“Malie, your ordeal is over.”
His heart clenched, imagining all she’d been through.
He tried to smile, but the effort hurt. And sensed that he must look frightening with the gash along his jaw, the claw marks, the blood running down his neck.
As she straightened up, her expression changed from a pleading anguish to a raw kind of anger.
She mumbled through the tape over her mouth. “My name isn’t Malie.”
“What?” Heavy disappointment. “Your name isn’t Malie?”
She shook her head. “No.”
Where the fuck is Malie? he asked himself, ignoring for now the consequences of what he’d done so far.
Even though the fire was out, thick white smoke still poured in from the hall, burning his throat and eyes.
When she did look up, he was struck by the expression of hurt and shame frozen on her oddly inert face.
That’s when he realized that the body heals, but the psyche inside it is more fragile. Thinking about the hundreds of thousands of children’s and young people’s psyches that had been shattered because of some kind of abuse or war, he peeled the tape from the girl’s ankles and wrists. He took special care with her mouth, then brought her a wet towel to clean her face.
With the tape removed, she looked no more than sixteen.
“You have a name?”
“Brigitte.”
“Brigitte, do you know Malie?”
“There was another girl. But they didn’t allow us to speak.”
“Blond?”
“Yes. Very light hair.”
“She came over on the boat with you and was here, in this suite?”
“Yes.”
When he helped her up, she trembled on legs that appeared atrophied. Makeup had been applied to cover purple and blue bruises on both thighs.
“Do you know where they took her?”
“No, I’m sorry.”
He found a white terry robe on a hook behind the door and wrapped it around her. As delicate as a porcelain doll.
“Keep the towel over your mouth and nose,” he said, the smoke clogging his throat.
Her brown hair hung in limp curls and ringlets around her soft pink face. “I don’t know where I am.”
“Muscat, Oman.”
She shuddered. “I’m—I’m not sure I can walk,” she said through the towel.
“Lean on me. I’ll help.”
They made it halfway down the hall. But seeing the smoldering corpse lying in the scorched entrance to the sitting room, her knees buckled. The smell was horrible.
Crocker lifted her in his arms.
“Cover your nose. Close your eyes.”
He felt her frail bones under the robe. Her heart beating against his chest like a little bird’s.
Through the wider hallway to the living room, out the door of the suite. He followed the bloody footprints he’d left, hoping that Akil and Davis would find Malie so he could return to his family. Spend time with Holly and Jenny. Laugh, play games together, maybe take a vacation.
Rounding the corner, he saw a dozen soldiers in black riot gear and visored helmets pointing automatic weapons at him.
Reminded him of an image he’d seen in a video game.
A shorter soldier on the right of the group, holding a 12-gauge M1014 combat shotgun with a telescoping tubular stock, shouted in British-accented English: “Freeze right there or we’ll shoot!”
Stopping, he suddenly felt exhausted. The smoke was creating havoc in his head.
“Now slowly hand the girl to my men.”
“Okay.” Coughing.
Brigitte, in his arms, whimpered.
Crocker, feeling lightheaded, tried to reassure her. “They’re government soldiers,” he whispered. “It’s okay.”
He transferred her to two big men who carried her away. Two other soldiers stepped forward and pointed their weapons at his head.
“Now get down the floor and hold your arms over your head!”
“I’m an official of the U.S. government.” Actually, his situation was a bit more complicated. But he couldn’t explain that he was a leader of a U.S. Navy SEAL Team Six unit on assignment with the CIA.
“Get on the floor!”
“I need to talk to—”
“GET DOWN, NOW!”
Crocker didn’t have the energy to argue. His head was wobbling. As he bent his knees, his legs gave out.
He was already unconscious when he hit the floor.
Chapter Seventeen
Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever.
—Lance Armstrong
HE WOKE up dreaming that he was floating in clouds looking for something below in the choppy blue water.
What?
The question was immediately lost in the flood of messages that crowded his brain. Pain first, emanating from his arms, legs, face, and ribs. Then, impressions of his current surroundings.