The Price of Valor Read online

  He took off in a jog down the street. The air smelled of burned rubber, sulfuric and toxic. Water gushed from cracks in buildings onto the street, and overhead electric cables sparked.

  His eyes burned and he stopped, leaned over, grabbing his knees. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to let them tear and cleanse out the rubble.

  Please, Jenny, be okay.

  He passed a couple buildings that were cracked, one leaning to its side, and one with its entire frontside crumbled onto the street. “Hello? Anyone here?” He stood at the edge of the rubble, not even sure where to start looking. He probably should have paid better attention during the urban SAR training they’d done in DC, but frankly he’d been too focused on, well, being angry.

  Pouting, his father might have called it.

  “Orion, can we talk?”

  Jenny had come up to him at the airport, right before their flight to Amsterdam, and he’d barely looked up from his phone—he’d been listening to a podcast—and shook his head.

  Shook. His. Stupid. Head.

  No talking, just pouting, and now he felt sick.

  Please, Jenny, be alive.

  Overhead, the air was still clogged with a gassy current of ash and debris, the sidewalks littered with the carcasses of tree limbs, sand, rocks, stone, and dirt.

  Covering his eyes, Orion stumbled over the debris of the house, back toward the harbor. He nearly tripped over a bicycle, toppled over on the ground, half buried in dust.

  Bracing his hand on the buildings, he worked his way down the street.

  He spotted a fire blazing from a building a block or so away. He picked up his speed, his heart thundering, but when he arrived, people were standing away from the burning house, a woman holding a baby in her arms, both of them grimy, enclosed in the embrace of an equally dirty man. They were quietly crying. The house had fallen in, the roof gone, the place ablaze.

  A group of local men were spraying water onto a nearby home, trying to save it.

  Orion’s eyes watered, his sight turning blurry.

  He turned back toward the harbor—or what he hoped might be the harbor. If he found it, he could follow the shoreline all the way to the hotel.

  He passed the church with the Madonna above the door and spotted a crack all the way up the outside wall. The bell tower had broken off at the top, a great splinter along the yellow stucco.

  He turned and headed down the street, a straight shot down the hill to the harbor. An eerie quiet pervaded the air, something prickling his skin despite the chaos, the fire and smoke and reek of sulfur. As if something else were poised to attack, maybe another fiery blast, maybe an aftershock.

  Maybe . . . and as he came out to the sea, the air clearing slightly, he saw it.

  The sea was beginning to recede from shore, the water scraping over rocks as the harbor emptied. Sailboats were beached at their dockings, fishing boats dug into the sand, and farther out, at the mooring balls, a few sailors scrambled to put their dinghies down and motor to shore.

  Tsunami. The earthquake from the volcano had ruptured the seabed somewhere and—

  Orion broke out into a run. He was probably only a kilometer from the hotel, but he could make it.

  He would make it.

  Jenny’s room was on the third floor, so maybe she was safe, but if the hotel had collapsed, and she was trapped inside, she’d drown.

  He ran down the middle of the road, past the castello, now in even more ruin, past a dry harbor of beached rowboats and whalers, past one of many long docks, the boats like horses tied up to a hitching post.

  “Help!”

  The voice rose over the expanse of water and the distant thunder and tripped Orion up. He nearly flattened on the road, but slowed enough to spot a man running toward shore through the shallow waters.

  He’d abandoned his dinghy, held two kids, one in each arm as he fought the pull of the seabed.

  Thirty feet out, his catamaran was being grounded by the vanishing water.

  Orion glanced down the street and spotted the hotel. It looked mostly intact, but he couldn’t tell.

  “Help!”

  Aw, he couldn’t stop himself from turning, running off the road, onto the boardwalk, then down to shore. The man was still fifty yards away. “My wife is still on the boat with our daughter!”

  Oh, perfect. And then, as if to add to the horror, a deep rumble tremored the air.

  The roar of the sea, lifting, rushing toward them.

  For a second, Orion was standing on the shore on a frigid day in January, watching his father trying to save his mother and little brother out of a raging, frozen river.

  Yeah, he wasn’t going to stand by and watch another family be decimated.

  Orion took off toward the man, yanking his feet out of the muck, the going too slow. He reached him, an American, given the Minnesota Vikings hat he wore over his long blond hair.

  The man shoved his two sons—Orion guessed them to be about nine and seven years old—into Orion’s arms. “I gotta get back—”

  “You don’t have time, man!”

  Vikings looked at him, his gaze fierce. “My wife is back there, with our daughter. Keep my sons safe!”

  Then he turned and fought his way through the muck toward the boat.

  Shoot.

  Orion spun toward shore and worked his way back, fighting to hold on to the boys, not looking behind him as the water raced toward him.

  He reached the sand and put them down, gripped their hands, and sprinted up the beach, practically dragging them. He aimed for a set of brick stairs leading to higher ground.

  He glanced out to sea.

  The surge had reached the catamaran and lifted it, the foamy, violent front wave dislodging it from the seabed and pushing it along like a toy.

  Orion reached the top of the stairs and for a second was caught by the sight of the entire seabed rising, the leading edge of the water overrunning the boats, grabbing them, pushing them to shore like litter.

  Seagulls scattered, crying overhead.

  The helplessness of it caught Orion around the chest, squeezed.

  Sort of like when he’d seen Jenny standing in the parking lot.

  He wanted to help. Wanted to be the one who carried her to shore, kept her safe.

  Lord, keep us alive so we can find each other.

  The sea hit the cement barrier of the castello with a terrible boom, the water careening toward land at a terrific speed.

  He took off again, the boys clinging to him, crying.

  And with everything Orion had inside him, he prayed for mercy.

  For the first time in what seemed like ten years Signe felt safe. Which was entirely crazy because she wasn’t safe.

  She was trapped in an elevator hovering somewhere between the first and fourth floors, the electricity off, sitting in the darkness with only a flashlight for light, pinned under the scrutiny of a man whose heart she’d broken.

  If she were honest, this was more of an interrogation than a conversation between old friends, because Ham wasn’t exactly here on personal business. For all she knew, he worked for the CIA and was here to determine whether she was a patriot . . . or a terrorist.

  And why not? She’d vanished from his life and, to the naked eye, joined a jihadist organization. Not to mention hid his daughter from him.

  So, yes, he had every right to eye her with what looked like suspicion.

  She’d stick to the facts. And really, that was all she could give him because if she let him take a good look at what was going on inside her head, or worse, her heart, well, yes, that would be a catastrophe of epic proportions.

  As soon as this conversation was over—and they’d escaped their tomb—she would disappear. Because she still hadn’t figured out who he might be connected to, and who might have followed him, and frankly who might be waiting for them outside the elevator.

  But right now, right this moment, she was safe. So she could give him the truth—or most of it.
/>   “You need to let me get all the way to the end before you start shouting.”

  His mouth opened. Then closed. And he nodded.

  She ran her hands together. “Sort of reminds me of the times your stepmother would lock you in the cellar of your farmhouse. For one of your perceived infractions—probably you’d forgotten to clean the kitchen or take out the garbage or even simply not given her the right answer when she demanded it.”

  She didn’t know why she led with that.

  “She just liked to exert her power,” Ham said quietly. “Remind me that I wasn’t hers.”

  For a moment, she wondered if he’d questioned whether Aggie was his. But maybe it wouldn’t matter to a man like Ham. He made everyone feel like they were under his wings.

  “I never knew how you survived her abuse.”

  “You,” he said quietly, then drew in a breath as if he hadn’t meant for that to escape. He looked away. “I’d be sitting in the darkness, singing a song to myself—”

  “That’s right. You were always singing.”

  “My mom’s hymns. I don’t know why, but it helped. And then, suddenly I’d hear your voice.” He met her eyes. “You kept me sane.”

  You too. Because sometimes when . . . well, when she felt so afraid or alone she thought she might break in half, he was there. At least in her memories.

  Oh, pull yourself together, Signe! She found a desperate smile. “I wanted to take a bolt cutter to the padlock.”

  One side of his mouth ticked up, such a familiar half smile, her heart lurched.

  “I reported your stepmother to my grandmother once, but that went nowhere.”

  “It wouldn’t have mattered. She was on the PTA board, and no one would have believed you. And, she loved Kelsey. It was just me who made her angry.”

  “You were a good kid, Ham.”

  Something flickered in his eyes. “This is about you.”

  Right. “I don’t know where to start.”

  “Start at the beginning.”

  “The beginning. You mean when I was thirteen, the day that my grandfather died and I realized that I was alone?”

  He drew in a breath.

  And no, she hadn’t been alone. She’d had her grandmother, and Ham. But right then, she’d begun making plans to do something with her life. Be significant, leave her mark.

  Yes, she should start there because then maybe he’d understand. “I was the perfect prey for the CIA.”

  His mouth tightened around the edges. “When did they recruit you?”

  “It was after we got married. You’d left and I was . . . well, I was afraid. I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again. I knew your training was so dangerous and then you would be deployed, and I just couldn’t be the one waiting for you to die.”

  “I know,” he said softly. “You told me all that. That’s why you joined the Peace Corps, right?”

  “I wasn’t in the Peace Corps.” She drew in her breath, suddenly aware of her tower of lies. “I was deep into my first assignment by the time you found me in Chechnya.”

  He drew up his legs and rested his hands over his knees. “I see.”

  “Do you, Ham? Because you were out in the world doing amazing things. Jumping out of airplanes, learning how to scuba dive, preparing to go to war. But I’d watched airplanes slam into the World Trade Center too, and I wanted to do something, but I didn’t know how . . . and then suddenly I had a chance.”

  “I don’t get it. You got so angry with me in Chechnya. Told me that you couldn’t be married to a SEAL. That you couldn’t watch me die. And then you go and do exactly the same thing.”

  She sighed. “I didn’t want you to know what I was doing,” she said quietly. “I thought you’d try to stop me.”

  “You’re right. I would have tried.”

  “And then what, Ham? You would have dragged me across the world, to Virginia, or Pensacola, and then parked me on base so I could wait for you to come back? Like a little housewife—”

  “Like my wife!” It was the first time he raised his voice to her.

  Maybe she deserved it.

  He drew in a breath, schooled his voice. “What was so wrong with that?”

  “Nothing, except . . . I didn’t want that. I wanted what you had. To do something important with my life. To know that I didn’t waste it.”

  Her last sentence hung out there, reverberating into her soul.

  Maybe his too. “Like your mom did.”

  She looked away from him. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “So then you just left. No goodbyes—just . . . gone.” Again no accusation in his tone, but enough of truth in it for her to wince.

  “I couldn’t say goodbye to you, Hamburglar. I knew you’d find me, though. And I dreaded the day you’d show up and talk me out of what I was doing.”

  “Do you really think I could have done that?”

  She gave a huff, half laughter, half incredulity. “Yes. Wasn’t that exactly what you tried to do when you found me in Chechnya? What our romantic getaway to Ukraine was all about?”

  He looked away. “No. Maybe. I don’t know.” Then he met her eyes again. “You were doing something dangerous and I was afraid, and okay, yes, maybe I did try to talk you out of it. And I would have tried harder if I knew you were pregnant.”

  His words landed like a knife in her chest.

  She gritted her jaw against the ache. “I’m sorry I took your daughter from you. It wasn’t my intent. When Pavel Tsarnaev raided the camp, one of his men was shot. He took my friend Zara, and I didn’t know what to do so I went with her. She doctored the man at a house, and then I talked Tsarnaev into leaving her there in exchange for taking me.”

  Ham’s eyes widened.

  “I told him that I could look after the soldier—”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

  “Ham, you promised to hear the whole thing—”

  “I take it back. Are you completely crazy?”

  His response knocked her back.

  “Tsarnaev was a terrorist. A jihadist and a militant Islamic. You know what they do to women in those camps—”

  She folded her arms, glared at him, then looked away.

  Maybe her actions calmed him down because he blew out a breath, ran his hands over his face. “Okay. Sorry. I just . . .” He stared at her then. “I found Zara. She said Tsarnaev had taken you, and I nearly lost my mind, okay? And now you’re saying you went with him willingly? Why?” His question hung in the air of the tiny compartment. “Why would you do that—”

  “Because it was my job!” She cut her voice low. “I was tasked to infiltrate and find out what Tsarnaev knew—”

  “Not by joining his terrorist camp!”

  She held up her hand. “Listen. We knew Tsarnaev was planning something. And, like I told you, I was tasked to find out what. When he took me to his camp, I realized it was a much bigger event than we thought. It wasn’t just camp—it was practically a city. Three thousand soldiers, all training for jihad. And that was just one of his many camps. They were also using the place as a so-called retraining ground for captured American soldiers. At first I thought I could just smuggle out the location and save the POWs. I did, and some of them got away and were rescued. But then I realized there was a bigger plan. Tsarnaev was planning a number of terrorist attacks. It was only ten years out from 9/11 and I thought I could stop something bad from happening.”

  He was listening now, his gaze hard on hers. Probably because he’d been the tip of the sword back then, still trying to hunt down the players in al-Qaeda.

  “The first of Tsarnaev’s attacks happened in 2010, only not in America like I thought, but in Russia. In a Moscow subway. Tsarnaev sent two of his women as suicide bombers. I was shocked because I warned the CIA and thought they would stop it. But they didn’t. And that’s the first time I thought that maybe there was something wrong inside the company. Then less than a year later, one of his suicide bombers blew up Domodedovo Airport
. Again, the CIA did nothing. A couple more attacks happened—the public transit system in 2013 and a hijack of an airplane in 2015, and finally the explosion in the St. Petersburg metro in April of 2017. All of them connected to Pavel Tsarnaev, and every single time I got word to the company, nothing happened. It was all in Russia, so maybe they didn’t want to get involved, but I started to wonder if the information wasn’t getting to the right people, or maybe the people I was reporting to were the wrong people.”

  She had his attention, and his silence, now. “And that’s when I started plotting a way to get out.”

  For a while, Ham had been sitting there, looking down and away from her. Now, he met her eyes. “And where was Aggie all this time?”

  “She was with me. She was safe.”

  It seemed like there was a question in his eyes, but she couldn’t bear to answer it.

  Instead, “Tsarnaev knew I was valuable. Maybe he thought that someday he could ransom me, or maybe even exchange me for his captured people. So, I pretended I was a double agent and gave him information. The kind of information that hurt no one, but enough so that he could believe me.”

  Ham was looking at her as if sorting through her words, trying to believe her.

  “All this time I was learning Arabic, as well as German and French, and trying to understand his mindset. And Pavel liked Aggie. Something about her blonde hair intrigued him.”

  He drew back. “Did he ever—”

  “No. He never hurt her. I made sure of that.”

  Ham’s jaw tightened.

  “You need to know that if I ever felt Aggie wasn’t safe, I would have taken her and run.”

  Please, believe me.

  His sigh was audible. “So, then what happened? Why did you run?”

  “About three years ago we had a visitor from America.”

  “This person visited the terrorist camp?”

  She nodded. “And about six months later I got access to Tsarnaev’s computer and I found a file.”

  “The NOC list,” Ham said.

  “Yes. And that’s when I started to unravel the plan.”

  “What plan?”

  She stared at him. Debated. Because while she trusted Ham, she couldn’t be sure who’d really sent him. So, she kept it cryptic. “The kind of plan that took down governments and rearranged world powers.”