Amanda looked up. Near the village about twenty children kicked a soccer ball that she had provided for them. Kiram, though, was different than the rest of the children. Amanda had immediately liked him, partly because he gave her attention, she had to admit. But it was mostly because he seemed out of touch with the others, something she could relate to. Over the past two weeks of their presence in Tanzania, Amanda had noticed Kiram was a very intelligent young man, almost mysteriously so.
“How did you know what my father looked like?”
He wagged a long, slender black finger at her. “Miss Amanda, you find out. He protect you.” Kiram hugged Amanda.
“You’re such a beautiful child, Kiram. Maybe I’ll take you home with me.”
“No can go. Must stay here with my people.”
“Well, the way you drew this picture of my father is just very strange. It’s like you can see him, you know, in the other world. He’s dead, you know.”
Kiram screwed his face up at hers.
“Man not dead… ”
“I know, I know,” she countered quickly, waving her hands as if to wave him off. “His spirit lives forever.”
Kiram returned her stare.
“Well it does, Kiram, I’ve got my father right here in my heart.”
She opened a gold locket hanging around her neck. On the left side was her face, smiling from a happy time with her father when she was nine or ten. On the right side was her father’s face, square jaw set, green-flecked eyes radiant, and his beautiful smile locked on his face, the way she wanted to remember him. She tried not to think of everything that Matt had told her that day at the funeral for Lance Eversoll.
“I’ll be in touch, Amanda, with more information about your dad. You just have to trust me.” She did trust Matt and knew in time that she would find out his fate. And then there was the note from Riley that she kept with her. Never lose hope.
“What those?”
Kiram’s skinny black finger was pointing at two medallions hanging in tandem next to the locket. Amanda pawed them without looking down.
“Saint Michael’s medals. They say, ‘Protect Us’.”
“Why two?”
“One is from my dad. The other is from someone who tried to save him.” Amanda felt tears welling as she thought about Sergeant Eversoll giving his life for her father.
“This man.” He was pointing back at the drawing. At her father.
“You’re too funny, little boy. Now go play.”
“You’ll see,” Kiram said, lifting his drawing and then placing it back on the tree stump. “Time to go. See you tomorrow.”
Then the part they had been practicing.
“Are you good to go?”
“I’m good to go, Kiram. Good job.”
Amanda had taught him the exchange, and Kiram had picked it up easily, as he did with the rest of his English. He could be a leader for these people, Amanda thought. Her heart swelled with pride. Her short time in Tanzania had been cathartic in many ways.
“I don’t know if this is what I’m supposed to do, Daddy, but it’s the best that I can do right now.” She had transformed enormous guilt into positive action. That was something.
She lifted Kiram’s drawing and looked at the image of her father. Tears were streaking her face. In a way they were tears of happiness. Even in his absence he had been able to resurrect her. What she wouldn’t give for a second chance with him.
“Are we good to go, Daddy?” She held the grainy artist paper in her hand and stared at Kiram’s rendition of her father’s face.
The wind shook the tops of the sturdy mahogany trees, a white cloud slid overhead as if it was a speedboat skimming the pristine surface of a crystal-blue lake. The thatch huts in which they were staying suddenly seemed deathly quiet, with no one in eyesight or earshot.
“We’re good to go, baby girl.”
It was as if someone had opened a zipper in time, reached in and somehow dragged him forward. She rose from the stump.
Watching the sun, a bright fireball diving beneath the descending tree lines that ran down the ridge, she mustered the courage to turn. Ever so slowly, she first saw the river flowing with its gentle, peaceful pace. It crossed her mind that her father was supposed to have been killed twice in the last four years. Surely she could not be so lucky as to have a father that resembled a cat in longevity performances.
Before she finished turning, she felt his hands on her shoulder. These were her father’s hands, strong and gentle, protective. Before she came face to face with him, she closed her eyes.
“Daddy?”
Matt Garrett set up the satellite uplink from Mwanza, Tanzania and got confirmation of a secure satellite connection. He wasn’t sure he could handle the emotional torrent that might release if he watched his brother, Zach, reunite with his reformed daughter. So, he got Zach from Landstuhl Military Hospital in Germany to this remote corner of the Serengeti and then removed himself from the picture. This was Zach’s show, not his. Actually, it was Amanda’s and he was damn proud of that young lady for having the intestinal fortitude to persevere.
While Amanda and Zach were embracing, Matt plugged the two hard drives he had snatched from the Yemen raid into USB cables that fed into a master computer that the Central Intelligence Agency could access and monitor. He could see Riley standing in the center of the soccer field, laughing as orphans ran circles around her with a soccer ball.
“Uploading files,” Matt said into his satellite phone as he watched the green bar slide from left to right across the screen indicating upload progress. The files would take encryption experts in some cases minutes and in most cases hours or days to decipher. The haul from Yemen, while considered a bust in the operative communities, was anything but that. CIA Director Houghton had instructed Matt to secure the two server drives he had taken from Yemen until international attention on the raid ebbed.
Houghton was on the line with Matt and said, “Good job. We’ve got Elsie Cartwright, our best techie already telling us you got a more current database than Rahman’s of every Al Qaeda member in the first few minutes.”
“There’s a hell of a lot more there, Roger. And there are probably more databases. We have to keep the pressure on these guys,” Matt said.
“Roger that,” Houghton said.
“I want in on developing the plan to systematically go after these assholes.”
“No question.”
“And you were wrong, you know,” Matt said.
Houghton paused. “About what?”
“Zach. He’s good to go.”
“I heard. I’m always happy to be wrong about shit like that. Now get your ass back here when you can.”
“Roger that, Roger.”
Matt heard Houghton chuckle and hang up. He looked out of the small cinderblock shack that Amanda had steered him toward for his “conference call.”
Next he called General Griffin in Pakistan and after a few seconds got the general on the tactical satellite radio.
“Eagle six, give me a status,” Matt said.
Matt heard a chuckle, then Griffin said, “Well, son, I’m in Miram Shah with my headquarters where Haqqani used to hang out, so I’d say we’re doing some good. But it’s going to take time.”
“At least we’re there,” Matt said.
“Wouldn’t have been possible without you,” Griffin replied.
Matt smiled. No, it surely would not have been.
“Keep your powder dry, General.”
“I’m just about out of powder we’ve been killing so many of these bastards.”
“Stay safe, sir.”
“Matt?”