“I’m not signing anything.”
“Then enjoy your stay, Crocker.”
Donaldson gestured to Anders, and the two started to leave.
“I thought you cared about stopping Zaman. I guess I was wrong.”
The CIA officer turned.
“If you weren’t busted up already, I’d punch you in the fucking mouth.”
Crocker tightened the belt of the hospital robe and stood. “Go ahead, Donaldson. Take your best shot!”
Donaldson started toward him, then halted and growled, “You’ll regret the way you’ve conducted yourself.”
“Interrogate the kidnappers and find the girl!”
“You’re finished here, Crocker. Go home.”
Chapter Eighteen
A hero is a man who does what he can.
—Romain Rolland
TOM CROCKER found himself somewhere in the desert behind the wheel of a pickup truck. A big saguaro cactus behind him cast a long shadow, which made him think he was in the American Southwest, or maybe northern Mexico, along the border.
The morning sun burned through the windshield and stung his eyes.
Squinting, he turned the ignition key and tried to remember what he was doing here and where he was going. The starter burped and turned, then very quickly ground to a stop.
He tried the ignition again, only to hear the same terrible churning sound and get the same result. The alternator light shone red.
Now what?
He got out warily, boots crunching the sun-baked dirt past the motel sign that he couldn’t read through the glare. Five paces back, he popped open the hood, which was already hot. As he swung it up, the thick smell hit him like a brick to the face.
He almost passed out.
Hot damn!
A small animal, a cat maybe, had crawled up into the engine compartment and gotten chewed up in the fan belt. The stench thick and horrendous, a cloying sweetness mixed with burnt flesh and entrails. He felt bile rising from his stomach and grabbed his throat.
Struggling to keep his breakfast down, Crocker awoke. Opened his eyes in the Omani hospital room, which was more familiar and real.
But the nausea was still with him, and the smell surrounded him, stronger than ever—entering his mouth, nose, skin, and eyes. Pulling the sheets aside, he searched for its source in the bed and underneath it, then in the room’s shadows, and found nothing.
Strange.
The room was empty. Walls painted with long dark shadows created by the moon. And he was alone.
Still the smell grew thicker, and his stomach was about to spasm.
Unable to stand it anymore, he removed his hand from his mouth and shouted, “Nurse! I need to see you! Quick!”
He slid out of bed and inspected his hospital gown again. Clean.
Where the hell is it coming from?
Growing more intense, traveling up his nose into his brain. If the bars weren’t blocking him, he would have jumped out the window.
Christ!
A young Asian nurse in white flung open the door and turned on the light. He stood squinting and doubled over in his light blue hospital gown by the edge of the bed.
“Sir, what’s wrong?” she asked, hurrying to his side.
“The smell is making me sick.”
“What?”
“The stench! The smell. Get rid of it. I can’t stand it. Please.”
“What smell?”
“What? You don’t smell it?”
She sniffed the air, then shook her head. “No, I don’t.”
“But—”
Unimaginable. Yet her face, her demeanor, the sound of her voice were all sincere.
That’s when Crocker remembered where he’d experienced the awful stink before. Emanating from the smoldering, eviscerated body on the floor of the suite in the Al Bustan Palace hotel.
The Asian nurse saw the troubled look in his eyes.
“Is there some way I can help you?” she asked.
The smell was some type of flashback. An echo of the trauma he’d endured, the violence, the fact that he’d narrowly escaped death.
“I’ll call a doctor,” she said as she helped him back into bed.
“That won’t be necessary.” He’d experienced flashbacks before, but they’d always been visual.
“It will just take a minute.”
“I was having a bad dream. I’m okay.”
Her expression remained compassionate and sweet. “If you want, sir, I can crack open the window.”
“That would be helpful. Thanks,” he said, slipping back under the covers, feeling like a little boy who had disturbed his parents’ sleep.
When he’d had nightmares as a child, his mother had told him to think of pleasant things. So he imagined himself and Holly hiking in the Shenandoah Valley. A beautiful late October day. The trees blazed with fall colors. As he conjured the smell of leaves and grass and burning firewood in the distance, the stench disappeared and he fell asleep.