Striking Distance (3 page)

Christ!

He didn’t want to think about that.

What counted was that she
had
run. She’d found the strength and the guts to break free, to shout out, to let them know she was there.

And now they were taking her home.

CHAPTER

1

February 14, 2013

Manhattan, New York

SANDWICHED BETWEEN THE
two deputy U.S. Marshals—or DUSMs—who’d been assigned to escort her, Laura Nilsson pushed her way through the throng of reporters gathered outside the federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan, clutching her gray double-breasted wool coat tightly around her, a chill inside her that had nothing to do with the icy wind. Reporters pressed up against the barricades, called out questions, their mics shoved in her face, cameras clicking around her.

“How will it feel to face Al-Nassar in a court of law?”

“Why did you choose to testify? Are you hoping to encourage other victims of sexual violence to speak out?”

“What message do you hope to give the jury today?”

Laura stopped at the top of the stairs, turned to face the reporters, and willed herself to smile, refusing to let the cameras see inside her.

You can do this.

Pausing to gather her scattered thoughts, she spoke the words she’d rehearsed. “Thank you all for your support. Today marks for me the final chapter of an ordeal that began three and a half years ago. I know that justice will be served not only on my behalf, but also on behalf of the hundreds of others around the world who have suffered as a result of Al-Nassar’s terrible actions.”

Having given them a quote to take back to their editors, she turned to enter the courthouse. But she hadn’t taken a single step when another question rang out.

“What is your response to the allegations from Derek Tower of Tower Global Security that negligence on your part led to your abduction and the deaths of your cameraman, your security detail, and the safe house director?”

Her step faltered.

She fought back a rush of rage, turned toward the voice, and met the reporter’s gaze, her lips twisting into her best imitation of a smile. “Slow news day?”

The insult made the other reporters snicker.

Laura looked into the cameras once more, fighting to maintain her façade of calm. “The State Department’s investigation into my abduction was closed even before I was found alive. It was a random, tragic event perpetrated by a depraved terrorist. No one regrets what happened that day more than I do.”

“Not even the families of the men who died trying to protect you?”

She ignored the taunt, turned her back on the crowd, and entered the courthouse, disregarding the shouted questions that chased after her. The trial was closed to cameras and all but a handful of reporters, who’d been selected at random from a pool of news organizations, the solemn quiet inside the lobby a stark contrast to the chaos outside.

But Tower’s attack, so unexpected, had Laura’s heart thrumming. The bastard didn’t know when to quit. He’d been harassing her for weeks, insisting that it was
her
fault she’d been abducted. What did he think he was doing feeding those allegations to a reporter, making them public? Did he really think that dragging her down could somehow make his company look better?

Forget him. It’s not important.

She didn’t have time to think about that now. Not now. Not today.

A uniformed DUSM motioned her forward. “Put your purse in the plastic bin. Empty your pockets of keys, change, or other metal objects, and pass through the metal detector.”

She moved quickly through the security checkpoint, relieved to find Marie Santelle, one of the assistants with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, waiting for her. Dressed in a tailored black pantsuit, her dark hair done up in a sleek bun, Marie smiled, took Laura’s hand, and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “How are you holding up?”

“I’m fine.” What else could she say? That she hadn’t slept last night? That her stomach was tied in knots? That she felt terrified?

Today, two years and three days after the SEALs rescued her from a living hell, she would see Al-Nassar again. She would face him in a courtroom, look him in the eyes, and denounce him to the world.

It was the day she’d been waiting for. It was the day she’d been dreading.

It was nearing the end of the second week of his trial, and his face had been all over the news, together with hers. It made no sense to Laura. The crimes he’d committed against her were the least of his offenses, nothing but a footnote in a criminal history that included terrorism and mass murder. And yet the press was obsessed with what he had done to
her
. Reporters had staked her out, called her at work, asked her questions that went beyond the public’s right to know, hoping to titillate their audiences with her worst memories, the ordeal she’d been fighting to put behind her fodder for public discussion on every channel, in every newspaper, on talk radio.

Allt kommer att bli bättre med tiden.

Everything will get better with time.

Her grandmother’s reassuring words came back to her.

Yes, it would all get better with time. It was already better.

Laura was no longer the terrorized, shattered woman the SEALs had rescued, a woman who barely remembered her own name. A year and a half of living with her mother and grandmother in Stockholm, together with intensive daily therapy, had helped her begin to heal. She might not feel like her old self, but she was slowly defining her
new
self. Or so her therapist had said when she’d burst into tears of frustration one afternoon, angry at herself for still being so pathetically weak, so fearful, so broken.

Her time as a captive made up only eighteen months out of thirty-two
years
of her life, and yet it seemed to define her. There were still days when the pain inside her was so strong she feared that if she started to cry, she would never be able to stop.

Still, she had so many reasons to be grateful.

She’d regained all the weight she’d lost and was no longer anemic. She was sleeping at night—most of the time. She was back in the States and had a nice loft in lower downtown Denver, or LoDo as locals called it. She had a seat on the I-Team—the award-winning Investigative Team at the
Denver Independent
newspaper. She’d even been on a few dates, though nothing had come of them.

It was a new beginning even if it wasn’t the life she’d planned for herself. And yet no matter how good her life was now, she didn’t feel whole.

One precious, important piece was still missing.

“Sorry about the mob outside.” Marie gave her hand another squeeze, then turned with the two deputies toward the elevators.

The media were the least of Laura’s worries today. “They’re just doing their job.”

She waited in silence with the others for the elevator car to arrive. When the doors closed, Marie spoke again.

“I’m taking you to a private witness room where you’ll stay until it’s time for you to testify. We’ll view the live footage of your abduction first. You’re still certain you don’t want to see that?”

Laura nodded. “I’m certain.”

She didn’t want to watch her friends die all over again or hear her own screams. Besides, she didn’t need to see it. That moment lived in her nightmares.

“I understand.” Marie’s brown eyes held no judgment, only sympathy. “When that’s done, we’ll bring you in.”

As Marie went over Laura’s testimony, Laura began to feel queasy. By the time they’d reached the private witness room, she felt the first trill of panic.

Marie glanced down at her watch. “Is there anything you need—coffee, water?”

There was just one thing. “Mr. Black has assured me that a certain topic will not be mentioned or discussed in the courtroom.”

There was one matter Laura refused to discuss, even in a court of law, a matter she intended to keep secret, private.

“Mr. Black and the team are aware of your concerns, and I want to assure you that every step has been taken to ensure your privacy in that regard. We can’t control the defendant, of course. If he chooses to mention it . . .”

Laura nodded, aware of that risk. “Thank you.”

Marie took both her hands. “You hang in there. This will be over soon. Thanks in part to you, that bastard is going to spend the rest of his life in prison.”

Although the U.S. attorney had an unshakable case against Al-Nassar, Laura had volunteered to testify, certain that confronting Al-Nassar would help her put the past behind her and take the next step in healing. She would see him for what he truly was—a prisoner, a despicable old man, weak and alone. He would no longer loom in her mind as the all-powerful warlord who had controlled her body, her mind, her life. But now that she was here, now that the day had come, she found herself wondering whether she’d made a terrible mistake.

“We’ll be right outside the door,” one of the deputy U.S. Marshals assured her.

Laura nodded, her mouth suddenly dry.

And then she was alone.

* * *

JAVIER CORBRAY SAT
in baggage claim at Denver International Airport, his back to the wall, his duffel and guitar case beside him, a cup of coffee from the coffee Automat in his hand. He took a sip, grimaced.
¡Carajo!
This shit was worse than the swill they served on submarines. How was that even possible?

He took another swallow, his gaze moving back and forth along the crowded terminal, some part of him on edge. Then again, he was always on edge these days.

It had been five months since he’d decided to let that Pashtun shepherd and his sons live, five months of living with the consequences of that one decision. Warned by the shepherd, the Taliban had ambushed Delta Platoon outside Ghazni with heavy casualties. Javier had taken four rounds. Surgeons had saved his leg, patched up his shoulder, liver, and lung, giving him fourteen units of blood to keep him alive.

Still, he’d gotten off easy. In all, eighteen men had died that day.

Javier had been up and around much faster than they’d expected, pushing himself through the pain of rehab, determined to help his body heal to the best of its ability, regain his strength, and get back with the teams. He’d moved from rehab to PT, passed the post-deployment psych test, and thought he was about to start an active-duty workup. Instead, one of the shrinks had accused him of “playing to the test,” whatever the hell that meant, and had benched him.

Post-combat trauma.

It was bureaucratic bullshit. How could he
pass
the test and still get flagged? The screening was useless anyway. They’d borrowed it from a psych test created for the army. But he wasn’t some green kid back from his first tour of duty, a young soldier fresh out of boot camp who’d seen his first dead body. Javier had been deploying as a special operator for fourteen years now. He knew the realities of combat, knew his limits, knew what he could handle. He didn’t need to talk about his feelings. He sure as hell didn’t need some shrink’s shoulder to cry on.

Fortunately, Boss had persuaded Naval Special Warfare Command to back Javier, and a compromise had been reached. Javier’s medical leave had been extended for another two months, at which time he’d take the psych screening again. If he passed, he passed. He’d move on to an active-duty workup and be back with the teams by summer. If he didn’t pass . . .

That won’t happen,
chacho
.

A voice coming from the flat-screen TV overhead caught his ear.

“The trial of accused al Qaeda terrorist Abu Nayef Al-Nassar continued this morning when journalist Laura Nilsson took the stand.”

Javier looked up as the broadcast cut away to footage of Laura being waylaid by media outside the federal court building. Flanked by two officers from the U.S. Marshal Service, she made her way up the steps, then turned and smiled.

Javier felt a tug in his chest. He knew testifying wouldn’t be easy for her—sitting in a courtroom with Al-Nassar, reliving the horror he’d put her through—but Javier respected the hell out of her for doing it.

“Today marks for me the final chapter of an ordeal that began three and a half years ago,” she said into the microphones. “I know that justice will be served not only on my behalf, but also on behalf of the hundreds of others around the world who have suffered as a result of Al-Nassar’s terrible actions.”

Gone was the trembling, terrified woman he’d carried on board the Chinook. In her place stood the Laura he’d met in Dubai—confident, polished, beautiful.

Nothing he’d done in his career as a special operator had felt more rewarding than getting her out of that hellhole. Sure, he’d pulled his team out of some pretty tight scrapes, played medic to wounded men, taken out a bad guy or two, earned his share of medals. But the night he’d found her was the only time he’d directly saved the life of an American civilian. The fact that it had been Laura, that she’d been
alive
, had only made it sweeter. He’d gone to bed that night feeling like a hero.

He’d followed the news articles about her as well as he could between back-to-back deployments, and he knew what she’d endured. Repeated rape. Beatings. Daily threats of decapitation. Reading the news stories and watching her interview with Diane Sawyer had made him wish he’d kicked the shit out of Al-Nassar when he’d had the chance, maybe shot the fucker in the balls.

It had also made Javier want to reach out to her, to help her however he could, to let her know that he was there, that he cared. But he’d been downrange in Afghanistan for most of the past two years, and when he’d been home, he’d spent those few precious weeks with his family and his Mamá Andreína, who was ninety-two and had been in and out of the hospital. He hadn’t been sure Laura would want to see him or whether she even remembered their time in Dubai City.

Watching her now, he had to give her a world of credit. To go through what she’d gone through and to come out of it in one piece took strength.

“¡Oye, cabrón!” Hey, motherfucker!

Javier turned toward the familiar voice to find Nathaniel West striding toward him.
“¿Que pasa, cabrón?” What’s up, motherfucker?

The last time he’d seen Nate—whose MSOT, or Marine Special Operations Team, had worked alongside Delta Platoon in Afghanistan—the man had been clinging to life in the burn ward at the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, the right side of his face and body a mess of second– and third-degree burns from an IED blast. Scars now covered Nate’s nose, right cheek, and jaw, disappearing down his neck and beneath his winter coat, but he was alive. More than that, he seemed . . .
happy
.