by Susan Stoker
The other two men agreed, and within minutes there were several candles lit. All three got down to business searching every nook and cranny of their temporary prison.
“It’s good to hear from you, honey,” Caite’s mom said.
Just hearing her voice made Caite homesick. She enjoyed her job most of the time and liked being able to see a different part of the world not many got to experience, but she was depressed tonight and wanted to hear a familiar voice.
“You too,” she said.
“Uh-oh,” her mom said. “What’s wrong?”
“How do you know something’s wrong?” Caite asked.
“I just do. What’s up?”
Caite sighed. “I was stood up tonight…and it sucks.”
“I’m so sorry. What happened?”
Caite proceeded to tell her mom everything about Rocco. How they’d met, about how competent he and his friends had been in the elevator, their chat under the trees, and how he’d promised to be there tonight to take her out. She even told her mom about the kisses, and the effect they’d had on her. “He made me feel pretty. I thought he really cared about me. I thought I was done with high school games, but I can’t think of a good reason why he’d come see me this afternoon and then not show up tonight if he was serious about wanting to take me out. Doesn’t have a cell phone…I can’t believe I actually fell for that!”
There was silence on the other end of the phone for a beat before her mom spoke. “Honey, you are pretty. I never understood how you couldn’t see that. But that’s beside the point. You’re a good judge of character. I’ve never known you to be attracted to a man this fast before. From what you’ve said, I don’t think Rocco was playing you. If he’s as nice as you claim, why would he go to the trouble of asking you out if he wasn’t going to show up?”
“Maybe he met someone else?”
“In the few hours between when he saw you and when he was supposed to pick you up?” her mom asked skeptically.
Caite sighed. “I know, but…it’s easier for me to think that than the alternatives.”
“Do you think something happened to him?”
That was the thing. She did. Rocco had said nothing would keep him from meeting her tonight, and yet, he hadn’t shown. His mission today was supposed to be reconnaissance, but what if something went wrong? What if he’d been hurt…or killed? She’d like to think that his friends would find her and tell her if that was the case, but she just wasn’t sure.
“Caite?” her mom prodded.
“I don’t know. It’s possible. He didn’t come out and tell me, but I think he’s a Navy SEAL. Generally, the sailors that come here don’t come for only a week unless they’re doing something super-secret. I’m not sure who I can even ask about him without getting him into trouble.”
“Sounds like you’re in a sticky situation,” her mom said. “My suggestion is to get a good night’s sleep. Maybe things will look clearer in the morning. You have to go into work tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah. Joshua is off, and I have to check in the people who are only coming for Saturday’s job fair. There’s a lunch planned that I have to make sure the caterers are all set for. I’m off after that.”
“And personnel have to check in with someone before they leave the country, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then check the computer and see if your young man has done that. If not, maybe you can see where he’s staying and go visit him.”
“Mom!” Caite exclaimed. “I can’t do that!”
“Why not?”
“Because! For one, it’s illegal. And two…” Her voice lowered. “What if he answers his door and has a woman in there with him? Or it’s super awkward because he was trying to ghost me.”
“Ghost you? What in the world is that?”
“When someone doesn’t have the guts to tell someone they don’t want to see them anymore. Or use their services or whatever. They just stop emailing, calling, texting, hoping the other person gets the hint. I don’t want to be the chick who can’t take a hint.”
“Jeez,” her mom said in exasperation. “I don’t get people. Wouldn’t you rather know than spend days worrying about him? And don’t bother to tell me you wouldn’t worry, I know you.”
“Yeah.”
“Then do it. It’s not like you’re looking into sealed military records or anything. Just peek in and see where he was assigned to stay while he’s here.”
Caite nodded to herself. It was a good idea. “Okay, Mom. I will.”
“Good. And, honey?”
“Yeah?”
“If this guy stood you up, fuck him.”
“Mom!”
“What? I’m not allowed to swear? Seriously, if he can’t see what an amazing, awesome, beautiful, wonderful person you are, then he doesn’t deserve you.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Caite whispered. She wasn’t sure she felt better about the situation with Rocco, but her mom never failed to make her feel better about herself.
“Let me know how it goes,” her mom ordered.
“I will.”
“I’ll let you go now. Get some sleep. I love you.”
“Love you too,” Caite told her. “Say hi to Dad for me and send him my love.”
“Of course. Be safe over there.”
“Always. I never leave the base…what trouble could I get into?” Caite told her.
“Right. Good night, honey.”
“Bye, Mom.”
“Bye.”
Caite clicked off the phone and curled up on her side in her bed once more. She shut her eyes. Sleep didn’t come easily—thoughts of why Rocco hadn’t shown up kept running through her head—but eventually she drifted off into an uneasy doze.
“Bingo!” Ace said.
The search wasn’t easy, between the darkness of the room, the dampness, and their injuries, but it looked like their persistence finally paid off.
Ace held up something wrapped in newspaper and smirked.
“Jesus!” Gumby exclaimed. “Put that down before you drop and break it!”
“I’m not going to drop it,” Ace said calmly and began to unwrap the newspaper. It was moldy and smelled funky, but none of the men noticed. They all hunched over the cuneiform tablet and stared at it in awe. It was light tan and there were etchings that they all knew was writing used in Mesopotamia. The fact that it was literally thousands of years old, and had survived, was truly a miracle.
“Holy shit,” Rocco said softly.
“How many are there?” Gumby asked.
Ace carefully wrapped the tablet back up and handed it to Rocco. Then he turned to the box and rifled through it for a moment. “Six.”
“Only six?” Rocco asked with a frown. He remembered Commander Horner telling him there were more.
“Yup.”
“We should keep looking,” Rocco said. “I think there’s supposed to be ten.”
Without complaint, the others nodded. It wasn’t as if they had anything else to do at the moment. They had to find those tablets before they made any escape attempt. Besides, the later it got, the better their chances of slipping out of the area undetected—providing they could even get out of the cellar. They’d overestimated their ability to blend into the dangerous neighborhood. Even with their beards and tan skin, they’d obviously stuck out.
Rocco glanced at his watch. Oh-one hundred. One in the morning. He hoped Caite was asleep, that she was okay. That she wasn’t too upset.
He’d never been in the middle of a mission and not been able to keep his mind from wandering to a woman. But this wasn’t just any random woman. He wondered what she was doing. What she was thinking. If she was all right.
He should be worrying about his own ass. About getting the hell out of the pit they were in. About finding the missing tablets.
But instead, all he could think about was how disappointed he was that he’d missed dinner with Caite. That he’d broken a promise. That he hadn’t been able to help her experi
ence life outside the naval base’s gates.
“Help me with this box,” Gumby said as he struggled to move a heavy box from the top of a large stack.
As Rocco helped his teammate, he vowed to get his head back in the game. The sooner they found the damn tablets, the sooner they might get the hell out of here…and he could get back to Caite and grovel for her forgiveness.
Caite knew she looked like hell. She’d slept a total of about two hours the night before. She had bags under her eyes and she hadn’t cared much what she’d thrown on to wear that morning. She hated working on the weekends, needing them to recharge herself. Usually she read a few books and just chilled in her apartment.
But today she was back at work, dealing with men who thought they were better than everyone else and trying to find her normal calm. The morning sessions preceding the job fair had gone off without a hitch, but the caterers were late and lunch had to be pushed back thirty minutes as a result, which threw off the afternoon schedule.
One of the lieutenants hadn’t been happy about it and he’d chewed her out. She didn’t mind being taken to task—except when it wasn’t her fault. But, as usual, she’d just stood there and nodded her head and did her best to mollify the junior officer. She got it, the man didn’t want to have to tell the attendees about the change in schedule, but shit happened.
The representatives for the organizations and businesses there for the job fair weren’t happy either. They’d set up interviews in advance, and now their schedules were all messed up. But again, it wasn’t her fault. She’d scheduled the caterers correctly, but one of their vans had gotten a flat tire on the way. The conference had run like clockwork until that point. If the attendees couldn’t deal with a delayed thirty-minute break for lunch, that wasn’t her problem.
Thankfully lunch was almost over, and Caite was sitting at one of the empty lunch tables in the large space, trying not to think about how she’d done something this morning that she never would have attempted before…namely, searching the computer for Rocco’s room number. It wasn’t as if she were selling state secrets or anything, but she still felt guilty. She’d found out that he and his friends were still marked down as having the rooms for another few days. They hadn’t left yet.
She had a pad of paper in front of her that she was doodling on, passing the time and trying to look busy so no one would interrupt her to chew her out again. She thought about what she wanted to say to Rocco. She was going to head over to the dorm after the job fair got underway and tell him what she thought of him—that he was a dick for standing her up.
Voices from behind caught her attention. She didn’t move, didn’t stop doodling, but she did blatantly listen in on their conversation. It was the same group of men who had been speaking in French the other day. The ones who had discussed what she’d be like in bed and wondered if she might want to take on five brothers at once. She couldn’t tell who was talking since her back was to the group, and she had to concentrate hard to understand their words, as they were speaking with what was obviously a dialect of their home country, but they weren’t talking about her this time.
No, they were talking about something much more terrifying.
* * *
“Why are we here? We need to get back to Pop’s place and kill those assholes!”
“Shhhh, keep your voice down!”
“We’re speaking in French. No one understands.”
“What about that bitch right there?”
“Her? Please. She’s American. Everyone knows Americans don’t bother to learn any language other than their own. Self-centered assholes.”
“How do you know?”
“Because. Watch. Hey! Bitch. I want you to come over here and suck my cock.”
* * *
Caite didn’t respond. She continued to look down at the paper in front of her and doodled as if she didn’t have a care in the world. Her heart was beating so hard she could barely hear anything over the thump thump thump. Every muscle in her body was tense, ready to spring to safety if she needed to. The lunch she’d recently eaten threatened to come up and she had to swallow hard several times to control the urge to barf.
There weren’t many times in her life when Caite had been scared. Truly terrified. But this was one of them. These men had spoken about her so crudely earlier that week. She could hardly think, she was so frightened. The last thing she needed on top of everything else going on in her life was to be sexually assaulted.
But there were lots of people still in the room. They wouldn’t just haul her out of her chair and force her to go with them…would they? She had no idea, and it didn’t help that her back was to the men. She couldn’t see if they were sneaking up on her. She wouldn’t be able to defend herself if they decided to do something. Shit. Shit. Shit.
* * *
“See?”
“Fine. But keep your voice down anyway.”
“Right. As I was asking. Why are we at this stupid conference instead of taking care of those soldiers at Pop’s shop?”
“Relax. They can’t get out.”
“But they’re in the cellar with the tablets! We need to get them out as soon as possible.”
“And we will. But we can’t do anything with those assholes down there.”
“So what? We just leave them down there? They aren’t magically going to disappear. We have to do something.”
“Guns.”
“What?”
“Guns. We need to shoot their asses. We should’ve offed them last night. We can go back and kill them.”
* * *
Caite’s heart was beating even faster now. Soldiers. In a shop. They had to be talking about Rocco, Ace, and Gumby…didn’t they? The conversation was confusing because they were talking so fast, and the accents didn’t help.
Thinking about the men she’d met being in trouble made the danger even more real. She’d been scared when these guys were talking about her, but knowing they were possibly talking about Rocco and the others was even scarier.
Caite thought about standing up and heading over to where a group of men were talking on the other side of the room, but she couldn’t make herself move. She was sweating at the same time she shivered with cold.
* * *
“Where are we gonna get a gun?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Chambers can help.”
“That asshole’s an American too. He doesn’t care about anything but getting those tablets to his buyer.”
“He’ll care if his precious tablets are confiscated by the US Navy.”
“Shut up, you two. Look, Henri’s right. Those guys aren’t going anywhere right now, but we can’t get to the tablets until we deal with them.”
“Are you sure they can’t get out?”
“Of course. They were all unconscious when we dumped them down there, and we fucked them up bad. Even if they did somehow manage to get to the hatch, we pulled that table over it that Pop uses to display the crafts and shit from back home. It’s heavy as hell.”
“What about the guns?”
“Can you think about anything other than guns for one second?”
“We need to kill them! They’ll come right back here and report us.”
“Of course they will. It’s not like they were there by accident. We’ll kill them, but not tonight. We need to lay low and establish our alibi. We’ll stay here and continue to pretend we’re interested in this shit. Then we need to be seen around our neighborhood to throw suspicion off of us. We’ll leave those assholes down there another night and go back Sunday evening.”
“And the gun?”
“I’ll take care of it. I know a guy.”
“Can I shoot one?”
“Not fair! I want to!”
“Shut up! God, you two are pathetic.”
“But there’s only three of them and five of us. I want to make sure I get in on the fun.”
“Fine, you can kill one. David can have another, and Marc can kill the last.”
“What are we gonna do with their bodies?”
“Leave ’em there to rot.”
“But…won’t they start to stink?”
“Yup. Pa will find them and call the cops. They’ll arrest him, Ma’ll have to go back to Gabon, and we’ll get the store. It’s the perfect solution. Don’t look at me like that, Emirck. You don’t want to go back home any more than the rest of us. It’s the only way.”
“I know, but—”
“No buts. You’re either with us or against us.”
“I’m with you.”
“Good. So we’re all on the same page? All right, then everyone spread out. And try to look a little interested in this shit. We’ll meet up after the job fair and head home. I’ll get the gun and we’ll head to the store around eight tomorrow night. Got it?”
“Yup.”
“Yes.”
“Good plan.”
“Cool.”
* * *
Three soldiers.
Caite could taste the bile at the back of her throat and was two seconds away from spewing all over the table, but when she saw movement to her left, she raised her head and forced her lips into a smile as three of the Gabonese men passed the table. They leered at her, and she mentally prayed that they weren’t about to attack. Seeing their intense stares, she forced herself to ask, “Everything all right?”
“Perfect,” the tallest of the men replied.
“Enjoy the rest of the conference,” she said as friendly as she could, and they continued walking.
They didn’t say anything else as they headed for the doors that led into the ballroom, where the job fair had been set up. She hadn’t even heard the announcement that the room was now open for the prospective applicants.
The second they disappeared, Caite jumped to her feet. She was shaking badly, but she forced herself to walk as quickly as possible, without running, to the door on the opposite side of the room.
