Chapter 9
Chapter 9
N othing in his life had ever prepared John for the way hearing those words would make him feel. After ten years in the military and four at West Point, war was finally personal. It had never occurred to him it could be, mostly because he had no people. But he had Juniper. However tangential she was to his life, she had at one time been central to him, to his wellbeing, even when he hadn’t wanted her to be. She had been the person he spent ten hours a day with, however reluctantly on his part. From the moment she woke to the moment she went to bed, she had only wanted John. She had been foisted on him, shoved into his care—a standoffish, singular teenager. Why her parents thought they’d be a good match was anybody’s guess, but somehow they had worked. He had tempered her wild exuberance; she had bolstered his sullen melancholy. Being too introspective or morose hadn’t been possible when he’d been doing his best to keep a toddler alive, despite her repeated attempts to ignore all danger and do away with her little life.
And now once again, at the ripe age of thirty two, he found himself in the role of her protector and rescuer. Only this time it was his fault she was in trouble. Reasonably he shouldn’t, couldn’t have been the one to leave camp and drive her to the base. He was in charge of the entire operation; he couldn’t walk away to shuttle a civilian like an overqualified taxi service. But somehow he knew that if he’d been the one to go, Juniper would now be safe. It was the same way he knew he had to be the one to go get her because, reasonably and without conceit, he was the best.
So when his men told him of her kidnap, he didn’t explode at them like they probably expected, didn’t put anyone on blast or toss anyone from his sight, as he sometimes did when he became too disgusted with their weakness or incompetence. Instead he strode calmly past them, unloaded his gun, and locked it in his drawer. Then he pulled out his pack and started to prepare.
In the second drawer, he reached for the weapons he’d take along—a machete he’d bought at a local market, a knife he pulled out of an East German operative’s gut, and a gun he won in a poker game with a Soviet operative. It absolutely would not do to leave a trace, to be able to assign blame for the coming carnage on the United States Army. That was why he needed weapons that couldn’t be traced to him. The Soviet gun was clunky and unrefined, but it would work as it was supposed to. And it was likely he wouldn’t need it anyway. John was an expert shot, but his other skills made it so that he rarely had to fire his weapon. Those skills were the reason he was sent the places he went—to get in and get the job done undetected. For a couple of years he’d done wet work—killing people the army told him needed killed. Being an assassin had been okay, but there hadn’t been much challenge in it. As he matured, he realized he enjoyed the planning of a mission as much as the execution. It was like viewing a giant chessboard and being able to arrange the pieces. He had an eye for strategy, for, well, for war. Somehow he always knew what the enemy was going to do and how best to disable them. So far that deadly combo of intuition and skill had led him to success. And now it would help him find and rescue Juniper. He wouldn’t allow himself to believe it might already be too late; she was more valuable to them alive. What concerned him was how much they could do to her before he found her.
Rage attempted to seep in, but he wouldn’t let it. Emotion was a weakness he couldn’t allow. He would find her and make her well, no matter what. With that thought in mind, he reached into the box he’d brought from her camp and added her toothbrush and toothpaste to his pack.
His sergeant was one of the men standing outside his tent. “You’re in charge until I return,” he said, which was probably an extraneous thing to say, of course the sergeant was in charge in his absence. But they seemed to be waiting on him to make some sort of statement. An intention of his imminent return seemed the safest option.
“Sir,” the sergeant surprised him by speaking. “Do…do you need help? We could all go?”
John surveyed the men feeling…what? Grateful? Touched? Annoyed? He cleared his throat. “I appreciate the offer, Sergeant, but this is bound to be a delicate operation, one best handled alone.” With one final nod, he hopped in the Humvee and sped away, following the same route the earlier car had taken.
He had no trouble finding the disabled Jeep in the roadway. It had already been stripped of its parts. He should have had someone drive him this far, so the same wouldn’t happen to the Humvee, not that they’d have such an easy time of it. They’d need a saw or welding kit to do the same thing that had been done to the Jeep. There was some comfort in that, he supposed. Besides, the men who did the earlier job were long gone now and likely wouldn’t be back.
He hopped from the truck, shouldered his pack, and disappeared into the jungle, pausing to listen and observe. John had been a tracker long before he was a soldier. His father had taught him how, one of the only good things he’d passed along. He knew how to read the signs, observe the earth and follow prey. It was a skill that used to fascinate Juniper. Together they had spent their days following deer deep into the woods, her on his back when the terrain became too rough. Despite his earlier teasing, she had been surprisingly good at being still and silent, intent on watching the birds or animals they followed. She could be prattling endlessly, as she often did, but when John put his finger to his lips, she went mute, waiting, watching.
Strange how easily he had forgotten all that. For six years she’d been the biggest part of his life, but he had cut her out of it with knifelike precision, the same way he cut out everything when he became a soldier. He was the job, only the job. Nothing that came before mattered, or so he thought. But now, as he advanced through the jungle following an invisible path, the memories came pouring back. Far from being painful as he thought they might, they felt like healing oil, a salve to all his broken pieces. He’d been part of a family once, a good one, no matter how strange and eccentric they might have been.
Dustin Dunbar, Juniper’s father, had been a fulltime college professor once, until he retired and devoted himself to editing academic journals. It was a profession that allowed him to make his own schedule, to work from home and be with his family. But he never lost his love of teaching, his joy of discovery. He had passed that along to all of his children and John, too. John’s own mother had a love of learning, even though she hadn’t received much education. She used to take John to the library and pile a massive stack of books for both of them. And then when she finished reading all of her books, she would read all of his. His father, a manly man who eschewed softness in any form, never made fun of them for their love of reading. It seemed to be the one sacred thing he wouldn’t touch, and John had come to treasure it as something important, a lesson that was furthered by his time at the Dunbars’. Dustin Dunbar had been an impassioned teacher; in John he’d found an eager pupil, if nothing else. He might not have been receptive to all the love and affection they tried to heap on him, but he had been ravenous for an education. It was that desire to learn and excel that earned him a spot at West Point, where he graduated among the top in his class.
Another thing I need to thank them for, he thought. He had already compiled quite a list. It was his Uncle Bailey who pointed him toward West Point and set it as a goal, but it was the Dunbars who made it possible, who patiently encouraged him to take his studies seriously at a time when it would have been easy to languish in his trauma. When he thought about it, so many people had whispered into his life as a boy, so many people had a hand in guiding him toward success. He might have ended in ruin, in prison or, worse, dead. Instead he’d been given a purpose, a mission, and been given the tools to succeed. What are you doing to repay all that? His insistent inner voice whispered, pricking his conscience once more. To whom much is given, much is expected, but what was he doing to begin to repay his debt? Whose life did he influence? His subordinates were terrified of him, but he didn’t think that counted as influence. He’d saved people, successfully pulled them through missions and kept them alive when the odds were greatly against them. But that was his job. It had nothing to do with him as a person. When he thought about it in those terms, he couldn’t think of one person he had steered on course, mentored, challenged to grow and keep learning the way Dustin and Bailey had for him. And that was a shame, a deep and lasting shame. John was in a position of great power. Shouldn’t he use that for good? To cultivate future leaders and men of character?
Suddenly an insurgent emerged from the jungle to his right, yelling, arms held aloft as he charged. And then he was on the ground, John’s hand around his neck, keeping him contained like an errant calf. These were the times he knew he wasn’t normal. Other men, men he’d known, men he’d trained, felt adrenaline surges in these moments as their fight-or-flight instincts kicked in. John felt nothing. Not fear, not elation, not horror—nothing. Just a calm directive in his brain, telling him what to do in order to succeed. Pin the man. Get the information. Decide whether or not to dispose of him.
“ Donde esta la mujer ?” His words were a silken whisper in the man’s ear, soft yet full of so much threatened retribution the man began to tremble.
“ No sé, ” the man’s panicked voice trembled out of him, over and over again, pleading. “ No sé .”
John’s grip tightened on his neck. His thumb pressed the middle of his throat, finding the proper spot. One twist and it would all be over. His eyes must have told the man how imminent his death was because he began to blubber.
“ Donde esta la mujer ?” John repeated it lower, slower, a snake gearing up for a strike.
“ Este, la llavaron al este. Acampar. ”
East. To their camp. John would reach them before they arrived. He had to because if they reached their camp with her… His hand tightened on the man’s throat again, and for the first time in his life he began to feel something as he stared at the man. Something bad. Rage. “Did you hurt her?” he demanded. The man blinked at him. The “soldiers,” such as they were, were nothing more than a ragtag band of villagers who’d had enough poverty and decided to try something else. Uneducated, they were no less dangerous because they had an ideology. But John was a thousand times better trained than the man—who was really little more than a boy—beneath him. So he eased his grip and tried again. “ La lastimaste ?”
The man’s eyes widened in panic. “ No. No, senor. Lo juro.” I swear it.
John felt something had been lost in translation. He didn’t need to know if the man personally hurt her, he needed to know if Juniper was still unharmed. But then he realized he likely wouldn’t get the truth from the terrified man. Once men started to release the fetid sweat of fear, they’d say anything to keep alive. The best course of action was to find Juniper and see for himself if she was okay. And if she wasn’t…
The man made a sound beneath him and John realized he was choking him to death. He loosened his hold and the man gulped air as John had a quick mental debate. There was no reason to kill the boy and extra casualties would conjure questions, might create complications John didn’t need. He could leave him unconscious long enough for John to get to his camp, but what if he rallied to come help his comrades? John had no idea how many there were, but the less, the better. Alive, John decided, but the man’s hand made a sudden lunge for his weapon. It was the last move he’d ever make. Training kicked in and John eliminated the threat in seconds, shouldered his pack, and walked away without a backwards glance or hint of remorse.