No Woman Left Behind (23 page)

Chapter Forty-Three

A shout of joy sounded in my helmet. “This is Mother. Drop Team mission complete. Echo mission in Gabon complete. Alpha Star, what’s your status?”

I couldn’t stop staring at Slash’s face. “Oh my God. It worked.”

“It worked,” Slash said gently. “Go,
cara
. Come home to me.”

I bolted to my feet and spoke into my helmet. “We’re okay in here. What’s the plan?”

I suddenly realized that during the final moments with Broodryk, I had been unaware of the approaching sound of a helicopter—one that was clearly landing nearby.

Hands’s voice came over my helmet. “Alpha Star, time to wrap up this party. Head directly for the chopper. Bravo Team, give your playmates a final goodbye and retreat to the bird. Charlie will cover you.”

“Let’s go,” I shouted to Elvis. We could hardly hear each other over the loud whooping of the helicopter’s rotors. The entire shack shuddered. I yelled directly in his ear. “Head straight for the copter. Okay?”

“Okay,” he shouted back.

I took his hand, gripping it hard. I finally had him back and I wasn’t going to lose him now. I reached up from a crouched position and flung open the door. No sense in offering a clear target to anyone with a scope on the door. I waited to see if anyone would shoot and when nothing happened, I grabbed Elvis’s hand.

“Now,” I shouted and pulled him out of the shack behind me.

I almost collided with Hands, who seized me by the arm.

“Go, go, go,” he shouted at me. “I’ve got him.”

He put an arm around Elvis and steadied him. We fell in line to board behind two guys dragging someone between them. A few other guys formed a protective ring around Elvis and me as we loaded.

I saw who the guys in front of me were carrying as they lifted him onto the helicopter.

“Hulk,” I shouted.

One guy on the helicopter helped pull Hulk’s form on board and then grabbed Elvis’s hand, hauling him in as easily as lifting a grocery bag.

“Up you go, Keys.” Hands lifted me off my feet and into the waiting hands of another SEAL. “I’m not leaving this time without you.”

Once on the copter, I threaded my way back to Hulk, kneeling down beside him as a medic ripped the wrapping off of some kind of needle and jammed it in his neck.

“Is he okay?” I shouted. “Is he alive?”

The medic didn’t pay any attention to me and kept working on Hulk. I turned around and saw Hands helping more guys onto the helicopter. There was a sudden ping over my head as a bullet penetrated the skin of the aircraft and bounced around reminding me that we were far from safe still.

“Where’s Wills?” I shouted at him.

He pointed to the back of the helicopter where two people were knelt over a body. I staggered that way and dropped to my knees.

Stricken I looked up at one of the guys. “Is he dead?”

“Not yet,” he yelled over the rotors. “But he’s close. He’s lost a lot of blood. They’ve got a surgical team standing by for him if we can stabilize him en route.”

Two more guys jumped on. We were taking heavy fire and one of the SEALs using a mounted gun got hit in the arm. To my amazement, he shifted to firing with one arm without even pausing.

“Lift off,” I heard someone shout and we were airborne at last.

Hostiles were firing up at the helicopter, but it was too late for them to reach us now. I watched the shack below as a squad of militants swarmed it. My stomach heaved and I had to swallow the bile before I hurled. Where was Mr. Wastebasket when I needed him?

A soldier closed the helicopter doors as I crawled next to Elvis and linked fingers with him. Someone had handed him a blanket, which he’d thrown around his shoulders. He squeezed my hand and I took a good look at him. His face was a swollen mess of bruises and cuts, and his nose looked crooked.

“Hey, bud, you feeling okay?”

“I feel nothing short of euphoric to be alive. You came for me.”

“Of course I did. Was there really any doubt?”

“I told you not to come. Or maybe you didn’t hear that part.”

“Oh, I heard it. But you should have known I’d come anyway. Wouldn’t you have come for me?”

“Yes.” He answered without hesitation.

“Well, there you go, then. Pretty simple.”

He sighed. “If something would have happened to you—”

“It would have totally been worth it.”

“No, it wouldn’t have been, but there’s no sense in arguing that now.”

“There’s not.”

Elvis swallowed and I could see he was struggling to say something. “Lexi, is Xavier...okay? I don’t remember a lot about the attack except he was screaming...”

“He’s alive, Elvis. He’s okay. He’s in a hospital in Greece and has stabilized enough that he’s going to be transferred back to the States soon. He’ll probably get home before you. Slash arranged for private transportation from the Greek hospital he’s been in to George Washington University hospital in DC, where he’ll stay until he’s ready to be discharged.”

Elvis closed his eyes. His hands trembled. “I don’t know what to say or how to thank you or Slash for everything you’ve done.”

I put my head on his shoulder and he slid his arm out from beneath the blanket and put it around me. “Friends don’t have to thank friends.”

As soon as I said it, for the first time in my life, I truly, deeply understood it. Even more, I
appreciated
it.

Relationships, like the deep ones I had forged with Elvis, Slash, Xavier and Basia, were special. Despite the messiness, complexity and illogicality of them, I suddenly understood that I wouldn’t have traded those relationships for anything. Not even my computer. I finally grasped that people, not my virtual reality, my IQ, or my skills at the keyboard, gave my life meaning. Relationships were by no means safer, logical or comfortable, but they
were
more profound and satisfying, which is perhaps the point of living after all.

Hands wedged in next to us. “Well done, Keys. Mother reported that Drop Team got Broodryk. Just like you planned.”

“I heard. He didn’t even know it was coming. It never crossed his mind that a girl could best him.”

“You’re not just a girl. You’re a SEAL.”

I appreciated his words more than he knew. “Right. I just haven’t had time to savor the victory yet. But Slash was correct. Broodryk was in South Africa all along.”

“So, the cyber team was able to trace his coordinates?”

“Yes, from the moment I plugged in to his IP-based camera. Our plan worked perfectly. Slash was able to follow a reverse ping that led directly back to Broodryk. Additional teams were on stand-by in several cities throughout South Africa. Slash and Gray always thought Broodryk wouldn’t go far from home, and they were right. Since Slash’s team was the one who actually got him, it means Broodryk was in Cape Town all along. He never even left his hometown.”

“So, who’d they get in Gabon?”

“Gregor Muller, Broodryk’s former partner. He’s bad news, too, involved in assassinations, money laundering and all kinds of cybercrime. So, we got two for the price of one today.”

“Impressive.”

“More like lucky. It wouldn’t have happened if the Washington bigwigs hadn’t agreed to let Slash travel to South Africa. No one wanted to agree to it at first, but it was the only way. Other than me, Slash was the only one with the knowledge and capability to implement the technology to track Broodryk. Honestly, I don’t think they would have agreed to let Slash go, but most members of the team didn’t believe Broodryk was in South Africa. They thought Slash would be safe. That’s why they let him go. But we knew better.”

Elvis glanced at me. “Seriously? They let Slash in on a SEAL operation?”

“They sure did. Me, too.” I shifted my body so he could see the SEAL pin on my collar. “I’m an honorary SEAL. Elvis, meet Hands, our team leader. Hands, this is Elvis Zimmerman.”

Hands reached across me and the two men shook hands.

“Looks like I owe a lot of people my life,” Elvis said. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me.” Hands jerked his thumb at me. “Thank her. It was all about you from the get go. She’s the actual brains of the operation. I just shot at stuff.”

I shook my head. “He did a lot more than that. They all did.”

My heart clutched as I glanced over at Hulk and then Wills. The medics had placed blankets over both men and they were receiving fluids from handheld IV bags. I couldn’t even begin to examine my role in their injuries. But seeing them lying there reminded me I still had an unanswered question for Hands.

“What happened with Pentz?”

Hands leaned back against the wall of the copter. “Once Wills took the bullet I was able to get a bead on him. I used the smoke and constant movement to keep him from settling. As soon as he started moving, I knew his big gun became a liability instead of an asset. It was touch and go at the end. Pentz ditched the gun and backtracked, trying to ambush me with a pistol. Luckily a thorn bush snagged his shirt and made just enough noise to let me know his position. Before he could free himself, I reintroduced myself.”

“He’s dead?”

“Let me tell you something. True snipers plan to die with a rifle in their hand after they have expended every bit of ammunition. I didn’t let Pentz have the satisfaction. He went to hell with a five-inch barrel and a fully loaded magazine.”

I considered a moment and said the only thing I could think of that was appropriate. “Hooyah.”

He nodded, his eyes somber. “Now you’re getting it. You know, Keys, you did pretty good for a rookie SEAL. I’d be proud to serve with you again.”

“No offense, but I think the Navy SEALs will operate far smoother without me.”

“Possibly, but we wouldn’t have near as much fun.” He bumped my elbow. “By the way, did you know you have sand in your eyebrows?”

Chapter Forty-Four

There was a medical unit standing by when the helicopter landed on the ship. Elvis didn’t want me to leave his sight, so I stayed in the room on a chair next to his gurney while a medic worked on him. A medic attached an IV drip to his arm and gave him several shots. As his injuries were not as life threatening as the others’, the medic told me his job would be to stabilize Elvis for the flight back to Camp Lemonnier. At this point, most of the medical team on the ship was involved in a desperate fight to save Wills and Hulk.

I could barely keep it together looking at the two men as the staff worked frantically to keep them alive. The smell of harsh antiseptic mingled with blood and sweat nauseated me, and the rush of the adrenaline had passed, leaving me shaky and exhausted. At some point, someone pressed a bottle of water in my hands and told me to drink it. I sipped it, keeping one hand touching Elvis at all times.

At some point the medic left Elvis and went to help the others. Elvis had been given some pain medication and apparently was feeling better.

He rolled his head sideways where he lay and looked at me. “Lexi, are you okay?”

I glanced over at the gurneys where Wills and Hulk were still being treated. “Not really. I want them to pull through and I’m terrified they won’t. They’re really great guys. I’m struggling with guilt. I sent Wills out to shoot the transponder. He got shot doing it on my orders. If he dies...that’s on me.”

Elvis held out a hand and I took it. “You can’t blame yourself. This is all on Broodryk.”

“Intellectually, I know. Really, I do. But I’m not good with it yet. I might never be. It’s too hard to say at this point.”

Elvis fell silent for a moment. “So, how did you do it? How did you bring down Broodryk?”

I released his hand and took a sip of my water. “It’s a long and complicated story. The short version is that Broodryk was stringing us along the entire time. Apparently he thought he could pull off a double coup of teaching us, meaning you and me, a very public lesson about what happens to those who cross him while, at the same time, having us wipe out his competition. He sent us on a crazy clue hunt that required us to run around Africa trying to track him down.”

“Really?”

“Really. Most of the team thought we had him after we ran a trace on a signal from a helmet camera perched atop of a sniper who was sent by Broodryk to hunt us in the Central African Republic. We were there looking for clues to your whereabouts. Anyway, those coordinates put Broodryk in a military-style compound in Gabon, which was well fortified and electronically wired to the max. It looked like a perfect hideout for him. But I didn’t like the feel of it and neither did Slash. It seemed too directed, too easy.

“So, Slash, our CIA analyst Grayson Reese and I worked through it. We decided based on the information we’d pulled together that Broodryk was far more likely to be in South Africa in order to effectively manage an operation of this magnitude, especially Pruxrat, a network penetration virus he’d created and was threatening to release. Based on that hunch, Washington dispatched several SEAL teams around South Africa. Slash and another SEAL team flew to Broodryk’s hometown of Cape Town yesterday and were standing by. It was a risky assumption, but it was based on the best intelligence, both human and cyber, we’d gathered.

“Then Slash and I came up with a plan to co-opt the camera feed as soon as I got into the shack. When we arrived, the SEALs threw a smoke grenade into the shack. While Broodryk’s view was impaired, I put an interceptor on his IP-camera and plugged it into my laptop instead of his. Slash ran a reverse ping and, surprise, we had a real-time location on Broodryk just like that. As we suspected, Broodryk wasn’t in Gabon. I found out later he’d helpfully provided us with the coordinates of his former partner and competitor in hopes that we would wipe him out and save him the trouble.”

“So, Broodryk was in South Africa all along.”

“Yes, right in downtown Cape Town. Slash and the team made it to his place with just moments to spare. I didn’t think they would be in time to stop him from releasing the virus.”

“Wow. Just wow. I’m going to need a lot more details later.”

“You’ve got it.”

I put my hand on Elvis’s arm. “I need to tell you something else. I met your mom. I didn’t mean to snoop in your private life, but I thought your family needed to be informed about what was happening to you and Xavier.”

He blinked. “My mom?”

“I’m sorry. I tried to find info on your parents online, but I came up empty. So, I went to your house. Basia told me where the spare key was hidden and gave me the alarm code. I apologize...but I had to go through some of your papers until I found a trail to your mother. I really feel bad about it. It’s just that under the circumstances, I thought your parents should know what was going on. I went to visit her, but in the end, I didn’t tell her anything. I didn’t want to upset her. I—I didn’t know.”

“It’s okay, Lexi. She’s not well. She hasn’t been well for a long time.”

“Actually, I liked her. Honestly, Elvis, I think she and I could be friends. Especially since she’d be one of the few people with whom I wouldn’t have to worry about my conversation skills. We kind of understood each other in that way.”

He smiled. “True.”

“She asked me to bring you to her the next time I visited. I promised her I would. So, can I go with you the next time you go to see her? I also owe her some flowers and a book to make up for my grievous omission last time.”

He studied my face. “Are you sure, Lexi?”

“Of course. I have no ambiguous feelings on this topic.”

He smiled. “Then it’s settled, I guess.”

“I guess so. By the way, I also kept Bonnie apprised of your situation as much as I could. She was very worried. She really likes you.”

“Thanks.”

I paused, struggled with what I wanted to say, but knowing I had to say it. “Elvis, can I ask you something?”

“Always.”

“Well, this whole dating thing...me with Slash and you with Bonnie. I think it’s changing things between us. I suppose that’s natural, but I’m afraid of losing your friendship. I don’t know how to adapt to the situation, how I’m supposed to act, or whether you even want to be the same kind of friends we’ve always been. This is all new territory to me. The old Lexi would have just ignored it and gone back to my safety zone of gaming and programming. But that might mean I’d lose your friendship, and I’ve realized I don’t want that to happen. The bottom line is I’m really struggling because I’m not sure what to do next. Do you want to stay friends? More importantly,
can
we stay friends?”

“Wow.” He pressed his hand to his forehead. “Do I want that? Of course, I want that. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had. You came halfway around the world for me. As to whether we can stay friends, I think that’s up to you.”

“Me?”

“Yes. I know it’s a lot for you to juggle a boyfriend and a best friend who happens to be a guy. But I’m in if you are.”

The breath I’d been holding rushed out. “Of course, I’m in. That’s really great, Elvis. Let’s make a deal that if we ever worry about the appropriateness of anything related to our friendship, we just ask each other straight up. No guessing, no games. Especially because we’re both smarter than that.”

“Truth.”

“Then it’s settled. It will be kind of like the blind leading the blind. Could be fun.”

He grinned. “Could be. So, Lexi...this thing with Slash, it’s serious?”

“Yeah, it’s serious. He’s pretty amazing.”

Elvis reached out and linked fingers with me. “Then I’m happy for you. He’s a good guy. Even better, he’s good for you.”

“He really is.” I leaned down and gave him a quick, careful hug. “Oh, Elvis, I’m so glad you’re back. I couldn’t imagine my life without you.”

“Ditto.” He reached up and touched my cheek. “I believe it was Helen Keller who said, ‘Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.’ I can’t imagine anyone else with whom I’d rather walk in the dark.”

I smiled. “You’ve got that right.”