“Anyone hurt?” she asked.
“She is,” one of the girls said. We just got thrown in here. But from the feel of her face, she’s been cut and beaten.”
Donna reached out to the girl and immediately the poor thing jolted and pulled away, working against her restraints.
“They even have a collar around her neck,” one of the girls said.
Donna used soothing words like she would do to a frightened young child, holding out her hand until she felt the familiar leather collar she knew all too well. The pictures of her abuse flooded her brain until she closed her eyes and willed them to be gone.
“There should be a buckle at the back, or perhaps a lace up device. Do you have use of your hands?” she asked them.
“Yes.” She heard the clanging of metal as the collar was removed. The young woman spoke in a Pashtu dialect. Donna remembered the word whore, and animal, shouted to her multiple times, and she heard those words again uttered by a frail young girl.
She spoke a few words to the girl, and got some single word answers she could barely understand. Donna put her palm on the girl’s shoulder and told her that there were people near who could help them all. It was the truth, however, getting word to those people, her SEAL friends, would be a whole other problem.
Her wrist hurt and that’s when she discovered they’d not taken her watch, probably not realizing it had internet and wifi capacity. Donna pushed the light button on the right of the small screen and noted she had a decent signal. She tapped in an SOS to her procurement officer’s cell phone in Norfolk. She didn’t have time to look for a return signal, but started to focus on the other women.
Donna removed the zip ties from the others while one of the American girls held the light for her. Her fingers were stiff and swollen from the drugs, but eventually the plastic ties fell away.
The young girl looked to be no more than a preteen, which sickened her. Her clothes were in rags. Her pretty face was marred with large purple and blue bruises that had been dished out over multiple incidents. The girl’s right wrist also appeared to be broken, the swelling forming a lopsided red lump that was hot to the touch. If she had time, Donna would make a sling to immobilize it, but for now she had to address the issue of where they were and what their options were.
“Why are you here?” she asked the American girls.
“Well, we know these guys. We’ve been coming here for weeks.”
“Where is here?”
“Their retreat, you know, this is where they bring in the people from the cities and give them some country experience.”
Donna couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“So this is the camp on Pine Flat Road?”
“Yes.”
They heard voices outside the door. Donna scooted over to the other wall, lay on her side and pretended to be sleeping.
The door opened and a slice of yellow light fell on the room. Donna heard the young Middle Eastern girl whimpering as two men yelled at her and threatened to hit her about the face. Donna could tell they wanted to know how she’d managed to get out of her restraints. The girl didn’t have to act to be scared, and didn’t give them an answer. They grabbed her by the elbows, lifted her up, and despite her protests, carried her out of the room.
Donna heard the distinctive beep of her watch, thankfully just after the door was closed behind the enemy. She disabled the sound and then looked at the words on her tiny screen.
Message received. ST3 en route.
She doubted no text message would ever make her so happy again as those few little words.
“Okay, we got help coming I think.”
“That the special forces guys?”
Donna’s hackles stood up. “Who said anything about special forces guys?”
“My dad. He built this complex, well most of it.”
“Okay. So he knows you’ve been coming over here?”
“No. He’d be pissed. We just like to hang out, you know. They have some awesome weed. They’ve been really nice to us.”
“You call this nice?”
“Up until today,” the other American girl said.
“Yeah,” the other one whispered, her voice fading.
“So that should tell you, what?” Donna answered. “How long have you been here?”
“Since yesterday afternoon,” one of the girls said.
They were silent. Finally one of the girls spoke up. “We came over to warn them. We thought they were friends.”
“Friends?”
“People don’t understand them. Once they get to know them—”
“No. I don’t want to hear any more of this folly,” said Donna. She looked for a window and found none. The only way out of the room was the door they’d come in through.
The air was punctuated by the sounds of their young co-captive screaming. “Still think they are friends?” Donna willed her nerves to calm, but terror was looming at the edges of her mind. She knew what a full on panic attack felt like, and she was close. She needed to be able to think.
The room was some sort of storage closet. With her wristband light, she was able to see cleaning supplies and an old mop, a broken wooden chair. All of a sudden she remembered what the girl had said. “Warn them about what?”
“We wanted them to know about the Special Forces guys who came in to town asking questions. I think they put us here just to ask us some questions. They’re not going to harm us, you don’t think?”
“They’ve been holding you against your will.”
“Maybe they were provoked. They almost seemed happy about what we told them.”
“I’ll bet. Part of that devious plan they have. You’ve put yourself right in the middle of extreme danger. These are bad men. This is a terrorist training camp, not a Boy Scout camp for R&R. I can’t believe how stupid you were.” Donna took the broom, laying it against the wall on the floor. Her fingers squeezed the wooden handle, as if there was some support there. She sat back and tried to breathe. There wasn’t anything in this closet she could defend herself with, except for this broom. After a few seconds she sent another text.
4 of us here. One young girl badly beaten.
Donna’s eyes began to water. Her face began to flush, her fingers swollen and stiff. Her mouth was parched. Her heartbeat nearly threw her against the wall. She wondered how long before she’d completely lose it. She had to get out. Being confined for any length of time would kill her, not to mention what the group’s intentions were, and she had a pretty good guess at those, too.
Memories began to sift into her head. Those long thirty days came flooding back again and she knew it was useless to try to push them aside now. Donna began to shake. She closed her eyes and banged her head against the concrete walls of their prison, like she had done before. After awhile, she knew it would no longer hurt. The back of her head would hurt later, if she survived.
But today she couldn’t knock those visions out of her head. The trauma she’d suffered, the acts of debasement she’d had to undergo were so horrible, she’d become grateful for the heavy doses of heroine they’d given her that day and the days after.
Donna watched the outline of the two girls who had been unwilling accomplices. More memories poured in, her shakes became more pronounced. All of a sudden, she was transported back there as if it was happening all over again, right here, right now. She inhaled and braced herself for what she knew was going to happen next.
She remembered on that worst day, when she’d been forced to have sex with multiple men in an endless stream of hell, she wished they’d just given her an overdose. She’d tried to fight the effects of the drug, to make them give her more. She’d sought death with everything inside her. The more she fought, the more they beat her. She fought the cattle prods, the foreign objects forced into her mouth, her vagina and her ass, defying them, seeking to draw their anger to perhaps finish her off.
That day, she crossed the threshold between life and death. It wouldn’t matt
er what they did to her. She felt like she was dead already. There wasn’t anything further they could take. She was sure they’d already taken away her womb, cut and disfigured her such that her life as a normal woman would forever be lost to her. But while they’d altered her physical appearance and capabilities of her body, they didn’t change the woman she was on the inside.
At the end of that day, she’d come up with a slogan that sustained her, “Dead people feel no pain.”
She’d lived through that. She could wait the time it might take for the SEALs to stage a rescue. She hoped the tipoff didn’t mean the SEALs would be running right into an ambush.
Donna left one more message for her boss.
They know you’re coming.
Chapter 35
‡
JACKIE THREW HIS headset down on the table. “This is definitely the Sheik.”
Lucas ran to find Kyle, who was on the phone. He gave his LPO a thumb’s up.
“Okay, Jackie says it’s him,” Kyle said into the phone.
Jackie came up behind speaking over Lucas’ shoulder. “The girl they are holding is from Michigan,” he said in his heavily accented dialect. “I cannot make out the name, but she’s been given in exchange for favors. She herself was a ransom.”
Kyle relayed the information into the phone.
Lucas couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Chief Kyle, she’s only thirteen years old,” Jackie added.
“Fuck me,” Lucas said. “Sorry.”
“No I completely agree,” said the terp.
Could this mean they were getting permission to actually perform a rescue mission in the states? As far as he understood, this was the first of its kind performed by a SEAL Team on U.S. soil.
“How’s Donna holding up, do you know?” Kyle was looking right at him while talking on the phone with someone from SOC.
Lucas felt like the air had been knocked out of him. Could Donna be in danger?
He ran to the poker game. “Anyone seen Donna?”
“Last I saw, she was going for a run,” said Rory. “But geez, that was hours ago.”
“Kyle’s talking to command, and asked how she was doing.”
Cooper shot up to his feet and ran to where Kyle was just finishing his call. They shared a private conversation, then Cooper departed to his room. Lucas guessed it was to retrieve his medical kit. That meant something big was happening.
Lucas began letting the other members know something was up. The faces of their team went from relaxed to stoic attention. The games were left right where they’d been played. Cards left overturned at each man’s seat. The activity level began to intensify.
“Jake, we’re gonna go do something. Get your shit together,” he said to his roommate who was outside reading a book.
“Gotcha.”
Lucas changed his clothes and put on his full camo gear even though it would be hotter than hell. He heard Kyle shout orders and they all came running to the common area.
“Okay, I’ve just been given the go-ahead for a mission to rescue confirmed hostages, one of whom may need serious medical attention over at the training camp.”
The audience of SEALs were silent, except for some muttered cursing.
Lucas interrupted Kyle. “Excuse me, sir, but is Donna among the hostages, or do we know?”
“That’s a confirmed yes. And we don’t believe she’s injured at this point, but we really don’t know. There appear to be four.”
The room erupted in every man’s personal choice of profanity, so Kyle had to draw them to order.
“Listen up! We have permission to engage only if fired upon first. This is a rescue, not a search and destroy mission, and I want every man to fully understand that.” Then he added, “Get your shit together and let’s be on the road in thirty.”
“We’re driving?”
“We’re borrowing Donna’s two vans. I’m hoping she won’t be too pissed.”
Everyone grinned.
As the orders sunk in, the group got vocal, as had been their routine on deployments. Conducting a mission was what Lucas lived for. All the cares and concerns for his personal life, including Marcy and his kids, were secondary to the mission. It pained him that there was no one to call, no one to leave a message for. Before he allowed it to rot a hole in his heart, he sucked it up, took on a deep breath and started packing gear.
Kyle pulled the barn builder’s card out of his pocket. “Lucas, go call him and find out where his daughter is. See if she’s missing, okay?”
“Roger that.”
“Hold it there, son. Get your gear together first. Then you call him. We think we already have the answer.”
“Got it. So the girls we saw yesterday are still there, then?”
“That’s what I want you to find out. There are at least four hostages right now. We just don’t know who anyone is, except Donna. You get on the horn when you’re done getting you shit.”
“I’m on it.”
Lucas moved down the hall, walking just outside the barracks doors and dialed the number. He got a recording.
This is Hunter Boles. I’m not available to—the phone message was interrupted by Boles’ gruff voice.
“Mr. Boles, this is Special Operator Lucas Shipley. We have a situation here and wondered if you could give us some information.”
“I’ll do what I can.” Boles sounded pissed he’d been interrupted from something and was helping out begrudgingly. “I’m a little short staffed here today, so you’ll have to forgive me. Let’s keep this short.”
Lucas could hear another phone ringing in the background.
“That’s partly what I’m calling about, sir. Do you know the whereabouts of your daughter, sir?”
The silence on the other end of the line screamed volumes.
“I have no fuckin’ idea where she is. She’s not at work, that’s for sure. You know anything I should know?”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“Yesterday afternoon. Just after lunch. But she’s not here today. She and her girlfriend took off to run some errands yesterday, and I just figured she stayed with her friend Jenna last night. She does that all the time.”
“Have you tried to call her?”
“Well, of course I have. Her phone doesn’t pick up. Is she in some kind of trouble, Lucas—was it Lucas?”
“Yes, sir. We think we may have located her.”
“Where?”
“Not at liberty to tell yet, but as far as we know, she’s not injured and she went of her own will.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean? You mean like she wasn’t kidnapped or something? That what you’re sayin’?”
“In essence, yes. We’ll let you know as soon as we have anything further.”
“So if I was going to go look for my daughter, give me a guess where I should start.”
“Does she often stay out of communication this long, sir?”
“No.”
Lucas knew he couldn’t reveal anything to the girl’s father. “Her phone’s probably dead. When we can, we’ll have her contact you. Keep the phone by your side, okay?”
“Will do.”
Lucas was going to hang up when he heard Boles ask him another question he didn’t want to answer.
“Should I be wearing a gun?”
Lucas decided to give the man something to do. “I’d say stay armed until we find her. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”
“Wait, wait, where is my daughter? You gotta tell me!”
“I promise to let you know just as soon as we confirm a few things.”
When Lucas returned to Kyle, he shook his head.
“She didn’t come home. He hasn’t seen her since yesterday after lunch.”
“That’s what I was afraid of. Hey, thanks, Lucas. You packed?”
“Yup.”
“Okay, see you out front in a couple.”
“Chief? Can I ask a question?”
“Shoot.”
“So are other places, like San Diego—are they experiencing this type of behavior too? I mean, how safe is it near one of these camps?”
“Right now I think your girl, the girl you broke up with, is safe, Shipley. We don’t have any intel this is going on in any coordinated effort. We just know they’re up to something. But as far as I know, no one else has experienced a hostage situation.”
“Except there is that girl Jackie says was from Michigan.”
“And that’s a different story. Unfortunately, that was cultural blackmail. Any way you slice it, we gotta rescue those ladies quickly. We can’t wait for a terrorism task force to get assembled.”
“Thanks.”
But Lucas decided he would have to swallow his pride, and as soon as they were back from whatever mission this was, he was going to find Marcy, apologize for being a complete dickwad.
Chapter 36
‡
IT WASN’T THE nakedness that bothered Marcy, it was the fact that she’d been injected with so much heroine she could hardly think.
The “boys” in the compound were getting bolder, showing their disgust of her, which of course she did in return. She felt like a piece of meat in their eyes. She was a plaything for amusement, similar to what a person would do if they were going to torture an animal. But she knew the longer she held out, the better chance she had of survival. She had no illusions the wait would be in any way pleasant.
Thinking about these men, she understood a little more where Lucas went on deployments, mentally. There was evil in the world. She’d seen her share of wicked people, but pure evil—until now—she’d never been exposed to it. If the world knew what she knew, what Lucas and his brothers knew, they’d spend less time being politically correct trying to run a gentlemen’s war and more time seeking results. She knew that she was the least of those being tortured, held captive just for believing what they believed, for being an American, for having a lifestyle worthy of the envy of the whole rest of the world.
Lucas was part of that line of defense of the Homeland. And he was paying the price for it. He did and always would come to the aid of his brothers in arms, even though it would look like he was abandoning his wife and children. He had to have that singleness of focus. She understood that now more than anything.
SEAL Brotherhood Lucas Page 20