“I told you not to go out.” Joe sounded disgruntled. He dropped the water barrel on the ground, not bothering to move the empty barrel off the table.
“I was fully covered.” She handed him a bowl.
“Thankfully, or you’d have acid burns and be losing your eyesight and screaming in pain right now.” Joe slapped his bowl more forcefully than necessary on the upturned bucket and started ladling lentils.
“I followed all the rules, stumbled about in a blurry haze under that sweathouse of an abaya. I swear I lost ten pounds in water weight.” With a groan, Kay moved to the barrel. Grabbing the empty water drum, she swung it to the ground.
“You’re not allowed out without a mahram male relative, which unfortunately is me.”
“You consider yourself unfortunate? You at least are allotted oxygen and sunshine. I’m going out of my mind.” Kay grabbed the full water drum with both hands. The weight pulled against her arms. With a quick exhale of breath, she struggled with the heaviness of the water.
“Whatever.” Grabbing the top of the water drum, he swung it up. The metal table groaned beneath the barrel’s weight. Joe’s eyes possessed a moody light, dissatisfaction in the tilt of his shoulders. He looked into the lentils as he scooped up spoonfuls, not bothering to make eye contact.
The guy was really in a mood today. Well, a terrorist camp would get to anyone after a while.
Joe flung himself on the dirty mattress. Neglecting the steaming bowl, he dug his chin into the pummeled down-cotton masquerading as a pillow.
“Want to try Jeopardy again?” Kay dished lentils in her bowl. She truly needed to get her mind off this prison. “What other categories besides sermons and Arabic brilliance did your weird childhood familiarize you with?” She smiled at him.
“Whoa. I never said my childhood was weird.” Joe rolled right on the mattress.
“Yeah, you did. Last night with the homeschool book references.” With her free hand, she scooped up a plastic bucket.
“That’s different. I said it. You can’t say it.” Joe shoved to a sitting position.
“Why?” She arched her eyebrow as she placed a plate of bread on the mattress.
“Everyone feels entitled to say nasty things to homeschool grads.” His blue eyes still held a dissatisfied light, but he looked at her now. “You try not to let people know because they’ll mock you. It’s a band of brothers feeling if you ever meet another homeschooler. Us against the world.”
She quirked a smile. “You mean band of siblings.”
He laughed, a tight sound rather than one that held cheer. “Yeah, homeschooled girls are people too. Betty Friedan would be so proud of me.” Reaching forward, he grabbed one of her burnt loaves of tazeez bread, then fell back on the mattress.
“No, she’d actually be proud of you that you were friends with a Harvard-educated liberal from a blue state.” Kay yanked the upturned bucket next to the mattress and plopped herself on it.
His prone profile showed the firm line of his jaw, the stubble of facial hair obscuring the clean lines. His neck was as solid as his jaw, the red of sunburn painting the tops of his cheekbones and the edge of his strong ears. How did a guy manage to make even his ears look strong?
“Friends?” Joe raised himself on one elbow and made a scoffing noise. His blue eyes glinted with laughter. “You’re my wife. Even an Al-Qaeda suicide bomber would be happy to force a PhD-educated liberal into his harem.”
“I can’t believe you just said that. Sexist.” She stuck her tongue out at him.
“I’m not a sexist.” He pulled back from her, coils projecting from the broken down mattress with his movement.
“You’re so sexist you don’t even know you’re sexist.” She laughed in his face.
“I bet the five-baby-wanting-church-pew-sitter wouldn’t say that,” he muttered with a scowl.
“The who?”
“It’s something Tracy said.” Joe sat up. His blue eyes had a hard look. He cleared his throat. “I found a phone.”
“Good.” Kay moved her gaze over Joe’s open camo jacket that needed washing.
“Meanwhile, Abdullah keeps interrogating me and my head’s splintering trying to decide how much classified info I’m willing to spill to get you out of here alive.”
She touched her gaze to his stained T-shirt. Even from here she could smell the stench. If Joe brought in another barrel of water, she could wash tonight.
A dark brown stain seeped from the back. Red dribbled down the puke-colored cloth.
“Is that blood?” She jumped off the bucket. “Get that filthy rag off. What happened to you?” Shoving off his camo jacket, she peeled up his T-shirt.
“Apparently if a mahram doesn’t control his female relatives, the mandatory beating is supposed to remind him.” He tried to play the words off with a laugh, but the noise sounded forced. Pain lines ran across Joe’s forehead as if he had a splitting headache.
“You got this because of me?” She stared at his half-exposed back. Lines of blood dribbled across tattered strips of T-shirt. Blood came off on her fingers. “I’m so sorry.”
He shrugged. The movement yanked at the T-shirt strips embedded in the bloody lash lines and he shivered.
“I know you’re only in this place because of me and I can’t thank you enough.” She touched his shoulder. Blood seeped from long gashes. She shuddered. What had they beaten him with?
“Ready to admit Saudi Arabia and ISIS aren’t quite the enlightened freethinkers that you thought?” Joe lifted his gaze to her. The whites of his eye were bloodshot.
She twisted her mouth down. Was there a culturally sensitive explanation to justify purdah and beatings? Dr. Benson would insist she discover one. “To be fair, I didn’t get the beating, you did, which is actually woman-honoring rather than misogynistic.”
With a groan, he turned away from her and dropped onto his stomach on the bare mattress. Sweat covered his face, dripping down his ears over sunburned lines. “I think I was supposed to come home and beat you.”
Oh. She bit her lip. “Can I bandage your back for you?”
“With what?” He grunted and rolled to his side.
She glanced around the room. Gauze? Cotton balls? Hydrogen peroxide? Neosporin? Not likely. “I guess I could boil some water. Find a rag?”
“Tear this T-shirt off me first. I don’t have a knife.” With a groan, he turned his back to her.
She knelt and ripped at strip after strip of T-shirt. The fabric stuck to his wounds, blood already drying to the T-shirt, cotton strands dug deep into flesh. She peeled at the cloth.
He winced.
Oh, to throw up! But she had to get this shirt off before it dried to him. As she worked on the bloody mush those fiends had turned Joe’s back into, she ran her mouth to distract herself. “I do see what you mean about the Koran being a sexist and violent book, despite the many kind Muslims that are too moderate to follow its teaching.” She pried at the T-shirt. The scabbed blood tore. More blood seeped out. Her stomach upended itself. She crossed and dipped a rag into the boiling lentil water.
She dabbed the rag across his back, cleaning the gouges. The smell of blood surrounded her. He must be in so much pain. Her head hurt. To suppress her response to the bloody sight, she kept talking. “That’s the same as any religion though, Christianity for example. You’re a great guy, but would Biblical patriarchs have treated women like you treat me? Or what about the conquest of Canaan?”
“Whatever.” Joe dropped his face to the mattress. Blood seeped onto the mattress now, the red shimmering on exposed metal coils.
She laid down the rag. The bloody welts on his exposed back looked as clean as she could make them. “Can I get you anything? Water? Food?” If only they had some kind of antibacterial cleanser.
“What I’d really like right now is a pint of rum. Yeah, I know, I’m a Sunday school kid, but Henty novels never explained how much beatings hurt.” Raising his head from the mattress, he quirked half a smil
e.
She laughed. “It’s not called a pint. You sound like Jack Sparrow. You don’t drink alcohol either, do you?”
“Not often.” He tugged a blanket over his back. His face looked flushed. That much exposed flesh could easily start an infection.
“How about some tea? I’ll cook something. Any favorite mushy rice dish?”
He groaned.
“I heard Abdullah speaking today before I got you beaten.” Kay poured water into their one pot. “He said something about eight days and presidents.”
“You’re sure he said eight?” Joe shoved to a sitting position.
“Yeah. And how even presidents would fear him. Does that mean anything to you?” She dished up the rice. If only she had some kind of first aid for Joe’s back, or even aspirin.
“Afraid it might.”
“I’ll go back and see what else I can find. Tear a page from your notebook and sign it so you don’t end up like this again.” She winced as she slid his notebook from his jacket pocket. He’d taken a beating for her. Who did that? Beyond impossible nineteenth-century G.A. Henty heroes, of course. She rolled her gaze to the rusted metal roof and dusty cobwebs. How did one not develop a crush on this guy?
“My signature doesn’t make it okay for you to go out alone. These guys could beat you even if you did have my signature. Just yesterday, I saw a woman stoned for who knows what insignificant offense.” He winced again as his movement stretched the drying blood on his back.
“Your signature must mean something because the religious police asked for the paper.” She placed the notebook beside him.
He brushed it off the lumpy mattress. It fluttered down to land with a whoosh on the dirt. “Stay in the house until I find a way to get us out of here.”
CHAPTER 25
Saturday, October 15th, 8:04 a.m.
Hot. No—cold. No—hot. Joe let out a low groan. He knelt and splashed the creek water over his face, but it didn’t cool the burning. He felt the effects of the fever with every step he took.
All around him terrorists marched up toward grenade hill, where Abdullah had ordered them.
Joe zipped his rough camo jacket higher. No T-shirt cushioned the chafing of coarse fabric against his tattered back.
Maybe Tracy had it right. Nothing he said to Kay made any difference. Last night, after he’d taken a beating for her, Kay had called him a sexist then gone on to decry all religion.
He couldn’t even save his sister after ten years of trying. What made him think he could get Kay to convert? Pain burned through him as the fever pounded against his skull.
Time to give up. Write God a cease and desist letter. No reason for the King of the universe to keep pounding at those heart doors.
Why was he thinking about all this awaiting death in an Al Qaeda camp? He needed to get Kay out. After that, she’d probably go back to her socialist Ivy League friends and never speak to him again. If only he could shoot something.
Each step grated the rough jacket against his back, igniting a blaze of pain.
“You are former Army. Show the men how to throw grenades.” A man in a black turban shoved his thumb at Joe.
Men? More like half-grown boys. Joe forced himself to nod.
“Joe. It is good to see you again.” Kamal smiled, showing white teeth.
If only the kid was fighting for the cause of liberty, and he could instruct him in target practice to defeat terrorism. Kamal was disciplined, self-motivated, eager to accomplish a purpose greater than himself. How did a kid like that go so wrong?
“I’ve done fifty-five push-ups. See.” The boy flexed his arms. “I am a strong mujahideen for Allah to enact the prophet’s will, peace be upon him.”
Joe moved closer to Kamal, giving himself a little space from the two dozen other recruits. “Hey, can I use your phone?”
“New recruits are not allowed phones.” Kamal crossed one skinny arm over another.
“You have one.”
“I am a trusted leader, a mujahideen of mujahideens.”
Adrenaline pulsed through Joe’s feverish brain. He needed that phone. “I want to call my mother. She worries about me. Does not the Koran command us to give due respect to our mothers?”
“Okay, but don’t tell.” With a nervous glance to black turban man, Kamal fell back behind a pine tree. Sliding the phone out of his backpack, he extended the flip phone to him.
The sweat of his fingerprint smudged the phone as Joe gripped it. What was the embassy number? What was it? A feverish chill shook through his aching brain. Tracy. He knew her private cell number.
Joe hit the numbers, 301-555-4890. All around him, terrorists holding grenades and assault rifles scrambled up and down the bare mountain face, blocked only by a thin veil of pine needles. Dear God, please let her pick up.
“Hello? Who is this?” Tracy’s voice carried over the phone, as clear as if he sat next to her in an embassy cubicle.
“It’s Joe. Listen to me. I only have seconds.” Gaze on Kamal, Joe kept his voice low. He could only pray the boy didn’t speak English.
“Joe! You’re still alive. How did you get out of that room?”
SERE school, sources and methods. “Classified. Listen, Tracy. That map Kay gave me. I’m at the camp on it marked by a star.”
“What map?”
“Ruby has it. Tell Brian to send backup. Special Forces. A helicopter?” Joe took another step back from Kamal, his voice low. “Abdullah said the Oct 22nd attack will crash a DIA jet into Mile High Stadium.” Why then had Abdullah said even presidents would fear? Reagan National Airport sounded more presidential than DIA.
“Brian’s here on speaker. He found out about that radical imam’s Koran study group too.” Tracy’s voice had a high-pitched edge.
“I’m sorry for disobeying orders, boss, but I’m a valuable enough asset that you want to get me out of here before Abdullah tortures me.” The phone slid between his slick hands. How far did his voice carry in this still air? Black-turban man approached the pine.
“Enough. Give me the phone.” Kamal extended his hand and cast a nervous glance at black-turban man.
“Of course,” Brian said. “Special Forces will arrive in two and a half hours.” Something in Brian’s voice sounded off, the same clip to his voice as the intelligence assets he’d handled who had turned traitor. Insanity. Brian was a U.S. citizen and chief of station for the embassy.
“Quick.” Sweat dribbled down Kamal’s forehead. He grabbed for the phone.
Joe clicked end call.
Saturday, October 15th, 9:15 a.m.
Elbows on the leather armrest, Muhammad slouched in his chair. Forty-five minutes into the who-knew-how-long briefing with Abdullah. He’d used up vacation hours for this meeting. Vacation. At this very moment, he could have been surfing in Mediterranean waters with a hot, scantily-clad wife, but what was he doing?
Listening to a religious fanatic describe each hallway of the Sever building at Harvard University. All his niece’s fault.
Abdullah rubbed his thumb against the edge of his hooked nose. Even through the electronic screen, his nose looked greasy. “Saeed has won the heart of a very important professor. The professor will allow him access . . .”
Blah, de, blah, de, blah. Why did the guy feel the need to inform him? Probably some kind of backstabbing plan where if Abdullah got caught he wanted Muhammad to suffer too. Muhammad bit back a groan.
He’d lost his connection to the CIA now that Joe had radicalized, so no more money on that front. No watsa from a marriage connection to Abdullah either, thanks to his niece’s pornographic behavior.
“You should come to Yemen, my brother.”
No! “Bismillah, I am so sorry, but I must take my leave, Emir Abdullah. My esteemed mother is coming.” Muhammad inclined his head. Abdullah couldn’t argue with that. The Koran commanded giving due reverence to one’s mother. Speaking of mothers, his would be horrified to know he’d gotten involved in this terrorism. He really need
ed to end this insanity and focus on his business, try to get that Texas contract.
“Blah-de-blah-de-blah.” Abdullah started in on a longwinded sixth-century style farewell, his scraggly beard wiggling with each fanatic sentiment. “Peace be upon you and so may Allah’s great mercy and blessings.” Finally, Abdullah clicked End Video Chat.
Wait, the guy had only clicked minimize. Stupid old geezer didn’t even understand technology. Muhammad reached to click End as he grabbed for the remote with his other hand. Now that the fanatic had made him miss work, he’d catch an episode of Castle, or perhaps a Galavant rerun.
On the computer screen, a woman walked into the cinder block room in Yemen. Wait, was that Alma? He’d never actually seen her face. Dropping the remote, Muhammad clicked Off on his camera screen and leaned forward to watch the woman on Abdullah’s camera.
The woman’s beige skirt rode up, her hips swaying with her gait.
Holy smoke, Alma was hot. He could have been married to that woman if not for his wayward niece. Blindness! Muhammad slouched into his chair. He’d almost take Abdullah up on his invitation to fly to Yemen just to finish off that honor-killing.
Abdullah stood, shoving a most unflattering view of his thobe-covered backside into the computer screen. “Wife, I have need of you.”
“What do you wish?” Alma kept her gaze down, hands respectfully clasped in front of her.
She should be his wife! Muhammad squished his tea cup between his hands.
“I wish you to invite Mariam here and discover what she knows. I fear her husband is merely pretending to serve the cause of Allah.”
A shadow moved at the periphery of the camera lens, revealing a glimpse of silky hair and cream-colored cheeks as smooth as coconut milk.
Abdullah had two gorgeous women in that godforsaken Yemen village? No wonder Saudi teens became interested in religious fanaticism.
“Sabaya, slave.” Abdullah snapped his fingers. “More bread.”
Veiled By Privilege (Radical Book 1) Page 27