Lethal Pursuit (9 page)

She swallowed thickly. “My sister said that to me.”

“Your sister? What’s her name?”

“Pilar.” She fought the tide of memories rushing at her. “She died.”

“I’m sorry.”

She managed a nod, though of course he couldn’t see her. Her fingers relaxed their death grip on his uniform as she cradled her injured wrist against her body. It hurt to breathe. Taking shallow breaths didn’t seem to help. The pain in her ribs, face and wrist was worse than lingering burning in her abused feet.

Jackson.
Focus on Jackson.

She stroked her hand over his chest, comforting herself with the feel of all that strength and vital heat beneath her exploring touch. He moved against her like a big cat, trying to touch her in return. There in the hushed darkness with a fellow prisoner listening in, it still felt intimate. His thoughtfulness meant so much. Jackson was safety and security, a solid link to reality.

“Tell me about her,” he murmured.

With his patient coaxing, she found herself telling him about her sister. Haltingly at first, then more easily, she gave him an abbreviated version of events in their upbringing and the horrific sexual abuse Pilar had withstood. Things she’d never told another living soul. That was how much she trusted Jackson. And a part of her she didn’t want to acknowledge was afraid she wasn’t going to make it out of here alive, so she needed to tell someone about her sister. She didn’t care if anyone else overheard.

“She took it so that I wouldn’t have to,” she managed hoarsely. The darkness helped. It made her feel less exposed, hid the guilt and torment that had to be all over her face. She hurt all over but nothing was going to ease it, and talking about her deepest secrets made her feel closer to him than she had to anyone else since Pili died, even Ace.

“Where did you go when you ran away?” he asked. His tone held no judgment, only concern.

“The streets.”

His silence said everything.

Maya changed the position of her right arm, wincing as the slight shift jarred her left wrist, balanced on her hip. She paused until the worst of the pain had faded before going on. “For a while I thought she’d make it. We didn’t have any money, and she started turning tricks at night so she could earn enough to get us an apartment.” Maya would never forget the horror she’d felt when she’d first found out. “She wouldn’t let me get a job, no matter how much I argued. Said I was too young and insisted I go to school every day. She was my hero.” Looking back, it was obvious now how much braver Pilar had been than her. To sacrifice so much for someone you loved, give up your pride, your body and your future? That was how much her sister had loved her.

“God, Maya...”

“Before long, she started drinking. To numb the pain, I think. Then came the drugs. I couldn’t do anything at that point. It was too late.” She drew a slow, shuddering breath, fighting the fiery splinters of pain that shot through her ribs as they expanded. Wincing, she continued. “My junior year, I came home one day and found her. She hanged herself in our bathroom.”

Jackson made a low, sad sound and was silent a beat before asking, “What did you do after she was gone?”

“I stayed there using the money she’d left me and finished school. My school counselor and social worker told me about the Air Force Academy and helped me get ready to apply in my senior year. Being accepted was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

She’d needed to get the hell out of her old life, and the Air Force had seemed like the perfect way to do that. It gave her a bachelor’s degree in behavioral science, allowed her to travel and armed her with the skills to defend herself and others. “I made up my mind at Pili’s funeral that I would make a difference. Be in the FBI or CIA someday, make the world a safer place.” She’d dreamed of making it into one of those agencies, of hunting monsters and making a real difference in the world. And now she’d wound up here.

“So you became a kickass warrior,” he finished. “I’m glad you made it out of there.”

But not kickass enough.
The bleak thought stole into her mind before she could block it. She owed it to her dead sister and to her fellow prisoners to keep fighting. If she gave up hope, she was as good as dead.

“Your sister would be proud of you.” He sounded convinced.

A sudden lump clogged her throat. She hoped Pili would be proud. If she somehow survived this and made it home in one piece, she’d make it into one of those government agencies or die trying.

“Tell me your favorite memory of Pilar,” he coaxed, dragging her back to the present.

She thought about it and, despite the pain in her face, smiled a little. “Mostly dumb things. Dancing around the kitchen together in our place after we ran away. The sad little Christmas tree she bought at a discount lot and dragged home. We decorated it with strings of popcorn and bits of fabric because it was all we had. That was the best Christmas ever,” she whispered tightly. Blowing out a shallow, painful breath, she swallowed back the tears that threatened. “What about you?”

“Christmases were always a big deal at our place. Big dinner, lots of laughs.” He sounded wistful, but she could hear the edge of a smile in his voice. “Mostly just my family. They’re my happiest memories.”

Maya blinked away the sudden moisture in her eyes. His love for his family was so strong she could practically feel it. A small part of her envied belonging to that kind of tight-knit security, but she just wanted him to return to his loved ones safely. The chances of them escaping on their own were almost zero. Their only chance lay in a rescue. She prayed for a miracle.

“They’re...” She paused to gather herself, found the courage to say it aloud. “They’re all out looking for us by now. Right?” She hated the uncertainty eating at her.

“Yeah. And with the Sec Def being involved, the entire region has to be crawling with SOF personnel right now.”

She clung to the tiny spark of hope those words lit inside her. Maybe someone would find them before it was too late. Otherwise their chance of escape—of survival—dwindled by the minute. Even if they managed to get out, in her condition she’d be a liability to the others now. No way could she keep up on the run with her injuries.

They were silent a long time. To stay calm, Maya focused on taking shallow breaths and feeling the steady throb of Jackson’s heart beneath her palm. “In your training,” she began, in English this time, “you must have been good in the water. Scuba diving and whatever.”

“I wasn’t at first, but I got real good eventually. Why?”

A beat passed before she answered. “I’ve always wanted to scuba dive.” The wistful words trailed off into silence, and he didn’t break it.

She was just drifting off into a light doze when the sound of footsteps snapped her to rigid wakefulness. Her bloody lips pressed together to stifle a cry of pain and fear. Were they coming back for her?

No.
No! Her heart beat a hard tattoo against her ribs.

Jackson heard it too. He tensed, seemed to hold his breath for a few seconds until it became clear the person was headed toward them. She forced herself to pull her hand away from him, her mind screaming in protest at the loss of her only anchor in this sea of agony and suffering.

“Maya,” he whispered, regret and urgency lacing his voice.

Forcing back the cries clawing at her throat as she inched her way to the middle of her cold cell, Maya gathered what was left of her courage. If the guards suspected she and Jackson cared about each other, they’d exploit it at every turn. She refused to allow that to happen. She was the ranking military officer; her duty now was to protect Jackson and the Sec Def. If that meant taking more beatings over the next few hours or days to spare them, she’d do it.

I
am an American Airman.

Wingman
,
Leader
,
Warrior.

I
will never leave an Airman behind
,

I
will never falter
,

And I will not fail.

She repeated that part of the Airman’s Creed over and over during the long seconds while those dreaded footsteps approached. The beam of the flashlight finally washed over her and for one terrible moment, the panic rising inside her was so strong she didn’t think she could hold it back.

But the man holding it merely shone it over her still form as though he was looking her over or making sure she wasn’t dead yet. Apparently satisfied by what he saw, he clicked it off and shuffled back toward the opposite wall. His knees cracked as he sank down and settled himself there.

Aware of Jackson lying close by and that her captors would be returning for her soon enough, Maya closed her eyes and drifted into a fitful doze, desperate for the escape.

Chapter Nine

Their joined voices floated into the cool spring air as Khalid and his men said their dawn prayers. The air was chilly, his breath rising in a silver vapor into the sky. As one, they kneeled together, facing Mecca, touching their foreheads to their prayer carpets while the first rays of sun filled the valley below, painting the harsh and barren landscape with tones of pink and gold.

A beautiful morning for reflection and an entire day full of promising opportunity ahead.

He and his men finished prayers and gathered together for a light meal of tea, bread and dried fruit. Everyone was quiet but in good spirits, though Khalid could sense nervousness in some of the others. He’d done what he could to calm their fears, but there was no escape from danger now. Their high-profile prisoner guaranteed that a full-scale rescue operation was well underway now. Every last man had to maintain increased vigilance and be ready to move location at a moment’s notice, using one of the various evacuation plans already in place.

He spotted Mohammed sitting away from the others, wrapped in a heavy woolen shawl. The teenager’s gaze connected with his for a heartbeat before he looked away. Expelling a deep breath, Khalid approached him. This had to be dealt with. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yes, Khalid-jan.” He wouldn’t meet Khalid’s eyes and his expression was guarded.

Khalid lowered himself to the ground and squatted beside Mohammed. Together they watched the sun rise, spilling more of its warm light across the valley. “Taking those prisoners was an important thing. You understand what we must do now, yes?”

The boy nodded, looked away and shifted his feet. Khalid knew why he was so uncomfortable. It was the reason he’d sent Mohammed away from the room before beginning the physical part of the female’s interrogation. From the corridor he’d have heard everything, but at least he’d been spared the sight of it.

“Our prisoners are well-trained soldiers,” he continued. “It is my duty to break them, to find out what we need to know. That is the only way to help our people now. It is how we will begin the end of the American occupation.”

Mohammed nodded again, still staring out over the valley.

Khalid harbored no anger or impatience toward the boy for his reaction to last night. He had no doubt that Mohammed was one of Allah’s warriors, but this boy would serve the war effort in a different way. There was no urgent need to expose him to more of the uglier truths of this war. Khalid knew it wasn’t the mistreatment of the female Mohammed objected to. The boy simply had no stomach for torture, let alone to watch it performed on a bound captive, regardless of sex or age. Khalid understood that.

“You don’t have to watch that part of it,” he said in a low voice. “Not if you don’t wish to.”

Mohammed lowered his gaze to the ground, a flush staining his cheeks above the scraggly beard he was trying to grow, as though he was embarrassed by his reaction. “I will do whatever you require of me.”

“Witnessing the interrogation is not necessary for you to prove your loyalty to me.” And in truth, Khalid would prefer that the boy not see it. There was something so unspoiled and pure about Mohammed, Khalid was loath to see it ruined.

That same innocent light had been stomped out in Khalid’s soul when he was just a child, because he hadn’t been given the choice. In its place a deep, burning anger had been born. Now nothing could extinguish the flames that hungered for justice and acceptance. He’d battled that unquenchable fire his entire life and would until the day Allah chose to take him home. He didn’t want that for Mohammed, this half man, half child he’d been entrusted with. In this at least, Mohammed would have the choice Khalid had been denied.

“Do not fear that I see your aversion to witnessing suffering as a weakness, Mohammed,” he added, feeling protective of the boy. “You have a great capacity for mercy. That is a rare gift.”

The boy’s lips thinned in displeasure. “Mercy is for the weak,” he mumbled.

“Not always.” He wished someone had shown him mercy when he was young, other than the initial gift of allowing him to live as a babe swelling his mother’s belly when his true origins had been revealed. If he could help Mohammed retain that inner purity for a while longer as he trained to be a warrior, perhaps it would remove some of the deep stains on Khalid’s soul. Time would harden the boy eventually anyway.

If he lived long enough to reach full manhood.

He pushed the thought from his mind. “Has Jihad returned from his patrol yet?” Rahim’s liaison had left at three o’clock that morning to do a security check of the area with two of Khalid’s men.

“No. He should be returning soon though.”

Khalid rose and stretched his back. “Come. The prisoners will need water. You may take them some.”

Mohammed jumped up to do his bidding. A few strides from the entry, he paused and looked back over his shoulder. “What about...food?”

The boy’s naïveté and the concern in his eyes made something inside Khalid ache. Something he’d long thought dead. He kept his tone firm but kind. “No. Water only. These prisoners are different from any others. I need every advantage to get them to tell me what I need to know.” He left the rest unsaid.

Whether he understood his intent or not, Mohammed didn’t argue.

Following him to the entrance of the cave network, Khalid paused when the radio on his hip squawked. He pulled it from his belt. “Yes?”

“I am with Rahim,” Jihad said without preamble. “He wishes to meet with you.”

Rahim was here? Khalid’s pulse tripped. “When?”

“The sooner, the better.”

“Meet me at the designated place. I’ll wait for you there.” Khalid replaced the radio, hardly able to contain his excitement. If Rahim was close by, it meant the Americans had not yet found their hiding place. There was no way he would ever have ventured here otherwise.

Khalid took three men with him to the prearranged spot, all young and loyal men in their early twenties who would lay down their lives for him without hesitation. They maintained extreme vigilance as they descended the steep rocky trails to the rendezvous point, too aware of the rising sun exposing them and the ever-present threat of American satellites or drones in the area. Behind the cover of some large boulders and a screen of brush, they waited.

A small group of men appeared a few minutes later. There was no mistaking the great leader among them, though Khalid had never seen him before. Rahim was tall and broad through the chest and shoulders, his bearing and muscled frame broadcasting his previous life in the military. His light gray pakol covered most of his hair, but seeing the man’s coppery beard glinting in the sunlight was still a shock. As were the light blue eyes that met his when Rahim came close enough.

They crinkled at the corners as he smiled. The morning sun displayed the freckles covering his face, testament to the amount of time his pale skin had been exposed to the Afghan climate. “Khalid. Peace be upon you,” he said in Pashto.

“And on you, peace.” They shook hands.

Rahim placed his free hand over their clasped ones and regarded him warmly. “Praise be to Allah that we meet at last.”

He inclined his head. “God is great.”

Rahim released his hand. “You have done great work with this operation. You do your mujahideen brothers a proud service. Now.” A hard glint entered his eyes and he switched to the flawless English of his birth so that only Khalid would understand what they were saying from then on. “I understand you have some prisoners for me to meet.”

* * *

Jackson rolled stiffly on to his side and forced himself into a sitting position when he heard the footsteps approaching. Beside him, he could hear Doug shuffling in his own cell. Maya had finally slipped into a light sleep, a little under an hour ago as best he could tell. He hoped she stayed asleep for a long time, if for nothing else than to spare her from the pain of her injuries. She was breathing shallowly, her body self-splinting to prevent further damage.

The lantern in the man’s hand bobbed, making the softly glowing light bounce with each step. Jackson could make out the figure of the teenager, Mohammed, who’d brought Maya back to her cell after the interrogation. He passed by to Doug’s cell, setting the lantern on the floor with a metallic clink. He held something up—a canteen—and held it through the metal bars, raising it once by way of offering. Doug didn’t respond. The boy tried again and waited, hunkered down at the cell door, but after a minute or two passed without an answer, he moved on to Jackson.

The lantern light gave just enough illumination for Jackson to get a good look at the boy’s face. Mohammed had to be under twenty. His black beard was thin and scraggly, his upper cheeks soft and smooth, no wrinkles around the eyes. He offered him a drink from the canteen, frowning when Jackson didn’t acknowledge him. He said something in Pashto that Jackson didn’t understand and poured a little of the water into his hand to drink it, showing it wasn’t poisoned or tainted in any way. Jackson ignored the offer, despite how dry his mouth was. He was so thirsty he craved even a mouthful, but he would never let his captors know it. He could go another day or two without water if he had to.

Mohammed offered the canteen again, making a reassuring sound in his throat as though saying, “Come on, it’s okay.”

Maya stirred.

Jackson tensed as she moaned and gingerly shifted on to her back. In the lantern light he could see she’d squeezed her eyes shut, her lips pressed together to stifle sounds of pain. She had to be even thirstier than him and Doug after what she’d gone through last night. If she had internal injuries to her GI tract or internal bleeding, drinking could cause even more damage. He licked his dry lips and got to his knees close to the bars separating their cells.

“She’s hurt,” he said to Mohammed, who stared at him in surprise. The language barrier was a problem, but there was no way he could misunderstand what Jackson was saying. “I’m a medic.” He raised his shoulder a few inches and looked pointedly at the reflective patch on his upper arm. “I can help her. Let me check her, see if there’s anything I can do.”

No response, though the kid glanced between him and Maya, frowning in uncertainty. Looking at Jackson for confirmation, he held the canteen up and gestured toward her with a questioning look on his face.

“She’s hurt,” he repeated, looking in her direction then shaking his head. “No water yet. I need to see if it’s safe for her to drink.”

Mohammed lowered the canteen and stared back at him with a worried frown, and Jackson realized what was going on.

It wasn’t the language barrier. He didn’t have the authority to allow Jackson to enter Maya’s cell, let alone free his wrists. Probably because the kid knew Jackson could kill him with his bare hands if given the chance. Mohammed might be brainwashed and fighting for the wrong side in this war, but he wasn’t stupid. And right now he was Jackson’s best hope of helping Maya.

“Let me help her.” Urgency thrummed through him. If he could just convince Mohammed to let him in there, make himself seem nonthreatening, maybe Jackson could earn his trust enough to get him to remove the flex cuffs around his wrists.

A sudden image of breaking the kid’s neck appeared in his head. He dismissed it with a silent growl of frustration.

Fuck.

Even if he convinced Mohammed to let him into Maya’s cell with his hands free, moving her without knowing the extent of her injuries might prove fatal for her. And he couldn’t kill the kid, grab her and make a run for it while leaving the Sec Def still locked up. Even if he got them out of here, the chances of them surviving the attempt were slim at best.

But the innate urge to escape was powerful.

He glanced over at Maya’s pinched face, his mind whirling with different options. The entire countryside had to be crawling with soldiers out looking for them, along with every technological advantage the U.S. had over the enemy. He had to consciously slow his heart rate to calm himself. His paramount concern right now was Maya. She was the most at risk and the one in immediate need of care. He tried again to plead his case. “Let me help her. I need to see how badly she’s hurt.” He kept his expression neutral, trying like hell not to give away how much she mattered to him. If Mohammed picked up on that, he’d tell his superiors.

Mohammed seemed to hesitate a few seconds before meeting Jackson’s gaze, and stared at him for a long moment. He pointed at Jackson then to Maya, his eyebrows raised in silent question.

Jackson nodded emphatically. “Yes. I need to see her.” If he found the serious injuries he feared he would, he’d make a lot more noise until they gave him some medical supplies to work with, or at least something he could give her for the pain. Bastards had to have access to some opium.

Mohammed eased back on to his haunches and chewed his lip as if he didn’t know what to do. The fact that he hadn’t up and left the moment Jackson had issued the first request gave him hope. Maybe there was some decency left in this kid after all. If so, Jackson had to capitalize on it before one of the others came back.

As though he’d come to a decision, Mohammed leaned the canteen against the cell bars and met Jackson’s gaze, holding up a finger in the universal sign for “just a sec” then rose, leaving the lantern where it was. Jackson bit back the shout of denial on his tongue.

“Where’s he going?” Doug whispered from beside him, his voice full of anxiety.

“Either to ask permission for me to look at her, or to get the others,” Jackson answered, a new dread churning in his gut. His turn in the interrogation seat was coming. He knew that. Had he just guaranteed being next? With renewed urgency, he focused on Maya’s inert form. “Maya? Can you hear me?” He’d gladly take the coming beating if it saved her from another.

Her eyes opened, one nearly swollen shut. He could see the light reflecting in the other one. “Yes.” The answer was so soft he barely heard her, and it made his heart squeeze.

He didn’t have much time. “When they come back, just stay quiet and still. Don’t do anything that might draw attention to you, okay? Try not to react, no matter what they do.” Whatever happened next, he wanted her out of the line of fire. If—when—they came to take him away, he didn’t want her reaction to make her a target again.