Whole Pieces (4 page)

7

“We got a problem.”

From his position watching the field, Stratham turned. “What?”

Hawk held a finger up to the boy. “Wait here. Quiet. No talking. Okay?” After the boy gave a slow nod, Hawk crawled over to the team leader. “The boy says he saw fighters in the valley by the main road.” Was that connected to the bloody battle?

The team leader jerked toward him. “You're kidding me.”

So-called freedom fighters meant trouble. Taliban. Pakistani. Iraqi. Afghan. You name it, they came with one objective: stopping anyone from cooperating with the “Great Satan,” America. And even if Tarazai was bad news—that's what ODA 375 was here to find out—they needed him in play. Not dead. Because that would mean no leads, no connections, and the coalition forces desperately had to figure out where policy was slipping through the cracks, right along with progress.

Stratham grabbed a pair of night-vision binoculars and probed the night. “Where? How many?”

“By the road. Uh . . .” Hawk repeated the question in Pashto about how many, but the kid shrugged.

“It was too dark. They were in the shadows. I couldn't tell.”

Relaying the news left Hawk with a deep dread. Things were going from bad to worse. The vision he'd seen had shown a bloody field. Thousands dead. Was that where they were headed?

So he'd lost his resolution to shoot the boy. Now the kid had complicated things with rumors of freedom fighters in the valley. Of course, if they could send their sniper out there . . . Whether that would be effective depended, naturally, on the number of fighters.

“You believe the kid?” Stratham's gaze rested on the boy. “Ten minutes ago, you were ready to put a bullet through his head.”

The stark truth punched Hawk in the gut. “I know.” He couldn't explain his one-eighty on the kid, the vision he'd had, knowing the future. His mind rifled through plausible comebacks.

I trust him.

But he didn't. He knew that in the original time strain the kid went home, ratted them out, and everyone died.

He has no reason to lie to us.

He had every reason. Protecting himself, his sisters, his country . . .

So what in the world was Hawk doing telling the master sergeant about possible fighters? He would kill the kid himself if that would solve it. But according to the secondary vision, it would only make things worse.

“Okay,” Stratham huffed. “Listen.” He swiped a hand over his mouth. And in the nervous jitters of an impenetrable fortress of a man, Hawk saw some of his own terror. “We'll send Jensen out. See if he can get a bead on them.” Stratham's mistrust blasted through his eyes as he studied the kid. “A look-see will tell us whether to believe this kid.”

Hawk nodded. Sending the sniper was a good choice.

“Or kill him.”

“No.” Hawk bit down on the word. “I know . . . I know it's crazy, but I have a bad feeling about that. Look at his clothes—his family's well-off. His father is with Tarazai. I just have this feeling—”
borne out of a vision of a time-travel-enabling watch
— “that it'll be bad,
real
bad, if we kill him.”

But what if the mention of fighters near the road was a trap? The fighters—how did they play into the whole game? Were they even there the first time?

Stratham gathered Jensen and his spotter, Jacobie, then told them about the possibility of freedom fighters down there. “Find out how many. STK if you can eliminate all of them and stay dark.”

“Roger.” Jensen and Jacobie rushed into the darkness, moving swiftly and with stealth. Stratham then pointed to the kid and eyeballed Hawk. “Stay on him. Don't let him out of your sight. In fact, tie him up.”

Mack's eyes bugged out. “
Tie
him—? We can't keep him here. He'll see how we work.”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“We're compromising the operation.”

“It's already compromised—the second that kid stumbled upon us.” Stratham glowered. “Hawk. You heard me. Tie him up.”

Hawk swallowed and considered the little guy. Keeping the boy here . . . it was their only choice. Right? Wasn't it? They didn't exactly have a way to see the—fu . . . ture.

Hawk's hand eased to his leg pocket. With his pointer finger, he traced the outline of the timepiece. Like a whiff of sulfur, the howl of Constant seared into his memory banks, left his hackles raised and heat spilling down his spine.

Depressing the stem—would that bring Constant? Maybe that's what had happened before, when he'd leaned down and shifted his leg. Had he depressed the stem then?

Why hadn't Constant retrieved his watch? Surely the whole concept of time wasn't connected to this lone device? The being couldn't be
that
limited, could he?

“Hawk!” Stratham snapped, his voice slamming into Hawk, though quiet and controlled in the secure spot.

From a pack, he snagged a rope and bent toward the boy. “Abda, you would do anything to protect your sisters and mother, right?”

Though his lower lip trembled, the bright-eyed boy gave a slow nod . . . and extended his arms, wrists together.

Hawk's heart tumbled into his stomach. This was some kind of messed up. It wasn't right. None of it. The kid, the team . . .

I should've never come back.
Had Hawk somehow broken an unwritten rule? Would that rule-breaking snafu shatter his chances to save the team?

Immediately he regretted the thought. Yanked it back into the void from which it'd come. Any chance to save the lives of his team wasn't something to regret. It was something to protect. He coiled the rope around Abda's wrists and ankles, tight but not crushing.

Shoulders slumped, Hawk shook his head. “I am sorry, Abda.”

“It's okay, Haytham. But . . .”

Hawk angled his head. “What?”

“My
moor
. She will worry that I have not come back.”

Hawk looked to Stratham, who let out another curse.

“So what's the call?” Mack asked, prone on the ground, his weapon poking out of their cover and prepped to protect. “We keep him here? He's right—what if his mom looks for him?”

“It's too late. She won't be about alone.”

“No,” Hawk said, emotion tightening his words. “His father will. Or Tarazai.”

Check the watch.

Though they'd kept quiet, their discussions, arguments, and decision making conducted in controlled whispers and hissed words, the night had thickened with tension and trouble, leaving a noisy din in Hawk's mind. So much that when he slid his fingers beneath the Velcro closure to retrieve the watch, the ripping noise might as well have been the weapons' fire.

He tensed, feeling Stratham's glare on him. Hawk shifted away and reached for his weapon, the cold metal of the watch chilling him. Or maybe that was the daunting realization that this device could predict—no, not predict, but glimpse into—the future.

No, not the future so much as it was tugging him back to where he belonged. The present.

They needed to know, though, whether keeping the boy was good or bad. Right?

What if Thomas Constant made his way to Hawk?

Oh, man. The dude would probably hand-feed Hawk to Death. Piece by piece.

But the nudge to look tugged at him, much the way time itself seemed to rip at his sleeves and clothes, his very skin.

Hawk shot a sidelong glance to the kid. Trusting but scared, the boy watched him. Rolling onto his stomach, Hawk feigned getting back to work. He should be prepared to encounter Constant once he depressed the stem.

Moonlight bathing the silver watch, Hawk stared down at the etched number 7. Gnawing his inner lip, he wondered what the slick immortal would do to Hawk for stealing the watch, for playing, as it were, with time?

“Haytham, my mom will be scared,” Abda whispered in Pashto. “
I
am scared.”

You and me both, buddy.

With that, he depressed the timepiece.

8

Wind pulled and yanked at Hawk as if a tornado rushed in and whisked him away. Spinning, twirling, he kept his gaze on the watch. The only element in the blur of time that did not fragment or change. Smudged and bleeding. That's the way his body looked. Surroundings whipped into a gray clump of nothingness, he resisted the urge to call out. Fought the pull on his mind. His thoughts.

Why hadn't he seen anything yet?

Too much! Too much!

Hawk released the stem.

Silence dropped on him. Only the frantic pace of his breathing and heart rate whooshing in his ears rippled through the night. He stared at the watch.

Do it right this time.

Wetting his lips and tasting the paint smeared over his face, Hawk retrained his mind on the watch. On peeking into the future. With a slow depression, time once again whirled.

Slower, clearer, smoother.

With it—

Men rushed them. Shouts scalded the night. A cloud of men crested the hill.

Heads garbed in turbans, some wearing long brown tunics, some in black, they advanced. Freedom fighters! Who were they attacking, though? This wasn't the location of Hawk's team. He spun around, assessing, searching, trying to piece together this crazy-wicked puzzle.

Dressed in black from head to toe, other men fired back. Fought hand to hand. Hawk caught a glimpse of a patch on the uniform. His pulse jackhammered. SEALs? No way. How could . . . ? Where . . . ?

Hawk tried to look around through the blur of the hiccup in time. The houses lining the road and abutting the small hill were . . .
Wait
.

“Taking fire, taking fire,” a SEAL cried into a mic he'd keyed.

“On your ten!”

Enshrouded in the haze of time ripped from another point, Hawk instinctively ducked and checked to his left. No one. Just black night.

“Take him!”

Tat-tat-tat.

Hawk wondered where he was, if he'd get shot peeking in from the vantage of Constant's watch. Or was he safe, wrapped in a time that wasn't?

Or was it?

There were SEALs here, watching the same village. With the same mission. How was that possible? Why hadn't SOCOM or STRATCOM indicated the duplicate nature of the missions? Or did they have different purposes?

Crazy. Who cared? The SEALs were under attack. Which meant ODA 375 would be mincemeat soon.

Bullets tore past him. Snagged by the time-stream bubble, they slowed. Hawk's heart pounded with each report of the guns.

He looked up, then down. To his left. Trying to get his bearings.
Oh, man.
The SEALs were positioned to the Green Berets' twelve o'clock position.

And Taliban loyal to Tarazai had just found them.

“No!” He jerked.

Taut like a rubber band, time snapped back into place. Dropped him back into position with ODA 375. Prone, he gulped adrenaline like air. This was bad. Bad bad bad. Taliban. SEALs. Massacre.

Three hours left. More than half the time gone, and things weren't on their way to better.
To hell in a handbasket
came to mind. Hawk hauled in a breath but felt as if someone had punched him in the chest. He glanced down and froze.

A bullet was lodged in his Interceptor vest.

He'd have a wicked bruise come morning—if he survived.

He slapped a hand to his face and swiped it over his nose and mouth. “We gotta let the kid go.”

Sand and dirt scraped—Stratham. Probably glancing over his shoulder at Hawk. “Why? Got another bad feeling?”

This mess went way beyond bad. How did he explain it? Nobody would believe him. Suffocating pressure gripped him tight.

If they let the boy go, would the fighters go on their merry way, back to the meeting house or, better yet, out of the village? Would that save the SEALs?

Wait. Was that happening now? Were the SEALS under attack right this second? Or had he stepped into another alternate stream of time? The holocaust vision—he was almost certain that had been a picture of the future. So maybe the battle he'd just seen was the same kind of deal. Maybe there was a chance to save their brothers in arms.

Heart and head pounding, Hawk drew up a leg and shifted on the rocky bed to look over his shoulder.
Who are you, kid? Why are they willing to fight so hard for you? Why are they worried about you more than the average kid out late?

“Hawk, what's up?”

He skated his attention to Stratham. “We . . . need to move.” He kept his voice low in case the freedom fighters started their search up here, on the crest of the hill that bled into the mountains. No need to be a homing beacon for the men who wanted bodies to drag through the cities as trophies.

Stratham's eyes, lit only by moonlight, darkened. He grunted, then shook his head. “No. We stay.”

“I saw . . . Taliban.”

“Where?” Stratham jabbed his eye to the scope.

Quiet dropped on them as Hawk peered through his own reticle, begging God to show him something he could use to avert this tragedy.
Please . . . help me save this kid and the team.
The two had somehow become integrally connected. As more bad things happened to the kid, the end game worsened exponentially.

“Where?” Stratham repeated. “I got nothing.”

Hawk swallowed. “I . . . They were there. By the field.” He scanned, searching for the mound of rocks, remembering where the SEALs had holed up. But try as he might, he couldn't find that spot. “I saw them.”

“You'd better be wrong,” Stratham hissed. “Jensen and Jacobie are still out there.”

Guilt climbed down his throat and clenched his heart in a fist. Was this how it would play out now? He tried to fix one mess and created another? Had he just killed two men?

The kid. This was all the kid's fault.

No, that wasn't fair. Abda was only an innocent element tangled up in this nightmare. Why had Hawk ever thought he could fix this? Save the day, alter the very fabric and integrity of time, play God.

“Let me take the kid back.”

“What!” Stratham's voice strained, carrying with it incredulity and anger. “No. Just . . . do your job. Eyes out.”

“The kid—”

“I said no!” Stratham clambered toward him. “Don't know what's wrong with you, Hawk, but you're wigging out. Making bad calls.” Breath, heated by his terse words, soared over the cool wind and smacked Hawk. “Just . . . eyes out.”

“What if the fighters are working with Tarazai? What if they are out looking for the boy?”

“Eyes. Out!”

Teeth gritted, Hawk shoved his eyes to the terrain. Clenching his hand, he fought to tamp down his anger and frustration.
God, I need a break. Show me . . . show me.

Dirt crunched and ground to his left. He skidded a look to the side and found Abda hauling himself toward him using his tied-up hands, eyes locked on Hawk.
Wait a minute—I tied up his legs too!

Abda chewed the edge of his lip as he came up alongside Hawk. “I can get out of worse knots. My friends and I had contests to see who could tie up someone best.” He beamed. “I won.”

Hawk let out a quiet snort. “No doubt,” he replied in Pashto.

“Something is wrong?” Abda's quiet but sincere question hung between them. And there seemed, in that moment, a maturity that did not belong to a small child but nestled there all the same.

“How old are you again?”

“Seven.”

“You're pretty alert for your age.”

“I see things.”

“No doubt,” Hawk found himself saying again.

“Moor says that is why Plaar does not want me in the house when the colonel is there. He thinks I will figure things out and will tell someone.”

Figure things out.
What things could the kid figure out? “So . . . have you? Figured things out, that is?”

Abda shrugged. “I know that the colonel is not a good man, though many do what he says. I know my father, though he has never told me, does not like the colonel.”

“Then why is he letting him meet there?”

“The last man who went against the Sand Spider watched his family burned alive in their home.” Abda looked down, his face solemn. “It was . . . terrifying. Sometimes . . . sometimes I still hear her screaming.”

Hawk tried to hold back the question, but it hovered like a lead weight. “Who?”

“Rafeeia.” He sighed. “I loved her.”

Unable to hide the chuckle, Hawk realized the seven-year-old boy beside him could very well have been a thirty-year-old man. He'd seen too much. Experienced too much trauma and tragedy.

“Your captain . . .”

Master Sergeant.

“What is wrong?” Abda said in a whisper, ducking as if afraid Stratham might hear him. “He is very angry.”

The boy could say that again. Stratham's nerves were on edge. He had two men on recon, and the five of them here could come under attack at any moment. Hawk had seen what would happen, but he couldn't deliver anything tangible to his team leader.

“Extremists,” Hawk muttered, then considered the boy. “Why would they look for you?”

The boy frowned and looked away. “My mother's brother.”

Hawk's pulse thumped. “Your uncle?”

A slow shrug bore the answer. “His son vanished one night.” The kid's face bore more sadness than should ever touch a life so young. “The men he worked with were rebel fighters, and they felt my uncle should not have accepted help from soldiers when his daughter became ill. They said he should not get help from the Great Satan—” brown eyes, whites glowing beneath the moon, darted to Hawk with an awareness that Hawk was part of that Great Satan—“so they killed his son. It made all the women very crazy. We had to play only inside for a long time.”

Recoiling, Hawk scowled. He'd heard of worse, but knowing Abda had lost his cousin to tribal warfare . . . He'd seen so much. Too much! “So . . . it's possible they're afraid you might get taken by—”

Oh no!
His thoughts tumbled one over the other, competing for dominance and success. The foreign fighters—what if they weren't working
with
Tarazai? What if they were here to
kill
Tarazai, an Afghan security forces officer who worked as part of the coalition, receiving training with the Americans? A man his own superiors had become convinced was corrupt. Perhaps everyone else knew it too.

The SEALs—their mission could be anything. Helping the fighters stop Tarazai. Making sure Tarazai died.

But ODA 375 was here to gain intel, gather facts. Nothing more.

Hawk had leapt without looking. Jumped boots-first into a chance to erase his “mistake” in letting the boy live, determined he could fix what had happened. But ever since he'd landed here, one nightmare after another had twisted and coiled around his good intentions.

The greatest collision was yet to occur. Was this where that holocaust vision started? With one small boy?

No no no no.
This couldn't happen. Hawk screamed out to God, shrieking for him to stop this madness.

The night he never forgot—the one that devastated his whole life, smothered his will to live, to even exist—trembled, ready to implode on itself. Like a massive sinkhole, taking his plans, his hopes, his belief that he could right what he'd done wrong.

“Hawk.” Abda waited till their eyes locked again. “I have to go home or everyone will die.”