Camp Tsunami, Abu Ghraib Prison
Hunter had grown accustomed to the high summer temperatures and even though it was probably in the upper seventies in the cell that night, he was chilled. His lips were burning, his stomach growling and his bruised balls throbbing. They had given him neither food, nor water, nor clothes, so he sat on the filthy cold concrete hungry, thirsty and naked. A light bulb inside a small cage burned all night and loudspeakers blasted Chinese opera. The music selection made little sense, except that the voices were screechy and the nasal sounds damned annoying. He listened for hours, picking apart the sounds so he could filter them out, but couldn’t hear any other prisoners. That worried him.
“Here’s your Red Cross package, you mother fucking haji,” a guard yelled through the slots on the solid metal door. The incessant music had masked their approach. The cell door opened and a book came flying toward his head. While he raised his arm to deflect it, they dropped something else by the door, then locked it without showing themselves.
Hunter walked over and picked up a small Muslim prayer rug and a copy of the Koran in Arabic. He was sure the bastards didn’t realize he could actually read it, but he knew better than to ever let them see him doing it-not that he even wanted to crack it open. He sat on the tiny rug, drawing his legs up against his chest for warmth and when he couldn’t fall asleep, he tried to meditate. All he could think about was Stella mouthing those three words that he’d waited so long to hear again. He only wished he could be sure she meant them and wasn’t just caught up in the drama of the moment.
He nodded off, then woke himself up shivering. Lying with his face on the prayer rug to protect it from the grimy concrete floor, he tried to go back asleep, but the deafening Chinese music made his head pound. The cell reeked of stale urine and feces. He slept in fits, his body aching more and more each time he awakened.
The music blast suddenly stopped and Hunter jolted awake, jerking his head around, trying to figure out where he was. “Allahu akbar,” a canned muezzin blared from a tinny loudspeaker, calling to prayer.
He stretched and everything hurt. A hint of morning light came through the grate in the ceiling above him. He peed into the drain in the floor, sat down on the prayer rug and waited, but no breakfast arrived, not even thin gruel.
Hunter counted the cinderblocks in the celclass="underline" one hundred ninety-three.
Hunter counted the slits in the grate above his head: eight hundred and fifty-seven.
He flipped open the Koran, but the first words, “Allahu akbar” were such a turn-off, he slammed it shut. Allah didn’t seem so akbar at the moment. Man, he was getting thirsty.
Chapter Fifty
Camp Raven, The Green Zone, Baghdad
Two days later
The sweat on Camille’s body evaporated almost instantly as she jogged around the perimeter of the Black Management compound. The temperature was bumping against a hundred ten and she was daring it to climb higher. Even though she knew she shouldn’t be pushing herself to extremes, she couldn’t stand another minute staring at the monitors and comm equipment in the operations center. Her entire intel staff was working on finding Hunter, but nothing had happened the entire day and his trail had dried up like moisture in the desert air. She was feeling light-headed, breathing hard and she knew she should stop and go work out in their air-conditioned gym, but she kept running. She waved as she passed some of her troops tending a garden. With a few seeds and some camouflage netting for protection from the unrelenting sun, they’d figured out a way to bring a taste of normalcy to their lives after a day of combat. She envied them. She needed a garden.
Near the shipping containers of fresh ammo, Pete pulled alongside her in a John Deere Gator and motioned for her to jump in. Camille waved her off and kept running, but Pete drove along behind her, yelling over the Gator’s engine and waving a manila folder in the air. “We got her-Julia Lewis.”
“Do I want to open it? What’s your read? I know you looked at it,” Camille said. She stopped, hopped into the moving utility vehicle and snatched away the file.
“Camille, honey, yesterday I talked to Pam Summerlin, the retired FBI agent we hired to interview her. I didn’t want to say anything until I had something you could sink your teeth into. It’s not good.”
“Don’t ever hold anything back from me again.” Camille scanned the stack of papers, careful to keep them from blowing away as they drove along. It seemed like everything Greg Bolton and Julia Lewis-Bolton did, they put in both of their names-electric bills, phone bills, vet bills. They had even made a joint donation to the Marines’ Toys for Tots charity. It seemed like a little too much togetherness for the man she knew, but the bitch could be the clingy type. “Are we absolutely sure ‘Greg Bolton’ is Hunter?”
“Keep going. There’s a copy of a Maryland driver’s license with his picture and signature. There are several other papers with joint signatures. I’m no expert, but they all looked genuine to me.” Pete stopped the Gator in front of Camille’s trailer, turned off the engine and pulled up the parking brake.
“Nothing I’ve seen here can’t be faked.” Camille fished a bottle of water out of the open glove compartment. It was warm, but she drank it anyway. “I want absolute proof.”
“I thought you said he admitted to you he was using the Greg Bolton cover.”
“He did. That’s why I want absolute proof that Julia-baby isn’t part of his legend.”
“Do you want to see the pictures? I was really hoping you didn’t want to go there.”
“Dammit, Pete. Quit trying to protect me.” Camille tossed the empty bottle into the bed of the Gator. Just then she heard the single boom of a mortar round going off. She moved her head as she followed its whistle through the air. “Sounds like the fucktards got the parking lot again. The damn thing has enough holes in it without them.”
Pete reached for a clipboard that was shoved behind the seat and removed a second folder file. Camille snatched it away from her and opened it.
She sat down on the steps of the trailer and could feel the sun burning her skin as she thumbed through photo after photo of Hunter with the anorexic supermodel. She couldn’t figure out what Hunter could ever see in such a woman. Camille was too big-boned and too muscular to ever look like that, no matter how well she cleaned up. It had been a long time since she’d primped herself. Makeup and pumps didn’t exactly work well in a combat zone.
She kept looking through the photos. Each one had the date in red in the lower right hand corner, but those could have been easily faked. They seemed to have been taken in spurts, with long breaks in between which was what she would expect if he was on deployment, undercover as a shooter with Rubicon. All of the private military companies had three or four month rotations with thirty paid days off in their country of residence. “Did you see any dog or cat pictures in here?”
“No, but what does that have to do with anything?”
“I saw a couple of vet bills in the file with both their names on it. People with pets take their pictures with them all the time. We should be seeing at least one Fluffy shot.”
“You’re grasping at straws.”
“I don’t think so. I’m going to find that lost dog.” Camille marched into the trailer, opened the first file and studied the vet bills. The Lewis-Bolton family had a puppy named Jordan, a yellow lab/Brittany spaniel mix. The dog had been fixed, received all of his vaccinations and had come in every six months for a checkup. Camille picked up the phone and dialed.
“Want to fill me in?” Pete hovered over her.
Camille shook her head and swiveled the chair away from Pete.
A woman’s voice answered the phone. “Good morning, Chesapeake Vet.”