Never Surrender

by Lindsay McKenna

  And what would happen to Bay? He might slit her throat. The horror of that happening slammed through Gabe. His emotions started to unravel. Just as quickly, he jammed them back into his kill box. Emotions had no place in this hunt. Absolutely none, if he was going to find Bay and rescue her.

  “I know a goat trail off this ridge into that area,” Reza said, cheerful once again. He pointed back from where they’d come. “Turn around, we’ll go down.”

  “Damn glad,” Gabe muttered, shivering from the cold. His heart rose with hope as his horse slowly and carefully negotiated the snow and then the slippery rocks at lower altitude. By the time the sun had risen, sending its golden, warming rays across the peaks, Reza had located the little-used trail. They’d have to go down into a very narrow valley and then back up the other steep, rocky side in order to reach the same trail the Taliban had been on earlier.

  Hang on, baby. Just hang on. I’m coming to get you. Don’t you lose hope…I’m going to find you and rescue you…I love you, Bay…

  *

  BY THE TIME they hit five thousand feet, a radio call came through from Phillips. Gabe gave Reza the silent signal to stop, as he turned up the volume to listen. The messages were always terse and short. What had the drone found? It was on station somewhere above them. Phillips had given Bay’s rescue the name Operation Pegasus. She was given the code name Amazon.

  “Black Bird Actual, this is Black Bird Main. Over.”

  Gabe responded. “This is Black Bird Actual. Over.”

  “Amazon has been sighted. Repeat—Amazon has been sighted. Stand by for GPS. Over.”

  Gabe nearly came undone. Tears jammed unexpectedly in his eyes as he fumbled for and found his computer to type in the coordinates. He didn’t trust his voice, his vision blurring for a moment. Clearing his throat, he keyed the mic. “Go ahead, Black Bird Main.” He typed in the latitude and longitudinal coordinates, his heart soaring.

  “Anything else, Black Bird Main? Over.” Gabe wanted more intel. Where did the drone see Bay? Was she still on the horse? Had the drone actually photographed her face? His heart hammered in his chest, and he could hardly sit still.

  “Roger. Positive ID on Amazon. Repeat—positive ID on Amazon.”

  Relief, sharp and searing, scored through Gabe. For a moment, he tightly shut his eyes. Tears leaked from the corners of them. His entire chest and heart trembled with fear, with fierce hope. “Roger, Black Bird Main. Actual, out.” His voice was unsteady. Twice, he cleared his throat, shoving back his emotional reaction.

  When he opened his eyes, he saw Reza grinning and throwing him a thumbs-up. The Afghan’s eyes lit up with such joy that Gabe found himself grinning. Bay was alive! The drone had photographed her face after the sack had been taken off her head as the Taliban group had halted in front of another cave complex. The photo was grainy, but in color, blurred, but Gabe could see it was Bay. Peering at it, he saw the right side of her face, her hair messy, her face dirtied with sweat. There seemed to be blood near her nose, but he couldn’t be sure. She must be feeling terror. God, let me get to her in time.

  *

  EXHAUSTION MADE BAY DIZZY. For twelve hours, she’d medically tended injured Taliban soldiers. If not for Commander Zmarai’s quiet presence always with her, some of the soldiers would have struck her. Many spit at her, their eyes burning with hatred. Some balled their fists as she touched them for the first time. And always, Zmarai was there, giving his wounded soldiers a sharply worded command not to touch her.

  Bay felt almost safe beneath Zmarai’s shadow. He was patient, didn’t push her to hurry, and always got whatever she needed because he had another soldier standing by to run back to the cave where all the boxes of medical supplies were kept. Every so often, he would tap her on the shoulder, giving her a bag filled with goat milk. At other times, he’d slip her scraps of food to keep her going. Bay wondered how this tall, proud Hill tribesman, who was clearly a leader in his own right, could work under Khogani.

  It was near midnight, and she finished examining and stitching closed an infected wound on the last soldier’s right thigh. He’d been feverish, and she’d given him as much antibiotics as his body could tolerate without outright killing him with a massive overdose. Bay wasn’t sure the man would last through tonight.

  “Come,” Zmarai ordered, “stand and come with me.”

  Wearily, Bay got to her feet, pulling her ruck over her right shoulder. Her head ached. The high-potency ibuprofen tamped down the pain, but far from all of it. She could barely lift her feet as she followed him through dimly lit passages. The whole cave network had electric lightbulbs strung sporadically between them. She vaguely heard the chutter of a generator, which supplied the hospital caves with the necessary light.

  Suddenly came the sound of a child wailing. She yanked to a halt, gasping, turning toward the sound. It wasn’t that far away. She felt a hand on her arm.

  “Come,” Zmarai ordered sternly, his dark eyes holding hers.

  “But…there’s a child who’s hurt…I hear it….” She saw his mouth turn down, his eyes holding some kind of unknown pain in them. “Can’t we… I mean, can’t I go help that child, too?”

  Again, she heard terrible, wrenching cries of pain drifting down through the tunnels toward them. Zmarai’s lean hand tightened around her arm momentarily.

  “Ignore the cries,” he snarled. He turned sharply on his heel, striding faster down another tunnel, away from the crying, sobbing sounds.

  Bay’s heart pounded with anguish. The child, whether boy or girl, she couldn’t tell, was still screaming. Begging in Pashto. She couldn’t make out the words, only the heart-wringing sounds of being in horrible pain. She hurried to keep up with Zmarai, his shoulders tense and hunched forward as he swiftly moved toward an unknown objective. This was the second night in a row she’d heard a child crying piteously.

  The first night, she thought she was going to go mad. But now, she heard it again, and she was wide awake and conscious this time. What was going on? Bay couldn’t stand to see a child cry. It broke her heart, and she often cried afterward when having to tend Afghan children who had suffered so much through the wars across their desert country.

  “Here,” Zmarai said abruptly, stopping. He jabbed his finger at a small cave no more than ten feet wide and long. “I’ll have one of my soldiers bring you food and drink. You are to stay here for the night.”

  She met his anguished expression. His mouth was set in a hard line. Was he upset with her? “Thank you,” she whispered softly. “I—I couldn’t have done all of this without your help, Commander.”

  His mouth quirked, and he glared at her. “I will come and see you tomorrow morning. You must go through and check all those men once again.”

  “Of course…good night…”

  Bay had no more than sat down, placing her ruck with her ratty, thin blanket, when another soldier stopped at the entrance to her cave. She looked up, suddenly fearful. This wasn’t one of Zmarai’s loyal soldiers. This was someone new.

  “Lord Khogani wants to see her right now,” the soldier snapped at the other man who guarded her at the cave’s entrance. “Release her to me!”

  Zmarai’s soldier looked worried, glanced down the cave where his commander had gone earlier. “She is to stay here. The commander ordered it,” the soldier told the other.

  The new soldier spat out, “Enough of this!” He charged into the cave, grabbing Bay’s arm and yanking her to her feet. Forcefully shoving her ahead of him, he snarled, “Move!”

  Bay felt her heart beating harder. What was going to happen to her? Where was she being taken? The soldier shoved her roughly into another well-lit cave. For a moment, Bay held her hands over her eyes, the place incredibly bright compared to the other caves. As her eyes adjusted, she watched Mustafa Khogani, who was perched on his Persian rug, surrounded by bowls of steaming food, eating with his right hand. Two servants hovered nearby, waiting to serve his every whim.

  “Sit,” the s
oldier snarled, hauling her over and pushing her down on the opposite end of the rug.

  Bay fell hard and tried to sit up. Mustafa grinned and returned the stare. Suddenly, she felt like a trapped animal. What was that unholy look in his eyes? He was shoving food into his mouth, bits dropping across his beard and chest. His thick black hair lay in dirty ropes around his narrow, calculating face.

  “Eat,” he invited. “I heard from my commander that you’ve done very good work on my men today. You deserve to be rewarded.” With a flourish, he made a sweeping gesture toward the food sitting between them.

  Instinctually, Bay felt terror and wasn’t sure it was entirely her own. One of the servants handed her a small brass plate. She knew she’d better eat to keep up her strength, even though her stomach was tied in hard knots. There were goat steaks steaming on a platter with couscous, dried figs and dates in yet another. Her mouth watered. If not for Zmarai, she’d have starved the past few days. This looked like an unbelievable feast in the middle of godforsaken nowhere.

  Mustafa wiped off his mouth with the back of his sleeve and had an expression of enjoyment as she ate. He smiled once again. “You need to keep your strength up,” he warned. “There is hard work ahead of you.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  BAY FELT A wave of fear so stark and present in Mustafa Khogani that she didn’t taste anything she ate. He watched her like a prey, his eyes obsidian slits, following her every move. The silence was thick and taut. Her right hand shook as she choked down the food.

  Her intuitive side was screaming at her to run as far and fast as she could away from this man with the dead-looking black eyes. He said nothing, eating voraciously, like a starved wolf. Refusing to meet his gaze, Bay kept her head bowed, eyes on the brass plate held in her left hand. With every passing moment, it was harder and harder to swallow, the food became a growing lump jammed in her throat. Now, Bay understood how it felt to be monitored. The hair on the back of her neck stood up, a clear warning of impending danger. She could feel the Taliban leader probing her with his eyes, his lurid thoughts.

  “I’m tired.” Khogani yawned, standing up, stretching fitfully. He pointed over to one corner. “Take that with you,” he ordered, his voice lowering. “See what you can do for him. You’re a medic.” Then he smiled a little, taming his thick mustache across his upper lip between his thumb and index finger.

  Bay quickly set the plate down and stood up. She in no way wanted to earn one of his sudden rages by being too slow to follow Khogani’s orders. Peering into a dark corner at one end of the cave, she squinted, hand shielding her eyes as she slowly walked in that direction. Blankets lay piled up in a heap. Was Khogani giving her more blankets to stay warm at night? Unsure, Bay walked to the rear of the cave and into the shadowed recesses. As her eyes adjusted to the gray gloom, she leaned down over the blankets.

  A sudden gasp escaped her. The black hair of a child peeked out from beneath them. Kneeling down, concerned, Bay frowned. Gently, she opened the blankets, and they revealed a six-year-old boy, naked, curled up in a fetal position. Her eyes narrowed as she saw blood on his thin brown legs, pooling in the blankets below him. The child moaned, his body clenching and spasming, his one leg jerking. He moaned again, burying his head in his spindly arms. Heart starting to hammer in her chest, Bay felt icy terror stab through her.

  My God…this was the child that was crying?

  She gently examined him, softly moving her hand downward toward the blood.

  Oh, no…no…

  Bay drew in a harsh, explosive breath, able to see the child’s right leg had been broken, the white of the bone sticking up through the torn flesh. This must have been the child she’d heard screaming. Shutting her eyes, trying to stop the flood of rage tunneling through her, Bay could feel Khogani’s burning gaze on her back, observing her for reaction. Watching her…

  Gulping, Bay quickly covered the boy with the dirty, flea-ridden blankets. She had to get him out of here and get him medical help. Khogani was a monster. A horrible, horrible monster allowing this child to suffer without any medical care for days. Her stomach rolled violently as she carefully lifted the boy into her arms, bringing him close to her, shielding him from the bastard’s gleaming eyes. The boy moaned, his eyes barely opening. Turning, Bay glared across the cave at the Taliban leader.

  “See if you can save him. Unfortunately, he fell off the soldier’s horse on the way here and broke his leg. He’s a sweet young boy who will fetch much as a slave on the Pakistan black market. Perhaps you can fix him so he can be sold later.”

  Mouth set, Bay bowed her head, biting hard on her lower lip until she tasted blood. She quickly passed Khogani and exited the cave, heading back to where she had been kept earlier, a soldier leading the way and one behind her.

  The child moved, a whimper slipping between his pale, thinned lips. Heart pounding with anger and helplessness, Bay felt tears burn in her eyes. She couldn’t cry now. She had to think of how to save this child’s life. Give him relief from the terrible pain.

  Upon reaching her cave, Bay laid the child down and quickly pulled her rucksack over, rummaging through it for gloves and a flashlight. Khogani’s two guards left. The guard who was under Zmarai’s command turned his back on her, refusing to watch. As she quickly assembled the medical supplies she might need, Bay realized all the soldiers knew Khogani was selling the children. That was why they’d stolen so many young boys and girls in the raid on her village. Shutting her eyes, fighting off huge emotional updrafts of rage, Bay forced herself to concentrate.

  A quick examination of the child’s broken leg made her nauseous. The boy’s leg was infected and needed to be reset with surgery. Feeling overwhelmed with the seriousness of the break, Bay gently touched his hair, murmuring softly in Pashto to him. She quickly gave him a shot of morphine, enough to render him unconscious so she could work on him. Almost instantly, the boy’s taut face relaxed. His face grew ashen even as the pain was removed. Never had Bay felt so damned helpless. She bundled the child up, keeping a hand on his shoulder as she called out to the guard in Pashto.

  “Please, let me see Commander Zmarai?”

  The guard tensed. “He sleeps.”

  “This boy needs help,” she demanded, her voice strong with authority. “Please, wake him! This child needs a hospital…I can’t do anything more for him here.”

  Another guard appeared at the cave entrance, staring down at the boy and then over at her. He nodded to the man on guard and ordered him to do as she asked.

  Fighting back tears and nausea, Bay waited for what seemed an eternity. Finally, a drowsy-looking Zmarai showed up. When he saw her kneeling by the boy, he became enraged.

  “You dare wake me, woman?” he demanded, coming to a halt in front of her, glaring.

  Gulping, Bay gestured to the boy in the blankets. “This child needs to go to the hospital right now, Commander. I can’t save his life. He needs an operation immediately or he’s going to die. Please…can’t you do something? Help him?” she pleaded, her voice cracking with emotion.

  Zmarai’s eyes flickered to the child and then snapped back to her. His mouth thinned, and he gave her a hard look.

  “Let it go, doctor. There’s nothing to be done here for this boy. Better to fill him with morphine and let him die because he’s going to, anyway. You will at least speed his death, and he will no longer suffer.”

  Bay cried out, “No!” She gripped the hem of his trousers. “You can’t let this little boy suffer a horrible, undeserved death! You can help him. Please…God, have mercy….”

  He slapped her hand away from his trousers, breathing hard, giving her a look of frustration. “Woman, shut your mouth or I’ll shut it for you!” He lifted his hand threateningly toward her.

  Bay sobbed. “You can’t let this child die like this! You tell me you are Muslim. You tell me you believe in love and helping others.” Her voice broke. “Then show your compassion for this child, dammit!” She cringed, standing firm, waiti
ng for him to backhand her.

  But then Zmarai’s face hardened. Something else came into his eyes, and she pressed on. “I ask nothing for myself, Commander. I ask you to consider with your heart, to save this boy’s life.”

  “Shut up!” he roared, leaning down, grabbing her shoulder. “You know not what you ask, woman!” His breath came in hot spurts of fury as he shoved his face into hers. “Child slavery is a reality,” he ground out. “I do not agree with it any more than you do, but I cannot stop it. Khogani is my khan! I must follow his orders, and so must you.”

  He released her, spinning around and disappearing down the tunnel.

  Bay could barely contain the gulping sobs within her. The guards gave her an unhappy look, but they said nothing, turning their backs on her. Tears burned in her eyes. Her hands shook as she tried to comfort the child who had been torn from his mother. This was insanity! Bay knelt by the child, talking softly to him in Pashto. The morphine would keep him comfortable for now.

  Bay heard heavy footsteps coming in her direction. She jerked around. A gasp tore from her.

  Khogani grabbed her by the hair, hauling her backward, dragging her away from the boy. “You are Satan’s whore! How dare you speak to my commander like that!”

  Something snapped in Bay. She screamed and grabbed his hands, yanking them out of her hair. Leaping to her feet, she crouched, facing him. “You sick bastard! You monster!” she shrieked, and she carried the fight to him. In one swift movement, Bay kicked at his crotch.

  “Whore!” Mustafa thundered, barely missing her boot by an inch as he leaped aside. He yelled for his guards. Bay watched them launch themselves at her, three against one. She saw their hatred, the lust in Khogani’s eyes. And it was clear what he was going to do to her. And she wasn’t going down without a fight, the son of a bitch. Gabe had taught her close quarter defense, and she lashed out sideways with her boot, catching a guard hurtling at her. She kicked him in the chest. The man cried out, thrown backward. The impact threw her off her feet. Khogani snarled, leaping upon her, sitting on her midsection, his hand lunging for her neck.