He'd been lost in thought, and didn't know how long she'd been staring at him. For a moment, he'd forgotten where he was and his purpose for being there.
"No. Sorry, it's just that this is..."
"Not what you expected," said Kaiden.
"Under the circumstances I didn't know what to expect, least of all that you'd have dinner set for me."
"Give me a little credit, Jack. Your kid died while you were deployed on a mission. You blamed yourself for not protecting her, and after emotionally whipping yourself raw, you decided you weren't any good to anyone and left. That about sum it up?"
Tate only sat looking baffled. In a few words, she had just unraveled the tangled mess he'd lived through and all the complexities of his emotions with the simplicity of untying a shoelace.
"When you put it that way it sounds..."
"Like it makes sense?" finished Kaiden. "Yeah, it makes sense. It was also selfish and a bullshit move."
She tipped her bottle and finished off her beer, then got up from the table and brought in a box from the other room. She put it in front of Tate, and gave him a devilish smile.
"After you're done doing the dishes, I'll be in the living room. You can tell me what you want me to do."
Curious, Tate opened the box. A surge of mixed emotions flooded through him as he recognized his old gear. His hand moved under its own power as he took out a classic Colt 1911 pistol.
The .45 had been with him in countless operations, and in spite of advancements in pistols, he refused to carry anything else.
As a boy, Tate had read the exploits of the WWI hero, Sergeant York, and how he'd defeated an entire squad of charging Germans with nothing but his Colt .45 1911. Pirates could keep their swords, Robin Hood could have his bow, but young Jack Tate promised himself that one day he'd wear a Colt.
He puzzled over why Kaiden had saved his things; it was a question that, for the moment, would have to wait.
Tate and Kaiden talked late into the night. For most of it, Kaiden listened quietly, letting Tate exhaust all the information he had; the mission to the villa, the captured soldier, Cooper leaking information, and the possibility that Colonel Hewett might be involved.
It was nearly 2:30 AM when he finished. He sat back in his seat, feeling tired, and waited for Kaiden to reveal the answers he couldn't find.
She stood up and walked to the stairs. "Give me thirty minutes to get ready. Something big is going on, but there's too many missing pieces still. Let’s peel someones fingernails off and see what we learn."
Tate felt exhausted and sluggish. He wanted nothing more than to stretch out on the couch for a few hours, but that would have to wait.
He had a meeting to keep with Dante Barrios, and his prisoner. Tate felt relief that Kaiden had been so quick to accept his return, and willing to help. He couldn't help but suspect she knew more about what he'd up to the past couple of years than she was saying.
"By the way, how did you know I was coming here? I mean, you even had dinner ready."
Kaiden paused at the bottom of the stairs and smiled at him. "A girl’s got to have her secrets, right?"
Tate would have to live with that answer for now, but he knew there was more to it, and it would nag at him until he found out.
He caught himself smiling as he wondered about the recent events. Four hours ago, he thought he'd be on a flight back home with a broken jaw and empty handed. Instead, he had a highly-skilled member of the Night Devils.
* * *
Tate sat in a beat up folding chair, in an abandoned auto body shop. A few feet across from him was Dante’s prisoner; the enemy soldier with his feet and hands flex-cuffed to the chair.
Kaiden leaned against the wall off to the side but was close enough to hear the conversation.
Tate and Kaiden could easily see that San Roman’s men had beaten the soldier bloody. His close-cropped hair revealed dried blood from a large gash on his scalp. The skin on his face was split open in several places, and his nose had been broken, yet it was clear by his straight posture and direct eye contact his spirit wasn't broken. His uniform was dirty and torn. There was no name tab or indication of rank.
Tate sensed the soldier’s defiance almost daring them to beat him for answers.
"I'm Jack Tate. You said you have some information for me."
The soldier looked from Tate to Kaiden, seeking an explanation.
"She's with me," said Tate.
Satisfied, the prisoner relaxed.
"Who are you, and why did you ask for me?"
The prisoner tilted his head towards his bound wrists. "Do you mind?"
There was nothing within his arms reach, and it was doubtful he could take on both of them in a fight.
There was a glint of steel as Kaiden flicked open a knife. She walked behind the prisoner and cut the thick plastic ties around his wrists.
He waited until Kaiden had put some distance between them before he moved his arms.
"My name is Nathan," he said, massaging his wrists. "Why did I ask for you? Because I knew if I could provide you with something of value you could do the same for me."
Tate's chair creaked as he leaned back, and considered what Nathan had just said. "I'm listening."
"You have a leak in your team," said Nathan.
"Yeah, I got your message through Barrios," said Tate. "I know who the leak is."
"But you don't understand why there's a leak, or how it's all connected."
"You seem to know a lot for a grunt," said Tate.
Nathan tried to smile, but the pain of his split lip and bruised face reduced him to a grimace.
"Yes and no. Had my vocation been combat, like the rest of my team, I would have escaped with them when we were ambushed by San Roman’s guerrillas. If I knew as much about tactical withdrawals as intelligence analysis, I wouldn't be here. I was there to assess those documents you took from the villa, and report back to my people."
"What people are those?" asked Tate.
"My People," said Nathan, with a smile. "My employers, to be accurate. As you might have guessed, I'm an independent businessman."
Considering he looked, and likely felt like he'd been trampled by a stampede of cement trucks, Nathan came across like he was having a casual conversation with friends at a dinner party. If he was worried or nervous, he was hiding it very well.
"But, let me get to the point. I don't see a future in the hands of Mr. San Roman. I imagine he's using me as a bargaining chip to make a deal with you, and once you've agreed to that deal, which I'm guessing you have because you're here, he'll kill me."
Tate could feel Kaiden’s eyes shift from Nathan to him. He didn't tell Kaiden anything about a deal, and now with that piece of information exposed, Tate could hear the wheels turning in her head.
He knew better than keeping her in the dark, but it was a detail about his situation that he had wanted to keep to himself.
Tate mentally kicked himself for screwing up. He'd have to come clean with her and stop keeping things close to his vest.
"Yeah. They'll probably kill you right after we leave," said Tate. "Tough break."
"My thoughts exactly," said Nathan. "And it’s why I asked for you to begin with. If you were to take me with you when you leave here I would, in return, use my access to my employer’s intel regarding your situation."
"Or we could break you out and you disappear," said Kaiden. "We never hear from you again."
"Then you'd know as much as if San Roman had killed me," smiled Nathan. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained. This isn't about trust, it's about risk and reward. Weigh the risk of me reneging on our deal against the value of the reward, and getting a peek at the other guy’s cards. What I know at the moment is my employers see the fragility of your government as an opportunity."
The hairs rose up on the back of Tate's neck. "If anyone sends their army to invade, America will have them returned in body bags," he growled.
Nathan leaned forward, and fix
ed Tate with a grave stare. "Oh no, not to invade. To infiltrate."
* * *
Dante Barrios' surprise when he saw Nathan walk out in the company of Tate and Kaiden suddenly turned to fear, when he found himself looking down the barrel of Tate's Colt 1911.
"I'm making a small change to our original deal," said Tate.
"San Roman will not react well to this," said Dante.
Tate pressed the barrel of his gun to Dante’s forehead. "You really want to tell your boss you let me just walk out of here with your prisoner? Sure, he'll be mad at me, but what do you think he'll do to the messenger?"
Tate gave Dante a moment to let the thought sink in.
"Talk about a career ender. One way or another, you were going to kill this guy anyway, so tell San Roman you dumped his body and that's that. I get what I want, and you get to keep living."
"You make a convincing point," said Dante. "We have an agreement."
Tate put his gun away, knowing that Kaiden had her hand on her gun just out of sight of Dante. Any shadow of a suspicious movement on his part, and he'd be dead an instant later.
Tate grinned inwardly, thinking how good it felt to have someone he could count on again.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CLEANING HOUSE
Cooper sat in the low dirt trench, bored and indifferent to the distant gunfire.
He'd pulled go-fer duty on the rifle range, replacing targets while the rest of his team was 400 meters away, practicing their shooting skills.
Each motorized target would dip below the dirt berm on a random pattern, making it more challenging for the shooters. Cooper sat in a trench that ran the width of the gun range, and connected to each target station.
The plywood board over his head kept the full brutality of the sun off of him, but also blocked any breeze that could have helped.
As the drops of sweat dripped off his nose, he wondered how the human race survived before air conditioning.
He flinched as a bullet smacked into the protective earthen berm above him, and a trickle of dirt ran into the trench.
He snatched up the radio, crushing the talk button. "You assholes! Stop doing that." Even from this distance, he could hear them laughing.
"Oops," Rosse chuckled over the radio. "Did that hit near you?"
"You know damn well it did," shouted Cooper.
The boredom, heat and buzzing flies had eaten through his patience, and although he knew the trench was keeping him safe from the bullets, it rattled him when they hit near him.
"Cease fire, cease fire, cease fire," said Tate over the radio. "Cooper, replace the targets. Everyone else take a twenty-minute break. Leave your weapons on the bench. Remove the magazines and lock your bolts open. Cooper, target three is stuck in down position. See what you can do."
"Okay, Top," said Cooper. He got up from his bench and followed the trench towards target three.
He thought it strange he hadn't seen the sergeant major since they'd returned from the villa mission. There was talk around the base that he'd left for a while, and came back with a woman. Nobody knew who she was, or what she was doing here; Cooper couldn't decide if he felt more, or less nervous about the sergeant major’s absence.
Cooper stopped at target three. A simple design, the target was nothing more than a five by four foot board, on a tall board that was raised and lowered by a chain and gear system. The motor was inside a shallow room, dug into the berm just beneath the target. The brilliant sunlight cast the motor room in dark shadow.
Cooper stood at the black entrance, and swore under his breath as he realized he hadn’t brought his flashlight.
Just as he turned to go back for it, a hand shot out of the darkness of the motor room and yanked him into the gloom.
It happened so fast there was no time to yelp. In the blackness, he felt himself spun around, then slammed into a rough earthen wall.
Stunned and blind, he didn't know if he should run or fight.
Suddenly, a blinding light stabbed him in the eyes. The light moved out of this eyes and he blinked away the dots, to see Sergeant Major Tate's scowling face inches from his.
The flashlight threw distorted shadows over Tate's face, making him more ghoul than human.
Cooper’s eyes were wide with terror. Something glinted in the beam of light, and Cooper froze as he felt the hairline edge of a knife press into his throat.
Tate leaned in closer, speaking in a low snarl. "One chance to talk, or I'll slit you from ear to ear."
The blade of the knife was pressing against his throat so hard, Cooper was sure if he swallowed he'd cut his own throat, but every second of silence marched him closer to death.
"It was me, but I didn't want to. They forced me."
"Who? Who are they?" demanded Tate.
"I don't know. Please don't kill me. Please! I only spoke to one guy. Mr. Red. He told me what to do. I had to," pleaded Cooper. "I never met anyone face to face."
Menace pulsed off of Tate in waves. "How did he contact you?"
Terrified of moving, Cooper indicated his breast pocket by looking at it. "The phone in my pocket. That's all I know. He'd tell me what to do, and I had to do it. I'm sorry, Top. I'm so sorry."
Tate took the phone out of Cooper’s pocket, and put it in his. "What do you mean, had to?"
"They took my family. Chopped off my baby sister’s finger and mailed it to me. He told me worse would happen if I didn't obey them." Cooper’s sorrow for his family overtook his fear of the knife at his throat, as tears spilled down his cheeks.
For a long moment, Tate's expression didn't change, and Cooper knew there'd soon be a rasping sharp pain across his throat. He would try to breathe, but it would only be a gurgle and he would drown in his own blood, but then Cooper heard someone whispering near Tate.
Tate’s gaze broke from Cooper, and the flashlight went out.
Cooper stayed frozen in place, surrounded in the blackness. Miraculously, he felt the knife leave his throat.
Before he could breathe a sigh of relief the room light was switched on, partially blinding Cooper.
As his vision adjusted, he saw the sergeant major and a woman he'd never seen before.
"Hi," said Kaiden brightly. "Rough day, huh? The good news is, we've decided your terminal discharge from the military is premature. For the time being, you're going to stay on base like nothing's happened. You're not going to talk to anyone about this, right?"
Cooper could breathe again. He wasn't going to die, but it gave him no comfort. There was something about this woman that scared him; he was sure her smile would be the same if she kissed you or killed you.
"Nobody. I'll stay right here. I mean, you know, not here in this room, but..."
Kaiden smiled at Tate and patted him on the shoulder. "There, you see? He won't be any trouble."
Tate put his knife back in the sheath, and tossed Cooper's phone to Kaiden. "Can you use this?"
Kaiden turned on the phone and tapped a few buttons. "It's encrypted, but a piece of junk. I'll be able to reverse-track any numbers on the call history.”
Tate looked at her with a mixture of astonishment and disbelief. "Since when can you do that?" he asked.
"Hey, just because you let yourself go to pot," she said, "doesn't mean the rest of us have." She dropped the phone in her pocket and headed for the door, with Tate following her.
"Hey, wait," said Cooper. "What happens now?"
Tate stopped and looked over his shoulder at the sweat-soaked Cooper. "You mean am I going to kill you, or let you live? You'll get my answer in a couple of days, unless you run. Then I'll kill you."
Tate walked out, leaving Cooper in the agony of an unknown future.
* * *
The Black Hawk helicopter thudded over the muted green of the jungle, as the sun edged into the dusk. It banked steeply over the ruined carcass of a small village.
Rotting corpses, which had lain undisturbed, rose to their feet craning their sunken, milky eyes to th
e sound of the machine above them. As the helicopter retreated, they moved with renewed purpose, trailing behind it.
Inside the helicopter, Tate and Kaiden sat across from each other, with a squirming body bag on the floor between them.
“Just like old times,” smiled Kaiden.
The crew chief looked dubiously from Tate to the moving body bag and back.
"Like I said, Chief, it's a training mission."
"Whatever you say, Sergeant Major," said the crew chief, with a shrug.
It had been three days since he and Kaiden had questioned Cooper at the gun range, and grim satisfaction had replaced the anger Tate had been feeling before; he didn't like loose ends, and this was one Tate was about to sew up.
Tate took an envelope out of his pocket and handed it to Kaiden, who looked at him with mild curiosity.
"What's this?" she asked as she opened it.
"We finally got our new unit designation," said Tate.
Kaiden scanned the document, and handed it back to Tate with a wry smile. "I like the name. Your idea, right?"
"It seemed like a good fit," said Tate.
A few minutes later, the Black Hawk flared over a clearing and settled down in the tall grass. Tate hopped out of the cargo compartment, followed by Kaiden.
"We'll be back in thirty minutes," said Tate.
The crew chief gave a thumbs up in response.
Tate grabbed the end of the body bag and pulled it across the deck, then hefted it over his shoulder.
Tate and Kaiden walked into the murky jungle.
They'd gone a few hundred yards, when they stopped near a tree with low limbs.
Tate dumped the body bag from his shoulder. It landed with a thud. Something inside grunted in pain.
Kaiden took off her pack and pulled a coil of rope from it. With an easy fling, she threw the end of the rope over a tree limb, ten feet above.
Tate unzipped the body bag, revealing a hooded figure inside. The figure was flex cuffed at the wrists and ankles.
The Grave Diggers Page 15
