Secret Soldier Read online

  By the time he woke her, the sun was well on its way toward the horizon. They set out without delay. He carried her, same as before, using the time to question her about her work, her background and other projects she was planning for the future. Time seemed to pass faster while her mind was distracted.

  They reached the village at nightfall.

  ABIGAIL LEANED AGAINST the wall and let her eyelids drift closed, glad to be back in her hut, grateful that the mullah’s interrogation was over and the man had seemed satisfied with their answers.

  “Try to eat a little before you fall asleep.”

  She opened her eyes and took the strip of smoked lamb Gerald handed her. The faint sounds of wailing filtered in through the door and windows. Abdul’s wives were mourning the death of their husband and his sister.

  “It’s not your fault,” Gerald said firmly, reading her mind. “Stop feeling guilty.”

  “I can’t.”

  He shook his head, but was smiling when he looked at her. “You know, you are not responsible for everything that happens in the universe.”

  She actually smiled back. “That’s what my mother always says.”

  “Then I guess I can stop now.” His grin widened.

  He sloshed some water on a piece of rag, brought it over and sat on the floor next to her. “Let me see that ankle.”

  She pulled up her abayah to her knees. He slipped over her heel the elastic that held her narrow-bottom pants in place, lest her ankles showed in public. Her skin was a little discolored, on the purplish side, but not too bad. He ran his finger over the muscles. She held her breath.

  He probed gently. “Does this hurt?”

  She stared at his large tanned hand moving over her pale skin and, after a few moments when his words finally registered, said, “Not too bad.”

  He wrapped the wet cloth around her ankle. It sure felt good. Her glance fell on the meat in her hand. She’d forgotten about that. But Gerald was right. The last day or so had taken a lot from both of their bodies. She needed food to build her strength back. She took a bite, listening to the ululating women outside.

  Abdul and Leila were gone because of her, no matter what Gerald had said. They would have been nowhere near the bandits if not for her wedding. The mullah had absolved Gerald and her from any responsibility, but she had trouble coming to terms with what had happened. She’d seen the hatred in the dark eyes of Abdul’s eldest son. The mullah might not have blamed them, but some of the family did. She swallowed the last of the meal, tasting little of it.

  “You’ll be fine in a couple of days.” Gerald walked away and then came back, bringing another piece of cloth and a pitcher of water. He sat on the dirt floor next to her bed. “Why don’t you lie down?”

  She did, conscious of every aching muscle. Being carried wouldn’t seem like much hardship, but staying in the same position hours on end and hanging on to Gerald had been far from comfortable.

  He brushed the hair out of her face and she froze at the intimacy of his touch. Then he pulled away to wet the cloth, used it to gently dab her face, washing off the sweat and sand. All she could do was blink.

  His tenderness caught her completely off guard. She’d had him pegged as a lightweight cameraman from the city, but he had shown astounding strength in the desert, and now this new side. She didn’t want to like him any more than she already did. Certainly not beyond the superficial level. He would be gone the second that documentary was in the can. One heartbreak per year was her limit.

  “Here,” he said, and they moved at the same time, knocking the pitcher over.

  The lukewarm water poured on her shoulder and soaked the mattress.

  “Sorry.” He dabbed at it and glanced at his sleeping bag. “Why don’t you take my place?”

  “It’ll dry. I wish we had buckets and buckets of water. I’m filthy.”

  “Tomorrow.” He scooped her up and took her to his sleeping bag by the door.

  She watched as he ate and drank and lay down on her soggy mattress under the window, stretching his large frame, throwing an arm over his eyes to block the moonlight.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  He didn’t respond.

  ABIGAIL AWOKE TOWARD dawn, to the sound of Gerald whispering her name.

  “What?”

  “I heard a noise outside.”

  She listened, but couldn’t detect anything out of the ordinary.

  “Stay put.” He got up. “I’m going to check it out. Probably a stray dog. There were plenty of them in the village.”

  He shrugged in a way that said “better safe than sorry,” then stepped through the door. She held her breath as she waited, listening for any thing unusual. She couldn’t hear a thing, not even Gerald’s footsteps on the sand. Then a slight sound caught her ear from the direction of the window. She turned her head just in time to see something bright fly in. She heard the sound of glass breaking on the floor, then saw fire. Fire everywhere.

  Gerald flew through the door. “Get out! Get out!”

  He grabbed her up and ran with her, not stopping until they were at a safe distance. By then, half the hut was ablaze. Heat, worse than the full sun of the desert, sucked the air out of her lungs.

  “What was that?” she asked stunned, trembling.

  “A firebomb.” His breath came in harsh gasps near her ear.

  A couple of villagers were running toward them, some with their water jugs. Gerald left her and ran back into the hut, trying to rescue some of their things. He only managed to drag out the sleeping bag by the door when the whole roof caught on fire.

  She coughed from the smoke, her eyes watering.

  “Get back, dammit. What the hell are you doing?” Gerald dragged her away.

  She hadn’t realized she had run back to her hut, to him. Everybody was silent, standing back now. They all knew it was too late. The popping and whistling of the fire sounded like some unearthly laughter, and the flames seemed to dance with her meager possessions as if mocking her.

  Tears filled her eyes. She was having a really rotten day. She’d been forced into marriage with a stranger, two people had been killed because of her, she’d been kidnapped by bandits, gotten stranded in the desert, and now her home and everything in it was going up in smoke. She didn’t mind her clothes, what little she had, but the thought of precious food burning made her tears spill over. She had children depending on her.

  She wiped her eyes, noticing for the first time the throb in her ankle and slid to the ground to take the weight off. She couldn’t afford to aggravate the injury, not when she had work to do. She had to rebuild, replenish her supplies.

  Gerald squatted next to her. “Are you okay?”

  “Who an earth would do something like that?” Then she remembered Abdul’s son. He probably blamed them for his father’s and aunt’s death. “Did you see anyone?”

  He shook his head.

  “What are we going to do now?”

  “I’ll find a way to go to Tihrin tomorrow. That’s where the foundation is wiring the grant money, to the Banca Intemationale. We can get another car and new supplies there. You should let a doctor look at that ankle anyhow.”

  He sounded so calm, it made her relax a little. Tihrin was twice as big as Rahmara, on the edge of the southern oil fields, a hundred miles or so from Tukatar. It sounded like a very sensible suggestion.

  HE HATED DOING this to her. Unfortunately, it wasn’t his call. If it had been up to him, Abigail wouldn’t have gotten involved at all.

  In their room at the Hilton in Tihrin, Spike lay on his bed with his hand folded under his head and stared at the ceiling, doing his best to ignore the sound of running water that came from the bathroom. She was taking a shower. Naked.

  He was pathetic. He wasn’t even attracted to her. He was just puzzled about why she wasn’t attracted to him. It seemed strange, and a little annoying. He w
ished she would come on to him already; then he could gently let her down, and they could both move on. He could stop obsessing about her.

  The water stopped, and without thinking, he shifted so he could see her when she came out. She didn’t take long. He nearly groaned at the sight of the abayah she seemed to wear around the clock. He fought the urge to rip the black cloth off her so he could see just once what was under it. Then he could rest.

  At least she didn’t have her veil on. Her wet hair was twisted into a bun at her nape, the only way he’d ever seen it. Probably made sense to keep it off her back in this heat. Wet brown strands escaped to frame her face.

  He liked redheads and blondes.

  “Your turn.” Her graceful lips stretched into a smile. She didn’t have the kind of swollen, pouty lips he normally went for, and yet he found his glaze glued to them.

  “Right.” He bounced off the bed. She was distracting him. He couldn’t allow that.

  He caught the faint fragrance of jasmine as he passed by her and closed the door firmly behind him. The whole bathroom was filled with her scent. Probably the shampoo, one of the few things she’d purchased from the little money she’d been willing to take from him. All she’d bought was one set of new clothes, including abayah and veil, and some toiletries. His emergency credit card had been in the pocket of the sleeping bag, the only thing that survived the fire. His wallet was with the bandits. It had been in the Jeep’s glove compartment.

  The grant money hadn’t been wired to the bank yet. The teller checked on its status and promised it would be there first thing in the morning. Until then, Abigail depended on him. He could tell she didn’t like it.

  He stripped out of his filthy clothes and turned on the water, the cold tap only. He washed the sand out of his hair, his growing beard. It felt good to be clean. He let the cold water wash over him while he planned their day, which was hard to do with a picture of Abigail’s lips dancing in his mind.

  He shut off the water, grabbed for the fresh clothes he’d bought and dropped the simple long pants and shirt back onto the chair, wrapping the towel around his waist instead. No harm in testing just how resistant Dr. DiMatteo was to him.

  He opened the door and leaned against the frame, his arms folded in a way he knew made his biceps bulge.

  The rounding of her eyes brought instant gratification. “Where should we go to eat?”

  She was lying on top of the covers, her ankle elevated on a pillow. Other women he knew would have stretched luxuriously and given him that come-hither smile he was so familiar with.

  She sat up. “Doesn’t matter.” She looked away from him. “The hotel restaurant is fine.”

  “I want to take you someplace special.” He gave her his absolute best smile. “You won’t have to walk. We’ll get a cab.”

  “Okay,” she said after a second, with no visible reaction whatsoever.

  “You look nice.” There. He was coming on to her.

  She didn’t look particularly impressed. “I’ll call down to the front desk and see if they could recommend a restaurant nearby.”

  Fine. He stepped back into the bathroom and closed the door behind him.

  “WHAT MADE YOU decide to work with war orphans?”

  She looked at Gerald over her mutton and rice. He was in documentary-making mode again, which was a tremendous relief, and a great improvement over whatever mode he’d been in up in their hotel room. He’d nearly given her a heart attack when he’d come out of the bathroom practically naked.

  She dabbed her lips with the damask napkin. The restaurant was first-rate; Gerald had remembered seeing it somewhere in a tour book. She hadn’t wanted anything this fancy, worried about cost, but now, as the food melted on her tongue, she was glad she’d let him talk her into it.

  “So originally you’re from New Jersey?” Abigail nodded.

  “I was a member of a pro-peace organization at Georgetown University. We put together pamphlets with pictures of starving kids in war-torn countries around the world.” It seemed hard to think of starvation next to a table covered with delicacies. “I gave a speech once on the growing threat of land mines, and the research I did for it really opened my eyes. Then when I was in grad school, I had the chance to go to Uganda with the Peace Corps. I ended up doing my Ph.D. on what I learned from that trip.”

  “I’ll have to remember that,” he said.

  She felt sorry for him. Maybe this assignment was a big deal for his career and here he was without his camera, which had melted in the fire. They would have to spend some time looking around the city for another one before they went back to Tukatar.

  “You could be teaching about developing countries at some nice air-conditioned university instead of being kidnapped by bandits in them. How come you didn’t stay an academic?”

  Good question. It certainly would have been the sensible thing to do. “I almost did. Once you’re in the system, it’s easy just to progress from one thing to the next. After the Ph.D., I went into teaching. I would have probably gotten tenure eventually. House in the suburbs, the works.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  A waiter walked by them with a tray of sizzling delicacies, the aroma of honey sauce seducing her senses and distracting her for a moment. The restaurant and the gourmet food it offered were a far cry from Tukatar. It was hard to believe this place was in the same country as her little village. Everything-the furniture, the food, even the table linens-was first-rate. Not a single reminder of the poverty with which most of Beharrain still struggled.

  “Dr. DiMatteo, you are a glutton.” Gerald was grinning at her.

  He was right. She glanced at the plates in front of her. Two were empty and she was working her way through the juicy leg of lamb on the last. When she hadn’t been able to decide among three entrees, Gerald had ordered all three for her. She cringed at the terrible excess. Back in Tukatar, she didn’t eat this much in a week. But, good Lord, the food was good. She was a glutton, no help for it.

  “Teaching is wonderful,” she said, hoping to turn the attention from her sudden lack of self-control over food. “Nothing wrong with that at all if that’s what you want. I just…” She looked at him, wondering if he would understand. Anthony certainly never had. Neither had her parents. “In college I was passionate about issues like war.” She looked down at her hands. “Most people know little about what’s going on in the world, so they can’t do anything about it. Some people are aware, but the situation seems so hopeless. What could one person accomplish? They think it’s laughable or incredibly naive even to try. I almost ended up like that.”

  “But you didn’t,” he said, holding her gaze. “You’re one of the few who’s seen reality and given up everything to change it.”

  “It’s not as heroic as that.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short, Abigail.”

  His approval felt good, even if maybe he just wanted to make her into something bigger than she was because it would look more interesting in his documentary. But maybe he did understand her a little. After all, here he was with her, at the other end of the world. Something had pulled him, as it had pulled her, and, like her, he had answered the call. It seemed insane, but in a sense, she felt closer to him than she had to anyone in a long time. And he was practically a stranger. Well, except for the husband part. That was going to take some getting used to.

  A European-looking couple walked by them—German; she recognized the language they spoke. The woman’s tongue was just about hanging out as she looked at Gerald.

  Abigail rolled her eyes after they passed, then shook her head as Gerald grinned from ear to ear at her reaction. “You know, you’re not God’s gift to women.” The man was cocky beyond belief.

  He tugged up his impressive shoulders, looking pretty pleased with himself.

  “Don’t you want to be liked for more than your muscles and your good looks?”

 
; He went still, his gaze steady on her face, his voice serious when he spoke. “What if there isn’t more?”

  She narrowed her eyes. Was he fishing for compli-, ments? Of course there was more. He was funny and strong and brave and a million other things she had come to appreciate in the few days they’d spent together.

  His self-examination didn’t seem to take long. The ever-present grin was back on his face the next minute.

  “I think you have an admirer, too. That guy over there keeps looking at you,” he said, then added in a voice a notch lower, “He can’t have you. You’re all mine.”

  She swallowed, blinked and turned her head in the direction he was looking. The restaurant was filled, only a handful of women among the men. Tihrin was a big city where progress had replaced some old traditions still held rigidly in the countryside. She’d even seen a woman working at the hotel, although she sat in a back room answering phones only, so she wouldn’t have to come into face-to-face contact with the male customers.

  Abigail scanned the people at each table. Nobody seemed to pay any attention to her. Then a familiar face caught her gaze. “Jamal.” He was wearing an, olivegreen business suit, talking rapidly to the man seated across the table from him.

  “Friend of yours?”

  “We went to college together. He was friends with my boyfriend at the time.” Nate Korsky, the man who had taught her about life outside her own little world, the man who had shown her the way and then refused to follow.

  Nate had been a bitter disappointment. A rousing speaker, a passionate peace activist, but it all ended there, with only talk and no action. And then she found out he was arousing more than just high emotions at peace rallies. Apparently he had a number of “close supporters” at a few sororities. Afterward, Anthony, with his maturity, old-world Italian charm and shared culture, had seemed like a knight in shining armor in comparison. He seemed perfect. Her parents adored him, and that deep sexy baritone had seduced her into turning a blind eye to the warning signs that eventually appeared.