Miles leans back in his seat, half-closes his eyes, and murmurs into the mic, “What Ryan said. You didn’t have to pick us up. Thank you for doing it anyway.”
Rohan cuts in with his usual, mocking humor. “Write us up pretty when you do the article.”
“Love to,” Miles tells him in a gruff voice, “as soon as True lifts that NDA.”
She answers with a smile: “Sorry. That’s above my pay grade.”
She leans forward just far enough to grab her backpack from the floor. As she pulls the pack into her lap, a deep, throbbing ache in her knuckles catches her by surprise. What now? she thinks, disgusted at her own fragility. She flexes her gloved hand, testing the depth of the injury, and remembers punching a recalcitrant soldier while she and Jameson were securing the second floor. No more fistfights for you, Brighton.
Moving gingerly, she gets out her tablet. Noticing Miles’s wary stare, she gives him a sideways look and a teasing smile. “No more signatures required. Promise.”
The tablet uses its camera to scan her face. Identity confirmed, it allows her in. She fishes her reading glasses from a pocket and starts checking on the mission’s digital back trail. No statement yet from Al-Furat, but three eyewitness reports have already been posted on a regional news aggregator. She starts to skim the English translations, then realizes Miles is looking, trying to read the tablet too.
A former Ranger, now an independent journalist—even in normal times he’d be afflicted with a deep, enduring hunger for information. After two months cut off from the world, he’s got to be starving for it. She shifts the screen to give him a better view.
The initial reports are understandably short on details. They describe only the explosions in the compound, the hurried exodus from Tadmur, and the destruction of the two technicals. No mention of civilian casualties—hopefully there are none—or the soldiers left bound inside the house. None of the reports identify Requisite Operations by name, which suits True just fine.
She would prefer it if the company could work anonymously. That would make security easier and make them less of a target for both retribution and for the legal reformers at home. But it isn’t possible. Requisite Operations’ name will come out, and there will be a period of intense scrutiny. Their strategy will be to direct media interest toward the rescued hostages and the good that’s been achieved. Given the speed of the global news cycle, interest should quickly fade—and everyone at ReqOps will be safer when that happens.
The intercom wakes up. It’s Lincoln, speaking to them for the first time since the helicopter lifted off. “I’ve got a status update for you all. We are on schedule. Biometric data has gone to the State Department. They will need to confirm identity of the merchandise before they’ll take him into custody, but that’s a formality. Prisoner transfer will occur. USS Keira Tegan will be waiting for you. You’ll offload the merchandise and depart for Cyprus, where the civilians will be admitted into the custody of their respective consulates.”
“Including the target?” Chris asks.
“Roger that.”
True cuts in, imagining the anxiety of the Atwans: “You notify the parents yet?”
“When you’re out of harm’s way,” Lincoln says, “I’ll make the call. For now we proceed with the interview. I want to know where those Arkinsons came from. Chris, get the merchandise plugged in.”
But True sees a problem with this. “Let’s assess our communications first. Right now we’ve got flight crew and passengers hooked in on this network.”
“Roger that,” Lincoln says. “We are sharing intelligence with Eden Transit. But good call on the civilians. Unplug ’em.”
True slips off her reading glasses as she turns to Miles. He meets her look with a raised hand, palm out—a gesture that says wait.
“Lincoln,” he says over the intercom. “It’s been a long time. Seven years since I was in Ranger School. You remember me?”
In the ReqOps command post, Lincoln receives this question with a grudging smile. “I remember everyone, Dushane. Welcome back to the world.”
“Thank you, sir. I’d like to listen in. Constrained by the NDA, if you want it that way, but I’ve been locked up in that bastard’s care for two months. It’s gotten personal.”
Lincoln understands the sentiment. And Dushane is a Ranger, one of their own, after all. “Listen, not talk,” he says sternly.
“Yes, sir.”
“Let him stay in, True,” Lincoln orders. “But get his friends unplugged.”
“Roger that.”
Rogers doesn’t object. Rodrigues can’t. The stress has gotten to him and he’s passed out.
True speaks: “Felice, confirm the target is unplugged.”
“Confirmed.”
Lincoln shifts to the video feed from Chris’s MARC. “Plug him in, Chris.”
“Roger that.” A moment later: “You hearing this, El-Hashem?”
Chris stands over Hussam, who is seated in the back of the helicopter with a blanket tucked around him, an olive-drab flight helmet on his head, and a black elastic band over his eyes. The boot sole Chris planted in his face has left him with a swollen nose, bruised cheeks, cracked lips, and dried blood in his neatly trimmed beard. Despite the rough handling, he answers Chris without hesitation, in Arabic. His voice is hoarse, strained: that of a man with a raw, bruised throat. But his words are clear: “I hear a dead man talking to me.”
Lincoln has enough proficiency in the language to understand the threat. “Not far from the truth,” he acknowledges gruffly. “Let’s talk.”
Hussam doesn’t need persuading. He looks up as if he can see past the black elastic blindfold to meet Lincoln’s gaze. He has no way of knowing Lincoln is half a world away. Shifting to English, he says, “Yes, I will talk. Because I want you to know there is a price for what you’ve done and it’s more, so much more, than the silver you’re being paid for my head.”
Lincoln notices Hayden eyeing him, reads the concern in the kid’s expression, his unspoken question: What can Hussam do? Lincoln slides his hand through the air, palm down in a dismissive gesture. Don’t worry.
Hayden nods and, forcing a smile, turns back to his display.
Men like Hussam cast spells with their words. They string words together and use those strings to bind others and make them dance to their will. Bold talk and ruthless violence. An age-old formula for those grasping at power. Right now words are all Hussam has left, so he’s eager to spend them. But Lincoln has his own agenda for this conversation. “You know you’re not going home,” he says. “Not ever.”
Hussam turns this statement around with a skill Lincoln can’t help but admire. “When did I have a home?” he asks. “Never. My father’s home was made a blackened ruin. That’s what the American occupation did for my family, my people. Nine of my father’s sons are dead now.” No fear in him. “Soon it will be ten.”
“It would be, if it were up to me,” Lincoln agrees congenially. “But we’re turning you over to American authorities. If you’re lucky they’ll put you on trial. But I’m betting they’ve got a cage ready for you at some black-site prison and you’ll never see the light of day again.”
“As God wills.” With the black elastic over his eyes, he looks like a blind prophet, pronouncing doom. “Either way I will outlive you. You know who Jon Helm is? No? You’ll know soon enough.”
Lincoln switches off his mic and turns to Tamara. She’s transfixed by her screen, her fingers ghosting over a virtual keyboard. Her two assistants are similarly engaged. “Tamara, you got anything?” he asks her.