woman’s an ice queen."

  I didn't doubt it. When the chips were down Vaughn would pull through. It was why she was team leader. But even team leaders could get gutted.

  "Time to vamoose," Mandy said. “Quit squawking and start double-timing it.”

  Bite me, chiquita.

  Instead of throwing fuel on the animosity fire I picked up my pace. "Let me grab my equipment." I headed stiff-legged to where I'd been on stake out. "
And I'll be ready to leave."

  More than ready.

  But not ready to let a devil-blue djinn get away with what he’d done here.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “What can you tell us about djinn?” Kelly asked later that evening as we were sitting around a fly-specked bar in Kigali, not even pretending to sip our tepid beers as we waited to get some news on Stone.

  Mandy was still digging in her heels about going after the Tuareg tribesman. I didn’t blame her. He was one scary dude. Letting him waltz away wasn’t sitting too well with me either.

  I racked my memory for the bits and pieces of djinn lore I knew, which wasn’t a whole lot, in spite of Kelly checking the grimoire. But because they were a type of sorcerer my father made sure I had at least a passing acquaintance with their kind.

  Rolling my hands along the half-full bottle before me like it was a fire stick, I started with the basics. “Far as anyone knows, there are three types of djinn.” At least I hoped there were only three. That was the problem with myths and fairy tales. They could be vague on the details. “There are djinn who are able to fly, those who are confined to an area.” Please let the Tuareg fall under that category. “And the djinn who can shape shift.”

  I heard Mandy groan. Shifters and Weres were usually very bad news but that was her issue, not mine.

  Kelly leaned forward. “What kind of a shifter? Or can they change into anything?”

  “Good questions.” I took a slow sip of my beer that tasted like it’d started life as donkey piss. “Most djinn shift into snakes, scorpions, creeping devils or dogs, especially black dogs. The ones called devil dogs.”

  “Sound like great non-humans to avoid,” Mandy mumbled.

  I ignored her. “They can also become cats.”

  “Any kind of a cat in particular?” Kelly asked, looking like I’d just pulled off a butterfly’s wing in front of her. Here I thought a cat image would at least be warm and fuzzy and easier to face than Were images.

  “Haven’t you ever heard the old wives tale that a cat should not be chased away early in the morning or late at night lest it be a shape-shifted djinn who will take revenge?”

  “I don’t know what kind of childhood you had, Alex, but if those are the kind of bedtime stories you were told then you’re going to need some serious therapy.” Jaylene tipped her bottle toward me to show me she was jesting. Or mostly jesting.

  “I thought cats were just pets.” Kelly didn’t catch my eye. At this rate Mandy was going to sway everyone to not go after the Tuareg without opening her mouth.

  “Some cats can be,” I tried to reassure Kelly, but it didn’t look like I was doing that great a job. How was Kelly going to survive as an agent if the thought of cats in danger was a downer?

  I took a long drag of my beer and set my bottle down, a little louder than I intended to but we were getting off the subject. “From what I saw today, if that djinn had wanted to disappear he could have easily shifted and we’d probably never know what he was.”

  “Which means?” Mandy threw out the challenge.

  “If he didn’t shift it means he was one of the two other types of djinn.” I tried to keep the duh sound out of my tone but didn’t think I was doing too well by Jaylene’s grimace.

  “So the guy you fought didn’t shift and didn’t fly,” Kelly mused out loud. Then looked up and speared me with her glance. “He didn’t. Did he?”

  Was disappearing in a cloud of smoke flying? “Technically no.”

  At the three sets of raised brows, I added, “He went poof in a cloud of smoke but I always think of flying like something pixies and a fewer of the lesser fae can do.”

  “Or witches on broomsticks?” Mandy asked, her voice flat, her eyes signaling ka-ching, she’d scored.

  “Such a comedian.”

  Peacekeeper Kelly stepped in before Mandy and I could draw blood. “What I’m hearing you say is this guy is most likely one of the djinn’s who remain in a specific area. Right?”

  I nodded. If the djinn was nearby it’d be easier to go after him now rather than washing our hands of him, and leaving him for later.

  “You hear anything from Ling Mai?” Jaylene asked Kelly, taking me off the hot seat for a moment.

  Kelly tapped her fingers softly on the table, as if she was thinking through her answer. “The director said it was our call. But not to spend too much time on bringing the djinn to ground.”

  “How much time is too much time?” I asked, already mentally weighing my earlier determination to stay and finish this mission against getting to Paris to help find my brother.

  “Twenty-four hours,” came Kelly’s answer.

  Was she serious? Find one man, or djinn, in the wilds of Rwanda in less than a day? Talk about a needle in a field of haystacks.

  “If those are the parameters, I’m in,” said Mandy, leaning back in her chair and raising her chin.

  Why the sudden about-face? She’d been dragging her feet ever since finding the djinn had become a possibility. So what had changed?

  Then I realized where she was coming from. I tightened my fingers along the neck of my bottle when I wanted to tighten them on someone else’s neck, but I kept my voice even, if a bit on the chilly side as I called her bluff. “You don’t expect us to be able to track him down in that time frame.”

  Mandy shrugged. “You think you can?”

  Game on, chiquita.

  “Sure I can. Piece of cake.”

  “You willing to place a small wager on the outcome?” Mandy taunted, her eyes egging me on.

  Note to mouth. Keep shut. “Such as?”

  Kelly’s gaze was ping ponging between the two of us like watching a tennis game using a live grenade. Jaylene was the smartest in the group, using her drink to play with, keep her occupied, and out of the catfight.

  Mandy glanced at her nails as if she’d never seen her cuticles before and let the seconds tick past. One potato. Two potato. Three potato. . .

  “If you can’t find him and take him down in a day you resign from the team.”

  Bam!

  Silence stilled our table as the sound of my heart beating in my ears increased. Leaving the team meant a one-way ticket back to the Women’s Correctional Facility in Pocatello, Idaho, where Ling Mai had found and recruited me. Find a djinn or face fulfilling my sentence of life in prison?

  “And if I win?” Only growing up with four shifter brothers and learning to play poker with them kept my tone level, no matter how erratic my pulse had become. ”If I take out this djinn, what then?”

  “I’ll leave the team,” came Mandy’s reply, her bullet sharp brown eyes holding mine. I knew Mandy had come from Florida, had no family, and was a spirit-walker, but even I was in awe of her poker playing skills. Bluff? I didn’t think so.

  I didn’t know for sure how or why Mandy was coerced to become a member of the agency, but I’d heard rumors involving her sister’s life. Those were big stakes, though I didn’t want to believe Ling Mai would kill an innocent to keep a team member. So maybe they were just rumors and if Mandy had to leave, she had to leave.

  But based on my own situation, I figured her leaving the team meant as sucky a choice as my leaving the team meant.

  I knew Mandy and I hadn’t hit it off, but no way did I think she wanted me gone bad enough to jeopardize her own security.

  Jaylene set her bottle on the table and reached over to place a hand along Mandy’s arm. “Think about what you’re doing,” she murmured, but Mandy didn’t bat an eyelash.

  So this wasn’t a spur of the moment, stress release, exhaustion speaking instead of common sense dare. This was an opportunity sought and snared.

  If I snapped at the goad, I’d leave finding my brother at the hands of someone like Mandy who couldn’t give a rat’s-tail if she found him or not. But if I backed down? A quick glance toward a waiting Kelly chewing her lip and an expectant Jaylene wearing a groove in her beer bottle she was rubbing it so damn hard, made me pause.

>   The bet was a bloody smoke screen. Mandy wanted to run this team and she was making her move. If I backed down was I handing them all over to her with her own agenda

  I couldn’t do that. I wouldn’t leave them to that.

  But there was more. This really wasn’t about me versus chiquita-girl. This was deeper, about what I valued. Fighting for the guy who couldn’t fight for himself. Making the Tuareg djinn pay for what happened to Ghutu. Doing the right thing when it’d be a thousand times easier to take a pass.

  I raised my bottle and tipped it toward her. “Challenge accepted.”

  “I don’t think this is a good idea.” Kelly swallowed so deeply I could hear it over the background noise of the bar. Jaylene was shaking her head. Mandy? She was eyeing me like a cat to a mouse. One ready to pounce.

  Kelly was right. My Noziak temper had walked into this no-win bet with eyes open. I’d committed though, and would see it through. It was the least I could do for Ghutu.

  Kicking back my chair I stood, throwing a few Rwandan on the table.

  “Where you going?” Kelly asked, looking up at me.

  “Going to find me a djinn.”

  I left the bar not waiting for anyone to join me.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I might be foolhardy but I wasn’t stupid. After last night’s disaster in the bar, I headed out to the hotel to grab a few hours of shut-eye. I hadn’t slept a lot the night before on the stakeout and needed some brain cells to figure out what to do next.

  Before dawn, I rose to sit in the lobby of the hotel, if that’s what you could call the L-shaped space so stuffed with cast-offs it looked more like a garage sale than a place of business, sludge-thick coffee in one hand, a worn map of Rwanda spread before me. I was alone, which usually wasn’t acceptable for a woman in Rwanda unless I had other women around me, but the only man around to complain was the guy sleeping behind the desk, his snores loud enough to rattle windows.

  I’d dressed in the outfit we’d been provided to blend as women in Kigali, a head-to-toe single piece of dark cloth called a burqa, which covered every inch except my eyes. But needs must, unless I wanted to create unwanted attention as a female. Not a smart idea as an undercover agent. I was so focused on my low-tech way of figuring out my first steps to find a hidden djinn, I barely registered Jaylene sliding into a chair next to me.