Page 11 of Redeeming Violet

“What the fuck did Tex say?” I asked Zane when we stepped into the hallway.

“That woman is a walking disaster,” he started. “You heard Tex; he verified Manuel Ortega has indeed put the list on the black market. He’s taking bids on it now. He also has feelers out for the sale of the drone’s guidance chip.”

“And? We knew that. What changed? What else did Tex say?”

“Wolf’s not the target. She is,” Zane informed us.

“Come again? He didn’t need to get her to Africa to put a hit out on her,” Eric said.

“He doesn’t want her dead. He’s selling her too. A fresh, pretty, healthy, American woman calls for a hefty price on the open market. Two birds, one stone. He gets rid of her and gets roughly five million. Once she’s bought and trafficked, no one will ever find her. Wekesa is a low-level player, no one Wolf would worry about. My guess, Manuel didn’t anticipate she’d come to us. He thought she’d come to Sudan alone. Wekesa’s specialty is trafficking; she was the prize all along.”

“Fuck!” This kept on getting worse. “Can Tex get a lock on where Manuel is?” I asked.

“He’s working on it. We’ll find Wolf and the guys, then hunt down whatever hole Manuel is hiding in. Tex thinks he’s close to figuring it out.”

Thank God for Tex. We had our own information specialist, Garrett, but Tex had skills that were second to none. I had no idea where he’d learned them, or how he’d made the connections he had, but they’d come in handy many times.

“And Violet? What are we doing with her?” I knew Zane, under normal circumstances he’d never allow a woman to be harmed. Especially not be sold into the dark world of sex trafficking, but at the moment I was afraid my boss would throw her to the wolves.

“She stays with us until we can figure out what is going on. I don’t know who we can trust,” he replied, and I exhaled the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

I shouldn’t have felt personally responsible for Violet, but I did. As wrong as it was, she stirred something deep in my gut. She was loyal and protective to a fault. It was asinine I felt that way, considering she was traitor. From the outside it was easy - cut and dry, black and white, she was wrong. Yet it wasn’t, the situation was tinged with gray. I wasn’t comfortable with the hue. I liked things one way or the other, not muddled and dirtied by feelings and circumstances. The only thing I knew for certain was no woman had ever cared so deeply for me she’d give her life for me. And I could admit to myself, as uncomfortable as it was, I wanted to know what it felt like to have Violet care for me enough to risk her life.

***

An hour later we were thirty kilometers north of the city in a war-torn abandoned area. Faheem was positive the team would’ve fallen back and used the heavily damaged area to hide out and regroup. He’d given us a detailed map of the area before we took the last five-hundred-yards on foot.

“Watch your step,” Zane warned as the buildings came into view. “The team would’ve booby-trapped the fuck out of this place. Cookie is a goddamned MacGyver with improvised demolitions. If you want to keep your limbs, I suggest you pay attention.”

No sooner had he stopped talking, Eric called out for us to halt. Zane and I stopped and waited for Eric to clear the ground in front of him. “Detcord, step over it.”

The team was definitely in one of the four dilapidated buildings in front of us. While the bronze-colored cord Eric was pointing to was inert and harmless, what it was connected to was not. There was no doubt if we followed the detcord we’d find it connected to a blasting cap that could be wirelessly detonated. The blasting cap wasn’t the problem either; the IED the cap would discharge would be the ball buster.

We cleared the IED and stopped to take in our surroundings. Even though we’d viewed the latest satellite images of the compound, it never failed to shock me when I saw the devastating effects of war up close and personal. The structures themselves were in shambles, huge gaping pieces of the exterior walls were missing, and mangled metal still stood, now exposed after the concrete had crumbled under heavy artillery.

“There,” Eric said as he peeked around the half-broken cinder block wall. I understood why the platoon had taken shelter in the abandoned compound. They’d have the higher ground in any one of the buildings, and unfriendlies trying to approach would have little to no cover. “Building at two o’clock, top floor, third opening in. I caught a reflection.”

We were in what would be best described as a Mexican standoff. We had no line of communication with the team, no way to confirm that the reflection from the spotting scope was from the SEALs, or if we’d walked into a shitstorm and were getting ready to take fire. It wasn’t like we could call out and ask. If we tried to breach the building and Wolf and the team were in there, we’d likely take friendly fire.

“Fuck. You got any ideas?” I asked Zane.

“Morse code,” he said.

“Come again,” Eric chuckled.

“We’re gonna keep this simple and stupid and go old school.” Zane removed his Luminox watch, spit on the hardened crystal face, and cleaned off the dirt and grime.

“You ever think about updating your nineteen-ninety-four watch?” I asked, surprised the relic could still keep time.

“If it ain’t broke…” Zane trailed off and checked the position of the sun and moved a fraction to get a better angle.

Eric took cover, keeping his HK416 trained in the direction he’d seen the reflection. Zane started moving the watch face, making sure it caught the light just right to spell out the signal he was trying to send the team.

Long. Short. Long. Short. Short. Long. He repeated the pattern several times before I realized he’d spelled TEX. Smart bastard. Three letters that would let the team know we were friendlies.

Just when I thought the old school Morse code had failed, there was a series of reflections from the blown-out window.

“He’s asking for the color of the day,” Zane laughed.