Playing with his chest hairs totally disgusted her, so she gave herself a break and worked her hands up to his beard, but when she got there it still had food in it and she didn’t want to touch it. Just as she started to doubt if she could pull it off, he let her slip her arms over the top of his head and move her wrists right where she wanted them-behind his occipital bone at the lower back of his skull. She would’ve preferred to snap his neck, but it was impossible from that angle.
His cock pressed against her, trying to enter her. She wasn’t in position yet and she had to get this right because she couldn’t stomach this again. Wiggling her hips away, she evaded it while she put her right leg on his hipbone. Her foot there kept him stabilized so she could scoot slightly to the left and maneuver her arms into position.
Her forearms rubbed against his neck, underneath his ears and he laughed. She bent her right arm, bringing it down to her chest and pulling his head closer. As hard as she could, she thrust the nail at the sweet spot behind his left ear.
Al-Zahrani moved his head. She missed and the nail flew from her sweaty hands. He didn’t notice. He shoved her foot off his hip bone and pushed hard into her. She was as dry as the Kyzyl Kum and it hurt like hell. The fucker had her pinned down like a pro wrestler.
She turned her head to the side and waited.
In less than two minutes, he pulled out and called for the guards and the interpreter. They were inside his tent within seconds. Al-Zahrani said something to her as he stroked her hair. She jerked her head away from him and turned her back to him and she pushed down the jilbab. The interpreter said it meant that she pleased him and they would stay married for the next three days.
At least they weren’t going to kill her tonight, though the way she felt, it would’ve been welcome. She would have at least two more chances to take him out and thoroughly disgust herself in the process.
She could do just about anything, but not this again. She had to find a way to take out the fucker tonight.
Two of the guards escorted her from al-Zahrani’s quarters. She forced herself to focus on situational awareness and not how utterly miserable she was feeling because she had to remain in control of her emotions if she was going to succeed.
They passed two huge tents with men sleeping on the ground inside. Nearly as many bedded down on mats outside to get away from the heat. She had seen another barracks on the other side of al-Zahrani’s tent and estimated that the camp held three to four hundred tangos.
The last tent before the dark void between her shack and the compound was more of a canopy like the ones used in big weddings back home. Weddings-she couldn’t let herself think about weddings. And they were not married.
Under the canopy, three dozen men sat on oriental carpets in four different groups. Each of them had an AK within arm’s length and several wore belts with short daggers hanging off them. Some had Korans open in front of them, though she couldn’t imagine that they could see to read from the few kerosene lamps scattered about. They stopped their debates long enough to watch her march by. She could feel their hate.
It was mutual.
One guard walked ahead of her, the other behind. Even after she had passed the last tent, she found no openings to escape.
They arrived at the shed and shoved her inside without tying her feet back up-her first lucky break of the day, she consoled herself, even though all she wanted to do was collapse on the ground and cry.
The shed was pitch black, but gradually she sensed someone else in with her.
Chapter Eighty-Two
42° 09' 25.95 N, 62° 56' 52.31 E (Uzbekistan)
Hunter was feeling queasy when the Pave Hawk deposited him, GENGHIS and Ashland at the release point on the other side of the rock ridge from the tango camp. Expecting to feel amped since he was only a three and a half kilometer hike from Stella, instead he fought away a nagging concern for her. He had done scores of extractions and he always went into them convinced that they could handle whatever came at them, but this one worried him. These stakes were too personal. As he humped the three kilometers around the ridge to the camp, he fought to get Stella off his mind and think of her only as their mission objective, codename GRACKLE. It didn’t do much good. However he reframed it, he was still on his way to rescue the woman he loved.
The passage between the two open pits was a mound of soft sand that slowed them down. As they rounded the base of the ridge, Hunter could see the compound in the distance through the night vision device. It was a new moon and Hunter was happy he didn’t have too much ambient light messing with the night vision goggles. The PVS-14 helmet-mounted monocle was far superior to the old PVS-7 head-mounted goggles that Rubicon had supplied him with. Camille didn’t cut corners with her equipment. Tonight he hoped her investment would pay off.
Hunter carried a rucksack with a half-dozen Claymores. Despite his injuries, GENGHIS wore a pack with the blasting cap assemblies. The spools were light, but the hundreds of feet of wire made them bulky. Ashland was traveling light, looking like a tango with a knock-off Adidas duffle bag. They were two kilometers from the far edge of the camp and Ashland had fallen behind. At least it was easy running. The ground was hard and level, packed down by tons of earthmoving equipment.
“How you doing?” Hunter ran alongside GENGHIS. He didn’t show any signs that his earlier injuries were affecting him, but he was the type who would never show it until he keeled over.
“Better than Ashland,” GENGHIS said. “You trust him?”
Hunter laughed. “He’s the fucker who started this mess. Burned me bad. Was afraid I’d blow his cover because I recognized him.”
“You think there’s a chance he’s working with the tangos?”
“Even with what you did back at the crash site, you’re still the one I want watching my back.” Hunter jogged past him.
The Pave Hawk flew out of the crater and dropped Iggy off on the desert floor, upwind and a kilometer from the start of the ridge above the compound. He was relieved that the desert floor there was hard like in Iraq and he supposed that had to do with the way the winds whipped up from the crater, sweeping the rim clean. Whatever the reason, he was grateful. The M240G medium machine gun weighed enough on its own and the ammo cans were like carrying car batteries: dense, concentrated weight that didn’t help the blisters on his stump. But Iggy knew it wasn’t really the heavy, awkward gear that was irritating him as he jogged to his position. He had lost seven men in a stupid accident that had cut his team in half. The team was smaller than he knew he should be working with, but for Camille, he was willing to take the risk. He hoped to god those bastards hadn’t messed her up too much yet, but he knew what they did to women-and to men.
Several minutes later, Iggy set down his gear and looked over the ridge at the terrorist camp. Through his night vision monocle, he found the reflection of the square inch of glint tape attached to the top of Hunter and GENGHIS’ helmets. It would be invisible to the tangos without night vision equipment, which he hoped they wouldn’t be using. He could see they were approaching the training grounds on the edge of the camp.
Aside from the drop-off one hundred meters behind him, the spot was ideaclass="underline" He was in range and sight of the entire compound. The tangos seemed to be slumbering away or at least they weren’t loitering about. He took out his binoculars for a quick scan of the perimeter. Their only sentry post with four men was set up at the entry to the pit, but that was over a kilometer away from the camp.