by J. M. LeDuc
Joan slumped in her seat. “I’ll reach the Pentagon and see if they have received notice.”
“No,” Maddie answered. “Call Brent and get his ass back here, now.”
“But, I. . .”
Maddie got in her face. “I know you, Joan,” she yelled, “and I know you can contact him. The president of the United States has been captured by the enemy along with our friends and family. I don’t give a damn what he told you before he left or what deal the two of you made. Contact him and get him back here.”
She watched as Joan sent a distress signal to Brent.
Joan’s fingers trembled as she removed them from the keyboard. “That’s all I can do,” she mumbled. “Now, we have to wait until he answers.”
“Or until we here from the terrorists,” Maddie said.
They spent the night at headquarters along with Lucille, Joseph, Bishop Jessop and Faith. It seemed no one wanted to be alone and everyone wanted to be present when they heard from Brent or from the captors.
At two a.m., Joan’s laptop buzzed.
CHAPTER 56
In the second day of captivity, Falcon watched as Seven, his squad and the president stumbled their way around the cave system. Omar walked up and stood beside him.
“I think they are ready,” Omar said.
Falcon inhaled the smoke from his cigarette one last time before flicking it on the ground. “Bring the prisoners into the media room,” he ordered. “It’s time for their television premier.”
Twenty minutes later, the squad was positioned on their knees in a row with President Dupree kneeling in front of them. Omar and Falcon flanked the group. Each wore a scarf around their faces and each held one of the HK MP5s they took off of the prisoners. When the light on the camera blinked red, Falcon began speaking.
“Next to me is the president of the United States and the group known to the world as the Black Militia. The authorities have forty-eight hours to find and bring the leader of the Militia to me or I start killing them. I will kill one person every two hours starting at o-two hundred hours on the second day and if he hasn’t shown by the time I get to the last, I will put a bullet in President Dupree’s head on live television.”
Omar stepped forward. “We, the Brotherhood of Gaza, mean no harm to the president of the United States or his men. We just want to bring to justice the man who has killed innocent people for the past fifteen years. The Brotherhood has stood by while governments have tried to capture this man, but somehow he has managed to stay free. Even now, when the soldiers he leads were called into duty to guard the president, he has not had the courage to come with them.” Omar stepped closer to the president and jerked his head back by the hair. “Forty-eight hours or this infidel dies.”
CHAPTER 57
Joan and Maddie watched in terror as the broadcast ended.
“Did that go out over national television?” Maddie asked.
Joan typed in a few key strokes and shook her head. “No, it was patched to us through the Pentagon.” Maddie went to speak, but Joan held up her hand and as the other danced along the keyboard. “The SOB just gave himself away.”
“What?” Maddie said.
“The traitor inside the Pentagon. He must have been flustered when he saw the tape. He forgot to encode the message. We’ve got him.”
“Have SIA agents stationed in D.C. arrest him and bring him here, now,” Maddie responded. “I want to interrogate him, personally.”
Everyone in the room jumped when Joan’s laptop chirped.
“It’s Brent. He said to go live in a video conference. I’ll bring him up on the monitor.”
A few key strokes later and an image came up on the screen. An image of Brent and Tag.
“Colonel, we have a clear transmission, how is it on your end?”
“We’re good, Joan.”
“Brent where the hell are you, you are needed back here, pronto,” Maddie said.
“Where I am is immaterial at this point,” Brent said. “I received a message from Q moments ago. Can you shed any light on the whereabouts of the squad and President Dupree?”
“We received a video from the Brotherhood of Gaza. I’m sending to you now,” Joan said.
“Who is that next to you?” Maddie asked. “I assume it’s Lieutenant Achak.”
Brent nodded as he and Tag watched the tape.
Brent stared at the monitor as the tape ended. His squad was trained to endure pain and torture at the hands of the enemy. His worries were for the president. “Joan, rewind the tape to where it is scanning across the prisoners.”
“Yes, sir.”
“There,” Brent pointed. “Did you see Seven’s head twitching?”
Maddie’s words got caught in her throat. “I . . . I thought it might be a reaction from some sort of torture.”
Brent’s appearance was intense, but he didn’t show signs of despair. “No,” he said pointing at Seven, “he’s sending a message. He’s using a code used by the squad. A form of Morse code. He said that they are in a cave system, but doesn’t have a location.”
“That’s the weird thing. The terrorists said you have forty-eight hours to turn yourself in, but they didn’t say where they were,” Maddie said.
Tag leaned into the monitor. “Rerun the tape again, please.”
As he watched the camera scan the room, his eyes opened wide. “Son of a bitch, I know where they are.” Everyone’s attention shifted to Tag. “They are in the Hindu Kush Mountains.”
“How can you be sure?” Maddie asked.
“Because, I’ve been there.”
“Are you certain?”
“Positive.”
Brent and Tag made eye contact. Each reading the other’s expression.
“How are you certain, Lieutenant?”
“That’s irrelevant,” Brent answered.
Maddie crossed her arms and tapped her foot in frustration. “Did you forget who your commander is, Colonel?”
Brent looked into the monitor with dead eyes. “The last I checked, I had no commander. I was fired the last time we spoke.”
“Damn it, Brent, what the hell is going on?”
Brent used sign language to send a message to Joan. She immediately signed back.
Maddie eyed Joan. She was about to lose her composure.
“Joan says we’re on a frequency that can’t be traced,” Brent said, “so I’ll fill you in.” He looked over at Tag. “Actually, I’ll let Lieutenant Achak tell you.”
“The place you’re looking at,” Tag said, “is the same place I was holed up in during my last mission.”
“When Alpha Camp was raided?” Maddie interjected.
“That’s the one,” Tag nodded.
“Lieutenant, there are thousands of caves in those mountains, how can you be so certain that you were in that cave?”
“If you direct your attention back to the video, you will see scratching on the west wall at two minutes and thirty three seconds.”
Joan rewound the tape to that exact point before Maddie could respond.
Pointing, Tag said, “Those scratches were the number of men Sergeant Delbach and I saw and if you wind the tape to forty-three seconds I’ll show you something even better.”
Joan smiled and rewound the tape again. She was more infatuated with Tag now than ever before.
Maddie was more confused. “They’re just scanning across the prisoners.”
“Not just,” Tag said. “Joan, can you zoom in on the wall behind the president and squad?”
“I can do anything you want,” she mumbled as she tapped the keyboard.
“There,” Tag said. “On the wall, all the way up in the left corner.”
Joan adjusted the point of view.
“That’s a line drawing of the cave system. We had thirty-six hours t
o search it.” He placed his finger on an X on the screen. “That is where we saw them exit the system on the Pakistan side of the ridge. The O,” he moved his finger, “is the main entrance on the Afghani side.”
Maddie and Joan smiled at the young officer’s ingenuity.
“Joan,” Brent said, “can you make a print of both of those and send them to me?”
Joan tapped a key. “Done.”
Maddie saw the expression on Brent’s face. A look she had seen many times before, the face of the leader of the Phantom Squad. “What are you thinking, Colonel?” she asked.
“Joan, do we have any knights in Pakistan near the Hindu Kush?”
“I’ll have to tap into the Endowment network. That may take a moment.”
“Do it after we end broadcast. Did you give the message from Tag to weapons development?”
“Yes, as soon as I received it.”
“What message?” Maddie asked. She then rolled her eyes, “Never mind, continue.”
“Q dropped off a package two days ago,” Tag said, “the day after you went up the mountain.”
“What mountain?” Maddie said.
“It’s irr . . .”
“Yeah, I know,” she said. “It’s irrelevant. I’m starting to think I’m irrelevant.”
Brent smiled.
Joan’s computer buzzed another alarm. “Hold that thought,” she said. She read the message and smiled. “We have him.”
“Have who,” everyone responded.
“The Pentagon traitor,” Joan replied. “SIA has him and is transporting him now to headquarters.”
“Maddie, you do what you have to do to find out everything you need to and we will work on things from our end,” Brent said. “We make video contact again in three hours.”
Everyone nodded.
“Oh, and Maddie?”
“Yes.”
“Do whatever it takes to break him.”
The transmission went black.
Inside the monastery, Brent continued to stare at the monitor.
“What are you thinking, Colonel?”
“I’m thinking we have a lot to do in three hours.”
Brent and Tag sat with the brothers in the eating hall. This time, Brent was at the head of the table.
“I want to thank all of you for what you have done here. I have no words to express my gratitude.” He wiped his hair from his face as he continued. “You went through a great deal over the past eight years and you did it all on faith. If you do nothing else, you can die knowing that you fulfilled your purpose.”
“What will you do next, Chosen One?”
Brent looked at Brother Gregory. “Tag and I will be leaving in the morning.”
“Where will you be going?”
Brent glanced at Tag and then back at Gregory. “We will be headed to Pakistan and then to our brothers’ aid.”
“We will accompany you.”
“No,” Brent said. “You destiny has been fulfilled.”
“You were correct when you said that our purpose has been fulfilled. You were also correct when you said that if we die, we die having fulfilled our godly purpose. We will go.”
As Brent thought about Gregory’s words his phone chirped. He dropped his head to read the message. “It seems there are only a few knights in Pakistan. I will not risk the lives of those who have families. That leaves us with only a handful.” He raised his head and looked out at the men who sat at the table. “I’ll accept your offer, but you will journey only as far as Pakistan. That is where I will need you.”
“We will do whatever the Chosen One asks,” Brother Gregory said. “That is our destiny.”
Brent and Tag spent the next two hours going over the drawing from the cave.
“During my last mission,” Tag said, “there were over a thousand men there. Excuse me if I’m wrong, but I got the impression that Omar will want to present a united front. If the Brotherhood is there again with the same numbers, do you think it’s smart for just the two of us to go in?”
A sly smile rose from Brent’s lips. “If we pull this off the way I plan, I think it’s the only way. Besides,” he said, “they will think there is only one.”
Tag looked at Brent and started to laugh. “You are certifiably insane.”
CHAPTER 58
Video connection was made with HQ at the appointed time.
“The prisoner was very forthcoming,” Maddie said. “He was an IT supervisor and was able to tap into Joan’s conversations with her mole.”
“That’s not good,” Brent said.
Maddie agreed. “The good news is that he wasn’t able to break the encryption and he doesn’t know where the messages originated from. He was only able to read the outgoing messages. Still, he was able to sell quite a lot of information.”
“To who?”
“He sent everything to a man calling himself Falcon.”
Falcon, Brent thought, why is that familiar?
Maddie’s words broke his thought process. “The traitor will be spending the rest of his days at The Bay.”
“Before you send him to Cuba,” Brent said, “we have one more message for him to send.”
A knowing expression flooded Maddie’s face. “I thought you might, but do you think that’s safe.”
“Not if he was actually doing the sending. Joan, I need you to send the following message.”
Joan sat at her laptop, fingers ready. “Go.”
A few minutes later the message was sent.
“I’ll be rendezvousing with you and I’m bringing reinforcements,” Maddie said.
“No, I need you there, running SIA in case we run into trouble. Gather the agents and wait until you hear from me. If I don’t contact you in three days, send in the cavalry.”
“Do you think that’s wise?”
Brent’s expression went cold. He was a blank slate. “This is a squad mission and I will handle it. They will be expecting an army. We will send what they least expect.”
“Which is?”
“Two men.”
“What do I tell the knights?” Joan asked.
“Have them meet us at the coordinates I’m about to send you.”
Maddie wiped her sweaty palms on her skirt. As the screen went black, she whispered, “God speed.”
CHAPTER 59
Q landed the C-130 transport in Pakistan, forty miles south of Peshawar. Brent, Tag and the monks of Khor Virap all wore the traditional clothing of the monastery: robes and sandals. Brent and Tag lagged behind while Brother Gregory and the rest of the brothers disembarked the aircraft.
“I’ve never questioned you before, Colonel, but are you sure about this? A bunch of monks?”
Brent slapped Q on the back. “Don’t judge what you can’t see.”
Tag shook his head. “Great, more riddles.”
Q laughed. “That’s how I’m sure he knows what he’s doing.”
“We will drop off the monks when we meet up with the knights and then Tag and I will backtrack,” Brent said. “We will meet at the designated location at zero two hundred tomorrow. Be ready with the Black Hawk.”
“Done,” Q replied. And then, just like in every mission they had been involved in, Q proceeded to reiterate his portion of the plan back to Brent. “If you don’t show up on time, I will proceed to the coordinates you gave me and hit them with everything I’ve got.”
Brent nodded. “While we’re gone, I need you to do me a couple of favors?”
“Anything, Colonel,” Q said.
“Do you still have the tarp that you used to cover the B1-B in the Saudi oilfield?”
“Yes, sir.”
Brent handed Q a monk’s robe. “Cut me two pieces about this size and have them here when we get back.”
Q smiled. He l
oved the way the colonel’s mind worked.
“What’s the other favor?” Q asked.
Brent handed him the guitar case which contained the Sword of Truth. “I need you to guard this with your life. If something happens, see that it gets to Bishop Jessop. He will know what to do with it.”
Q was about to ask what was with the guitar case but thought better of it. He just took the case and nodded.
Brent turned to leave.
“Oh, by the way,” Q said. “I like the clean shaven look. It’s good to have you back, Colonel.”
Brent placed a blacked out hood over his face, gave his friend a slight head nod and walked off the transport and into the morning sun. He felt the sun’s heat on his face as he stood on the tarmac. It’s good to be back, he thought.
By nightfall, Brent and his men had met up with the knights just below the ridgeline.
Brent knelt on one knee and spread out a map of the Hindu Kush Mountains. He isolated the portion that served as a boundary between Afghanistan and Pakistan and pointed at all of the places where someone could enter Pakistan. “We will have all other points blocked so this will be the only way the Brotherhood will have to escape.”
“How do you intend to block all the other openings? There are many and there are only two of you.”
Brent glanced up at the knight who asked the question. “We have reinforcements coming,” he said.
Tag and Gregory eyed the men and then found each other’s stare. Each knew that the colonel’s words were deceptive; they just weren’t sure why he found it necessary to lie to the knights.
As they searched for an explanation, Brent continued. “The enemy will have no choice but to walk through this pass. I need you to capture them and keep them here until help arrives.” Brent stood and walked around the men. He was glad to see that they all appeared to be battle-tested soldiers. “This is not a kill mission. You are to capture and hold. Do not, I repeat, do not use lethal force unless your life is in danger.” He put his hand on Brother Gregory’s shoulder. “You are all to take your orders from this man.”
