by Lisa Hughey
Table of Contents
Title Page
COPYRIGHT
Dedication
PRAISE FOR BLOWBACK
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-THREE
THIRTY-FOUR
THIRTY-FIVE
THIRTY-SIX
THIRTY-SEVEN
THIRTY-EIGHT
THIRTY-NINE
FORTY
FORTY-ONE
FORTY-TWO
FORTY-THREE
FORTY-FOUR
FORTY-FIVE
Thank you for reading BETRAYALS!
Acknowledgments
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
EXCERPT OF BLOWBACK
EXCERPT OF STONE COLD HEART
BETRAYALS
A Black Cipher File
by
Lisa Hughey
COPYRIGHT
Lisa Hughey
February 2012
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.
Dedication
This story is, at its core, about parental sacrifice and the lengths we will go to, obsess over, and ultimately employ to protect our children. I don’t think our children ever fully understand the powerful swell of love we feel for them, hidden beneath the nagging to clean up their room and do their homework. Every hug we give them, every shoulder to cry on, every word of praise still doesn’t impart the tremendous and awesome impact of that love in our hearts.
To R, K, and R, I love you so much. Thank you for loving me back and leaving me alone to write.
PRAISE FOR BLOWBACK
Nanci K. writes:
I'm a huge fan of Sandra Brown, and Lisa Hughey is giving her a great run for her money....
Kerri writes:
...this book kept me guessing to the end. Loved the characters and the story line.
LGC Smith writes:
...If you like Elizabeth Lowell, you'll like Hughey. Both the plot and the romance get equal attention, and Lucas is exactly the man for Jamie, even if she's really committed to shutting him out. She has good reasons, which keeps the tension high. Blowback is a super satisfying read.
ONE
Disinformation n. Deliberate spreading of false information with intent to mislead.
August 31, Afghanistan
Something snuffled in the corner.
I curled my arm protectively around the meager bowl of whatever they’d brought me. No stinking rodent was going to touch my daily ration.
The dank smell of urine-soaked sand, feces, and human sweat filled the fetid air. A thin layer of grit and despair coated everything, including my tongue. I vowed never to set foot on a beach again.
Probably wouldn’t anyway. As I was likely to die in this godforsaken rat hole of a prison. I scooped the cooked until mush food into my mouth greedily, careful not to spill a single grain.
Hard to believe that just a month ago, Jordan and I had been dining on spice-rubbed porterhouse and chipotle garlic mashed potatoes in D.C.
That life was long gone. The contrast between then and now was laughable.
Then, I’d dabbed daintily at my mouth with a soft linen napkin. Now, I lapped the bowl with my sand-coated tongue and carefully sucked on each dirt-crusted finger.
If malnutrition didn’t kill me, the germs probably would.
I could hear the woman, our chef, server, and general attendant, coming. But I wasn’t finished.
Fuuuuuccckkkkk. I screamed the expletive silently. I’d learned brutally fast that cursing out loud, especially from a woman, in this prison was taboo.
One by one, the locks clicked open. I huddled over the tiny tin bowl, licking with short, frantic strokes, trying to eat it all before she took my food away. My arm chains clanked as they swung together, ringing in the silence. I ignored the stabs of extreme pain in my left arm.
The woman scurried in furtively and eased the door closed.
This was a change in routine. Subtly, I shifted to a higher state of alertness. The bruises, aches, and burns from the last ‘change in routine’ still hadn’t healed. I hadn’t had a beating or torture session in a few days. They’d left me alone.
I was pretty sure the radius bone in my left forearm arm was broken. Fortunately not the ulna and not my shooting arm.
“Miss,” she whispered in Pashto.
I didn’t answer. I didn’t know how much they knew about my background and I wasn’t about to give anything away.
“Miss.” This time she whispered in Dari.
I remained silent.
“Miss.” Next it was Modern Standard Arabic. Something must have flickered in my eyes because she continued in Modern Standard. “Come. I will let you go.”
My brain whirred. It had to be a trap. The were going to let me go and then follow me. Thinking I’d lead them to whatever they thought I had.
Common torture tactic. Slowly break down all barriers to civilized behavior until the prisoner was more animal than human. Then dangle the carrot of freedom and watch the animal lunge for it.
If I was in their shoes, that was what I would do.
I sat quietly, waiting for her next move.
She started to strip off her burkha.
That wasn’t right. A woman showing her face, her arms, her legs was not tolerated. Especially not in front of the prisoners. Walking around without the covering meant certain death.
Maybe that was the test.
They were waiting to see if I’d react with compassion. Would I think of someone else before myself? I analyzed each possible reaction and action for this situation.
One. Take the burkha and take my chances. But what about the woman?
Two. Help her put the burkha back on. And stay.
Three. Stay still and do nothing.
Inaction was always my least favorite response. And I’d been trapped in this prison for two weeks. But I stayed still.
As she lifted the veiled hood from her face, she was crying. They’d coerced her into doing this. She knew as well as I, she’d be dead if she set foot out of this cell without the covering.
“Put the burkha back on,” I whispered in Pashto.
“They are going to kill you.” The rough wool tangled in her hair, muffling her voice.
And what do you think they’re going to do to you?
I wanted to be free. But not at the expense of this woman. I wrapped my arms over my chest, stifling a gasp as the wrist cuff banged my injured forearm. “Go back to your duties.”
“My slavery.” She spit. She knelt beside me and jiggled the key to open the shackles. “You must go.”<
br />
The glob of mucus lay in the middle of the sand and dirt floor. “No.”
“They killed my xawand.” She stood in the middle of the room, proud and fierce, dressed exactly like me in a grey cotton shift. “They killed my mashums.”
Her husband. Her babies. Her family.
I understood that kind of loss.
I understood the rage and the grief. I understood the unquenchable lust for revenge. I’d used the emotions on more than one occasion to recruit agents for the CIA.
The same had been used on me.
I shouldn’t trust her. Maybe this was all an elaborate ruse, and I was falling straight into a dangerous con, but somehow her words rang true. The grief and rage in her eyes was not fake. She gripped my hands with a fierce strength.
But I still couldn’t trust her.
“Why did they kill them?”
“They forced my xawand to carry the drugs across the border. He didn’t want to do it, but the village warlord, his own father, wanted the money.”
Her situation wasn’t uncommon. The number of widows was on the rise because of men being forced to be drug mules. So it was possible....
“My xawand, he left and never returned. He was a shepherd, a farmer, not a drug dealer.”
And her babies? Somehow I couldn’t ask. The logical assumption was malnutrition, starvation, or sad victim of exploding land mines.
De-mining was the main focus of the work I did with UNOCHA.
“Why let me go?”
Her body was stiff with the measure of her rage. In her eyes, I didn’t see fear or desperation, only a deep, unwavering resolve.
“A woman should not be a prisoner. A woman should have rights. A woman’s children should be safe.” Her voice broke.
“You’re right.” I still couldn’t figure out what was in it for her. “But what does letting me go accomplish?”
“They speak of you with fear. With awe. You have the power to help change this life, this country.” She gripped my hands more tightly. “You will see. You will make them stop.”
“I don’t have that kind of power.” Was she saying she knew I worked for the CIA? Or was she referencing my ties to UNOCHA?
“You have far more power than I.” A calm settled over her face. “What they are doing is wrong. You must stop them.”
“What about you?”
She shook her head. “If you leave now, you will have one day before they realize you are missing. Go now.”
I looked at her. For some reason, she had latched onto me as her salvation. I knew, if I left, she would be doomed.
“Why now?”
“They are going to kill you. In the morning.”
That statement tipped the scale. Fighting the injustices of these people’s lives was my crusade, but justice for myself was a reason to survive. A reason for revenge. A reason to live.
Someone had set me up. Someone had wanted me to die.
However, I couldn’t let this woman be punished.
My heart thumped in my chest. “Come with me.”
“No. There must be a body here for the middle of the night check.”
She was right. There was a night check, usually when the moon was high, so the guards could see without a light inside the small rectangular cell built halfway into the ground.
“What will happen to you?”
“They will beat me.” She gently un-shackled my wrists. “But the punishment will be worth your freedom. This is the only way I can make a difference.”
And wasn’t that what we all wanted? To make a difference? She had no power in her world. This gesture was the one thing she could do, the one action she could undertake of her own free will, to influence the world around her, to hopefully bring peace and safety to this region.
How could I take that away from her? Her power to choose?
I couldn’t.
It spoke to how worn down, how completely exhausted I was that I let her put the burkha over me. I listened mutely as she gave me detailed directions to her village and instructions for once I arrived.
“My father-in-law is the warlord. Do not let him catch you,” she cautioned. “He does not believe in the rights of women.”
In the back of my mind, I kept waiting for my tormentors to burst in, to grab us both. I steeled myself for the final betrayal. But the halls, if you could call them that, stayed blessedly silent.
What the hell. If I was going to die, it might as well be trying to escape rather than being eaten alive by the rats in my cell or beaten to death by my captors. “What is your name?”
“Fariya.”
“Shukran.” Thank you, I whispered.
She cradled my face in her raw, work-roughened hands and kissed both of my filthy cheeks tenderly, like a mother blessing a child.
“Asalamu alaykum.” Peace on you.
“Alaykum asalam.” And on you peace.
Unable to shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong, I asked her again. “Are you okay?”
“I will be as soon as you are gone.” She bowed her head in deference.
I refused to put the chains on her. I closed the door, locked the locks and ascended the primitive stairs to the exit. I gripped the keys between my fingers, ready to gouge out the eyes of any attackers. Ready to defend myself from the onslaught I was sure must be coming.
This was too easy.
A puddle of Afghani wine, with its sickly sweet odor, was soaking into the dirt floor in front of the exit. She’d drugged the guards. They slumped back against the wall, white ceramic mugs with a blue kite logo loosely clasped in their hands.
Fantastic. Apparently corporate sponsorship had traveled all the way to rural Afghanistan.
I peered out the arched doorway into the late evening sky. Nothing moved. A slight breeze whistled through a sparse copse of ash trees. Somewhere a small rodent scuttled away as the laughing cackle of hyenas tore through the air. Nothing human moved in the dead of night.
I stepped out of the doorway, pausing. I still had the keys clenched in my hand. I could turn around, return to the cell before anyone missed me, and save Fariya.
Reflexively my fingers went to the hollow in my neck, but my mother’s amulet wasn’t there. I thought of Fariya, her commitment, her sacrifice. My promise. Was I really going to do this?
I was.
I took a tentative step, then another. I stared up at the clear night sky, orienting myself by the constellations. I needed to travel east. Fariya’s village was ten miles away. I had minimal time to make my way there, steal food, clothing, and weapons, and be gone.
Using their primitive yet effective warning system, I kept track of the painted white rocks marking the border between safety and sudden death, and kept clear of the painted red rocks, indicating land mines. I stared hard at the ground, looking for other footprints to lead me in safe passage.
Soon I was running, a loping awkward gait from the still tender wound in my right leg. But I was free.
For the first time in two weeks, I was free.
TWO
September 1, Afghanistan
6:00 am
Arabic letters in peeling paint over the arched wooden doors proclaimed this the village of Zaman Khalili.
I crouched behind a gooseberry bush and surveyed the walled compound. Behind me and to the right was a giant field of freshly harvested poppy plants. The bulbous cheerful heads bobbed in the morning breeze.
The sun would rise soon. Light had begun to bleed up from the rocky desert.
Fariya’s sandals had been too small for me, so I'd left them behind. Now my bare feet were raw from the harsh, unforgiving sand and miles of agony. I glanced behind me again, to be sure I wasn’t leaving giant bloody footprints like a big, fat arrow pointing to my position.
I assessed the compound but couldn’t wait much longer. Just as Fariya had described, a six foot high wall circled the living quarters, the only entrance and exit, the enormous locked gates.
The sun had cre
sted the horizon and soon the village would wake for the day.
And the guards would be posted.
I needed to get in, get out, and get gone.
So far, Fariya’s directions had been perfect. I found the small dip in the ground along the far wall where children snuck out to play.
I slid head first into the depression in the ground. If I hadn’t been nearly starved for the last two weeks, I would have gotten stuck. As it was my butt barely cleared the bottom of the wall.
When most of my body had emerged on the other side, I lay bowed in the hole with my right cheek flat on the cool morning sand, maintaining surveillance. Waiting, watching. A snake, hopefully not poisonous, slithered along my burkha trying to absorb some of my body heat. I ignored it.
My main problem right now was the dogs.
Not ‘cute, cuddly be-your-best-friend’ dogs. But ‘get-too-close-and-I’ll-rip-your-head-off’ dogs. These dogs would not be domesticated or friendly.
I sniffed the air. No tea brewing yet. I had some time.
After locating Fariya’s home from her description, I wriggled the rest of the way in, and slid up the wall, brushing the dirt from the front of the blue garment. I tiptoed toward the clay building, trying to ignore the painful burning of my feet.
With luck, Fariya still had a pair of her husband’s shoes or sandals.
I peered into the dark cell of a room. All night long, I’d traveled in the open space, thankful to be out of my purgatory. Thankful to breathe fresh, clean air. Now an irrational fear of going inside gripped me.
My heart thumped against my breastbone, shaking the sides of my ribs. I forced myself to reach for the shovel propped against the open doorway and watched with detachment as my bony hand trembled; angry blue, purple, and yellow welts circled my emaciated wrists.
The shovel seemed unbearably heavy. In early morning air, the village sheep bleated and doves cooed. The sounds forced me into action. If I didn’t haul ass, Fariya’s sacrifice would be for nothing.
I owed her.
From the doorway, I counted paces, five to the center of the small room and then turned left as she’d instructed, and paced off another five steps.
The hard-packed ground looked as though it hadn’t been disturbed since the hut was constructed, but Fariya had sworn her father-in-law had weapons buried in the main room. I jabbed the hard dirt and pain sang up my left arm.
