Читать книгу Mission: Irresistible - Sharon Sala - Страница 9

Washington, D.C.—July 4th, 2000

The American flags above the tall man’s head popped smartly as the hot July breeze whipped them into a frenzy; colorful reminders of a nation’s gratitude for the dedication and sacrifices of countless soldiers over the centuries who had kept the country free.

But gratitude was the last thing on the man’s mind as he stood before the black, polished surface of the Vietnam War Memorial. The petals of the rose that he carried were beginning to droop, but it hardly mattered. The man for whom it was meant had long ceased to care for anything of this earth.

It wasn’t the first time he’d been here on the nation’s birthday, so the unusual number of visitors did not surprise him. Yet as he moved through the people, he was struck by the silence of so large a crowd.

The memorial in itself was an emotionally moving sight. A seemingly endless stretch of gleaming black marble with nothing but names etched upon its surface. Names of fathers and of sons, of brothers and of uncles, of friends and neighbors who’d given their lives because their country had asked it of them.

His heart swelled painfully as he began to scan the surface. It was here—somewhere near the center and about a third of the way down. He stepped around a small, stoop-shouldered woman, then in front of a young couple with two small children, his gaze centering on the names. The farther he walked, the harder his heart began to pound. And then suddenly he stiffened.

There it was: Frank Wilson.

He traced the letters of the name with his forefinger. By the time he got to the last letter he was looking at the world through a blur and all he could think was, Damn you.

His jaw clenched and a muscle jerked at the side of his temple as he dropped the rose at the base of the wall and turned to walk away. As he did, the wind gusted, causing the flags to flutter, and ruffling the streaks of gray at the temples of his short, dark hair. He squinted against the sunlight and dropped a pair of sunglasses in place as he moved toward the grassy area beyond. But the sound of the blowing flag became mixed with the memories in his mind, turning from wind and heat to the rapid fire of machine guns, the unforgettable thunder of landing helicopters and the nightmare that was Vietnam.

Saigon 1974

It had been raining off and on all day and the clothes the girl on the street corner wore were plastered to her skin until it looked as if she was wearing nothing at all. She put her hands under her breasts and lifted them toward the trio of American soldiers coming down the street.

“Hey G.I., wanna party? Good sex…hot sex…five dolla’.”

Private Joseph Barone of Brooklyn, New York whistled beneath his breath and elbowed his buddy.

“Oowee, Davie boy, would you look at her. You want to get yourself a little of that?”

The thought of a physical release within the warmth of a woman’s arms was strong, but David Wilson had seen past her painted face and skimpy clothes to the child beneath and cringed. He wasn’t the only one out of his element. She was doing all she knew, trying to survive in a world gone mad and adding to her hell seemed impossible to consider. Instead of telling the truth, that having sex with a fourteen-year-old whore turned his stomach, he used sarcasm instead.

“Do I want a little of what? The clap?” David drawled.

Joe Barone laughed and slapped his buddy on the back. “It might be worth it, kid.”

David gave her one last glance and then shook his head. “You and Pete go on, though. I’ll meet you back at the barracks.”

They laughed at his reticence and pivoted sharply, heading back to the woman before another one of their compatriots beat them to the offer.

David shoved his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders as he moved along the crowded sidewalk. An old man sat cross-legged on the ground, hawking his wares in a sing-song litany while dangling a plucked fowl above his head in an effort to catch a buyer’s eye. David’s nose wrinkled in protest to the smell as he passed and wondered how long the man had been trying to sell that particular bird.

He turned the corner, fully intent upon heading for the barracks, when he heard a familiar laugh. He turned, a look of expectancy on his face. He’d know that laugh anywhere. It was his brother, Frank.

He pivoted sharply, searching the constantly moving masses for sight of his brother’s face. If he could hook up with Frank, it would be a good way to pass the afternoon. His eyes were alight as he began to scan the crowd.

Frank was his elder by four years and the single reason David was in Vietnam. Lying about his age to sign up had been simple. It was the fact that he and his brother had wound up in the same company that was amazing. But David was glad. Frank had always been more than just a big brother. He’d been a substitute father—a playmate—and when he wasn’t thumping on David’s head himself, a bodyguard in the rough neighborhood in which they’d grown up.

The crowd in front of David parted suddenly to let a man with a pushcart pass by and as it did, he saw his brother in the distance. At that same moment, he realized Frank wasn’t alone. He paused, staring curiously at the pair with whom Frank was conversing. Their heads were close together, as if they didn’t want to be overheard. And when one of them straightened and turned, staring directly toward David, he found himself ducking into a doorway instead of hailing them as he’d intended. There was something about the men that he didn’t trust. He watched a bit longer, trying to remember where he’d seen them, and as he did, it suddenly hit him. A few months back, one of his buddies had pointed them out in a nightclub as being Dutch. When David had asked why two men from Holland would be here in the middle of such hell, his buddy had laughed and said, commerce, Davie-boy, commerce. It had taken a while before David realized they were suspected gunrunners.

Now, as he watched, Frank grinned and slapped one of the men on the back, then shook his hand. When he did, David’s gut began to knot. Why would Frank be talking to men like that? Like everyone else, he knew it was men like that who were responsible for selling American-made weapons to the Vietcong. Men from other countries who were in this strictly for the money, who had no allegiance to a nation, not even their own. Immediately he thought of the money Frank had been flashing during the past two months. Money he claimed he had won playing cards. But Frank was a lousy card player. Always had been. When the men began to move, David followed at a distance, desperate to assure himself that what he was thinking couldn’t be true.

It started to rain again, and as it did, the streets began to clear as people took shelter inside the shops or made their way home. In an effort to remain unobserved, David had to stay far behind and twice he thought he’d lost them, only to turn a corner and see the back of Frank’s head in the distance.

By the time they reached the outskirts of the city, David’s gut was in knots. He’d long ago given up on this being an innocent meeting, and when they slipped into an isolated hut, David groaned inwardly. By the time he reached the hut, the rain had turned to a downpour, smothering all sound save that of the hammer of his own heartbeat and the sound of rain on the wet thatched roof.

He moved closer to the door, then shifted so that he could see inside. The interior was small and gloomy, yet light enough for David to see an envelope pass between Frank and the men.

No, David thought, and held his breath, watching as Frank counted the money then slipped it inside his shirt before handing over a small slip of paper. Without thinking of the consequences, he stalked into the hut.

To say Frank Wilson was stunned, would have been an understatement, but his shock quickly turned to anger when he realized his little brother had seen it all. To make it worse, the other men were already drawing their weapons.

“Don’t!” he yelled. “He’s my brother.” Then he turned to David, fear mixing with guilt. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

David quickly moved, putting himself between Frank and the men and yanking the money out of Frank’s shirt and throwing it on the ground.

“Saving your stupid ass,” he said. “Now let’s get out of here.”

“What the hell’s going on?” one of the men muttered, and waved his gun in Frank Wilson’s face.

“Leave this to me,” Frank said, and shoved David aside as he began to pick up the money.

David stepped on a wad of money just as Frank reached for it, and in doing so, stepped on Frank’s fingers instead. Pain fueled Frank’s rage as he bolted to his feet, slamming David against the wall of the hut. Both of the gunrunners aimed their weapons as they realized their assignation was not as secretive as they’d wished.

Frank knew that now both he and David were in trouble. He pulled his own weapon, aiming it at the shorter one’s head.

“Don’t do it!” he yelled, and then fired off two shots before the men could answer.

Through the roar of the rain, the sounds were little more than muffled thumps. David was shaking, stunned by his brother’s lack of emotion, only to find that Frank had a gun aimed at his face.

“What the hell are you doing?” David whispered.

“The question should be, what are you going to do about what you just saw?” Frank countered.

David swallowed. He’d seen that look on his brother’s face before.

“What did I see?” David asked. “What did you sell them?”

Frank grinned. “A little steel. A little wood. A little lead. Just natural resources.”

David’s skin crawled. “Guns? You’re selling our own guns to the enemy? How can you do that? How can you be a traitor to your own country?”

Frank sneered. “My own country, as you so fondly call it, sent me over here to die. And I’m not even sure I believe in what I’m fighting for. Why shouldn’t I get something out of it besides a coffin?”

David held out his hand. “Please Frank. Let’s just go. No one has to know we were even here. They’ll find the bodies and the money, and assume the men killed each other.”

Frank’s smile hardened as he dug through one of the dead men’s pockets for the slip of paper with the information he’d just sold. When he found it, he wadded it into a very small ball, then popped it in his mouth like candy, chewed it and swallowed while David looked on in horror.

“I’m not leaving the money,” Frank growled. “It’s mine. Now the problem remains, are you gonna snitch?”

“Why? Are you going to kill me, too?”

In Frank’s defense, it had to be said that he hesitated, but there was a dark gleam in his eyes when he answered.

“If I have to.”

David stared into the barrel of the gun, unable to believe that his fate in life was to come all this way across the world only to be killed by his brother’s hand.

“You’ve gone crazy,” David pleaded. “Is this what you really want?”

“What I want, is to be rich,” Frank said, and took aim.

Everything afterward seemed to happen in slow motion. Frank’s shot searing the back of David’s shoulder as he dove for a dead man’s gun. Pulling the trigger as he rolled. The water leaking through the roof and falling on his left cheek at the same moment that Frank staggered and fell. The smell of gunpowder and mud as David crawled to his feet. Standing motionless beneath the leak in the roof while the raindrops mixed with tears, then throwing his head back and letting out a gut-wrenching roar of anguish.

Time passed. The rain had stopped. People were moving about and it was only a matter of time before someone found them, and yet David couldn’t bring himself to move. It was the sound of a Huey flying overhead that brought him out of his trance.

He staggered to an alcove at the back of the room, dragged out a can of gasoline and began scattering it all over the walls and then the floor, making sure that the men and the money were saturated as well. Then he moved to the doorway, cautiously peering out. No one was in sight. Unable to look at his dead brother’s face, he struck a match and gave it a toss, slipped out of the hut and ran.

He never looked back.

“Here you go Mister.”

Startled by the sound of an unfamiliar voice, David Wilson jerked, and the memories sank back into the hell that was his past. He looked down at the young man before him, and at the handful of miniature American flags he was carrying.

“You’re a vet, aren’t you?” the kid asked.

David hesitated, then shrugged. Admitting that much posed no threat. He nodded.

The kid beamed. “I knew it! I can tell. My dad’s a vet. He fought in Desert Storm.” Then he pulled a flag from the bunch in his hand and thrust it into the man’s palm. “Take it, Mister. You earned it.”

David’s fingers curled around the small, wooden staff as the kid disappeared. He stared at the colors so long that they began to run together in his mind. When he finally looked up, the glitter in his eyes was no longer moisture and the cut of his jaw was set and firm.

Earned it? He hadn’t earned anything but a heartache and a tombstone in Arlington Cemetery. To become the man he was now, he’d had to die, presumably in the line of duty. But nevertheless, David Wilson was dead. The man he’d become was a solitary man. He had no one he could call friend, no identity that mattered, no ties to a community or church. A faceless man who, some years back had sworn, once again, to give his life for his country.

Now, they called him Jonah and only two people on the face of the earth knew his real identity. As the anonymous director of SPEAR, the most elite counterespionage team ever to be assembled on behalf of the United States of America, Jonah lived life in the shadows, communicating with his operatives when necessary by coded messages, a cassette delivered with an order of pizza, cryptic telegrams, and occasionally, nothing more than a voice on the phone.

SPEAR, first founded by Abraham Lincoln himself during the Civil War, was an acronym for Stealth, Perseverance, Endeavor, Attack and Rescue. It was an organization that existed in the shadows of society, and its existence, the best kept secret in the free world. Headed throughout the years by mysterious men known only as Jonah, the succession of Jonahs who had given their lives to their country were the unrecognized heroes of the past. To the world, they were dead. If they lived long enough to retire, they were given an entirely new identity and left to face their twilight years alone, without benefit of old friends or family.

In a few years, he, too, would retire and another Jonah would step into his shoes. Dying for his country had seemed an odd sort of justice, considering the fact that he’d taken his only brother’s life.

He watched the kid running across the greens, trying to remember if he’d ever been that innocent. He then snorted beneath his breath and shoved the flag into his pocket and started toward his car. There was no place in his life for sentiment or regret.

Those years of retirement were, however, looming closer than he might have liked. Someone was trying to ruin him. Someone wanted him branded a traitor in the very worst way, and despite his access to even the most classified of records, he had been unable to find even a trace of a guilty party. It was, without doubt, the worst thing that had happened to him since Vietnam. It could be anyone, even a disgruntled operative at SPEAR who, by some stroke of fate, had discovered his identity. He was at the point of admitting he needed help, that doing this alone was no longer an option. But there was a problem. He didn’t know who to trust.