Lesson four: Time was wasting.
But the best lesson of all? It was better to kill than be killed.
The Corps’ steady mantra pounded in his head. Move it. Move it. Move it!
This particular den of torment had been constructed fairly well. The metal hooks in the ceiling were stout enough to hold an adult male’s weight. Hmm. Five/eighteenths-inch hex head, galvanized steel lag screws—the random thoughts of an over-stressed mind.
Lee recognized that errant observation for what it was worth, his brain’s attempt to divert his attention from the burgeoning hysteria of his impending terror. It worked. The simple knowledge that this playground of horror was every-day concrete, wood, and screws reduced its horror. This cell was nothing more than that of a high school gymnasium, a place where athletes were proved and tested. And Lee was in the test of his life.
Hoisting himself up, inch by steady inch, he climbed the chain until he could reach the hook with both hands. Very gradually, and because he was shaking from the exertion, he lifted his legs until he pressed into a tremendously difficult handstand, a true test of strength for a big guy like him, but one he’d made damned sure he learned back at The TEAM’s in-house gym. Agent Zack Lennox had taught him this move, God bless him.
Slowly, so as not to break his shaky center of gravity, Lee extended one leg until he could hook his heel into the neighboring hook. That was all he needed to reduce the pressure on his hands and forearms. He allowed a calming breath at that miniscule success. It put him in an upside-down position, but it allowed enough slack that he was able to lift the chain binding his hands off the hook. His hook. Nizari would look damned good hanging from it.
Still upside down, Lee jerked the fillet knife out of his bicep. It had gone in deep and it hurt as much exiting. Clamping his lips against the scream crawling up his throat, he allowed his pain to devolve into a groan before he tossed the blade aside. Finally free and fueled by rage, Lee dropped to the floor. He wasn’t able to walk the last time he’d left this wretched place. Tonight would be different.
Move it. Move it. Move it!
So far, so good. Bozo wasn’t back yet, and neither was his sidekick. Lee knew how these guys operated once they were pumped up on adrenaline. They were probably still running around trying to decide which battery to rob from whose truck. It wouldn’t do to steal the wrong one.
Blood flowed to Lee’s starved arm muscles. He flexed, shrugged off the pain, and prepared for the next step. He needed to be free of his manacles to be one hundred percent effective. The table should hold something to cut through the chains. He saw it then. His heart plummeted into his gut. A shiny silver crucifix on a gold chain lay among the instruments of all that promised pain. Shit. Somewhere in this shop of horrors, they had Tess.
He lifted her cross from the grimy table and hung it around his neck.
Hasim Nizari had better run for his goddamned life.
Nizari prowled.
Tess plotted.
He made her undress in front of him and clothe herself in the style of the harem, her nakedness barely covered by sheer veils, her face covered in the same manner. He forced her to kneel on a prayer rug in the middle of his grand room while he stalked her in ever-tightening circles. The shiny gold medallion at the center of the rug perplexed her, but the carpet beneath her knees was soft and luxurious.
He hadn’t physically hurt her yet, but he would. A vile rapist by nature, he was the lowest kind of pervert who used little girls, boys, and young women for his brutal pleasure. Why some of the Taliban suffered his deviant appetite only confirmed how they manipulated the holy books to suit their agenda. Or maybe it proved how little they really knew about the Quran. Did he ever invite them over to view his forbidden prizes? Did they know how many he’d hid from them? Did they care?
Nizari paused, his arms folded, his right hand curled under his chin in thought. Her nerves stretched taut, listening for another scream. Clenching one of the many veils of her ridiculous costume in her fingers, she planned Nizari’s demise by strangulation. Maybe if she played along, she could seduce him enough he’d lower his guard. Once he drew close, she’d choke the life out of him. Then she’d escape and rescue Lee. This was just a waiting game. Maybe—
“The only thing I like better than a woman on her knees...” Nizari withdrew another item from the cabinet, “…is the fear in her eyes when she realizes no one can save her; that she’ll soon give more of herself than she ever intended.”
Tess stopped breathing. She couldn’t make her lungs work. He’d lifted the object overhead like a prize and snapped his wrist forward. A serpentine crack of lightning bit the air, barely missing her ear. Her heart stuttered, her throat too dry to even whimper.
Nizari recoiled the wickedly long leather whip, its handle polished black. His upper lip lifted with a truly devious smile. “Shall we begin?”
After he cut the chains shackling his wrists, Lee dragged his pants on and loaded his pockets with all the weapons he could carry—knives, pliers, and road flares. The bolt cutters went into his rear pocket. The battery cables he draped over his neck. He left everything else behind.
Creeping barefooted toward the cell door, he heard his first victim grumbling. Bozo was on his way back. His sidekick might be on his heels, so Lee crouched low and waited, adrenaline hammering through his body. Killing these jokers might not be the smartest move, but he had to try. Doing nothing wasn’t an option.
When Bozo bumped the door open with his foot, Lee exploded. His right arm snaked out and he stuck the fillet knife in Bozo’s temple and left it there. Bozo dropped the battery with a small grunt and folded to the ground.
His sidekick must’ve thought he could accomplish what Bozo couldn’t, but Lee entertained the upstart for all of three seconds. Sidekick suffered under the delusion he was invincible. He hefted his own dagger from hand to hand like the expert he wasn’t. A kid should’ve known better. When he parried forward, Lee whipped the youngster’s face with the metal clamp of the cable before tangling it with the knife. Disarmed and surprised, Sidekick never stood a chance. Lee left him on the floor beside Bozo, the cable around his neck and his tongue sticking out.
Retrieving the knife from Bozo’s head, Lee wiped the blade on his thigh and pressed on. He shut the cell door and scanned the terrain. Same prison. Same bullshit. Different day. The evidence of the Corps’ last assault remained. Bomb craters and debris littered the expansive field between this house of horrors and Hasim Nizari’s home, if that was what you wanted to call a pigsty. Lights shone pleasantly golden from the windows, but none such pleasantry shone from the bullet-riddled wall of the prison cells.
Lee paused to listen. Taliban voices drifted through the night. The prisoners’ building was long and narrow with multiple doors facing the house. Tess had to be in one of them. He shuddered to think of her stripped and tortured like he’d been. Lee hunkered low and prepared to meet the enemy. They wouldn’t go easy, but they would go.
The first door yielded quietly, but there was no one inside, friend or foe. At the next Lee paused at the sound of groaning. Pressing the door open slowly, he caught sight of a young man hanging from the same type of hook and chains Lee had just escaped. A proud tattoo inked USMC across his bloodied, torn chest, and Lee saw red. The poor guy had been stripped down to his underwear, his chest lined with the precision cuts made by the master butcher, Nizari. A bearded man in a dirty tunic approached the poor guy with a lighted propane torch in his left hand, a pair of pliers in his right.
No fucking way.
Lee charged, opening a quick, gurgling smile below the enemy’s chin. The sick bastard never saw who killed him.
“You gonna make it?” Lee asked the startled Marine as he hurriedly extinguished the torch and lowered this poor victim to the floor. “You okay?”
“Hell, yeah.” The man crumbled, his nose to the dirt, his poor voice ragged and weak. “Ooh-rah. God bless America,” he choked out, spitting blood.
&n
bsp; “Whatever,” Lee muttered as he cocked an ear for trouble. They could sing anthems later. Any minute now someone would discover the bodies he’d left behind. “Can you walk?”
“Yes,” the man growled even though Lee suspected he couldn’t stand much less walk. Nizari liked to break a man’s feet, then run electrical cables around his toes to torture him while he stood back in the dark corner and watched his prisoner suffer.
This jarhead was in damned bad shape. Lee wanted to offer the same kindness that had been offered to him the night he’d been rescued. He wanted to tell this kid he was going home, but he couldn’t. Not yet. He had to find Tess first.
“What’s your name, Marine?” he asked gently as he crouched at the broken man’s side.
“USMC... Lance Corporal… Ky Winchester, sir,” Ky ground out. His face was swollen and bloodied. The poor kid couldn’t see, much less assist.
“Damned good to meet you, Ky. I’m USMC Corporal Lee Hart, buddy.” Lee pushed the knife handle into Ky’s bloody fingers. “You kill the first bastard that lays a hand on you, understand? Gut him like a fish if you can, but end him. Make him pay for everything he did to you.”
“Yes, sir,” Ky declared bravely, but even in the dark, Lee saw the kid’s lip quiver. Darkened blood smeared his face and chest, but there was nothing Lee could do for him.
“I’ve got another person to rescue. I’m coming back for you. You hear me?”
Ky nodded. It took Lee all the courage in the world to turn away. He offered the ex-prisoner one man-hug before he meant to stand. He never got to his feet. Ky grabbed him tight, clinging to him, shaking. “Sir,” he growled, his tough voice shattering into sobs. “Please don’t... don’t leave me here.”
Lee squeezed his eyes tight and pulled the man into his own bloody arms. The guy needed a moment, so Lee gave it to him. They held onto each other like only brothers in Hell could do, while Lee hugged some promise back into the kid. “How long you been in here, son?”
“F-five days, I think. Maybe more.”
Lee sniffed his emotion back, biting his lip hard. Five days was an eternity, but he had to leave. “Marines never lie, do we?”
“N-no, sir,” Ky responded, the top of his sweaty head pressed tight under Lee’s chin and his fingers tight on his neck. “W-we never lie,” he panted. “We never quit. We never f-f-fucking forget, either.”
“Good answer. I’m not lying to you now, Ky. I will be back, but you gotta let me go. I’ve got more folks to save than just you.” Lee pressed the knife handle into Ky’s palm again. “Take this. There’s others in this shithole who need my help. I can’t leave them here any more than I’m gonna leave you. You understand?”
Ky sucked in a deep breath. “Yes, sir.” His fingers relaxed and he pulled back, cradling the knife against his ragged chest, huffing for a full breath. God, the kid was a mess. It looked like someone had specifically targeted the USMC tattoo on his chest, turned him to hamburger, the edges of the eagle and globe all the was left. “Oohrah,” Ky offered again, and Lee had to turn away. The kid might be scared, but he was alive.
Lee started for the door when the sad question reached him. “Sir? Was... was I... alone?”
What could he say? “Except for that dead guy with the torch, yeah. Why?”
The Marine’s poor bloody lip quivered. “No... lady with green eyes?”
Lee jerked to vigilance, damn it. He might’ve arrived too late. This kid wasn’t only half beat to death, he was losing his mind. Lee couldn’t leave him sitting in the dark thinking he was crazy, though. He had to give Ky some kind of normal to hang onto, so he opted for guy talk. “I sure as hell hope not. Stop dreaming, kid. You’ve already got it made. Ladies like guys with scars. Now shut up and sit tight. I’ll be right back.”
The kid was tearing his heart out, but Lee had to get to Tess before time ran out. The next cell door revealed another man in chains, but seated on the ground and not in as bad shape. Petty Officer First Class Jack Snowden wanted payback, but Lee used the bolt cutters on the chain, then sent him to Ky with an order to clear out and get their asses to safety.
“Be careful,” he warned Jack. “Ky’s in rough shape, and he’s got a knife. He’s just inside the door so talk to him. Let him know who you are. He’s scared to death, and he can’t see. He will hurt you.”
“Aye, Cap’n,” Jack answered. “You can count on me. I’ll take good care of ’im.”
Two more doors to go. More Afghan voices, and Lee realized he’d stumbled on an interrogation. He paused to get his bearings. The person being questioned said nothing. Tess would be like that, stubborn and giving her abductors more trouble than they expected.
The thought of her alone in a room full of brutish soldiers triggered Lee’s rage. He hefted his last knife in his right hand, the heavy bolt cutters in his left. Easing inside the cell without making a noise, he caught sight of two Taliban soldiers, their prisoner kneeling on the floor between them as they stood on the backs of his legs. It wasn’t Tess, but damn…
The third Taliban soldier gripped the prisoner’s hair, pulling his head too far back and berating him in one of the forty different languages of Afghanistan. The cruel man produced a long curved knife. This wasn’t an interrogation; this was an execution.
The fool about to kill the prisoner looked up just in time to glimpse Lee’s knife before it cleaved his forehead. He fell flat to his back with a strangled curse for all infidels on his lying lips.
Charging, Lee swung the bolt cutter from left to right, blasting its weight into the nearest soldier’s temple while he landed a kick in the other’s gut at the same time. The American prisoner collapsed to the floor. Lee relieved the first terrorist of the knife at his belt as he fell, and skewered his bearded friend straight through his heart with it. Neither offered much resistance after that. Three down and adrenaline pumped fast and hard through Lee.
“Who are you?” the man on the floor muttered through a mouthful of blood. “Superman?”
“USMC Corporal Lee Hart,” Lee declared proudly. It felt good to hear it said correctly, expressed with courage instead of just stoic endurance in a place so bleak. He was a Marine; might as well be Superman. “Who are you, soldier?”
“Army Captain Ross Carter. I want to go home.”
“Don’t we all? Can you walk?” Lee asked, hating that he had to be tough on a man so battered.
“Yes, sir, I can.” Tears and blood poured down Ross’s face.
Lee gentled his voice as he helped the guy to his shaky feet. “I’m not gonna lie, Ross. It’s just you and me and we’re surrounded. Two other U.S. soldiers have been freed, but more Taliban are sneaking around this camp. Can I count on you to help me rescue the other prisoners? Can you see to do that?”
Ross nodded, and that was good enough for Lee. He grabbed one of the three AK-47s leaned against the wall, shouldered one of the others, and tossed the third to Ross. Together they relieved the dead men of their bandoliers and another pack of road flares. God only knew what they’d meant to do with them.
“You good?” Lee asked before they cleared the door.
“I’m damned good,” Ross growled. “Let’s kick some ass.”
Nizari wanted her to cower, but Tess didn’t have it in her. Still kneeling, she stiffened her spine and prepared for the lash. So far he’d just stalked and talked, explaining how filthy American women were, how weak and physically inferior to Afghan men. The man was a study in psychotic behavior, explaining how he preferred a woman’s screams of pain to her screams of rapture. The bizarre thought of him ever pleasuring a woman enough to make her scream boggled Tess’s mind. That he was evil was evident. That he’d break her? Another story entirely.
The whip cracked incredibly close to her leg, so close she felt its whisper of promised agony slither along her bare skin. It carved a sharp trail in the plush carpet as he pulled it back to his hand like a long, black snake. It hadn’t hit her yet, but the lash would come, and once he started, he wou
ldn’t stop. She might die, but she refused to cower to evil.
He flipped a switch on the cabinet and that odd gold cap in the middle of the floor moved, revealing a brass post beneath it. Swiftly, he grabbed her hands and secured her wrists through the ropes on the post before it finished rising. Her heart pounded. By the time the post stopped moving, her arms were stretched over her head. Tess couldn’t breathe. This room wasn’t a museum. It was Nizari’s private torture chamber, complete with a whipping post.
“Hold on, Miss Culver,” the real snake in the room hissed, snapping the whip again. “Your lesson is about to begin.”
Ross was slowing Lee down as much as the Taliban who’d just arrived at Nizari’s.
“Shhh,” he cautioned Ross, watching Nizari’s yard through the barely cracked door. He’d spotted three soldiers patrolling the place, another shadowing them. Too soon those guys would realize their prisoners had escaped and their buddies were dead. Lee needed to take the remaining guards out before they raised an alarm. The question was how. “You up for show and tell?”
Ross cocked a brow at him. “I’m up for anything that’ll let me kill these bastards, sir.”
“You know any Pashto? Arabic?” Lee asked as he laid both AK-47’s in front of him.
“I speak some Urdu.”
“Good.” Lee knelt, his back to the door. “Put your rifle out of sight. I want you to scream the worst Urdu bullshit you can come up with. Berate me. Hit me. Make it convincing. Let’s lure these last four assholes into this cell and finish them off.”
Ross shook his head. “Sorry. I can’t do that. I ain’t hitting you, sir. Not after you just saved my life.”
Lee put a stop to that foolish sentiment. They could cry later when they were singing anthems with Winchester. “Just do it, Carter. Let’s kill them and get the hell out of here.”
Ross nodded, sucked in a deep shaky breath, and bellowed a tirade of angry rhetoric that made Lee smile. Ross sounded like the real deal. He slapped his hands together, making it sound as if he’d struck Lee, then bellowed louder.
Lee (In the Company of Snipers Book 12) Page 25
