Dark Rule (COIL Book 3), page 12
Nathan climbed into the chamber and sat down facing Li as the men outside sealed the door shut. For the first time, Nathan felt the weight of the night's events. Marlon had risked his life for him and Li, and his about-face against Niles had been something Nathan wouldn't soon forget.
"Was that Corban Dowler?" Li peeked out the two-inch oval window. "How steamed is he?"
"Why would he be steamed?" Nathan acknowledged blood clotting on his shoulder and a gash in his shirt. It would be another scar to add to all the others, but his first as a lone COIL operator—and his first shark wound.
"That depends on how badly we blew the op." Li stuck out her lower lip. "I didn't stay on the Materia like I was assigned."
"Our missions were different, weren't they? Mine was to make sure you were safe. Yours was to keep tabs on a group who'd voiced hostility toward Christians. You're now safe and no Gillies died."
"Mr. Niles got away, and Marlon was injured. That's a failure to me."
Looking at the floor of the chamber, Nathan prayed his anger at Niles didn't turn into hatred.
"Don't keep score," he suddenly blurted, as much for himself as for Li. "That's something Corban taught me a few years ago. Trust God to do what you can, and let God worry about the consequences of things out of your control."
"Then we won't get reprimanded?"
"For saving the lives of the Gillies?" He tried not to sound too critical. Li had obviously not been on many missions in which hardly anything ever went as planned. "No, we won't be reprimanded. We'll debrief, and our report will help Corban and others at COIL assign us to the next mission."
"Us?" She smiled and nudged his foot with her own. "You think they'll assign us to something together?"
"I . . ." He felt himself blush. "I may have spoken out of turn. There are so many needs and only so many operators. Pair-ups are not irregular, but they're usually male-male teams, not unmarried male-female teams."
"So, as long as we're not unmarried?" She bit her lip as she tried to hide her smile. "Oh, relax, Patrick! I'm trying to make you squirm. I just know a good teammate when I see one."
"Teammate?"
"It's a process." She sighed, and Nathan was relieved that her bout of teasing was over. Regardless of his romantic notions toward her, now that the mission was over, he realized he'd probably be assigned to something else alone, for which he'd been trained to do.
"What will COIL do about Niles?"
"We're not international police." He settled more comfortably into his seat, though he wished he was in a chase chopper hunting down Niles. "COIL responds to threats against Christians. If Niles persists on persecuting believers, we'll come across him again someday, no matter where he goes."
"Well, I won't feel this mission is truly over until Niles is in custody, somebody's custody. He killed others, you know, who tried to defect from the Materia."
"I know." He folded his arms and closed his eyes, sleepiness finally setting in. It had been a hard few days. "We have to be patient about these things. God is just. Vengeance is His. Niles will fall when it's time, but not until God says it's time."
"How long until we're assigned to another mission, with other COIL agents or individually?"
Nathan heard her question, but he didn't remember his answer as he drifted off. What seemed like seconds later, before he was fully rested, the chamber door opened, and Corban's frame appeared in its stead.
"Patrick, can I speak to you for a moment? You're needed in Belarus. Excuse us, Chen Li. I'm glad you're okay. We'll talk as soon as your levels are down."
Rubbing his eyes, Nathan squeezed Li's hand as they parted. She reached for him, but he moved out of the chamber and looked back inside.
"Goodbye, Li." He wondered if that was her real name, though he guessed it wasn't. But it didn't matter, knowing the rarity of experiencing such a connection in the field—and an even rarer event of seeing such a connection again. Nathan was a special agent for COIL, a shadow who passed in and out of the lives who needed him most—and disappeared.
"Someday," he said with a wink, "we'll work out that partner thing."
*~*
PART II
*~*
Chapter Fourteen
Two years later . . .
Nineteen-year-old Lacy Jamison held her breath and ducked under the surface of the water as the armed men prowled above her on the floating dock. The moon's reflection danced off the harbor's rippling waves. Lacy knew it was this reflection that saved her, as one gunman stared directly into the water. He surely saw only the moon instead of her wide eyes staring up at him.
She flinched as the sound of muffled gunshots reached her submerged ears. The subtropical waters of Zalzuna weren't cold, but she shivered nonetheless. Gunshots could mean only one thing: they'd found her parents, Albert and Sarah Jamison. Acting as a diversion, Lacy had drawn the enemy from her father as he'd helped his already-wounded wife away from the water's edge.
Lacy's lungs began to burn; she needed air! Reaching up, she gently touched the dock to check for vibrations. Were they gone? If her parents had been caught, Lacy didn't want to be free, either. She wouldn't know life without them, even if they'd been separated when she'd attended school in the States. They were missionaries, and while most of the world may have forgotten their efforts, Lacy couldn't.
Allowing herself to float upward, her head bobbed through the surface. She took a deep breath, trying not to pant too loudly. Trembling, she tried to steady her nerves as she eyed the shoreline no more than fifty feet away. An ancient stone wall blocked her view of the cobbled street where men yelled and shadows danced before car headlights.
Another burst of gunfire made her jump. Silence followed, but it was broken by the wailing of a man. It was her father. Albert cried out in Burmese, which he knew fluently. Even though Lacy had visited them in the troubled country, she knew only a few words. They'd been missionaries in Myanmar for five years before coming to Zalzuna, and it was only natural that Albert would lapse into the foreign tongue to mourn his wife. Lacy understood: her mother had been killed. She tried to find satisfaction in the fact that the soldiers didn't understand her father's words of grief. That was something Albert and his daughter alone shared.
"Bye-bye, Mamma," Lacy whispered, her tears mingling with the salt water. "See you in heaven."
Too late, Lacy heard the man on the dock above her. She'd been too focused on the sounds of the soldiers dragging her father from her mother's body when suddenly she looked up at a grinning gunman. He pushed his gunstock aside and reached into the water with both hands. Grasping Lacy by her shoulders, he nearly crushed her collarbone. She was only an inch over five feet tall, and weighed less than one hundred pounds, so the man easily pulled her from the water below him.
However, once Lacy had been tossed roughly onto the dock and recovered from the shock of pain to her shoulder, she fought like a wildcat. Another soldier joined the first to escort her to shore. She kicked viciously at their hands as they tried to hold her ankles and wrists. A lucky heel caught one of the men on the chin and sent him sprawling into the water.
"Daddy!" she screamed, but there was no response from the shoreline. Other soldiers gathered to watch the single soldier struggle against Lacy's claws and kicks. Many of them jeered at their comrade until he pinned her down with a knee and punched her square in the nose.
As Lacy's head was spinning amongst stars and blood, she prayed for bravery. Whatever was to come, she'd come to Zalzuna with her parents to help the people, and she could die with a clear conscience. She'd been serving Jesus Christ.
On shore, she was bound and thrown into the back of a truck.
"Be still," a tender voice comforted as she gained her senses. It was a voice she knew. After trying to move her limbs, she found that they were tied securely. She blew her nose down her shirtfront to clear her nostrils of caked blood. "Be still, Lacy."
"Daddy?"
"I'm here."
The truck bounced over a pothole and rounded a corner. Behind the truck, a Jeep followed with armed men. The Jeep's headlights shined into the back of the truck to show Lacy that she and her father were alone.
"Momma?"
Albert's silence confirmed what she already knew, but this time she held back the tears. She shifted her head to rest against his knee.
"God is with us, Lacy," Albert said. "We're not alone."
Lacy squeezed her eyes closed. She knew God was with them, but it didn't help at that instant as her imagination ran wild. They were going to prison for sure. The only question was how much torture and abuse they'd have to endure before the steel doors slammed shut and they were left to rot in peace.
For the first time in her life, Lacy hoped she would die. She wasn't strong like her parents.
What if she gave away secrets she'd been trusted to keep? What about the other Christians on the island? Would they know to go into hiding now?
"I can't do this, Daddy." Lacy sobbed. "I can't. . . ."
"You can, sweetie. Hey, they didn't search me. I still have a colored pencil!"
A colored pencil? Lacy scoffed to herself. Albert was an artist. If anything would give him satisfaction at a time like this, it was a drawing utensil. Even when he arrived in a country where he couldn't speak the native dialect, Albert could still draw a wide range of biblical events to share the gospel message.
"Maybe you can draw us a way out," Lacy said.
"Hey, remember Nigeria? God watched over us then, Lacy. Besides, if we're finished on earth, we'll only see your mother that much sooner, right?"
Though Lacy didn't answer, she did remember Nigeria. She'd been nine years old when Muslim extremists with machetes had hacked through the thatched hut, killed her pet dog, and kidnapped their family of three. Most of the natives who'd converted to Christianity had been slaughtered, but the Jamisons had survived. They were held for four weeks. Lacy's earlobe was still torn from the earring that had been ripped out during the ordeal.
Sure, she remembered, but this wasn't Nigeria, which had been more accessible to the Special Forces team that had rescued them. There weren't any Special Forces teams storming the Island of Zalzuna to save a father and daughter who'd been warned time and again to avoid the communist island in the Greek Isles.
Lacy rolled her head away from her father's knee. For a moment, she despised him for his bravery, his faith, his indifference for life as he served his Lord. She felt only despair and fear of their looming death.
As the truck's brakes squealed, Albert began to pray aloud for God's protection. Lacy closed her eyes, shutting him out. There seemed to be no hope. She wished she were a child again, back in Oregon—playing in the surf with the neighbor boy, Walter, and her cousin, Brad, searching for starfish, hunting for shells, climbing the rocks up to the lighthouse . . . Anywhere, but Zalzuna!
#######
Nathan Isaacson flicked a bead of sweat off his brow and shifted his two hundred and twenty pound body under the camouflage netting that hid his position on the brown hillside. Squinting through his field glasses, he focused on a Range Rover with bad shocks, bouncing along the dirt road toward him. He checked his watch. They were right on time. It had to be Ron and Sandy Colson. Against the zaraguina's wishes, the Colsons had been in the eastern province of Cameroon distributing food and supplies to refugees fleeing from the Central African Republic.
Licking his lips, Nathan gazed beyond the aid workers from Binka, Cameroon. Two miles back were two more plumes of dust. The zaraguina, Central African Republic's armed bandits, were in pursuit. Unbeknownst to the Colsons, they were about to be butchered so they'd never return to help the refugees later—or share with other aid workers about the atrocities they'd witnessed.
Three days earlier, Nathan had met Ron and Sandy. They thought he was only a touring photographer, but he was there to protect the American couple and their work. In Garoua-Boulai, they'd distributed sacks of food, blankets, sleeping mats, soap, and other urgent supplies to the refugees. No one else was helping the twenty-five thousand displaced persons.
As soon as Corban Dowler had learned that missionaries in the Eastern Province were in jeopardy, he'd notified Nathan, and Nathan had been sent in to neutralize the situation. In most countries, any neutralizing was only temporary, but sometimes a short reprieve was all that was needed. Circumstantial misdirection, Nathan called it.
After three years of extractions with COIL, when Nathan had taken the bullet in the knee in Malaysia, he'd been forced out of fieldwork indefinitely as a team leader. Corban had put him into low-level spy training under the Italian master, Luigi Putelli, and for the last two years, Nathan had been a team of one. The knee brace he still wore no longer encumber him, and he'd gradually come to accept the calling that required his skills. Yes, he was lonely, but in the last two years since meeting Agent Chen Li, his loneliness had been tempered by coded contact with her—not in person, but contact, nonetheless.
Having grown his handlebar mustache back, it tickled his lip, but Nathan dared not reach a hand up to smooth it down, not with the enemy this close. He was a mound of grass on the slope, but if he moved at this point, he could be spotted. The zaraguina would be aware of him soon enough, and he certainly didn't want to give them an edge.
He glanced to his left where the road wound around the hill then came back into sight. The Colsons' vehicle disappeared for five minutes, then reappeared. They weren't traveling fast; there was no reason they should as they returned from a successful week of distribution to the Fulbe people. And they had no reason to suspect the bandits closing quickly on their bumper.
The bandits were Nathan's concern.
As they neared Nathan's position, he could see Ron was driving. He wanted to wave at the missionary—an ex-welder from Montana who'd heard his calling for God later in life, then had come to Cameroon when the natives needed him the most. Nathan admired the big man who'd greeted him with a friendly bear hug in Garoua-Boulai days before—not because they knew each other, but because Ron had a big heart. But today, Nathan didn't wave at them. That would cause them to stop, and then they'd be in worse danger. Not to mention Nathan's cover would be blown. Whenever possible, COIL's operatives were to remain hidden. If ever questioned, the missionaries could honestly admit they knew nothing.
The Colsons drove past, dust in their wake.
Nathan threw off the camo-net, rolled down the slope once before he found his feet, and bounded down to the road twenty feet below his former position. Skidding to a stop, he bent down to scratch at the dirt at the edge of the road. Finding the planks he'd buried the day before, he tipped them on end, one at a time, and flipped them off the roadway. Where the planks had been, Nathan revealed a deep ditch he'd covered until the Colsons passed. Sooner than expected, Nathan heard the bandits approaching, but he didn't look up. He hefted the last of the planks off the road and down the steep slope that continued down to a seasonal gulch.
Pausing, he admired his work. The ditch was four feet wide and four feet deep, stretching all the way across both tire ruts. The bandits wouldn't be able to stop in time once they came around the curve. It would buy the Colsons enough time to reach what little civilization did exist in that region of Cameroon. Even the border-hopping bandits didn't want witnesses to their crimes. When, or if, the Colsons ever went back to the refugee camp—a trip of several-days—Nathan or one of the other operatives would be contacted again, but today, he was merely supposed to make sure the Colsons arrived safely back at their village.
With his trap in place, he scrambled up the bank to where he'd left his backpack. He threw his net over his shoulders and collapsed into the hillside as the zaraguina vehicles came into sight.
Gasping for breath from his exertion under the hot sun, Nathan watched as the first vehicle with three soldiers saw the ditch across the road, but only an instant before the front wheels fell into the trap. Their speed was just enough to break the front axle from the chassis on impact. The second vehicle rear-ended the first, probably causing a few bumps and bruises, but the bandits poured out of the vehicles unharmed, though cursing and seemingly confused. They pointed after the Colsons' Rover now miles away.
Doing his best to suppress his laughter, Nathan settled into his position to out-wait the zaraguina's departure. They worked together to tip over the disabled vehicle, allowing it to tumble down the far slope where it would sit abandoned until the earth itself melted away. With a final curse yelled after the Colsons, the bandits climbed into the second vehicle and turned around. Only when they were a dust plume five miles away did Nathan throw off his net.
From a strap on his pack, he removed a trenching shovel with an adjustable head. He slid down to the road to pack the discarded soil back into the ditch that was now the coffin for the broken axle.
Once finished, Nathan returned to his spot on the slope and sat down to guzzle from his canteen. He picked up a satellite phone and called a secure number to leave a scrambled message: Mission accomplished. When he reached the coast, he would call in for his next assignment, hoping again to be reunited with Chen Li. Maybe the next one . . .
Shouldering his pack, Nathan climbed the hill until he reached the summit. An ATV and a trailer burdened with fuel and water waited for him. He paused to gaze at the vast terrain from his elevated position. Such beauty. But that was enough sight-seeing for Nathan. Another mission awaited his attention.
*~*
Chapter Fifteen
Brad Alden tested the weight of the green apple in the palm of his hand. He cracked his neck to the left, then to the right, while his eyes stayed focused on the knot on the birch tree.
"It's the ninth inning." The nineteen year old lowered his voice as would a commentator. "Bases loaded. The Pacifics are up by one. If they're going to pull this game off and win the championship, ladies and gentlemen, it's up to Mr. Alden, the high school pitcher who's been getting the attention all night. This pitch very well may decide this young man's future. He must feel the pressure. He knows the Major League scouts are here. He's seen the little men in suits checking the speed of his fastball. He can't believe they're here for him. They can't believe his fastball. The stands are packed, but you'd never know it; they're so silent. I think I heard a cricket chirp. Here's the wind-up. And . . . the pitch!"
