He had never considered himself a vengeful man, but those who had attacked his daughter and her friends could all go to hell as far as he was concerned.
6
Campsite
Weasua, Liberia
Emily sat cross-legged on the ground, with her hands locked on top of her head. Tears filled her eyes. It was truly an uncomfortable position, but she dared not move. A young Liberian student, who did, got a rifle butt to the head for his troubles.
Emily had been dragged out of her tent and forced to sit on the ground with her husband. Their friends and the local Liberian workers sat in a couple of ragged rows. On the ground were the dead bodies of three Liberian men, murdered while trying to escape. Emily could hear several of her friends crying, while others pleaded with their captors to be let go. Emily saw that the men guarding them looked to be dressed and equipped as Liberian Army Regulars. She had seen some walking around the airport in Monrovia when they first landed, but none of this made any sense to her. Why was the army tearing their camp apart, and what possible reason could they have?
With so many Americans and Liberians in one place together, someone surely will be coming to help us, thought Emily. They just needed to stay calm and ride it out.
A handsome black man, standing a solid two meters tall, dressed in a light-gray suit with a white silk shirt and a deep red tie, walked out of hers and Cristoval’s tent. In his hand were the items found yesterday. He held one of the diamonds to the sun, studying its brilliance. To Emily, the man had a cold-blooded killer’s eyes.
A cold shiver ran down her spine.
This was a man to be feared.
The man stopped in front of the frightened people, placed the diamond in his jacket pocket, dug out a cell phone, and then made a quick call. Once done, he placed the phone away and looked out over the group.
“Good day, everyone, my name is Braxton Gray and as of now you are all under my protection. I regret to inform you that there has been a military coup against the Liberian Government. I doubt that you would have heard the news as it commenced just before dawn this morning. Fighting has erupted in the capital and in several major cities along the coast. There is no need to worry, my men and I are here to bring you all to a safe location until things settle down in the country,” said Gray, with a strong British accent.
“Your men? You’re not Liberian,” said one of the workers angrily.
From behind, a rifle butt crashed into the back of the man’s head, knocking him senseless.
“Now I would like to speak with Mr. and Mrs. Martinez,” said Gray, looking out over the heads of the terrified and crying crowd.
Out the corner of her eye, Emily saw Cristoval shake his head.
“Please do not waste my time. Stand up now or I will shoot a Liberian worker every ten seconds until you do.”
Emily was scared; however, she couldn’t let her friends die because of her. She stood up, as did her husband.
“Please stop it. We’re the people you are looking for,” said Cristoval.
“There—that’s better,” said Gray, as if nothing had just happened.
Emily’s skin crawled. The man was cold and efficient. “What do you want with us?” asked Emily.
“I have a vehicle waiting for you two,” said Gray with a smile on his face. “As for the others, they will be moved to another safe location.”
Emily stood there, not knowing what to do. She couldn’t just leave her friends and the Liberian workers in the hands of a killer. “Can my husband and I wait until your trucks arrive, and then we can all leave together?”
“I’m afraid that is out of the question. I have a deadline to meet.”
Cristoval reached over and took Emily by the hand. He was as scared as she was, but tried hard not to show it. They walked over to an idling, dark blue Hummer. The rear passenger door was opened by a young man dressed in a Liberian uniform. He helped Emily and then Cristoval climb into the back of the vehicle.
“Cristoval, I’m scared,” whispered Emily, holding onto his hand for dear life.
“So am I, but if we stay calm and keep our wits about us, we’ll be okay,” said Cristoval, trying his best to reassure his terrified wife.
Gray climbed in the passenger side of the vehicle and looked back at his two captives. “Hang on, the road is a little bumpy,” Gray said with a grin on his hard face.
Emily blankly stared at the man.
Gray shrugged his shoulders, turned about, and told the driver to make their way from the camp.
With a heavy heart, Emily looked out of the vehicle window at the people she was leaving behind. She prayed that Gray would not harm them, but deep down, she knew that he was not a man she could trust. Taking a deep breath to calm her racing heart, Emily took a quick look to make sure no one was watching her; placing her hand over her watch, she pressed a button on the side of the watch. A millisecond later, a small transponder built into the watch started silently sending out a signal at regular intervals that could be picked up by a satellite overhead in orbit. A last-minute gift from her overprotective father, given to her before leaving for Liberia, Emily now counted it as the most practical gift she had ever received in her entire life.
7
Polaris Operations Complex
Albany, New York
When the call came, Mitchell was sound asleep after a busy night out with Jennifer March and a couple of her co-workers from the United Nations. The first thought in Mitchell’s mind when he saw what time it was, was that someone had been killed or seriously injured on the job.
While he quickly showered, Jen made a pot of coffee. To those who didn’t know them, they came across as an odd pair. Mitchell was a former special-operations soldier who had grown up on a farm in Minnesota, while Jen was an African-American professor of history who came from Charlotte, North Carolina, but there was no denying their love for one another.
She offered to drive Mitchell to work, but with a smile, he grabbed a cup to go, gave her a quick kiss and told her he’d be back in a few hours. Jen shook her head and said that she’d heard that one before. She knew that she would never get back to sleep while she waited to find out if Ryan was going to be sent overseas. Jen grabbed a stack of papers that she had brought home from her office and began to read through them to kill time. The waiting was always the hardest on Jen. While he was gone, she got on with her life and tried to act as if nothing was going on; all the while, she knew that she would worry that he might never come home.
A couple of hours later, Mitchell turned his Jeep off onto a dirt road full of potholes that gently meandered from the highway into a thick, pine-filled woods that surrounded the three hundred acres that all formed part of the Polaris complex and training grounds.
Major-General Jack O’Reilly, U.S. Army (retired), created Polaris Operations (Global) as a discreet, private organization that specialized in unique problem solving, military, police and civilian training, along with consulting services that would go anywhere in the world at a moment’s notice. Weapons-handling, advanced driving, small-unit tactics, and police training could all be handled by his expert crew of retired armed forces and police personnel working day and night. No one could apply for a position there; all of O’Reilly’s people were handpicked—many of whom were enticed to come and work for him for considerably more money. He had several field teams; Mitchell’s, however, usually took on the more challenging and dangerous missions approved and overseen by O’Reilly himself.
It may have been four in the morning, but the nighttime duty shift had already put together a briefing package. Mitchell took a seat in the conference room. He wasn’t surprised Nate Jackson walked in, wearing some rumpled blue sweats, and carrying two coffees. Balanced on top was his usual box of donuts. After handing a coffee to Mitchell, Jackson flipped open the box and grabbed a jelly-filled donut. Shaking his head at Jackson, Mitchell thanked him for the coffee, grabbed a file folder, opened it, and then quickly skimmed over the bios on Emily an
d Cristoval Martinez. He shook his head when he read that a dozen other Americans and an unknown number of Liberians had been with them when they had been abducted and were feared missing as well.
Sam and Cardinal were back home visiting his parents in Alberta, Canada, and would not be arriving for the mission brief. Mitchell would have to fill them in when they met up again, wherever that might be.
A minute later, O’Reilly and Mike Donaldson walked in the room. Right away, Donaldson moved behind the lectern and prepared to give his briefing.
Donaldson, Polaris’ head intelligence analyst, ran a hand through his thick, white hair and then flipped through images of fighting in the streets of Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, before stopping on a picture of a limousine and several Liberian Army Humvees on fire outside of the Executive Mansion. Several gruesomely charred corpses littered the ground.
“Gents, preliminary reports coming out of the country are still very sketchy, but all signs indicate a well-orchestrated coup against the Liberian president, his Excellency the now late Charles Coleman,” said Donaldson.
A tall, lanky Texan, with a full head of white hair, Donaldson had been an intelligence officer with the U.S. Air Force. Poached by O’Reilly, he had been with Polaris since its inception. He stood there, wearing an old tracksuit that he had thrown on at home before racing in to prepare this morning’s unscheduled presentation for Mitchell’s team and General O’Reilly.
Donaldson took a quick sip of coffee and then continued his brief. “The image you see on the screen is of the former president’s armored limo. With him were his wife, two bodyguards, and a security detail of approximately platoon strength; all were killed in a well-executed ambush. AT-4 anti-tank rockets fired at close range struck their vehicles; those that survived were dragged out onto the street and then murdered in front of the Executive Mansion. From what I can determine so far, rival government factions with grievances against one another dating back to the nineteen-eighties and nineties seem to have inexplicably fractured once again and are now locked in yet another bitter fight for control of the country.”
“Was this inter-tribal tension on anyone’s radar?” asked O’Reilly.
“No, sir,” replied Donaldson, shaking his head. “This seems seemed to have come out of nowhere.”
“Is the fighting localized around the capital?” asked Mitchell, his eyes fixed on the images of death and destruction on the screen.
Donaldson quickly brought up an image of the country and then pointed on the map with his red laser pointer. “Ryan, the coup so far seems to be contained to the larger cities along the Atlantic Coast,” explained Donaldson. “Which makes sense, as that is where the majority of the population lives and where the future power structure of the country will be decided.”
“Well, that’s some good news at least,” said O’Reilly as he reached for a carafe of coffee and refilled his empty cup. “The people we have been hired to find are in the more rural north-west of the country and may have been grabbed to be used as bargaining chips once the fighting dies down.”
“Do we have an exact fix on them?” asked Mitchell.
“Yes, a transponder signal is coming in strong from a small Liberian Army garrison post located on the outskirts of Belle Yella,” said Fahimah Nazaria, as she entered the briefing room.
Donaldson’s protégé and a favorite of Mitchell’s team, Fahimah was a Harvard grad who had majored in Middle Eastern studies. An Iraqi-American, Fahimah always kept her long black hair underneath a headscarf. In keeping with her faith, she was dressed conservatively in a dark blue outfit. She made her way over beside Donaldson, her boss from the aptly named Office of Dirty Tricks and took her seat. Without saying a word, she took the control from Donaldson and zoomed in on the village of Belle Yella.
When she had everyone’s attention, Fahimah said, “According to what I have been able to discover, Belle Yella is a small, impoverished village that has seen its share of fighting over the years. The Liberian Army garrison there is under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Kamara Taylor, a highly questionable officer who once was a member of the rebel National Patriotic Front during the last Liberian Civil War. In his earlier days, he also fought in neighboring Sierra Leone and was reported to have amassed a small fortune in blood diamonds during that sad conflict. His current position in the army has more to do with local tribal politics than to merit. From what I have read, to him the army is a hobby; his real passion is lining his pockets with as much stolen loot as he possibly can.”
“Wonderful fellow, a true humanitarian,” said Jackson sarcastically.
“So what is his relationship to the coup, and why is he holding Mr. and Mrs. Martinez there?” asked Mitchell.
“From what we know of his past and what is now occurring in Liberia, Lieutenant Colonel Taylor is no fan of the current government, but there have been no indications that he, or any of his men, have made a move to intervene in the fighting along the coast,” said Fahimah.
“He’s probably waiting to see who looks like they are going to win before picking a side,” interjected Donaldson. “That, and the fact that Mrs. Martinez is the daughter of a Las Vegas billionaire.”
“So this is about extortion?” Jackson said.
Donaldson scrunched his face as he thought. “Perhaps, but it’s too early to say for sure.”
“What about the other people who were with them, any word on their whereabouts?”
Donaldson shrugged his shoulders. “Liberia is an information black hole right now. Aside from the transponder signal coming from Emily Martinez’s watch, we have absolutely nothing to go on.”
“Ryan, you and I know that there’s only one way to find out what is really going on and that’s to put you in there as soon as possible. I need you to find the Martinezes and get them out of Liberia before anything else goes wrong,” O’Reilly said, looking deep into Mitchell’s eyes.
“What about the people with them?” asked Mitchell.
“If you can, get them out as well, but understand that your priority lies with Emily and Cristoval Martinez.”
Mitchell sat back with a steely look in his eyes.
O’Reilly knew that look. Mitchell was already thinking about how to get everyone out alive. He would never leave anyone behind to suffer a horrible fate at the hands of their captors.
Mitchell broke the silence. “Mike, have we heard anything out of the State Department? Surely they are going to do something to help?”
“Ryan, there are literally thousands of American citizens working or living in Liberia. They, along with thousands of other foreign nationals, will be clamoring to leave the country posthaste. I hate to say it, but twelve missing people probably won’t even register on the government’s radar for days,” said Donaldson.
“Before leaving home, I called my usual sources in the Pentagon and was told that a combined U.S., Indian, and British naval task force is being formed in the Atlantic Ocean. It will soon be steaming for the Liberian coast to begin the safe evacuation of all foreign nationals,” explained O’Reilly. “I was also told to expect at least a company of Marines to be in position at our embassy in Monrovia within a couple of hours.”
“Sir, that’s if the Liberian government allows it,” said Donaldson. “They have sealed the borders. No one can get in or out of the country right now.”
Mitchell smiled. “That’s a mere diplomatic technicality that’s never stopped the U.S. government from protecting its citizens abroad before, and it sure as hell won’t stop them now.”
“With the majority of the expatriate community living in and around Monrovia, it will be days, maybe even weeks, before our forces venture out into the countryside to round up those people who wish to leave,” said O’Reilly.
Mitchell shook his head. “This is unbelievable. We are the world’s remaining superpower, and we still move slower than a glacier. I can be in and out with everyone safely accounted for in a couple of days . . . tops.”
O’Reilly
grinned. He had no doubt that Mitchell could pull it off.
“General, we’ll need a firm base somewhere to operate out of,” said Mitchell, looking over a map of West Africa hanging on the wall of the conference room.
“That part will be easy. I have contacts in West Africa that owe me big time,” said O’Reilly. “I’ll make some calls right after this meeting to pave the way for you and your team. I’ve asked Tammy Spencer to book you all onto flights leaving for Freetown, Sierra Leone, later today.”
“If I remember right, Cardinal did a stint there, training their army’s snipers while he was still in the Canadian Army,” said Mitchell. “His knowledge of that part of the world will help a lot as I’ve never been there before.”
“Okay, then I’ll leave you to arrange how you will brief up the rest of your folks,” said O’Reilly. “Back brief me no later than zero nine hundred hours today.”
“Not a problem, sir,” said Mitchell, standing up. “We can establish a secure base in eastern Sierra Leone, and then as soon as possible we’ll head into Liberia.”
“I can dig up the latest intel and satellite imagery for you. Also, if I am allowed, I can establish a state-of-the-art command post in the field for you,” said Fahimah, fishing for a spot on the mission.
Donaldson winced. A few months back, Fahimah had been wounded the last time she had helped Mitchell’s team on a seemingly simple assignment in the nation’s capital. He was more than a little protective of Fahimah, a fact that had not gone unnoticed by the people working at Polaris.
O’Reilly smiled and said, “Not this time, Fahimah. I still want you to take it easy. If Mike has no objections, you will be the lead intelligence analyst for the mission. Ryan and his team can keep in contact with you via satellite communications.”
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