“It’s not fair, Dad,” Reagan said to me through tears before storming down the hill to the house. Brad was standing alone on the side yard talking on the phone. He was still dealing with trauma related to Quds Force commander Dariush Parizad kidnapping him and strapping a suicide vest onto his body as an insurance policy. It was a miracle that we both survived that incident. Now Sly’s death. It was as if the world were turning faster on its axis, aging us all beyond our means. The nation expects its servicemen and -women to execute missions in the common defense, but few understand the full measure of the sacrifice. My kids, my best friend, my goddaughter, my team, my team’s families were emotionally shredded right now.

  I watched Reagan storm off the hill, long auburn hair just like her mother’s flowing over her black wool coat. I was the only one remaining at the top, the scent of pine trees carrying with the blustery wind. Beneath the dark gray sky, the Fort Bragg drop zones were visible to the south, the golf course and lake to the east, and Southern Pines to the west. Forest shrouded the hilltop to the north, and I liked it that way. A black wooden fence separated our land from the trees where long, bony branches scratched at the sky, arms pleading to the heavens, shouting unanswerable questions.

  A hundred meters to the south was our two-story farmhouse. It had all the modern conveniences of a new home, which it essentially was, and a basement, where I had constructed a classified command center.

  As the sun was setting over Southern Pines, the moment I dreaded most unfolded before my eyes.

  She walked in long paces up the subtle grade from the house to the black wrought iron gate that safeguarded the cemetery. Her long legs took measured strides to ensure she maintained balance in her heels along the gravel path. Large copper eyes watched me as her broad shoulders beneath the black wool coat swung with athletic purpose.

  After I returned to Fort Bragg from the Pentagon last week, Zoey had been waiting on me, as promised. We went to Sly’s house, which she still called home. At first, she had been stoic, but eventually, the veneer cracked again, and the wellspring of deep emotions she held for her father had bubbled up until she got them under control to review with me what she thought she had discovered in her dad’s files.

  “I think he had a bad feeling about the Stockton mission. He left the files I gave you plus this,” she had said. She pointed to a manila folder with some papers and an orange external flash drive. We reviewed the information, which I thought was a good distraction for both of us. The intelligence Sly had assembled was a bombshell if it could be proven. But it was difficult to process because Zoey kept breaking down emotionally.

  Today, she seemed more measured, though the finality of it all was obviously weighing on her. At the V of her neck hung a necklace her father had given her with our unit insignia done in diamonds, a glittering lightning bolt against a shield. Her hair was brushed straight back with a slight part on the left side, ending around her shoulders. Her cocoa skin shone in the amber light of the setting sun. A manicured hand with red polish on her fingernails held a blue Solo cup filled with something strong, I hoped. A new gold-and-black memorial bracelet with her father’s name on it slid up her wrist as she tilted the cup into her mouth. The scar beneath her left eye looked like a two-inch hash mark.

  “General,” she said.

  I nodded. “Zoey.”

  She looked away. Her eyes were moist.

  “I told myself I wasn’t going to lose it today. Dad would want me to be strong.” Mist escaped her trembling lips, carried away by the swift breeze.

  “You are strong, Zoey. He’s proud of you.”

  She looked at the freshly tilled orange dirt. The backhoe had finished filling the grave about thirty minutes ago.

  Sly’s headstone read:

  Better to die a warrior than grow old.

  “Jake’s motto,” she said. Then after a beat, “He’s down there, you know. He came.”

  She was speaking of Jake Mahegan, a former operator of mine who had left the team and remained available in contract status when we needed him.

  “I saw him,” I said. “Looks too tanned.”

  “Well, he is Croatan,” she said, offering a smile that faded too quickly.

  “So? Where are you on the scale?” I asked.

  “I’m not okay yet, but I will be,” she said. “Duke has given me a couple of weeks off from the insanity.”

  Among many other things, Zoey was an emergency room surgeon at Duke University Hospital in Durham, North Carolina, about an hour up the road from the farm.

  “How can I help?”

  “Give me time, General. I’m going to spend some of it going through his stuff at our … his house and figure things out. With Mom gone years ago and me being an only child, I need to sort some things out.”

  “You’ve got all of us, which I know is no replacement for your father, but you grew up with us, Zoey.”

  “I know, I know.” She nodded, took a sip of whatever she was drinking, grimaced, and then looked toward the gathering in the backyard. She folded her arms across her stomach, warming herself against the biting winds and the cold darkness of grief.

  Hobart, Van Dreeves, and Mahegan were talking, listening to each other, glancing up at us, and no doubt scheming something.

  “You bringing Jake back?”

  “The right question is, does Jake want back in?”

  “Joe said, ‘Maybe,’” she said.

  When she mentioned Joe Hobart, her eyes had a hint of an extra spark even under the circumstances.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  She looked back at her father’s grave and then a bit to the right of his headstone.

  “I wanted to ask, General—”

  “I’ve already done it, Zoey. It’s yours if you want it.”

  She stepped forward and hugged me, her body heaving a few times, wet tears falling onto my neck. She had been of Brad and Reagan’s school of thought regarding thinking about the grave sites and where she wanted to spend eternity. The wars today, though, brought mortality to our children too soon.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I just want to be with him.”

  “In due time,” I said. “You’ve got a world to save, girl. Just don’t go rogue on me again.”

  She stepped back and smiled, her face a disaster zone of tears and makeup, though she never looked more beautiful, completely bare in her grief, her soul laid out for all to see.

  “No promises there,” she said. I shook my head and looked away when she asked, “Have you given any thought to what we discussed at Dad’s? Everything I’ve given you?”

  “I have,” I said.

  “And?”

  I thought about the maps Sly had created. The significant players he had documented as being involved. His reams of notes. The mathematical calculations he had made. Sly’s due diligence had uncovered something that was unbelievable but at the same time entirely possible. What to do with the information was the dilemma.

  “I think what we discussed may be appropriate, Zoey, but let’s talk more later. I’m exhausted right now. First Melissa. Now your dad. Afghanistan. COVID. The world is spiraling. If we have a chance to stop it from spinning away from us, we should.”

  She nodded and pursed her lips. “I agree and understand.”

  “I hope you do, because things are going to get complicated from here on out.”

  “Like I said, it’s a—”

  “—geometry thing.”

  She nodded, perhaps realizing that I understood the totality of the intel. A long moment passed between us. There was an unspoken bond, but the silence was more than that. It was an acknowledgment of commitments to each other and to our country.

  “Can I call you?”

  “I think being your godfather gives you special privileges,” I said, smiling. “You know I’ll stop the world, Zoey. Anytime, anyplace. Just don’t make me come looking for you like last time.”

  She looked away again, her eyes suddenly distant.

  “No promises there, either,” she said, preparing to walk back to the house.

  “And, Zoey,” I said. She stopped and looked over her shoulder, staring at me with expectant eyes. “Take care of Joe.”

  At first, she squinted with a practiced look of feigned curiosity, and then her eyes grew wide.

  “Did he—” She pointed at her father’s grave.

  “Yes. He was proud that you and Joe finally decided to be together, but we’ve all been disappointed that you haven’t come out in public yet.”

  She put her hand to her mouth. “Oh my God. How did he know?”

  “He has two eyes, Zoey. I knew. He knew.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “I think it’s on the Welcome to Fort Bragg sign, but other than that, not sure.”

  “Stop it.” She pushed at me playfully, then brought her hands to her face, realizing the joy a daughter could have brought a father through her own simple happiness in finding love. “Why didn’t we tell him?” She sobbed for a moment, wiping at tears, looking away, a million images most likely running through her mind.

  “We were gone a lot, Zoey. He was happy for both of you. He approves.”

  For the last year, Zoey and Joe had been secreting around North Carolina, mostly in Durham away from the prying eyes of her father and Joe’s teammates. Hobart was naturally a quiet man, so he didn’t have to put up much of an act.

  “He knew,” she whispered to herself. A mournful smile formed on her lips.

  “So just take care of each other. I don’t want any more of this.” I waved my hand at the headstones. I lost Melissa, and Zoey lost Sly. We were kindred spirits in that regard, though I wasn’t sure who felt more alone in the world now.

  “You’re in the wrong business, then, General. All sorts of ‘this’ is going to happen and has been happening,” she said. “It’s what you do. And if you men didn’t do this, who would? Some man-bun-wearing soy boy worried about his latte not being hot enough?”

  I managed a smile. This was the Zoey that I had known for all thirty-two years of her already amazing life.

  “Be careful, Zoey. Now, get back down to everyone who wants to hug you. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  She looked away, paused for a long moment, then nodded and said, “Sure. Tomorrow.”

  Though I should have seen it in her eyes, I had no idea that Zoey would be gone tomorrow.

  7

  TWO DAYS AFTER SLY’S funeral, Hobart notified me that Zoey was missing, maybe dead.

  Zoey was no ordinary child of my best friend. Nor was she just my goddaughter. She also was on another government agency’s short list of deep-cover operatives. Her doctor credentials provided the perfect legend for penetration into difficult networks. We, JSOC, had not activated her, though, and today, I was reminded of the time we had saved her life in Afghanistan.

  She had previously leveraged this government affiliation to take a three-month leave of absence from Duke University to help Afghan women and children evacuate in the weeks before the surprise withdrawal and rapid Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.

  * * *

  OVER THE YEARS, Zoey and I had long discussions about Harriet Tubman’s Underground Railroad network. We lived in North Carolina, which famously was a hub for the perilous migration of former slaves, Zoey’s and Sly’s ancestors, to freedom. Little did I realize she would put that study to use in Afghanistan to shockingly good effect, evacuating over five hundred women and children before being captured by the Taliban.

  Unbeknownst to either Sly or me at the time, in July 2021, Zoey flew from Raleigh to Qatar, where she presented her medical credentials, which got her on a flight to Kabul. From there, she used her charm and intellect to network with local Afghans to begin setting up Route Tubman, as she had dubbed it.

  Route Tubman was a network of people, caves, trails, and tunnels she used to move women and children to qalats, adobe homes, and hide them beneath the floorboards or in the hidden walls before secreting them to Hamid Karzai International Airport using a variety of alleys and back roads.

  As the Taliban were rounding up women for subjugation, Zoey became a target. Some enterprising bureaucrats in the State Department had put her name on a list of Americans needing evacuation. This list was issued to the Taliban in the naive hope that they might help with the evacuation.

  Shortly thereafter, she was chased down by a group of Taliban fighters in pickup trucks, searching from door to door. Route Tubman had been revealed, and the nefarious terrorist forces in Afghanistan went into overdrive to shut it down … and find Zoey.

  She had done all of this without mentioning it to her father, me, or Hobart. So, as we had separately received our mission to flow my Special Forces teams into a remote airfield we had previously constructed in the middle of the country, we had no idea that she had established this network or that she was on the run from the Taliban.

  Shortly upon arrival a week before the tragic attacks at Kabul International Airport that killed thirteen marines and a navy corpsman, one of my teams alerted me that intelligence was indicating celebration of capturing an American doctor and that a medical assistance team had been taken hostage in Paktia Province, normally a hotbed of terrorist activity astride the Pakistan border. Home to the infamous Haqqani network, Paktia ran diagonally from the south side of the Tora Bora mountains in the north to Gardez in the south and was a major smuggling thoroughfare from Parachinar, Pakistan, into the center of Afghanistan.

  These types of rescue missions fell squarely in the JSOC protocols of responsibility, and as I was instructing Josh Wright and his team to prepare for a search and rescue mission, Sly came racing into the tactical command post to alert me to a text he had received from Zoey.

  She was the captured doctor.

  While she was my goddaughter, she also was in the Department of Defense medical database as a member of Doctors Without Borders, which made it not only my personal responsibility to retrieve Zoey but my professional responsibility, as well. I didn’t imagine that Zoey’s altruism ran deep; rather, her inclusion in an esteemed international agency gave her much-desired creditability globally and the perfect legend for missions within another governmental agency.

  I compartmentalized my emotions and focused on this mission by pulling together Hobart, Van Dreeves, and Josh Wright’s team to conduct an immediate rescue effort. We ran a trace on the GPS coordinates of the phone and saw that she was in the Shah-i-Kot Valley, a place with which we were all very familiar from Operation Anaconda, the first major conventional fight in Afghanistan in the early winter months of 2002 after Bin Laden had already escaped from Tora Bora some fifty miles away. The valley was a high mountain redoubt surrounded by massive peaks, such as Takur Gar, that dominated the terrain.

  Night had fallen, and we flew on the bench seats of MH-6 Little Bird helicopters that alighted on the rocky, sloping terrain like dragonflies on grass blades. I was always amazed at the skill, bravery, and talent of our Nightstalker pilots of the famed Task Force 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. They shot through narrow defiles with precision and always delivered us on target. This time was no exception as we disembarked and scrambled to protected positions, hunkering down until the helicopters were away. Traversing the rocky terrain, we approached the GPS location of Zoey’s iPhone, halting about a hundred meters away from where the beacon was blinking. We scanned, not seeing anything until Van Dreeves, using an infrared spotter’s scope, said, “Phone. Rock pile.”

  “Look for snipers,” I said.

  “Got two on the ridge at two o’clock,” Hobart said. “Baited ambush.”

  “Keep looking,” I directed.

  Based upon the disposition of the snipers, we surmised the hostages to be on the backside of the ridge. Our Predator drone piped a video feed that showed a huddled group of women and children surrounded by men with headscarves and AK-47s. To our knowledge, we were undetected.

  Our IVAS night vision systems painted a clear picture, and I thought I could see Zoey on the drone video feed. She appeared to be arguing with one of the Taliban fighters who was significantly bigger than the others.

  “See that?” I said to Hobart, who was also looking at the streaming video download feed on the handheld satellite device.

  “That’s her,” he said.

  “Mother of God,” Sly whispered. I put my hand on his arm, a signal of both support and restraint. One wrong move and she could wind up dead.

  The man Zoey was debating had a swagger about him that I had never seen before in any of these Taliban fighters we had been confronting for years. The way he stood in the group, arms crossed over his clean and pressed tunic, red sash across his flat stomach, large saber hanging to his right side, and AK-47 situated to his left, was uniquely distinct from the ragged Taliban fighters around him. With his perfectly coiffed turban, he looked like a European trying to fit into the Pashtun culture, a modern-day Lawrence of Arabia.

  “Biggest threat?” I asked.

  “Two guys arguing on the other side of the group. They’ve got their rifles in their hands and look like they might get trigger-happy.”

  I could imagine the discussion revolved around executing all the women, including Zoey, or keeping them as hostages for ransom. These were unacceptable options. While our political leaders might be removed and aloof from the scene on the ground, it was our responsibility to compensate for their lack of understanding or concern. Soldiers fight for the men and women on their left and right, not for the people who occupy offices back in the United States.

  “Randy?” I asked Van Dreeves, who was studying the images on the video feed.

  “There’s six of them, not including the snipers. Joe gets two. I can get two. But the key is if these two snipers are in comms with the six on the back of the ridge. We kill them with no comms, we can get close enough to do damage. If we miss the snipers and they radio to the group behind the ridge, everyone there could be dead.”