The President's Daughter

by James Patterson

  Chapter

  121

  Jiang Lijun steps forward into the cell. Ahead of him is the guard with the AK-47, and in front of the guard is Asim, reaching up with both hands, trying hard to grab Mel Keating’s quickly disappearing feet.

  Jiang takes it all in and moves quickly.

  Hand under his vest and shirt, past two energy bars and a water flask, he grabs a ceramic tube, invisible to metal detectors.

  Pulls it out, places the butt end against the base of the skull of Asim’s guard, quickly pulls a plastic ring on the end of a nylon cable.

  Thump.

  The single-shot weapon fires a .32-caliber slug into the man’s head, instantly killing him.

  He drops.

  Asim starts turning around.

  Jiang tugs at the dead man’s AK-47.

  The sling is tangled up.

  Asim doesn’t say a word, just reaches into his vest and pulls out his knife.

  Jiang gets the AK-47 free but it’s in the wrong position, the muzzle end facing Jiang, the butt facing Asim, who is coming at him.

  One of Jiang’s training officers, many years ago:

  Run to a gun, run away from a knife.

  Jiang punches the wooden stock end of the AK-47 into Asim’s forehead, and Asim stumbles back, falls down.

  Jiang races from the cell, closes the door, wishes he had the key.

  Wastes two seconds looking for something to tie off the door or block it.

  Nothing.

  He lowers his head, puts the AK-47 over his shoulder, starts walking down the corridor, past the stalls, past the piles of supplies, past the two armed men sipping tea who thankfully ignore him.

  Outside into the cold night air.

  Looks as though someone has hauled away the body of Faraj, and Jiang is happy about that, for Faraj is—was—one smart fellow who figured out what really happened when Asim’s family was killed.

  Good he’s gone.

  But where is Mel?

  She wouldn’t go to the road. Too far away, too many men walking around, and she is slight and small and would stand out as she’s not carrying a weapon.

  There.

  To the east, where there’s a mess of boulders and rough rocks, leading down into an incline.

  Jiang moves out.

  Also hidden in his vest is a transponder.

  Once he grabs Mel and flips the switch, a contract team with a helicopter will be heading out to pick them up and fly them both back to the Chinese Embassy, and to safety.

  He pulls out one more tool, a small night-vision monocular, and he puts it up to his left eye and—

  There she is, just as he thought.

  Heading to the rocks.

  Chapter

  122

  After the weeks of fear, sadness, and terror, I’m in place, I’m in position. I’m with Alejandro and Nick near the four pickup trucks, keeping watch on the west side of the building where Mel is being kept.

  The two oil drums are still ablaze, three or four armed men clustered around them, trying to stay warm. Other men walk in and out of the three stone buildings nearby, all carrying weapons.

  No innocents here, I think, save my girl.

  “Matt, this is David,” he says over the radio.

  “David, go,” I say.

  “Claire and I are in position,” he whispers. “Just to let you know, there’s activity at the main door. Armed tangos going in and out.”

  I say, “David, is Mel visible?”

  “Negative, Matt,” David says. “No sighting of Mel.”

  “Copy,” I say. “Crew, light ’em up.”

  We all switch on our infrared lasers, which are invisible to the naked eye but visible with our NVGs and deadly useful for pinpointing our targets. Instantly five thin rods of light flare out and target five armed men near the building.

  I say, “We go in three, starting…now.”

  “Copy” is repeated to me four times, in four different voices.

  “Three,” I say.

  My little girl, Mel, five or six, screeching because she fell into a fire ant nest, running at me with arms held out: “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!”

  “Two,” I say.

  Mel at twelve, falling off a horse while taking lessons, lying motionless on the ground for long cold seconds until I see her start to move as I run across the dirt corral.

  “One,” I say.

  Mel swimming at Lake Marie with heavy dark clouds on the horizon, and a bolt of lightning strikes a tree across the way, and me getting into a canoe and frantically paddling to her, with her laughing as I get to her: “Dad, what’s the worry?”

  I say, “Go.”

  We attack in a standard L-shaped ambush, with Claire and David eliminating any threat by the main door, and with us three current and former SEALs taking out everyone within the kill zone to the west of the building. There’s muffled thud thud thuds for we’re all using sound suppressors on our M4s.

  Five men fall and then two more, and David says via my earpiece, “Main door clear, Matt.”

  “Copy that,” I say, and Nick and Alejandro join me in moving quickly across the open rock and dirt field, Claire and David providing us with cover as we get to the door.

  Technically and morally speaking, we’ve just killed seven men, and all I can think is, Better you than me and my crew and my daughter.

  We get to the heavy wooden door with large hinges and Alejandro gets to work quick, and we ignore the two bodies sprawled on the ground.

  He slaps a breaching charge on the lock, and we turn away as it snaps and flares to life, and then Nick grabs the door handle and pulls it open.

  Alejandro is right behind Nick and tosses in one flash-bang grenade and then another, and the heavy thump thump seems to explode right out of the front door.

  No doubt whoever’s still alive out there in the other buildings will come running out to investigate and will be cut down by David and Claire.

  Nick goes in, pivots left.

  “Clear!”

  Alejandro pivots right.

  “Clear!”

  I move down a stone hallway, smelling the burnt firecracker odor of the flash-bang grenades, proceed past piles of weaponry, pallets of weapons, one or two lightbulbs still burning after the blast of the flash-bangs, and—

  A man comes out from one of the stalls, blinking his eyes, dragging an AK-47.

  Training, experience, and memory all come back.

  I shoot him in the forehead and twice in the chest.

  I pivot left. Blanket and rations and teapot.

  “Clear,” I call out.

  Nick and Alejandro follow me, and there’s another three rounds fired off nearby, and Nick says, “Clear!”

  Up ahead is another door.

  It’s ajar.

  Alejandro throws his shoulder against it and the door opens wide, and shit shit shit, and I cry out “Mel!,” seeing a body on the ground, blood around the head, thinking, Too late, too late, oh, shit, we’re too late!

  Nick kneels down, says, “Matt, it’s a guy. No worries.”

  I give the room a quick glance.

  Dirt in a corner.

  I walk forward, look up.

  A chimney or sluice pipe or something has been cleared free.

  Was Mel here?

  Or has she been taken away?

  Alejandro says, “Sir, over here.”

  He’s pointing to a flat rock, about a meter in width and height, part of the far wall.

  Letters and numbers have been painted there.

  MK

  603

  Nick says, “Her initials, maybe…but the numbers?”

  “Six oh three,” I say. “New Hampshire’s area code.”

  I touch the letters. They feel sticky to the touch. Fruit or berry or something.

  My clever, clever girl.

  “Looks fresh,” I say. “Guys, she was here, she was here just a while ago. Let’s get moving.”

  We move in a single line, Nic
k taking the lead, me in the middle, Alejandro pulling up the rear.

  I say, “Claire, David, this is Matt.”

  “Go,” they both reply.

  “Mel was here, but it looks like she might have escaped,” I say. “David, work the stone wall to the south. Nick and Alejandro will work the buildings and area to the west. I’ll head east, to that rocky area. Claire, get on top of this building and give us overwatch.”

  A chorus of “Copy”s and then we burst outside, and we split up to find my daughter, and I think again, Clever girl.

  But please, God, not too clever.

  We’ve got to find her in the next few minutes, before our Tunisian pilot comes back to retrieve us, because I’m not boarding that Black Hawk without her.

  Chapter

  123

  After it happens, about thirty seconds after getting off the roof of the old stables, Mel Keating thinks it’s her damn lousy night vision that screws everything up. She hasn’t gotten far when she freakin’ bumps into somebody walking in the darkness, and she tries to spin around and keep on strolling, but the guy says something.

  She ignores him, keeps on walking.

  Another burst of Arabic, and then crap crap crap, a second armed guy joins the chorus, and they grab her and feel her up, and one and then the other realizes who they have.

  She struggles, squirms, tries to kick them both, but they are strong and hold her and start dragging her back to the buildings, and one starts yelling, “Alshaykh! Alshaykh! Alshaykh!”

  And just like in those damn horror movies where the monster comes out of the darkness to get you, an angry Asim Al-Asheed strides into view, carrying a small tactical flashlight, an armed guy following him. He speaks in quick Arabic to the two jerks holding her, and then he says, “Mel Keating…you are about to get what you deserved since your miserable birth.”

  Two explosions echo out and startle them all, and there’s muffled gunfire, and Mel yells to him, not knowing for sure but wanting to taunt the bastard, “Speaking of getting what you deserve…hear that, asshole? It’s my dad and his buds, coming to get me and kill you all.”

  And like magic, she hears at the same time a whizz-splat-grunt, and the man holding her to the left drops, and then another whizz-splat-grunt, and the guy behind Asim falls to the ground, and she falls and rolls and starts crawling away from all the gunfire.

  Those rocks, she thinks.

  Good place to hide out until Dad, or the SEALs, or the Rangers, or whoever’s out there makes their presence known.

  Mel continues to crawl on the rough dirt and rock, keeping her head down.

  Chapter

  124

  Nick Zeppos and Alejandro Lopez work their way around to the west side of the building, and Claire announces through their respective earpieces, “Eyes open, guys. Two nearest buildings to you: lots of tangos running out.”

  Nick says, “Copy,” and the NSA chick sure isn’t fooling, because the three buildings nearest to where Mel was kept—damn, the place is swarming with armed guys coming out of doors and side entrances and even one open window.

  Best cover they can get is a slight dirt berm, and they drop down and get to work. It’s not much cover, because every time they take out a guy running out of one of the houses, yelling “Allahu Akbar” and spraying widely with machine-gun fire, two others fly out, taking up positions around the rocky ground near the buildings. These tangos start firing, and bits of dirt and rock fly up as they strike the berm that Nick and Alejandro are hiding behind.

  Thud thud thud.

  Thud thud thud.

  He and Alejandro keep up a steady and calm fire. Nick says, “Changing mags!” when his bolt action snaps back, and he pops out the empty magazine, slams a full one into the M4, releases the bolt, and resumes firing, following the thin guiding rod of his infrared laser sight.

  A few seconds later, Alejandro echoes Nick’s actions, saying “Changing mags!,” and Nick keeps focused, lasing one target after another, hearing a loud crack as Claire on overwatch takes down one of the tangos.

  Initially, the fighters out there come running out in the typical spray and pray pattern, holding up their AK-47s and emptying the entire magazine in one frightened trigger pull, but a few over there know what they’re doing and are firing back with hard, disciplined fire.

  Alejandro says, “Would love to have a Warthog up there.”

  “Yeah, make it two,” Nick says.

  He spots something sparkling coming at them and yells “Grenade!” and huddles up, holding his helmet down, and—

  Blam!

  He looks up, sees another set of sparkles.

  Blam!

  “Shit,” Nick says, resuming his position, returning fire, taking down one and then another tango trying to rush their positions.

  It’s too quiet at his right.

  Nick whirls. Alejandro is curled up on his side. Nick rolls over and says, “Al, you okay? You okay?”

  He groans. “You estúpido, do I look okay?” Alejandro groans again. “Piece of shrapnel nailed my right wrist. Feels like the fucker’s broken. Help me get my SIG Sauer out.”

  Nick works quickly, tugging out Alejandro’s pistol from the holster, hands it over to his partner. He gets his M4 back up in time to take down two tangos who were only two meters away.

  Thud thud thud.

  Nick says, “Claire, this is Nick. We need more cover fire.”

  Two more shots from his M4. A sharper sound as the wounded Alejandro uses his 9mm pistol.

  “Claire, we need help over here.”

  But Claire doesn’t answer.

  Chapter

  125

  Jiang Lijun stays low, moving zigzag, knowing that the Americans are here, but he’s still determined to grab Mel Keating first and bring her to safety, for the benefit of his country and his career.

  But he has to be careful because there’s a huge firefight breaking out over to the west, and he doesn’t want to be caught up in any cross fire between the Americans and Asim’s men. The Americans would shoot him because he’s a male carrying an AK-47, and Asim’s men would shoot him just because they are scared now and shooting at everything that looks threatening.

  He takes cover behind a pile of scrap metal and crushed oil barrels, and he scans and scans with his monocular NVD, and yes, there she is, hiding behind those two cracked boulders.

  Now.

  Jiang squirms ahead, and with the pile of scrap metal behind him, he gets closer and calls out, “Mel! Mel Keating! US SEALs! Come on up, I can see you!”

  Years back, Dad let her and Mom observe a night exercise, and man, that sure as hell seems like what’s going on over there. Lots of gunfire, somebody’s using a heavy-caliber bolt-action fire—easy to identify because of the hard crack! that’s fired in a slow pattern—and now grenades are being tossed around over there.

  “Mel!” a strong voice calls out. “Mel Keating! US SEALs! Come on up, I can see you!”

  Oh, what a wonderful flood of relief and joy rushes through her upon hearing her name, hearing who’s here to rescue her, and it must be Dad’s buds, ones who’d go anywhere at any time to rescue one of their own.

  “Coming!” she says, and she scrabbles up the rocks, seeing a squatting shape, slightly outlined by the fires breaking out on the west side of the area.

  “Hurry, hurry,” the man urges. “We need to get you out of here.”

  “Don’t I know it,” she yells back, nearly laughing. “Almost there!”

  And here she is, Jiang thinks.

  The president’s daughter, after all this time, all the setbacks and travel, emerging from the broken boulders and rocks.

  “Here,” he says, grabbing her hand. “This way.”

  He holds her hand and she laughs and then—

  She digs in.

  Tugs her hand free.

  “Who the hell are you?” she demands.

  Jiang says, “Navy SEALs.”

  “Which team?”

  �
��What?”

  “Which team?” she says, quickly backing away. “And that’s an AK, not an M4 or an HK. And you don’t have the right gear. Where’s your helmet? Your NVGs?”

  Jiang grabs her collar as she tries to run away and wrestles with her, and she bites his hand and he says, “Damn it, girl, I’m trying to rescue you!”

  Up on the roof of the building where Mel was kept, Claire Boone of the NSA is having one hell of a good time, although she’d never admit that to anyone at the agency, especially at the debriefing that’s coming her way when this unauthorized op wraps up.

  But this is like being the baddest, meanest cosplayer in the world, shooting evil guys from up on high. One of her problems with being on the spectrum is that her mind is always working, always racing, and she’s thinking of the gamers she knows in the community, and maybe she could go to a couple of them with an investment and an idea for a single-shooter game, called Overwatch, of course…

  She sweeps the southern side of the area, sees Secret Service agent David Stahl behind that small and crumbling rock wall, and he looks okay, and then she sweeps over to the west, and boy, those two SEAL guys are really in a hole, and she fires off three rounds, the spent brass tinkling on the rock roof.

  Claire wants to keep pouring fire on those jerks threatening Nick and Alejandro, but she has responsibilities up here, she sure does, and she rolls herself around so she’s facing east, and she easily makes out the IR laser sight coming from Matt Keating—the former president; she still can’t believe she’s with him—and she scans and stops cold.

  A guy holding an AK-47 in one hand is fighting someone smaller, lighter, and, God be praised, with long hair.

  She carefully aims her way to the slug and there are voices in her earpiece, and she ignores them as she gently pulls the trigger, as she’s done thousands of times before in practice and in real life. This crazy cold night in the mountains of Libya is as real as it gets.

  Chapter

  126

  Claire’s calm voice in my earpiece stops me cold in my search, which has been going on for long empty minutes spent scanning, kneeling down, looking behind and in front of me, all the while trying to tamp down the fear that’s saying to me, Suppose you can’t find her?