Clear by Fire (6 page)

After graduation, they sent her team to Ramadi, where there was an offensive under way. Despite her previous deployments, she had no frame of reference for her new role at the tip of the spear. The firefights were loud, savage, and in-your-face—like a knife fight in a dark alley. In her new unit, you either carried your weight, or you went home in a bag, and it was too much for many of the women she had graduated with.

Renee was an anomaly. She came alive in the cauldron of Ramadi. The first time she saved a teammate’s life, dragging him to safety despite his bulk, everything changed for her. No longer was she a burden; she was now an asset who had proved her worth under fire.

Turning on the sink, she began scrubbing Joseph’s blood from her hands and forearms. The manicure she’d gotten the day prior was ruined, proving how frivolous pampering herself really was.

Rinsing her hands filled the stark white basin of the sink with a
rust-colored mixture of dried blood and soap. She reflected on the dead bodies, empty hotel rooms, and sand-filled tents as she dried her hands on the plush hotel towel. Death and loneliness were all she had.

Stepping into the shower, Renee was able to relax for the first time in hours. The cream-colored shower curtain acted as a shield from reality, and she’d happily have stayed in there for the rest of her life if she could have. She washed her hair and used the bar of soap to clean her body. Stepping back out of the water, she lifted the horseshoe pendant from between her breasts and used her fingernail to clean bits of dried blood off it.

She’d been told in training that seeing people die would get easier, but it wasn’t true. Death left an invisible residue on the soul that no amount of water or booze could ever wipe away.

It was still dark when she woke up at five thirty a.m. Her body was working through the aftershock of yesterday’s battle plus too many trips to the minibar to self-medicate. But Renee knew that you can’t work out if you don’t get out of bed. Dressing quickly, she got a drink of water before heading to the hotel’s gym. She hated working out, but she dutifully stepped on the treadmill.

The news played on the flat-screen TV mounted to the wall in front of her. A perfectly groomed anchor was talking about the recent uprisings in Afghanistan. She increased the speed of the treadmill until she was at her seven-minute-mile pace and tried to read the closed captioning scrolling across the bottom of the screen.

American soldiers had unknowingly burned a pile of Korans, and retaliatory bombings and attacks on coalition bases were now on the upswing. Renee looked away and focused on her breathing.

It looked like it was going to be another bloody spring in Afghanistan.

Renee finished her four miles and grabbed a towel to dry the sweat off her face. She left the gym and headed back to her room to get ready for the day. By seven she had eaten and was on her way to the DoD office to grab her stuff.

From the outside, the industrial gray building the DoD was renting stood unobtrusively within the confines of the commercial district. The massive window was coated with a shiny silver veneer that distorted her reflection as she walked toward the main entrance.

Renee looked up at the cameras mounted along the apex of the overhang and felt a momentary jolt of self-consciousness. She scanned her ID at the front door and waited for the electronic lock to click open.

Once inside the foyer, she gave her badge to the security guard, who scanned it before allowing her to walk through the metal detectors. Her pistol caused the machine to light up, and the guard dutifully wanded her with the handheld scanner.

Everyone in the building carries a gun, but the poor security guard still has to go through the motions
, she thought.

“You have a good day, ma’am,” he said after completing the scan.

“Thank you, Austin,” she said, smiling at the middle-aged man.

Her shoes clicked across the shiny marble tile of the lobby as she walked to the bank of elevators. Pushing the call button, Renee waited for the shiny brass doors to slide open before stepping in and pressing the round button for the third floor.

As the elevator gently rose, she looked up at the mirrored ceiling and ran her hands over her hair. She liked the way she looked, but it was a double-edged sword. Being a driven and attractive woman in an all-male world came with its own set of unique problems. If you were too direct, the boys thought you were a bitch, but if you were too sweet, they figured you were a tease. Her last mistake, Jonas, had liked the fact that she was independent, but as soon as it got serious, he wanted her to change. She had cared about him enough to ignore it at first, but if she was going to give up her career, it had to be for someone who accepted her just as she was.

Stepping off the elevator, Renee immediately noticed the usually sedentary office was buzzing with activity.

“What’s going on?” she asked the secretary sitting at her desk near the front.

The secretary was a civilian and didn’t care about much besides her thirty-minute breaks and being able to talk to her sister on the phone. She shrugged and left Renee to figure it out for herself.

The office space was set up in an open floor plan and was designed to promote productivity and teamwork. The only walls on the floor were made of glass and held a large meeting room to her left and a series of offices to her right. The offices belonged to the station chief and his underlings, and dark venetian blinds provided management with a sense of privacy, while everyone else sat in the open. A giant window took up the entire back wall of the office and framed the breathtaking California morning in floor-to-ceiling glass.

Renee walked over to the desk she had been temporarily assigned and called her boss, General Swift. He was a busy no-nonsense man who got right to the point.

“What the fuck happened?”

“Sir, they went off script, there was nothing I could do.”

“Damn it, Renee, you know better than to get pulled into a fucking firefight in an American city. I’ve got shit going on over here that you wouldn’t believe. I don’t need another fuckup.”

“Yes, sir, I understand.”

“So, what’s your plan now?”

“I’m going to grab my stuff. I told them to close the airports and train stations last night, and I’m hoping to get a fix on Decklin before he leaves the country.”

“Keep me posted and don’t fuck this up.”

Renee hung up the phone and looked across at the conference room full of people in battle-dress uniform pants and ripstop shirts. They were having a briefing. But before she could join them the assistant agent in charge was staring at her from his desk, obviously pissed.

“Renee, where the fuck are the rest of the photos?”

“Jim, I released everything that was relevant.”

“One of my agents is dead and you’re still holding out on me?”

“Some of those photos are classified,” she said, biting back her anger.

“This is bullshit. You’re here to assist us, not get my people killed.” He stood up from his desk, his face red with righteous anger. Grabbing a handful of papers off his desk, he shoved them into her hands as he stormed away. “That’s the operation plan for today. We’re hitting Dr. Keating’s house in about an hour. He didn’t go to work today and we want to catch him before he leaves the country.”

“What about the airports? Did you alert them about my target?”

“Renee, this thing goes both ways. You help me and I help you.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that I passed your request up the chain of command. I thought you were advised of our procedure before you arrived,” he said, mocking her.

“With all due respect, sir—”

He cut her off with an open hand. “Look, the doctor is the only lead that we have right now. If you want to come off of any intelligence that you might have, then we might be able to entertain some other options.” He stopped in the open area between his office and the conference room and stared down at her.

Jim Green’s ability to ignore the fact that his actions, or at least the actions of the people he reported to, had directly contributed to last night’s fiasco didn’t surprise Renee the way it used to. People wondered why they were losing the war, but Renee knew that despite public promises no one was interested in working together.

“I can assure you that I would hand over any
relevant
intel with or without clearance. Jim, I see what’s going on here, and I think it’s a huge mistake.”

“Renee, I’m out of options. I have a dead agent and three dead bodies that I can’t ID. The director wants results and that’s what I’m going to give him. You really fucked us on this and now we’re
cleaning up
your mess
, so you can either show a little gratitude and sit in on the briefing or go pout at your desk. You choose, because I don’t care.”

Turning before she could answer, he walked into the conference room and pulled up a chair next to the station chief. “She’s not going to give us anything else,” Jim Green said as Renee walked into the room.

Everyone turned to look as she stood frozen in the doorway. Renee could tell they were already laying the failed operation on her. She knew she should pack up her stuff and leave, but something inside her refused to admit defeat.

The station chief turned in his chair and cast a dark look at her before telling the team leader to continue with the briefing.

Renee slipped into the room and stood with her back against the glass wall. A large picture of the doctor’s house had been printed off the Internet and appeared to be the only imagery they were using. Random words and phrases were written haphazardly on the giant whiteboard that the image was taped to; the only thing tactical about the mission was the man with “Tac Commander” written on his shirt.

Renee had been here before. As one of the first women to fight in a Special Ops unit, she was used to the smug egotism that most men wore like suits of armor. She had two strikes against her before ever stepping in the room. The first was the fact that she was a woman in a man’s world, and the second was that she was new. No one cared what the “new guy” had to say, especially if it was a woman.

She might not have been welcome, but she still paid attention as J.T., the team leader, briefed the plan. He was dressed in the latest Crye Precision gear, and the five-hundred-dollar outfit had been freshly pressed. The man had his pants bloused over his hiking boots, which made him look like a mall security guard. Renee didn’t know the guy, but he looked like a total douche.

“We’re going to approach the objective from phase line green.” He
used his left hand to trace the route on the map, but Renee couldn’t see the tiny image and had no idea what street he was referring to. “Once we hit phase line blue we are weapons hot, and the plan is to stop short of the objective and set up an outer cordon. I want the breaching team ready, on my go, to hit the door, and I’ll need the red team around the back providing rear security.”

Despite the fact that she had actually been
inside
the doctor’s house the day prior when she tapped his phones, no one bothered to ask for her input. So she slipped out of the room to call Swift again.

“Jalalabad TOC, Sergeant Wilson speaking. How may I help you, sir or ma’am?” the sergeant on duty at the tactical operations center answered.

“Sergeant Wilson, this is Razor 1 on an unsecured line. I need to speak with General Swift, right now.”

“Ma’am, he’s not here.”

“Where the hell did he go?”

“He’s at Bagram, some kind of meeting.”

“Shit. I need you to find him and have him call me back. He has the number.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The line went dead, and Renee stuffed the phone in her pocket and jogged to the elevator. She jumped into the crowded car, her mind racing as it made its descent.

The elevator settled after completing its four-story trip to the basement, and the doors slid open with a ding. Renee could see that the door to the equipment cage was still open, and she slipped into the secure area with the rest of the agents. She didn’t have any gear, but luckily the army had taught her the importance of making friends with the supply and equipment personnel, and Renee always made it her mission to be on a first-name basis with them wherever she went.

While the strike team geared up and checked their weapons, she went straight to the armorer. The entrance to the arms room had a heavy metal door, like a bank vault, which was open. Once the main
door was opened, the armorer had another metal half door that prevented people from entering but allowed them to receive weapons and gear that he passed through the open portion.

Renee leaned over the top of the door and peered in. She felt like a mother picking her child up from day care, but instead of a kid, she was trying to get a rifle.

“Hey, Matt, sorry to bother you,” she said to the man seated at the metal desk set against the reinforced concrete wall.

“Renee, I hear you had a shitty night,” the young, lanky man said as he bounced up from the desk.

“Yeah, I need a rifle for the raid. Can you hook me up?”

“No problem, do you have a requisitions form?”

“Jim Green didn’t give me one, he told me to draw something from you.”

After last night’s shooting, she technically wasn’t cleared to go out with the strike team until after her shooting review board. Even though she was in the military, she still had to follow the DoD’s policies, but Renee knew there were always ways around the rules.

“I’m not supposed to give anything out without the form, but what the hell, you have the highest security clearance in the building. What do you want?”

“It doesn’t matter to me as long as it’s been zeroed.”

The inside of the armory had a large metal workbench and a red tool chest against the far wall. Every other inch was filled with weapon racks, equipment, and body armor. Matt grabbed a decked-out M4 from the rack and checked to ensure it was unloaded before handing it over.

“I assume you need magazines and ammo too?”

“Please.” She pulled the charging handle to the rear, even though he had just shown her the weapon was empty. It was rule number one and had been drilled into her head for the last six years of her life.