Her son’s wide eyes, wet with tears, disappeared into the dirt in front of him. His resistance was thwarted as the gun was ripped from his hands.
And then several of the other men surrounded him and began kicking and punching the boy. She wanted to help. She squealed in anguish as a muzzle of a nearby soldier was pointed at her head.
Masika suffered in silence as she watched her son being beaten into unconsciousness by the warlord’s men.
The one who had his gun taken from him shoved the others back and pointed the rifle at the back of Zaire’s head. Just as he was about to pull the trigger, the lieutenant called out, "Stop!"
He walked over and whispered something into the gunman’s ear that no one else could hear, a private one-sided conversation. The weapon was lowered, and the gunman retreated to the truck.
Zaire remained unmoving, face down in the dirt.
A split second later, the soldier who had been embarrassed by the 12-year-old returned with a thick rope. The lieutenant smiled his approval and then several other soldiers grabbed up Zaire. His head hung low.
The lieutenant walked forward toward the villagers, eyeing each one of them slowly and then his gaze came to rest on Masika. He must've seen her distraught look, the pain in her eyes that only a mother could have at a time like this. And then he said, "I am Baako, Dakarai’s top lieutenant, and this will be the last time something like this ever happens. You will learn not to resist--not to fight. And this boy," he thumbed to Zaire, who was being supported by his henchmen, "will serve as a reminder."
One
Fayetteville, North Carolina
She stood outside the bar. It had been a long time since she'd frequented this establishment. Years, in fact. The last time was just before her exit from the Army. Standing here now in early spring, as the heat of the day was already starting to climb, seemed surreal. A deja vu of sorts, yet now she was a wholly different person.
Somebody from the Northeast might feel that it was already summer here, but Hatch knew better. Summer was still months off as far as temperatures went, and by midsummer, the temperature would climb to nearly one hundred degrees with a hundred-plus percent humidity. She'd trained in those conditions, and somehow during that time, had acclimated to them. But after leaving New Mexico, with its dry, cool climate, and making the drive out here to Fayetteville, North Carolina, she was not accustomed to the change, and her early morning run left her pores open as the sweat continued to pour even after the cool shower she'd taken to rinse herself off.
Hatch wasn't exactly sure what she was hoping to find here but figured this was as good a place as any to meet with her former team leader. She wished she could have stayed with the Task Force Banshee and been allowed to be a member of her team a little bit longer, to find some closure and to complete her military service with the men that she had grown accustomed to serving with. But the incident and the fire that crippled the right side of her arm had left her unfit in the eyes of her former team leader. But she needed him now. She needed to sit down with the man and ask him what he knew before she made the international trip out to Kenya. She needed to know what she was up against, and he was the closest thing to insider information she was going to find.
When she had called him, he had been reluctant, to say the least, in agreeing to meet with her. But after some cajoling on Hatch's part, Bennett conceded. He picked the location, one of neutrality, and somewhere there would be others around. She could tell in their brief conversation that he was guarded and wasn't sure how Hatch felt about him. That seemed fair. Hatch wasn't sure how she felt about him herself.
Anger had been the first reaction whenever his name popped into her head. Their last interaction had been less than amicable, and she felt the ties to him had been severed over a year and a half ago when she walked away to start her life as a civilian. She was still feeling out that title. It didn’t quite fit her.
He'd said to be there at 11 o'clock. Hatch knew the bar opened at 10, and she decided to arrive at 10:30. She always liked to be ahead of whatever was coming, and in this particular case, a little bit of advance recon of the bar and its inhabitants would give her a leg up if Bennett felt her request for a meeting with him was not on the up and up. Obviously, he was nervous about it, and the fact that he had chosen this establishment proved that. If he was nervous, then her suspicion was raised, too.
Hatch pushed open the door, and although it was bright and warm outside, the bar was warm inside, but also dark. A dankness hung in the air, the smell of old beer and spicy chicken wing sauce struck her nostrils as she entered. The owner and proprietor, Ernie Wenk, had proudly bragged that he'd created a magical hot wings’ sauce. He guarded his recipes as if they were the crown jewels. The wings had made him a legend in the area, winning numerous cook-offs. The walls, besides the military memorabilia, were adorned with photos of him in various hot wing cook-off competitions. His broad smile with his apron smeared with hot sauce and a wing in hand appeared in most of the pictures. He'd always told her, when Hatch used to come to the bar, that he planned to market it, sell his secret ingredient sauce to one of the big corporations, maybe Heinz, and make his millions. But as she walked into the bar and did a closer inspection, it seemed nothing had changed since she’d left. His dreams and aspirations of becoming a hot wing sauce household name appeared to have been tucked neatly away, probably in a mental drawer full of other unrealized endeavors.
The bar owner and saucier, for lack of a better term, looked up as Hatch walked in. He gave her a casual nod and a wink. The two had shared many stories over the years and had forged a bond, although it had been some time since she'd seen him. In her world, once out of sight, a person was out of mind as well. But seeing him brought back that comfort and familiarity, that sense of connection to a place, to a time, when things made sense. And in that split second as he poured a glass of beer for a patron, Hatch momentarily forgot that she was a civilian now. She blissfully remembered her time in the service and wanted to stay in that moment as long as she possibly could. She knew as soon as she opened her mouth and spoke to Wenk, the reality of the circumstances that she was just a civilian now, would intrude. She felt that she was a nobody in the world of the military, her service completed and forgotten.
Hatch pushed aside her hesitation as she entered.
Bellying up to the bar, she said, "Hey, Ernie, been a while."
Ernie Wenk pushed his ample girth over the top of the bar. For a former special operator himself, he had allowed the deliciousness of his wings and probably far too many beers over the course of the years to build a layer of bulk, mostly fat, around what used to be rigid, thick muscles.
Pictures on the wall showed him from back in his Vietnam days. A time when he was a lean, thick, strong man, often cutting the sleeves off of his shirts just to expose his rounded shoulders and bulging biceps. But he was no longer that man, although deep inside Hatch knew better than most, rubbing absent-mindedly the scar tissue on her right arm, that outward appearances were not always as they seemed, and people like Wenk and Hatch were always tougher than appearances made them out to be. She knew in a throwdown situation that Wenk would be able to hold his own, and she'd seen him on occasion demonstrate that when tossing out some rowdy soldiers who’d had too much to drink and nowhere to spend that amped up testosterone.