“I’ll tell you everything, Lisette. What do you want to know?”
* * *
“I stoleall the data off his computer, got as far away from him as I could, and faked my own death. Blamed it on one of his rivals—Musa. The CIA had been planning to take out the guy for a year. They kept telling me they’d give me an exfil plan once they had. So I did it for them. Then started tracking down the girls.
“Wren decrypted the data for me. There were thirty still in Jalalabad. The rest were spread out across Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kuwait, and Iran. After a week, I’d freed five. But I couldn’t return them to their families. They would have been shamed, maybe even killed. There was a man who helped get Joey’s friends out of the country after we rescued them. I think you met him?”
“Matt? He is British?” she asks. “He helped us get from the hospital in Uzbekistan to the airport.”
“That’s him. Former SAS. He lives in Dubai now.” Matt’s face flashes behind my rough lids for a moment. “If he weren’t in the middle of chemo, he’d be here. But he helped us get into the country.”
Lisette tightens her fingers on my arm. “Cancer? Will he…beat it?”
“He’s a lifelong spook. He could be on his deathbed and he wouldn’t say a fucking word. I hope so. He helped me set up an evacuation protocol. Five different cities, a couple dozen locals who agreed to transport the girls and keep them safe. Once they got to Dubai, Matt gave them new identities, jobs, money…”
Lisette tugs me down so we’re lying side-by-side. “How long did it take to find them all?”
“Nine months, two weeks, and five days.” My words are getting harder. Slower. Exhaustion threatens to pull me under. But I can’t go into this op without telling her everything. A yawn pulls a crack from my jaw.
“You are exhausted,” Lisette says. “Sleep with me. Please.”
“Not yet. There’s so much more…”
She rubs my back as she brushes her lips to mine. “I understand now, Nomar. Why you left. Why you did not call. Why you kept this from me. The rest does not matter. Not truly.”
The rhythmic strokes of her hand soothe me in a way nothing else can. “I love you, Lisette,” I whisper, her soft smile the last thing I see as I let myself drift off to oblivion.
* * *
Lisette
“Wake up, sweetheart.”
Nomar’s voice pulls me from a dream. A wonderful dream where he and Mateen wave at me from the top of the big wheel on the riverfront.
“We’re leaving in an hour. Come out to the main room. You need to eat something.” He cups my cheek and ghosts a thumb along my bottom lip. “We have coffee. Instant, but it still packs a jolt.”
I want to tell him I love him. That I will love him for the rest of my life—no matter how short that life may be. But Austin peers around the open door. “We’re burning daylight. Come on.”
Griff spins the single chair around and meets my gaze. “Sit and take off your shoe and sock,” he says.
“My…shoe?”
Leo holds up a flat metal disc the size of a penny. “GPS tracker. It’s a safe bet Raziq or one of his men will search you, but no one ever checks the bottoms of the feet. We’ll hide it under a Band-Aid.”
“When is Second Sight going to make these damn things injectable?” Nomar asks.
“They already did.” Austin rubs his hip with a grimace. “McCabe shot me up with one in Venezuela a couple of years ago. But the batteries only lasted two, three days max. And they hurt like hell going in. These are functional for months.”
I will not survive for months. But if I die, the tracker could still help them recover my body and find Mateen. As long as Raziq does not kill me before he lets me see my son.
Griff presses the metal disc to the bottom of my left foot and covers it with a bandage.
“Stepping on it will not break it?” I ask.
“Even if you had flat feet—which you don’t—these are practically indestructible. Try walking around? We need to make sure it doesn’t irritate you so much you limp.” Griff offers me his hand after I pull on my sock and slip my foot into my shoe.
Once I leave this house, no one will show me such kindness again. I let him help me up, pace the room a few times, and look to Nomar.
