“Thanks.” A final handshake and Harry was out the door, heading to his car. His parents. That’s where it had all started, hadn’t it. The murder of his parents, both of them gunned down at the little gas station on the edge of town. Shot by a crazed teenager with nothing more than a .22, a target rifle, for heaven’s sake!
He had been overseas when it happened, running a diamond interdiction operation in South Africa, trying to stop a flow of diamonds that were being used to fund terrorism. He’d succeeded. And returned to find both of his parents dead. The teenager that had shot them put away in prison for thirty years. Out of his reach.
He hadn’t bought gas there since. It had been nine years ago. Perhaps if he had been home, perhaps if he had been there …
He shook his head. His life was filled with perhaps, what if, maybe, the unanswered questions of his past like gaping holes in the trail behind him. Regrets. And he couldn’t turn back. Because there was nothing there for him to go back to. It was all gone.
He could only move forward, fighting his battles one at a time, praying for survival, for victory. He slipped the car into gear, pulling out of the church’s parking lot.
In two days, he would be in Iraq. From there they would launch their operation. Elements of AFSOC, the Air Force’s spec-ops unit, were already being pre-positioned to support them. Two days…
Chapter Two
Thomas laid down his book with a weary sigh. He had been reading for hours. Frankly, it bored him. He could enjoy many things, a night out on the town with friends, music, the laughter of a woman. And he could enjoy the heat, the tension of combat, the visceral thrill of the hunter and the hunted.
But the interval in between — that irritated him. His parting with Julie had not been one of the high points of the last few days. She wouldn’t be there for him when he came back. She had told him as much. He was leaving no one behind him. No one. Perhaps that was best. If he came back— when he came back, there would be other girls for him.
He plucked absently at the wings on his shirt, the khaki uniform that identified him as an Air Force lieutenant. It was a lie, like so much else in his life. But there was no sense in letting that worry him. He glanced around him at his fellow passengers, the members of his team. They were all asleep — with one exception. Nichols.
That was no surprise. Their Team Lead sat up front, dressed in the clothes of a full-bird colonel. He had spent most of the flight either bent over his laptop, planning out the mission as it would go down, or staring out the window. Nichols was doing the latter now.
He looked back at Thomas, almost as though warned by some inner sense that someone was watching him. His blue eyes glowed briefly with the intensity that Thomas had long associated with him, then he looked away.
He had worked with Nichols for years and that intensity was always present. Off-mission he was a friendly guy, the type of man you would appreciate having as a neighbor. And despite the occasional debate over Thomas’s agnostic worldview, they were as close as brothers.
Once a mission began, all that disappeared, vanishing like mist under a hot summer sun. A mission face. A transformation.
If anyone had ever succeeded in pinning down who he really was, Thomas wasn’t aware it. Which facet of his character was the real person, which was his inner nature. Few had dared even try.
No matter. Thomas started to turn back to his book, just as their pilot’s voice came over the intercom. “Buckle up, people. We’re coming into Q-West.”
Thomas reached for his seatbelt, glancing out the window. The lights of the airfield twinkled below them, like bright stars in the night. They were almost there.
He could feel his heart begin to beat faster, the adrenalin start to flow through his veins. They would be in battle soon. It was a good feeling.
“Wheels down,” the pilot announced.
Harry closed his laptop computer and put it back in its carrying case. It wouldn’t be going into the field with them. There were too many things that could go wrong with a piece of electronic equipment. They would be back to the tried and trusty stubby pencil and notepad, each member of the team memorizing the role he was to play, learning it like some actor in a movie — except for them it was serious, the stakes incredibly high, the price for failure equally so. To fail, was to die. There was no middle ground.
If something went wrong out in the desolate mountains of Iran, that was the end. No one would be coming to rescue them.
Their country would refuse to acknowledge that they even existed — that they ever had been her citizens, much less her warriors. That was the whole idea. Deniability.
Even if the mission was a success, if they made it back to the extraction zone with the missing archaeologists, they would receive none of the credit for it. They would slip away like wraiths into the night, going back to their jobs until the call came again. Glory was dangerous.
There was no one waiting for him back in the States, no one to inquire into the circumstances of his death. He had a brother — but he lived in Montana. They saw each other only a few times a year, and all too often Harry was gone when his brother came calling. A brother, a sister-in-law, a nephew, they were all the family he had left. Little enough.
He had known brief relationships with women in the past, sometimes with women he had known in Cypress, other times with female analysts at the Agency. Never anything of a lasting nature — as much as he had tried. The girls from Cypress couldn’t be told what he did for a living. The analysts knew all too well, and the skills that enabled him to survive in one world barred him from the other.
“Roger, Charlie-Bravo-Six-Papa-Niner, taxi to Runway Three.” The air traffic controller switched his headset off and turned to the man at his side.
“They’ve arrived, sir.”
Colonel Luke Tancretti nodded. “I’m going out to meet them.” He pushed the tower door open and strode out into the darkness. Qayyarah-West Airfield looked a lot different than it had when he had first been deployed four years ago. Then the runway had been pocked with huge craters, craters made by American bombers during both Gulf Wars. This was his first visit since his transfer to AFSOC. In truth, he had never expected to return.
But this was where he was needed, and so this was where he was. It was as simple as that.
By the time he got to the back of the huge transport, the five men he had been expecting were already descending the ramp, spread out, moving as though they were already on the battlefield, their stance belying the uniforms they wore.
“Colonel Henderson, I presume,” Tancretti said, looking to the man nearest to him.
The tall man nodded. “That’s right. Here are my identification papers.”
He took them, glancing over them briefly. They were forged, of that he was sure. The Air Force Academy had never produced a colonel like the man that stood before him. He looked up and managed a smile, playing out his part of the charade.
“Everything appears to be in order, colonel. I’m Colonel Luke Tancretti and welcome to Q-West.”
“So, that’s the situation at the moment, sir.”
“Nothing’s changed.” General Avi ben Shoham brought his clenched fist down onto the desk beside him, swearing angrily. “Eight days. And nothing. Just this blasted game of chicken with the Iranians, wondering who in heaven’s name is going to blink first!” He glared over at the young man standing before him. “Read me the last transmission again.”