Decision Point

CHAPTER FIVE

Heather Daniels opened the car door to a wave of despair from the camp. A group of children were sitting in front of a small metal building with a soldier pacing in front of them. The dirty faces were streaked with tears, and one little girl was sporting a bruise that took up almost half of her face. The children weren’t looking at the soldier that was set as their guard. Daniels followed their gaze across the compound to two more of the Ocean Tigers dragging the bodies of two men from the side of the building. Fresh blood still oozed from their wounds, and they tossed them onto the bed of a truck without a word.

Daniels stumbled and dropped to her knees, feeling a wave of nausea roll through her stomach. She had seen death before, but this was different. She had spent the entire car ride with Rajan telling her that she would be safe and his kindness had disarmed her. She’d not expected to open the door to such horrible visions. The air itself reeked of violence. She looked back at the children with tattered clothes and broken spirits. The girl with the bruise dropped her head into her arms and tried to muffle her sobs. Her heart ached for the horror that they’d been put through and knew that it was a long way from being over.

Taking several deep breaths, Daniels waited for the nausea to pass and when it did, she wasn’t so much afraid as she was angry. Trying to contain her rage behind gritted teeth, she rose to her feet and turned to face Rajan, her arm swinging before she even realized it. He caught her hand in midair and pulled her tightly into his body. She thrashed around and tried to pound on him, but his grip was too tight—tears filled her eyes. He grabbed the back of her hair and whispered in her ear.

“I know,” he snapped, his voice urgent in her ear. “But don’t do this here. I can’t protect you if you make a scene.”

She leaned back, stunned, and then pulled away. Something told her that Rajan wasn’t like the other pirates, but now wasn’t the time to deal with it. She turned and walked over to the group of children. The sentry that had been diligently pacing in front of them blocked her path. Daniels turned to glare at Rajan. He nodded and she turned and pushed past the sentry.

The children didn’t hesitate, instinct telling them that they had a champion. They clamored around her, their voices rising in several different languages. She reached down and lifted a little boy that couldn’t have been more than two, settling him on her hip. With her other hand, she pulled the bruised and battered little girl to her feet and brought her in close. The child clung to her leg ferociously. Daniels ran her thumb along her cheek and gave her an encouraging smile.

“Where do we stay?” she asked Rajan. The challenge was there in her tone and she wondered if Rajan would let it stand. She had no real idea how long her captivity would last and if there was any chance that she was making it out of there alive, but she would do everything in her power to make the situation better for the children while she could. She watched Rajan move closer with one raised eyebrow. She hugged the children in closer and the girl shivering into her side strengthened her resolve.

“Come with me,” he said, his face betraying no emotion. Daniels nodded and motioned to the children to follow her, doing her best to reassure their uncertain expressions as they walked through the main camp. The camp consisted of a larger main house that looked like an old island villa. Set up on a small set of stilts instead of a traditional foundation, it had a wraparound porch that might have looked inviting if it weren’t for the armed soldiers at the entrance. There were at least six other buildings, three that were metal and three that were wooden huts of more recent construction. A group of women stood to the side washing laundry, and several teenagers were being drilled in a courtyard to one side of the buildings. She watched the women attempt to focus on their chores, but glance up with worried looks. Daniels wondered how many of the children on the island belonged to them and how many had already had their children killed in the conflict.

She paused briefly to focus on the teenagers, really little more than children themselves, being trained to be soldiers and her heart ached for them. She had spent most of her time trying to help those who had escaped the fate of being a child soldier and teaching them how to find their heart and soul again. So much of the training that they endured was about ripping away their innocence and destroying their ability to have compassion for themselves or anyone else. Perhaps even worse than the loss of innocence and compassion was the loss of faith, belief and wonder in the world itself. Their worlds had been stripped of hopes and dreams and replaced with death.

She stopped as they were walking and waited for Rajan to turn. He paused but didn’t turn initially. She stayed rooted in place and waited. Finally she said, “I want them, too.”

“Those you cannot have,” he said, turning to face her.

“Why not?”

“We need them to fight,” he replied, shrugging. “They are not children. We need soldiers.”

“You mean, you need killers,” she snapped. “They aren’t men yet, either.”

“They are trained to fight, for their homes and their families. Sometimes that means killing, yes.”

“I’ve seen this kind of recruiting before,” she said. “I’m betting that you already destroyed their families.”

“Those men who did not come voluntarily were killed,” he said. “That is the way of things.”

“You’re a monster.”

“It was not I who killed them,” he said.

“What does it matter if you killed them or had someone else do it? They’re still dead, and when your little faction here is destroyed these children will have no one to take care of them. I’ve been taking care of children just like them for years now and trying to help them rebuild. Trying to give them hope.”

“You do this by giving them another God to pray to. That does not help. We become their family. If they have a need we fill it. We do not offer empty promises.”

“And neither do I. Yes, we teach them prayer, but we also teach them to read and write. We teach them to think for themselves and how to find their hearts again after people like you have ripped them out!”

He reached out and slapped her.

Daniels stepped back, stunned. He hadn’t been violent with her, but as she looked around she realized she was causing a scene. Two other soldiers ran up with guns pointed and the children began to cry.

“Get them inside,” Rajan said.

Daniels stared at Rajan as he walked away and turned to face the soldier that was pointing a rifle at her. He wore three red hash marks on the sleeve of his jacket. She had a sneaky suspicion they symbolized kills. She reached out for the little girl’s hand and they walked ahead of the soldier into the house. She was surprised to see that the house was fairly modern. Sofas in the front room, wood floors and wood paneling. The heat and humidity were broken with fans placed strategically throughout the residence. The soldier behind her didn’t give her time to reflect on the surroundings, but shoved her forward. He was taller than the soldier with the red and looked a little more raw around the edges. His emblem was different than Red’s, the emblem of the shark around the skull set onto a black X. There was a sense of completion about the design, as if he had surpassed the red hash marks and had completed his head count.

The two soldiers moved them into the center of the room. One waved the children down to the floor, but stopped her from following. She looked at the two soldiers as they ushered her away from her little band. A slow smile crept across Red’s face and he motioned with his gun for her to move. When she didn’t move quickly enough, the larger soldier grabbed her arm and pulled her into the adjacent room.

Daniels heard the children begin to cry. She tried to quell her own rampant fear. She moved away and tried to position herself near the window. She dashed around the small desk and chair, but Red cut her off. Her heart was racing and she tried to think of a good prayer, but the only thing she could think of was, “God, please get me through this.”

She gasped when the second soldier grabbed her hair from behind and used it as a means to propel her around the room. He shoved her forward onto the desk, slamming her head into the wood. She struggled against him, but as she started to escape Red was on the other side of the desk, pushing his weight down onto her shoulders.

She could barely breathe with all of the weight and tried to cry out as the soldier fumbled around trying to rip away her clothes. Red laughed as her arms flailed. Her fingers made contact with a pencil and she wrapped her hand around it and managed to swing her arm forward and jab it into Red’s side.

His shriek was short-lived and had him slamming his elbow down on her back. She felt the fabric of her clothes begin to tear as the onslaught continued. Her ears were ringing from the pain and lack of air as her chest was compressed by their weight.

Red released her, and she glanced upward in time to see the bullet blast through his skull. The brute behind her was ripped away, and she turned to see Rajan land a punch to his midsection and then an uppercut connected with his jaw. Fury marred his normally serene expression. With Red dead, the brute began to explain his position so rapidly that Daniels didn’t understand. Her breath came in gulps as she tried to readjust her clothing.

Rajan reached out and grabbed the soldier by his hair and dragged him outside. Daniels staggered out of the room in his wake. She collapsed in the doorway and watched Rajan in the middle of the courtyard with the soldier on his knees. He was yelling, but she could only make out a few words as the others gathered to watch the spectacle. He pulled a pistol from his holster and didn’t hesitate dropping the soldier in front of the group. He began to yell again as he marched over to the house. He stood on the porch and pointed at Daniels clutching the doorframe.

Still shaky on the language and reeling from the events she made out one word. “Mine.”

Rajan reholstered his pistol and helped Daniels to her feet. He walked her past the children and into a small bedroom. Fear pulled at her, but she tried to relax. He sat her on the bed and went into the adjoining bathroom, returning with a cool, damp rag. She pulled her knees into her chest and pressed up against the headboard.

He started to run the cloth along her forehead, but she took it from him and used it to wipe down her tear-streaked face. It felt wonderful on her skin and she took several deep breaths, to bring herself back under control. Daniels knew that without Rajan those men would have raped her without a second thought.

Taking a seat in a chair next to the bed, Rajan said, “I’m sorry I had to strike you. I can’t have anyone challenging my authority here. Any weakness might provoke a challenge. I’m also sorry I left you alone before I established that you were not to be touched.”

She didn’t speak, but sat with the cool rag against her skin. She had never had her world so completely turned upside down. She tried to swallow, but her mouth was dry. “May I have some water, please?” she asked.

He nodded and left the room quickly, returning a few moments later with a bottle of water from the kitchen. “Drink this,” he said. “You will feel better.”

“I’m not sure I’m ever going to feel better,” she said. “I feel filthy and I don’t even know why.”

“Because even though those men did not rape you, you know what they planned. They treated you like…like you had no value. That is why you feel dirty.”

Catching her breath, Daniels said, “You’re a psychologist, too?”

He laughed softly. “No, but I am not unfamiliar with such traumas.”

“That’s not very reassuring,” she whispered.

He shrugged. “You will stay here until the ransom is paid. If you behave, the smaller children may stay here with you and you can school them, but you may not approach those in training.”

She looked around the room and reflected on what she understood from the courtyard. Pirates always extracted a price and she began to ponder the reality that he may be showing her kindness because he expected her to share his bed.

“And where will you sleep?”

“I will sleep with the soldiers in the bunkhouse. This room will be yours alone. I will send two other women for you to have as servants, but you must not task them with anything that is forbidden. They are not worth what you are, and you would be risking their lives for the trespass.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“Ransom and piracy are part of the way of life here,” he said.

“No, that I get, but I don’t get you. What is it you want from me?”

“You’ll understand everything in due course. This will be the only time I ask, you must trust me and you must do what I tell you. This is not all what you think.”

MICHELLE PETERSON STARED at the man across the table from her flipping through the State Department reports that she acquired. He had everything that a special ops military man was supposed to: muscular physique, mysterious good looks and enough training and skill to render a small country’s entire military inoperative in under an hour. This morning, however, he was dressed in civilian clothing, and something about him nagged at her perceptions. He didn’t act like a military man, strictly speaking, and he sure didn’t seem like a traditionalist when it came to operations. She trusted President Daniels completely, so when he’d said that a man named Hal Brognola was the person to turn to when Heather was taken, she believed him.

What she didn’t believe was that the man sitting across from her was in the Army. The fit didn’t feel quite right to her. She needed to know more about him before they went into the field. This wasn’t the kind of mission she wanted to tackle with someone she couldn’t trust.

“May I ask you a question, Colonel?” she asked.

He took another sip of coffee and nodded. “Go ahead.”

“You aren’t really active military, are you?”

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “What makes you say that?”

“Men with the rank of colonel wear their uniform—understandably—with a great deal of pride. You aren’t wearing yours today.”

“Uniforms attract notice,” he said. “We don’t need that right now.”

“Also,” she added, “military men don’t work alone. Even special ops guys have field teams. You don’t. Not to mention your file is sealed. The only military personnel files that are completely sealed are files of people that don’t really exist. So who are you really?”

He sighed, obviously thinking about her words and what his response would be. “All right, Agent Peterson. Here’s what I can tell you. My name is Matt Cooper, and yes, I am also known as Colonel Brandon Stone.”

“So who is Hal Brognola, really?”

“He’s real,” he said. “We work together sometimes, doing missions that have a vital interest to national security. That’s all you really need to know for our purposes and all you’re going to know, period. Anything else is above your clearance.”

She thought he was probably lying. This man might have dozens of identities. But the President trusted Brognola, and this was the man Brognola said could get the job done. “Fair enough—for now,” she said. “But if you aren’t as capable as Hal Brognola convinced the President you are, I’ll figure that out. I won’t have anyone risking Heather.”

He shook his head slightly. “Agent Peterson, you’ve just summed up the problem with your involvement rather nicely. This mission isn’t about Heather. She’s secondary, and even President Daniels knows that. If you can’t get your head around that idea, hit the road right now.”