Taking Fire. Lindsay McKenna
ADDISON SINCLAIRE sat listening to Mike Tarik’s tale of rescue. She had a small office at SEAL HQ. Writing down the specifics, she saw the stubborn glint in the petty officer’s eyes when he told her he wanted to know who this black ops woman was. Mike sat with her at her desk. She had a large PC screen, easy to see and read.
Mike liked Addison the moment he met her. She was a petite blonde with sharp-looking blue eyes. Like the rest of SEAL HQ, she was a navy intel officer and wore SEAL cammies. Sinclaire was part of an eight-thousand-person force who supported the two thousand SEALs who took the fight to the enemy. He had a cup of coffee nearby as he watched her take the information and start her hunt.
“Hmm,” Addy said, “getting nothing on this gal. I’m going over to the Marine Corps net.”
Mike watched her hit “Access Denied” on everything. Frustrated, he said, “What about tapping into personnel files? Try her first name? See if something pops up?”
“Good idea,” the intel officer murmured, switching screens. “C-A-T?”
“Yes.”
“Nothing. What about Cathy or Cathleen? It’s probably a shortening of her original name.”
Nodding, Mike watched her type them in. A number of Cathleens came up, but every lead showed a woman marine, her MOS or skill, her rate or rank and none of them were presently deployed to Afghanistan.
“Your gal is very secretive,” Addy muttered. Her blond brows dipped as she thought about it. “Okay, let’s go another direction. She wore a hog’s tooth. Only snipers who actually graduate from marine sniper school are given one.” She brought up the names of Marine Corps sniper graduates for the past ten years. Gaze moving slowly down the list, she said, “Hmm, here’s a Shinwari, K. Listed here as having graduated seven years ago.” She tapped the screen. Turning to Mike, she said, “You did say she referred to the villages of that area as ‘her people,’ right?”
“Right.”
“Well,” Addy said, thinking about it, “the Shinwari tribe is four hundred thousand strong. And Afghan names are not like English names. They would all use ‘Shinwari’ as their last name because it denotes their tribe.”
Excitement thrummed through Tarik as he stared at the entry on the computer. “Maybe that’s her? And her first name is a K, not a C. Her first name has to be Afghan, then, not an American name.”
“Let me see if this will let me find out more. There’s an asterisk by her name, and I don’t know what that means.” She clicked on the name.
“Damn,” Mike growled. The box “Access Denied” came up. Again. Frustration ate at him like acid.
“Yeah, she’s really protected.” Addy twisted her lips in thought. “Okay, we think we have the correct name on this operator. We have Marine Force Recon snipers all over Afghanistan. They’re small in number, like our SEAL snipers, out there operating alone for weeks or months at a time, tagging the bad guys and usually going after high value targets.” She tapped her chin. “Let’s see if they’ll let me into the whereabouts of marine snipers along the border.”
Mike saw a map pop up, the same one Mac had accessed earlier. This time, the intel officer typed in Shinwari, K. The box “Access Denied” appeared.
Mouth thinning, Mike stared at the screen.
“You said she was a medic of some sort?” Addy asked.
“Yes, she is. She said she was a paramedic. But it could be a lie to throw me off her trail, too.”
“Maybe an Army 18 Delta combat corpsman,” she said, “but I’m not aware they’re allowing women to take that eighteen-month course.” She went to the army website and to the 18 Delta area. Typing in the name, nothing came up. Dead end. “Okay, let’s take another angle on this, Tarik. You said you saw scars on her back, right?”
“Yes.”
“How old do you think they were?”
He shrugged. “Hell, I don’t know. The scars are white, not pink. Pink would denote they happened in the past year or so.”
“Okay, so let’s play ‘what if,’ here. What if she was here in Afghanistan? A covert asset? Posing as someone else? She got caught by the bad guys? Tortured? And she survived it. But if that was so, she’d have been taken here, to Bagram hospital for treatment. Right? Or, if bad enough, sent to Landstuhl Medical Center in Germany.”
Mike shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. She could have been whipped because the scars were long and deep across her back.” He didn’t tell the intel officer he’d seen Khat naked. He wanted to protect her, not expose her to the world in that way. Or maybe he was just plain damned protective of her.
“Okay, off to Bagram’s database on patients.” She typed in the name. Her brows lifted. “Ah, a hit!” She traced her finger across the screen.
Mike leaned forward, his eyes narrowing. There, five years ago, was a Shinwari, K., admitted to the hospital.
“Let’s pull up her medical record.”
He cursed softly. The box “Access Denied” glared back at them.
“She is deeper than deep,” Sinclaire muttered, frowning and studying the screen.
Mike twisted a look up at the officer. “What does that mean to you, then?”
“That she’s working a special black ops. Probably straight out of the E ring of the Pentagon. She’s a ‘need to know basis’ only. In other words, Tarik, if you didn’t directly work with her, you’d never know she existed.” She shrugged. “You just got lucky and intersected with her. Right time, right place. But you’re like two ships passing in the night, and one doesn’t overlap with the other insofar as information goes.” She tapped the screen. “They’re really protecting her.”
Rubbing his chin, he muttered, “Okay, so let’s take it another direction. On the second night when she rode in, she had a packhorse with medical supplies. I saw them, and they’re all from the US. She was dressed in male Afghan clothes. She was wearing a blue-and-white-checked shemagh around her neck and shoulders. She’d gone somewhere. Where? And I know she’s a medic of some sort. If she’s got supplies with her, then she’s got to be going into a village. Giving people medical aid, maybe?”
“Yup, good lead. That blue-and-white shemagh she was wearing is indicative of the Shinwari tribe. Every tribe has different colors. Maybe she’s connected with an NGO? Nongovernmental organization? A charity that’s working here in this country?” Addison brought up the list of NGOs and then typed the name into the database of people associated with each charity.
“Zip,” Mike muttered.
“Yep. But we’re not done. If she’s giving medical aid to Shinwari villages, then there has to be a record of it somewhere. She’s using US supplies, and those are tracked. You said she gave you morphine, right? For your broken arm?”
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