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Camp Raven, The Green Zone, Baghdad
Two days later

The sweat on Camille's body evaporated almost instantly as she jogged around the perimeter of the Black Management compound. The temperature was bumping against a hundred ten and she was daring it to climb higher. Even though she knew she shouldn't be pushing herself to extremes, she couldn't stand another minute staring at the monitors and comm equipment in the operations center. Her entire intel staff was working on finding Hunter, but nothing had happened the entire day and his trail had dried up like moisture in the desert air. She was feeling light-headed, breathing hard and she knew she should stop and go work out in their air-conditioned gym, but she kept running. She waved as she passed some of her troops tending a garden. With a few seeds and some camouflage netting for protection from the unrelenting sun, they'd figured out a way to bring a taste of normalcy to their lives after a day of combat. She envied them. She needed a garden.

Near the shipping containers of fresh ammo, Pete pulled alongside her in a John Deere Gator and motioned for her to jump in. Camille waved her off and kept running, but Pete drove along behind her, yelling over the Gator's engine and waving a manila folder in the air. “We got her—Julia Lewis.”

“Do I want to open it? What's your read? I know you looked at it,” Camille said. She stopped, hopped into the moving utility vehicle and snatched away the file.

“Camille, honey, yesterday I talked to Pam Summerlin, the retired FBI agent we hired to interview her. I didn't want to say anything until I had something you could sink your teeth into. It's not good.”

“Don't ever hold anything back from me again.” Camille scanned the stack of papers, careful to keep them from blowing away as they drove along. It seemed like everything Greg Bolton and Julia Lewis-Bolton did, they put in both of their names—electric bills, phone bills, vet bills. They had even made a joint donation to the Marines' Toys for Tots charity. It seemed like a little too much togetherness for the man she knew, but the bitch could be the clingy type. “Are we absolutely sure ‘Greg Bolton' is Hunter?”

“Keep going. There's a copy of a Maryland driver's license with his picture and signature. There are several other papers with joint signatures. I'm no expert, but they all looked genuine to me.” Pete stopped the Gator in front of Camille's trailer, turned off the engine and pulled up the parking brake.

“Nothing I've seen here can't be faked.” Camille fished a bottle of water out of the open glove compartment. It was warm, but she drank it anyway. “I want absolute proof.”

“I thought you said he admitted to you he was using the Greg Bolton cover.”

“He did. That's why I want absolute proof that Julia-baby isn't part of his legend.”

“Do you want to see the pictures? I was really hoping you didn't want to go there.”

“Dammit, Pete. Quit trying to protect me.” Camille tossed the empty bottle into the bed of the Gator. Just then she heard the single boom of a mortar round going off. She moved her head as she followed its whistle through the air. “Sounds like the fucktards got the parking lot again. The damn thing has enough holes in it without them.”

Pete reached for a clipboard that was shoved behind the seat and removed a second folder file. Camille snatched it away from her and opened it.

She sat down on the steps of the trailer and could feel the sun burning her skin as she thumbed through photo after photo of Hunter with the anorexic supermodel. She couldn't figure out what Hunter could ever see in such a woman. Camille was too big-boned and too muscular to ever look like that, no matter how well she cleaned up. It had been a long time since she'd primped herself. Makeup and pumps didn't exactly work well in a combat zone.

She kept looking through the photos. Each one had the date in red in the lower right hand corner, but those could have been easily faked. They seemed to have been taken in spurts, with long breaks in between which was what she would expect if he was on deployment, undercover as a shooter with Rubicon. All of the private military companies had three or four month rotations with thirty paid days off in their country of residence. “Did you see any dog or cat pictures in here?”

“No, but what does that have to do with anything?”

“I saw a couple of vet bills in the file with both their names on it. People with pets take their pictures with them all the time. We should be seeing at least one Fluffy shot.”

“You're grasping at straws.”

“I don't think so. I'm going to find that lost dog.” Camille marched into the trailer, opened the first file and studied the vet bills. The Lewis-Bolton family had a puppy named Jordan, a yellow lab/Brittany spaniel mix. The dog had been fixed, received all of his vaccinations and had come in every six months for a checkup. Camille picked up the phone and dialed.

“Want to fill me in?” Pete hovered over her.

Camille shook her head and swiveled the chair away from Pete.

A woman's voice answered the phone. “Good morning, Chesapeake Vet.”

“Hi, I'm hoping you can help me out. I've been calling around to all the vets in the area. My son found a big yellow dog. I think it's a lab. He's got a collar with tags, but they've hit against each other so much, I can't make anything out except the last name Lewis and the second name might be Bolton. You wouldn't happen to have any clients with the last name Lewis or Bolton would you? The dog is really sweet, but I can't take in another one.”

“You know, I think we do. Hold on.”

Camille rubbed her eyes and felt her chest tightening. She hadn't expected a vet's office to answer, let alone one that could identify the dog. Government spy agencies weren't that thorough with backstops for their agent's covers. Even in her days at the CIA, the best she ever got was a fake name, a recently-issued social security number, a PO box in Tysons Corner and a listing as a member of the board of a CIA propriety company. Force Zulu was military and no way were they even that thorough.

The woman came back on the line. “You're in luck. Julia and Greg Bolton have a yellow lab mix named Jordan.”

The receptionist's words blurred as Camille stared at the file.

It's true.

Hunter had really wanted this Julia woman more than he had wanted her. Two years ago when she had cried so hard over his death, something inside her had died with him. Now she realized the happiness she wanted back so badly had never really been hers in the first place. It was all a monstrous lie.

Every man Camille knew was afraid of a true Amazon, but Hunter understood. She had always believed that they had challenged each other to develop further, train harder and think faster. Together the two warriors became a force.

She put her head down on the desk and tried to hide her tears. The Hunter Stone she had loved since high school was no more.

Camille Black was alone, an army of one.

Camp Tsunami, Abu Ghraib Prison

Hunter clung to the gift that Stella had given him as he was being taken prisoner, her full sweet lips mouthing “I love you.” For two days, he had been pounded with over a hundred decibels of Chinese opera while waiting for his interrogation to begin. The bastards knew what they were doing. Time set the imagination loose and boredom numbed the will to resist. He pinched his forearm. The skin was taking longer and longer to spring back. He needed water soon and he would have to cut back on the exercise regime which he designed to do in the cell to keep himself in shape.

Without warning, the door swung open. Two men and a woman in gray prison uniforms with the Rubicon logo stood at the door; one man pointed an AK-102 at him.

“Time for your first therapy appointment,
haji,
” a petite woman with a self-inflicted haircut said. “My friend here is kind of jumpy and the boss gets real pissed when he kills a prisoner, so do us a favor and cooperate. Put your hands behind your back and turn around.”

Hopeful that he would eventually find his opening, Hunter complied as they tightened plastic cuffs on his wrists and shoved an olive-drab hood over his head. It reeked of vomit and instantly made him feel nauseous.

 

Fourteen stairs and two hallways later, the guards led Hunter into an air-conditioned room and shoved him down on what felt to his bare butt like a cold metal stool. The air conditioner was blasting on him and it had to be set as low as it would go. Then suddenly someone threw ice cold water on him and laughed. A door slammed and locked, but he wasn't alone. He could sense the presence of at least one guard.

He sat and waited, shivering.

After what he guessed was an hour, he tried to meditate, but couldn't. Screeching Chinese opera was still running through his head and every time he started to dry off, a guard doused him with ice water again. He rubbed his fingers over his missing fingernails and focused on an image of Stella, standing in the village, bulked up with body armor and telling him how she really felt.

She loves me.

The door opened and he felt a breeze and movement, then it closed. Silence. Papers rustled, then a voice spoke. “Remove the hood.”

A guard walked over, unbuckled the hood and pulled it off him. Hunter squinted from the bright fluorescent lights. A middle-aged man sat behind an old metal desk. He seemed fit, but Hunter was confident he could take him out, even in his dehydrated state.

“If it isn't the one and only Master Sergeant Stone. I finally get to meet you,” the man said with a heavy New York accent.

“Greg Bolton, Staff Sergeant, 491-83-1430.”

“You can call me Mr. Zorro.”

“Greg Bolton, Staff Sergeant, 491-83-1430.”

“You think you're fucking cute, don't you? Sergeant Stone, your own Force Zulu has designated you an ‘enemy combatant.' The Geneva Conventions don't apply here. You're free to talk to me and I'm free to do whatever the fuck I want.”

Zorro reached into his attaché case and removed a bottle of water and placed it on the desk in front of Hunter.

Hunter looked away from it and repeated, “Greg Bolton, Staff Sergeant, 491-83-1430.”

“You want the water, don't you?” Zorro twisted the top open and took his time pouring it into a plastic glass. “I'm a reasonable man. I'll willing to give you all the water you want.”

Hunter flashed back to the waterboard in North Korea and instinctively gasped for air and held his breath.

“Did that bother you, Master Sergeant? I thought you'd be happy with an offer of water. Did something bad happen with water? Maybe in Pyongyang?”

“Greg Bolton, Staff Sergeant, 491-83-1430.”

“I've read your dossier, Sergeant Black-Stones. Those nuts look pretty bad, by the way. You really ought to see a doctor.” Zorro drank some water. “I'm so sorry. I'm not some goddamn torturer. I'm a civilized man and I'm here to help you.”

Hunter repeated his cover identity's name, rank and social security number, barking out the words like a drill instructor.

“You do need to know I'm a man with very little time. I'm not here to dick around with you. Here's the deal: You give me something; I give you something. It's that simple.” Zorro shrugged his shoulders and smiled. His teeth were yellow, probably from too much nicotine.

“Greg Bolton, Staff Sergeant, 491-83-1430.”

“I'll make you a deal.” He shoved the glass of water toward Hunter. “All you have to do is tell me your real name and the water's yours. Hell, I'll throw in the whole goddamn bottle—a liter and a half of pure desalinated water.”

Hunter took a deep breath. He tried to swallow, but his mouth was too dry and his throat burned. “Greg Bolton, Staff Sergeant, 491-83-1430.”

“I know you're Hunter Stone. What's it going to hurt if you tell me what I already know? You're only spiting yourself.”

Hunter ran his parched tongue across his cracked lips. He looked at the water and knew it wouldn't be more than a day or two until his organs started shutting down and dying. Rubicon already knew who he was. They knew. He wouldn't be betraying anyone. “Hunter Stone,” Hunter said as he reached for the glass. “Master Sergeant Hunter—”

“No, no, no.” Zorro grabbed the water glass and pulled it back, sloshing water onto the desk. “I only asked for your real name, not your real rank, too.”

Hunter burned with hatred toward himself as he said, “My name is Hunter Stone.”

“Help yourself to the water, Hunter Stone.”

Hunter snatched up the water bottle and gulped it down before the guards could take it away.

“Maybe we can help each other again some time soon.” Zorro walked toward the door, then paused and turned around. “Sergeant Stone, if you find there's something you want, let the guards know and give them something in return. They're authorized to make trades for me. Tell me everything Zulu knows about Rubicon and S
HANGRI-LA
and you can have run of the house.”