by Ronie Kendig
Empty casket. All for the benefit of the media, friends, and family.
“I saw your mom sobbing in your dad’s arms beneath that canopy.” Cell scooted forward a step, his shoulders squared. “I actually felt sorry for you—for two. Whole. Seconds!” He touched his temples. “That is, until the vultures asked if I had killed you. Or if Maangi or Ram had! Your friends, your teammates.”
“Where were you?” Ram’s voice was ridiculously calm in light of Cell’s tirade.
Tox glanced around the woods and the backyards of the condos, uncomfortable with having this conversation in the open. Or at all. He could lose everything.
“Were you bought?”
A lightning strike to his heart would’ve shocked less. “Bought?”
Ram remained unbending. “Yes—did you do something to get off, get away?”
That strike hit very close to home. He had been bought. But the price had been for his men. Tox had wondered many times on the cliff overlooking the plains if it’d been for himself, too—to ease his guilty conscience.
“We are drawing attention” came Chiji’s gravelly voice.
“Just answer the question,” Cell said. “Did you get off scot-free because you were bought?”
“Nothing is free. And if you think anyone walks away untouched from a situation like Kafr al-Ayn, you’ve been brainwashed.” Tox hoped it’d be enough to end this conversation permanently.
“Where have you been?” Cell demanded. “Why didn’t you do something?”
“He was with me,” Chiji said, moving to Tox’s side. “I have no brother closer than Ndidi.”
“Ndidi?”
“It’s the name his mother gave me,” Tox said, biting off the rest of that story.
“He was dying when I brought him home.” Chiji was more loyal than a pit bull. “I brought the doctor. God brought life back to Ndidi.”
“God?” Cell snorted. “I don’t care, man, if you need that to get you through a day or whatever, but this . . .” He refocused on Tox. “This is whacked.” He tapped Tox’s chest. “You weren’t there. If you were alive, why didn’t you speak up? How could you leave us to the wolves? We broke orders to find you after you broke orders.” His voice grew hoarse. “We hauled your sorry carcass out of that tunnel, flames burning us.” He held up a marred hand. “And what—what do we get? Accused! Court-martialed—then not”—confusion knotted his brow—“for whatever reason. But we’re out. On our butts. No amount of pleading allowed us to stay in.”
Tox remembered. The flames, yes. The crushing collapse of the tunnel, yes. The hallucination of the man standing over him and calling to him just as the team broke through to save him from suffocation. He’d gone in to save the president. Got him out alive, only to have Montrose die trying to save him. “I remember.”
“Good. Because that’s us—we don’t leave a brother behind. We learned that from you.” He snorted again. “Or maybe not.”
Tox ground his molars, refusing to violate the gag order they’d placed him under.
“This man . . .” Chiji motioned to Tox as he stepped closer. “You worked with him, no?”
“No—yes.” Cell blinked. “Yes, we worked with him. We were a team. A unit. And he left us to hang.”
“How long?” Chiji asked.
“What?”
“How long were you with him?”
“Five years,” Cell growled. “Ram six.”
“And in that time, did you go on missions with Ndidi leading, trusting him with your life?” Chiji’s game plan was simple. But it wouldn’t matter.
Tox shook his head. “Chiji—”
A large palm nearly touched Tox’s nose, silencing him. “Maybe my question is too hard.” Chiji’s nostrils flared. “Did—”
“I know what you’re doing.” Cell scowled.
Chiji leaned in. “Then you also know what I am saying.” He paused, meeting each man’s gaze. “Ndidi is the most loyal of men I have ever met. You followed him into war, you trusted his orders . . . yet you accuse him of this thing.”
“Because he left us.”
Seeing the bulge in his Igbo brother’s eyes, Tox stepped in. “Chiji, it’s okay. I get it. And . . . they’re right.”
“But the mission—”
“Doesn’t matter.” Tox’s phone rang.
“Just tell us,” Cell insisted. “How’d they buy you? What’d you do?”
He considered the wiry comms specialist, the man who’d never been afraid to speak his mind. “I can’t, Purcell. I can’t talk about it.” The phone buzzed again, seemingly feeding off the agitation infecting the air. He glanced at the screen, noted the 202 area code, and answered. “Russell.”
“Did you find your team?” Attaway wouldn’t know pleasantries if they bit him in the face.
He refused to look at the men. “Yeah.”
“Good. We need you airborne ASAP. Sending flight info to your phone. Get moving.”
12
— Day 7 —
Wheeler-Sack Army Air Field, Fort Drum, New York
Armed with a duffel, tac gear, and kit, Tox stalked across the hangar at Wheeler-Sack Air Field. The attempt to recruit his team had failed. He’d expected questions but not the anger. Only Chiji walked the line with him now.
Commander MacIver waited just outside the steel and aluminum structure. “Where’s your team?”
“This is it.” Tox tightened his grip on his ruck and nodded to a C-17 Globemaster fueling on the tarmac. “That our ride?”
“Yeah.” MacIver was built like an Abrams tank. He had the height, the brawn—and the brains, if his rank was a tell. “We’ll need to recruit five or six operators.”
Tox stretched his jaw, annoyed it’d come to this. He needed guys he trusted. Not strangers.
“Some good candidates in SOCOM and DEVGRU.” MacIver lifted a finger as he reached for his phone, the screen lit. He plugged his left ear and strolled further inside the hangar, away from the whining of engines. A call from Command, no doubt. There was a day that would’ve come to Tox, not his babysitter.
Chiji glided toward him, his long legs giving his stride a stealthy feel. The Nigerian knew how to do that, too. He’d come up on Tox’s six many times with very little noise, sometimes none at all. A veritable ghost out of the darkness. Even in broad daylight. His friend stood at his side without a word, but there was much said in his expression. He’d always had a way with probing gazes.
Or maybe that was Tox’s guilty conscience contrasted with the serenity that sat on the planes of Chiji’s ebony face like a morning sunrise. He exuded a peace that drew Tox in. His antithesis. They could read each other well and often, so much that even now he saw Chiji’s concern. It’d upset his Igbo brother to see how the men reacted. Tox huffed. It upset him, too.
Trying to warn off the coming lecture, he shook his head.
“‘He will fight for you,’” Chiji said, quoting Scripture again.
That one Tox had heard a thousand times sitting in the blazing heat of Nigeria. “Well, this is one He will have to fight because there’s nothing I can say.”
“You did not tell them the truth, Ndidi. Not the whole truth.”
“Can’t.” He’d told Chiji, but only because he’d never expected to set foot on American soil again. That’d been the deal with Attaway.
But he couldn’t argue the disappointment coursing through him. The men really believed he’d left them high and dry. That he had so little honor, so little character, he’d willingly leave a man behind.
A stern wall of six-foot-four insistence pressed him.
If they believed that of him, then how could he ever explain the truth? Besides . . . “I spill my guts—” They both knew if he talked, he’d be in a cement cell for the rest of his life—or an oak coffin, depending on which route Uncle Sam took to silence him. “Why didn’t they just leave me alone?” he muttered.
“Hey,” MacI hollered above the airfield din. “Thought your boys weren’t coming.”<
br />
“Opted out,” Tox called back.
MacI pointed behind Tox.
Across the field, a Jeep rolled to a stop beneath the stark stadium lights and disemboweled itself of four men. Thor, Maangi, Ram, and even Cell strode toward the hangar.
Reading their faces gave him no pleasure. They’d come out of obligation.
At least they were here. The only way he’d face this nightmare of a bus Attaway had thrown him under. Tox nodded, accepting their sacrifice. He extended a hand to each and clapped their shoulders, thanking them for coming.
“Load up!” MacI yelled, pointing to the jet.
“And who are you?” A dark line drew across Cell’s tanned brow.
“Tour guide. Let’s go, ladies.” MacI didn’t miss a beat before stalking out onto the tarmac with a ruck and weapons.
Cell and Maangi glanced to Ram. The Israeli-American turned to Tox, who answered by heading to the jet.
MacIver gave them orders. The team looked to Ram.
Why am I here?
****
From inside the Globemaster, Kasey had watched the team reunion. It hadn’t been hard to see Cole’s complete disappointment when he’d showed up without his team. The tall Nigerian at his side seemed to anchor Cole, provide a means of support in a stormy life. The two only talked once, but even as they waited, Cole stayed close to him. A safety zone. Buffer. He trusted the Nigerian. Implicitly.
She envied that.
“Makes you wonder,” Levi muttered—loud enough over the din to be heard, but not by everyone.
“What?” she asked to the side, not taking her gaze off the team that grouped up around Cole.
She selected one face to watch, waiting for a micro-expression, a leak of concealed emotion, to give away his thoughts. The shorter, stockier man squinted, brows pulled down, and lips thinned for a fraction of a second before clearing. He stepped forward and offered his hand to Cole, then clasped it with both of his.
One by one, each man came forward and repeated the two-handed shake.
“They don’t trust him.”
“No, they’re angry with him,” Kasey said. “They wouldn’t be here if they didn’t trust him.”
He gave her a quizzical look.
“What? I’m the deception expert, remember? I read body language, actions . . . what’s not said more than what’s said.”
“Sometimes I think we’re watching two different versions of the same life.” Levi nodded to the tarmac. “Here they come.”
Jitters in her belly, Kasey made her way to a seat with its orange harness. She had no idea how Cole would respond to her presence or that the DoD had attached her and Levi to the team to expedite transmission of information. She’d bullied her way into this, but it served two purposes: more oversight and an additional set of eyes. Of course, she knew Hamer—and even Galen—wanted feedback on Cole, though it hadn’t been said quite so directly. But Kasey’s hope was that Cole would see her as a friend. Allow her to help.
The steel beast thrummed beneath the powerful engines, yet the additional thudding steps of the team as they climbed the ramp into the belly proved noticeable. This wasn’t foreign terrain to them. It was home. She saw it in the way they hiked up the rear door.
Cole spotted her immediately, though she sat near the front and across from the modularized office installed for their trip. Wariness crowded his terse expression.
As the men took seats, they openly studied her and Levi. Curiosity ran rampant. Maybe even a little annoyance sparked as they parked themselves in the first few rows spanning the middle of the aircraft.
But then Cole came over. Stomach knotting, Kasey hated the heat that climbed into her face.
Cole glanced at Levi. “Wallace?”
“Yeah?”
“Your brother—”
“Was on that mission.” Levi’s gaze hardened.
Cole nodded. Then went to his seat. Not a word to her.
Disappointment held Kasey fast. But what could she expect? After all, she probably represented the evil overlords forcing him back into service. She glanced at Levi and found his eyes already closed, head against the vinyl rest mounted to the interior hull of the transport jet.
Ten minutes later they were airborne and leveling off. Commander MacIver freed himself, gave her and Levi a nod, then strode into the modularized room in front of the guys’ seats. Kasey unbuckled and followed Levi and the commander, noting in her periphery that Cole and his team came to their feet as well.
She’d barely entered when she felt his presence behind her. He trailed her closely. Made her insides squirm.
“MacIver,” Cole boomed, “didn’t know we’d have company.”
The commander nodded to her and Levi. “They’re sent from the top.”
“So,” Tox said, his elbow nearly in her face as he stared at MacIver, “Galen.”
It wasn’t that he was crowding her—the modularized unit was small. Cramped. They were like the proverbial sardines in a tin can. The portable’s door shut, cutting off a considerable amount of noise. Kasey stretched her jaw to clear her plugged ears.
“They’re assigned and that’s it,” MacIver said. “Let’s get on with things.”
“Hold up.”
Kasey eyed the wiry, intense man who stood her five-seven height and had light brown hair. They’d called him Cell?
“Why are they here?”
“More babysitters,” Ram muttered.
Kasey wished she couldn’t hear as clearly in here. “We’re here as consultants.”
“Consultants.” Cell’s expression was flat. “Yeah, that’s not working for me.”
“Agent Cortes has a specialty in deception detection,” Cole said, his gaze never meeting hers. “Could be useful.”
“I’m sorry,” Cell said, “but I don’t think we have to worry about these terrorists deceiving us.”
“Why?” Levi asked, his defensiveness thick.
“Because they’ll be shooting at us with AK-47s,” Cell growled. “Miss Consultant, just so you are up to speed on combat, if someone aims a gun at you and says he’s going to kill you, he’s not lying.”
Cole straightened. “Hey. Dial it back.”
A trickle of warmth shot up Kasey’s spine. “Lying and deception aren’t the same thing.”
All eyes locked onto her. Even Cole this time. He nodded with a near-smile.
Kasey took it as encouragement. “A lie is a deliberate, made-up untruth. Most people don’t lie.” She noted several shift in the group. “Most people deceive. They give half-truths.”
“You know, we were a good team without you and Superman there,” Cell said. “I don’t see why we need anyone else.” He turned to Tox. “They just mean more people to look after. This isn’t a good idea, you know?”
Kasey tilted her head. “This is personal to you.”
“Heck yeah, it’s personal.” Cell gave a curt nod. Then hesitated. “Wait. What do you mean?” He frowned. “Why’s it personal?”
“You tell me.”
“No.” Cell shifted, hands sliding into his pockets. “I mean—why’d you say it’s personal?”
Glad to showcase her skills, Kasey explained. “Your use of ‘you know’ twice in a short defense of why I shouldn’t be on this team says it’s personal.” She squinted at him. “Something made you protective, angrily protective of it.”
Skating a glance to Cole, Cell drifted aside, acting as if she had read his palm or something.
“We done?” Cole looked between them. “MacIver, what do you have?”
****
MacIver spread field maps and intel across the table.
“Who’s in charge of this mission?” Ram scanned the documents, files, and laptop monitors, then looked at Tox and MacI. He pulled out his smartphone, the screen glowing, but slid it back into his pocket without answering. Maybe a text message?
“Technically, the DoD.” MacIver either didn’t hear Ram’s annoyance or chose to ignore it. Probab
ly the latter. “In field, that’d be me. Tactically, you answer to Russell.”
“Tactically?” Ram frowned, studying a document on the table. “Too many fingers in the C-4.”
MacIver removed the document, glowering.
“Why do we need babysitters again?” Cell wasn’t letting go of this. The conversation would run in circles for hours. Unless Tox nipped it.
“It’s me.” He pressed his fingertips to the table, staring at each man individually. “They’re monitoring me.”
“Because we aren’t the only ones afraid you’ll vanish again?”
Tox tried to conceal the wound Cell’s dagger-sharp words left but failed. He clenched his jaw. “We need to get past this. Understand”—he tapped his fingers against the table—“I was forced to leave the country.”
“So they could make everyone believe you were dead.”
Nod, just nod. Attaway had made sure Tox knew he was six feet under as far as everyone on U.S. soil was concerned. “I can’t give details on what happened. But now? I’m here. You’re here. An assassin just killed a former vice president and the SOCOM commander. They need this shooter dead. They tapped us.”
“Yeah, but see? That’s not making a lot of sense,” Cell said. “There are any number of black baggers around the globe, some much closer than we were. So why us?”
“Because I’m expendable.”
“But I’m not,” Cell countered, scowling. “I got family, friends.”
“You got friends?” Maangi snickered.
“Then why are you here?” The feminine voice was soft but strong. Agent Cortes stepped into his team, crossing a line she didn’t see or know about.
“You—”
“Hey—” Tox spoke at the same time as Cell, but then both fell silent, and Cortes filled the gap.
“Point as many fingers as you like at as many people as you want, Mr. Purcell, but you’re here.” Color stained her cheeks. Anger? Embarrassment? “Your choice. Nobody held a gun to your head.”
Tox reached toward her, needing to quiet her. This wouldn’t help. This would only make things worse, getting defended by someone who hadn’t been there. Someone he hadn’t hurt—yet.
