by Marc Cameron
“Don’t you see what they’re doing?” Nelson had stopped his sports talk with the other boys and was now staring. “They’re English bandits-learning how to speak like us. Copying our accents. That’s why they killed Nguyen first. His parents came to the U.S. from Vietnam when he was just a kid so his accent wasn’t perfect enough for them.”
“Way to go,” Kenny sneered. He stood to tower over the younger boy. “Idiot!” He knocked Sam off his cushion with a swift kick to the ribs. “Now they’re on to us.”
Hunt snatched Kenny’s arm, yanking him down to face her. The guards might be able to push her around, but she wasn’t about to let some runty kid get away with it.
“You didn’t have to kick him, you little shit.” Her fingernails dug into the flesh of his arm, drawing blood.
Kenny stared back at her with black pig eyes, breathing softly. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll let go of me… you little shit.”
Karen’s entire body shook with rage. She shoved Kenny away and reached to comfort a crying Sam. He buried his face into her shoulder, sobbing.
Kenny rubbed the nail marks on his arm, and then looked at the other boys. “Come on, guys. That’s enough lessons for the day.” He said. “Let’s go get a Coke. Come on, Sam. Stop being such a baby. You’re not in trouble.”
Sam sat up, nodding at Kenny, unconvinced. “Okay…”
“I’ll tell you what I wished for, Miss Hunt.” His solemn eyes glistened with tears. “I wish… I wish I could save you…”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
The surviving Enfield was cramped riding two-up, but they didn’t have to worry about gear since most of it had been obliterated by the missile. The impact of the Hellfire had knocked the bike over and snapped the clutch lever, forcing Quinn to shift by feel alone. It was something he often did on the track, but the rough terrain made it touchy.
But for Ronnie’s pants, the armored Rev’it riding suits had been blown to bits. The warmth of Ronnie’s body pressed close behind him, unencumbered by heavy clothing, made it doubly difficult to concentrate on the narrow confines of the bumpy path.
He’d just warned her for the fifth time to stop breathing in his ear if she didn’t want him to drive off the mountain when the Kyrgyz encampment appeared in the valley ahead.
After hours of nothing but rock and ice, finding the little congregation of smoky yurts and grazing sheep was like discovering life on the moon.
Nine felt yurts were strung along a small glacial lake in a broad meadow. A handful of snot-nosed kids scampered out to meet them as the motorcycle chuffed into camp with two foreign devils aboard.
A stooped woman wearing a heavy wool sweater and a long skirt ducked out of her yurt to scold the gawking children. She was bent by years of childbearing and heavy lifting. Her face was so smudged with grime and soot that it looked permanently blackened. As soon as Quinn mentioned Gabrielle Deuben’s name, the woman’s eyes brightened and she motioned them inside.
“Ainura,” she said, motioning for her guests to sit on the coarse piles of wool rugs against the wood lattice walls of the felt yurt. Her English was poor-just a few words, apparently taught to her by Gabrielle-but as a child she’d spent enough time in outpost towns that she spoke passable Russian. She bustled around the smoky yurt, preparing tea and bread as she introduced herself and asked for news about her friend, Dr. Gabby.
Quinn recognized the overly sweet, musty-incense scent of opium smoke as the woman gave him a chipped clay mug of tea. She was probably in her late thirties but looked fifty.
Her eyes narrowed, noticing his look. She turned to speak to Ronnie in Russian.
“She says she can tell you still smell the thief.” Ronnie interpreted. Ainura sat on the rug beside them, hands folded quietly on the lap of a colorful, handwoven apron.
“She says her oldest son is addicted to opium,” Ronnie continued. “She told him he could not smoke it in here so he went down the mountain to Sarhad.”
Ainura’s face remained stoic, but her eyes were heavy with the misery of a woman mired in the hopelessness of a land where half of the children die before they reached their fifth birthday.
Quinn took a sip of his salt tea, nodding in genuine thanks. “Dr. Deuben told us of an orphanage somewhere in the mountains…”
The Kyrgyz woman’s green eyes flashed and the words began to spill out of her mouth.
Ronnie translated as she spoke.
“She thought perhaps that is why we were here. There are stories, she says, of soldiers who come in the night. They butcher the men and rape the women in front of the children before taking them away…” Ronnie stopped translating for a moment and spoke in rapid-fire Russian, clarifying a specific point. She shook her head, but the old woman was adamant.
Ronnie looked at Quinn. “She says the soldiers are Americans.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
“Listen to me, Karen,” Lieutenant Nelson said in a voice that made Hunt want to cry. “I’m not much help to you here. I don’t know what the game is with these kids, but it can’t be good. I’m thinking they must be using them to infiltrate American bases or something.” He leaned against the gray stone wall of their little cell. Beads of sweat covered his upper lip. His fever had broken for the time being, but he had some kind of infection. She knew the fever would return soon and with a vengeance.
“Funny.” Nelson gave a rattling chuckle. “I told my best bud back in Montana that I’d die over here.”
Hunt put a finger to his lips. “We’re not dead yet.”
“It won’t be long.” He looked at her with sparkling eyes that belied the hopelessness of his words. “I broke up with my girlfriend before I deployed. Didn’t want her to have to put up with worrying over my sorry ass. Wrote a death letter to my dad and left it with my brother…”
“Shut up with the dying stuff,” Hunt pleaded. “There’s got to be a way out of this. I’m sure of it.”
Nelson let his head fall back against the wall, wincing as the move wrenched at his collarbone. “Karen,” he sighed. “Being sure isn’t the same as being right. I envy your positive attitude, but you heard what they did to Nguyen. I don’t know how far they brought us-and no one back home does either. We’re MIA… very soon to be KIA…”
“Don’t give up,” Hunt said. “I need you to stick with me here.”
“I’m not giving up,” the young lieutenant said. “I’m making a decision about how I go out. I plan to make them kill me quickly and you should too. Steal the joy of cutting my head off while I’m still alive.”
Hunt scooted up beside him, shoulder to shoulder. If she was near death, she wanted a little friendly human contact before her time came. She rested her hand on Nelson’s thigh, hoping it would provide some comfort.
He turned to look at her, smiling for the first time in days. “I’ll tell you one thing-the next one of those little shits that gets close enough, I’m gonna rip his head off.”
Hunt’s laugh was cut short when the metal door flung wide. Five guards filed in and stood along either side. Two carried stiff rubber truncheons.
Nelson gathered himself up in a flash and charged the men head-on. Adrenaline pushed him past the pain of his broken bone.
Following his lead, Hunt rolled sideways, springing for the two men the lieutenant had already engaged.
The crushing blow of a truncheon caught her square in the back of the head. She staggered forward, slamming face-first into the rock wall. Stunned, she watched as two men dragged Nelson to the center of the room, where they dropped him unceremoniously on the rough stone floor.
Before Hunt could make sense of what was happening, rough, stinking men clawed like vises at each arm. The more she kicked and struggled, the tighter they held her. Soon, two more men had her by each ankle. She tried to kick free, but another dose of the rubber truncheon across the bridge of her nose brought waves of nausea and sapped her will to fight. Her head lolled back. Blood poured from her nose.
“
Take me…” Nelson whimpered from where he lay in a heap on the floor. “Please… not her.”
The room spun around Hunt as the men dragged her toward the door. She wanted badly to fight, but was working too hard not to vomit from shock, pain… and what she knew would come next.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Bethesda Naval Hospital Maryland
Jacques Thibodaux crammed himself into the flimsy plastic chair that must have been meant to discourage hospital visitors. He’d already read the stack of Soldier of Fortune and motorcycle magazines at his feet and decided to click through the TV channels on the hardwired controller. It was all mindless game shows and pontificating celebrity judges discussing peoples’ angst-ridden lives. Camille was resting so he kept the volume to a hushed buzz.
In the end it didn’t matter. A male nurse with a blond goatee and green hospital scrubs came in to wake Camille up and see if she was resting properly.
Thibodaux bit his tongue and walked over to gaze out the window.
“You think you’re foolin’ anyone with that vest?” The nurse’s voice surprised him. He should have been taking care of Camille, not quizzing Thibodaux about his clothing.
“Pardon?” He kept his gaze out the window in an effort to keep from getting confrontational. Camille had often said, only half joking, that one of his hateful looks could give a decent person chronic diarrhea.
“The vest,” Nurse Greg said. “I mean, who wears a fisherman’s vest in D.C. unless they’re using it to cover up a weapon? You a cop?”
Thibodaux nodded, still facing away. He could see the nurse’s reflection in the window as he placed a probe in Camille’s ear to check her temperature. “In a word,” he said.
“My dad’s a cop,” Nurse Greg said. “He wears a shoot-me-first vest too. I think you should just wear the gun in the open for everyone to see. I mean what’s the point of wearing a vest where everyone knows you’re a cop?”
“I bet your daddy’s sure enough proud of you,” Thibodaux muttered.
He watched as Camille reached up to touch the nurse on the elbow. Her voice was thick and hoarse from an exhausted sleep. “You should really go before he turns around,” she said. “My husband isn’t much for chitchat about his work with folks he doesn’t know.”
“Nearly done,” the nurse chirped, not taking the hint. “Just need to check your blood pressure.”
Camille coughed, clearing her throat. “Seriously, you need to go. Your being here is raising my blood pressure.”
“Won’t take long,” the nurse said. He picked up her arm to put on the BP cuff.
Camille threw her head back against the pillow. “Jacques,” she sighed. “I have asked this man to leave and he won’t.”
Thibodaux turned slowly to face the wide-eyed Nurse Greg. His jaw flexed, nostrils flared. The muscles in his neck tensed. Moving in close, he put his arm around Nurse Greg, eclipsing him with hulking shoulders. Leaning down he whispered a few words in the man’s ear. Nurse Greg looked up, slack jawed, as if he’d just been slugged. He took one tremulous breath and left the room without even gathering up his kit.
“What did you say to him?” Camille narrowed her eyes.
“Not much.” Thibodaux shrugged. “I told him he was gonna have a hard time picking up all his teeth with broken fingers.”
“My man, the poet.” Camille grinned, but he could tell she was hurting.
“How you doin’, Sugar?” Thibodaux patted the back of his wife’s hand. It was cool and the veins seemed to stand out more than he remembered.
“I’m okay,” she said. “How’s Jericho?”
“Quinn?” Thibodaux cocked his big head to one side. “He’s… on an assignment. Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know,” Camille said. “I just haven’t heard you talk about him much lately. Seemed like you were becoming pretty good friends.”
“We are,” Thibodaux said. “But let’s us worry about you now. The doc says the baby is okay, but you were losing some blood. You’ll need to stay on bed rest for a little bit.”
Camille suddenly sat upright in bed. “The boys! Who’s watching the boys?”
Thibodaux ran hand across his wife’s forehead, easing her back against her pillow. “They’re fine, Sugar.” He shook his head. “Sandy’s with them.”
“Sandy’s just sixteen.” She turned her face away.
Jacques’s mouth hung open. “Honey, Sandy watches the boys all the time. She knows how to handle them.”
He was on the edge of the chair now, leaning over the bed so he could be on her level to console her.
Her hand began to tremble. She looked back at him. A tear ran down her nose.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” she whispered.
Camille spent the next ten minutes recounting what had happened with Lt. Colonel Fargo and the bald man who’d come with him. Thibodaux sat motionless, taking in every awful, heartfelt word. He struggled to remain calm while his wife told him how these men had been looking for Quinn and how they’d bullied her, kicked her in the stomach, and scared his little boys. They were the reason she was even in the hospital.
When she was finished, he stood and walked outside the room to use up his allotment of non-Bible curse words for the next decade.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Fargo slouched in the passenger seat of a green Jeep Cherokee a block up the street from Thibodaux’s house. Bundy sat behind the steering wheel, sipping on a Red Bull and gritting his teeth. They’d lost the suits for khaki slacks and black T-shirts. Bundy’s ugly brown tattoo of a scorpion was now completely visible and appeared to scuttle every time he flexed the tendons on his thick neck.
Fargo found it obvious the man didn’t like him. He hardly spoke unless spoken to and carried out orders with open disdain. The lieutenant colonel assumed it was because he hadn’t actually been to interrogation training himself. He’d heard Echoes were a closed society. Still, they had a job to do and he intended to see it was done correctly. Responsibility could not be delegated, he told himself. And capturing Jericho Quinn was his responsibility.
He pushed from his mind the fact that no one would have been looking for Quinn had he not pressed his uncle to have his name added to Congressman Drake’s list.
“He can’t just have vanished,” he said out loud, hoping to start a conversation with Bundy.
The first sergeant turned to look at him in the darkness of the Jeep but said nothing.
“Did you make the lookouts cover all uniformed branches?” Fargo tried to look stern, like an officer inspecting his troops, but he was pretty sure he just looked dyspeptic. Bundy had a way of tilting his head, just so, that made Fargo cringe.
“All of them,” Bundy whispered, sounding like a bald version of Clint Eastwood. “Including the Girl Scouts.”
“Have you…”
Three black sedans screeched down the street to park in front of Thibodaux’s house. Two men in suits jumped from each vehicle. Four of them, armed with long guns, set up a perimeter around the house while two went to the door.
Fargo threw his binoculars to his eyes and watched as a moment later the men led a teenage girl and six pajama-clad boys out into the waiting sedans. He recognized protective custody when he saw it.
Something inside him felt like it broke and drained away. “Thibodaux knows,” Fargo moaned, swallowing a mouthful of bile. “She told him.”
“Of course she did, sir.” Bundy smirked. “What did you think would happen? This is what we want-shake things up, stir the shit. See what they do.”
“Oh,” Fargo heard himself say. “If Gunny Thibodaux gets his hands on us, I know exactly what he’ll do.”
CHAPTER FIFTY
Karen Hunt, tough-minded paramilitary operative, slumped in the chilly stone room that served as her new cell. She’d been dragged away to face death alone, apart from the man who seemed her last friend on earth. Rocking back and forth, eyes clenched tight, she wondered how long she’d stay conscious whil
e the men outside sawed her head off.
She’d seen videos during training-horrible things, images that wouldn’t leave her mind. There was a time when soldiers and spies had been taught how to hold out as long as they could during torture-to keep from spilling vital information-but now, captives were rarely even interrogated. They were merely dragged in front of a cheap video camera and beheaded. She’d heard Specialist Nguyen’s cries for help, down to his last gurgling whimper. These Jihadi bastards were more interested in a slow and agonizing death than an execution.
The guards had taken all her clothing, literally ripped it from her writhing body while they held her down. She’d thought they were going to kill her right then, but the children hadn’t been allowed in the room and she knew they were supposed to witness such things. Fear gave way to anger as she decided they meant to rape her instead. They did neither, simply taking her clothes and leaving her a thin, white cotton robe. She supposed it was to be her death suit, but took some pride in the fact that it had taken five full-grown Tajik men to restrain her.
Ordinarily, Hunt was a woman of supreme self-confidence. “Virtually unflappable,” her raters at Camp Perry had said. But the hopelessness of her situation, the certainty of violent struggle and a slow and painful death, was an acid test she was not sure she could handle. Her jaw felt slack, her stomach knotted until she could hardly sit up straight. The stark plainness in the stone cell spun around her like a gray cloud, formless and sinister.
“I’m not ready,” she whispered to herself. The thought suddenly made her chuckle. Her face twitched in a pained half smile as tears dripped from the end of her broken nose to the stone below. Who was ready to die? Everyone had future plans, dreams, lists left uncompleted… They saw themselves as the star in the little movie playing inside their head.
