An Undisclosed Warrior

Quebec, Canada 

CHAPTER 1 

   Wade had executed this safety routine so many times he could do it in his sleep. He double-checked every entry point to his room, set the dead bolt, jammed a rubber wedge under the door, and latched the security feature. He knew his efforts wouldn’t stop a professional killer from breaking into his room, but the sounds of the breach would be enough to alert him in time. 

   He made sure the door to the connecting room was locked and secured, then set a table and chair against it. Before turning out the lights, he drew the drapes, leaving just a slit of an opening. 

   He was on the third floor of a four-story hotel. The room had a street-facing window, and he was sitting near it, watching the parking lot below. Beyond the parking lot was the Chemin du Roy—the Kings Highway—Route138 and the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River. Before retiring for the evening, he opened his laptop and sent his handler an end-to-end encrypted email. 

   When he was satisfied that his work was finished, and that he was as secure as possible, he closed his eyes and focused on slowing his breaths, calming himself. The room’s wall-mounted air conditioning generated a consistent background hum, and he noted how the AC created enough noise to muffle the reverberations of traffic ascending from the highway. 

His mission was complete. Only one final step remained: to return to Washington with the package and his life. 

   Sleep did not come easy. It never did. Wade drifted back and forth between a state of somnolence and REM. The familiar scenes of a recurring nightmare caused him to toss and turn every few minutes. 

   During a moment of rising consciousness from the battle for rest, he sensed movement. His right eye opened enough to catch a hint of a human form sliding along the floor. Can’t be, he reasoned, not sure what was happening. If someone is in my room, a fatal error has occurred. In that state between half-asleep and waking, he grasped for a sense of what was real and what was not. The answer materialized as a hand covering his mouth and nose. 

   Wade’s right hand, trapped under the sheet, felt useless. His left hand flailed against the one covering his mouth, but his assailant’s elbow blocked and kept it away. And something cold pressed against his left cheek as his eyes struggled to adjust in the dark. 

   The object, he sensed, was the barrel of a steel-plated handgun. 

   The assailant kept his left foot planted firmly on the floor and dropped his right knee hard into Wade’s chest, creating enough pressure to turn a simple act of breathing into a life-and-death struggle. 

   A second intruder entered and turned on one of the bedside lights from a wall switch near the bathroom door. From what little Wade perceived, he determined the new interloper was much smaller than the man kneeling on top of him. 

   “If you make any sudden moves,” the man restraining him said, “I’ll blow your half-breed face clean off.” In his right hand, he held a S&W 22 Victory semiautomatic. He slid the barrel from Wade’s cheek and pressed it hard in the center of his forehead. 

   It wasn’t the wake-up call Wade had requested. He nodded that he understood. The smothering hand slowly lifted, but the gun barrel remained. 

   Wade gasped for air. Playing dumb was his initial gambit. “What do you want? Who are you?” 

   The intruder’s agitation became apparent as he pushed the weapon harder against Wade’s forehead. In reply, the weapon’s grip crashed into Wade’s left cheekbone, cutting deep into his flesh. 

   “The name is Drakos. Go ahead, chief, ask me another dumb question.” 

   The pain and smell triggered an unpleasant déjà vu as blood flowed from the open wound. But he didn’t panic. His ancestry, his history of loss spared no room for panic. 

   Tobias Jackson Wade was a direct descendant—on his mother’s side—of Chief Rain-in-the-Face, a war chief of the Lakota tribe. His father was of English descent and a trial lawyer turned activist for tribal rights in Washington, D.C. Wade was their only surviving child. An older brother, Dakotah, died in Desert Storm, and his sister, Kimimela, passed away on her honeymoon in a freak hang-gliding accident in Hawaii. Both parents, too, were gone. 

   After twelve years of military service—five with Special Forces and four with the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Enigma Force as a clandestine undercover agent—Wade was the product of impeccable training in every conceivable covert and combat situation imaginable. In every area of training, he excelled. But tonight wasn’t a training exercise. 

   “Where are the documents and plates?” Drakos asked. “Start talking or my associate over there”—he tilted his head to the left—”Mr. Revere, will put a round in your kneecap.” 

   Wade’s awareness came flooding back. These were professionals, he knew that now. They knew his name, ancestry, and what he was transporting. This was no random robbery. 

   “What are you talking about ... I’m—” the hand reclaimed its position over Wade’s mouth and nose. He couldn’t see the other guy when he fired his weapon. The silencer worked in perfect harmony with the clattering air conditioner as the bullet entered Wade’s right leg, inches above the kneecap. Only a whisper of detectable sound must’ve escaped the room. 

   The pain was so intense it made Wade’s entire body shake. His eyes opened. He tried to refocus on the face doing the talking and holding the semiauto against his head. 

   Drakos again glanced to his left, nodding toward his partner as if to say, “Well done.” Wade was fully alert now, and noticed the man was wearing a tuxedo and a Mexican Lucha Libre mask. 

   Wade’s eyes drifted to the right, toward the bathroom, and could see in the dim light a stout man with a round face and shaved head, also dressed in formal attire and sporting a Zorro-style mask over his eyes and the bridge of his nose. 

   Wade processed the situation, registering everything and formulating a plan: he needed to separate these two, cause misdirection, distract them, take control, and do the unexpected. 

   His attention shifted back to the man whose knee was pressing full- bore on his chest. The foreboding eyes glared through the cutouts in his mask. Wade sensed the intruder’s thoughts, his gaze doing the talking. I dare you. 

   The heavy hand eased away, and the gun barrel shifted to the under- side of Wade’s chin. 

   Wade conceded. “I’ll cooperate. Everything you want is in there.” He rolled his eyes and tilted his head toward the walk-in closet. “It’s all in the briefcase and on the laptop, upper shelf, under the extra pillow.” 

   The stout man disappeared into a wide but shallow closet across from the bathroom door. His partner watched in anticipation. Wade knew this was his opportunity. 

   He slipped his right hand out from under the sheets and grabbed the intruder’s right wrist, pushing it and the firearm away from his face, all the while torquing it outward and turning it inward. He then placed his other hand under his opponent’s elbow, forcing it upward, and simultaneously shifting his weight to his right side, and ramming his left leg into the assailant’s ribs. 

   As the attacker’s mass leaned to Wade’s right side, the gun discharged a single round, ripping through Drakos’ right bicep. The power-move flipped the big man’s body off Wade’s chest and the bed, hurling him head- first into the corner nightstand, breaking the lamp and rendering Drakos, for the moment, unconscious, and the room in near darkness. 

   Everything to Wade was now moving in slow motion. He had entered the combat zone, where thinking accelerated and movements decelerated. He held on to Drakos’ arm by the wrist and yanked it up and back, popping his lanky adversary’s shoulder out of joint and compelling him to drop the pistol on the bed. Wade snatched it up. Drakos remained motionless. 

   The heavyset man in the Mexican mask, aware of the commotion, flipped on the bathroom light. He crouched down on one knee and edged his way into the room with his firearm at the ready. He leveled the sight and fired two rounds, the first bullet shattering the lamp on the adjoining nightstand, missing Wade’s head by a few inches, and the second piercing his left shoulder, causing him to fall back on the bed. Blood now flowed from three open wounds. 

   Wade returned one round of fire, aware that he was slowly going into shock. Keep calm, he told himself. Stay in the here-and-now. Remember your training. He fought hard to remain coherent, but hallucinations took over as time and motion slowed. 

   Get up, Wade. Sergeant Noble, an apparition of his former drill instructor shouted at him. Focus, Marine. This is no time to rest. You’re in a battle for your life! 

   Wade's mind drifted back to Special Forces training. The vision materialized in a dream-like state. Keep it together. Complete the action. Finish the fight! 

   Noble’s exhortations compelled his eyes, closed from pain, to reopen. He lifted his head just as the shadowy figure of the fat man slumped to the floor, blood pumping out the back of his head as he falls face-first into the carpet. His single shot had found its target. 

   Wade’s instinct pleaded with him to lie down. Enough, it screamed as his entire body trembled. But Sergeant Noble loomed again. Tobias Jackson Wade, you’ve had enough when I say you’ve had enough. Now get up. Enemy spotted on your right flank. 

   The spirit had a surreal yet calming effect on his psyche. The agony decanting from his body ebbed as endorphins poured into the blood- stream. His breathing relaxed. 

   Drakos had recovered and was beginning to stir. His eyes darted in every direction, and he crawled along the side of the bed, his right arm dangling, inoperative. Blood flowed from the wound administered by his own firearm. That gun, now in Wade’s possession, complicated his odds. 

   Wade noticed Revere lying prone on the carpet, his blood and brain matter splattered on the far wall, and his gun still clasped in his hand. And he spied Drakos reaching the body of his fallen associate and trying to wrest the weapon out of his hand. 

   “Let go,” Drakos screamed. But the death grip was too tight. He lifted the dead man’s hand off the rug and slammed it back down, twice, to no avail. He lay the hand down, palm up, and used his functioning left hand to hammer into Revere’s wrist. The blunt force opened the fingers and released the gun. He wrapped his hand around the stock and placed his index finger on the trigger. 

   His non-dominant hand trembled as he elevated it above the mat- tress. He locked in on his enemy, aiming the weapon when a fist pounded on the door from the hallway, a voice calling out, “Security! Mr. Wade, are you alright?” 

   Drakos turned his head towards the sound. That was his fatal mistake. Seizing the moment, Wade fired another shot.