The Solomon Scroll (2 page)

His walk was confident as he came toward them but Nick could see wariness in the way that he moved. It was a familiar look in Special Forces. Ramirez wasn't going to give anything away.

"Diego Ramirez," he said. "Am I in the right place? I expected something a little more impressive, like CIA or something."

He held out his hand. Nick took it. Ramirez exerted a little too much pressure.

Let the games begin,
Nick thought.

"Nick Carter. You're in the right place, Sergeant. What you see isn't necessarily what you get. This is Ronnie Peete and Selena Connor."

"Where's the rest of your team?"

"You're looking at it."

Ramirez started to say something, thought better of it.

"You look familiar. Aren't you the guy that was in Jerusalem with the president a few years back?"

"That's me. Let's go inside."

The events in Jerusalem had brought Nick his fifteen minutes of fame. Saving the president's ass on world TV would do that for you, but he could have done without it.

Elizabeth was waiting for them with Stephanie Willits. Steph was Elizabeth's deputy, in charge of keeping the big Crays on the lower level happy. She had broken into the Pentagon servers at the ripe age of eighteen. When the FBI showed up at the door of her parents' suburban home she'd chosen to work for NSA rather than go to prison. Elizabeth had lured her away a few years later.

Steph was in her late twenties. A casual glance saw an average looking woman with a pleasant face. A more careful look told a deeper story. Her brown eyes were alive and vibrant, her hair a lustrous dark brown color that reached to her shoulders. She wore large gold earrings. A half dozen gold bracelets circled her left wrist. Stephanie wasn't slim but she wasn't a large woman either. Today she wore a loosely belted blue dress that fell easily to her knees.

Nick liked Stephanie. They all did. Lately she'd seemed happier than usual. She was engaged to Lucas Monroe, a rising star at Langley. Nick had a high regard for Lucas, something he reserved for few people.

"Sergeant Ramirez, welcome to the Project," Elizabeth said. "I'm Director Harker. You've met Nick, Ronnie and Selena. This is my deputy, Stephanie Willits."

"Hello sergeant," Steph said.

"Ma'am."

"Take a seat." Elizabeth gestured at the couch and chairs in front of her desk. Ramirez sat down.

Elizabeth looked at her new potential team member. Ramirez was sitting uncomfortably on one end of the couch, his back straight.

"You can relax, sergeant. I'm not going to bite."

"No, ma'am."

His shoulders loosened, just a little.

"Don't call me ma'am, Sergeant. I'm not a schoolteacher. Call me Director." She paused. "I understand that you did not want this assignment. Is that correct?"

"With all due respect, Director, no I didn't. I'm not a spook."

"We're not spooks, as you put it," Harker said. "I prefer to think of us as problem solvers. Our unit serves at the pleasure of the president. We can do things that others can't. Tell me, why did you volunteer for the Rangers?"

Nick watched Ramirez. Harker's question caught him by surprise but his answer was immediate.

"Because it's a damn good outfit, the best."

"That's the only reason?"

"It was the main reason. I wanted to serve my country."

"You have combat experience," Elizabeth said. "What we do isn't like what you're used to but there are times when that experience is going to come in handy. If you make the team, you'll find that out."

"If?" Ramirez said.

"Oh, I'm sorry, did you think your assignment here was permanent? That's only if you get through our evaluation. You're on temporary duty until further notice. Stephanie will get you set up in quarters downstairs so you don't have to leave the area. She'll take retinal scans and prints and enter you into the security system. Nick is team leader and your commander in the field. He's in charge of your training."

Nick said, "After you get settled in, we'll begin with a full workout this afternoon. Tomorrow we'll see how you do in hand-to-hand combat. Selena will be in charge of that."

Ramirez looked at Selena. She gave him a sweet expression.

"Are you serious? That's not exactly fair. I was battalion champion in hand-to-hand."

"Then maybe you can show me some moves," Selena said.

"Sure. I'll go easy on you."

Ronnie looked down at his feet and tried not to laugh.

CHAPTER 4

Early the next morning Nick took the team and Ramirez for a run around the property. If Ramirez was surprised by the pace Nick set or by Selena's easy ability to keep it up, he didn't show it. Nick put on a sudden spurt at the end. Selena sprinted past Ramirez until she came even with Nick. They reached the house together, Ronnie and Ramirez close behind.

They went down to the lower level under the house and into the workout room.

"Five minutes," Nick said. "There's water in that refrigerator, Sergeant."

He walked over to Selena. "Give him the works," he said. "Don't hurt him."

"I'll try not to but sometimes people get overenthusiastic."

"Just don't do any permanent damage."

A few minutes later Selena and Ramirez stood on opposite sides of a large mat. Elizabeth and Stephanie had come into the room to watch. They took seats by the wall.

"Okay," Nick said. "Sergeant, I want you to try and take Selena down. Selena, don't let him. No lethal blows. Aside from that, no rules."

Ramirez looked at him. "She could get hurt," he said.

"That's her problem. Don't hold back. Ready?"

They both nodded.

"Begin."

Selena waited to see if Ramirez would bow. He nodded but he didn't bow. They both advanced to the middle of the mat. Ramirez attacked with a combination kick and elbow strike. He was fast, but Selena wasn't where the blows were supposed to land. She swept his leg aside, blocked his strike and landed a kick to his hip that staggered him to the edge of the mat.

He came back and tried a high kick to her head. She moved. His foot swept harmlessly past her face. She grabbed his leg as it went by, stepped to the side and used his momentum to flip him onto his back. Ramirez landed hard and grunted. He bounced up and began circling. There was a new awareness in his eyes as he watched her. His face was getting red.

The next minutes repeated what had gone before. Each time Ramirez attacked, Selena blocked or avoided his strikes and threw him to the mat. He barely touched her with all his attempts. After the last fall, Ramirez got up and looked at her with something different in his expression.

Selena saw that he was losing discipline and meant to teach her a lesson. She decided to end it. He came in and faked a kick, followed by a strike to a nerve center under the collar bone. If it had landed, the fight would have been over and Selena would have been hurt. She leaned back with smooth motion born of more than twenty years of practice. As the strike went by she pivoted and grabbed his right arm. She pulled it down and behind and up at the same time, turning the arm at an odd angle.

Ramirez yelled out in pain. He went to his knees.

"Don't move," Selena said. "If you move, your shoulder will dislocate. The tendons will tear. You don't want that. Have you had enough?"

Ramirez gritted his teeth and tensed.

"I mean it. Don't move."

"Enough," he said.

Selena released the lock, stepped away and bowed.

"Damn it," Ramirez said. He gripped his shoulder.

"Hurts, doesn't it?" Selena said.

Ramirez stood up, rubbing his shoulder. He looked at Selena. Then he bowed. She inclined her head.

"Good," Nick said. "What did you do wrong, Sergeant?"

Ramirez thought. He looked down at his feet, then looked up again.

"I got angry. I wanted to teach her a lesson."

"That's the first thing. Anger clouds your judgement. You can't let it take over. What else?"

"I underestimated her."

"That's right. Why did you do that?"

"I never thought any woman could beat me."

"Now you know they can. It's not just weapons that make women dangerous. Sometimes we go places where the women are worse than the men. You'd better remember it. You should know that, you were in Afghanistan."

Ramirez had the grace to look embarrassed. "I won't forget."

"For what it's worth, you never had a chance," Nick said. "Selena can beat any one of us. Probably anyone you've ever met, including your instructors. She's thrown me down on that mat so many times I can't even remember. But you can learn from her, if you're willing to."

"Copy that," Ramirez said. "What's next?"

"I'll give you an hour to ice that shoulder and let it calm down. There's some aspirin in the bathroom cabinet if you want it. Then we hit the range," Nick said. "Then the urban combat course in the building across the lot."

At the end of the day, Nick stopped by Elizabeth's office on the way out.

"How's the new guy doing?" she asked.

"Not bad. He can shoot, no doubt about that. He was kind of embarrassed about what happened with Selena."

Elizabeth smiled. "See you at the briefing tomorrow morning."

After Nick left the room she leaned back in her chair, thinking about Ramirez. She hoped he would work out. She was fortunate she hadn't needed to break in someone new before now. Over the years there had been plenty of injuries, plenty of close calls for everyone, herself included.

For Elizabeth, the Project team was her family. She'd been married, once. Before the president tapped her to head up the Project she'd worked in the Justice Department. She'd thought she'd found the perfect partner in a coworker who became her husband. That ended when he chose political advancement and a wealthy socialite lover over her.

Elizabeth had given up on the idea that she'd find someone to share her life with. There would be no family in the traditional sense of the word. Nick, Selena, Stephanie and the others had become her family. Now there was a new addition with Ramirez.

I could do worse,
she thought.

CHAPTER 5

Nick lifted the lid from a pan simmering on the stove. He stirred, inhaling the spicy odor of the food. He looked out the kitchen window at the setting sun, dark red in the humid, smog filled air over the Potomac. Inside the loft it was cool, pleasant. Miles Davis played in the background.

"A few more minutes," he said.

Selena stood at a kitchen island nearby, putting the finishing touches on a salad.

"It smells good," she said. "Like that Indian restaurant on Dupont Circle."

"Chicken marsala. It's supposed to smell like that."

"I'm sorry I had to do that today," Selena said. "I didn't want to humiliate him. He was getting angry. When people get angry they make mistakes. I thought it was time to stop it before one of us got hurt."

"You did the right thing. He's young and he still has a lot to learn."

"He's twenty-seven."

"Like I said, he's young. He hasn't learned how to hold his anger in check when things are going against him. That's not a good trait."

"I like him though," Selena said. "He showed respect, once he could stand."

"I saw that. I think he heard what I said when I told him he could learn from you."

"He did well on the range."

"After years in the Rangers he ought to," Nick said. "He showed good judgment on the combat course. He only shot one civilian. That's better than I did the first time through."

The urban combat course was recent, installed in the large warehouse across from headquarters. It consisted of movable walls and props that looked like the streets and buildings of an urban environment anywhere in the world. It could be configured as a village street, a city block or a mockup of a mission target, depending on need. Three-dimensional automated targets popped out in unpredictable ways from doors and windows, inside rooms and from behind walls and vehicles. Some were enemies, with a variety of weapons and looks. Others were civilians, old men, office workers, children, women with babies. Ramirez had shot one of the old men, thinking his cane was a gun. Grading depended on hits, accurate identification of the target and speed of response.

Selena said, "He's getting into it. I can see him trying to figure it out. He still doesn't know what we do, not really."

"He won't, until he's in the field."

Nick checked the chicken. "It's done."

"You realize this is our first real dinner here?" Selena said.

"Won't be the last," Nick said.

"You're a real romantic, aren't you?"

Here
was a remodeled loft looking out over the Potomac. They'd moved in a few days before. They'd bought it together even though they weren't married. Nick figured they would be. In the meantime, the loft was a way to commit to each other before getting to the altar. So far they hadn't set a date or made arrangements for the final step.

"What do you think about our rookie?" Selena asked. "Do you think he's going to fit?"

"He looks pretty good," Nick said. "I think the biggest problem is going to be whether or not he can let go of his self-image."

"His self image?"

"Macho Ranger, superhero."

"Oh, that image."

"Army Rangers are like that."

"Do I hear the Marine Corps Hymn playing in the background?" Selena said.

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean. That Marine thing about other units."

"The Rangers are a good unit."

"Are they as good as the Marines?"

"Marines are the best," Nick said, "but the Rangers are damn good."

"I rest my case," Selena said.

CHAPTER 6

Nazar Al-Bayati sported a heavy brush of a mustache like the one worn by Saddam Hussein. He was heavy, thick around the waist. His arms were the size of many men's thighs. He had once crushed a man to death with those arms to make a point.