The American soldier was leaning out of the Chinook, reaching for Hunter’s hand. He was younger than Hunter, but confident, his words a command, not a request.
Hunter hesitated, a rabbit in the headlights.
He thought about the story that had gotten him kidnapped in the first place.
About the truth, the unpalatable truth, that so many people wanted to suppress.
Once he got into that helicopter, would he ever be able to tell it? Would he ever complete his mission?
He looked behind him. Scores of corpses littered the charred remnants of the camp that had been his world for the last few months. It had all happened in minutes. Bad men and good men and naïve young boys lay slaughtered like cattle. Just like poor Bob Daley had been slaughtered.
And now a confident young American was holding out his hand, offering Hunter a way out. It was what he’d been praying for.
Get in!
Hunter Drexel looked his rescuer gratefully in the eye.
Then he turned and ran off into the night.
CHAPTER 4
WHAT DO YOU MEAN, ‘he ran’?”
President Jim Havers held the phone away from his ear in disbelief.
“He ran, Sir,” General Teddy MacNamee repeated. “Drexel refused to get into the helicopter.”
There was a long silence.
“Fuck,” said the president.
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN ‘he ran’?”
The British Prime Minister rubbed her eyes blearily.
“I don’t know how many other ways to say it, Julia,” the President of the United States snapped. “He wouldn’t get in the chopper. He ran into the fucking forest. We’re screwed.”
Julia Cabot thought, You mean you’re screwed, Jim.
Her mind raced as she tried to figure out the best way to play this.
“I’ve already had the Bratislavan president on the line, screaming blue murder,” President Havers ranted on. “The UN secretary General’s asked me for a statement as a matter of urgency.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing yet.”
“What will you tell him?”
“That Drexel wasn’t there. He’d been moved. But that they successfully took out a bunch of terrorists.”
“Good,” Julia Cabot said.
“I can count on your support?”
“Of course, Jim. Always.”
President Havers exhaled. “Thank you, Julia. We need a joint intelligence meeting. To figure out where we go from here.”