From a remote location, Lawrence Wallace spoke into the mic. “Scorpion, this is Crystal Palace. Give me a status, over.”
The F-18 pilot replied, “Crystal Palace, this is Scorpion. Heading, three one five. Angels, twenty-one. Speed, four-fifty. Just within range-to-target. Master Arm, off. Warning yellow, weapons hold.”
“Roger that, Scorpion. You’re at twenty-one thousand feet, speed, four hundred and fifty knots. Arm the weapon, over.”
“Crystal Palace, Master Arm, on. Weapon is armed. Target is locked on.”
“You are red and tight, Scorpion. Launch on my command. Launch, launch, launch.”
A moment later, “Crystal Palace, this is Scorpion. Greyhound is away.”
***
It was Ames. The man towering above her was Ames. Her father stared into abject death and would not relent. His actions reminded Jana of a trained operator. He would aim carefully, squeeze off a three-round burst, then retarget. It was mechanical. He moved with such fluidity that the weapon seemed to be an extension of his body, something fused to him like an arm or a leg.
Bullets chewed into the ground where he stood. In the melee, Jana could hear nothing. She was suffering from a condition known as auditory exclusion in which people in high-stress situations don’t hear sounds around them. She watched as Ames’s mouth moved and knew he was screaming something to her.
The more she stared at the bizarre sight, the more she began to perceive what he was yelling. He was screaming at her to get up and move. As she rolled onto her feet, Ames sidestepped in the other direction, all the while continuing his attack. He was drawing fire away from her. He continued the methodical process, dropped an empty magazine, and recharged the well with a fresh one. And the sequence started again.
Jana ran as fast as she could into the tree line. She paused a moment to look back at her father. With the air strike about to hit, she knew it would be the last time she would see him alive. She broke into a run through the dense forest toward the only direction where the tunnel could be. But her mind drifted. The pounding of her feet and heart, the feeling of brush crashing against her limbs, catapulted her back to the prior year, running through the forest at YellowstoneNational Park toward terrorist Waseem Jarrah. Fury pulsed in her veins.
The center-most scar on her chest began to burn and the trio of terrifying voices piped into her consciousness.
She will do it herself, the one in the center said. It echoed in a manner similar to a person speaking inside a cave.
How? another replied.
She will seal her own fate. Once she kills him, she will join us and will not be able to claw her way free ever again.
The trio laughed in a chilling echo.
But just as the periphery of her vision began to cloud, she shook free of the impending post-traumatic stress episode.
“You don’t run me,” she said across tightened vocal chords. “I run me.” The voices silenced and her feet pounded harder. She ran up a pathway until she came to a brick-framed door shrouded in tropical growth. It was embedded into the hillside. Vines all but obscured the secret escape route. The huge steel door was shut but she could see fresh footprints on the ground chased by what looked like a single set of tire tracks, a motorcycle.
She pulled the door open but then a solitary fear struck her. I don’t have a weapon. She struggled to listen above the distant gunfire and could hear something in the distance—the sound of a dirt bike’s engine.
When she looked inside, the dimly lit tunnel was empty. The cement tunnel was about four feet wide and she squinted into the low light. It went straight back for about forty yards then veered to the right. “Must lead into the basement level,” she said.
Just outside, a roar ripped across the sky. It was so loud it could only be described as the sound of air tearing. What followed next was the largest explosion she could imagine—the air strike. She dove into the tunnel and the ground shook as she went down. Dust and tiny fragments of cement rained down as light bulbs popped. Outside, a steady torrent of dirt and debris, intermixed with shattered wood fragments, began crashing to the ground.
As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw that the tunnel had a long alcove built into one side. Three dirt bikes stood parked with room for a fourth. Each motorcycle had an electrical cord plugged into its small battery, an apparent effort to trickle-charge the batteries and prevent them from draining.
Many months ago, when they had been dating, Stone had taught her to ride. It was often the case that they would ride tandem on his motorcycle. For most of the time, she would sit behind him and wrap her arms around his torso, but later, Jana had hopped on the bike and looked at him playfully. “Teach me,” she’d said.
Thick, black smoke poured from the other end of the tunnel and toward Jana. Without hesitation she hopped onto a bike. Only then did she notice the cuts and abrasions on her legs. “No time for that now.” She jump-started the bike and caught her own reflection in one of its side-view mirrors. Her face was covered in dirt, her hair was a mat of dried blood, and blood dripped from her shoulder.
She gunned the throttle and dirt exploded from the rear tire. The only question was, could she catch Rojas before he could disappear? But as she thought of all the women he had harmed entered her mind, fear and doubt abated. Whatever the outcome, she’d do anything in her power to stop him.