Beyond Eden Read online

It took them less than fifteen minutes to search the small house, including any space in which a toddler could crawl or hide.

  Fifteen minutes for Zhou to realize that his baby was gone.

  She was gone.

  Sunday, February 12, 2006, 1:15 p.m.

  Falls Church, Virginia

  * * *

  “Hello, Meghan? Patsy. Listen, sorry to do this to you on a Sunday, but I just got a call from work, the urgent one I mentioned I was expecting. Could you be here in five?… Thanks, you’re a doll.”

  Patsy Covington hardly listened for the sitter’s response before hanging up the phone. Part of the deal of being the Covington child-care professional was that you were available when needed. Period.

  Patsy smiled at her toddler in his high chair and finished giving him the last two bites of the organic peas and carrots she’d just mixed herself. Patsy prided herself, above all things, on being a good mother. The Good Mother. It was a stereotype she’d created for herself in her late teens, and with effort, she’d managed it as an adult.

  Oh, sometimes she had to work on Sundays, but it was rare. She certainly had chosen her profession wisely and gotten the most bang for her buck. Or, more precisely, the most buck for her time. She only worked part-time, but her fees were astronomical. She was able to provide well for herself and her two young children.

  She pulled the cotton bib off of Bartlett and unstrapped him from the chair. She spun him around gently and kissed his chubby cheek, eliciting the requisite gurgle/giggle.

  “Where’s your sister, big boy?” she asked. She plunked him down into his bouncer and pulled a frozen teething ring from the freezer, which he accepted happily.

  Patsy had last left four-year-old Portia reading in the den of the upgraded fifties ranch house. She stopped on her way in and looked in the bathroom mirror. She wore casual black slacks and a black top with white collar. The jewelry at her neck was short, so that Arty couldn’t reach it, yet expensive and well chosen. It would do for today. She freshened her lipstick and sealed it. Attractive urban matron was what she was going for—it was a ubiquitous look, and she believed she’d caught it.

  “Where’s my future leader?” she asked now, swinging into the den. The only thing that remained from the previous owner was the golden shag carpet in the den. It was in pretty good shape and it cracked her up, so she kept it.

  She glanced at the sofa but didn’t see the little girl anywhere.

  “Portia?” she asked. “Portia, where are you?”

  There was silence.

  “Portia, answer me!”

  “Here, Mama,” said Portia, looking up from the carpet behind the reading chair. She held a hard-backed illustrated edition of Black Beauty. Whoever said four-year-olds can’t be taught to read? “I’m sorry; I was in the book.”

  “Want to come help your mama work today?”

  “Oh yes,” said the girl, her eyes lighting. She gently replaced her bookmark and stood up. She was wearing a small baby blue sweat suit with a yellow headband across her dark brown hair. Her eyes were large and sparkly.

  “Go get your shoes on, then, and meet me at the car. Meghan will be here any minute to take care of Arty.”

  “Yes, ma’am!” she said.

  Patsy unconsciously picked up the book and straightened the pillows. As she did so, she heard the housekeeper/nanny’s car engine as it pulled into the driveway.

  Portia gave Meghan a small hug as they passed her in the hall.

  “I’ll drop her back in about an hour,” Patsy told the young woman in her mid-twenties. “Then I’ll be gone until Tuesday. I assume that’s no problem?”

  “No, of course not, Ms. Covington,” said Meghan.

  Patsy hummed as she strapped her daughter into the child seat and heard the buckle click into place. She knew that bringing Portia was a sign of great confidence. She would never work with her daughter in public unless she knew for certain that they’d never be noticed. Well, that they’d never be noticed and that the victim would ultimately be killed. Those being kidnapped for this job had been carefully chosen and carefully taken. She’d been the front on several of the riskiest ones herself, which she would never do if there was any chance at all that those brought in would live to describe her.

  Let alone her daughter.

  But today’s kidnapping would be in broad daylight, in a well-populated place. No one would look twice at a mom and child out shopping. No one, of course, except the victim, this one named Daniel Derry, a 15-year-old who would undoubtedly be happy to help two females in distress, especially when one was so adorable. Once he was taken, and out cold, Patsy would drop her daughter home and continue the trip.

  “You ready, missy?” Patsy asked her daughter as she pulled out of the driveway and headed for the Pentagon City Mall.

  Thursday

  February 23, 2006, 4:26 a.m.

  Southwestern desert, Iran

  * * *

  Jaime Richards awoke under a fiercely blazing canopy of stars. The air around her was chilly and still. She was under a coarse woven blanket, with another blanket beneath to shield her from the dusty ground.

  She had dreamed of a land of shimmering colors, deeply intense in their hues. It was a land she’d come to know well. She was back now in what they called the Terris world. Even as she awoke, it felt uncomfortably unfamiliar. But she was back for an urgent purpose, and she had to get her bearings. She tried to sit up.

  The landscape swam, and vomit lurched in her stomach.

  “Don’t worry. I know you’re in a hurry, but it will take less than half an hour for the drug to wear off. You’re safe, and your guide is coming before dawn.” The voice was male, the accent Farsi. “Relax. Let yourself drift. You can’t hurry the process, but if you don’t fight it, you can make it more pleasing.”

  Jaime willed herself to relax, to close her eyes. And in her mind, she went back to Eden. She was sitting on a mountainside terrace, outside the Operative training school. She loved sipping her tea, overlooking the verdant valley growing lush with bougainvillea, roses, morning glory. She loved the colors glistening off the rooftops, the jewels shining in the sun. She loved that she was in a very intense training program and yet she’d been taught to relax, to breathe, to appreciate every opportunity presented.

  She stretched her legs; even though it was February, she wore a colorful summer robe, with bare legs and sandaled feet. She could have been barefoot if she wished.

  “You feel at home here.”

  Jaime looked up to find the master of the school, a fit man with olive skin and white hair, standing beside her with his own cup of tea. “May I?”

  “Of course.”

  He sat on the other carved chair and looked at the world of paradise spread before them. “This feels like home to you?” he said.

  “Yes. More than anywhere I’ve ever been.”

  “Ah. I’m glad. It means the decision was right to bring you in.”

  They sat companionably, sipping their tea.

  “I’ve come to ask if you’re ready to go back.”

  Jaime sat straight, knocking the table in her surprise. “Back? But I’ve only been in training for two years!”

  No one was ever given an assignment as an Operative of Eden back in the Terris world until they’d completed the five-year initial training course.

  “Special circumstances require special actions,” Clement said. “The identities of some of our people in the Terris world have been compromised. We must send in an Operative whose identity we know has not been compromised—someone new. It is early for you. You would be taking a chance. We would be taking a chance. But I wouldn’t be asking if we didn’t think you were up to it, that the odds are in favor of your success.”

  He carried a small pouch of pretzels and offered her one. “What do you think? Are you ready to return? If so, things will move quickly.”

  Was she ready?

  Now here she was, two days later, on the ground of the desert of western Ir
an, if things had gone as planned.

  Jaime heard an odd noise, like the tinkling of small tinny bells, and opened her eyes again, giving them time to adjust to the dark. This time, she felt much better. She realized someone was sitting beside her.

  “Here. Would you like a drink?” He held out a canteen. “Don’t worry. The water is pure. It arrived here with you.”

  She sat up slowly and took the canteen gratefully.

  The man beside her was strapping and tall, with the dark leathery skin of a nomad, who spent his days outside. He wore loose pants, a shirt, and a vest and a hat, although colors were hard to discern at that hour. He also had a thick, curly beard. She looked beyond him to the large herd of animals just below them on the landscape.

  “There are over twelve million goats in Iran,” he said conversationally in Farsi. “Almost every home has one or two. They’re easier to keep than sheep—goats can find food almost anywhere.”

  “How many have you got?” she asked, also in Farsi. If her reentry story was that she had spent time with Iranian goat herders, she would have been expected to speak with them. So over the past year, she had learned.

  “One hundred and forty-six,” he replied. “It’s a communal flock, belonging to our extended family, many of whom are now sleeping in those tents over the hill. The goats are nearly all female; their breed is Tali. We use them for milk. They drop one kid per year. We let the kids grow up; then we sell the males to the market.”

  “All of the males?”

  “No. We keep a couple to father the next year’s kids. And we also castrate a few. Those are the ones you’re hearing. They become the ‘guide goats.’ They get to wear tassels and bells so they’re easy to spot, and they keep the herd together.” He smiled. “God save me from tassels and bells.”

  “Someone is coming for me?” she asked, also conversationally. Neither of them would ask the other for any kind of identification. When she left, it would be as if she’d never been there.

  “By the time the comet has disappeared.”

  “The comet?”

  He used his whole hand to point in an arc from the top of the sky down toward east southeast, to the horizon. “Follow a line from the sliver of the moon, down past Venus… there… do you see? Just above the horizon?”

  She sat still, letting her eyes adjust to the celestial lights in the far sky. And there, hanging just where he’d shown her, was a small fireball blazing sideways.

  “A welcome back,” he said.

  She let her hands run across the homespun blanket beneath her and breathed again of the silent night air. She was back; she was here in the Terris world, with its sand and stars, pollution and wars.

  She’d been sent back on an urgent mission. But was this home anymore?

  “How long does the comet blaze?” she asked.

  “Only half an hour a night,” he answered. “You will go soon. Are you feeling all right?”

  She nodded. Then she said, “Thank you for your hospitality.”

  “It’s all right,” he said. “I’m up anyway.”

  They sat silent, side by side, two friends who knew nothing about each other.

  And Jaime’s new adventure began.

  February 23, 2006, 10:00 a.m.

  40 kilometers southeast of Ad Dīwānīyah, along MSR Tampa, Iraq

  * * *

  Command Sergeant Major Zack DeCamp was not having a good day. He commanded a five-vehicle convoy that served as the personal security detachment for the 5th COSCOM commanding general who was based in Balad, Iraq. If the CG, the Commanding General, had to get somewhere by ground, it was DeCamp’s responsibility. Many American soldiers in Iraq prayed they didn’t have to ride in a convoy very often. Between IEDs (improvised explosive devices), civilian traffic, and the cramped, stifling interior of the new “improved” up-armored Humvees, traveling outside the confines of a Coalition base was both exhausting and dangerous. But convoys were DeCamp’s way of life.

  Today the five vehicles had done a test run along the road from the COSCOM headquarters in Balad, an hour north of Baghdad, down to Tallil, which was four hours south of Baghdad. It hadn’t been easy. Waiting for the engineers to defuse two improvised explosive devices, coping with small-arms fire, and fixing a plain old flat tire had put the convoy three hours behind schedule. And now he was monitoring a very interesting conversation on his SINGARS radio that threatened to delay him even more.

  “Checkmate, this is Earthpig Five, over,” came the initial call over his headset.

  “Go ahead, Earthpig; this is Checkmate.” DeCamp knew that “Checkmate” was the quick reaction force that patrolled this portion of the route between Scania and Tallil. He figured that “Earthpig” must be the large convoy that just passed them on the other side of the divided highway.

  “Checkmate, there is an LN female who just tried to flag down our convoy. She was right along the shoulder waving and signaling to us. It looked very suspicious.”

  “LN” was the term for “Local National.” DeCamp knew the convoy commander was concerned that she might be a suicide bomber or trying to set them up for a trap farther down the road. “She is currently located one kilometer north of checkpoint Delta. Over.”

  Command Sergeant Major DeCamp looked at his map and clenched his teeth around the unlit cigar stub dangling from his lips. Guess who would be coming up to the position in a matter of minutes? He sighed heavily and then spoke into his radio. “Checkmate, this is Outlaw Seven.”

  “Go ahead, Outlaw Seven.”

  “We are one klick from location reported by Earthpig Five. Will check it out.”

  “Roger, Outlaw Seven. Call if you need backup.”

  “We ain’t gonna need any,” he growled to himself. His personal security detachment was its own damn backup. It consisted of five fully up-armored Humvees, each with a rotating turret and gunner with automatic weapon. Compared to the old canvas-sided Humvees, these machines looked like Brinks trucks.

  If Earthpig, barreling in the opposite direction, had just passed the woman, she should be right about here… and indeed, it wasn’t long before DeCamp spotted her, standing alone on the opposite side of the highway. Her head was covered with an ivory-colored scarf, and she wore a long green tunic and matching pants. She waved at them as she had at the convoy before.

  Speaking over the convoy’s internal communication system, DeCamp laid out the plan. “Outlaw One-One and One-Three, cover my right and left. I’m going straight up the middle. Outlaw Eight and Five, take up blocking positions on the highway.”

  His driver cut the wheel to the left and bounded across the median, heading straight for the woman. He skidded to a halt 25 meters directly in front of her, kicking up an immense cloud of dust that sent her into a coughing fit. The next truck pulled off to his right about 30 meters, as if to cut off her escape path to the south. The third did the same to the north. The last two held back to stop any traffic that might approach along the highway. Every turret gunner, while pointing his large automatic weapon toward the ground, kept a close eye on the woman in case she made any sudden or threatening moves.

  The only feature DeCamp could make out was her eyes, and they were understandably wide-open and fearful. It seemed she grasped her disadvantage in the current situation. She slowly raised her hands in the air as if to say, I surrender. He muscled open his door, unsnapped the holster strap on his 9mm pistol, and took a few steps in her direction. He knew he painted a very imposing figure, despite his short five-nine stature. His swarthy skin and stocky frame, combined with a tanker’s helmet and body armor that included extra shoulder protection as well as knee and elbow pads, gave the impression of a Storm Trooper from Star Wars.

  The woman was of medium build, slim, and an inch or two shorter than he.

  By now, the command sergeant major was close enough to tell that she was carrying no weapons. Nor could she be hiding any bombs. He decided to take a chance and approach her. He dug into his pocket and pulled out a special
card written in Arabic that the Civil Affairs team had given him to help communicate with the Iraqis. He held it before her eyes and saw her brow furrow.

  “What? I can speak some Arabic, but I can’t read it very well,” she blurted out.

  He jumped back, startled. “You speak English!”

  “Yes, of course. I’m an American!”

  “What do you mean, ‘of course’? What the fuck are you doing standing along the side of the road in local dress waving at convoys?”

  The woman struggled to suppress a smile at his rather crass answer. “It’s a long story, and one I will gladly share with you, but do you suppose that we could find somewhere more, uh, conducive to a civil conversation?”

  “Oh yeah, sorry.” He reached out his hand and shook hers firmly. “I’m Sergeant Major Zack DeCamp, 5th COSCOM. Who are you, some sort of reporter working with the locals?”

  “No, I’m an American soldier. My name is Jaime Richards. I was with 57th CSG under V Corps. I may be listed as MIA.” She reached up and removed the head scarf, allowing her blond hair to fall freely to her shoulders.

  DeCamp had thought he was past being shocked by anything. Nothing surprised him anymore. But… holy shit.

  Chaplain Jaime Richards had been missing since Operation Iraqi Freedom 1. The early days of the war. Very few people knew of the incident, because it had been classified “Top Secret.” The only reason DeCamp knew was because his general—the Commanding General of the COSCOM in Balad—was senior commander over the unit to which Jaime had belonged.

  Jaime Richards. DeCamp squinted and studied her more closely. Blond hair obviously bleached lighter by the desert sun. Skin tanned, but not unhealthy. The thoughts behind her green eyes seemed curious rather than traumatized.

  “Do you have any I.D.?”

  “No, I lost all that when I was kidnapped three years ago.”

  No I.D. But the woman was clearly American and had divulged information already that very few people knew.