Wade (6 page)

The dream began as if always did, with a dance.

It was a lavish embassy function on a pleasantly cool night, as most nights were in Middle Eastern desert countries. A band played the kind of music that made a decent background for chitchat covering anything from casual flirtation and political arguments to megabuck business ventures and high-level diplomatic initiatives. The room smelled of flowers, American liquor and food, and though relatively few women were present other than embassy staff, the glittering jewelry rivaled the sparkle of the chandeliers overhead. Wade was officially off duty from his job of protecting the ambassador and his family and other embassy personnel, but attending such formal
events as backup was always encouraged. Fading into the woodwork, holding up the wall at strategic posts was his specialty, so it was a surprise when the trophy wife of one of the middle-aged Texas oilmen in town snagged his elbow and pulled him out onto the dance floor. She'd had a bit too much champagne, maybe to drown whatever pain it was that hovered behind her strained smile. When she locked her arms around his neck and draped herself over him like some drooping lily, Wade didn't have the heart to push her away. A large part of that reluctance had been because he could feel the difficult breaths she took as she tried to control tears. Then, as he turned with her in the dance, he noticed that the husband was watching and he wasn't happy.

Abruptly he was transported to a mud hut on the edge of some small town. The place was an extremist stronghold where the vice consul was being held after being abducted from his car on a lonely road where he shouldn't have been in the first place. The oilman's wife, who definitely shouldn't have been there, either, was also in the dark hut.

Wade had just infiltrated the place, taking out the guard posted at the rear entrance and another one in the hallway. He could hear the rest of the terrorist cell in a front room chowing down, since it was Ramadan and they'd been fasting all day. He had exactly three minutes, an eternity of time, to get the kidnapped pair on their feet and out the back door. Then all hell was going to break loose as the Diplomatic
Security Service, under command of security chief Nat Hedley, swept out the snake's nest.

Wade moved soundlessly into the windowless cubicle of a room where the vice consul and the woman were laid out back to back on the floor. The embassy second-in-command was his first responsibility. A Yale man with a lanky build and perpetually arrogant expression, he was smart enough to wait for instructions after he was freed. Then Wade turned to the oilman's wife.

Her face was a ghastly mask of ruined makeup overlaying pain and terror. She was tied up like a bulldogged steer, her body bent backward in a bow. No way was she going to be able to walk out on her own. He cut her loose with a few quick slices, stifling her moan with one hand as he helped her straighten her body. Pulling her upright, he clutched her against him with a firm grip while holding his weapon ready in his free hand. He motioned to the Yale man to follow, then started back the way he'd come.

He heard the yelled order, first round of shots and slamming entry before his second step. Something was wrong; the operation was going down early. He put it in high gear as he half dragged the woman down the back hall.

The exit ahead was blocked by a man's figure. The compressed thump of silenced shots echoed off the walls. Wade felt the woman he carried jerk as the bullets hit her, felt the warm wet splatter of her blood. He raised his weapon, squeezed the trigger. Then a
red and orange fireball lit the night and his world went to pieces.

Wade came awake so fast that he wrenched to a sitting position on the mattress before his eyes snapped open. His breath rasped in his throat. His brain felt on fire. The purple blotch of scar tissue on his left side and groove hidden by the hair at his temple burned with phantom pain. Resting his elbows on his raised knees, he closed his eyes again and pressed the heels of his hands hard against the eyelids. Then he let his hands drop and shook himself like a dog.

Where that nightmare had come from was no mystery. He'd lived it. He'd also relived it during debriefing, when he'd tried to explain that the death of one of the hostages was no DSS failure but a setup, and for months afterward. Why it had visited him again tonight, years after he'd conquered it, was easy to see. He'd failed once to remove a woman from danger and was half-afraid that the same thing would happen again.

The two cases were nothing alike, and Wade knew it. There was no way in hell he could have guessed that the oilman wanted his wife dead for a lot of twisted reasons that had more to do with her habit of asking strange men to dance than it did Middle Eastern politics or government security. It made no difference. He was still forced to second-guess his decision and actions that night, and to wonder if he could make any similar situation come out right.

Wade sometimes thought the problem was that the
incident had never been resolved. Nat Hedley had raised ten kinds of stink over the foul-up, but it had done no good. There was considerable confusion, intentional or otherwise, about just who had triggered the op or been first through the hut's rear entrance. Wade had been out of it for days, in no shape for filing official reports, and the vice consul had seen nothing once he'd hit the floor at the first sound of gunfire. Accusing a wealthy and influential citizen who was a frequent campaign contributor of having his wife murdered had not been a popular idea, and the body had been released for shipment back to the States followed by cremation. Then a week later, the oilman, in the grip of apparent senile dementia associated with Alzheimer's, had shot himself. The incident was written off as an unfortunate accident during a hostage situation and no amount of requests for investigation could get it reopened.

Wade had resigned from the DSS, returning to the oil fields that he'd abandoned when Nat Hedley recruited him. He'd settled back into a comfortable routine of months overseas followed by weeks at home. Nat had left the service a couple of years later to start Vantage International Security, specializing in the rescue of Americans kidnapped or otherwise detained in foreign countries. And that had been that, until Wade got the call from John Madison.

In retrospect, Wade thought he'd gravitated toward John in those early oil-field days out of the need for something that he'd never gotten from his old man.
Why John, almost twenty years older, had taken him on, Wade couldn't imagine. He'd been a reckless kid and high-tempered, with more bravado than brains. It was a wonder he hadn't gotten himself killed a dozen times over. John's influence had steadied him, given him the grounding he'd needed to set himself straight.

A sharp knock on the door snagged his attention just then. He eased from the bed and stepped into his pants. Picking up his handgun from the bedside table, he crossed to the room noiselessly on bare feet. There was no peephole. It didn't take a lot of imagination to figure out what was happening in the hall, however, since the doorknob turned under his fingers as he touched it.

He pulled his hand back, then thumbed off the safety of his weapon. Carefully he reached down and set aside the stainless-steel bar he'd added to the hotel's flimsy security. Then he stepped to one side and waited.

The lock clicked and the door opened a crack. It widened. A man inserted his head and shoulders.

Wade grabbed the intruder's shirtfront and jerked him inside. Then he slammed him against the wall and shoved his handgun's barrel under the man's chin. “You have two seconds to tell me what you're doing here,” he said in a low growl. “Start talking.”

“Release me, infidel, or you will be shot.”

“Be hard to give the order without the bottom half of your face.” Wade's reply was in the Pashtu the man had used, since he'd picked up the rudiments in
a two-week crash course, thanks in large part to past familiarity with Arabic. Catching a furtive sound from outside, he added, “Tell your buddy to step into the room where I can see him or this discussion is over.”

The man he held stood rigid, resistance in every line of his body. The struggle between survival and defiance was almost palpable. Then he called out, “Enter, Zahir.”

A slight figure slid around the doorjamb and stood waiting with his back pressed to the facing. A spate of Pashtu far too rapid for Wade to follow passed between the two men. As it ended, the smaller one looked at him and put his hands together and bowed in a gesture of respect. “Esteemed sir,” he said in passable English. “We mean you no harm but only wished to make your acquaintance and discover the purpose for your visit to Ajzukabad.”

“You picked a mighty strange time for a social call,” Wade returned.

“This may be so. It was necessary in order to find you in your room.”

That sounded as if they might have attempted to contact him earlier. It didn't mean they wouldn't have slit his throat, given half a chance, but seemed to hint at semipeaceable intentions. He indicated the bedside lamp. “Let's have a little light on the subject, shall we?”

The lamp gave off less light than a couple of good birthday candles, but it was enough to confirm his suspicions. He'd never laid eyes on the younger man
who had flicked it on, but the one who had come through the door first was Chloe's stepbrother Ahmad. Wade released him and stepped back. Remembering just in time that the Hazari was supposed to be a virtual stranger to him, he said, “I saw you in Kashi, at the football stadium.”

“And I you,” Ahmad replied, then continued with his companion dutifully translating after him. “Who are you and what do you want?”

Wade gave his name, even as he wondered belatedly if he should have arranged for a false identity in case Chloe's stepbrother was the culprit behind the missing letters. No recognition appeared in the guy's face, however, which meant he either had no memory for names or was good at hiding reactions behind his beard.

“Why do you linger in the bazaar? Why do you watch our women?”

“Veils just plumb fascinate me,” Wade said with his best dumb-as-dirt-drawl. “Can't for the life of me see how they breathe under them tablecloths, not to mention how they ever manage to cross a street without getting run over. Now I'd like to know why you've been following me.”

“You must expect such things when you travel in a country that is at war.”

Wade had expected them, as a matter of fact. That was why he'd gone a couple of miles out of his way to lose the tail before heading to the house where
Chloe lived earlier. “The idea makes me nervous. I'm a textile importer, not a spy.”

Ahmad pursed moist, fleshy lips. “A textile importer. Yet you visit no makers of textiles.”

“I'm told the choicest goods are made privately, by women working in their homes.” At least that was what he'd read in the dossier compiled to go along with the reason for his visit as stated on his entrance papers.

“No such goods exist. Our women do not concern themselves with the sordid world of commerce.”

“You mean they'd rather beg like those I've seen in the streets, or maybe starve?” This was twisting the lion's tail and nothing more, but Wade couldn't resist.

“You will do better to confine your inquiries to cloth and your purchases to normal markets where men may sit down with each other to reach a bargain. That is if you truly have interest in our goods.”

With the threat of immediate death removed, Ahmad was fast reverting to bullying arrogance of the kind that usually covered insecurity, Wade thought. Behind his attitude was almost certainly the over-the-top zealotry that came from embracing a cause for the sense of belonging conferred by it. That was the same cult mentality that had produced the Manson murders and the mass death at Jonestown. Wade understood it well enough, since he'd come close to something similar before his disenchantment with the DSS. Any fighting force developed its own brand of brother
hood, as did most religious or ideological communities. Some were just more extreme than others. And the most dangerous members were those who had no thought or purpose not sanctioned by their leaders.

“Rugs, that's what I'm after,” Wade said easily. “Though I've taken a liking to the embroidered women's clothes I've seen here and there. Know where I might find a source for quality goods along that line?”

“Hardly. And I must say you do not look the kind of man who would find them of interest.”

Something in the stepbrother's voice really got to Wade; he just couldn't help it. Tilting his head, he asked softly, “You calling me a liar?”

“I've no reason to do that. Yet. But I am here to make you understand Taliban policy in respect to foreign nationals. You may come to our country, you may leave your money, but you may not comment publicly on our internal policies, interfere in our internal affairs, or attempt to contact a private citizen for any nonbusiness-related purpose. Is this clear?”

Wade glanced at the interpreter as the young man repeated his leader's nonsense. This Zahir was young, with dark, liquid eyes and a wispy beard that almost looked glued to his chin. His turban and uniform were carefully pressed, obviously new. Soft around the edges, he watched Ahmad with the kind of nervous awareness that suggested dependency. If Ahmad was aware of his regard or his favor, he gave no sign. Wade had heard a few things about the closeness of
Muslim brotherhood over the years, but saw little indication of that preference in Chloe's stepbrother.

“No problem,” he said hastily as he saw that Ahmad was now waiting for his answer. The agreement cost him nothing since Chloe Madison was not, as far as he was concerned, a Hazari citizen.

“It's an excellent thing that we understand each other. Be advised as well that the faster you conclude the business that brought you here, the better it will be for all.”