Chapter 5 - THE LITTLE GIRL WITH THE BLUE KITE
“They knew about Mina?”
Riley snatched the evacuation list from Ortiz's hands.
Her daughter's name was printed beneath her own.
Seven years earlier.
Before they had reached America.
Before Mina had learned English.
Before Riley had ever believed they might have a normal life.
Marcus watched the color drain from her face.
“Riley, where is she now?”
“At school.”
“Does anyone know she's your daughter?”
“Her teachers. Our neighbors. The hospital knows I have a child.”
“Does anyone know where she came from?”
Riley swallowed.
“Not many.”
Ortiz reached for her phone.
“I'll arrange an officer to check on her.”
“No,” Riley said sharply.
Everyone looked at her.
“I'm not sending strangers to pull my daughter out of school. She's already frightened enough when she hears sirens.”
Marcus softened his voice.
“Then we'll do it together.”
Riley looked at him.
For seven years, she had trained herself not to depend on anyone connected to Night Lantern.
Especially Dutch.
Now he was standing beside her, offering to help protect the child she had carried out of the flames.
She wanted to trust him.
That frightened her almost as much as the evacuation list.
Ortiz contacted the school principal and quietly arranged for Riley to collect Mina.
Marcus accompanied her.
They arrived just before the afternoon dismissal.
Mina was sitting inside the library, reading a book about sea turtles.
She had dark curls, serious brown eyes, and a purple backpack covered with little stars.
When she saw Riley, she smiled.
Then she noticed Marcus.
“Mom? Who's that?”
Riley crouched beside her.
“This is Marcus. He's an old friend.”
Mina studied the tall man standing behind her mother.
“Are you a soldier?”
“I was,” Marcus answered.
She looked at the faded military insignia on his jacket.
“My mom used to help soldiers.”
Marcus nodded.
“She was very good at it.”
Mina considered that.
“She's good at helping everybody.”
Riley kissed her forehead.
“Come on, sweetheart. We're going somewhere safe for a little while.”
“Did something happen?”
“Some grown-ups are sorting out an old problem.”
Mina looked from her mother to Marcus.
“Is it bad?”
Marcus knelt so they were eye to eye.
“It's serious. But we're making sure nobody handles it alone.”
The girl nodded.
“Okay.”
She took Riley's hand.
And Marcus realized, with an unexpected ache in his chest, that he had just been trusted by someone who had every reason to fear men in uniforms.
They brought Mina to a secure family waiting area inside the medical center.
Ortiz arranged for a female security officer to remain nearby.
Riley gave Mina colored pencils and asked her to draw while she spoke privately with Marcus.
“She doesn't know about the list,” Riley whispered.
“She shouldn't have to.”
“Every time I think we're safe, something from Syria comes back.”
Marcus leaned against the wall.
“I thought losing my men was the worst thing that happened to me.”
Riley looked up.
“It was terrible.”
“But at least I knew what I was grieving. You had a little girl depending on you while you were carrying all of this.”
She shook her head.
“Don't make me sound heroic. There were nights I couldn't sleep. There were mornings I sat in the bathroom and cried so Mina wouldn't hear me.”
Marcus said nothing.
“She'd come looking for me and ask why I was sad.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That I missed people.”
His eyes dropped.
“I wish you'd known you could call me.”
“I wish I'd known that, too.”
For a moment, the distance between them seemed smaller.
Then Mina appeared at the doorway holding a drawing.
“Mom, look.”
On the paper was a blue kite floating over a small yellow house.
Riley smiled.
“That's beautiful.”
Mina pointed to the kite.
“Grandma Bennett says you still have my old one.”
Riley's smile faded.
Mrs. Bennett was their elderly neighbor, the woman who had helped care for Mina since she was small.
“The one from Syria?” Marcus asked.
Mina nodded.
“Mom keeps it in my memory box.”
Riley remembered the box in her bedroom closet.
Mina's first shoes.
A little red sweater.
Two photographs of Salma.
And the small blue kite that had survived the journey from Syria folded inside an old canvas bag.
Salma had made it for her daughter using blue cloth and thin wooden sticks.
Riley had never been able to throw it away.
Mina looked thoughtful.
“My other mom wrote on it.”
Riley went still.
“What did you say?”
Mina glanced at Marcus.
“My Syria mom. She wrote numbers on the white ribbon.”
Riley crouched.
“Sweetheart, do you remember what numbers?”
Mina shook her head.
“Just that she told me not to lose it.”
Riley looked at Marcus.
For seven years, she'd treated the kite as a keepsake.
Now she wondered whether Salma had been trying to preserve something much more important.
Ortiz obtained the complete ownership history of Blue Sky Relief.
The organization had been funded by Aster Defense Systems.
Its director during Operation Night Lantern was a woman named Evelyn Mercer.
Marcus recognized the name.
“She's on the Defense Logistics Advisory Board.”
Ortiz nodded.
“And she's still connected to several military contracts.”
“She was in Syria?” Riley asked.
“According to the travel records, yes.”
Ortiz showed her a photograph.
Evelyn Mercer was an elegant woman in her late fifties, with carefully styled silver-blonde hair.
She stood beside a military transport aircraft, smiling at Rear Admiral Daniel Weller.
Riley stared at her.
Then her stomach dropped.
“That's her.”
Marcus turned.
“The woman Salma argued with?”
Riley nodded.
“I remember the bracelet.”
On Evelyn's wrist was a wide gold bracelet with a dark green stone.
“She kept touching it while she talked. Salma told her the shipments didn't belong in a medical tent.”
Ortiz placed the photograph beside the shipping record.
“Mercer's company had been developing an advanced battlefield identification system. The program was supposed to improve targeting accuracy and prevent friendly-fire incidents.”
Marcus frowned.
“What did a targeting system have to do with children's blankets?”
“That's the question.”
Ortiz looked down at the manifest.
“Shipment 417-W may have contained equipment that was never authorized for that location.”
Riley stared at Evelyn's photograph.
“Then Salma found it.”
“And Nathan Reed found the paperwork,” Marcus added.
Ortiz closed the folder.
“I'll seek emergency warrants for the remaining Aster records. But I need both of you to understand something. This company has powerful relationships.”
Marcus gave a humorless smile.
“I've met powerful people before.”
“Not everyone with influence is standing on the same side, Lieutenant.”
By late afternoon, Marcus arranged for Riley and Mina to stay in a secured room near the hospital's administrative wing until investigators confirmed the area was safe.
Mina was tired of waiting.
She curled beside Riley on a couch, holding her purple backpack.
“Can we go home soon?”
“I hope so, sweetheart.”
“Can Marcus come?”
Riley glanced at him.
Marcus smiled.
“If your mom says it's okay.”
Mina looked satisfied.
“Good. He looks like he knows how to fix things.”
For the first time all day, Riley laughed.
Marcus felt the sound settle somewhere deep inside him.
He hadn't realized how much he had missed it.
Sinclair appeared a few minutes later.
He looked exhausted.
“Agent Ortiz needs you in the security office,” he told Marcus.
“Why?”
“One of the men from the unauthorized ambulance has been identified.”
Marcus stood.
“Who is he?”
“A former security contractor employed by Aster Defense.”
Riley held Mina a little tighter.
Marcus turned toward the doctor.
“Keep them here. No one gets access without Ortiz.”
Sinclair nodded.
“You have my word.”
Marcus studied him.
“That's going to have to mean something this time.”
He followed Sinclair into the hallway.
But they had barely reached the security office when Ortiz rushed toward them.
“Marcus, where's Riley?”
“With Mina.”
Ortiz's face changed.
“Get them out of the administrative wing.”
“Why?”
“The contractor we detained had an access schedule.”
Marcus felt the old battlefield instinct tighten every muscle.
“What kind of schedule?”
Ortiz held up a printed page.
“An unauthorized emergency transfer exercise. They planned to use the hospital's evening shift change to move a protected witness out through the rear entrance.”
“Navarro?”
Ortiz shook her head.
“Not Navarro.”
She turned the paper around.
The designated transfer subject was listed by a single name.
MINA HADDAD.
Marcus started running.
Then the hospital's security alarm sounded.
May you like
And over the public-address system, a calm automated voice announced:
“Protected minor transferred. Administrative exit cleared.”
