Nguyen. I don’t know how far they brought us-and no one back home does either. We’re MIA… very soon to be KIA…”
“Don’t give up,” Hunt said. “I need you to stick with me here.”
“I’m not giving up,” the young lieutenant said. “I’m making a decision about how I go out. I plan to make them kill me quickly and you should too. Steal the joy of cutting my head off while I’m still alive.”
Hunt scooted up beside him, shoulder to shoulder. If she was near death, she wanted a little friendly human contact before her time came. She rested her hand on Nelson’s thigh, hoping it would provide some comfort.
He turned to look at her, smiling for the first time in days. “I’ll tell you one thing-the next one of those little shits that gets close enough, I’m gonna rip his head off.”
Hunt’s laugh was cut short when the metal door flung wide. Five guards filed in and stood along either side. Two carried stiff rubber truncheons.
Nelson gathered himself up in a flash and charged the men head-on. Adrenaline pushed him past the pain of his broken bone.
Following his lead, Hunt rolled sideways, springing for the two men the lieutenant had already engaged.
The crushing blow of a truncheon caught her square in the back of the head. She staggered forward, slamming face-first into the rock wall. Stunned, she watched as two men dragged Nelson to the center of the room, where they dropped him unceremoniously on the rough stone floor.
Before Hunt could make sense of what was happening, rough, stinking men clawed like vises at each arm. The more she kicked and struggled, the tighter they held her. Soon, two more men had her by each ankle. She tried to kick free, but another dose of the rubber truncheon across the bridge of her nose brought waves of nausea and sapped her will to fight. Her head lolled back. Blood poured from her nose.
“Take me…” Nelson whimpered from where he lay in a heap on the floor. “Please… not her.”
The room spun around Hunt as the men dragged her toward the door. She wanted badly to fight, but was working too hard not to vomit from shock, pain… and what she knew would come next.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Bethesda Naval Hospital Maryland
Jacques Thibodaux crammed himself into the flimsy plastic chair that must have been meant to discourage hospital visitors. He’d already read the stack of Soldier of Fortune and motorcycle magazines at his feet and decided to click through the TV channels on the hardwired controller. It was all mindless game shows and pontificating celebrity judges discussing peoples’ angst-ridden lives. Camille was resting so he kept the volume to a hushed buzz.
In the end it didn’t matter. A male nurse with a blond goatee and green hospital scrubs came in to wake Camille up and see if she was resting properly.
Thibodaux bit his tongue and walked over to gaze out the window.
“You think you’re foolin’ anyone with that vest?” The nurse’s voice surprised him. He should have been taking care of Camille, not quizzing Thibodaux about his clothing.
“Pardon?” He kept his gaze out the window in an effort to keep from getting confrontational. Camille had often said, only half joking, that one of his hateful looks could give a decent person chronic diarrhea.
“The vest,” Nurse Greg said. “I mean, who wears a fisherman’s vest in D.C. unless they’re using it to cover up a weapon? You a cop?”
Thibodaux nodded, still facing away. He could see the nurse’s reflection in the window as he placed a probe in Camille’s ear to check her temperature. “In a word,” he said.
“My dad’s a cop,” Nurse Greg said. “He wears a shoot-me-first vest too. I think you should just wear the gun in the open for everyone to see. I mean what’s the point of wearing a vest where everyone knows you’re a cop?”
“I bet your daddy’s sure enough proud of you,” Thibodaux muttered.
He watched as Camille reached up to touch the nurse on the elbow. Her voice was thick and hoarse from an exhausted sleep. “You should really go before he turns around,” she said. “My husband isn’t much for chitchat about his work with folks he doesn’t know.”
“Nearly done,” the nurse chirped, not taking the hint. “Just need to check your blood pressure.”
Camille coughed, clearing her throat. “Seriously, you need to go. Your being here is raising my blood pressure.”
“Won’t take long,” the nurse said. He picked up her arm to put on the BP cuff.
Camille threw her head back against the pillow. “Jacques,” she sighed. “I have asked this man to leave and he won’t.”
Thibodaux turned slowly to face the wide-eyed Nurse Greg. His jaw flexed, nostrils flared. The muscles in his neck tensed. Moving in close, he put his arm around Nurse Greg, eclipsing him with hulking shoulders. Leaning down he whispered a few words in the man’s ear. Nurse Greg looked up, slack jawed, as if he’d just been slugged. He took one tremulous breath and left the room without even gathering up his kit.
“What did you say to him?” Camille narrowed her eyes.
“Not much.” Thibodaux shrugged. “I told him he was gonna have a hard time picking up all his teeth with broken fingers.”
“My man, the poet.” Camille grinned, but he could tell she was hurting.
“How you doin’, Sugar?” Thibodaux patted the back of his wife’s hand. It was cool and the veins seemed to stand out more than he remembered.
“I’m okay,” she said. “How’s Jericho?”
“Quinn?” Thibodaux cocked his big head to one side. “He’s… on an assignment. Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know,” Camille said. “I just haven’t heard you talk about him much lately. Seemed like you were becoming pretty good friends.”
“We are,” Thibodaux said. “But let’s us worry about you now. The doc says the baby is okay, but you were losing some blood. You’ll need to stay on bed rest for a little bit.”
Camille suddenly sat upright in bed. “The boys! Who’s watching the boys?”
Thibodaux ran hand across his wife’s forehead, easing her back against her pillow. “They’re fine, Sugar.” He shook his head. “Sandy’s with them.”
“Sandy’s just sixteen.” She turned her face away.
Jacques’s mouth hung open. “Honey, Sandy watches the boys all the time. She knows how to handle them.”
He was on the edge of the chair now, leaning over the bed so he could be on her level to console her.
Her hand began to tremble. She looked back at him. A tear ran down her nose.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” she whispered.
Camille spent the next ten minutes recounting what had happened with Lt. Colonel Fargo and the bald man who’d come with him. Thibodaux sat motionless, taking in every awful, heartfelt word. He struggled to remain calm while his wife told him how these men had been looking for Quinn and how they’d bullied her, kicked her in the stomach, and scared his little boys. They were the reason she was even in the hospital.
When she was finished, he stood and walked outside the room to use up his allotment of non-Bible curse words for the next decade.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Fargo slouched in the passenger seat of a green Jeep Cherokee a block up the street from Thibodaux’s house. Bundy sat behind the steering wheel, sipping on a Red Bull and gritting his teeth. They’d lost the suits for khaki slacks and black T-shirts. Bundy’s ugly brown tattoo of a scorpion was now completely visible and appeared to
