by Dale Mayer
“Crawling out of a basement window where she’d been imprisoned for days by several men,” Zack said bluntly.
The doctor shot him a look, shook his head, and said, “Levi mentioned something about a rescue.”
“Yes, exactly. She didn’t tell me that she was injured though. I pulled a piece of glass out of the wound on the way here, but I’m not sure if there isn’t more.” He was happy to see the bleeding had slowed, but it still moved sluggishly down her leg.
“After all this time, with the blood attempting to flush out all the foreign matter, something else is in there,” the doc said. He brushed the men back and said, “Give me space.” He sat down and got to work. He pulled another tiny piece of glass out with the help of his magnifying glass and tweezers and said, “That looks clean now.” He quickly cleaned it up with an antibiotic solution, which made the blood run even more. “Looks like it just nipped a little bit of an artery here but not a real tear, just something struggling to heal.”
“Will it heal?”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “Absolutely. I’ll have to stitch this closed.” He immediately pulled over tools and sutures and got to work.
By the time he was done, Zack was leaning against the doorway, more relieved than he could say that somebody with his skill level had been here to patch her up.
The doctor stood. “It will leave a little bit of a scar but not too much of one.”
Zack smiled as he looked down at the woman he’d helped out of the house. It was the first time that he had a chance to see her. She had high cheekbones, and her skin, although waxy pale, had a bit of a red flush coming back. She had a shock of golden reddish-brown hair, and she was lean, as in all-over lean. He frowned at that. “She looks as if she’s been starved for weeks.”
The doctor looked at her, shrugged, and said, “She’s skinny, but that’s the style for so many young women these days.” He patted his own generous belly. “Not my style at all.” He quickly bandaged up the leg wound, and, when he taped the gauze over top, he continued, “She needs antibiotics, and she needs pain meds, not to mention some rest.”
“Any reason she can’t travel?”
“No,” he said. “She’ll need the stitches in for a good ten, twelve days. Get her to a doctor afterward to take them out.”
“Good enough.”
“But the antibiotics should stop any infections,” he said, “because you don’t know what else might have gone in there with that glass.” He walked over to his cabinets, using his key, opened up several of them, and pulled out bottles as he checked the labels. Then he walked over, grabbed a little pill bottle, and poured a bunch of capsules into his palm, counted out what he wanted. He put them in the bottle, popped the lid on it, wrote something on the blank white label, and handed it to him. “She needs four of these a day, preferably with food. They are likely to upset her stomach.”
“Will do.”
He walked toward different cabinets, pulled out a bottle of pain meds, and tossed it to him. “She can take up to four of these a day.”
“Also good enough,” he said. “How much do I owe you?”
“Levi’s already cleared the bill,” Henry said. “He cleared it a long time ago. I’ve been looking for a chance to repay him, and this is the perfect opportunity.”
“In that case,” Bonaparte said with a smile, “thank you very much.”
Just then came a murmur from the bed. Zack walked over, picked up Zadie’s hand. “Take it easy,” he said. “You collapsed, and we got you to a doctor right now.”
Her eyes opened, and she withdrew from him, but he held her hand gently and said, “It’s okay,” he murmured. “Just take it easy.”
She settled back into the exam table, her eyes weary as she studied his face, and he realized that she had yet to see who he was.
He gave her a big grin. “I’m the guy who helped rescue you from the basement. My name is Zack.”
She studied him for a long moment; then he saw her visibly relax.
“I’m Zadie,” she said, “and thank you for the rescue.”
Chapter 4
Zadie’s gaze roamed the stranger’s face in front of her. Although she’d seen bits and pieces of him earlier, she never could get a good look at who he was. Short cropped dark, dark black hair, thick eyebrows, but a strong friendly face, square chin, and a thick, heavy build. The man beside him was a monster of a man. And then there was a guy in a white jacket.
She propped herself up on one elbow and cried out, “Good Lord.” She looked at her leg. “What happened?”
“When you went through that basement window,” Zack said, “you were cut up, and a couple pieces of glass ended up in your leg. I gather you didn’t know about it because you said nothing?”
She looked at him in surprise, looked at her leg, and shrugged. “I’m sure I didn’t know. I was pretty pissed I couldn’t keep up with you though,” she said. “Now I know why.” She looked at the two men beside Zack and said, “If you had anything to do with my rescue and fixing me up, I thank you.”
Bonaparte stepped forward, flashed her a smile, and bowed. “I’m Bonaparte, his partner.”
She smiled up at him. “And I’m grateful. Thank you.” She turned toward the doctor. “Are you the one who took care of my leg?”
Henry nodded in that genial manner of his. “I am. I’ve given these guys antibiotics and painkillers for you.”
“I don’t suppose I can have one or two of those right now?” she asked. “Even sitting up feels like somebody is cutting me apart.”
“Well, somebody did,” he said, as he walked over to grab a glass of water from the sink in one of those paper cups and came back, two pills in his hands. “Take these.”
She tried to sit up a bit more but was at an awkward angle because they had propped up her leg on pillows.
Zack immediately grabbed her from behind by the armpits, propped her up, and sat her so she could lean against him. His manner had been a little rough, but she appreciated it because it worked. She tossed back the pills, swallowed them down, and handed the cup off to the doctor. “Thank you.”
“You should start feeling better in about twenty minutes,” he said.
She nodded, looking at her leg. “Where are we going from here?” she asked. “And where is here?”
“Greece,” Henry said. “Just inside the border.”
He gave the name of the village, but it wasn’t one she knew. She nodded slowly. “So we are out of Turkey?” At Zack’s nod, she leaned back against him and closed her eyes. “I’m damn grateful for that.”
“What we don’t have,” Bonaparte said, “is your paperwork.”
Her eyes flew open, and she studied the big man, who crossed his arms and widened his stance as he looked at her. “It’s all back at the house where I was held,” she said. “I just have my cell phone.” She immediately patted her pants pockets. “My phone, where is my phone?”
“Where was it last?” Zack asked.
“Inside my pants leg,” she said. “Honestly.” She immediately checked her other leg and then crowed. “Look!” It was tucked inside the sock around the heavy cuff where it’d been rolled down. She pulled it out and held it up. “Now this I’m grateful to have.”
“Does it have your documentation?”
“Well, it has photos,” she said, turning it on, and then frowned. “But the battery is almost gone.”
“That’s to be expected. We’ll charge it for you when we get back in the vehicle.”
“And it does have my documentation in a sense, as I’ve got copies of my passport, my IDs. But that won’t let me pass through any customs.”
“No.” The doctor smiled. “Now, if you want to go to Komotini, I might know somebody there who can help you.”
She looked at him in surprise and then frowned. “In Komotini? I probably could go to the consulate and get some help too.”
All the men nodded.
“That would be good if I could ask for a lif
t from here.” She frowned, glanced around at the men in the clinic. “Nobody followed us, right?”
“No,” Bonaparte said.
Zack joked, “Not unless they were flying a plane.”
She looked at him in confusion.
“You have no idea how fast Bonaparte drives,” he explained. “Nobody could have kept up.”
“Okay,” she said. “But what if they have some intel or just guessed at our closest safe border?”
“Do you really think those two brothers had that kind of capability?”
She frowned at that, shook her head, and said, “No, I don’t think so. What I don’t understand is why they thought I would be a good choice for a prisoner exchange in the first place.”
“I don’t think they thought it through,” Zack said. “Sounds like it was an opportunity they couldn’t pass up. They might have decided that, finding you gone, it was not worth tracking you down anyway.”
“Good,” she said. “I’d like to get the hell out of here.”
“I hear you,” Zack said. “As soon as the doctor is ready to let you get up and walk around, just to make sure you’re okay.”
The doctor smiled and said, “You can leave anytime.”
She slowly swung her leg off the raised pillow and shifted so she sat upright. As the leg came down, swinging a little more than she had expected, she shuddered, feeling the pain up and down her body. “We can leave now,” she said gamely.
Bonaparte snorted. “Well, good to know you are ready, but we’d give you another few minutes until the painkillers kick in.”
“I’d appreciate that,” she said with a brave smile, “but I don’t know if we have time.” Just then her phone buzzed. She stared at it in surprise.
“Put it on Speakerphone,” Zack said.
She nodded, answered it, saying, “Mom, is that you?”
Her mother’s panicked voice cried out in relief. “There you are! We’ve been so worried.”
“Why are you calling me right now?” she asked, rubbing her temple. She didn’t know what to say to her mother. She glanced up; both of the men just shook their heads, and she frowned at them.
“I’ve been so worried,” her mother said. “You never came back from your walk.”
Zadie winced at that. “I’m so sorry,” she said.
“Several days later I heard you were kidnapped. But you escaped, right?” her mom said evenly.
At that, she looked at the two men, shrugged, and replied, “Yes, I escaped.”
“Well, thank God for that,” she said. “I was so worried that something else might have happened to you. The least you could have done was let us know you were safe.”
“I wasn’t sure if they were tracking my phone calls or not,” she lied.
“They probably are,” her mother said with a sniff. “Especially now.”
“Why now?”
“Your father isn’t doing well.”
“How bad is it?” she asked in alarm.
“It’s his heart. But we’re stuck here, and he won’t make an issue of it, and no one is listening anyway. I’ve contacted a few people from our old life, and all they’ve said is that the media is silent. Only that we’re guests of the government until their investigation is over. And you know how that will end. Still you got out, and, for that, I’m so happy,” her mother said warmly.
“We’ll get you out too,” Zadie said, looking at the two men who rescued her.
“Not an issue right now. We’re safe. I’m busy taking care of some personal stuff while I can,” her mother said, her voice lowered to a whisper. “I want to make sure you’re okay. I don’t know how long before they find out what I’m doing, so I have to be careful.”
“Mom, forget about me. I’m fine. Let’s just keep you safe, and we’re coming to get you.”
“No,” her mother said firmly. “I know I’d hoped I could leave with you, but, when they wouldn’t let you leave, then you were kidnapped, … well, it’s not likely to happen now.”
Zadie didn’t know what to do.
“I can’t talk long. I’ll call you again.” And, with that, her mother hung up.
Zadie stared at her phone, then slowly placed it in her lap. “She hung up.”
“She sounded well though,” Zack said quietly. “Fairly calm. Unhurt. Although I’m sorry about your father’s condition.”
“I forgot about his heart condition,” she murmured. “I’ve been so focused on convincing my mother to get out, knowing there was no way to help him. He’d prefer to die before they make a circus show with him as the central character.” Just then her stomach growled. She sighed. “So I don’t suppose you have any food in the main part of the village, do you? Restaurants? Cafés? Grocery stores?” She looked at the paper cup supply. “Or more water?”
The doctor smiled. “The water I can do something about, but I’m not so sure about food—it’s too early, even for our little village.”
She nodded and groaned. “I can survive a little bit longer.” When he returned with a much larger glass of water, she drank it back and smiled. “That feels much better,” she said. Using Zack’s shoulder, she hopped up onto her good leg and gingerly put some weight on the sore one. She caught her breath and held it, while she experimented with hobbling around. “Painful,” she admitted. “And as long as we don’t have to run for our lives again,” she said with a side look at Zack, “I should be fine, particularly if I get to lie in the back seat of a car with my leg propped up.”
“That’s how I suggest you travel,” the doc said. “The leg needs to be up to help take the pressure off.”
She nodded. It didn’t take much longer to get everybody out to the vehicle, and her leg propped up in the back, the doctor donating a pillow for her. Along with Bonaparte’s bag as a pillow for her head, she was relatively comfortable. She thanked the doc again. He just smiled, nodded, and headed back, closing the clinic door behind him. “I presume he will lock that, right?”
“Absolutely,” Zack said, as he got into the front seat. He turned to look at her. “So not any food here, but we can stop at a restaurant up ahead.”
“Maybe,” she said. “Maybe I should just try to sleep.”
“If you’re tired, do so,” he said. “We are a good couple hours outside of Komotini.”
“Absolutely.” Just then her phone rang again. “Uh-oh, it’s Mom again. What’s up, Mom?” She again put her phone on Speaker.
“Help,” her mother called through the phone frantically. “Help. I think he’s dead. Now they want something from me. … Hel—” And, just like that, the phone went dead.
Zadie bolted upright. “Oh, my God.” Her gaze went from her phone, like a bomb about to go off, then stared at the two men in shock. “What the hell?”
They looked at each other, then at her. “Oh no,” they said. “You’re not going back there.”
She stared at them in shock. “What do you mean, I’m not going back there? This is my mother. She’s obviously in a crisis. Of course I’m going back there. Besides, you got me out of there, so you can get her out.” She stopped. “In truth, I should never have left without her.” She closed her eyes, overcome with guilt, repeating, “I should never have left without her.”
“What are you talking about? We rescued you, and you were in no condition to tell us that your mother needed rescuing too.”
“All this happened so fast,” she said. “And my mother’s situation just now escalated for sure. But I did hear the house guards talking about how they would move my parents. Somebody laughed in the background, saying, Yeah, six feet under. And then I was attacked.”
“What do you mean, you heard them?”
“The regular guards were standing outside. I went out to check on them, to see the timing of their rounds, and they were standing outside, talking. I was on the other side of the trees. I walked past them, and they separated off, and someone jumped me.”
“Maybe you were jumped because you heard them,” he sai
d.
“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “The normal guards are separate from my jailers. But regardless, my mother, she is not part of this. Please, we can’t just leave her there. You got here in what, an hour, two hours? Rather than going to Komotini, let’s go back and grab her.”
“You don’t know what happened to her,” Bonaparte said carefully. “That sounded like somebody very panicked.”
“You think?” she cried out, her voice rising. “Please, don’t make me walk away from my mother like this.”
The two men looked at each other. Bonaparte shrugged and said, “Well, I’m up for it.” He pulled off to the shoulder, then turned back in the direction they’d come from. Within seconds he was flying at top speed again. If he had his way, she just knew he’d push the speed even faster if she didn’t protest. But she’d start screaming soon.
“Tell us everything you know,” Zack said, twisting in his seat so he could look at her. “And if you know anything about where they were taking your parents. I know what you said earlier, but anything else you can remember will help.”
“No, nothing other than that. I hardly got a chance to visit with my parents. When I arrived, the house guards were very clear that I wasn’t leaving, and I threw a fit. So did my mother. My father just ignored me. As soon as I heard that, I made plans for at least me to escape and get more help and come back for my mother. I was just locking down those plans when I was snatched up and somehow squirreled into the damn basement without realizing where I was for sure,” she said. “While there, I had no idea what was going on with my parents. I had no contact with her until she called me these two times this morning.”
“So we don’t know that your parents are still at the same house where we rescued you. Which is a pretty big assumption,” Zack warned. “We don’t know what is going on with your parents even now. They were imprisoned by the new government, but, for all you know, the ones who kidnapped you were part of your parents’ imprisonment team.”
“The guards were always laughing,” she said sadly. “And I know the government is just enough up in arms right now about my father that anything could happen.”