Nauti Dreams

Iraq

Five Years Ago

“Little American whore.” The kick was harder this time, aimed at the tender flesh of Chaya’s stomach, driving the breath out of her and causing her to send a tortured cry through the small cell she had been tossed into.

Her cry. She knew it was her scream, strangled and agonized, but it no longer sounded familiar to her. Reality had receded the day before, and it hadn’t yet returned.

She had been dragged from her car just outside Baghdad, blindfolded, and shoved into a van. And that had been a walk in the park compared to the hours since.

“How much easier would it be, whore, to simply give us what we need?” The muzzle of a handgun caressed her cheek. “You could die then. Quickly. There would be no more pain. Wouldn’t that be nice? No more clamps attached to tender parts of your body. No more electricity. No more kicks. All you need to do is tell us who contacted you. Tell us the information they have.”

The voice was an insidious whisper inside her head as she felt herself crying. Curled in on herself, shuddering with sobs.

Oh God, please don’t let them hurt her anymore. She could feel the bruises along her body now, the swollen tenderness of her nipples, the fragility of bones that couldn’t take much more abuse without breaking.

They hadn’t broken her yet. Had she managed to convince them she didn’t know? That she was unaware of the illegal weapons pipeline they were buying their guns and explosives through? That she knew nothing of the information she had been sent to retrieve about the spy within Army Intelligence providing access to those weapons?

And what did she do with the information that only one person had known where she was headed and why?

“So easy,” a voice crooned, and she focused on the accent. It wasn’t Iraqi, she knew Iraqi. It wasn’t Afghani. There were tonal differences in the voices, even when speaking the same language. She knew the difference. This voice was a whisper of something else. Someone else. She knew this voice.

Another blow landed and a scream tore from her as the toe of the boot connected with her ribs. Terror washed through her like an oily, dark wave of suffocating heat. They would break them next. If her ribs broke she wouldn’t have a chance of escape. Naked, bruised, and hurting, hell yeah. She could escape given half a chance. But if they broke her ribs? If they caused internal bleeding? She would never make it.

“Maybe we will get to keep this one awhile,” the voice mused, laughter filling the tone. “I think maybe she enjoys our caresses, yes?”

No. No. She shook her head, dry heaves shaking through her, torturing her as the spasms ripped through her body.

“You do not like our touch?” False sympathy filled the voice as he bent to her again. “Maybe we use you and fill your belly with seed. We take your brat then and place it in a pretty stroller filled with explosives and park it in front of your White House. Who can resist a baby’s cries, eh?”

She fought to breathe.

Reality. Reality was birth control that had been administered before this mission. Reality was backup, somewhere. Her team didn’t want to lose her or the information she had, but they could only rescue her if they knew she was missing. If the officer she had discussed the trip with had reported that she hadn’t returned.

Reality was, she was beginning to suspect that officer may well be the leak they had been searching for in Army Intelligence.

Reality. She had to hold on, just a little bit longer. She had to find a way to escape, a way to get that information back to her superiors despite the disillusionment and the betrayal that seared her soul.

She felt a hand on her thigh, moving along the back of her leg, fingers touching her, probing.

Rage and terror blazed through her mind. Kicking out she fought to avoid the touch, tried to hurt or to maim, to piss him off enough to keep him away from her. She would prefer to be kicked. She would prefer the broken bones.

“Tell us, Greta.” The voice sighed then, resignation in his tone as she heard the shuffling around her. “Raping you would not be a pleasant experience for some reason. And raping you broken and unable to fight holds even less appeal. But if you do not give me what I need, I will spread you out here and I will let these guards use you. They will use you over and over again, until your body is so defiled that even your own people will know nothing but disgust for you. Is this what you want?”

The false gentleness in his tone built the fear inside her. He was going to do it. She knew he was. She had known all along that he would take this step. What better way to torture a woman? When the electrical clamps to her nipples and clitoris hadn’t worked, he had gotten more inventive. His men hadn’t raped her, but the painful device he used had.

She couldn’t bear more pain.

“Such a beautiful woman.” He sighed.

Saudi. The accent was Saudi. She couldn’t see him, her eyes were so swollen now she doubted she could see daylight if she was in it. But the accent, the voice.

“Nassar,” she whispered, dazed, sobbing. “You betrayed us, Nassar?”

And it only supported the fact that the man she suspected of betraying the Army was a traitor. Her husband. Nassar was his friend. His contact. And so, obviously, his coconspirator.

Silence filled the void for long moments. Nassar Mallah. She remembered him now. He was a contract agent for the CIA and one of their most trusted moles. Handsome, charming, his black eyes always twinkled with humor and a smile always curved his lips. She had never guessed, never known he was a traitor.

“Ah, Greta.” He stroked her cheek again, but she had distracted him. He was no longer stroking the abused flesh between her thighs, no longer threatening to open her again, to destroy her with a helplessness she couldn’t accept.

“Why?” Shudders were working through her, and she knew she was finally going into shock.

Or perhaps they had meant to kill her slowly like this.

“Kill her.” She felt him rise to his feet. “Use her however you please first, but when you leave this cell, she is to be dead.”

“No. Nassar,” she cried out his name weakly. “We trusted you. We trusted you.”

“No, you trusted me. Fool that you were.” She heard the shrug in his voice. “Enjoy your last minutes, Greta. I doubt they will spend much time enjoying your broken body. But, with these four, you never know.”

The cell door clanged shut. Her fingers tightened around the makeshift knife she had managed to sharpen against the stones earlier. It was gripped in her hand, tucked along her wrist and hidden beneath her body as they dragged her from the pallet.

Reality was, she was going to die here and she knew it.

Pop. She heard the sound, but it didn’t make sense. She heard someone grunt, heard something fall.

Several more of the hollow, wet pops and more shuffling.

She knew that sound. Bullets. She couldn’t see, but she knew the guards were dead. Frantically, she scrabbled at the floor, found one of them, and raced to tear his shirt off his torso. Buttons. God she hated buttons. She worked them loose with stiff, swollen fingers as she heard shouts, screams, and grunts outside the cell door.

The shirt came free, and she dragged it off his body before shoving her arms into it and wrapping it around her. There wasn’t a chance she could rebutton it. Pants. She needed pants.

She was frantic. She worked fast, struggling, panting, trying to ignore the pain searing her body as she worked boots and pants off the guard.

She belted the pants on, feeling their length and filth around her. But they covered her. She would have to do without shoes.

Gun. She had the gun in her hand, and she couldn’t fucking see. She was crying, her tears burning the cuts on her face, burning her eyes as she crept to the cell door.

It swung open, sunlight piercing her eyes for too long, shadows enveloping her as she brought the gun up while trying to strike out with the small wooden stake she had managed to hone.

“Chill!” The voice was American, harsh as strong hands gripped her wrists, tore the gun and the stake from her hands and moved quickly behind her. “Extraction in progress,” he hissed.

Backup. He was reporting in. Extraction. SEALs? Were they SEALs?

“You got me, Faisal?”

Hands were roving over her quickly.

“SEALs?” She gasped out.

“I only wish,” he snarled in her ear, his voice deep, like aged whiskey and soothing to her shattered senses. “Try one lone fucking sniper and a teenage kid with more guts than good sense. Can you run?”

His arm was around her, holding her against him. He was warm and protective. Was he protective or did she just need to convince herself that he was? Did she need this to survive the events of the past twenty-four hours?

“I can’t see.” And she wanted to see him. Wanted her senses in order, her thoughts clinical, as sharp as they had been yesterday.

“I’ll lead, you run?” The suggestion was almost a croon, his voice almost tempting.

“I’ll run.”

He had her on her feet. Her bare feet. But she would be okay. She would run, anything to escape this cell, the hands touching her body, the voice at her ear, sinking into her head.

“Small cell here.” He rushed her into the heat and blinding light. “I think we got them all, but I’m not betting on it. We have bogeys heading in a few miles out and tight quarters to hide in.”

He was talking to her as he ran. Ran hard and fast, holding her against his side and taking most of her weight as she forced herself to keep up with him.

“Nassar?” she questioned roughly. She hoped the bastard was dead.

“Rode out in the only gun jeep,” he informed her. “Gave us our chance.”

Nassar got away. But she had the information, had what she needed to fry his and her husband’s asses, and she would do just that.

“I need a radio,” she gasped. “I have to report in before he gets away.”

“Fuck that.” Hard, scathing, the voice was nonetheless comforting. It was American. Southern drawl, Kentucky if she wasn’t mistaken. “Look, little girl. I’m on a short leash here and ammo is tight. I’m a Marine sniper with no backup or comm until closer to extraction, or until the extraction team comes searching for me. I wouldn’t even be here if your friend Faisal hadn’t sent out a Mayday on shortwave and connected with my only comm. We gotta boogie and boogie hard, or both our asses are grass. Those bad boys back there are sure to make fine lawn mowers, too.”

They were running uphill. He was barking commands. Gathering his guns, his pack. Getting ready to run again.

“Where are we?” She was fighting to breathe, to keep up.

“Bum-fucked nowhere.” He was running full out and wasn’t close to being winded. “I have a hole a mile out. You’re gonna have to hang on for the ride, sugar, ’cause we don’t get there, we’re all dead. And dead and me don’t get along.”

“She live? She live?” Young, Iraqi, the boy’s voice was frantic as the man paused for just a second. She knew the voice. Faisal was one of her informants. The young boy’s courage was incredible.

“She lives, now boogie your ass, boy.”

“Boogie my ass, Natchie,” the boy claimed. “Boogie boogie.”

“Damned kid.” But there was affection in his voice. That affection, that sense of protectiveness that seemed to surround her, dug into her, made her chest ache from more than the run.

How long had it been since she had felt protected? Had she ever? But she did now. With this stranger’s arm tight around her waist, half pulling her, half carrying her. Rescuing her. And Chaya had never been rescued in her life.

They were running full tilt. She couldn’t see, her feet were bleeding, and her bruised ribs were in agony. But she was free. Reality was, she was free, and with just a little tiny miracle, she could stay free. But she knew those arms wouldn’t always be there. That strength wouldn’t always surround her, and she spared just a moment to regret that.

Natches rushed the mile to the hole he had made the night before after Faisal’s shortwave coded message had hit his radio. He’d made the holes, prepared them, and then went after the girl the boy had seen hauled into the dump of a terrorist camp. A small enough camp, out of the way, populated by barely a dozen hard-eyed, fanatic bastards and one little American blonde.

Hell, who had been dumb enough to lose her? She was an agent, he could tell from the automatic stamina pushing her. She didn’t have the strength to crawl on her own, but her legs were moving and she was fighting to help him as much as she could.

Faisal was easily staying at his side, his dark face creased with worry at the sound of gunfire behind them. They were out of sight as they rounded the low, rolling hill, and the hole was just ahead, covered deep with stripped trees and wrapped with dead brush. A natural part of the landscape.

“Get in the hole.” He lifted the first cover and pushed Faisal into it with the supplies he would need in a smaller pack.

He threw himself and the girl into the second hole and jerked the secured covering over them as the sound of a helicopter began to hum from the direction of the terrorist base.

Of course, there had to be a fucking helicopter, he thought as he lifted himself enough to stare through the natural break he had created to see if they were followed. Fuck, he didn’t need this.

The hole was deep enough to sit in, the upper natural covering strong enough to hold a tank, maybe. They were secure as long as the bastards didn’t have dogs. It wasn’t very long, wasn’t very wide, but it was the best he could do on short notice.

“Do you have extraction coming soon?” Chaya rasped.

He glanced back at her and winced. She was curled against the dirt wall, eyes swollen closed, her lips dry and cracked. She looked vulnerable, but the woman had a spine of steel.

“I have a tracker on me. They’ll find me when they get in close enough. When I wasn’t at the first extraction point, they’ll have followed the beacon I have on me.”

Her lips twisted mockingly. “Are you sure? Collateral damage is the motto these days, you know.”

Fuck wasn’t that the truth. “Every good redneck knows you always have a plan B,” he assured her. His team was all the plan A or B that he needed. Most snipers worked alone, but on this mission, he was numero uno and he knew it. They needed him too damned bad to allow him to become damaged.

She breathed out wearily as he pulled a canteen from his pack and uncapped it. “Here. Drink slow.” He lifted the water to her lips, staring at her face as she sipped.

“I have some salve and bandages for your eyes,” he said. “Bastards always go for the eyes first, don’t they?”

She gave a small, bitter laugh. “At least second.”

He pulled out the medical kit, smoothed the salve over her eyes, then secured bandages over them. She had the face of an angel, he thought. Fine bones, delicate cheekbones, pretty sensual lips, he bet. Right now they were bloody and swollen.

“Old lady at home makes that salve,” he told her. “Bastards caught me last year, just about tore my eyeballs out before I escaped. When I went home on leave, she made the salve and made me promise to keep it with me.”

“Kentucky,” she whispered as the helicopter swept overhead.

“Lake Cumberland.” He gently touched the scratches on her face with the salve.

She was a slender woman. Dirt caked her hair and smeared her face, but he bet she was a beauty before Nassar and his men got hold of her.

“You’re New England.” He nodded at her accent. “Damn pretty area. Damned pretty girls.”

Her smile was tired. “There’s one less now.”

He sincerely doubted that. “Did they rape you?”

He was surprised at the fury that threatened to drown his common sense. Of course they raped her. They were known for it.

She shook her head and grimaced mockingly. “They didn’t.”

“Who did?” He smeared the salve over her swollen lips as he caught the emphasis.

“Nassar has some interesting toys.” She grimaced. “But he was tired of using them. His little buddies were going to do the deed when he left. Thanks for the timing by the way.”

Natches sat back on his haunches and listened carefully for noise outside. There were no caves in this area. The next hill over had several. The area he had chosen was no more than a flat, uninteresting gorge. Nothing but some scrappy foliage and dead brush. The perfect place for a hole. They would check the area, but they would be more eager to hit the caves a mile away.

“Faisal, your goat herder friend,” he explained softly. “He saw Nassar bring you in. He’s also got a handy-dandy military shortwave and an American Army sergeant for a buddy who taught him a little bit of code. That code caught me on my way back. I side-tracked to rescue you. All the guys at home are gonna be slapping my back for this one. I might even get a street named after me.”

Her smile was slower. Dazed. She was slipping away from him and he couldn’t allow that. “Faisal’s a good kid,” she whispered, her head nodding to the side.

“Wake up there, girl.”

“Chaya. My name is Chaya.” Her voice was soft, sweet. He liked her voice.

Damned pretty name for a damned pretty woman. He touched her cheek again.

“Talk to me, Chay. Tell me where you’re hurt. I need to fix as much as I can just in case we have to run.”

“Feet. Bruised ribs, possible concussion. No internal bleeding, no broken bones.”

She was drifting away from him.

Natches leaned in and touched her lips with his. Her head jerked back as she gasped. But her hands reached out for him, her fingers—slender, fragile fingers—clenching his wrists, tightening, as though she were afraid to let go of him, before she did just that. Slowly. Hesitantly.

“There, awake now?” He moved to her feet, pulling one into his lap as he dragged the medical kit closer.

“Why did you do that?” She sounded shocked, but awake, aware.

“My kisses are potent,” he bragged shamelessly, desperate to keep her grounded and aware. “They wake all the girls up.”

He used a penlight to check her feet carefully, always listening, always tracking the sound of the helicopter overhead and the vehicles now moving through the ravines.

He peeked over the edge of the hole but couldn’t see anything moving near enough to be deemed a threat.

He smoothed the salve over her feet, then pulled his shirt and T-shirt off. He tore the T-shirt into strips, padded her feet, then wrapped them with stretch gauze.

“All the girls like your kisses, do they?” She still sounded awake.

“They beg for my kisses.” It was nothing less than the truth, but as he stared at this woman, so strong, so determined, he wondered at the women he had known before. Would any of them have found the strength to make it this far? And he knew they wouldn’t have. But this one, this one would never join in the Mackay games as the others had.

“Conceited.” Her smile was tired, and worry lashed at him.

She was sheet white, pain and shock setting in now that she was still and no longer enfolded in complete terror. He couldn’t risk shock. Not yet.

He dug in the med pack again and pulled free the potent pain pills he carried. “Take this.” He pushed it into her mouth and lifted the canteen to her lips again.

She sipped and then leaned her head back against the dirt wall behind her.

Silence filled the hole for long moments. Her breathing was short and erratic, and every few seconds she would flinch or grimace just enough that he caught the wary movements in her expressions.

He wanted to hold her. She was almost broken, maybe not physically, but mentally at the least. She had endured this far, he had to get her just a little further.

“The trucks are getting closer.” There was weariness in her voice, but no fear yet.

“They’ll search for a while. I’m good at this. Don’t worry.”

He checked on Faisal’s hole. It was silent. Faisal knew how to hide; it wasn’t his first time, probably wouldn’t be his last. He had everything he needed to stay secure as long as no one identified the hiding place Natches had made.

“How did they get you?” he finally asked her when she said nothing else.

“Dragged me out of my car outside Baghdad, threw me in a van, beat the shit out of me, and played with some torture.” She shrugged, but he heard the echo of horror in her voice.

“What do you have that they want?”

She was an American woman and she had enough strength to strip a dead man and get his clothes on in the time it took him to pop a few heads and get to her location. She was an agent; he knew that from the comment she had made about needing to let someone know about Nassar. That was going to take a few hours at least.

“I don’t have anything anyone wants,” she said tiredly. “I’m a relief worker. I was working in Baghdad.”

“Don’t pull no shit with me, sugar.”

“Then don’t pull none with me. You know how it goes.” She copied his accent exactly. “I have to get out of here.”

Yeah, he knew how it went. She couldn’t disclose and he shouldn’t be asking, but he was a nosy bastard and that was the truth.

“Won’t be long now. I’ve already missed my bus,” he stated. “When I’m not at extraction, they’ll send a team out for me. I’m important, you know.”

“Obviously more important than I am.” She sighed. “Can I take a nap?”

“No naps.” The helicopter was getting closer. He hoped Faisal had his deflecting blanket over his head. “Come here; we gotta hunker down.”

Fear flashed across her face for just a second as he unfolded the light, silver-backed blanket and pulled it over their heads, tucking it in carefully around them. So much as a foot sticking out from beneath it would allow any heat-seeking equipment to pick them up.

He had no idea what that helicopter was packing, and he wasn’t taking any chances.

He was wrapped around her like a possessive lover now, and he could feel her fear as easily as he could feel the heat building beneath the blanket.

“You know, if I was back home, the ladies would be purring at being here with me,” he pointed out to her as he smiled against her head. “They like my hard body. They think I’m sexy.”

A nervous laugh parted her lips as he rested his cheek against her hair.

“I can’t see if you’re sexy,” she reminded him, and he hated that quiver in her voice.

“Oh, you’re missin’ out.” He sighed pitifully, his voice whisper soft. “I’m damned fine, Chay. Green eyes and a nice tan. I got hard abs. Black hair. The women drool over me.”

He smiled, listened carefully, and was thankful to feel a small measure of the fear ease from her. He didn’t consider himself particularly handsome, but he knew what the ladies said. He had to distract her though, and this was all that mattered.

“Conceited, too.” Her hands were clenched tight around his lower arms, broken nails digging into his flesh.

“Hell yeah, I am. I’m spoiled as hell.”

“So what are you doing here?”

“Playing? Escaping the marriage market?” He held her closer as the sound of the helicopter hovering overhead had her shuddering against him. The camouflaged top of the blanket, added to the dead brush secured to the narrow timbers above them, would hide them from sight. He had a moment to worry about Faisal, then pushed it away. If they were caught, they were probably dead anyway, despite the extraction team that he knew would be barreling its way to him.

He had pictures, layouts, troop movements, and hidden terrorist bases. He’d been out in bum-fucked nowhere for six weeks now after completing the primary mission he had been sent on to aid in the extraction of another captured agent.

That agent had been rescued. So why hadn’t a team been sent out for this one?

“They’re getting closer.” Her voice was a breath of terror.

“No worries, baby. By nightfall, we’re going to be safe and sound and celebrating with some homemade shine I’m saving just for the end of this mission. I’ll get you drunk and seduce you.”

“Seduce me?”

“Oh yeah.” He held her closer. “I’ll lay you down and kiss every bruise, then lick all the hurt away. I’ll lave those pretty, tender nipples, and when I go lower, you’ll forget all about the pain.”

“Ego.” She was shuddering in his arms at the sound of the vehicles moving into the ravine.

“Truth.” He kissed the top of her head. “When I’m finished, this will all seem like a very bad dream. Distant and gone away. It will be just me and you, sweetheart. Sweaty and hot and doing things that might make both of us blush.”

“I bet you don’t blush.” She buried her face in his chest at the sound of voices shouting in Arabic.

“I bet you could make me blush.” He kissed the top of her head and smiled, triumph singing through him at the feel of the light vibration of the radio at his thigh. “You gonna make me blush tonight, sugar? I just got signal.” He took her hand and laid it against the radio. “Five minutes and hell is gonna sweep through here. Five hours and I’m going to make you blush.”

“You can’t.” He could have sworn he heard tears in her voice.

“Making you blush would be my sole aim in life,” he murmured. “I promise, baby, I can do it.”

“I’m married.”