by Kim Hornsby
“Atash left months ago,” he corrected his statement. “At the beginning of the dream, I mean. When he left, everyone in the dream disappeared. I couldn’t jump out,m so I waited.” Jamey’s throat hurt. He took a sip of water.
Milton chewed gum, smacking it annoyingly. “When you didn’t wake up with the prisoner, we waited. Then we tried drugs to stimulate you. Then jolting you, the brain scan showed something we’ve never seen before. We tried to send one of the other Forcers in but it didn’t work.” He didn’t look apologetic. “We anaesthetized the dreamer again on the second day, same medication as when you jumped in, then we initiated physical contact with you two, hoping you’d see him jump in and get out through his portal. Nothing happened for days. We woke him up today to try to interrogate him. We were just getting ready to notify your family.” He looked to the other team members who nodded in agreement.
Jamey thought of what Pops would go through if he got a message that his son was lying in a coma on the base here in Kandahar. He shuddered. Then he remembered his burning question. The answer might help him decipher what happened to trap him in the dream. “You said Atash woke up shortly after we jumped in a week ago? Because if he jumped out and meant to leave me there, maybe that was how I got stuck. I couldn’t use my portal.”
Milton took a deep breath.
“Did he say anything, like he’d intentionally left me in the dream?”
“Once we process all of this, we will filter out what information belongs to you, Freud.”
“Just tell me, damn it. I have a right to know why I was stuck in a coma for a week.”
Milton gave him the look Jamey knew only too well.
Jamey tried another tactic. “Here’s what I think happened. I jumped into this jumper’s dream. I completed the mission. When I tried to jump out, he realized it was me and wouldn’t let me go. He shot at me. I escaped, and when I came back to the area after a few days, he was ready to pick me off. I couldn’t summon jack shit because it wasn’t my dream. I hid for weeks, waiting to wake up because I couldn’t jump out. Then I rigged up a distraction so I could try the portal again and he wasn’t there because you woke him. I got out. No gunfire this time.” He looked at Milton’s stony expression. “Did you wake him up hoping I’d come with him?”
Milton nodded.
“What happens when he falls asleep naturally? Is he transferring information to someone, do you think?”
“That’s not for you to know. The dreamer is our concern, not yours.”
This wasn’t like the real world where everyone owned themselves. This was the army, where the military owned everything until further notice. And if they wanted to keep Atash a secret, they had every right to do so. He belonged to them now. Jamey assumed Atash was somewhere close by. Now that Jamey was awake, Atash would probably be heavily sedated, so he couldn’t dream when he fell asleep.
Milton lifted his chin and hardened his expression. “Now Freud, tell me about this girlfriend over at AMTEX.”
Play it smart. “I messaged her in the dream, tried to pull her in to tell her I was stuck. She’s more than a girlfriend, we’re going to be married.” Milton stared at him without reacting. “She flew here, worried, hoping to see me, and thinking I was dying.” Did this sound right? “I want to get a message to her that I’m all right.” Milton already knew about Tina, probably from Professor, who hadn’t gotten very far with his message before she turned around to accompany Milton back into the room. “She’ll be worried.”
“We need to talk about how you can message someone when you’re in a dream.” His gum chewing got more frantic. “I’ll send someone over, but Freud, you are never to try to message anyone again. Do you hear me?” He looked like he’d rake Jamey over the coals if he wasn’t just out of a coma.
“Yes sir. But, in my defense,” Jamey looked into Milton’s hard eyes, “I can’t control some of that. And, I had a lot of time to think about her while I worried if I’d ever get out of the dream. I was able to send a thought to her that I was stuck.”
Milton’s face was wrinkled in a frown. “She got a message to me, two days ago.”
What?
“She said she could help you. Called you Freud, which indicates that you breached security by telling her your code name. At the very least.”
Jamey was silent.
“You won’t get out of this unscathed, you know. This is highly classified, not only this Force, your name, and what you do with us, but this whole mission. And you are going around messaging your girlfriend?” His face reddened. “On this end we were trying everything possible to wake you. I’ll explain the tactics later, if I see fit to include you in the information. I’m watching what I tell you now, seeing you broke protocol and leaked classified information.”
Chapter 31
Tina ended up in a dark room, unable to see through the inky blackness. She tried to feel her face but her hands were bound. Then she remembered. She’d been abducted from the AMTEX place. Her shoulder hurt, she had a dirty rag in her mouth, and her hands were tied behind her back. Tied tight enough to hurt. Her feet, too. A pervasive odor, like an outhouse, filled her nostrils.
The last thing she remembered was answering the door at the AMTEX room. The door was pushed in by two soldiers, knocking her over. There was a struggle, her head was covered, and then she was carried to a vehicle. She must have passed out after that. Or was drugged. She’d been covered by what she thought were rolls of carpet and the heaviness made it hard to get a good breath. But she was alive. Had they raped her? She didn’t feel sore. The pillowcase on her head must’ve been replaced by something else that felt like a wad of cloth and maybe duct tape.
Strange music played in the distance. Footsteps scuffed the floor about ten feet away. Panic rose so fierce she had to stop from whimpering through the rag in her mouth. She’d been taken by the Taliban. Even though they’d worn army uniforms, she doubted they were from the Afghani army who worked alongside the American military in Afghanistan. Hoping to avoid a panic attack, Tina thought of Jamey. He would come for her. They’d jumped out together only a few hours earlier, she guessed. By now he was probably in her hotel room figuring out what happened. Thank God for Jamey. She had to hang on until then, try to stay alive. He’ll come for me. He’ll come for me.
Where the hell was she? The floor was cold and hard, like linoleum, which was almost like a gift, given the heat and stuffiness of the room. She laid her cheek against the coolness of the floor and tried to think of ways to calm down. Jamey will come.
But the idea that Jamey thought she might be on a plane home now, couldn’t be buried so fast. He might not know to come for her. This might be the end, unless these guys were using her to bargain for something on the American side. Or someone. Not Jamey. Please don’t let them know about Jamey. She heard a voice in the distance, like there was a door between where she lay and the speaker. Staying very still, she concentrated on breathing. In the last year she’d survived some horrible stuff. Maybe she could get through this as long as they didn’t kill her. If they raped her, she’d lie still and let them. Try to get out alive. If they tortured her, she’d keep thinking of Jamey but not tell them about Sixth Force.
She closed her eyes and tried to send a message to Jamey. If he wasn’t at the hotel, he might be in the base hospital or at the jail, thinking she was on her way back to America. Hadn’t he told her to leave when they got out? What if he never came, didn’t know she wasn’t on that plane out of here? If she died at the hands of these men, Tina was still grateful that Jamey had jumped out of the dream with her help. That had been her mission. What she wanted most. To get to Afghanistan, jump into Jamey’s dream, and help him get out.
Still, she didn’t want to die. After holding Mango in her arms a few days ago, she wanted so badly to have a baby, to experience motherhood, raise a child. She just wanted a chance.
As she lay curled up on the floor, her wrists throbbing, her head fuzzy from whatever had knocked her out, s
he thought about Jamey on that last jump. She’d felt his hand in hers when they left. He was out there, somewhere. Miles away. Please let him come bursting through that door for her.
Her heart flipped at the thought that these bad guys might know she’s a jumper. Maybe they knew she was jumping in that hotel room, somehow, and came for her. Then something else came to mind. She might still be dreaming. Back on Maui, she’d had a whole day in a dream that hadn’t existed. Maybe she was still asleep.
She’d gotten up out of her bed in the hotel room, opened the door, but never checked to see if she was actually awake. What if she woke up from this hog-tied imprisonment in another few minutes? It was entirely possible.
Just then, the door opened and a rude interruption of bright light invaded the room. She was not alone on the cold floor. Two men lay perfectly still in opposite ends of the room, only fifteen feet from her, either asleep. Unconscious or dead. Both wore a blindfold, but nothing stuffed into their mouths, not like her.
Something was said in the local language, and one of the men reached down and tugged her to her feet. There was a terrible stench of body odor coming from the two guards, as well as the outhouse smell in the room, and she fought against gagging. Pulling her through the doorway, the men argued back and forth. They took her to a room with a crude wooden table and two metal chairs and shoved her into one of the chairs. The cloth was pulled out of her mouth. It was a dirty rag, covered in something like oil and sand, and she wanted to spit, but didn’t want to insult anyone, just in case. If she could only punch her fist through her stomach to test if she was asleep.
After about five minutes of sitting in the chair and being watched by her captors, an older man came into the room and smirked at her. He looked to be in his fifties, stocky, with a beard, moustache, dark hair graying at the temples and dark eyes. He wasn’t an ugly person, but mean looking, judging from his cold eyes. He sat in the other chair, and, once settled, cleared his throat.
“And who are you?” he said in broken English.
Who was he? “My name is Tina Greene,” she said.
“Why are you in Kandahar, receiving messages from the American military?” His smile was menacing.
Ah, that. “I want to see my boyfriend. He’s stationed here.” She tried to look like that was her only motive.
“No. No, that’s not the truth.” He smiled at the guards, then looked back at her. “Now, I want you to tell me why you are here.” He leaned forward, his eyes shooting sparks at her, like he’d pull out her fingernails if she wasn’t truthful.
Tina needed to concoct a story that didn’t involve dream jumping or Sixth Force. Or a boyfriend, apparently. “I’m an American journalist. At least I’m trying to break in to political reporting. I wanted to meet the heavy hitters.” She could see that he didn’t know what that meant. “The journalists who are well-respected in America. I want to report on this war, like them.” She tried to look passionate about the opportunity to report.
He stared at her.
“I was hoping to interview a general or something, and I tried to contact the base.”
“Where is your camera?” He smirked. Maybe less than before.
She shrugged and tried to play the role of a stupid woman. “If I was given an interview, I’d find a photographer.” She hoped that lie looked better than the one about a girlfriend who wants to see her boyfriend. “I can interview you, if you like. If you have a camera, I can film you. I could get your message back to America.” She sat back casually like she had no idea how important this talk would be.
“You say you are a journalist?” He chuckled. “Why does your driver’s license say you live in Hawaii?”
They had her wallet. Of course. “That’s where I live most of the time. It’s half-way between the Middle-East and America.”
He stared at her for a full minute, licked his lips, and then spoke. “You don’t even live in New York. Stupid woman. Who would give you an interview?” Finally, he rose from the chair. “I will add you to the list.” He snapped his fingers and the two dirty men in jeans and neck scarves grabbed her and shoved her back in the room. She fell to the floor and was left. The guards argued on the other side of the door. Thankfully, they hadn’t put the dirty cloth back in her mouth.
A whispered voice came from the floor in the corner of the room. “Are you American?”
***
According to Milton, there was reason to believe that an American woman had been taken out of the hotel room by force. There’d been a witness. The maid working the early shift saw two soldiers carry a woman with her head covered from Tina’s room. The maid didn’t follow or say anything out of fear, then told the front desk and they reported it to the Afghani Army.
“Looks like someone took your girlfriend, Freud.” Milton didn’t look emotional over this bad news.
Jamey’s nerve endings sprang to the surface and he tried to sit up. “No!” Jamey said. “I need to go.” If he ever was going to lose it with Sixth Force, it was now. “I want my clothes, and I want a jeep. I’m going to AMTEX to figure out what happened. I have to find her.” He tried to say this as forcefully as possible.
“Sorry, Freud. You are waiting here until we get a plan.” Milton leaned in, as though he had classified information. “We have reason to believe they took her only because she’s an American, not that she might be important to the military.” He looked directly into Jamey’s eyes, a sign of truth. “There is Intel to support that she was taken to join the hostages, the ones in your mission. They probably think they’ve sweetened the pot with a woman in the mix. We’ll hear shortly. We have to sit tight for another hour to hear if she’s part of the hostage group. Now suppose you tell me exactly who she is and how you contacted her to say you were in danger.”
Jamey sat back and let out a breath he’d been holding for what seemed like weeks. “She has no background in this shit. She’s my fiancée, just a girl from Seattle who loves me. I was thinking about her in there and somehow I pulled her in, or something equally weird a few days ago and told her to tell my father that I was stuck. Not that he’d know what to do,” Jamey added. “I wanted Pops to get a message to you. But, she’s feisty, and after hearing I was stuck in a dream, she must’ve flown all this way, hoping to see me.”
“Why would she send a note to say that she could help you?”
Protecting Tina from the American military was getting harder. “I don’t know, probably to get on the base, knowing her.”
Milton pulled it from his pocket and read. “Milton: Coming to help Freud. Contact Pops. Or AMTEX Hotel. Ask for Greene.”
Son of a bitch! She said she was coming to help like she knew what she was doing. He had to choose his words carefully now to keep them from knowing that Tina was a jumper. If he said that they consistently jumped together, the army would want her too. And they weren’t getting Tina. Not even if she got sucked in by the Do-Something-For-Your-Country sales pitch. “It happened once before. I was dreaming and pulled her in.” He hated lying to Milton, hated having secrets, but he’d hate it more if they recruited Tina for Sixth Force. “This time, she didn’t land, or even come into the dream, but I spoke to her. We had five seconds.” He hoped Atash hadn’t mentioned seeing a woman running around in the dream.
Milton looked skeptical now. “And from that, this woman would fly across the world to help you?”
Jamey nodded and almost smiled. “This one would. She was probably hysterical after hearing I was stuck in the dream and thought if she was here, I might be able to reach her again.”
Milton questioned him for another few minutes. He asked how much Tina knew about Sixth Force.
“Basically nothing,” Jamey said, knowing that Milton would worry she’d give up information if tortured. The thought of anyone hurting Tina made Jamey sick. “She knows it exists, and that I jump, of course.” Jamey had an idea. “I have a hunch about something important about my mission. Look. I need to get to AMTEX, see if I get a feeling. I’
ll give up this information if you let me talk to Tina.”
Milton froze. “You’ll tell us regardless, Freud.” He looked like he’d torture it out of Jamey if he had to. “In this division, there are no secrets.” Rarely did Milton ever raise his voice, but Jamey sensed the anger in him now. “Information intentionally kept from us will result in dire consequences, Private Dunn.” He emphasized the last name, and Jamey thought of all the harm Milton could do to his family back in Carnation. A man like Milton might not worry about morals.
Still, Jamey held firm. It was a game of who cracked first.
Nearly a minute passed, then Milton nodded. “I’ll send someone to AMTEX, but you realize that every time a soldier leaves this base it puts them in grave danger. Last week, insurgents shot at a truck just outside the Bagram gate.”
Jamey waited. Even though AMTEX was just across the road from the airport property, the road between the base and the city of Kandahar was becoming littered with blown up buses and trucks. Every move in this country was risky, but hadn’t he helped save thousands of people, American, Afghani and even British and Canadian soldiers? “I need to go.”
“No. Not yet, anyhow. What’s your hunch?’ Milton sat down in the chair across from Jamey.
“In the middle of the mission, I had a suspicion that Atash knew it was me in the dream even though I looked Afghani. Maybe he wanted me to see the house. I’m not sure, but maybe. There was a moment I thought the gig was up, then I mentioned Mullah Omar and it seemed to turn around. Even so, it might be the wrong place.”
“If we find the house and send Special Ops over there, and it’s an ambush, we need to be ready.” Milton looked at Jamey strangely, like he was weighing whether or not to tell him something.