Page 63 of The Woman Left Behind

Mamoon’s grin flashed again, perhaps at the description. “Very good,” he said happily. Behind him, a man appeared out of the shadows and every weapon came up. Mamoon’s eyes got big and he stepped back, raising one hand. “This is my uncle, Yasser. He will take you to the package.”

“We were to meet one person,” Levi said, his tone hard.

“I am Mamoon’s only relative,” Yasser said with dignity. Like Mamoon, his English was more than passable. “He lives with me.”

“This is your home?”

Yasser looked around at the crumbling ruin. “No, of course not. Please to enter?”

Jelly slipped past them, sliding along the perimeter of the remaining walls. Only when he reappeared, signaling the OK, did Levi, Boom, and Jina enter.

They pulled down their NVDs, and Levi shone a narrow penlight around the interior, examining it. Over half of the exterior walls were down, and most of the interior ones, but at the very back of the rough structure was a small room that was mostly intact. A black curtain of some thick, rough material closed it off. The heat inside the stone walls was somewhat less, but still stifling.

“Here,” Jina murmured, knowing her raspy voice would help disguise her sex. She didn’t want to run afoul of any cultural differences, but at the same time she was here to do her job. If she could do it without stirring up any trouble, fine.

The black curtain would block out the light from the laptop screen, giving her a measure of cover while she worked. At the same time, she would pretty much be trapped, in the rear of the ruin, with only one way out.

Levi said quietly, “Get set up.” He ducked back through the black curtain, letting it fall, and began talking to Yasser. Their voices faded away as they walked toward the front of the ruin.

Jina put the equipment bag down and took out her own penlight to better explore her surroundings. The little room, no more than eight feet wide, wasn’t completely solid. At the back the wall on the left had partially collapsed. She could feel air moving, and when she got down on her hands and knees to look for the source of the breeze, she could see a deeper darkness. She moved a couple of pieces of rubble and saw a jagged hole at the base of the wall, too small for a man to fit through. Mamoon, perhaps, could do so—and she thought she could, too.

She felt slightly better. This whole situation made her uneasy. Everyone was uneasy, and with good reason. The least hiccup could spell disaster.

Nineteen

Levi said, “How far away is the package?”

“Far enough to feel safe,” Yasser answered drily. His eyes weren’t friendly, but Levi didn’t expect friendliness, just cooperation. Many moderate Arabs didn’t care for Westerners, but cared even less for radicals or their own governments. For his part, Levi wasn’t concerned with whether or not Yasser was sympathetic; all he wanted was cooperation.

“I need a time frame.”

Yasser shrugged. “Fifteen minutes.”

About a mile, then, well within Tweety’s range. Levi looked around. He didn’t like leaving Babe here, but the whole point of her job was to squat in a safe location and keep an extra eye out for the rest of the team. Taking her with them defeated the purpose, because she couldn’t walk and operate the drone at the same time. That left him with a choice to make: split the team and leave a couple of guys here with Babe, or take them all with him to maximize the odds of mission success. His training said mission success was the most important. If the informant was so afraid that he was hiding even from his rescuers, then he likely had reason to be, which meant there could well be others out there looking for him. This could still turn out to be a simple retrieve-and-go, but experience told him otherwise.

“I’m leaving one of my team members here,” he said, “to handle communications.” That was true, as far as it went. He wasn’t telling anyone about Tweety, and it would be up to Babe to deploy the drone unnoticed. She likely already had. Looking around, he could see Boom and Jelly kidding around with Mamoon, which meant she was alone in the ruin, doing her thing. The little drone was virtually silent and wouldn’t be noticed at night.

“Ah,” said Yasser. “I see. That is good. I will be able to leave Mamoon with him, then. I did not want to take the child, because there could be danger, but did not like to leave him here alone.”

Levi nodded an affirmative. He liked the idea; that way Babe wouldn’t be by herself. The kid seemed bright and friendly and spoke English as well as his uncle. He said, “I’ll have a word and be right back,” and entered the ruin to talk to Babe, picking his way through the rubble.

She looked up as he pulled aside the black curtain and stopped beside her. She already had the laptop booted up, as he’d expected; she’d made a mostly level place on top of the half-collapsed wall where she’d set the laptop and stood in front of it, tapping on the keys. The illumination of the screen was the only light, giving her a ghoulish look. She’d removed her jump helmet, but even so her hair was dark with sweat and her skin was shiny with it. He liked the look on her, but then he liked how she looked regardless. Smart girl; she’d taken her pistol out of the holster and placed it by her hand, saving her a second of time if she needed it.

She glanced up at him, then back at the screen. “Yeah?” She never maintained eye contact for longer than she had to. He understood that boundary, respected it. He’d love to smash it to pieces, but he respected it... for now. How long that would hold true was anyone’s guess.

“The kid is going to stay here with you, so you aren’t alone.”

“Fine.” Another quick glance. “Not necessary, though. I’ve been alone before.”

“This could get hairy. You gotta figure the informer has someone hot on his ass, or he wouldn’t be so jumpy. There’s no telling what we might run into out there, retrieving him—and that’s assuming he doesn’t get cold feet and rabbit on us.”

“Nothing we can do about that. He’s either there or he isn’t. And if anyone is out there, Tweety will see them.”

He looked at the screen. As he’d figured, Tweety was in the air. She had the drone hovering silently over the ruin, slowly rotating as she checked on each teammate, one by one. Yasser and Mamoon were standing together, Yasser’s hand on the kid’s shoulder. They appeared to be having an earnest conversation, the kid nodding his head as he got his instructions.

“Be careful,” she said. For a second their eyes met, then she looked down again before he could get a read on anything, given the dimness of the light.

“You too, babe,” he said, knowing she wouldn’t hear the faint difference in how he said the word, without capitalization. His palm tingled; the impulse to smooth his hand over the back of her head, her neck, was so strong he could actually feel the sensation even though he wasn’t touching her.

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