Veiled Freedom (47 page)

“Not really. Something about how my class and I were praying for you, that you'd be safe and that you and the other soldiers would be successful in the fight to free Afghanistan.”

“Yeah, well, what you had to say stuck in my mind. You said you were praying all our fighting would make Afghanistan ‘land of the free and home of the brave.' Nice-sounding words. Funny thing is, I was going to write you back and tell you how we'd freed Kabul. That you could tell your kids their prayers were answered. Except I found out right about then what an empty victory we'd won. That we hadn't helped the Northern Alliance bring freedom to this place. We'd just helped a bunch of robber barons stake out their booty.”

Steve shrugged. “I didn't figure that was the kind of news you wanted for your precious Sunday school class, so I decided I'd do your kids a favor and not answer.”

Amy looked at that rigid profile. “I get it now. That's what you meant about breaking your heart over betrayal and—and everything. It was Afghanistan you were talking about.” She shook her head slowly, compassionately. “I've always thought about how hard the war was for the Afghan people. I never really thought what it was like for you, for our soldiers. I can't even begin to guess what all you might have gone through, how you might feel about the way it's turned out. I am so sorry.”

“I don't know why.” Steve kept his gaze on the windshield. “It was a much-needed lesson in reality. One of which I'd been needing a reminder. Now, if you don't mind, I think your chaperones are here to collect you.”

The security contractor was right. Wajid hovered at Amy's door, trying to catch her eye. Behind him, the open gate was crowded with children peering out to see why Ameera hadn't emerged from the foreigner's vehicle. As Amy reached for the door handle, the elderly guard was already opening it. Stifling a sigh, she swung her feet to the pavement.

“Thanks again for this afternoon. And I do appreciate what you've had to say. It's been—” Amy reached for any word that could be appropriate—“educational.”

“I'd say you're welcome if I thought you'd learned anything from it.” Steve turned at last from the windshield, and any friendliness Amy had glimpsed there during the afternoon was swallowed up in that aloof gray gaze, his unreadable expression. “You do what you have to. Just don't come running my way when these people you've put so much faith in break your heart—or worse.”

“In other words, take your advice or the consequences.” Now Amy's tone was hard. “Like you've been saying since we met, you don't do bailouts.”

“Now you've got it.”

Why am I letting her get under my skin?

Steve stalked across the courtyard from the parking shed into the CS team house. Picking up the phone after pulling that photo from this morning's mail had been a matter of impulse. As Phil had been quick to point out, blonde aid workers with candid hazel eyes that could shimmer in a heartbeat from held-back tears to fire to irritating compassion were hardly his type.

So why was Steve wasting time and words and an interference that was against every life principle he'd developed on some collateral citizen who'd dropped into a war zone and fell nowhere within his sphere of responsibility, no matter what excuses he'd offered her?

But Steve knew why. He paused to pull free the contents of his coat pocket. Yellow mailer and crumpled note dropped into the trash can. But the photo didn't immediately follow. He hadn't been totally honest with Amy. In actuality, this image had remained tacked up by his bedroll for all the remaining months of fighting. And not just as a reminder of what a credulous fool he'd been. The girl's wide-eyed innocence, her protective stance over her students, their own small, joyous faces had been reassurance to a heartsick, young soldier that despite lies and betrayal and too much death all around him, there still remained better reasons for fighting this war.

Not until he'd left Special Ops for his first PSD contract had Steve thrust that photo along with other extraneous belongings into an action packer he'd shipped for storage to his grandfather. It must be those sleepless night hours staring at a reminder of life that even years later had tugged at Steve's memory from the moment he'd glimpsed Amy Mallory on the Ariana flight into Kabul.

“Hey, that you, Steve? Come on in. Denise wants to say hi.”

Steve shoved the photo back into his pocket as he followed Phil's voice. The CS team house was virtually empty, its American contingent down at the DynCorp compound, the others at their various duties. Steve's former Special Forces teammate was in the lounge. His laptop was hooked up to the HD flat-screen to allow him to enjoy a full thirty-two-inch image of crackling fireplace, hung stockings, Christmas tree, and three towheaded preschoolers rowdying in front of their own TV set.

“Happy Thanksgiving, Steve. You're looking good.” Phil's wife, Denise, held up a plate of cinnamon buns. “Wish we could share these with you. Maybe next year.”

As she turned to rescue a tree ornament from her youngest, a crawling infant, Phil turned his back to the Skype cam to say in a low voice, “I didn't want to ask in front of the Rev and your guest, but what did you think of that footage?”

The question ended any pretense of holiday Steve had dredged up when he'd rushed to keep that appointment with Amy Mallory and Rev Garwood. “Someone on our side should have this intel before Jim Waters lands tomorrow to hand out accolades and all that American cash.”

At the grimness in his tone, Denise looked up quickly on the TV screen. Steve stepped out of camera view.

Phil followed. “And . . . ?”

“I'm thinking Jason Hamilton. He hobnobs with all the embassy brass.” Steve nodded toward the laptop. “Can you take a breather to run a few clips if I get him over here?”

“No problem; I've got all day.”

“Daddy, look. It's SpongeBob flying.”

As Phil hurried back to the televised parade, Steve called the DynCorp manager.

“Good timing, Wilson, I was just about to buzz you. We've got forty-eight hours to get security in place. And less than twenty-four before Waters and team touch down.”

Steve was having a hard time hearing. From the noises in the background, the DynCorp crowd had managed to supply their Thanksgiving celebration with female company along with football, beer, and turkey.

“So I trust your people weren't planning on celebrating tomorrow. Can you walk through the Justice Center first thing in the morning? Then we get all the players together to coordinate who's doing what. We need to be ready to roll as soon as Eid's over.”

“Will 8 a.m. do it?” Steve said. So much for that Bagram run tomorrow. Rev Garwood would understand the mission came first. Though Steve had a feeling Ms. Amy Mallory might consider promises were made to be kept regardless of excuse. At least to children. “And one more thing. If you've finished your turkey, would you mind popping down to our team house? There's something I'd appreciate your opinion on.”

“Any reason it can't wait till morning?” Jason sounded impatient. “Or just give it to me over the phone.”

“That won't do,” Steve answered inflexibly.

There was a pause. “Does this affect our current mission or Jim Waters's arrival?”

“That's what I'm hoping you might be able to tell me.”

“I'll be right there.”

The DynCorp compound was on the next block, and Jason Hamilton was not only there within five minutes but had DEA station chief Ramon Placido with him. “His bunch crashed our party, so I dragged him along. If it touches Waters, it touches DEA.”

But neither man was as affable by the time Steve finished explaining and Phil had broken off his Internet connection to play a video clip.

“You tapped the minister of interior's private business sessions?” Jason demanded. “Are you crazy? I don't want to hear any more. I'd like to maintain deniability if I'm ever grilled on this.”

“It wasn't planned,” Steve defended. “But how we came by the intel should be irrelevant to its content, shouldn't it?”

Jason shook his head as though addressing the town idiot. “You don't think anyone can use this. Can you imagine the repercussions if it
ever
gets out that a civilian security company used a State Department contract to wiretap a foreign ally? DynCorp would be first in line to throw you to the wolves before we're all run out of town on a rail. Tell 'em, Placido, how many regs they've just broken.”

“The misapprehension here,” the DEA chief intervened, “is that what you've just given us is any big surprise. How else did you think Khalid managed to do in two months what we haven't been able to in years? What counts are results. We've confiscated real drugs, arrested genuine bad guys, more than in years. If we don't particularly care for their methods, it's a start. In time, hopefully, we can instill a more ethical culture of law enforcement. But you've got to take things slow around here. Khalid's immediate predecessor is a good example of what happens in this culture when you push too hard or move too fast. We don't expect miracles. But these last months have shown our new MOI is willing to work with us. The rest will come in time.”

“And you don't think letting him get away with pawning off this kind of setup on Jim Waters and his team might just encourage further corruption instead of change?”

But Steve could see he'd already lost even before Placido said firmly, “No one pawns anything off on Jim Waters. He's been handling Khalid types since you were in diapers—and utilizing them in the best interests of our national security. Our new MOI may be no saint, but compared to a lot of these warlords, he's a reliable leader, a strong one, and more importantly, he's pro-West. The general consensus at State is that he can be forgiven a lot as long as he keeps up the strong hand he's been demonstrating.”

Except who's utilizing whom?

The last straw was when Jason Hamilton turned back in the doorway to suggest kindly, “You might want to erase those tapings before your principal or anyone else finds out what you've been up to. Your HQ hears about this, and you'll be lucky to be guarding ammo dumps.”

Steve wasn't sure whether he was more furious at the sucker he himself had once again been or Placido and Hamilton's pragmatic acceptance of Khalid's con. Another thought struck him as the visitors left. “You know, Phil, if the whole thing was a con, what about our PSD contract? We never did find evidence that suicide vest was anything more than an inside setup.”

“Except the sugar factory bombing was real,” Phil pointed out, “and that came first.”

Steve swung suddenly around on Phil, who'd followed to the door. “What are we doing here? Would you ever believe back at Fort Bragg when we were getting set to save the world that ten years later would find us watching some lowlife's back for a big check?”

Phil looked at Steve thoughtfully before he answered. “I know why I'm here, and you've been saying hi to them. That big check and a few holidays on the far end of a TV screen to me mean funds for the credits I need to upgrade from medic to physician's assistant so I can support Denise and the kids the way they deserve.”

Phil shook his head as he limped toward the lounge. “But you? You may be footloose with no strings holding you back. But you're the one who needs to get out of this business. There're guys in our business who'll never want to do anything else. They live the travel and adrenaline and guns and chicks and no strings. But you're not one of them. Your heart isn't really in it.”

“Is that so?” Steve's tone turned harder than he'd intended. “I didn't realize I was so easy to read.”

“Not everyone knows you like I do.” Phil turned to the flat screen and his family's living room.

“And you've got an alternative suggestion? Back to the barracks? DEA like Placido? Street cop? Maybe security guard at the local mall? It's not like there's much of a peacetime list for my particular set of life skills.”

“That's not for me to say. But I've never yet seen you go after anything you couldn't pull off. Find something you believe in and give it all you've got. I say that as a friend. You're too good a man to waste your life watching the backs of Khalid and his like.”

Steve headed for his room. If he was to do that walk-through in the morning, there were some blueprints he needed to hunt down. But something hot burned in his chest as unfamiliar sounds of family and home followed him up the stairs.

“Find something you believe in and give it all you've got.”

And if there was nothing you could find in which to believe?