Thomas Prescott Superpack (85 page)

Whoever was off-screen must have nodded that she was correct. Track knew this was no act. This wasn’t some low budget production taking place in a garage somewhere. This was real.

“Who is your father?”

Rikki choked. “Um, Track. Track Bowe.”

“And how do you know this man is your father?”

No answer.

“How do you know this man is your father?”

No answer.

The fist hit her in the stomach this time. Rikki fell off the chair. The camera angle moved over her. She wheezed in and out, then yelled, “My mom said so.”

“That wasn’t too hard. So your mom told you Track Bowe was your father?”

Rikki was in the fetal position, but still managed to nod.

“Does he love you?”

Rikki looked up at the camera. Her eyes were brimming with tears.

“Does your father love you?”

“I don’t know.” Rikki looked up at the camera. “I’ve never met him.”

Track leaned back in his chair. He thought about flipping the laptop closed. He didn’t know if he could stomach any more. A tear dripped down his cheek. Probably the first tear his body had made in twenty years.

Back on-screen, the voice asked, “Is your father rich?”

Rikki wiggled onto her butt, then pushed herself back onto the chair. The camera operator backed up to where he’d started.

Rikki nodded and said, “Yes, he’s rich.”

“How rich?”

“Rich, rich.”

“How much do you think he will pay for you back?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know?”

“A million?”

“I don’t know.”

“Ten million?”

“I said,
I don’t know
.”

Rikki’s eyes opened wide. A long silver knife, three inches thick—far bigger than any knife Track had ever seen—entered the screen. The blade nestled up against Rikki’s throat.

“How much are you worth to your father?”

Rikki took a deep breath, her throat flexing against the blade. “I don’t know. I have no idea how much I’m worth.” She was sobbing. “I’ve never met him. He’s just a name. He’s always just been a name. I don’t even know him.”

“But he’s given you so much over the years?”

“He hasn’t given me squat.”

“You mean your father has never given you any money?”

Her eyes opened wide. As did Track’s. How did they know about the money? Rikki didn’t answer. She choked back tears.

“How much money has he given you over the years? A couple hundred?”

She shook her head.

“A couple million?”

She nodded.

The blade was retracted by an unseen hand.

The voice said, “Your father has given you millions of dollars over the years and you don’t think he’ll pay a million dollars to get you back.”

Rikki sniffled, then shrugged, as if to say, I have no idea.

It was silent for a moment, then the man said, “If you had a message to give to your father right now, what would it be?”

She looked down.

“What would you say to this man who you’ve never met? What would you tell him?”

She shook her head.

The blade returned. Pushed hard against her throat. Tears ran down Rikki’s face and onto the blade of the knife.

The man off camera screamed, “What would you tell him?”

The blade moved along Rikki’s throat, blood tricking down her soft neck. She began convulsing. Her eyes closed. She looked like she was on the verge of going into shock. Then her
eyes flashed open. She stared into the camera and screamed, “I don’t want to die. Please. Please, pay these men. Please. Don’t let them kill me. Please. All you’ve done is let me down. My whole life, you’ve let me down. I would give all the money you’ve given me, every dollar, just to have met you. I would. Every penny. Please, daddy, don’t let them kill me.” She took a deep breath, then said quietly, “Save me daddy. Save me.”

The video stopped.

Ten seconds later, the phone rang.

[36H TK 93697 09159]

0932 HOURS

The loud mechanical voice chimed, “Twenty seconds.”

Torrey Royal looked directly at the back of Fuller’s helmet. He wasn’t sure if Fuller had any rituals like the rest of them did. Royal knew that Sam, six men behind him, had moved his wedding ring to his opposite hand and was massaging the ring with his gloved thumb. He knew three back, Sanchez was patting the Rosary underneath a thick layer of neoprene and saying the Mother’s blessing. Chase did some weird thing with his parachute he refused to tell anyone about. Reed had the bullet that nearly took his life in the mountains of Afghanistan in the tip of his left shoe, and Royal could hear him lightly tapping his foot on the cold surface of the cargo hold. Deeter was at the back, doing whatever crazy people do, probably thumping his chest and paying homage to Rambo. Frost was directly behind Royal, and he knew his closest friend was reciting one of Robert’s poems from memory, which is how he acquired his moniker. And Pollock was somewhere back there, doing some deep breathing thing. Yeah, they all had something. They all had a ritual. Royal, too, had his own. He rubbed his left wrist, where he’d gotten a saxophone tattooed on his eighteenth birthday, and whistled his favorite jazz tune. Lou Reed’s
Walk on the Wild Side
.

The door fully open, the nine men disappeared one after another 30,000 feet above the Indian Ocean. Four minutes later, nine parachutes opened. Two minutes later, there were nine silent splashes.

Royal surfaced, shaking the water off his helmet. He saw the flare outstretched in the black form of Fuller and swam in that direction. The nine men tread water for thirty seconds, then watched as the dome of the USS New Hampshire silently rose from the water.

The nine men swam to the sub, climbed up the netting the officers had thrown in the water and were pulled aboard.

Royal pulled off his helmet and found himself standing next to Commander Fuller. Royal threw him a wry smile and said, “Can I ask you a question Commander?”

“Shoot.”

“You have a pre-op ritual?”

Fuller sniffed, wiped the moisture from below his nose, and said, “Sure. Doesn’t everybody?”

They were about to climb down the hatch and Royal asked, “What’s yours?”

“I scratch my balls.”

A minute later, the sub was again submerged.

PTUTSI

10:52
a.m.

It took Gina over an hour to make it to the small village. The settlement was no more than a mile away, but negotiating the mass of people had proved both tricky and time consuming. It was like trying to get up to the stage at a Rolling Stones concert.

There appeared to be two separate camps. A modern day caste system. At the first camp Gina encountered, high up on the hill, the Africans were dressed respectably in shorts and a T-shirt for the men and a colored dress for the women. These people wore shoes, drank from bottled water, read books. A few cooked on gas stoves. Gina guessed these people were responsible for the parking lot from hell. Men and women congregated in small groups. The overall mood was somber, but not forlorn. In each family—or pair, or faction—sprawled out on a large blanket, were the sick. More often than not being attended to by one of the women. A damp towel, the rubbing of feet, a soothing prayer.

As Gina moved through these people she would receive an odd stare here, or the stopping of a conversation there, but mostly these people didn’t give her a second’s glance. These were the people they’d seen in the cars and walking on the streets. From the cities.

The second camp was located at the base of the hill, separated from the top camp by a football field expanse of high yellow grass. If the first camp was the size of Rhode Island, the second camp was the size of Colorado. The Africans wore little. The men had loincloths covering their genitals, their ribs poking through their tight skin. The women were topless, their large brown breasts sagging into whatever colored material was wrapped around their waists. These people had no doubt come from the surrounding villages.

The Africans sat or lay on the grass. None had blankets. A few of the people chewed slowly on small chunks of bread or drank from large bowls of cloudy water. As Gina gingerly moved around the people, and over them, she couldn’t help wondering how these people had survived the journey. Some had possibly traveled by bus, but Gina knew the majority had walked. Walked perhaps hundreds of miles. Some must have left over a week earlier.

Gina stepped over countless unmoving bodies. No one attended to anyone. Every single one of these people was sick. Some more than others. But within a year, if none got treatment, and sadly even with treatment, every person in this camp—other than their caregivers—would be dead.

Their eyes—blood red in many cases and yellow in others—bore into her as she wended in and out of the tightly cramped groups. Their stares were pleading. Gina might as well of had
Doctor
inscribed in Zulu on her white skin. She could feel their questions floating around her, hovering over each African’s head like a halo.
Is she the first doctor to arrive? Will there be more? Where is all the medicine they speak of? Will this woman be the one to save my life?

In all her travels, Gina had never seen such despair. It was heart wrenching. She suddenly found herself angry. How could they let this happen? Not how could
these people
let this happen. How could the
world
let this happen?

Gina thought of America. Why didn’t they send help? Who cared about the terrorists? Paul said they manufactured enough medication to treat every person with AIDS on the planet. Then why didn’t they? So the fat cats at Pfizer could drive bigger cars. So some scientist could have a house in the Bahamas.

She was furious with Paul. He expected her to come to this forsaken village, sweep up these three little children and haul them back to the states. What about the other hundred thousand people? Was she just supposed to forget about them? Forget about them like every other person on the planet had. Like their own government and her own government and the government of countless others that had forgotten about them.

Of course these nations had problems of their own—deficit, recession, unemployment, health care. And of course many of these nations were trying to help these people. And yes, she knew the United States—who had to be the best at everything—gave the most money to battle the AIDS effort, but that was no excuse. There was no excuse for the sight before her.

And she hadn’t even arrived at the village yet.

Gina turned and looked over her shoulder up the hill. She wanted to run up the hill, sprint up the hill, jump in the Jeep, and drive as far away from this place as possible. She didn’t want to see the village. At least these people were still alive. She had a feeling this wouldn’t be the case within the fence.

Gina turned back around. She mentally and physically gritted her teeth. She would be tough. She would go to the village, she would find the children, she would get them to the States, then she would spend every last breath trying to get help for these poor people.

By the time Gina had cut through the lower camp and approached the crisscrossed, six-foot high fence made from sticks, it was approaching eight in the morning. The village was beginning to stir and several Zulus were peering through the fence at the swarm of people surrounding them. They must be wondering why all the people had flocked to their small village. Gina wondered if they’d seen what was unfolding on the hills behind them. They were in for a real shock. If the facing hill was the population of Colorado, the hills flanking the settlement were North America.

The villagers were dressed similar to their brethren at the lower camp, with some small additions. The men wore headbands, mostly light blue, some white, and had matching material wrapped around their calves. Their bodies were muscular and strong. Their limbs were covered in white chalk. The women wore colorful beaded skirts, colorful beaded necklaces, and were covered in golden jewelry. A couple of the women held small babies in their arms, the babies suckling away at their nipples. Some of the men held long wooden spears.

Centering the village was a second fence—the cattle kraal—enclosing maybe fifty cows chewing their cud.

Gina approached the entrance. There were two men standing just outside an opening in the fence. She thought back to what she’d read,
the chief’s eldest sons
? She wasn’t sure how these people would react to her presence. Would they be friendly? Or would they tie her up and cook her for dinner?

She took a step forward. Then a couple more. The two young men eyed her suspiciously, then let her pass. Clearly, the lone white woman with the backpack wasn’t as threatening as the thousands of visitors camped on the hill before them.

As she moved into the heart of the village, Gina noticed the huts resembled giant coconuts cut in half and stuck in the ground. Light brown and husky. There was a four-foot opening in the front of each hut. Some were bigger than others, ranging from the size of say a large teepee to the size of a two-car garage. In front of many of the huts, women were cooking. They had large bowls out and were mixing some sort of grain. A small boy and girl sat next to their mother and ate the chalky meal from a bowl with their hands.