American Terrorist (The Rayna Tan Action Thrillers Book 1) (2 page)

A former senior engineer for an oil well repair firm, Hank had been coming to Northern Iraq for two decades with a major British firm. However, when terrorists captured the wells, the firm laid him off. That made little difference to the Los Angeles resident. The wells still needed repairing and Hank, with his long experience, was an excellent candidate to supervise the adjustments, improvements, and overhauling, as well as mandatory service work.
 

In the last year, coming to this cauldron of danger had become infinitely more palatable. He had met a woman who was the most passionate creature he had ever experienced. Not to mention that Aida had the body of a porn star, which he never tired of tasting, suckling and indulging in.
 

There was a knock on the door. Hank stepped quickly to turn the knob and Aida walked in.
 

“You bad boy.” Aida pushed Hank to the floor. He got up and she shoved him hard. He landed on the bed.
 

“I missed you so much,” she said slowly, tantalizingly unbuttoning her sheer orange blouse.

“It was only a week,” protested Hank.

“A week too long,” purred the Middle Eastern beauty as she allowed him to finish undressing her.
 

Flesh against flesh, their two bodies entwined and, for the next hour, Hank had the rawest, purest, most exquisite animal sex he had ever had. During the past year with Aida, he thought he had experienced all that a man could hope for... and then this magical evening superseded everything that had happened before. Aida was a wildcat in heat. Unbelievable and utterly exhausting.

She turned her head into the pillow. He leaned over to kiss her cheek and saw her tears. “What’s wrong?” he asked, suddenly feeling uneasy.

“I don’t want to tell you,” she murmured into the pillow.

“You know you can tell me anything.”

“Hank, today is the happiest and the saddest day of my life.”

“You’re talking riddles,” he said as he turned her onto her back and caressed the taut nipples of her firm breasts.

Picking up his hand and dancing her fingers on his palms, Aida said, “My visa to America has come through. It is the happiest because I am leaving for America tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” said Hank, sitting up straight.

“Yes. I didn’t want to tell you because I wanted our last night together to be special. I have to leave now to pack and make the final arrangements.”

“It’s not going to be our last night. We can get together in New York, Los Angeles, Houston... wherever you’re going to be.”

“Hank, you have a wife, children and a happy life. I am your toy and there are lots of toys around. You don’t need me. I just want you to know that you... you are the best I have ever had. I will always remember you.”

It didn’t take two seconds for Hank to respond. “Aida, I’m going to leave Francie. The love went out of our marriage long ago.”

“But she will take all your money,” she protested. “I have heard about American divorce lawyers. You know about that. What do you call them? Shanks? Shucks?”

“Sharks. Lawyers are sharks. I hate them... Aida, do you think you can arrange for a larger package for me to bring to your uncle?”

She hesitated. “It’s too dangerous. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“I don’t want anything to happen without you,” he said. “For us, Aida. For us.”

“Are you sure you, Hank? I can try but I don’t know.”

“Of course you can do it, Aida,” he said. “Make it as big as you can. Have someone bring it over to my hotel. We can’t let anything stop us.”

The “uncle” Hank referred to was the owner of a dry cleaning shop in Los Angeles. After their second passionate tryst, Hank confided to Aida that his finances were often tight. Otherwise, he would have bought her a diamond necklace instead of a pearl one. Aida told him it didn’t matter, but Hank insisted he wanted nothing but the best for her and would get her the moon if he could.
 

Aida told him that her uncle in Los Angeles was in occasional need of “special deliveries.” Hank gladly agreed and, since then, each time he returned to America, he carried a little package and delivered it to her uncle’s shop where he was immediately paid five thousand dollars. Hank never asked about the contents of the packages. If somehow he were caught by the authorities, he could pass any lie detector test, claiming he had no knowledge of what it contained. When he asked who gave it to him, he would truthfully answer, “Aida,” not knowing this was not her real name.
 

“Okay,” said Aida, kissing Hank one more time.

She started to dress.

“Aida?”

“Yes, Hank?”

“I love you.”

Her eyes twinkled and she said with sassiness, “You better!”

After one final kiss, Aida eased out of the room, walked down the hallway and took the elevator to the lobby. She went outside but, instead of hailing a cab, she walked to the beauty salon around the corner and entered.

Midnight was an unusual time for a beauty salon to be open but two hundred American dollars for a few hours’ work was incentive enough for the hairdresser and esthetician to take on this special client.

“Welcome, Fatima,” said the hairdresser as the other woman locked the shop’s doors and pulled down all the blinds.

“Thank you for doing this rush job,” said Aida-cum-Fatima. Fatima took out her smart phone and showed the photos of the nude Sabiya Casey had sent her. “I need to look exactly like her or as close to it as you can.”

“That will not be a problem.”

***

Four hours later, there was a knock on the salon door. Fatima nodded and the hairdresser opened the door, letting Ahmed into the room.

Fatima, lying on a table, got off and stood up, exposing her nude body. Ahmed clinically examined his sister, from her haircut to the moles to the scars.
 

He nodded his approval. “You are the woman I had tonight.”

Fatima quickly dressed and they departed. Casey stood outside with a middle-aged man wearing a turban.
 

The turbaned man spoke quietly. “By the time you meet the Canadian officials at ten, I will have changed all your Syrian documentation to reflect your fingerprints and photos. I suggest you use this to alter your fingerprints.” He handed her a little tube of clear gel. “It is a temporary solution to remove them.”
 

The man took off as Casey, Fatima and Ahmed climbed into the car.

Chapter 2

SEVEN YEARS AGO

I am a soldier. My job is to kill. If you don’t like it, f*** you. Go back. Be a teacher. Pipefitter. Lawyer. Politician. But remember this. Without me, you ain’t shit. And you better hope I do my job well. Because if I don’t kill them, those guys are gonna come after you and rip that f***ing man bun off the back of your f***ing scalp.

And if you don’t like the way I talk, f*** you. I don’t care because no matter what, YOU OWE ME!

And one more thing, asshole... Happy Birthday, Greg.

Twenty-three-year-old Sergeant Gregory “Boom Boom” Henderson, a five-year veteran who had the unfortunate honor of living in Kandahar for, save training, all his military life, slammed the sat phone shut. Boom Boom got the nickname because since he’d been a boy, he loved to play with explosives. He was the life of the party at Halloween and New Year’s and, if the youngster was invited, something was sure to go “Boom Boom.” At least that’s what he told everybody. Truth was, he hated his real name: Chadwick. He joined the forces right after high school. Rumor had it that he was an uncooperative SOB whose advancement in the forces was stymied by his unwillingness to kiss ass or tolerate incompetence.

He turned and glared at the Asian girl about his age sitting beside him in the Bison Armored Personnel Carrier. “Remember this. Family is everything.”

Sergeant Rayna Tan gave him a withering look and said with quiet sarcasm, “Hooah, Boom Boom. As long as you’re with me, you’re family and I got your back.”
 

Looking at the slender Chinese girl with a helmet, frag vest, tac vest, and carrying an C8 battle rifle, alongside the six-foot, two-hundred-twenty-pound man’s man of a soldier, the family comment was almost too weird for words. Except, in the military, it was true.

Sergeant Rayna Tan was one of the Canadian military’s bright lights. After finishing university in what seemed a lifetime ago with a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology and philosophy, Rayna joined Canada’s armed forces. After basic training, like most new soldiers, she was deployed to Kandahar. The army wanted to keep her safe and eventually have her come back to Canada where the attractive young woman might help rebuild the forces’ tarnished image. Rayna would have nothing of that and insisted on being in combat. Over the years, she proved herself to be a fearless and intelligent combat assaulter.
 
She had just learned she had passed the grueling entrance exams and been accepted into Canada’s elite Special Forces Unit, JTF2, and this might be her last mission before she returned to Canada for advanced training. (One of the most secret special forces units in the world, JTF2 is the only foreign special operation unit to be conducted into American Tier 1 ranking, along with Delta and Seal Team 6.)
 

Afghanistan was crazy, corrupt and complex. Where the police and army smoked dope, robbed the locals and ran away at the first sniff of the Taliban; where the locals prayed for and preyed on American, British and Canadian Forces that came to protect them; and where, despite their official overthrow in 2001, the Taliban, led by the ruthless one-eyed Mullah Omar, continued to inflict its reign of lethal terror on Afghani civilians.

The goal of today’s operation was to replenish the supplies of a FOB (forward operating base) being built in the Zhari District of Kandahar, close to where the Taliban called home. FOB Wildcat, like hundreds of FOBs spread throughout Afghanistan, would be primitive but functional. Most important, it would have close proximity to the enemy so vehicle- and foot-borne patrols could control, attack and kill. Until then, the Taliban could openly and defiantly operate almost to the perimeter of Kandahar Air Field. If FOB Wildcat and others like it could gain even the smallest of footholds against Taliban extremism, it would be encouragement to the Afghans to stand up and defend themselves without the need for Coalition forces.

But that was still a long way off and a mighty big “if.” Right then, there was a more immediate concern. IEDs were a fact of life in Afghanistan. The Taliban was constantly placing new ones on the road between KAF and FOB Wildcat. It was never a question of “if” there would be an incident; it was only a question of “when” and “how big?”

The previous night, the temporary shelter that housed medical supplies for the fledgling FOB had been attacked and robbed. Six Taliban rebels brazenly entered, shot open the lock and walked out with enough basic medicines and equipment to equip a small infirmary. While they didn’t kill anybody, every one of the eight local Afghani soldiers was either shot or beaten.

Rayna was given the call to go and the responsibility to lead a section. There were five vehicles dispatched to FOB Wildcat. A bulldozer-like Husky led the convoy. Its job was to detect, dispose and clear any booby traps en route. Following the Husky were two medical and food supply vans carrying everything from peanuts to powdered milk to penicillin. Bringing up the rear was a hulking BV206 Tracked Carrier, large enough to carry a physician, his assistant, three combat assaulters and still bring the injured back to KAF.
 

It was insufferably hot. It was the middle of summer and it seemed like the hundred plus degree heat would never end. Combined with the clouds of parched desert dust, air was at a premium. Sweating like a sinner in church, Boom Boom was tempted to remove his helmet; the sauna-like heat was making him dizzy but, as he moved to adjust his strap, Rayna snatched his hand away and growled, “You take that helmet off your head and you give the Taliban an opportunity to put a hatchet into the back of it. Damn it, Boom Boom. You should know better by now. We already got enough casualties without having to worry about an idiot like you.”

Boom Boom’s eyes threw daggers but he knew Rayna was right.

“Relax, Rayna,” said a sympathetic fellow soldier.
 

“How can I relax when I’m dealing with rookie mistakes?” barked Rayna.

“Well, when we get back to base, I’ll use my superpowers and I’ll cool you off real good. Take off that helmet, nasty vests, then move down...” murmured Danny Gerrard in his normal “too cool for words” voice.

Rayna took her rifle off her lap and swung it to swat Gerrard.

The snickering soldier stopped it easily and said with a mock whimper, “Please don’t shoot me, Ms. GI Jane. You know my wife’s six thousand miles away and I just want a little nooky nooky with my little fortune cookie.” He cut the attitude and shoved the rifle in front of Rayna’s face. “You think that just because you got into Special Forces, you’re hot shit. Well, you’re not. The mucky mucks just let you in because you’re a woman and you’re Chinese.”
 

At that moment, Rayna wasn’t sure who she was angrier at—the Taliban or jocks like Gerrard who appeared like unwanted mosquitoes throughout every step of her military career. From the recruiter she met in college, to the trainers she had in Ottawa, to the flyboys she met at KAF, all of them had the same arrogant attitude that had pissed off women since the beginning of time.
 
It was pointless to argue though—they had a bigger enemy than Gerrard to worry about.

The mini-convoy slowed as it passed through a small war-torn village littered with the refuse of a combat that refused to die—shrapnel, spent munitions, shacks with soot-stained mud terrain walls, plastic bags, soda cans and a few goats. Everywhere, the evidence of the war in this ravaged country was evident, with rubble and garbage strewn everywhere, the hulk of a burnt-out vehicle... but mainly the people—skinny to the point of looking anorexic, and their eyes… The hollow look of the living, soon-to-be dead.