The Reluctant Warrior (Warriors Series Book 2) (41 page)

They digested that, and Broker saw through it first. ‘That’s not what we asked. You know who he is. We too deserve to know who this ghost is.’

‘I don’t
know
who he is,’ she replied, the faintest emphasis on the word.

Chloe pounced on it immediately.

‘You can make a good guess, though, right?’

Clare had her game face on, which cracked finally when Bwana said with a straight face, ‘We might have a job for him.’

She laughed and sat smiling at them, a strange expression on her face, letting the silence build, looking at Broker and Bwana the longest. Something in her gaze and posture sparked the air, electrons and protons buzzed furiously and silently.

‘You know him well. Very well.’

Broker stared at her dumbly, then at Bwana, seeing the same uncomprehending expression in the other’s eyes, and felt the flutter deep in his belly, a lightness in his head. He shook his head as if awaking from a deep sleep, looked across at Bear, Chloe and Roger, and saw the same disbelief warring with lurking hope.

‘Zeb?’ he whispered, forcing the words through a dry throat.

‘But how?’ he asked stupidly as her smile grew broader.

He flashed back to the night they’d mounted the rescue.

Carsten Holt was holed up in a three-storied house in New Jersey, with five of his hoods and the two hostages.

Two hoods were patrolling the top floor; two, the ground floor; and Holt and another hitter were watching over Lauren and Rory Balthazar on the middle floor.

Broker and Zeb decided to counterattack at night, just the two of them against six hard mercenaries.

Zeb would enter the house through a skylight in the roof, take out the two on the top floor, and go down to the middle floor, where he’d deal with Holt and rescue the hostages. Broker would take out the rest of the hoods using a long gun from across the street in front of the house. The sentries passed in front of windows, frequently – hence the long gun.

The plan worked perfectly. Up to a point.

Zeb dispatched the two hoods at the top and crept down to the hostage room.

He waited for the sentry’s blind spot, and when it arrived, entered the hostage room, his Glock high and ready – and got the drop on Holt.

The plan fell apart then.

A door behind Holt opened, and a seventh gunman entered the room, firing at Zeb. He had to compensate for Zeb’s position, who had crouched, and his first shot missed.

Zeb’s didn’t. Zeb double-tapped him, and his third shot creased Holt’s right shoulder.

Holt dropped his gun, but his hand blurred behind his back and a knife split the air and buried deep in Zeb’s shoulder, his gun clattering to the floor.

Holt charged at Zeb with another blade, Zeb parried, attacked and in the thrust and counterthrust, he dislocated Holt’s right knee with a spinning kick.

Holt fell down heavily, but reached behind to grab a chair and hurled it at Zeb.

Zeb ducked, and as he was straightening, a steel band encircled his neck and a knife pierced deep in his ribs, searching for his heart.

The second hitter on the middle floor, who’d eluded Broker’s sniping gun.

His brain went into autopilot, shutting down all nonessential systems in his body. He tried to pull away the hand choking him, but it was iron, cutting off his air, the knife going even deeper.

Through the fog creeping in his mind, he heard Holt laughing as he lay a few feet away.

Rage. Zeb welcomed it, stoked it, grew it into a ball of fire and hurled it deep inside, spreading through his body, reaching his extremities.

He moved toward his assailant, pushing the knife deeper into himself, trapping the assailant’s knife hand between their bodies.

He twisted and grasped the knife hand with his right, squeezed, that ball of fire swirling in his wrist, squeezed and squeezed till the assailant cried hoarsely as his wrist snapped.

Zeb twisted to his left, sought and found the assailant’s throat with his right hand and hurled himself back, dragging the assailant over and on top of him, his hand a vice crushing the assailant’s neck. He ignored the hood’s blows on his body, blanked out the knife going deeper in him during the struggle. Everything dissolved but for his hand around the hood’s throat, squeezing till the hood’s thrashing slowed and then stopped.

Holt lurched to his feet, picked up Zeb’s gun and stood swaying over Zeb, watching him, listening to his harsh breathing.

‘I wonder if you’re worth a bullet now. Looks like you’ll be at the pearly gates soon enough.’

Zeb whispered something.

‘Praying? Shall I administer the last rites?’ He lifted Zeb’s gun.

The shot was muffled and could’ve been mistaken for a car misfiring. Except that the shot was in the room, and there was no mistaking the red, ugly hole in Holt’s body.

Holt looked down stupidly, and Zeb fired again from beneath the dead gunman lying across him, through the gunman’s body, using the gunman’s waist gun that he had grabbed when falling backward.

His exertion had cost him all his life force, though; Broker saw it the moment he entered the hostage room and met Zeb’s eyes. He saw the knowledge in Zeb’s eyes.

He gripped Zeb’s hand, not letting go even when the medics came, working desperately to revive him, ignoring Broker’s screams and curses as he exhorted them to work harder, to do something, do anything to bring his friend back.

Broker was pulled back finally by cops, and Clare took charge, perfectly calm in the tornado of emotions in the room.

She spoke to him softly and asked him to take care of the hostages. She raised her voice when he stared at her blankly, not caring that she saw his tears and anger and bitterness and rage. She slapped him then, bringing him back to the present.

He nodded dumbly and moved to the hostages, the mechanics of activity pushing thought and emotion away.

Clare sat next to Zeb and held his hand.

She saw his cold pallor and looked at the medics and saw it in their eyes.

She stood numbly as they swiftly loaded the body, and followed them to the waiting ambulance below, shielding her face from the media who’d turned out in force.

Alone in the back of the ambulance, the two medics constantly attending to Zeb, she forced herself to think and plan, making up a story to spin to the media and to the FBI. The last vestige of her iron control deserted her then, and she sobbed deeply, uncaring of the medics’ presence.

Zeb was her protégé.

She didn’t notice the medics straighten, didn’t notice them bend over the body, didn’t see them rapidly attach various devices to his body, became dimly aware of someone calling her, and she turned around.

She looked into Zeb’s open eyes. He whispered slowly, ‘Don’t tell anyone.’

It took him four months to recover. Four months of punishing himself to get back to the fitness levels that he demanded of himself, that his job demanded of him.

She tested him hard, threw him into the bear pit that was the Agency’s training ground, where the best SEALs and Special Ops agents trained, and he healed. He became better than what he was before.

She spoke to the doctors, and they marveled at his recovery.

His body was in such fine shape, and his mind, a thing of beauty waxed one doctor, had shut down everything but the barest mechanisms to keep life alive. They thought all his martial arts training and mental conditioning had been responsible for that vital intervention. That, with the immediate and constant medical care, had led to his survival.

No, they’d said, his brain hadn’t suffered any damage because it hadn’t been deprived of oxygen.

He’d been adamant that he should be declared dead. ‘I’m a magnet for trouble and will not put anyone else at risk again,’ he’d said stubbornly. She urged, debated, threatened, and cajoled him, but he didn’t budge.

‘What about Cass?’ she asked, playing her final card. Cassandra, his sister, who was close to Clare.

‘I’m already dead. She’ll survive,’ he’d said harshly.

He was her best agent, and for all that he’d done for her and for the country, this was a small favor that she could grant, the deception not very difficult to maintain.

The doctors and medical staff were all sworn to secrecy – they never knew his real identity – and his medical records were altered to remove his existence.

Zebadiah Carter didn’t exist anymore.

They stumbled to the chairs before her, struggling to grasp the enormity of the revelation.

‘Where has he been all this time?’ Bwana asked, the faintest tremble in his voice.

‘You know I can’t answer that’ – she smiled to disarm the words of any offence – ‘but he has been on some assignments… in Pakistan, those areas.’

Zeb had been undercover in Pakistan for several months, identifying several key Al Qaeda commanders, who were then taken out by drones based on his intel.

Color returned to Chloe’s cheeks, anger tingeing her tone. ‘We were,’ she corrected herself, ‘
are
his unit. We deserved to know! This was such a massive deception for such a long time. We should’ve been in on it.’

‘It was his to tell,’ came the simple answer.

Clare could see what was coming, knowing them well, and fended off their growing anger, unable to hold back her laughter at one point when Roger threatened to make public all their projects. He looked embarrassed as soon as he finished. They just weren’t wired like that.

Three hours later the standoff continued, the anger turned sullen, and she saw the first signs of hurt.

‘You think he doesn’t want to work with us anymore?’ Bwana voiced their fears, not meeting her eyes, afraid of her response.

Clare sighed. For such an intelligent bunch, they sometimes didn’t see the woods for the trees.

‘You think he was shadowing you guys and saving your sorry asses because he didn’t have anything better to do? You’re his only family. He’s got no other ties, bonds. Sure, he has Cass, but that’s an entirely different relationship. Do you really think maintaining this lie was easy for him?’

Broker started to speak but stopped when she held her hand up. ‘I know what you’ll say. This is Zeb. He can control his emotions better than anyone and walk away without a second glance, without a second thought. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t
feel
, you idiots.

‘He made this decision, right or wrong, but ultimately it was his call. He was the one who nearly died.

‘Maybe you should get this through your thick heads; he disappeared not because he cared for you less. Maybe it was because he cared for you guys so much.’

She looked at them individually, saw it sinking in. ‘Before you ask, he’ll come when he’s ready. You know the Zeb style by now,’ she added drily.

Chloe brushed back her hair with fingers that trembled slightly. ‘Do you have a number for him?’

‘We have a number to leave messages for, and then there’s a number for him when things go nuclear.’ She gave them the messaging number. They’d been with the Agency long enough to know that the nuclear number was for just that.

Chloe looked at the number, back at Clare, a
may I
expression on her face. Clare nodded and watched as she dug out her satellite phone, looked at Bear and the others for assurance, took a deep breath, and dialed.

‘Umm, Zeb. We heard you can come back from the dead. How about showing us you can walk on water?’

It was a brilliant morning with the sun smiling down on them, the skies azure and not a cloud in sight, when they made their way to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

Broker had acted very secretive around the family, and Elaine Rocka got her only clue when Broker asked her what kind of headstone they would like for Shattner.

On the day, Broker told the kids they’d be visiting their dad’s final resting place, and when he drove into the cemetery, Elaine Rocka realized where they were heading and mouthed a silent, ‘Thank you,’ when she met his eyes in the mirror.

Broker had done his usual – negotiate, cajole, charm, convince – and secured a site at the renowned cemetery and had ensured that the grave and headstone was ready and in place. They’d decided, with Elaine Rocka’s consent, that the children didn’t need to be subjected to a burial service. It was far easier for them to visit the grave and mark closure.

The family got another surprise at the grave.

Commissioner Forzini, in dress uniform, was waiting for them at the grave, obscuring their view of the headstone, and after introductions, he smiled warmly at Lisa and Shawn, reached behind him, and presented them both with a folded flag.

On top of it was the New York City Police Department’s Medal for Valor.

He stepped aside, letting them view the marker for the first time. It was simple and elegant with just his name and dates and two other words.

They saw Lisa’s and Shawn’s eyes go over the inscription, their lips moving silently, their eyes falling on the first word and pausing there for a long while, their mouths shaping the word.
Dad.

Their eyes fell on the last word.

Hero.

Slow smiles came across their faces, growing wider and broader, bathing them in warmth and eclipsing the sun.

The Marshals were with the Commissioner, and when they’d finished at the cemetery, the family left with them.

Elaine Rocka surprised them all by hugging them tightly before she left.

Roger winked at her – ‘Careful, ma’am, you’ve a reputation to maintain’ – and blushed when she kissed him.