Pushed to the Edge (SEAL Team 14) (2 page)

“How is he holding up, Steel?” Joshua asked Chief
Petty Officer Malik “Steel” Ellis who was the unit’s medic.  Steel was a former
Morehouse Man and college football cornerback who had received his nickname
early on because he remained calm in virtually any situation. 
And
because he could bench press twice his body weight.

“I’m doing just fine, sir,” Jax wheezed, looking a
slightly paler shade of gray than death warmed over. 

Jax was lying flat on the cargo floor of the
Osprey.  Someone had removed his skullcap, and his jet-black hair was slicked
back from his face with sweat.  Jax was taking shallow gasps of breath, clearly
in pain. 

Looking down at Steel, Joshua saw that the medic
was doing all he could to stop the flow of the blood pumping out of Jax’s wound.
 Joshua watched him wrap a tourniquet around Jax’s upper right thigh.

Steel glanced up, quickly acknowledging Joshua, and
then he continued with his ministrations.  Steel’s hands moved quickly.  He was
swiftly bandaging and dressing the Jax’s injury with items from the medical kit
that they always had on board for missions.  He had already cut away Jax’s
pants right above the entry wound. 

Steel ripped open a white and gray packet, while
another team member assisted him with applying pressure on Jax’s gaping
injury.  Blood saturated the cargo floor underneath the injured soldier.  The
sickly sweet smell of it filled the cabin. 

“He’s hanging in there, sir.  He got hit with a
large caliber bullet.  Probably a .38.  His vitals are stable for right now, but
he’s going to need surgery—and soon.  The good news is that the bullet went
through-and-through.  Now for the bad news.  Upon passing through, the bullet
nicked his femoral artery and cracked his thighbone.  I’m using ActCel, to stop
the arterial bleeding.”

ActCel was a new emergency hemostatic that was
popular among military medics because it was designed to stop potentially
lethal, large-volume arterial bleeding.  Hemostatics worked by creating a blood
clot at the site of the damaged blood vessel. 

So far, the use of ActCel and other emergency clotting
agents coupled with temporary placement of tourniquets had undoubtedly saved many
wounded soldiers’ lives.  These critically injured soldiers would most likely have
bled out before reaching a medical facility, without the quick application of a
clotting complex.

“Okay, we’re heading to the nearest military
hospital at the Landstuhl Medical Center near the Ramstein Air Force Base in
Germany,” Joshua replied.  “What’s the ETA, Griffin?” he called out to the
pilot.

“We should be touching down at Ramstein in about four
and a half hours, sir.”

“How is Henning holding up?”  Joshua asked Steel, nodding
his head in the direction of the unmoving dignitary who lay prone in one of the
corners of the plane.

“He took one hell of a beating, but he’ll live. 
They must have doped him up with something good because he’s still knocked out,
which is probably for the best, given his injuries.”

Joshua’s eyes darted away from Richard Henning,
looking around the plane at his men.  All in all, it had been a good hostage
rescue. 

No fatalities reported on his team, and Jax’s
injury shouldn’t be permanent—though it was clear that he would be in traction
for a while.  Despite the overall success of the operation, however, Joshua
still had a nagging feeling of unease.  He leaned back in his seat on the plane,
tried to focus on the positives of the assignment, and settled down for the
short trip to Germany.

Miranshah,
Pakistan

dib Malook smiled to
himself, looking around his expansive dining room.  He was living a life of
luxury.  He had the type of life that some people could only dream about.  He
and his family lived in a large home by Pakistani standards.  His home had ten
rooms and featured many comfortable amenities, such a flat screen television
and a microwave. 

Everyone assumed that during his fifty-three-years
on Earth, through hard work and determination he had managed to amass a
fortune.  However, in actuality, the heavens had smiled on Malook a lot earlier
and his path to riches had been a lot easier.  He had been born into extreme
wealth.   

Malook had grown up in the capital city of Riyadh
to a family that owned and controlled five percent of the oil reserves in the
Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia.  He had moved to Pakistan five years earlier,
with his three wives and children in order to fulfill his religious duty.

It had been a fateful trip to Afghanistan ten
years ago that had solidified his religious imperative.  Malook’s family was
ethnic Punjabi and had lived in Afghanistan for centuries.  His ancestors had emigrated
from Afghanistan to Saudi Arabia in the early Twentieth century and were still
devout Sunni Muslim. 

During his trip to Afghanistan in 2002, he had
seen firsthand the destruction caused by de-unification of the major ethnic
groups in the country.  He had also seen the deplorable way that the Shi’as
were treating his Sunni brethren.  While he was there, members of his same Sunni
Muslim sect were bombed in a well-known Sunni marketplace in the Punjab
district—killing fifty civilians.  A Shi’ite group had taken the credit for the
bombing, allegedly in retaliation for a previous Sunni attack on one of their
mosques.

After witnessing this tragedy, Malook had come to
the realization that the two religious sects would only be able to subsist
together if they were able to unify against a common enemy.  The most obvious
common enemy, of course, was the infidels who were attempting to deplete his
home country of its highly desirable natural resources. 

Shortly after his trip to Afghanistan, he had
connected with other individuals who shared his same fundamentalist interpretation
of Islam.  It was through these initial, individual contacts that the Haqqai
network had been born.  Now with considerable monetary backing from an unlikely
source, the group was all that more close to gaining a stronghold in the
region. 

Malook understood that there would be doubters who
would characterize his actions as those of a lunatic and who would denounce the
tactics that he was willing to use to reach his goals.  However, Malook
believed that his end goal justified the means.  He and his cohorts were more
than willing to do whatever was necessary to make sure that their mission
succeeded.

He looked up from his musings as one of the ornate
eight-foot-tall wooden doors that separated the kitchen from the sitting room
as his assistant Mansour scampered in.

“The Congressman is gone, sir.”

Malook immediately pulled his attention away from
his morning breakfast of dates, Shashukah—a traditional Islamic egg dish—, and
nan bread.  “What do you mean he’s gone,” he asked with a disconcerting
calmness.

“The Americans.  They raided our facilities in
Karak earlier this morning sir, most of our men who were there guarding the
facility are dead sir... and the Congressman was taken.” 

Malook stared at his most trusted aid and carefully
lowered his knife and fork back down to his plate. 

Malook had known Mansour since he was eight years
old.  Malook’s family had employed Mansour’s father as a gardener.  Later, they
had hired Mansour to become his servant.  Mansour was probably the closest
thing to a true friend that Malook had in his life.  Mansour and Malook were
complete opposites from each other in both physical stature and worldly station. 

While Mansour was thin and pale almost to the
point of looking ill, Malook was swarthy and rotund.  In addition, unlike
Mansour, Malook had been born into a rich Saudi family.  Malook could afford a
mansion filled with the most expensive luxuries.  However, what the two men did
have in common was their devotion to their specific interpretation of Islam. 

Malook threw an irritated glance at his third wife
and she knew immediately to escort herself and their six children out of the
dining hall, closing the large wooden doors behind her. 

“How did this happen?  I gave you at least thirty
men to guard one lone American, and you couldn’t even get that right without
screwing it up?  At the very least, did we get the information from him that we
needed?”  Malook asked with a lethal coldness as he rose from the dining table.

Mansour stepped further back toward the wall.  “A
million apologies, sir.  It appears that the Americans sent in one of their Special
Forces units to conduct a night raid to recover the Congressman.  The American
infidels took over the compound in under six minutes.  By the time that one of our
reinforcement crews arrived, they had already taken off.  Unfortunately, our
men had not finished questioning him.”

“This incredible show of ineptitude is completely unacceptable. 
You are pushing me to the edge of my patience.  Leave my presence at once.  I will
speak with you again later,” Malook frowned at his assistant whose face was
turning an interesting shade of grey.  Mansour quickly bowed his head slightly
and then walked from the room, once again closing the doors behind him.

After a few minutes, Malook moved over to his
study.  The large room served as his office/library and was located just off
the gourmet kitchen in the east wing of the house.  Once inside, he shut the
door.  He sat at his ornate cherry stained wooden desk and opened up a decanter
of brandy—pouring a healthy portion for himself. 

After throwing back a large gulp, he placed the
phone call that he was dreading to make.  He drummed his fingers on the corner
of the desk nervously.  An older, craggy voice answered the phone on the second
ring.

“Henning was rescued last night by a special
operations force sent in by the United States,” Malook proceeded immediately
with the news.

There was a long moment of silence before the man
spoke.  “Well, that wasn’t necessarily unexpected now was it?” the seemingly
magnanimous voice on the other end replied.

“No, but we did not anticipate that the Americans
would find his location quite so soon.  We were unable to finish the
questioning,” Malook continued.

“This situation is not ideal.  Nevertheless, think
of it as only a minor deviation from our goals—a lost opportunity.  It was mere
coincidence that Henning made his goodwill tour to the Middle East when he did. 
But, we have important contacts within Henning’s organization that I’m sure
will prove useful once he returns back to the United States.” 

“Excellent, sir.  Do you think that we will have
enough time?”   

“This is a setback, but we should be able to
correct it without too much delay, don’t you think?”

“Yes, sir.  Good sir.”
“Oh and Adib . . . keep in mind that we all have a lot to lose if we do not
follow through with our plan this time—some of us more than others.  No more mistakes.”

“Yes sir,” Malook replied as the phone call
disconnected.  His hands shook as he hung up the phone.

Dallas,
Texas

One Day
Later

ictoria Sanchez rapidly tapped
her manicured fingers against her steering wheel.  It was close to nine at
night and she was sitting alone in her car outside of a run-down apartment
complex in West Dallas.  It was burning hot outside still, so she’d cracked her
window a bit but she didn’t dare to roll it down all the way. 

West Dallas was an area that was composed of a
multitude of communities bordered by I-30 to the south and Trinity River on the
east and north.  Singleton Boulevard was a street in West Dallas that was
located in the Singleton Industrial District. 

The apartment complex that she was lurking outside
of was in a particularly seedy part of town on Singleton Boulevard.  She was
alone—except for the “corner boys” who had taken up spots on either side of the
street.

Despite recent revitalization efforts, this part
of West Dallas had remained a hodgepodge of vacant buildings, low-income
wood-frame homes, heavy industrial complexes, with a smattering of small
mom-and-pop stores.  After night fell, this neighborhood and surrounding areas
became just as dangerous as any large city could be, such as Chicago or
Detroit. 

It would be a miracle if she weren’t carjacked for
her nine thousand dollar Volkswagen Passat or worse.  The can of pepper spray
that she had tucked into her purse was only a cold comfort.  If something went
down, the cell phone that she always kept inside her purse would be of more
use. 

Normally, Victoria wouldn’t have set up a meeting
in this neighborhood so late in the evening.  Tonight, she hadn’t had a
choice.  The shooting victim’s mother, Nina Ortiz, had only been able to meet
with Victoria after her evening shift at a local restaurant.  Therefore,
Victoria had scheduled the meeting at night, one of the worst times to be
gallivanting around this part of town. 

About a month ago, the Dallas Police Department had
issued a statement about the recent murder of a young high school student, Antonio
Ortiz.  In the statement, the police spokesperson insinuated that the young
man’s murder was related to the narcotics trade.  That bit of information was
not in and of itself surprising. 

Drugs had somehow become woven into the fabric of
American life.  They were almost as American as rock-n-roll or apple pie. 
Drugs were an equal opportunity destroyer, so even though lower-economic
classes may have felt the disproportionate burden of the drugs, higher social
classes were not exempt from the ill effects of the drug trade.

What had originally grabbed Victoria’s attention
about Antonio Ortiz’s murder was that it had come on the heels of another local
drug-related killing.  In the past few months, there had been a rash of drug
related homicides, coupled with an influx of narcotics into the city.  This
increased flow of drugs just didn’t make sense because Homeland Security had beefed
up the number of border patrol guards.  The DEA had also been increasing their
security efforts to monitor the nearly 2,000 square mile border.

Victoria got out of her car when she saw Ms. Ortiz
walking down the street, approaching her apartment building.  The older woman
was in her mid-fifties and had black hair that was streaked with white.  She
wore it up in a bun and had on a waitress outfit with the logo of a local diner
across the front. 

“Ms. Ortiz,” Victoria called out, as the woman got
closer to her on the sidewalk.  Lifting her head up from the ground, Ms. Ortiz’s
eyes locked with Victoria’s.

“Ms. Sanchez?” the woman asked, her voice slightly
raised in pitch.  Her lips were pinched together tightly, in a strained
expression, and her eyes were bloodshot.  She held on firmly to a brown purse
that was draped over one of her shoulders.

“Yes, Ms. Ortiz.  I’m Victoria Sanchez, crime
columnist with the
Dallas Star Gazette,”
Victoria said as she stuck out
her right hand before continuing, “Thank you very much for agreeing to speak
with me.”

“Yes, well come in,” Ms. Ortiz said, leading the
way up the concrete steps of the red brick, seven-story apartment building. 

The apartment building hallway was dimly lit. 
There was only a small rectangular fluorescent ceiling light to illuminate the
first floor.  Walking past a small room with the word “
OFFICE
” imprinted
on the window, the two women walked up the narrow stairway to the third floor. 

Ms. Ortiz stopped in front of apartment number 312,
pulled out a key, and opened the old wooden door.  The door’s green paint
exterior was chipping was chipping around the edges.

“Please, have a seat,” the woman gestured toward
the small green loveseat situated in the center of the room.  Victoria sat down
while the other woman took off her black wind blazer jacket and locked her
front door.

“Can I get you anything, water or tea?” the woman
asked.  Victoria shook her head in reply, her eyes watching the woman’s every
move.  Ms. Ortiz sat down across from her in a matching green armchair in the corner
of the room.  She stared back at Victoria, her hands tightly clasping one
another.

“Ms. Ortiz do you mind if I record our
conversation?” Victoria removed her tape recorder from her purse.  The woman
shook her head, indicating that Victoria could proceed with recording the
interview. 

“Ms. Ortiz, can you tell me more about your son, Antonio?”

A cheerless smile fell across the older woman’s
face.  “Antonio was a good boy.  Mi solamente hijo.  He wanted to become an
engineer.  He’s a straight A student.”  Victoria didn’t comment on the woman’s
use of both past and present tense in describing her son.  It had been over a
month since Antonio was shot to death, but Victoria could imagine that it would
take a long time before the realization of her son’s passing would fully take
effect.

“Here, I’ll show you,” the woman said before she
got up from her armchair and walked over to a small table that she had set up
in the living room that served as a vigil to her son.  Several candles were lit
around framed photographs of Antonio at various stages of his life.  Picking up
a photo, Nina Ortiz walked back over to Victoria and placed the photo into her
hands.

“He’s a good boy,” Ms. Ortiz repeated while
Victoria looked over the photo.  It was a different photo from the one that had
been splashed all over the local TV news in the days following the murder.  The
picture that Ms. Ortiz handed her was of a young boy, approximately five or six
years old.  Antonio had close cut brown hair, freckles, tanned skin and was
grinning from ear-to-ear.  He also had a gap in his front teeth where two teeth
still needed to grow in. 

“Ms. Ortiz, I know that this is a very difficult
time for you.  I can’t begin to understand what it’s like to lose a child,”
Victoria started, “but there are some hard questions I need to ask you.  The
police seem to think that Antonio was involved in some sort of drug activity,
which ultimately resulted in his death.  Do you have any idea if there’s any
truth to that claim?”

 “No, my Antonio was a good boy!” Ms. Ortiz
stated, her eyes narrowing with anguish and anger.  “He wouldn’t do drugs.  He
knew firsthand how damaging drugs could be.  We lost his father ten years ago because
of his heroin addiction.  No, Antonio had never even tried alcohol, let alone
any drugs.”

“Did Antonio get into any trouble at school prior
to the shooting that may have indicated that he was acting out for some
reason?”

“No, of course not.  He was a very kind boy and an
honor roll student.  He never got into any type of trouble.  He even tutored
other classmates in Calculus two days a week after school.”

“To your knowledge, had Antonio made any new friends
that he was spending time with prior to his death?  Maybe someone that he
shouldn’t have been hanging out with?”

“No.  He still had his same friends from primary
school.”

“Who were his best friends?”

“Well, Antonio was a very nice boy.  He had many
friends.  I guess he did have two friends that he was very close to: Kevin
Frasier and Lou Kinley.  They’ve known each other since the first grade.”

Ms. Ortiz spent the next thirty minutes telling
Victoria stories about Antonio when he was a very young child.  It was obvious
that Nina Ortiz loved her son very much and was still wracked with grief.  It
was also clear that given how close she had been to her son, she might not be
the best person to give an objective view of his activities during the last few
weeks of his life.  After all, Ms. Ortiz’s mind’s eye still seemed to see her
son as a young child instead of the seventeen-year-old boy that he had been
when he died.

Glancing at her watch, Victoria saw that it was
close to 10 p.m.  Victoria stood up to leave, saying, “Thank you very much for
your time, Ms. Ortiz.  You’ve been extremely helpful.  Again, I’m very sorry
for your loss.  Here’s my business card in case you remember something else
later that may be important.”

“Ms. Sanchez, there is one other thing that you
should know.”  Victoria stopped in her tracks and turned back around a few feet
from the doorway.

“What’s that, Ms. Ortiz?”

“A few months before my Antonio was killed, he had
started a new job.”

“A new job?  Who was his employer?”  It wasn’t
uncommon for children in this area to take on odd jobs to help their families.

“He didn’t really give me the specifics.  He said
that he was just moving boxes for a local moving company I think.”

That was a little out of the ordinary.  Usually,
businesses could afford to hire official moving companies in order to move out
medium-large shipments.  And it was unlikely that Antonio would have been able
to apply for a CDL license, which was needed to operate a commercial truck.

“Did Antonio have his own vehicle?”

“No, not on his own.  He was saving up to buy
one.”

“Did he ever borrow your car for his job?”

“I don’t have a car.  I have not been able to
afford one.  But, Antonio would sometimes borrow his Uncle Romero’s—his
father’s brother—pickup truck.”

“Do you know if Antonio spoke to his uncle about
his new job?”

“I’m not sure, but you can ask him,” Ms. Ortiz
said, walking over to the small kitchen table where she had dropped her purse
earlier.  She took out her cell phone and then recited her brother’s telephone
number so that Victoria could write it down.

“Thank you, Ms. Ortiz.  For all of the information
that you have given to me about your son,” Victoria said as she walked to the
door.

“Please, Ms. Sanchez.  Find out who did this to my
boy.”

Victoria paused again at the door, turning to face
Ms. Ortiz, looking the grief stricken mother in the eyes.  “You have my word
that I will not stop investigating until I have answers.”