Anything, Anywhere, Anytime (9 page)

Three beds with thin mattresses for her and her fellow hostages were wedged in corners, a toilet in the other corner. Metal shelves leaned, creaky, their possessions on display for easy search. This place sucked, but at least it was familiar.

The first month of captivity, she and her two NGO co-workers had been shuffled to so many different locations, she no longer had any clue where they were. Other than the middle of the desert with an occasional tease of a salty gulf breeze.

Inconvenient for a woman who needed to escape. Soon.

Beyond their door, a staticky television jabbered while guards laughed. Across the cell, Kayla and Phillip sat cross-legged on a cot, silently playing cards. They'd all but rubbed the numbers off the deck.

Sydney battled to keep her eyes open, unwilling to surrender to the vulnerability of unconsciousness.

Sporadic gunfire from what she guessed were night-training maneuvers often interrupted their sleep, but the weariness seemed tougher to contain lately.

Her body demanded rest. Her mind fought the lethargy of waning hope. Chill remaining from the desert night seeped through the pocked plaster, a relief from the sun creeping up the horizon. Beyond the welcome cooling, she appreciated the brief respite from watching over her shoulder.

Wind whistled through the lone window high on the wall while Jeeps roared out of sight below in opposing directions. Although "window" seemed a generous description for the thin rectangular opening near the ceiling that showed only the purity of a cloudless sky. A blessing perhaps that she didn't have to view the depravity of the terrorist training camp any more often than during her late-afternoon, twenty-minute walks.

Hitching the dingy sheet up to her waist in spite of the heat, she listened to the steady click of Kayla and Phillip snapping down spades. The shoosh of shuffling cards. More clicks. Monotony offered a temporary liberation.

She needed to tell them about her plans soon, but she couldn't give them too much time to think. To fear. To break and talk.

Still, she couldn't leave them behind to bear the brunt of the fury that would come from her attempt to escape. Staying would have to be their choice, these dear friends now bonded to her through experience into a family that had nothing to do with blood relations.

She wouldn't blame them for laughing in her face. After all, what did she have? A couple of sharpened forks buried with a handful of pills hoarded from her early days in captivity. Her captors didn't offer much in the way of drugs to prisoners.

Certainly not for medicinal purposes.

Only enough to dope them into submission. But she'd saved it all in the hope of using them on her guards one day. She'd gritted through the pain of a broken ankle. Pretended to be docile. Sometimes more difficult than others.

Nausea swelled with memories. She swallowed both down.

Would Phillip and Kayla be willing to attempt escape with her or give her away? Too well she knew family wasn't always loyal.

She couldn't afford to wait much longer for a miraculous rescue. How naive to think Blake would come charging in. Her job bred familiarity with the maze of diplomatic channels required even to bring food into this country. He couldn't dial up his SEAL team buddies for a quick swoop in to scoop her out.

And she knew it was killing him inside that he couldn't. Forget that they'd broken up before she'd left the country, unable to reconcile their conflicting ideologies, the pacifist and the warrior. How damned inconvenient. Heartbreaking. And over. Blake, her dear friend who had once been her lover.

Not that sex was high on her list of favorite topics now.

Memories seared through, more persistent this time, of brutal hands claiming her body in an act of domination and humiliation inflicted on each of the hostages. She tried to remind herself that being raped had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with violence. Sometimes that helped. Other times not. And it wasn't something any of the three of them were ready to talk about.

Refusing to think about it was easier, especially as time passed without further repeats. Once certain the three NGO workers weren't CIA, their captors pretty much left them alone except for the occasional taunt, slap or punch served up with horse-meat on rice.

She'd lived through the hell. Survived. If nothing else, she'd learned these past months that the child who'd always depended on her sister's protection was a survivor after all.

Flipping to her back, Sydney stared out the thin window, eyes focused on the sky, and allowed herself to entertain the near-painful dream of seeing her sister again. Of course practical Monica would have already guessed what happened to her since her capture. But the growing proof of the incident would kill her over responsible big sister. She tried not to worry about Monica, who always worried enough for ten people.

And there was plenty to worry about, increasing in size with each day that passed.

Rolling onto her side again, Sydney tucked her knees to her chest in a protective shield that wouldn't mask the truth from her friends or her captors much longer. Under the cover of the dingy sheet, she slid her hand to her belly, cupped the curve that would soon decide her fate for her if she didn't take charge of it herself.

Because if Ammar al-Khayr found out about this baby, biologically his child, he would kill her.

Or worse yet, never let her go.

Yasmine threaded through the crowd of diners, unwilling to be caught just yet. Yes, she wanted the kind-eyed soldier with a penchant for fruit-flavored candy to apprehend her. Eventually. Once she had reached a more secluded location.

She could hear his footsteps thudding a steady pace behind her. Closer. Louder. Or was that her heart? Not that it mattered either way. She shivered in anticipation, steadied her breathing. This was the man with goodness in him she'd been hoping to find. One search into his eyes as clear blue as the endless desert sky upon sunrise and she'd known.

He was her contact. A conduit for her goal. One with cerulean eyes that soothed and stirred her all at once.

Seconds after she saw the goodness, she found more. Felt more, something akin to the crackle of a dry lightning storm across windswept dunes. But she could deal with that. She would deal with it, because nothing was more important than staying alive.

Yasmine darted from the stifling dining area into a near-deserted corridor, past faded framed posters of the Rubistanian countryside. Away from the crowd. Down a narrow side hall.

A hand clamped around her arm. Hard, thick fingers. Her heart tripped along with her feet. Please, please, she hoped she hadn't misjudged this man.

Panting, she righted her step. Her back pressed to the wall. The frame cut into her waist, a minor intrusion compared to the icy gaze digging into her soul through her eyes.

"Don't move."

Her vision filled with desert camouflage uniform and honed man towering over her, an M-16 hooked on his shoulder and pistol in his web belt holster. She focused on his blue eyes instead. "Will you release my arm, please?"

"Not until I'm convinced you aren't going to gut me or blow me up."

Fear and indignation prickled. Suicide bombers made things more difficult for everyone, sewing the seeds of distrust against even the innocent.

He touched her.

Shock stilled her. His hands roved her arms in bold swipes that left the air suddenly thick and heavy. He moved up to her shoulders, down her back to her waist.

Along her legs.

Heat rushed to her face and to other parts of her until she fought not to fidget under his search. Never had she been stroked this way, but understood she had surrendered a certain hold on her rights by pressing the note into his palm. Her mind clouded with a haze, pleasurable, urgent.

Frightening.

"Please," she whispered. "If someone witnesses this..."

His hands brushed her belly just below her breasts once before he stepped away, his search complete, no weapon discovered since she did not have one. Why would she? How useless to expect her negligible strength could outmaneuver any of these armed men. Especially one this large. She would outthink him instead.

Once she stopped seeing spots in front of her eyes.

Her uncle expected her to ferret information, to discover if this was truly a deployment to assist with the distribution of humanitarian aid, something that happened often in her country. Or was it another American mission to destroy secret training camps in their endless war on terrorism. Since Ammar might well have other spies in place here, she would have to tread this double game warily if she wanted out of the country in one piece.

The soldier with sea-blue eyes and mountainous shoulders dusted his hands along the mottled tan print of his uniform pants as if he sought to clean away the feel of her. "Who are you?"

"I am Bahijah Faris, not that it matters. You have my note. Did I not express myself correctly?" She knew full well she had. Thanks to her American mother, Yasmine spoke English almost as fluently as Arabic. "I seek asylum in the United States. And you are?"

"The wrong man for you to play your flirting games with, little girl. So let's hope you're being straight up now." His fingers banded her arm again.

She shivered, but refused to be daunted by his threats. She'd heard worse.

He charged forward, propelling her down the abandoned corridor stacked with crates. Apparently the sensitive soul she found in his eyes was housed by a brusque exterior. Of course, many men were afraid to show anything that might be perceived as weakness. "Little girl? I think you misunderstand. I am twenty-three years old, well of age by your country's standards, unmarried, without ties to this place, so there is no reason for me to be denied my wish."

"I'll keep that in mind, Methuselah," he barked, boots thumping cadence down the split-tile floor.

"Where are we going?" She doubled her pace to match his long-legged strides without tripping.

"To headquarters for you to speak with our military counterintelligence personnel about your request."

Military security? Her blood chilled with every step deeper into the building toward the inner offices. She stopped. "Please wait." She panted, from racing feet and heart. "I do not want to speak with them. I want to talk to you."

"Too bad. That's not how things work here."

"But I chose you. I trust you. I have no reason to trust them." Her attempt to leave the country after her parents' deaths in the flu epidemic had been foiled by a mole in the American embassy to Rubistan, another spy loyal to Ammar.

"Well, your choosing ended once you placed that note in my hand. We have procedures." He stared down at her, disbelief slipping past the hard mask. "Did you expect me to tuck you in a suitcase for a trip over the border?''

She sniffed back indignation. He didn't need to make her sound foolish. But now was not the time to roll out her diploma. "Actually, yes, I expected something very much like that. It has been done before, so there is no need to mock me."

"Well, put away your Samsonite luggage, lady, because it's not going to be done today."

How dare he treat her like a truculent child? If grief aged a person, then she had many years on anyone here.

"Wait," she demanded, desperation shaving the edge off her original intent to appear ditzy and humble.

"What now?" His words rode an exasperated sigh.

Apparently this man did not respect youth, so she pulled herself taller to make use of every bit of her five feet, two inches of height while attempting to add years and command to her voice. "We need to speak first before you dump me into the hands of your security persons."

His brows slammed down. "Listen up, I've had just about enough of this Queen of Sheba shit. I don't take orders from you. You made an irrevocable step back there when you put that note in my hand. Do you want to go with dignity? Or do I call security forces to 'escort' you? Your choice."

Time to switch tactics again. Temper never worked with men, anyway. She lowered her gaze, peered up through her lashes. "I'll do anything."

His eyes narrowed, exasperation hardening to a cold mask, no sign of warmth in those ice-blue eyes. Oh, my. She was out of her depth, but that didn't mean she would stop swimming.

She slowed her words to give her brain time to restart, and clarified, "I will cook for you."

He winced.

Her stew.

Wrong suggestion and time was short. Desperation grew. "I'll clean for you, watch your children."

"Considering you and my daughter are about the same damned age, that's not much of an offer."

Same age as his daughter? She studied him again, took in his sandy brown hair, the handsome angles of his face perfect enough for some Hollywood poster except for sun-strengthened lines that made him all the more attractive in her eyes. "That is not possible."

He snorted. "Trumped-up flattery may have worked on one of those privates back in the mess hall, but you picked wrong in coming on to me if you expect that kind of eye-batting crap to win me over. I respect one thing. Honesty. Now let's go."

Honesty? Uh-oh. But since he would not find out her real name, no need to worry.

The grip of his hand on her elbow certainly didn't indicate any failing age. Besides, in her culture, women often married men far older. Age equated with wisdom, wealth, power. Safety.

Marriage?

That was the last thing on her mind. Never again did she want to be under anyone's control. Without question, marriage signified a loss of rights in any culture.

And she only had seconds left to persuade him to keep embassy officials uninvolved. "Do you not realize what will happen to me if it gets out that I attempted to defect? Word will leak, make no mistake, if you carry this to others. It always does. There are no secrets from the warlords here. There must be something I can do to earn your assistance. I have money."

Money spoke all languages. Every one of those hungry Rubistans shouting at the gate was a threat to her security here. Any of them would sell her out for a jug of water and a few slices of bread.