by Bentley, Don
But I was doing nothing of the sort.
The Bible says that the wages of sin is death. But not my death. Instead, my transgressions were borne by the people foolish enough to depend on me. People like Fazil, his family, Laila, Frodo, and now Shaw.
Everyone around me was forced to suffer.
Everyone but me.
The tremors progressed with lightning speed, moving from my fingers to my arms, to my back, to my legs. My entire body was seizing. Maybe this time Einstein’s weapon would finally accomplish its goal. Maybe my time in this soulless purgatory would finally end here, right where it began.
I sagged forward like a sack of bones, unable to hold myself upright.
The unexpected weight surprised Sayid. With a curse, he shifted his grip from my hair to my shoulders, trying to keep my deadweight from bowling him over.
He succeeded.
Mostly.
My torso didn’t crash into him, but my newly freed head thudded against his chest.
For a moment, I let him bear the weight of my despair. He cursed again as my body convulsed, shifting my weight so that my head lolled to one side.
That’s when I saw them.
They were standing together, hand in hand, just behind Sayid. A chubby-cheeked toddler with sparkling eyes and someone else.
The toddler smiled, her tiny fingers waving.
But for the first time, it wasn’t Abir’s face that drew my attention.
It was her mother’s.
Yana didn’t speak. She didn’t have to. Her look spoke volumes. The man who’d raped and brutally killed her was inches from my seizing body.
Maybe God, or Allah, really did work in mysterious ways. Maybe old Jeremiah the shoeshine man had been right when he’d said that I couldn’t go back, because maybe I’d been chasing the wrong thing all along.
In that second, I finally understood something that had eluded me since the day I’d left this country a broken man. Nothing could bring back the moment in which Fazil and his family had been murdered. That instant in time was gone for all eternity. No matter how many evil men I killed or good men I saved, Abir, with her chubby cheeks and gummy smile, would still be just as dead.
But I was alive. And if I had any hope of remaining that way, I needed to do something infinitely harder than rescuing Shaw from the jihadis.
I needed to forgive someone.
Myself.
The tremors stopped.
I gathered my leg beneath me and exploded upward with every bit of my remaining strength. My head speared into Sayid’s chin, snapping his jaw with a satisfying pop as we both toppled to the floor, he on his back, me on his chest.
My hands were bound, my body broken, but my heart was still beating. I was alive, and as long as the Almighty saw fit to let me remain that way, I had work to do.
Surrender is not a Ranger word. . . .
I snapped a vicious headbutt into Sayid’s nose, feeling the cartilage splinter against my forehead. Hot blood splattered across my face, but I wasn’t done.
Not even close.
. . . I will never leave a fallen comrade to fall into the hands of the enemy . . .
Sayid screamed and tried to turn away, brushing his ear against my mouth.
That was a mistake.
I bit down and ripped the rubbery flesh from his head.
And then I went for his throat.
. . . and under no circumstances will I ever embarrass my country.
I bit and chewed and tore and hammered. I didn’t stop. Not when the jihadis holding Shaw tried to pull me from Sayid’s squirming body. Not when the building shook as a breaching charge detonated and concussions from exploding flash bangs scrambled my senses. Not even when the barks of suppressed rifles and the cries of dying men filled the air.
I kept biting and headbutting and smashing my broken body against Sayid’s, screaming my battle cry, until gloved hands ripped me from my enemy, and a voice I recognized broke through my berserker’s rage.
“It’s over, Ranger,” Colonel Fitz screamed in my ear. “Stand down. It’s over.”
Then, and only then, did I stop.
Sayid’s corpse lay on the blood-soaked concrete beneath me, looking as though he’d been set upon by a pack of feral dogs. The sight was horrific, and the fact that I was the feral dog made it doubly so. I should have felt ashamed or at the very least disgusted, but I didn’t. He was dead, and I was alive.
Nothing else mattered.
“The beacon,” I said, turning from Sayid to Colonel Fitz. “I didn’t activate the beacon.”
“Fuck the beacon,” Fitz said, helping me to my feet. “We have the Creed.”
SIXTY-THREE
WASHINGTON, D.C.
SIX HOURS LATER
Peter took another swallow and tried not to grimace as the amber liquid fumigated his nasal passages while scorching its way down his already raw throat. Though he was only halfway through his second tumbler, Peter could already feel the whiskey’s potency. The bar’s once gloomy lighting now seemed soft and inviting, and the brunette in the corner booth, who’d been moderately attractive when he’d first arrived, was looking better with each painful swallow.
“Another?” the bartender said.
“Not just yet,” Peter said, placing his glass gently on the offered coaster. He hated whiskey with a passion, and the bottle of twenty-fifth-anniversary Knob Creek wasn’t doing much to alter his opinion. Still, he’d have one more round before his evening came to a close. Three tumblers of fine whiskey—no more, no less.
Just like that night more than twenty years ago.
“Whaddya think about the election?” the bartender said, gesturing to the silent TV mounted behind the bar.
“I think Gonzales is gonna win,” Peter said, swirling the contents of his glass before taking another sip.
In fact, Peter knew he would. Even his most conservative pollster was predicting a Gonzales victory by better than seven points. Not exactly Reagan territory, but not too shabby all the same.
“Want something else?” the bartender said. “Excuse me for saying so, but whiskey doesn’t seem to be your drink.”
“It’s not. I hate it. But my kid sister developed a taste for it in college. She didn’t go for fruity shots like normal coeds; she loved the expensive stuff. We toasted together before she left with her National Guard unit on her first deployment. She never came back.”
That wasn’t exactly true. Kristen had come back, but her once athletic body had been burned beyond recognition by the IED that had taken her life. Thankfully, Peter hadn’t been the one to identify her remains. That task had fallen to his father. The once joyful man hadn’t uttered so much as a chuckle since.
“Sorry for your loss,” the bartender said, reaching across the scarred oak bar to squeeze Peter’s forearm. “Next one’s on the house.”
“No, thanks,” Peter said. “I’ve got to pay. It was our tradition. I always paid.”
“All right, bud,” the bartender said. “Let me know if you need anything else.”
The man retreated to the cash register, leaving Peter alone with his thoughts, which were rather benign, all things considered. The President had authorized the rescue attempt against Peter’s advice, but for once, the JSOC knuckle draggers had pulled off the operation as advertised. Matt Drake and John Shaw had been rescued, and no American lives had been lost in the process.
In fact, part of the reason President Gonzales was up seven points was a couple of artfully framed tidbits Peter had leaked about the raid to the usual suspects at the Times and the Post. President Gonzales now looked like a man who went to the mat for his men and women in uniform, consequences be damned.
The Russians were pissed, but so far, Putin had been content to publicly shout his indignation while quietly advocating for a return to the
Syrian status quo. During their single terse phone call, President Gonzales had threatened to release footage of the Flanker firing on the two American helicopters in response to Putin’s bullying.
For once, the Russian strongman had blinked.
No, things might not have gone the way Peter had wanted, but all in all, he wasn’t in a bad position. Beverly was still on her way out, and she would exit on Peter’s terms, thanks to the e-mail Charles had provided. Peter had scores to settle with Generals Beighley and Etzel, along with several misfits from the DIA, but the national security team would be infinitely easier to manage once Charles was sworn in as the new CIA Director. As Peter had always said, if Jorge Gonzales won a second term, anything was possible, and that if was becoming more of a when with each tick of the clock.
“Buy you a drink?”
Peter looked up from his whiskey to see the brunette from the corner booth standing by his shoulder. He rotated his glass on its coaster as he pondered her offer before slowly shaking his head.
The next day was the Tuesday following the first Monday in November. In other words, Election Day. Jorge might have this one in the bag, but Peter wasn’t ready to let down his guard. Not yet, anyway. But in twenty-four hours, Peter would be in a much different frame of mind.
“Rain check?” Peter said, his eyes drifting from the brunette’s face to the hint of cleavage offered by her lacy scoop-neck blouse.
“Sure,” the woman said, leaning in so that her warm breath caressed Peter’s ear. “Give me a call.”
She slid a folded cocktail napkin into his hand and then left without another word.
Peter took another sip while watching the brunette slip out the door, alcohol-induced warmth spreading through his body as he thought about what the next twenty-four hours might bring.
Things were definitely looking up.
Peter lingered in a blissful state of equal parts intoxication and arousal for the next three seconds, which was exactly how long it took for him to unfold the note the woman had slipped him. Expecting to find a cell phone number written in a woman’s distinct hand, Peter saw something else instead. Two words. Two words that had the power to change his life.
Unconditional Gratitude.
Peter coughed as the whiskey came racing back up his throat. As he sat at the bar, trying not to choke, he had just one thought.
Russian strongmen never blink.
EPILOGUE
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
You sure you don’t want me to come with you?”
“Yes,” I said, looking from the two-story brick house at the end of the cul-de-sac to the woman sitting in the passenger seat next to me. I’d never realized how much I’d taken for granted the simple luxury of looking at my wife’s beautiful face. Now that her features didn’t spontaneously morph into those of a dead Syrian woman, I found myself staring at Laila every time she caught my eye.
Okay, so the staring usually progressed to something else fairly quickly, but the simple act of meeting her gaze without flinching made me smile. In fact, the happiness I felt just from knowing that she was here brought with it a sense of lingering guilt. All might be well in my world, but the woman who lived in the house at the end of this street was in quite a different place.
Her world had shattered.
“You don’t need to do this,” Laila said, reaching across the car to take my hand. “You’ve done enough already.”
I squeezed my wife’s hand, but I didn’t answer.
Though I knew she hadn’t meant it, Laila’s words were an indictment all the same. If I’d truly done enough, the two of us wouldn’t be sitting in a rented car parked on a quiet residential street in suburban Chicago. After eight weeks, I now understood most of what had happened in Syria, but not everything.
I did know that Colonel Fitz and his men had made good on their promise. They’d rescued Shaw and me, and shortly after our evac, a pair of well-placed thousand-pound Joint Direct Attack Munitions, dropped from a B-2 stealth bomber, had razed the chemical weapons laboratory to its foundation. Einstein’s creation had been destroyed, and the ISIS splinter cell was no more.
But not everything had been wrapped up with such a tidy bow. Mr. Suave had been nowhere to be found when Fitz’s assaulters stormed the building, and I still didn’t understand the linkage between Sayid, the ISIS splinter cell, Mr. Suave, and Charles. Even so, at this point, I no longer cared.
Once again, I’d returned from Syria with a broken body, but this time, something in my spirit had mended. After I’d landed at Andrews Air Force Base, James, Frodo, and Laila had met me planeside. I’d hugged Frodo, kissed Laila, and told James that my employment with the Defense Intelligence Agency was over.
For once, James Glass, night terror to Islamic jihadis everywhere, had accepted my proclamation without argument. Or at least he hadn’t bothered to contest my decision at that particular moment. Knowing James, this war was far from over, even if the first skirmish had ended in my favor.
Over the next eight weeks, I’d played a lot of guitar as my body had slowly healed, but I’d also spent quite a bit of time doing Internet research. I might have even asked Frodo for help a time or two when my conventional search methods ran into the proverbial brick wall. Coincidentally, or perhaps not, Frodo had hit pay dirt right about the time I’d felt well enough to undertake this pilgrimage to Chicago. After two long months, I was here, putting my detective work to use.
Now I needed to finish what I’d started that Friday morning in Austin.
“I’ll just be a minute,” I said to Laila, opening the car door and shuffling to my feet.
The worst of my injuries had subsided. A series of CAT scans and MRIs had confirmed what Mr. Suave had told me moments before he’d vanished. I had been exposed to an early variant of the chemical weapon, but the damage to my brain was not incapacitating and might not even be permanent. It was still too early to tell, but the military doctor likened my symptoms to those of an autoimmune disease like multiple sclerosis. I was currently in remission but was still susceptible to flare-ups. He advised me to avoid situations that could generate extreme emotional or physical stress.
I advised him to mind his own damn business.
My external injuries were faring better. My nose finally looked normal, my sprained wrist was functional, and the gunshot wound to my leg no longer leaked blood. Most of the bruising across my body had faded, but my lower back still ached like a son of a bitch from when an assortment of jihadis had tried to kick the living shit out of me. At least my ankle had healed. Sort of. I could walk without crutches, but it wasn’t much of a walk. More a drunken shuffle than a self-assured stride, but I felt confident that my recovery had progressed enough that I should be able to traverse the relatively flat driveway and single porch step separating me from my goal.
My reluctance to come earlier had had nothing to do with embarrassment over my injuries. It was more of a sense of what I should look like when I brought the final Syrian chapter to a close. For the same reason a military casualty officer wears his dress uniform to make a death notification to a fallen service member’s next of kin, I felt that my appearance needed to be such that it didn’t detract from the message. The woman I was coming to see deserved my sympathy.
I didn’t merit hers.
“Baby?” Laila said, leaning across the car seat.
“I’ll be right back,” I said, and gently closed the door.
I turned to the house and made it halfway up the driveway before realizing that I might have bitten off more than I could chew. The overcast sky signaled a gathering storm, and the Windy City was living up to its name. White-hot jolts of pain shot from my still-healing ankle as icy gusts buffeted me.
I gritted my teeth and made it through the first stanza of the Ranger Creed before I finally arrived at the porch. Just short of my goal, I paused to catch my breath and swayed on my feet
as sweat poured down my face despite the frigid temperature. I’d had ample time to imagine how this encounter might go as I’d waited for my ankle to knit. This definitely wasn’t how I’d pictured things.
Then again, no plan ever survives first contact with the enemy.
Grabbing hold of the sturdy wooden railing at the edge of the porch, I pulled myself up and summited the single step. With a shaking finger, I rang the doorbell.
A minute passed, maybe two, just long enough for me to consider how stupid I was going to feel if I had to waddle all the way back to the car, when the door opened. A pretty Pakistani woman looked back at me.
She was about ten years older than I, and her black hair fell past her shoulders in shimmering waves. Her dark eyes were arresting, and I had a feeling that when she smiled, she still stopped men half her age in their tracks.
But I also knew that her smile would never be the same again.
“Yes?” she said, her accent slight but present.
“Ms. Farooqi?” I said.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Matt,” I said. “I’m here because of your son.”
Her smooth face transformed into hard, angry lines as her eyes flashed. “I’ve told you people everything I know. Still you come back. Are you a reporter? From the State Department? FBI? Leave us alone.”
She tried to slam the door, but a gust of wind smashed into the doorframe. She staggered under the unexpected onslaught, and the door stayed open for a moment longer.
But a moment was all I needed.
“Wait. I’m sorry,” I said, reaching across the void separating us to touch her arm. “I’m not one of them. I was with your son. When he died.”
