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They did, and I said, “Branko, get over here.”

He crawled to me on his hands and knees, almost catatonic from the events. I said, “Jennifer, get him out of here.”

She stood him up and took a wide berth around the Afghans, avoiding blocking Brett’s shot. Shakor said, “So I suppose you think you’ll get Branko and the treasure. Just like an American to lie. You can kill me, but make no mistake, the Badr Battalion will hunt you all over the earth.”

I said, “Shut the fuck up. I should slaughter both of you where you stand, especially after that stupid stunt your man pulled. Just be still for a few minutes longer.”

Shakor said, “Ghulam lost his family in an American air strike. He was a little heated. I did not authorize that action, and do not fault you for killing him.”

My earpiece came alive with Jennifer saying, “We’re in the vehicle. Branko is secure.”

I said, “Roger,” then went back to Shakor, saying, “You dumb-asses didn’t even ask where the vehicle for those keys is located. How were you going to find the treasure?”

Shakor said, “I assumed you would tell me.”

I laughed and said, “You mean after your buddy put a bullet in my head?”

“I told you, I didn’t authorize that. He acted on his own.”

I have to admit, he was pretty damn calm considering his predicament. I said, “I really should kill your ass for breaking the rules, but against my better judgment, I won’t.”

I pulled out Branko’s cloned cell phone and put it on the ground, saying, “There’s a thing called Find My on this phone. It’s tied to an Apple AirTag that’s in the trunk with your treasure. You follow it to the vehicle. Understood?”

“No, I don’t. I don’t know how to use ‘find me.’”

“That’s not my problem. Maybe you can find a child here to show you, but you’re not going to do it for fifteen minutes.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you move at all in the next fifteen minutes, your head will explode like your friend. After that, you’ve got your treasure.”

He glowered at me. I walked past him, and he said, “Maybe one day we’ll meet again, and I’ll be the one with a weapon.”

I stopped, turned around, and punched him as hard as I could in the face, knocking him to the ground. He rolled over, but didn’t try to retaliate, showing remarkable control. His friend jumped forward, and I pointed at him, causing him to stop as he remembered the reticle on his forehead.

I said, “That was for my friend in Tajikistan. You want to meet me again, and I won’t use a gun. I’ll beat you to death purely for the pleasure.”

I jogged out of the park, saying on the net, “All clear, all clear. Meet at the vehicle. Brett, go ahead and break down the hide site.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, they aren’t moving for fifteen minutes. I’m sure.”

We collapsed on the remaining Land Rover, cramming Branko in the back bench between Veep and Knuckles. Jennifer took the wheel, and I turned around from the passenger seat while we waited on Brett to return from his hide site, tossing Branko a pack of wet-wipes to clean off the blood and saying, “Branko, you are one hard man to find, I’ll give you that.”

He wiped his face with trembling hands and said, “What do you want with me?”

“Want? What does anyone want with you? I want you to turn off the ransomware you initiated. Only the payment is going to be allowing you to live.”

Chapter62

Inside the Valkyrie capsule, Abigail Raintree watched the sun rise yet again as they circled the earth five times faster than the speed of sound. It only took about ninety minutes to complete a rotation, and given their current predicament, she’d long since quit marveling over the view.

She knew she’d been billed as a small-time high school physics teacher, which she was, but her pedigree was more than the press releases indicated. At one time all she’d wanted was to be an astronaut. She’d obtained an appointment to the U.S. Air Force Academy with a goal of becoming a fighter pilot, the first step to achieving her dream. Much to her surprise, she’d learned that she was red-green color-blind. She’d thought it was a mistake, because genetically that condition was passed to the male side of the family and she’d had no trouble in life. She could see just fine, but she couldn’t complete the plate test. She was one plate short of a passing score, meaning her condition was extremely mild, but that one plate shattered her dream of becoming an astronaut.

She’d graduated from the academy with a degree in aeronautics and then had joined the Air Force, working on the ground and watching others fly. She thought she’d make a career out of the Air Force, looking for the lemonade in the lemons, but it wasn’t satisfying. She’d reached the limit of her payback for the academy and had resigned her commission. She’d wandered about inlife, doing one job after another at the big defense contractors—Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Boeing—but none of it helped her self-actualize. She’d earned her teaching certificate and had taken a job as a physics instructor at a high school in Little Rock, Arkansas.

She found she enjoyed the work. Opening the minds of high school seniors to a world beyond what they could smell and touch had given her a sense of self-worth. And then the call came for a teacher to join the first civilian flight up to the space station.