Securing avery, p.6
Securing Avery, page 6
This shit had to stop. He needed to get her to safety. Pronto.
Avery obviously noted his scowl, because she stopped smiling and looked at him worriedly. “Are you all right? Shit, Cole, I didn’t even think about the fact that you probably swallowed a bunch of water from the river. And it was probably polluted as hell. Do you have any antibiotics in that pack of yours? Do you feel sick? Maybe we should keep going. I don’t know how far we are from the base, but maybe we can get there tonight.”
“I’m fine,” Rex said when she took a breath, wanting to stop her from worrying.
“But you could’ve died,” she said quietly.
“And I probably would’ve if you hadn’t been there,” Rex told her honestly.
They stared at each other for a long moment until she said, “Just like I would’ve in that cave if you hadn’t gotten there.”
Rex shook his head. “Nope. You were almost out by the time we got there. You would’ve dug yourself out in another day or so. My time was up, though. I was stuck on that branch. Phantom couldn’t get to me. If you had let go of that tree and gone downstream, it would’ve been a very different outcome. I haven’t thanked you yet…so thank you, Avery.”
“Yeah, Rex is a bastard sometimes, but he’s like my brother. I wouldn’t want to think about what the team would do without him. You definitely have my thanks as well.”
Avery looked uncomfortable with the praise, which didn’t surprise Rex in the least. Having pity on her, he reached over and picked up her coffee, handing it to her. “We need to talk about what happened to you,” he said quietly.
She took the coffee and sighed.
“I know it’s probably not high on the list of things you want to do, but, Avery, you have to know that the tenacity these guys are showing about finding you isn’t normal. Especially when they already had their chance to kill you, but didn’t.”
“The two army privates are dead, aren’t they?” she asked.
Rex pressed his lips together and nodded.
“I figured as much.”
“Did any of your captors speak English?” Phantom asked, sitting on the ground nearby.
“Yeah,” Avery said after a moment. “Although I only saw him twice.”
Rex leaned forward. “Where? Did he say anything to you?”
She turned to him, her eyes huge in her face. The sun had set and it was getting darker by the second. Soon he wouldn’t be able to see anything other than her silhouette from the light of the moon.
Her next words changed everything about their mission—and made Rex realize that she was in much more danger than they’d suspected.
Chapter Six
Avery stared at Cole and really thought about her situation for the first time in over two weeks. She’d been too worried about what was happening to her—about trying to function through the pain coursing through her body than on getting out of the cave—than to think too much about the hows and whys.
Did the Afghani man say anything to her? Yeah. He had. She’d never forget the venom in his tone.
“I was in the clinic in town, talking with a group of women. I was going over prenatal nutrition and the basics of childbirth and the necessity to keep everything sterile. I happened to look up, and I saw an American dressed in the traditional khet partug…you know, the loose linen top and pants. He caught my attention because we aren’t allowed off base, not without being in uniform. He was talking with an Afghani in the shadows between two buildings. It looked completely shady. They shook hands, and then went their separate ways, but he turned and caught me watching him before he left.”
Avery could tell Cole had a million questions, but he kept quiet, letting her speak.
“The Afghani man hung out around the clinic for a while, and when we went on break, he was giving my students a hard time. I told him he needed to move on, that he was making my students nervous. He turned to me, sneered, and told me that I was interfering with the Afghani way of life. That women belonged in the home, and no way would anyone dare allow one of my students to doctor their women.”
“What did the American look like?” Phantom asked.
“Dark hair, medium build. About my height,” Avery said. Then grimaced. “I know, that’s not much help, but I was more concerned about getting my students back inside and protecting them from the vitriol the man was spewing at them.”
“You said you saw the Afghani man twice. When was the second time?” Cole asked.
This part was harder. It forced her to remember what had happened the day the convoy had been attacked. “I was at the clinic, and the convoy had just started going through. We all heard shouts and gunfire. My students immediately ran for the door at the back of the clinic to escape and disappear into the chaos. I went for the front door, thinking maybe I could do something.
“One second the house was intact, and the next it was falling down around me. Something hit my head, knocking me to the ground. I knew I was bleeding, but managed to stand up and get out of the house before it collapsed.
“I walked straight into hell. The insurgents were in an all-out battle with the soldiers over the trucks. The same Afghani man who I’d seen the day before was there, almost like he’d been waiting. Well…I guess he was. He bum-rushed me and put a gun to my head. I thought he was going to kill me right then and there. Instead, he smiled and said, ‘I’m supposed to kill you, to make it look like you died in this firefight, but that’s not what I’m gonna do. Instead, you’re going to wish I’d shot you—and you’ll enjoy a long, slow death.’
“I asked him why, and he shrugged and gave me a horrible grin and said, ‘Because you shouldn’t be educating our women. They’ve got their place, and no American should be trying to change that.’ Then he shoved me toward a group of insurgents and barked something at them in their own language. I was thrown into the back of one of the trucks filled with weapons and ammunition and we roared off toward the caves.”
Telling the story out loud made it sound so dramatic, Avery was almost embarrassed. But every word was true.
“What happened in the caves, Avery?” Cole asked. He’d moved closer, and while she couldn’t see him well anymore, she felt him there next to her. His knee touched her calf, and knowing she wasn’t alone anymore was a huge relief. She’d spent too many hours in the dark by herself. She had a feeling she’d never be able to sleep in the pitch dark again. She was going to have to have a nightlight or leave a light on in the bathroom like she was four years old and afraid of the boogeyman.
But now she knew that boogeymen were real.
“I already told you,” she said flatly. “They beat on me, and let the men who came for weapons beat on me as well.”
“How many?” Phantom asked.
“How many men came to the cave?” Avery asked.
“Yes.”
“I’m not sure. I was chained up in a back portion. I didn’t have a direct line of sight to the front. But it was a lot. Dozens at least.”
“Was the American there at any point?” Phantom asked.
“Not that I ever saw.”
“Were you raped?” Cole asked.
The question was so blunt. So abrupt. Avery couldn’t answer for a moment. Then she took a deep breath and said, “No.”
She felt Cole take her hand in his. “If you were, it’s not your fault,” he said quietly. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s their shame, not yours.”
Avery appreciated his words. “I know, but I’m not lying. They beat on me and taunted me…not that I could understand them, but I could tell by their tone they were telling me all sorts of terrible things. They brought moldy bread and threw it at me, laughing when I picked it up out of the dirt and ate it without a second thought. I guess they didn’t know or were too stupid to think about the water running down the side of the rocks near me, because they’d bring water and throw it in my face, delighting when I gave them a show by kneeling in the dirt and pretending to lick it up. I knew I couldn’t let them find out I was drinking at night until my belly hurt.”
“Smart,” Cole said.
That one word went a very long way toward soothing the humiliation she’d felt at the hands of her captors.
“I was counting the days I was there, and it was on the seventh day when things changed.”
“How so?” Phantom asked.
“No one came back to the alcove I was chained in to hit me or torment me. They were too busy doing something at the mouth of the cave. I was enjoying the reprieve when it got oddly quiet. That’s when I got really scared. The anticipation of what they were planning was almost overwhelming. Then, one second I was sitting in the back of my alcove, wondering what everyone was doing, and the next there was a huge boom, and it was pitch dark and I was struggling to breathe because of all the dust and debris in the air.”
“Did you know they’d blown the entrance?” Cole asked with a squeeze of her hand.
“Not at first. I was too disoriented. It was so dark and my ears were ringing. But when the dust settled and still no one appeared, I panicked. That’s when I got most of the injuries on my ankle,” she admitted. “I yanked on the chain over and over until I was exhausted. I felt around me until I found some rocks that had been knocked loose by the explosives, and I hit the chain over and over until it snapped. The first thing I did was feel my way over to where the water had been dripping down the side of my prison, and I thanked God that it was still there. I knew without water, I was dead.”
Experiencing the emotions she’d felt when the cave had been sealed shut was almost too much, and Avery just wanted to be finished telling her story so they could move on. So she quickly summed up the rest of her time in the cave by saying, “I didn’t want those bastards to win, so I decided to dig my way out. One rock at a time. Then you were there…and now we’re here.”
“Sounds like you saw something you shouldn’t have,” Phantom said after a beat. “And that’s why you were supposed to be killed in the first place. The American must be a traitor to his country; why would he want you dead if he wasn’t? But instead of killing you quickly, the Afghani man kidnapped, tortured, and left you to die a slow death because of his beliefs. Does that sound about right? Do you think your death was ordered simply because you saw the Afghani with an American? Or did you see or hear something else?”
Avery’s head hurt. Hell, everything hurt. The food she’d consumed earlier felt as if it were sitting in a large lump in her belly, ready to come up at a moment’s notice. Her feet were sore, her ribs were throbbing, and she swore she could feel every bruise from where she’d been hit, punched, and kicked.
Knowing someone had deliberately ordered her death was bad, but comprehending that the insurgents and his compadres had done everything they could to make sure she suffered first was a whole new level of cruelty.
“The American shouldn’t have been wearing what he was, trying to blend in with the locals. It’s against regulations. I’d bet everything I have that he tipped off the insurgents with the details about the weapons convoy.”
“I agree,” Cole said. “The army keeps the details of those convoys very hush-hush, on a need-to-know basis. There’s no way the locals would’ve been as prepared as they were to attack it and had that cave ready to store the weapons. Not to mention rallying their supporters to come up and take the weapons to hide them.”
For a moment, she was glad the mystery of why she’d been taken had been solved. But then she realized that, in actuality, nothing had been solved at all. “Shit,” she said softly.
“Yeah,” Cole agreed, as if he could read her mind. “Unless you can tell us who the American was, you’re still in danger. And I have a feeling he’ll be even more desperate to do whatever it takes to keep you quiet about what you saw, now that you’ve escaped.”
“I don’t know who he was,” she said with a hitch in her voice. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure there aren’t any Americans living in the village, so the man had to be from the base. But with hundreds stationed there, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him other than that one time in town. I don’t even know if he’s army or navy!”
“Don’t panic,” Cole said, squeezing her hand once more.
“Don’t panic?” she asked a little hysterically. “How can I not? Someone thinks I can ID him and wants me dead! Who does that? When he finds out I escaped, he’s going to do whatever he can to find me and finish what the insurgents fucked up.”
Avery knew she was losing control, but she couldn’t stop. Her heart rate kicked into high gear and bile rose in her throat.
Before she knew what was happening, Cole had taken her in his arms and was holding her head to his shoulder. A part of her knew it was to muffle her increasingly loud words, but her body didn’t care. He’d been the first human she’d had contact with after a very long week in the dark and with only the sound of her own voice to keep her company. He was the one who’d helped her walk when she didn’t think she could go another step. He was the one who’d kept her afloat in the very scary trip down the river, and he was the one carrying her when she’d came to after passing out. It was no wonder she associated his arms with safety.
“Breathe, Avery,” Cole ordered.
It was hard, but she did as requested. She took a deep breath. Then another. She realized that Cole was breathing with her.
“We’re not going to let him get to you,” Cole vowed.
“But how can you stop him? I have no idea who he is, and he obviously knows exactly who I am,” she reasoned.
“One of us will be by your side until he’s caught,” Cole told her.
“And don’t think that won’t happen,” Phantom said before she could protest and say that wasn’t feasible. “The second we get you back to the base, we’ll arrange for you to come home with us. Once back in California, we’ll get the records of every serviceman stationed over here and you can look through them one by one until you recognize the traitor.
“We’ll also have our computer-genius friend Tex start looking through bank records. I’m doubtful this asshole gave up state secrets out of the kindness of his heart. He was probably paid a shitload of money. Someone had to have a large amount of money deposited into their account. It’ll stand out like a sore thumb,” Phantom finished.
“And between me and the rest of the team, we can keep you safe until we flush the rat from his hiding spot. He won’t get away with this, Avery. I give you my word as a SEAL,” Cole told her.
Their absolute confidence that they’d find out who was behind everything—the attack on the convoy, the death of the two army privates, and her torture—was incredibly soothing. But she still wasn’t convinced they could keep her safe. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to recognize him from an official military picture,” she admitted. “He could’ve changed his looks from the time that picture was taken. And it could take weeks. Months. You can’t stay by my side twenty-four seven. You have jobs, and so do I.”
“I’ve got confidence in you, Avery. I think you’re underestimating yourself. You’ve been trained to remember details, both as a naval officer and as a nurse. I think once you aren’t in the middle of the desert, and you’re back in the comfort of your own home, your belly full, and your injuries healed, you’ll find that you’re better able to concentrate,” Cole said. “And you’re right about our jobs, but we know a lot of people, including other SEALs, who would be more than willing to help protect you until this is solved.”
“I don’t want to put anyone out,” she said immediately.
Cole chuckled. “How did I know you were going to say that?” he asked rhetorically before continuing. “Believe me, no one will be put out in the least. And I’m guessing once they hear your story, they’ll be clamoring to see who gets the privilege of keeping you safe.”
She shook her head against his shoulder, and she felt more than heard his rumble of laughter deep in his chest. He leaned over and grabbed something, then held it up to her. “Why don’t you see if you can finish the rest of your pasta now.”
Avery blinked. One second she was about to have a mental breakdown, and the next it felt as if her life had been organized and she was being told to eat as if she were a toddler. And realizing she was a little hungry had her reaching for the plastic pouch Cole was holding.
“I’ll come back as soon as I can,” Phantom said from somewhere above their heads.
Avery looked up but didn’t see much more than his silhouette. “Be safe.”
“I will. If I’m not back by sunup, continue on as we planned.”
“Will do,” Cole assured him.
“Phantom?” Avery said quickly.
“Yeah?”
“If you don’t come back before sunup, I’m gonna track your ass down and beat you over the head with a stick.”
There was silence before she felt a hand gently caress her hair…then it disappeared again. “I think that was the nicest thing a woman’s ever said to me, Lieutenant. I’ll be back,” he vowed.
She heard his footsteps walking away and had a feeling he deliberately let himself be heard. If he’d wanted to be undetected, she knew he could’ve faded into the night completely silently.
“Was he being sarcastic?” she asked after Phantom’s steps had faded away.
“Nope. I told you, he had a not-so-good childhood. We used to suspect Phantom’s the way he is because of a perfectionist father, someone who was extremely hard on him, but we’ve since learned that wasn’t the case. Instead, it was his mother and aunt who were physically and mentally abusive. He’s always shied away from relationships, and I don’t think he’s ever trusted a woman in his life as a result.”
“Well, that sucks,” Avery said. “He’s a little prickly, but he’s a good man. I can tell.”
Cole tightened his arm around her, and she realized she was still sitting in his lap. She tried to move off but he refused to let her go. “My lap is a lot softer than the ground,” he told her. “Eat.”
