The Power of Love

by Serena Akeroyd

  “The two families were friends, they owned a small but extensive oil field together until there was a dispute. My research didn’t pull up why, but for a few decades now, the two have been rivals. An arranged wedding between El-Atar’s youngest daughter and El-Mizdawi’s eldest son was announced to unite the two families again.” He pulled out a file and pointed to it. “On the day of the wedding, soldiers raided the festivities on the guise of El-Mizdawi being an ISIS supporter who had invited a lieutenant to the occasion. Farah El-Atar was arrested, as was her spouse. Two days later, Luke was arrested for torturing her. Now, this is a DNA test of the blood found on Luke’s clothing. It was used against him, but, note, there’s little blood on his clothing from Farah El-Atar. Most of it’s Harrison’s.

  “There are repeated filings of attacks on both families, each one accusing the other of assault. Then, when Harrison took over as brigade leader, those attacks stopped, and the payments started. It’s my belief they paid Harrison to protect them from each other.

  “A look at Harrison’s bank account confirms it, and see these account numbers? Those large deposits came from both El-Atar and El-Mizdawi. The payments were due three days before the wedding, so both families believed the union would bring an end to the need for protection. Which is why the raid, I’d assume, happened. Harrison didn’t want the payments to end.”

  “Harrison is still out on deployment, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, sir. He’s due to return for Luke’s appeal.”

  “The El-Atar girl…she hasn’t been returned to her family?”

  “No. Alongside three other women over the past twenty-two months.”

  “What’s he done with them?”

  “I can’t find a trace of them.”

  Jarvis cocked a brow. “Your hacker can’t work miracles then?”

  “Not if there’s no proof to be found. One surefire way to do that is to eliminate the problem.”

  “What a fucking mess.” Jarvis stood and then strode over to a small drinks tray perched on a side table. He poured a shot and sank it back. Catching Josh’s attention, he silently offered him a drink, but Josh shook his head. “I need justification to start an investigation.”

  “Surely Luke’s appeal hearing is enough?”

  “To go hunting around a colonel’s private and personal financial information?”

  “If that colonel is up to his ears in illegal activity, then yes, sir.”

  “It doesn’t work like that, Josh. You’ve come to me, well, Harrison has friends of his own. Luke’s appeal was a dead-end. It was always going to be that.” He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “Not that you heard that from me. These past couple of weeks, I’ve looked into this, and it would have been stonewalled. The charges would have stuck, and the OTH discharge upheld.”

  “Thank you for telling me, sir,” Josh half choked out. He’d hoped justice would prevail on his husband’s behalf, but apparently he was wrong.

  “Don’t look at me like that. I called you in, didn’t I? I’ve asked you for more information. I think it stinks as much as you do. I didn’t know your husband, but you’re right—his character speaks for itself, as does every single report his COs have filed on him. None of this fits, which is why I wanted you to present me a case. You have, but I need more. Something on public record. Something that can justify my digging around on a unit where I have little jurisdiction. It’s well-known I hate that bastard Harrison. I have to protect myself, Josh. I can’t go on a witch hunt.”

  “I understand that, sir.” He stared down at the file on Jarvis’s desk for a second. Ideas flashed through his brain, theories and notions that could uphold the proof of Harrison’s wrongdoing. Each one was promptly discarded until… “The tip-off.”

  Jarvis sank back more whiskey before roughly asking, “What tip-off?”

  “About the El-Mizdawi family having ISIS connections.”

  “What about it?”

  “Where did it come from?” He riffled through the printouts, looking for the various reports filed on that day. As he scanned through the information and found no source for the tip-off, he murmured, “It can’t have appeared out of nowhere. There had to be grounds to raid a goddamn wedding celebration.”

  “An ISIS lieutenant present at the festivities would be more than enough.”

  “Yeah, but where did the information come from?”

  “Where are you going with this? If Harrison had made it up, there’s no way of knowing or proving it.” Jarvis replaced the tumbler on the tray and then folded his arms across his chest. “It’s not enough, Josh.”

  “It has to be enough, dammit. Harrison can’t get away with this!” When he slammed his fist down, a photograph of Jarvis’s wife and three sons toppled over. The CO calmly returned to his desk and settled the frame in its proper place after he looked down into the faces of his family.

  “Leave it with me.”

  Josh blinked at Jarvis’s reply, then shook his head. “I left it with you three weeks ago, sir. I thought you were going to help, but you were going to brush this under the carpet too.”

  “Be careful, Josh,” Jarvis warned. “Don’t snap at the only person with clout interested in helping you.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but you said so yourself. Luke’s appeal is a dead-end.”

  “It is. The discharge won’t be overturned, not unless you slate Harrison, and you don’t have the right information for that. Yes, what you have is bad, but it’s not official. You know how these things work, you know how the system goes.”

  Josh pursed his lips. “The El-Atar girl. According to the files, she upped and disappeared. On one of the most heavily armed bases in the region. Surely that warrants an investigation.”

  Jarvis studied him a second. “She’s officially listed as a fugitive if memory serves.”

  “How can she be a fugitive when Luke was arrested for torturing her? She’s a young girl, not sixteen yet. Raped, abused, assaulted. The last thing she’s going to be able to do is run off under the wire, miles from anywhere, nowhere close to her own village, and all without seeking medical supervision.” Josh’s mind raced as he tried to find a way to pull Jarvis in, to make this case official. It was ridiculous that it wasn’t already. That he was having to come up with a story to trigger an investigation when all the information Dana had found should have been enough to string Harrison up and leave him there to rot. And then, it came to him. Like a miracle. A simple piece to the puzzle that would tie Harrison in knots. “The family have complained. They’re in talks with Amnesty International as to her whereabouts, sir.”

  The general squinted at him a second, then slowly smiled. “Bingo.”

  Josh grinned. “You go in on the guise of finding the girl, any team of investigators will be able to pull this information up legally.”

  Jarvis smacked him on the back. “Leave it with me, Josh. I mean it. You can trust me to handle this. Let’s string Harrison up like the good-for-nothing son of a bitch he is.”

  Josh saluted, accustomed to Jarvis’s less-than-strict approach, and murmured the only words he could think of, “Thank you, sir.” Relief made him feel light-headed, and he turned on his heel, then left the office, feeling brighter than he had in months.

  This was by no means a dead cert. It was another minefield in need of negotiating, but he wasn’t on his own any longer, with only his PA at his back. Now Jarvis was involved, and actively so, he knew things would start to happen. Quickly.

  As with the last time he’d been summoned, Dana was waiting for him outside the office. Dressed in a neat pants suit, her curly bob a mist around her face, she looked about nineteen. Not that she was far off that age. At twenty-one, she was the biggest asset to his office. Capable of infiltrating any system he’d pushed under her nose, he kept her on as his PA because hacker wasn’t an official title within the United States Army.

  Rolling his eyes at the thought, he watched as she jumped to her feet at the sight of him. Technically a civilian, Dana h
ad a muddled position in his office. Like her unofficial role of hacker, she was neither that nor a PA. In truth, she was an anomaly, a ghost, something she had created herself within the system. She’d been brought in under the guise of a new directive, but the instant he’d known what she could do, he’d moved heaven and earth to help her stay on, and had issued her the task of making herself invisible.

  He didn’t ask questions, just knew the job had been done, and considering the quality of their work, he knew not only was he safe but Dana too.

  There was no way anyone was going to discern their secret unless they went looking, and if they did, they’d find nothing. Dana had set safeguards to protect her position as his right-hand man.

  It was an uncomfortable position to be in; he wouldn’t lie. He hated having a weakness that could be exploited, but she was too useful to ignore. The intel she’d provided more than made up for the inconvenience of sharing such a secret with her.

  “Are we ready to go, sir?” she asked, leaping to her feet to salute.

  It seemed incredible to him that after a year of working here, she still couldn’t salute properly—who knew it was so goddamn difficult?

  He nodded, trying not to huff at her inability to blend in, and stepped ahead of her, leading her from the general’s office and out toward their own quarters.

  Though he was used to Jarvis, hell, knew and liked him socially, it always put him on edge talking to him in an official capacity.

  Being hauled up before someone in that role was not pleasant, and he was equally as thankful that it occurred infrequently. Usually, it meant a transfer was in the distant future, either that or a deployment.

  After six terms of service, Josh felt no shame in admitting he was too old for that shit. He’d served his time, and he was content to stay here, at home. Not that he had a say in the matter. If Jarvis told him to jump, Josh was in the unfortunate position of having to ask, “How high, sir?”

  For him, every year he clocked on the calendar was a blessing. It meant he was too old to be sent under the wire again, and at the moment, he felt every single one of those years.

  Grunting at the thought, he strode in silence through the administrative offices and relaxed the minute he entered his office. Dana immediately retreated to her desk, leaving him to his work. One thing he did like about her was her need for little direction.

  Pleased she hadn’t followed him, he unlocked the door to his study. The instant he did, he frowned.

  Standing still in the doorway wasn’t the easiest thing to do, but he managed. Just. He could sense the room was empty, but his hand automatically went for his weapon.

  His instincts at red alert, he prowled around the large space. The desk faced the door, at his back a large window. When guests came, he always opened the blinds wide so they had to shield their gaze from the glare. Not exactly welcoming behavior, but it worked—putting people off guard was what he did best.

  Bookshelves lined one wall, most of them filled with crap he’d never read in this lifetime but that looked good. The leather spines had never been cracked on most of them.

  The other wall held battalion regalia.

  It was his desk and the odd position of his chair that had made him pause. Gia would probably have spotted it too, considering she always tidied up his office at home for him.

  He’d told her countless times that the chair arms should not touch the table. There had to be a good half-foot distance between desk and chair. But now, the silver arms of the ergonomic monstrosity brushed the sides, something he never allowed.

  His desk appeared as neat as ever; however, some of the papers were faintly out of line. It didn’t matter; nothing visible was of any importance. He’d have been an idiot to leave classified or important documents out on show.

  These faint issues had him rounding the desk to check the locks on his drawers. He doubted anyone else would have noticed these minute differences, but they were so noticeable to him he was on edge.

  As suspected, there were faint scratches around the metal where it had been picked. They were only small, but they might as well have been tagged with red paint on the desk.

  “Dana,” he hollered, grabbing the key from his pocket and unlocking the top drawer.

  Most people might assume the top or the bottom drawers were the important ones. He always went for the middle. Regardless, he never kept anything truly important in that particular space. He used his wall safe. The bookshelves did more than make his office look stately.

  “Sir?”

  That had him blinking up at Dana, who was standing by the door. “Since when do you call me sir in here?”

  She grinned. “I almost slipped up outside with the general’s secretary. Thought I’d better practice.”

  Josh grunted as he looked down at his desk again. “Someone’s been in here.”

  Dana grin disappeared. “Seriously? It looks exactly like it did forty minutes ago.”

  Sighing, Josh murmured, “Yes, Dana. I know, but it doesn’t to me. And someone tried to pick these locks. They did a neater job of riffling through the files in here, though.” He looked down at his paperwork, scanning the text, reassuring himself the files were of relatively little to no consequence. “Find out who.”

  “Yes, sir. You want a background check on whoever it is?”

  “Yeah. I want to know if they’re civilian or army. And go back ten years into their records either way. Top priority. Your other tasks can wait.”

  She immediately retreated and went off to do as he’d asked. Twenty minutes later after he’d gone around his office like a sniffer dog on coke, she reappeared.

  “Derek Graves.”

  “Civilian or enlisted?”

  “Veteran. Used to be in the same battalion as Harrison…who was, in fact, his buddy at West Point and his CO during Desert Storm.”

  “So, he’s one of the old boys.” Josh nodded, slowly. “Still one of Harrison’s cronies?”

  “No. Not as far as I can tell. Graves is a freelance photographer now.”

  “What the hell was he doing in my office then?”

  Dana shrugged. “Looking for something.”

  “Master of the understatement.”

  “Technically mistress.”

  Sometimes having a civilian for a PA sucked. “Do you have the footage?”

  “Yes. On my screen.”

  That meant the one screen they didn’t have hooked up to the net. In his division, such secrecy was life or death to someone out in the sandbox.

  “Good.” He strode out ahead of her and then took her seat. Eyeing the screen, he pressed Play and watched the black-and-white footage with a narrowed gaze.

  Derek Graves strolled in without a care in the world, almost like it was his own goddamn office—he didn’t bother to look around, just went straight past Dana’s workstation. After heading for the desk, he sat in Josh’s chair, then retrieved a pack from his pocket. He rested the picks on the desk as he eyed the lock, then made his selection, but they gave him a hard time, Josh was pleased to note. The extra expense was worth it.

  Unlike Josh’s prediction, he started on the middle drawer but failed to open it. A faint feeling of relief washed over him, but the files in his desk had little to nothing to do with Luke, so there was no issue there.

  It wasn’t good for Graves, however. Josh had files that were a detriment to national security burrowed away in his desk. With proof of the other man’s perfidy, never mind actually breaking and entering an army compound—at top-level offices—Graves was in deep shit with the MPs the instant Josh handed over this footage.

  As he watched Graves try and succeed in opening the top drawer, he thought about the man’s means of gaining entry to this part of the base.

  “He must have had someone help him get in.”

  “Another of Harrison’s old buddies?”

  “Maybe. Check it out for me, would you?”

  “Down low or in plain sight?”

  “Plain si
ght. I’m reporting this breach.”

  Dana hesitated. “The extra camera in these offices haven’t been cleared for use.”

  “I don’t care. Jarvis knows I’m paranoid. And knowing where our specialties lie, no one will blame us for taking extra precaution.” He peered back at her while Graves flipped through some files, an act that would throw him behind bars thanks to the delicacy of their content. “Don’t worry, this won’t fall back on you.” He watched her shoulders slump in relief. “The shit hitting the fan won’t land on us, but on Graves here. Maybe eventually Jarvis will blackball me as punishment, but I’m used to that.”

  He snorted at the idea and cocked a brow as Graves gave up at the third drawer and finally studied the wall of bookcases.

  “He knows about the wall safe.”

  “Not necessarily, Josh. Those old books scream safe-hider.”

  “Is that a word?” he asked, deadpan, as Graves started to tug down books like they were going to open a secret passageway.

  “No, but it’s the truth.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Either way, it doesn’t look like he got away with much.”

  “No. Good.” Satisfaction laced his tone as Graves’s faintly shadowed face grew darker as he prowled around the room, eventually leaving with a small backward glance. “You checked the footage in here, didn’t you? Did he try to get into your computer?”

  “I checked. He wasn’t interested in my desk. At all.”

  “Foolish man,” Josh teased. “Burn the footage onto a disk drive, then lock this baby up.” He patted the laptop’s keyboard fondly. Not even Jarvis knew what was on here. He’d only seen some of what Dana had found and uploaded onto this computer, which only a handful of people were aware existed. That was thanks to the source of the information found on here.

  Drones would, in time, make foot soldiers obsolete. That would save countless lives as well as take away a lot of pay from good men, but what Dana had found in the drone’s system when she’d gone hunting for information made him grateful the army was slowly introducing them overseas.