The Circle of Eight (4 page)

“Delta Force.”

Stucco’s Residence, Maas Drive, Fort Bragg, North Carolina

Stucco stood on the doorstep of his military issue residence, it a
small, old, humble and perfectly adequate home that they could call their own
while he was stationed in Fort Bragg. Most of the married guys in The Unit
lived within a five minute walk of each other, the single guys either in
barracks or off base in their own apartments.

But all
close, all within shouting distance if anyone needed help with something, or
just wanted to hang out and shoot the shit. Or shoot something. It was a
family. A big family that extended far past The Unit, and far past the base.
The military was a family. When one died, everyone hurt. When one did something
heroic, they all felt the pride.

It was
something that had been missing from his life, his own dad having abandoned him
and his mother when he was three, only showing up a few times in his life,
mostly to argue with his mother. But he hadn’t shown up when his mother had
died, killed by a drunk driver. He had been ten. The rest of his life was spent
bouncing from foster home to foster home, the system never able to find him
parents willing to adopt a kid so old that was a “problem child”.

He had
to admit it now that he was older and a father himself that he had been acting
out.
I was a holy terror!
The hell he put those foster parents through
wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t until he was sixteen when he was at yet another
home, pulling the same shit, that the family’s eldest son had returned home
from Afghanistan, all spiffy in his crisp Marine uniform, that he stood up and
paid attention. The young marine sergeant had taken him under his wing for the
four weeks he was visiting, then returned to Afghanistan.

And
died.

Stucco
had signed up the day he turned eighteen, opting for the Army, and eventually
working his way up to Sergeant and a position in the Delta Force. It had been
the proudest day of his life, and though he had no parents to share his success
with, he had found the woman of his dreams, Sheila, and they had married between
tours in Iraq, and about a year later, little Christa was born. She was six
now, tall enough to answer the doorbell he had rung, but there was no answer.

Odd.

It was a
ritual. He’d come back from an op and surprise them on the doorstep. Christa
had always delighted in the surprise, and Sheila too. It had started with a
forgotten key, and the joy on their faces had made it something he wanted to
see every time he came home, so now he never unlocked the door himself.

He always
waited for them to answer.

But it
was never this long.

He rang
again, checking the driveway for the umpteenth time.

The
car’s still there!

He put
his ear to the door, but heard nothing.

He
shrugged his shoulders. It wouldn’t be the first time they hadn’t been home
when he got back. With the wives a close knit family when their husbands were
off on ops, it wouldn’t surprise him if they were off with one of the other
families in the park.

He
fished his key from his pocket and unlocked the door, pushing it open. He
stepped inside and could smell something amazing wafting its way from the
kitchen.

“Hi hon,
it’s me! You home?”

He heard
a sound in the kitchen and dropped his duffel bag in the entrance, kicking off
his shoes as he made his way down the hall toward the tiny seventies style
kitchen, Sheila’s one complaint about their home.

He
turned the corner and cried out at what he saw.

Colonel Thomas Clancy’s Office, 1st Special Forces Operational
Detachment-Delta HQ, Fort Bragg, North Carolina

A.k.a. “The Unit”

“You realize the shit storm you’ve created for me, Sergeant Major?”

Command
Sergeant Major Burt Dawson nodded as he stood at attention, his boss, Colonel
Thomas Clancy sitting behind his desk, barking at him while he had a pencil
tightly clamped between his teeth as he continued to battle his addiction to
cigars. It flicked up and down with each syllable, a constant distraction that
if it weren’t for the verbal tirade the pencil seemed to be conducting, it
might be comical.

“Yes,
sir!” he replied, realizing full well what was going on, the State Department
representative standing to the right of Clancy almost smiling in glee.

“What
the hell were you two thinking getting involved in a civilian situation like
that?” Clancy held up his hand. “Don’t answer that! I know damned well what you
were thinking! Nothing! You weren’t thinking a damned thing! You were acting on
instinct, just like we trained you! To protect innocent lives, wherever they
may be! I understand that! Don’t you think I understand that? But that wasn’t
your job! Your job was to protect the Secretary of State! Not a hotel
maid”—Dawson decided not to correct him—“then assault one of the most powerful
men in the world!” Clancy sucked in a lungful of air then ripped the pencil
from his mouth, tossing it aside. “You and your team are suspended from duty
until this mess is straightened out. Understood?”

“Yes,
sir!”

“Now get
out of my office!”

“Yes,
sir!”

Dawson
snapped a salute for show, then spun on his heel and exited the room, closing
the door behind him. He winked at the smiling Maggie, Colonel Clancy’s longtime
secretary, who knew exactly what was going on.

A show
for the State Department.

Clancy
would never actually punish men in his unit for saving a woman from a rapist.
Dawson was already scheduled for a second meeting once the State Department rep
had left. He made his way to the cafeteria and grabbed a bottle of water.
Chugging half of it down, his phone buzzed.

Stucco?

He would
have figured the young husband would be well into some post-op nookie by now,
not calling his “boss”.

“Hey,
Stucco, what’s up?”

“BD! You
gotta help me!”

Dawson
tossed his bottle in the sink, rushing for the door, the panic in his friend’s
voice obvious.

“What is
it?”

“I don’t
know what to do! My wife, my kid, oh my God, BD! I think it’s him. It has to
be. It has to be that bastard Lacroix!”

“What is
it? What’s wrong?”

“You
gotta help me, BD!”

There
was a scream in the background that sounded like a woman’s.

“Oh no!”

The line
went dead.

Dawson
raced toward the parking lot, speed dialing Red, his trusted friend and second
in command.

Red’s
groggy voice answered. “Hey, BD, can’t a man sleep after an op?”

“Something’s
wrong at Stucco’s. Just got a weird call from him and heard Sheila scream. Get
a team together, meet me there, and let the Colonel know what’s going on. I’m
on my way now.”

“Consider
it done,” came the alert reply.

Dawson
jumped in his 1964½ poppy red Mustang convertible and started it up, gunning it
toward the married quarters and his friend.

Köln, Germany

1472 AD

Dietrich held Heike’s hand, their fingers intertwined as they pushed
their way up the steep road to her father’s house, perched on the hillside with
a spectacular view of the Rhine river below. It was dark now, a little light
provided by the mostly blocked out stars and a half moon, as well as the candle
and firelight from inside the homes spilling out the cracks in the shuttered
windows, lending a sheen to the quickly dampening cobblestones.

Another sound behind them and Dietrich turned. His heart
raced up his throat as he saw a dark robed figure following them.

He urged Heike forward.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing. Let’s just get you inside before it starts to
rain.”

She thankfully picked up her pace without further
question, and he could tell by the tightening of her grip on his hand that she
too was now frightened. More footsteps behind them and he broke out into a run
without looking. As they passed each alleyway he would look down it and see
another robed figure stepping out, and looking ahead he could see between each
house a figure coming into view. Before they could reach the top of the hill a
line of darkly robed figures blocked their way on all sides except their left, where
a waist high wall protected pedestrians from the roaring river fifty feet
below.

As they closed in upon them, Dietrich pulled the only
weapon he had, a dagger, and moved toward the only wall without members of The
Order blocking their way. He looked over the side at the river below, and knew
it was too treacherous to attempt a jump. The rocks below, mostly hidden, the
rushing water breaking upon their concealed stubbornness, seemed to glow a
warning of their presence in the faint light.

The robed figures closed in on them as he held Heike
behind him, his dagger held out in a useless threat, his arm trembling so much
the blade threatened to clatter to the ground.

None of the approaching figures had any weapons
displayed, but he knew they would be armed. They always were when robed. For
they were The Order, of that he had no doubt.

He did the only thing he could think of.

“Master, if you are here, please listen. I told her it
was over. We had one last kiss and I was bringing her home. Please, let her go,
she has done nothing wrong.”

The Order were shoulder to shoulder now, forming a
semi-circle of impenetrable human flesh, there now being nowhere to go but over
the wall at their backs.

The figures parted and a lone figure stepped through,
the ranks closing behind him as he stepped forward, stopping only inches from
Dietrich’s outstretched dagger.

A hand reached forward, and he recognized it as his
master’s immediately, a deep scar on the top from years ago revealed as the
sleeve of the robe slipped up.

Dietrich relinquished the blade without protest, Heike
gasping behind him.

“Master, please. I beg of you, let her go. She is but an
innocent in this and knows nothing of us.”

His master put a hand on his shoulder, applying gentle
but firm pressure, his intent clear. Dietrich stepped aside, leaving his master
to face Heike as he still clasped her hand. She looked up at his master, tears
of fear rolling down her flushed cheeks. He wished it were daylight so his
master could see her brilliantly blue eyes, her golden hair, her impossibly
pure skin. Surely then he couldn’t harm a hair on her childlike self.

But it was dark.

It was damp.

And all that could be seen were the shadows, all that
could be heard were her sniffles and the roar below. His master caressed her
cheek with his left hand, approaching her so they were mere inches apart. She
looked up at him, her neck bent back far, his height imposing even to Dietrich.
A glint of moonlight revealed a frightened attempt at a smile from her, and
nothing from his master.

Please God, help her!

Suddenly his master stepped forward, shoving her with
both hands over the barrier. She screamed, as did Dietrich, spinning to try and
brace himself on the wall, his left hand still holding hers, her gloved fingers
slipping. He tried to reach around with his other hand but felt an iron grip on
his forearm. He struggled, but all he could do was watch the terror in his
darling Heike’s eyes as she hung on, looking up at him as they both eyed the
silk slowly flowing from his fingers.

Then there was none.

She fell, a final blood curdling scream cut off as her
body was dashed on the rocks below. He spun around and rushed through the
already parting members of The Order, racing down the hill to where he could
see the river again and arrived just in time to watch her body slip along the water
before it rounded a bend in the river and disappeared forever out of sight.

Footsteps behind him caused him to jump and spin in
rage, his fist raised. He felt the dagger at his stomach, and he didn’t care.
All he wanted right now was to die so that he might be with her at her side as
they entered Heaven and the afterlife.

“Now you can focus on your studies.”

The dagger was tossed over the side and into the river
below as his master walked away, leaving him to cling to the wall, sobbing at his loss, and how he alone was to blame.

Inside Stucco’s Residence, Maas Drive, Fort Bragg, North Carolina

“Okay, just stay calm, honey, and I’ll figure a way out of this.”

Stucco’s
wife didn’t seem convinced. And he didn’t blame her. She was duct taped to a
chair by her ankles, wrists and upper chest. And his precious baby, only six
years old a few weeks ago, was taped to a second chair in the same manner, both
back to back, the chairs taped together as one.

With
enough C4 taped to his wife’s chest to take out the entire house and then some.

The bomb
had just beeped a moment ago while he was on the phone with Dawson, eliciting a
scream from his wife and wails from his daughter.

You
have to calm yourself down. Treat it like a mission.

He
sucked in several deep breaths, closing his eyes, regaining control of himself
as he tried to push away the thoughts of losing his family.

This
is no different than any other op, so treat it that way.

He
opened his eyes.

“Okay,
everything is going to be fine,” he said in a perfectly monotone voice. “I need
you both to remain calm and quiet as I take a look at things.” He looked at Christa.
“Can you do that for daddy?”

She
nodded, her wailing stopping as she tried to stifle her sobs.

“Good.
Now you need to be brave for mommy, and I’m going to take a look, okay?”