Raptor 6 (33 page)

“A soft target?”

Burnett laughed. “There are a lot softer targets than her.” He clicked his tongue. “No, I’m afraid we’re entering some pretty dangerous scenarios with this revelation.”

The only obvious one that existed, considering the twisted, tangled paths they’d been on the last few months. “SIPRNet.”

“Is there another explanation?” Burnett started for the door, glancing at his phone. “I’ll be right back.”

Dean turned away, looking for something to punch. To hit. To kill. Because that meant … somehow, in some way, their interaction with these guys was what put Zahrah on the enemy’s radar. “How did they know what she could do? It never made it past my lips.”

“Didn’t have to,” Hawk said with a snort. “It’s on her Facebook page.”

With a scowl, Dean pivoted. Glared. “Her
what
?”

Hawk hammered a few keys and pointed to a wall, where a monitor held the Facebook profile of Zahrah Zarrick, sans hijab. Sunlight shone against her dark hair, which hung in waves around her face. “It’s all right there. May graduation with advanced degree in quantum cryptology. Scroll down and she even mentions the job offer. Then at the top—she announces she’s leaving the next morning for her mom’s homeland.” He then whistled. “Check out this picture from her birthday party at the lake.”

When the images of her in a swimsuit with friends splashed over the screen, Dean jerked to Hawk with a piercing look.

Head tucked, smile gone, Hawk changed it back.

“I hope, Sergeant Bledsoe,” came a deep, gravelly voice, “that you are staring at those pictures for research, not to exploit my daughter’s body.”

Dean stiffened.

Hawk punched to his feet. “General Z-Day. I mean, Zeneral.” He coughed, face redder than a gushing wound. “Gen—”

“General Zarrick.” Dean intercepted the bigger-than-life man who only stood about five-nine. No taller than Zahrah. About a half-dozen inches shorter than Dean. “Thank you for coming, sir.”

“You’re thanking me, son?” The general ignored the offered hand and stalked the sub-base, eyes roving data and images and personnel. “I’m about to climb down your throat and rip your kidney up your esophagus—and you’re
thanking me
?”

Sub-base Schwarzburg, Camp Marmal
Mazar-e Sharif, Balkh Province
20 June—1420 Hours

C
hairs scraped. Soldiers stood. Grouped up around Dean as he stared down General Peter Zarrick, most likely feeling like the kid who stepped on a fire-ant mound. A storm raged in the man’s face.

Dean gritted his teeth. “I have done
everything
in my power to protect your daughter.”

“Except protect her!”

“Out of my control,” Dean countered. “I asked her to leave the country—”

“So it’s
her
fault, now?”

“Yeah,” Hawk snapped at the same time Dean said, “No, sir.”

Nostrils flaring, Zarrick didn’t remove his seething glare from Dean. “Then whose is it?”

The man’s daughter is missing. He’s overreacting
. Dean also reminded himself the man before him, the one whose chest rose and fell in a quick cadence of fury, was one of his heroes. A man with a dozen commendations and as many medals. A general with a stunning leadership record. Heck, Dean would’ve followed him to hell and back if asked.

Until now.

How quickly the hero tumbled from his marble pedestal. Though he still respected the guy, Dean wouldn’t let him decimate his team like this. “Sir, I understand you’re upset—”

“Son, you don’t have the first clue about me and what I’m feeling.”

“I think it’s pretty plain with your disrespect of my team and me, sir.”

“You challenging me, son?”

“I’m questioning your presence on the command floor and your disruption of efforts to locate and retrieve an American citizen,” Dean said, his pulse simmering.

“That American citizen is my daughter, and I have every right to be here!”

“No, sir.” It felt like a bass drum beat against his ribs. He’d never dreamed he’d do this to General Peter Zarrick, a man who had more years serving than Dean had breathing. “You are a retired general and civilian consultant, invited most likely at the behest of my commanding officer, General Burnett. And as such, you may
consult
with us, but you are not in command, as much as I would have respected and appreciated that.”

“How on earth do you expect to find my daughter when you’re standing around ogling her body on giant monitors?”

“Sir.” Brie Hastings stepped forward.

“Stay out of this, Lieutenant,” Zarrick shouted.

Dean frowned, angry at the way he’d stormed in and rampaged over the team working so hard to find Zahrah.

“And you”—he stabbed a finger at Dean—“if you hadn’t been so lovesick and trying to steal my daughter out from under me, you’d have seen this possibility before it was too late.”

Dean flinched forward.

Falcon cleared his throat, enough of a signal to haul Dean back.

Draw it down. Rein in control
. “If you’ll excuse us, sir, we are in the middle of an investigation. And every second you spend here shouting accusations and insinuations”—he moved forward a step—“and demeaning my team is another minute, possibly another day, your daughter is in danger.”

“Don’t you dare blame me.”

“Have you seen a woman
tortured
?”

“Don’t lecture me—”

“
Raped
right in front of your eyes while you’re pinned down, eyes forced open by a half-dozen men.”

“I—”

“I’ve lived it!”
The muscles in his neck strained against the force of his words. “Watched it
—them
as they brutally murdered her!” His voice bounced off the insulated ceiling tiles. “And I won’t go there. Not again,” he said, his voice deathly low. “I promise you, sir, I won’t sleep until Zahrah is back on this base, but so help me God, if you don’t get out of our way, I will have you removed—”

“General Zarrick!” Burnett’s voice cracked the tension.

Only as the general stomped toward them did Dean realize he stood less than a foot from the shorter, stockier Zarrick. Surprised at how his anger had taken over, how he’d lost focus, threatened the man, Dean eased backward.

Undisclosed Location

“Yes.
Yes!
” On my feet, I grab a Butterfinger bar and hold it up like a microphone. “Welcome to the Special Operations Command Center
Smack down!
In the right corner, you have Captain Dean Watters.”

Excitement thrums through my veins as I watch the two face off. I mean, like one more step and Watters’s fist is going through the general’s thick head. It’s like two guys fighting over the same love interest, only the love is different.

Okay, yeah. So maybe that analogy doesn’t work. Never was any good at English crap. Give me numbers and computers, and we’re good.

I doubt Watters even knows he’s slipping closer to the general and right up to the edge of a slippery slope of disrespect and an Other Than Honorable discharge. Even tossing out the nut jobs, Americans succumb to political correctness.

Still, I practically drool at the thought. Love seeing guys like him, drunk on their own power, brought down by their pride and stupidity. I’ve seen Watters’s type before. And let me say it—this guy will fall.

Hard.

Some of those jerks have some magical shield around them. They walk through life, obstacles crumbling in their wake, disaster knocking down everything in a two-mile radius
except
them, girls groveling at their feet … nothing fazes or affects them.

That’s Dean Watters. He walks tall with the arrogance of those superheroes.

But every hero has weakness. Superman his kryptonite.

Every hero has his nemesis. Batman his Joker. Spider-Man his Green Goblin.

I am kryptonite. I am Joker. I am Green Goblin.

Dean Watters will fail. I’ll make sure of it. Somehow. Some way. If I have to stay in this godforsaken trailer for another year, I will. Because it’s guys like him that have me sitting in tin cans like this. Boss Man might’ve invaded my space, but he knows I’m indispensible. I have access to mission briefing rooms of the most powerful armed force in the world. And he’ll need to remember how easily
I
can shift the tide.

Just let him try to find me where I’ve parked the tin beast this time. He’ll find out what I’m made of, what my mad skills can do. The havoc …

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

Lance had seen a lot of intensity rolling off Watters, but this looked as if he’d stepped from a thermal bath.

Holy Mother of— “Pete!”

Fists balled, the retired general didn’t move or respond. One more inch and the two would go to blows.

“Dean,” Russo said, his voice low, shouldering closer to Watters, who shifted back a step, right into the cozy nest of brothers in arms surrounding him.

Didn’t Pete see he was outgunned? Maybe he didn’t care. His daughter was missing. Lance could only imagine the carnage if Hastings hadn’t retrieved him when she had. He might’ve been making a trip to the infirmary.

“Pete,” Lance said as he eyed the man, shoulders and lips pulled taut. “Glad you could make it. Can I have a word with you?”

“Lance. Good to see you again.” Peter’s snarl hadn’t lost any of its bite, though he’d been out of the fight for three years. “Since your men can’t do it, let’s put together a plan to get my girl back.”

Lance followed Pete down the hall and into his temporary office. He shut the door. “You always did like unbeatable odds.”

Peter Zarrick, built like a tank still—a short one—pivoted. “You didn’t think I could take him?”

Lance barked a laugh. “I’d pay to see you try. Didn’t you see his team tighten up on Watters?”

Peter eyed him.

“I’d give you an A for effort … right after I checked you into the infirmary.” He pointed to the door. “Those men are some of the finest warriors I’ve ever encountered.”

“And yet, she’s gone.” Pete dropped into a chair and ran a hand over his face. “Lance, you and I both know how this can end. And how it often does.” Pain pinched his features. “I can’t lose her. She’s all I got left. I can’t lose her the way I did Izzah.”

“Then don’t climb on the back of the one person—”

“Don’t you dare say ‘the one person who wants to find her as much as me.’”

“Never crossed my mind.” But that helped Lance understand a few things. “Watters is one of the best. I handpicked him and his team for black ops. They’re good. They get it done. He’s invested and has been on this since it started.”

Pete grunted. “You mean that kid I just bawled out?”

“Eight years SOC makes him more than a kid.”

“Not when you’re standing where I am.”

“And where is that?”

Another long glare.

Lance retrieved a Dr Pepper from his personal fridge and offered it to Peter, who waved it off. After popping the top, Lance moved to his desk and sat. He knew what this was about, what scared Peter almost as much as the thought of his daughter dying. “What did she say about him?”

Surprise skittered across Pete’s face, his eyebrows winging up and lips parting. “Who?” He rubbed his bushy eyebrows, something that had always given his friend’s nerves away.