Zelda saw him looking at the doll. “That’s Lieutenant Ball. He usually makes better decisions than a real officer.”
She stripped off her padded boxing gloves and tossed them down next to the disfigured bear, then sank into a chair. “Let me tell you about ‘my people.’ It’s just the two of us—me and Shin—and I really don’t have time for this bullshit.
“There’s a quarter of a million troops in Iraq ‘fightin’ the evildoers.’” She emphasized her contempt with air quotes. “But do you know where the tangos get their guns? Or the money to build IEDs to blow your asses up? Right here. This is where the evil begins.”
“Drugs.” King understood immediately what she was talking about. Opium trafficking in the Golden Triangle was keeping Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups flush with cash. He also knew that the CIA and FBI were actively working to shut down the criminal agencies that were facilitating those activities, but evidently Zelda saw her mission as more than just orders to be followed; it had become personal.
She waved dismissively. “Drugs. Sex slaves. Child soldiers…anything that can turn a profit for the triads.”
“Look, I get it. You’re fighting the good fight here, and you don’t appreciate being pulled off that to do favors for us. But we’re on the same side.”
She regarded him thoughtfully. “Are you sure about that? The guys we’ve been trying to take down—the 14K triad—they’ve got a particularly brutal revenue stream: they kidnap people off the streets and harvest their organs. Care to guess who buys them? Rich, connected people—people back in the states—who don’t want to have to wait for a donor match. Do you think the people in power really want to shut them down?”
King realized that he had to take charge of the situation. “It’s not our job to figure out what they really want. We follow the orders we’re given.”
“‘Ours not to reason why,’ is that it?”
“That’s what you signed up for, soldier.”
The faintest glimmer of a smile returned to her full lips, and then she did something completely unexpected. She arched her back and stretched lazily, like a cat rousing from a nap. “Well then, what are your orders, sir?”
“General Keasling will have those for you when he arrives. For now, I’d like all the intel you’ve got on the subjects. I understand your man—Shin—is currently conducting surveillance?”
“He checks in at the bottom of the hour, so it will be another forty-five minutes before I hear from him.” She tapped a folder on the tabletop. “He calls me, I don’t call him. That’s the rule. His communications logs are all here, so feel free to look through them. That’s all I’ve got for you really. If there’s nothing else, I’d like to finish my workout.” Zelda stood and picked up the boxing gloves, and then flashed her seductive grin again. “Actually, I could use a sparring partner. What do you say, King? Are you up for it?”
Tremblay made a low sound, like an exaggerated groan of pleasure. “My God, that’s so hot.”
King stared back at her in disbelief. To all appearances, she was coming on to him, but his instincts were shouting down his libido. He doubted very much that what she wanted was something as banal as sex. This woman was smart and tough—tough enough to survive one of the most difficult programs in the Army; she was someone who knew what she wanted and would blow through any obstacle in her way. It was a game to her…
No, he thought, not a game. This was animal behavior, the she-bear marking her territory.
I do not have time for this shit.
By making the first move, throwing down the gauntlet, she had already won. She had put him on a defensive footing, established the battlefield, dictated the terms of victory. If not for the fact that he had been unwittingly outmaneuvered, he might have applauded her decisiveness.
Worse, she had defined him: a soldier, following orders without thinking; an officer, inept and unworthy of respect; a man… Oh yes, that was it. That was the thing that bothered her the most.
He didn’t think she was a lesbian; even if she was…Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. That was the policy. Regardless, she definitely had issues when it came to men.
He realized that she wasn’t the only one watching to see what he would do and how he would play the game. All eyes were on him. If he played along, did what she wanted, he’d look weak, unable to say no to a pretty girl…
Okay, ‘pretty’ might be understating it. She’s Playmate-of-the-Month material.
Did he dare refuse? He had every right to, but his fellow Delta shooters were expecting him to stand and deliver. If he didn’t… Well, like the old saying went, you never got a second chance to make a first impression.
There was another saying he liked even better: The best defense is a good offense.
A smile slowly curled the corners of his mouth. “You know, maybe I should ask your CO what he thinks about this.”
A flicker of doubt dulled the mischievous gleam in her eyes. “My CO?”
He picked up the stuffed bear and rolled the black plastic sphere into his palm. “Lieutenant Ball. Should I play grab-ass with Baker?”
Zelda frowned.
He gave the ball a vigorous shake then turned it over and looked at the little window where the answer was displayed.
Reply hazy, try again.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said, returning the toy to its place. “Lieutenant Ball says to go for it. I guess it’s on.”
SEVENTEEN
Shin Dae-jung considered it a matter of personal pride that he never complained about anything. Whether it was a duty station, another soldier, a particular mission…even Army chow in all its legendary inedibility, he faced each bump in the road of life with the implacability of a Buddhist monk.
But just this one time, he was tempted to make an exception.
It wasn’t that there was anything particularly miserable about the assignment. He had humped cross-country for a good ninety minutes, a distance of at least six miles over uneven terrain, but that was just a walk in the park for someone like him. At one point, his foot had broken through a thin crust of dirt concealing some kind of animal burrow, and he’d twisted his ankle, but that kind of thing was to be expected. The low valleys between the hills seemed to be riddled with similar pitfalls, and to avoid more stumbles, he’d kept to the high ground, which had added to the length of his journey, but that too was just something that had to be done. When he’d reached his destination, a low hill west of the fenced compound, he’d hunkered down on the hard earth under his camouflaged poncho, motionless, as various bugs, critters and creepy-crawlies meandered across his body—par for the course. His thermal poncho liner didn’t quite keep him toasty warm through the long chilly night, but he’d been colder before.
No, what had ramped up the misery factor was the fact that he could have…he should have…spent the night nuzzled up next to a very satisfied lady doctor.
Someone was going to get an earful when he got back; not Zelda—this wasn’t her crazy idea—but the Delta boys… Oh, yeah, they were going to hear about what he’d given up to run their errands. The thought made him smile; the Delta operators would probably be a lot more sympathetic to his sacrifice than the blonde Amazonian war-goddess.
Ah well, as Giselle might say: c’est la vie.
The arrival of the helicopter made him forget all his woes.
It had come just after his last check in. He’d been busy drawing a diagram of the compound, noting the position of each building, as well as the exact coordinates for everything: the buildings, the fenced perimeter and even what appeared to be an obstacle course in the northeast corner. With precise enough coordinates, the Delta boys would be able to draw a near perfect map of the compound from just his radioed description.
The sound of voices drifting up from the compound grabbed his attention. He scanned the compound with the binoculars until he found the source of the noise; a small crowd of people—twenty or more—milling around the area he had dubbed ‘the course.’
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Everyone in the group had black hair and dark complexions, marking them as native to the region. Most wore simple clothing: dingy t-shirts and what might have been canvas trousers. All appeared to be male, but that was something he couldn’t confirm. What he could determine with more certainty, based on the differences in size, was that some of them were just children.
Shin immediately got the sense that they were all prisoners.
Two men however, were not wearing the “uniform” of the captives. They were also Asian, but they looked like they’d just stepped out of a hip-hop music video—baggy jeans, T-shirts with fashion-designer logos prominently displayed, caps with the visors turned sideways. The effect would have been comical if not for the Kalashnikov rifles they wielded.
Then something truly unbelievable happened. The milling group fell into a neat military-style rank in front of the two ‘gangstas,’ and then, two at a time, they headed into the obstacle course.
They moved with astonishing speed and alacrity, bounding over hurdles and scrambling up ropes like soldiers at boot camp.
Shin realized that was exactly what it was. He assumed the men were conscripts, taken against their will and brought here to be trained and indoctrinated as soldiers, but it was equally possible that they were volunteers.
So what was this place? Headquarters for a local warlord? A secret terrorist training camp?
He wasn’t due to check in for another thirty minutes, but this news seemed to warrant an unscheduled call. But before he could dial Zelda’s number on his satellite phone, the helicopter arrived.
Because he was peering intently through his binoculars, he heard the beat of the rotors and the strident roar of the turbines before he made visual contact, but after only a few seconds of searching the sky, he found it—a sleek black Bell 430, coming up from the south, right behind him.
He huddled under his blind as it passed overhead, then he trained the binoculars on the aircraft as it touched down on the roof of the structure he had designated ‘Building Two.’ As soon as its wheels touched down, the pilot killed the turbines and let the rotors spin themselves out, a process that took several minutes. Finally, when the long airfoil-shaped blades were completely still, the doors were thrown open and the passengers began disembarking.
They were all Caucasian, and although too far away for Shin to distinguish faces through the low-powered binoculars, there were enough clues for him to approximate what was happening. The focus of everyone’s attention was an infirm figure with thinning gray hair—Shin assumed it was a man—who was assisted out of the helicopter and into a waiting wheelchair.
Shin and Zelda had been investigating reports of people—children particularly—disappearing off the streets. There were a number of possible explanations, and all of them represented humanity at its most evil—young girls sold to brothels throughout Asia and young boys turned into infantrymen for warlords and rebel armies. There were even rumors that a Chinese criminal organization, the 14K triad, was abducting people, harvesting their organs and selling them on the black market.
Not just rumors anymore, Shin thought. But the triad wasn’t smuggling the organs out of the country, a time-consuming endeavor that could damage the tissue. Instead, they were bringing the recipients here, to receive their new organs fresh from the unwilling donor.
A paramilitary training camp and a secret organ transplant clinic. The triad had built a one-stop shop for the flesh trade.
He reached for the satellite phone, but before he could dial the number, it started to vibrate in his hand.
EIGHTEEN
At first, King wasn’t sure what would happen. That lasted about fifteen seconds.
Tremblay who had appointed himself referee and timekeeper, had leaned in close as a shirtless King clambered over the ropes. “So, what’s your plan? I mean, you’re not actually going to hit a girl, are you?”
King was still pondering the question as Tremblay gave a shrill whistle signaling the beginning of the first round.
Zelda was grinning as she darted to the center of the ring. The mouth guard clamped between her teeth made her lips seem unnaturally full, but there was an intensity in her unrelenting stare that was like nothing King had ever seen before, not even in the eyes of men who had tried to kill him. He approached the center cautiously, his gloves up and ready to fend off her attack.
She jabbed at his gloves, testing his defenses. He effortlessly batted her punch aside. She jabbed again, but it was a feint; as he tried to block, she side-stepped and then threw a left upper-cut that connected solidly on his chin.
For a second, all he saw was stars.
It wasn’t the hardest hit he’d ever taken. He’d had his bell rung plenty of times before. The difference this time was that he had—foolishly—not been expecting her to hit quite that hard.
He staggered back, flailing his arms to ward off her attempt to follow through, and when he could, he threw a wild cross-body punch that somehow made glancing contact.
Somebody gasped… He couldn’t say for sure who, but his vision cleared enough to see Zelda’s hair, flashing gold, as she moved in for another attack. This time he didn’t bother trying to block her. Instead, he went on the attack, and this time he didn’t hold back.
Hit a girl? Ha!
There were a lot of words that could be used to describe Zelda Baker—and she had probably heard them all—but ‘girl’ he decided, was not one of them.
Time passed in a blur of disconnected perceptions. In his more lucid moments, it would occur to him to press the attack. Sometimes it worked, and he succeeded in driving her back against the ropes, but invariably she would find a way to turn the tide. What she lacked in size and strength, Zelda made up for with skill; it was plainly evident that she’d received formal training. She was fast on her feet, flitting about the ring like a moth. She knew how to use the clinch to recover her wits when King landed a blow that should have put her on the mat.
At one point, as he sat slumped in a folding chair during one of the breaks between rounds, Tremblay knelt beside him. “Boss man, I got nothing but respect for you, but how long are you going to keep this up?”
Before King could answer, he heard Zelda’s voice, strained and breathless from the exertion, reach out from the opposite corner like another punch to the jaw. “Had enough?”
He met her gaze. “I was going to ask you the same.”
She laughed. “I’m just getting warmed up.”
King shrugged. “Couple more rounds then.”
Tremblay shook his head and handed King a towel to mop the perspiration off his face and shoulders. “Just in case you’ve lost count, we’re at six.”
Six? He had lost track.
Tremblay took the towel and gave another shrill whistle to mark the start of the seventh round. King hauled himself to his feet and waded once more into the fray.
It had stopped being a fight—it had never been much of a sparring match—and turned into something more like a marathon, a test of the limits of human endurance. It was a test, not of skill in combat, but of will. In both respects however, it seemed they were equally matched.
They circled, threw punches, fell against each other, and then repeated the dance, spiraling ever closer to total collapse. Zelda’s face was flushed and puffy, her lower lip looked like a piece of raw meat, and she didn’t seem quite as light on her feet now, but the determination in her eyes remained undimmed. King’s own arms felt like they were made of rubber, and the padded leather gloves felt as heavy as lead weights.
All his attention was focused on her. He watched her eyes, searching for that flicker of movement that would telegraph where and when the next blow would come. He watched the set of her body and where her feet went; it had taken him a while to realize that she would plant her feet in a variation of a shooter’s stance just before striking.
The rest of the world had ceased to exist for him. His only connection with anything outside the rope circle was Tremblay’s shri
ll signal that another round had come to an end. Perhaps that was why it took him a moment to process the voice that boomed like a thunderbolt in the dimly lit room.
“What the fuck?”
As the words finally penetrated the filter, King and Zelda, as if by mutual accord, relaxed their stances and turned their attention to the group of onlookers, which had more than doubled in size. The rest of the team had arrived, but it was General Keasling, glowering at the edge of the ring, who seemed to suck the oxygen out of the room.
Keasling’s face was a mask of barely contained rage. “What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?”
The abrupt end of the fight sapped the last of King’s strength and for a moment, he thought he might collapse. But as he panted to catch his breath, he saw the other faces in the room. Tremblay was grinning in unabashed admiration. Parker was doing a slightly better job of concealing the same emotion. Even the big Ranger, Somers, looked impressed. Zelda was leaning wearily against the ropes, but her face wore the same expression.
He had proven something to her…to all of them.
He took a deep breath, let it out, then another. He straightened to the best approximation of a position of attention that his exhausted limbs could muster.
“Well sir, you instructed me to put together a new unit—the best of the best. I was just conducting tryouts.” And then, as if he needed to say nothing more in his own defense, he turned to Zelda. “She’s hired.”
Keasling continued to scowl at King, but the simple fact of his silence told King that he’d said the right thing. His new mission—the new unit, whatever it was—had already taken him out from under Keasling’s direct authority. After a moment, the general shook his head. “Fine. She’s all yours.”
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