AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Just the goats.”
“Damn the goats,” Jeremy says.
I say, “We need to get moving. Santiago!”
I wave him over and he comes through the gate, and I say, “Santiago, look through the farmhouse, see if there’s anything of value.”
“I’ll go along as well,” Jeremy says, staring at the body of his spotter. “I want to see if my kit is in there, along with my weapon.”
They go through the near door and I call up to the form on the roof. “Jordan? Still clear?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says.
“Good.”
I don’t bother telling him to warn us if something approaches. He’s a pro, like the rest of us, and knows his job.
As do I.
The killing part of this mission is over. Now it’s time for intelligence gathering, and then ass hauling.
Jeremy finds his kit and Ollie’s as well, dumped in a corner next to some tables and low beds. Most of their gear is smashed, but at least his CIA-issued H&K MP5 submachine gun and four 40-round magazines are in one piece. He goes through Ollie’s rucksack, finds nothing to bring back to his wife and two young boys, which pleases him in a melancholy fashion. He and Ollie had gone into this mission sterile, with no ID, mementos, or reminders of home. Poor Ollie. A brave man to have at your back.
The Hispanic American comes in from another room, holding a computer hard drive and a sheaf of papers. He shoves the items inside his coat and says, “Sorry about Ollie.”
“He was a good sort.”
“I…saw what happened. Did that son of a bitch with the sword say anything to you before he tried to cut you?”
Jeremy gives his H&K a quick check.
“Not a bloody word.”
The three filthy pickup trucks and Suburban are empty of anything useful. The documents I get from the four dead men on the ground are pretty thin: prayer cards, newspaper clippings in Arabic, and identification passes from Yemen to Sudan, where restless, angry young men get an AK-47 shoved into their hands and are told they are Warriors of God.
I put these documents in a pocket, knowing that if we get out of here they’d eventually be studied, categorized, and recorded at Langley. These four dead men will then find eternity—probably not in their brand of Heaven, but in computer files among the infidels.
I turn to see Santiago and Jeremy exiting the building. Jeremy strides over to a dead man crumpled near a video camera mounted on a tripod. He picks up the camera and smashes it repeatedly against the stone wall, then picks through the pieces and destroys what I’m sure is the video chip.
Flies are starting to buzz around the dead bodies, including that of a man under my responsibility, Oliver Davies. My throat feels thick and heavy. I see his sprawled-out torso, arms, legs, and the drying pool of blood. Nearby is the lump that is his head—thankfully not looking in my direction—and I say, “Jordan! Come on down!”
He moves fast and gracefully from the rooftop, like a well-trained panther. I take out a folded topo map and say, “A trail about fifty meters down the road. Gets us up in the hills. Once we can find coverage, we’ll radio Langley. I’ll have to put up with some angry screaming, but hopefully they can get us out of here.”
Santiago and Jordan nod. Jeremy looks up at the ragged peaks and rocks, which have an odd name: the Anti-Lebanon Mountains.
“Jeremy?”
“Yes?” he says, still looking into the hills. Looking for what? Safety? Redemption? The swordsman who killed his mate?
I say, “Do you want us to do anything with…Ollie?”
Jeremy looks to me now, one eye swollen but both eyes hard and filled with discipline and fury.
“No,” he says.
Chapter9
IN HISsmall and sterile office at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, Ernest Hollister is drinking a cup of hot water with a slice of lemon in it when a blinking icon appears on his computer screen, sounding a chime and interrupting his morning read of theWashington Post.
