After she left the room, Ashur came back with a tray of delicious food. It was a feast fit for a king, and Hud ate like a half-starved wolf. He devoured every morsel of kebabs and rice and hummus, his manners gone. He might have growled at one point. There was a green salad with tomatoes, pita bread, and other dishes he couldn’t identify, but shoved into his mouth nonetheless. He ignored the tea in favor of water.
“I have bira, if you like,” Ashur said.
“What’s that?”
“It is beer. We brew. Very good.”
“Beer, in Iraq?”
Ashur sneered at his ignorance. “My people invented beer, American.”
Hud had been under the impression that alcohol was illegal here, or rarely imbibed. “Assyrians invented beer?”
“The ancient ones, in Mesopotamia.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Do you speak Arabic?”
“No.”
“I speak three languages.”
Hud grunted and kept eating. He’d learned a few words of Arabic from one of his teammates, but he didn’t have an ear for it. Too many syllables and inflections. Too many different dialects, with sounds as unique and complex as the mix of cultures in the region. Interpreters were worth their weight in gold here. That was why the IF hunted them down and cut off their tongues.
Hud swallowed the last bite, with some difficulty.
“You wish to shower now?” Ashur said. “Come.”
Ashur led Hud down another hall and through a door that opened to a quiet courtyard. The shower was a rustic hut made of corrugated aluminum. Hud found a bar of soap and a nubby towel on a bench inside. He shut the door and stripped down. His trousers were bloodstained and stiff with dust. He stepped into the stall, cupping one hand over himself protectively. He wasn’t disappointed by the lukewarm trickle that emerged from the pipes. It was clean and it was wet. Any kind of water was a luxury to him. He hadn’t so much as splashed his face in weeks. He tilted his head back, eyes closed in rapture.
God.
His throat tightened with emotion as water flowed over him. During the darkest hours of his captivity, he hadn’t believed he would ever see the light of day again. He thought he’d become a pile of bones in that dusty tomb. Now he was standing in an outdoor shower, his shoulders warmed by the sun.
He bent forward and let the water cascade down his neck, humbled by the experience. He washed his matted hair and battered body, which still felt strong enough to fight. He was alive. He wasn’t sure he deserved to be, after what he’d done. But here he was.
He’d survived, against all odds. He’d endured weeks of near starvation. He’d been tortured and beaten and treated like an animal.
Now he was free, and determined to stay that way.
Chapter 4
Layah drummed her fingertips against her forearms as she waited for Hudson to return from his shower.
Her captive continued to surprise her. She’d expected more resistance. Navy SEALs were elite soldiers, but they were still soldiers. They followed orders from the higher ranks. She’d been prepared for him to cite United Nations regulations and demand transport to a US air base. Hudson hadn’t done any of those things. He hadn’t even turned her down.
She didn’t trust him to cooperate, no matter what he said. He might be waiting for his wounds to heal before he attempted an escape. But if he left, he wouldn’t get far. This village was sparsely populated, and the Yazidi guarded their land with rifles. They were more likely to shoot him than help him flee.
Hudson seemed to be playing along with her for now. Maybe he wanted money in exchange for his services. Maybe he wanted something else. He looked at her with desire in his eyes, the way men often did.
His interest wasn’t unusual, but her reaction to it was. Her pulse raced in his presence. She felt nervous and short of breath, like a schoolgirl with a crush. She wasn’t sure how to catalog her response. She hadn’t been drawn to a man since Khalil. Her physical needs had been buried with her husband, along with her broken heart.
Layah didn’t believe Hudson had resurrected her feminine longing. She was excited by the situation, not his searing gaze and hard-muscled body. He’d killed a guard yesterday. She’d rescued him from certain death. She wanted him to like her, and she had to keep him close. It was only natural to feel nervous around him. She’d been numb for so long that she’d mistaken an adrenaline rush for attraction.
Yes. That was it. Adrenaline.
She had to stay focused on her plan. Hudson was a means to an end, nothing more. She couldn’t afford to get distracted.
He emerged from the outdoor shower in the clothes Ashur had given him. The items were borrowed from one of her male cousins, and they fit well enough. Hudson was tall and broad-shouldered, rangy like Khalil had been. About the same age. Her husband would have turned thirty this year, had he lived. Her chest tightened at the thought.
There was a large open sink next to the shower hut for washing hands, dishes and everything else. Ashur provided Hudson with a new toothbrush, still in the wrapper. Toiletries were prized items in this remote area, but she’d splurged on a few luxuries for her captive. He’d been beaten and tortured by the Da’esh. Under her care, he’d be treated well.
When he was finished, Ashur escorted him back to his room. She gathered her maps and notebook, along with her medical bag, before venturing that direction. Ashur was carrying an empty tray down the hall.
“He eats like a pig,” Ashur said in Assyrian. “It will cost a fortune just to feed him.”
“He’s worth it.”
“That’s what you said about those thieving Turks.”
She shooed him away in annoyance. Ashur thought he knew everything, and was quite happy to argue with her about any choice she made. From the start he’d
