Raptor 6 (32 page)

“And if we don’t,” Dean said, blood rushing through his ears, “she dies.”

Somewhere in Afghanistan

T
ime alone gave her entirely too much time to think, to wonder, to fear. And that fear, the paralyzing, haunting fear, kept her wake. Forbid her from sleeping. Though it was June, the cool earth bled coldness into her bones and veins as she sat on the hard-packed ground. Head against a barrel, she kept her eyes closed. The storage room, chilled and black as a moonless night, became her enemy, holding her hostage. Preventing escape.

And yet. She was a general’s daughter. One who’d taught her to never give up. That there was always hope as long as one breathed. That … that was what pushed her once more to her feet. Stomach rumbling, she paused. How many meals had she missed? No matter. If she remained a captive, she would miss a lot more. Though her captors had mentioned moving her at night, it’d been much longer. Days? She wasn’t sure.

Zahrah trudged across the room, blindly stumbling around the stacked crates and barrels. Her fingers slid along the wood surfaces as she made her way to the door. It’d be the sixth time she’d checked it for some fault. Some cooperation in aiding her escape. Her fingers traced the earthen wall. Cool and a bit damp. Smooth in a grainy sort of way. Along the wall to where the softness gave away to the knotty texture of wood. And steel braces. She dug her fingers into the arrow-like hinges that strapped the door in a firm hold. Pulled. Tugged. The uppermost one had no give.

She traced down to the middle one. About a hand span from where it stopped, a hole—no knob to grip or tug—gaped for a key. Cramming her fingernails between the steel support and the wood, she felt the familiar prick of a splinter slide beneath her nail.

She hissed but didn’t stop. There had to be a way out. Had to be.

But still, just as the previous five times, she found no leverage with which to pull the brace off. She went to her knees, thinking how much like defeat it seemed to do this. But one more brace waited for her testing. Maybe to mock her. Laugh at her vain attempts to pry it from its position.

Warm stickiness against her fingertips warned her the splinters were aggravated. “Yeah, well me too.” She stuck the tip of her finger in her mouth and sucked the blood off.
I am not defeated. I am not defeated
.

Her hand slid back up to the keyhole. She tried to jiggle it away. Tried to stick her fingers in—maybe the slick blood would make it easier for her to jam in and nudge the lock back.

Right. Like trying to cram a camel through the eye of the needle. She sighed. Dropped her forehead against the door. Slapped the wood.

Panic swirled around her.
I don’t want to die
. She pounded her fist against it. Her father … she’d never see him again. He’d be disappointed. His little soldier wasn’t so brave and strong after all.

And Dean. Fierce, handsome Captain Watters, who couldn’t see beyond his mission. Never saw that she admired him. So very much. Yes, she’d been attracted to the intense soldier. He’d been so much like her father. So strong, in a quiet but powerful way. He wasn’t a mound of muscles, but he was well built. It’d been so silly to even entertain thoughts that he might notice her. He had missions. The most important thing to him was the military. He wouldn’t leave that for her. And she wouldn’t leave her mission—teaching children.

But there’d always been more than that to her purpose in being back in Afghanistan after her mother’s death. She’d come with conviction to teach children, but something else, something she’d never been able to pinpoint, kept her here.

A pair of greenish-brown eyes?

She turned, her cheek against the wood, quiet tears slipping free. “God,” she whispered raggedly. “Please … let me see him again.” Selfish and maybe a bit schoolgirlish, but if she got to see him, then it’d mean she wasn’t dead.

The odds were not in her favor. She knew the history of terrorists. Back home, hope existed that those held captive would be found alive.

Not here. Not when held by Taliban.

The Taliban took captives to make examples. Dead examples.

Voices skidded into her awareness, breaking through her grief and depression. Zahrah stilled, listening as thuds of boots approached. She scuttled back to her spot and tucked herself against the barrels.

A beam of light shot through the keyhole.

Metal jangled against the lock.

Light shattered the darkness. Zahrah shielded her eyes as the beams of light hit her.

“Get up!” Kamran’s voice boomed against the silence that had cocooned her.

Hand in front of her eyes, she climbed to her feet.

Someone grabbed her wrist and yanked.

“No,” Kamran said. “She’ll need her hands.”

The words surprised Zahrah.

“B–but …” The heftier of the two men shifted. “She’ll escape.”

“She won’t.” Gaze steadfast, Kamran stared at her. Hard. “Not where we are going.”

They hauled her out of the cellar and half pushed, half dragged her back toward the main house. Up five steps. Across the kitchen with an enormous stove and many refrigerators. Glossy counters glinting in …
moonlight
!

A thud against her back made her stumble. She struck out a hand to break her fall. Even as Kamran shouted, Zahrah heard a tink-tink. Saw one of the turquoise beads from the bracelet skitter across the floor.

Rough hands threw her forward. She stumbled again but didn’t fall as they shoved her out a rear door. Into the night. Thick mist clung to the grass.

Mist? Dew—predawn.

They guided her toward a shedlike structure, no bigger than a normal American garage. Inside, lights blossomed and dispersed the shadows. Lawn mowers, trimmers, leaf blowers, gas containers cluttered the space, making it feel much smaller. And trickier to navigate.

They nudged her toward a door.

“Where are we going?”

The door swung open. A tunnel, burrowing through the shed and apparently into the back of the hill behind the house, yawned at them. Ready to devour them. Two of the guards went before her. Strange. What was it? An underground crypt? Somewhere they hid the bodies of their enemies? A foul odor trickled out.

If I go in there, I’m not coming back. At least not alive
.

“Go!”

Another thrust against her back. But she stomped her foot, refusing to budge. “No.”

Kamran pointed a weapon at her. “In. Now.”

With a quick shake of her head, she said, “No. I’m not going in there.” When one of the grunts inside the tunnel grabbed her hand, she wrestled against them. “No!”

Without a word, Kamran turned. Produced a hand grenade, pulled the pin, and lobbed it at the entrance.

Zahrah’s gaze flicked to the half-dozen bags of fertilizer … just feet away. Kamran leapt past her. Zahrah threw herself into the tunnel.

BooooOOOOOOOooooom!

Sub-base Schwarzburg, Camp Marmal
Mazar-e Sharif, Balkh Province
20 June

The sub-base command center buzzed. Burnett and Hastings focused on sending the feeds to CID and DIA in the hope they could pin down the identity of the man who’d taken Zahrah. Raptor worked feverishly, printing stills of the kidnappers. Nearing four days, best they could tell, since she’d been taken. Yet, they had nothing. No certainty as to why she’d been taken or where.

Arms folded, Dean watched the video again. Something … something nagged at him, but he couldn’t tell what. Not yet at least. It’d come.
God … sooner is better. For Zahrah’s sake
. Interesting how the more she’d been in his life, though in an indirect way, the more he talked to God. Was that a good or bad thing? He’d tried it for years as a kid. Then his brother took things into his own hands. Later as a teen, he’d begged God to save Sergeant Elliott, a man who believed in Him, heart and soul. Yet … He hadn’t. God took him, just like he took Dean from his family. Which wasn’t a terrible thing. It’d have been a greater loss if he had a good family.

“Find anything new?”

At Falcon’s question, Dean plucked his mind from the past and sighed. “Just four armed thugs and their leader.”

“It’s a precise strike.”

He nodded. “They knew what they wanted. Knew where and when, and wasted no time taking what they were after.”

“Double Z.” Holding a bag of chips, Falcon pointed to the screen. “And that’s
three
armed thugs.”

Dean stilled. Scanned the image from the video he’d frozen. Sure enough, the guy behind the broad-shouldered leader just stood there. Dean felt a scowl sift through his face. “That’s it.” He hit the fast-forward and watched the men move around. “He’s not armed, and he does nothing.”

“So, why’s he there?” Falcon muttered.

“Cap,” Hawk said as he tapped his computer screen. “I think I have something.”

Pivoting, Dean pried himself from the haunting images. At Hawk’s desk, he leaned forward, a hand on the desk and one on the back of his chair.

“I’ve been tracking video feeds—you know, doing CID’s work for them.” The grin mocked. “Look what I found on YouTube.” He hit the PLAY icon.

The video bounced. Images blurred—green. Grass? Road with potholes. Buildings. Then more grass till it honed in on a teen hopping around on the lawn with a soccer ball bouncing off his knee and ankles as the kid showed his skills.

Like Dean had time for this. “What is this?”

“Some kid filming his friend or brother or something.” Hawk’s eyes scanned the screen.

“Why do I care?”

Hawk grinned. “Check out the background.” He maximized the screen and pointed to a car.

Leaning in, Dean squinted against the hopelessly grainy video. Until he saw a silver Mercedes jerk up in front of the building. “That looks a lot like the dorm parking lot.”

“Score one for the captain,” Hawk said with bravado. “There’s a reason I’m on your team.”

“Yeah,” Falcon said, “because nobody else would have you.”

“All right, be like that. I still owe you jerks for the tattoo,” Hawk said. “But keep watching. It gets better … well, sort of.” He bobbed his head toward the monitor. “Right—there!”

The men from the car vanished into the building. Anticipation of their return leapt through Dean’s veins. He leaned farther in. Just as their shapes reemerged, the video swung away from the kidnappers to the laughing soccer player. “No!”

“Easy.” Hawk sipped his coffee. “It’ll come back around.”

Twenty seconds later, it did.

Just as the big guy tossed Zahrah into the Mercedes. Two men conferred. Big guy—“Isn’t that the guy from the school? The one that punched Zahrah’s cousin?”

“Kamran Khan,” someone said. “We’ve been watching him for a few months. Showed up out of the blue. Trouble wasn’t far behind.”

On the video, Kamran looked away. The other man, lean and tall, poked his chest. Several times. Kamran’s arms went out, in an “I’m ready to punch your lights out, but I won’t” way.

“Kamran’s not the boss,” Dean said, his voice a whisper.

“And Big Guy’s not wearing a mask now—I’ll have to tighten it up to get a good visual on his face, but he’s looking pretty Asian.” Hawk smiled. “I love stupid terrorists. They make my job fun. And easy.”

Dean pointed to the screen. “Send that to Hastings. Find out who that guy is.”

“As usual,” Hawk said with a laugh. “I’m one step ahead of you, el capitan. Sent it her way as I called you over.”

“That was easy,” Hastings’s voice carried loud and clear through the base as she stalked their way. “The man in the soccer video is Lee Nianzu.”

Burnett appeared behind her, his weathered face worn. “And that’s really bad news for you.”

Chin up, shoulders back, Dean waited for the explanation.

“He’s a known assassin and associate of Zhang Longwei, son of General Zhang Guiern, a political envoy who gave hope to a U.S.-China peace accord.”

Dean shrugged. “That sounds like something we could work to our favor.”

“Except Guiern was found dead two years ago. Nobody was charged, but many believed Lee”—Burnett stabbed a finger at the image—“was the guilty party. Impossible to prove.” He rubbed his chin, eyeing the frozen video. “What I can’t figure is why Nianzu would be here, what he’d want with Zahrah Zarrick.”