Raptor 6 (52 page)

Somwhere in Afghanistan

Jogging down the hall behind Hawk and with Eagle on his tail, Dean could feel the hope surging through his veins. Was it a coincidence that he’d asked for a mission briefing from God and then Hawk showed up?

They flung through a set of double doors. Hawk slowed. Dean nearly collided with him. Sighted a commotion ahead.

Burnett and Zarrick emerged from the curtained-off area that was rapidly filling with medical personnel. Zarrick flung a medical tray out of his way. Kicked the thing down the hall. An orderly hopped over it to avoid getting hit.

“No, no,” Dean said, rushing between Hawk and Eagle. “What happened?”

Zarrick turned away from Dean. Burnett seemed to crumple against the wall.

“Our asset killed himself.” Titanis grunted. “Grabbed my weapon and …”

Dean stared at the area where the staff were vainly trying to save the Afghan man. Why … why would he kill himself? It didn’t make sense.

Unless he knew something that could get him killed.

“Excuse me, sir,” a nurse said as she wove around behind him.

Dean blinked, not realizing he’d entered.

A doctor stepped back. “Time of death: 1723 hours.” He snapped off his medical gloves and deposited them in a bin off to the side.

Dead. Their only hope of finding of Zahrah—

God is our hope
.

Strangest thing, but those words had Zahrah’s voice behind it.

He couldn’t fight Zahrah’s faith.

Couldn’t fight this man’s death.

“The greatness of a man’s power is the measure of his surrender.”

Dean struggled to breathe. To dare to hope. There was nothing—absolutely nothing—he could do. And Zahrah was out there. Depending on him. Believing in him.

No, depending on God. Believing in God.

I’m just a tool
. Dean fought the urge to throw a fit. Throw a fist through the wall. To curse and rail. But that’d definitely be a fight he had no business fighting. It didn’t make sense. If he was tasked with saving Zahrah, a guy would think God would show him how to do that. Not close every doggone door he walked up to.

Zahrah. Zahrah was out there. Having god-knows-what happen to her.

Darkness clutched at him. Made him want to panic. Surrender? No way! He should be fighting harder to save her.

It’s not your fight
.

Dean roughed a hand over his face.
Okay God … I’m on my knees. Down to my last breath. I … I surrender. Is this what You want?

“Who can read Pashto?”

Dean flinched at the question, snapping back to the present. The doctor stood over the body of the Afghan man, looking around the room. “I can,” Dean heard himself say. “A little.”

The doctor waved him closer to the bed. “He wrote something here. We can’t read it.”

Angling over the bed, Dean studied the Arabic scrawled on the sheet.

“Watters,” Burnett said, “What is it?”

Dean’s heart thumped at the characters. Was he reading it right? “Sadri Ali.”

Hawk was there, hands tucked under his armpits. “The opium supplier we chased in Majorca?”

“Where is he based?” Dean asked.

Burnett pivoted. “Let’s talk.” And he was walking. Fast. Down the hall, the team following like magnetic particles in his wake.

Dean hopped to keep up, swinging the curtain aside as they hurried down the hall. Harrier and Falcon were with them now.

“Ali’s based all over the place, but he’s in town. Visiting a certain diplomat.”

With a lunge, Dean walked evenly with the general. “Wait, you mean that house I was snatched from?”

“The one and the same.”

Hope sped through Dean’s veins, on fire at the possibilities. “Hold up.” Dean stopped the general at a juncture. “We need to hit this now. Hard. Fast. Before they have a chance to know what’s coming.”

Hawk nodded. “Agreed.”

“No record of the mission till we get back,” Dean said. “They’re always ahead of us, but this time, I want to make sure they’re not.”

“You think we have a mole?”

“We’ve got something, and Burnett’s working on it.” Dean looked at the team. “Nianzu was in the prison, trying to get Zahrah to help. If we can nail this opium supplier at the same time we kill this cyber threat—”

“That’d butter my biscuit,” Eagle said with a grin.

“Ladies,” Hawk said with a smirk to everyone, arms held wide. “Biscuits and gravy for chow tonight!” He clapped.

“Grab your gear. Meet at the airstrip in fifteen.”

“A place like that, we’re going to need backup.” Burnett held up his hand. “Don’t argue. It’s smart strategy.”

“You mean good politics.”

“That, too. If they have her, that place will be armed to the teeth. I’m bringing in Ramsey’s SEAL team.”

“Someone just burned the biscuits,” Hawk muttered and strode out.

Dean eyed the general. “As long as they know Raptor has point.”

Burnett grinned. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Dean turned and found himself facing General Zarrick. “I failed you once, sir. It won’t happen again.”

“Not a failure, son. A delay in delivery.” He clapped Dean’s shoulder. “We have to get her out of there before she does something she doesn’t want to do.”

Somewhere in Afghanistan
01 August—1948 Hours

A
triumphant cheer shot through the room.

“You have not disappointed, Miss Zarrick.” His voice was slicker than a vat of oil and made her skin crawl.

I
have
disappointed—myself
.

She sat back in her chair, fear of what she’d just done mirroring the excited thrum in the room.
God—help me!
Doing this violated everything she believed in. She’d been foolish to think she could do this, delay and stall until Dean showed up to save the day.

Superheroes weren’t real.

“We can go home now, yes?” Rashid asked, excitement muddled by fear in his sparkling eyes.

Zahrah’s heart tripped off the ledge it’d been sitting on. They were no closer to rescue. And within a day, she’d have the network hacked. Soldiers in danger. America exposed. All because she was stupidly naive, believing she could deceive Zmaray.

Her gaze drifted to where he stood with a phone pressed to his ear. His expression fell from excitement to defeat … to anger. “No,” he said then a string of Mandarin dialogue she could not decipher. When their gazes met, he stilled then turned his back to her.

What is that about?

With the men in this room who were knowledgeable—yet not experts like her—surely one would notice …

“You did it—you made them happy. Now we can leave.” Rashid hopped his chair closer. “Yes?”

“Afraid not, Rashid.” Zmaray stood by the boy, hand on his shoulder. He crouched. “See, our Miss Zarrick has been using delay tactics.”

Guilt swirled through her stomach.

“She is a very intelligent woman.” Zmaray lifted a silver device in one hand. “And now that the box is off, she knows she can solve this puzzle very quickly. But she fell in love with a man. And she’s very loyal to him and her country.”

“Leave him alone,” Zahrah said with a growl.

“So we need to make sure she does her very, very best.” Back against Rashid’s chest, Zmaray held out the hand and splayed the fingers. He slid a cigar cutter over Rashid’s pointer finger.

“No!” Zahrah screamed. “Don’t do this!”

Meaning spiraled through his gaze. “You have done this to him.”

Zahrah wrenched. “Stop!”

The cutter closed around Rashid’s finger.

The boy screamed.

Zahrah screamed. “Stop! Don’t—no!”

Red sped down Rashid’s finger.

“Please! Stop.”
Zahrah yanked and tugged against her chains, straining to intervene. “I’ll do it. I’ll do it. Just leave him!”

Rashid howled.

Zmaray slid the cutter off. Straightened. “Next time I will not be so compassionate.” Chin lifted, anger in his eyes, he stared down his nose at her. “How long before you have it broken?”

Wiping the tears from her face and beneath her eyes, Zahrah looked at the computer. “A day, maybe two. I don’t know how intricate the system is yet.”

He leaned toward her. “You have two hours.” His breath smelled of curry and wine. “For each hour you go over, Rashid pays.”

Residence, Balkh Province
01 August—2010 Hours

T
hunder had nothing on the rotors of a Black Hawk. But stealth also had nothing on the technology that silenced the rotor wash to prevent giving away their presence. Grabbing a line, Dean fast-roped from the helo, a challenge with only one good hand. He dropped from the nylon cord and hit the ground hard. He stumbled, righted himself, and plucked the M9 from the holster at his waist.

The team swarmed into the compound.

Gunfire erupted.

Frantic, ongoing sprays of fire were answered by the operators’ tight, controlled bursts of three to four shots at a time. Control. Precision. That’s what told him they’d beat this. They had to.

With thirty operators descending on the compound, the bad guys didn’t have a prayer. As they flooded into the night-darkened palace, Dean mentally mapped the route. His gaze hit the grand staircase that led to the upper level. That’s where the party had been. Where they’d lured him into a lesser room, though still opulent. Where they’d ambushed him. Beaten him and dragged him out what must’ve been the servants’ entrance. He’d been mostly unconscious, fading in and out.

Hawk, Falcon, and Eagle pied out through the main room. Moonlight pushed through curtain cracks and transom windows over the French doors. Patio lights glinted off the Olympic-sized pool.

Dean stuck close, but gave them room to operate.

Movement near the French doors drew Dean’s attention. He aimed his gun that way. A sea of black-clad operators rushed through the doors.

SEALs. Dean let out the breath he’d been holding.

It was quiet here. Too quiet.

Through a tall, narrow door, Dean shifted to the side and turned to aim his gun at the door, watch the team’s six as they moved and cleared it. His heartbeat whooshed in his ears, every sound amplified in the deathly quiet palace. The scritch of his tactical pants. The subtle squeak of tac boots.

“Occupants located orange three.”

Upper level, third section.

“Secured.”

Dean breathed a little easier knowing the innocents were locked down, narrowing the chances of finding the bad guys with each minute.

“Thermals show staff snoozing,” came Eagle’s voice. Laid up on a rooftop, he was monitoring the team’s movement with a high-powered scope that showed infrared and bled through buildings.

Staff quarters lined the northeast wall, so seeing through those walls had been easy and essential. If they could secure the staff and prevent them from entering the active mission, Raptor reduced the risk of innocent casualities. They moved on. Two offices. A sitting room. A green room. Butler’s pantry. Regular pantry. Kitchen. A room for refrigerators and dishwashers. Incredible when one considered the relative poverty of this country.

What took two hours to prep and plan had been executed in less than five minutes.

Their objective, they believed, would be in underground storage areas. Or third-level quarters, which the SEALs were clearing even as Raptor moved toward the kitchens.

The hall was narrow and cramped with artifacts and treasures. Dean narrowly missed toppling a statue. He grabbed it and stilled. A garish representation of a giraffe. Maybe. But he remembered it from them dragging him out.

“Levels two and three clear,” came the final report.

Raptor went right. Only one more room.

But … Dean hesitated in the kitchen. A large metal island with a rack dangling over it. His gaze drifted to the right. To the bank of refrigerators. He walked to them. Opened one. Then the second. The third.

“Captain.”

The fourth—he snapped back, weapon up, heart thrumming at the darkness that glared back. It wasn’t a fridge. It was a door. “Got something.”

The scritching of tac pants preceded a tap on his shoulder.