“Now you look here, Miss Jenny Raye McGrath!”
“No. You do what you want to, Dad. Whatever you want to do. But you give me the same privilege.” Jenny broke the connection, afraid that if she gave him the chance to start speaking again she would weaken.
She checked the number in caller ID, saw that it was the one her dad had called from, then punched in call-blocker to block any further phone calls from that number. Then she stood quietly in the darkness, cried, and prayed to God that she had made the right decision.
United States 75th Army Rangers Temporary Post
Sanliurfa, Turkey
Local Time 0524 Hours
Still in motion, knowing from the conversation he’d heard earlier that there was at least one other CIA agent in the apartment, Goose hurried through the door. His injured knee quivered threateningly for just an instant but held up under him.
The other agent sat at the sophisticated array of computer hardware filling one wall of the living quarters. The computer screen showed a war game in progress, the view through a sniper scope sweeping over a jungle area as the agent moved the mouse.
“Hey, Craig,” the agent said. “You gotta see what Donovan is trying now. Guy thinks he can get me with that old bait-and-switch tactic by offering me one of his grunts to expose my sniper. Can you believe that?”
He leaned forward and typed an obscene message on the screen. Whoever was playing at the other end wrote back in kind immediately. The CIA agent laughed and reached for the package of peanut M&M’s by the keyboard.
Goose covered the distance across the hardwood floor in long strides, pushing the MP5 SD3 ahead of him. The suppressor at the end of the barrel made the weapon look like an artillery piece.
“Craig?” The agent looked up. His eyes went wide as he saw Goose closing on him.
Goose pointed the machine pistol at the center of the man’s chest. He didn’t speak. The message was clear enough.
Instead of being frightened, though, the man reached for the pistol snugged in a shoulder holster under his arm as he stood.
If the op had been a sweep-and-secure mission against a known hostile force, Goose would have shot the man, stepped over his body, and kept going. But fatalities were out of the question. The CIA agent was either too young or too stupid to give up, or he’d seen too many action films.
Without breaking stride, Goose closed and chopped the CIA agent’s wrist as he freed the pistol from the shoulder holster. The pistol fell to the floor at their feet with a thud. Goose was thankful it didn’t go off.
Sweeping the MP5 up, Goose drove the abbreviated buttstock into the agent’s forehead and popped his head back, hoping to disorient him. The agent reached forward blindly, opening his mouth to scream.
Goose resisted the immediate impulse to slam the machine pistol into the guy’s mouth and stop the scream. The man would have lost a lot of teeth that way. Instead, Goose reached forward with his left hand, chopped the edge of his hand along the CIA agent’s Adam’s apple hard enough to choke him down but not break the larynx, then grabbed his shirt collar and lifted his left foot into the man’s crotch.
All the fight left the man in a rush. He bent over, gagging and throwing up. Goose helped him on his way, putting a hand in the back of his head and shoving him facedown on the floor. He let the MP5 hang from the whip-it sling around his shoulder, put a foot in the agent’s back, and applied a sleeper hold that shut off blood flow from the carotid arteries in the neck.
After a handful of seconds, the CIA agent slumped.
Satisfied the man was out, Goose took up the machine pistol and quickly went through the three-room apartment. He already knew the general schematics from other apartments in the area: living room/kitchen, bedroom, bath were set up in a straight shot.
No one else was there.
He returned to the front door, intending to wave Danielle into the building. He almost ran into her as she ran up the steps to the secondfloor patio. The rain dogged her footsteps. She wore dark clothes and a black watch cap he’d found for her.
“You were supposed to stay put,” Goose growled.
“I got worried.”
“If I hadn’t secured the room, you might have got dead.” Goose bent down and grabbed the first man by the ankles.
“Did you kill him?” Danielle asked.
“No. I choked him down and knocked him out. I didn’t come here to kill anyone.” Goose dragged the man from the patio into the apartment and closed the door. He nodded toward the computer. “Go. We don’t have much time.”
Danielle hesitated, then seated herself in the chair at the computer. She looked at the screen. “What is this?”
“Computer game.”
“I see that, but these players are linked.”
“So?” Goose laid the first man by the second and dug a roll of ordnance tape from his chest pack.
“What if the guy on the other end can shut down this computer from where he is?”
Goose tore off a strip of tape and started binding the first man’s hands behind his back. “I don’t know.”
Danielle stared at the screen. “Whoever it is wants to know if I’m still here.”
Goose moved to the computer and looked at the screen, scanning the type at the bottom of the screen.
>YOU THERE?
>YOU THERE?
>HASKELL, YOU THERE?
Leaning forward, Goose typed:>BRB.
“Be Right Back?” Danielle asked.
“Gamespeak,” Goose said. “They use it on Net Chat too.”
“And you learned this how?” Danielle asked.
“Joey. My teenager. He games a lot. I’ve watched him play. Gamers get used to starting and stopping play. I’m hoping these guys aren’t any different.”
>OK. GOTTA TAKE CARE OF SOME STUFF AT THIS END FOR A MINUTE. LEMME KNOW WHEN YOU WANNA GET YOUR TAIL KICKED SOME MORE.
Goose nodded at the
