PROLOGUE

 

 

When the incoming 105mm shells stopped roaring, and the MiG23 Floggers broke off the sortie, the camp fell silent enough for Rocco Cavarra to hear the ringing in his ears.

Two more bodies lay in the boat now. That made four, no…five of his men dead already. More than he'd ever lost on a single mission.

With a whistle and pop, an aerial flare ignited above. Cavarra closed one eye. The early morning moon was already so bright, his night vision goggles dangled from his neck. This new illumination was blinding. As the flare floated down under a small parachute, shadows changed shapes and sizes as they pivoted about in a ghostly carousel. Hundreds of waves on the Red Sea reflected flashes and flickers.

They're checking to see what survived the barrage, Cavarra thought. He balanced atop a dock pillar and panned the camp with night binoculars. The moonlit carnage reminded him of WWI photos taken after Verdun or the Somme. It might have appeared peaceful in the blue-white light, were it not for the mangled bodies and equipment strewn over the almost lunar landscape.

Light pollution from the flare cloaked the activity west of the camp in a fog-like dimness. Cavarra watched the shadowy hulks out there swarm, plod and shuffle around until he got the general idea: the enemy armored force was forming into a semicircle while infantry dismounted behind it. Within minutes skirmishers would begin to advance through the wreckage toward Cavarra and what was left of his squad.

But there must be bad guys already here. Somebody had killed his men. Survivors from Ali's garrison? Most likely. They couldn't all be dead or fled.

Cavarra passed the word for everyone to rally at the boat. He checked his rifle and took off to find the hot potato himself.

As he strode past the armory someone stepped around the corner right in front of him. Another flare popped overhead and Cavarra froze.

It wasn't one of his shooters—all except Mai were accounted for. This figure was shorter than Mai, and much, much thinner. It was a pimple-faced boy brandishing a smoking automatic rifle and a metallic suitcase—the hot potato.

An enemy. But he was just a kid.

The boy's Kalashnikov burped out screaming hot lead.

One bullet punched right through Cavarra's ballistic armor and erupted white-hot havoc in his torso. He fell backwards, landed on his butt and fumbled with his Galil. The suitcase streaked toward his face from the side and connected with the force of a runaway train smashing through a dynamite shack.

 

Dwight Cavarra’s eyes opened and focused on the LED numbers on his clock. He groaned and wiped sweat from his face, then rolled out of bed.

Four in the morning.

He rose and stumbled to the kitchen, grabbing a jar of peanuts and a bottle of Coors on his way to the living room. He sat in his recliner in the dark, quiet house, and pondered the dream.

He never had those kind of dreams when he was living that life. Why now? And why a dream about that mission—a CIA-sponsored operation some ten years ago, when he was officially retired?

Wow—had he been out of action that long?

He munched peanuts, swigged beer. His mind began to clear and it became obvious why the dream was about the Sudan mission: because it was already a nightmare before he ever had a dream about it. What better subject matter for a nightmare?

He remembered one of the men from that op— a Shawnee veteran of the Special Forces who had since become a friend— and a conversation they had about combat dreams.

The friend believed they were messages from the spirit world, calling warriors out of the pasture to one more battle.

 

 

 

1

MALACCA STRAIT

 

 

 

The long, sleek yacht knifed through the rounded green waves that seemed to go on infinitely. Jennifer Scarred Wolf stood at the forward pulpit, leaning against the railing and marveling at the mass and power of the sea. Her gaze shifted from the ocean to the brilliant sunset, and back again.

Red sky at night: a sailor’s delight.

She knew almost nothing about sailing, but she had heard that age-old expression before. So it was calm seas ahead—most welcome news. In the cabin she could hear the professors still bickering, which tended to spoil the beautiful tranquility of an evening like this.

The fury of her PMS didn’t help much, either. In fact, by some incomprehensible cruel joke of unseen powers, all her girlfriends had synchronized to the same cycle during this voyage. Fortunately, they were still sleeping off their hangovers below.

Dr. Blake’s voice continued to lash out at Dr. Wycliffe, “…For god’s sake, Art, show some backbone for once in your life!”

“It wasn’t a storm, Nicole!” Wycliffe retorted. “How many times do I have to tell you that choppy waves and rain don’t mean it’s storming?”

“Choppy waves? It almost flipped the boat over! But you’re more afraid of the boogey man!”

“The IMB PRC says we should be afraid of boogey men around here, Nicole!”

“L-M-N-O-P, Art. You need to grow a pair.”

The sky had few clouds in it tonight. Those few were painted a shade of crimson that might have taken Jennifer’s breath away if it weren’t for the argument she could overhear.

As dusk settled in, she heard the hinge on the door to the inside open. Oops. The companionway hatch, she corrected herself. Or was it the hatch to steerage? Oklahomans were not famous for their seamanship.

She heard several pairs of feet on the steps. A yawn; a sigh; a profane remark under someone’s breath. Great: they were all awake now—every last premenstrual one of them.

Deck chairs scooted and beer sprayed into glasses from the keg. Hadn’t they had enough, already?

Susan Pyrch slid up to the rail beside Jennifer. “You alright?”

Jennifer nodded. “Just looking at all this. There are no words.”

“We’re a long way from the Reservation, huh?” Susan’s smile faded. “Hey, I’m sorry about earlier. It’s just with the storm, and my nerves, and everyone yelling…”

“It’s okay,” Jenifer said. “I’ve been kind of crabby myself. I’m sorry for what I said.”

They both stared at the sunset for a minute.

Jennifer was the first to hear the droning sound. It grew discernible as a plane engine, and soon the craft came into view. As it soared by overhead Judy, Trina and Candy all waved towels and hooted. They must be completely recovered, Jennifer thought, or they’d have split their sodden heads open with those high-pitched shouts.

The plane banked and dropped altitude, coming around for another pass.

“He’s going to buzz us,” Susan said, sounding on the verge of giggling. She ran to the center of the deck, as if she might be seen from the air better there, and struck a seductive pose.

Not to be outdone, the other girls removed their bikini tops and shimmied their breasts while hooting and blowing kisses toward the plane. The engine noise grew quite loud as the plane buzzed by less than 40 feet from the mast. The girls laughed and catcalled even louder.

“It’s College Girls Gone Wild Number Six-Hundred,” Jennifer muttered under her breath.

“If we were shipwrecked somewhere, we would so be rescued now,” brunette, freckled Trina said, stretching her top back over the largest bust on the boat—dwarfing even Professor Nicole Blake’s.

The others laughed.

“Take a picture; it’ll last longer!” Judy, the blonde tomboy, called after the plane.

“Watch him be a contractor for Google Earth,” Candy said. “Some nine-year-old boy is going to be zooming in on random sections of ocean, and he’ll never be the same.”

They shared a laugh.

“It won’t stop with him,” Susan said. “He’ll tell his friends and they’ll tell theirs… We just gave birth to a generation of dirty old men.”

They laughed some more.

 

***

 

In the single-engine Cessna above, the pilot didn’t laugh or even smile. But he had taken their picture—video to be precise. And not for Google.

As he throttled up and pulled back on the stick to regain altitude, he turned his attention to the video controls retro-fitted into his instrument panel.

He played back the footage he’d just recorded. He counted five females on the boat, all young and shaped nicely as far as he could tell. The boat was a forty-foot yacht in seemingly perfect condition. He marked the entry and exit points for the clip, saved it to the hard drive, then sent it as an attachment back to HQ.

 

***

 

Lucky for the com operator, Captain Shiara had finished with his girls for the evening. He was in great spirits—the opposite of what he would be if interrupted mid-party. Shiara wrapped himself in a robe against the cool of the ocean breeze funneled through his headquarters and followed the com tech down the bamboo-matted, stained wood-paneled hall to the com room.

The com room was neatly organized—all the radios and computers free of dust and the wiring either hidden or neatly bundled together with Velcro strips. His employee showed him the clip, fairly drooling at the sight of the topless, brazen sirens on the boat. Shiara snapped his fingers to break the man’s lust trance. “Get me the pilot on a secure connection.”

Soon the pilot’s voice answered the call through Shiara’s headset. “You failed to record the boat’s markings,” Shiara said.

“Sorry, Captain,” the pilot replied. “I was afraid if I passed again, they might get suspicious. But the boat is the Marmalade Skies, San Francisco.”

Shiara nodded to the com tech. “Track it down.”

His employee sat at one of the computers and tapped furiously on the keyboard. Shiara got the coordinates and heading of the boat from his pilot, then told him to stand by.

“Art Wycliffe,” the com tech said. “Resides in the United States. California.”

Shiara pondered this for a moment. There had been times when it was a bad idea to do anything that might incur the wrath of the Americans. But even if this was one of those times, Marmalade Skies was an expensive-looking boat. And those were some healthy-looking girls in their prime.

He keyed the intercom and said, “Get the crew together, Aza, and make the skiff ready for intercept.”

 

***

 

Art Wycliffe prepared dinner for everyone, but asked Trina to dine with him on deck while the others ate in the galley as usual.

Dr. Wycliffe had imagined this voyage would be a fantasy come true, what with him the only male on a boat with six women—five of them in their late teens or early twenties. Nicole was a ball breaking bitch, and at least ten years older than the students, but she knew enough about sailing to help him with the boat. And she had a nice rack. Besides, Wycliffe was hoping she could seduce one of the girls along the way, maybe invite him in for a threesome.

So far the vacation had been a disappointment. Both he and Nicole had failed to score even once. Neither of the Native American girls had shown him any interest—especially the quiet one, Jennifer. He had developed a nice rapport with Judy, but hadn’t got her in the sack with him yet, partly because he wanted Candy—having always wondered what an Asian girl would be like. His obsession changed today when he saw Trina topless.

They sat on either side of the deck table, ate lobster and drank wine while he tried to make her laugh, open up about herself…but mostly get her drunk.

“What were you and Dr. Blake fighting about?” Trina asked.

“You heard that?”

Of course she heard it. People on three different land masses could probably hear Nicole’s mouth when she flew off the handle.

“It was a disagreement over the weather,” Wycliffe said. “She insists I was taking us into a storm last night.”

“Were you?” Trina asked. “It did seem like the waves were kinda’ rough.”

“You can’t always have seas as calm as this,” he said, making an effort to look into her eyes and not her cleavage. “The Strait is only about 90 feet at its deepest. You know, that was a very insightful comment you made the other day about colonial attitudes.”

“You think so?” Trina replied, brightening.

With knockers like hers, she likely hadn’t been complimented much for her mind, Wycliffe reasoned. And appealing to young minds was his strong suit. Step into my parlor.

 

***

 

Jennifer wasn’t interested in the conversation Judy and Dr. Blake were dominating over dinner, so she washed her own dishes and went back up to take in the night sea breeze a little before turning in.

Jennifer waved politely at Trina and Dr. Wycliffe, sitting astern, and strolled to the bow. The moon was already huge and golden. The scene was magnificent. She whispered a prayer of thanks for being able to experience this display.

“Your eyes are even more extraordinary in the moonlight,” she heard Dr. Wycliffe telling Trina. She tried to tune him out, but couldn’t help overhearing his intimate lecture about the quest for world peace…interspersed with hackneyed flattery that betrayed his true intentions toward a girl half his age.

Jennifer heard Susan approach from behind. Her best friend joined her at the rail again. “Between Nicole’s dominant alpha-dog mentality and Art’s nauseating come-ons, I’m ready to stab somebody.”

“She does have some kind of animal dominance thing,” Jennifer said. “Her PMS has infected all of us.”

“Are you kidding?” Susan replied. “Nicole’s the only one woman on this boat not PMSing! She’s just a natural bitch.”

“What?” Jennifer cried, grimacing up and down at Susan. “You must be drunk again. Not PMSing?”

Susan lowered her voice to a conspiratorial tone. “She had herself fixed when she was our age, she told me.”

“That makes no sense. It’s not like she’s in much danger of getting pregnant.”

“C’mon, Jennifer. Don’t start that holy stuff. I thought you were finally over that white man’s religion phase.”

“What are you talking about?”

Susan rolled her eyes. “That disgusted tone of voice you get when Nicole’s personal life comes up. Or you’re holier-than-thou attitude when the plane buzzed us.”

“I didn’t say anything about the plane,” Jennifer said. “But it does confuse me: For a year now all of you sound just like Dr. Blake, complaining about exploitation, female sex objects…and then some peeping tom in a plane flies by and you put on a show for him. Explain that to me.”

Susan shrugged. “We were just having fun. It’s not like he could park the plane, get out and come harass us.”

“Flashing your boobs to strangers is just crazy.”

“I didn’t go that far,” Susan said, laughing. “That must be a white girl thing.”

“Then what’s Candy’s excuse?”

Susan made some remark about how Candy was so flat she really had nothing to flaunt, but Jennifer didn’t catch it all.

She heard something that didn’t belong in the nocturnal oceanic ambiance. “Shh! Listen—do you hear that?”

Susan shut up and concentrated on her hearing. She shrugged.

Jennifer didn’t hear it now, either. Maybe it had been her imagination.

“For all his lechery, Dr. Wycliffe is a brilliant man,” Susan said.

Jennifer scoffed. “Brilliant at selling his opinions as fact. A doctorate in Comparative Non-Western Studies obviously does not qualify you to teach History. There’s a reason he’s not a history professor.”

Susan shook her head. “Oh, but you are?”

“I don’t need to be to know he’s full of it. Do you hear what he’s telling Trina?”

“He’s trying to seduce her,” Susan said. “All men lie when they’re doing that. He’s just trying to dazzle her with his intellect. Whether it’s true or not doesn’t matter, so long as he sounds good saying it.”

“What’s his excuse in the classroom, then?”

Now Susan was scanning over the dark waters. “I hear it, now,” she said. “That sounds like an engine.”

Jennifer had a strange, unpleasant feeling. “I don’t like this.”

“It’s getting closer,” Susan said. “It must really be moving fast.”

“This feels bad, Susan. That plane snooping on us earlier, and now this?”

“Don’t be paranoid,” Susan said. “So there’s another boat on the water tonight. So what?”

On the port horizon, a bright light cut through the night. It swept back and forth over the waves, searching for something. Now Jennifer’s skin broke out in goose bumps.

Not the good kind.

The light swept right across the boat, then came back to the center and fixed on it.

Jennifer ran for the bridge and almost bowled over the other girls coming up from below, who could evidently now hear the engine, too. Candy and Judy began waving, cheerfully shouting, “Ahoy!” Trina and Dr. Wycliffe stood up from their deck chairs to stare into the light, which grew brighter as it got closer.

“They’re on an intercept course,” Wycliffe remarked, removing the napkin from where it was tucked in his collar.

Jennifer entered the pilothouse and went for the radio. She didn’t know anything about proper broadcast procedure except what she’d seen in movies and from observing what few transmissions Wycliffe had made. In fact, she’d be lucky if she figured out what button to push.

“What are you doing?” Dr. Blake demanded, from the door of the cabin.

Jennifer ignored her. She keyed the mike. “Mayday, mayday! This is the Marmalade Skies…”

Dr. Blake tore the microphone out of her grasp and shoved her across the cabin. She was a strong woman, and Jennifer sprawled on the deck.

“What is your problem, Jennifer? You can’t get hysterical just because there’s another boat on the water. Do you realize how much trouble…”

Trina cried out something that truly did sound hysterical.

Soon the other girls’ voices did likewise, including Susan’s.

The other boat was close enough now that they could make out figures on the deck.

Figures with guns.

Jennifer scrambled back for the radio. Dr. Blake absently let the microphone drop and wandered out on deck, staring into the light.

“Mayday, mayday,” Jennifer broadcast again. “This is the Marmalade Skies out of San Francisco. We’ve just been intercepted by a fast boat with a spotlight, and armed men. It looks like they’re prepared to board. Mayday, mayday!”

She didn’t know what else to say.

A British-sounding voice crackled over the radio, “What are your coordinates, Marmalade Skies?”

Jennifer had no idea. She sought out the glow of the GPS receiver and saw the boat icon amidst an unfamiliar jumble of outlines. She pushed buttons, hoping one would bring up the latitude and longitude.

The other craft’s engine dropped to idle. Metallic objects clattered on the deck and the girls screamed.

“Relax,” Dr. Wycliffe said, not sounding very relaxed himself. “It’s probably a naval patrol just checking things out.”

The metallic objects were grappling hooks that now snagged on the grab rail.

Jennifer went back to the radio. “They’re boarding the ship now. I’m sorry, but I don’t know our coordinates. I think we’re in the Java Sea.”

She watched, in horror, as the nets attached to the grappling hooks went taut and the two vessels drew toward each other.

Dr. Blake stopped at the railing, facing the men on the other boat with that phony rapid-eye-blinking smile she wore right before tearing somebody a new bunghole. “Excuse me: can I help you?”

One of the men shouted something cold and harsh in another language. The gunwales slammed together and men began jumping onboard Marmalade Skies.

 

***

 

Wycliffe could barely follow the rapidity of speech, but he recognized the language: Indonesian.

“I’m Dr. Art Wycliffe, the owner of this boat,” he announced, in their language. “There’s no need for all the guns. Our documents are in order and I’ll get them for you.”

A short, lean man with jet black hair in a pony tail down past his shoulders stepped up to Wycliffe. His clothing didn’t resemble a uniform. “You are the captain?”

Wycliffe nodded. “Yes.”

“How many are on board with you?” the man asked. His dark face was smooth and hairless, almost delicate in appearance. None of his men appeared to be in uniform, either.

“Just the six you see here.”

“Can any of them speak my language?”

“Just me.”

“Well then, Art Wycliffe, you are my interpreter. Tell them to surrender their valuables quickly and peacefully, or they will be hurt.

 

 

2

TULSA, OKLAHOMA

 

Special Agent Tommy Scarred Wolf didn’t have his own office. Just a cubicle. But his chain of command at the BIA was fairly lax on the dress code, which was a pretty good trade. Today he wore an oversize ZZ Top T-shirt and black carpenter pants with his Redwing boots. He was a couple inches shy of six feet, hard and lean, veins bulging through the red-brown skin on his sinewy arms and hands. His eyes were so dark they appeared black. His black hair was cut short, but only by civilian standards.

He glanced away from the computer screen, closed his eyes for a moment to rub them, then turned his attention back to the information before him.

“Yup. Same guy,” he muttered, under his breath. “Seventeen years later and here he is, doing the same kind of thing.”

When Tommy first told Vince about his hunch, his brother considered it a long shot that there was any connection between their two investigations. But Vince, now a lieutenant in the tribal police, was a good cop. Evidence was paramount, and this was enough to make him rethink his skepticism.

Tommy was about to send him an email when the land line rang.

“Agent Scarred Wolf,” he said.

“Tommy?”

It was Linda’s voice, and something was wrong.

“What is it?” He automatically switched to the old language when it was her. Back when he was trying to woo Linda, he’d had to start learning Shawandasse before she would take him seriously. Now they and their kids were all fluent in it.

“It’s Jennifer,” Linda said, her voice quavering. “That boat she was on…it disappeared.”

Images flashed through Tommy’s mind—the fat, grinning Buddha Jenny; the impish toddler Jenny; the affectionate pre-pubescent Jenny. Tommy and Linda had an all-male brood, but he thought of Jenny as his baby girl. She was always so smart; so thoughtful; so easy-going. Between his busy life and her…well, whatever happens to girls during their teen years…he had lost touch with her. He heard she got religion, and knew she was going to college in California, now, but not much else about her life. Panic and guilt pierced him right in the heart.

“Does Vince know?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Why do I have to learn this from Linda, and not from my big brother directly?

This was too typical of how badly they, too, had lost touch.

Tommy shook off the thoughts. This was not the time for anything but trying to find out about Jenny.

“Are you going to call him?” Linda asked.

“No. I’m going over there.”

 

ABSENTEE SHAWNEE TRIBAL POLICE OFFICE

POTAWATTOMIE COUNTY, OKLAHOMA

 

There wasn’t much turnover in the Tribal Police, so everyone remembered Tommy and knew him on sight. They also knew who he was there to see, and why. He nodded curt greetings on his way through the pre-fab building to Vince’s office. He knocked twice on the door before pushing it open and barging in.

Vince glanced up from his computer monitor, eyes bloodshot with bags under them. Tommy’s brother had always been broader-framed and thicker-built. Back in the day it helped make him better at full-contact sports. Now he was padded out like a typical veteran cop who substitutes coffee and doughnuts for too many meals and sits around most of the time…either in an office or a prowl car…instead of getting exercise.

“I guess you heard?” Vince asked.

“Just that the boat disappeared,” Tommy said, dropping into the seat on the receiving side of the desk. “Figured I’d get the full scoop from you.”

Vince worked with his mouse and keyboard. “Listen to this.”

From the computer speakers, a faint woman’s voice said, “Mayday, mayday! This is the Marmalade Skies out of San Francisco. We’ve just been intercepted by a fast boat with a spotlight, and armed men. It looks like they’re prepared to board. Mayday, mayday!”

Even with the poor sound quality of the recorded radio transmission, and the years of little contact, Tommy recognized Jenny’s frightened voice. Vince played the whole thing.

“You know where the Java Sea is?” Vince asked.

Tommy nodded. Since they were kids, it seemed Vince’s dreams had gotten smaller, and his vision narrowed until he forgot that there was a world outside Oklahoma…or even outside the reservation. Tommy had hung onto his dreams, and traveled extensively as a result. With an above-average interest in geography, he had read about most of the places he’d never been.

“It’s on the other side of the damn world,” Vince said.

“Yeah,” Tommy said. Neither of them had to vocalize how helpless they were. Jurisdictional boundaries were the bane of police even across state lines—much less on another continent.

“When did this happen?” Tommy asked, pointing at the computer and, by extension, the recorded radio transmission.

“Last night. I’ve been talking with Interpol, Commercial Crime Services and the International Maritime Bureau off and on since then. Not a lot they can do. But they told me piracy is a big problem over there.”

“Pirates?”

Vince nodded, nostrils flaring, his mouth a hard line in his blocky, weathered face.

“This was an expensive boat she was on?”

Vince grunted and handed him a printout of the SS Marmalade Skies. Tommy didn’t know much about boats, but he guessed from the picture, and what descriptive text he understood, that the sailing yacht was a tempting target for maritime thieves.

“Then there’s the matter of the five college girls on board,” Vince added, just as Tommy was thinking the same thing. “Human trafficking. So-called white slavery. It’s pretty big over there. Susan was with her, too.”

Tommy bit his lip. He knew Susan Pyrch’s family fairly well.

“Most pirates go after commercial ships,” Vince went on. “Hold the crews for ransom. Obviously this is something different.”

“Maybe we can work with a department over there,” Tommy suggested, feeling as though he were clutching at straws and all the more frustrated because of it.

“Been talking with the Interpol guys about that,” Vince said, then shrugged. “Pirates aren’t like terrorists—taking credit for the latest attack and all that. Nobody knows who they are or where they’re operating out of. So we don’t know what jurisdiction it is.”

Tommy cursed. There were a few different countries over there—each with their own cobwebs of red tape, and none of them necessarily friendly. “We need intel. How high up your chain have you reached?”

“The state, so far,” Vince said. “Feds keep telling me somebody will call.”

Tommy recognized the fury building up silently behind Vince’s eyes. Eventually that rage was going to bust out somehow, and it would not be pretty. Unfortunately, it would be impossible to focus that rage on those who deserved it, somewhere halfway around the globe. “BIA is federal,” he said. “I’ll push it up my chain. Maybe the folks on top can get us in touch with somebody who matters.”

“It’s worth a try,” Vince said, skeptically. “I already flagged that boat in the IMB database. If it shows up somewhere…”

That could take months, years…maybe forever, Tommy thought. How long did girls really have in a scenario like this before they were raped, sold, and raped some more?

“We need reports on acts of piracy in the area,” Tommy said. “See if we can identify M.O.s and match one to this. We need satellite photos of every land mass in the region. Radar readings from every ship and station—“

“Some of that we can find online,” Vince interrupted. “I’ve been going through it in between phone calls.”

“Show me what you got,” Tommy said. “We’ll start from there.”

 

They pored through it late into the night, finding no smoking gun, of course, or anything conclusive—which they really needed in these circumstances.

Vince rubbed a hand over his bleary eyes. “I should have never let her go on that boat. I was just so relieved she was hanging out with somebody besides those Jesus freaks this summer.”

“She’s an adult now, Vince. She might not have listened to you anyway.”

“I’m almost sure she wouldn’t have,” Vince said.

“Then shake off the guilt, Brother. It’s not going to help us get her back.”

Vince shot up from his chair, pounding a heavy fist on the desk. “Then what is going to get her back? Two redskin cops from Oklahoma? Oh, wait, you’re from Washington now, aren’t you? Maybe your co-workers can arrange a student loan for me.”

This outburst reminded Tommy of the uncomfortable wedge between them ever since he took the job with the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

“Is there still a spare land-line down the hall?” Tommy asked.

Vince nodded, glaring at him.

“Okay. This ‘Washington Redskin’ is going to try calling in some favors.”

On his way through the door into the hallway, Vince spat out at his back, “Call in some big ones, Thunderheart. Maybe they can pay for a dorm room, too!”

 

LEUCADIA, CALIFORNIA

 

Dwight Cavarra stirred from his sleep when Roberta got out of bed, leaving for her graveyard shift at the hotel. But he was able to drift off again only minutes after hearing her car pull away outside. Thankfully, his was a dreamless sleep tonight.

When the telephone rang he cursed Roberta for turning the ringer on. This had better be an emergency, he thought.

Still not fully awake, he only recognized one word the strangely familiar voice spoke in his earpiece: “Rocco.”

His swarthy Sicilian features, plus cauliflower ears, had inspired that nickname after some waggish sailor observed that a face like his belonged under a pearl-gray fedora in a 1928 mugshot book of Capone Gang muscle. The nome de guerre wasn’t used anymore, so whoever this was on the phone, they went way back with him. It wasn’t Mitch’s voice, and Cavarra had lost touch with pretty much all his other fellow SEALs after retirement.

Then he placed the accent.

Rocco cleared his throat. “Tommy?”

 

 

 

3

AL-SAMAWAH, IRAQ

 

 

The truck bounced around the corner toward the checkpoint.

Leon Campbell yawned and stretched, rolling over to the prone and getting behind his rifle, still resting on its bipod. He keyed his radio mike. “One truck. Two bodies—driver and passenger. Tarp covering something in the truck bed.” His voice spoke in a marble-mouth Georgia drawl. His lazy brown eyes found the sight picture through the Les-Baer Custom SWAT’s scope. His brown hands, now much darker from the desert sun, slid into a familiar grip on the sniper rifle. He flipped off the safety and his index finger rested against the trigger guard.

Leon had a nice pair of gloves, but didn’t like having them on for “surgical work.” For some reason, it was a lot more difficult for him sensing when the sears would trip with glove material between his skin and the trigger—no matter how thin that material was.

“Get ready, girl,” he told the three-year old shepherd mix sharing the shade of a jujube tree with him. Shotgun rose from her sitting position so that all four of her legs were straightened and she watched the truck as he did.

Below the hill Leon and Shotgun observed from, Johnny and Drew got into position, their rifles at the ready. Drew stood in the roadway with one hand raised, palm toward the approaching vehicle, while Johnny remained off to the side.

The truck rolled to a stop some ten meters from Drew. Johnny stepped up to the driver’s window and asked the standard questions. The driver produced his ID and answered the questions.

Examining their faces through the scope, Leon recognized both men in the cab as regular visitors to the power plant. But that meant nothing, of course, in this part of the world.

“On station,” he said, and Shotgun charged down the hill to the truck.

She sniffed all the way around the vehicle and made no fuss. Now Johnny had the two Iraqis get out of the cab. Drew sidled over to stand a safe distance from both of them while Johnny moved around back to have a look under the tarp. Seeing nothing that caused alarm, he lifted Shotgun off the ground and let her snoop around in the truck bed. She finished and wagged her tail a bit.

Satisfied, Johnny put her back on the ground. They let the two men climb back in the vehicle and start it, then waved them on their way.

Shotgun climbed back up the hill and joined Leon with a wagging tail and a dripping tongue. Leon gave her a piece of jerky and said, “Good girl.”

“Mechanic, this is Home Alone, over?” squawked the radio.

“This’s Mechanic,” Leon replied. “I copy, Home Alone. Over.”

“Scramble hot. Romeo-Fox is hammer down, over?”

Leon bolted upright, gathering his rifle and gear. It was time to play war, finally. He’d shot nothing but paper targets for months.

The quick reaction force (Quebec-Romeo-Foxtrot, or Romeo Fox for short) only scrambled when hostile contact was made. “Hot” meant live rounds were already flying. Home Alone was the current call sign for their base camp, and Statler was the one minding the store today.

Leon ran down the opposite hill slope from the checkpoint, where the HMMWV was parked, Shotgun trotting along beside him. Over the radio, Statler gave him the code for the link-up site.

A rough, dusty ride later and Leon’s Hummer rolled up next to the QRF’s helipad. There were two dozen men standing near the ugly old surplus CH-47 Chinook, all armed to the teeth but weighted down with little more than their ammo and ballistic protection.

The only other Black American working for Secure Solutions, International happened to be the vice president, Jake McCallum—who was also leader of the quick reaction force. McCallum had the frame of an NBA superstar, but with a lot more muscle on it. His stature was intimidating for a lot of men, offset by a face which somewhat resembled the comedian Eddie Murphy’s.

There was nothing comical about Mac’s expression right now. He was hungrier than anyone else in SSI to get some trigger time and now that it was imminent, he was all business.

“Okay, we’re all here,” Mac said. “Gather ‘round.”

He squatted at the corner of the helipad, spreading a topographic map out, then setting an aerial photograph next to it. The force mobbed in around him.

Mac pointed to a grid on the map. “Here’s where we’re going. Anybody remember those guys from Interpol that came by last week?”

A few men nodded.

“Well,” Mac said, “they got a lead on Liberace.”

“Liberace” was a confirmed leader of a terror cell responsible for over 50 deaths, most of them westerners, with some west-friendly Iraqis, mostly unfortunate Sunnis, thrown in. Nobody could pronounce his real name.

Mac pointed at the photo. “Them and some Iraqi cops came into this place, showing mugshots, asking questions, as if they were in Mayberry with Sheriff Taylor and Barney Fife.”

Most of the men looked confused by this reference. Mac frowned. He had forgot that the younger generations grew up with a lot more than three channels to watch; all kinds of cartoons and kids’ shows to choose from and never had to watch reruns in their life.

“Like they were on CSI or Law and Order or something. Never mind. As you can see, it’s a collection of 13 abandoned buildings. It’s been populated for a while now, by what were assumed to be just a few families of squatters.”

Leon leaned in to get a better look over the shoulders of a couple contractors. The compound was a scattershot of various-sized flat-roofed structures, out in the middle of nowhere.

“One of the cops has been killed,” Mac went on, “two others wounded. They’ve locked themselves in this small building, here. They’ve only got sidearms and not much ammo to hold off the hostiles. It’s only a matter of time before the door or a wall is breached. When the jihadis give up on having hostages to torture and decide to just kill them, they’ll run up there and plant some demolitions, or just fire an RPG at the building. We gotta get there first.”

A couple mercs barked their enthusiasm.

Mac nodded, approvingly, shifting focus back to the map. “We’re coming in east-southeast. The chopper’s gonna set us down in this draw right here. It’s got to be a quick offload, folks. Pilot drops the ramp; we unass the bird; he continues on for the first gun run. It needs to happen so quick that the hostiles don’t realize he’s dropped us off.” Mac pointed back to the photo. “First Squad takes this building with Second in overwatch. Once secure, Second Squad takes this building right next to it.”

Mac continued on with the plan, only going over it once and entertaining few questions afterward. He was investing supreme confidence in his squad and team-leaders because, frankly, he had no choice. One question he did answer pertained to the enemy’s strength.

“Estimate is ten armed men,” Mac said, then his expression turned especially grim. “Twice that many women, and an unknown number of rugrats.”

The mercs moaned, groaned and cursed.

“I know. I know,” Mac said. “But this is nothing new. When they can’t hit us, then disappear inside a mosque, they hide behind women and children. They understand that ‘weak infidels’ don’t normally have the stomach for that.” He took a deep breath and tried to grin. “But we’re a bunch of bloodthirsty, cold-hearted mercenaries, right?”

“Hoo-hah!” cried one of the Brits.

Mac abandoned the morbid humor tack, and nodded toward the pilot, who nodded back, shared a look with his copilot and climbed inside the Chinook. “If we go wheels-up right now, we’ll catch them during the next call to prayer.” He pointed at a building in the photo. “The women all gather together in this building.” He made eye contact with Leon and Warner, one of the machinegunners. “That’s why I want you guys where I put you. You get me?”

Leon nodded. “Roger that.”

“Loud and clear,” Warner said, in his Cockney accent.

The Chinook’s turbines whined to life, and the rotors began to turn.

“One minute for weapons check,” Mac shouted over the noise of the turbines. “Then let’s go.”

The mercs formed a rank facing west, where there was nothing but empty countryside, and did a brief test fire. The crackle of small arms echoed across the plain, then safeties clicked back on and they loaded the bird, some topping off their magazines as they went.

 

 

 

4

MALACCA STRAIT

 

 

The armed men first confiscated jewelry off the passengers, then searched the yacht for other valuables while Wycliffe, Blake and the girls were herded, at gunpoint, onto the other craft. They were blindfolded, handcuffed, and shoved into the center seats.

Trina and Judy cried hysterically. Candy puked her guts out. Dr. Blake screamed at Dr. Wycliffe to interpret her demands that they be released at once. Dr. Wycliffe was crying out something in the language of their captors, until one of the men struck him with a gun muzzle, knocking teeth out and splitting his lip.

“This isn’t happening,” Susan whispered in the darkness. “This can’t be happening.”

“Who are these people?” Dr. Blake demanded.

“They’re the boogey man, Nicole,” Wycliffe slurred through his ruined mouth. “Aren’t you glad we took this course, now, rather than experience some rain?”

“Shut up, Art. I’m trying to be constructive here, and you want to play the blame game.”

Dear God, please help us, Jennifer thought. Fear and helplessness gripped her brain so tightly, she could hardly think. These men were not above murder—she had read it in their hard, cold eyes. She didn’t want to guess what their intentions were. And they were armed, and organized. There was no way to escape she could see.

Jennifer’s father was a cop. A good one. Her uncle was, too…as well as a war hero and some kind of ex-commando. But they were 10,000 miles away and she had no way of even making a phone call. And what could they really do, anyway?

She now saw the foolishness of the decision to spend her vacation this way, as clearly as she could see anything. Not that it did her much good, now. Please, God, she thought again, help us.

“Everyone calm down,” Jennifer said. “We need to start praying. If you don’t know God, you need to correct that, right now, and join your prayers to mine.”

“Oh, give me a break, Jenny,” scoffed Dr. Blake. “If your God even existed, he wouldn’t let shit like this happen!”

“I don’t want to argue with you, Dr. Blake,” Jennifer said. “You don’t have to join in, but I am going to pray.”

Candy, having graduated from nausea to dry heaves to panting groans, said, “I’ll p-pray with you, Jennifer.”

“Me too,” Susan added, quietly.

And they prayed like none of them ever had before.

***

The boat motor shut down, and a few moments later the vessel was jarred slightly. Footsteps and shouting sounded from above. Soon the blindfolds were removed and the smooth-faced man with the ponytail barked something at them.

“He said get up there quickly,” Wycliffe translated.

Bumping into and tripping over each other, they climbed out of the skiff, and were roughly escorted down the dock, along a path and to a building where the hum of a generator blended with the sound of nocturnal insects and other creatures. As they entered the building, Jennifer felt an all-too-familiar sensation in her body.

Oh, no, she thought. This was salt in the wound. Her period, on top of everything else? Thanks a lot, God.

The faces of their captors came into sharp focus now, in the lighted interior of a long room with a few cots and several metal poles jutting out of the stone-tiled floor. They leered at their captives with ugly grins and made ugly-sounding comments to each other and shared ugly laughs.

The round-faced leader, with the long ponytail, strolled around the room, his eyes raking over the bodies of each woman. Then another man entered, with the bearing of an admiral. His name was Shiara, and the ponytailed man was his lieutenant, Aza.

Wycliffe picked up enough conversation to deduce that all of the girls were going to be raped, but Shiara got first dibs. As it was getting late and he had already copulated not long ago, that meant only one woman tonight—after which all his followers got their turn with her according to pecking order. Tomorrow the same would happen to another two or three girls.

Wycliffe didn’t feel up to explaining this to his traveling companions.

After making his rounds through the girls, Shiara pointed at Trina and barked orders. The other girls were grabbed by the arms and each yanked toward a cot. Susan twisted in the grip of her captor and, making eye contact with Jennifer behind her, said, “Check me.”

Automatically, Jennifer’s gaze dropped to the seat of her friend’s pants. No stain. “You’re fine.” It seemed a little crazy to be worried about that in these circumstances. Like they needed to make a good impression on these scum.

 

The leader shouted at one of his men, pointing at Wycliffe. The man poked his weapon into Wycliffe’s ribs and shoved him toward a door. He was herded into a large office, pushed down onto a chair and his wrists cuffed to spokes in the backrest.

The man left him there and returned to the previous room, shutting the door behind him.

Wycliffe heard a sharp tearing sound, and Trina’s voice rose to a high-pitched wail. Men’s voices laughed lewdly. Then a sudden hush interrupted the noise. Then a scuffling around the room, with yelps and sobs from the girls, amidst more ripping sounds.

There was cursing so rapid Wycliffe couldn’t follow it, then the door burst open. Shiara, now with no shirt or shoes, rushed in with his broad face twisted in disgust. “What is wrong with your women?” he demanded.

“Wrong with them?” Wycliffe slurred. “I don’t know what you mean.”

He stepped forward and slapped Wycliffe hard across the face. “You know very well what I mean! All of them are…unclean!”

“They all appear very hygienic to me,” Wycliffe replied, head still reeling from the sting of the blow.

“Come get this one!” the leader yelled through the door.

Two men came in, uncuffed Wycliffe from the chair and yanked him back out into the other room. Wycliffe noticed that Trina was stripped naked, both hands cuffed to a pair of upright poles. Halfway forgetting the situation, he took advantage of the opportunity to feast on the sight of her.

Then he understood what the leader was talking about.

He scanned through the other girls, noting they had been stripped, checked and rejected, too…

An excited guard exclaimed loudly, then said, “There is a clean one: This older one with the big breasts.”

Shiara pointed to Dr. Blake, who was being forced down onto a cot like the other girls, handcuffed in place. “She’s clean!”

The men, on hearing him, stopped shy of cuffing her to the frame, pulled her back to her feet and yanked her toward another pair of poles.

With a surprising flash of speed and strength, Nicole Blake wrenched her body, jerking free of their hold. She screamed out an ear-piercing kiai and assumed a fighting stance facing the man nearest her. The man glanced at Shiara, who turned to Wycliffe.

“This woman knows empty-hand?”

Wycliffe nodded. “I think she’s a black belt.”

A strange grin came to the leader’s mouth, and he calmly gave another order. One of his men ran out of the room. He returned moments later with a young woman in tow.

The woman was even shorter than the diminutive captors, the size of a pre-teen girl in America. She also had Asiatic features, and was dressed in loose cotton pants and a sports bra.

The leader spoke to the woman, while pointing at Dr. Blake. The woman nodded, faced Dr. Blake and assumed a fighting stance of her own. She advanced on her taller opponent, her expression grim. With a little chirp of a kiai, the woman led with a left-leg snap kick, following up with a side kick. The first caught Dr. Blake in the ribs, solid. The second caught her thigh in a glancing blow as Blake backed away.

The woman continued her advance, now striking with her right foot and both hands. Jolted into reality by the blow to her ribs, Nicole Blake adapted a blocking sequence to deflect most of the strikes. Still, one landed on her cheek and stung her bad.

Nicole counterattacked, but the nimble little woman had superb reflexes and avoided the scissor kick, sweeping her before she could get her feet re-planted. Nicole rolled with the fall and came up crouched. The little woman let her regain her feet.

The armed men around the room shouted and catcalled. Some seemed to be exchanging bets.

Nicole Blake adjusted her discipline. For the last three years she had been cross-training in Kenpo, which incorporated some grappling moves. She was a strong woman, and needed to be able to take advantage of her size and strength against this highly skilled opponent.

Nicole advanced. The woman launched a side kick toward her face. Nicole dove to tackle her planted leg, and they tumbled around on the floor. When the tumbling stopped, Nicole was mounted on her in the half-guard, raining punches down on the woman, who dodged and blocked some of them, but grunted when one landed flush, bursting her nose in a spray of blood.

Like a house cat that didn’t want to be given a bath, the woman contorted her body in amazing ways, wriggling out of Nicole’s half-guard.

They scrambled to their feet. Men were cheering, shouting and gesticulating violently. The little woman was breathing hard, now, and looked dazed. She chirped out another kiai and attacked with a blur of strikes, mixing high and low, hands and feet. Nicole gave her oblique angles, blocking, dodging, and counterstriking. During the exchange of blows, she landed a punch into the woman’s midsection. The woman dropped to her knees, gasping for breath, face twisted in pain. Nicole stepped forward and drove a leopard palm into her chin. The woman crumpled, unconscious.

Men cheered, cursed and exchanged money.

Shiara arched his eyebrows, gave Nicole Blake a slight nod, then started talking again. One of his men scooped up the woman and carried her out of the room.

Wycliffe turned to Blake. “He wants you and I to talk with him in his office.”

With several armed men bringing up the rear, the two professors followed the leader out of the room.

During the flurry of activity, Trina had been transferred to a cot. Now all the captive girls were secured on their backs, their private parts exposed. The armed men left the room, switching off the lights as they went. A heavy door slammed shut behind them, and locking mechanisms clicked.

Jennifer could hear Judy, Candy and Susan sobbing in the darkness. Hot tears rolled down her own cheeks. “Why, God? Why?”

 

 

 

5

AL-SAMAWAH, IRAQ

 

 

By the time everyone was buckled in, the chopper was rocking and bouncing in place like a hyper child on a trampoline. With the clock ticking toward the call to prayer, it seemed to take years for it to finally lift off. The wind from the rotors kicked up a dust storm all around the helipad as the Chinook got airborne.

The pilot, Wade Haugen, had once flown Harriers for the US Marine Corps. Since transitioning to a paramilitary career, he had mastered a variety of fixed-wing aircraft and added choppers to his repertoire. After being hired by SSI, he converted the old Chinook into a combination troop carrier and gunship. There were rocket pylons on both sides, topped by miniguns. He had flares and chaff, too—not that he should need them on this sortie.

The fuel tanks were full. Every weapon system was go. Haugen was primed to deliver these ground-pounders and get waist-deep in some close air support.

Underneath the reaction force, the land gradually transformed from the fertile ground of the Euphrates Valley to dry, harsh desert.

The Chinook (an ugly beast resembling an old telephone receiver upside-down) was a fairly fast bird, stable and tough, mostly due to its absence of a tail rotor. It got the strike force to their debark point quickly. The ramp dropped as it settled onto the ground just long enough for the light platoon to pour out, then the chopper tilted nose-down and accelerated to max speed at low altitude.

Leon, his spotter, Warner and his gun crew remained on the bird.

Up in the cockpit, the target compound came into view. As the chopper neared, Figures came into view—several men, bowing toward the east in an open area between buildings. But several rose from their penitent positions and began scattering.

“Guess they hear us coming, eh?” Ryan Flees, the British copilot groused. “And that looks like a lot more than ten hostiles.”

Haugen shrugged. “Intel is sketchy—based mostly on what the Iraqi cops can see from their location.”

“Which apparently wasn’t too bloody much.”

“Patch my mike through to the loudspeaker,” Haugen said.

Flees did so and said, “You’re live.”

They were close enough now to make out faces on the men running, pointing, and leveling weapons at the helicopter. Haugen popped his bubblegum and keyed the mike. “What’re you all looking at me for? You’re supposed to be facing Mecca!”

The miniguns opened up and Haugen raked fire across the compound as he came over, banking left to catch a concentration of fleeing hostiles…and to avoid the building where the women were supposed to be. A few hostiles were shredded by the streams of 7.62mm rounds.

Down below, the first squad was moving into position to take their first building, trusting the bedlam caused by the gun run to divert attention from them. By the time the Chinook cut loose the miniguns on its second pass, they were ready. During the BRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAPPPPPPP!!!!! of Haugen’s burst, the lead man used a shotgun to breach the door and First Squad burst in to sweep and clear, room by room.

They encountered no hostiles in the building, and declared it secure. Now watching key avenues of approach from in and around the building, First Squad held their position while Second Squad took the adjacent building.

Only one hostile was found inside—an armed adult male trying to escape the big, ugly gunship. He lost a quick draw contest with Chris Reecio and the second building was soon secured. One fireteam from each squad was left to hold the two buildings and the rest of the force linked up, preparing to move to the next position.

On the ground, with eyes on the small building where the cops were trapped, Mac keyed his radio mike. “Double Dragon, this is Hudson Hawk. We’re ready for Santa Clause…Mechanic, over?”

“Roger, Hudson Hawk,” Haugen replied. ”Santa Clause One coming in.”

The Chinook came around again, this time settling into a hover low over the roof of the first building. Leon and his spotter dropped down onto the roof. Flees told Haugen they were off, and the chopper slid over to drop the machinegun crew on the second roof.

Small arms fire was incoming now, but poorly aimed and sporadic. Haugen swung wide out to the northwest and charged back into the thick of it. His amplified drawl echoed throughout the compound over the noise of the rotors, “Out on the streets, they call it MUUUUUURRRRRDEEEEEEERRRRRRRR!”

Flees put hands to both sides of his helmet as if covering his ears. “Oh, bloody hell, Wade! I’m sure that must be against the Geneva Convention. Open fire already, and put them out of their misery.”

So instead of singing it again, or worse: trying to rap the lyrics; Haugen opened up with the miniguns.

Leon and Anwar, his spotter, dropped to the prone at the edge of the roof. They were down less than a second when a man popped out of a doorway, shouldering an RPG and pivoting to track the Chinook.

“RPG!” Anwar cried.

“Got ‘im,” Leon said, taking up trigger slack. “Welcome to Jam-Rock, baby.” The Monolith SWAT spoke, and the man with the RPG nearly folded in half backwards as he fell.

Three men, who had been hiding behind a wall, ran for the building where the women were, once the chopper had passed by. The assistant gunner yelled and pointed. Warner traversed the Vektor SS77 on its tripod and put the trio in the dirt with a couple eight-round bursts.

On the ground below, Mac led the bulk of the QR force out and around the back of the compound. They came at the third building from the flat desert, bounding forward by fireteam.

A figure appeared behind the scratched, dusty glass of a window. The mercs caught the movement and dropped in their tracks. Fire crashed through the glass to the familiar tune of an AK47 on full auto.

A gunner in Second Squad ripped a burst through the window, and the man. Mac shot to his feet and closed the rest of the distance to the building’s wall. The other shooters did the same, as the SS77 laid covering fire. One merc cooked off a frag grenade and dunked it through the shattered window. When it detonated, the covering gun crew rushed to join their comrades.

Ideally, the mouse hole should be blown in this back wall. But the wall was the only cover they had, so they couldn’t go somewhere else when the charge went off. Around the corner seemed the best plan, since not that much enemy fire was concentrating there.

Mac peeked around the corner nearest the second building and yelled to get the rooftop crew’s attention. “Warner! Yo! Warner!”

Warner’s ammo bearer heard him, looked down and to the right until he spotted Mac. “Yo!”

Mac pointed in the general direction of the rest of the compound and yelled, “Cover!”

The ammo bearer nodded, turned to Warner and the assistant gunner and said something inaudible from where Mac was. Warner poured it on, raking fire back and forth across his sector.

Mac turned back to his men, holding out one hand, palm-up. “Demo!”

Barry Teor, the new demo guy, slapped a crude shaped charge into his hand and Mac rounded the corner. He slammed the charge against the wall facing the second building and got back around the corner with no new bullet holes in him.

“Fire in the hole!”

The charge blew. He allowed time for the dust to settle, then peeked around the corner again. The outside wall now sported a four-foot-diameter mouse hole. He turned back to his men. “Breach!”

The lead fireteam plucked grenades from their vests. There would be no flash-bangs on this sweep. They knew there was opfor in the building and they could afford to take no prisoners until they broke through to the besieged police. Hopefully there were no women or children inside.

The lead team stacked on the corner while other shooters got out of their way. With a strangled grunt the team leader rounded the corner, lurched sideways and tumbled through the mouse hole. The second man went through almost on top of him. A short burst from an AA12 sounded inside, then one of the mercs called back through the mouse hole, “We’re in a hallway! We’re going left; next pair go right!”

The next two strikers jumped through the breach. The next fireteam stacked on the corner, waiting for their turn to go in.

Inside, the shooters cleared each room methodically: kick in the door, toss in a grenade. After the blast, the first man entered the room and buttonhooked left; the second man entered, buttonhooking right. Anyone still moving or breathing got a double tap. In fact, they got a double tap even if they weren’t still breathing. Mark the room secure and move on to the next door.

It was the kind of overkill professional soldiers hadn’t employed probably since Stalingrad or Kassino. Fragmentation grenades in every room; universal double taps…

But SSI’s quick reaction force believed in overkill. Big Jake McCallum swore by overkill.

The building was secured quickly with no friendly casualties and six opfor dead. By now it was obvious, even to the mercs at ground level, that enemy strength had been underestimated.

With a team pulling security outside to the rear, the remainder of the force gathered inside the freshly-cleared building. Now four of them, including Mac, positioned themselves at doors and windows facing the inside of the compound. The windows were smashed out with rifle butts. They yanked pins and hurled smoke grenades into the gap between their building and where the police were holed up.

“Litter teams up!” Mac barked.

Six men moved toward the front door and readied their litters—still collapsed so far. Mac glanced outside several times to assess how the smoke was spreading. Second Squad’s gun crew set up their SS77 on an old desk, poking out the front-facing window. The litter teams assumed the ready-scat position.

Mac switched his radio to the Iraqi Police frequency. In Arabic, he said, “This is Hudson Hawk. We are coming to get you in one minute. I say again: 60 seconds. We have litter teams for your casualties. We’ll be coming from the building west-southwest of you. Do not fire at us! I say again: do not fire on us. Do you copy, over?”

“We copy, Hudson Hawk,” a quavering voice replied. “We are ready.”

Mac switched back to the QRF frequency. “Double Dragon, this is Hudson Hawk. Are you ready to bring smoke, over?” He could hear the Chinook hovering outside and knew it was in position, but had to be sure its weapon systems were still functioning.

“Hudson Hawk, this is Double Dragon,” Haugen drawled. “We are guns-up and awaiting your verbal, over.”

“All shooters…all shooters,” Mac broadcast. “Covering fire initiates on Double Dragon’s gun run.” He glanced once more at the smoke, now probably at its maximum spread. “Double Dragon: execute!”

The turbines throttled up and the pounding of the rotors grew louder. Mac turned his back to the door, making eye contact with the litter teams.

BRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAPPPPPPP!!!!!!!

The QR force opened up with everything they had, and the noise was terrific.

“GO! GO! GO!” Mac bellowed, running to get out of the litter teams’ way as they charged through the door and across the open ground. Tracers streaked over their heads in such volume that nothing downrange of them could possibly survive.

Atop the roof of Building One, Anwar screamed to be heard above the din. “Target two o’clock, 90 meters, window!”

Leon’s peripheral vision had already caught the jihadi popping up in the window. His cross hairs centered on the head—a chip shot from this range—and he tickled the trigger. The man disappeared from view, leaving a splatter of blood and brain on the wall behind him as a memorial to his curiosity.

Below, the litter teams reached the small building. The door opened. Verbal conversation impossible at that location in the circumstances, the litter bearers pointed, gesticulated, then finally yanked and shoved the cops into motion. Three cops dashed for the secured building across from them as the litter teams entered the building.

When they reemerged, the litters were deployed, bearing three human figures. The litter teams sprinted back across the open ground. When they reached cover, the firing slowed to a trickle.

At the same two-o’clock building from Leon’s position, a jihadi appeared on the rooftop with an RPG.

“See that?” Anwar asked.

Leon could barely hear him over the ringing in his ears, but nodded and said, “I see him.”

“How did he get up there?”

“Your guess good as mine,” Leon drawled. “But I got a hunch how he gonna get back down.”

The Les Baer rifle fired. The man spun half-around and tumbled over the edge of the roof, the RPG flipping up in the air like a baton during a majorette’s juggling trick.

As the litter teams burst back in the doorway of Building Two, Mac examined their cargo. Thankfully, the wounded cops were still alive. He turned to the three still on their feet. “What can you tell me?” He asked, in Arabic.

One of the men in plainclothes pointed back the way he had come. “As you were laying down fire, most of them gathered in that building.”

“What building?” Mac demanded, unslinging his fag-bag. He extracted the aerial photo and held it out.

“That building!” The cop said, pointing to Building Seven.

Mac stared at the photo for a minute, thinking. He turned to his men. “Weapons check, reload and head count! Get ready to move!” Hey keyed his radio. “Santa Clause One and Two: exfil in two mikes. Over.”

“Wilco, Hudson Hawk. Santa Clause One out,” Leon replied, and Warner replied right after. “Roger: exfil in two. Santa Clause Two out.”

Mac pulled out his cell phone and texted Haugen about the concentration of opfor in Building Seven. His following text said, “Whatever u do, don’t violate R.O.E.”

After a few seconds, he heard Haugen’s voice on the radio. “Hudson Hawk, this is Double Dragon. I’m afraid we must have taken some hits. We seem to be experiencing a weapons malfunction.”

And then the rockets fired—three in rapid succession. Through the window, Mac and his men watched Building Seven obliterated in a strobing flash, quickly replaced by a tremendous cloud of dust and smoke.

Two of theBrits grinned at each other. “Weapons malfunctions are such a nuisance,” one of them said.

“I just hate it when the Rules Of Engagement are blown to hell and gone,” one of the Americans added.

The squad leaders reported to Mac with head counts and ammo inventory. None of the mercs had been lost or even wounded. He would celebrate later, but for now he didn’t want to wear out his welcome with Lady Luck.

“Alright, move out!” Mac bellowed. “Rally Point Echo!” Then, supervising the exfiltration by squads, Mac muttered, half under his breath, “They can stick the Rules Of Engagement where the sun don’t shine.”

 

Once loddy-doddy-everybody was back on the bird, homeward bound, Mac bumped fists with Leon, buckled into the seat next to him. “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout. That’s how you get it done.”

Leon nodded. “If it won’t for all them widows and orphans we just made, I’d call it perfect.”

Mac frowned and shrugged. “Before you get all choked up about the widows and orphans, remember they were probably mixing the explosives for the next truck bomb.”

Leon nodded. “That’s what I’m gonna tell myself.”

Mac examined his own arm, noting the goose bumps. “Ain’t had a pucker factor like that for a minute. Maybe not since Hot Potato.”

Leon grimaced. “Now that was max pucker factor. You hear from Rocco lately? It’s been a minute since I talked to any of those guys.”

Mac shook his head. “Not since I was stateside. They all went and got civilized. You and me are the only barbarians left, Cannonball.”

For some reason, everyone Leon Campbell knew eventually took to calling him “Cannonball.”

“I heard Bojado went back in the Corps after Sudan,” Leon said.

Mac shrugged. “Rocco’s retired again. Selling gear online; teaching tactical marksmanship to wannabes. Chief is a pencil-pushing fed, now.”

Leon shook his head and sighed. “Can’t see him pushin’ pencils. If there’s ever somebody born to do what we just did, it’s Tommy Scarred Wolf.”

“We should give him a shout,” Mac said. “Let him know what he’s missing.”

 

 

6

LEUCADIA, CALIFORNIA

 

 

Rocco Cavarra went through Annapolis during the late 1970s. His first action as a SEAL was seen in Grenada. His combat baggage stamps included Panama, Gulf War One and a few places no SEAL Team was ever officially operating in. His last duty station before retirement had been Fort Meade, Maryland.

Serving in a “Military Intelligence” capacity at Meade, Cavarra rubbed elbows with many NSA suits, spooks from the other agencies, and people who knew people who knew people.

Rocco Cavarra had a network.

Up until now, Rocco had never called in favors from his network, though he had done some favors for others. For Tommy Scarred Wolf, he cashed in some of those chips. Tommy soon had mountains of region-specific intelligence that Google could never provide.

 

ABSENTEE SHAWNEE TRUST LAND, OKLAHOMA

 

Tommy returned to the BIA office and its secure network to download the sensitive information. He’d been fatigued from lack of sleep even before this all-nighter. Now he was just about empty. He took some paid time off and staggered home in the middle of the next day, his laptop brimming with files and his brain flooded with data. Linda met him at the door with a hug, desperate kisses and anxious worry about their niece and Susan. He enjoyed her warm, soft embrace before staggering back to his work den.

Tommy’s work den was bookended by a stuffed boar’s head on one wall and a stuffed buck’s on the other. In between, the walls were covered with various items. The bleached-white doeskin tunic adorned with colorful feathers he had worn to a ceremony with Linda long ago was tacked to the wall, next to a plaque with a representation of 5^th Special Forces Group’s flash and crest. Framed photographs hung high and low, of his buddies and sometimes him, too, from Basic Training right up to his discharge. There were foreign bayonets, bandoliers, compasses, map bags and even an Iraqi tanker helmet. He had scrapbooks full of the certificates that went with the ribbons for his dress uniform, more photos, plus unit patches and military insignia cut off the uniforms of fallen or captured enemy. By far, the trophies he treasured most were the Dragunov rifle hanging over the window and the M1928 Thompson submachinegun over the door.

“I don’t know if there’s anything we can do in time,” he told Linda, as he entered.

Linda followed him inside. “In time?”

Tommy collapsed into his recliner and fumbled with his laptop case, looking up at her.

Linda’s golden-brown eyes were still full of love and fire; her eyelashes long and dark, prone to tap out seductive signals to him even when discussing the bills. Her mouth was as sensuous as ever, and her hair glorious. She had gained weight after each childbirth, adding most of it around the hips and legs, some in the breasts but just a little bit in the stomach. She was still the most beautiful woman alive to Tommy.

He sighed. “These are pirates, most likely. There’s been no ransom demands, and the area is pretty bad for girls being kidnapped and sold into prostitution.”

Linda covered her mouth with both hands.

“Yeah,” Tommy said, pulling his laptop out of the bag.

Linda left the den. Tommy knew she needed comfort—Jenny was special to her, too. He would chase her down and try to console her, as soon as he transferred the files to his desktop.

Before his flash drive was full, Linda reappeared with a cold beer for him. She set the bottle down on his desk, sat in his lap and wrapped her arms around him.

“Jenny…” she said, softly. “My Jenny…”

Tommy closed his eyes and held her tight.

After a while Linda dried her eyes and touched his cheek gently. “You’ve got to get some sleep, honey. Go lay down.”

Tommy’s first instinct was to blow off the advice, but his eyes were burning and his mind numb. Once the files were transferred, he stumbled to bed.

 

***

 

Tommy awoke to the sound of his dogs barking in the front yard. Still wearing the clothes he had on the day before, but barefoot, he rolled out of bed and gave his brain a moment to come online. Once his moccasins were on, he stepped out into the dusk and noticed the banged-up old Chevy pickup in his yard. Linda was talking to the Pyrches.

“Hey, John. Stacy,” Tommy greeted them, shuffling toward the truck. He gave the dogs a command and they fell silent.

“Tommy,” John Pyrch said, with a nod.

Stacy’s eyes were puffy from crying. John, behind the wheel, was very close to having the 1,000-yard stare. Evidently they heard about Susan. Word traveled fast on the rez, even before the Internet.

Tommy had no idea what to say. He stood by the driver’s door and stared at his feet.

John reached through the window, grabbed Tommy’s hand and slapped something into it.

Tommy looked down. It was a wad of money.

“I can get more. I will get more,” John said. “Just find our girls and bring them back.”

“W-what?” Now Tommy was really at a loss for words.

“Please, Tommy. You know about things like this. You can find them.”

No I don’t know about things like this, he wanted to say, unfolding the bundle of bills. “John, there’s over a thousand dollars here.” This was probably every last dime the Pyrches had. “I can’t take this.”

John shook his head violently. “No! You are the one, Tommy. You can do what needs to be done. You’re the only one who can help us.”

Tommy pinched the bridge of his nose. “I work for the BIA, John. Not the CIA or the Pentagon. And this is on the other side of the planet…”

“I’ll get more money,” John promised, eyes glossy and desperate.

Tommy tried to give the money back. “John, I can’t take…”

“No!” John shouted again. “Don’t you dare. Take that money, Tommy, and find her!”

John started their truck and the Pyrches drove away. Tommy and Linda exchanged a look, and returned to the house in silence.

At the kitchen table, Tommy fanned out John’s money and they both stared at it. After a while, he said, “What do they expect from me? This isn’t raiding a marijuana field or tracking down some hit-and-run perp on the rez. For all we know, Jenny could already be…”

Linda pressed a finger to his lips. “Please, Tommy: don’t say it.”

Engine noise filled their front yard again—this time more than one. The dogs went crazy.

Outside were two more pickup trucks. Tommy had the dogs stand down. Lucille New Moon emerged from one pickup and Uncle Jay from the other.

Lucille strode up to Linda and pressed cash into her hand. “I heard about Jenny,” she said, staring meaningfully at Tommy. “I don’t have much, but please use this however you can to get her back.”

Tommy couldn’t believe all this. He wanted to shout at Lucille and throw her off his property.

After a very brief conversation with Linda, she left of her own volition.

Tommy turned to Jay. If his uncle handed him money and a demand to do the impossible, he was going to cancel his time off and drive back to the office immediately.

“Heap bad medicine, Chief,” Jay said.

Uncle Jay was a Vietnam veteran who went almost nowhere without his First Cavalry Division hat, and who occasionally engaged in Native American self-parody.

“Would you like some coffee, Uncle?” Linda asked.

“I would,” he replied, “but first I need to borrow Tommy.”

Tommy peered at him quizzically. “As you so stereotypically put it, Uncle, there is ‘heap bad medicine’ going on. This isn’t a good time.”

“I know,” Jay said, completely serious, now. “C’mon.”

Tommy turned to Linda. “I guess I’ll see you a little later.”

As Jay drove, he prodded Tommy for details on Jenny’s disappearance and the investigation so far. Tommy grew increasingly irritated, not so much because it was inappropriate to share such information outside cop circles, but because the questioning reminded him of how little he really knew of the matter, and how hopeless his position was.

When they pulled into Michael Fastwater’s yard, Tommy groaned at Jay. “This is really bad timing, Uncle. Couldn’t you have told him I’d talk to him another time? Why did you even tell him about Jenny?”

Jay shrugged. “He already knew about it. He called me. And no, nothing with Michael can be done another time.”

Two truck doors slammed. Tommy trudged up to the trailer behind his uncle. Inside, they found Michael Fastwater on his back in his adjustable bed in front of the TV. He was a marine who lost one eye and a hand in the Pacific in 1944. His overall health had deteriorated badly over the last few years, so that now he was pretty much an invalid. Still, he was one of the most respected elders on the Rez.

“How are you, Grandfather?” Tommy asked, once at his bedside.

“Close to the Spirit World, I think,” Fastwater replied, his voice tired and raspy. With trembling hands, he stuffed nearly $400 in cash into Tommy’s cargo pocket.

Not him, too! This had really become ridiculous.

Fastwater searched Tommy’s face with his one good eye. “You look very tired, Chief Scarred Wolf. You need more rest.”

“That’s what Linda’s been telling me.”

“You should listen to her,” he said. “Treasure her—she has your best interests at heart.”

“I value your wisdom,” Tommy said, taking a knee. “But Grandfather, please don’t give me this money. You need it, and it can’t do Jenny or Susan any good.”

“Add it to the other money,” Michael said. “Come up with a plan, Chief Scarred Wolf. Spend it wisely.”

How did he know about the other money?

Now that he considered it, Tommy wouldn’t be surprised if Fastwater had put Lucille and the Pyrches up to it.

Twice now he had called Tommy “Chief.” On paper Tommy was listed as War Chief; but that title had almost no meaning these days. It was honorary at best. So why was Fastwater harping on it?

Tommy struggled to find words that would convey the situation to the old marine while maintaining respect. “Grandfather: me and Vince are doing our best to find some leads on where they were and who might’ve done this. Until we can, we don’t even know which country’s police force to contact. If every family on every reservation in North America donated what money they had, we still couldn’t get enough to bribe the right people.”

“Bribe?”

Tommy took a deep breath. “This kind of thing is a big problem in that part of the world. The police over there can’t even save their own girls. How are we supposed to get them to try harder for our girls?”

And how were they supposed to get witnesses to come forward? Provided there were any witnesses, besides the fish.

“You’re a hunter, Tommy,” Fastwater said. “You know how to read sign and stalk your prey. Hunt them down.”

Tommy fought to keep his voice down. “I don’t have the resources, Grandfather. Who am I—Batman? Vince will be glad to tell you the BIA is better known for getting student grants than for catching bad guys. And my jurisdiction only covers Indians in the US.”

Michael Fastwater frowned. He tapped his temple, then with the same trembling, withered hand, he reached toward Tommy’s temple. “You have to get your mind and spirit back in harmony, Tommy. I didn’t invite a cop or a government agent into my home. Our people don’t need Special Agent Scarred Wolf. Jennifer and Susan don’t need a cop or some special agent. What is needed is a hunter and a warrior. Our war chief is needed.”

 

 

 

7

MIRAMAR NAVAL AIR STATION

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

 

Rocco Cavarra wasn’t done calling in favors. He drove out to the base, where an intelligence officer he knew agreed to let him use a secure line to the Agency in Virginia. It was good to be an officer. Even a retired one.

He rang up Bobbie Yousko. With her tendency to put American interests before the interests of other nations, her role in the CIA had diminished under the present administration. But she still had some pull.

“Commander Cavarra,” she said, “how’s my favorite sea dog? You never call; you never write…”

“Are you on Facebook?” he asked. “I’ll send you a friend request.”

Her laughter snorted through the receiver. “You’ve still got jokes. What can I do for you?”

“A lot, I’m hoping. I’ve got a friend with a problem.” He outlined the situation Tommy was in while she listened patiently. “As I’m sure you recall,” he reminded her, “Staff Sergeant Tommy Scarred Wolf, a decorated Green Beret, was with me on that little problem you needed help with a while back.”

Her snort-laugh had a little less humor in it this time. “You don’t have to grease me so thick, Rocco. Even though this is starting to sound like one of those things I really don’t want to know about.”

“Ignorance is bliss, ma’am.”

“I haven’t forgotten Tommy, or any of your men,” she said. “Spill it.”

“I’ve collected a bunch of gouge on the region,” Rocco said. “A lot of it. It could take months to go through it all. I’m not asking to have a spy satellite moved or anything. But if technology existed to discreetly access imagery from a satellite that was in advantageous position when the boat disappeared; and if the Agency had recorded said theoretical imagery on that day…”

“What makes you think anyone would have such an expensive asset trained on that patch of ocean?”

“It’s not that I think any such thing goes on,” Rocco replied. “But if such a farfetched scenario were even possible, it just seems that a country like, say, Britain or India, with a lot of shipping moving through that water, might have an interest in studying how the local pirates operate.”

“Those guys are right,” Bobbie intoned.

“Which guys?”

“The ones that say men like you should be crated up and shelved, only to be let out when the next war comes along.”

“I’m not that bad,” Cavarra said. “In fact, a shrewd intelligence professional would probably offer me a job in her department.”

“Oh yeah. How silly of me. That was gonna be the very next thing out of my mouth.” After a pause, she said, “Um, I have to ask you something.”

“Shoot.”

“If you were able to find a lead on the girl or the kidnappers; what would you plan on doing with it?”

“Tommy and his brother are cops,” Rocco said. “I guess they’re gonna talk to other cops over there. And do cop stuff.”

 

 

 

8

ABSENTEE SHAWNEE TRUST LAND, OKLAHOMA

 

When they had driven out of Michael Fastwater’s yard, Uncle Jay assumed a falsetto voice: “Help us, Obi-Wan Kenobi…you’re our only hope!”

Tommy glared at him. Jay burst out laughing.

Hating himself for it, Tommy found the laughter contagious. He felt tension drain out of him with every guffaw. But in minutes, Tommy was solemn again. “Did that one-eyed old jarhead come up with this idea of giving me money and guilt trips, Uncle Jay?”

Uncle Jay nodded. “The money, anyway. The guilt was your idea.”

Tommy stared out the window at the darkening horizon, visualizing Jenny terrified, hungry, drugged-up and God only knew what else…thousands of miles from anyone who could, or would, try to help her.

“Is everybody gonna hang on my every word when I’m that old and close to death?” Tommy grumbled. “Michael’s like a de-facto shaman, now. Michael the Medicine Man. Where did we get the idea he’s clairvoyant like some kind of oracle or something?”

“We’re Absentee Shawnee,” Uncle Jay said. “We come up with all kinds of goofy stuff. Like calling somebody ‘grandfather’ just because he’s about the right age to be somebody’s grandfather. Or counting coup like some Cheyenne or Lakota brave, then wallpapering your man-cave with the trophies.”

Tommy frowned at the backhanded insult.

“ We have some real traditions;” Jay went on. “We adopt others because we think our ancestors held to them; and sometimes we steal customs from other Indian Nations because, long after it’s too late to help us save the hunting grounds, we buried the hatchet with our traditional enemies and recognized that some of their ideas have value.”

Uncle Jay the philosopher.

“It’s not a ‘man-cave’.” Tommy said. “I work in there.”

 

 

Back at the house, they found more visitors with money. Linda said they’d been arriving non-stop since Tommy left. Uncle Jay advised Tommy to just accept the money and thank them for their willingness to help.

The three of them nursed coffee late into the night, Tommy flipping through the poop Rocco had provided.

After the last cash-bearing visitor had gone, Linda counted the bills. “Almost seven grand,” she said.

“That would take care of plane tickets for you and Vince,” Uncle Jay said. “Pretty much anywhere in the world. With probably enough left over for hotel rooms.”

Tommy’s tired eyes narrowed. “Not you, too. Are you on this bandwagon?”

Uncle Jay held his hands up, defensively. “I’m just making an observation, nephew.”

“And an ingenious one, at that,” Tommy said. “Why don’t I just book some random flight to some random country, then maybe I’ll trip over Jenny at the airport. And I’m sure whoever took her will just hand her over to me with a smile and an apology.”

“Of course you’ll need good poop,” Uncle Jay said. “No luck with the satellite photos?”

Tommy wiped a hand over his face, then took a swig of his coffee. “This isn’t my specialty. I see all kinds of islands in the area. But I wouldn’t know an aerial photo of a pirate camp from an aerial photo of a resort hotel. Even if I did, this is something for a team to go over, with all the James Bond computerized bells and whistles.”

“Shouldn’t you be going over this with Vince?”

“I’ll probably take it over to him tomorrow,” Tommy said.

“Probably?”

“I will. I will, is what I meant.”

“If you can find where the bastards are, you’ve got the money for the trip,” Uncle Jay said, simply. He knocked back the remainder of his coffee and stood, stretching. “I need to put my old bones to bed.”

Tommy and Linda walked him to the door. Just before opening it, he turned back to Tommy. “If you had some reasonable idea of where to find the girls, you would go, wouldn’t you?”

Tommy nodded.

“Then look at it this way: You can concentrate on finding out where they are, and not worry about having the money to get over there if you do.”

“Thank-you, uncle,” Linda said, bouncing up on tiptoes to plant a kiss on his cheek.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Uncle Jay said, digging in his pocket. He produced a wad of cash, slapped it in Linda’s hand and slipped out the door.

Tommy stared at the money for a moment, then chased his uncle out the door. “You sneaky slab of meat! That’s just the kind of punk move I’d expect from the Air Cav!”

Evidently, Uncle Jay had broken into a run as soon as he stepped outside, because he was almost to his truck already.

Tommy cussed him fiercely. Uncle Jay started his truck, waved politely and sped away.

They closed the door. Tommy sat heavily on the couch. Linda sat beside him, her legs tucked under her, her hands clutching his.

“Did Carl ever get home?” Tommy asked.

Linda nodded. “He was pretty upset when he heard about Jenny. He said he was going to visit Gunther and Takoda.”

Carl was 16—their youngest. His brothers Gunther and Takoda had moved out a few years ago and were sharing a house in Tulsa.

“At least they’re not expecting me to pull off some kind of miracle,” he said.

“Tommy…” Linda gazed up at him with eyes so intense they almost gave a stabbing sensation. “If you could find her…you would go, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course I would. I wish it was possible, Linda. That’s what nobody seems to understand—the odds of us ever finding her are…”

She squeezed his hands and shushed him. “Let’s just hope you find her, OK?”

 

 

 

9

 

LOTYR ISLAND

 

 

Art Wycliffe and Nicole Blake were herded into the pirate leader’s personal office and backed against a wall. Captain Shiara sat at his desk and shuffled through a pile of books taken from Art’s personal library on the boat. He examined the cover of Audacity of Hope and held it up for Art to see. “What’s this?”

Art did his best to explain what the book was about.

Shiara held up Das Kapital. “And this?”

“It’s a crucial, pioneering work,” Art explained. “For a proper understanding of economics.” He was pleased the man was taking an interest in his favorite books. Maybe they could establish some sort of mutually respectful rapport. It couldn’t hurt.

Shiara now held up another one. “This?”

“That should be required reading for everyone,” Art replied. “Religious Right: The Greatest Threat to Democracy.”

“You are a teacher?”

“A professor,” Art said.

“Of what?”

“The social sciences, but I have doctorates in economics and political science. I specialize in comparative non-western studies.”

Shiara looked confused.

“Specifically, I teach about this region of the world.”

Shiara pointed to the book. “I haven’t heard of this ‘religious right.’ Why should I read it?”

“To know your enemy,” Art said.

“My enemy?”

“They’re enemies of all the underprivileged of the world,” Art explained. “Ultimately, it’s because of them you have to resort to…”

Shiara’s eyes narrowed. Art licked his lips. “Well, see, you have to understand the monopoly of resources.” He pointed back to Das Kapital. “If you read Marx, he explains…”

Shiara pushed the entire stack of books over the edge of his desk into a wastebasket. “Books don’t interest me, professor. You think I care about your theories for why I do what I do?”

“W-well,” Art stammered, “we’re really on the same side, you and I. We are the proletariat, and we have a common enemy…”

Shiara pointed to Nicole, but said to Art, “What interests me, professor, is this woman here. She just defeated a champion kickboxer who has the women’s first place trophy for six different tournaments. I’ve never seen her beaten like that before.”

Art translated for Nicole’s benefit.

“Thanks,” Nicole said. “But he needs to let us go, right now.”

“What did she say?” Shiara demanded.

“She thanked you,” Art said, “and said your champion is a skilled opponent.”

Shiara nodded, leaning back, folding his hands across his ribcage.

“I’m sure you must be a black belt,” Art said, thinking flattery might do some good.

“I’ve never studied martial arts,” Shiara said. “There are far more effective forms of violence than trying to punch, kick and choke other people.”

Art found these words chilling. “No violence will be needed against us, I assure you. We will be as cooperative as we can until you get your ransom and let us go.

For a moment Shiara wore a curious smirk. Then he nodded toward Nicole. “Explain to her she will be a guest in my bed for the next few hours. She is to show appropriate gratitude for this honor, and perform with great enthusiasm.”

Art stared at him. Shiara stared back, expectantly. Art cleared his throat and turned to his colleague. “Um…he wants you to, uh, go to bed with him. And, uh…”

“Like hell,” Nicole scoffed, eyes wide in outrage.

“What did she say?” Shiara demanded.

Art glanced back and forth between the two of them, completely at a loss for words.

Shiara raised his eyebrows and gazed meaningfully at both his captives.

Nicole jumped to her feet and glared at the pirate. “You filthy, disgusting…”

Shiara’s smooth face turned to cold stone. “You had best tell this woman to change her tone and sit back down immediately! I’ve had women cut into pieces for looking at me so impudently.”

“Um, Nicole…” Art began. “Um, please sit back down and change your body language.”

“Art, you pathetic worm!” she spat. “This slant-eyed prick wants to rape me and you want me to act the subservient little Stepford wife?”

Shiara stood from his chair, glaring at Nicole. A gesture to his nearest men signaled that they should stay where they were. “This woman is going to service me, and she is going to know her place when she is done. Tell her that.”

“N-Nicole, I don’t, um, think you’re taking into consideration…”

Nicole cussed both men, crouching into a fighting stance, facing Shiara.

Art rose from his chair and stepped back, licking dry lips. He felt terror, but some excitement, too. If it weren’t for the men with guns ready to kill them, he would enjoy watching Nicole kick this guy’s ass. On principle, Art hated action movies; but nearly every action movie had a scene depicting a female/male fistfight which resulted in female dominance. He kept DVDs with some of his favorite such scenes stashed with his porn collection. He felt the beginnings of arousal even now, but the fear of getting shot tempered it.

“Nicole, please…” Art begged.

“Shut up,” Nicole said.

Quickly turning livid, Shiara motioned to Aza and his men to move in and seize Nicole. They began to comply, but Nicole screamed and attacked him before they moved even one step.

Nicole had maybe an inch of height and reach on Shiara, while their weight was fairly even. She led with a roundhouse kick to the ribs and two punches toward the face.

Shiara was obviously stunned. His lip bled from one of the punches to his face.

Shiara’s men were stunned, too. They halted their advance and lowered their weapons. If they shot the woman attacking their leader, they might hit him, too.

Nicole drove her punches into his stomach. Then Shiara finally snapped out of his shock and backhanded her across the face.

Nicole staggered backwards, a hot red spot across her cheek, about the size of Shiara’s hand. Then she regrouped and resumed her stance.

Shiara shouted to his men to stay out of it, and stalked toward her.

Nicole planted a forward snap-kick that caught Shiara in the crotch region—her heel landing on his inner thigh, the ball of her foot on the prime target. He cried out with a strangled gasp, his face losing color.

Nicole moved in, grabbing for his head so she could pull it down into a knee-strike.

Shiara dodged her grab and latched onto her wrists. She kicked at his crotch again but he twisted his hips, taking the entire blow on his thigh this time. He pulled her in close. She tangled his legs with one of hers and they went down to the floor.

They rolled around, knocking chairs over. Nicole tried different locks and holds, but Shiara kept breaking her grip before she could get leverage. Soon she was panting with the effort, and tried scratching, gouging his eyes and pulling his hair when the other techniques didn’t work.

During the struggle Shiara maneuvered her onto her back, with him on top. After more desperate struggling, he had her arms pinned down with his knees. She squirmed and bucked, gasping for breath with the effort, and struck him in the spine with her own knees.

Infuriated, Shiara rained punches down into her face until she was out cold.

He rose from atop her, cursing and wiping blood from his scratches and busted lip. One of his men fetched a wet rag for him to clean his face. He limped in circles around the room, obviously in tremendous pain from the blow to his groin.

Art was frozen in place, shellshocked at the violence he’d just seen. Had Nicole just signed both their death warrants with that effort—heroic though it may have been?

After a long, uncomfortable period, Nicole began to stir. Her own face was a bloody, bruised mess now, too. She rose to one elbow and looked dizzily around.

“Tell her what I say,” Shiara commanded Art.

Art nodded, feeling nauseous.

“This woman is going to service me,” Shiara said. “And now, she’s going to start right here. Whether she lives or dies afterwards depends on if she does so willingly, or disrespects me again.”

Art interpreted.

Nicole appeared dazed as she glanced back and forth between Shiara and his gun-wielding henchmen. Her angry expression of defiance was now replaced by a confused, hopeless look.

Shiara turned to address Art directly, now. “And since my men have been denied their reward, you will have to entertain them, professor.”

Art Wycliffe blanched. Was this really happening? “Captain, don’t get me wrong—I fully support gay rights. I always have. And that’s great that your men are bisexual. I love it. But…”

“I’m not asking your permission, professor.” He turned back to Nicole. “Nor hers.”

Shiara approached her and offered the wet rag he had used. She accepted it, despite the streaks of his blood. Before she could use it, he slapped her hard.

She reeled backwards, but one of the men caught her and pushed her forward.

“Which is it going to be?” Shiara demanded. “Cooperation? Or much intense suffering, followed by cooperation?”

 

 

 

10

ABSENTEE SHAWNEE TRIBAL POLICE OFFICE

POTAWATTOMIE COUNTY, OKLAHOMA

 

 

Vince looked as haggard as Tommy felt when he glanced up from his computer screen at his younger brother. Without asking, Tommy drug a chair around to sit on the same side of the desk with him.

“You find anything?” Tommy asked.

Vince shook his head, too exhausted and frustrated to reply.

Tommy opened up his laptop. “A buddy of mine gave me some poop. I don’t know how to interpret most of it, but look here…”

He opened a directory full of reports on known and suspected fences for stolen boats in Singapore, Indonesia, Borneo and Malaysia. “Unless they sunk the boat, they’ll probably sell it. Right? It’s not like a car, where a chop shop can strip it down and sell the parts. At least I don’t think so.”

“Hmm,” Vince said.

Tommy opened another directory. This one was also full of reports, but regarding a different sort of fenced merchandise. “Same region—Indian Ocean, South China Sea, parts in between. These are known auction sites in the sex slavery industry, plus lists of the organizers and participants.”

Vince’s eyes widened and he glared hard at the screen. “Sex slave auctions?”

“The boat might be easier to track down,” Tommy mumbled. “It’s a more specialized market, not doing nearly as much business.” He unrolled the thick wad of cash and set it on Vince’s desk. “And that’s from the Absentee-Shawnee community.”

Vince blinked a few times, as if trying to force his brain away from the concept of sex slavery. “What?”

“Michael Fastwater put everyone up to it. Or maybe it was Uncle Jay, and Fastwater just endorsed it. The idea is for us to catch a flight over there; miraculously find the girls somehow…with a special Shawnee Kidnapping Victim Detector, I guess…dittybop into one of these places; sweet-talk the pirates or pimps or drug lords or whoever into letting them go; then dittybop over to the local police and say, ‘Hey, look what we found! Now with your blessing, we’ll just take them back to the rez.’ Piece a’ cake, right?”

Vince picked up the money and flipped through it, remaining silent for a long moment. Finally, he said, “I’m surprised you three didn’t call for an emergency forty-nine circle, to come up with a plan.”

Vince seemed a little more bitter every time the subject came up. The forty-nining circle was a tradition that many tribes had adopted since the end of World War II. Fifty braves from one reservation went off to fight Hitler and Tojo, but one of them never made it back. The survivors met periodically to celebrate their exploits, memorialize the brother who fell in battle, and engage in a sort of unofficial collective therapy. At least, that’s what Tommy Scarred Wolf understood about its origin and how he thought of the ritual. Maybe the circles were a lot like the white man’s VFW…only a bit more structured.

When they were kids, both Vince and Tommy dreamed of going to war like Uncle Jay did, distinguishing themselves in battle, and joining the forty-nining circle. Tommy went through with his dreams, eventually making it through Special Forces selection, and distinguishing himself in the Gulf and elsewhere.

At some point before turning eighteen, Vince let go of the dream, as if it was some childish notion to leave behind with comic books and GI Joes. After joining the Tribal Police, he gradually gave up on martial arts, hunting, and other things he and Tommy used to take very seriously. Things they used to do together.

“I’m leaving the money with you,” Tommy said. “They gave it for Jenny and Susan.”

Vince stared at the money thoughtfully.

“Tell you what,” Tommy said. “Let’s work on the boat fence list from both ends. You take half and I’ll take half.”

Vince shot up from his chair, scooping up a handful of papers and the money as he did. His joints popped audibly, from his spine down to his toes. “Why don’t you work on it? Use my computer if you like. I’ll be back later.”

 

By the time Vince returned, Tommy had worked his way through the list and was sifting through the PRC reports of piracy incidents in the region.

“How goes it?” Vince asked.

Tommy glanced up from the monitor, then surrendered the seat back to his brother. He stretched and stepped over to the laser printer to retrieve some documents.

“I only found two likely fences for that kind of boat. One is in Malaysia; one in Singapore.” He wiggled the printouts from the copier. “I moved on to comparing M.O.s. Most pirates over there go after commercial vessels--cargo ships and like that. They steal what they can, hold the crews for ransom and either scuttle the ship or just leave it dead in the water. But for the last nine months someone has been targeting luxury sailboats like Wycliffe’s in the Malacca Straits. The boats disappear, and the people on them are never heard from again.”

Vince reclined in his seat, staring at the wall. “Where are the Malacca Straits?”

“In between Malaysia and Sumatra. North of the Java Sea.” Tommy handed him a color print of a regional map with the Straits circled by ballpoint pen.

The land-line telephone rang. Vince picked it up. “Lieutenant Scarred Wolf.”

He listened for a moment, then said, “And who is he? We’re working on it. No, not a lot. That depends. What? Sir, I don’t have the money or time to…”

Tommy judged, by Vince’s intensity, that the call had something to do with Jenny. He waited for Vince to put the other party on speakerphone, but it didn’t happen and he was increasingly puzzled by the side of the conversation he heard. When Vince hung up, Tommy stared at him.

“That money you collected gave me an idea,” Vince said. “I’ve been tracking down next-of-kin for the other passengers of the boat. A couple families are willing to chip in for some kind of rescue effort.” He nodded back toward the phone. “That was a response to the call I made to Wycliffe’s people. Evidently, the professor has some well-connected friends and relatives. They’re willing to fly me up to New York to meet with one of them and discuss a rescue plan.”

“What’s this guy’s name?” Tommy asked.

“Harrison Travis,” Vince said with a shrug. “I’ve never heard of him.”

“Me neither.”

“I’m going. They paid for the ticket. What do I have to lose?”

“Time,” Tommy said.

“Oh, because any second now you’re gonna crack this one wide open, right?”

After an awkward stare-down, Tommy said, “Whatever, Vince. Enjoy your trip. I’ll keep working on finding Jenny.”

“So will I,” Vince said. “Let me have that human trafficking info, and I’ll go through it on the flight.”

Tommy searched through his laptop case and pulled out a thick sheaf of paper. “Here you go.”

 

Not quite an hour after Vince left for the airport, Tommy got a call on his cell.

“Are you near your secure connection?” Rocco asked.

“No. That’s back at the BIA office.”

“Well you need to get there ricky-tick,” Rocco said. “We’ve got some new gouge coming down the chute.”

“Gouge?” Tommy repeated dazedly, brain still swirling with all the data and emotions absorbed over the last couple days.

“That’s ‘poop’ for you Army pukes,” Rocco said. “Info. Intel. And it’s hot.”

Tommy popped his neck, took a deep breath and strode for the door. “I’m on the way.”

 

 

 

7

TULSA, OKLAHOMA

 

 

Rocco had come through, big-time. Somebody he talked to had put a fire under some other folks and the intel that resulted was golden.

Like every modern boat, the Marmalade Skies had a nautical GPS aboard. Integrated into her GPS was a tracking device. Tommy now had a detailed report on the route the yacht had taken, the latitude and longitude of its location at the time of Jenny’s radio transmission, and its last location before the transponder was discovered and disabled.

The yacht had been cruising down toward the Sunda Strait when, apparently due to weather, it diverted course northward into the Malacca Strait where, as Tommy had learned, pirates were known to operate.

But Rocco had more poop: satellite photos of the Marmalade Skies, including some at dusk not long before the mayday message, which showed a small aircraft flying right past the boat, then racetracking for another pass before flying on. The photos were detailed enough to make out figures on the boat. They were also detailed enough to see that the plane had no markings.

Tommy’s pulse pounded as he thumbed through the photos, until he came to one of a small island in the Malacca Strait, with a dock on one beach and an isolated group of manmade structures. Leading out from the structures was an air strip cut into the island’s vegetation. Parked on the air strip was an unmarked plane.

Tommy pulled the magnifying glass from his desk and studied the photos for quite some time. After comparing the plane on the island with the one that passed the Marmalade Skies, he found no reason to rule out the possibility of them being the same aircraft.

He called Vince’s cell. No answer. Probably turned off due to airline instructions, during the flight.

Tommy left the building and wandered around the parking lot, breathing deep and thinking hard.

The next step was to contact authorities in Indonesia and Malaysia. Find out whose jurisdiction that island was in. Find out what the police or navy of whichever country could or would do to help. But even as he acknowledged this, an alternate strategy began to take form in his imagination.

 

 

 

8

NEW YORK CITY

 

 

Vince saw several people holding cardboard signs with names on them beyond the security gates. Some chubby white guy in a suit held one that said “Vincent Scared Wolf.”

The misspelling irritated him, but he realized that it was an ironic typo: he was scared. He couldn’t remember ever being as scared as he had been since learning about Jenny. After turning his cell back on, he got a call from Tommy which offered him the only relief from that fear he’d yet enjoyed.

They had a good lead.

The man in the suit with the sign asked, “Mr. Scared Wolf?” when he drew close.

“Scarred Wolf,” Vince said.

“Terribly sorry, sir. If you’ll follow me, I have a car waiting.”

Vince followed him out of the airport, and into an idling Mercedes sedan. The distance to the hotel was small, but with traffic it took quite a while to get there. The man who greeted him at the airport ushered him to a room on the 33^rd floor and handed him a key card.

“Feel free to order room service or eat at the restaurant downstairs, and enjoy any other service, Mr. Scarred Wolf. Just charge it to the room. Mr. Travis should be freed up at around noon tomorrow, and will send for you.”

“Thanks,” Vince said, checking his watch. The guy nodded and left.

It was late already. He settled into the room, called the station, then his wife, then room service. For the rest of the night he made calls to Malaysia and Indonesia, charged to the room. If his benefactor was of a generous disposition, Vince certainly wasn’t above taking advantage under the circumstances.

Mostly, he got the runaround—at least from those who spoke English. He did, finally, make contact with an Indonesian cop who not only spoke English, but confirmed that the island in question was in Indonesian waters. Lieutenant Hirata said piracy was outside his normal investigative realm, but he knew something about vice in Jakarta and might be willing to cooperate with American law enforcement in sniffing around the local brothels if the two countries decided to cooperate on this matter.

Compared to every other human being Vince had been able to speak to, Hirata was actually encouraging. That was a depressing fact.

If the two countries decided to cooperate on this matter? Might as well kill me now.

He caught a short nap before noon, when the phone in his room rang.

“Mr. Travis will see you now. Please come up to the Presidential Suite.”

As Vince began moving, his joints crackled and popped like Rice Krispies. One of these days, he’d have to start taking calcium supplements or something.

Vince found the Presidential Suite, and encountered two burly bouncer-types standing guard outside the door. They wore tailored suits designed to hide the bulge of pistols under their armpits. Their humorless eyes locked on him immediately.

“Lieutenant Scarred Wolf,” Vince introduced himself. “Mr. Travis invited me up.”

These were men ready to do violence at any given moment. Vince could tell from the vibes they put out. They had an aura similar to cops. Not deputies and radar-equipped revenue men; city cops—homicide bulls and SWAT shooters. Hired muscle in the movies could never come close to depicting the death and danger Vince could feel radiating from inside the real thing—men like these. He hadn’t encountered these pudgy-faced human Rottweilers much in his life, since he rarely left the rez. But he didn’t need much contact with them to know all he needed to.

Travis was the real deal, as if the plane ticket and hotel accommodations hadn’t proven his VIP status already.

One bodyguard knocked on the door. When it opened, he stuck his head inside. “He’s here.”

A muffled voice replied something terse and quiet. Accents were Brooklyn or the Bronx—Vince couldn’t tell them apart.

The bodyguard faced front again. The other one had never taken his eyes off Vince.

“Alright, sir,” the first one said. “Hands against the wall, spread your legs. This’ll only take a second.”

One used a metal detecting wand while the other patted him down. They were professional about it, but Vince still felt humiliated. He was a cop, and used to dishing it out, not taking it. He wondered just how tough they might actually be in a fight, and found himself imagining techniques that would disable them both quickly and painfully. When he was young and in shape, he might could have handled them both by himself, if he performed every move perfectly and caught them by surprise. Maybe.

One removed his wallet and went through it. Glancing to the side, Vince saw the living beef sausage examining his badge, then comparing his face to the mugshot in his photo ID.

It wasn’t every day these guys patted down a lieutenant from the Shawnee Police. In fact, Vince would likely be the only one they ever met. And yet they had no remark, joke, question or small talk.

Curiosity required some modicum of imagination or intelligence.

People who were too curious annoyed Vince, but trained gorillas like this were just as contemptible…if not more so.

There were more muscle-headed goons inside the door. One of them escorted him deeper into the suite, where two men stood near the bar. One of the men also had a bulge under his armpit. He was about 30, tall, and looked more physically fit than Vince had ever been. Of a higher intelligence than the other muscle, too, judging by instinct.

The other man was also tall, but older…maybe 65 or so…and had probably never been physically fit in his life. The pasty-faced couch potato wore casual slacks and shirt that probably cost more than Vince’s entire wardrobe.

“You would be Vincent?” the old couch potato asked, extending a soft hand.

Nobody called him Vincent except his lush of a mother, when she was still alive. But he nodded and shook the offered hand.

“I’m Harrison Travis, and this is my assistant, Brice Mallin.”

Vince shook Mallin’s hand, too. The man had a crushing grip.

“Let’s sit,” Travis said, and lowered himself into a plush chair. Mallin took a seat to his right.

Vince sat facing Travis across a round, low, glass table.

Mallin sat erect, both feet flat on the floor. Travis crossed his legs like a woman, and waved at one of the goons. “Get us some drinks, will you? You know what we’re having…what would you like, Vincent?”

“Coors.” He never drank anything stronger than beer.

The goon now playing bartender said, “Uh, we got Miller, Busch or Hamm’s on the tap.”

“Hamm’s is fine.”

“So,” Travis said, “we share in this crisis, Vincent. Arthur Wycliffe is the son of my dearest friend, and this is just a dreadful situation. Of course, your daughter and some others are also victims. I understand you’re a police officer?”

Vince nodded.

“Have you made any headway in finding them?”

Vince sighed. “Maybe. I think I’ve zeroed in on where the hijacking took place. But frankly, Mr. Travis, this is on the other side of the world and I’m not sure what can be done.”

The bartender delivered the drinks.

“The international aspect of this whole thing makes it even more delicate, doesn’t it?” Travis asked.

“Makes it look impossible,” Vince said, and took a swig of beer. The bitter taste matched his mood. “At least to get anything done in time.”

“There’s not much your…your specific police department can do for this type of problem, is there?” Travis asked.

Vince shook his head. “It’s not often we deal with investigations that take us out of Pottawatomie County.” It wasn’t a lie. There was no reason to mention that before Jenny went missing, he was working on something so big it led as far north as Washington and as far south as Mexico. It didn’t seem so big, now.

“You’re on a reservation, aren’t you?”

Vince shrugged. “Technically there are no reservations in Oklahoma. It’s a ‘trust land.’ But we call it a reservation—it’s a lot like one.”

“I see,” Travis said, sipping through the straw in his daiquiri. “So, what is your department doing to help you with this?”

Vince sighed. “Honestly? Letting me use department phones, computers…and so far nobody’s come down on me for taking time to do this instead of my normal case work.”

“So you’re completely solo?”

Vince took another swig of Hamm’s before answering. “My brother is involved, too.”

Travis stirred his drink and raised his eyebrows. “Your brother? So, he’s in the Tribal Police as well?”

“He used to be. He went federal a few years ago.”

“FBI?” Travis asked. “DEA?ATF?US Marshals?”

“BIA,” Vince muttered.

“The CIA?” Travis asked, eyebrows really arched now.

“BIA. ‘B’.”

“I’m afraid that’s a new one on me,” Travis said.

Mallin spoke up. “Bureau of Indian Affairs, isn’t it?”

Vince nodded. He had the feeling these men knew the answers to these questions already. Like this was scripted.

“I thought they were more about finding financial aid for Native Americans going to college,” Mallin said.

That’s my line, Vince thought. “They have a law enforcement division. My brother’s a special agent.”

“I see,” Travis said. “So the two of you are planning to search for them together.”

Vince didn’t want to admit there was no plan yet. “Probably.”

“Would you mind sharing how you hope to find them?”

Vince finished off his beer. “The hijackers are probably going to sell the girls and the boat. The boat will likely be the easier of the two to find. Once we do that, we trace it to the perps. Once we have them, we find out where the hostages are.”

“Just like that?” Travis asked.

“No,” Vince said, sighing. “I seriously doubt it will go just like that. But that’s how I’ll probably tackle it.”

“Well, here’s what I’m thinking,” Travis said, stirring his drink again, then setting it aside. “I want Art back, alive. Diplomatic pressure can be arranged, but there are a lot of variables here—the kidnappers themselves, local and regional authorities…none of them terribly dependable. And none of them as motivated as the father and uncle of a girl who is also a victim. And both of you are experienced law enforcement professionals, as well. I think the two of you stand a better chance of tracking them down in time than all the competing bureaucracies that would normally get involved. If you’re willing to do the legwork, I’m willing to finance the investigation.”

Vince studied him, unsure if this was real. Of course, this was exactly what he hoped would happen. But he also assumed it had been a desperate pipe dream. This was so much better than what he expected, he was speechless.

“Would you and your brother be willing to do it?” Travis asked, watching him closely. “If you accept my offer, I would expect the two of you to personally follow this through, personally secure Art’s safety, and bring him back here.”

“I…don’t even have a passport,” Vince said.

Travis chuckled, then turned to share a grin with Mallin. “Least of your worries. We can arrange for you to have one before you leave the city. How about your brother?”

“I think he has one.”

“Very well. Does this sound like something you’re willing to go forward with?”

Vince nodded, still somewhat flabbergasted.

Travis nodded to Mallin, who set down his drink, rose and left the room. He returned with a briefcase and set it on the glass-top table, latches toward the visitor, and snapped it open.

As the lid swung open, Vince wondered if there would be bundles of cash inside. He didn’t know if such things happened in the real world, but nothing about this trip seemed real so far.

No stacks of money. Vince leaned forward and lifted something made of clear vinyl. As he lifted it, the flexible S-folded material unfolded, revealing a collection of platinum credit cards of every flavor. Unable to keep the disbelieving scowl off his face, Vince’s gaze shifted from the plastic to Travis.

“What?” Travis asked. “Is something wrong?”

Vince gulped. “Mr. Travis, you’ve known me for less than an hour. Yet you’re going to trust…” He regretted even starting the sentence—talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Travis picked his drink up and took a sip. Mallin now cleared his throat, smiling. “Mr. Travis is not without his resources, Lieutenant Scarred Wolf. We took the liberty of having you checked out before meeting with you. Your brother, too. We’re confident that you’re not stupid enough to go on a spending spree with Mr. Travis’s money in Vegas…that you’ll only use it toward the rescue effort.”

Travis waved his hand magnanimously. “And whatever expenses incurred toward that end. We don’t want this to fail due to lack of resources. I’m not going to pinch pennies. Art’s life is worth whatever you need to spend. The others’ lives, too, of course.”

Mallin pointed at the briefcase. “We’ve got some other things for you, already. Inside the envelopes in there is some helpful information, including contacts in the police of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore; keys and addresses to safe houses we have in the region; contact info on translators you may need; and some trusted contacts who can arrange transportation on short notice.”

Much better than bundles of cash, Vince decided. “The contacts with the native police—these are cooperative people?”

Mallin tilted his head from side to side. “They’re not going to help with the legwork, much. But they should take care of whatever arrests need to be made…and they can keep you from getting thrown in jail yourselves, over there. You’ll want to make contact when you arrive in their jurisdiction, and check in periodically.”

“In addition to the credit cards,” Travis said, “I’ll be giving you access to a line of credit that should cover anything else you might need that can’t be bought with plastic.”

Vince stared at the credit cards for a while, then said, “I think we’ve got a deal.”

“Very good,” Travis said, rising to his feet and extending his hand.

Vince shook hands with both men. Travis left them, then, and Mallin went over some details about using the considerable assets now at Vince’s disposal.

Vince thanked him and left the suite with the briefcase in one hand, speed-dialing Tommy with the other.

 

***

 

Once the Indian Cop was gone, Harrison Travis and Brice Mallin resumed their seats by the private bar.

“So, what do you think?” Travis asked.

Mallin pulled from his own drink for the first time, which was non-alcoholic. “Him and his brother are both pretty resourceful. It’s entirely possible they could find Professor Wycliffe over there. Finding the girls…I kind of doubt it.”

Travis waved dismissively. “What are their chances of getting Art out of there? Alive I mean.”

“It depends,” Mallin said, adjusting his tie. “The blank check you gave him for expenses won’t be enough. A whole lot of gears will need greasing, doors opened, and attitudes adjusted.”

Travis nodded and stared into his drink for a while. “You know I don’t want to have to worry about this, right? I want this taken care of, and I don’t want to have to be bothered with it every day. This will require precision planning, if we’re going to kill both birds with this stone, Brice. We may never get an opportunity like this again. I want to know this is being handled the best it possibly can be, by someone who is capable.”

Mallin nodded grimly. “My passport is good to go, Mr. Travis.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

10

AL-SAMAWAH, IRAQ

 

 

Leon found Shotgun waiting in the elongating shade of the HMMWV where he had left her. She stood and wagged her tail vigorously as he approached. He put his rifle, fag bag and a few bandoliers in the vehicle before he squatted to pet her. She licked his face and wagged her tail hard enough to test the resiliency of her spine.

He opened the passenger door and she jumped in, occupying the seat she was named after. Leon started the engine and eased the Hummer underway. He nodded to Mac, Haugen and the QRF squad leaders engaged in their After Action Review, who nodded and waved back.

He made radio contact with Johnny and Drew on his short drive to the hooch. They were being relieved by the next shift and would soon be back at Camp Sham-Gri-La themselves.

He parked the HMMWV beside his hooch. Like him, the Hummer was a veteran. They had both served Uncle Sugar in an official capacity once--smelled the powder in what were considered wars on the History Channel; entered civilian life with plenty mileage left on the odometer; then found themselves smelling the powder again in a very different role in a very different sort of conflict.

“Check the house,” he told Shotgun, who trotted off to sniff around the entire encampment.

He brought his gear inside his pre-fab hooch—sort of a garden shed with windows and electricity. Camp Sham-Gri-La was full of them. He didn’t bother shutting the door. First he set the Les-Baer Monolith on his homemade rifle rack. He dropped the web gear by his MOLLE pack, sat at the tiny desk next to his tiny cot and pulled a map and notebook out of the fag bag. Turning on the small electric fan on the desk, he made quick notations in the book, then put it away and removed his boonie hat and ballistic vest.

He stripped and cleaned the Monolith before anything else, filling his magazines back to combat capacity. Once upon a time he would have cleaned and/or repaired his gear, too, but he had developed increasingly civilian attitudes over the years.

He plucked the radio from the holster on his web gear and checked in with the guard shifts at the oil field and air strip, reminding them to direct all further communication to Statler. Campbell was done for the night, barring emergencies. He plugged the radio in to charge, then booted up his tablet while selecting some Damien Marley on his tiny stereo. Haugen’s torturous rendition of “Welcome to Jam-Rock” had stuck the song in his mind and now he wanted to hear it.

Clean your weapon; smear more camo-stick on all exposed skin, find fresh camouflage for your fighting position, then climb back down in your hole and wait until time to hurry up. No, Campbell rather preferred this drill when on the defensive. Kick back in your private hooch and enjoy an artificial breeze while screwing around online, listening to good jams and/or playing Arkham Asylum.

He would clean his gear and take a shower later.

He caught up with his Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin friends, and spent a while flirting with a beautiful girl in Nigeria who liked a lot of his posts and occasionally asked personal questions. Shotgun returned and put her front paws in his lap without invitation, wagging her tail and giving him a dog smile.

Campbell scratched behind her ears. “You back quick, girl. No IEDs?”

She remained on her hind legs and licked him on the face.

“Not too many squirrels in this part of the world either, huh? Didn’t find no cat tracks out there?”

He spoke in the same marble-mouth drawl he’d had all his life, which seemed to delight Shotgun, who wagged her tail vigorously every time she heard it.

He set her front paws back on the floor while rising from his chair, spilled Purina in her dish and poured her some water.

He checked one more site before looking after his gear. It was an exclusive and semi-secure social network used mostly by veterans, SpecOps guys and Private Military Contractors.

His inbox had a new message in it, which didn’t happen very often. He opened it and read.

Campbell’s lazy eyes widened a couple sentences into the terse paragraph. When finished, he read it again. He stood so quickly the chair skidded backwards, spooking Shotgun.

He snatched the Les-Baer and bolted out his still-open door, the tablet in his other hand, range-walking through the compound. He passed HQ, where Statler sat playing video games and listening to the radio traffic. Just past HQ was the rec center, loud hip-hop spilling out the windows, and Campbell pushed the door open.

Jake McCallum lay on the incline bench toying with dumbbells that probably each weighed more than Campbell ever wanted to lift. He was already showered and changed.

“Lazy Leon!” Big Jake called out, the rhythm of his reps unwavering. “Just in time—I wanted to use the barbell. You can spot me.”

“Just got a message from Tommy,” Campbell said.

“Tommy?”

“Tommy Scarred Wolf.”

The heavily muscled vice-president of Secure Solutions, International completed his set, clunked the weights down and sat up straight. “The dinky-dau redskin. Speak of the devil. Didn’t we just say we should give him a holla? How is he?”

“Read this,” Campbell said, and handed him the tablet.

 

 

 

11

LAS ANIMAS COUNTY, COLORADO

 

 

Tommy took the bike, thinking it would look a lot less like trouble than his black Chevy Blazer. He made sure to affix the small faux-guidon to the antenna before leaving, too: A little OD green flag with the 5^th SFG crest emblazoned on it.

After getting the latest intelligence from Rocco, his opinion on the plausibility of a rescue attempt began to change. When Vince told him about the blank check from the filthy-rich benefactor, that clinched it for him. He was going now, come hell or high water.

He had already told Rocco to procure not one, but two ocean-going vessels, and someone to sail them. Rocco was confident he could get Tommy what he needed, and quickly—on the condition that he got to come along for the ride. He was chomping at the bit to come out of retirement again, saving Tommy the trouble, and guilt, of asking him.

Once off the highway, Tommy had to ride several miles on a gravel path, a little annoyed at what the rustic back road was doing to his 2005 Hammer. He was even more annoyed at himself for cringing at every ding in the chrome, like some yuppy obsessed with resale value.

The going got worse when he turned off the gravel road onto a dirt trail leading up some steep hills between thick trees—the kind of terrain he used to take the Blazer through for fun. He never got higher than second gear negotiating this route.

After a half hour, the path ended on a heavily forested hilltop. Tommy cut the motor, dropped the kickstand and parked.

The house was painted in earth tones and fit into the landscape in such a way that a person could look directly at it and not know what it was.

A dome-home, just like he always talked about—Rennenkampf really did it.

With the rumble of the Victory’s engine silenced, the woods around him were ghostly quiet. Too quiet, as the old cliché went.

“Josh? Hey, Baby-Face, it’s Chief!”

He listened to the echo of his voice dissipate into the trees for a moment, then tried an old classic: “Shepherd to Lost Sheep; talk to me, Johnny.”

The metallic snick he heard wasn’t loud, but it was easy to identify in this silence: a gun safety. Question was, had it just been put on “safe,” or taken off? Tommy turned toward the soft, faint rustling sound that came after.

The man emerging from the treeline was a few inches taller than Tommy, but with a very similar lean build. His countenance was wary and much harder than the baby-face from so many years back in Tommy’s memory. His face and hands were tanned—the kind of tans cowboys got, harsh from multiple sunburns over time. He wore woodland camo pattern BDU pants and hunting boots, with a huge, baggy brown tee-shirt. Hanging muzzle-down in one fingerless-gloved paw was a tricked-out Ruger Mini-14. He’d probably had Tommy dead-to-rights ever since the noisy motorcycle crested the last rise.

“Jeez, Chief. You got a death wish?”

Tommy shook his head, careful to keep both hands in plain sight. “Nope. That’s why I drove something that gives you plenty of warning, but can’t be mistaken for a government vehicle.”

Tommy met his gaze. Joshua Rennenkampf stared at him silently for an awkward moment.

Tommy licked his lips, watching the rifle but trying not to fixate on it. “I figured a black helicopter would probably not be a smart choice for the trip.”

If Josh appreciated the humor, he didn’t show it. “So you just drop by unannounced like it hasn’t been…how many years has it been?”

Tommy shrugged. “It’s not like you return my calls or messages—even back when I still had valid contact info for you.”

“There’s a reason for that, po-po man,” Josh said, through a gritted-teeth sneer.

Tommy frowned, flinching despite himself at the words. Well, it’s not like I thought this would be easy. “Not a good reason. I’ve never done you wrong, Josh.”

“Because I never gave you the chance, once you started workin’ for the Man. And now I hear you’re a Fed. Even better, ol’ buddy. A pig with an unlimited budget. That’s just peachy.”

“It’s the BIA, Josh. Not the ATF, DHS or any of those goons.”

“Well whoopee-shit. It’s all part of the same jack-booted alphabet soup.” There were wrinkles at the corners of Josh’s eyes, now, and lines framing his mouth. His blue eyes were just as bright, but cold and hard. Back in the day, “Baby-Face” Rennenkampf was so innocently handsome that he just didn’t seem to belong under the green beret. He sure didn’t look innocent, now.

Tommy sighed. “C’mon: We both worked for the Man already…”

“Before I knew any better,” Josh interrupted. He pointed at the Latin phrase on the 5^th Special Forces Group banner. “Back when I believed those douche-bags up the chain really were all about liberating the oppressed.”

“But what they really want is to oppress liberty,” Tommy said, leaning back against the bike. “Yeah, I know.”

“That’s what I don’t get, Tommy: you know, but you just don’t care. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Is that it?”

“I’m a red man, Josh. We’ve had to do that for over a century.”

Joshua Rennenkampf’s sneering features finally softened just a bit. “Oh, hell. You went and played that card.”

“Hey, at least I didn’t say ‘my people’.”

Josh began to snort. Then, like starting an engine left too long without running, the snorts reluctantly sputtered their way into a full-blown laugh.

Tommy smiled with him, tentatively, glad for some relief from the tension.

“Brother, I respect the passion you have for what you believe,” Tommy said. “Always have. And I understand it. But I’m not your enemy. I’ve never railroaded an innocent person. I’ve never lied on the witness stand. I’ve never enforced a so-called law I knew was Unconstitutional.”

Josh studied him briefly, before averting his eyes to the motorcycle. “I’ve been wondering about these bikes. Are they as good as they look?”

Tommy nodded. “Oh yeah. But not really made for roads like these.”

“Victories are expensive, aren’t they?”

“I got this one used,” Tommy replied, shrugging. “Yeah—expensive. Worth it, though.”

Josh chewed on his lip, then said, “Okay. Come on in.” He led the way to the dome, and Tommy was surprised how modern and nice it was inside. He had half-expected Josh Rennenkampf to be living in a cave or an old abandoned missile silo or something. Josh waved at a leather couch and told Tommy to sit, while he went to the fridge and offered some cold well water.

Everywhere Tommy looked, there were bookshelves, sagging under the weight of hardbacks, paperbacks and field manuals. There was also a flat screen TV, an array of HAM radio equipment and four desktop computers.

“You got electricity,” Tommy noted.

“Yup. I have emergency power sources, but I got to have constant juice for all my gear, and other modern amenities.”

Tommy sat and drank. “You here all alone?”

Josh nodded, sitting in a sturdy Amish rocking chair. “My dog died a while back. I’m gonna get a puppy eventually, but I’m not done mourning, yet. Maybe horses, too.”

“What about Jenai?”

Josh made a scoffing sound.” She got herself Americanized.” He waved a hand at an American flag in a framed glass case. “As much as I love my country--and would still die for her, as ate-up as everything is anymore--it’s damn tragic what it does to the female of the species.”

Tommy swigged some more water. He noticed a framed portrait of Jenai in between bookshelves. She was a lovely Indonesian woman, six years older than Josh but enamored of him once upon a time. Evidently Josh was still fond enough of her to look at her face regularly.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Josh assured him. “It must’ve been my fault. A paranoid, misanthropic crackpot who imagines conspiracies behind every bush, like me, would drive any woman away.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Tommy said.

“Well, knowing I’m a paranoid, misanthropic crackpot…a heavily armed one, at that…you knew there was a risk in coming out here. What’s up?”

“Besides being a heavily armed crackpot, you’re also the best commo whiz I’ve ever known,” Tommy said. “You’ve been trained in hostage rescue. And you speak Indonesian—or did, anyway. Those four attributes made it worth the risk.”

“I’ll bite. How?”

“I need help.”

 

 

 

 

12

ABSENTEE SHAWNEE TRUST LAND, OKLAHOMA

 

 

Tommy’s Hammer idled back into his garage at dusk the next day. Four extra vehicles were parked in his front yard this time. When he stepped outside the garage he saw a handful of individuals spilling out his front door, lining up to meet him on the porch. He recognized them all from a distance and didn’t look forward to what was coming, at all.

His sons Gunther, Takoda and Carl were there, mixed in with Jason Lone Tree, Maurice Swope, the Saxton brothers and Ralph White Feather. All of them wore ACU or desert BDU pants, with either brown or black T-shirts. All but Gunther had mohawked their hair. All they were missing was war paint and eagle feathers.

Tommy was both relieved and disappointed that these young bucks were the only members of the Shawnee Militia to come looking for him. He sighed, and when he came within polite speaking distance, greeted his sons and the others.

Carl, the youngest, was still in high school. Devil-may-care Takoda had a job at the Casino, and blew most of his money on gas and speeding tickets. Gunther also worked at the Casino—late shift. His other full-time job was maintenance at an apartment complex. He was paying his way through private pilot certification in his spare time.

“There’s no drill tonight,” Tommy said, leaving them plenty of room to explain themselves.

Not surprisingly, Takoda, standing at the very center of the group, spoke up first. “We’ve been training with you for years, Dad. We’re ready to be blooded.”

“You’re gonna need help bringing the girls back,” Carl added. “We’re ready to go wherever you need us to. We’ll do whatever you tell us. We can help get them out of there.”

Tommy met the gaze of each of them, in turn. He remembered when his mind worked exactly like Carl’s did. Like maybe all of them did. Surging with youthful strength, determination, righteous indignation and simple idealistic notions about right, wrong and justice.

“Has Mom made supper yet?” Tommy asked Carl.

“The meat is still cooking,” Carl replied, looking annoyed at being asked about something so trivial when his cousin’s life was in jeopardy.

“Have her get it out and slice it up,” Tommy said. “Takoda, build us a fire in our usual spot.”

They wanted so bad to be real-life Injun braves; he was going to handle this in a ceremonial way they should appreciate.

As the sun sank below the horizon, Tommy and the boys sat around a small fire cooking and munching their slabs of venison, weenie-roast style, on sharpened sticks.

“I’ve been training you all for guerilla warfare,” Tommy said, “in case something happens on this continent like what has happened several times on all the others. You’re trained in interdiction, harassment, patrolling, small raids, hasty ambush…”

“And we’re good at it,” Takoda interrupted. “You know we are.”

“You are,” Tommy agreed. “And I’m proud of all of you. But what I was about to say was, though you’re certainly not a conventional force, you’re still not trained for the kind of work required to get the girls back.”

“So train us, Chief,” Maurice Swope said.

“There’s no time,” Tommy said. “I need men already trained in hostage rescue, survival, escape, evasion, and who can speak the language of the region we’re going into. And I need men who are already blooded.”

Plus, despite his own romantic notions at their age, this was the 21^st Century and Tommy just couldn’t contemplate putting the lives of these young men at risk if he didn’t have to. Nor justifying it to their parents.

Gunther had been silent until now. He usually was. He was Tommy’s firstborn, very withdrawn and introspective, almost opposite of boisterous Takoda, who had his foot in his mouth half the time. Now he asked, “Is Uncle Vince going with you?”

The other boys jumped on this quickly, blurting out how Vince was not trained for any of those missions either, was not a combat veteran, had never been a soldier and could only speak one language.

“He’s a cop,” Tommy said. “He’s trained in a sort of intelligence-gathering role that’s required.” That was stretching the truth a bit. Given what Tommy was planning to do, it seemed unlikely Vince would be much help at all. But Jenny was his daughter and there was no arguing with him. Vince didn’t revere Tommy as these youngsters did.

“You’ve trained us in survival,” Carl said. “As for escape and evasion, We’ve done some of that on our…hunting trips.”

He was referring, specifically, to poaching trips, which did require avoiding various law enforcement entities. Their ancestors never limited themselves to certain seasons for hunting, so Tommy didn’t either. They hunted for food, not for trophies, and never went after species that were truly endangered.

“All the training we’ve done with you,” Takoda said, “what’s it for, if we’re never going to use it? Why even drill the militia? We’ve been sacrificing our time month after month for years when we could have been doing other stuff. Now there’s a situation where we could put it to use but we just have to sit and do nothing? That means all this drilling with the militia has been a waste. It’s useless. We might as well be playing war videogames.”

“It’s not a waste, Takoda,” big brother Gunther said.

“When will we ever use it?” Takoda retorted.

“The white man’s economy is collapsing,” Gunther said, calmly. “All kinds of crazy business might go down when people begin starving.”

“These are our people,” Jason Lone Tree said. “Susan and Jennifer are our people. We can’t just sit back and let this happen.”

Tommy just sat and listened for a while. All of them made good points. But most of them were so passionate in their offended sense of justice that they spoke rashly, and even made comments like, “Let’s just go over there and start killing bastards until they give Jennifer and Susan back.”

Gunther agreed that that Tommy should take the militia with him, but admonished the others when they made stupid remarks like that.