Double Crossfire Read online

Cassie nodded.

  “I’ll be wanting you with me, as part of my team,” Jamie said.

  “I have an apartment in Fayetteville. I have soldiers that I lead. I can’t just move to DC,” Cassie said.

  “You can, and you will,” Jamie responded. “Zara will help you. She’s already secured a nice place on Capitol Hill for you. Your soldiers will be fine. They change commanders all the time.”

  Cassie leaned back in her chair, unsure what to make of the last few months. Combat and near death in Iran. Rehabilitation at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Then being transferred to the private facility the residents called “Psycho Central.” The physical wounds had healed properly with time, as they typically do. Gunshot wound to the upper chest and two in the outer thigh.

  It was the memory and trauma to her brain that had proven troublesome. On that thought, she asked Jamie, “What do you know about me being transferred from Walter Reed?”

  “That was me, Cassie. I came to see you in Walter Reed—you probably don’t even remember—and you said they were shit. That you weren’t getting the psychological help you needed. So I asked what could be done.”

  “I’m not crazy, Jamie,” Cassie protested. “I don’t remember any of that.”

  “No, maybe not crazy, but you definitely asked me to help. You were pretty doped up at the time. Also, what you went through in Iran . . . changed something,” Jamie said.

  “It’s true,” Zara added.

  “How would you even know?”

  “We were there, Captain Bagwell,” Zara said. “I was with your godmother when we talked to the doctors. They had no idea what they were doing.”

  “And you know this how?” Cassie snapped. The rage began boiling again. Her veins and arteries pumped wildly. She needed what was in the cooler, but she pushed the anxiety down, shoved it away. What she was really thinking, though, was: Why were Jamie and her wingwoman, Zara, talking to my doctor? She hadn’t paid much attention to her parents’ wills. Had there been some provision listing Jamie as her next of kin? She didn’t think so, but she would have to check it soon.

  “As you know, I’m a trained psychiatrist, Cassie. I can make several hundred thousand dollars a year evaluating a patient at a time, or I can make millions representing health care companies and making sure Americans have proper care,” Zara said.

  “Very noble,” Cassie quipped. “I don’t recall signing anything saying you could see my health care records.” She turned toward Jamie and said, “Let me guess. My parents made you my NOK?”

  “They did. And, frankly, I don’t understand the hostility. We have helped you. You broke out of a trauma center, stole a police car, Cassie. Any other person would be in jail. You ran from a classified mental-health facility, where only patients with top secret clearances are allowed.”

  “What?”

  “I had you transferred to the Valley Trauma Center. You asked me! There’s a general-practice wing, and then there’s the wing where we had you placed. Surely, you can understand the sensitivity the government might have with someone possessing a top secret clearance who is also struggling with severe post-traumatic stress disorder, Cassie.”

  Cassie nodded blankly. Could Jamie be speaking the truth? Was I in a classified wing of the trauma clinic? Sure didn’t seem like it.

  “I see you processing. Do you remember? They needed me to sign the papers. As much as you and this Indian fellow are dating and all, he doesn’t count legally. I count legally when you’re incapacitated.”

  “Jake saved my life,” Cassie hissed. Her mind flashed white. Jake was sacrosanct. Sacred ground.

  “Down, girl. I know exactly what happened. He left you there, and then we made him go get you,” Jamie said.

  “How dare you!” Cassie shouted. She pushed away from the table, the metal legs of her chair protesting on the slate floor of the sunroom. She shot a toned, but bruised, arm at Jamie and then Zara, pointing a finger like a gun.

  “Jake didn’t leave me. I told him to go. It was combat, damnit. And it was his decision to come back and get me. He fought. Not you.”

  Jamie gave Cassie a sympathetic smile, dabbed her thin lips with a white cotton napkin, and placed it on her plate.

  “Would you like to see?” she asked.

  “See what? I saw! I was there.” Cassie turned her hand and pointed her finger at her chest.

  “Misdirected anger like this is common in PTSD patients,” Zara said to Jamie, speaking as if Cassie wasn’t sitting in the room.

  Jamie frowned, looked at Cassie. “C’mon, girl. Let’s go look at some stuff.” She waved her hand in melodramatic, guffaw fashion, the cashmere sweater remaining perfectly in place. A tall woman—maybe pushing five-nine in stocking feet—Jamie stood and ushered Cassie from the kitchen into an oak-paneled study across the living area. Zara followed quietly behind. Cassie was an inch taller and more muscular, but the senator carried herself in a way that made her the dominant gene in the room.

  In the study, Jamie picked up a remote and an HD TV blinked to life. It showed a grainy video, probably Apache helicopter gun tape, Cassie thought, of the landing zone where the extraction from Yazd Province, Iran, had taken place a few months ago. Beads of perspiration broke out on Cassie’s brow, but she tried to remain focused.

  Suddenly a voice bellowed, “We need to get Captain Bagwell.”

  It was impossible to determine who was talking through the sound of the helicopter blades. The radio static carried another voice.

  “There’s no time. She’s dead. Leave her.”

  Cassie’s heart stopped. She audibly caught her breath.

  “Sir, we need to get the captain.”

  “Direct order to leave now.”

  That was Jake’s voice. While the background noise obscured it some, Jake had a unique, deep monotone, especially when he was in command.

  The video showed the helicopters departing, with Cassie in captivity on the ground. It was followed by a video of a meeting in a nameless conference room. She recognized the voice of Major General Bob Savage, the commander of Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. His voice was emanating from a speakerphone on the table while several four-star generals sat around, listening intently.

  “Mahegan thinks she’s dead. He doesn’t think it’s worth the effort.”

  Tears tumbled from Cassie’s welling eyes.

  “We have to go in to get her. She’s the former chairman’s daughter.”

  There was some conversation in the background of the phone speaker. It sounded like Jake’s voice saying, “We’ll just get more men killed. Not worth it.”

  “We’re going in,” the voice said.

  “If you’re ordering me to do it, I’ll do it.” Jake again.

  Another voice crackled over the phone. It was Jamie Carter.

  “Do it, General. I don’t care what it takes. Get her back.”

  As soon as Jamie cut the video and audio link, Cassie sobbed. “Why? Why are you showing me this . . . this . . . fucked-up movie? I know it’s not true,” she challenged.

  “It’s all real,” Jamie said.

  “The mind tends to reject images and audibles that don’t conform to its preconceived notions and patterns. You believed that Jake loved you above all else. Clearly, that’s not true. You heard his voice say that you were not worth the life of any of his men,” Zara said.

  “Stop it!” Cassie held her hands in the air. “Just stop!”

  “This is real, Cassie. Zara says the best way to heal your trauma is to confront the reality, not to live in some fictional universe.”

  This couldn’t be real. She had seen the determination in Jake’s eyes when he found her dying in that cave. She had heard his voice telling the Blackhawk pilot to turn around. That was her reality.

  As if on cue, Zara said, “We have memories that play tricks on us. Hidden memories, suppressed memories, and even false memories—those we desperately want to believe we remember. Things ou
r desires have shaped in our minds. Something we wish to be true.”

  Cassie was shaking her head. The two women stared at her sympathetically, but with a conviction that she likened to that of suicide bombers. She’d seen the look before. Zara persisted.

  “False memories can only be undone by viewing the facts. You just saw the facts. We can leave you alone in here to watch them over and over again, Cassie. They won’t change. The facts are the facts.”

  Cassie recalled a probability and statistics class she had taken where the professor had said, “You can always make the numbers support your conclusion if you’ve decided beforehand what result you want.” Was the mind the same way? Did she so love Jake that she imagined what she had heard when he was ordering the pilots to turn around and go back to the landing zone? What about the struggle for him to get out of the aircraft and that others had held him back in? She believed her own ears. She had heard the shouts. The loadmaster had placed a snap hook on his tactical vest, keeping him in the aircraft.

  Or had he told her that?

  Stop it, she admonished herself. They were deliberately confusing her. Jake loved her and had come back for her.

  But the words she had just heard. She knew Jake’s voice. Had heard it up close, whispering in her ear. Commanded her to take cover. Consoled her when she was wounded. The soft echo of his commands to his team, the one that rescued her. She knew every octave. Every range-bound syllable of his controlled demeanor.

  That was Jake’s voice on the recording.

  But how could it be? She had been there and heard it live.

  Or had she? She had been in the clutches of Ian Gorham’s Serbian henchman, Dax Stasovich, who had tricked two Army Rangers and avoided capture. Not only that, he had reversed the fortunes and yanked her from the ascending helicopter. She had been safe. Jake was on the other helicopter with the assault team. She had convinced him to go forward into the cave and gather intelligence. That was the entire purpose of the mission.

  But did anyone really tell Jake what to do? He admittedly was a mission-driven man. But his touch. His words. He had told her he loved her. Shown her. His first vacation in forever had been with her at Bald Head Island.

  “We need to get Captain Bagwell.”

  “There’s no time. She’s dead. Leave her.”

  “Sir, we need to get the captain.”

  “Direct order to leave now.”

  The video was playing again, the images flickering in her periphery.

  Then she remembered something else.

  Zara leaving the Valley Trauma Center. Her shooting Dr. Broome, saying she was a member of the Resistance.

  “One memory that I’m sure about is you shooting Dr. Broome,” Cassie said. Then, looking at Jamie Carter, she said, “Zara’s part of a plot to overthrow the government.”

  Jamie chuckled. “Come now, Cassie. We’re all familiar with the drugs Zara has prescribed for you. Hallucinations, daydreams, nightmares, overactive imagination. It’s all there and you’re showing all the signs.”

  “I was in the hallway. I watched you through the doorway. You shot Broome!” Cassie said.

  Zara looked at Jamie and nodded.

  “Okay. You want the truth?” Zara asked.

  “That would be nice for a change,” Cassie said.

  “I’ve been running an investigation on the Valley Trauma Center for the Secret Service. Using my cover as a medical doctor, I was able to infiltrate and pretend to be a member of the Resistance. Broome was training suicide squads of assassins. All of the training you went through? That was to turn you into a stone-cold killer,” Zara said.

  “Ranger school pretty much did that,” Cassie replied.

  “I was a spy in that operation. I’ve learned that it is unfolding rapidly. And we have to move now to stop it.”

  Cassie ran her hands through her hair and shook her head.

  “None of this makes sense,” she said.

  Zara was a bad actor, and now a noble actor. Jamie was a Virginia senator, and now a North Carolina senator. Jake loves me, but left me?

  She stood from the table, confused. The sun was shining bright squares of light onto the table. Cassie always understood her mission, but this new information was shocking. How was she to square this with what she believed?

  “Dear, are you okay?”

  “Yes. I mean . . . no. Everything is upside down,” she whispered.

  Then Jake’s words from the recording started replaying in her mind like one of those cheesy commercial jingles, the four-sentence refrain kept repeating as she absently ascended the stairs, found “her” room, and crawled into the soft cotton sheets.

  We need to get Captain Bagwell.

  There’s no time. She’s dead. Leave her.

  Sir, we need to get the captain.

  Direct order to leave now.

  Jake Mahegan left her to die? Or already believed she wasn’t even worth retrieving, if he thought she was dead?

  It couldn’t be true.

  Or could it?

  Jake had not found her. Zara had. Jake had said, “Stay alive. I’ll find you.”

  He hadn’t, had he?

  What was real? Her mind swam with memories of her father shouting at her, being stern with her, saying hurtful things in public about her. Then the carnage of her parents being slaughtered by Syrian terrorists, left to die in their own blood, chained in separate but adjoining cages. The cruelty was unimaginable. Married for over forty years and her father had to watch her mother die, alone in the cage, and then the terrorist shot him, leaving him alone on the cold concrete floor.

  Then there was Iran. The high-altitude jump into combat with Jake. He had been calm and reassuring. They had spoken through their communications devices on the descent. She had twisted her ankle on the landing. Jake had rushed toward her and protected her, helped her stabilize her leg. Then Stasovich had attacked her, and Jake had literally saved her life by wrestling Stasovich away and knocking him unconscious. He had flex-cuffed the big man and left her to complete the mission, all at her urging. She had told him to carry on with the plan, urged him forward. She knew that Jake was torn between protecting her and taking the small Ranger force into the tunnels. But it had proven successful. She couldn’t fault Jake for what happened next. They were under fire. The Ranger support-by-fire team had helped her to the rear helicopter that was buzzing on the pickup zone. Jake was leading the Ranger assault force back up the narrow gorge to the landing zone. They had captured a high-value target and secured a wounded dog, which turned out to be the Russian president’s animal and key to everything.

  Then the helicopters were under fire. The Iranians were rushing the landing zone. Jake and the Ranger assault team loaded the lead helicopter. They were taking off. Stasovich broke free. Grabbed Cassie’s legs. No one had secured her in the aircraft.

  She was on the ground. Stasovich’s stale breath poured over her as he hauled her away. The Iranian infantry provided him cover as she became a prisoner of war.

  It was all too much to remember. The memories of what had ensued haunted her. So much trauma in her life. What was real? What was fake?

  Had the combat changed her? She knew deep down that Jake loved her. That Zara was evil. And that Jamie Carter was devious.

  But here she was. With them, not Jake.

  Why?

  She pulled the covers over her torso and turned to the side, lost in her thoughts. She ran a finger lightly across the scar above her left ear. Her hair felt silky and clean.

  Shaking off the manipulation and mind games, Cassie breathed deep. She centered herself by lying perfectly still in the bed and shutting down her mind. She gave an imperceptible nod to Jamie and Zara and their manipulation efforts. Solid performance. All lies.

  As her mind swooned, she thought of Jake and The Plan. While she didn’t know what was going to happen next, Cassie was exactly where she needed to be.

  Inside.

  CHAPTER 8

  ZARA AND JAMIE
SAT AT THE SUNROOM TABLE, THE NEUSE RIVER IN the background. Zara looked at Jamie and said, “That’s a good start. I saw real confusion in her eyes.”

  “A seed of doubt has been planted. She’s confused. If nothing else, it will make her hesitate when we get to the end game.”

  “Which is in less than two days, mind you,” Zara said.

  Jamie gave Zara the side eye and chuckled.

  “I’ve been waiting for this day for three years,” she said. “Just don’t fuck it up, Zara.”

  Zara’s stare was nondescript, but her thoughts wandered to the Valley Trauma Center, where she had “treated” patients, exploiting the trauma, making it worse, driving them crazy. She made them doubt themselves, their family, their loved ones; then she injected them with a steady diet of DHT, technically known as dihydrotestosterone, Flakka, a synthetic drug, and bath salts. The lethal combination made the men or women more aggressive, more prone to outrage, and capable of committing psychotic actions, like ’roid rage, but different and more lethal when also combined with effects of post-traumatic stress. The victims of Zara’s home brew were the most vulnerable: veterans of combat or law enforcement trauma or victims of assault. They were the most pliable.

  “You’re a senator today, aren’t you?” Zara said.

  “Indeed. And if you want the prize at the end of the rainbow, then you only have to be successful three more times.”

  “Be careful what you wish for, Senator. We are beyond the point of no return,” Zara said.

  “You do your job, I’ll do mine, Zara.”

  With that, Zara nodded and said, “As you wish. She’s not ready, but she’ll have to do. She’s trapped, confused, and she’s no dummy. We have a small window of opportunity.”

  “The tape from Broome’s office was a good thing,” Jamie said.

  “A better thing was the chip in her back. I knew she was watching me.”

  “Well, get her a new one.”

  “No time, plus she’ll be with me.”

  “Get moving.”

  “We need to check in with Wise. Make sure everything is on track,” Zara said.

  “Okay, let’s do it from the secure line,” Jamie replied.