After hours of nothing but rock and ice, finding the little congregation of smoky yurts and grazing sheep was like discovering life on the moon.
Nine felt yurts were strung along a small glacial lake in a broad meadow. A handful of snot-nosed kids scampered out to meet them as the motorcycle chuffed into camp with two foreign devils aboard.
A stooped woman wearing a heavy wool sweater and a long skirt ducked out of her yurt to scold the gawking children. She was bent by years of childbearing and heavy lifting. Her face was so smudged with grime and soot that it looked permanently blackened. As soon as Quinn mentioned Gabrielle Deuben’s name, the woman’s eyes brightened and she motioned them inside.
“Ainura,” she said, motioning for her guests to sit on the coarse piles of wool rugs against the wood lattice walls of the felt yurt. Her English was poor-just a few words, apparently taught to her by Gabrielle-but as a child she’d spent enough time in outpost towns that she spoke passable Russian. She bustled around the smoky yurt, preparing tea and bread as she introduced herself and asked for news about her friend, Dr. Gabby.
Quinn recognized the overly sweet, musty-incense scent of opium smoke as the woman gave him a chipped clay mug of tea. She was probably in her late thirties but looked fifty.
Her eyes narrowed, noticing his look. She turned to speak to Ronnie in Russian.
“She says she can tell you still smell the thief.” Ronnie interpreted. Ainura sat on the rug beside them, hands folded quietly on the lap of a colorful, handwoven apron.
“She says her oldest son is addicted to opium,” Ronnie continued. “She told him he could not smoke it in here so he went down the mountain to Sarhad.”
Ainura’s face remained stoic, but her eyes were heavy with the misery of a woman mired in the hopelessness of a land where half of the children die before they reached their fifth birthday.
Quinn took a sip of his salt tea, nodding in genuine thanks. “Dr. Deuben told us of an orphanage somewhere in the mountains…”
The Kyrgyz woman’s green eyes flashed and the words began to spill out of her mouth.
Ronnie translated as she spoke.
“She thought perhaps that is why we were here. There are stories, she says, of soldiers who come in the night. They butcher the men and rape the women in front of the children before taking them away…” Ronnie stopped translating for a moment and spoke in rapid-fire Russian, clarifying a specific point. She shook her head, but the old woman was adamant.
Ronnie looked at Quinn. “She says the soldiers are Americans.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
“Listen to me, Karen,” Lieutenant Nelson said in a voice that made Hunt want to cry. “I’m not much help to you here. I don’t know what the game is with these kids, but it can’t be good. I’m thinking they must be using them to infiltrate American bases or something.” He leaned against the gray stone wall of their little cell. Beads of sweat covered his upper lip. His fever had broken for the time being, but he had some kind of infection. She knew the fever would return soon and with a vengeance.
“Funny.” Nelson gave a rattling chuckle. “I told my best bud back in Montana that I’d die over here.”
Hunt put a finger to his lips. “We’re not dead yet.”
“It won’t be long.” He looked at her with sparkling eyes that belied the hopelessness of his words. “I broke up with my girlfriend before I deployed. Didn’t want her to have to put up with worrying over my sorry ass. Wrote a death letter to my dad and left it with my brother…”
“Shut up with the dying stuff,” Hunt pleaded. “There’s got to be a way out of this. I’m sure of it.”
Nelson let his head fall back against the wall, wincing as the move wrenched at his collarbone. “Karen,” he sighed. “Being sure isn’t the same as being right. I envy your positive attitude, but you heard what they did to Nguyen. I don’t know how far they brought us-and no one back home does either. We’re MIA… very soon to be KIA…”
“Don’t give up,” Hunt said. “I need you to stick with me here.”
“I’m not giving up,” the young lieutenant said. “I’m making a decision about how I go out. I plan to make them kill me quickly and you should too. Steal the joy of cutting my head off while I’m still alive.”
Hunt scooted up beside him, shoulder to shoulder. If she was near death, she wanted a little friendly human contact before her time came. She rested her hand on Nelson’s thigh, hoping it would provide some comfort.
He turned to look at her, smiling for the first time in days. “I’ll tell you one thing-the next one of those little shits that gets close enough, I’m gonna rip his head off.”
Hunt’s laugh was cut short when the metal door flung wide. Five guards filed in and stood along either side. Two carried stiff rubber truncheons.
Nelson gathered himself up in a flash and charged the men head-on. Adrenaline pushed him past the pain of his broken bone.
Following his lead, Hunt rolled sideways, springing for the two men the lieutenant had already engaged.
The crushing blow of a truncheon caught her square in the back of the head. She staggered forward, slamming face-first into the rock wall. Stunned, she watched as two men dragged Nelson to the center of the room, where they dropped him unceremoniously on the rough stone floor.
Before Hunt could make sense of what was happening, rough, stinking men clawed like vises at each arm. The more she kicked and struggled, the tighter they held her. Soon, two more men had her by each ankle. She tried to kick free, but another dose of the rubber truncheon across the bridge of her nose brought waves of nausea and sapped her will to fight. Her head lolled back. Blood poured from her nose.
“Take me…” Nelson whimpered from where he lay in a heap on the floor. “Please… not her.”
The room spun around Hunt as the men dragged her toward the door. She wanted badly to fight, but was working too hard not to vomit from shock, pain… and what she knew would come next.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Bethesda Naval Hospital Maryland
Jacques Thibodaux crammed himself into the flimsy plastic chair that must have been meant to discourage hospital visitors. He’d already read the stack of Soldier of Fortune and motorcycle magazines at his feet and decided to click through the TV channels on the hardwired controller. It was all mindless game shows and pontificating celebrity judges discussing peoples’ angst-ridden lives. Camille was resting so he kept the volume to a hushed buzz.
In the end it didn’t matter. A male nurse with a blond goatee and green hospital scrubs came in to wake Camille up and see if she was resting properly.
Thibodaux bit his tongue and walked over to gaze out the window.
“You think you’re foolin’ anyone with that vest?” The nurse’s voice surprised him. He should have been taking care of Camille, not quizzing Thibodaux about his clothing.
“Pardon?” He kept his gaze out the window in an effort to keep from getting confrontational. Camille had often said, only half joking, that one of his hateful looks could give a decent person chronic diarrhea.
“The vest,” Nurse Greg said. “I mean, who wears a fisherman’s vest in D.C. unless they’re using it to cover up a weapon? You a cop?”
Thibodaux nodded, still facing away. He could see the nurse’s reflection in the window as he placed a probe in Camille’s ear to check her temperature. “In a word,” he said.
“My dad’s a cop,” Nurse Greg said. “He wears a shoot-me-first vest too. I think you should just wear the gun in the open for everyone to see. I mean what’s the point of wearing a vest where everyone knows you’re a cop?”
“I bet your daddy’s sure enough proud of you,” Thibodaux muttered.
He watched as Camille reached up to touch the nurse on the elbow. Her voice was thick and hoarse from an exhausted sleep. “You should really go before he turns around,” she said. “My husband isn’t much for chitchat about his work with folks he doesn’t know.”