Walker (In the Company of Snipers #21) - Irish Winters Page 0,163
thought I had everything. I was living the life. But working with her was like playing with a buzz saw every single day.”
Alex grunted. “She was just a mom under stress.”
“I understand, but nothing I said or did was right or good or fast enough for her back then. Every word out of her mouth was just plain bitter and nasty. Trust me, my wife’s tongue can slice you to ribbons before you know what you did to piss her off, but” —he sucked in a deep breath— “everything changed the morning we infiltrated one of the Dragons’ illegal foster homes…”
Walker stilled as Zack stopped talking.
The gleam in his eyes was gone. A full minute passed before he could speak. “The second I picked this one little girl up” —his voice turned low and somber— “the exact damned second I had her little butt sitting on my forearm… Her name was Song, but she smelled so bad, and she was so small and soft. She had cradle cap and lice and thrush, but when she blinked up at me… when I looked down into her pretty brown eyes… When she snuggled under my chin and sighed like she was finally wanted and loved and…”
His big fist came up and thumped the center of his expansive chest. “It got to me, Walker,” he growled, his voice tight and his eyes gleaming. “Right here. She was so little and so damned helpless. That place” —the muscles in his thick neck worked as he forced a swallow— “reeked of urine and filth. Nothing was clean. And the bitch showing us her wares—all those babies—was smoking! With those little baby girls still in cribs, that old hag had a cigarette hanging off her nasty lip, and they were breathing her shitty air! And then we… Then I… Shit! I didn’t think talking to you was going to be this hard.”
Zack’s fingers curled into fists. Whatever he needed to say seemed too hard for him to articulate, so Walker said it for him. “Then you knew exactly how Mei felt.”
“Yeah, yeah, right. Then I knew nothing else mattered. I… we” —his index finger toggled between Alex and him— “had to get back into that shithouse and save Song and all those other babies. Like I said, nothing about that op went right. I damned near got beat to death, and Mei was insane with worry. But in the end, we saved three hundred and eleven little ones, didn’t we, Boss?”
“We did,” Alex answered quietly. “Some were straight out of China’s orphanages. Others had been kidnapped. It was a human tragedy of epic proportions, right in the middle of Washington, DC.”
“But we got Song out of there, by hell,” Zack insisted. “Mei and I fostered her until we were able to adopt her. Not long after, Mother found LiLi in Paris. I went over there to bring her home. But man, when I finally had her safe in my car, she was just like her mom. Sharp-tongued and emotionally unstable. So damned demanding.” He ran a quick hand over his head again. “And I loved it.”
“Women do have a power all their own,” Walker murmured, thinking of the dark-haired, strong-willed, and very capable agent he’d fallen in love with.
“They do,” Alex sighed. “So, listen up. Walker, you’ll team up with Zack and Senior Agent David Tao.”
“You want me to work with you?” Walker asked Zack. “But you don’t even know me.”
Zack grinned. “So? I got a feeling it’ll be fun.”
“Exactly what do you do?”
Alex turned somber. “We rescue children and women who are either already being trafficked or who are in transit. We pull them out of human trafficker’s hands, and, when possible, we end the bastards who captured them, as quietly as possible. David Tao operates The TEAM safe house in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. He’s my single point of refuge in a culture that feeds off its young.”
“You’ll like him,” Zack added. “David’s a great guy. He’s quiet and reserved. A Buddhist. Never gets mad. Could’ve been a monk, but I swear, the man can hit a gnat’s eye at a thousand yards.”
Walker doubted that. “And you? What do you do?”
The sparkles in Zack’s stare darkened. “I’m the guy who goes into the dying rooms in China’s state-run orphanages. I adopt the babies no one else wants. The ones waiting to die. If I can’t adopt them, I… I find a way…”
“Jesus,” Walker breathed. He’d heard about those wretched rooms. Couldn’t imagine the emptiness in