She hung onto the back seat, her hands spread wide as another bump tossed her knees up off the floor. The pathetic bleating of frightened and injured sheep filled the air. They screamed when Eric ran over them. He growled back at them and kept going
“Incoming!” Lee hurled himself over the back of the front seat, grabbing her as he did, knocking her to the floor, smothering her into the carpet even as the vehicle bucked again.
Whoosh!
The explosions heaved the Humvee upward, sending fire through the floor that burned her hands and hurt her head. Men’s voices roared around her. More gunfire. Sparks flew in dizzying waves from the most brilliant sun of heat and fire. Smoke filled her nose—the smell of blood, too. Some weapon coughed out an explosive light. The night turned into blistering, dazzling stars.
Suddenly, the floor gave way to gravel and dirt, and Tess realized she was no longer inside the vehicle. Lee’s angry bellow filled the air, but he sounded far away. Her head felt heavy and sick, full of fog. It seemed the damned sheep were lifting her off the ground, insisting she go with them, and she knew then she’d been drugged. Her perfect little pistol was gone, and some of the sheep were really foul smelling men beneath capes of sheepskins.
She twisted and turned, fighting back with what was left of her strength, but her senses were dulled. Her vision blurred and her head buzzing. The violence and noise faded away.
Suddenly, it was cold and so very. Very. Dark.
The incoming grenade hit low, jolting the diesel cab of the rig upward when it exploded. Another took out the Humvee. Lee fired into the flock that was full of wolves. Taliban soldiers covered in sheepskin crouched among the herd, making the flock nervous when they moved and more nervous when they halted. Lee had spotted it first, the ropes tied from sheep to sheep, linking the animals into a nervous caravan that meant one couldn’t move without the others. He and Eric communicated what they saw to Alex, but too late.
Eric opened his door, his rifle pumping rounds through mutton and man as he met the enemy head-on. Lee sheltered Tess, but had no choice. Eric needed cover so he provided steady bursts of rifle fire through the open side window. As long as Tess stayed inside the Humvee, he could protect them both.
Jordan and Hunter scrambled out of the rig to his side, covering him as well as Tess. Good men. But then they flew, tossed high on a deadly trampoline of fire and smoke. Alex and Seth appeared out of nowhere, showering sheep and shadow in arcing streams of red-hot rounds that lit both night and man.
“Fall back!” someone screamed, but there was no place to fall back to. The flock surrounded all three vehicles.
Lee searched for Eric. Against the tremendous light of another explosion, he saw him, one knee to the ground and firing, the butt of his rifle tight to his chest, but then Eric’s body jerked as if he’d been hit and hit hard. From out of nowhere, a man possessed screamed as he jumped over the hood of the Humvee and charged to Eric. Seth?
He’d transformed into Satan incarnate, running straight into the bleating sheep and Taliban, screaming profanities Lee had never heard. A wave of wicked heat and shockwaves rolled over Lee, battering his senses. The whole world shuddered, and Seth fell, too.
A deadly sting hit Lee’s shoulder. He slapped at it, then jerked it out. Son-of-a-bitch. A hypo.
“Tess!” he called out, his heart stuck in his throat at the awful possibility that she’d been targeted. He hunkered over her to protect her, but the head in the crook of his arm was nothing more than a rock, and he couldn’t recall how he’d gotten into the desert.
On hands and knees, he searched for her between rocks and sheep. The sticky sky poured something warm down on his head. It stung his eyes, blurring his way. Coppery sweet, it trickled through his hair while the morning sun blossomed overhead in the middle of the night. His strength gave out.
He fell into the deep, dark Taliban earth.
Chapter Twenty
Lee groaned, stretched out on his stomach like he was, a dirty rag stuffed in his mouth. Forcing his eyes open, they barely cracked, but that was enough to see that Tess lay bound and gagged in front of him, her eyes rimmed white with fear. They were both alive. That much was good. But she kept fading in and out of focus, and breathing took effort. That wasn’t good.
He stretched to test his restraints. There was no way to move with his hands bound behind him. He was hogtied, a particularly nasty method of restraint that connected his feet to his neck, forcing him to keep his back arched, so he didn’t suffocate. That explained why he kept passing out. He was strangling himself.
He was conscious enough to know they were in the bed of a pick-up truck surrounded by men in baggy clothes who didn’t seem worried about their victims. The word clawed at Lee. There he was, victim to the Taliban again, and now Tess, too. He’d seen Eric fall, and Seth. Maybe Hunter and Jordan. Alex? He couldn’t be sure. Somehow in the mayhem, he’d been drugged.
Bitterness choked the life out of Lee. His buddies were injured, maybe dead, and he was on his way back to hell. Terror clawed at him, the awful suspicion that Nizari might be behind this, if for no other reason than this damned bumpy ride. Vague memories of another truck ride years earlier surfaced. That’s when he’d been captured and how Nizari got hold of him back then. Lee pushed the despair of upcoming torture out of his mind and focused on Tess, thinking only one word at her and hoping his eyes portrayed it now. Live.
Tess stared at him, imparting only fear. He summoned the last of his strength and courage. There in this darkest hour, he had nothing more to offer. The truck screeched to a halt. Rough hands dragged him off the truck toward a concrete block building. His gut clenched. He recognized the cells. His cell. Shit. He was back at Nizari’s. Damn it.
He twisted to see where they were taking Tess, but a blinding blow caught the side of his face. He growled, writhing backward, fighting to know what was happening to her. The desperate move only cut his air supply. A scream climbed up his throat, but came out a muffled noise through the rag in his mouth. By the time he turned back around, one of the soldiers lifted the tailgate and slapped it shut. The taillights blinked and faded as the truck rolled away.
Lee’s heart dropped. Tess was gone. No!
Tess couldn’t see. After they’d dragged Lee away, one of the soldiers climbed into the truck and covered her head with a bag. She’d tried to get Lee to listen when he came to, but he seemed incoherent most of the journey. Blood had covered the side of his head, and the way he’d blinked and stared probably meant he had a concussion. He’d been injured in the battle, his face sweaty and bloodied. So had she, but the word she kept hearing from her captors brought more waves of terror.
Nizari.
The very real knowledge that these men worked for the Taliban banker scared her to death. She prepared herself for pain. What were they willing to do to her to get what they wanted? How far would they go? Sadly, she knew. They’d already destroyed the mummies. Now they wanted the reliquary, and they’d do anything to get it. She hoped Alex and his men were still alive and that they still had it.
The truck didn’t go far from where they’d taken Lee, and she was glad. She was in the same vicinity as he was. Somehow, that mattered.
Rough hands pulled her off the truck bed and lowered her feet to the ground. The smell of sweat and filth surrounded her, filled her nose and seemed to swallow her alive. She gagged, trying to breathe through the filthy fabric pressed against her face. Someone loosened the ties at her feet and right away, another shoved her in the back. She would’ve fallen if one of the guys hadn’t jerked her back to her feet, laughing and speaking words she didn’t understand. By the guttural tone, they weren’t compliments.
The two pushed her forward. One kept his fingers in the middle of her back, sliding down with every step as if tracing her spine toward her tailbone. She took a quick step forward to escape his creepy touch. He muttered something to his friends who snickered. Tess shuddered. She’d left the world of men and had now entered the
world of pigs.
They directed her forward and slowly up a set of six steps, across a short concrete patio, still chuckling. Judging by the muted sounds around her, she’d entered a building. The smell of cleanliness and the brush of fragranced air beneath her hood let her know she was in a house.
Three distinct men’s voices. Three captors. She swayed, unintentionally bumping the guy to her left. Grunts from the others ensued. The man she’d bumped grabbed her by the waist and ground his hip against hers, chortling disgustedly as one of the others blatantly palmed her breast through her blouse.
A whimper escaped from deep in her throat, but the touching and grunts only worsened. The man at her left traced a finger over her shoulder and pushed the collar of her blouse aside. She stiffened, shaking at the thought of the worst scenario. What chance did a woman, bound and blind, stand against three men?
Suddenly, the pawing ceased. Someone else had arrived, someone the other three feared. Her knees buckled at the sickening scent of sandalwood that came with the arrival. It was him. Her worst nightmare. Hasim Nizari.
“Miss Culver.” His oily voice rumbled between them. “You have taken something of mine, and I want it back.”
She took half a step backward. The bag from her head lifted. Hasim Nizari stood less than two feet away. Impeccably dressed in a black business suit and white shirt, his black tie was encrusted with a silver pin, the profile on the pin strong, fierce, and—Grecian.
It appeared he’d been to the crypt.
“Shall we get down to business?” he asked, his voice as slimy and thick as the coagulated blood of his victims. He cocked his head as if listening to something far away. She heard it, too. It started low, then escalated into a masculine roar of pain. Her heart stopped.
Lee!
Holy shit!
Lee gritted his teeth so hard something cracked in his jaw. Felt like a tooth. Once again, he was hanging like a side of beef in Nizari’s torture chamber. A single bare light bulb brightened the stark black splashes of dried blood against whitened concrete walls. Whoever the jerk was playing with the knife, he wasn’t Nizari. That bastard had skill, a bizarre talent that allowed pain to build before it overwhelmed. Bozo here was just plain cruel, and the younger man with him was there for the entertainment value. All he’d done was watch and grin like the son-of-a-bitch he was.
Already stripped to his boxers and covered with sweat, every quaking muscle in Lee’s body contracted from the pain. He blew out a snort, shocked he’d let that scream get away from him. He hated when he did that. Maybe it was just the shock of being back there again, back in hell. Who said lightning didn’t strike in the same place twice?
He shook the pain off, gulping great mouthfuls of air while he could get it. Breathing was all-important at times of extreme duress. He equated it to the pains of a woman in labor. Focus. Breathe. Endure. Maybe live a little longer.
Whoever Bozo was, he and his buddy had suddenly run from the room swearing at each other. The bastard left the blade imbedded in Lee’s left bicep when he’d left. It hurt like a mother. Blood ran red and watery down his stretched arm and into his armpit.
A fillet knife. Seven inches long and thin. He’d used one just like it on the rainbow trout he caught in that river in Utah. Who would’ve thought he’d be the one being filleted?
His mind wandered back to the peace of that gurgling stream a world away. Folks in that desert state called the darnedest things a river. A stream just had to flow downstream to qualify. Didn’t even have to be big. Lee blinked the pain away, took stock of his surroundings and refocused his energy. Being back in Utah sounded like heaven at that moment, but he didn’t have time for recollections.
This torture chamber was pretty much the same as the last time he’d been there. No improvements. Same style of hooks in the ceilings. Same rusted pulley system. Nizari might be a genius at mutilation, but he wasn’t big on innovation.
Shit! Lee’s eyes stung from the sweat trickling off his forehead. Hurry. Angling his shoulder to the left, he created just enough spin to view the rest of the room without losing control. A dirty table stood in the corner with the tools of the trade: razors, scalpels, knives, pliers, torches, flares, and bolt cutters.
He shook the sweat and blood out of his eyes again. There they were. Battery cables. Every torture chamber needed a pair. That must be why Bozo and his sidekick had taken off. They’d gone to get a battery to go with those cables.
Shit. It’s going to be a long night.
“Don’t hurt him!” Tess crumbled to the ground. Her plan to spit in Nizari’s face dissolved with that heart-stopping shriek of pain. It had to be Lee. They were torturing him to make her talk.
“Then tell me where my treasure lies.”
“I don’t have it.”
“That is clear to see. Where is it?”
“It was in the truck, the eighteen-wheeler with us,” she confessed all she knew, anything to save Lee.
Nizari seemed perturbed by that answer. He cast an evil glare over her head to his lackeys before he crouched in front of her. This man could make her flesh crawl just by being in the same city. Sharing the same room as him took her breath. Sandalwood rose up in her nostrils to disguise the scent of death.
“If I remember correctly, you were in a different position the last time we met, Miss Culver.” He paused to smooth the back of his manicured fingernails over her cheek. “I liked you better that way. Upside down. Subdued. Powerless.”
An involuntary shudder rolled through her as she turned away from his touch. He’d promised the next time they met she’d enjoy it less. She already did.
“I prefer my women dressed in more traditional garb,” he murmured, the tip of his fingers tracing her jaw down to her chin then to her collarbone. “Let’s get you out of these infidel trappings, shall we. Even as filthy as you American women are, your scent still attracts me. There ought to be a way to bottle your fear, especially after all the trouble I’ve taken to extract it.”
Squeezing her eyes tight, she willed Lee’s handsome face into her mind. It failed to comfort. His cry of pain had reached just once across the distance. This was all her fault. He shouldn’t have to relive his worst nightmare. There had to be a way to escape.
“I’ll send my men to retrieve the eighteen-wheeler, Miss Culver. If you’re telling the truth, I’ll spare your friend. In the meantime, let’s get to know each other better.”
The moment his fingers left her skin, she bowed her head. If it saved Lee, she’d do anything. Anything.
“But if you’ve lied, if you dare disobey me…” Nizari grabbed her throat, squeezing her larynx, and bringing her nose to his. His black eyes radiated cold darkness. “I’ll skin him alive, and you will watch him suffer and bleed until he dies. It will take days, but I promise, you’ll watch every second of his pitiful life drip away. Then I’ll do the same to you.”
Tess believed him. This creature was no longer human—if he’d ever been. Nizari was become evil incarnate. Depraved.
He grabbed her elbow and marched her through another doorway into a much larger room, locking the door behind her. “Turn around,” he ordered.
She did, quivering from fear, but not so frightened she couldn’t take in her surroundings. The room was tastefully decorated with elegant couches and chairs, the floor covered with an expensive rose and gold Persian rug. Ancient pieces of art hung on every wall. Gold and marble Grecian busts graced finely carved wooden tables and cabinets. A collection of gold statues behind the glass doors of one of those cabinets caught her eye. She recognized the ornate collection of Buddha statues, some standing, others reclining, but all supposedly destroyed by the Taliban.
This place was Nizari’s private museum. He’d lied. He hadn’t sold or destroyed what he’d stolen. Despite the explicit fatwa of the ruling Imam, Nizari’s home boasted hundreds of idols. “Do you like what you see, Miss Culver?” he asked, his breath on her cheek as he loosed the ties from her wrists.
&n
bsp; Gooseflesh shivered up her neck and into her scalp, but she chose to lead with defiance instead of fear “These pieces were in the National Museum. Now they’re here. Why?”
“I collect fine things,” he purred. “Paintings. Statues. Women. Girls. Boys. All were meant to be worshipped, possessed, and enjoyed—like you.” He stepped around her, his hands sliding over her shoulders to her arms, then to her waist until he stood in front of her again.
Her gaze hit the floor along with her heart.
He leaned forward, his mouth to her ear. “You may hate me for what I’ve done to you in the past, but rest assured, you’ll hate me so much more after tonight.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Hurry.
Even as the four-year-old memories rose up from the grimy floor to swamp him...
Even as an overpowering gag reflex kicked in at the smell and sight of this torture chamber...
Even as he felt the draft of putrid air currents against his body, Lee knew. He wasn’t the same man he’d been years ago. Back then he’d been fresh out of boot camp and wet behind the ears. Proud. Cocky. It had taken his squad six days to find him—six days of bone-cracking, skin-burning, mind-depleting torture. Only an idiot didn’t learn from his mistakes taught by the shiny implements in this mad classroom. And Lee had learned.
Lesson one: Experience was a hard teacher, but a teacher nonetheless.
Lesson two: All those bloodstained instruments were only tools, not scary instruments of impending doom and death. They could be, but he’d used each of them before in other facets of his life. They weren’t scary. They were just there in a deplorable place to be used by despicable men.
Lesson three: Escape from this fun house was all about upper-body strength. That was why he’d devoted hours to lifting and pumping anything and everything to increase the power in his arms, shoulders and back. He’d grown massive, his muscles thick and—sufficient for the task at hand.
Lee (In the Company of Snipers Book 12) Page 24