Lean on Me (39 page)

“
Do your wives know about
the girls you keep as sex slaves?” Alex asked. “Funny. You didn’t
even remember to ask about her.”

“
The prostitute who was
here?”

“
Now that is weird,” Alex
said. “She said she was kidnapped. She took my men to a chamber
where we found three other terrified girls. They were chained to
the wall and living in their own filth. One of them is pregnant. I
wonder whose child that might be?”

When he didn’t respond, she continued.

“
Of course, we videotaped
the entire thing, took photos, forensics, stuff like that. I was
amazed at all the expertise you can find at a naval air station.
Who knew? A variety of agencies from countries around the world
will be here in the morning to collect evidence. My guess is you’ll
go from country to country raking up charges until someone
eventually kills you. Currently, there’s a bet among the men as to
whether you’ll be stoned or given a tidy lethal
injection.”

Alex shrugged as if she didn’t care which
happened.

“
Knowing that your family
lives in luxury while you keep these children to rape and torture?”
Alex asked. “It takes the sting out of burning everything you
own.”

“
They were sold to us by
their parents,” the pirate Captain said. “If their parents don’t
care what happens to them, why should we?”

“
It’s funny because they
tell a very different story,” Alex said.

“
They lie,” the pirate
Captain said.

“
You’ll eventually get a
trial,” Alex began peeling the third orange. “You sure you don’t
want some? They don’t serve fresh fruit at those CIA prisons.
Anyone know why?”

Trece and Vince shook their heads. MJ stared
at the man.

“
Spoilage?” Sergeant Beetle
asked.

“
Trust me,” Trece said.
“There’s so much rot at those prisons, a few rotting oranges would
fit right in.”

“
Get him out of here,” Alex
said.

The pirate Captain fumbled for something to
say. Vince and Sergeant Beetle grabbed the man’s arms.

“
Can I at least get
dressed?” the pirate Captain asked. “Do not humiliate me the way
they did at Abu Graib.”

Alex shrugged. MJ grabbed up a pair of pants
from a dresser drawer. He checked the pockets for weapons and threw
them at the man. The pirate Captain dressed. When he began to
linger, Sergeant Beetle signaled Bill. Growling and snapping, Bill
got the pirate Captain moving. MJ followed behind.

Trece waited with Alex until they heard a
helicopter take off.

“
Sorry, I’m going to barf,”
Alex said. “I can’t eat those oranges on a drugged
stomach.”

Trece held up a trash can and she threw up.
When she was done, he gave her a clean, gold-embroidered towel from
the cabinet. He waited until she’d cleaned up then carried her out
of the ship.

On deck, US Navy MPs had taken control of
the ship. Seeing Alex, the UN investigators went inside to review
the pirate Captain’s quarters. The SEALs they’d brought from
Norfolk stood at attention around the helicopter. Alex saluted them
and Trece helped her into the chopper. Vince got in the helicopter
after them and MJ shut the door.

“
What about those guys?”
Alex asked.

“
They’re taking another
chopper,” Vince said. “We’re going home.”

“
Home home? Or to the US
some place to work?”

“
Home,” Trece said. “It’s
been determined that you have an infection in your hip.”

“
I do?” Alex
asked.

MJ helped her onto her litter.

“
Once you’ve had sepsis,
you’re more susceptible to getting it again,” MJ said.

“
But I’m not even hot,”
Alex said.

“
You always look hot to
me,” Zack said over the intercom. “Alex, I’m taking you home. It’s
all arranged. Cliff?”

The sound of whistling came over the
intercom. The helicopter rose above the ship.

“
What’s that?” Alex
asked.

“’
Home’ by Edward Sharpe
and the Magnetic Zeros, sir,” Cliff said.

Alex closed her eyes and let the music wash
over her. Somewhere between the verses of “Home, let me go home,”
MJ attached the IV to her arm. He attached a nasal cannula and
adjusted her oxygen supply. When the song slowed, MJ put his hand
on her shoulder. She nodded and he put her out. She was in the
middle of wondering whether she would go to hell for not personally
killing the pirate Captain when she drifted off.

The Vice-Admiral’s voice jerked her out of
deep unconsciousness.

“
She’s quite amazing,” he
said.

“
Sir?” MJ’s voice
asked.

“
Was she in surgery when
the team was found?” the Vice-Admiral said.

“
Yes sir,” MJ said. “She
has an infection to show for it.”

She had the sense of her men shuffling
around her. She was being moved from the helicopter to somewhere
else.

“
They say the men wouldn’t
have survived the day,” the Vice-Admiral said. “She saved their
lives.”

“
Yes sir,” Vince
said.

“
Any idea on how she was
able to incapacitate the ship?” the Vice-Admiral asked.

“
Some kind of gas,” Vince
said. “The Fey Special Forces Team had stashed gas bombs around the
ship in old clocks. I’m not sure how they got the clocks on board,
but they were still there all these years later.”

“
Russian knock out
bombs?”

“
I’m not sure, sir,” Vince
said. “I was instructed that the captors were at risk of
suffocation. We placed them face up and administered oxygen to a
few.”

“
Why keep them
alive?”

“
They are wanted for crimes
against humanity, sir,” Vince said.

“
War crimes?

“
A lot of countries want
justice, sir,” Vince said.

“
Unbelievable,” the
Vice-Admiral said.

Alex struggled to regain consciousness. She
tried to speak.

“
She’s coming around, sir,”
MJ said. “If you’d like to speak to her, this would be your only
time. With all due respect, I’d prefer it if she remained
unconscious. It’s a long journey and her body needs time to
heal.”

“
Yes, Sergeant, you may put
her under,” the Vice-Admiral said.

And everything went dark.

F

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

One week later

Wednesday afternoon

November 11 – 3:17 p.m. AST

USS
Peleliu
, Indian Ocean

The pirate Captain was escorted from his
cell down a long hallway to a room. Exhausted from nearly
forty-eight hours without sleep, he fell into the interrogation
room. He lay against the cold steel for a while before he realized
there was another person in the room. He looked from one corner of
the small room to the next. Someone cleared his throat. The pirate
Captain turned to look at the corner next to the door.

A non-descript man stood between the door
hinges and the corner. The pirate Captain had a sense that he
should recognize the salt-and-pepper-haired man. He was medium
sized and wore French or very high-quality American clothing. The
pirate Captain stared at him for a moment. His stare was met with
an amused twinkle in the man’s brown eyes.

He had no idea who the man was. He only knew
that he’d seen him before. Friend or foe, this man stared at him.
The man flicked his finger and the pirate Captain pulled himself
off the ground. The man pointed to a chair at an interrogation
table. The pirate Captain dropped into the chair.

Without breaking his gaze, the man lit a
cigarette. The man didn’t move from the corner of the room or say
anything. The man’s brown eyes burned a hole in the Somali man’s
chest. The pirate Captain had never felt more naked.

And the man smoked.

When his cigarette burned down, the pirate
Captain cowered as if he expected to be burned. The man raised his
eyebrows in a silent laugh and dropped the cigarette on the floor.
He flipped open a well-used lighter and lit another cigarette.

Between the sweet odor of expensive tobacco
and his lack of sleep, the pirate Captain slipped into a kind of
trance. The man stared, the pirate Captain sat, and the time
passed. An hour? Three? The pirate Captain had no idea. When the
man moved, the Captain screamed in horror. The man gave the pirate
Captain an ironic smile. Time stretched on until a tap came on the
door. The Captain’s heart raced with panic when the man went to
open the door.

A taller man of about the same age stood on
the other side. The second man’s blue eyes gave him the look of an
American movie star. The two men spoke to each other in some
unintelligible language. When the second man smiled, the pirate
Captain felt his heart squeeze with terror.

He recognized the second man. Noticing the
pirate Captain’s discomfort, the second man sat in the empty chair.
The smoking man moved back to his corner.

“
Here’s what’s going to
happen,” the second man said in Arabic. “You’re going to correctly,
openly, and without hesitation answer every single one of my
questions. Or I’m going to turn you over to him.”

The second man indicated to the smoking man
with his thumb.

“
I believe his daughter had
an agreement with you,” the second man said.

The pirate Captain’s head jerked to look at
the smoking man. The man smiled at him and the pirate Captain
remembered who he was. The smoking man was Benjamin, the Fey’s
father. The pirate Captain swallowed hard.

“
He made sure you stayed on
the Indian Ocean. To his mind, his daughter made an agreement with
the sharks. The sharks are waiting to fulfill that accord. And
trust me, he doesn’t mind letting you watch while the sharks eat
you one digit at a time.”

The second man shrugged as if he didn’t care
either.

“
What do you want to know?”
the pirate Captain asked.

“
Where are the rest of the
missing soldiers?” the second man asked.

“
How would I
know?”

“
Let me put it to you
differently,” the second man said. “I know that you know where the
rest of the soldiers are being held. I know this because I know
you’d never get involved unless you saw the whole plan. I also know
that you made a number of telephone calls, email exchanges, and had
in-person conversations to confirm where the other captives are
being held.”

The pirate Captain crossed his arms and
leaned back in his chair.

“
Maybe you didn’t hear me,”
the second man said. “Where are the missing soldiers?

“
Go to hell,” the pirate
Captain said.

The second man got up from his chair.
Nodding to Benjamin, he moved toward the door.

“
Get me a map,” the pirate
Captain said. “Get me a map.”

Benjamin threw a world map onto the
table.

“
I need a pen,” the pirate
Captain said.

“
To use as a
weapon?”

The second man went to Benjamin and held his
hand out. The smoking man gave him a cigarette. Taking his time,
the second man bent his head to light the cigarette.

“
I’ll point,” the pirate
Captain said. “I can only tell you what I know.”

“
Better be accurate,” the
second man said. “If it doesn’t match our information, we’ll start
with…”

The second man looked at Benjamin. The
smoking man pointed to the man’s crotch.

“
Good thinking,” the second
man said.

The pirate Captain told them what he
knew.

FFFFFF

Two days later

Friday afternoon

November 13 – 4:17 p.m. MST

Denver, CO

Alex coughed and turned over. She
smiled.

She was in her own bedroom at the top of the
sprawling rooming house she called home. She heard people moving
downstairs. The rapid patter of little feet and a squealing laugh
told her Troy’s sons were below. Her nose picked up the odor of
fresh-baked bread. Colin must be here somewhere. She had no idea
how she got home or how long she’d been there.

Not long. It didn’t feel like she’d been
here very long. Rolling onto her back, she wondered why it had
taken so long to get home.

“
You’re awake,” Sergeant
Beetle said. Alex heard the jangle of Bill’s collar.

“
What day is
it?”

“
Friday,” Sergeant Beetle
said. “November thirteenth. I’m supposed to get Colin. He wants to
give you more antibiotics or something like that. MJ’s at his
house. Something about a blocked toilet.”

“
How long have I been
here?”

“
About a day,” Sergeant
Beetle said. “We’d planned on taking you home, but you actually got
an infection. We don’t know where or how. By the time you landed,
we had to take you straight to the hospital. But you haven’t been
far. They put you up at National Jewish. Turns out they have an
infectious disease lab.”

Alex felt Bill’s soft wet nose on her
cheek.

“
Hi Bill,” Alex
said.

“
I’m supposed to get
Colin,” Sergeant Beetle said.

“
Are you waiting for me to
dismiss you?”