Sam seemed to be the most tenderhearted among them. He scooted his cushion closer, smiling up with the gap-toothed adoration of a kid brother. She tried to reach out to him a little, whispering in Tajik while the other boys were busy in a deep conversation with Nelson about baseball and the last World Series. He shook his head as if stricken, throwing a terrified look toward the door. He put a finger to his lips.
“The teachers will beat me if I talk like that,” he said. All the boys called the guards teachers. “You should be careful so they don’t hurt you.”
“I see.” Karen nodded. “I’m going to ask you something, Sam. Have you been taken from your parents? Are you American?”
He frowned, setting his jaw. “Americans killed my mother and sister,” he said, tears forming in his eye. “I saw it.”
She couldn’t help but notice the hint of Boston in the boy’s accent. The boy sighed, the weight of the world on his tiny shoulders. “I hate Americans… but you’re a good lady, Miss Hunt. You sorta remind me of my mother. I wish…” His little voice trailed off and he stared blankly at the cell wall. He shook his head, stifling a sob.
“What?” Karen asked. She kept her voice calm and hushed so as not to alert the other boys just a few feet away. This conversation was something Kenny surely wouldn’t approve of. “Tell me what you wish, Sam.”
“Miss Hunt,” the little boy said. “I should study.”
“Sam.” She gave him an exhausted smile. “I think you work way too hard.”
“That sounds funny-‘ ya wook too hod… ’ ” He mimicked her Boston accent perfectly, dropping his Rs.
“Don’t you see what they’re doing?” Nelson had stopped his sports talk with the other boys and was now staring. “They’re English bandits-learning how to speak like us. Copying our accents. That’s why they killed Nguyen first. His parents came to the U.S. from Vietnam when he was just a kid so his accent wasn’t perfect enough for them.”
“Way to go,” Kenny sneered. He stood to tower over the younger boy. “Idiot!” He knocked Sam off his cushion with a swift kick to the ribs. “Now they’re on to us.”
Hunt snatched Kenny’s arm, yanking him down to face her. The guards might be able to push her around, but she wasn’t about to let some runty kid get away with it.
“You didn’t have to kick him, you little shit.” Her fingernails dug into the flesh of his arm, drawing blood.
Kenny stared back at her with black pig eyes, breathing softly. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll let go of me… you little shit.”
Karen’s entire body shook with rage. She shoved Kenny away and reached to comfort a crying Sam. He buried his face into her shoulder, sobbing.
Kenny rubbed the nail marks on his arm, and then looked at the other boys. “Come on, guys. That’s enough lessons for the day.” He said. “Let’s go get a Coke. Come on, Sam. Stop being such a baby. You’re not in trouble.”
Sam sat up, nodding at Kenny, unconvinced. “Okay…”
“I’ll tell you what I wished for, Miss Hunt.” His solemn eyes glistened with tears. “I wish… I wish I could save you…”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
The surviving Enfield was cramped riding two-up, but they didn’t have to worry about gear since most of it had been obliterated by the missile. The impact of the Hellfire had knocked the bike over and snapped the clutch lever, forcing Quinn to shift by feel alone. It was something he often did on the track, but the rough terrain made it touchy.
But for Ronnie’s pants, the armored Rev’it riding suits had been blown to bits. The warmth of Ronnie’s body pressed close behind him, unencumbered by heavy clothing, made it doubly difficult to concentrate on the narrow confines of the bumpy path.
He’d just warned her for the fifth time to stop breathing in his ear if she didn’t want him to drive off the mountain when the Kyrgyz encampment appeared in the valley ahead.
After hours of nothing but rock and ice, finding the little congregation of smoky yurts and grazing sheep was like discovering life on the moon.
Nine felt yurts were strung along a small glacial lake in a broad meadow. A handful of snot-nosed kids scampered out to meet them as the motorcycle chuffed into camp with two foreign devils aboard.
A stooped woman wearing a heavy wool sweater and a long skirt ducked out of her yurt to scold the gawking children. She was bent by years of childbearing and heavy lifting. Her face was so smudged with grime and soot that it looked permanently blackened. As soon as Quinn mentioned Gabrielle Deuben’s name, the woman’s eyes brightened and she motioned them inside.
“Ainura,” she said, motioning for her guests to sit on the coarse piles of wool rugs against the wood lattice walls of the felt yurt. Her English was poor-just a few words, apparently taught to her by Gabrielle-but as a child she’d spent enough time in outpost towns that she spoke passable Russian. She bustled around the smoky yurt, preparing tea and bread as she introduced herself and asked for news about her friend, Dr. Gabby.
Quinn recognized the overly sweet, musty-incense scent of opium smoke as the woman gave him a chipped clay mug of tea. She was probably in her late thirties but looked fifty.
Her eyes narrowed, noticing his look. She turned to speak to Ronnie in Russian.
“She says she can tell you still smell the thief.” Ronnie interpreted. Ainura sat on the rug beside them, hands folded quietly on the lap of a colorful, handwoven apron.
“She says her oldest son is addicted to opium,” Ronnie continued. “She told him he could not smoke it in here so he went down the mountain to Sarhad.”
Ainura’s face remained stoic, but her eyes were heavy with the misery of a woman mired in the hopelessness of a land where half of the children die before they reached their fifth birthday.
Quinn took a sip of his salt tea, nodding in genuine thanks. “Dr. Deuben told us of an orphanage somewhere in the mountains…”
The Kyrgyz woman’s green eyes flashed and the words began to spill out of her mouth.
Ronnie translated as she spoke.
“She thought perhaps that is why we were here. There are stories, she says, of soldiers who come in the night. They butcher the men and rape the women in front of the children before taking them away…” Ronnie stopped translating for a moment and spoke in rapid-fire Russian, clarifying a specific point. She shook her head, but the old woman was adamant.
Ronnie looked at Quinn. “She says the soldiers are Americans.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
“Listen to me, Karen,” Lieutenant Nelson said in a voice that made Hunt want to cry. “I’m not much help to you here. I don’t know what the game is with these kids, but it can’t be good. I’m thinking they must be using them to infiltrate American bases or something.” He leaned against the gray stone wall of their little cell. Beads of sweat covered his upper lip. His fever had broken for the time being, but he had some kind of infection. She knew the fever would return soon and with a vengeance.
“Funny.” Nelson gave a rattling chuckle. “I told my best bud back in Montana that I’d die over here.”
Hunt put a finger to his lips. “We’re not dead yet.”
“It won’t be long.” He looked at her with sparkling eyes that belied the hopelessness of his words. “I broke up with my girlfriend before I deployed. Didn’t want her to have to put up with worrying over my sorry ass. Wrote a death letter to my dad and left it with my brother…”
“Shut up with the dying stuff,” Hunt pleaded. “There’s got to be a way out of this. I’m sure of it.”
Nelson let his head fall back against the wall, wincing as the move wrenched at his collarbone. “Karen,” he sighed. “Being sure isn’t the same as being right. I envy your positive attitude, but you heard what they did to
