Джеймс Паттерсон - Private Rogue

“But it’s too dangerous,” she said, getting down to basics.

“I’ll have a team with me. We’re on a rescue mission, not going into battle. I won’t do anything that will get me, or anyone else, killed. I promise you, I’ll come home.”

Justine was silent and I knew what that meant. She didn’t approve, but she wasn’t going to disagree.

“You wouldn’t love me if I wasn’t the man I am.”

“You’re so stubborn. If you let anything happen to yourself, I swear I’ll find you in the afterlife and make you suffer.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” I assured her.

“Just to Afghanistan,” she said bitterly.

“Yes, just to Afghanistan.”

“You don’t have to do this,” Beth Singer told me.

She’d left the children watching a movie in the family room and had joined Jessie and me in the living room.

“I know,” I replied, and turned to Jessie. “Hadn’t we better get going?”

She checked the time and nodded. “Alvarez and Taft should be here any moment.”

A buzzer sounded. Jessie went to the video intercom and lifted the receiver. On the screen, I saw the faces of two operatives I recognized: Roni Alvarez, a tough, snarky former Bronx cop, and Jim Taft, a huge, bull-necked ex-Secret Service agent. They were here to guard Beth and the children.

Jessie buzzed them through the gate and turned to me. “Let’s go.”

“Please be careful,” Beth said. She took my hands and squeezed them tenderly. “Thank you.”

“I’ll be in touch through Jessie,” I replied.

I checked I had my phone, passport and wallet, and followed Jessie outside, where we met Roni and Taft.

“Traveling light?” Roni asked.

“Yeah,” I replied.

“We’ll keep them safe until you get back,” Roni said.

“Stay frosty,” Taft added.

“Thanks,” I scoffed.

They went into the house and shut the door, and Jessie and I got in the black Nissan and started out for LaGuardia.

Brooding clouds hung low over the quiet highway. Jessie drove cautiously through the slush and grit. She’d chartered a private jet, so there was no danger of the aircraft leaving without me.

“Do you want me to come with you?” she asked as we rolled along I-95. “Roni and Jim will be okay with Beth and the children.”

“She trusts you,” I replied. “She might need a friendly face with her.”

There was no need to explain why. We all believed Joshua Floyd was still alive, but the report there were no survivors might be true.

“Dinara is sending a team to Kabul,” I added. “I’ll be fine.”

I’d used Private’s secure messaging system to send Dinara Orlova my travel plans, and she’d replied to let me know a member of the Private Moscow team would be in Kabul to meet my plane when it arrived.

“You need to learn to trust people, Jack,” Jessie said.

“I do,” I replied. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be leaving Beth and the children with you.”

“It’s not my place to analyze you,” Jessie said, “but most people running a company of Private’s size don’t get involved in frontline operations. You’ve got nothing to prove.”

“I’m not trying to prove anything,” I replied, but somewhere inside I knew that wasn’t entirely true.

“You don’t have to save the world single-handed.” Jess smiled.

“I know. I’ve got you to help me. We all want to be heroes. That’s why we’re in this business.”

She shook her head and grinned broadly. “You’ve always got an answer, Jack Morgan.”

We spent the rest of the journey discussing operational issues at the New York office, and after fifty minutes, Jessie delivered me to the executive jet terminal at LaGuardia.

I saw my Gulfstream G650 waiting at one of the stands, and, after thanking Jessie for the ride, passed through border control without issue, grateful Rafael Lucas had cleared the person-of-interest alert off my record following the motel incident. A few minutes later, I was airborne.

Losing the horse had cost Floyd dearly. He was trying to reach the Pakistan border on foot, crossing some of the harshest terrain and most dangerous mountain passes in the world.

Floyd was nearing the summit of a mountain that, according to the map John and Chris had given him, would take him to a pass leading into the neighboring valley. There was supposed to be a trail, but it had been covered by deep snow and Floyd was having to use a stick to feel for the edge of the mountain. He was on its shoulder and a wrong step would send him to his death, eight or nine thousand feet below. There were no trees up here, and nothing to protect him from the brutal wind, which seemed to find its way through the layers of clothing, scarves and gloves he was wearing. The jagged shards of cold bit through his skin and flesh and gnawed at his very bones. This was a brutal environment, and the darkness robbed the world of any color. The only things he had to give him warmth were the images of Beth, Maria and Danny he held in his mind and the burning love for them that filled his heart. After everything he’d been through, he would not allow himself to die in this strange and inhospitable place.

Other than the relentless cold, he felt fine physically. John and Chris had given him clothes and food, and he estimated he had rations for two days, which wasn’t going to be enough. He was burning a lot more energy than he would have been if he were completing the journey on horseback as planned, and it was going to take him four times as long. Floyd had a knife and a gun, and when he made it into the next valley he would try to find a wild goat or deer to replenish his supplies.

The men hunting Floyd weren’t as careful as him. Every so often, he would see the tell-tale green glow of night-vision goggles in the valley below, and he heard the distant thrum of choppers. He had been lucky so far. They hadn’t searched the route up to the pass. Maybe they lacked the local knowledge. Or perhaps they didn’t think anyone would be foolish enough to attempt the journey at the height of winter. Floyd wasn’t foolish, just desperate. He would get home no matter what.

He looked to the east and saw the sky turning gray. It would soon be dawn and he would need to find shelter from his relentless pursuers. Breathless, cold and exhausted, he conjured images of Beth, Maria and Danny and held them in his mind.

Guide my steps, he asked of them, and his family gave him renewed strength to press on.

Everything was on fire and I could hear my buddies screaming. I was standing by the wreckage of my Sea Knight, watching it burn, reeling from the horror of the situation, desperate to run in and save more of the men whose lives I was responsible for.

Then the horror was gone and I was being shaken awake by the co-pilot of the Gulfstream.

“Mr. Morgan, we’re coming in to land, sir.”

“Thank you,” I said, my heart rate beginning to calm.

He went back to the cockpit and I took advantage of the copious space to stretch my arms and legs. I hadn’t been troubled by that particular nightmare for some time. It used to be a regular specter, and for years I felt as though I was living two lives. One in the present, the other trapped in the nightmares of my past. Like many veterans, I carried the trauma of battle in my unseen wounds, but time had healed the worst of them so I was surprised to be reliving the old horror again, but maybe I shouldn’t have been. This was where my military career had ended: Afghanistan. Maybe that’s why I’d been eager to return. Perhaps there was something I needed to lay to rest here.

I looked out of the window and saw the chaotic city of Kabul spread out in the sunshine. Ancient buildings mixed with new. The roads were crowded with livestock, bicycles, motorbikes, trucks, buses, a cavalcade of vehicles of all ages, shapes and sizes, playing a city-wide game of Dodgem. This was a country that had spent over one hundred years locked in war with an ever-changing roster of enemies, but from the air there were few signs of the scars the country bore.