So part of him said,
His more logical side argued that he was about to die and a death grip on the seat or straps was the only response. Fight or flight. You can’t deny instinct, deny nature.
Brent’s ex-girlfriend had been right; he should have left the Army as she’d wanted. Somer had spent three years trying to convince him, while he’d fallen deeply in love with her. She was in love with him, too, but not in love with his career. He’d kept saying, “You knew this going in. If you couldn’t marry a soldier, why’d you get involved in the first place?”
“I got involved with a man who happened to be a soldier.”
And she’d just cried and wondered why she had.
Their three years together — really eighteen months since he’d spent the other half deployed — had taught Brent one sad and rather trite lesson: Don’t get involved. It wasn’t worth it. He admired those colleagues who could maintain families despite the challenges; he just wasn’t one of them because the time and distance turned him cold and he couldn’t switch on his feelings just like that. And if he’d just listened to Somer, he’d be at home in California, probably working some day job that didn’t thrill him, but he’d be with her; they’d have a small house or apartment, a couple of kids, and on the weekends they’d buy ice cream cones at the galleria. Was that such a terrible life?
Now he would die like a filthy dog, probably burned alive as the jet fuel washed over him and the flames licked their way up his spine.
Damn, why was he being such a pessimist? The team needed him now, despite the fact that their lives were in the hands of the pilots, and there wasn’t a damned thing they could do about that — except remain hopeful instead of resigning themselves to death.
He took a long breath, then shouted at the top of his lungs: “All right, everybody! We’re Ghost Recon! We don’t die in crashes! The runway comes to us!”
“Hoo-ah!” they cried, a bit halfheartedly.
“I can’t hear you!”
This time they shouted with everything they had, and just the sheer volume of their voices made it easier to pretend they were still in control.
Sheikh Hussein Al Maktoum glared at Chopra as he tossed his long, curly hair out of his eyes. Then the boy returned the baseball cap to his head and positioned it so the brim jutted cockily to one side.
The oversized black T-shirt that said GANG WARZ in purple text, the hoop earring in one ear, and the large gold necklaces he wore were not quite as surprising as the black tattoo of barbed wire running across the young man’s forearm.
He was a Muslim. Tattoos were forbidden, or at least Chopra understood that they were. Hopefully the tattoo was not real, a decal that would wash away.
“You’re not from Sandhurst,” Hussein hollered, his accent distinctly British.
“Turn down the music!” cried Chopra. “I need to speak with you! You don’t remember me?”
Hussein made a face, pushed open the door, and allowed Chopra to enter.
To say the boy was a pack rat wildly understated it.
Stacks of movies, books, and video games rose along nearly every wall, forming a mottled wainscot of spines and rising in testament to a young life spent consuming all that was commercial and, in Chopra’s humble opinion, all that was deplorable about society.
Framed posters on the wall depicted more of the boy’s thug heroes: shirtless men making obscene gestures while scantily clad women clutched their waists and knelt at their sides to pay homage. At least three flat-screen TVs hung from the upper walls, and every conceivable game console on the market sat on the floor below them: elaborate headsets encrusted with a spaghetti of wires along with high-tech gloves and a rug of some sort that was also wired to an antenna.
In the far corner of this teenager’s nest stood a small refrigerator beside which was a shelf loaded with junk food: chips, crackers, cookies, and assorted candy. Those dietary choices certainly accounted for the young sheikh’s puffy cheeks and the paunch he attempted to hide beneath his baggy shirt and jeans. Chopra also noted the boy’s expensive sneakers made in Vietnam of some space-age fluorescent material that shimmered like blue-green algae.
Now wearing a deeper frown, Hussein sauntered over to a tiny box on one shelf and suddenly lowered the music with a remote he snatched off the top, but even as he turned back to face Chopra, he was mouthing the words of the song.
“Hussein, you don’t remember me?” Chopra repeated.
“Maybe. Like maybe you worked with my father or something. What do you want, old man? Are you one of the new tutors? You don’t look like an officer.”
Chopra motioned to a pair of overstuffed leather recliners from where Hussein played his video games. “Please sit. We have a lot to discuss. You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for this moment.”
“Frankly, I don’t care. I’m hungry. And the two dolts who tutor me will be here soon. I don’t have time for this. I’m hungry!”
“Hussein, listen to me. I hold the keys to helping you rebuild your country. But it’s up to you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
He stood there a moment, scrutinizing Chopra. Then something occurred to him and he burst into laughter. “What the hell? Is Southy playing a joke on me?” He moved toward the door and lifted his voice. “Southy! What the hell is this?”
“Hussein, please sit down.”
The boy’s face screwed up into a knot. “Old man, I have no clue what you want, but this isn’t funny anymore. Get out of my room.” He cocked a thumb toward the doorway. “And tell those bastards downstairs they’d best have my breakfast ready!”
Chopra lowered his head and sighed deeply, and when he looked up, a woman stood behind the young sheikh—
The same woman Chopra had seen in the Seychelles. Short, dark hair. Lean, muscular. Penetrating eyes. Jeans and tight-fitting leather jacket.
Wearing a smug expression, she held a pistol with large suppressor to the back of the boy’s head.
“Hussein, don’t move,” gasped Chopra.
But the boy whirled to face the woman. “Who the hell are you?” He glanced at the gun. “And what is this? How dare you wave that piece in my face? How dare you!”
Chopra nearly fainted as Hussein slapped away the woman’s pistol and shouted, “Southy, what in bloody hell is going on here! Who are these freaks? You’re going to pay for this charade! I’m telling you right now! This is the last time you play a joke on me!”
But even as he finished, the woman seized him by the neck, slammed the door behind her, and forced him into the room and toward the recliner beside Chopra.
Though her weapon sent a chill through him, Chopra rose immediately from his chair and shouted, “You will not hurt him! Do you hear me?”
“You sit down!” she screamed.
Then she jammed her pistol into Hussein’s head and spoke between her teeth. “Now listen to me carefully, little boy. Your friends are all dead. And you’re going to do exactly as I say, if you want to stay alive.” She spoke English with a Russian accent, an accent that took Chopra’s breath away. God, the Russians were already on to them.
“This isn’t a joke?” Hussein asked, his voice cracking.
The woman widened her eyes. “Do I look like I’m joking?”
“Who are you? What do you want?” Chopra demanded.
Slowly, she removed her weapon from Hussein’s head, and then she suddenly backhanded Chopra, her leather glove dragging across his cheek. His glasses flew across the room and he groaned, his own palm going reflexively for the pain.
“Quiet, old man. I do all the talking now. You want to know who I am? Well, they call me the Snow Maiden.”
