by Rachel Grant
What if Desta somehow knew about the tracker, knew the parameters, and ensured that Morgan wouldn’t have a decent opportunity to use it until the US military was well past the point of desperation?
What if Desta had a different payoff in mind?
Chapter Thirty-One
Morgan sat on her cot, staring at the door, wondering if the tracker had worked, if Pax knew she was alive, if a rescue was being mounted, and even if she’d made a mistake in waking the chip. Desta’s demeanor when he dismissed her from his presence earlier had unsettled her. She couldn’t help but think he knew.
He was more cunning than she’d ever guessed.
He was playing a long game with Imbert and the aquifer. Methodical. He knew Imbert had implicated him with the bombing of her vehicle and the coordinated attack on the base, but he gave no hint as to what his retribution for his partner would be. She would guess warlords were like the Dread Pirate Roberts: they couldn’t appear soft. Which meant Imbert would pay. Likely sooner rather than later. And then Desta would be the sole owner of the fake desalinization plant.
Desta’s endgame was nothing less than being made ruler of Eritrea. How was her abduction part of that endgame? If he wanted to ensure she didn’t expose the aquifer, why hadn’t he just killed her? The only reason for her to be alive was if he expected ransom and needed her to provide proof of life. Since that wouldn’t happen, what did he expect to get from taking her?
What was it about her that made risking his methodical endgame worthwhile?
The fifth-wife thing was clearly bullshit. He was no more interested in her than she was in him, and she found the sex-trafficking, drug-dealing warlord utterly repulsive.
A noise at the door got her attention, and a piece of paper slipped underneath.
Morgan got up and approached the note slowly, almost fearfully. Afraid to hope she had an ally. Even more afraid Desta was messing with her mind.
She picked up the paper and unfolded it. It took her a moment to figure out what she had. Understanding caused her heart to pound. Esme had drawn a crude map of the house and grounds.
She recognized Desta’s office from the route she’d taken. A second drawing with the same footprint but different layout must be the upstairs. The same symbol that marked Desta’s office marked a room on that level. His bedroom?
Another symbol became clear. Esme had drawn guns in various locations. Morgan studied their placement and decided Esme indicated where armed guards were stationed within the house and grounds. Tick marks next to a gun symbol on the side gave her the size of Desta’s army: there were at least thirty armed men on the premises.
The final piece of vital information Esme gave her was the locations of all the exits. All Morgan needed was to be free of her cuff, and she’d be able to escape.
Morgan studied the map, committing it to memory. She hoped, if she was rescued, that she’d be able to find Esme and get her out too. She’d been forced to ignore the starving, thirsty children, but she couldn’t turn her back on Esme. Screw privilege if it meant she couldn’t save at least one person with the blessings that had been bestowed upon her.
Study of the map showed that if she could just get free of the heavy chain, escape would be simple. Desta was a third-world warlord, while Morgan was a first-world woman. In the US, she might have to deal with guards armed with lasers mounted on sharks—or at least motion-activated security cameras in each room—but here, there were no cameras. No electronic surveillance. Cameras required electricity, and while this house did have power, they were in Somaliland. Electricity was intermittent. Certainly not consistent enough to put faith in cameras, or waste the precious resource on their sporadic use. And Desta couldn’t afford sharks and laser beams any more than he could afford a helicopter. It was a simple fact that the enemies of Djibouti didn’t have the ability to mount airstrikes. That was why drones were so effective. The very people they targeted were defenseless against attacks from the air.
Hours passed slowly. She had no watch, no window, but it had to be near midnight now. Had the mission been launched? Were SEALs even now on their way?
A sound outside her door had her lifting the chain so it wouldn’t make noise as she scurried to the hole in the floor, where she dropped the map. She hurried back to her cot and lay down and pretended to have been sleeping.
The door opened to reveal the same guard who’d delivered her to Desta hours ago. “Desta wishes to speak with you.”
She faked grogginess. “What time is it?”
The guard ignored her as he bent down and unlocked the ankle cuff. She could take him out right then, while the heavy chain was still attached to her. She could wrap it around his neck or kick him in the head. So very tempting, but risky right before her rescue, especially when the man was about to remove her cuff, which meant better opportunities for escape could present themselves.
The man carried his AK-47 as casually as before. She followed meekly, glancing left and right as she walked the length of the house. The guards Esme had indicated weren’t at their posts.
They paused outside Desta’s closed office door. Through the thin wall, she heard a man speaking English with a heavy Chinese accent. “The trucks will enter the compound on my command.”
Desta responded, also in English. “Call them now, so they will be ready.”
“No. We won’t risk exposure if you fail. They will come when you have the prize, not before.”
Silence met the statement, and Morgan imagined the warlord bristled at the idea he could fail. She wondered what, exactly, the prize was, but was glad their common language was English, giving her at least this meager information.
The radio on her guard’s hip issued a command in Arabic, which she heard in stereo as Desta spoke from the other side of the closed door.
It must have been a command to bring Morgan into the room, as the guard opened the door and shoved her inside.
Desta again sat behind his desk. His Chinese visitor stood and scanned her from head to toe before giving Desta a sharp nod and leaving the room.
Morgan watched him leave, then turned to face the warlord. She wanted to stand before him, but remembered that she needed to look weak, beaten. Ill. She dropped into the chair and waited for Desta to speak.
From his frown, she guessed her silence annoyed him. She rubbed her eyes and decided to go with insolence. “Your hospitality is lacking, Etefu. It must be after midnight, I was asleep.”
“I would think you’d want to be alert for your rescue.”
She stiffened. “My rescue?”
“Yes. But before your SEAL team comes, I will need the tracker.”
She didn’t have to fake dizziness. “What tracker?”
The warlord’s face was impassive. “There is no need to play dumb, my dear. I am certain you initiated the subdermal tracker hours ago. Now that it has played its part, I need the device.” He nodded toward the door through which his associate had exited. “The Chinese will pay good money for it. I can kill you and try to find it, but it took us hours to find the tracker from a dead hostage last year, and my men destroyed it in cutting it out. So save us all time and tell me where the tracker is now.”
Her instinct was to cover her arm, but she resisted, remaining frozen in the chair. Her throat had gone dry, making her voice little more than a low rasp. “How did you find out about trackers?”
“A year ago, we took a hostage to my operation center in Yemen. A team of your soldiers showed up, and soon after, drones destroyed the building. I lost many weapons, including an extremely valuable EMP device.
“The hostage had been moved prior to the soldiers’ arrival. They didn’t find him. We tortured him until he confessed about the chip. So you see, I knew to keep you away from cell towers until I was ready. I even knew how to bait you into triggering the signal. A prearranged call at the right time.” He patted the pocket that held his cell phone, then nodded toward the guard who stood next to the open door.
The guard pulled a large
knife from the sheath at his hip. “Now, you can save yourself some pain and tell me where the tracker is, or Abdi can start cutting until he finds it.”
She scrambled backward, stumbling out of the chair, backing away from the man with the knife. “Why did you let me use it? Don’t you care that a team of SEALs is coming?”
“Oh, my dear, I am counting on it. I told you I’d be well compensated for your abduction. Your rescue will provide my ransom payment, with your vaunted SEALs as the delivery service.”
Her mind raced even as she cowered from the knife. Horror washed through her as his intention sank in. “You’re after the Blackhawk.”
“Not just any Blackhawk, an MH-X Silent Hawk. The Chinese only got to peek at the one from the bin Laden raid. I’m going to give them the whole bird.” His eyes flashed with inhuman light. “You worried your government wouldn’t pay your ransom. The stealth Blackhawk, my dear, makes you the most valuable hostage I’ve ever taken.”
“This was your plan from the start? Why you placed the bomb under my car?”
“I told you, that was Imbert. I did not lie. It wasn’t until Imbert made a spectacle of you that this plan came together. It was clear your military was eager to protect you, given who your father is and how much they wished to ingratiate themselves in your project. Once I realized how valuable you are to them, I expressed my interest to Imbert, who duly tipped your military that I wished to take you for my fifth wife. I expected they’d chip you then. Just like a dog.”
“You’ll never be able to take a Blackhawk away from a team of SEALs. You’re crazy if you think you can beat them.”
“But I don’t need to beat them. My Chinese allies have given me another EMP to replace the one I lost in Yemen. With the electromagnetic pulse, I can make the Blackhawk fall from the sky. Any SEALs who survive the crash won’t last long, not when the Blackhawk will be surrounded by my men.
He nodded toward the man with the knife again. “Now, we’re running short on time. Tell me where the chip is, or I’ll have Abdi start cutting.”
An attempt to fight now would be useless. The Blackhawk was coming. She needed to give up the chip and figure out an escape. She held out her arm and prayed she wouldn’t be killed immediately after they had the chip.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Ten minutes to the start of the op. Pax paced the command center. He paused and met the gaze of Morgan’s dad. They’d barely spoken in the last six days. For Pax, he’d been unable to find the words. Now the look that passed between them conveyed the depth of General Adler’s fear and remorse.
If Morgan only knew how much her father really cared, how proud he was of his incredible, amazing daughter.
The team of trainees was in position, hidden in the acacia forest along the panya route. They didn’t have line of sight on Desta’s compound, so they monitored the short-range radio frequencies, seeking signs of activity in the structure. They’d intercepted Desta’s security checking in, giving all-clear codes, rote procedure for the night watch team.
Pax’s body coiled with tension, almost as if he were deploying on the op. Except, usually he settled into a deep calm before a mission, and tonight he was anything but. SOCOM had been right to exclude him from the op, he was far too emotionally invested, and yet not being out there was excruciating.
Everything was in place. All indications were the mission was a go.
He paced as he listened to the chatter on the radio, ignored the low murmurs of conversation between the leaders of SOCOM, and avoided Morgan’s father’s gaze. Less than five minutes until the SOCOM commander would issue the launch order.
Morgan’s arm burned with pain, far worse than when the chip had been injected, but then, the surgery to remove it had lacked proper tools or a skilled surgeon. As soon as the bloody chip had been gouged from her arm, Desta had taken it and ordered her guard, Abdi, to return her to her cell, then report to the field where the EMP was positioned. She wondered if that was where the other guards had gone, if the house was emptied of militants.
Desta made no offer of bandages or anything to tend the gaping wound, but he probably intended to kill her after he’d secured the Blackhawk. She suspected she remained alive only as a bargaining chip should something go wrong with his plan.
As if the US military would give up a stealth Blackhawk for anyone.
She covered the cut with her hand, wincing as she pressed the flap of skin in place. She practiced deep breathing against the pain as she followed Abdi through the house back to her cell.
She had to find a way to call off the raid. She’d be giving up her rescue, but with an EMP, Desta might succeed in taking the Blackhawk. SEALs would die. She couldn’t allow the slaughter any more than she could allow Desta to take top secret technology that gave the US an advantage in the war on terror.
She wobbled on her feet, unsure if blood loss or fear was behind the dizzy feeling. Abdi caught her arm—the cut one—before her knees buckled, saving her from collapsing while sending breathtaking pain from her brachialis muscle up to the trapezius. Sweat dotted her brow from the intensity of it.
The militant cursed and tightened his grip on her wounded arm as he dragged her down the corridor to her cell. Inside, he slammed her against the wall, then bent down to attach the cuff to her ankle.
She didn’t pause to think; she just reacted. The moment he cinched the cuff around her ankle, she kicked upward, slamming ankle and metal cuff into his neck, knocking him backward.
He let out a rasping sound as he reached for his Kalash. The blow might have broken his hyoid. She twirled her foot around his head, wrapping the thick chain around his throat. She yanked the chain, one hard tug, and his neck snapped. His hand fell away from the gun as his head hit the hard floor.
She grabbed the weapon with one hand and rifled through his pockets for the key. Her eyes landed on the two-way radio at his hip. She abandoned the search for the key and glommed on to the radio.
She heard a faint noise from outside. Rotor wash? Were the Blackhawks near?
With shaking fingers, she changed the frequency to the one Pax had made her memorize weeks ago and prayed there was someone in range who would hear her message. “Call off the raid! It’s a trap! This is Dr. Morgan Adler. Repeat, call off the raid. It’s a trap.” She searched for something she could say that would let them know it was really her, if anyone was even listening. “Pax, if you can hear me, call off the raid. Snoopy! Go back to the base.” She remembered that Pax had said to repeat the code three times. “Snoopy, snoopy, snoopy!”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Minutes after the Blackhawks took off, the trainees on the panya route radioed the base. “We’ve intercepted a transmission that sounds like Dr. Adler. She’s calling off the attack.”
The commander instructed the Blackhawk pilots to circle the perimeter, move no closer to the compound until they could determine if the message was real. The trainees relayed the frequency number, and a cold calm settled over Pax as he confirmed it was the channel he’d instructed her to use. It was a short-range channel, but SOCOM had the technology to amplify the signal and the techs dialed in. In moments, Morgan’s voice played over the room. “Repeat, it’s a trap. Snoopy. Snoopy. Snoopy!”
His heart chilled at her words even as emotion surged at hearing her voice. “That’s definitely Morgan,” he said.
General Adler nodded, confirming it was his daughter’s voice.
“Is she being forced to transmit this message?” his CO, Major Haverfeld, asked.
“Call off the raid,” Morgan continued over the radio. “Desta is after the Blackhawk! He has an EMP to disable it. Snoopy. Snoopy. Snoopy!”
“Snoopy is the code word I told her to use for ‘go back to the base,’” Pax said. “No one else knows that code. She wouldn’t use it under duress. She means it.”
The SEAL commander took the radio. “Abort mission. Operation Artemis Liberation abort. Repeat, Operation Artemis Liberation abort.”
&nbs
p; Pax’s heart clenched at the order.
“Desta is here,” Morgan said, “He has an EMP. Call off the raid. Send in the drones. Destroy the EMP. Snoopy! Snoopy! Snoopy! Send the dro—”
Gunfire sounded over the radio, then the transmission cut out.
A guard filled the doorway. His eyes widened as Morgan shouted into the radio. He lifted his AK-47.
Morgan held Abdi’s Kalash loosely in one hand. She cut off her message midword and fired without pausing to aim. Her shot hit his arm, causing his shot to go wild.
She dropped the radio and fired again, this time hitting center mass. The man fell.
She sucked in a deep breath and tried to rein in her shaking as she pointed the weapon at the downed man. She kicked at him to determine if he was dead.
His hand gripped her bound ankle and tugged. She pulled the trigger as she stumbled. The bullet struck him in the back of the head. The hand on her ankle went slack.
She again searched Abdi for the key, finding it in a pocket attached to his belt, and unlocked the cuff with wildly shaking fingers. Freed, she searched for the radio, finding it under the second guard. Her last bullet had gone through him and destroyed the two-way.
The second guard didn’t have a radio. She didn’t know if her message had been received, but the outside noise that might have been rotor wash was now retreating. She couldn’t radio to confirm, but at least she now had two Kalashnikovs.
As she searched both men, she prayed Desta’s men were all outside, in position to take the Blackhawk down. She hoped the rotor wash—if that was what it had been—had blocked the sound of gunfire within the house. Regardless, she had to hurry. She needed to get out of here before anyone came looking for Abdi and the other guard.
Her hands shook as she used Abdi’s knife—still bloody from her surgery—and cut a strip from his shirt, which she wrapped as tightly around her arm as she could with her teeth and one hand. She took his gear belt as well and holstered the knife at her hip, noting as she did so that he’d carried two small grenades and spare magazines for the Kalash on the belt. Thus armed, she draped the strap of a Kalash over each shoulder and left her cell with an index finger poised near both triggers.
