The Woman Left Behind: A Novel Read online

  At the proper altitude she deployed her chute, so prepared now for the violent jerk upward and the straps cutting into her legs that she barely noticed them, other than as a signal that everything was working as it should. Immediately she looked around for the others so she could steer away from them. They were more visible now, the billowing parachutes like giant green mushrooms. She checked above her, located Snake. His chute had opened without problem, too.

  The arid air made for a slower descent, which extended the time they were sitting ducks for anyone with a firearm, and there was nothing they could do about it. Jina’s nerves were in shreds by the time she saw the ground coming at her. She flared the chute, tried for the one-point landing, and as usual failed miserably. She got off her butt and reeled her chute in, wadding it up and securing it.

  “Babe.”

  She turned toward the whisper and located Levi, joined up with him and Crutch. They went down on one knee to provide a smaller target; there was virtually no cover that she could see. There were some rocks, a few bushes, some dark slits in the ground that she assumed were wadis, but that was it. The others shortly joined them, all of them accounted for. Boom, the first on the ground, had located the equipment bag and their weapons were distributed.

  They moved as silently as possible toward the contact point, communicating by hand signals and whispered into their comm units. Even though it was night and a wind was blowing, the heat was oppressive. She was sweating within seconds; thank God they’d be gone by daybreak. The crumbled ruin where she’d be stationed came into view. It had been . . . she couldn’t tell what it had been. The ruin was too large to have been a hut, but what else could it have been, out here literally in the middle of nowhere? Why would a hut be here anyway? Behind the ruins was the dark gash of another wadi, so maybe at one time the place had been more habitable.

  Levi signaled everyone to take a knee, then Trapper and Voodoo silently circled the crumbled pile. A truck was tucked into the shadows on the other side of the ruin, a beat-up Toyota pickup truck that was so covered in dust it blended in with the surroundings. Maybe it wouldn’t collapse under the weight of nine people.

  Trapper reappeared and gave a thumbs-up. Levi rose to his feet and the team fanned out behind him, approaching the ruin from the front while Trapper and Voodoo covered the back. When he was closer, he crouched, picked up a rock, and tossed it into the ruin.

  Ten seconds later, a small figure appeared in the shattered doorway. He wore the traditional loose trousers and a shirt, his thick, untidy black hair blowing around his face. He looked about twelve, though he was likely older. He gave a low, warbling whistle.

  Levi whistled in return, but none of them advanced any closer.

  The boy stepped out of the doorway and waved his arm. He wasn’t carrying any weapons—at least none that they could see.

  Cautiously the team approached. Per Levi’s instructions, Jina stayed at the back of the group and kept her jump helmet on, though her hair was plastered with sweat under it. With all the gear she was wearing, no one would make her as female as long as her head was covered and she wore the NVD.

  “I am Mamoon,” the boy said when they got close enough to hear him, his English understandable. He had a quick, shy grin, though it faded somewhat when he looked up at Levi, towering over him. “You are here to pick up a package, yes?”

  “Yes,” Levi affirmed. “A large package.”

  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.