Eight Years: A Novel (Trident Trilogy: Book One)

by Donna Schwartze

  “You told me her name was Marie. What was her last name?”

  “Miller. Marie Miller.” Mack was more prepared with an answer this time. He had already looked in the New York State obituaries. There were hundreds of Marie Millers listed. If Millie ever went searching for clues about her mom, that would at least slow her down for a while.

  “Do you have any pictures of her?”

  “No, and I wish I did. When I got to New York, you were already in a foster home. I was just concentrated on getting you home. I didn’t even take time to try to find her friends. I didn’t know any of them.”

  “Why are you telling me all this now?”

  “Because I want you to know that I respected your mom,” Mack said. “I liked her, and if we had had more time together, I might have even loved her. It wasn’t a one-night stand. She was way too precious for that. I’m telling you this now because I want you to know you are way too precious to be disrespected in any way by anyone, especially by men. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. And, you shouldn’t do anything that you’re uncomfortable with.”

  “Dad, I haven’t had sex yet. You can take a deep breath,” Millie said, patting Mack’s arm.

  Mack took a minute to take that breath. “Was this boy, this Rob kid, trying to force you?”

  “Not force. I mean, that’s why I broke up with him because he wanted to have sex, and I didn’t want to but he wasn’t trying to force me.”

  “Millie, if a guy ever tries to force you to do anything you don’t want to do, I don’t care how old you are,” Mack said, pausing to let the anger from the mere thought of it subside slightly. “Well, first, you tell me, so I can kill him, and then you break up with him.”

  “Do you think it might make more sense for me to break up with him first, and then you kill him?” Millie said, laughing.

  “Not necessarily. Either way, he’s going to die,” Mack said. “And, I still think you should carry a gun.”

  “I don’t need a gun, Dad. I don’t want one. We’ve talked about that.”

  “Well, we can keep talking about that, but I definitely think you should consider it. You handle guns as well as I did at your age. I would trust you with one.”

  “Dad,” Millie sighed dramatically.

  “And, Millie, if I’m ever not around, I want you to know you have a family outside of Camille. All my teammates, my brothers, will take care of you if I can’t.”

  “What do you mean if you’re not around? Are you going somewhere?” Millie asked, concerned.

  Mack could tell he’d gone too far. “No, sweetie. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll always be here for you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Millie

  Hindu Kush Mountains, Afghanistan

  2019

  Thankfully, I’ve had almost no time to think about the way Mason and I left things at the bar. I had barely gotten back to my hotel room last night when I had a call from my counterpart in Afghanistan. He told me that the Air Force thought they’d found Haroun Hadzic’s house. They located a shack, half built into the mountain, in the area Petrovic described to me. One of our Afghan agents confirmed with the locals that the man living there is called Hadzic.

  So, this morning, we’re already wheels up to Afghanistan to pay Haroun Hadzic a visit. After much deliberation, I finally convinced Culver I need to go with the team to interview Hadzic at his house. The intel suggests he’s incapacitated. The locals told our agent he is very sick, and he can no longer walk very well.

  Mason, and really all of the team, does not want me on the mission, and I can understand why. But, I finally convinced Culver that Hadzic won’t make the trip up the mountain to the extraction helicopter even if he were being carried. To be honest, I don’t much want to go on the mission. I mean, I’m in good shape, and I can shoot a gun, but these guys are fighting machines, and I don’t want to get in their way. But Hadzic is the closest I have ever been to Sayid Custovic, and I’m not willing to risk him dying in transit back to the base.

  The team is starting to gear up, so I head over to them to get ready, although I don’t really know what that means.

  “Should I carry a gun?” I say as I approach them.

  All the guys start laughing, shaking their heads.

  “No,” Mason says firmly. “No.”

  This is the first time he’s looked at me directly today, and he has absolutely none of the gentleness in his eyes that I saw last night.

  “I know how to handle a gun. I’m a pretty decent shot.”

  “You’re a good shot on the firing range, Millie. It’s different,” JJ says without looking up at me.

  Mason looks at me to see if I’m going to drop it. The expression on my face must say no. He walks over to me staring at me intensely.

  “Have you ever shot someone?”

  No. I’ve never even pointed a gun at someone.

  He reads my mind. “That’s why you don’t get a gun.”

  “But, if something happens.”

  He cuts me off. “You see this gun?” He gestures forcefully toward his pistol. “We all have them. If every one of us dies on this mission, and you’re still living, then you have my permission to take one of our guns and shoot the hell out of anyone and everyone you see, but while any of us are still living, you don’t touch a gun. You got that?”

  “Yes, sir,” I reply, looking for any of that humor I’ve become accustomed to seeing in his face. None of it is there.

  “Don’t call me sir,” he says brusquely. “Mouse, get her in her vest and helmet.”

  Mouse walks over and pulls me away. He fastens my vest around me and tightens the straps. I feel like a little kid being dressed for school. I grab my helmet and start to put it on. Mouse intercepts and starts securing for me.

  “It’s important that you get the gear on the right way or it’s not going to do you any good. Let me do it for you. It takes a while to get a hang of this stuff.” Mouse is smiling sweetly, like he’s tying my ice skates for me before we head out for a day on the pond.

  “I don’t get night-vision goggles?” I ask quietly, noticing that my helmet is the only one without them.

  “It takes a while to figure out the goggles. You’ll be in between two of us. Just do what we do, go where we go. You’ll be fine.”

  The pilot announces the landing. We buckle in. The minute the wheels hit the ground, the guys are up, heading toward the cargo door. I guess I’m supposed to do that, too. So, I head that way, struggling to keep my balance as the pilot brakes the plane hard. The guys are standing so easily, it looks like they’re just casually riding a wave into the beach. The cargo door opens. The guys start heading down the ramp. I feel someone pushing me from behind. It’s Bryce. He’s not looking at me. Just pushing me. I start running down the ramp to keep up with their monster strides.

  The helicopter is there, blades turning, ready to take off. The guys start piling in. Someone lifts me up from behind and basically throws me to Hawk, who grabs my vest and pulls me through the guys until I’m sitting safely in the middle of the helicopter. The guys are sitting with their backs to me, legs dangling out the open doors with their guns at the ready. I feel like a little baby sitting in the middle of Redwood National Forest.

  The helicopter lifts off and starts weaving its way through the mountains. I’m pretty strong for my size, but I’m having a problem just sitting upright when the pilot starts swerving through the passes. The guys are just sitting there, hanging half-way out of the helicopter, looking like they’re taking a Sunday drive. Well, if you wore full assault gear on a Sunday drive. The pilot does some crazy landing, and with the skids barely touching the ground, someone pulls me off. The guys are on full alert now. Everything’s quiet except the sound of the helicopter flying away in the background.

  Mason comes over to me and gets down in m
y face. “You’re between Hawk and Mouse. Do exactly what they do. They stop. You stop. They squat down. You squat down. Don’t talk, and keep up.”

  I haven’t seen his face look like that before. I just nod. We fall out into a half run. Mouse taps me as he starts, and I follow. We start descending. It’s rocky and slippery. I’m looking side to side to get my bearings. I can’t see anything.

  Hawk stills my head with one hand. “Forward,” he commands, and I obey.

  I just focus on Mouse’s back. When it slows down, I slow down. When it speeds up, I speed up. It starts to feel more routine as we progress. We stop a few times. They look around. I don’t. I’m just focused on Mouse’s back. In what seems like a half an hour or so, we come to a full stop. The guys are spread out, looking over a ridge. Hawk pushes me down by his feet. I stay there. They’re all looking through their scopes, scanning back and forth.

  “Bryce, Butch, go,” Mason orders.

  They spring up, and disappear around the ridge. Hawk has me pressed up against the ridge with his leg, so I’m not going anywhere. I just stay quiet and listen. I don’t hear anything, not even Bryce and Butch moving. It’s just dead silent.

  After a few minutes, I hear Mason say, “Roger that. We’re headed that way.”

  Hawk’s leg releases me, and he pulls me up. I guess we’re moving again. I see Mouse move, and I follow. We wind down the path for a few more minutes. I don’t even see the house until we’re right on top of it. Well, it’s really not a house. It’s more like a cave. Mason grabs me and pulls me toward the front door. Mouse and Hawk stay outside. I enter to see Bryce and Butch standing with an old man seated on a chair in between them. There’s an empty chair facing the old man. I guess it’s my time to work.

  “You’ve got ten minutes,” Mason says as I sit down.

  The man’s eyes are just barely visible on his unbelievably wrinkled face. I’m not sure he’s even alive until he spits at me.

  Butch slaps the back of his head. “Show some manners, old man.”

  “Butch.” I shake my head at him, and he straightens up.

  “Mr. Hadzic, we don’t have much time,” I say in Bosnian. “So, I’ll get right to it. I know your son, Yusef, works for Sayid Custovic. And, I know Yusef visits you here periodically. I know where your daughters live in Sarajevo. I know where your grandchildren go to school. All I need to know from you is where I can find Yusef when he’s not visiting you. And then we’ll leave you here.”

  He spits at me again. Or at least tries to. He’s so damn old. I don’t even know if he has any saliva left. Butch wants to back-hand him again. I shoot him a side eye, and he pulls his hand back.

  “I saw your granddaughter playing last week at school. What is she, about eight now? Have you seen her lately? She’s very pretty. She looks just like her mother. I guess they can’t really get out here to see their grandfather though. Too bad. I’m going to see them soon. I’ll tell them hi if you want me to.”

  He tries to lean toward me and almost falls out of the chair. Bryce grabs his shoulder and pulls him back into the chair a little too hard.

  “Tell me where I can find Yusef or I’ll have these men take your daughters in and ask them where he is. Believe me you don’t want these men touching your daughters.”

  He squints so severely that it looks like his face is melting.

  “I don’t know where my son is. Yusef is dead to me,” he finally manages to say.

  “Really? Because we know he moved you here. I’m guessing at your request. You always were a supporter of the radicals. You just need to be close to the action, right? I mean, you can’t walk anymore, so you can’t really be in the fight, but I’m sure you get your fix when Yusef visits and tells you all about the Americans he’s killing.”

  “You are a whore,” he says in very broken English, pronouncing whore as “who-ruh.”

  “Yes, I am,” I reply in English. “I fucked all of these men to get them to bring me here, and I’m going to do it again when we leave.”

  Well, at least I know Bryce and Butch are paying attention now.

  “Tell me where I can find Yusef,” I continue in Bosnian. “Or I will have these men drag you up that mountain, and you will come back to the United States with us, where you will die in the land of the whores.”

  He blinks. I think it is the first time he has blinked this entire conversation. Again, I wasn’t even sure his eyelids were working, but he blinked. He’s done. I don’t know if he really believes we’re going to drag his old ass up that mountain, but he’s not going to take the chance.

  I stand up and look at Butch. “Grab him,” I say in Bosnian, knowing that Butch can’t understand me. “He’s coming back to the US with us.”

  “Wait,” the old man says immediately.

  I take a step closer to him. He cringes at the whore standing so close to him.

  “I don’t know where he lives. He never says. But, he goes back to Sarajevo every month or so. I believe he’s there now.”

  “When was Yusef last here?”

  “He was just here a few days ago.”

  I look around the room. I see a few pieces of fruit and bread on the counter. They look fairly fresh. He’s probably telling the truth.

  I look at Mason across the room. “We’re done,” I say as I walk toward him.

  “What do you want us to do about him?” Mason asks.

  “Well, he can’t walk, so he’s not going to tell anyone until Yusef visits next, and hopefully, we’ll have Yusef by then. And, he probably doesn’t have a phone.”

  “No phone,” Bryce says from behind me.

  Of course, they cleared and searched the room before I got here. I forget how thorough these guys are.

  “So, we just leave him?” Mason says.

  “We just leave him.”

  As I walk away, the old man says in Bosnian, “You look just like her. She was a whore, too.” I try to recover quickly, but he can see that he surprised me, and that makes him smile.

  “You will burn in hell just like she did,” he says.

  I turn around toward the door, a knot forming rapidly in my stomach. “Probably,” I say without looking back. “I’ll see you there.”

  I need to collect my thoughts for a second, but we start immediately back up the mountain. Of course, we do. Can’t take a break or anything. We’re doing double time up the mountain. My quads are sore, and I’m so thirsty, but Mouse’s back is still moving, so I’m still moving. The guys seem a little more wound up than usual. I didn’t know that was even possible. But, their usual hyper alert is on overdrive.

  “Roger that,” I hear Mason say from somewhere behind me. I don’t have a headset on, so I can’t hear what they hear. Just the replies.

  “That ridge.” Mason points to a place just above us. “Hawk, take her.”

  What’s going on? Is the helicopter meeting us somewhere else? I know we’ve only been climbing for about fifteen minutes. We can’t be at the original landing zone yet. Hawk grabs my vest and half pulls and half lifts me to the ridge, and shoves me down behind it. He squats down beside me and says, “Stay down. And, when I say move, you move.”

  My eyes must have said yes because he stands back up and rests his rifle on the ridge while his leg forcefully pins me against the rocks. I suddenly hear a loud bang, and then all hell breaks loose. It sounds like fireworks are exploding all around me. Not up in the sky, but right beside me. The sound is deafening. Rocks fall on my head. Dust swirls violently around me. I feel like I’ve suddenly been swept up into the eye of a tornado.

  Hawk’s leg is vibrating against me as he fires his gun, slamming me into the rocks repetitively. Something hits my head hard. The pain surges through me like someone has stabbed me. I think I hear myself yelp through the noise that suffocates me. Curling into a ball against the wall, I cover my head and start rocking bac
k and forth. Everything is exploding and vibrating around me. Suddenly, Hawk yanks me up by my vest.

  “Move!” he shouts as he throws me up the path.

  Somehow, Mouse is in front of me again, or someone is, and we are triple timing it up the mountain. My adrenaline has suddenly made all the soreness and pain in my body go away. I feel like I could run at this pace for days. We keep climbing. The guys are yelling and the guns keep firing on us from behind. I’m not fully registering what’s happening. I feel like I’m watching it from above. I just concentrate on the body in front of me. It’s still moving, so I’m still moving. As we round yet another switchback, I suddenly see the helicopter just landing in a valley ahead of us.

  The guys pick up the speed. It’s too much for me. I feel myself falling. I’m headed for the ground when I feel Hawk grab me and throw me over his shoulder without breaking his stride. The helicopter blades are so loud. I feel like they’re inches from me. Hawk shields my head with his massive hand and passes me off to Mason like he’s a quarterback handing the football off to his running back.

  Mason pulls me into the helicopter. He has me between his legs with my back resting on his chest. One of his arms is around me, and the other is pushing my head away from the guns that are still firing at us. The rest of the guys are firing back. As we get higher and higher into the sky, the guns fade off into the background, and everything goes quiet.

  I really don’t remember the helicopter landing or walking to the transport. Or if I even did walk on my own. But, here I am, sitting on a bench, strapped in and ready for takeoff. I look around. The guys are all up, taking off their gear. We must already be in the air. I look down at myself. My protective vest is already off. My helmet is gone. I don’t remember taking it off. My head is hazy, and my eyes feel like they’re leaking. I reach up to wipe my face and pull my hand away to see blood. Somehow, it doesn’t surprise me. Shock, I realize. I think I’m in shock. I’ve seen it happen to people. It happened to me when my dad died. I think this is what it felt like. I can’t remember.