“Sure.”
“I’m game.”
That was why I loved those guys so much. They didn’t see a problem at all with making things happen faster than we normally did them. They were ready to roll with the punches and get shit done so we could get home and I could find Ana.
I just had to hope that she would be able to keep herself safe enough until I got home. I didn’t know what on earth she was planning to do, but whatever it was, I would get my ass home and help her with it.
If she wanted to take Stephano out, she should have told me. I would have sent someone to get it done. That wasn’t the kind of job you did yourself and there were a lot of things to keep in mind if you were going to actually murder a person.
Murder had never really been my thing. Sure, I had killed people while on a job. But the people I killed were always trying to kill me in the moment. I had never hunted someone down for the purpose of killing them. It seemed an antiquated way of getting revenge when there were so many more creative ways you could get a person killed.
The truth was we didn’t know if the people in that cabin were with Stephano or not. We had no information as to why they had pictures of Ana. For all I knew, they could have been stalking her because she was beautiful. The person who took those photos could have been an 80-year-old man who liked hot, young blondes. I didn’t feel like I had nearly enough information to go out and kill Stephano. Although the fact that he tricked Ana into coming to America and kept her captive should have been enough.
“Let’s get this job done,” I said to the guys as we all gathered around the table.
There was no more wasting any time. We all had a few hours of sleep and were going to hammer out the final details so we could get the job completed and get home. I wouldn’t risk my guys’ lives over whatever was going on with Ana, though. The job in front of us was dangerous, complex, and time sensitive. We needed to get every aspect just right if we were going to be successful.
Chapter Seventeen
ANA
Arriving in Damascus, Syria wasn’t as frightening as I had expected. In my mind, I had pictured men with guns standing around everywhere just waiting to shoot people, but the airport was relatively calm.
“Why are you here?” the customs agent asked me in English.
My mind went blank as I stared at him. What would be a good reason for any woman to come to Syria at a time of war? I couldn’t think straight and the man quickly disappeared. He returned with a woman who spoke to me in German.
“I’m here with a charity,” I responded in English.
The woman shook her head at me and looked at my passport for what seemed like an hour, but was probably more like five minutes. She flipped through the pages of my passport as I had arrived from America. I was scared that I had done something wrong by coming to Syria. Did they have laws against women traveling there? Was I supposed to have my head covered? I didn’t know, and the longer I stood there, the more nervous I got.
“Come with me,” the woman replied in English.
She gave nothing away by her facial expression and I couldn’t tell if I was in trouble or not. My heart pounded with all the possibilities as I followed her to a back room. The room was bare, with one table and two chairs in it. It felt like some sort of investigation or interrogation room and I was nervous.
There was no one I could call for help, nothing I could do if they decided to detain me or arrest me. I had no way of getting a hold of Nate and no contact information for his boss back in the States. I did still have Chase and Jordan’s phone numbers memorized, but I really thought Stephano would be watching their house for me.
My hope was that Stephano would have given up on me and just let
me go and live my life. But apparently he wasn’t the type of guy who would give up on anyone, or maybe he just liked keeping me scared forever. I had no idea. But I did know that I wasn’t going to stay afraid of him. Either he wanted to find me and I’d deal with that or he would give up trying to scare me. Eventually, something else would take priority for him, I knew it.
“Miss, you are traveling with only one backpack?” the female customs officer asked me.
“Yes.”
“You do not have your head covered. It is very dangerous here and you should have your head covered.”
“Okay, I will do that.”
I sat there with her and waited for her to ask me more questions or talk to me more, but it appeared we were waiting for someone else to arrive. We sat quietly for a few minutes and then a young man arrived. He looked to be in his early twenties, close to my age. He had on a red vest that was labeled “Red Crescent” and he smiled at me with a friendly grin as he shook my hand.
“Hello, I’m Timothy Anders; I’m with the Red Crescent International team and would like to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.”
I looked at the woman and then back at Timothy Anders.
“Sure.”
“You are here to volunteer?” he asked.