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Jamal had managed to get ahold of archaeology textbooks and had the irritating habit of actually reading them. He fancied himself a budding archaeologist, and in any other circumstance, she’d have enjoyed teaching a young local the science.
Here, he was her prison guard, and while his interest appeared genuine, his motive remained the same: looting to fund terrorism. There was no joy in him learning how to determine the best places to dig. “No. The southeast is the best place to explore next.”
Jamal backhanded her before she had a chance to brace herself. She dropped her plate and cupped her cheek, then she squared her shoulders and faced down the young man. Boy, she corrected herself. “I’m the expert here.”
Jamal raised his hand again, but Bassam caught his arm. “No, brother. She hasn’t led us wrong so far.”
Jamal glared at her, then shook off his brother’s grip and stomped off to enter the “lab” tent.
Bassam frowned at her. “You shouldn’t speak like that to him when the workers are watching.”
“He shouldn’t speak like that to me, then, when your workers are watching.” She debated whether or not she should show contrition, but decided against it. She wouldn’t win over her captors by pretending to be meek. Even as she quivered inside, she needed to show only anger and strength.
On day twenty-eight of her captivity, the break she’d been waiting for finally came. An envoy of the boss arrived on camels. To her great relief, the man sent to check on the dig was not Harun.
She was forced to give the man a tour as if he were a visiting dignitary. The experience was a distorted reflection of her life before abduction, when scholars and government VIPs would visit the excavation she ran with Fahd, and they’d show the features that had been uncovered and then discuss in detail what it could all mean to the history of the region.
The stockpile of artifacts that had been excavated were photographed, and Diana explained the packing materials that would be needed to transport them. She stressed that only she could pack and unpack the artifacts or they were likely to be damaged and rendered worthless. After all, the items would have to be transported in a small wheelbarrow or sled over a kilometer just to get through the slot canyon to the road.
The words left her dry mouth and scraped her throat as if she’d been drinking sand. But she did it. This was the reason she’d overseen the gutting of this site. She’d see it through and deliver pieces of history to the monster himself.
After she made her plea for careful packing and transport, the man studied her. “Why do you care? You support our cause now?”
She gave a sharp shake of her head. “I find your cause vile. I care for the survival of the artifacts, which are irreplaceable.”
The words were true, which made the plea easy to say convincingly. Honestly, it was better the artifacts end up in a corrupt man’s personal collection than that they be destroyed. At least in a private collection, they might someday be recovered and returned to the people of Jordan. But once an artifact was destroyed, it, and the information it could yet yield, was gone forever.
Five days later, a cargo van arrived with packing materials, which had to be hauled in small batches through the slot canyon to the dig site. Once she had the bubble wrap and other items she needed, Diana set to work packing the dozens of artifacts they’d managed to remove from the earth.
Jamal and Bassam insisted she teach them how to pack the artifacts as well, much as they’d wanted to learn not just how to dig, but where and why each location was selected. The brothers were her constant shadow. They followed her around the field—monitoring her every interaction with the workers—and shared her tent at night.
She knew the other men believed the brothers had sex with her, whether forced or not, but thankfully, that was one line they did not cross, and it was due to the fact that Bassam and Jamal watched over her that the workers didn’t attempt to harm her in that way.
She’d told the brothers at the start that she wouldn’t assist with the dig at all if she was sexually assaulted. She counted on Bassam to keep his brother in line, and so far, he had.
At this point, both boys were more interested in her lifting their status within the cell by delivering valuable artifacts to Rafiq, and so they acted as both her prison guards and protectors.
In the thirty-three days they’d spent together, an ease had developed between them. It wasn’t camaraderie. That would never happen. But there was a twisted kind of trust.
Once upon a time, she’d passed the intensive background check and prepared to join a CIA training class at the Farm. She’d been conflicted—mixing spying and archaeology could put professional archaeologists the world over in danger—but professional archaeologists were already in danger, and artifacts were being used to fund terror. She had the skills and the drive. She’d agreed to join the training class and began a physical training program to prepare.
She was excited for the opportunity and had mixed support from her fiancé, Salim, who agreed with the cause but, as the time drew near for her to go to the Farm, grew increasingly uncomfortable with the idea. His parents were immigrants from Lebanon. The Middle East was his heritage.
But then Salim lost control of their car on a rainy, unfamiliar mountain road, and she’d lost her fiancé and opportunity to work for the CIA all at once.
Now here she was, digging in Jordan without Salim and not working for the CIA, but somehow, she had become both a prisoner and a spy.
She looked at Jamal and Bassam and reminded herself that they were neither enemies nor friends. They were a means to an end. She needed to think of them as assets.
That night, she slipped from the tent to use the latrine they’d set up. The brothers no longer bothered to tie her up at night. It was ridiculous when an escape attempt would mean certain death by dehydration.
After taking care of business, she sat down in the center of the archaeological site and stared up at the stars. It was a cool sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature welcome after it had neared ninety at noon that day. They were still weeks from the start of rainy season, and there wasn’t a cloud to be seen. The waning crescent moon hadn’t risen yet, and without any light pollution, the sky was packed with stars, the most she’d ever seen at any time or place in her life. Over the last weeks, she’d built up a tolerance to this beauty.
But then, it was hard to find beauty in this situation, in which the things she cared most about were being desecrated.
Now she tried to clear her mind and take in this moment. It might be her last moment of feeling any kind of pleasure in this life. It was hard to believe her rescue would be successful. Rafiq might kill her the moment she delivered the artifacts.
The Milky Way was a bright swath, and she thought about the SEAL she’d faced as she signaled with her hand. Had he understood? Did he deliver her message?
