by Kim Hornsby
“I need to get over to that hotel where they took her. Now!” Jamey’s nerves were on high alert. Tina had been kidnapped.
“We have people at AMTEX questioning everyone. We have a Forcer over there doing a reading. Let the experts do their job. You get some strength back before you leave this room.” Milton turned and left.
Jamey’s guards stood ready to keep him in the bed.
Ranger spoke. “We’re doing everything possible to find out what happened. You have to trust us, Freud. We’ll take you over once you’ve eaten and are a little stronger.”
He had to get over there. Fuck! Where were his clothes? No one could tune into Tina like him. He needed to get to AMTEX, see if he could pull up any new information. What other Forcer could do a better job?
A meal arrived. Knowing that leaving the room depended on his well-being, he ate quickly and then asked for his clothes. When he was brought his BDU’s, Jamey was helped to the shower room. Looking in the mirror he saw he had a week’s worth of facial hair. He’d been lying in that damned bed for over a week.
Once clothed, Jamey sat on the edge of his hospital bed and waited for someone to come talk to him about Tina. He’d only wait so long before he burst out the door and went looking for her himself. Thing was, he needed a jeep and that would involve permission. Maybe paperwork to leave the base.
Twenty minutes later, Milton walked in the room and nodded at Jamey. “Come on,” he said.
Jamey’s legs were shaky but worked well enough to get him in a wheelchair. Guard #1 pushed the contraption, following Milton out of the hospital, and helped load Jamey into a waiting truck. They drove across the base to a crudely constructed building at the edge of the base perimeter. Every month, new buildings were erected, indicating the American commitment to this war. Tents were being replaced by walls and roofs. The base looked more like a town than a refugee camp.
Inside a guarded conference room, eight people sat around a long table. Jamey recognized several Forcers, no one from his team, along with people Jamey had never seen before. He sat down and searched the faces of the people around the table.
When the last person arrived, Milton began. “We have reason to believe that an American woman, we’ll call her Sitting Duck, was taken from AMTEX three hours ago and moved to the compound where they’re holding the hostages. We think she may become part of the negotiations between the Taliban and the American Government to release these prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay for their part in nine eleven.” The lights dimmed and a photo of two Taliban men were projected on the wall. “These are the men we believe took Sitting Duck. Dressed as Afghani Army, they gained entrance to her room at AMTEX, probably drugged her and drove away in a truck, through the gate of the hotel. From there we believe they might have taken her to join these two hostages.” Headshots of two American men appeared on the wall.
Next a photo of Tina flashed on the screen. It was grainy and she wore sunglasses, but somehow Milton had obtained a photo of her on the beach in Maui. “This is the female hostage taken from AMTEX. Sitting Duck.”
Several people nodded, no one took notes. This was classified information. Jamey’s heart beat hard against his ribs, but his fear for Tina leveled out slightly knowing she’d become a priority. She’d be used to bargain for Taliban prisoners. Not that the U. S. government would trade her for someone imprisoned at Gitmo, but as long as the insurgents thought there was still hope of trading, they wouldn’t kill her. What else they might do to her was unthinkable. If he had to, Jamey would offer up himself to get Tina back to safety. But he couldn’t tell anyone that.
“The Commander in Chief has been alerted,” Milton said. “We’re awaiting further instructions. Problem is, we have no firm Intel as to the location of the hostages. Just a crude description that may or may not be correct. We are drawing upon any clues to find anything to help us with this location.”
Jamey’s heart sank. They had no idea. Just his description, and that might be a red herring. He needed to try to dream jump with her, as crazy as that sounded. He needed to get to somewhere quiet and see if she responded.
Milton looked at several of the soldiers seated around the table. Were they like him, the talent? One man with a full beard and a hat pulled past his eyebrows nodded. When Jamey looked down to the man’s hands, saw that he was holding a toothbrush. Was he fingering Tina’s toothbrush, taken from the hotel room? It seemed like an invasion of her privacy, but then he remembered that she was being held hostage by some of the most volatile, dangerous people in the world. They were people who’d been known to kill for no reason, even when it would suit them to spare the prisoner, people who acted on impulse and emotion.
“I need privacy, see if I get anything,” he said to Milton as he stood from the table.
Milton nodded once.
“Excuse me.” Jamey turned. Where could he go to dream jump? A bathroom? Before he left the room, he spoke emphatically to Milton. “I need a car. I’m going over to her hotel room.”
Two guards followed Jamey down the narrow hall to a door. When he knocked, and looked in, he saw an empty office. No window. Fatal funnel. He couldn’t help but think of escape routes when his mind was hell-bent on getting Tina out. He sat in a chair and closed his eyes. The last time he saw Tina, they were holding hands, running to the portal. She’d held her rifle like a real pro, ran like a warrior, and he loved her more than he ever thought possible.
After ten minutes of trying to jump into Tina’s thoughts, or dreams, he hadn’t found anything. His request to leave the base was granted, and with several guards and team members, they drove out the gate and across the street to the hotel where Tina was last seen.
Walking in to her room, Jamey felt the fear that Tina encountered as she was taken. Her backpack was open at the side of the bed. No wallet. No clothes. A brush, a clean T-shirt, and her passport remained. The covers on the bed were pulled back, like she’d been woken from her sleep to answer the door. They hadn’t broken in and taken her from the bed.
Why the hell did she open the hotel room door without checking the peep hole?
Chapter 32
All indicators showed that Tina had no intention of staying long, unless the Taliban had taken her luggage, which was highly unlikely. It made Jamey’s heart drop to see she’d only brought a half-full day pack—the same one she used on Maui to carry her wallet and Obi’s treats.
The pillow smelled like her. If he was ever going to find her through dreams, he’d have the best chance in this bed. Her essence flooded his senses as he sat on the side of the bed. When he opened his eyes, the others were watching him.
“I’m going to try to jump,” he told Ranger. “Leave me alone for a few.”
The short, muscular soldier glanced to the room’s window.
“I’m not going to head out the window and go looking for her on my own,” Jamey said. “Cross my heart and I’d probably die.”
Ranger stared at him. He probably had orders from Milton to not let Jamey out of his sight.
“Okay, stay in here,” Jamey said. “I’ll see if this works. It might take a while.” He was used to people watching him jump, not that there was anything to see. On a jump his body probably looked like a guy who was sleeping. Ranger and everyone else on the team had seen more than they ever needed of him sleeping over the last week.
The guy they called Sweep sat down in the room’s only chair, by the desk, and Ranger leaned against the wall. The guards stood outside the door. Jamey could feel that one of them was bored and couldn’t wait to end his shift and go back to his barracks and watch TV.
Sitting on the bed, Jamey thought about Tina. What kind of woman flies across the world to try to get her boyfriend out of a sticky situation, knowing she could die in the process? She must’ve known this was a nasty zone of crazy shit and that she might not make it out alive. He leaned over and took the T-shirt from inside the backpack. It didn’t have a strong sense of her. It looked clean or new. He took the pillow and held it in his
lap, closing his eyes. Breathing slowly, he concentrated on pulling out the information. What was going on in the room just before she was taken? Tina…
Soon, an emotion came to him. Tina was determined to save Jamey. He tried to get more details. He imagined himself standing with wide-open arms, head tilted back, waiting for a revelation. Was it a knock on the door that alerted her or did they use a key? Nothing came. Attempting to put information in his path, like imagining her going to the door, didn’t bring him anything except a sense of her love for him.
When he gave up and opened his eyes, there was a faint recollection that Tina had gone to the door willingly, happy to know that Jamey was back from the dream. “No,” he whispered out loud. She’d thought he was at the door. She’d opened the hotel room door thinking when he and Tina jumped back from the dream, he’d landed somewhere in the hotel. Tina had opened the door thinking it was him. Shit.
He walked to the door and put his hand on the doorknob leading into the room. The insurgents had been excited to get another American. They thought she was valuable. The only hope for Tina and the others to be freed was if they found the house. If they could figure out where the hostages were being held, they’d send in Delta Force.
According to what he knew, the insurgents used houses in southwest Kandahar or they headed for the caves in mountains bordering Pakistan. He doubted these guys would have gone to the caves in this instance. They’d need the hostages close by for the exchange, and the mountains were hours away by truck.
Jamey looked over at Sweep and Ranger. “Give me some privacy. I just got something. Ranger and Sweep stared at him suspiciously. “Give me a minute here, just in case I couldn’t get anything because you goons were looking at me.”
They left the room.
Jamey lay back on Tina’s bed, closed his eyes and let his breathing slow down. In and out, in and out. He imagined Tina and her breathing, her smell, her taste. Her kiss. The feel of her body in his arms. They’d been so happy on Maui. In the weeks before he left Maui for Carnation, they couldn’t get enough of each other. She’d hardly been able to go to work for wanting more of him, she’d said. Twice, she’d turned around on her way to work and came back to lure him back to bed. They laughed that they were always horny. Couldn’t keep their hands off each other.
He’d been lying with Tina after making love when she opened up about Hank.
“I loved him. I did,” she said, like she was convincing herself. “It was different than what I have with you, Jamey, but it was love.” She’d looked at him so sweetly. “Do you believe that you can love different people romantically?”
He nodded.
“With you, it’s like I’ve come home. Like I’ve found the person who was made for me, the man I can love the very best, the longest and the strongest.” Making love that night had been slow, sweet and almost sad for all the others they’d tried to love like this over the years. They hadn’t talked marriage or kids yet, but they both knew that was the next big conversation.
Until the letter and their break up.
As he lay in the AMTEX hotel bed, thinking about her this way, Jamey felt himself fall into a dark tunnel. The familiarity of being sucked back was a victory. He hoped he wasn’t destined for the deserted dream village he’d just come from, but if going back got Tina out and safe, he’d do it.
Instead, he landed in a field of waist-deep dry grass. In the distance he saw Tina running towards him from a stand of trees, wearing the same jeans and T-shirt from the last dream. She’d arrived before him. He watched her. There was nothing frivolous or fun about her movements and when he realized that she looked frantic, he started running too. When they met, she crashed into his chest. “I’m in a house with two other Americans. Men.” She was panting, gasping for breath.
“They’re reporters,” he said. “What does the house look like?” Was it the same one Atash took him to?
She shook her head. “I don’t know. They drugged me, I woke up inside, maybe two stories. I saw stairs leading up. The house is maybe 2200 square feet, maybe, judging from the kitchen’s size.” Her eyes looked haunted. “A clock or something chimes at sunset. Twelve times,” she said. “Dogs barking outside. There’s two young guys, led by a man who is older, bearded, kind of squatty, with a tattoo marking on his left inside wrist, the sign of two circles meshing. He has a broken tooth, right front, and a huge crease between his eyebrows.”
“How long did it take to get to the house?” He held her shoulders.
She shook her head.
“Do you think you’re in Kandahar?”
“I think so. I heard one of the guards say Kandahar in front of me.” She shrugged.
“What else? Have they hurt you?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m lying on a cold floor in a dark room, but no. I’m not hurt. I told them I’m doing a story on Afghanistan. They have my wallet.” She shook her head. “Not sure they believe me.” Her eyes were frantic. “Um, they have machine guns, looks like our M4’s. They play the radio constantly. We’re in a dark room off a kitchen with a wooden table and four chairs, nothing more. Oh and there is a woman who cooks. Wears a black burqa, covering her face. She’s maybe thirty-five, kind eyes, shy.” Tina looked surprised and reached for his hand. “Oh no. I’m going now.”
“See if you can find out more. There’s a negotiation with the Taliban for you three now. We’re looking for the house.” He held her tightly. “Keep trying to reach me this way.” Jamey could feel her dissolving. “I love you, Tina. We’re coming for you. Don’t give up.”
She smiled at him and was gone. Jamey stood in the grass staring at nothing where Tina had been.
Chapter 33
“Are you American?” a voice said from the blackness of the room.
“Yes.”
“Do they know we’ve been taken?”
“I don’t know.”
A knock sounded on the door and nothing more was said. Tina closed her eyes, waiting. Then she was pulled out of reality to a field where Jamey waited. She ran for him. Within two minutes she was gone from Jamey’s arms, lying on the floor again in the hostage room. These men were reporters. Knowing there was a negotiation going on changed her state of mind. The room smelled of urine and bodily waste, in contrast to the field in the dream. Were the reporters let out for bathroom breaks? She’d been there about twelve hours and had to pee. The men hadn’t left the room in all that time. If they were all lying, hog-tied on the floor, probably there were no bathroom breaks. She might eventually have to pee her pants.
“Are you reporters?” she whispered.
“Yes. Do you know what’s happening?” The man spoke so quietly she could barely make out what he said.
“You’re on some list. Maybe a hostage list. The American military knows you’ve been captured. The Taliban are trying to negotiate.”
The door opened and a crazed looking man entered the room with his automatic rifle pointed at her. He said something in a foreign language, shouting like he might mean for them to stop talking, although how he heard anything with the loud music on the radio outside the door was beyond comprehension. The light allowed her to look around the room. It was large, with an old couch, chair and table with a TV at one end, like they’d been pushed back to accommodate prisoners. A body lay in each corner of the room at the far end. Two men. Dressed in jeans and street clothes. Why hadn’t they blindfolded her? Little did they know she’d just been in a dream, leaking information about them.
The guard moved towards the corner and kicked one of the men in the back. A muffled grunt came from the prisoner. Then the guard looked over at her. He walked closer. She didn’t look up. She watched out slitted eyes. He was near enough to see dirt on his boots. She braced herself for a kick in her stomach. His boot was beside her abdomen. The guard crouched, said something to her and nudged her hip with his gun. She froze. Then he nudged his gun between her thighs and she flinched. All she could think about was that this could be it. The end. Or
worse.
Another man appeared in the doorway and yelled something, like he disapproved of the guard being inside the room. They left and the door closed with both insurgents on the opposite side. Tina let out the breath she was holding. She considered inching over to one of the other prisoners to talk but she didn’t want to take the chance of making the guard angry if he came in again. At this point, she hoped and prayed that Jamey and the military were closer to finding this place.
She dozed in and out of sleep that night, unable to stay awake, until the door opened and a woman was let in to feed them a crust of bread. They each got one and a few sips of rusty tasting water. Then the woman exited the room, leaving the older man with the chipped tooth staring down at her. “I want to take a photo of you, female reporter. A woman will create more concern with American infidels.”
The guard pulled her up but she couldn’t stand, her legs being hog-tied. He ordered the guard to cut the line that connected her wrists to her feet in the back. On command, she hopped out the door awkwardly. It was daytime, the hot sun streaming in through a window. Apparently her hopping wasn’t fast enough because the older man ordered a second guard to pick her up and place her against the far wall where someone had written “Americans Die” in crude red letters.
As she was carried across the room, Tina thought about the Wheelchair Mamas and how strong each of those women had been to carry on without the use of their legs. Some only had movement from the neck up. They’d continued, regardless of the nasty blow life had dealt them. They’d learned to scuba dive, laughed afterwards with their family. Life went on for them after their life-changing accidents. Tina had to stay strong. Get through this. Next year, when they came back to Maui, she’d tell them how they helped her get through a nightmare.
Passing the window, Tina managed to see the very top of a Mosque, gold and shiny--beside that, a stark white building with a red clay roof. A mountain range loomed in the background. If she saw Jamey in another dream she would tell him they were less than five hundred feet from a mosque, although she imagined there were many of these in Kandahar.