Born A Hero

It had been chaos then. Noise and confusion and near hysteria—all very familiar to a man who spent most of his days working in places sane doctors prudently avoided.

As a trauma surgeon working with MWL for the past three years, he had experienced firsthand the aftermath of war, terrorist attacks and natural disasters. He’d learned to block out the noise and confusion and terror in order to function.

After discovering that the stocky, middle-aged driver spoke decent English, he’d handed the man his cell phone to call for help while he conducted an informal triage, identifying those passengers whose injuries required more than a soothing word and a Band-Aid from the bus’s pathetically inadequate first aid kit.

He’d just finished applying a makeshift splint to a teenage girl’s broken arm when a furious barrage of high-pitched Spanish had caught the driver’s attention. Minutes later, Elliot had found himself struggling to deliver a baby in the bed of a wrecked pickup, with several matronly passengers assisting.

Beneath the hand he kept splayed over the laboring girl’s swollen belly, another contraction rippled, then strengthened, until her entire belly was rock hard. Her hand desperately clutching that of her terrified husband, the frantic young woman screamed. Elliot murmured reassurance, hoping she would understand the tone if not the words.

“Ayudame, por favor!” she begged between cries.

“Help me, please,” the driver translated, his eyes dark with worry.

God, Elliot wanted to, but the baby was a posterior presentation. A damn breech. He glanced toward the empty stretch of road ahead. The driver had made three more calls to the authorities in Puebla del Mar, who promised to hurry.

Standing in a ragged circle around the truck, solemn-faced onlookers waited in an eerie silence broken only by the sound of prayers uttered in low, urgent tones.

Elliot had prayed in just that same way once, his voice thick with an icy terror, his eyes stinging with tears instead of sweat. Over and over he’d begged God to spare another young mother and her child. A baby old enough to lift up her arms to her daddy when he walked in. A dark-haired, dark-eyed bambina with the smile of an angel and a bubbling laugh.

His thoughts began to shatter the way his life had after he’d lost his girls. His chest hurt from the wound where his heart had once beat strong and steady.

Another contraction ripped across the girl’s stomach. Her eyes were huge pools of suffering and fear, beseeching him for help. For a bloody miracle.

Leave me alone, he wanted to shout. Don’t you think I would perform miracles if I could? But I can’t, damn it!

He took a second to pull back from the black empty pit that had been his prison for so many years. He wasn’t God, but he’d sworn an oath to do his best.

“Tell her husband to get behind her and support her shoulders,” he ordered the driver crisply. “I’m going to push the baby back into the birth canal, then try to turn it.”

“Ah sí, comprendo! Like birthing a…a calf, no?”

Elliot nodded. “Sí, exactly like that.” He only hoped he didn’t kill both mama and baby in the process.

Elliot didn’t care where he died. Still, it surprised him to discover he still had enough humanity left not to kill himself where his body might be discovered by someone who cared about him.

The third-rate, bug-infested hotel in the nowhere village of Puebla del Mar was ideal. Here he was just one more gringo. An outsider with a surly attitude and the take-no-prisoners swagger of a barroom brawler.

Hell, most of his fellow guests rented their rooms by the hour, so he doubted they’d even flinch at the sound of a shot. The desk clerk might even take it as a favor, given he could rent the room twice in the same night.

After twisting the cap off the tequila he’d bought after leaving the public clinic this evening, Elliot drank straight from the bottle, one fiery swallow after another until his head was swimming. Reeling a little and careful to keep a tight grip on the bottle, he walked to the sagging bed with its worn gray spread and lumpy mattress.

Old-fashioned wire springs creaked under his weight as he sank down. He took another long swallow, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before reaching under the thin pillow for the worn leather photo case he’d stashed there this morning after checking in. It fell open easily, the fold thinned by constant handling during these past ten years.

A familiar ache spread through his chest as he gazed into the laughing eyes of his two dearest loves—his wife and daughter. Sweet, generous Candy with her open smile and shiny black hair that always smelled like apples and sunshine. Feeling as though he were being strangled, he shifted his gaze to the face of his baby girl, his angel, Lauren, who had her mama’s stubborn chin and beautiful smile. Today would have been his fifteenth wedding anniversary—and his daughter’s eleventh birthday. Ten years was long enough to wake up every morning telling himself his work was enough. No matter how many broken bodies he put back together or how many lives he saved, he still felt empty inside.

He’d tried once, to put it behind him. On a miserable night shortly after the funerals, when he’d hit bottom, Katie had come to him. Sweet, innocent Katie, his sister’s best friend, wearing her heart on her sleeve.

She’d held him, talked to him, made love with him—and in that small window of time he’d felt peace. But afterward, the guilt had nearly crushed him—and Katie. It still hurt, the way he’d treated her.

His mind drifted. It had been a close call this afternoon on that hot, dusty road, but the mama and baby had survived. He’d damn near lost it when he’d drawn that tiny little body into the world. Mad as a little hornet, she’d started squalling as soon as he’d cleared away the amniotic fluid. Despite the temper, she’d been a dainty little girl with dark fuzz covering her little round head, and milky-blue eyes sure to turn dark.

Suddenly it had been Lauren there on her mommy’s tummy, and Candy gazing down at her daughter with dark, shining eyes. It was too much for one man to bear, this crushing grief that never let him rest, no matter how tired he made himself. God knew, he’d fought it, pretending that he had put the grief and despair behind him, hoping he could make the pretense real if he repeated the lie often enough.

Only now he’d simply stopped caring. He couldn’t fight any longer. He missed his girls. If there was a heaven—and he had no faith that there was—he wanted to be there with them.

His parents and his sister would mourn for him, he knew, and that hurt. But Mom and Pop had each other, and his baby sister had her friends and her job as a social worker. And sweet little Katie? He did regret not being able to make amends for the way he’d treated her. He tried, but every time he was home, she made it a point to avoid him. Not that he blamed her.

He smiled a little sadly as he drained the last drop from the bottle, then let it fall to the mattress. Head swimming, he unzipped the duffel bag at his feet and took out the .44 Magnum his dad had given him when he hired on with MWL.

“Keep it loaded and never point it at anyone you’re not willing to watch die,” his dad had said in a steely voice Elliot had never heard before.

Even as he slipped the barrel between his lips, he grieved a little when he thought about how upset Pop would be if he ever found out it was his gun that had fired the bullet into his son’s brain.

Elliot closed his eyes and his finger tightened on the trigger.

Washington, D.C.

The tall, white-haired gentleman with chiseled features, close-cropped white beard and military bearing who stepped from the elevator of the historic Willard Hotel and turned left was familiar with the agony of war and the sorrow of its innocent victims.

Though he no longer wore the olive drab of the U.S. Army, seventy-year-old Jonathan Dalton’s dedication to peace and freedom for all was still the abiding force in his life. To that end, a few years after resigning his commission he had begun using his skills and training to aid victims of abuse and oppression all over the world.

One by one he had recruited others to this same cause, fellow warriors with expertise in a wide range of fields, from medicine to demolition—men he trusted with his life and his honor, men willing to lay down their lives to make the world a better place.

For a long time there had been only five, an elite force of tough, dedicated commandos who had been sadly disillusioned after the Vietnam War. Few knew of their existence, and those who did had been sworn to secrecy as a condition of receiving their help. One of the few, a forward-thinking leader of an emerging nation in South America, had given them the name by which they were now known—the Noble Men—after they had successfully thwarted the overthrow of his government by dissidents.

Over the years others had joined the cause, good and valiant men all. As the original five men became more deeply involved in raising families and building businesses, they’d gone on fewer missions. Still deeply involved, however, the original five conscientiously considered every plea for help, accepting more than they declined.

Scattered across the continental U.S. now, where each had lucrative business and investment interests, they routinely communicated by secure phone lines and e-mail when security wasn’t crucial. But this mission was special.

King Marcus Sebastiani of Montebello was both a friend and, because of a past mission in his own land, a fellow comrade-in-arms. It had been his urgent, though rushed, telephone call to Jonathan’s private line at his Texas home yesterday morning that had brought the five Noble Men together tonight.

The room Jonathan sought was at the end of a dogleg corridor. Unlike the others he passed, its twin doors were unmarked. Officially, it was listed on the hotel’s roster as a house suite held in reserve for unexpected VIP guests. Occasionally it was even used for that purpose. Far more often, however, the three rooms beyond those doors served as a meeting place for some very hush-hush groups known only to a select few, extremely senior officials in the uppermost echelons of the intelligence community.

Satisfied that he was unobserved, Jonathan lifted a large, suntanned hand and rapped twice. An instant later, the door opened a crack, and he found himself facing a grim-looking man holding a Glock .45 pointed directly at his belly.

Chapter 3

“Get your butt in here, Dalton, and stop glaring at me.”

A captain in the U.S. Navy when he’d resigned his commission after the Vietnam War, Richard Sutter held the highest rank of the five Noble Men. In an organization as closely knit as this one, rank was a meaningless technicality, but Sutter took gleeful delight in needling his colleagues just for the fun of it. In retaliation, Jonathan and the rest of the guys ruthlessly ragged Sutter about his expanding gut.

A few inches shorter than Jonathan’s six-foot-one, with stubble-short salt-and-pepper hair, shrewd blue eyes and an imperious way of biting off his words, Richard had been instrumental in amassing the diverse flotilla of vessels available to their operatives all over the world at virtually a moment’s notice.

“Hell of a lousy way to welcome a man who saved your butt more than once, Sutter,” Jonathan growled as Richard tucked his pistol into the hollow of his spine before stepping back to allow him to enter.

In his early sixties now, the ex-captain showed few physical signs of the torturous ordeal he’d suffered after being captured during one of the missions undertaken by the group. Jonathan suspected the wounds to Richard’s psyche still troubled him on occasion, but then, all of them had scars that didn’t show.

“Just following standard operating procedure, Major,” Sutter replied with one of his rare-as-hen’s-teeth grins as they exchanged a fond handshake. “Want a beer, old man?”

Jonathan shot him a sardonic look. “Does a hound dog hunt?”

“Roger that,” Sutter snapped as he headed for the wet bar built into one corner of the suite’s living room.

At the same time, Jonathan swept his surroundings with trained eyes, memorizing exits, windows and then finally the layout of the room. More important than the spiffy furnishings, however, was the total privacy the suite offered, as well as the secure communications system.

“Fetch me another brewski while you’re at it, Cap’n,” Edward Ramsey called as he rose from one of the silver-and-blue sofas flanking a large chrome-and-glass coffee table. A solid brick of a man of medium height—and an air force major before he’d left the service—Eddie had been a top gun before that particular term had become public property. In his early sixties now, he reminded Jonathan of a feisty bulldog who still had more fight in him that most men had in their prime.

“Good to see you, Johnny,” Eddie said as they shook hands.

Jonathan grunted. “Heard your son’s making a name for himself in the skies over the Mediterranean. Flying the F-18 now, isn’t he?”

“He’s getting the job done, yeah.” Despite the unassuming words, pride glinted in Ramsey’s gray eyes, the same pride Jonathan suspected showed in his own whenever someone mentioned his own son, Jack. Not that Jack would believe that, however.

“Ah, c’mon, Eddie, we’re all friends here,” Dr. Gordon Hunter exclaimed as he, too, got to his feet in order to greet the most recent arrival. “If you can’t brag about your kids here, where else can you?” Though Gordo’s pride in his own son, Elliot, had always been obvious to all, Jonathan knew that Doc had lost a lot of sleep lately, worrying about his firstborn.

“How’s it going, Gordo?” Jonathan asked as they shook hands.

An inch or so under six feet, with intelligent gray-green eyes behind studious-looking glasses, Doc Hunter had served his country as a field surgeon in Vietnam. Leaner than most, Doc had a wiry strength that had surprised more than one opponent during past operations.

“I tell you, J.D., if I was any better, I’d be perfect,” he said with that slow mischievous grin that both charmed and disarmed—the same grin Jonathan remembered seeing on Elliot in the days before the boy’s life had been blown apart.

“Modest as always, I see, Doc,” Richard interjected as Eddie handed him a long-necked bottle of the murky Ecuadorian beer he’d discovered during a mission to that country in the late eighties.

“What’d you do, J.D., ride one of your precious cutting horses up here from Texas?” The question came from behind, triggering an instant jolt of adrenaline. In the field, Jonathan would have already dropped and rolled, his weapon drawn and ready. Fortunately, he recognized the deep voice with its distinctive Southwestern twang and allowed himself a grin.

“Nope, took that little bitty Gulfstream I picked up a few months back for weekend trips.”

“Damn, and here I was thinkin’ you’d slowed down some.”

At fifty-four, Caleb Stone was the baby of the group. An even six feet tall and incredibly fit, Cal had the kind of brooding dark looks and remarkable leaf-green eyes that women found irresistible. At least, that’s what Gordo’s wife, Helena, had told Jonathan once during one of their rare social get-togethers.

Never married, Cal had been drafted right out of high school in the Four Corners area of Arizona. Before leaving for Vietnam, he had sired a son with a young Navajo woman who’d died while he was trying to get his bearings after rotating home. He and his boy had a rocky relationship that Cal regretted deeply, though, like the rest of them, he rarely spoke of his feelings.

“So what’s going down in Montebello this time, Johnny?” Cal asked as he ambled toward the group with a loose-jointed athletic stride Jonathan envied.

“King Marcus is worried the feud with Tamir is heating up again. He wants to talk strategy before he takes action.”

It was a damned Romeo and Juliet mess, this thing between the royal families of Montebello and Tamir. For over one hundred twenty years the rulers of these two small, but prosperous, island kingdoms located within spitting distance of one another in the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea had been at sword’s point, wrangling over a chunk of land on the western end of Montebello.

It seemed anachronistic now, raging a blood feud over what had originally been set aside as dowry for a princess. An extremely valuable dowry, Jonathan had to admit, given the considerable oil reserves and mineral deposits that currently existed on the land. Marcus had told him the story years ago when the then crown prince had asked their fledgling organization for help to stop rebel factions on the Arabian peninsula from taking over Montebello.

In the way of aristocratic families in the nineteenth century, King Augustus Sebastiani of Montebello and Sheik Mukhtar Kamal had arranged a marriage between Delia Sebastiani and Sheik Omar in order to form a political and economic alliance between traditionally warring neighbors. However, the land promised as dowry remained in Sebastiani hands when Sheik Omar had been mysteriously killed before the wedding could take place. Mired in grief, Delia had taken her own life.

More than a century later, the tragic drama continued. Just last fall the king had announced his intention to give the disputed land to his son, Crown Prince Lucas, in the hope that it would spur the bachelor prince to think more seriously about marrying and producing an heir. Then late in January, during a blinding snowstorm, Lucas had gone down in a private plane over the Colorado Rockies. Though the wreckage had been found a month later, the prince’s body was missing despite an all-out search.

Cal’s mouth thinned. “Is Sheik Ahmed Kamal rattling his scimitar again?”

Jonathan nodded. “Seems he’s revising that old claim that Montebello rightfully belongs to Tamir.”

Richard snorted. “Hell, those families have been wrangling over that blasted dowry land for more than a century. Kamal’s side has come up short every time. What makes him think he has a better chance than his ancestors to make it stick?”

“Seems in spite of all the security types guarding both families, the sheik’s firstborn son, Rashid, managed to get real cozy with Princess Julia. In fact, he apparently got her pregnant with Kamal’s first grandbaby.”

Eddie whistled through his teeth as he handed Jonathan a bottle of dark lager, his favorite. As unofficial mess steward, Ramsey prided himself on laying in a goodly supply of everyone’s favorite eats and drinks. “What’s Rashid have to say about this?”

“According to Marc, Sheik Rashid suddenly dropped out of sight right after the two of them had, uh, done the deed. That was six weeks ago, give or take a few days.” Jonathan settled into one of the overstuffed chairs and leaned back before allowing himself a long, soothing swallow of lager. “Kamal’s making the case that with Prince Lucas missing and presumed dead, this child, if it’s a boy, will be heir to the throne. And since he claims Rashid is the baby’s father, by both Montebellan and Tamirian law what belongs to the baby belongs to him.”

“To that bastard Kamal, you mean.” Richard’s voice was ripe with disgust. “What time did the king’s aide say to expect his call?”

“Any moment now.”

As if on cue, the phone rang.

“Ah, my dear friends, it is good to hear your voices again.”

King Marcus Sebastiani had a melodious baritone and a Cambridge accent acquired during his school years at that prestigious university. His words were as clear as a bell coming through the speaker phone on the coffee table.

In contrast, Jonathan’s Texas twang had been ruined long ago by the harsh Turkish cigarettes he’d chain-smoked for forty years. “Good to hear yours, too, Your Majesty. Any further news on Prince Lucas?”

“Unfortunately, no, but we will never give up hope. In the meantime, I must attend to my duty to my people, which is why I have asked for this consultation.” His heavy sigh whispered through the speaker. “My advisors and myself believe that maggot-brained back end of a donkey is even now planning action against us.”

“Sutter here, Your Majesty. Any idea what kind of action?”

“Marc, please, gentlemen. Or have you forgotten how we dodged bullets and crawled together through the mud?”

Gordo Hunter chuckled before adding, “Ate a good coupla pounds of that same mud, as I recall.”

“Indeed.” The men in the room exchanged grins before narrowing their focus when the king spoke again. “My chief of security has received what we believe are extremely reliable reports from several key agents, suggesting that Kamal intends to have Julia kidnapped and kept in seclusion until she delivers the child. We have taken steps to protect her, of course, but we cannot protect all our citizens in the same way.”

“Ed Ramsey here, Marc. Have your agents heard tell of any terrorist groups showing up in Tamir anytime during the last few weeks?”

“No, but one of our best operatives, who has become, shall we say, intimate with one of Kamal’s top generals, just sent word that the man is even now planning a massive amphibious-landing training exercise to be held within the next few days. He—” The king was interrupted by what sounded to trained ears like a muffled explosion.

“Marc? Your Majesty, are you all right?” Dalton asked urgently.

When the king came on the line again, his voice was filled with both rage and urgency. “Gentlemen, I have just been informed that a bomb has gone off in the civilian square just two blocks from the palace. It destroyed a building, trapping people inside. There will surely be casualties.” His voice shook slightly as he added, “Gordo, I fear we will need your skills yet again.”

While the others formulated a plan of action to get the appropriate personnel into place quickly, Gordon consulted by phone with the chief of staff of King Augustus Hospital, where even now the injured were being brought by ambulance and private vehicle.

A graduate of Yale Medical School, Dr. Guiseppe Andretti was considered Montebello’s premier cardiologist. Gordon had spent time with him on several occasions while on business and pleasure trips to Montebello over the years. A rotund, jocular sort, Gus, as he had been called since his days in the States, was a first-rate administrator, as well as an excellent surgeon.

From what Gordon had learned so far, the scene at the bombing site was chaotic, with frantic relatives pouring into the area and rescue workers bumping into each other in an attempt to dig victims from the rubble. Andretti had called in all available staff. Unfortunately, a particularly virulent strain of influenza was currently making its way through the capital city, afflicting a good third of hospital personnel.

“So we’re agreed, the first priority is additional surgeons, especially head and bone docs,” Gordon summed up after consulting his notes.

“Agreed.” Although Dr. Andretti spoke calmly, even crisply, Gordon heard a note of underlying urgency in his voice. “Trauma experience would be especially helpful in all areas, of course. Most of the staff here has very little experience with the kinds of massive injuries we’ve seen in several of the twelve victims in house so far.”

“Duly noted, Doctor,” Gordon said, his mind already clicking through the list of field surgeons and specialists available to the Noble Men. It was, he realized grimly, a very short list. “I’ll get right on it.”

“One more thing, Doctor,” Andretti said as Gordon was about to disconnect, “according to one of the paramedics at the scene, a woman who had left the restaurant only minutes before the blast reported that she’d been seated next to a young couple with an infant. A little girl, I believe, around seven or eight months old.”

“Damn,” Gordon said softly. “I don’t suppose this child has been rescued?”

“Not yet. Unfortunately, we’re thin on experienced pediatric surgeons at the moment as well.”