Blaze of Glory (6 page)

“Not directly. I don’t know how to explain this. The men on my team—really, on any team like ours—are highly individualistic. They keep their cards close to their vest. We trust each other implicitly, and part of that trust means we don’t invade one another’s privacy. You have to be invited in. I try to show Christ by the way I live. I leave the sermons to my twin brother.”

“Oh, have you asked him if he’ll perform the wedding?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“He asked how much money you have.”

Tess moved away from J. J. “I see.” She smiled.

“Get over here. He said he’d be honored to do the deed.”

“He’d better.”

J. J. motioned at the table. “You going to eat that chip?”

THE LIGHT FROM THE kitchen poured over the white tile counter and through the opening that separated it from the living room of the apartment. Jerry Zinsser sat as far from the light as possible. In his hand he held a tumbler half-filled with Chivas Regal. He sipped the scotch and enjoyed the burn it left in his throat, and savored the smooth, honey taste of the whisky.

This was his tradition. Soldiers had traditions—especially Special Ops. He knew men who went to certain restaurants the night before deployment. Others picked out lucky socks, worked out, went jogging, went to church, or ate specific foods. Zinsser’s old team always gathered for a glass of Chivas, toasted the future, then went home to hug their families.

Zinsser had no family and those he counted as friends were dead, brought home in body bags. All except one, and Zinsser had left him in the hospital bed an hour before, no longer able to look at his damaged form. He raised the glass of booze and said to the darkness, “To Echo.” He downed the remaining fluid in one gulp. It sent shivers through him. His head began to spin.

Taking the decorative bottle he poured another glass and raised it. “To Boss.” It took two gulps to down the golden fluid.

His hand began to shake. Rising, Zinsser moved to his stereo and pressed play. The dulcet voice of Roy Orbison filled the dark room. Roy sang “Running Scared.”

“You don’t know the half of it, Roy. You don’t know nuthin’ from scared.” The melody wrapped Zinsser’s mind, and he began to sway, holding out the glass as if it were his dance partner. He two-stepped to the bottle of Scotch and refilled the glass.

“To Chief.” He took his time with this drink. It was a breach of superstition, but he didn’t want to vomit on the floor and lose all the good booze he’d been pouring down his throat.

By the time Roy Orbison had worked his way through “Oh, Pretty Woman,” “Only the Lonely,” “In Dreams,” and “Crying,” Zinsser could no longer walk a straight line. He had reached his goal: oblivion by drunkenness. His last conscious memory was stumbling into the bathroom, opening the felt-lined case holding his Distinguished Service Cross and pouring the last dregs of his drink on it. “Here’s to courage under fire.”

Zinsser began to weep.

THE AIR WAS FILLED with noise that pummeled Zinsser’s already assaulted ears. The MH-60G Nighthawk helicopter unleashed a torrent of 7.62mm rounds from its Dillon minigun on the street in front of the building. The sound of weapons, the impact of bullets, the thunder of the helo’s rotor blades, and the screams of the men burrowed through Zinsser’s ears and into his brain. His mind raced. What he did in the next few seconds would determine if he lived or died.

He forced his ears to separate the sounds. He heard what he hoped: the syncopated pounding of another helo.

“Our ride is here. Time to get moving, Echo.”

“You go, Zinsser. I can’t last much longer. I can’t stand.”

Zinsser holstered his 9mm, ignoring the empty M4 on the concrete floor. Taking Brian by the front of his vest, he yanked the man up and over his shoulder. Brian’s scream melted Zinsser’s soul. He charged the door, peeked out the opening, then sprinted into the street. In a perfect world, the street would be wide enough for one of the helos to land, or the roof strong enough to hold the aircraft’s weight. Of course, in a perfect world, he wouldn’t be trotting down the street with his dying friend over his shoulder and waiting for the impact of a bullet striking the back of his head.

In the distance one of the helos was landing in a small field a hundred yards away. Dust rose around the chopper. Zinsser forced himself forward. His wounds screamed, and he could feel blood oozing down his arm. Still he forced one step in front of the other. Adrenaline powered him like racing fuel.

Two men rounded one of the buildings, stopped, and raised weapons. Zinsser kept moving. A second later the men lowered their guns.

“Take him. He has several wounds.”

The soldiers took Brian from Zinsser. “Can you follow us?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s move.” The two special ops men headed toward the landed chopper. Zinsser turned and ran back to the building.

He heard popping and saw bits of asphalt fly into the air. A thinking man would have sought cover, but Zinsser gave up thinking. He was in reaction mode. Years of training had taken over his conscious mind.

Moments later Zinsser dove through the door he and Brian had been defending, stumbling and landing hard on the floor. He howled as the impact jarred his damaged arm. He scampered to his feet and entered the windowless room where the captives were chained.

Several of the men rifled through the pockets of the dead guards. Zinsser joined them.

“Got it,” a grizzled middle-aged man said.

“Give it to me.” Zinsser reached for the key.

“Behind you!”

Zinsser spun and saw a tall Somali in a striped shirt and ripped jeans duck in the door. He didn’t bother to check the room. Instead he raised a Russian-made rocket-propelled grenade launcher and pointed at something in the air. Zinsser knew what that something was.

Sprinting from the room, he lowered a shoulder and executed a “crack-back” tackle on the man, sending them both tumbling into the street. Again electric bolts of pain ran through Zinsser’s body.

The loud roar of the M-134 Gatling gun rolled over them. Bits of asphalt and of plaster shrapnel punctured their skin, but no bullets touched them. The Nighthawk gunner had released the trigger just in time

Zinsser could feel his strength ebbing. He couldn’t last much longer, and wrestling with a twenty-something-year-old Somali pirate would tax him too much.

Without thought.

Without regret.

Without hesitation, Zinsser drew his 9mm, forced the business end into the young man’s side, and pulled the trigger. He rose and scampered back into the building, leaving the man dying in the street.

That was when Zinsser stopped feeling anything.

CHAPTER 6

TESS RAND LAY IN her hotel bed staring at the ceiling. The clock by her bed glowed 2:30 a.m. She had tried all the tricks to sleep: warm milk, thinking of quiet happy places, listening to a late-night radio program, but nothing worked.

After dinner J. J. had taken her to a movie, but she couldn’t recall which one. When she was a girl, her mother advised her, “Love is the most wonderful torture you’ll ever experience.” It didn’t make sense then. Now, alone in the darkness of worry, she understood. Tomorrow, J. J. would leave for Europe and might never come home. The mission—at least on paper—wasn’t as dangerous as some, but she had been around enough, read enough reports, briefed enough teams to know that easy missions could go badly. Many names on the killed-in-action list got there while on “routine patrol.”

She pushed herself up, crossed her legs, and sat on the bed. Tess wanted a cigarette. It was the first time she had felt the urge since giving up the habit her freshman year in college. That was the year everything changed for her; the year she began to live for someone other than herself; the year she found herself in an on-campus Bible study listening to someone teach from the Gospel of John.

She attended again the next week, and the week after that. By her junior year, she was leading the study. Sometime during that first year, her universe widened to include God. An international studies major, Tess graduated near the top of her class. International banking was her goal, but while working on her master’s degree at George Washington University, she developed an interest in the way countries dealt with one another. By the time she finished her PhD she’d been recruited by a major think tank, the CIA, a private consulting firm, and two other organizations slow to reveal their names and natures. None of those groups interested her, but the invitation to do postdoc work at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, did. Soon she was an adjunct professor at the Strategic Studies Institute.

Tess hated war and violence, but she also recognized that, like weeds, evil grew wherever justice was allowed to languish. There were still many moments when her thoughts did battle, but at the end of each mental war, she remained convinced that she was saving lives by providing information to generals and senators.

It was during a briefing at Fort Jackson six months ago that she met J. J. The series of meetings required her to spend the weekend in Columbia, South Carolina. Sunday she attended services led by Army chaplain Paul Bartley. After the service Bartley stood by the door greeting worshippers as they left the chapel. Standing next to him was a good-looking man about the same age as the chaplain.

Bartley smiled as she shook his hand. “Is this your first time here?”

“Yes, I live in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. I’m down here for a few meetings.”

Neither man asked what kind of meetings.

“Carlisle?” The other man studied her. “Carlisle as in Army War College?”

“Yes.”

Chaplain Bartley said, “This is my nosey brother, J. J.”

They exchanged pleasantries.

“Listen, some of us go out for lunch after service. Since you’re from out of town, maybe you’d like to join us. It’s nothing fancy, just five or six people sitting around a sandwich shop telling lies and jokes.”

Tess grinned at the chaplain. “Lies? Are chaplains allowed to tell lies?”

“When a chaplain does it, it’s called a sermon illustration.” His smile was broad. “Come on and join us. It beats sitting alone in a hotel room watching television.”

Tess agreed and J. J. offered to drive. Three hours and one tuna on rye later, Tess began to fall in love.

Prior to that moment, Tess had only her aging parents to worry about; now she had one more. J. J. captured her with his wit, his intelligence, his commitment, but most of all his faith. Tess spent her days surrounded by rugged, good-looking men, but she needed more. She needed someone with spiritual depth. J. J. had that by the truckload.

Over the months he spoke of his admiration for his teammates and team leader Eric Moyer. They were rough, crude, and often insensitive, but they were also brave, loyal, and committed to making their country safe and the world a little more evil free.

Two months into their courting, J. J. told her how the team lost a member on their last major mission. He left out many details such as the man’s name, where he died, and why they were there. The details didn’t matter; she saw the sorrow in his eyes and felt the pain in his soul.

Tess pushed back the covers, unfolded her legs, slipped on her robe, and walked to the sliding glass door that overlooked the hotel’s courtyard three stories down. An alabaster moon hung in a cloudless sky. In the distance a siren wailed. The rumble and roar of eighteen-wheelers traveling nearby making early morning deliveries rode a gentle breeze.

Tess sat in a balcony chair and gazed at the moon. It looked peaceful in its orbit 240,000 miles away. It also looked lifeless.

A moment later Tess began to pray.

CHAPTER 7

THE ALARM NEXT TO Jerry Zinsser’s head came to life, blaring a heavy-metal tune that threatened to liquefy his brain. The sudden noise activated his instinct and he pushed off the bed, fists clenched, and arms ready for a fight. It took five seconds for him to realize he was in his own bedroom. He quieted the alarm and stood in the dark. The numbers on the clock told him it was 0300, just as he had set it.