by Zara Chase
“Perhaps it is, but my country means so much to me, especially after what happened to my family. Someone has to try and make the various factions see sense. I didn’t tell you before now about this opportunity because I knew how you would be.” Her lovely eyes were clouded with pain. “I have doubts, of course I do. I know the risks. What if I’m captured, or killed? What if I never see you two again or, worse, you’re captured trying to protect me?” She shook her head. “My heart splinters at the prospect.”
“Then why?” Zeke asked, shaking his head in bewilderment.
“Because I think about my family, lost to me forever.”
She lifted her chin and fixed them both with a look of steely determination, which is when Raoul knew she wouldn’t back down. The solider in him didn’t blame her. The man in him wanted to put up all manner of objections. Before he could do so, she spoke again.
“It’s time to bring this madness to an end so no other families have to suffer in the way I have. I will do what I have to all the time there’s a chance of making a difference, period.” She folded her arms defensively beneath her breasts. “It gives me something to live for.”
“And we don’t?” Raoul shot back at her.
“You know you do,” she replied with such pathos in her tone that Raoul found it hard to maintain his anger. “But this is bigger than the three of us.” She shook her head. “When my family were annihilated, it left me dead emotionally. I didn’t think the part of me that died with my loved ones would ever be brought back to life. And yet, I now have not one but two gorgeous men who fire my passions and help me to put it all in perspective.”
“Our pleasure,” Zeke said in a muted tone.
“Every time I close my eyes and recall the faces of my parents and husband, their lives wiped out by that stupid bomb, it makes me feel—well, guilty, I suppose.”
“Survivor’s guilt,” Raoul said.
“Right. I would have been in that house at the time, if I hadn’t popped out on an errand. My marriage wasn’t a happy one but my husband didn’t deserve to die any more than my parents did.” She sighed, swiping at the tears flooding her eyes. “Then my stupid, misguided brothers, hot headed and out for revenge, joined the local militants—”
“The people you now planned to mediate with?” Zeke reminded her.
“Yes. My brothers both lost their lives on an ill-advised sortie into Israeli territory. The militants who sent them know they miscalculated in sending them. They know I have reason to be mad at them, which is why they owe me, and probably why they asked to speak with me.”
Raoul could think of a dozen reasons why that wasn’t the case, but knew he would be wasting his breath to voice them. Cantara had grieved for her family, then decided the killing had to stop, which is when she volunteered to help the peacekeeping forces. Someone had to make these war-hungry men understand violence wasn’t the answer and there was enough land for everyone to live in peace, regardless of their religious beliefs.
“You say you can take care of yourself,” Raoul said, trying another, less emotional, tack. “But you have to realize you won’t be able to take so much as a nail file with you for protection. They will search you when they pick you up, then blindfold you so you don’t know where they’re taking you. Once you get there, you will be at their complete mercy. There is an outside chance they want to negotiate, but no more than that. My guess is that they’ll try and turn you, put pressure on you to work for their side. If that fails, they’ll treat you as a traitor.” He fixed her with a steady gaze. “And you know what they do to female traitors.”
Cantara swallowed. “Yes, I do know, and I’ve thought about it.”
“There again they might force you into another marriage with a Palestinian thug loyal to their cause, depriving our side of a valuable negotiator. Just the thought of another man so much as touching you makes me want to hit something.” Raoul sent her a searching look. “Or someone. Damn it, Cantara, can’t you see, you’re being played?”
She left Zeke and walked over to Raoul, reaching out a hand to touch him. Raoul hastily moved out of her range. Both of them were hopelessly addicted to her touch and couldn’t think straight the moment her fingers made contact with their flesh.
“Don’t go, darlin’,” he said bleakly. “Don’t leave us.”
“I have no intention of leaving you, Raoul, or you either, Zeke.” She shared a smile between them, her eyes misty with tears. They didn’t return that smile, knowing they hadn’t persuaded her and had no choice but to watch her walk off, most likely to her death. “They won’t try and hold me. They know it will cause more problems than it will solve if they do.”
“You’re making the mistake of assuming they’re rational thinkers,” Zeke said, shaking his head.
“She won’t listen to us.” Raoul sighed. “Okay, babe, if you absolutely insist upon being involved in this madness, then Zeke and I will have your back.”
“No!”
Raoul flexed a brow. “I beg your pardon?”
“No, I don’t want you putting yourselves in danger.”
“But it’s not dangerous, according to you,” Zeke pointed out.
“Not for me, so much, but if two Yanks gets caught in the occupied territories—”
“This is not up for debate, Cantara. The only way to stop us is by not going yourself.”
“That’s not fair.”
Raoul glowered at her. “And you’re the epitome of reasoned argument?”
“Please, let’s not fight.” She held up her hands. “We’ll all do what we have to do, and there’s nothing more to be said. There’s a few days left before I need to leave. Let’s make the most of them, starting with something to eat. I’m famished. Sex always gives me a ravenous hunger.”
Zeke and Raoul locked gazes, shrugged and pulled on their shirts.
“Come on then,” Raoul said, holding out a hand to her and sighing. “Let’s get you fed and watered.”
* * * *
The following days were a blur of activity. Cantara was locked into long briefing sessions with intelligence gurus, telling her precisely what to do and say in every given situation. Raoul grunted when she related some of the stuff they’d told her to expect. She was risking her life and they were treating her like an idiot. Go figure.
The guys kept fit, training until they dropped, determined not to lose Cantara because they didn’t measure up physically. In between their respective duties there were frantic bouts of love making, sweet, poignant, and brutal all at the same time, loaded with emotion because they all felt, but did not say, it was important to make every second count.
Cantara became reckless. She wanted to make love outside, on the training course, virtually beneath the noses of the perimeter guards. And so they did. She wanted to lean over the pummel horse in the gym and have her ass whipped, aware that anyone might walk in at any moment. Raoul and Zeke obliged her. She wanted to be fucked in the deep end of the swimming pool. No problem.
They were incapable of denying her anything, and she appeared to know it. No further time was wasted trying to talk her out of the mission. She was as fiercely determined as ever to go. Raoul seriously considered forbidding it. He knew she would listen to a direct order, but she would also never look at him in quite the same way again. He had fallen in love with a reckless, passionate, yet deeply determined woman whose wings he could never bring himself to clip, no matter the consequences.
“This is it,” he said when the three of them woke early on the day of the mission. Significantly, they did not make love. “Last chance to change your mind.”
Cantara kissed each of them. “I can’t,” she said quietly, slithering out from between them and heading for the shower. Neither man joined her there.
She was in the bathroom for a long time. When she emerged she was wearing a long, loose dress that completely covered her arms and legs, concealing her figure. Raoul didn’t need to see her body. He had committed every curve, every precious dip
and hollow, to memory. She wrapped a long scarf—a hattah—around her head, mostly concealing her hair, but still looked as sexy as get-go to Raoul. He and Zeke had used the second bathroom to shower and dress and were both wearing long shirts, belted to indicate they were working class Palestinians. Their pants were loose and they wore long coats over the ensembles. With their tanned, bearded faces they looked just like average Palestinian men, especially when they donned keffiyehes—traditional male Middle Eastern headdresses held in place by circlets of rope known as agals.
No words were exchanged but there were tears in her eyes as she fiercely hugged each of them. They took turns to kiss her, still not speaking. There was nothing more to be said. They left the apartment and Cantara was swallowed up by the intelligence people offering her last-minute instructions. The guys checked their weapons and prepared to leave the compound. She was to catch the public bus to the agreed point where she would be collected. Raoul and Zeke hopped onto a rusty motor bike that looked as though it was about to expire, but its souped-up engine would get them out of just about any trouble they were likely to encounter.
It might well need to.
They left the compound before Cantara and parked the bike a short distance from the rendezvous point a good half hour before she was due to be there. Then they faded into opposite doorways and waited. They saw Cantara step off the bus and walk to the spot where she was supposed to be, right on time. Raoul wondered if he was the only man in the area who could see through her modest clothing to the sumptuous woman beneath it all. Hell, if anything happened to her, he’d tear the Middle East apart looking for justice!
She stood quietly waiting, not showing any outward signs of nerves, but Raoul knew her heart would be pumping, her senses on high alert. He kept a careful watch on the area, but saw nothing to concern him, as sure as he could be that no one was paying him or Zeke any attention. Ten minutes after the time when she was supposed to be collected, a modern-looking SUV pulled up. It had blacked out windows but when the rear door opened, Raoul thought he counted three men inside. Cantara climbed into the car and the driver gunned the engine as he sped away.
Raoul and Zeke double-timed it back to the bike and were two vehicles behind the one carrying the love of their lives before it reached the end of the street. They kept well back for fear of being spotted. Besides, they didn’t need to get too close. The car would head for the checkpoint leading to the occupied territories. Even so, it made them feel better to keep the car in sight, knowing Cantara was inside it.
Thanks to perfect papers and advance warning given to the checkpoint guards, Raoul and Zeke were able to bypass the queue and were on the tail of the car again very soon after it got through the formalities. The traffic thinned out as the car continued on its way. Raoul, driving the bike, was forced to drop a long way back, but that was no problem. The border guards had placed a tracking device on it while they searched the vehicle and Zeke, riding pillion, was able to chart its every move on a mobile device.
Everything was going to plan, but Raoul didn’t like it. It was too easy. Was he inviting trouble by feeling uncomfortable because nothing had gone wrong? Why wasn’t the car taking more precautions to ensure it wasn’t being followed? He sensed Zeke shaking his head on the pillion seat behind him, obviously thinking the same thing. But there was nothing they could do about their premonitions, and so kept right on following the car.
It was driven on for another ten minutes before stopping on the outskirts of a small town. They pulled off to the side of the road and he and Zeke took stock of the situation. There were a few people about, but no one paid them the slightest attention. And no one was observing them from anywhere nearby, as far as they could tell.
“They’ve gone into that old building over there.”
They were the last words Raoul heard because something hit him hard on the back of the head. Shit, he hadn’t heard anyone approaching. How the hell had they stolen a march on him, and had then gotten to Zeke, too?
His legs buckled and he was unconscious before he hit the ground.
Chapter Four
When Raoul regained consciousness, he and Zeke were stripped bare, huddled on a hard bunk in some sort of cellar. It was stifling hot, and there was no ventilation. The air was stale, smelling of sweat, blood and human misery. Raoul’s head felt as though it was about to split in two, and his vision blurred each time he tried to move it. What the fuck had they hit him with?
“How the fuck did they get to us without us seeing them?” Zeke whispered, rubbing the back of his own head. His fingers came away sticky with blood.
Raoul held a finger to his lips. There was every possibility of a listening device having been planted in the cell, otherwise they would have been separated. They both spoke fluent Arabic, and had papers to back up their cover story. Their clothing was genuine, and their weapons had nothing to do with the army. But even though their personal possessions were kosher, the bike had a few modifications that would take some explaining.
Raoul knew that wouldn’t be Zeke’s primary concern any more than it was his. Cantara was the only person who mattered. Shit, they’d failed her at the first hurdle! Raoul’s heart lurched when he thought of what she might be going through at that precise moment. She was one of theirs and if they thought she’d sold them out in some way, Raoul didn’t want to think about how they would exact revenge.
Focus, he told himself. Regrets wouldn’t get them out of this mess. He needed to concentrate on where they were, and how they’d come to be caught so easily. They hadn’t been tailed and no one had been paying them any attention when they arrived at this small village. Raoul would stake his life on that. Which meant they had been expected, and their captors must know they were Americans. It explained why they had found it so easy to tail the car Cantara was in, even without the tracking device. They had wanted them to follow and Raoul and Zeke had played right into their hands. Fuck it! Very few people knew of their plan, but someone who did had obviously sold them out. There was no way they could have been spotted otherwise. Raoul quietly seethed at his stupidity. If they got out of this alive, he would find the bastard who threw them to the lions and separate his cowardly head from his miserable body.
Two thuggish-looking guys came in not long after they had regained consciousness and one of them jerked his thumb over his shoulder, indicating they should follow him. It was obvious they wouldn’t be given any clothes, or the option to politely decline. That was standard interrogation procedure, and Raoul and Zeke wouldn’t let it worry them. Strip men of their clothing and you supposedly took their dignity with it. Nice try, assholes.
They were led into a larger room, still without windows, but a little cooler and quite well furnished. A guy sat behind a ridiculously ornate desk that was probably supposed to make him look important, playing absently with the papers that had been taken from them.
“Good afternoon,” he said politely in English.
Neither Raoul nor Zeke answered him. The man tried again in Arabic and Raoul and Zeke responded.
“It is very courteous of you to learn our language,” he said, still in English, “but I happen to know you are Americans, come to spy on us.”
When they didn’t respond, the men behind them punched each of them in the kidneys. Raoul had been expecting it but it still hurt like fuck. He sucked in a sharp breath but refused to give the guy the satisfaction of falling to his knees. Instead, he glanced over his shoulder at him, committing his face to memory. When the time came, this guy would get his.
It went on for an hour, with Raoul and Zeke refusing to speak, and being thumped each time they failed to. Raoul had long since stopped worrying about letting the blows floor him, enjoying the respite by staying down a little longer each time. The guy doing the thumping appeared proud to have gotten the better of Raoul. Raoul refrained from telling him it wasn’t over yet.
“The woman,” the head guy said nonchalantly. “She will be remaining here and working for us.�
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Raoul and Zeke, bloodied and battered, continued to stare straight ahead, neither of them showing the slightest reaction. Somehow. But on the inside, Raoul was gripped by a murderous rage. He chanced a swift sideways glance at Zeke and knew his thoughts must be similarly engaged.
“She is very beautiful and will be suitably married in due course. Why she thought she could interfere with men’s work is beyond me, but she has already learned the error of her ways. She will remain at home and produce good, strong Palestinian sons to fight for the cause.”
Raoul swallowed, aware that would never happen. The moment they relaxed their guard on Cantara, she would find a way to escape. But the thought of some bastard pawing her until that time came ate away at his gut like a virulent disease.
They were thrown, half-conscious, back into the same cell. They both knew they were being kept together in the hope that they would talk, but really there was nothing they could say that their captors didn’t already know. Except they didn’t appear to know Raoul and Cantara were legally married. Only Zeke, Pool, Hassan, and Fisher, their colonel back at Fort Campbell, were privy to that knowledge, plus a very few of the support staff. Raoul would stake his life on Fisher being loyal—they had been in too many tight spots together over the years for it to be otherwise. So either Pool or Hassan, or one of the guys under their command, had gotten careless. Raoul’s money was on that asshole Pool.
Raoul passed the time by steadfastly not thinking about Cantara. If he allowed sentiment to cloud his mind, they really would be fucked. They were giving swill to drink, a cup of water each, and left alone. Both men drank the disgusting, thin stew. They’d had worse in their time and knew to take whatever sustenance they could get. They would need it because tomorrow things would get worse for them.
And so it proved to be the case. They were routinely beaten, or hosed down with frigid water, just to keep the guards amused. Their bodies were used to extinguish cigarettes. They were deprived of sleep, subjected to ear-splitting levels of noise and even had electrodes attached to the genitals. They endured it by detaching their minds from what was happening to their bodies, because that’s what they had been trained to do, all the while wondering if Cantara was still in the building. While that possibility existed, they were not prepared to even think about escape.
