Operation Zulu Redemption: Act of Treason - Part 4 (4 page)

With a
kapp
on and the familiar dress of the Amish, Téya stared down Augsburger Lane. David’s younger siblings and cousins played in the fields, having completed their chores. The older children were at the school building, though they’d be coming home soon.

“You sure about this?”

Téya flinched at Rusty’s voice then flashed him a smile she didn’t feel. “Yeah.” She tugged on the silver handle and pushed open the door. “Remember—watch for me from down the road.”

He nodded.

This could take an hour or it could be over in minutes. She strolled down the country lane, nervous and uncertain. Anxious. She had to warn David. More than that, she had to see him. Had to know that what happened in Frankfurt hadn’t changed her or anything else. She’d told Trace that she was worried about her family’s safety, but she wasn’t. At least, not as much. Majid had promised to put an asset or two in place.

Are they here even now?

The pull to scan the fields and tree line tugged at her, but she resisted. This wasn’t about Majid. This was about David Augsburger and Katie Gerig.

Téya slowed to a stop, a nauseating knot tightening in her stomach. She didn’t even know who Katie was anymore. The
kapp
strings fluttered in a breeze, smacking her in the face. Stinging. Unfeeling.

Just as she’d been when she walked out of Bleak Pond without looking back. So what if she’d cried the whole way. She’d left them. Left those she loved.

“What are you doing here?”

Again caught off-guard, Téya spun on her heels. David stood there in his brown pants, suspenders, and white shirt, leaning on a cane. Her heart clinched at the sight. She forced herself to act happy. “I thought you’d still have to rest.”

His eyes bored into hers. “It’s boring lying about all day. A man needs to work.”

She smiled. So like David—but with an edge. He was mad. At her.

“Like I asked, what are you doing here, Katie?” The wind riffled his dark brown hair that hung longer than the men she was keeping company with lately. Trace and Boone had short-cropped hair. Rusty, a little longer but not by much. And Majid. . .

No, not him. She wouldn’t think about him now.

“I hoped we could talk,” Téya said as she walked toward him.

“Isn’t that what we’re doing?”

“David,” she said with a nervous laugh, skating a look around to make sure nobody heard them talking, heard his harsh disdain. “I’ve never heard you talk to friends like that before.”

“I
don’t
talk to friends like that.” His words carried the blade of a dagger, right into her chest.

She wet her lips. She ached for the kindness he’d always shown her. For the reassurance that life would be okay.

“Who was the man in the truck?”

Téya started.

“Maggie saw you ride into town with him,” David said, referring to his sister-in-law.

“He’s a friend—just a man I work with. I don’t own a car, so he agreed to bring me.” It wasn’t the whole truth, but it was a close variant. As close as she could give to David. And that hurt, too. “David,” she said, stepping up to him and taking his hand.

He stiffened, his jaw tightening. “Release me.”

Shaken at his tone, at the disgust she saw in his eyes and heard in his voice, she stepped back. “What. . .what is wrong?”

David cut his narrowed eyes to her. “Mrs. Gerig told me you’re a soldier.”

Téya straightened, her lips parting in surprise as she pulled back.

“It’s true, then?”

“Dav—”

“Leave us, Katie! Or whoever you are. Leave and don’t come back.”

“David, you have to listen to me,” she said, abandoning the hope of his love. The hope that he’d still smile at her and tell her everything would be okay. “There are dangerous men after me.”

“Yes, they nearly killed your grandmother and me, then came back to try to finish me off.” He started back to the house, hobbling awkwardly on his still-healing leg.

“David, I’m sorry.” Her throat felt raw, thick. “I never thought I’d have to go back.”

“It’s better this way,” David said, stumbling as he moved quicker on his bad leg. “You don’t belong here, Katie.”

Hurt and anger writhed in her chest. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this! This place, my grandmother—
you
were supposed to be my life. I
wanted
that. Can’t you see I loved you?”

He stopped, the pebbles crunching angrily beneath his feet. With a shift, the rocks groaning beneath him, he held her gaze. “Loved?”

Had she said that? “No,
love
.”

“You said
loved
. Past tense.” He squared his jaw. “Go back to your warring. To your fighting, Katie. You don’t belong here.” His eyes seemed to blur with unshed tears. “I could never marry a woman who killed people.”

Those last words thrust the dagger deeper, twisting. Killing any hope of love and happiness she had left. Chin trembling, she backstepped. Tears blurred her vision. She wiped at them angrily, not wanting to lose sight of David. “Take care of her, please—my
grossmammi
. Please promise me that much!”

He slowed but didn’t look back. Instead, his gaze went to the ground next to him. “Bleak Pond takes care of its own. Without weapons and violence.” His shoulders rose and fell as his voice trembled. “We use a more powerful weapon—love.”

Beneath a mighty oak, Zulu had laid Keeley to rest. Annie and Nuala hooked arms with Téya as they stood next to the gaping hole in the earth, the one that mirrored the hole in their lives. In Zulu. Bible in hand, Boone read from the twenty-third Psalm, determined to give Keeley a “decent” sending off. He’d chosen to place her remains here on his property to keep her close, but also because she’d been buried once already. In a family plot back in Nebraska. The coffin her parents had placed in the ground was empty. The pine box being placed in the ground now, was not.

A somber mood hung over the group. Boone for having lost Keeley. Zulu for also having lost a sister-in-arms. Something had happened to Téya when she went to check on her family back in Pennsylvania, though she hadn’t spoken of it since. And Annie bore a new grief, having witnessed flight 5792 out of Dulles at 4:15 that morning. Seated in seat 5F—Samuel Caliguari.

Boone and Rusty shoveled the dirt over the casket in silence, each thump of dirt hitting the box sounding like a clap of thunder against their souls. She was gone. Keeley was gone. Jessie and Candice, too. Half the team. Annie couldn’t help but wonder who would be next. Her?

While Rusty and Boone finished filling the grave site, Annie and the others went in and set up a small brunch. Nobody would send flowers. Nobody would bring meals.

“He blames himself,” Nuala said softly as she set out napkins.

“They both do,” Annie agreed. “Somehow, even I feel guilty.”

“I was so stupid to think being a Special Forces soldier was a good thing. So hung up on myself, I never considered—”

“What was there to consider?” Annie asked. “It was an opportunity. We could not know then what would happen a year later. We could not know how upside down things would become.”

“So, that’s it? We just live with upside-down lives?” Téya’s eyes blazed with anger.

“No, we fight it.” She considered her friend, surprised at the outrage in her voice and body language. “Téya, what happened in Bleak Pond?”

Her friend stilled, her chest rising and falling unevenly. “Nothing.” She batted her hand. “Where’s Trace? Why wasn’t he at the funeral?”

Annie shook her head, mostly at the way her friend dismissed her, but also to shed her own surprise that Trace hadn’t come. “It’s not like him.”

“I’m sure he had a good reason.” Nuala, ever the optimist.

The vault-like door groaned open and Boone stormed in, a phone pressed to his ear. Behind him came Rusty, dusting off his hands.

Boone said nothing. Didn’t look at them. Just stalked to the briefing area and closed the door.

“Someday, they’ll actually act in accordance with their words, that we’re on equal ground.”

“We’re all soldiers,” Rusty said as he washed his hands at the sink in the little kitchen. “But Boone and the commander are our team leaders. There’s a reason the Army has a chain of command.”

“We’re not in the Army anymore,” Téya bit out.

“Actually, we are.” Rusty picked up a plate and started piling brisket on it.

“Want to explain that?” Annie folded her arms over her chest, watching him move on as though he had not a care. “We’ve lived civilian lives for the last five years.”

He pointed a fork at her. “Lived a civilian life is one thing. You lived it, but you were and still are owned by the U.S. government. Think about it: Who’re you taking orders from?”

“All right,” Boone’s voice bounced off the cement walls. “Eat up, pack up. We head out late tonight.”

“Head out for where?” Annie spun toward him, her mind whirling.

“England. We’re going to find Berg Ballenger.”

Yawning into his glass of water, Trace had been ready for a lunch break for the last two hours. Honestly, since he’d arrived. Listening to a recounting of endless hours of testimony felt more like being stuck in a time warp. Or watching that movie
Groundhog Day
over and over and over. And over.

There wasn’t anything new here. Nothing new to discover. At least, not about him. He’d been there. He’d led Zulu. But this hearing had nothing on him. Nothing they could pin that would cause the devastation they wanted.

Another yawn pulled at him.

“Are we boring you, Colonel Weston?”

Straightening in his seat, Trace felt the heat of embarrassment reach the tips of his ears. He didn’t answer the question. It wasn’t meant to be answered.

“We’ll take a short recess, then return with the testimony of Lieutenant Francesca Solomon.”

Trace resisted the urge to look at Haym. Why hadn’t the general told him about this? What could his bulldog daughter know about Misrata?

The chairman of the committee called a break, and a hum of conversation and movement blanketed the room. Trace leaned over to the general.

“I have no idea,” Haym said before Trace could ask his question. “She conveniently kept this from me.”

“Why would they hear her out? She wasn’t there.”

Haym nodded but didn’t reply.

“Sir?” Trace insisted on an answer. He needed reassurance something hadn’t come to light to wrongly implicate him.

“I don’t know.” He pushed up from his seat at the table. “Excuse me.”

With a hefty sigh, Trace slumped back against the chair. Rubbed his jaw, then stood. Stiff in his uniform jacket, he made his way to the main hall. He used the facilities, then walked to the far end of the hall and stood at a bank of windows overlooking the green. Across the grassy area, parking lots gave way to the busy streets of downtown DC. Here, careers were made. Or destroyed. Pundits needed a scapegoat and nailed whomever they could get their hands on onto the cross of justice. Trace understood that sometimes happened to help people feel like tragedies weren’t being ignored. That the pain of innocents wasn’t overlooked.

He’d just never expected to find himself fighting for his career five years later. This was a nightmare that just would not end. A glance at his watch told him it was time to go back. Sit at the table like a target lined up as a sacrificial lamb.

“We’re pulling for you, sir,” a young lieutenant said as Trace pushed past. Trace gave him a nod of thanks as he broke through the crowd at the door.

Someone rammed into him.

Beautiful gold eyes met his. Widened. And that’s when the rest of her facial features registered. “Miss Solomon.”

Her cheeks pinked. “Colonel,” she said tightly.

He took a step away, told himself to leave her alone, but he couldn’t. “Just remember, your lies affect more than me.”

“I could say the same to you.”

He did ignore that and shuffled down the aisle into his seat at the front. For a closed, confidential meeting, there were a lot of people here.

“Where have you been?” Haym hissed.

“Getting some air,” Trace said, frowning at the general.

“We have a problem.”

Trace’s gaze automatically bounced to Francesca Solomon, who’d taken a seat on the row behind them. Without turning her head, she slid her gaze to him. Arrogant confidence plastered her face.

“She has the identities of your team.”

“How the heck did she—”

“I don’t know.”

“We have to shut that down. She cannot go live with that information.”

“I’m working on it, but it’s not that simple.”

“It
is
that simple.” He bent forward, his nose practically in Haym’s face. “If she reveals their names, Zulu is crippled. I cannot launch them. I cannot get the answers we need. This has to be shut down—
now
, General.”

“They’ll only argue that the names are okay to be revealed because they’re dead.” Haym waved a hand. “It’s a closed hearing—they’ll say the information is safe.”

“There are fifty potential sources of compromise in this room,” Trace countered.

“You know that. I know that. But convincing them—”

“Then we need a distraction to end this now. Then you need to drag her butt under a bright light and convince her to stop.” Trace did not suggest things lightly. But when a bulldog caught the scent of a bone. . .

An idea began to formulate in Trace’s mind. It could put his reputation in more jeopardy, but did he have any other choice? Annie, Téya, and Nuala depended on him.

Trace maintained his peace as Chairman Moller resumed the session. He maintained his peace as a summary was presented. He maintained his peace as the chairman handed over control of the mic to Representative Glick, who then called Francesca Solomon to the table.

She moved to the seat beside her father.

“Please state who you are and why are you here, for the record,” Glick said.

“Thank you,” she said, resting her hands in her lap as she leaned forward. She had the demure thing down pat. “My name is Francesca Solomon. I’m a lieutenant in the United States Army. I work for INSCOM, as an analyst. I’ve been invited here by General Marlowe to provide testimony regarding the tragic bombing in Misrata, Libya, that took the lives of twenty-two innocents.”

“Thank you, Miss Solomon,” Chairman Moller intoned, taking back control of the microphone. “Can you please explain why we are hearing from you again? The Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence heard from you more than four years ago during the first hearing and your information, I’m afraid, was scant at best.”

“I would agree with you, Senator Moller,” she said, her tone respectful and placating.

Oh she was good. Very good. She knew this game better than most. Maybe that was it—she had an agenda to get her foot in the door and secure a place on Capitol Hill with all the other snakes and sharks.

“But the last six months have delivered not just an uptick in valuable intel but also some very disturbing and alarming information on Colonel Weston.” Francesca turned off her mic.

“I have here,” Chairman Moller said, “a police report from an accident you were involved in a few weeks ago, Miss Solomon.”

Poised and composed, she gave no indication of her emotional state. At least not from Moller’s viewpoint, but Trace could see her fingers twisting knots under the table.

“It’s come to my attention that you have harbored an intense and perhaps perverted sense of vengeance against Colonel Weston,” Moller said, removing his glasses and looking up at her. “Is that true?”

“It’s what some have claimed when they did not like my investigation efforts.”

Moller pointed his glasses to the far left of the room, near the doors. “So, you’re going to tell me that these two gentlemen—please stand—are just exaggerating?”

Trace glanced in that direction. Dressed in a pristine white uniform was Solomon’s eldest son, the one Trace had met in the office. Paul? Paolo. But the man beside him—the one that made Trace’s heart slow—“Brent,” Trace whispered. His little brother.

What? When had Brent ever met Solomon? Had she been to his family? Drilled them full of questions?

“I would say that my brother felt I was on the wrong track and wanted to embarrass me, sir.”

Moller’s face reddened. “You’re going to tell this committee that a highly decorated Navy SEAL with multiple tours has nothing better to do on this Tuesday morning than harass his
little sister
?”

Solomon lowered her gaze.

“Thank you, gentlemen,” Moller said, as he glowered at Francesca. “Now, I hope to God you have more solid information for us, that you are not wasting our time, or recklessly attacking the reputation and career of another highly decorated service member.”

Francesca wet her lips, slowly bringing her gaze up. “I have credible information to present, if you would hear it.” The tension and anger in her words were palpable.

“Go ahead,” Chairman Moller said.

“Thank you,” Francesca said, adjusting in her chair and shifting papers in front of her. “As an analyst with INSCOM, I had access to information and key assets on the ground in Libya at the time of the attack. It was my responsibility—”

“Miss Solomon, we’ve already heard this,” Moller growled. “If you do not have new material—”

“I do, sir,” she said.

He huffed.

She traced a finger down the page, looking for the right place to pick up. “Roughly two months ago, two women were murdered.”

Trace clicked his mic on. Steadied the ramming of his heart against his pulse. This could end his career. This could devastate his life. This could destroy Annie, Téya, and Nuala. So, he began. “I am an American Special Forces Soldier! I will do all that my nation requires of me.”

“Colonel Weston, you do not have the microphone,” he could hear Chairman Moller saying.

But Trace continued. Never stopped. “I am a volunteer, knowing well the hazards of my profession.” Which might include getting arrested today. “I serve with the memory of those who have gone before me.” Jessie. Candice. Keeley. “I pledge to uphold the honor and integrity of their legacy in all that I am—”

“Colonel Weston,” Moller shouted, his voice mingling the noisy thrum rippling through the courtroom. “Colonel Weston, if you do not stop—”

“Just cut his mic,” General Marlowe said.

And Trace’s mic died. So Trace lifted his voice, unwilling to let Francesca Solomon in her insane quest to destroy him put the lives of Annie, Téya, and Nuala on the line, too.

“I am a warrior. I will teach and fight whenever and wherever my nation requires.” Even with civil disobedience right now. “I will strive always to excel in every art and artifice of war. I know that I will be called upon—”

“Security!”

“—to perform tasks in isolation far from familiar faces and voices.”

“Trace,” Haym said, his face strangely pale for an Italian. “What are you doing?”

“With the help and guidance of my faith, I will conquer my fears and succeed. I will keep my mind and body clean, alert, and strong. I will maintain my arms—”

Two Capitol Hill police entered the room, and before the door shut, Trace saw two more jogging down the hall.

They hauled Trace to his feet, but he never stopped reciting the Special Forces creed. And he didn’t struggle against the authorities. It’d only go worse later. Cuffs tight against his wrists, he was hauled out of the room. As he passed Francesca, Trace broke free. Shoved his face in hers. “Remember, those names—they’re lives you’re playing with. More innocent people will die because of your vendetta against me. Can you live with that, Francesca?”