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  One day he might be a hero like the man who’d given him the necklace.

  But probably not. He wasn’t a brave fighter like them or Plaar. He was only a boy. That’s what his moor had said to his plaar when he’d put the gun in Abda’s hand to teach him to use it.

  He unfolded the piece of cloth that lay at the bottom of the box and smiled. He set down the box and tied the piece around his neck, just as the big man had worn it, then slipped the necklace over his head and tucked it beneath his tunic. Yes, he liked the Americans very much. They had given him gifts.

  But he could not tell his plaar. He would be very angry. So would the Sand Spider. He watched for a while as shadows moved in his house. How long would they stay this time? Nights were cold and very lonely.

  A while later, Abda lifted the walking stick he had propped against the old tree, twisted and bent as much as his grandfather.

  The Sand Spider said death and virgins were better than being friends with Americans.

  Abda shuddered.

  Death. He did not like death.

  5

  Reckoning hour.

  Point of no return.

  All the words resonated in Hawk as he tucked Constant’s watch into his pocket and smoothed a hand down the Velcro closure. Cool wind filtered over the rocky plateau and carried with it the tease of laughter and the foreboding of doom.

  Okay, now you’re just being absurd.

  Was he? Here he was almost two hours into the seven bartered from Death, and not a single thing had changed. If he could’ve figured out a way to climb out of the trench and slip away and take care of the kid, he would’ve.

  The men around him had seen everything. Seen innocent women, fully clothed and batting those long lashes while concealing a bomb beneath the layers of fabric. Twelve-year-old kids firing M16s the way boys back home wielded baseball bats and hockey sticks.

  If they knew . . . if the men of ODA 375 knew this kid would get them all killed, they’d not fight him. He remembered—in the original time strain—he’d been the first to object. Nobody could do it. Nobody wanted to.

  Then everyone died. Except Hawk. And the kid.

  So he had to do this. Just take the shot. Don’t warn the team. Just do it.

  Hawk lay prostrate, his upper body spanning the slight incline to the lip of the trench. With his M4 stock braced against his shoulder, he peered down the barrel to the sight. Eased his finger into the trigger well.

  And waited.

  Each breath felt like a year of his life expelled.

  “You got something?” Stratham whispered, dirt crunching.

  In his periphery, Hawk noticed the team leader slide into position next to him and focus on the same spot. “No.” If Stratham saw the kid, he’d give the order to hold fire.

  “Mack, what you got on structure one?”

  “Ten, fifteen men,” McLellan said. “Another two or three by the cars.”

  “Is our man in the house?

  “Unconfirmed.”

  Stratham huffed. “Get it confirmed.”

  “Working on it.”

  Hawk would not get caught unaware. Distractions and dialogue would kill his chance to neutralize this threat. Bring his boys home alive. Cheek against the plastic, Hawk peered through the sight. Slowed his breathing. Every man on this team had sniper training, even though only Jensen had the specialty and uncanny skills. Sniping had been too benign, too inactive for Hawk, who was ready to be up in the face of danger.

  Hawk tugged the watch out and stole a look at the face. Shouldn’t the kid have shown up by now? Where was he? Had the time strain already gotten messed up because of Hawk? As he returned the watch to his pocket, something bounced in his sights.

  His breath shoved into the back of his throat and held.

  Shiny hair snagged the moonlight.

  The kid.

  Hawk eased himself forward, anxious to make sure he was set up right. He could take the shot. As soon as he had a center mass line of sight . . .

  His finger curled around the trigger pin.

  Mentally, he pulled himself forward. Compartmentalized.

  Had to be done.

  He’s just a kid.

  Who would kill six elite soldiers.

  He’s a seven-year-old!

  Who doesn’t know how to keep a secret.

  God of mercy . . . I know this is right. I know I have to do this. . . .

  Hawk leaned forward. Shifted his leg just a fraction, only the thigh, and—

  Wind ripped at his arms. His ACU sleeves. Ripped pieces of it. Blurring. Crazy roaring. The open terrain around him blurred as if someone had swiped a hand over a chalk painting. Black became gray. Blue became pale. White bled into black and created more gray. Faces smeared into abstracts.

  Howling and shrieking, the world entered a vortex.

  Swirling. Whirling. Straight down a tube.

  His mind screamed. Told him to run. Shoot. Anything. Something.

  Legs wouldn’t comply. Arms were sucked into the whorl. Spinning, as if in one of those amusement park rides where you’re whipped and turned in crazy, sickening circles, narrowly avoiding a collision with others by mere seconds when it whips you in another direction, Hawk skidded toward a woman in a blue chador holding a baby girl in one arm and another girl by the hand as they stood over a hole. Hawk tilted so that he could see down into the thirty-foot hole where the boy’s body lay.

  Then yanked and jerked, he spun and flung into another direction.

  Then, as if someone hit a fast-forward button, the scene whipped into frenetic violence. Fields of blood. Raging fires . . . hundreds. A nuclear detonation. Screaming. Crying. Allies became enemies. Countries divided. Millions massacred. Body-strewn military bases and villages. Wailing women digging through bodies and finding . . .

  What was that woman holding? As the object took shape, his stomach churned and protested. An arm. A bodyless arm!

  I’m going to be sick.

  What was happening?

  Like bait on a fishing line, he was jerked back and then flung into the whorl once more.

  No. No, stop!

  Howling. Shrieking. In the howling, he heard his name with a vengeful roar. “Haythaaaam! You fool! I’ll find you. . . .” A menacing blackness hunkered within the vowels and consonants. Though he would’ve vowed that was Constant speaking, Hawk sensed the ominous claws of Death tracking too.

  Without warning, the fires smoothed into one field of red, mingling with the blood and tears.

  No, no more. Stop!

  How had such chaos erupted? Insane, lunacy . . . as if the entire world had lost restraint.

  The boy . . . killing the boy.

  Ludicrous! Killing one boy who killed a half-dozen Green Berets couldn’t cause that. None of them were that important. Yeah, important enough to stop the kid. But not enough to unleash what appeared to be an apocalypse.

  The gray sky darkened. Terror gripped Hawk. He didn’t want to see any more. Why was this happening? How?

  The watch . . .

  He reached for it.

  A hollow popping severed the void that had devoured him.

  “Hey!” A weight slammed into his chest. Stratham’s livid eyes glared down at him. “Shut up or you’ll get us killed.”

  Back pressed against the ground, Hawk stared up at his friend. “Wha . . . ?”

  “Movement. I got movement,” Mack announced.

  Stratham shoved off him. “Report.”

  As he watched the leader scuttle back into position, Hawk pulled himself off the ground. A curse sailed through the black night.

  “It’s a kid,” Stratham spat.

  “Headed right toward us.”

  “Kill him,” Hawk said, breathless and void of conviction. Two seconds ago—or was it minutes? hours?—his conviction sat like cement on his chest. “Kill him,” he said, urging himself to be more forceful. To remember why he’d come.

  But the images . . .

  How exactly had
that happened? Had Constant really screamed into time? Was Death with him? The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. Why hadn’t Constant come for him sooner? Or stopped him?

  The watch.

  “No way, man. I’m not killing no kid.”

  “We have to,” Hawk said. They had to kill him. Didn’t they? Isn’t that why he came back? The bloody holocaust faded to the background as the memory of rifle volleys at six funerals cracked his resolve.

  “Shoot him,” Hawk reiterated, but the words sounded weak even to him. What if . . . what if all that stuff he’d seen—was it even real?—had direct correlations to this gangly boy hiking up the hill?

  Hawk had missed the opportunity to take him out and take the blame. Should’ve just fired and dealt with the consequences. Might end up at Leavenworth for killing an innocent civilian. Nobody would’ve known the original time strain justified his actions. But he’d know.

  The heinous stuff Hawk witnessed in that whorl couldn’t be the result of this kid. He was nobody. Just some farm boy who’d stumbled upon the wrong team at the wrong time.

  Which meant he had to kill him. While the others argued.

  “He’s right,” Jensen said. “Our orders are shoot to kill.”

  “Hawk, back me on this one.” Stratham swung toward him. “He’s the same age as Pete. Could you kill your brother?”

  “He’s not my brother. He’s a terrorist.” Hawk lowered himself to his belly. The Afghans already branded Hawk a traitor since he’d been born to an Afghan mother and fought with the Americans. Now he’d kill one of his mother’s people. Intentionally. Was it murder?

  How did one draw those lines in combat? In a situation like this, where he knew what letting the boy live would mean?

  “Is he armed?”

  Quiet dripped into the trench as the boy drew closer, clearly oblivious to the warriors debating his fate.

  “Negative,” Mack said.

  “He has to die,” Hawk muttered, his words meant to convince himself, to push him beyond those horrific images and to apply just enough rearward pressure on the trigger. . . . But his mind engaged in a bitter war.

  The kid snagged a rock from the path and flung it out in the distance. He had a good arm on him. Much like Pete.

  Hawk lifted his cheek from the weapon. The images had been real. It was possible—wasn’t it?—that somehow he had seen the time strain effect of killing the kid.

  Hawk drew the watch from his pocket and swiped his thumb over the silver surface. Was it talking to him? Telling him the outcome? Crazy. Things like that couldn’t happen.

  Yeah, and people can’t travel back in time either.

  “Grab the kid.”

  6

  Bleating stopped Abda.

  It sounded injured. Or lost. He groaned, set down his box, and trudged to the right over an incline, where he spotted Delaram staring down. The ledge. Not again. Had her baby gotten stuck again? They would need to reinforce this area to be sure the lambs did not stray. Why wouldn’t they learn?

  Abda lowered himself down the rocky area, fingers digging around a fist hold of boulder, his legs dangling till they touched the dirt. He released his grip. Dusting himself off—Moor would not be pleased with his dirty clothes, especially with the special guests—he squatted before his lamb, who let out a nervous bleat.

  “Always getting lost, eh?” He wrapped his arms around her hindquarters and chest, then hoisted her up, balancing her weight against his chest. He pivoted on the narrow lip, grateful she wasn’t full grown yet or he’d never manage this. Shadows in the valley moved toward the house. Must be the goats.

  As he pushed the lamb upward, his thoughts tripped over the memory of the goats cluttered around the gate just beyond the house. If the goats were there, then how . . . ? He flipped his gaze back to the area. Darkness wrestled his vision. He squinted. Where did he see—? Aha. There, along the road now. Cold washed over him. Those weren’t goats.

  Fighters!

  He thrust the lamb up onto safe ground, his heart pounding. Its hind legs clattered over rock, dislodging pebbles and dirt that peppered his face.

  Abda shielded his face in the crook of his arm. If those fighters saw him . . . He pressed himself into the shadows and clambered back up over the ledge. He crawled, hurrying out of view, away from the fighters. What were they doing here?

  Plaar. Moor.

  No! The guests. The colonel. Many did not like him. Neither did Abda. Plaar had been a natural leader. Friends and neighbors liked him, listened to him, came to him for help. When the colonel came, they hid. Shut their gates and closed off their courtyards. He wasn’t nice and had shouted more than once at his mother. He’d been quick to take power. Men like the colonel got killed. And got other people killed.

  What if the colonel’s meeting . . . what if he got Plaar and Moor killed?

  He must warn them.

  Abda scrambled over the hill, staying low. He’d nearly cleared the hill. The box! He spun around, his heart crammed into his throat as he searched the slope. Where was it? He’d put it on the sitting rock, hadn’t he? His legs tangled as he hurried back, squinting under the little light provided by the moon.

  Across the way, he spotted it. He threw himself in the direction of it. Dropped to his knees. It’d fallen, the contents strewn over the rocky area interrupted by grassy patches. Tossing his collection together, he hunted for the patch. Where was the patch? The soldier who’d given it to him told Abda he’d be something special. A hero, maybe even.

  Wind tossed leaves and dirt over the ground.

  A glint of white snagged his attention.

  There!

  Box tucked under his arm, he lunged for the lost piece.

  Shadows danced toward him. Coalesced into solid shapes. His heart pedaled fast like Jabril’s bicycle, screaming for him to get away. The fighters had found him! But how had they gotten up here so fast? Gathering the pieces of his treasure box hadn’t cost him that much time.

  Abda leaned back, a scream lodged in his throat as two giants rose out of the ground. Dark, concealed in the blackness.

  * * *

  Two giant leaps carried Hawk quickly toward the boy. If he couldn’t shoot him, he’d make sure this kid didn’t have a chance to blab to his entire village about the team. Reaching through the black void of night, Hawk felt his heart stutter.

  Wide brown eyes, etched with terror, stared back at him. Shiny black hair drew the light and shielded the boy’s brow. It struck Hawk that he wasn’t wearing the typical farming clothes of a long tunic and matching pants.

  He clamped a hand around the boy’s mouth and plucked him from the dirt.

  Something clattered to the ground with a loud clank.

  “Got it,” Mack said.

  Hawk pivoted and bolted for the trench. He dropped into the depression and went to his knees, crushing the small frame to his chest. Just like the times he’d roughhoused with Peter in the backyard while playing football. Or wrestling.

  This kid had just as much fight.

  “Quiet,” Hawk instructed in Pashto as he put space between him and the kid, hand still covering the small mouth. “Don’t say a word. Understand?”

  Wider-than-wide eyes glared back, glistening with tears. A quick nod.

  On his knees, Hawk eased away and lowered his hand. I should kill him. That’s why I came back. But now was different. From the moment he snatched the watch. His hand went to the thigh pocket where the watch rested. Had the watch really shown him the fate of the Middle East if this kid died?

  “What do we do?”

  “We can’t keep him here.”

  “Our orders are shoot to kill anyone who finds us.”

  “He’d see too much and then blab like a jabberjaw.”

  “If we let him go, he’ll tell everything.”

  “I can’t kill a kid.”

  “We can’t let him go.”

  “Keeping him here . . . he’ll see how we work. He’ll know too much.”


  “They use kids as spies.”

  Hawk tuned out the voices of his team and focused on the kid. “What’s your name?” he asked, forcing his tone into a calm, quiet one.

  “Abda Najjif.”

  A curse snapped into the night from behind.

  Over his shoulder, Hawk saw Stratham shaking his head. “What?”

  “Najjif is Tarazai’s right hand.” Stratham slapped the dirt. “You were right. We should’ve killed him.”

  “No!” The boy lurched forward.

  Hawk’s pulse rapid-fired. “Easy.” He glanced at Stratham again. “He knows English.”

  “No kill me,” the boy said. “I be good. I like Americans.”

  “Yeah, like to serve them up to the big boss for a few extra Afghan notes.”

  “Shhh,” Hawk hissed. If Abda could understand English . . . “Why are you out this late?”

  His large brown eyes skipped around the team and reflected the fear of being alone with a half-dozen soldiers. “Why are you out here?” the boy asked in Pashto.

  “Playing hide-and-seek.” Hawk let the smile into his face, knowing with the camo paint, they probably looked terrifying to a small boy. “And you?”

  Wariness crowded the boy’s tense form. “Hiding from the Sand Spider.”

  Hawk laughed. “Sand spiders . . .” He shook his head, then glanced at Stratham, who squatted in the four-foot-deep trench. “What do we do?”

  McLellan edged into the conversation by lowering himself between Hawk and their leader. “We can’t let the kid go. They find us, we’re dead.”

  “No kidding. One call to Taliban fighters and this place will light up. But we can’t keep him here, and—” Jensen cast a nervous glance toward Abda— “I can’t kill no kid. He’s not armed. He’s not fighting.” He shook his head hard. “Can’t do it.”

  “You’ll do what you’re ordered to do.” Though Stratham held Jensen’s gaze, the ferocity and absolutism that usually nailed the leader’s words to his crew didn’t hold. He looked away, to Mack. “Get command on the line.”