Page 53 of Eight Years (The Trident Trilogy 1)

I haven’t seen his face look like that before. I just nod. We fall out into a half run. Mouse taps me as he starts, and I follow. We start descending. It’s rocky and slippery. I’m looking side to side to get my bearings. I can’t see anything.

Hawk stills my head with one hand. “Forward,” he commands, and I obey.

I just focus on Mouse’s back. When it slows down, I slow down. When it speeds up, I speed up. It starts to feel more routine as we progress. We stop a few times. They look around. I don’t. I’m just focused on Mouse’s back. In what seems like a half an hour or so, we come to a full stop. The guys are spread out, looking over a ridge. Hawk pushes me down by his feet. I stay there. They’re all looking through their scopes, scanning back and forth.

“Bryce, Butch, go,” Mason orders.

They spring up, and disappear around the ridge. Hawk has me pressed up against the ridge with his leg, so I’m not going anywhere. I just stay quiet and listen. I don’t hear anything, not even Bryce and Butch moving. It’s just dead silent.

After a few minutes, I hear Mason say, “Roger that. We’re headed that way.”

Hawk’s leg releases me, and he pulls me up. I guess we’re moving again. I see Mouse move, and I follow. We wind down the path for a few more minutes. I don’t even see the house until we’re right on top of it. Well, it’s really not a house. It’s more like a cave. Mason grabs me and pulls me toward the front door. Mouse and Hawk stay outside. I enter to see Bryce and Butch standing with an old man seated on a chair in between them. There’s an empty chair facing the old man. I guess it’s my time to work.

“You’ve got ten minutes,” Mason says as I sit down.

The man’s eyes are just barely visible on his unbelievably wrinkled face. I’m not sure he’s even alive until he spits at me.

Butch slaps the back of his head. “Show some manners, old man.”

“Butch.” I shake my head at him, and he straightens up.

“Mr. Hadzic, we don’t have much time,” I say in Bosnian. “So, I’ll get right to it. I know your son, Yusef, works for Sayid Custovic. And, I know Yusef visits you here periodically. I know where your daughters live in Sarajevo. I know where your grandchildren go to school. All I need to know from you is where I can find Yusef when he’s not visiting you. And then we’ll leave you here.”

He spits at me again. Or at least tries to. He’s so damn old. I don’t even know if he has any saliva left. Butch wants to back-hand him again. I shoot him a side eye, and he pulls his hand back.

“I saw your granddaughter playing last week at school. What is she, about eight now? Have you seen her lately? She’s very pretty. She looks just like her mother. I guess they can’t really get out here to see their grandfather though. Too bad. I’m going to see them soon. I’ll tell them hi if you want me to.”

He tries to lean toward me and almost falls out of the chair. Bryce grabs his shoulder and pulls him back into the chair a little too hard.

“Tell me where I can find Yusef or I’ll have these men take your daughters in and ask them where he is. Believe me you don’t want these men touching your daughters.”

He squints so severely that it looks like his face is melting.

“I don’t know where my son is. Yusef is dead to me,” he finally manages to say.

“Really? Because we know he moved you here. I’m guessing at your request. You always were a supporter of the radicals. You just need to be close to the action, right? I mean, you can’t walk anymore, so you can’t really be in the fight, but I’m sure you get your fix when Yusef visits and tells you all about the Americans he’s killing.”

“You are a whore,” he says in very broken English, pronouncing whore as “who-ruh.”

“Yes, I am,” I reply in English. “I fucked all of these men to get them to bring me here, and I’m going to do it again when we leave.”

Well, at least I know Bryce and Butch are paying attention now.

“Tell me where I can find Yusef,” I continue in Bosnian. “Or I will have these men drag you up that mountain, and you will come back to the United States with us, where you will die in the land of the whores.”

He blinks. I think it is the first time he has blinked this entire conversation. Again, I wasn’t even sure his eyelids were working, but he blinked. He’s done. I don’t know if he really believes we’re going to drag his old ass up that mountain, but he’s not going to take the chance.

I stand up and look at Butch. “Grab him,” I say in Bosnian, knowing that Butch can’t understand me. “He’s coming back to the US with us.”

“Wait,” the old man says immediately.

I take a step closer to him. He cringes at the whore standing so close to him.

“I don’t know where he lives. He never says. But, he goes back to Sarajevo every month or so. I believe he’s there now.”

“When was Yusef last here?”

“He was just here a few days ago.”

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