Hide and Seek (5 page)

“And if he did?” Mike asked.

“He would have trouble locating it. You ever heard a private plane go overhead on a clear day? They’re noisy and you can recognize the sound right off the bat, but they’re still difficult to locate. It can be done of course, but you have to make an effort. This baby is really tough to find.”

The video continued and the team watched a steady stream of soldiers depart the C-17. When Nagano and Aliki arrived, the video showed J. J. shaking their hands. The camera zoomed in, tightening the shot.

“Hey, I look good from this angle,” Aliki said. “That cinches it. I’m impressive no matter what angle you use to look at me.”

“We’ll have to work on your weak self-esteem,” J. J. said.

“Pretty impressive, isn’t it?” Crispin said like a father who just watched his son hit a home run in a Little League game.

“Yep,” J. J. said, “but I do have a question. Do you suppose it’s wise for one of my team members to fly a military drone—no matter how small—over the sovereign soil of a foreign country? Without permission?”

Crispin looked stunned. “I-I . . .”

“You know the Air Force doesn’t own the airfield, they lease it.”

Crispin ran a hand through his hair and tried to speak, but the words never came.

“Boss,” Pete said. “I egged him on and I’m senior to him. I’m responsible.”

“Probably.” J. J. moved back to the front of the room. “Kill the video, Crispin. I assume you have a delete button somewhere.”

“Yes, Boss. You want me to erase—of course you do, otherwise you wouldn’t be asking. I’ll take care of it right now.”

“See that you do.” J. J. straightened. “That was pretty impressive.” Crispin smiled and his shoulders lowered in relief. “Okay, men, listen up. I’m going to spend the rest of the day bringing our new team members up to speed on the team. Crispin has another presentation to make in the morning, then we are going to run some drills with three new spec ops teams Colonel Mac is sending over. That will last three days, then we’re headed back stateside. So enjoy your evening—” The door to the conference room opened. “Group ten-shun!”

Colonel Danny Weidman, base commander, entered the room accompanied by an Air Force captain. Chairs slid as the team came to attention.

“As you were,” Colonel Weidman snapped. He looked at J. J. “Master Sergeant, I need you and your team in the main conference room.”

“Sir?”

“Colonel Mac wants to talk to you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You got five minutes.” He walked from the room so quickly that J. J. expected to sense a vacuum.

“That can’t be good,” Jose said.

“He looked pretty tense,” Pete added.

J. J. looked at his watch. “It’s 1600 here, that means it’s 0200 in South Carolina. At least he’ll have had a few hours of beauty sleep.”

“Think that’ll help?” Crispin asked.

“No.” J. J. took a deep breath and looked at Nagano and Aliki. “Welcome to Manas.”

AMELIA DID NOT INTEND
to follow Jildiz and was somewhat surprised to find herself only a few blocks behind her as she drove through the heart of the city. No doubt Jildiz was headed to the seven-story structure called the White House on Chuy Avenue. It was the seat of government and at times the focus of rioters. In April of 2010, the building was looted and government papers were strewn across the lawn, plaza, and street. Things had settled since then but, like a pressure cooker with a sealed vent, it was only a matter of time before things blew up again. The intelligence agencies had been issuing warnings for months.

She kept a respectful distance from Jildiz, not wanting to appear like a diplomatic equivalent of a stalker. Still, she had to travel the same road through the city before reaching Mira Avenue and heading south to the U.S. Embassy a few miles away. She wasn’t looking forward to that meeting.

A black column of smoke caught Amelia’s attention. Then she saw another. Her first thought was a small structure fire, but the rising smoke appeared to be separated by several blocks. She grew unsettled.

Ahead, Jildiz made a turn to the north. That was to be expected if she were headed to Chuy Avenue from the side street they were on. Her disquiet grew and her muscles tensed. Something was wrong. What, she didn’t know. She was trained to trust her instincts and she saw no reason to stop now.

A white panel van pulled from the curb and made a sharp turn onto the street. No country was exempt from stupid drivers.

Amelia slowed as she passed through the intersection and looked up the street Jildiz just entered. She saw a mob at one end. She also saw the van slam into the back of Jildiz’s car. Her speed carried Amelia through the intersection but not before she saw several men exit the van. At least one was armed.

Amelia pulled to the side then cranked the steering wheel hard the other direction, the wheels of the sedan screaming at being asked to move so quickly over decaying asphalt.

She snapped the wheel straight and slammed the accelerator to the floor. By the time she made the turn she saw Jildiz in the clutches of two men, both armed, and a third man with a handgun. Amelia wished for time to think, but having none, she hit the gas again and aimed the front of the vehicle at the group. Two of the men, both big and rough looking, held Jildiz between them. One was grinning like he had just won the lottery. The smile disappeared when the roar of the engine became impossible to ignore. He and his pals did what Amelia hoped: they tried to save themselves and, in doing so, released the president’s daughter, each leaping to the side. One man was too slow and scrambled to the wrong side.

Amelia felt a sickening thud.

Jildiz stood stunned and shaken as Amelia hit the brakes and banked hard to one side, missing Jildiz by inches. “In! Get in!”

Jildiz blinked, then awareness flashed into her eyes as she scampered for the passenger door.

“Back seat. Now!”

Jildiz complied. The moment she was in, Amelia dropped the car into reverse. “Down. Lay down. Cover your head.” She glanced in the driver’s side mirror. The man with the handgun pushed to his feet and began to raise the weapon.

The man Amelia hit was screaming, but she didn’t look at him. Thinking was a luxury of time. Instinct was all that mattered. She pushed her door open and floored the accelerator. The door caught the man as he squeezed off a shot that missed Amelia by an inch and shattered the windshield. Cracks spread from end to end and top to bottom, the safety glass held in place by the embedded plastic laminate sheet.

She snapped her head around and sighted the man taking fresh aim.

The car picked up speed.

The door caught him just as he pulled the trigger. Amelia’s mind tried to make sense of the sounds: the gun’s explosive report, the impact of the metal car door on human flesh, the dropped watermelon sound of the assailant’s head hitting the street, and the noise of her front tire rolling over the human speed bump.

“Down. Stay down.”

The car picked up speed as it backed away from the panel truck and Jildiz’s car.
Two down. That leaves one. Or are there more?
Amelia was in no mood to hang around and find out. To hesitate might be to die.

She entered the intersection and spun the wheel, jerking the car around so it faced the street she traveled a short time before.

Sounds of rapid gunfire and bullets hitting the car’s metal hide and windows blended into a terrifying, ear-pounding fusillade of fear. Something stung the side of her arm and hand. Again she rammed the accelerator down. The car tires spun then the car lurched. Steam poured from the radiator. She glanced up the street and saw the one man still standing, running their direction. He held a submachine gun and it was spilling a stream of bullets.

Something warm dripped into her left eye.

The engine stammered but kept turning. Ear-piercing noise poured from beneath the hood and the steering wheel pulled hard to the left. Another sound. A small explosion and a rattling. At least one tire was flat. Amelia hoped it was just one tire. Another pop and the vehicle leaned to the left.

“He’s shot our tires and engine. I won’t be able to get far.”

As if uttering the words aloud brought the prophecy to pass, the engine sputtered, rattled, and died.

And there was more to worry about. When Amelia first looked down the street where the abduction had occurred, she saw distant fires and a mob of people. She hadn’t had time to gauge the size of the group but her sense was that it was large. The city had seen thousands turn out in riots and protests.

The driver’s side door was still open, frozen in position by the force of striking the big man with the handgun. Amelia popped her seat belt and rolled out of the car, her eyes directed down the street. She was having trouble seeing. Something sticky made the vision in her left eye blurry.

“Out. Let’s go!” She pulled open the rear door. Jildiz lay on the floor boards, jammed between the rear seat and the front. “Come on, Jildiz.”

“It’s not safe.”

“It’s not safe in the car.”

Jildiz hesitated. Amelia did not. She reached in the back seat area and grabbed Jildiz by the collar of her coat and pulled with as much strength as she could muster. The small woman came out easily.

“Stay on this side of me. Let’s go.” Amelia kept Jildiz on her left, positioning her own body between her charge and the killer. They were two strides closer to the sidewalk when she heard the sound of bullets hitting the car then the road behind them. A glance to her left showed the machine gun man hobbling their way. He had been injured, maybe when he dove out of the way of her speeding car. That was the good news; the bad was twofold: he still had an automatic weapon and was talking on a handheld radio.
Great. He’s calling for reinforcements.

“In here.” She pushed open a glass door that led into one of the small businesses lining the side street. A second later she realized they were in a small, neighborhood-style restaurant. “Keep going.”

Patrons looked up from their meals. Several were families and Amelia immediately felt concerned for the children. “Run. Hide!” She didn’t know if she spoke English, Russian, or Kyrgyz and had no time to repeat the message. She pushed Jildiz forward, again interposing her body between the dignitary and the pursuer. “To the kitchen.”

A terrible thought occurred to Amelia: the very people she was worried about could be the ones to point the direction of their flight. “Go, go, go.”

They pushed through a pair of double doors and stumbled into the kitchen. Jildiz tripped over a rubber mat near a pair of large metal sinks. “Get up.” Amelia barked the order as she helped Jildiz to her feet. She heard a loud voice from the dining side of the restaurant. He was closing the distance. Exiting the car took too long. “Forward. To the back door. Run. Run.”

Amelia’s heart felt like the fist of a wild man trying to break out of her chest. Her mind raced only able to think of a few things at a time.

Then she saw it. The back door. And next to it, another door, larger and metal. “Do as I say. No questions.”

“Yes. Okay.” Jildiz’s words were soft and tumbled out between gasps.

Just as they reached the rear exit, Amelia slowed, pulled back on Jildiz’s coat as if she were a race horse. She pulled Jildiz, then changed her mind. The large metal door was familiar to her. She had started her working career slaving away in a fast-food joint. She knew a walk-in freezer when she saw one. She pulled the door open until it touched the back wall, found a knife on a prep table just behind a head of cabbage, seized it, and moved to the lone cook who stood behind an old stove and grill. The man blinked in puzzlement until Amelia, hunkered down behind the grill, put the business end of the knife to the inside of the man’s thigh. “Speak and I cut an artery.” She said it both in Russian and English. A young worker standing to the side saw what was happening and stiffened, stupefied. His expression showed his confusion. Amelia raised a finger to her lips. To the young man’s credit, he nodded, saving his boss an unneeded surgery.

The gunman exploded into the kitchen. Crouched behind the cook and the stove, Amelia couldn’t see the attacker but assumed he still had his weapon. Jildez was on her hands and knees a foot or two away from Amelia.

“Where?” The man demanded.

Amelia pushed the point of the knife a fraction of an inch deeper into the man’s leg. The cook said nothing, Amelia was able to see the man’s feet as he moved to the freezer.

Wait for it. Wait.

When she saw his boot-clad feet reach the freezer’s threshold, Amelia charged.

She lowered a shoulder and plowed into the gunman with all the strength she could muster. She heard a furious scream then realized it was her own.

The man staggered a step then tripped over the wood-pallet flooring of the freezer. He landed facedown but rolled to his back immediately, gun in hand. A kitchen knife versus an automatic weapon was a battle Amelia didn’t want. She stepped to the side as a burst of gunfire tore up the wall behind her. Seizing the freezer door, she slammed it shut. On the wall, hanging from a hook, was a Yale lock with a long shackle like a bicycle lock. She retrieved it and closed the lock.

She turned to face the cook. He was gone. So was the young worker.

Amelia opened the rear door. “Let’s move.”

COLONEL WEIDMAN WAS A
lanky man with a nearly bald head that reflected the light from the overhead fluorescents. J. J. met him when he and what remained of his team first arrived at Manas. The base commander was polite, even jovial. Now he looked as if his breakfast was rusty nails with sour milk. The red-haired captain standing next to him looked to be countless-hours-in-the-gym thick. J. J. wondered if he was compensating for his height.

The room was twice the size of the one they just left and much better furnished. J. J.’s first impression was that of a home theater. A large, flat-panel screen was mounted to the far wall and three rows of eight theater seats faced it. To the side of the monitor was a simple wood podium with the emblem of the Ninth Air Force garrison mounted to the upright, its white-winged yellow circle with a red nine staring back at them.