what it is. Kyle says the job is doable, with minimal risks, and I am a professional, too.”
Lady Pat threw back her head and laughed. “Kyle and Jeff would consider fighting a saber-toothed tiger with their bare hands to be a piece of cake. They live for the rush of it all. You’re not really like them, Beth. Very few people are, even within the special operations forces. Still, if I have to see you go off on this errand, I prefer that you have Kyle as your partner. He’s the best, and he even admits that you’re pretty good. That is a very high compliment.”
“I work hard at it, Pat. Always trying to break through the glass ceiling, you know? Because I’m petite and pretty, men won’t treat me as an equal.”
“The eternal story, my dear.” They paced on in silence until they reached the stern, then looked back over the churning wake behind them, glowing with green phosphorescence. “You haven’t asked the question.”
“What question?”
“About Kyle and Jeff and me.” Pat smiled. “You must be curious why someone as sophisticated as I, a lady of the realm, would have anything to do with a foul little mongrel like him.”
“He gave me a synopsis on the way in, Pat, but it’s really none of my business.”
Patricia threw the remains of the cigar overboard. “Do you know how hard it is to find a true friend in life? What started as a simple business deal, when Kyle was sent over to advise Jeff on a new weapon, unexpectedly grew into a deeply personal friendship among the three of us. As you said about your brother, maybe it was our karma. No one was trying to make it happen, which is probably the only reason it worked. We did not really need him, and Kyle didn’t need anybody. Yet he slowly filled a gaping hole in our lives, and we acted as surrogate parents to him. As the company grew over the years—Jeff turned out to be an even better businessman and financier than he was a soldier—so did our relationship, until we became quite the odd family. Kyle is invaluable to us now, and we love him to death. We always try to lure him away from the Marines, but he refuses. The Pentagon stays happy because it gives the U.S. special access to the Excalibur products, and as you see, we provide the occasional spot of help for some operations.”
“Are you telling me that Kyle can choose between being a jarhead gunnery sergeant and living in this sort of luxury, and he stays in uniform?”
“Yes. Someday, he will retire and come into the business as a full partner. In the meantime, he is a member of the board of directors and a vice president. When Jeff and I die, Kyle inherits the company.” Lady Patricia looked sideways at Beth. “Did I mention, darling, that he is extremely rich?”
Beth thought in silence for a moment. “I don’t care about his money, or his private life,” she said. “From the moment we met, he has been an insufferable enigma. We’re barely friends, Pat. He can be cold and abrasive and rude one minute, and the next encouraging and understanding. All I want from Kyle Swanson is to get me into that valley in Pakistan and then get me out again.”
14
SERGEANT HAFIZ TRIED NOT to overthink the task. The Talibs were unimpressive substitutes for real soldiers. They were courageous if untrained jihadists, but tribal. He divided the remaining eighteen men into three groups of six and assigned each team to be led by one of the ISI regulars who had been watching the Djinn at night. Since the man who was the evil spirit would now be sleeping soundly during the dark hours, those few soldiers could be switched to lead the new irregulars.
One group would be on patrol, and the second in reserve, while the third rested. They would rotate every six hours. Sleep pulled at his eyes, and Hafiz went to the basin and washed his face, forearms, and hands clean of the fine grit that caked into every crease and wrinkle. A final radio check with the new squad leaders told him that all was quiet outside, so he headed for his bunk and a few hours of rest. He had learned long ago that sleep deprivation dulled a leader’s abilities. The inspectors from the New Muslim Order were due to arrive tomorrow, and he had to be alert.
Just as Hafiz was drifting off, Mohammad al-Attas snapped awake. He was in his own bed, wearing only boxer shorts and bandages, and the lights were off. He smiled broadly into the darkness and got up, as if pulled by a friendly hand. Fools! Did they really think the Djinn would be an easy prey? He clicked a switch on the wall, and the room filled with such brilliance that he bent double to cover his eyes, moaning with the pain until he could reach out and turn it off again, plunging the room back into restful, familiar darkness.
Why was he so sore? Oh, yes. Ghostly images slashing at him emerged as a real memory; evil creatures with sharp claws and teeth had tried to devour him until he fought them off. Then he remembered the hospital and the drugs, and coming back to life behind the masquerade of being a mere human again, the weak little engineer who was liked and respected by everyone, feared by none. The Djinn could withstand pain; it had a delicious taste that proved he was real, that he was alive. The thick dreams induced by the morphine had been a tumble of terrifying characters that loyally followed him as they scourged the earth with fire and blade. Once he had rested enough to move beyond the grasp of the heavy narcotics, the Djinn pretended to take the pills offered to him in his weak body, then threw them away.
His own laugh comforted him, and he felt for the edges of the cloth and adhesive bandages and tore them away, baring the stitches and the wounds. Where were his clothes? The knives and his scimitar? No matter. Naked and pure, he left the room, sauntered down the empty hallway, and scaled a short ladder that led into a gun pit. The push of a button opened the wide firing slot, and he wiggled through, leaving a trail of blood.
Once outside in the night, he could hear the songs from the stars as he breathed deeply in the rain-cleansed air. Voices called for him to hunt, and to answer them, he squatted on a rock beside the river, cupped his hands around his mouth, and loosed a single, screeching howl.
The sound ricocheted down the still valley to where the Taliban patrol was slowly working along a muddy path. The ISI soldier who had been manning Post Three prior to becoming the shepherd for this herd of stumbling goats had just told them for the fiftieth time to shut up and keep moving when he heard the familiar cry, and he stopped everyone in their tracks. He grabbed the radio on his belt and raised the command post in the tunnel. “Get Sergeant Hafiz for me right away. Tell him the Djinn is loose outside; position unknown.”
LIEUTENANT COLONEL SYBELLE SUMMERS and Master Gunny O. O. Dawkins of Task Force Trident caught a ride from a special operations base in North Carolina all the way to Afghanistan aboard a Lockheed Martin C-5M cargo hauler. The Galaxy, affectionately called a FRED by its crew—the acronym for Fantastically Ridiculous Economic Disaster—was the most expensive flying machine to operate in the U.S. Air Force.
Thousands of pounds of equipment, from cargo pallets of food and ammunition to helicopters and howitzers, were buckled down in the cavernous lower-deck cargo bay. Five dozen troops rode in the rear upper-deck troop compartment, with seats to spare. Sybelle and Double-Oh occupied positions on the forward flight deck that was reserved for dignitaries.
The flight had been a long, droning, boring crossing of the Atlantic that required alternating flight crews, and twice they made the slow rendezvous with refueling tankers and then roared on. The dull whine of the four new General Electric engines was quieter on this updated model of the Galaxy, but it was always there, burrowing into the eardrums.
Sybelle played her tunes, tried to nap beneath a light blanket, or immersed herself in an almost indecipherable textbook on international economic theory that was part of her program with the Lejeune Leadership Institute. As she studied some arcane charts, she wished she were down in the dirt, chasing bad guys, but to punch another notch on the career belt, the warrior had to rest while the student finished her master’s degree. The constant droning in her ears was maddening. How could people really sleep on any airplane?
Across the aisle, Double-Oh snored. He was a Marine, by God, and slept when he was told to, anywhere, anytime. In his pocket was a little black notebook in which he had been jotting reminders about the best way to throw Kyle and the little Coastie out of an airplane over Pakistan in about twenty-four hours. Getting them to the target area would be the jobs of the pilot and copilot of the small jet, but as jumpmaster, it would be
