As the minutes ticked by, Javier ran through the details of the mission in his mind. Al-Nassar knew how to hole up—that much was for damned sure. His lair was built on a plateau with a fifty-foot cliff at its back, elevation giving him a clear one-eighty view of the landscape below. Caves at the base of the cliff provided Al-Nassar a handy place to stash weapons, ammo, explosives, heroin—and men. They also gave him a place to hide should he see anyone headed his way.
That was why Delta Platoon wasn’t going to drive up and ring the doorbell.
They were being dropped over a mountain valley west of Parachinar about 3.5 clicks from Al-Nassar’s hideout. They would hike their way from the DZ to the cliffs. There, the Boss’s squad would divide into two elements. He, Howe, Force, and Murphy, the platoon sniper, would remain atop the cliffs with suppressed Mk12s, an FN M249 Para for suppressive fire, and a M72A2 LAW grenade launcher to watch the men’s six, while the rest of the platoon would fast-rope down to the compound. JG would take the caves with LeBlanc, Johnson, and Grimshaw, setting charges to demolish any ordnance they found, while Javier infiltrated the compound with his squad—Krasinski, Ross, Zimmerman, Salisbury, Wilson, Reeves, Desprez. When Al-Nassar was in custody and the compound was secure, three modified CH-47D Chinook helos would swoop in for extract. As they lifted off, JG would blow the caves to hell.
Of course, they weren’t being sent up against a high-value target like this without backup firepower and air support. They’d be in touch with their tactical operations center, or TOC, throughout the night. A drone with thermal/infrared capability would patrol the sky above the job site, giving them a bird’s-eye view of the action. If things got messy, two Marine Special Operations Teams—MSOTs—would arrive in Black Hawks to make them messier.
Provided nothing went wrong, it would be a piece of cake.
Forty minutes later, a voice came over the speaker. “Two minutes to drop!”
The men switched from the prebreathers to their bottled O2, careful not to inhale in the transition. Then both squads got to their feet, boots thudding dully against the steel plating, each of them carrying more than a hundred pounds of gear on his back. With an efficiency born of constant training, each checked his own gear and that of the man in front of him. They’d already passed a jumpmaster inspection, but in their line of work there was no such thing as being too prepared, too careful.
“Ramp!”
The ramp and door began to open, and icy, thin air rushed in. The two sticks of SEALs moved toward the yawning exit, waiting for the signal to jump. Javier touched a gloved hand to the chest pocket that held the photograph of his brother Yadiel that he carried with him on every mission.
The light flashed green.
The men moved together, tumbling almost as one into the slipstream, Javier leading his squad out of the Hercules and into the black night.
* * *
SHE KNELT ON the carpet facing Mecca, going through the motions of the first Rak’ah, doing her best to say each word of the Sura Al-Fatiha correctly so that no one would find fault with her.
Inshallah. God willing.
She kept her voice quiet, barely a whisper. This morning while praying Fajr, she had failed to do so, and Zainab had claimed that Abu Nayef’s guests, who were not family—not mahram—had heard her. Zainab had struck her, making her lip bleed.
But then Zainab always struck her.
“You will never learn, Hanan!” Zainab had shouted in her face. “You are as stupid as you are ugly!”
“I am sorry, Umm Faisal.” She never dared to call Zainab or any of the other women by their given names, for they would deem it disrespectful and beat her. “You must help me to do better, sister.”
She’d called Abu Nayef’s wives her sisters, but only Angeza, who’d been given to Abu Nayef by her Pashtun father in payment of a debt when she was only fourteen, had ever treated her with kindness. Angeza had sneaked her food, helped her study the Suras, even protected her from Zainab and Abu Nayef. Still, she was the least of all the women here, and that was why she prayed at the back of the room, behind all of the other women and girls. And yet Zainab still seemed to see every mistake she made.
The women bowed, and she bowed with them, standing up straight once more before performing Sujood, prostrating herself, her nose, hands, knees, and feet touching the carpet, her belly pressed against her thighs as was proper for a woman, the odors of sweat and dust rank in her nostrils. She rose, caught a glimpse of the mirror across the room, but could not see her own reflection. She prostrated herself again, the prayers and motions flowing together in a rhythm that was familiar, even comforting, as they finished the first Rak’ah and moved without pause into the second.
But as they began the third Rak’ah and prayed at last in silence, her heart began to pound. It was time for her nightly rebellion. She clenched her hands to hide their trembling, afraid that Zainab, Nibaal, Safiya, or one of the other women would notice her nervousness and guess what she was doing. If they knew what she was thinking, they would surely denounce her to Abu Nayef.
Then he would do what he’d always promised to do and cut off her head.
Pulse racing, she reached secretly for her Swedish and English, words she didn’t dare to speak aloud burning in her mind like a fever.
Mitt namn är . . .
My name is . . .
My name is Laura Nilsson.
* * *
SHE LAY IN the dark in the corner of the small back room that was hers, her bed an old blanket, her head pillowed on her neatly folded burka. Her mind ached for sleep, but sleep wouldn’t come, chased off by the knot of dread in her stomach. It was the same dread she felt every night until she was certain everyone was in bed asleep.
In the next room, Safiya’s baby girl cried.
She would have offered to help. She wanted to help. Safiya was only twenty-four and already had six children. But Safiya wouldn’t let her near the baby. No one would. They all believed her unfit.
A creaking door. A man’s deep voice. Footsteps.
She held her breath, listening until the footsteps faded away.
Would he come tonight?
She’d seen him take Nibaal to his room. Surely, Nibaal would be enough for him and he would leave her alone.
Inshallah.
She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping with everything inside her that he would stay away. Angeza had once told her that Zainab struck her only because Abu Nayef came to her bed so often. But she would gladly have traded places with Zainab. If only she could! She cared nothing at all for Abu Nayef. In truth, she hated him.
She hated the feel of his old man’s hands on her. She hated the sour odor of his skin, his breath, the coarseness of his beard. He was always rough with her, even when she lay still and didn’t fight.
Stay away. Stay away. Stay away.
She drifted off, only to jerk awake at the sound of a man’s voice.
His door opened, closed, soft footfalls sounding in the hallway as Nibaal made her way back to the room she shared with her four children.
She exhaled, certain she’d been spared for the night, her body relaxing, sleep stealing over her at last.
Screams.
She sat bolt upright on a rush of adrenaline and grabbed her burka, drawing it over her head just as the door to her room crashed open.
A dark shape filled the doorway.
A man with a weapon.
He aimed it at her, a red dot dancing over her chest.
Too terrified even to scream, she shrank back against the wall, her heart hammering, her mouth dry, fear making her mind go blank.
A light blinded her.
He aimed his weapon at the corners as if he expected someone to be hiding in the room, then shouted in heavily accented Arabic. “Come with me!”
She wanted to do as he’d asked. She didn’t want to be shot and kille
d. But fear kept her grounded to the spot, her breath coming in terrified pants.
“Clear! All clear! Got another female here, senior chief.” He crossed the room in two big strides. “Bring her to the courtyard. Roger that.”
The sound of his American English made her breath catch.
“Come.” The man spoke more softly this time, motioning for her to get to her feet and come with him.
As if in a dream, she rose, her heart beating erratically in her chest, his uniform and his American accent awakening something nameless and terrifying inside her.
He nudged her ahead of him, his weapon still raised. “Go!”
Her legs seemed to be made of water as she walked down the stairs, across the main room, and out into the frigid night, where the other women stood in their veils huddled together with their children, all of them crying, some praying aloud.
“Hanan!” One of them reached for her, called to her in Arabic. Zainab. “Hanan, sister, come here to us!”
She felt a rush of warmth to hear Zainab call her “sister,” something comforting in Zainab’s concern for her. The older woman’s fingers dug into her arms as she drew her roughly into the cluster of women, pushing her to the center, where other hands reached out, grabbed her, held her.
And then she saw.
There, in the center of the courtyard, lay Abu Nayef.
All but naked, he lay facedown in the dirt, his wrists bound together behind his back, a tall uniformed man standing guard over him.
A dead man lay on his side not far from Abu Nayef, his eyes open, part of his head missing, a spray of blood and brains on the wall behind him.
Her stomach seemed to fall to the ground, vague memories of another day, images of blood and dead men flashing through her mind. She looked away and swallowed hard, fighting to keep down her supper.
“They are going to kill us all!” Nibaal sobbed.
“Is this true?” Angeza whispered in frightened Pashtun.
She shook her head, whispered back. “They won’t hurt us.”
She couldn’t say why she was so sure about this, but she was.
Armed men in heavy uniforms seemed to be everywhere—on the rooftop, in the courtyard, inside the house. Their faces were covered in black paint, making them look like shadows in the darkness. They seemed to be searching for something.
“Where are your tears, Hanan?” Zainab pinched her. “Do you see what has become of our husband? Do you see what these Americans have done to him?”
Americans.
The nameless terror inside her grew stronger.
But she couldn’t bring herself to weep, not for Abu Nayef. She loathed him. Instead, she listened to every word the men in uniform said to one another.
“Hey, JG, we’ve got a dozen terrified women and kids here. Are they going to be safe when you blow those caves?” asked the tall one standing over Abu Nayef, speaking into a slender mic near his painted lips. “Roger that.”
“Hey, senior chief, we got nine hard drives, four cell phones, a handful of flash drives, and a box full of CDs, along with some files.”
“Bag ’em,” the tall one said. “Boss, we’re good to begin our exfil. Yo, boys, it’s time to go!”
Americans.
Chills shivered up her spine.
“What is that? Do you hear that?” Zainab looked up.
It was the thrum and whir of distant helicopters.
She looked up through the mesh of her burka at the starless sky, saw nothing, the night having taken on an air of unreality.
One of the women—Safiya—started to sob, clutching the crying baby to her chest. “They’re taking him away! What will become of us?”
Out of the dark sky appeared three helicopters, black against the black night, each with one rotor in back, another in front. One lowered itself to perch against the cliffs above, men in black uniforms rising like ghosts from the ground and climbing aboard, weapons in their hands. Another landed at the base of the cliffs. Still another landed inside the compound, its giant rotors blowing dust everywhere.
The house had been surrounded, and they hadn’t even known it.
One of the men began shouting to the women in bad Arabic, telling them to take shelter inside the house for their own protection, warning them that the caves in the cliffs had been set with explosives and were going to blow up.
She found herself caught up in a panicked tide of blue and black as women clad in burkas and abayas pushed her toward the house, Zainab’s fingers holding fast to her arm, digging deep into her flesh. She looked over her shoulder to see the tall one standing guard while two of his men lifted Abu Nayef by his elbows and dragged him toward the waiting helicopter and up its rear ramp.
They were leaving.
The Americans were leaving.
There was a buzzing in her brain, her pulse pounding so hard it all but drowned out the sound of the helicopters, that nameless fear gathering momentum, rushing against her like a wave, the terror in her mind coalescing into a single, heart-stopping thought.
Ana amrekiah.
I’m an American, too.
“Ana amrekiah.” She didn’t realize she’d stopped walking or spoken aloud until Zainab jerked her arm.
“Shut your mouth, or I will cut out your tongue!”
Strong hands shoved her toward the house, making her stumble. She looked back, saw the tall man watching them, and she realized he was waiting to board the helicopter until the others were safely back inside. Then he, too, would disappear up that ramp.
As the women reached the door, he took two steps back, then turned away from them, speaking words she couldn’t hear into his microphone.
The Americans were leaving—without her.
Dizzy with terror, she jerked away from the other women. “Wait! I’m an American, too!”
But her words were blown away by the roar of the helicopter’s rotors.
* * *
WAIT! I’M AN American, too!
Javier caught the words over the drone of the helos, but it took them a moment to register. Had that come from beneath one of the burkas?
“Senior chief, watch out! You got one running up behind you!” Ross ran down the ramp, dropped to one knee, aimed his weapon.
Javier pivoted, weapon ready, and saw the tallest of the women running toward him, the red dot from Ross’s laser sight dancing on her covered forehead.
“Hold your fire!” Javier aimed his M4 at her. “Stop! Get down!”
But she had already fallen to her knees, turquoise blue cloth billowing around her, her breath coming in terrified sobs. She cried out again, her accent American. “H-help me! I’m . . . I’m an American, too!”
He started toward her, just as one of the other women broke out of the group, this one holding a knife in her hand. She shouted something in Arabic and ran not toward Javier, but toward the woman on the ground, her intent clear.
Without hesitation, Javier raised his M4 and dropped her with a double tap, her knife falling to the dirt.
The other women, now clustered together in the doorway, screamed.
JG’s voice sounded in his ear. “Senior chief, what the hell’s going on?”
“I think we’ve got a hostage.” He strode quickly to the terrified woman, grabbed a fistful of blue burka, and ripped it aside, exposing her completely.
For a moment all he could do was stare, his gaze taking in the tears and bruises on her cheeks, her swollen lip and thin face, her threadbare nightgown, the shock and terror in her eyes.
Laura!
And then his training kicked in. “This is now an AMCIT recovery. I say again: This is now an AMCIT recovery. Do you copy?”
Ross and Zimmerman ran down the helo’s ramp and took up defensive positions, ready to take out anyone who threatened Javier or Laura.
“We hea
r you lima charlie, senior chief,” the Boss answered from the third helo several hundred feet in the air above them. “Get her, and let’s go. We’ve got enemy QRF pushing our position from the east. You need to get airborne now!”
The second Chinook was already nosing its way downwind. Slow and cumbersome at liftoff, the helos made great targets for the Soviet-era RPGs that AQ combatants loved to fire at them. If the pilots couldn’t get them in the air and up to speed before the enemy got within firing range . . .
“Roger that.” Knowing the others were covering for him, Javier clipped his M4 into his tactical sling, lifted Laura into his arms, and turned toward the last helo, covering the ground in long, fast strides. Without a glance back, he ran up the ramp and settled Laura into his jump seat, Ross and Zimmerman pounding up the ramp behind him.
“All boots on board!” Zimmerman shouted.
“Ramp!”
“Ramp!” The shout was repeated as the cargo ramp was raised.
The helo rotors accelerated, seconds ticking by like hours as the big bird slowly left the ground, heading into the wind, the pilot fighting for translational lift. Javier listened as the pilot relayed their altitude, enemy QRF drawing ever closer.
A shell exploded not far from the helo’s tail, its blast wave making the helo lurch and drawing a gasp from Laura. Javier put a gloved hand on her shoulder, hoping to reassure her. “Sit tight.”
Too damned close.
The seconds ticked by, punctuated by two more explosions, each of them more distant than the last as the helo gained speed. Then came the deep rumble as JG detonated the explosives in the caves.
“We did it, senior chief!” Krasinski pointed at Javier. “Cobra strikes again!”
“We’re not done with the mission till we get back to home plate, Krasinski.” Heart beating hard, Javier leaned back against the webbing that lined the helo, grabbed it for balance, catching his breath, ratcheting down on the adrenaline, taking stock of his men, of the situation. Reeves had caught a round in the shoulder. Wilson, the platoon medic, had already treated it. Reeves would need surgery and PT, but he’d be fine. Apart from a few bruises and scrapes, no one else was wounded. Al-Nassar was battered but alive, his laptops, cell phones, disks, and drives bagged and tagged.