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

by Donna Schwartze

  Since there are four men with guns all around us, I don’t feel like I have much of a choice. I take his outstretched arm, and steady him as he walks slowly up the stairs. When we’re about half-way up, I hear a gunshot and whip my head around to see Yusef falling to the floor, his head spurting blood everywhere.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Mason

  Virginia Beach, Virginia

  2019

  I got back to the base from Millie’s place in under three hours. I walk into the briefing room. All eyes turn to me, but no one dares say anything. The tension in the room is about to explode. Culver is just telling them that our deployment has been moved up, and we are wheels up to Afghanistan in three hours. He releases the team. They all look at me with concern on their faces as they walk out.

  “Everything okay, man?” JJ asks as he follows the others out to get his gear. I nod and walk over to Culver.

  “We can’t just go to Afghanistan. We need to go to Bosnia first. She’s going to be over there alone,” I say, knowing it’s not going to happen.

  Culver asks the two analysts who are still in the room to leave. He hasn’t taken his eyes off me since I walked in the door. I can’t tell if he’s about to hit me or fire me, or maybe even both.

  “We’re not going to Bosnia. I’ve got that covered. Your assignment is in Afghanistan, and that’s where you’re going,” Culver says with a steely tone I haven’t heard before. At least I haven’t heard it directed at me.

  “Look, I know you’re pissed.”

  “Mason, I’m on another-level pissed off at you right now. I thought seriously about taking you off this deployment, and putting your ass on probation. I can’t believe the carelessness you’ve shown in the last day. What if we had an emergency? What if we were wheels up immediately? And, you’re fucking three hours away. You have broken so many rules that I don’t even know where to start. Get your ass to the ready room, and get on that fucking plane. I don’t want to hear anything more from you today. Raine can brief you separately on why our go-date has been moved up to today. I’ll tell her you’re back.”

  He spins on his heels and walks briskly out of the room. I’m alone in the room now. My usually well-ordered brain is all over the place. I hear the door open and turn around to see Raine. She’s staring at me like she doesn’t know if it’s safe to come in or not. I try to get control of my thoughts.

  “What do you have for me?” I ask, looking at her like everything is normal. She takes a deep breath and dives into the briefing on a few HVTs that have been identified in Afghanistan. They want us over there early to get up to speed before our other team leaves the area. I force myself to concentrate. I need to get my mind back in the game. This is my job, and other lives depend on me being at a hundred percent.

  We’re about an hour into the flight. I can’t sleep as usual. I grab the book I’ve been trying to read for about a year out of my backpack. I notice something sticking out of it. I open it to find an envelope with my name on it. It looks like a woman’s writing. There’s a letter inside. I scroll down to the signature. It’s from Millie. She must have put it in my backpack before she left for D.C. I’m not sure I even want to read it, but I know I’m not going to be able to concentrate until I do.

  Mason -

  I haven’t told you everything. But, you already know that. I wanted to tell you. I almost did so many times. I didn’t know any of this until I was seventeen. I overheard my dad’s best friend telling his wife about who I really am, and Amar Petrovic finally confirmed it for me that night in Sarajevo when you found me alone in the room with him. I still don’t know everything and that’s the main reason I haven’t told you. Or anyone. I have to find out the truth, and I have to do it on my own. I know you would have tried to stop me.

  I think my mother was a woman my dad met when he was deployed in Bosnia. I’m almost sure of it now. But, I need to hear it from the only person who can tell me for sure. I’ve been looking for him for eight years, and I can’t rest until I find him. I’m sure you’ve figured out who it is by now, but I can’t tell you until I know for sure.

  Since my dad died, I didn’t think anyone could take care of me the way he did. I was wrong. You can. You have. But, I can’t let you in on this one. I’m so sorry, Mason, but I started this alone. I have to finish it alone.

  Millie

  I’m sure it must be a joke. The entire letter. It just must be some bizarre joke that I’m not understanding right now. I read it a few more times. Is she talking about Sayid Custovic? Is that who she thinks can clear up the mystery for her? I grab the satellite phone and try to call her. It goes right to voicemail. Her phone must be turned off. I try again, and it just rings. This doesn’t make any sense. She never turns off her phone.

  I bound up the stairs to the plane’s upper deck, where the analysts are working. “Clark, track Millie’s cell phone,” I demand.

  “Track her cell phone? What, are you stalking her now? Don’t think I don’t see the way you look at her.” Her smile quickly goes away when she turns around and sees my face.

  “Charlotte, track her cell phone. Now.”

  She jumps over to her computer, her fingers flying over the keyboard.

  “Well, that doesn’t make sense.” She’s making a circle on the screen with her finger. I walk up behind her to see what she’s seeing. Her finger is circling a mountain pass just southeast of Sarajevo.

  “Culver said she was going to Sarajevo, but why would her phone be up here? And it looks like it’s moving. Let me see if I can get a clearer image. Maybe she’s just taking a drive in the mountains,” she says as I’m already bounding down the stairs to find Culver.

  Culver sees me coming at him full speed.

  “Millie’s gone after Custovic. I had Clark track her cell phone, and it’s pinging up in the mountains around Sarajevo. Something is off.”

  “I told you I had that covered, Mason,” he says, now sounding a little unsure. “You said her phone is pinging in the mountains?”

  “Yeah, man, I know you’re pissed at me for being with her, but I can feel it. I can feel something’s off. We’ve got to do something.”

  “Follow me,” he says as he grabs the satellite phone. He dials a number.

  “What’s up?” A man’s voice answers the phone on the other end.

  “You have Millie in your sights?” Culver asks with an edgy tone to his voice.

  “She’s still in the embassy. I haven’t see her leave.”

  “Her cell phone is pinging up in the mountains.” Culver heads back up to Clark. I follow.

  “What? What the fuck? She hasn’t left since she got here. I’ve been checking all the cars in and out. Nothing.”

  I don’t know who the other guy on the phone is, but I want to punch him so badly right now.

  “Leave right now. Head towards the mountains southeast of town. I’m texting you the location. Clark, text Millie’s location to this number. Now,” Culver hisses.

  “You should see this, Captain.” Raine has joined us. She points to her screen. “This is where Millie’s cell phone stopped.”

  We both look over to her screen. It’s showing a house with about twenty armed men in the yard.

  “A car just pulled up, and two men pulled a hooded person out of the car.” Raine flips over to another screen to show the image she captured. “It looks like a woman. And, I isolated the men. That one there, that’s Yusef Hadzic. One hundred percent certainty.”

  Culver’s face is about to explode. “Mason, Red Team is already inbound from Germany. Get on the phone with them. Find out where they are, their ETA, and let them know what they’re facing. And, tell them there’s a local asset already on the ground there. He’ll meet their helo.”

  “Roger that.” I’m fully focused now. If I’m not going to be able to get there myself, my brothers are going to hav
e me covered. I need to help them do their jobs now.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Millie

  Trebević Mountains, Bosnia

  2019

  We get to Sayid’s bedroom and go inside. He tells the armed men to wait outside. He motions for me to take a seat over by the window, and he sits opposite me. There’s a gun on the table between us that’s closer to him. I know I could beat him to it, but there’s no way I’d get past all the other guns in the house, so I just sit down for now.

  “I wanted to tell you a little bit about your mother. Would you like that?” He’s smiling at me like we’re just chilling out at a family reunion. I don’t say anything. He continues anyway.

  “Her name was Nejra. You look just like her. You definitely have her eyes. Has anyone ever told you that? I’m guessing your hair is from your dad. I never knew who he was until I found out you were searching for me. Amar told me. Don’t let that disappoint you. I’m guessing you had some kind of connection with him. Your mother did. Nejra and Amar were best friends. He called your father to tell him about you. He confessed everything to me when I found him in Portugal where you tried to hide him from me. He didn’t have much of a choice. I would have killed his family. I could tell by the way he spoke of you that he cared about you, but he cares about his own family more. He told me your name, and I looked up your father. He was killed by Al-Qaeda which was good. I wish I had killed him, but at least he’s dead.”

  That gun is looking more and more appealing to me. I could kill him before they killed me, and that might be okay with me right now. He sees me looking at the gun.

  “The gun is for you. It’s loaded. If you want to kill me, it’s fine. I’m in my last months anyway. My soldiers will kill you, though. It would be a fitting end for both of us. Don’t you think?”

  I’m just staring at him, trying not to tell him too much with my expression.

  “I would never kill you. I had my chance when you were a baby. I couldn’t do it then, and I can’t do it now. I loved your mother more than anyone on earth. I don’t care about you. You’re obviously one of them now, but I would never do that to Nejra.”

  He pauses and pulls a picture out of his pocket, and slides it across the table to me. It’s a picture of a family—parents and two kids. The kids are around ten years old.

  “That’s my family. My parents, Nejra and me. We had such happy times before the war. . .”

  His voice fades off as he stands up and walks over to a desk. He picks up a framed picture and puts it on the table in front of me.

  “This is Nejra about a year before she died, before she met your dad, before she changed our lives forever. She was a silly girl. Never serious about anything. I was like that before our parents died, but she stayed like that. My heart closed the day they died, but her heart seemed to open even more. It was like my parents’ spirits shone through her. I might have gotten to that point, too, if she hadn’t died. If she hadn’t been murdered.”

  “Do you believe Haroun Hadzic actually killed her?” My voice made him jump a little. I don’t think he expected me to speak anymore.

  “So, you are curious. I was beginning to wonder,” he says smiling. “Yes, he killed her. It’s amazing the clarity and honesty that you get right before you’re going to die. I’m feeling that right now. Are you?”

  I’m back to staring at him. Nothing I say is going to matter much now anyway. It’s clear to me that I’m going to die in this house.

  “Back to being silent. That’s fine. I don’t have much more to say myself. What is your name now? Millie? I’m not sure what kind of name that is. Nejra named you Yasmine. That was my mother’s name. Much prettier than your name, but you don’t deserve that name now. You seem to be much more your father’s daughter than your mother’s. Nejra always told me that she wanted to marry a tender man. I never really knew what that meant. Was your father tender?”

  The most tender man ever to walk the earth, but you don’t deserve to know that. You don’t deserve to even speak about him. As I sit staring at him, I hear what sounds like firecrackers going off outside. I turn to look out the window. As I’m doing that, the armed men rush in the room.

  “Are they here then?” Sayid asks without turning around to look at them.

  They respond to him in a language I don’t understand, maybe Urdu. Sayid hasn’t taken his eyes off me. He responds back to them in whatever language they’re speaking. They hesitantly turn around and leave the room, closing the door.

  “It looks like our time together has almost come to an end,” he says, reaching over and taking the gun off the table. “How did you signal to your friends that we are here? Well, you’re a clever girl just like your mother was.”

  I hear a loud explosion, and now the sound of gunfire is coming from inside the house. It sounds like an entire army is now storming in downstairs. My mind suddenly goes to Mason. I wonder if it’s him, if it’s his team. I wonder if I’m going to be alive by the time they get here. I don’t think I will. I imagine him seeing my dead body as he enters the room, and despite every effort to prevent it, I feel my eyes starting to water. Before I can consider it anymore, I hear voices speaking English in the hallway. It sounds like they’re clearing the rooms down the hall, and getting closer to this room.

  “He has a gun! Don’t come in!” I scream hoping whoever is outside will hear me. “He has a gun!”

  Sayid clicks off the safety on the gun just as I hear the door being kicked open behind me. I glance at the door and then back at Sayid, just in time to see him put the gun in his mouth and pull the trigger. A volley of rifle fire riddles his body at the same time. His body slumps on the chair, blood spilling out from everywhere.

  “Millie?” I hear behind me. It’s not Mason’s voice.

  I turn around to see an entire team of operators with guns trained around the room and Chase, in full battle gear, walking up behind them.

  “Chase?”

  “Yeah, sweetie, it’s me. You’re okay. We just need to get you out of here. Okay?”

  “How did you find me?”

  “Culver called me, and told me what you were doing. I’ve been watching you for a few days now. You almost lost me when you went jogging by yourself. I didn’t expect you to do something that stupid,” he says, pausing and smiling at me. “But, then you are your dad’s daughter. We picked up your cell phone signal after the guards told us you left. Culver had a team standing by.”

  The tears start coming to my eyes again. I try to stop them, but I can’t. Chase comes over to me, pulls me out of the chair, and hugs me. “You’re going to be fine, Millie. It’s over now.”

  “Ma’am,” one of the operators says to me. “Is this Custovic?”

  He’s pointing at the body. It snaps me out of my fog. I still have a job to do.

  “Yes, we need to bring his body back to get a hundred percent ID. Also, Yusef Hadzic’s body is downstairs. I’ll show you which one he is. A picture ID should do.”

  I walk through the house with the team, showing them which of the now-dead men seemed to be in Sayid’s inner circle including Yusef. They take pictures of all of the dead bodies and collect the computers in the house. Chase has not let me move more than a foot from his body since they rescued me. He leads me out to the helicopter, helps me in, and puts his arm around me.

  “Your dad would be so proud of you, Millie. He is so proud. I know it,” he whispers to me as the helicopter takes off.

  Epilogue

  Millie

  San Diego, California

  2020

  It’s been nearly four months since I left Bosnia, and even though I’ve thought about Mason almost every second of every day, I haven’t talked to him once. I know he was on deployment in Afghanistan until about a month ago, but I haven’t heard from him since he got back, and I haven’t reached out to him.

&nbs
p; I haven’t really heard anything from anyone in Virginia Beach except for Culver. He called me a few times to make sure I was okay. And Raine has been blowing up my phone for the last two weeks, but I haven’t replied. I’m not sure I want to get an update on what’s going on over there with the team, with Mason. I’m not ready to talk about everything. At least not yet.

  After I got back from Bosnia, I took leave from the agency. They very reluctantly gave me as long as I needed. I guess when you pull in two whales as big as Custovic and Hadzic, you get whatever you want. It hasn’t stopped George from calling me every week, trying to convince me to come back to D.C. He said they want me to work in the field now. I haven’t answered him.

  I moved out of my apartment in D.C., and sold Camille’s house and land. I can’t believe how much money I got from that sale. I wonder if Camille knew how much it was worth. I decided to finally go ahead with the plan that Dad and I had just before he died. I moved to San Diego and bought a house a few blocks off Pacific Beach.

  I think about Dad a lot, but like Mason told me it would, it’s getting a little easier. I still miss Dad so much, but the memories of him warm me now, more often than they hurt me. Some of his old team buddies, including Chase, live out here. They’ve taken me into their group and although I was more than a little reluctant to join their family at first, I’ve come to look forward to the barbecues and birthday parties. Mason was right again. I need a team, and these guys are some great teammates.

  I’m trying to decide what to do next, but my mind isn’t letting me go there right now. Even after four months, all it wants to let me do is sleep and surf. I’m trying to feel all of the emotions now instead of burying them. Chase told me the grieving process takes whatever time it takes, and that I have to honor that. I know he’s talking about Dad, and I am still grieving him, but I’m grieving Mason, too.