Tobin yanked her by the arm. Made her face him. “It’s the gig you have. You think Bella would be pitching a fit like this? No. No, she wouldn’t. AGFA has her. We have no idea what they’re doing to her, but my nightmares have come up with some pretty creative ideas of their own. Do you think she’s caved to that psychopath Sayed?”
She set her face like stone.
He shook her. “Do you?”
Jaz looked down. Shook her head. “No. But . . .”
“But what?”
“But she . . . she’s got religion. You know.”
“I know she has Jesus, Jaz. Not religion. And I know that the same Jesus Bella has is waiting for you to ask him for help.”
“Whatever.”
“Whatever doesn’t cut it, Jaz. You already bailed on us once. You don’t get to do it again.”
ANOTHER DAY AND NIGHT passed for Laynie in the cell with the kafir girls. Over breakfast, Laynie retold the story of Jesus’ birth to Ksenia, then moved on to his ministry, his arrest and crucifixion. His triumphant resurrection. His coming return.
Laynie led Ksenia in a prayer to repent of her sins—but had to stop and explain to her that her treatment at the hands of the soldiers and what she was made to do against her will was not sin. It was abuse.
After they had talked through it several times, Laynie was able to lead Ksenia to repent of her sins as she understood them, profess Jesus as her Lord and Savior, and receive his forgiveness.
“You are no longer to think of yourself as a kafir woman, because you are neither unbelieving nor unclean in God’s eyes. Because of Jesus, you are pure and holy, a royal daughter of the King.”
Ksenia hung on every word. Her hunger for God and for his word exhausted Laynie’s recent memorization, and she found herself drawing on verses she’d learned as a child. Laynie told Ksenia about heaven, the dwelling place of God on his throne. Laynie also taught Ksenia how to pray . . . and how to worship.
She sang Amazing Grace for Ksenia in English, then translated the verses as best she could into Russian. All afternoon, she and Ksenia sang the same song, and every time they reached the last verse, Ksenia would weep with joy.
When we’ve been there ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we’d first begun.
“Will it be like that, Lay-nee? Will we see heaven where God sits upon his throne? Will we live with him ten thousand years?”
Laynie brushed a kiss over Ksenia’s cheek. “Ten thousand years upon ten thousand years, my little daughter.”
Ksenia sobered. “They, the jihadis. They killed my family. My mother, my father, my brothers. All dead. I can never go back to my people, Lay-nee. There is no one left there for me. No one. Would you . . . would you let me think of myself as your daughter, Lay-nee? Might I call you Mader?”
Laynie turned inward. Neither of us will leave this place alive. What will it matter if I say yes? Shouldn’t I comfort Ksenia with the love she needs today?
She sighed over Ksenia’s broken heart . . . and gave herself a stiff talking-to.
You cannot make empty promises to this child, Laynie Portland. She is not a mark you can lie to and walk away from. That is no longer your way of life.
She remembered the sense of Jesus’ presence, how it overjoyed and comforted her, and what it meant when he whispered in her heart, I am here, Laynie, my daughter.
O Jesus! You didn’t comfort me with lies. And you never held my past against me. Instead, you received me as your daughter. I should . . . I should do the same. Share the love you poured into me by receiving this motherless child as my own.
She stroked Ksenia’s hair and waited until the tightness in her throat eased.
“I would be honored to have you call me Mader, my little daughter.”
MIDMORNING ON LAYNIE’S third day with the kafir girls, Bula called for her from the grate. She straightened her abaya and walked to him. Bula had unlocked the gate and placed a small pot of water and a rag inside the cell.
“Clean yourself. You will go to Sayed before you go to any of the men.”
“Are you sure he’s up to it?” Laynie regretted the snide words as soon as they slipped from her mouth.
Sorry, Lord. My heart is nowhere near perfect yet. Lots of junk hiding in there. Please cleanse my heart right now as I wash. I want to please you in every way—even how I respond to Sayed.
Laynie had no sense of what she was going to do when Sayed laid his hands on her. All she could manage was to murmur to herself over and over, “I count all things as loss for you, Jesus. I am not ashamed of the gospel. It is the power of God to salvation. No man can shame what you have made holy—nor, as much as it is within my power, will I allow a man to dishonor my body.”
Bula led her on the leash through the tunnels to Sayed’s salon. The guard stared at Laynie’s bare head as he held the curtain aside. Bula led Laynie to where Sayed was waiting.
He offered her a gleeful smile. “Oh, yes. You look as if you may be feeling better, Anabelle.”
He lit a cigarette and added, “News that I will be giving you to the men has raised quite a stir. But I wished to see you first to assure myself that, at last, you had been properly humbled.”
Laynie said nothing with her mouth. Her eyes, on the other hand, radiated mocking defiance.
Sayed sighed. “It seems that Halima’s efforts were not as effective as I wished. Very well. I will undertake the task myself.”
To Bula he said, “Remove her abaya.”
“Do not resist,” Bula warned Laynie.
She held out her arms and let him lift the garment from her, leaving her in the sleeveless shift.
Sayed sat forward and frowned. He got up and came closer. “What is this dirt on your arm? I gave orders for you to wash yourself.”
Laynie glanced at her forearm. She saw the words she’d scrawled there in charcoal and had left untouched when she washed.
“It is my declaration. Nothing you do can or will humble or shame me before Jesus, my Savior. He has removed all guilt and shame from me.”
Sayed shook with cold anger. “Very well. You wish to wear those words? So you shall.”
He shouted to his servant, who fetched him a cigarette lighter and a long, thin stiletto. At Sayed’s command, Bula pushed Laynie onto her knees in front of the low table, then bent her over it. Sayed’s servant held Laynie facedown to the table while Bula put his booted foot across her extended elbow.
Sayed heated the stiletto’s tip over the lighter’s flame and brought it close to her skin.
“If you attempt to move, Anabelle Garineau, Bula will snap your arm like a twig.”
Laynie felt the heat before Sayed touched the blade to her tender skin, but it hurt beyond belief as he began to trace, then sear, the charcoal letters into her arm.
She didn’t want to—she clenched her teeth and tried very hard not to—but she screamed anyway.
THE SENSE THAT TIME was getting away from them, leaving them without answers, hung over the task force. Team members began to arrive earlier each morning, working until dinner. By unspoken consensus, they returned to work following the evening meal and stayed until their eyes were too bleary to read what was on their screens.
Jaz had parceled out assignments, all of them focused on the impending New Year’s Eve attacks. All except Brian. Brian she took aside.
“Listen, Brian. I have a separate assignment for you. I’ve chosen you to do one thing and one thing only, what the girls came up empty on—find me the list of chemicals AGFA ordered. Can you do that?”
“Wow. Uh, yeah, I-I can. Thanks for trusting me with this.”
He’d gone away from their short convo with renewed determination.
What I need is a different approach, another angle.
He leaned back in his chair, fingers twined behind his head, staring at the updated notes Vincent had so carefully scribed on the boards. Al
l the notes were about the New Year’s Eve attacks with the exception of one bullet reading, “What is AGFA making in its lab?”
He doodled on a scrap of paper, an itch of an idea making him back up. Rethink. Ask himself what Jaz would do with the same idea. Or Rusty.
Brian got online and began to dig.
WHEN BULA RETURNED Laynie to the cell, she was shaking all over and hoarse from screaming. Without a word, she sat down beside Ksenia, pulled up her abaya, and reached for the shift she wore. She tore into its hem and ripped it off in a long strip. She soaked the fabric strip in vinegar water from her jug.
When she lifted her sleeve, Ksenia saw words burned into Laynie’s flesh, I Am Not Ashamed. She did not know how to read them or what they meant, only that they were seared into Laynie’s skin, and she would bear them forever.
“Oh, Mader!”
“Wrap. Help me.”
After the initial sting, the cool, moist cloth soothed the pain of the burns.
The relief is temporary. I will need to keep it moist for a time.
“I will be all right, Ksenia. The Lord will help me through this. In one way, it is a blessing. After Sayed had expended his energy and hatred doing this to me, he no longer wanted to rape me.”
“But this evening, when the soldiers will come for us, they will come for you also,” Ksenia whispered to Laynie. “Many men have put their names on the list. They will do a drawing for you tonight.”
Laynie bowed her head to pray silently. She stopped. Lifted her chin.
“Then let us beseech the Father in Jesus’ name to deliver us both from their evil intentions, Ksenia.”
The girl was eager. “Yes! Let us pray in Jesus’ name.”
Joining hands, Laynie murmured, “Lord God, Ksenia and I come to you in the name of your Son, Jesus. We call upon you to move this mountain before us. Lord, we are asking that you save us from degradation and abuse. O God, I am willing to suffer and die for you and the cross, and I promised you I would never willingly give my body to sinful use again. However, unlike me, Ksenia doesn’t have the training and experience I have to refuse a man. O Lord, we need your deliverance here. Please help us. Amen.”
“Amen,” Ksenia breathed. She looked at Laynie curiously. “What did you mean, when you said I didn’t have the training or experience you have to refuse a man?”
Laynie nodded slowly and unconsciously rubbed at her stomach before she answered.
“I am trained to fight, Ksenia. The second time I saw Sayed, when he tried to drug and rape me, I broke two of his fingers and punched him in the face. Broke his nose.”
Even through the gloom, Laynie could see white all the way around Ksenia’s dark eyes.
“You . . . you struck Sayed?”
“He slapped me. I probably shouldn’t have hit him, but I’m trained to defend myself, so I did.”
Laynie sensed Ksenia struggling, wanting to ask more questions. She preempted the girl’s curiosity.
“Let me share something important with you, dear one. It is this. After we come to know Jesus, we begin to realize that our lives are now cut into two parts—the part before Jesus, without him, and the part after Jesus, with him. Two lives. An old, dead life, and a new and resurrected life.”
Laynie’s stomach cramped on her. She put her hand to it. Ignored the cramp until it went away.
“I was an ungodly woman in my old life, Ksenia. I did many questionable and wrong things . . . and many terrible things. I learned to fight, to lie, to deceive and steal. Even to kill.”
Ksenia’s eyes betrayed her. She was frightened.
Frightened of me.
“That was my old life, child. Jesus forgave me my sins, just as he forgave you. Now I tell everyone I know how Jesus has saved me from my former wretched, sinful life. Sometimes, though, habits from my old life—”
Laynie’s stomach cramped again. She felt its contents roll around uneasily.
“I—” Nausea rose in her throat. “Oh, dear. I . . . I-I’m going to be sick.”
Laynie lurched from Ksenia’s mattress. She ran across the cave to the waste buckets and heaved into them. Almost immediately, her bowels tuned to liquid and released. She remained near the foul receptacles, alternately throwing up and hugging her middle against vicious cramps followed by diarrhea. In between, she leaned against the stone walls, seeking their coolness.
Ksenia brought Laynie’s water jug to her, but every sip she took exited as fast as she swallowed.
The girl felt Laynie’s forehead. “You are hot to the touch. Like a griddle, Mader.”
Laynie shivered violently and vomited again.
The other girls in the cell shouted for the guards until they came.
“They are afraid you will make them sick,” Ksenia translated. “They want the guards to bring them different buckets so they don’t come into contact with your refuse. They are saying I am contaminated, too. We must stay away from them.”
Laynie only groaned. She panted through another round of cramps.
“Oh, dear God, please help me.”
I am answering your prayer, Laynie, my daughter.
It took more than a moment for the words to sink down into her spirit, for her to understand. For a small smile to rise to her lips.
Before she again vomited.
Chapter 24
TO COMBAT MUSCLE FATIGUE and the energy-sapping cold, Cossack and his guides halted regularly. When they stopped, they gulped water and devoured nuts, dried meat, and fruit—even chunks of butter.
The three men reached the summit of the pass an hour before dark on the third day. They hiked a short distance down the other side until they reached a rock outcropping that would help shelter them from the wind. They made camp there under an overhang, erecting their tent and firing up the tiny gas stove to heat water for tea. Huddled around the little stove, they ate as many calories as they could swallow, drank down two cups of hot, sweetened tea each, then burrowed into their sleeping bags for the night.
They woke to a blinding sun glancing off two inches of fresh snow.
“Our hike is downhill now,” the lead guide said. “We will make better time today and should reach the rendezvous tomorrow.”
Cossack only nodded. He was feeling the fifteen or more years he had on the guides. He struggled onward, mostly in silence. He was near the point of exhaustion when they crossed the timberline and made camp in the trees.
IT WAS CHRISTMAS EVE. Somehow, the date had snuck up on everyone in the task force. When Jaz announced they would quit early that afternoon and Richard would serve a special Christmas dinner the following day, the members of the task force shrugged and received her news without enthusiasm.
The only meaning Christmas Eve held for them was to herald the one-week mark before AGFA’s attack on New Year’s Eve. They had nothing with which to stop the terrorists. Nothing to give Wolfe, nothing he could take to his superiors.
“I will never think of New Year’s Eve the same after this,” Gwyneth mumbled.
“Nor Christmas Eve,” Soraya responded.
No one was certain Brian had heard Jaz’s announcements about dismissing early Christmas Eve. He skipped lunch and kept at it through the afternoon. When he didn’t break for dinner that evening, the rest of the task force began to hope that Brian was onto something concrete.
“Could really use some good news,” Rusty said. “Maybe we can give him a hand.”
In agreement, the team, minus Tobin and Jaz, returned to the bullpen and converged on Brian’s desk.
Rusty took charge. “Brian.”
Nothing.
“Brian.”
Still no response.
“Brian!”
“What?”
“Need to get your hearing checked, bro. That’s the third time I’ve said your name.”
Brian tore his eyes away from his monitor. Saw the team crowded around his desk. “Huh. What do you guys want?”
“Can we help?”
“Thanks, b
ut nope. Got it covered.” He hit print. “Hang on, though. I’m about to blow you clowns away.”
He tilted his chair back and announced, “I’ve got the list of chemicals AGFA ordered for the third attack.”
JAZ AND TOBIN JOINED the other team members in the bullpen. Jaz said, “Okay, Brian. Tell us what you’ve got and how you got there.”
“Roger that. Well, since we scoured what was coming into and going out of AGFA and made no progress there, I decided to work the problem from the other end. I started with the same Chinese pharmaceutical and medical supply company they ordered fentanyl from. I dug down into the company’s files to learn more about them. The more I dug, the more obvious it appeared.”
“What’s that?”
“I was getting to it. Seems the company is a front for Tai Huen Chai, the ‘Big Circle Boys,’ a Hong Kong-based Chinese triad. Tai Huen Chai is a transnational organized crime syndicate with a significant foothold in Canada. The Big Circle Boys conduct legit business through this pharmaceutical and medical supply house, but they also distribute drugs and launder a lot of their drug money through it.”
“Wow,” Rusty said, eyes wide.
“Yeah. Super tangled mess. Took me days to find what I was looking for—not another connection to AGFA, but a connection to their friends, al-Qaeda.”
“You found a link between this company and al-Qaeda?”
“Yup. Once I was in their files, I had to employ a dictionary’s worth of key word filters before the right records popped—I looked into orders sent to Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, even Saudi Arabia before I found the commonalities that led me to al-Qaeda’s pass-through companies.”
“Look, Brian,” Tobin interjected. “We will all sign an affidavit attesting to your stellar international hacking abilities if you will just tell us you found AGFA’s chemical order.”
“Actually, I’m learning from him,” Rusty said. “Kinda in awe, if you need to know.”
“Me, too,” the girls echoed.
Tobin grumped. “Fine. Get on with it.”
Laynie Portland, Spy Resurrected Page 27