her, from this time.
3
“W hy do we keep him alive? If there were any spies among us, they fled when the Americans declared victory and pulled their troops out of our lands. It is impossible to know who they were, when we have so many men missing, so many dead and left behind in the desert.”
The conversation was spoken in yet another dialect, one Will knew, though not as well as some. He was able to make out the words. That the U.S. had pulled out did not surprise him. This had never been meant to be a sustained operation, like the one in Afghanistan. This leg of Operation Enduring Freedom was a simple, short, potent lesson with clear parameters. Infiltrate terrorist cells, then, guided by spies on the inside, launch strikes on their training camps and then get the hell out. It had worked. The cells had been decimated, the survivors scattered, the leadership cut off. This band who’d captured him had unfortunately spotted him as he made his way to the extraction point. He had been within sight of the chopper when he’d realized they were on his tail, and he’d had no choice but to take cover and open fire, holding them off long enough for the chopper full of American soldiers to get clear.
“I say we put a bullet between his eyes and leave him for the vultures.”
Fine, he thought. Just do it and get it the hell over with. How long had he been here, now? Weeks? Longer? It was impossible to be sure. The goddamn broken foot and ribs ached so badly he couldn’t sleep, and whatever freaking bug he’d picked up had him so weak he spent most of his time lying in the corner, shivering-at least when he wasn’t hunched over in the opposite corner throwing up.
He had expected U.S. forces to come after him. Apparently he was presumed dead or they would have by now. Of course he was presumed dead. He hadn’t talked. None of the men who had infiltrated the other terrorist cells in the area had been identified. They’d had time to get out. The U.S. would assume he had died a hell of a lot more readily than they would assume he’d withstood weeks of torture without uttering a single name.
The voice of the man who wore the silk turban and diamond pinky ring, apparent right-hand man to the leader of this small pack of jackals, came next. “We will shoot him when Ahkmed says we shoot him. Here.” There was a rattle, as if of paper. “Have him hold this and take his photograph.”
“You intend to ransom him?” one of the underlings asked.
“They took our men to their Bay of Guantanamo as prisoners. Perhaps we can use the colonel to get some of them back.”
“Over my dead fucking body,” he muttered. He would have shouted it, but his throat was so raw that muttering was the best he could manage.
The lock of his kennel scraped open, and two men whose faces had become familiar stepped inside. He stayed where he was, huddled in the corner of a metal box that had once been part of a cargo truck. It was his own room within the caves where they were hiding out, though not deeply enough to benefit from the one plus of cave life: a constant temperature. This place was oven hot by day, freezing cold by night. His furniture included a large tin can he used for a toilet and a pitcher of stagnant water he supposed they expected him to drink. Most days it was tough to tell which smelled worse, though when you got thirsty enough the smell of the water didn’t make a hell of a lot of difference.
When the light spilled in from the open door, it blinded him, and he covered his eyes with his hands.
“Come out, pig. We are to photograph you.”
He lifted his head, squinting at them and made his way forward. Every step on the broken foot was sheer agony, but he had learned cruelly what happened when he hesitated or disobeyed.
They pulled him out when he got close enough so they could grip his arms. He was struggling to see. The caves were lit by floodlights, powered by a generator he could hear running somewhere in the distance. Probably near the entrance.
They slung him into a chair. One held a rifle on him, while the other shoved a newspaper into his hands. He glanced down at it. Jesus, it was in English.
“You hold this up so the date is showing while we take a photo.”
He lifted his gaze to meet the speaker’s dark brown eyes. “This says the Americans have left the country. Are you trying to give them a reason to come back and kill you all?”
“You should shut up and do as you are told, Colonel Stone. We will trade you for our prisoners. This is your only hope of leaving here alive.”
He shook his head slowly and decided to use this to his advantage. His wounds were infected. He needed to clean them. “They won’t even recognize me like this,” he said, running a hand over his unshaven face. “And if they do, they’ll be so angry at what you’ve done to me that they’ll just renew the bombing.”
The two men blinked and stared at each other. “He could be right. Do you think we should clean him up first?” one asked in his native tongue.
“I…let us ask Ahkmed.”
The two of them turned and left him there, alone, in that section of the caves. Granted, there were no weapons in sight, and he couldn’t try to escape, since there was only one way out of this section, and they had taken it. But still…
He got to up onto his one good foot and hopped over to the table, where a pitcher of water and a partially eaten loaf of bread were sitting, ignored. Picking up the pitcher, he sniffed it, found the water cleaner than any he’d had in days and drank deeply. He shoved a large piece of the bread into his mouth, chewed, then washed it down with more of the water.
And then he noticed the knife. It was blunt edged, not meant to cut anything. But he took it all the same, along with the rest of the bread, and he hopped across the room to his box, tossing both deep into the shadows inside.
He got back to his chair just as the men returned. One of them carried a large basin of water. The other had a stack of clothes in his hands, a razor and a bar of soap on top.
“Ahkmed says you are to wash up and shave. Then put on these clothes.”
The basin was set in front of him. “Make good use of the water, Colonel. You’ll get no more.”
He nodded, glad they’d taken the bait. Without getting up, he peeled off his torn, bloody shirt. He took the bar of soap, which was the ugly brown-yellow hue of homemade stuff, hard as a rock and, he thought, probably strong enough to burn out his eyes. There was a washrag, too, and he made use of it. God, it felt good to wash some of the filth away.
The men stood back, guns at the ready, watching him. He cleaned the burns and cuts on his chest and arms, even though the soap felt like battery acid when it touched them. Lye soap, it had to be. Jesus.
“It is your face that needs cleaning, Stone. Get on with it.”
Nodding, he cleansed all wounds he could reach on his back, fearing he’d missed more than he’d hit, and finally rinsed the cloth in the water and washed his face. Next, he leaned over the water basin, dipping his entire head into it and then scrubbing the soap over his wet hair, dipping it again to rinse. Finally he lifted the razor to his face, but paused when he glimpsed his reflection in the basin of water. The beard was coming in nicely. It would be excellent camouflage if he ever got out of here.
He set the razor down again. “I would like to keep the beard, if I may.”
They looked at each other, then at him. “You are an American. You’re not worthy to wear a beard. Take it off.”
Sighing, he didn’t see the value in arguing the point. He shaved the beard with the dull razor, scraping his face raw in the process.
“Now put on the clothes,” one of the men ordered.
He braced his hands on the table to push himself up onto his feet, though he kept his weight on the good one. Then he balanced there as he managed to get his pants undone and off. The shorts went, too. He didn’t have a single qualm about baring himself, because it meant being relatively clean for the first