“Deal,” he said without hesitation. “I’ll let you rescue me then.”
“I’m sure your badass Delta team would love that. They’d never let you live it down.”
“Actually, they would love that,” Grover told her. “They’re probably all super pissed at me right about now, for letting myself get taken.”
“I still don’t understand that,” Sierra said. “How did you manage it, anyway?”
“It was surprisingly easy,” Grover answered.
Sitting in the dark, listening to his deep, quiet voice, was literally the best thing that had happened to her in the last year. Sierra had talked with the other prisoners who’d been brought in, of course, but it was often one-sided. They were desperate to ask her questions. Where were they? What did their captors want? What were they going to do to them? No one had been as seemingly relaxed as Grover, that was for sure. And no one had sounded as confident, either. Granted, he was a special forces soldier, and the other men had been civilians, but still.
“When I got to the base, I spread word pretty quickly that I thought the stories about people being kidnapped was all bullshit. I pretended to get drunk the first two nights, said a lot of ridiculous shit about how dumb the locals were, how they’d never be able to just take someone from base without others knowing. I generally acted like an asshole, making sure to offend pretty much everyone on the base, from the lowest-ranking privates to the general himself. Then I went outside the gates the next two nights, doing the same thing. Finding men who spoke English and insulting everyone and everything—from the country to the US military to the terrorists, every-fucking-body.
“On the third night in town, I pretended to be drunk off my ass and I accepted a ride from a local. He was supposed to take me back to base, but just as I’d hoped, that wasn’t his destination.”
Sierra listened with equal parts awe and horror. “Won’t all of that hurt your reputation? Will you get in trouble with the Army?”
“I don’t fucking care,” Grover said heatedly. “No one else was doing shit to look into the disappearances. As if they didn’t care, or weren’t concerned about a bunch of contractors.”
Sierra swallowed hard. “I was sleeping,” she told him. “I didn’t hear the men come into my tent, and they had a hand over my mouth before I even woke up. They forced a backpack onto my back and told me it was a bomb. Said they’d blow up the entire base if I didn’t come with them quietly. So I did.”
“Fuckers.”
The word was quiet, but Sierra still heard it. “They brought me to a house in town and told me I was taken because Shahzada’s men needed to practice their torture techniques. The first couple of months were…bad,” Sierra said, drastically downplaying the pain she’d experienced those first few months. “They packed all my stuff from the base to make it look like I was a deserter. They knew what they were doing. Apparently, you were right. No one cared too much about a few civilians disappearing. If it had been soldiers, I’m sure the US would’ve made a huge deal out of it.”
“I cared,” Grover said softly.
Sierra swallowed hard. “I lost track of the days, and eventually…I think it just got old messing with me, and they kept me around. It wasn’t that anyone had a problem killing a female, but more like they thought the opportunity might arise when they could use me for leverage or something. And they have, more than once. Still…I’ve been lucky.”
Instead of snorting in disbelief, as she might’ve expected him to, Grover agreed. “Yes, you have.”
Sierra knew a lot of people would think she was insane for believing she was lucky after everything she’d been through. But she was alive, and the other contractors who’d been taken weren’t. As long as she had breath in her body, she would fight to live.
She had to change the subject or risk getting depressed. “How will your team know where to look for you?”
“They’re the best at what they do. They’ll find us.”
Grover sounded so confident, Sierra wanted to believe him, but she’d also had her hopes dashed way too many times. Once, she’d heard soldiers speaking in English right outside the house where she’d been stashed in the small town. She couldn’t scream and risk alerting the guard right outside her room, but still…she’d sworn she was about to be rescued.
Instead, they’d walked right on by, of course; hadn’t even knocked on the door. It had taken weeks to get over that disappointment, the despair of listening to those voices grow distant, then disappear.
Now, she was much less likely to be optimistic about being rescued.
“We’re gonna find out who Shahzada is and kill him too,” Grover said. “That asshole needs to be stopped. We’re gonna make sure he isn’t around to kidnap anyone else.”
Sierra blinked in surprise. “What do you mean?”
“What do you mean, what do I mean?” Grover asked.
Sierra would’ve laughed at that, but she was too shocked he wasn’t aware of Shahzada’s identity. “Shahzada was here earlier. He was one of the men beating you up.”
Silence met her statement.
“Grover?”
“Which one?” he growled.
“Well, I mean…I didn’t see them beating you, but I heard him.”
“Would you recognize him if you saw his face?” Grover asked.
“Of course. And you would too. You’ve met him, Grover.”
“When?”
“A year ago. On the base. He goes by Muhammad Qahhar there. He’s one of the translators the Army hired.”
“Fuck! I knew it!” Grover swore.
Sierra heard loud thumping sounds coming from the niche next to hers, and she winced. When it was quiet once more, she said, “I thought you knew.”
“No,” Grover said. “I actually didn’t recognize any of the guys beating on me, at least at the time, and no one’s ever been able to describe the man. He’s been like a ghost. I had a gut feeling that whoever was kidnapping the contractors had to have a connection to the base. It just made sense. I’m guessing some of the other translators are also a part of his faction.”
Sierra didn’t say anything. She’d suspected that, but hadn’t recognized anyone else she’d come in contact with while in captivity.
“I’m going to kill him.”
Grover’s words were all the more powerful because of the lack of emotion behind them.
“Okay.”
“I am,” he promised. “Now, talk to me about the schedule around here. Are we going to be interrupted in the middle of the night so they can beat on us?”
Surprisingly, his change of topic seemed to relax Sierra a little. She told him everything she’d learned over the last several months. Described which of the men seemed to be less enthusiastic about torturing the prisoners, and who hit the hardest, relished it the most. Explained that when it was just her in the cave, there could be days when she didn’t see or talk to anyone. She described the meals they brought—when they bothered to feed her—and did her best to share everything she saw as their faults when it came to security.