The low-flying plane skims the top of the tropical trees as it zeros in on the target some fifty miles away. Inside it in dark military fatigues are sixteen members of the dreaded Delta Force 2, a special military division of the US Army specialising in clandestine, behind enemy line operations. Each soldier is equipped with an assortment of weapons: a sub-machine rifle, a machine-gun pistol, four grenades, two flares, four special tear gas canisters, two knives, two garrottes and other weapons with extra magazines for the guns. In short, each soldier is a walking armoury. They are also kitted for night attack, wearing night-vision goggles, and from their necks hang gas masks in case the pilot has to deploy chemical weapons carried by the fighter plane. It is a special plane operating a stealth technology and is both a troop carrier and a fighter jet. It can fly very high above radar detection, and extremely low, too low for radar detection. It can also land anywhere, on water, on land in a small clearing, and it can hover in the air like a helicopter while picking up soldiers who climb up a rope ladder. Apart from its capacity to deploy chemical weapons, the plane has an assortment of bombs it can release to destroy the enemy and assist the troops on ground. It is a twenty-seater plane that is specially fitted for night attack. It does not need any light to fly or land as the technology allows the pilot to see clearly in the dark, and it does not emit any noise so it could catch the enemy unawares. Tonight, the mission of Delta Force 2 is to rescue two Americans being held by a terrorist group in Nigeria, the dreaded Boko Haram. Why these American captives are so special is not the business of Delta Force 2. The order says rescue Nick and Jones, or eliminate the two of them. It is cut and dry, simple as A, B, C. The problem is that simple orders often end up as operational fiascos.

The plane swoops silently towards the drop zone, a clearing in the forest that is not far from the place where the two Americans are being held.

“Get ready for the drop!” the commander tells the soldiers. “Ted will lead the drop.”

Ted grunts in acknowledgement, smiling as he moves towards the door. Having gone on twelve such missions with this commander, he instinctively knows that he would go first. It is heart-warming to note that the commander has so much confidence in him. He does a final inspection of his weapons, adjusts his night goggles and crouches by the door with adrenalin pouring through his veins. Like in such situations in the past, Ted feels a mixture of fear and excitement which to a professional soldier is an exhilarating experience. He looks back to see the other soldiers lining up behind him with the commander bringing up the rear as usual. He grins grimly when he remembers that it is the commander’s last mission with Delta Force 2. Like a dream, seven years have passed. More like a nightmare, Ted thinks, remembering the horrors that they have had to pass through in many of their missions together. They have lost many good colleagues over the years, but then that goes with the job. So of the original team of fifteen, only the two of them remain alive. He wonders if both of them will survive the current mission or one out of the two will pay the supreme sacrifice. But with the commander so close to honourable discharge, he wishes the two of them will survive.

The commander is a special breed, a rarity in Delta Force 2. She is thirty-five years, a lady, the only lady commanding hardened male soldiers that fellow soldiers avoid meddling with. Her name is Tracy Winters, daughter and only child of a retired infantry general, General Winters and his martial arts instructor wife, Betty. Tracy grew up as a barracks girl as she and her mum followed her father from station to station all over Europe, South America, and back home in America. From her father, she imbibed in a kind of osmosis the love of the Army as a grand-parent and cherished way of life. From age of eight, she made up her mind that soldiering would be her life vocation, but she was clever enough not to give a hint of her resolve to her doting parents, especially her father. From age three, her mother unknowingly helped her life ambition along by introducing her to martial arts. She excelled in it all: Kung Fu, Taekwando, kick boxing, wrestling, judo, etc. By age sixteen, she became the youngest black belt in Kung Fu. Five years later, her martial skills saved her from being raped by four of her fellow soldiers during a bush camp in Saigon. The four burly men were so beaten up and humiliated by Tracy that they never tried their tricks on any other female soldier till they all perished in different missions abroad. Tracy attended military schools from age six to age eighteen when she finished high school. An exceptionally brilliant student, she excelled in the sciences and the arts as well as in martial arts in which she was the undefeated champion till she graduated from high school. Her father, now retired, and her mother planned a legal career for her, but were surprised when she enrolled at West Point and joined the Army. Her father was furious and tried to use his military influence to eject her from the military college. It was futile. As an eighteen-year-old, the law regards Tracy as an adult, capable of making her own decisions in life. In the end, General Winters gave up and wished her luck.

He followed her very brilliant career from that moment onwards with great pride, his only regrets being that she is not a male, and two, he wished he had another child besides her. He knew very well how soldiering could lead to a short life! He had been lucky and could only pray that his daughter would enjoy that rare gift of long life which the army does not and cannot guarantee. At West Point, Tracy discovered her other gift that has ensured her survival so far besides physical fitness and a benevolent and over-active patron saint: she is a natural marksman. Tracy could cut a blade of grass in half with a rifle at two hundred metres. But more than that, she is naturally ambidextrous; she could shoot accurately with both hands, if need be, simultaneously. She could take down two moving targets with two pistols at once, being blessed with an unusual kind of acute split vision. For this, even her male counterparts respect and fear her. No one, not even the craziest of soldiers, ever wants to be in Tracy’s gun sight! Among her fellow soldiers, the general dictum is: “The fear of a gun-wielding Tracy is the beginning of wisdom!” She rose rapidly to the rank of Captain, and bowing to pressure from her parents who insist she get married and give them grandchildren, she is retiring from her beloved Army in two months. This is her last tour of duty and, truth be told, she is not exactly looking forward to civil life.

For reasons beyond her comprehension, she has not been able to maintain a steady relationship with any man for a reasonable length of time. Although a stunning beauty when she is not in uniform, her longest relationship was with a naval officer who abandoned her when she nearly killed him over a trifling incident with a female naval rating. The relationship lasted exactly five weeks. So behind her back, male and female soldiers call her Captain Ice Block!

The red light on top of the door flashes off and on and the soldiers get ready to jump down. The plane drops lower over the clearing and hovers at five feet above the grass. The door opens silently and Ted expertly jumps down and rolls to the left, hiding in a nearby brush, his rifle steady in his grip. In rapid succession, the remaining soldiers follow suit with Tracy jumping down last. She rolls to her feet and signals the pilot to take off and wait for their pick up signal. The craft ascends rapidly and disappears from sight in the blink of an eye. The whole operation lasted three minutes. Tracy and her men melt into the surrounding forest and advance in a triangular formation down the hill. They reassemble some five minutes later under a huge Baobab tree. It is pitch dark, but to the soldiers everything is eerily clear with their night vision goggles. They surround their commander with their backs turned to her, looking outwards for any sign of attack while they receive their orders.

“I don’t like this, Sergeant Ted.”

“Me, neither.”

“Something’s just not right.”

“I got the same feeling, Captain,” replies Ted, his spine tingling with apprehension.

“According to satellite photos, we are just about two miles from the target. We are supposed to approach from the west, where there are fewer guards, but I’m changing the order. We’ll no longer approach from the west in a single formation. We go poker from now and approach from the north, south, east and west at once. We keep in touch via radio. Go!”

The men understand the term “poker” and immediately break into four groups under the leadership of Tracy, Ted, Sergeants Cole and Pat, both of them junior to Sergeant Ted in years of experience on the rank. Tracy and her group head west, supposedly the safest route into the terrorists’ compound. Ted and his group head east, Cole’s group heads south while Pat’s group heads north. By so doing, they escape the ambush carefully laid by the terrorists to the west of the compound.

With rifles held steady in their hands, Tracy’s group approach the western axis of the camp with caution. As usual, Tracy is leading, with her men fanned out behind her in a triangular formation, each one about five feet from the other. The thick forest looks uncanny in the night vision goggles. Tracy walks cautiously down a ravine. At this point, they could barely discern the entrance to the compound in the distance. She signals the men to go down and instantly obeys her own orders. She brings out a binocular and scans the bush around her and around the entrance to the camp. There are only two guards visible and they appear very relaxed, not expecting trouble. One of them is even smoking a cigarette!

“This aint right,” murmurs Tracy to herself. Even if the guards were not expecting any attack, the fact that they are holding the two Americans in this camp should make them more security conscious. Unless….unless it’s a set up.

“It’s a set up! We’ve been betrayed!” murmurs Tracy to herself in horror. She picks up the radio and whispers into it. “Listen to me, Ted, Cole and Pat. I think we may be walking into an ambush here. Reverse the poker immediately! Reverse! Reverse!”

“Yes, Captain!” responds the three sergeants at the same time.

Tracy orders her men to begin to crawl back on their bellies till they have put some distance between them and the entrance. Still crouching, they found their way back to the Baobab tree. All the other groups are also back.

“Listen up now. Cole’s group will collapse into mine while Pat’s group collapses into Ted’s. Ted, take your men into east and wait for my group to begin the attack from the west. Then storm the camp and rescue the men. There are less than ten huts and we know exactly where they are being held. You know the alternative. Go!”

Ted’s group strikes out towards the east as fast and as silently as they can. Tracy allows them to go ahead for a few minutes before heading back to the camp again with her expanded group. But instead of approaching the entrance from the west, she chooses a more south westernly approach which brings them to a little hill overlooking the entrance. As they lay flat on their bellies on the small hill, Tracy once again scans the vicinity with her binoculars. Then she notices what she could not have seen from any other position; the forest around the west is crawling with numerous shadows that lay prone on the forest floor. She estimates that the welcome party could not have been less than fifty well-armed men. She waves Cole over and points out the waiting shadows to him. She whispers her instruction and he nods. Thereafter, Cole takes his original group of four and crawls about two hundred yards to Tracy’s right, waiting for her to start the assault. As soon as Tracy observes the end of Cole’s manoeuvre, she nods to her men.

“Grenades! One, two, now!”

In a swift, well-coordinated action, four grenades are lobbed into the air and land in the midst of the waiting shadows. The explosion that follows is ear-splitting. Shrieks and screams of surprise and death rend the air as the ambushers become the casualties of their own ambush. Men forget whatever instruction must have been given to them and run helter-skelter. Cole’s group also lob in their grenades and cut down no less than ten of the remaining guards. Total confusion now reigns in the camp of the terrorists.

“Now!” shouts Tracy opening up with her sub-machine gun. All the men in her group follow suit, cutting down the remaining terrorists with continuous and deadly fire. In less than five minutes, many of the terrorists have been cut down and the few still alive throw down their weapons and take to their heels. With the west completely open, Tracy and her men cautiously enter the compound and take cover behind the first three huts close to the entrance.

Meanwhile, Ted’s group has broken through the fence on the eastern side as soon as the first grenade exploded, and made straight for the hut in which the prisoners were last seen. They stormed the hut through the windows and the door, firing upwards so as not to kill the Americans. Two guards who are in the hut are caught in surprise and are cut down swiftly. The two Americans are sitting down in an ante-room, they appear to be sleeping. Ted runs to them and shook one of them violently. His head rolls down to Ted’s feet. Both are dead, slaughtered sometimes before the attack began.

“Shit!”

Ted picks up the radio and calls Tracy.

“Found both subjects, dead.”

“Shit! Let’s search the remaining huts to flush out any other terrorists. You take the left side and we take the right.”

They search all the huts but found no other soul in the compound. They meet up in the hut where the prisoners were held. Tracy takes pictures of the decapitated men and get out of the hut. There is nothing they could do for them now. She leaves the hut with a tinge of bitterness in her mouth. She would have loved to leave the service with a better record in her last mission. But then nothing can be done about it now. After a short conference, she commands her men to search all the huts thoroughly in case they find something useful. It is a futile exercise as nothing is found there. It is obvious that this camp is just a temporary holding cell for the American captives.

“Let’s go!”

The assault group retreats through the western entrance and hurry towards the pick-up point to wait for the plane. As they exit the gate, an otherworldly feeling warns Tracy of danger ahead. Such feelings had saved her at least twice in the past, and she is not about to ignore it now. Moreover, the whole operations smacks too much of a set-up. It is obvious that their mission had been compromised right from the beginning because the terrorists were waiting for them and the Americans were killed before the attack even began. There is something not quite right.

“Stop!”

The men obey though with some perplexity.

“We exit through the eastern side and make a detour back to the pick-up point.”

Led by Tracy, the group makes its way out through the part of the fence earlier broken by Ted’s assault group. As they pass a clump of bushes some thirty yards from the camp, a voice calls out.

“Help me. Please help me!”

Tracy and her men immediately take cover behind the trees.

“Help me, please!”

Tracy signals her men to cover her while she crawls forward towards the pleading voice. At the same time, Ted crawls out rapidly to approach the voice from the rear.

“Help me, please!” continues the voice.

By this time, Tracy is quite close to the source of the sound. So is Ted. Tracy suddenly stands up and storms the clump of bushes. Ted does the same from the rear. What they find amazes them. A woman with half-a-leg shot off is lying painfully on the ground in the middle of the clump of bushes.

“Who are you?” asks Tracy, covering the woman with her gun. Ted does the same.

“I’m one of the captives of Boko Haram. Please help me.”

“Where’re you from?”

“Chad Republic. Please help me!”

Tracy looks at Ted and the latter shakes his head.

“Can you walk?”

“A little. They shot my right leg while I escaped into the bush.”

Tracy is torn in two. Leaving the woman there is condemning her to certain death. Taking her with them will slow down their speed and compromise their own lives. In the end, she decides to go with her heart instead of her head. It is a most unprofessional decision.

“Come, let me help you up.”

Disregarding the disapproving eyes of Ted, Tracy helps the lady up and out of her hiding place. Two of her men run up to assist. In between them, they carry the lady aloft and begin to run towards the pick-up point. Twenty minutes later, they arrive at the clearing without any incident. Tracy presses the signal on her radio and receives an answering beep.

“Get ready every one. You know the drill.”

The men nod. Without warning, the plane appears over them and drops to about five feet. The junior officers immediately hop on to the plane, leaving Tracy, Ted, Cole, Pat and the woman. Tracy signals to Pat and Cole and they eagerly hop on to the plane, leaving the woman with Ted and Tracy. Both of them carry the Chadian woman in between them and prepare to help her into the plane before jumping in themselves. At that moment a group of terrorists burst out of the forest and opens fire on the three of them. Fortunately for Tracy and Ted, they escape unscathed as they instinctively dive for the ground. But the woman is not so lucky as she is cut in two by a hail of bullets. Tracy was holding the collar of her dress when she was hit and as she goes down, the collar tore off, remaining in Tracy’s hand. She impulsively holds on to the scrap of clothing as she returns fire with her left hand. Ted also returns fire with his automatic and the men in the craft lob the remaining grenades with them into the midst of the terrorists. Several loud explosions follow in rapid succession and eerie silence envelopes the surrounding. Before the terrorists could gather their wits together, Ted and Tracy jump into the plane and the door is snapped shut. The plane ascends rapidly, but not before an anti-aircraft shell from another group of terrorists glances off one of its wings and the plane rocks dangerously to the right. Then it begins to go down. And the men begin to scream…scream…scream….

Tracy wakes up screaming, her pyjamas completely drenched in sweat. She looks wildly around her and only calms down when she recognises her bedroom in Crestfall, Columbus, Ohio. She crawls out of bed and goes into the adjoining bathroom. There she switches on the shower and sticks her head into the ice-cold spray. The cold water stings her skull and restores her sense of balance quickly. She goes back to the bedroom without bothering to dry out her hair, allowing the water to drip down her pyjamas and body. It is a well-worn ritual that often calms her down fast. It has been long since the nightmare tormented her. She wonders what happened the previous night to trigger the nightmare this time around. Looking at the clock on the wall, she realises it is already eight in the morning. She jumps up and heads back to the bathroom, peeling off her wet clothing as she goes. She has to shower, dress up, eat whatever breakfast is available and be at the office by nine o’clock. Even though she is the CEO of her company, years in the military have drilled punctuality into her psyche for ever.

At 9 am, Tracy walks into the offices of T&T Inc., Private Investigators. She is dressed in a dark trousers suit with a sparkling white shirt contrasting brilliantly with the dark suit and her own marvellously tanned skin. With her beautiful face and glorious auburn hair cascading down to her shoulders, she looks like the goddess Venus come to visit mere mortals.

“Good morning, Tracy!” greets the owner of a successful advertising agency coming out of the suite of offices opposite T&T Inc.

“Morning, Rich. How was your weekend?”

“Could have been better,” says Rich meaningfully with an undisguised glint in his eyes. Tracy pretends not to hear and smiles slightly as she turns the knob and enters her establishment.

“What a waste!” moans Rich as he heads for the elevator.

“Is Ted in?” asks Tracy as she goes to her own office.

“No, Miss Winters,” replies the secretary, Ann Hammond. “He calls in to say that he’s taking Sally to see the doctor. A sudden case of the flu, I think.”

“Oh, I see.”

Tracy enters her office and immediately calls Ted on her cell phone. Sally is her favourite of all the three children of Ted.

“How‘s she, Ted?” asks Tracy without any preamble.

“She’ll live, Captain,” replies Ted. “Will be in around noon. See ya later.”

“Okay, Ted.”

She rings off and sits back in her chair but immediately sits up with her back straight. Six years into civilian life and she is yet to learn how to relax in a comfortable chair or sit like a proper CEO. There is no real work at hand, so she easily slips into the past, exploring the last six years of her life.

How the plane made it back to base that night was nothing short of a miracle. As it was going down, the pilot managed to steady it and transfer to the standby auxiliary engine. The plane begins to ascend again and had gained a considerable altitude when the second disaster of the night struck; a stray anti-aircraft shell from nowhere struck the plane again and the auxiliary engine that supplemented the only engine still working took a direct hit and blew out.

“Damn it!” shouted the pilot in frustration. “Now we are in real shit.”

Once again, the plane slewed left and right and began to drop from the sky. Then the strangest, scariest phenomenon of their soldiering experience began. Two out of the three engines were out and the only one still working was spluttering and incapable of keeping the plane steady in the air, hence, their rapid loss of altitude. Inexplicably, the plane suddenly stopped dropping and began to gain altitude rapidly.

“Holy shit! What’s happening?” exclaimed the bewildered pilot.

“What?” asked Ted

“Two engines are down, man. But the plane is rising. That’s Goddamned impossible!”

That was when the soldiers realised what was happening. Tracy and her men looked out the window. Sure enough, the forest was receding rapidly as the plane gained altitude faster and faster. Being a stealth technology craft, they could only hear a minimal hum at the best of times. Now there is absolute silence. They could not even feel the slight throb of the only engine beneath their feet. It was as if an unseen but powerful hand was lifting the plane out of danger. When the plane had risen or had been lifted beyond artillery range, it made a wide circle and headed for base at a frightening speed, faster than its inbuilt five thousand miles an hour. In less than thirty minutes, so it seemed to the pilot and the soldiers, they had crossed the Atlantic and were hovering over their base. The unseen hand, not the pilot, then set the plane down gently as an egg in its allotted place on the tarmac. Even the air controllers were caught unawares; one moment the air over the base was clear in the night sky, no plane anywhere near the next moment a plane, one of their own, was sitting plum on the tarmac. How and when it got there was a mystery. All the five controllers on duty blinked their eyes and opened their mouths in utter amazement. At first, they all thought it was a mirage, or a phantom plane that would soon disappear as it came, mysteriously. But when the pilot and the soldiers jumped down from the plane and knelt reverently on the tarmac, the controllers knew that they were not dreaming. This was as real as real could be.

Their debriefing was short but cantankerous. The army high command noted that their mission was successfully accomplished and accepted the photographs of the slain Americans as evidence enough. But the generals completely disagreed with any insinuation of sabotage. As to the claim that they flew thousands of miles to the base on one engine with the assistance of an unseen hand, they unanimously agreed to erase that bit from the tapes. They did not change their minds even after an examination of the plane showed that indeed they flew on one engine across the continents in less than thirty minutes. Two months after, Tracy was honourably discharged and reunited with her family.

Having decided to be a private investigator, Tracy went for a six-month training course at Ohio State Institute for Private Investigators and came out top of the class. She followed it up with a six-month internship with the Ohio State Police and thereafter set up her own company, Tracy Investigators Inc. A year later, Ted also took honourable discharge from the US Army and joined her. That was when she changed the name of the company to T&T Inc., Private Investigators. With the influence of her father and the friends she made in the Ohio Police, she hit the ground running. Her big break came when an arms company in Seattle gave her a job to trace some missing arms shipment meant for the Nigerian government. She and Ted successfully investigated the case and exposed the cartel that specialises in stealing arms shipments in the West African coastal corridor and the shipment was recovered. With the generous fees paid by their client, they changed offices from the one-room affair in Downtown Columbus to their present plush offices in the highbrow commercial area near the Sheraton Hotel. Other jobs have since ensured their continued stay in business with a large measure of profitability.

Tracy smiles as she recalls the look on the faces of the generals when she and the pilot insisted that a mysterious presence helped them back home.

“Next you’ll tell us that a UFO towed you back to base!” shouted a sceptical General Duncan, General Officer Commanding Breastford Base.

“Dismissed, officers!”

As they closed the door behind them, their superiors broke into uncontrollable laughter that pursued Tracy and the pilot down the hall way. And that was that. It has been six years since then. Ann knocks on the door to her office.

“Come in.”

Ann pokes her head in. “There’s a man waiting to see ya, Miss Winters. A possible client.”

“Send him in.”

“Okay.”

She relaxes a little in her chair and prepares to receive her visitor. But nothing in her life prepared her for what happens the next moment. The door opens and a middle-aged African-American enters, dressed in business casual, a light-blue suit with a white shirt and no tie. He is about six feet four, too light in complexion for an African, almost Caucasian, with an athletic body and a handsome face made unusually attractive to Tracy by a crop of jet-black kinky hairs and a pointed nose. One look at him and Tracy loses her composure. .

“Hi,’ greets the visitor.

Tracy is too smitten to respond, but stares stupidly at him. The visitor stares back in confusion.

“Are you good?” he asks, and Tracy snaps out of her Cupid-induced helplessness.

“I’m good. Have a seat, please.”

“Thanks,” says the visitor, sitting down on the chair in front of Tracy. Before he could state his mission, she blurts out:

“Haven’t we met before somewhere? You resemble somebody who hired us before though you look much younger and…er, handsomer, a Nigerian professor working in an arms company in Seattle.”

“That’s my father!” exclaims the visitor. “What a memory you have, Captain Tracy!”

“Great. Please call me Tracy.”

“And I’m David.”

“Nice meeting you, David.”

“Nice meeting you, Tracy.”

They shake hands firmly. By this time, Tracy has regained her composure somewhat.

“Are you into armaments like your father?”

“No. I teach African literature at the State University here in town.”

“A professor! Like father, like son!”

“What about you, Tracy? Like daughter, like father!?”

Both burst into laughter, which serves to relax Tracy even more.

“So what brings you to our corner of the city, David?”

“I’m just a messenger. My father wants you to come over to Seattle ASAP, as you military guys say. It seems he might have another job for you.”

“Ah, good news to a starving soul!” says Tracy with a smile, remembering the huge profit the last job brought to her company.

“You don’t look starved, Tracy,” says David looking round the well-appointed office.

“Forget the façade, man. But why didn’t he call like the last time? That would have saved you a lot of trouble.”

“I said the same thing, but he mentioned something about confidentiality that cannot be guaranteed by phone or electronic contacts. Well, you’re more or less in the same line of business, so you’ll understand better.”

“I do. And I thank him for doing so,” says Tracy, thinking to herself: “How else could I have met such a … a striking man like you!”

“I have to leave now,” says David getting up. “I got a class in an hour.”

“There’s time for a little coffee, David.”

“No, please. I’ll take a rain check, if you don’t mind.”

He heads for the door and Tracy sees him out. Normally, she shakes visitors at the outer door and returns to her office. Today, however, she accompanies David to the end of the corridor before shaking him goodbye.

“When is it likely to rain so you can cash in your check?” she asks with a mischievous smile. David laughs out loud and says:

“What about the day after tomorrow at seven in the night? You should be back from Seattle then.”

“Okay.”

“I have your number. I’ll call you to confirm in the morning. Bye.”

He leaves and Tracy returns to her office. As she sinks into her chair, the import of what she has just done hits her like a blow to the solar plexus. How could she have been so reckless! It did not even cross her mind that David could be married with kids. Oh, God! How is it possible for Miss Ice Block to have melted so shamelessly within minutes of setting her eyes on David? She fidgets for some time and only regains her composure as she prepares for her trip to Seattle.