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“We don’t have confirmation Edwards is still being held there, but this is enough to make the mission a go if we can confirm Rafiq is present.”
“What if we don’t have a Rafiq sighting?” Fallon asked. “Surely we won’t just leave Edwards there?”
“We are monitoring the house closely. If they try to move her, we’ll know, and our drones will be able to follow.”
“Not good enough. They could be beating her. She could be sick. Dying. We have no way of knowing what they’re doing to her,” Chris said.
“We’re looking at options for getting someone inside the house. A break in the water line or other utility issue that can be specific to that property.”
“That takes too much time,” Kramer said.
“We’re doing everything we can to ensure Dr. Edwards’s safety.”
Chris refrained from rolling his eyes. Everything would have meant getting the woman out two days ago, instead of leaving her vulnerable and afraid.
Rafiq entered the artifact room after the morning prayers. The artifacts had all been cleaned and laid out on the tables for inspection. Diana had drawn out the process as long as possible, insisting on organizing the items by age and, in some instances, cultural influence.
All items having come from the same site, she had chosen to split hairs and make an evaluation of what outside cultures had influenced the creator. Anything and everything to delay, delay, delay.
She was shoveling bullshit and hoped to bury the man in it.
She’d written extensive notes that made her work sound ridiculously scholarly. It would give the artifacts a perceived higher value, which should please the monster.
The shard of glass remained hidden in her headscarf, and when the terrorist leader entered the room, Diana could feel the weight of it as it pressed to her skin, similar to how her arm had itched in those first days. Only this time, instead of calling for her rescue, she imagined slicing open the man’s neck.
Could she do it? Kill him in that way? She’d have to be directly in his face. Hands on him. Go for the jugular. Literally.
She reminded herself of the lives he’d destroyed. Of Fahd and his children, who were now fatherless.
Yes. Yes, she could.
She was dead anyway at this point. Might as well take him out too.
That would be her redemption in this nightmare. She’d kill this man.
But with Jamal and Bassam in the room, it simply wasn’t possible. Not today.
All she could do now was tell him about all the amazing artifacts she’d looted for him and, like Scheherazade, weave a fanciful fiction about each one in an attempt to prolong her life.
Her throat went dry and she had to fight dry heaving, but after the first few descriptions were behind her, her stomach righted and calm settled in.
This was like eating an elephant. The only way to do it was to take one awful bite at a time.
At the end of show-and-tell, Rafiq ordered her to photograph and wrap all the artifacts.
Diana found herself with a camera in her hands. She’d had a brief moment of hope that she’d be given a cell phone, but no, it was a point-and-shoot digital camera. Not the latest and greatest, but still, new enough that it had Wi-Fi for uploading photos.
The blue icon wasn’t lit, meaning it wasn’t connected, but there was a menu to add email addresses for sending photos. She took a chance when Bassam left for a smoke break and Jamal wasn’t paying attention and added an old email address she only used for mailing lists. Once that was set up, she attached all the photos she’d taken. If the camera was connected to a computer with internet or connected to Wi-Fi, maybe it would send the photos before anyone noticed there were items in the outbox.
If someone spotted what she’d done before it connected, they’d come after her, but at this point, she was already in danger of being beaten, raped, and murdered. She might as well take every opportunity that presented itself, no matter how dangerous.
Two hours later, Diana got to enjoy her first walk in the garden, a reward for finishing her work, she supposed. A high wall—probably seven feet tall—enclosed the property. Made of smooth cinder blocks, there was no way she’d be able to climb it without a rope or ladder.
To make matters worse, the trees and shrubs that abutted the wall were small and sparse. She wouldn’t even be able to tuck down and hide. In addition, the outbuildings were too far from the wall to be of use. Rafiq had chosen his lair well.
Then there was the question of what she’d find on the other side, should she manage to scale the unscalable. She imagined a moat full of crocodiles or a river of lava, thinking of the childhood game of jumping from pillow to pillow in the living room because touching the floor meant maiming or death.
Why did children play such gruesome games?
