Page 33 of Fixed Asset

The strands of gray in the woman’s dark hair, the wrinkles lining her forehead, and wary brown eyes told a thousand tales of death and vengeance. Yet, she was smiling. Standing as a pillar of righteousness and hope for the hopeless. I’d been to a lot of war-torn cities, I’d seen the devastation of corruption, the depravity, and the exploitation of people who just wanted to live in peace. I’d seen courage and optimism in the aftermath of war—the liberation that follows ruthless warlords being taken out.

But never had I seen strength like Berta’s.

She was fighting a losing war, yet she refused to give up. In her lifetime, she’d never see the end of the corruption in her country, yet instead of fleeing and freeing herself of the nightmare, she stayed and freed her people.

That wasn’t honor, bravery, or strength. There were no words to properly describe what that was.

“All will be well,” she murmured. “The cowards always retreat at dawn. They attack under the cover of darkness. Without the shadows they are not brave enough to face me.”

We had hours to go until dawn.

“Come, Catarina,” she continued. “The little ones like it when you speak to them. They think you sound . . . funny.”

I glanced back at the stairs, not wanting to give up my tactical position.

“You’re making them nervous,” she went on.

Damn it all to hell.

“Okay,” I conceded, not wanting to make it more difficult on a roomful of already traumatized children.

I followed Berta across the small space and sat on the dirt floor next to a young mother with a baby in her arms and a toddler holding on to her back.

“Do you speak English?” I asked.

The woman nodded.

“How old are your children?”

It took her a moment to answer.

“Two. Three.”

I took that to mean the baby was two months, the toddler girl was three years old.

The woman looked and sounded exhausted. I wondered, when was the last time she’d slept? When was the last time she’d had a decent meal, or spent even a few minutes not worrying about her babies? I didn’t have food. I couldn’t take away her fear. But maybe I could give her something.

“Do you want me to hold the baby while you get some rest?”

The woman stared at me with a blank expression. Berta quickly translated. The two of them had a rapid-fire conversation in Spanish I couldn’t keep up with beyond the words baby, sleep, good.

Suddenly, she held the infant out to me. I took the baby, cuddled her to my chest, and hoped I gave the mother what she needed so she could get some rest and relax her arms.

Berta patted my head. “Gracias, querida.”

“My pleasure.”

I’d quickly found not even snuggling a cute little baby could calm my racing thoughts of Jack being in the middle of a firefight. Jack and the team. The only thing that eased my mind was when one of them called in over the radio. Of course, as luck would have it, Jack was the quietest, though I did catch snatches of his voice here and there.

I also found that cradling a baby made your arms tired, and I’d only been holding the tiny tot for a little more than an hour.

The gunfire outside had slowed to bursts with long lulls between. Some of the women had fallen asleep, including the baby mama and her toddler next to me. If what Berta had said was true and sunrise would send the men attacking the compound back into the trees, the guys only had to hold the bad guys off for a few more hours.

By some miracle, none of Berta’s men had been injured—though I figured it was more because this was just their way of life. Every night was probably a battle. As experience went, Berta’s men probably had more than anyone on Jack’s team, and that was saying something, seeing as they were all former SEALs.

The baby started to squirm. Little baby lips puckered right before her lids opened and deep brown eyes appeared.

She was so darn cute, I wanted to blow raspberries on her chubby cheeks.