Firethorn (Discarded Heroes) (6 page)

“I’m sorry.” Her satiny skin wrinkled up, her nose pinched as she shook her head. “I tried to tell him, to explain…”

The air swirled behind him. Griffin turned—his cafeteria-fed stomach heaved at the young man standing nearby. “Dante.” His breath caught. The boy was tall. Much taller than the last time he’d seen him.
Almost as tall as me.

Dante’s eyes fell to the cuffs, down the bright orange jumpsuit, straight to the shackles.

No…no, Dante couldn’t be here.
Can’t see me like this.

Griffin jerked back to his sister. “Why did you bring him?” he asked between gritted teeth, shooting a sidelong glance to the guard standing in the corner. One wrong move…“I
told
you not to.”

“I…I wanted to come.”

The boy’s voice had deepened. He was becoming a man, and Griffin wouldn’t see it happen. He closed his eyes. “I don’t want you—“

“Yeah, you made that clear,” Dante said.

“No.” Griffin turned to him, shaking a cuffed hand at him.
“Don’t
put words in my mouth.”

“Why not? You don’t have any of your own. You don’t talk to me. Don’t write me.” Hurt gouged a painful crevice through Dante’s words and expression.

“What do you want to see?” Griffin heard the growl in his voice and tried to tamp it down. He raised his cuffed hands. “This?” He jangled his feet. “This?”

Phee came to his side. “G, please—let him talk.” She placed a hand on his arm, her black sweater fresh with the scent of a crisp winter. And unusually noticeable in this dank room.

“Naw, forget it.” Dante started for the door on the other side of the room. “I’m done.”

“Dante,
please
.” Phee hurried after him, her boots clunking on the cement. “Tell him. Tell him why you insisted on coming today. It’s important, baby. Please…tell him.”

Hesitation held Dante at the door as he looked over his shoulder at Griffin. Broad shoulders were filling out the lanky frame of the boy Griffin would do anything for.
I wanted so much more for you, Dante. So much more.
But someone blasted those dreams into oblivion.

“Naw. Uncle G doesn’t want me. Then I don’t want to be here.” Dante pressed a button on the wall, requesting to be let out of the visitation room.

Though the words hurt—bad—Griffin wouldn’t stop him. The boy didn’t belong here. Had no business being in a prison. “Remember what it’s like behind bars. And don’t end up here. You were raised better.”

Dante’s hooded eyes rolled as he pushed out of the room. “Whatever.”

Phoenix stood at the threshold, glaring at Griffin. “You’re a proud fool, Griffin Riddell. I’m ashamed, and Madyar would be ashamed.” Her eyes watered. “He’s getting scouted for football.” Her voice cracked. “
College
football, G. And he just had to tell his uncle. Knew the man who taught him to play, who used to throw that stupid ball around the backyard every weekend, would want to know, that he’d be
proud
of him.”

His shoulders slumped.

“Well,” she said with a sniffle. “Now you know.” She drew in a stiff breath, then wilted. “Please—let me bring him back in. Talk to him. Encourage him.”

“Encoura—” He clamped his mouth shut and shook his head. “Phee! Look around you. It’s Supermax. Why would you bring him up in here and do this? I told you—
told
you not to.” Dante didn’t need to see Griffin shackled and humiliated. He needed to forget that Griffin existed, move on with his life. Get scouted. Go to school. Make a name for himself. “Keep him in school, Phee, but don’t bring him back here.” He locked eyes with her. “I mean it.”

Her brow tangled and her mouth opened. “You and your stupid pride!”

Secret Facility, Maryland

“Evening, General.”

Olin returned the obligatory salute but barreled down the narrow hall to the command room. He popped a pill in his mouth and prayed it’d steady the erratic rhythm that had taken over his heart.

“Everyone’s here, just like you asked. We’ve been powered up for about ten minutes.”

“Good.” Olin swiped his badge and punched the door, descending the half dozen steps into the command center. “Jernigan, what do we have?” He watched the door shut, then nodded to Colonel Bright. “Secure that.”

The man spun and activated a code that would keep anyone outside this team locked out. As Olin stared at the box and the red indicator light, he realized how trivial a notion of security was at this moment. The team had been attacked. Men—no, not just men, but those he considered sons—had been attacked. At least one had lived long enough to activate the emergency signal.

“Not much, sir,” Lieutenant Colonel Dale Jernigan looked up from a whiteboard. “Emergency signal came in approximately twenty minutes ago.”

“Source?” Olin worked his way to the command deck.

“Snakeroot.”

So, Dighton was alive. “What else do you have?”

“Nothing, sir. We’re still—“

“I need data, people. Lives are at stake.” When only the hum of machines answered, Olin pounded a desk.
“Now!”

The screens covering the walls leaped to life.

“Those are news images.” Lieutenant Jason Sparks punched on the keyboard. His fingers made typing look like aerial combat. Light reflected off his wire-rimmed glasses as he peered up over the monitor at Olin. “Glory One is coming online…now.” The wiry officer pulled his gaze to the massive screens.

Haze danced over the gray screen, then crackled and blipped. An image taken from miles above Earth’s surface revealed the nightmare. The warehouse, aflame, lie half in ruins. Emergency vehicles crowded the road leading to the pier.

Olin stared at the flames, still trickling up, as if reaching for the satellite that snapped the images. “What’s the time delay on Glory One?”

“Fifteen, twenty seconds,” Sparks answered.

Not good enough. He needed to rewind time. See what happened before the emergency crews were onsite. His gaze fell on the brunette sitting at a cluster of terminals as her digits flew over the keys. “Major, tell me you’ve got something.”

“Sir,” she spoke from her seat on the raised platform. “I’m accessing and pulling surveillance-camera feeds from the surrounding area. There are four.” Her gaze struck his, then snapped back to her work. “I’m enhancing and isolating…”

Olin threw down his trench coat and briefcase, then stalked over to Sparks. He leaned down and very quietly said, “Can you get into the satellite feeds for tracking assets—without anyone knowing?”

“We don’t have the clearance for that.”

“I didn’t ask if we did. Can you do it?”

The man’s blue eyes sparkled. “Of course.”

Olin nodded. “Do it.”

Another few seconds and the lieutenant paused.

In a whisper, Olin provided four name codes. “Find them, Jason. I want my men back. But not a word.” He clamped a hand on the man’s shoulder, then blew out a breath as he surveyed the amphitheater-style room, the dull gray walls bathed in the bright glow of monitors. Hands on his hips, he watched the screens. Of the six, two showed images stuttering in from the satellite feed. A third filled with billowing smoke.

“That’s from a Jet Ski outlet directly north of the warehouse,” Major DeMatteo said. “I’ve contacted the owners and requested all recordings. Someone is working on feeding them into our—“

“There.” Jernigan pointed to the bottom right screen. “That’s the feed.

“Rewind it,” Olin said. “Let’s see this thing from the beginning.”

“Yes, sir.” DeMatteo went to work on the keyboard.

“Sir,” Sparks spoke up. “I’ve been monitoring cell phones since the emergency signal was activated. Sydney Jacobs received a call from Wolfsbane’s cell phone for less than two minutes.”

“Did you get a location?”

“Not exact, sir, but I’ve extrapolated using known data. The call was made from somewhere along the Virginia coast to a cabin in the mountains.” The man shifted toward him. “Our data verifies Nightshade Alpha has a cabin lease there.”

“If we can figure that out, so can someone else. I want a chopper there ASAP.”

“Already en route, sir.”

The monitors went hazy. “There!” Olin said. “Start from right there.” The haze was from the interference their jamming technology created during extraction and drop off at the Shack. As if to confirm his thoughts, the screens came back to life.

The windows took on a yellowish hue. A sliver of light narrowed, then vanished on the cement. Someone had hit the lights, then closed the main bay door. Then nothing. Conditions unchanged. The men probably headed in the back, showering up before going home.

Olin tried to stem the emotional squall threatening to drown him. “Fast-forward. We’re short on time.”

DeMatteo flicked a key and time warped. A light flickered in the upper level.
The office.
Who had gone into the highly secured room? Olin’s heart chugged. Only two people had the code for that room. Himself. And Max Jacobs.

Was Max alive? Or had someone already broken in there when the team arrived?

“Oh my word,” DeMatteo muttered.

And then he saw it—two vans and a limo. Tactical teams rushing the building. Twinkles of light through the grime-blurred windows.
Muzzle flash.
The light in the office winked out. In fact, all light vanished. Someone must’ve killed the breaker.

In numb shock, Olin stared at the screen as his worst nightmare unfolded. His men dragged out of the Shack in various conditions, one carried out as if dead. Fist to his mouth, he counted. The images were too blurry to say who was whom. But he saw four men. Three tossed in the van, one in a limo.

“I want the tags on that car.”

“Yes, sir.” Jernigan worked feverishly, then he looked up with a frown. “No tags.”

A white flash shattered the night. Balls of fire shot out of the warehouse.

Jernigan cursed.

Others gasped.

Olin paled as his gaze drifted to the black-and-green satellite feed. His lunch dropped to his toes, then bounced back up and threatened to heave as he stared at the daunting information. “Dear God…” Sweat broke out over his brow and upper lip. This wasn’t possible. How…how would…?

“Who did this?” Heat spiraled, pumping inordinate amounts of adrenaline and fury through his veins. “By God, I’ll kill them, strangle their ruddy necks!” Something in the footage snagged his attention. “Freeze it!” Olin shouted as he leaped toward the wall of screens. “What is that?”

Silence.

“Sir?” Sparks asked.

Olin stabbed a finger at a dark blur. “That. Right there. Enhance and magnify.”

Before his eyes, the image tightened.

Olin chuckled. “Nightshade Alpha.”

Flying through the air, followed by a volley of fire and debris. And if a call had come in on Sydney Jacobs’s phone while she was in the mountains, then it was probably Max who’d called her from Wolfsbane’s phone. Which meant Max believed a threat existed against his wife and sons or he wouldn’t have risked the call. They watched Max haul himself out of the water, climb up the wall, then hustle back into the burning warehouse.

The man had more gumption than Olin realized. Nothing could keep him down. It was as if he didn’t have a fear threshold. Minutes later, Max and another man—“Enhance!”

“Snakeroot, sir.”

“I want the fastest chopper out of here.” Olin grabbed his jacket and briefcase. “Okay, people. We’ve got six high-value targets who have been attacked and kidnapped—on American soil. I want our men back.” Olin rushed toward the door. “Jernigan, use every surveillance you can to find out where those vehicles went with our men and get ID on that limo. DeMatteo, see if you can get a team on those images and get names. I want to know who did this.”

Sparks motioned to him from his chair.

Olin hurried to his side and blocked the monitor and their discussion from the others. “What have you got?”

“Four signals, sir.”

He’d run everyone’s except Firethorn, who was wrongfully imprisoned for a murder he didn’t commit. A fact that still infuriated Olin. “Who’s missing?”

“Snakeroot and Nightshade Alpha.”

Normally a dead signal meant a dead objective, but he’d seen both Dighton and Jacobs survive the warehouse attack. Had they been caught and killed after that phone call?

Okay, they needed to focus on what they had: four
live
objectives. He hurried from the secure bunker room.

“Sir,” Jernigan shouted from behind. “Chopper’s ten minutes out from the cabin.”

Olin pointed toward him. “Then guard that location. Destroy anything that gets close without explicit clearance from me personally.”

“Yes, sir.” Jernigan turned back to the headset.

Sparks looked at Olin, who still hadn’t moved. “I’ll pulse the trackers in random increments so nobody is tipped off to where they are.”

“It may not matter,” Olin said as he gulped the acidic taste in his mouth. “If those trackers are right, they’re as good as dead.”

Acholi, Uganda

 

S
how me.”

Night embraced Scott Callaghan as he hurried into the blue-gray hues of dusk. Even in the early evening the lush green fields were apparent, evidence of the man-made lakes and the mountains rimming the plains on the northern side. He’d fallen in love with the land, then the people—even the young man jogging ahead of him. Scott thought of him as a brother….

A familiar, lonely ache wove through him at the thought. He hadn’t spoken to his brother in fifteen years. Regret stood as thick and taunting as the cornstalks that slapped his arms as he and Ojore ran to the mine. But Scott was here, helping those who could not help themselves. He wouldn’t walk away as everyone else had.

Anger pushed him through the bean fields, forced him to keep quiet and harness the misplaced anger. Or maybe it wasn’t misplaced. If what his apprentice had said was true, he had bigger trouble than venturing out beyond curfew and being angry over something in the past he couldn’t change. Dembe had chastised him relentlessly for clinging to the past. But here in Acholi, he felt like he could make a difference for Ojore, for others who’d been roped into the Lord’s Resistance Army. Help the young boys find meaning in life, help steer their paths toward good futures.

Like nobody did for me.

“Shake it off,” he said in a low growl to himself.

Twenty minutes carried them down dusty roads, past another village, and beyond the border of the area that had provided an income for hundreds, if not thousands, of locals. Dirt and rocks crunched beneath their feet as they approached.

At the entrance to the tunnel, Ojore signed in—filling in their names and time of entry.

Hanging back to avoid giving the man behind the desk a line of sight on him, Scott waited. Unbelievably, shifts went round the clock here. No inactivity. No downtime. No doubt whoever owned this mine made a fortune. He couldn’t begrudge the wealthy—the source of their gain also benefited the Ugandans, brought hope back to a bleeding, starving people.

Hope he’d never had growing up. Ojore—the age difference between him and Scott reminded him of his own brother. Half brother. When he’d needed the guidance, the advice, his brother hadn’t been there. Told Scott he was better off on his own. It’d cut Scott to the core. The one person he thought would “get it,” hadn’t. He’d never do to Ojore what his brother had done. Scott was here, to the end, with the young man.

“Weebale.”
After his thanks, Ojore turned, producing two work hats with mounted lights.

Scott slipped one on, tugging it farther down his brow than necessary. Though he had dark skin, thanks to his father’s Cherokee heritage and a decade at the mercy of the sun, his complexion was still considered “white” to the natives.

They stepped into a cage—an elevator that would take them down more than seven hundred feet. Groaning and creaking pervaded the wire cell, vibrations worming through Scott’s boots as they stood in silence. He suppressed the questions racing through his mind.

Twelve years in the Lord’s Resistance Army had forced Ojore to grow up fast, commit enough atrocities to last several lifetimes, and understand the importance of integrity and honor. So if Ojore said bad things were happening here, they were. But Scott needed to know what to report back to the UN and U.S. government.

The cage heaved and jerked to a stop.

Ojore pushed back the gate, stepped out onto hardened bedrock, and twisted on his headlamp. Scott did the same as he followed the man down a narrow tunnel, across a small bridgelike structure, then into another tunnel. Fumes and dust coated his face and nostrils as they moved deeper into the earth. Shinks, thuds, and grunts carried through the area. On the far side, men slung picks into the rock, hacking out chunks, while others searched the bin for precious gems. A conveyor hummed to life, the squeaking of the belts penetrating the dirty, thick air.

Amazed at the hundreds of feet of cored rock, striations marking ages, Scott let his gaze take in the surroundings. Several tunnels sprouted off the main atrium-like area. The muscles in his shoulders tightened at the thought that only one exit existed—the cage he’d just escaped. But they’d be fine.

Just as long as they didn’t find trouble.

At a juncture, Ojore stopped and cranked off his light, and once again Scott took his cue. With only the shadows and crunching of rock underfoot, they slunk forward. Ahead fifty meters, light escaped a large opening. A droning sound grew deafening as they approached. The massive vents and fans drew his attention.

With a pat on Scott’s forearm, Ojore pointed to the area that had already captured his attention, especially the man lifting a large chunk of rock. Several men clapped his back and laughed. Dread consumed Scott at the sight of the ore. He wasn’t a geologist, but he’d seen enough reports and been briefed on the mineral during his stint in black ops.

“Watch out!”

It took two full seconds for Scott to realize those words had been in English. His gaze struck a suited man who stood amid Ugandan miners. By the slick suit, clean hands, and manicured appearance, he didn’t belong here. Clearly American. Apparently checking up on his gold mine. And in charge by the way he shouted and ranted at the miners.

Better get moving.
Scott nudged his friend and started backing up, out of sight. Out of the tunnel. Out of whatever snafu they’d stepped into. Because if there was one thing he knew—these miners weren’t digging for diamonds. They were funding terrorism. Not because they were Ugandan. Or in a diamond mine. But because of what they mined: U
₃
O
₈
.

Aka yellowcake.

Uranium.

For nuclear weapons.

Thoughts colliding, he stared at the man—and tightened his muscles. The guy was staring back.

“Yimirira! Stop!”