03-Strength of the Mate (44 page)

Someone sat down on either side of him. The doors of the truck slammed shut, and the diesel engine started up. Adam started to relax. If they were going to kill him, they’d have done it before they wrapped him up like a human burrito, right? It might just be easier to take him to the dump site, then kill him. But this was starting to feel like another transport to a new hiding place.

They drove forever. Or it felt like it, anyway. Adam was sweltering. The hot air was so damn hard to breathe. He was sweating through his freshly washed clothes. His hands and feet were going numb. He was lying on his injured arm, and it hurt like hell.

Adam moved around, trying to get off of his left side. He struggled to stretch the tape binding his wrists and ankles, before he couldn’t feel his fingers and toes anymore.

One of his captors slapped him several times, through the layers of his shroud. He didn’t understand the stream of Arabic someone shouted, but the meaning was clear. Adam settled down, gritting his teeth against his growing pain.

The truck slowed. Adam thought he heard voices. He thought he heard a lot of voices, all speaking Arabic. Were they in a crowd? Could they be back in Fallujah? Adam couldn’t tell, because nothing sounded very clear. Did it even matter if Adam was in Fallujah, if they kept moving him around? He doubted he was in one place long enough for Dawson to find him.

The sounds faded. It was so hot and stifling inside the hood, Adam breathed through his mouth. The pain in his hands and feet was excruciating now, but they were numb, which was really weird. It was so damn hot, he wanted out of this fucking shroud.

The pickup stopped abruptly, tossing Adam around the bed a little. Adam’s ears rang with the sudden loss of that white noise. He stretched tentatively, trying to change positions and stop all the pain he felt. This time, no one told him to stop or stay quiet.

Adam sensed motion all around him. The pickup shifted beneath him, the springs creaked, like its occupants were climbing out. He was dragged along the bed of the pickup to the tailgate. Adam grunted in pain. He gasped in relief when they unwrapped him from his cocoon and pulled off his hood.

Harpo knelt to cut the tape from around Adam’s ankles. He growled at the pain when blood rushed back into his feet. Two of his captors yanked him unceremoniously to his feet. Adam cried out, crumpling to the ground. He was sure knives had been driven into the soles of his feet.

Groucho and one of his new captors grabbed Adam’s arms and dragged him toward a small structure. He struggled to walk. He managed to get his legs moving, but the pain in his feet was too much. They hauled Adam through the door of the structure and shoved him forward. With a loud grunt, he fell down onto a thick sleeping mat.

Adam’s wrists were still bound. The tape was cutting into his flesh painfully. When someone finally cut him free, Adam cradled his hands to his chest. He tried to rub them together, to massage feeling back into his fingers. Adam lay back on the mat, closing his eyes. He waited for his breathing to slow, and for the pain in his hands and feet to ease.

His guards ignored him as they moved around the room. Adam opened his eyes when someone set several bottles of water beside his head. No one said a word, not even to each other, as his captors left the room. The door closed, and several locks slammed into place. The room was eerily quiet, and Adam was pretty sure he was alone.

As the pain faded, normal feeling slowly returned to his hands and feet. Adam glanced at his surroundings. He sighed. The cell was pretty much like all the others he’d been held in during the last three weeks. It was small, virtually unfurnished, dirty, stuffy, with two small, narrow windows set up high in one wall.

His usual metal pail was in the far corner. Adam’s current sleeping mat was the thickest they’d given him so far. He had a pillow he wasn’t sure he wanted to use—he had no idea how parasite infested he already was—and a light blanket.

Getting carefully to his feet, Adam hobbled to one of his windows. The level of the sun told him it was early afternoon. He wondered if they were going to feed him on the same schedule. He wasn’t particularly hungry now, but he’d gotten used to the routine, the predictability. Adam couldn’t believe it, but it was comforting to know what to expect. Especially when he didn’t have control of anything in his life.

The quiet was shattered by a dog’s vicious barking. Adam nearly pissed himself in fright. The dog sounded huge. Several more joined in. They had to be Rottweilers, or German Shepherds, or Mastiffs.

Groucho and Harpo emerged from behind a mud brick wall. It looked like Harpo was carrying their usual afternoon meal, and Adam started to relax. Despite his new surroundings, it looked like his routine was the same.

Wolves came into view and Adam sobbed quietly. He gripped the window ledge when his knees threatened to give out. He’d found him. Dawson had found Adam. The wolves wrestled each other. They ran in circles around Adam’s captors. He searched for Dawson, but Adam didn’t recognize any of the wolves. Where was Dawson? Adam couldn’t wait to feel his soft fur, to smell his musky scent.

He blinked back tears when he realized his mistake. Adam leaned heavily against the wall beneath the window. He was devastated. Dawson hadn’t found him, after all. Adam didn’t get to touch Dawson’s fur, or feel his warm breath against his skin.

He looked closer at the small pack of wolves. They zigzagged around each other. It wasn’t playful. Their loud barks and growls made it obvious they weren’t friendly. The wolves kept Groucho and Harpo in the center of their pack. It looked like they were guarding Adam’s captors.

These wolves were tall and rangy looking. Dawson and his wolves were much broader, more heavily muscled. These desert wolves were light tan, beige, even pale red. It was probably good natural camouflage. Adam thought they were weak and scroungy looking, compared to Dawson and the other Marine wolves.

Adam turned when he heard the locks on his door slide open. Groucho entered first, then Harpo. A wolf trotted in, right on their heels. This one was tall, with large ears. Its coat was mostly beige, with hints of red along its back. The wolf approached him, and Adam stood very still, with his back pressed to the wall. He stayed as quiet as he could as the wolf sniffed at him from head to toe. Adam wondered if there was any chance Dawson’s scent still lingered on him, even after all this time. He liked to think it did, but the chances weren’t good. Maybe that was a good thing, though. Dawson’s scent might make this wolf see Adam as a threat.

The wolf turned around and left the room. Adam released the breath he didn’t even know he was holding. Christ, he was light headed. He needed to get his shit together.

Harpo set out the food, and the three of them ate their meal in silence. They didn’t have to struggle to tell him, Adam got the message loud and clear. His new prison guards were werewolves, and they had his scent.

So just how close to Fallujah were they, that Adam had to be guarded by a pack of werewolves?

§ § §

The wolves erupted into a cacophony of barking. Adam zipped his pants and crossed the room back to his sleeping mat. He didn’t have to watch out his window anymore to know when his guards were bringing his meals. The wolves raised hell before and after each meal. At least they gave him a heads up when he was getting an unscheduled visitor.

If anyone ever figured out where Adam was, they’d have to kick down the doors. The wolves made a stealthy rescue mission impossible.

The meal with Harpo and Groucho was silent, as usual. Adam was ready to climb the fucking walls. He used to value silence and isolation, but now it was messing with his head. His only diversion was the view out of his two small windows, but there was nothing for him to see. Nothing ever happened where he could see it, and the boredom made him edgy and restless. No matter how many pushups, sit-ups, and lunges Adam did, nothing worked anymore.

He’d been a prisoner for a month now. His captors hadn’t tortured him for information—not that he had any. They hadn’t used him for propaganda, since that one time with the video camera. If he was being held for ransom, Adam had no goddamn idea how close his family was to paying it.

He was done waiting. Adam was convinced he was close enough to Fallujah, or some other large village, that he could make it on foot. He had to be careful, though. He needed to make some preparations.

When Harpo and Groucho left him again, Adam waited for the wolves to settle down and go quiet. He was gonna figure out how to get the hell out of here.

Adam moved around the cell methodically. He examined both windows closely. Neither had glass, but they both had ornamental metal bars mounted on the outside. He felt around the mounts. Maybe he could find a way to work them loose, but he’d come back to that later.

The walls were thick and solid. Adam couldn’t find any weaknesses in the joints of the walls. He moved on for the time being. The light fixture in the ceiling couldn’t lead to the roof, obviously, but if it made it easier to dig his way to the roof, that was worth looking at. Adam just had no way of getting up to the fixture. He’d come back to that if he had to.

By the time he reached the door, Adam was discouraged. It was the obvious route of escape, so it was probably reinforced. He knelt down in front of the door, and started running his fingers along the edges of the frame.

In all the time Adam had been held captive, he’d never tried to escape. He’d never even tested any of the doors or windows of the rooms he’d been kept in. Until now, he’d just been trying to stay alive long enough for Dawson to find him. Adam was pretty sure he had a good grip on his sanity, but his emotions were a different story. He felt himself cracking.

Adam expected a wooden door frame, so he was surprised to find metal. He thought he could feel a couple of gaps between the mud walls and the metal frame. He might be able to exploit those later. Adam pushed at the door and felt no give, just like he’d expected. He wasn’t sure what kind of locks were on the outside of the door, but they felt sturdy. By the sounds they made, Adam suspected they were basic slide bolts. There was a chance the mounts in the mud brick wall weren’t completely solid.

Adam stood back to examine the door. There was no obvious weak spot, at least to the naked eye. On a hunch, Adam shoved at the top corner, over the locks, with both hands. He thought he felt a little less resistance to the pressure. Adam turned his back to the door. He pressed his foot flat against the bottom of the door. Taking a deep breath, Adam used his leg to shove at the door. He almost fell over when a gap formed between the door and the frame.

Dropping onto his hands and knees, Adam pushed all his weight against the door. Not enough room for him to squeeze through, but maybe he could make the gap wider. If he could find a way to prop the door open a little wider, Adam might be able to crawl out.

He felt his way back along the doorjamb. Yeah, the metal frame was in segments. If he could get one free without making it obvious to his captors, he might have an idea how to exploit this thing with the door.

§ § §

Adam stood at his window, waiting for the sun to reach a certain height in the sky. He was already sweating from the heat, but his excitement made it worse. He’d watched them for nearly a week now, and nobody moved around this time of day. Even the werewolves were lethargic, sleeping somewhere out of sight.

Harpo and Groucho had brought Adam lunch already, so it would be hours before anyone noticed he was missing. He had two large bottles full of water. Adam was gambling that he’d make it to someplace he could get help, before his captors realized he was gone. He had to reach safety by the time darkness fell, when the werewolves had an even bigger advantage than they already did.

Adam went to the door of his cell and felt around the lower left side of the frame. He’d already loosened a bolt, and pried off one of the frame’s metal segments. Adam had dampened the mud of the wall to form a sort of paste. It held the segment of frame in place when his guards came in to feed him.

Part of him was worried this wouldn’t even work. He’d been afraid to test how wide he could pry the door open, and risk leaving obvious damage on the door. Today though, Adam was going all-in.

He pulled the metal frame segment away from the wall. It came free in his hands. Adam put his shoulder against the door and used his weight to push open the lower portion of the door. He wedged the metal frame piece into the gap, propping the door open.

Adam slid the two water bottles through the opening, moving them off to the side and out of the way. Once he squeezed himself through the gap, he had to be ready to move, and move quickly. He just hoped to Christ he could stay quiet enough the werewolves wouldn’t hear him.

Digging his heels into the floor, Adam pushed against the door as hard as he could. He shoved the frame segment farther into the space between the door and the jamb. The gap widened a little. Adam used the metal bar as a lever. He pried the door open wider, and wider, a few scant inches at a time. Adam’s legs trembled with exertion as he shoved his shoulder harder against the door. Each time he widened the space, Adam jammed the bar upward to maintain the gap.

He needed a rest. Sweat ran down Adam’s face, soaking into his T-shirt. He lay down and shimmied his head and shoulders into the gap. For the first time ever, Adam wished he was still that skinny, boney kid he’d been at thirteen. Maybe all that weight lifting hadn’t been such a good idea after all.

For a moment, he remembered the look in Dawson’s lavender eyes when he raked his eyes over Adam’s nude body. Nah, all the weight lifting had been worth it. Adam had to work smarter, not harder.

Back on his knees, he pressed his shoulder against the door and wrapped both hands around the metal bar. Adam took a deep breath, ready to pry and shove the metal bar, over and over, until the gap was wide enough for him to slip through.

As he strained against the door, Adam heard a familiar sound. It was very faint. It could be his imagination. God knew Adam was desperate to be rescued, it made sense he’d start to think he was seeing or hearing things. He heard the sound again, but it was a little louder this time.