Edge of Courage (Edge Security Series Book 5)

by Loye, Trish

  Yusef stepped into her line of vision, his gun held steady and pointed at her face. It took her a long moment before she stopped struggling. “My name is Yusef al-Basri. But you might know me as the Executioner.”

  “Fond of that name, are you?” she said in a cool voice, though her heart beat hard. “Personally, I think it’s a little overdramatic.”

  “Dahab,” he called over his shoulder.

  A veiled woman stepped through the doorway, holding a wooden box with leather straps attached and a short whip. Dahab carried her specialty in her hands. Sarah no longer feared rape for the moment, but she knew what that box was for. Another soldier stepped in the room behind Dahab. He held down Sarah’s legs, and no matter how much she struggled, she couldn’t fight the three of them. The other two soldiers tied her hands to the metal frame above her head and then helped hold her legs in place so the woman could place the box under her calves.

  The box elevated her legs so her feet were about a foot off the bed. The soldiers pulled off her boots and strapped her legs to the box before tying the box to the bed. Sarah could buck her hips but that was it. The straps across her shins were tight and didn’t allow for wiggle room. Her hands had a bit more leeway, but it would take too long for her to loosen the bonds to escape.

  Fuck. This was not good.

  Her chest heaved with her panting breath. She tried to control it so they wouldn’t sense her fear. But from the smile on Yusef’s face, he knew.

  “I’m so glad you took off your veil,” he said. “I do like to see facial expressions when I ask questions and while Dahab…persuades you to answer them.” He smiled. “Are you ready?”

  “Fuck. You.”

  “Let’s begin. Dahab.”

  A quick movement at the end of the bed. A loud crack sounded, and pain seared the bottoms of her feet like a hot brand, blistering her soles. She couldn’t stop her cry of agony.

  “Tell me who you are.”

  She clenched her teeth against the throbbing in her feet. She would not cry out again. Yusef nodded at Dahab.

  The snap of the whip was her warning. She braced, but it wasn’t enough as pain sheared her brain. Tears welled in her eyes. She shut them.

  No. No crying, Sarah. Think of Dylan. He’d want you to be strong.

  “Did your husband murder the soldier? Did he steal sabaya?” Yusef’s voice was soft, almost soothing.

  She grunted at the next strike, the soles of her feet on fire, unable to stop her body from twisting, trying to arch away from the pain. At least she knew Dylan and the girls had gotten out if Yusef didn’t know where they were.

  “Where is your husband? Why did he really come to Mosul?”

  The next strike tore at her. She grunted and squeezed her eyes shut and yet tears still leaked out.

  “You are more than a simple Muslim woman,” he said. “Tell me who you are.”

  She couldn’t stop the sound that clawed from her throat with the next hit.

  “Just tell me what I want to know,” he said gently, leaning over her.

  She narrowed her eyes and panted through the pain, trying to get enough air to speak. “Fuck. You.”

  He scowled and straightened. “I have a meeting, Dahab,” he said. “Give her ten lashes. Make her talk.” He left the room.

  The soldiers followed Yusef out. With just the two of them in the room, Dahab took off her face veil. Malicious intent radiated from her eyes. “A good Muslim does not enjoy inflicting pain on other people.” She caressed the short whip in her hands. “But you are not people. You have forsaken Allah and Islam, kuffar. And I will relish your pain.”

  “You are so fucked up,” Sarah said.

  Sarah’s back arched when the whip came down on her feet. Again and again. She clenched her teeth. She only had to make it through ten. The blinding pain made her unaware of her surroundings. Tears ran down her cheeks and pooled in her ears as Dahab whipped her.

  A pause. Blessed relief from the lightning strikes on her feet. Sarah panted and sagged limply into the cot. Her pulse pounded in her feet, the skin so tight she felt it would split open if touched.

  “Are you going to answer the questions?” Dahab asked.

  “Fuck y—”

  The whip cracked against her soles. The agony was so unexpected after the break that she cried out.

  She managed to catch her breath. “You’ve done more than ten.”

  “I am going to continue until you talk,” she said with a sly smile. “After all, I am a dutiful member of the al-Khansa Brigade.”

  “You’re a fucking psychopath.”

  The whip fell again.

  And that was when she knew she wasn’t going to survive. She would either die by torture or by the bombs coming that evening. The lash seared her and she let the tears fall. Maybe it was fitting that she die alone. At least Dylan was safe.

  She swallowed a scream from the next strike. Regret mingled with the agony of her feet. Her body felt heavy even as the pain seared her nerves. Why hadn’t she told Dylan that she cared? What would it have cost her?

  “Tell me what I want to know!” Dahab started to hit her faster.

  Sarah didn’t bother to hold back her screams after that.

  * * *

  Dylan’s skin itched with the need to get to Sarah. After he’d seen the van park at the headquarters building and Sarah hauled inside, he’d peeled out of there before anyone could become suspicious of the pickup parked near the building.

  He slowed as he approached the house he and Sarah had shared this last week. From a block away, he could see the white pickup with the ISIS sign on the doors parked out front. A man sat at the wheel, while another stood at the front gate.

  Fuck.

  His jaw clenched. Had they found Jalila?

  He yanked on the wheel and turned at the corner before his block. He drove down a back street to the parking lot behind their building.

  He couldn’t see any other ISIS trucks nearby. He parked and got out. “Girls, stay out of sight. Besma, I’m going to get Jalila; then we’ll go somewhere safe.” He spoke in Russian, hoping one of them would understand.

  Besma sat up and said something in Arabic.

  Dylan growled in exasperation and Besma shrank back. “There are ISIS fighters inside. I need you to stay out of sight.”

  She shook her head and babbled again.

  He didn’t have time for this.

  “Stay!” He pointed at the truck bed. He pulled Sarah’s Makarov from under his shirt. Besma squeaked and huddled down with the other girls. He hoped to God they stayed put.

  He dismissed them from his mind for the moment and ran to the back door of the town house. He slipped up beside it and listened. Something crashed inside and a man laughed. Dylan didn’t hear Jalila. He prayed she was okay and safe in the hidden room.

  He was going in blind, but he didn’t have time to do a proper recce. The longer Sarah was in ISIS’s filthy hands, the greater the chance of her being killed. He took three deep breaths, trying to slow his heart so he could steady his shot once inside.

  He eased open the door. The men’s voices became clearer. Two of them, speaking Arabic. One searched in one of the bedrooms and one was pulling open drawers and cupboards in the kitchen.

  Dylan slipped into the room. A floorboard creaked. The man in the kitchen whirled, but Dylan already had his gun trained on him. He shot him twice in the chest and then once in the head.

  Dylan crouched. The other man ran out yelling, his gun firing at chest height. Dylan killed him easily.

  He flung open the back door and then went into Sarah’s bedroom, standing just to the side of the door. He narrowed his gaze to focus on the front door.

  Any second now.

  The final two soldiers burst into the house. They ran from one body to the next and then finally to the back door. They stood at it for a moment, looking out. It was all he needed.

  He stepped out of his hiding place and shot one in the head and then the other as
he turned. He strode to the front door, shut and locked it. Then he pulled the bodies from the back entranceway and shut that door too.

  He ran down the basement steps; he only had moments if the soldiers had called reinforcements before they’d come in.

  “Jalila!” He pulled open the door to the hidden room. Jalila huddled on the cot, hugging her knees.

  “Dylan!” She scrambled to her feet and launched herself at him.

  He hugged her. “It’s okay, kid. I got you.”

  He set her aside as he powered up the encrypted laptop and signaled E.D.G.E.

  “We have a problem,” he said without preamble.

  Blackwell was on the other side. “Go.”

  “They’ve captured Ghost. She’s in their HQ.”

  Blackwell cursed. “Can you get her back? Do we need to abort the drone strike?”

  Dylan scowled. Did the man only ever think about the mission? “I’ll get her back.”

  “And the strike?”

  Dylan calculated the timing of the bombing run. He had two hours. Not nearly enough time to get the girls to the exfil and then return to get Sarah out. If anything went wrong…

  No. A special operations soldier learned not to think like that. He had the capabilities. There were risks involved but he could handle them. “Keep the strike on. Ghost has worked too hard to get the locations for it to be stopped. I’ll get her out.”

  Blackwell nodded. “See that you do. Tea-man is at the primary exfil location in the city. Keep us informed. Hawk out.” He cut the transmission.

  Dylan turned off the laptop and gathered weapons and ammo.

  “Besma?” Jalila’s eyes shone brightly.

  Dylan smiled and nodded. “Yes. Besma.” Then he pulled an extra Sig Sauer from the high shelf. Sarah would need one.

  “Thank you, Dylan,” she said in halting English.

  He nodded. “Anytime, kiddo.”

  Jalila said something in Arabic.

  Dylan didn’t look up but kept packing rounds into an extra mag for the weapon. “I don’t understand, kid.”

  “Sarah?” she said.

  He looked up at her then. Her eyes were wide.

  He pressed his lips together. “I’m going to get her back.” He snapped the magazine into the weapon and slid it into the holster at the small of his back. “Let’s go.”

  On the way out, he opened the cookie jar Sarah kept in the room. In it was a single flash drive. He snatched it up and raced up the stairs, Jalila on his heels.

  Jalila and Besma shrieked and cried when they saw each other. He threw the tarp over them in the truck bed and left them to their reunion while he drove them to the auto shop on the southwestern edge of the city. Dylan took the pickup right into the garage. He jumped out.

  “Rakin! You here?” he called in Russian.

  Rakin slipped out of the office. “Where’s Sarah?”

  “There’s been a problem.”

  Rakin eyed the five girls climbing out of the truck bed. “I can see that. Tell me.”

  Dylan explained what had happened. “They’ve got her.”

  “Where?”

  “Headquarters. But I don’t know where.”

  Rakin ran a hand through his hair. “Shit. There’s holding cells on each floor of that building.”

  Dylan’s stomach sank at the news. He shook it off. He would find her no matter what. “Can Zahir help?”

  “Maybe.” Rakin shook his head. “He should know where she is. I’d better be the one to go and talk to him. I don’t think he’ll talk to you.”

  Dylan held up a hand. “I need you to get the girls out. I can get inside.”

  “What about Zahir?”

  “I’ve got him handled. You look after the girls.”

  On his way to the truck, even though he ached to race out of the garage and back to Sarah, he paused in front of Jalila, who still clutched Besma’s hand. He went down to one knee.

  “I’m not saying good-bye,” he told her in English, knowing she didn’t understand. But he had to say something.

  She smiled—a soft, sad smile. “Shukraan, Dylan.”

  “I’m glad I met you, kid. I hope you find the rest of your family.”

  She leapt into his arms and he squeezed her tight. “Sarah,” she whispered.

  He set Jalila aside. “I’m going to bring her out.”

  Less than a minute later, he sped toward the ISIS HQ. Rakin had made a phone call that was either going to help Dylan or kill him.

  It wasn’t long before he abandoned the truck a block from the HQ. He listened and stayed alert as he made his way through the alleys to the steel-doored kitchen entrance. He clenched his teeth and waited for the guards to patrol by. Once they turned the corner, he ran to the door, his muscles tense, expecting a trap.

  Unlocked.

  He eased the door open. Zahir waited inside, smoking. He straightened and flicked the cigarette away. “Do you have it?”

  “Show me where she is first.”

  Zahir bared his teeth. “Fine.”

  21

  Sarah blinked her eyes open. She was alive and alone in the room. She wasn’t sure which surprised her more. Dahab had left. Sarah must have blacked out at some point.

  But she hadn’t told them anything. At one point, she’d just been chanting curse words in Arabic, trying to hold on to her sanity. Her secrets only had to stay hidden until tonight. She had to give Dylan and the girls a chance to escape, or all of this would have been for nothing.

  She swallowed. Her throat was raw from screaming. She sagged deeper into the bed. They would eventually break her. Everyone broke when enough pain was applied for long enough. Most special operations soldiers hoped to last for twenty-four hours, enough time for the information they gave up to be considered outdated. But really, after tonight and the drone strike, none of it would matter. She and anyone left in this building would be dead. And the city would be in chaos from the bombs hitting ISIS locations all over the city.

  Her whole body ached and her feet were on fire, pulsing with pain. She still wore the abaya over her clothes, though her headscarf had come off with her thrashing. She wanted to just curl up and hide, but they would be coming back. And she had no idea when. Her mouth went dry at that thought and she could feel her body shake.

  No, she wouldn’t let fear rule her. She could do this, take advantage of the situation. She had her knives and she was alone. If she actually got free, she didn’t think she’d be able to escape the building or get very far. She gritted her teeth. But she sure as fuck was not going to lie here and wait for them to beat her again.

  She ignored the pain blazing through her with each movement and wiggled her way as close to the head of the metal frame as possible. It created a little slack in the rope tying her hands to the frame. Her legs and feet stretched, trying to give her more room to move her arms.

  She studied the rope tied around each wrist and then looped through the frame. She had enough movement that she could bend her elbows halfway.

  Perfect.

  They’d forgotten one thing when they’d forced her onto the bed: No one had checked her for weapons. She still had a knife strapped to one forearm. By angling her other wrist, she could touch the hilt.

  Voices and footsteps sounded outside her room, coming nearer. She swallowed hard and twisted her arm. She could just manage to grip the hilt. The voices grew louder.

  Her heart skipped a beat when she heard them outside the door. Should she stop or keep going? She slid the knife out. She wasn’t going to let them beat her again.

  The voices passed her door and kept going. She sagged onto the mattress for just a moment before setting the knife against the rope between her wrists and sawing with the blade. It was awkward, and her body strained to keep the position she needed, but she gritted her teeth and kept going. They could come back at any moment. She had no idea how long she’d been out or what time it was.

  She panted and her palms sweated, making it harder to
grip the knife. She clenched the handle and took deep breaths. Panic would not rule her.

  The rope frayed under the blade. She sawed harder, working the knife back and forth, putting as much pressure on the hilt as she could with her angled wrists.

  In the hall, footsteps sounded; the heavy stride indicated soldiers.

  Please, not Yusef and his guard. She wasn’t through the rope yet. She was down to the last threads. Almost there. She pressed as hard as she could, her movements becoming as frenzied as her thoughts.

  A deep voice spoke outside in the hall. Keys rattled.

  The rope between her wrists snapped. She sat up and undid the strap binding her legs to the box with a couple of tugs. The doorknob turned.

  She grabbed a second knife from her waist sheath and then lay down, stretching her arms back overhead to the rope. She held the knives by the hilts along her forearms under the sleeves of her shirt. She took a deep breath to calm herself and closed her eyes. She could do this. She had to.

  She prayed her hands wouldn’t shake.

  “I know you’re awake,” Yusef said.

  She opened her eyes. “You got me.”

  “Tell me what you know,” he said. “Or better yet, don’t and I’ll have Dahab whip you again. She told me of how you screamed. It would be amusing to hear you.”

  Yusef only had one guard this time, who stood by the door. Dahab positioned herself near the end of the bed. The best place for striking the soles of her feet. Her gaze flicked to Sarah’s feet. Her eyes widened and her mouth opened.

  It was time.

  Sarah looked at the guard. Specifically at his throat. He frowned.

  She jerked upright, kept focused on her target and threw the knife in her right hand, snapping her wrist at the end. Without waiting to see whether it struck true, she turned to her next target and threw the knife in her left hand.

  The guard at the door dropped with a thud and made no further sound. The hilt of her knife stuck out of his throat. Yusef stumbled back from the bed, her knife sticking out of his gut. She scowled. She’d fumbled the throw.