Broken Stern_An Ellie O'Conner Novel Read online

  Broken Stern

  Pine Island Coast Florida Suspense

  Jack Hardin

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

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  Gratitude

  About Jack

  First Published in the United States by The Salty Mangrove Press

  Copyright © 2018 by Jack Hardin. All rights reserved.

  Cover Design by Collier Vinson (http://www.collier.co/)

  Broken Stern is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters are products of the author’s imagination. Any similarities to any person, living or dead, is merely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  To Mom.

  I miss you.

  Chapter One

  No one had told her time could be compressed, that experiencing the phenomenon almost made one dizzy.

  Ellie O’Conner closed her eyes and saw their faces. Her heart rate ticked higher. She was always calm, composed. Only an IED could shake her up. But today. Today was different.

  The ring of the phone snapped her from a nostalgic trance, and she snatched it up.

  “Tough waiting like this, isn’t it?”

  “What?”

  “The wait. It sucks.”

  “What? Who is━” She was cut off by sharp laughter that came through the phone’s receiver and drifted across the room from behind her. She turned to see Kurt “Buck” Rogers with his field boots on his cluttered desk, clearly pleased with his own antics.

  She turned back to her desk, slamming the phone back on its cradle. Buck. He would never learn the meaning of tact, timing, or keeping a phone line clear. One day it was going to get him killed. If not by a hostile, then certainly by a co-worker who’d lost patience with him.

  The phone rang again.

  Ellie rolled her eyes and looked back over her shoulder. Kurt’s desk was vacant, and he was headed toward the cold coffee pot. Her body straightened. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and grabbed up the receiver.

  “Go. Fifteen minutes.”

  She jumped to her feet, grabbed her canvas rucksack, and set her sunglasses on the bridge of her nose as she thrust her hip against the heavy metal door that opened to the bright Afghanistan afternoon. Her Sig Sauer P320 was tucked away at the small of her back, ten rounds nestled patiently in the magazine. She pulled open the door to the desert-colored Humvee where her driver sat with the engine running. The vehicle was moving before her door slammed shut, leaving a cloud of fine desert dust billowing in the rearview mirror. Within thirty seconds they were speeding past Camp Phoenix’s checkpoint where two heavily armed soldiers in sunglasses nodded at them.

  “How long?” her driver asked.

  “Fourteen.”

  He glanced at his watch and flicked his sober eyes back on the road ahead, taking a sharp left onto Kabul-Nangarhar Highway. They sped east toward the outskirts of the capital city and the snow-tipped Hindu Kush mountains that loomed far ahead of them.

  Ellie slid in her earpiece. There would be no chatter until their arrival at the predetermined pickup. She steadied her breathing and looked out the window at the small buildings set off the highway. It still intrigued her that so many chose to make their homes in the middle of the desert. Almost four million people out of every ethnic group in the region lived in Kabul. But today, for Ellie, there were only four.

  She was rounding out her second year in the province, eight months longer than she or her superiors had projected, the weight and effects of which would all be compressed into the next fourteen minutes.

  Seven hundred and nine days squeezed into the next quarter hour.

  The events of the last two years came into focus as Ellie stared out the window: Murad was one of the finest men she had ever met. He was the reason she was here. A career dentist who, because of Ellie’s patient massaging, had become one of the CIA’s most important and trusted assets in the region.

  Ellie had transferred here from Europe for the sole purpose of recruiting Assam as a tool for American interests, coming to him as a patient and with a cover as a journalist with Reuters. She slid her tongue against the back of her lower incisor, remembering the first procedure he performed on her. Ellie had always possessed good teeth, and that was the primary hurdle in finding a reason to go to Assam’s office as a patient. Her co-workers joked early on that they wished he had chosen chiropractic as a profession. Ellie could have recruited him much faster. As it was, a cleaning once every five to six months meant one needed to get creative in order to increase touch points without setting off any psychological or municipal alarms.

  It was unusual in this area of the world for a female to play such a leading role with a male informant. Women were often viewed as socially and spiritually inferior to men, making it difficult for a female on the front lines of counter-terrorism to be taken seriously. Getting close enough to a male asset could quickly raise suspicion; seen as inappropriate at best, provocative at worst. Simply donning a wig and sunglasses to meet in the dark corner of a café or pub wasn’t possible like she had done in Paris or Dublin. Converting Assam had been the challenge of her career, and she had succeeded.

  The planning and patience had finally paid off. Assam had given the CIA what they had wanted for years now: his highest-profile patient and distant cousin, Fahad Sarkaui. Sarkaui was ISIS’s third in command in the country, and up until then the CIA had yet to get near him. Assam had finally provided Ellie with information that led to a perfectly placed drone strike nearly two days ago; one that sent his cousin’s teeth and skull scattering in thirty different directions. Ellie’s primary task these last thirty-six hours was to get Assam and his family safely out of the country.

  He gave the signal ten minutes ago: a yellow cloth placed in the far left window of the flat. Assam and his family had gone to visit his mother where she lived in a rundown area on the outskirts of the city. It’s where she had grown up, and Assam had been unsuccessful in convincing her to move to a nicer area of Kabul, though he offered to pay for it himself.

  The driver turned his watch toward his face. “Three minutes.”

  Ellie’s breathing was perfectly tuned to her slow heartbeat, a testimony to the level of control and discipline she had over her body. Nothing rattled her unless she allowed it to. But now, with one hundred seconds until the extraction, an unusual sensation settled beneath her skin. Her nerves were crawling, her stomach sour. One of the first rules of the game was to not get attached to anyone on the outside. You tilled the ground of your assets until they became a fiction family - never the real thing - always keeping them at an arm's length. But Ellie had quietly broken that rule with this family over six months ago. It had been a decision wh
ere her heart followed her mind and, not as one might expect, the other way around. She knew that if this was going to be her life then she was no longer going to live simply as a calculating machine. She had done enough of that for the six years prior to her Afghan tour. She was in the people business, and at the right times one had to care about the right kind of people.

  Assam’s family were the right kind of people.

  His wife, Vida, was gracious and kind. Assam’s ten-year-old son Ibrahim had a sober and contemplative personality that contrasted with his little sister Khalida. The six-year-old girl was fully energetic, and her spirited personality poured out of her. Ellie still kept a little straw doll on her pillow that Khalida had made for her. In the last ten years, Ellie had been back home to Florida to visit only twice. Her role with the Agency afforded her no other opportunities to do so, as much as she would have liked it. In many ways, the Murads had become a second family to Ellie. She would go for dinner at their home a couple times each month and sit with them until late in the evenings talking about the war, their culture, and their collective hopes for the future of their country.

  The Humvee exited the highway and turned left under the darkened underpass. Its two passengers bounced up and down on the uneven road as it dodged potholes and split asphalt. Ellie reached into her sack, pulled out a black hijab, and wrapped it loosely around her head. She looked into her side view mirror and saw their escort pull in behind them, another Humvee carrying four armed soldiers.

  “Arrived,” her earpiece chirped.

  They pulled up hard at the corner, and Ellie stared out her window at the rusty metal door nestled on the side of the old, five-story, plastered building. “Come on,” she muttered. Nothing. The driver looked at his watch and lowered his head as he swung his eyes around and surveyed the windows and roofs of the buildings around them. “Come on,” she said again to the door, as if the words had magical powers to accomplish her bidding.

  Ellie’s earpiece came to life. “Zero tango,” a man’s voice whispered. “Negative thirty seconds.”

  Her eyes were glued to the door. “Eagle, how’s it looking up there?” she asked firmly.

  “Clear,” a deep voice crackled. Two armed CIA snipers were on surrounding rooftops, keeping watch for unwelcome activity.

  Suddenly, the metal door flung open, and Ellie shot out of the Humvee. Three doors belonging to the vehicle behind opened, and as many men in desert fatigues and helmets poured out with their HK416 automatic rifles drawn. They stepped onto the sidewalk and scanned the landscape. A tall, bearded man wearing a grey perahan tunban emerged from the doorway carrying a little girl across his body. Her arms and legs were wrapped tightly around her father. Ellie wanted to smile and tell the girl it was going to be all right, but there was no time. Her father was trailed by a middle-aged lady with her hand resting protectively on the head of her young son. Like his parents, Ibrahim’s pupils were dilated wide with fear and urgency. The foursome moved quickly, their heads held low. “This way,” Ellie said. “Quickly.” Her eyes darted from the family to the buildings surrounding them. It was only fifteen feet from the metal door to the escort.

  Suddenly, two loud ‘pops’ filled the air. Vida’s hand came off the head of her son as her body lifted violently off the ground and was flung into the side of the building she had just exited.

  “Vida!” Assam screamed and turned toward his wife.

  “Assam, no!” Ellie yelled. “We have to go!”

  “Mama!” Ibrahim screamed. Another ‘pop’ and Ibrahim’s body crumpled to the ground. His father turned to him in horror. “No!!”

  The American soldiers behind them scanned their surroundings in vain for the shooter then moved in to cover Assam.

  “Do you have eyes?” Ellie yelled angrily into her mic.

  “Negative.”

  Assam swiveled toward Ellie and shifted his daughter into her arms. He turned and ran back to the bodies of his wife and his son lying lifeless on the concrete, dark blood pooling underneath them. “Vida!” Assam yelled again, squatting over her and shaking her shoulder. He turned to his son as a full round of bullets hit the building, spraying pieces of concrete into his face. He ducked and turned a face filled with horror toward Ellie. “Go!” he choked out. “Take Khalida. Go!”

  “Assam, you have to━”

  Go!” he yelled. “Go now! Save her, Ellie!”

  Ellie’s earpiece was squawking with furious commands. Instinctively, Ellie knew the proper decision. Take the girl and go. Now. But the smallest of moments kept her staring into Assam’s eyes, wanting to scream at him one last time to come, to get in the escort.

  A soft hiss quickly grew loud and filled the air.

  No, she thought. No.

  She didn’t need to turn to know what was coming toward them. Assam’s eyes grew wider as they found the rocket flying through the air behind Ellie and the Humvee. He shifted his vision to his youngest child clutched in the embrace of his American friend. His eyes met Ellie's. They were not angry. Only darkened with sadness, confusion, and questions that would never be answered.

  A man’s voice was screaming through her earpiece. She held Khalida tighter, turned, and darted toward the vehicle just as the missile struck behind her. The blast twisted Ellie’s body around and tore the young girl from her arms. Ellie landed with the small of her back pressed against the passenger seat cushion of the Humvee.

  A soldier darted toward her, the butt of his gun still wedged into his shoulder, his eyes frantically scanning the area. “Ellie!” he screamed. She felt a strong hand reach around her upper arm and forcefully pull her onto the seat and into a sitting position. She leaned back, and the door slammed shut. Ellie shook her head, clearing her mind, and flung the door open. “No!” she yelled. Her head was spinning. Ellie watched the soldier pick the girl up off the pavement. “Give her to me,” she said and reached out. He quickly but gently slid her into Ellie’s arms and shut the door. Her driver was too professional for her to need to scream at him to go. No sooner had Ellie’s door shut than he floored the pedal, and they darted off just as the sound of another missile hissed through the air above them. The atmosphere rocked around them as a second explosion found its mark where they had just been sitting.

  Ellie’s mind was clearing by the second, but her ears were still ringing. The world sounded muted. Like she was underwater in a calm serenity while chaos ensued above.

  She looked down at Khalida who was limp in her arms. “Khalida?” she said. “Honey?” The girl’s hijab had been torn off in the blast, and her small face was peppered with dirt and small bits of concrete. Ellie sat her up on her lap and let the girl’s head rest back on her shoulder as she assessed her condition.

  She looked down and saw it. Her small white shirt had bloomed red. Ellie tore against the buttons, and the fabric moved away from Khalida’s body. Ellie’s breath stopped. A long piece of twisted shrapnel three inches wide was lodged just below her navel.

  “What happened? Report!” her earpiece squawked. She reached up and yanked it out. Her driver looked at the fifty-pound body lying across Ellie, and the vehicle lurched forward as he accelerated. With her left hand Ellie unzipped her backpack and grabbed an embroidered scarf. It was to be a gift for the girl’s mother. She had packed something for all of them for the fifteen-minute drive back to base, the gifts intended to distract their troubled minds until they were safe inside the American compound.

  Ellie carefully laid the girl across her lap to slow the drain of blood, then gently wrapped the scarf around the metal and pressed on the outside of the wound to mitigate the flow of blood. The girl's face was pale and clammy.

  “Hurry, Ron.”

  A half-hour later Ellie stood in the small operating room at Camp Phoenix and watched the doctor pull down his blue surgical mask. His latex gloves snapped as he pulled them from his hands. He looked at the clock and sighed.

  “Time of death, fourteen thirty-seven.”

  Ellie blinked aga
inst the impossibility. How had this happened? All four of them were gone. Gone. For what? Why? Rage overcame grief as Ellie pushed at the door and stepped into the painted cinder block hallway. She threw open the outside door and was blinded by the mid-afternoon sun while she crossed the sandy street. She quickly passed a few shipping containers and stormed through an entrance leading to another cement building. Her hands were clenched and her shoulders stiff. She walked to the end of the hall and threw the door open, her shoes moving from the bare concrete of the hallway to carpet.

  Ryan Wilcox sat behind his military-issue desk with his narrow face looking fatigued and heavy brown eyes set on his case officer.

  “Ellie,” he said. “I’m sor━”

  “What the hell happened, Ryan?” she snapped. “Who was it?” Her small nostrils flared, and she loomed over the desk with the energy of a panther who had found its dinner.

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know?”

  “Come on, Ellie! You know I’m looking for answers. As soon as I hear back from Langley or Berlin, you’ll be the first to know.” He ran a hand through his hair. “We did everything right. It wasn’t us.”

  She pointed toward the building across the street. “There is a dead six-year-old girl on a cold metal table in the building next door. You want to go have a look at her?”

  “Oh no,” he said softly. “She didn’t make it?”

  “Or we can take a short ride, and I can show you the pieces of her parents and her brother?”