“No!”
Two men, maybe three, pushed her violently into the back of the van. Malie tried to get her high-heeled feet under her and fell. The back of her head hit the floor hard.
She came to several minutes later. The taste of blood in her mouth. A dull throb at the back of her head. Her mouth had been taped shut, her hands and arms bound together, too. She lay on a thin mattress and tried to kick herself free, until her jeans chafed her thighs.
They were parked somewhere. Vigeland? Slottsparken? Ekeberg? The wind was blowing. Branches scraped the top of the van.
She heard a car door shut and men’s voices speaking a strange language. The smell of cigarette smoke.
Feeling like she was five years old and lost in a forest, she started to pray for help.
The van door slid open. A sharp light hit her eyes. Behind it, dark dull faces. Strangers. One with a beard. Another wearing a green ski mask. A third, shorter man holding a knife.
“No, please…” she tried to say through the tape.
When they leaned over her, she shut her eyes and prayed silently to her grandmother in heaven, her mother and father, who all seemed so far away.
Something cold touched her stomach. She shivered, then realized they were cutting away her sweater. They pulled it off her roughly. Then ripped her bra.
She heard one man sigh with appreciation. Another seemed to scold him with a guttural sound like he was clearing his throat.
Someone squeezed a nipple. She winced and tried to lift herself up. Strong hands held her down and slapped her. Another squeeze, then someone spit. “Putain!” Saliva landed on her face.
Oh, God!
Something in Malie shut down, as though she knew what was coming. A feeling of panic gripped her stomach and threatened to turn it inside out.
Please don’t be sick.
They handled her roughly, pulling off her jeans. Her heart-patterned panties. Praying to God that they wouldn’t hurt her. Cold sweat oozed down the insides of her thighs.
One of the men shouted in accented English: “Open your eyes, you bitch!”
She did for a moment, and saw the knife. Cold, jagged sparks ran up and down her spine as it passed over her tender stomach. Rough hands pulled her legs apart.
Please don’t hurt me!
She clenched with all her might, expecting something to enter. It had happened half a dozen times before with boys her age. Fumbling efforts.
I’m not an expert, not nearly. If that’s what they think.
Instead the van door banged open violently. She opened her eyes.
Cyrus held a pistol in one hand and grabbed the backs of the men’s shoulders with the other. “You fucking idiots!” he screamed.
The men mumbled protests and backed away. Cyrus threw the blanket over her. “Imbéciles. Je vous ai dit. Le cheik veut qu’elle sera intacte!” (Imbeciles. I told you. The sheik wants her untouched!)
Chapter Three
Gamble everything for love, if you’re a true human being. If not, leave…
– Rumi
Crocker was usually soft-spoken and relaxed, but at midnight the following night, he sat on the edge of the hotel room bed dressed head to toe in black, stroking his mustache and nervously tapping his foot. He was talking to his daughter Jenny on the phone. She hadn’t made the First Colonial soccer team and was bummed.
“Sweetheart, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve failed at something the first time I tried,” he said gently. “The point is to regroup, work on your weaknesses, focus harder.”
Only a year earlier, Jenny and Crocker had moved in with his new wife, Holly. His first marriage hadn’t worked.
“Yeah.”
“Get mad.”
“Dad-”
“Show those girls what you’re made of.”
“I don’t know if I’m that into soccer anymore,” Jenny said. “I think I’ll-”
“Don’t say it, honey.”
The word he didn’t want to hear was “quit.”
She said it.
“Come on, sweetheart. Come on.”
Soccer he could take or leave. What worried him was her apparent lack of determination. Grit.
He told her how great she was. Reminded her of times she’d been outstanding in a number of other sports. Told her that he’d run specific drills with her when he got back.
He was a man who had had to fight for everything. Built himself up from a skinny kid from the poor side of town into a leader of the toughest unit in the U.S. military. Got there with the help of intense physical and mental discipline. Studied hard, and trained like a beast. Lifted weights incessantly. Ran thirty-six marathons in three years. Competed in over a thousand endurance competitions before turning thirty-five, including Ironman Triathlons, Double Iron Triathlons, the grueling Raid Gauloises (“the world’s most challenging human endurance competition”). He always set his goal high, and often won.
As the assault team leader of ST-6’s Blue Team, he’d led dozens of physically arduous missions in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Panama, El Salvador, Colombia, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Yemen. Hostage rescues, assassinations, drug raids, weapons recovery, surveillance. Over forty in the past year. All highly classified. Some for the navy, some for the CIA, some for the White House. In and out.
Throw a challenge in front of him and he’d chew it up, or die trying.
It was all about will. Fire in the gut. The determination to push yourself beyond the barriers of fear.
The way his dad had taught him-a U.S. Marine hero who was shot in the leg by a Japanese sniper on the last day of World War II.
Some people had determination. Some didn’t. Crocker thought of it as the vital ingredient that lifted an individual above others. Made achievers. Created heroes. He rated it ahead of intelligence and physical ability.
And here was his daughter, threatening to quit.
He sat, forehead furrowed, feeling like he’d failed somewhere as he listened to himself talk. Words into a wire that bounced across oceans and deserts to his daughter’s room in suburban Virginia. He pictured her sitting in front of her iMac, surrounded by photos of the actors from Twilight. Vampires with six-packs. Kids who had never faced real physical danger in their lives.
He’d killed people. Witnessed drownings, decapitations, bombings, brutal hand-to-hand combat. The worst. Was that the life he wanted for his daughter? Hell, no!
He stopped. Did a mental one-eighty. “Sweetheart, I just want you to be happy. You decide what you want to do, I’ll support you one hundred percent. I love you more than life itself. You’re a wonderful girl.”
A moment of stunned silence from Jenny on the other end. When she finally spoke, she sounded more like herself. “That means a lot to me, Dad.”
“We’ll talk more about soccer when I get home. Sound good?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
He felt something opening in his chest when Ritchie walked in and pointed at the glowing LED numbers on the clock. Dark eyes burning. Jaw clenched.
It was 12:14. Time to hump.
“I gotta go, sweetheart. I love you. Be your best.”
“Get home safe, Dad. We miss you.”
He bit his bottom lip and hung up. Looked at Ritchie standing there like Johnny Blaze from Ghost Rider. Black 5-11 pants. Black shirt with cargo pockets. Black belt. Half expected flames to start shooting out of his head.
“You get the things we talked about? We set to launch?”
“It’s all teed up for you, Tiger.”
“Tiger? Where the hell did that come from? You know I don’t play golf.”
Crocker checked his Suunto GPS watch, which featured separate fields that measured altitude and barometric pressure. It also had a 3-D compass, a bottom timer for diving, and a route planner.