Maggie’s cellphone rang. She hurried back to the kitchen, their breakfast forgotten, and grabbed the phone. Not recognizing the number, she swiped. “Hello?”

  “Hey, beautiful. How you doin’?”

  She collapsed into her chair, relief sweeping through her at her husband’s voice, the child still inside her desperate for the comfort and sense of safety that only he could provide. “Happy to hear your voice,” she sniffed. “How are you?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  She closed her eyes, her shoulders slumping. She never wanted to add to his stress when he was on a mission, but she couldn’t help it this time. “Oh, BD.” She searched for the words but couldn’t find them.

  “What is it?” His voice was soft, gentle, caring.

  “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s been another massacre.”

  There was a pause before he replied. “Yes, I’m aware.”

  “Bryson found a video.”

  “Oh, no. Please don’t tell me…”

  “He saw it. It was a beheading. I told him it was just from a movie and he seemed okay with that.”

  “Good thinking. You’re gonna make an amazing mother someday.”

  Her shoulders shook. She wanted children, she always had. But to bring a child into a world like this filled with so much hate, so much violence? She sighed. “Are you and the guys okay?”

  “We’re fine. The bigger question is, are you?”

  She sniffed. “I’ll be fine. It just brought back some memories.”

  “Yeah, I can imagine. Listen, try not to think about it. But you’re not gonna hear from me for probably a few days.”

  She knew better than to ask why. She desperately wanted to know if he had been somehow involved, but someone could be monitoring this call and he would just have to lie to her. Regardless, she could tell from his voice that he was, or at least would be. “I understand. I think I’m going to go into the office. See if the colonel needs me.”

  “That’s a good idea. I’m sure he’d appreciate that. Where are you now?”

  “Shirley and I are at Vanessa’s. She made us breakfast.”

  “Sounds nice. I predict a phone ringing in three, two, one.”

  Vanessa’s phone demanded attention and Maggie giggled. “Let me guess, Atlas calling home?”

  “You got it. Tell Shirley Red’s in line. Atlas won the arm wrestle.”

  “Of course he did.”

  “Would you believe Niner won?”

  “How in the hell did he manage that?”

  “He reached down and tickled Atlas’ balls. You can imagine what happened next.”

  Maggie laughed as Vanessa grabbed her phone. “Listen, I’ll let you go so Red can get on the line. I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  “You be careful.”

  “You know me. I always am.”

  “Ha! I do know you, and don’t forget, I see your after-action reports.”

  He snorted. “I guess there’s no hiding anything from you. Okay. Gotta go. Love you.”

  “Love you.” The call ended and she leaned back, a smile on her face despite the fact he had just confirmed he was heading into battle. Every moment with him, even over a phone line, was precious.

  She rose and picked up Shirley’s phone, heading back to the living room to give Vanessa her privacy. Shirley was on the balcony with her son, and Maggie poked her head through the sliding door and handed her the phone. “Red’s about to call.”

  Shirley’s face brightened and Bryson hopped up and down with excitement. The phone rang and Shirley eagerly answered as Maggie closed the door then sat in front of the television while the talking heads debated a headline with no details, 24-hour news channels absolutely useless.

  A burst of air escaped through her lips. She didn’t want to sit here all day, staring at a television, hoping for a glimpse of her husband. She texted the colonel.

  Do you need me?

  He replied a moment later.

  I guess you heard.

  It’s on TV.

  It’s your day off, but things always run smoother when you’re here.

  She smiled. Clancy was a good man with a good heart. She was well aware she wasn’t needed, but he was giving her an opportunity to feel better about the situation.

  Thank you. I’ll be there shortly.

  She pushed to her feet as Vanessa came into the room, a smile on her face. “My God. I love that man.”

  “He’s definitely one of the good ones.” Maggie picked up her purse.

  “Going somewhere?”

  “Into the office.”

  “But it’s your day off.”

  “I know, but the colonel needs me.”

  Vanessa glanced over at the TV. “Is it because of what’s going on?”

  Maggie nodded but said, “You know I can’t tell you that.”

  Vanessa’s smile wiped away as she realized that for Maggie to give up her day off, it had to mean their loved ones were in danger. Vanessa hugged her, whispering in her ear, “Sometimes I envy you, but days like these make me realize I shouldn’t.”

  Maggie gave her a kiss. “Sometimes ignorance is bliss.” She turned to see Shirley was still on the phone with Red. “Say goodbye for me. I don’t want to interrupt them.”

  Vanessa bit her finger but said nothing. They all knew what the stakes were when their other halves deployed. And with the enemy they were dealing with, the stakes were never higher.

  28 |

  Craig Larsen’s Office Washington, D.C.

  Craig Larsen yawned, stretching both arms to the sky as he leaned back in his plush leather chair. He had lost count of how many times he had fallen asleep in this finely crafted piece of furniture. He was the third generation to sit in it, his grandfather having first purchased it as a reward for the first year the firm had turned a profit. His grandfather had retired long ago, and his father was semi-retired, no longer taking new cases, only representing some of the clients he had taken on over the years, though they were slowly getting handed down.

  Larsen loved his job. It was interesting, exciting, important, especially in today’s day and age where frivolous lawsuits were the norm. He had to shield his clients from the nonsense so they could focus on the real work, the important work. These were politicians, many elected, many appointed to their positions. His firm boasted senators, representatives, cabinet secretaries, directors, judges, and more as clients. Important men and women who ran the country, Republicans and Democrats alike.

  The only thing he didn’t like about his job was how much time it took away from his family. He had lost his wife years ago to cancer. He still missed her and would trade anything to have her back, but he had moved on, casually dating, though not interested in anything serious, despite his daughter’s urgings.

  He sighed, staring at a photo of his daughter on his desk, and his chest ached. “I wish I had been there for you more.” He inhaled sharply through his nose, battling the guilt. He loved his daughter more than anything in the world, and there was nothing he wouldn’t do for her. She was all he had left of her mother, of the only woman he had ever truly loved.

  He reached out and ran his thumb across the glass and over his daughter’s cheek. “I miss you.” She was on what could only be described as a booze cruise. He wasn’t happy about it, but she had begged him to let her go, and she was twenty-one, old enough to make her own mistakes. He just hoped those mistakes didn’t destroy her future. When he was a kid and did something stupid, there weren’t fifty cameras within range to catch his antics. Now, everything was documented, not just by security cameras, but by multiple generations obsessed with their cellphones. When he was her age, most of his friends had cellphones, but they only came with rudimentary cameras, and the resolution was shit. And they were so inconvenient to use, it took so long to take a photo, nobody bothered.

  And you certainly weren’t taking videos.

  Now the phones were designed that with a tap, you were recording HD video of yourself or your friends and posting it online, either live or moments later, forever documenting what you didn’t realize as a twenty-year-old could haunt you for years to come, perhaps forever. Today’s society was obsessed with destroying anyone that didn’t agree with them. People would go back into someone’s past, finding something they did ten, twenty, even fifty years ago, then use that as evidence as to why their lives should be destroyed today, ignoring the fact that people could change.

  Many of his generation, including himself, were guilty of things frowned upon today. Relentlessly hitting on women, sexist comments, homophobic slurs and jokes. It was an everyday occurrence. It was on TV. It was in the movies. It was just accepted. Now it wasn’t. And he was no longer like that. He had gay friends, gay clients. Almost half his firm were women. There were even a couple of trans employees. He respected them all, cared about them all, and many of them he considered friends, most of whom he had welcomed into his home. Thirty years ago, when he was young and dumb and society was different, if the things he had said and done had been captured on video, would someone today, one of his rivals in court, pull those videos and anonymously rebroadcast them to tarnish his reputation, and by extension, that of his clients? Absolutely. Was it right? Was it fair? Absolutely not.

  His daughter could accomplish anything she wanted. She was brilliant, beautiful, soon-to-be well-educated, and had a personality that everyone just loved. He would hate, ten or twenty years from now, for that future to be destroyed because of something she did on a booze cruise in the Indian Ocean.

  He sighed. He had to just trust her.

  His phone rang, startling him, and he reached for it, his eyebrows shooting up as the phone system identified the caller as the Secretary of State, a long-time client of the firm. He picked up the phone, pressing it to his ear. “This is Larsen.”

  “Hold for the Secretary of State.”

  He straightened himself pointlessly. He considered the man a friend. They had drunk beers and ate popcorn on his couch while enjoying Adam Sandler movies. But that was as friends. He still respected the position the man held.

  The phone clicked. “Hi, Craig. It’s Andy. How are you doing?”

  “Tired. With Jenny away, I pulled an all-nighter. Getting ready to head home.”

  “So then, you haven’t heard?”

  Larsen tensed. “Haven’t heard what?” He reached for the TV remote and turned on the screen mounted on the wall to his right. It had been off all day. He was too busy to be distracted. CNN appeared, and he read the chyron, his jaw dropping.

  Massacre At Sea.

  “Listen, as far as we know, she’s still alive.”

  He cried out involuntarily. “Jenny? What’s happened to my Jenny?”

  “Are you sitting?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you alone? Can you talk?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. I’m going to give you the facts as we know them, but just remember, as far as we know, she’s still alive. Earlier today, the MS Horizon, the ship your daughter’s on, was attacked by Houthi rebels. I’m going to tell you this now because you’re going to hear it on the news as soon as you get off the phone, and I want you to hear it from a friend. But this was a repeat of October seventh.”

  He barely registered the words. “Okay.”

  “Do you understand what that means?”

  “Yes.” His responses were automatic, no thought given to them, merely saying what was expected.

  “Craig, listen to me. Do you understand what that means?”

  He snapped out of it for a moment. “What what means?”

  “This was a repeat of October seventh. We got a Delta team on board. They eliminated a suicide squad left behind. They managed to rescue a few passengers left on board, plus some crew who had locked themselves in an engine room, but that’s it. They documented the scene. Craig, these bastards murdered everybody, hacked up their bodies, and beheaded a lot of them, but they also systematically raped many of the women before killing them.”

  Larsen closed his eyes, tears burning their way free. “And Jenny?”

  “I wish I could tell you otherwise, but we have every reason to believe she was a victim as well.”

  “You said she’s alive.”

  “Yes. When the Houthis left, they took three hostages for each of the five boats as human shields. Fifteen hostages in total, including your daughter. They landed in Yemen and were taken to a location inside the capital city of Sana’a. The last we saw her, she was alive. We can’t be a hundred percent certain of her current status, but with what Hamas recently did, we expect they’ll keep them alive as human shields and to use in negotiations.”

  Larsen sniffed hard, wiping his eyes dry with the back of his hands. Unfortunately, he wasn’t one of the useful idiots. He knew what that meant. “They’re raping her right now, aren’t they?”

  “I’m not going to lie to you. You have to prepare yourself for the worst. It’s a definite possibility.”

  “You’ve gotta get her. You’ve gotta get her out of there.”

  “We’re doing everything we can, trust me. As soon as I found out your daughter was on the hostage list, I made sure our best team was assigned to getting her out.”

  He gripped the handset, the plastic cracking. “I want them dead. You hear me? I want every single one of them dead, anyone who laid a finger on my baby. I don’t want any bullshit ‘hug a thug, it’s not their fault’ garbage. These people are animals, and they’re out of control. And you know what we do with out-of-control animals. We put them down. I want them all put down, every damn one of them.”

  “Leave this with us. We’re going to take action, trust me. The president’s pissed. And it’s not just us. The Brits are involved, the Aussies, Germans, French, Canadians, even the Russians and Chinese. Politics isn’t getting in the way this time. The Houthis can’t claim they were fighting back against their oppressors. This was murder and mayhem. This was evil just for the sake of evil. They’ll get what’s coming to them, trust me. But I need you to keep this under your hat. I highly recommend you head home now. Don’t talk to anybody about what I just told you. Go home. Wait by the phone. If there’s someone you can call to be with you, do it. You shouldn’t be alone right now. I’d come over if I could, but I know you want me on this. And trust me, buddy, I am. I bounced that girl on my knee when she was still in diapers. We’ll get her back, and we’ll lay waste to anyone involved. You have my word.”

  Tears streamed down his cheeks. “I know you will, but if it comes to it and they’re demanding ransom, I’ll pay it. I don’t care how much it is, I’ll pay it. I just need to save her. Once that’s done, kill them all. Kill every last one of them.”

  “Consider it done.”

  29 |

  Unknown Location

  Jenny yelped as she was shoved into a cramped room with the other two hostages. She slammed against the far wall, wincing, the cinderblock unforgiving. The metal door banged shut, the clang of a slide bolt dropping into position confirming they were sealed inside. She slid to the floor and curled up into a ball in the corner and sobbed.

  “Quiet, they’ll hear you.”

  She didn’t know who the girl was. She recognized her from the cruise, of course, but they hadn’t spoken barely a word to each other on the boat that had taken them to wherever this hellhole was after they had ordered them not to speak.

  The other hostage was the captain, whom she, of course, recognized from his uniform. His face had been beaten to the point where if he wasn’t wearing the epaulets on his shoulders, she wouldn’t have known who he was.

  “They said no crying outside. Nobody said anything about in here.” Her breath was hot on her face, the symbol of female oppression they had put on all of them, including, during transport, the captain, was uncomfortable and claustrophobic. How Muslim women did it, she had no idea. She desperately wanted to tear it off, but underneath, she was naked. Perhaps it didn’t matter anymore after what had happened to her. She had no humility left. She had lost count of how many times she had been raped, and by how many different men. It had all become a blur. For all she knew, it could have been two men switching back and forth, or ten each taking their turn. It was something out of a horror movie, something she had only heard of, but could never have imagined. There was nothing remotely erotic about it, being violated by men who smelled like they hadn’t showered, hadn’t bathed in weeks, whose mouths had never tasted toothpaste, whose only words in English that she could understand were “American whore.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut, leaning her head against the cool wall of their underground prison. Was this where she would spend the rest of her life, locked away until her last dying breath? Would they continue to rape her? Would they make the others watch? Would she ever see her father again? She strangled out a cry. She didn’t know if she could face him, not with what she had let happen to her. She should have fought harder, bit them, scratched them, gouged their eyes out, done whatever it took to prevent what had happened to her. Instead, she had given up, her resistance futile.

  She sniffed. She was weak, pathetic. Maybe she was a whore. Maybe she had wanted it to happen. Look what she was about to do with Darnell. She didn’t know him. He was a stranger, just a boy she found attractive. She wanted to have sex with him for no other reason than it would make her feel good. Did that make her a whore? A slut? An embarrassment? If her father knew she had an active sex life, would he blame her for what had happened?

  But it wasn’t her fault. It couldn’t be. There was nothing anyone could do to deserve what had happened to her. The choices she had made in her life, good or bad, could never be used to justify what had happened.

  The other girl shuffled over beside her. “You’re Jenny, right?”

  Jenny reached up to wipe her eyes dry but instead found the mesh barrier, her only tiny window into the world that women here had. She instead pinched the cloth to the side and moved the hood, using it as a cloth handkerchief. “Yes. I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.”

 

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