Her fearless warrior, p.6
Her Fearless Warrior, page 6
Leila said nothing.
“Answer me,” he demanded in Arabic, his fist hitting the table so hard that it jumped.
“Yes,” she answered in English.
“Arabic. You will speak to me in Arabic.”
“Yes,” Leila said in Arabic. “I’m fluent in Arabic.”
“And what other languages?” he continued in Arabic.
Leila swallowed. He was looking at the damned piece of paper. She rarely put down every language that she spoke. She would write down the languages relevant to the position that she was applying for, otherwise it seemed to intimidate potential employers.
“I speak Arabic, English, Turkish and French,” she answered.
He slapped her so hard across the face that both she and the chair she was tied to fell over and slid at least four feet across the tiled floor.
“Don’t lie to me again. I know everything.”
If you know everything, you wouldn’t be questioning me, you asshole.
Leila had just the smallest amount of restraint to not say those words out loud, although she could feel her cheek swelling up and her ears were ringing.
He pushed at the office chair with the tip of his wingtip shoe. It slid further across the floor. “I’ll ask again. What other languages do you speak?”
“Russian.” Her voice was garbled by the hit. “Portuguese.”
“There, was that really so hard?”
He grabbed the rope that lashed her upper body to the chair and yanked. Leila’s head flopped from the sudden move, and pain seared down from her head to her neck, then down her spine. She couldn’t help but groan.
He picked up the paper from the desk.
“What did you do when you were with the CIA?”
This time, she told the truth. “I sat in a cubicle and translated documents. It was a boring job.”
“Did you ever go out into the field?”
“Can I have some water?”
“After you answer my questions.”
Leila started to cough. What started out as just a little playacting soon turned into a real coughing fit. He stared at her dispassionately.
The coughing aggravated her injuries and her eyes began to water.
I will not cry in front of this bastard. I won’t.
Finally, she stopped coughing and she choked back the tears.
“What is it you want with me? Where are the others?”
This time, he rephrased the question and it sent a shiver down her spine. “Tell me about your mission with the CIA.”
There was no way he should have known about that. No way. She’d never even told her dad, and he was FBI. Obviously, they had a traitor in the CIA, and that’s why this entire operation had gone to shit.
“Leila, I asked you a question.”
Her cheek throbbed. “I only went on a mission one time. After that, I quit.”
“What happened?”
“I was just supposed to be the translator for a meeting in Kazakhstan. It was supposed to be a pre-meeting before we sent out our diplomats; instead it was an ambush. As we were getting off the train, three of our men were shot, and if it hadn’t been for Agent Perkins getting the two of us back onto the train and hidden in a sleeper coach, we would have been killed too.”
“Do you know why this happened?”
“Nobody ever told me.”
The man nodded.
“So, eight years later, you decided to blindly trust someone from the CIA when he asks you to act as a translator for a job in Syria. Do you expect me to believe that?”
“He’s a friend of my father’s. They went to school together. He’s also my godfather.”
“That wasn’t my question.” He put the paper down on the table again and took a step closer to her. Now he was standing over her and she had to lean her head backward to look into his face.
“A woman who was almost killed on her first mission with the CIA would not go out on another mission without all the facts. Tell me what you know about being here in Syria.”
Leila thought fast. Somebody on the inside had been feeding him information. It couldn’t have been Elijah, otherwise they would have never hauled him out of the room like they had. So did this guy know about the operation? Know about the diamonds?
“Leila, answer me!” Again, he pounded on the desk.
“I know Elijah was supposed to be discussing how to free some prisoners that are currently being held by al-Assad. I swear, that’s all I know.”
She bit her lip, praying he would believe her.
He grabbed her by her hair and twisted.
“I don’t believe you. I know he was doing something more than negotiating. I think there was some kind of payment involved. I want to know what it was, and where it is.”
She cried out when he pulled her—and the chair up—by her hair. Tears formed.
“Tell me,” he whispered. “Just take a moment to catch your breath, and tell me.”
Nothing made sense. If this guy was getting info from a spy at Langley, wouldn’t he know about the CIA operative here in Syria who was holding onto the diamonds?
“I don’t know.”
“Tell me!”
Leila swore she could feel her scalp beginning to bleed.
“I don’t know.”
“Tell me.”
“If I tell you, you’ll kill me,” she gasped.
He let go, and she crashed to the floor.
Air gusted in and out of her chest. Her head dropped forward and this time she couldn’t stop the tears.
“Was that really so hard? Who were the prisoners? Who was Elijah going to pay? What was the payment? Where is it?”
“Three reporters and an aid worker,” Leila whispered.
The man rattled off the four names, and Leila nodded.
“Who in al-Assad’s government was going to do the trade?”
She knew that if she told him, she was signing the man’s death warrant. Or maybe this terrorist would turn him into his own spy.
She kept her mouth shut. He slapped her again, this time on the other cheek. Again, she and the chair went down. She screamed as her previously wounded cheek scraped against the tiled floor.
“You will tell me.”
His voice came from a long way away. Leila felt fuzzy.
“What is his name?”
She felt his hand grab the rope and pull her up. This time, when her head flopped forward and the searing pain hit her head and neck, she lost focus and…nothing.
“He knows nothing,” Jase said, disgustedly.
“Useless,” Linc agreed as he stared down at the crying man. “Damn, you’re scary, Jase. I don’t know what the hell you said, but he actually pissed his pants.”
“Easy. I told him Jonas was coming back to step on his hand. Didn’t matter though, all we heard is how he’d failed in his mission and he was going to be killed, so we might as well kill him.”
Linc pursed his lips and shook his head. Wasn’t the first time they’d heard that from an al Qaeda prisoner.
“So our only hope is that Elijah will have an idea where they’ve taken Leila and Katherine Cole or that the two women have held onto the phone and Gideon can track it.”
Jase nodded. “Seems like.”
“And him?” Linc asked as he tilted his chin toward the man sobbing against the side of the truck.
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
“The two cars that have come down this road have just driven on past this truck.”
Jase nodded. “It was a good call on your part to push the OKA back behind the electrical power station. If people saw the truck and the OKA, they might have stopped.”
“Doubt it.” Linc hit his mic. “You got anything for us, Gideon?”
“Maybe. I’m not sure. I need at least another hour.”
“Understood.”
“I checked in with Kostya,” Gideon continued. “Elijah has been unconscious the entire trip, to Al Tanf he never regained consciousness, so we got nothing.”
“Are you saying he’s dead?” Linc asked.
“Shit, I said it wrong. No he’s still alive, just not awake to tell us anything,” Gideon clarified.
“Dammit.”
Linc looked over at his friend. It was now ten o’clock in the evening. If they stayed away from the road, nobody should spot them as they made their way to Al Qaryatayn.
“Let’s tie him up and head to town and grab a vehicle,” Linc said as he stared at the prisoner.
“Sounds good.”
After they got him gagged and zip-tied, they went over to Gideon. “What are you working on?” Linc asked.
“I’ve fed what I’ve got over to Clint Archer from Midnight Delta. He has deep connections with a big player in the wireless telecommunications field in San Diego. He’s already shared the schematics of the piece of shit stingray that Jerry Earnst gave Leila and they’re reverse engineering it to see how they can make it work.”
“That’s great and all,” Jase said. “But we don’t have the phone.”
“Really?” Gideon asked. “You’re right, we didn’t think of that.”
Jase sighed. Jase had walked right into that one.
Gideon went on to explain. “If they can reverse engineer it, the guys Clint’s involved with think they may have a way to get it to work if they can just get a connection to the phone. She’s going to have to call them, or she’s going to have to pick up their call to make this work.”
“What about what Jerry-Boy told us regarding the Syrian cellphone networks here in Syria not being compatible with this software? How are they going to fix that problem?” Linc asked.
“When I had a chance to look at the schematics, it was pretty clear that the stingray itself was fucked up. I reviewed them with Clint and he agreed, and that’s when he pulled in his buddies. Now, the Syrian network should not be a problem, because she has a satellite phone. The network was only an issue when they tried to dick with the stingray components.”
“And Clint and his buddies can get that fixed?” Linc asked.
Gideon shook his head.
“Then what the fuck can they do?” Linc wanted to know.
“We track her. Apparently, this company in San Diego has been working to make their products stingray-resistant. Therefore, they know stingray technology inside, outside, and sideways. But goddammit, they won’t be able to make her phone work the way it’s supposed to. I’m so mad at those motherfuckers who sent her out with faulty equipment. She would have been so much better off with just a normal satellite phone and a tracker, but no, they had to give her a phone with all the bells and whistles that jacked up just normal tracking capabilities. The motherfuckers.”
Linc waited for Gideon to calm down and asked his question again.
“How are you going to get rid of all the shit on her phone and get the tracking working?”
“As soon as she calls in to Evers, they have a patch that they’ll run. It’ll wipe out all the stingray software and allow the tracker to work.”
“Why the fuck did they even want the stringray components in the phone to begin with?” Jase asked. “What does it do?”
“It allows her to record phone calls in her proximity and download texts. She can also install malware on a phone and take the phone over, allowing her to make outgoing calls on the phone or do outgoing texts.”
“Are you shitting me?” Jase asked.
“Nope. That tech has been around for a while. It’s just big and cumbersome. Nobody has figured out how to install it into something small and portable like a phone, before.”
Enough already!
“Gideon, love hearing about all the bells and whistles, but…
Are.
You.
Sure.
We.
Can.
Track.
Her?”
Gideon scrubbed his hand over his shaved head.
“If we can just get her to call us or take a call, it’s a done deal.” It was clear that Gideon was as frustrated as Linc was.
“Who is us? She’s called Captain Evers. Have you arranged it if she calls into him, that you can install the patch?”
“That’s the next step. Linc, you’ve got to trust me. We’re working every angle.”
Linc blew out a deep breath.
“You had a thing for her during that Turkey mission, didn’t you?” Gideon asked.
“Yes, he did,” Jase answered for him. “But it really doesn’t matter. He’d be this pissed about anybody we were trying to rescue.”
“Gideon’s right,” Linc said, turning to Jase. “Normally I wouldn’t be this emotional about the whole thing.” He turned and faced his second-in-command. “Yeah, after that whole mission, I tried to look her up when we got back home, but I couldn’t find her. I thought about having you track her down for me, but I figured there was a reason she needed to go to ground, so I left it.”
“Fuck. Is this going to make things more complicated?” Gideon asked.
“It won’t,” Linc assured him.
It won’t, he assured himself.
But an image of her long, lean body and warm bronze skin with her dark eyes flashed in his mind. How often had he thought about her? Too fucking often.
“I need another hour to work this out.”
“Then we’re out of here. We’ll go on to Al Qaryatayn and pick up a vehicle, and come back.”
“Our friend in the truck?” Gideon asked.
“He should be good for another day or two. It’s March. He won’t freeze or die of heat stroke before someone gets to him.”
Gideon nodded, then turned back to his computer.
“Let’s move on down the road,” Jase said.
6
I feel worse than when I was in the wreck on the Capital Beltway.
Leila tried to push herself up from the metal floor, but she just didn’t have the strength in her arms.
“Easy.”
Leila shook her head, trying to pinpoint who the voice belonged to, but before she could, the floor shook and her arms went out from underneath her and she landed hard on her chest and face. She didn’t even have the strength to cry out.
“Leila, don’t move until I come over and help you.”
Katherine. It was Katherine Cole.
“Where are we?”
“In a truck. We were both thrown in here,” the woman paused. “Three hours and twenty minutes ago.”
A soft hand pushed back her hair and probed her cheek.
She moaned.
“Dammit, I should have done this when you were passed out. Hold still, I want to see if your cheekbone is broken.”
“I don’t think so. I can talk.”
Katherine actually chuckled. “My son used to ride dirt bikes. Trust me, it doesn’t matter if you can talk, your cheekbone can still be broken.”
Leila took in a deep breath and held it. She thought of the cherry blossoms in Washington, D.C., and imagined herself under one of the trees as the petals drifted down on her.
“Let me get you into a seated position, then I can check the other side of your face.”
“Katherine, it doesn’t matter. What matters is getting the hell out of here. Do you still have the phone?”
“I turned it off. There was hardly any charge left.”
Leila nodded, then hissed at the pain in her neck that radiated throughout her body. “Okay, you’re already hurting. Let’s get this done.”
Katherine pulled her up and, with her help, she could scrabble backward and sit up against the hard metal of the moving vehicle. She could barely make out Katherine’s visage.
“How many men are we dealing with?” she asked.
“At first I thought it was one of the terrorist groups, but there’s this man in a suit,” Katherine answered. “He doesn’t make sense. He’s being driven in a Mercedes behind the truck. The others all look like militants.”
“How many?” Leila asked again, trying to consider their options.
“I’m not sure in this truck, at least the driver. But there were three others besides the suit in the Mercedes.”
“Can you please give me the phone?” Leila asked.
Katherine chuckled. “I love the please during this shitshow. Somebody raised you right,” she said as she pressed the phone into Leila’s hands.
Leila hurt too much to laugh, but yeah, her nene would slap her hand with a spoon if she didn’t say please and thank you.
She keyed in the phone number she had memorized.
Before the phone had even completed ringing, Captain Evers was saying her name.
“Leila, do you know where you are?”
Her stomach plummeted.
Every ache and pain stopped. It felt like her very life had stopped as she replayed his question in her mind.
“How come you don’t know where I am?” Her voice was flat.
Katherine grabbed her thigh; her nails dug so deep Leila thought she might leave tiny bruises.
“There’s a problem with your phone. It’s not working right in Syria. Something to do with the cellphone towers.”
“Will it be fixed?”
“We’re working on it. The ETA is sixty minutes.”
“Captain, I’m with Katherine Cole. I don’t know where the others are. We’ve kept this phone on because it was supposed to have all the capabilities explained to me. The battery is very low. I don’t have sixty minutes to leave it on. Hell, I don’t know if I have sixty minutes before the terrorists take us out of the truck and do whatever they have planned.”
She heard him whisper, “Fuck.”
“Can you memorize a phone number if I give it to you?”
“Yes. That I can do.”
He gave her the number.
“How much juice do you have? Can you check in every fifteen minutes?”
“I’m at six percent. The problem is with all this software loaded on the phone, I don’t have any idea how fast I’m losing power.” She tried to make out the face of her watch, but she couldn’t. “I also can’t read my watch.”
“My watch has a pearl face. I can track the time,” Katherine said.
“Okay, twenty minutes, or sooner, if the truck stops,” Leila told the captain.
“Just so you know, we have Phelps, Hopkins, and Annie Trent at the American outpost. Now we just need to get you home safe.”
