Ted Dekker - Bonemans Daughters

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BONEMAN'S DAUGHTERS

TED DEKkER

CENTER STREET.

NEW YORK BOSTON NASHVILLE

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright 2009 by Ted Dekker

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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Printed in the United States of America

First Edition: April

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dekker, Ted, 1962

BoneMans daughters Ted R. Dekker. 1st ed.p>

p. cm. Summary: A Texas serial killer called BoneMan is on the loose, choosing young girls as his prey. A high-level military intelligence officer is captured in Fallujah, and his Iraqi captor is threatening the life of his wife and daughter at home. And he appears to have a link with BoneMan. Provided by publisher.

ISBN 978-1-59995-195-9

I. Title.

PS3554.E43B66 2009

813.54dc22

For Rachelle

THE DAY THAT Ryan Evanss world changed forever began as any other day hed spent in the hot desert might have begun.

On the move, on the double.

Redeploying, as they liked to call it in the army. Changing stations, changing units, changing rank, and all at a moments notice because when command said jump, you jumped. When command said lock and load, you got up, geared up, and went where command ordered you. It didnt matter if you were an E2 washing dishes or a lieutenant on the fast track to War College. You belonged to the Department of Defense, the Pentagon, and the chain of command.

Commander Ryan Evans was temporarily on loan to an army joint-operational counterintelligence unit comprised of intel specialists from the army, the navy, and the air force. As a unit they fed and bled intelligence data from satellite surveillance, human intel assets, electronic taps, and military intelligence. Pieces of data came from every corner of the intelligence spectrum, funneled down to a direct point. Bottom line, up top, as command liked to say.

Most of the time verifying and assessing intel was like looking at a circuit board through a telescope. Or like trying to open a tin of canned food with a tuba. But every now and then, intel was just that. Intelligence. Discovery.

Ryan was an analyst, borrowed from the navy to serve with the army. He read reports, examined evidence, and poured more reports up the chain than the Pentagon could read. Nothing short of a human sieve. But in the end he was just one small piece on this game board called war. End of story.

Or on this particular day, the beginning of a story.

Advanced game theory, tactics, terrain, numbers, percentagesthis was how Ryan had always viewed the world, even before hed made the decision to pursue a career in the navy. The last two years in-theater had convinced him that a career in accounting might have been the wiser choice, but he wasnt one to complain or reconsider the sixteen years investment of his life. Particularly not when he was only three months from the end of his final tour.

To be fair, his position in the military was enviable when compared to the duty of many others. Rather than entrench or advance with infantry, most of his days were spent at a desk, reviewing orders, sifting through the work of the twenty people working under him, intercepting and decoding every scrap of information gathered in a net of assets cast over a much broader region than most could possibly guess. Between satellite photos, electronic interception, UAV footage, and hard, boots-on-sand reports, the flood of information passing through his office on any given day would bury a man who couldnt view the world from a distance. Where others obsessed over each twig and leaf, Ryan kept a watchful eye on the entire forest, so to speak, searching for an enemy hidden beneath the leaves. Patterns and trends.

But today command had decided that he should move to a different quadrant of his sector to take a closer look. A raid in a small village ten miles east of Fallujah had netted what might or might not be a treasure trove of information. They called it Sensitive Site Exploitation. He still wasnt entirely clear on why the general had decided that he should take a closer look at the bunker complexin personparticularly in a region not yet assessed for equally unknown threats. But Ryan wasnt one to question orders. Information, certainly, but not the decisions of his superiors.

Eight am and it was already over a hundred degrees in the shade.

He slapped the swinging door that led into the intel room open and sidestepped Jamil, a twenty-one-year-old whiz kid who, like Ryan at his age, had a unique knack for pulling needles out of haystacks, as they sometimes referred to sifting through intel.

Theyre waiting outside with the convoy, sir.

Tell them Im on my way. You get the report on the Iranian border breaches down to General Mitchell?

Last night, as promised.

He dipped his head. Carry on.

Ryan surveyed the thirty-by-seventy room, a metal Quonset hut that had been loaded with enough electronic equipment and communication cells to keep any civilian blinking for a full minute. If it happened in the Middle East, it went through this room. At the moment a dozen regulars hovered over their stations, mostly monitoring feeds rolling down their monitors. The sound of laser printers provided a constant hum, white noise that had followed Ryan most of his adult life.

Lieutenant Gassier approached, cracking his neck. We have a new batch of intel coming from the south; you sure you dont want me to take this hike?

The general had left that call up to him, but hed kept behind his desk in the office adjacent this hall far too long. A day trip out into the desert now and then could clear the cobwebs. Not that his intelligence was clouded.

Itll do me good. You got this covered?

Like a lid.

Ryan turned back toward the door. Back by sunset, then.

Keep your head low.

He left the Quonset without acknowledging the advice. Bad luck.

THE TIRES OF the armored Humvee roared on the pavement beneath Ryans feet. Hed sat in silence for the last ten minutes as they sped west along Highway 10 toward Fallujah.

Three klicks to the turnoff, the driver, a corporal from Virginia, announced. You okay back there, sir?

Ryan shifted his body armor to ease an itch on his left breastbone. Fine. Air would be nice.

The enlisted man next to him, Staff Sergeant Tony San-tinas, chuckled. You think this is bad, sir? Try sitting in this hotbox for eight hours at five miles an hour. Welcome to the army.

Ryan wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. I can only imagine.

They followed a lead Humvee and were trailed by a third, moving a good eighty miles an hour. A fast target made a hard target. On the highway speed meant security. It also turned the Humvee into a mobile blast furnace, crushing through hot air upwards of a hundred and twenty degrees. Thankfully, the reinforced windows were cracked only enough to allow good circulationlike windchill, when fast moving, the hot air somewhat exacerbated the heat.