“I made my way through five statements. All five are the same,” Julian growled.
Martin pulled Julian’s laptop toward him and typed. “Gwen’s personnel file states she left the Marines and a year later applied to us. The year was wiped away by a plastic surgeon’s note documenting a breast reduction surgery. The electronic file says the same thing as the written background check: every psych battery, her four interviews, her polygraph, her quals were fine—no, they were great.”
Martin unlocked his phone, pressed a speed dial code, and placed it on speaker. “Hey,” Ian Chase said.
“Boss, you’re on speaker. I’m here with Troy and Julian. Gwen North? I left a message, but now it’s pressing. Did Chase pull her out of a prison in January 2013?” Martin explained what happened with Gwen that morning. “The Israeli rescue story isn’t holding water.”
Ian’s sigh filled the air. “I warned Kieran this was coming once you put in for that background check. It was a black op. Her family reached out. She was not technically MIA. She was a kidnap victim, an American female Marine held by an ISIS splinter group.”
Troy dropped his head in his hands. “Son of a bitch.”
Ian sighed. “Okay, hold on. I think this warrants everyone’s attention. We will do this by secure channels. Give everyone fifteen minutes.”
As Ian asked, fifteen minutes later, with access to secure digital technology, every one of the founders appeared on the video screen. “Gentlemen, Kieran and I need to discuss a serious situation with you. As you know, Gwen North was promoted to first deputy. Working beside Troy increased our level of scrutiny. The deep background check revealed circumstances Kieran and I thought best to withhold from you.”
Martin invited the first deputies inside. “Trask, Janice, Blake and Caleb, what is about to be said does not leave this room.” He hit the noise suppression.
Ian tented his palms. “I want to awaken everyone’s memory. In 2013, we rescued a Saudi dissident, code name Jasmine, from a prison, Dar Al Reayain Dammam, and flew her to Israel. She was in grave condition. After we landed in Israel, everyone was sent home on commercial planes except Wes. Wes flew her to Landstuhl with a Kings Crossing medical team and Kieran.
“General Glenn North, Gwen’s father, called us after he hit every logjam the DoD put up, holding firmly to the ‘we don’t negotiate with terrorists’ mantra. And then ‘we don’t know who has her or where she is.’ It took us sixty days to pick up the trail. She disappeared attempting to get the Prime Minister’s niece out of Mosul. The girl’s grandparents on her father’s side were CIA. The Marines sent Gwen and six other Marines in to get the granddaughter to Baghdad. The girl had no idea about her grandparents.”
“I remember, we found her in a fetid cell, maggots, lice, rat bites, but another part of the prison was clean and had state-of-the-art electronics,” Tighe Cummings, the assistant executive director of the New York branch said.
“We jumped off a fishing trawler into the Persian Gulf and swam in under the cover of darkness. After getting to the prison, we had to find her in a group of over seven hundred female prisoners. A half click out, all we heard were screams,” Kyle, Executive Director of Licensing, recalled.
“The damn guards down below, they were all in black, and clean. How were we all blind?” Tate, the executive director of the DC branch, sighed.
“I remember, we worked our way through each corridor on every level. Women were cramped into cells, sometimes ten or more. Some were praying. Some were crying. Others were begging or scratching and picking at themselves. More were talking to themselves. We checked cell to cell looking for a light-skinned woman.
“We made it to the rat-infested basement, and things changed. Ice caught the first camera. Coop and Acrobat took them out. The strength of the guards increased too. It was harder to choke them out. Male prisoners were found tied in stress positions. Or having electrodes placed… Other cells only had small sliding windows to check on what was going on inside. It was so hard to ignore what we saw, but Kieran ordered us to keep moving,” Kip said.
“You found her, Kieran,” Zach remembered.
“It’s an image implanted on my eyelids forever. A female form, unmoving, curled in a fetal position on a thin, mildewed mat in a damp, putrid cell. I slipped inside and pulled off my gloves. For the longest moment, I thought we were too late. She was naked, yellow, and her face was so swollen from a beating, she was unrecognizable. I had no idea if she was our target. I said a prayer under my breath and shook her shoulder.
“‘I said to her, ‘US forces, we are here to bring you home.’ Her fingertips were shriveled and chewed on by the rodents. There was no way to identify her by them. I needed to ask her an identifier General North set up with his children. Gwendolen was Merlin’s wife from King Arthur lore. I asked her who she was married to. It took her last strength for her to say Merlin. That was the last word she said until Germany.
“She weighed about eighty pounds. Every breath she took, her chest rattled. I honestly thought she was going to die before we got her out. Alamo did a fast assessment and told us her best chance was to run.” Kieran’s voice cracked.
“I never saw anyone in that condition before. Scoop and run seemed like the best choice,” Wes said, his eyes closing.
“We hit resistance getting out. Each one of us took turns carrying her to get her clear. Our next big issue was having to take her out by going into the water,” Zach said.
“The helo hovered over the water. Alpha Squad and I jumped into the water to get everyone up and out. Greece, you and Kieran floated her out. I remember her lying on your chest as you flutter-kicked, and Kieran dragged both of you out to us.
“Kieran, you couldn’t support her and climb. You hurt your shoulder fighting one of the guards. Troy, we secured her to you, and you managed to ascend that rope as I hauled you up into the helo,” Ford “Fury” Cox, Assistant Executive Director of DC, added his memory.
Troy pinched his brow. “Inside the helo, Jule and Wes managed to get a line and started antibiotics. Her hair was falling out and filled with lice. Her legs were covered with open sores from rat bites. Her body was covered with signs of torture. I remember watching you wrap her in a blanket. I also remember the silence.”
Ian explained the entire case. “Kieran and I firmly believe itwasa CIA black site. We cultivated some local sources. By the time they made it in, the site was only a woman’s prison. There was no sign of anything else.”
Kieran picked up the story. “While being held, she kept sane by having running conversations with herself. The behavior continued after she was found, until she accepted she was safe. Her family stayed with her around the clock.
“Gwen was promoted to first lieutenant as a consolation prize. After two months’ military rehab at Walter Reed, her brother Scott helped her resign her commission before the hospital psychiatrists were able to diagnose her with a long-standing, incurable mental illness.” Kieran’s voice cracked.
“A year later, I notified General North about a potential job, on the condition he never told her who rescued her. And before you ask, she was given the flyer about job interviews but nothing else. She earned her position and passed every battery of tests on her own. I’ll send you the files,” Ian offered.
Mike “Raptor” Johnson pursed his lips. “I understand why you shut us down when we had questions.”
