Honor Reclaimed (HORNET #2)

Chapter 23

CHAPTER 23

At first glance, the old military outpost appeared heavily fortified, backed right up against the mountain and surrounded by a high, barbed wire-topped mud wall on three sides. When it had belonged to the Americans, it probably had been damn near impenetrable, but now the wall had crumbled in several places and much of the barbed wire had been removed, probably for scrap. One of the five buildings inside the wall had been razed, and another stood in crumbling disrepair. Only the largest seemed to be in use at the moment, and the other two sat dark and silent. One narrow road snaked down the mountainside from the compound and a battered 4x4 waited at the front gate.

From Seth’s perch in a tree some 200 meters uphill, he counted six Taliban fighters around a campfire in front of the main building, which was lit up inside like Times Square. They seemed to be engaging in some kind of feast, which didn’t make sense. This wasn’t a holiday and these weren’t rich men, but the layout on the blanket in front of them was a hearty one.

Unless it was a last meal.

Suicide bombers. Those six Taliban fighters were preparing to become martyrs.

And there were probably at least six more men inside the building, because each bomber would need a handler—someone to remote detonate in case the martyrs got cold feet at the last second. So, twelve men altogether.

Seth repositioned himself on his limb and scanned the narrow slits of windows, hoping to confirm an exact number for Gabe. The more information, the better the team’s odds, but he couldn’t see anything more than shadows and fleeting movement.

Every few minutes, the muffled pop of a gunshot rang out and the fighters sent up a cheer.

Seth’s stomach rolled and sweat dampened his shirt along his spine. Whatever was happening inside that building was ugly.

He gave it another few minutes until the next shot sent a chill racing over his skin. Fuck, they had to get in there and see what—or who—these guys were shooting at. What if they were using Sergeant Hendricks as target practice? Or worse.

The missing villagers really bothered him.

And the paranoid buzzing in the back of his brain wouldn’t let up, no matter how emphatically he told it to fuck off.

He had to talk to Gabe, but they’d been ordered to radio silence. They didn’t have secure channels and couldn’t risk the Taliban overhearing, leaving him with only one option: he had to make his way to Gabe’s position.

Waiting any longer to raid the compound was a huge miscalculation.

Slinging his rifle across his back, he jumped out of the tree and landed with far more noise than he’d hoped. He crouched at the tree’s base and held his breath, listening for anything out of the ordinary.

Save for another shot and cheer from the compound, the mountain was silent.

He moved slowly, picking his way through dense underbrush until another gunshot stopped him in his tracks. It was followed by a second, then a pause and two more in quick succession.

And was that…a scream? Faint, it swept through the trees like the wail of a ghost. The hair on the back of Seth’s neck stood on end.

They were torturing someone down there—most likely Sergeant Hendricks.

And at the rate he was moving, he wasn’t going to make it to Gabe before the shooter ran out of targets. He glanced around, searching for other options. In the dim light from the half-full moon, he spotted the grotto where Jean-Luc was supposed to be hiding. He dropped his pack and walked in a crouch toward the mouth of the small cave.

“Cajun,” he whispered, “coming to you.”

“Roger that.” Jean-Luc’s voice floated out, sounding like an echo.

A second later, he flattened himself against the cave’s wall at Jean-Luc’s side. A mountain stream rushed somewhere nearby, but without the benefit of moonlight, it was too dark to see the water. The cold spray of it misted his face, though, and the cavern amplified the sound, which provided perfect cover for their voices.

Jean-Luc touched his shoulder. “What’s up?”

“I need your scarf.”

“Can I ask why?” Even as he said it, he started unwinding the fabric from his neck. “I paid a pretty penny for this thing.”

“I’m going to wrap it around my head and walk into the compound like I belong there.”

Jean-Luc froze. “Say again?” No doubt he had that you’re-completely-fucking-insane look on his face—too dark to tell for sure and, in any case, Seth was used to seeing the expression aimed in his direction. Didn’t bother him anymore.

“You heard me.”

Instead of trying to talk him out of it, Jean-Luc just clicked his tongue and handed the scarf over. “You have some balls, mon ami .”

Not really. The thought of walking into the hands of the same group that tortured him for fifteen months had him quaking in his boots, but he didn’t see any other options. “We can’t assault the place. You see that feast they’ve cooked up? It’s their last meal. Those men are preparing to martyr themselves. They have nothing to lose and they’ll slaughter us. But we have an advantage. I know these people. I spent over a year living with guys just like them. I can pass myself off as one of them long enough to get inside and create a diversion to give you guys a shot at grabbing Hendricks.”

“You sure he’s in there?”

“Yeah.” He couldn’t explain how, but he knew Zak Hendricks was being held somewhere inside that crumbling wall, just like he knew this was their only shot of getting him out.

Finally, Jean-Luc shrugged. “Hey, it’s all good with me. Love a good suicide mission. But,” he added, dragging the word out, “I doubt Phoebe will feel the same when I tell her you went and got yourself killed.”

Phoebe.

Jesus, he hadn’t even considered…

And he couldn’t start now.

Hardening his heart against the sweet memory of her lips on his, he quickly wrapped the scarf around his head and face. “Just get word to Gabe. Tell him there are at least twelve men inside, possibly more.”

Jean-Luc whistled through his teeth. “You do know if you survive this, he’s going kill you.”

“Yeah, well, he’ll have to get in line.”

No amount of training in the world could have prepared Zak for the amount of pain he was in. Moving hurt. Breathing hurt. He imagined blinking would even hurt if his left eye wasn’t swollen shut and his right eye wasn’t taped open.

Whatever they were about to do, they didn’t want him to miss it.

Bring it , he thought. They couldn’t make him hurt any worse, and he wasn’t going to talk, so whatever they had planned…

Siddiqui’s second in command, an ice-cold bastard that went only by the name Askar, or “Soldier” in English, walked into the room, dragging something behind him.

No, not something, Zak realized as his good eye focused. Someone. A frail old man with sunken eyes and missing teeth.

Askar grabbed a chair from against the wall and placed it directly across from Zak’s, then forced the man to sit down. He pulled a gun from under his tunic and pointed it at the sobbing man’s temple, then watched and met Zak’s gaze without even a flicker of emotion. “Who are you, traitor?”

So they’d given up on torturing him for information. Now they were moving on to civilians. Christ Almighty.

“Let him go.” With his tongue so dry it stuck to the roof of his mouth, he found the Pashto words hard to articulate, but he’d die before uttering a word of English in front of these men. They couldn’t know he was American. That was all there was to it.

Askar didn’t even blink as he pulled the trigger. Zak tried to advert his gaze, but Askar grabbed a handful of his hair and forced him to watch.

On and on it went, one villager after another. A circle of questions, refusals, and death. And then they brought in a woman. She was young and clutching a toddler to her chest.

“Don’t,” Zak whisper around the lump in his throat.

Askar pressed the gun to her temple. “Who do you work for?”

Zak almost broke. He opened his mouth to spill it all, tell them everything from his name to the reason he’d weaseled his way into Siddiqui’s good graces. He could take all the pain and humiliation they dished out, but he could not sit idly by while women and children were murdered in cold blood.

But the look on Askar’s face as he held the gun to the woman’s temple stopped Zak from uttering a sound. The little boy and his mother were both already dead in that soldier’s eyes. They all were, and nothing Zak said would change that fate. He could spill all the state secrets he knew, and he’d still be unable to save any of the villagers from a bullet.

“You fucking prick!” Tapping into a reserve of strength he didn’t know he had, he kicked out with his chained legs. He unbalanced his chair, but he also nailed Askar in the balls and the bullet meant for the woman went into the ceiling.

“Run!”

She didn’t listen. She clung to her child, sobbing in big hiccupping gulps.

After a moment, Askar straightened. Wincing in pain, he ignored the woman and child and limped over to Zak’s upturned chair. Still, there was no flicker of emotion. No anger, just a flat assessment. “Why risk death to save a woman you don’t know?”

Zak gritted his teeth. The fall had sent his already aching body flying to new heights of pain, but he wasn’t about to let on how much damage he’d done to himself. He met the soldier’s impassive stare with as much defiance as he could muster. “If you don’t already know the answer to that, then you’re incapable of understanding and I’d rather not waste my last breath explaining it.”

Askar stared, dark eyes unblinking. The emotionally castrated bastard really didn’t understand. He raised the gun.

So this was the end.

Zak expected the whole life flashing in front of his eyes thing to start, but he didn’t really want to see it. He’d done a lot of shit he wasn’t proud of, like sabotaging his marriage by leaving the country every chance he got because he was too much of a goddamn coward to tell Jillian it wasn’t working. And then spending the last five years since his divorce losing himself with any willing woman that came along. He’d also killed more times than he wanted to count. All in the name of democracy and freedom, but sometimes the people at the receiving end of his assassinations hadn’t been wholly guilty of threatening those values.

But he’d done a lot of good, too. He’d served his country to the best of his ability and hadn’t betrayed her by spilling her secrets. When he was home, he tried to be a good son to his parents, a good brother and uncle. And he’d saved Tehani. That had to count for something and he held the girl’s face in the forefront of his mind as he waited for the bullet to end his life.

It didn’t come.

“So you know,” Askar said, “you didn’t save the woman or her son. This entire compound and the village below are about to be razed by an air strike. And in case you’re still entertaining heroic notions…”

The gun barrel shifted away from his head and aimed at his kneecap.