“Hmm, just unbutton already, would you?” she said and laughed again.
After he undid the last button, the gown pooled at her feet, and he turned her around, sucking in his breath as he took in her garters, lace underwear, and matching bra. They were sheer and completely indecent—perfect. “Wow, I think I’ve died and gone to heaven,” he said, and then she stepped back again, and the room dimmed, and Mary-Margaret was frowning.
“Joe, where are you?” she called out as she stepped back again.
“I’m here, baby, right here.”
He was on his back, looking up as he slowly awoke. His awareness hit first—the throbbing in his head, it just wouldn’t stop. Where was his wife? He shut his eyes again and breathed in something, some scent that had him confused. He opened his eyes.
He heard footsteps on concrete, across the room and coming closer. It was dim, and lights flickered in the background. Then Ayoud was beside the bed, looking down at him. His hands were clasped behind his back, and then someone else was there, another man, wearing the same dark pants, though he had a scarf around his head. He didn’t look Joe’s way.
Ayoud nodded to whatever the man said, at the same time watching Joe. He was a dangerous man who could hide everything he was thinking behind a steel wall.
Joe could read people well, but not this man.
“Ah, good. Lieutenant Commander, you’re awake.”
It all came back to Joe: Tucker was dead, and the same fate most likely faced him. That was the most terrifying thing of all, waiting and not knowing. The thought of never seeing his children, his wife again was all but eating him up. He had so much to say to them, so much to say to Mary-Margaret about what a fool he’d been.
Then he felt guilty. He was lying here alive, and Dunlop was being sold like a piece of meat, and for what? He couldn’t help but look over to the wall where Grieger had been chained like an animal. The spot was just an empty hook on the wall. Had she been sold, too?
“She’s of no importance,” Ayoud said, his gaze flitting to where Grieger had been.
Joe had to struggle past his hatred for this man. Grieger hadn’t had a chance here. He knew the troops would be looking for them, but what would be left of them when they arrived…if they arrived?
“If you’re thinking of attacking me, think again,” Ayoud said. “You have a choice to make, Mr. Lieutenant Commander Joe Reed. Join us if you wish to live.”
Joe couldn’t get over the perfect English Ayoud spoke. He sneered. He would die before joining them. The monster before him shrugged with indifference and gestured to someone, and a laptop was brought before him and flipped open. Joe felt the first stirring of his blood turning cold.
“Recognize her?” Ayoud said.
He blinked, feeling the strain in his arms when he tightened his muscles. His hands were tied to the bed, and he couldn’t quite understand what he was looking at. It was so familiar…a Facebook page, his daughter’s. He yelled and yanked his wrists, but he couldn’t move.
Ayoud started to laugh and then pressed a button on the computer. “As you can see, I friended her and she responded. She was so easy, especially when I told her I’m stationed where you are, very close by. So close that we’re neighbors. Should I read more to you?” The smug bastard sounded so confident.
No wonder Ayoud had tied Joe down. The man knew he was going to lose it. Joe had never before felt such an ache in his chest. Every breath he took was an effort as he stared helplessly at his daughter’s Facebook page. She had accepted this monster’s invite. She’d been communicating with him, messaging back and forth. Was his daughter so naive that she was buying all this crap? What the hell had she been doing, accepting a friend request from a total stranger? Hadn’t Mary-Margaret talked to them about the danger of predators lurking on the web? No, no—he couldn’t put this on his wife. He’d dropped the ball, too. This was his responsibility…but she was at home with them. Mary-Margaret, what the hell are you doing? He had to get out of here, find a way to get back to his family, to protect his child.
“See, here, how I sympathize with her? Her father’s away, not there for her when she needs him, and she misses him so. And you, so noble and honorable. I let her know I’ve met you and that you’re here fighting to clean up the lies of the government before this one, to fix a war that wasn’t justified. Do you see her reply?”
He moved the screen closer so Joe could read every word. “Dear Avi…” It was a name he knew, a name he’d heard. God, his daughter was pouring her heart out to this monster thinking he was someone she could trust. Had the same man been communicating with Dunlop? He had to know.
“You’re the same Avi who was talking to Dunlop?” he asked, not missing the confused look on Ayoud’s face. The first slip he’d made.
“Dunlop?” he said the name as if it meant nothing to him.
“Lance Corporal Dunlop, who you took from camp along with Grieger, US soldiers you kidnapped. You contacted her through Facebook.”
“Ah, yes, not me. Avi is a name used by us, and we’ve contacted millions. Social media is such a wonderful invention. It’s remarkable how the Western world stays afloat with so many naive young women and children. That’s why you’re failing. You have no idea how necessary rules are—discipline, order.” He smiled. “She was eager, wanted a husband. She would have married a JILA, but she wasn’t a virgin. She was used, an adulteress, and she’ll be subject to the fate decided by her owner.”
Joe couldn’t understand what had been going through Dunlop’s mind to talk to a man like Ayoud, a stranger. She knew enough of what went on over here. She understood the depravity of these terrorists and how little value they placed on women.
“It’s not so black and white, Mr. Joe Reed. Women only want one thing. They only need one thing. Allowing them to use their minds and think for themselves will be the downfall of the Western world, of your nation. Look how easily your daughter let her guard down. She has access to a computer, freedom she hasn’t earned. Tsk tsk, you’re a poor excuse for a father.”
Maybe Ayoud was right about that. Joe would give anything to see his daughter again—and then he’d lock her up and ban her from ever having access to a computer.
“See, in her messages, how she worries about you? I tell her here that we’re fighting to bring peace and goodness and morals back, that you, too, understand this. That we’re the same.”
Joe couldn’t believe the number of messages back and forth. This social media campaign to his daughter had started weeks before, even before Dunlop and Grieger had been taken. It was too much information to digest in his aching head. He was shocked—no, speechless, stunned, unable to find one reasonable thing to say. How did this man know so much about him? He had eyes everywhere, access to confidential information about Joe, his family, and who else? Had he targeted Joe and his family, or was he just one of many in camp that this man had information about? Joe was a nobody. An officer, yes, but how important could he be to a man like Ayoud?
“Ah, you’re thinking, I see. Well, no matter. It’s the old saying. Keep your friends close, your enemies closer.”
“You’re American,” Joe said. “Where did you grow up?”
Ayoud gestured, and the laptop disappeared along with the man holding it. “I may have grown up in America, went to school at the University of Delaware—it has a fine finance department—but I am not an American. Make no mistake, I am for Islam and building a new country, a new state, a new world. We will wipe out everyone who gets in our way, everyone who doesn’t convert. We will prevail, and we will bring new order. Anyone who doesn’t join us in our fight will be our enemy, and we will destroy our enemy. Make no mistake, we will conquer America, Great Britain, the world. We will rule a new world.”
So he was a finance major, a banker, and now a freedom fighter? Crazy. He had intel, sources so deep Joe wondered where they had infiltrated—in his camp, in Washington? Yes, possibly, most likely. Where else? How many countries? Then there was the
burning question: What did he want with Joe? This entire situation was crazy. Did Intelligence have any idea what they were dealing with? Maybe they hadn’t taken seriously the power this group appeared to wield.
“Why me? What do you want with me?” Joe said, though he shouldn’t have asked. Did he really want to know?
The man didn’t smile. His eyes didn’t soften. Joe wondered if the man felt anything at all. He’d never before met someone with the capacity to kill as if life meant nothing. He didn’t think the man took joy in the killing, in the torture, in the degradation, but he wondered if Ayoud believed this was the way people lived, the way they breathed, as if this was a normal, everyday existence.
“You, Lieutenant Commander Joe Reed, will become my right hand. You will help conquer the US, NATO forces, the Western hemisphere, Europe. I already have soldiers in place all over the world, in congress, at the Pentagon, in Norfolk, Britain’s foreign intelligence…Shall I go on? We will have a new world. We will conquer. You are either with us, Mr. Lieutenant Commander, or we will destroy you. But first, I will have your daughter. I will take her as my wife. Twelve is a perfect age. They haven’t had time to learn all the wiles of women, the lying, the cheating. They’re still pure then, and she will make a suitable servant to Allah.”
He started yelling. God, he wanted to rip this man’s throat out. “Leave my daughter alone! No, you will not have her! You keep your disgusting hands off her! I’ll kill you!” he shouted, knowing Ayoud would find a way to take her if he wanted to. It was a horror he’d never felt before.
Ayoud laughed. Maybe he could read Joe’s mind and knew exactly the position he was in. His back was to the wall. This was a bargain with the devil, and he didn’t have a choice.
Chapter 13
“I’m telling you I’m going,” Eric said. He was in DeLaurie’s quarters along with the master chief, and they were arguing about who would go to get his friend. Cassidy and his team of special forces were trained for these kind of extractions, and he had pointed out that him allowing Joe to ride along the first time to save the women had most likely put them in this position to begin with.
“You’re going to get us all killed,” Cassidy said. “Do us all a favor, Captain, and stick to what you’re good at. I won’t pretend to know how to run a ship if you extend me the same courtesy of keeping your nose out of my team. Stay here, where you won’t be one more casualty or cost another member of my team their life.”
“Okay, enough!” DeLaurie shouted when it became clear that the master chief wasn’t above shoving Eric around. He could, too, by the size of him, but not easily. Eric was no pushover, but he’d never been part of any grueling special forces training. Cassidy and his team were the guys that went into these no-win situations when no one else could.
“Nobody may be going. Word from Washington is that they want to send in an airstrike team and take out the camp and everyone in it.”
“And what about the women and Lieutenant Commander Reed? We don’t leave a man behind, remember? Are you telling me Washington is ready to write him off?” Eric was furious, and the master chief was shaking his head, disgusted—whether by Eric, the situation, or the dictates of Washington, Eric didn’t know.
“Do we go, or don’t we go?” Cassidy shouted. “My man’s dead, but we still have a body to bring home. Tucker had a wife, twin boys. They deserve to be able to give him a proper burial and not have to visit an empty grave.”
“You’re to stand down until we get the go ahead,” DeLaurie said. “Washington is deeming this too hot. They’ve identified the man in the video as Ayoud al Karam. His father was one of many Al Qaeda terrorists sequestered in a prison camp outside Iraq. We think now that he was released in error. Washington believes he groomed his son for this.” DeLaurie wandered over to a metal cabinet, opened it, and pulled out a bottle of Irish whiskey. He held up tin cups. Cassidy shook his head, but Eric couldn’t help feeling he needed a stiff shot.
“Yeah,” he said, and he reached for the tin cup, holding it while DeLaurie poured two fingers more in his own. “What exactly does ‘error’ mean? US control over the prisons was turned over to the Iraqi officials. Someone at the prison released him?” Eric said.
“Not a mistake—planned. That’s way too convenient!” Cassidy was spitting mad.
“It was us who released him. That’s where it gets a little murky. The paperwork disappeared, and no one knew until now.” DeLaurie was a wealth of information, and Eric wondered how much more he knew.
“So who did it? Please tell me they’re talking to everyone who was there?” the master chief said.
Eric didn’t say anything, just listened to the play between the two senior officers.
“As I understand it, they’ve detained every soldier who was posted there, but no leads yet on who did what.” The expression on DeLaurie’s face as he swallowed the last of his whiskey was serious. He set his cup down.
“So what you’re saying is that one of our own possibly freed a monster, the father of a man who’s becoming the greatest threat to Western civilization.” Cassidy wasn’t going to give DeLaurie a break. “Well, that’s a piss-poor excuse in Washington. One of my men is dead, along with hundreds of others. Those women are gone, dead, we’ll never find them, and Captain Hamilton’s friend Lieutenant Commander Reed is probably going to suffer the same fate as Tucker—if he hasn’t already.”
Eric had had enough. They weren’t getting anywhere, and the odds of finding his friend alive were shrinking with every minute that passed. “Okay, enough, both of you. If it’s all the same to you, Master Chief, I’m coming, so it would be best if you’d bring me into your team and run through the plan with me. Commander DeLaurie, we need to get in there now before Washington sends in an airstrike,” Eric said. He wondered whether DeLaurie would stop them.
“If you go, you better be prepared to get in and get out, because if that airstrike is called, there’s little I can do to stop them. The words have come down: No boots on the ground.”
Eric understood clearly what the commander was saying. This might be a one-way trip for all of them.
Chapter 14
He was sitting on the edge of the bed, sweaty, grimy, dirty. He should have longed for a shower and bath, but it didn’t seem to matter, since the possibility of being executed was very real. One wrong move could mean his death sentence, but his worst fear was being tortured.
A tall dark-haired man was putting a new bandage around Joe’s head, having cleaned the wound without a word. He had to be a doctor or medic or someone, but Joe couldn’t relax. He sat ramrod straight and let the man poke and prod and do what he needed.
Ayoud held the bed post and put his other hand on his waist. “This is Doctor Jamal. He was once a great surgeon in Iraq before your country invaded and destroyed everything.”
The man said nothing to Joe but picked up his bag, along with the soiled bandages, and hurried out, nodding to Ayoud. Ayoud reached out just as he passed and put his hand on his shoulder. Joe didn’t miss the way Jamal cowered. He was afraid of Ayoud, another ruthless dictator. Joe had to wonder how many under him, the soldiers, were killing for him out of fear. A man like this, with this kind of power, was poison.
“So, Joe.” Ayoud stepped closer, unusually happy. Was that a bounce in his step? The smug bastard was gloating. He had Joe just where he wanted him. “We will dine. You must be famished. Come, come.” He gestured.
Joe made his way off the bed, his wrists still raw from being tied down and from yanking his arms, trying to free himself. He was sickened that he’d finally agreed to join Ayoud. He’d had no choice. The man had emailed his daughter while he watched, and she’d replied as if she’d been waiting on the other end for his missive. God, he wished he could pull his daughter aside and shake her—and what the hell was his wife doing? Why wasn’t she watching his daughter? He’d give anything to have words with his wife, to yell at her and tell her the horror of what he’d seen.
He didn�
�t miss the soldier at the door. He had a carbine, US issue. Another soldier stood in the hall. The stone walls were well lit, and Ayoud took him into a dining room filled with expensive furniture. In the center was a solid wood table with seating for twenty. A feast had been laid out, the aroma of spiced lamb filling the air. Even though Joe was sickened by what he was doing, he couldn’t help his mouth watering from hunger.
He sat down and took in the dozen men posted in the room, with weapons. Servants carried dishes, one of them ladling food on plates for Joe and Ayoud. Ayoud wasn’t starving, and this feast was an abundance that could have fed many. Joe wondered where his supplies were coming from.
“Eat, and then we’ll talk.”
He wanted to ask about Grieger, where she was and who had her. And Dunlop…would he ever be able to find her? He should have been angry with her, as she was responsible for the situation they were all in, but he couldn’t. Who could ever imagine the hell she’d just sold herself into? He forced himself to take a bite of lamb. The meat was tender, spicy, good. He swallowed and looked around at the men. “You have US military weapons. Who’s your supplier?” he asked, wondering how deep this terrorist’s sources went.
“I guarantee you, Lieutenant Commander, my soldiers are better outfitted with American arms than your own soldiers are.”
Joe was starting to believe he was right. Right now, he was fighting the burning need to find out all his sources and then find a way to get this to Washington, to Intel, so internal security measures could be taken. Where were the weapons disappearing from? Who was the traitor? His daughter’s face appeared in his mind.
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