Twenty-Two           

Sitting in a comfortable chair with a Dr Pepper in hand, Alice Ward looked like any high school sweetheart one of the thousands of specialists at Bagram had left at home. But this girl knew something.

“Miss Ward?”

Licking her lips, she straightened. “I need to speak to General Burnett.”

With a soft snort, he lowered himself to the edge of the table in front of her. He tugged on his name patch. “Right here, Miss Ward.”

She deflated. “Finally.” Tears welled in her eyes. “I …” She tucked her chin and sniffled. “I … was so scared … but she …” Alice shook her head. “I can’t …”

“It’s okay. Just take your time.” He slurped his Dr Pepper, determined not to be undone by tears. Give him a tough nut like Darci any day of the week.

Scooting up, she seemed to draw on the last of her courage. “I don’t know how she knew, but she knew. And she was so good and fast.” Her eyes widened as her gaze met his. “Holy cow, that girl was so fast—like she had skills.“

He wanted to laugh. “Who?”

“Jia. Jia Kintz.” Animated, Alice related the story of Jia rushing into the camp. “She had this little girl with her, and I was stunned. We all were, in fact. Okay, maybe not the professor. He seemed annoyed, but then again, he was always annoyed. Anyway, she was bleeding—”

“Who was bleeding?”

“Jia. But she wouldn’t slow down to let anyone look at it.” Alice brushed the hair from her face. “She told us all to get packed up. She gave me the girl, and I got her cleaned up and put a warm jacket on her—that’s when I saw all the blood. I realized it was from Jia, so I went to our tent—and there they were. Locked in a gun battle.”

Alarms shrieked through his mind. “Who?”

“Jia and Toque. They both had guns—I have no idea where they got guns. It made no sense.”

“Did he shoot her?” Lance tried to remember what the dossier said about Peter Toque, but it was like trying to find a pea in the dark.

“No. I … I don’t think so.” She covered her mouth. “Wow, I hope not. I mean, he could’ve, I guess. He was up with her. They’d come back to camp together.”

“Where had they been?”

Alice shrugged. “Don’t know. Jia was always going off on her own. She said it helped her clear her mind.”

More like clear an area. She’d been working. As always.

“That’s when the chopper showed up. Everything went crazy from there. Jia sprinted between two tents, and I was so scared I followed her. We went into the tunnels.” She explained how they’d stayed there overnight, trekking and stopping for rests only when necessary, and how Jia had this shoulder wound …

“How did you escape and get down that mountain to the base?”

Once again, tears pooled in her eyes. “Jia.” One loosened itself and streaked down her face. “She said she would distract them, then join us, but …” Hands to her face, she collapsed into tears.

Lance pushed to his feet. He didn’t need the young woman to tell him what happened. Experience, integrity spoke for itself.

Darci sacrificed herself.

He almost couldn’t bring himself to ask the final question. “Do you know if she was alive?”

Face still buried, she shook her head. “I don’t know.” She lifted her tear-streaked face. “I don’t know … I heard shouts and gunshots and screams … and I ran. Ran as fast as I could with the girl.” She shuddered. “I should’ve stayed. Should’ve made sure she was safe, right? I mean, what kind of person does that? Leaves another—”

Lance nodded to Otte who sat beside the woman, a hand on her twittering hands, and reassured her that she’d done the right thing. That it was a smart move.

Stepping into the hall, Lance left behind the somber, smooth voice of Otte trying to coax the woman out of her sodden grief.

One thing was clear: Jia had found something up there. And someone didn’t want her to tell the tale. If she’d had time to alert the team to pack up and get to safety—wait.

The child.

Lance stalked to the preview room where he thrust into it. “Zeferelli.”

The man snapped to attention and saluted.

“Where’s the girl?”

“In interview room—”

“No, the little girl. The Afghan. Get her for me.”

Fifteen minutes later, the lieutenant lumbered back in with the girl and an older Afghan woman. A few minutes of discussion with the older woman and child armed Lance with a nugget of gold. Together, the four of them walked down the hall, the girl clinging to Lance’s hand. Reminded him of his granddaughter back home, a few years younger, and Carrie had blond hair.

They stepped into interview room six.

Badria was a half step behind him. When she swung around to the front, she saw the man hunched at the table and threw herself back. Terror’s greedy claws stabbed her innocent face. She screamed.

Lance nodded to the lieutenant.

Zeferelli lifted the shrieking, crying child and carried her out of the room.

“Explain that to me.” Lance sat back in a folding chair, metal digging into his back. He lifted his ankle and placed it on his knee. Casual and looking comfortable.

Colonel Zheng’s face remained impassive. Implacable.

“Imagine that.” Lance straightened and folded his hands on the table. “A little girl, found in an Afghan village, goes into terror fits when she sees you.” He slid a piece of sugar-free gum into his mouth. “Wonder what that means.”

“That she is a little girl who should not be used as a pawn in games of war.”

“A pawn?” Lance pursed his lips. “I’m not the one who made her a pawn. Someone who murdered everyone in her village made her a pawn.”

Quick as a bolt of lightning, an expression zapped through Haur’s face.

“Now, I wonder—”

Two knocks on the metal door.

The signal. Lance went to the door and opened it.

“Sir,” Otte said. “She’s awake.”

“Ah. Good.” He looked to Zheng, hoping to make the man sweat. “I’ll be right back.”

Door secured, he strode down the hall.

“When you mentioned that village, Zheng’s thermals went through the roof.”

He didn’t need thermals to tell him that story worried Zheng. They both had full knowledge that Wu Jianyu was the devil himself.

And knowing that man was in this area …

Knowing he had a bloodthirsty vengeance against a young woman named Meixiang …

Who was Darci Kintz …

The connections and secrets were as vast as the mountains containing the greatest drama of his life.

It was time for some cooperative effort.

On his knees, eyes closed, Haur trained his mind to quiet.

Two decades.

Thousands of compromises.

Millions of words.

Quiet.

There on the precipice before him, he sensed the winds shift. Change. The course would be altered. This journey, this determination to be relentless, would bring him something far greater than he could imagine.

Would he be free? Finally?

It was a vain and selfish hope. He chided himself for the thought. There were things far greater …

Palms up, on his knees, he surrendered those dreams.

“What’s he doing?”

Zeferelli snorted. “Meditating.”

“Well, let’s wake him up.” Early looked to Lance. “You ready?” Lance nodded. Together, they entered the room, and as if he rose from the air itself, Haur sprang to his feet.

Zeferelli jumped, reaching for his weapon.

Lance chuckled. “At ease, Lieutenant.” He motioned to the table. “Colonel.”

With a nod, Haur placed himself in a chair. Unnerving as all get-out was the absolute calm on the man’s face.

Ironically, Early’s storm overshadowed what was right in front of him. “You’ve played your cards,” Early said, hands folded on the table. “Now I’ll play mine.”

Eyebrows pinched, Haur leaned in as if confused. “Do you not understand—?”

“No.” Early’s commanding tone severed the Asian’s argument.

“We do not have time—”

“Then shut it and listen.” Early had a mean streak the size of the Mississippi, but it only came out when necessary. Absolutely necessary. “This is my base—American base. You don’t come in here giving orders.”

Plowing his hands through his short dark hair, chains dangling, Zheng pinched his lips into a tight line. He shoved back. Raised his hands in surrender. “Play your diplomatic and political games. But I will not be responsible for what happens by your waste of time.”

“And what is that?”

“The general’s son,” Haur said, his breathing haggard, bloated with frustration. “Wu Jianyu is loose in this country. He is without the approval of our government. There is no telling what he will do.”

Lance wasn’t flustered. “You have an idea of what that is though, don’t you?”

Tension bled through the Asian’s body. “Revenge.”

Early laughed and slapped the table. “Chinese getting revenge on Americans. Ya’d think he’d be more original.”

“Revenge against his father.” Haur craned his neck toward Early. “He will do whatever it takes to make General Zheng bleed humiliation for the entire world to see.”

“Now why would he do that?” Lance asked but he already knew the story. Too well.

“Jianyu dishonored his father’s name, so General Zheng disowned him. It is why Jianyu took a new surname, his mother’s. He feels the punishment is not his to bear, that he was betrayed by his own people, so he wants to make his father bleed publicly, just as his father made him.” Haur cocked his head to Lance. “He will kill till the blood awakens the sleeping giant. By the thousands, if he is allowed to move unchecked for much longer. He would like nothing more than to pit the Chinese against the Americans.”

“That’s a tall order for one Chinese soldier.”

“Tell me,” Haur asked. “What would your government do if they learned the son of the minister of defense antagonized and was personally responsible for the death of thousands of American soldiers?”

Foreboding truth hung like a noose in the room. “They’d dismantle that ministry brick by brick.”

“Yes.” Haur heaved a breath. “Do you not see? The one man in China who most wants to keep peace is the very man being set up.”

“By that you mean, General Zheng.”

Haur gave a slow nod.

“Easys words coming from the adopted son of said man.”

“The adoption was never formalized. It is—”

“A matter of honor.”

Haur inclined his head. “The very honor Jianyu seeks to destroy.”

“Says you,” Early said with a growl. “See, here’s what I’m not understanding, Colonel. If this minister of defense is so committed to seeing this through, why doesn’t he stop his own son? Why doesn’t he come here himself?”

“To be here would jeopardize a great many things. And—”

Time to throw a pound of steak to the lion. Lance eased forward. “We have located your brother.”

The man went stone still.

“Team of civilian geologists up in the mountains were attacked, some taken hostage—”

“Civilians?” Confusion smeared over the Asian’s face. “That makes no sense. Jianyu would not do such a thing unless there was great gain.”

He was beginning to know these demons by name.

Lance was on his feet. “If you gentlemen will excuse me.” He’d seen enough. Had enough.

Haur shot up. “General Burnett, it was you General Zheng told me to seek out. He said you would understand …”

The words trailed Lance down the hall. Into the icy night. He stopped under a streetlight and drew in a hard breath. All the forces of darkness, all of his sins, were coming to bear. Oh, he understood all right. Twenty years ago, he should’ve gone back. Tied up some loose ends. Paid better attention and not allowed Li’s wife to be snatched—though even he had to admit the Chinese went to great lengths to stage that event, taking her while Li was out of the country, the kids at school.

And now … Wu Jianyu, to restore his honor, may have extracted a blood price from one of the best operatives the U.S. had ever trained.

He had no more time to waste. He wouldn’t wait this time. He’d waited, yielded his doubt to the benefit …

But now, the answers had come. The brutal, scalding truth that Jianyu knew who was up in those mountains, knew who he’d captured.

Lance prayed for the great blessing of being able to kill the man responsible for all this. At the very least, make him pay in a very painful, excruciating way. Snuff out some of these demons. It wasn’t a Christian thought. But that’s why they say, war is hell.