The Capture
by Julie Coulter Bellon
Copyrighted Material
All Rights Reserved
Chapter One
Zaya still wore
the same clothes she’d worn the day she was captured, and, after all these
months, they were little more than filthy rags that barely covered her. With
temperatures dropping now, she’d wished countless times she’d put on something
different that day. Maybe a few layers– her favorite leggings, a long-sleeved
shirt and sweater, even an extra pair of socks. But, then again, that last
morning of freedom had been filled with thoughts of Julian, not what clothes
she might need in a wintry 6x9 cell.
She shivered and
pulled the tissue-thin blanket over her shoulders. Every day the air cooled by
significant degrees so she knew winter was coming on. While it was hard to be
grateful for anything her captors did, she’d nearly cried when they handed the
small blanket to her. Captured operatives did their best not to show emotion,
but as hope of rescue leeched away from her, that had been harder to control.
It didn’t matter now, though. She was going to die in a cold, dark cell in
central Afghanistan. The thought chilled her on the inside.
Zaya curled into a
ball, trying to preserve what little body heat she had. She couldn’t remember
the last time she’d been warm. Well, that wasn’t true. If she closed her eyes,
she remembered Julian’s arms wrapped tight around her, his lips on hers. The
heat from his touch had blazed through her veins like wildfire. But Zaya didn’t
want to remember so she kept her eyes wide open, wishing the cold could numb
her heart and mind as easily as it had her toes. Julian wasn’t coming. There
would be no rescue. This frozen rock cell was her tomb, its icy touch the last
thing she would know before she died.
The clanging of
the door down the hall signaled that it was time for the next meal. She drew in
a breath, then wished she hadn’t, as her stomach rolled even thinking about the
watery bean soup and crust of bread she’d been living on. Her captors had tried
to use spices and spinach to make it somewhat edible, but Zaya still had to
choke it down. The smell of the spices mixed with unwashed bodies and waste
made her want to retch. She pulled the blanket over her nose and breathed
through her mouth to calm her stomach. Even with the revolting food and
surrounding odors, she still had hunger pangs. They were a strange comfort now,
a reminder that her body was functioning and could still feel.
Some days she
wished she couldn’t.
The small section
cut out of the metal door lifted and a bowl was shoved in. If she didn’t eat
within the next ten minutes, the bowl would be taken away, but Zaya didn’t
care. She lay near the door, the food an arm’s length away, but turned her back
and closed her eyes. She couldn’t do this anymore.
Just let me die.
The thought
flitted through her mind, and she fought it for a moment. Only cowards gave up.
She could stay strong until Julian found her. But even with all his resources
and the Griffin Force at his disposal, he hadn’t been able to do it so far.
Maybe the mission to save her was destined to fail. She knew that would torment
him. Julian hated to admit he couldn’t do something. His drive for success was
what made him the best. But with every day she spent in captivity, it looked
like Nazer al-Raimi had won the battle and maybe the war. Fighting terrorism had cost her everything,
and having a front-row seat to their failure was salt in the wound. It was
over. She couldn’t fight the inevitable. She was too tired to go on.
Closing her eyes,
she finally went to the corner of her mind she rarely allowed herself to go.
Laughing in the sunshine with Julian. Teasing him about the premature gray in
his beard. Kissing him in their favorite coffee shop. Tears burned her eyelids.
She’d never thought he’d give up looking for her, but maybe he had. How else
could she explain the fact that she was still here? She pulled the blanket
tighter. Being a covert operative had been her lifelong dream, but those dreams
had never ended alone in a filthy cell. But, maybe it was for the best that
they hadn’t found her. Then they’d never know she’d stopped fighting and had
given up.
It hadn’t been
that way at first. They’d moved her several times during her first two weeks of
captivity and she’d spent her time plotting escape attempts. Each one had met
with failure and beatings. That’s when they’d started using drugs to keep her
docile, and then she’d ultimately ended up in this basement prison. Trying to
keep track of the days, she’d made markings on the wall, but when her guard
found them, she’d been moved farther down the hall to this darker cell, which
looked like a medieval dungeon. She’d paced her prison, exercised her body and
mind, to try to stay strong. Hope had burned bright then, but eventually, with
barely any food and injuries that wouldn’t heal, Zaya no longer had the energy
to fight. She was ready for death and hoped it came quickly.
Sighing, she
turned back over and stared through the darkness at the bowl. Even with the
unappetizing smell, her stomach growled, and her hand reached for it. Curling
her fingers around the clay, she pulled it to her and quickly drank the liquid.
I can survive
one more day, she told herself. Hang on for just one more.
After pushing the
bowl away, she lay back down, but before she could close her eyes, the door
down the hall clanked open again. Zaya’s stomach sank. Saif. Her jailer.
Her interrogator. Even in the cold air, sweat trickled down her back. He was
the man who ruled her nightmares with the whip he always carried in his hand.
“Zaya,” he boomed.
“I’ve thought of more questions for you.” He ran the handle of the whip across
the door of her cell, his beady eyes gleaming in the light from the candle he
carried in his other hand. She hated
him. Loathed everything about him, from his pride at speaking fluent English to
the way he enjoyed hurting others.
She sat up slowly
and drew her legs underneath her. Her hand automatically went to her hair to
smooth it, but instead of a familiar long braid, there were only short spikes.
Saif had cut it during one of their “sessions.” Rage filled her, effectively
covering her helpless misery. That was why operatives were drilled constantly
about compartmentalizing emotions. They didn’t help in situations like this and
made everything worse.
“I’ve told you
everything.” Her voice sounded weak to her own ears. She was so tired and
didn’t have the strength for another beating.
He opened the cell
and took a step inside towering over her. If she were standing, even with her
5’8” frame, they’d be nose to nose, but he rarely allowed that. He liked to
feel bigger than he was and forced everyone to sit or kneel in front of him, as
if he were a king of some sort. If they refused, he put them in the box— a narrow wooden contraption that compelled
the person inside into a kneeling position. Saif had left her there for hours.
Her knees still had scars from her many trips to the box. But with his whip in
hand, Zaya knew today’s visit wasn’t about feeling superior or sending her to
the box. He wanted answers and would punish her to get them. The soup she’d just eaten roiled in her
stomach. She couldn’t endure another session with Saif. Hanging on was starting
to sound like the worst idea she’d ever had.
He toed her knee
with his boot. “I think you need a bit more encouragement to truly tell me
everything.”
“There’s nothing
more to tell, I swear it.” She backed herself against the wall. “Please. I
don’t know anything.”
Saif chuckled, a
sadistic echo that radiated prickles of dread down her spine. “But I think you
do.” He nodded to the guard behind him, who stepped forward to take the
candlestick from Saif, who then grabbed Zaya by the arm. She knocked over the
bowl trying to find her balance, but he merely dragged her behind him down the
hall.
She knew the room
he was taking her to like the back of her hand. A metal table was in the middle
of it with restraints for her hands and feet. When she didn’t answer his
questions, he would whip the sensitive soles of her feet and palms of her
hands. It was his specialty.
He pushed her
inside and she bit back a cry of agony when her aching knees hit the concrete
floor.
“Get on the
table,” he ordered and watched as she hauled herself to a standing position.
Pain arced through her heels, still sore from their last session. Gritting her
teeth, she sat on the edge of the table. She didn’t have a choice. There were
consequences to resisting being tied down, and it would take weeks to recover.
If she did as he asked, their time together and her recovery would be shorter.
She lay down and
waited while he buckled her hands and feet into the leather straps. Exposed and
vulnerable, she carefully watched Saif finish making sure she couldn’t move.
Exhaustion and despair enveloped her. She couldn’t go on like this. The tiny
flicker of hope she’d felt in her cell, telling her to hang on was snuffed out
as she looked at Saif, tapping his whip on his thigh.
Turning her face
away, she stared at a stain on the wall. Sometimes, if she could concentrate on
something else, it helped get her through the pain of Saif’s “questioning”
sessions.
He didn’t approach
her right away, but she could feel his eyes staring. “We don’t have to do this,
you know. Just tell me about Julian Bennet’s life– the places he goes, the
people he cares about– and your suffering will be over.” His words were soft,
deceiving. She knew what he said was a lie, but part of her wanted it to be
true, if only to make the pain stop. When she didn’t respond, he touched her
foot with the whip handle. He used that maneuver to scare her, but today,
resignation mixed with her fear, making his techniques seem more bearable.
Tell him about
Julian? Did Saif want to know that
Julian liked his coffee black with only a dollop of cream and no sugar? That he
had a cat named Milo? No. He wanted to know about Griffin Force, Julian’s
resources, their black sites, and how much Julian knew about Nazer al-Raimi’s
network. Revealing anything would be like signing Julian’s death warrant. “I’ve
already told you. I was only a runner. I never met Julian.”
The whip snapped
her left foot, and she clenched her teeth. He would go easy on her at first,
whipping slowly until she refused to give him the answers he wanted. Then it would
get ugly.
“I know you aren’t
a runner. You were seen with him.” He got down in her face, his mouth twisted
into a snarl. “How many operatives has he recruited for Griffin Force?”
Not enough,
she thought. Or I wouldn’t still be here.
But before she could
finish that thought, an explosion rumbled through the old complex. Ceiling
tiles fell on her torso, and she flinched, but with her hands and feet
shackled, she couldn’t protect herself.
Saif took three
steps to the door and yanked it open. “Waheed!” he shouted, but his guard
didn’t answer. Saif shut the door again and came around to unshackle her. His
fingers were clumsy as gunshots sounded outside.
Could this be the
rescue she’d prayed for? If so, she needed to stall so they’d have time to find
her. If it wasn’t, and it was a rival terrorist cell storming the complex, she
definitely wanted to be far away from here as fast as possible.
“Where are you
taking me?” Zaya asked, trying to decide whether to attempt an escape. Maybe
Saif also knew more than he was saying.
“You’re valuable
enough that I have my orders to take you directly to Nazer if anything like
this happens,” he said, then clenched his teeth as more ceiling tiles fell. “I
need to get you out of here before this building falls down on top of us.”
He grabbed her arm
again and pulled her off the table. She set her foot on the floor and cried out
in pain. Saif didn’t slow down, and dragged her to the door. Before he could
touch the handle, though, it burst open and three men in full combat gear rushed
in. Saif tried to push Zaya in front of him, but her foot was too tender, and
she dropped to the floor. Everything was moving so fast, but felt like slow
motion. The men were pointing guns and yelling for Saif to get on the ground.
She turned her head in time to see Saif point a gun toward the tac team leader,
but he didn’t even have time to blink, much less pull the trigger before he was
killed.
Saif’s body
dropped heavily to the floor next to her. Am I dreaming? The men’s
combat boots surrounded her, their voices a mix of American and British
accents. Could Julian have finally found me?
The obvious team
leader, dressed in black, leaned over her and she blinked up at him. “We’re
going to get you out of here, Z.”
Z. No one called
her that except her closest friends. Hope swelled in her chest. This had to be
Griffin Force. She just couldn’t place the voice yet.
He put his hands
out as if he wanted to help her stand, but hesitated. “You’re pretty banged
up,” he said carefully, looking her in the eye. “It’d probably be best if I
carry you.”
“We gotta get out
of here,” the man next to him said, touching his earpiece. “Nazer’s called for
reinforcements, and they’re on their way.” He stood next to the first man and
stared down at her. “I know you’re hurt, and we’re going to take care of that,
but we’ve got to get you to the helo now, or we’ll lose our window.”
Zaya could only
stare, her tongue thick, tears clogging the back of her throat. It was over.
The nightmare was over. Nodding was all she could manage, and she didn’t
protest when he put her in a fireman’s carry and they hustled toward the door.
From her perch
over his shoulder she lifted her head to see Saif’s body on the floor. Rage
filled her again. His death had been so easy. No suffering. No torture or
threats or prayers for death. Part of her wanted them to stop. To somehow let
her mete out justice for everything he’d done to her. But it was over now, and
she just wanted to be free. To go home.
Home.
A tear slipped out
and blazed a trail into her hair as her rescuers rushed down the hallway of her
prison. Deep down, she knew, even if they got out of there, that too much had
happened for her to ever go back. Nothing would ever be the same again.
Not even home. 
2 comments:
Holy cow I wanna keep reading!!
Yay! I'm so glad you liked it! Thank you. :)
Post a Comment