by Scott Blade
“We were asked to help get the rebels into a small town called Sane which is basically just a weigh station between one slightly bigger town and another. Locals would use the river to travel because the jungles around that region are impenetrable. We had intel that Sowe and a small force of men were traveling by way of the river, so we choppered in at night and met a small band of rebels outside of the town—including their leader, a guy named Chang, who wasn’t a very nice guy, either, but enemy of my enemy and all.
“We were supposed to set up and wait for Sowe and his men. A simple ambush. Chang wanted to kill Sowe himself. Some kind of symbolic gesture to show his men he meant business, I guess. I don’t know. I didn’t think of him as some sort of revolutionary. He was just one bad guy trying to overthrow a worse one. I don’t go for that sort of thing, but it was our job.
“Anyway, when we got there, we were the ones who were ambushed.”
Rowley paused and stood up. He put his finger to his lips as if to tell Cameron to stay quiet. Then he walked past a group of people, and Cameron could see that he was on a plane. Cameron saw the windows, the chairs, and the curved interior. He saw some agents seated, some standing. He realized the plane must be Air Force One. On what other aircraft would the Director of the Secret Service be where busy people worked at desks and milled about in the background?
Rowley went into a room and said to a couple of staffers, “Please clear out for a minute,” and they started to pick up the papers and belongings scattered across a small white table. “Leave the papers. I’ll just be a minute.”
They obeyed and left the room.
Rowley waited for the door to shut, and then he said, “Chang’s men turned on him. Not all of them, but most. They shot the others, and a firefight broke out. As you may or may not know, in situations like that—situations where the mission was already over, and we weren’t supposed to be there—my priority as the CO was to get my men out alive. But if I thought there was a good chance to save the mission or our allies, I took it.
“We were outgunned and outnumbered big time. The local army came out of nowhere. Hundreds of them. They’d been stationed in the town, hiding for hours. We ended up cornered in a structure that was basically a two-story hut.”
Rowley took a deep breath. He inhaled and exhaled. He reached up with his left hand and loosened his tie.
Cameron saw his wedding band, gold with an engraving he couldn’t make out in that split second.
Rowley said, “The guys outside had us by the balls, but we had enough bullets to kill a lot of them. Soon the firefight stopped, and we were all still standing. Chang, too. It ended up just being him and us.
“There were five guys in my unit. Four of them I’d known for years, but one of them I’d only known for six months. He was a sergeant. When he joined my unit, he seemed okay—at first. But there was something about him. Something unsavory. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but it was there.
“The rest of the guys I knew. You’ve met them. Cord and Lucas joined me in the service. Graine was a cop in Missouri after, and now he’s retired. Haverly is dead. And then there was the sergeant—a guy named John Lane.
“So there we were…stuck in this hut. After a few minutes, the guys outside started to say something on a bullhorn. They repeated the same shit over and over for twenty minutes. None of us spoke the language—except for Chang, and he wouldn’t translate anything for us—so we didn’t understand a thing except for the word American.
“I remember being a little scared. Which is something I never told my guys. Not once. Not in ten years. But I was. I was a little scared that we were going to die. I was scared I’d never see my little girl again—she was only four years old at the time. And I’d been away from her and my wife for most of her life. I was scared I’d never see either of them again.”
Cameron heard a noise on the ledge outside the window. He looked over and saw a small bird pecking at the glass. It was white with brown feathers. He wasn’t sure about the species. It pecked again and cocked its head and then it flew away.
Rowley said, “There was no way out. We were dead men. Lucas tried to radio over-watch, but our comms were down. I told him to stay on it, but I knew it was hopeless.
“Finally, the ranting from outside stopped for a bit, and we wondered what was next. Then a voice spoke in English. The voice said that all they wanted was Chang. They told us if we gave him up, then we’d be free to go. We were never going to give him up, but at the same time, I wanted to see my daughter again, and I wanted to get my men out alive. We all wanted to get out alive.
“The voice continued to repeat the same deal. After about thirty minutes, a different voice came on, speaking more broken English, but it was the same message. Exactly the same. Like they were reading from a script.
“After an hour passed, the original voice was back again, and we waited. Not a peep from any of us. We just sat there, quiet.
“After an hour and maybe forty-five minutes, Lane started insisting that we give Chang up. He said he didn’t come to Africa to die. He started to say other things, too.”
Rowley paused and looked around the room. The staffers from earlier peeked in through the door, and Rowley said, “Wait! A little longer!”
The staffers jumped back out as fast as they had peeked in.
Rowley said, “After a while, he started to make sense. And then more sense. We were in a standoff for our lives. Sowe was smart. He could’ve had his men kill us. They could’ve blown us up with a couple of grenades, or they could have burned us to death. They could’ve done one of the two and been done with it. They could’ve killed us and left us charred and dead. We weren’t expected to check in for hours. We were dark, and they knew it, I think, because they never tried to enter the building. They just figured they’d outwait us.
“I wasn’t the first to agree with Lane. Cord was. I’m ashamed about it, but by morning, I was onboard. We all were. So we handed Chang over to those butchers. But it was worse than that. We took him hostage. I’ll never forget it. I nodded to the other guys, and they pointed their guns at him. Lane even shot him in the leg to disarm him. I didn’t authorize it, but he did it, and then we were all committed to the act. What was I supposed to do? Arrest Lane right there and then? And we were just as guilty.”
Cameron had listened quietly, but he said, “Wait.”
Rowley said, “I don’t have a lot of time.”
Cameron said, “Just wait. One second.” He closed his eyes and let his memory go back. He searched his memory banks for the name John Lane.
After a few moments of silence between them, he opened his eyes, and he knew the name. Lane was a name in his mother’s files, the ones she had left him regarding his father. Back in 2005 or 2006, Jack had been involved in an abduction case. Some guy’s wife went missing. According to Cameron’s mother, this guy was a bad guy. He was involved in all kinds of black ops in and out of Africa. He was Army and then went civilian but ran a mercenary outfit. He had contracts with the Pentagon as well as other more unsavory clients.
His name was Edward Lane.
Chapter 27
EDWARD LANE’S WIFE HAD BEEN KIDNAPPED—both of them.
This had happened less than ten years ago. Cameron thought back to the report from his mother’s cell phone files. She had spent eighteen years studying all the cases across the country that had Jack Reacher’s special fingerprints all over them. Of course, she’d rarely gotten official confirmation that he was involved. Sometimes she’d get an officer on the phone from some obscure town here or there, and that officer would confirm that Jack had been there.
After tracking him for a while, she started to find patterns even though he wasn’t the kind of guy to leave traces or follow patterns. Nevertheless, there were patterns to be found. For example, some cases fell in diagonal lines across the United States like a giant X. Sometimes she found motel registries with the names of dead presidents. And sometimes she found them with dead base
ball players. Jack had been using the names of dead people as aliases when filling out hotel registries.
Cameron’s mother believed that Jack had killed Lane and dumped his body somewhere in England. The last visible trace of Lane’s existence was a plane ticket to London he’d bought. He and his mercs had then rented rooms in some out-of-the-way inn. Some of them had returned without him. The last sighting of him, according to them, was in farm country. And then those guys had died not long after.
Cameron said, “Let me guess. John Lane had a brother named Edward?”
Rowley said, “Yes. How’d you know that?”
“And he’s the one who has taken Raggie?”
“That’s right? Do you know him?”
Cameron said, “Tell me the rest.”
Rowley said, “When we got back, we told our story. The brass listened. And we told the truth. At least I did as well as Cord and Lucas and Haverly and Graine. I don’t know what Lane told them, but whatever. It seemed that the brass wanted to blame someone, but they were facing two problems. The first was that this was a black op that no one wanted to be made public. Americans didn’t want to know that we were involved in secret missions in nowhere Africa. Truth was, we were only invested in the region because we were searching for proof of WMDs being sold throughout the region. And this guy Chang had information.”
Cameron said, “So he’d only help if we helped him?”
Rowley said, “Right. We scratch his back sorta thing.”
Cameron stayed quiet.
Rowley said, “Anyway, the Army decided there was nothing they could publicly do to Lane. They broke us up for a bit, and I never saw Lane again.”
“But that’s not the end of the story is it?”
“No. I had heard that the CIA wasn’t happy about what we had done. I also heard that Lane later went on another mission back into West Ganbola. Back into the jungle.”
“What happened?”
“He never came out. He went in on a forced rescue mission to get Chang back. A kind of penance for giving him up in the first place, I guess. My guys were lucky that the Army didn’t make us a part of it because Lane and his guys never came out again. I had no idea what happened to him or the other guys until he turned up here, calling me and taking my daughter.
“He said that he got ten years in prison—a vile and gut-wrenching prison. The government there used him as a symbol. Gave him a trial and all, but I forget the official charges. I heard that the CIA had intel that Lane might again be walking into an ambush.
“The rest of us were separated with nothing more than slaps on the wrist, but we remained friends. It was the last time I saw Haverly. He died later from cancer. He lived in Chicago. The others ended up joining me in the service later, except for McCadey. He went on to become a cop and also died later.
“You’ve met them all by now. The ones that’re left.”
Cameron said, “How did he get ahold of your daughter in the first place?”
Rowley said, “We don’t have protection on our families. Not usually, unless we get a credible threat to their safety. The Secret Service’s job first and foremost is to safeguard the president and the vice president, as well as the first family.” Suddenly, Rowley’s hardened face took a turn, and his eyes watered up. He tried to speak but couldn’t. He put his hand over his face for a second, and then he said, “Lane took Raggie when she was meeting with her friends. They were in a café. I’ve already had Graine check it out. No one saw anything. It was around dusk.”
Cameron said, “How do you know Lane took her?”
“He posted a video on YouTube. It has no tags, but there’s a video of her. You can go check it out yourself.” He paused. “I gotta go. Can’t be inexplicably missing from my duties for too long. But I need your help. Lane wants me to do something that I just can’t do, and I don’t have much time. Watch the video, and you’ll see. I gotta go now.”
Rowley clicked off of the phone, and the screen went back to Cord’s wallpaper, which was the logo of the United States Secret Service badge.
Cameron sat down on the bed and thought for a second. What the hell does he expect me to do?
He got up off of the bed and picked up Cord’s smartphone and went out into the hall. He heard voices and walked toward them. He passed Raggie’s room and stopped and looked in. He looked at the made bed and wondered if she’d ever see it again. He wondered where she was and thought about what she must be feeling and how scared she must be. Thought about how it wasn’t fair to be used as a pawn because of the sins of your father and about how he could relate. In a way, they were in similar situations. Raggie was suffering because of a man from her father’s past—the same man who was from Cameron’s own father’s past.
He turned and walked out of her room. He passed the bathroom and followed the voices down the stairs and saw that Mrs. Rowley was seated back down on the sofa next to Graine, who hadn’t said much. He merely looked at her and nodded, listening to her stories about her daughter. She clutched a bright green frame that held a picture of Raggie. It was a plastic thing that looked cheap from a distance but, judging by everything else in the house, had probably cost over a hundred dollars.
Cameron walked down the stairs and stopped and said, “Cord.”
Cord turned from his conversation with Li and walked over to him.
Li followed.
He leaned in and said, “What do you think?”
Cameron handed him back his phone and said, “I need to see the video. Rowley looked like he was busy. Actually, he looked like he was on Air Force One.”
Cord said, “He is. He explained everything?”
“Not everything. He told me about Lane, but I don’t know why. He must want something.”
“He does. But not money. He wants something worse.”
Cord nodded at Lucas. He nodded back and gestured for Cameron to follow him out of the room again, away from Mrs. Rowley. She must not know the details, just that her daughter wasn’t at home where she belonged.
They walked out of the living room and went past a ground floor bathroom. There was no shower or bathtub, just a toilet and mirror.
Cameron followed Li. Cord led them through the kitchen. The tile was white and diamond-shaped. He saw four workstations, an island with two ovens, eight burners, a griddle, a major grill, a salamander, and a black farm sink big enough to make a restaurant proud. This was a major kitchen.
Cameron wondered if Mrs. Rowley cooked in there or if the Rowleys had a housekeeper who doubled as a gourmet chef. Or maybe they employed both. The latter seemed a more reasonable proposition. Then he thought, hell, if he ever needed a place to stay when he was in DC, maybe they’d let him clean and he could sleep in their house. Of course, that wasn’t a realistic thought, but that’s how thoughts work. They aren’t always realistic or even appropriate.
They walked past the kitchen to a set of French doors that led out onto a covered patio in a backyard with high privacy fencing.
In the back, Cord looked around and waited for Lucas to follow and shut the door behind him.
Outside the air was crisp and breezy, but not cold, not really. Cameron wore a long-sleeved shirt, and he was glad to have it, but Li had on a business suit and skirt. He imagined her legs froze with every gust of wind. He wanted to reach out and fan his hands across them to warm them but knew he couldn’t do that with her boss watching. Besides, he wasn’t sure what the rule was for touching her legs in public. He wasn’t sure about her rules or about the etiquette for that sort of thing between boyfriends and girlfriends.
Li didn’t express any concern over the wind. Nor did she ask about his conversation with Rowley. She was a good soldier. If she needed information, then Cord would give it to her—and such was every relationship between infantry and commanders since the dawn of warfare.
Cord ignored Li and pulled out his phone again and went to his YouTube app. He pulled up the screen and handed the phone to Cameron. He said, “Hit play.”
Li moved closer and stood next to Cameron. They faced the house. Cameron watched Lucas move about and scan the area to make sure no one was around to see the video over their shoulders.
Li reached up and flipped the phone horizontal, and they watched as an image of Raggie came up on the screen. There was a look of sheer terror on her face. There was a gag in her mouth, and she had one black eye. It wasn’t a grisly sight, not something to suggest she had undergone a tremendous punch to the face or even repeated blows.
Cameron had seen bruises and black eyes before. He knew exactly what wounds from torture and fighting looked like. This was mellow as far as violence went. He figured that her abductors wanted to show her face with a bruise because any sign of violence would convey to normal parents that their child was in grave danger. Maybe they had punched her just enough to force her into submission and not enough to really damage her.
All Cameron could see was her face, neck, and shoulders. And her hair, which was long and blond. It was matted and dirty and flat compared to her pictures. Her face looked just like Mrs. Rowley’s only years younger. She had green eyes, and her cheeks were slightly sunken. He could see that, just like her mother, her eyeliner had run down cheeks. Cameron thought she’d probably been locked up all night and cried the whole time.
He stared into the background. He saw nothing but darkness and shadowy walls. She was somewhere with no windows. There was no artificial light except for some coming from behind the camera. It lit up her face and eyes. Bright halos reflected from her eyes like she had been forced to stare directly into the light and couldn’t see past it. She shivered every few seconds like she was cold, but it was probably from fear.
