She had been nervous when she saw him, quickly tying back her long light hair—so blond it was almost white. She’d said, “Sorry, sir. It won’t happen again.”
Why hadn’t he kept walking? The next thing he knew, he’d asked her, “Do you have anyone at home?”
She appeared so sad for a moment, then shook her head. He wondered how a young lady who looked the way she did could be alone, without some guy waiting at home for her. She was breathtaking, and he was drawn to her—but he was an officer, and he was married. Maybe that was why he’d snapped at her, threatened to put her on report. He’d had to clear his throat and walk away. Joe knew that a woman like that was trouble, and he wasn’t looking for that kind of trouble in his life.
Then there was Grieger, a calm and levelheaded woman who worked under him. He knew everything about her, but he didn’t have the same fascination with her as he did Dunlop, which bothered him more. Grieger was engaged to a cop in Chicago, her hometown. She had a daughter who was five. He’d seen her photo. She had a mother and father and two brothers, one in the marines, the other in the air force—a military family. She knew the rules and the ways, and maybe that was why she fit so easily into his unit. She and Dunlop didn’t get along, and Riske, the one who had gotten away, was always stuck in the middle of whatever squabble was going on between them. Joe was smart: He watched, he listened. He had a pretty good idea of the dynamics between the three women.
Joe ducked under the tent flap and into the command post, where there were computers and a dozen military personnel. DeLaurie must have seen him, as he gestured for Joe to come over and join him with one of the technicians. Both were sitting at one of the dozens of computers.
“Sir, did you find something?” Joe said as he made his way around another table.
“What we found is a diary of information from Dunlop’s email account and her Facebook page. Stanhope here has weeded through everything.”
Joe took in the short, dark hair of the corpsman, who was the computer genius in camp. Stanhope had on thick glasses and was running his fingers steadily over the keyboard.
“Fill the lieutenant commander in on what you have,” DeLaurie said, gesturing to the computer and the stack of messages on the screen.
“There’s a timeline here with communication,” Stanhope began. “Dunlop was friended by this man named Avi, and he says in his first message to her that he was going through some Facebook photos and was struck by what a beautiful girl she was. Fifteen days ago, she accepted the friend request. They have several messages back and forth. She tells him she has a mother in Des Moines but isn’t involved with anyone. Lots of personal information here: her age, how long she’s been in the military, her rank…She doesn’t come right out and say where she’s stationed, but her messages give enough of an idea. She talks about the landscape, how hot it is, says she’s in the desert.
“This guy tells her he’s a businessman in Iraq. He manages several oil platforms at sea and was educated at Harvard. He has a daughter only and is a widow. There are several messages back and forth of him telling her how he would never allow a beautiful woman like her to be anything but treasured. He says he’ll look after her, and he values commitment and honesty, trust. She emails back that there’s a man she thought was interested in her, a lieutenant, but with the fraternization rule, it wasn’t going anywhere—and this guy’s married. Avi promises her love, tells her that American men can never appreciate a woman like her, that she would always be used and undervalued―”
“Do we know who this Avi is?” Joe said. He was sweating and needed to put an end to this. He didn’t know if Dunlop was talking about him or someone else, but he didn’t want anyone poking around too closely in his business or asking who the mystery lieutenant was. Joe had never done anything inappropriate, but he wondered sometimes how women interpreted things. The commander glanced his way and then behind him to others in the room. Any officer who’d started anything with Dunlop was asking for a one-way ticket to a court marshal. Not only would that sort of situation be a career ender, it would be a marriage ender. He was sweating again.
“I tracked the email to the IP address, and it’s funneling through a lot of different sites. In message fifteen, this guy says he’s now fighting for justice. He tells her the Iraq war was never justified but something created from lies and politicians’ greed. Dunlop, here, by message sixteen is starting to agree with him. He’s sneaky. He asks about her day, how she’s feeling, what she’s thinking, always saying they’ll be together. Dunlop doesn’t tell him where the camp is, but she does talk about the camp layout and her bunkmates, Darlene Grieger and Pamela Riske. She uses their first names a few times here—Caroline.” The programmer stopped reading and glanced up at Joe and the commander. “She signs with her first name to this guy. This IP address belongs to the JILA, a group of freedom fighters.”
Joe knew of the JILA, the newest terrorist group to pop up. Everyone knew about them. They were gaining in numbers, financed by oil money and spreading across Europe. They were a huge threat, systematically ridding smaller communities in the Middle East of any ethnic or religious minorities. It was all about Islam. “I don’t understand why Dunlop is talking to one of these terrorists,” Joe said. He was having a hard time believing it. “Does she know who she’s talking to?”
“It’s hard to tell. These guys spam millions of women. You know they’re targeting women in Europe, Canada, and the US? With their Western passports, these guys can get past terrorist intelligence surveillance. Dunlop may not have known everything about this guy―”
“Satellite images from this morning are up!” one of the technicians called out. “We have the feed here, and it looks like a truck similar to the supply trucks, white with a canvas back. Look at these guys, all dressed in the same light shirts, vests, ball caps, with black scarves around their faces. They come in, and they know right where they’re going. They head north into the mountains. And look up there, in the hills, there and there, where they were watching and created a diversion, launching fire at the camp. Who knows how many there were, to pull this off? And look up there, where the road goes into the mountains. There are camps spread out all through there. Best guess, they’re in a camp close to the Syrian border in Kurdistan. You can see from the next satellite images that they cross here, and this is where they stop,” the tech said, pointing to a spot in the mountainous terrain.
Joe knew they’d be walking right into hell.
Chapter 5
Not only had he been unable to connect with Joe, Eric had spent hours tracking his whereabouts. It was dawn. The sun was coming up, and Eric had just finished a call with DeLaurie, the commander of the camp where Joe was stationed. Joe had been scheduled to return home in three days, on Friday, but he’d now left the compound with a team of special forces to go after the women who had been taken.
Joe wasn’t trained for this, a rescue op. He was a commanding officer, and this stunt made Eric wonder what his friend’s connection really was to the abducted women. He knew his XO as a levelheaded man, a friend who had pointed out to him time and again what his duties and responsibilities were at sea, but now…
There was a tap on his door.
“Enter,” Eric barked out, and the door was opened by Corporal Miller, who strode in and set a handful of messages down in front of him. Eric had to slip on a pair of reading glasses to make out the scribble.
“And Mrs. Reed has phoned twice to find out whether there’s news on her husband,” Miller said before stopping and waiting for instructions.
“That will be all,” Eric said. He dismissed his corporal and glanced at the clock, deciding to call Abby.
She answered on the first ring. “Hello?” She sounded tired, but then, it was still early: 0630. He’d woken her.
“Hey, how are you? How are the kids?” he asked. He could hear rustling in the background as she sat up.
“They’re still asleep. I waited up for you, thought you would have been here by now. I must have fallen asleep.”
“I’ll be home soon. Just needed to finish up some things. Have you talked to Mary-Margaret since last night?”
“No. Eric, did you find out anything about Joe? Is he all right?” She sounded worried.
“Yeah, Joe’s okay. Listen, I’m on my way home, but I need to talk to Mary-Margaret first. I’ll see you soon,” he said.
“Okay, see you soon.” She hung up, and he could tell she was relieved.
He didn’t want to share any details of Joe’s action—not that he could share much. What he was going to tell Mary-Margaret, he didn’t yet know, but at least he could assure her that her husband was fine.
He was pulling on his coat when he heard another knock. The door was opened by his corporal once again, and Lieutenant Perkins walked in with a sheet of paper in his hands. He handed it to Eric.
“Sir, there’s a situation,” he began. “Lieutenant Commander Reed and the team were ambushed at the Turkey–Iraq border. I have to report that two were taken, and Lieutenant Commander Reed is now missing. We believe the JILA are responsible.”
Holding the paper, Eric stared at the lieutenant. “For the love of God, please tell me we know where they’ve taken them.”
“Yes, sir, we believe they’re in a camp thirty clicks north of the border, but we’ve lost radio contact with the team that was with Lieutenant Commander Reed, and we’re blind in that area of the mountains. Another team is going in after them, sir, and that’s all we know.”
Eric nodded to the corporal, who left and closed the door behind him. “Give it to me straight,” he said. “What are the chances we’re getting them back?”
Lieutenant Perkins wore a stern expression. “Slim to none, sir. JILA is known for beheading, executing, and torturing. They’re leaving mass casualties, sir. They were strong in Syria, but we didn’t know they were this far south. Do you even want to know what they’re doing to the women?” He didn’t give Eric a chance to answer. “They’re distributing them. To them, women are an inferior race, to be used for sex and discarded. They’re being raped, sold, killed—and brutally. You don’t want to be a woman in their hands. This is the same group that has Grieger and Dunlop, we think. The two women…it doesn’t look good for them.”
Eric looked away. What the lieutenant hadn’t said hung heavy in the air: It would be no better for the men.
It was a short drive home, and the sun was out as Eric pulled into the driveway. He waved to Abby as she opened the front door, carrying a mug of coffee. She was dressed in blue jeans and a cream sweater, her light hair brushed straight and tucked behind her ears. She was beautiful, lovely, a breath of fresh air, and she had survived something the two missing women had yet to endure. He couldn’t tell her any of it. He couldn’t stand to watch her relive the pain of what she had gone through. He prayed every day that her memories would fade, but he also saw the look that came over her at times when she looked Rachel’s way. Sayed Hossein, the man who’d bought her and raped her, was the father of Rachel. Eric had never tracked the man down, and his name had never been flagged again on any watch lists. He had, in fact, all but disappeared. He was either dead or waiting to pop up again.
“You don’t look okay,” she said. “You’re tired, you need rest.”
He leaned down and kissed her, then took a swallow of the hot coffee she handed him. He wanted to go inside and see his children, but he heard the door open next door and looked up as Mary-Margaret stepped out. Of course she had been waiting for him, too. He still hadn’t figured out what to say.
“I need to talk to Mary-Margaret,” he said quietly. “I’ll be in soon.”
He wondered if Abby was going to ask what was happening, but she didn’t say one word. He saw a flash of something in her expression—fear, concern, worry—and then she nodded as if she had some idea. She took his coffee and went back inside.
Mary-Margaret was striding toward him across the grass in a navy tracksuit and sneakers, her hair tied back.
Eric started toward her and gestured at the house. “Let’s go inside,” he said. She stumbled, and he grabbed her arm and held her up. When he looked up, he saw her kids waiting in the window, the curtain pulled back. He could see the worry on their faces and feel Mary-Margaret trembling.
“Tell me what’s going on, Eric,” she said. “I can tell you’re hiding something, and you didn’t return any of my calls.”
He looked down at her. Maybe his expression was giving away his worry. Her eyes glassed over, and she set her hands to her face and shook her head. “I’m sorry, so sorry,” he said, “but Joe was captured.”
She didn’t hear anything else. She screamed and went down, and Eric grabbed her and pulled her into his arms, holding her as her legs sagged. He took in the despair on the children’s faces. In the windows of the house, someone moved behind him—Abby, who shut her eyes and lowered her head, her face pale as if she’d just imagined the worst thing possible.
Chapter 6
It was the smell that got to him. It was the stench of rotting, of death. His head was aching, and something wet slid down his face. He lifted his hand and touched his forehead, blinking in the darkness. He knew it was blood even though he couldn’t see a thing. He turned on the concrete and brushed at a fly that landed on his face. Then he remembered: He had been searching for the women, and mortar fire had taken them out. He had been thrown from the Humvee as they were surrounded. There had been yelling, gunfire, running. Joe had followed a younger hotshot. What was his name? Turner, Tucker—something like that. He couldn’t remember. The others had gone west, but they had been surrounded by a hundred men, their faces covered, guns pointed. Something had slammed the back of his head, and now here he lay, in this godforsaken shit hole. He didn’t have a clue where he was.
“Hello, anyone here?” Joe called out. Every part of him ached, and he felt as if his head was about to explode.
“Don’t get up,” someone said.
He had to think. As he squinted in the dark cell, he could make out the other man’s outline. He pushed his way up onto his knees and then leaned back against the cement wall. He winced, fighting the urge to vomit. His head ached like nothing he could ever remember.