Oath of Office

“Stay alert,” Clark said. He scanned across the top of his M4, pointing out while Ding covered the interior of the house behind him with the shotgun. “We saw four on the drone, but we might have missed one — and that doesn’t count Lucile Fournier. Midas, think you can get da Rocha so we can talk to him?”

Rather than wasting breath on an answer, Midas, who was already running, just waved over his head with his left hand. Clark couldn’t help but smile as the retired Delta operator’s long strides chewed up the distance between him and da Rocha. He caught up quickly, falling in behind the arms dealer to give him a mighty shove between the shoulder blades. Midas grabbed his quarry by the hair as he went down, riding him to the ground like a sled. Da Rocha took the brunt of the impact on his chest and nose, yowling as he skidded to a stop. Midas rolled him over and slapped him across the ear. Thirty seconds later he was flex-cuffed, on his feet, and trudging back up the gravel road in his ridiculous-looking shorts.

Adrenaline ebbing, da Rocha’s shoulders trembled when he looked around his estate at all the carnage. He blinked several times and then settled in on Clark, whom he’d identified as the leader. “Who are you? What… what is the meaning of this?”

Adara leaned out the sliding glass door and gave a grim shake of her head. “I found Fournier.”

Clark sighed. “Mr. da Rocha. I’m the guy who just saved your life. That means you owe me some information.”

Chavez leaned in. “We should go, boss.”

“Right,” Clark said, his eyes never leaving da Rocha. “I know a place near the coast where we can talk in private.” He turned to Chavez. “No shit. The place I’m talking about is soundproof. There’s a lake out back that must be a hundred feet deep. We can do whatever we want and no one will ever know.”

Completely overwhelmed, da Rocha’s face screwed up in a twisted grimace and he began to sob.

47

Dominic Caruso had wandered away from the rest of his family in Shenandoah National Forest when he was six years old. With darkness falling, every tree and bush looked like the other trees and bushes. In no time, he was so turned around he had no idea where he was. He’d sat down on a rock and cried as only a six-year-old boy can cry when he is hopelessly lost. But even then, he’d known that somewhere in the gathering darkness, there were people who loved him and wanted to make him safe.

Now he was slumped on the side of this isolated dirt road somewhere southwest of Herat, covered in mud and blood and bits of broken glass. The charred remains of the van steamed and smoked behind him. There’d been no explosion when the fuel tank caught fire, just a great whoosh and intense heat. The wind had whipped the flames and smoke into a black pyre that was surely visible for miles, but no one came to investigate. Caruso may as well have been on the face of the moon. Not a soul within a thousand miles cared enough to look for him. Hell, no one even knew he was missing. Jack was gone, snatched away along with Ysabel and the Russian. Life was cheap in this part of the world, and if Jack wasn’t dead already, it was only a matter of time.

The bandits hadn’t seen Dom, belly-down in the muddy ditchwater, or they would have taken him, too.

He dabbed at the side of his head, feeling the bristles of singed hair and blisters of the second-degree burns above his ear. Half his shirt on that side had been burned away as well. The incessant wind coated him in dust, as if he’d been rolled in yellow flour, making it impossible to accurately assess his injuries. One eye was swollen shut, his vision blurred. He could stand, though it made him feel like he might throw up. Both hands seemed functional enough for gross motor skills, but they shook so badly from shock that he’d likely have shot himself in the foot had he been able to find a pistol.

He allowed himself a two-minute pity party and then stood, realizing only then that he’d somehow lost his shoes while crawling through the mud. No one was coming for him. Be your own rescue, John Clark always said. That old son of a bitch had a mantra for everything. Caruso took a tentative step on wobbly legs, wincing from the rocks that cut his feet. Facing the wind, he laughed out loud in spite of the situation.

Pain from the burns and sprains and cuts had yet to overwhelm him, but it was only a matter of time. He had to get to a phone. To tell NATO troops or CIA or somebody with big guns and eyes in the sky that Ryan needed help. Caruso realized that as bad as this shit sandwich was, Jack’s was far worse. At least Caruso was free, such as it was. Hamid had passed an Afghan National Army base after they’d left the airport, somewhere before he’d turned onto this road. Caruso would walk all night, crawl if he had to. He laughed again. Hell, crawling would probably be faster.

He had maybe an hour until dark — ink dark. The dangers would be exponential once the sun went down, but at least he would be able to hide.