The Project 01 - White Jade Read Online Free PDF Page B

stall.
    He leads his team past the market. Close enough to the buildings to be able to duck into a doorway. Far enough away so a round fired won't burrow down a wall and right into him.
    He hears a baby cry. The street is deserted. Where is everyone?
    A dozen b earded figures rise up on the rooftops and begin firing AKs. The market stalls disintegrate around him in a firestorm of splinters and plaster and rock exploding from the sides of the buildings.
    He dives for cover. A child runs toward him, screaming about Allah. Nick watches a nd hesitates, a second too long. The boy cocks his arm back and throws a grenade as Nick shoots him . The M4 kick s back, one, two, three.
    The first round strikes the boy's chest, the second his throat, the third his face. The child's head balloons into a red fountain of blood and bone. The grenade drifts through the air in slow motion...everything goes white...

    He woke shouting, twisted in sweat-soaked sheets.
    He got up, made coffee, poured in a double Jameson ' s. W hen he had the dream there was no point in going back to bed.
    When he joined the Marines he'd been gung-ho . Naive. R eady to change the world. But all the nameless and meaningless landscapes of loss and death had changed him . T he world stayed the same.
    That kid in Afghanistan couldn't have been more than eleven or twelve. Old enough to throw a ball, or a grenade, a pretty good distance. Young enough to believe the bullshit he'd been fed about what God wanted him to do and put himself right where Carter would have to kill him.
    Th e child and the grenade always waited in the back of his mind. Carter knew there wasn't anything else he could have don e , but it didn't help. It was one more death in a chaotic war that could n't be won , in a corrupt and brutal land .
    W orking for Harker gave him a way to bring some kind of meaning to it . It was personal. A way to stop the kind of people who'd sent that child against him . People who thought it was a really good idea to put grenades in the hands of children. People who thought that whatever they wanted was the only right way for everyone . That killing anyone who didn't agree with them was righteous . People who thought God was pleased by that. Carter was damn sure God hadn't told that kid what to do.
    He waited for sunrise.

Chapter Nine

    Sunlight shone on streets wet with early morning rain. Water on the pavement mirrored a clear, bright sky of light blue with scattered white clouds. The heat wave had broken . T he smog had blown away in the night . T he city smelled fresh and clean.
    A black Ford Crown Vic with plain wheels and government plates pulled up where Carter waited outside his building . A man sat in the front passenger seat wearing a gaudy red Hawaiian shirt covered with white flowers . A loose, cream colored linen jacket bulged over his holstered Glock . He was wearing wraparound shades and a pork pie hat . H e looked like he ' d just stepped off the set of CSI Miami.
    Ronnie Peete was a full blooded Navajo , born on the Reservation. His skin was a light, reddish brown. He had broad shoulders and narrow hips and s leepy brown eyes that could spot a hawk or a sniper at a thousand yards. Ronnie had been a Gunnery Sergeant in Nick's Recon unit. Carter considered him the best combat Marine he'd ever known. He was also a friend.
    " How ' s the ear? " Ronnie asked through the open window.
    " Itches like hell. "
    Nick climbed in back. They pulled away. Ronnie looked back over the front seat.
    " They had some great shots on the news last night. Bodies and wrecks on the highway, you covered with blood. How come you have all the fun? "
    " Lucky, I guess. Harker find anything out yet? "
    " Nope. No ID on any of them. The attackers were probably Chinese. Harker filled me in. Maybe it ' s about that book. It ' s too much of a coincidence. "
    " That ' s what I think. "
    " She asked me to ride along to the airport, just in case. "
    They pulled up at the Mayflower. Selena w