Prime (14 page)

Tremblay made a low sound, like an
exaggerated groan of pleasure. “My God, that’s so hot.”

King stared back at her in disbelief. To all
appearances, she was coming on to him, but his instincts were shouting down his
libido. He doubted very much that what she wanted was something as banal as
sex. This woman was smart and tough—tough enough to survive one of the most
difficult programs in the Army; she was someone who knew what she wanted and
would blow through any obstacle in her way. It was a game to her…

No
, he thought,
not a game
. This was animal behavior, the she-bear marking her territory.

I do
not have time for this shit
.

By making the first move, throwing down the
gauntlet, she had already won. She had put him on a defensive footing,
established the battlefield, dictated the terms of victory. If not for the fact
that he had been unwittingly outmaneuvered, he might have applauded her
decisiveness.

Worse, she had defined him: a soldier,
following orders without thinking; an officer, inept and unworthy of respect; a
man… Oh yes, that was it. That was the thing that bothered her the most.

He didn’t think she was a lesbian; even if
she was…
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
. That
was the policy. Regardless, she definitely had issues when it came to men.

He realized that she wasn’t the only one watching
to see what he would do and how he would play the game. All eyes were on him.
If he played along, did what she wanted, he’d look weak, unable to say no to a
pretty girl…

Okay,
‘pretty’ might be understating it. She’s Playmate-of-the-Month material
.

Did he dare refuse? He had every right to,
but his fellow Delta shooters were expecting him to stand and deliver.
If he didn’t…
Well, like the old saying went, you never got
a second chance to make a first impression.

There was another saying he liked even
better: The best defense is a good offense.

A smile slowly curled the corners of his
mouth. “You know, maybe I should ask your CO what he thinks about this.”

A flicker of doubt dulled the mischievous
gleam in her eyes.
“My CO?”

He picked up the stuffed bear and rolled the
black plastic sphere into his palm. “Lieutenant Ball. Should I play grab-ass
with Baker?”

Zelda frowned.

He gave the ball a vigorous shake then turned
it over and looked at the little window where the answer was displayed.

Reply
hazy, try again.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said, returning
the toy to its place. “Lieutenant Ball says to go for it. I guess it’s on.”

SEVENTEEN

Shin Dae-jung considered it a matter of personal pride that he never
complained about anything. Whether it was a duty station, another soldier, a
particular mission…even Army chow in all its legendary inedibility, he faced
each bump in the road of life with the implacability of a Buddhist monk.

But just this one time, he was tempted to
make an exception.

It wasn’t that there was anything
particularly miserable about the assignment. He had humped cross-country for a
good ninety minutes, a distance of at least six miles over uneven terrain, but
that was just a walk in the park for someone like him. At one point, his foot
had broken through a thin crust of dirt concealing some kind of animal burrow,
and he’d twisted his ankle, but that kind of thing was to be expected. The low
valleys between the hills seemed to be riddled with similar pitfalls, and to
avoid more stumbles, he’d kept to the high ground, which had added to the
length of his journey, but that too was just something that had to be done.
When he’d reached his destination, a low hill west of the fenced compound, he’d
hunkered down on the hard earth under his camouflaged poncho, motionless, as
various bugs, critters and creepy-crawlies meandered across his body—par for
the course. His thermal poncho liner didn’t quite keep him toasty warm through
the long chilly night, but he’d been colder before.

No, what had ramped up the misery factor was
the fact that he could have…he
should
have…spent the night nuzzled up next to a very satisfied lady doctor.

Someone was going to get an earful when he
got back; not Zelda—this wasn’t her crazy idea—but the Delta boys… Oh, yeah,
they were going to hear about what he’d given up to run their errands. The
thought made him smile; the Delta operators would probably be a lot more
sympathetic to his sacrifice than the blonde Amazonian war-goddess.

Ah
well, as Giselle might say
:
c’est la vie.

The arrival of the helicopter made him forget
all his woes.

It had come just after his last check in.
He’d been busy drawing a diagram of the compound, noting the position of each
building, as well as the exact coordinates for everything: the buildings, the
fenced perimeter and even what appeared to be an obstacle course in the
northeast corner. With precise enough coordinates, the Delta boys would be able
to draw a near perfect map of the compound from just his radioed description.

The sound of voices drifting up from the
compound grabbed his attention. He scanned the compound with the binoculars
until he found the source of the noise; a small crowd of people—twenty or
more—milling around the area he had dubbed ‘the course.’

Everyone in the group had black hair and dark
complexions, marking them as native to the region. Most wore simple clothing:
dingy t-shirts and what might have been canvas trousers. All appeared to be
male, but that was something he couldn’t confirm. What he could determine with
more certainty, based on the differences in size,
was
that some of them were just children.

Shin immediately got the sense that they were
all prisoners.

Two men however, were not wearing the
“uniform” of the captives. They were also Asian, but they looked like they’d
just stepped out of a hip-hop music video—baggy jeans, T-shirts with fashion-designer
logos prominently displayed, caps with the visors turned sideways. The effect
would have been comical if not for the Kalashnikov rifles they wielded.

Then something truly unbelievable happened.
The milling group fell into a neat military-style rank in front of the two
‘gangstas,’ and then, two at a time, they headed into the obstacle course.

They moved with astonishing speed and
alacrity, bounding over hurdles and scrambling up ropes like soldiers at boot
camp.

Shin realized that was exactly what it was.
He assumed the men were conscripts, taken against their will and brought here
to be trained and indoctrinated as soldiers, but it was equally possible that
they were volunteers.

So what was this place?
Headquarters
for a local warlord?
A secret terrorist training camp?

He wasn’t due to check in for another thirty
minutes, but this news seemed to warrant an unscheduled call. But before he
could dial Zelda’s number on his satellite phone, the helicopter arrived.

Because he was peering intently through his
binoculars, he heard the beat of the rotors and the strident roar of the
turbines before he made visual contact, but after only a few seconds of
searching the sky, he found it—a sleek black Bell 430, coming up from the south,
right behind him.

He huddled under his blind as it passed overhead,
then he trained the binoculars on the aircraft as it touched down on the roof
of the structure he had designated ‘Building Two.’ As soon as its wheels
touched down, the pilot killed the turbines and let the rotors spin themselves
out, a process that took several minutes. Finally, when the long airfoil-shaped
blades were completely still, the doors were thrown open and the passengers
began disembarking.

They were all
Caucasian
,
and although too far away for Shin to distinguish faces through the low-powered
binoculars, there were enough clues for him to approximate what was happening.
The focus of everyone’s attention was an infirm figure with thinning gray
hair—Shin assumed it was a man—who was assisted out of the helicopter and into
a waiting wheelchair.

Shin and Zelda had been investigating reports
of people—children particularly—disappearing off the streets. There were a
number of possible explanations, and all of them represented humanity at its
most evil—young girls sold to brothels throughout Asia and young boys turned
into infantrymen for warlords and rebel armies. There were even rumors that a
Chinese criminal organization, the 14K triad, was abducting people, harvesting
their organs and selling them on the black market.

Not
just rumors anymore
, Shin
thought. But the triad wasn’t smuggling the organs out of the country, a
time-consuming endeavor that could damage the tissue. Instead, they were
bringing the recipients here, to receive their new organs fresh from the
unwilling donor.

A paramilitary training camp and a secret
organ transplant clinic. The triad had built a one-stop shop for the flesh
trade.

He reached for the satellite phone, but
before he could dial the number, it started to vibrate in his hand.

EIGHTEEN

At first, King wasn’t sure what would happen. That lasted about fifteen
seconds.

Tremblay
who had appointed himself referee and
timekeeper, had leaned in close as a shirtless King clambered over the ropes.
“So, what’s your plan? I mean, you’re not actually going to hit a girl, are
you?”

King was still pondering the question as
Tremblay gave a shrill whistle signaling the beginning of the first round.

Zelda was grinning as she darted to the
center of the ring. The mouth
guard clamped between her teeth
made her lips seem
unnaturally full, but there was an intensity in her
unrelenting stare that was like nothing King had ever seen before, not even in
the eyes of men who had tried to kill him. He approached the center
cautiously,
his gloves up and ready to fend off her attack.

She jabbed at his gloves, testing his
defenses. He effortlessly batted her punch aside. She jabbed again, but it was
a feint; as he tried to block, she side-stepped and then threw a left upper-cut
that connected solidly on his chin.

For a second, all he saw was stars.

It wasn’t the hardest hit he’d ever taken.
He’d had his bell rung plenty of times before. The difference this time was
that he had—foolishly—not been expecting her to hit quite that hard.

He staggered back, flailing his arms to ward
off her attempt to follow through, and when he could, he threw a wild
cross-body punch that somehow made glancing contact.

Somebody gasped… He couldn’t say for sure
who, but his vision cleared enough to see Zelda’s hair, flashing gold, as she
moved in for another attack. This time he didn’t bother trying to block her.
Instead, he went on the attack, and this time he didn’t hold back.

Hit
a girl? Ha!

There were a lot of words that could be used
to describe Zelda Baker—and she had probably heard them all—but ‘girl’ he
decided, was not one of them.

Time passed in a blur of disconnected
perceptions. In his more lucid moments, it would occur to him to press the
attack. Sometimes it worked, and he succeeded in driving her back against the
ropes, but invariably she would find a way to turn the tide. What she lacked in
size and strength, Zelda made up for with skill; it was plainly evident that
she’d received formal training. She was fast on her feet, flitting about the
ring like a moth. She knew how to use the clinch to recover her wits when King
landed a blow that should have put her on the mat.

At one point, as he sat slumped in a folding
chair during one of the breaks between rounds, Tremblay knelt beside him. “Boss
man, I got nothing but respect for you, but how long are you going to keep this
up?”

Before King could answer, he heard Zelda’s
voice, strained and breathless from the exertion, reach out from the opposite
corner like another punch to the jaw. “Had enough?”

He met her gaze. “I was going to ask you the
same.”

She laughed. “I’m just getting warmed up.”

King shrugged. “Couple more rounds then.”

Tremblay shook his head and handed King a
towel to mop the perspiration off his face and shoulders. “Just in case you’ve
lost count, we’re at six.”

Six
?
He had lost track.

Tremblay took the towel and gave another
shrill whistle to mark the start of the seventh round. King hauled himself to
his feet and waded once more into the fray.

It had stopped being a fight—it had never
been much of a sparring match—and turned into something more like a marathon, a
test of the limits of human endurance. It was a test, not of skill in combat,
but of will. In both respects however, it seemed they were equally matched.

They circled, threw punches, fell against
each other, and then repeated the dance, spiraling ever closer to total
collapse. Zelda’s face was flushed and puffy, her lower lip looked like a piece
of raw meat, and she didn’t seem quite as light on her feet now, but the determination
in her eyes remained undimmed. King’s own arms felt like they were made of
rubber, and the padded leather gloves felt as heavy as lead weights.

All his attention was focused on her. He
watched her eyes, searching for that flicker of movement that would telegraph
where and when the next blow would come. He watched the set of her body and
where her feet went; it had taken him a while to realize that she would plant
her feet in a variation of a shooter’s stance just before striking.

The rest of the world had ceased to exist for
him. His only connection with anything outside the rope circle was Tremblay’s
shrill signal that another round had come to an end. Perhaps that was why it
took him a moment to process the voice that boomed like a thunderbolt in the
dimly lit room.

“What the fuck?”

As the words finally penetrated the filter, King
and Zelda, as if by mutual accord, relaxed their stances and turned their
attention to the group of onlookers, which had more than doubled in size. The
rest of the team had arrived, but it was General Keasling, glowering at the
edge of the ring, who seemed to suck the oxygen out of the room.

Keasling’s face was a mask of barely
contained rage. “What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?”

The abrupt end of the fight sapped the last
of King’s strength and for a moment, he thought he might collapse. But as he
panted to catch his breath, he saw the other faces in the room. Tremblay was
grinning in unabashed admiration. Parker was doing a slightly better job of
concealing the same emotion. Even the big Ranger, Somers, looked impressed.
Zelda was leaning wearily against the ropes, but her face wore the same expression.

He had proven something to her…to all of
them.

He took a deep
breath,
let it out, then another. He straightened to the best approximation of a
position of attention that his exhausted limbs could muster.

“Well sir, you instructed me to put together
a new unit—the best of the best. I was just conducting tryouts.” And then, as
if he needed to say nothing more in his own defense, he turned to Zelda. “She’s
hired.”

Keasling continued to scowl at King, but the
simple fact of his silence told King that he’d said the right thing. His new
mission—the new unit, whatever it was—had already taken him out from under
Keasling’s direct authority. After a moment, the general shook his head.
“Fine.
She’s all yours.”

Zelda’s eyes went wide in disbelief. “Now just
a damn minute—”

“Deal with it.” Keasling kept his gaze on King.
“Your new handler wants to brief you, ASAP. Get cleaned up.”

It didn’t appear to be in Zelda’s nature to
“deal with it,” but she refocused her ire on the man chiefly responsible for
it. She stalked forward and put a gloved fist against King’s chest. “You don’t
own me, and you sure as hell don’t get to just claim me like some prize.”

King gently pushed her hand away. “Zelda… Sergeant
Baker, I think you’re going to like the job I’ve got for you.”

“I already have a job.”

“Now you’ve got a better one.” He smiled.
“Welcome to Delta.”