Gil’s current, primary unit assignment was to DEVGRU the same as that of Chief Steelyard. Being so highly classified that the US government preferred not to admit its existence, DEVGRU was one of only four SMUs within the United States military. The other three SMUs were: Delta Force of the US Army, the 24th Special Tactics Squadron of the US Air Force, and the Intelligence Support Activity — also under the auspices of the US Army.
Gil patted his jacket pocket for his tobacco. “Are we talking about Warrant Officer Sandra Brux, Chief?”
“Yeah. Know her?”
“She’s flown top-cover for us a couple of times,” Gil said. “They’re gonna tear her up, Chief. How’d this happen?”
“It’s a CID investigation right now,” Steelyard said. CID was the Army Criminal Investigation Command — originally known as the Criminal Investigations Division first established under General Pershing during the First World War. For the purposes of continuity, the agency was still referred to as the CID. “But I had a talk with our guy in NCIS who’s connected.” NCIS was the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. “He says CID just took some Pakistani intel guy into custody who’s been selling information to the other side. I’m thinking he may have tipped off the enemy about the Army’s plan to snatch an Al Qaeda cleric who’s been making them nervous. Listen, I’ll get back to you in a few days. Sound good?”
“Sounds good, Chief, yeah. Thanks for the heads up.”
“You bet.”
Gil went back downstairs to find his mother-in-law in the kitchen making sandwiches. “Thanks for calling me in, Mom.”
His mother-in-law smiled. “Are you leaving us again?” Her name was Janet, and she was sixty-five years old, short with long gray hair she wore in the braid of a horsewoman, like her daughter.
“No,” he said. “That was just an update to keep me in the loop.”
“Think Marie will buy that?” Janet asked.
He laughed. “There’s not much space between you two, is there?”
She shook her head, offering him a plated roast beef sandwich with potato chips. “Like a beer with that?”
“Yes, I would,” he said, wishing in earnest that he did not personally know Sandra Brux. The two of them had shared some laughs one night half a year earlier, swapping stories about the challenges of holding a marriage together.
Later that night, after his mother-in-law had washed the dinner dishes and gone to bed, Gil sat alone in the rocking chair in front of the fireplace rolling a cigarette.
Marie came to sit on the hearth in front of him, a glass of white wine in her hand. “I’ve seen you like this before,” she said quietly. “You lost a friend today, didn’t you?”
He looked up from the cigarette. “It’s worse, actually.”
“How so?”
“The Taliban captured one of our helicopter pilots yesterday.” He licked the edge of the cigarette paper and smoothed it into place to make it look almost store-bought. “A Night Stalker. For the enemy that’s a hell of a trophy. Almost as good as capturing a SEAL or a Green Beret would be.”
“And you know him, I assume?”
“It’s a her,” he said quietly, poking the smoke between his lips and lighting it with a match. “She’s twenty-nine. Pretty. It’s gonna play like hell once the media gets hold of it.”
Marie nodded, taking a sip of wine. “Another Jessie Lynch,” she said sadly. “So when are you leaving?”
“They didn’t call me for that.”
“That’s not what I asked you,” she said.
He sat holding his temples with the same hand the cigarette was in. “They don’t even know where she is yet, baby.”
Marie set the wineglass aside with a sigh and rubbed her knees. “Gil, I’m sorry, but I don’t have the patience for these little go-rounds no more. Are ya leavin’ or not?”
He looked at her, his voice not much more than a whisper. “It’s what I do, baby. I can’t explain it, but I feel like the only other thing I was ever meant to do was love you. And how’s a man’s supposed to make peace with that?”
Her eyes filled with tears, and she wiped them away. “What about my peace?”
He looked down, unable to meet her gaze. She was the only person he had ever feared intellectually. “That’s a fair question,” he said. “If you ask me to wait for the call, I will. It might easily be another month… probably will be.”
“Look at me,” she said. “You’re at the top of your game, aren’t you?”
He considered that for a moment. “Yes, ma’am. I believe I am.”
She lifted the glass, finished the wine, then reached for his cigarette, drawing deeply from it and giving it back. She exhaled and turned to stare into the flames of the fire. “That girl put herself on the line for this country, and now she’s living a nightmare. I reckon she deserves the best this country’s got in return.” She turned to look at him. “But this time you will make me that promise. This time you will promise to come home alive. Otherwise, you do not have my blessing.”
He puckered his lips to suppress his smile, knowing that she had him over the barrel. “I promise.”
“You promise what?” she said, arching her brow.
“I promise to come home alive.”
“And you will keep that promise,” she said, pointing her finger. “Otherwise, when I eventually arrive in heaven, I will not speak to you. I will not speak to you for at least a thousand years, Gil Shannon. Do you understand me?”
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “That long?”
“Do you understand me?”
“Yes, ma’am, I do… and I believe you mean it.”
She stood up from the hearth, straightening the tails of her denim shirt. “You’d better. Now, I am going upstairs to have my bath. Will you still be awake when I’m finished?”
He looked up at her and smiled. “That depends. Do I get a kiss before you go up? A little something to prime the pump?”
She leaned over to kiss him affectionately on the mouth, then turned and left the room.
CHAPTER 4
Sandra awoke the next morning to the sound of a very heated argument between two men in the next room. She couldn’t understand a word of what was being said, but she knew that it must have something to do with her. She was no longer tied to the bed, but that hardly mattered. Given the inflamed condition of her leg, she was in no shape for escape or evasion, and she didn’t even have socks to wear, much less a pair of shoes. The food she’d been given was coarse and unknown to her, but she suspected that it was a goat meat stew. What worried her was that the water tasted bad. She knew she wouldn’t last long if she caught a gastrointestinal infection, but there was no other way for her to survive in the short term but to stay hydrated.
She wondered if her husband, John, had been told yet of her disappearance. She doubted it. John was her only family, stationed in the Philippines where he flew cargo planes for the Air Force, and Sandra knew that informing him of her abduction was less of an immediate priority than if he were a civilian. In other words, they’d tell him when they got around to it. Sandra was no fool. She knew she was photogenic, and she knew the State Department would already be scrambling in their attempts to get out in front of the story, possibly even scrambling to keep it under wraps. She was now a pawn in the big chess game, and she didn’t give herself much of a chance, particularly since she had no extended family to apply pressure on her behalf. She also knew quite well that in the Hindu Kush even a Muslim woman was worth less than a good packhorse. And Sandra was a Catholic, quite possibly the next worst thing to being a Jew.