Deny Tomorrow Read online

  “Hey,” Kevin said as he tried to fend the guy off. “Stop! Leave the woman alone.”

  This only made matters worse as they then began to question who Kevin was. Arianna fell to the ground and curled up in a tight ball. The man kept striking her with some kind of strap. She bit back the pain—defenseless against the attack.

  Just when she thought she couldn’t take it anymore, a man came up and pushed her attacker away. Then, he reached down and lifted her from the ground. As she looked into his face, she instantly recognized the handsome man who had hitched a ride to town with them. No one could forget those eyes. He shoved her into Tarique’s arms and said something in Farsi. Tarique took off running, pulling Arianna along with him. Kevin followed quickly behind.

  Arianna stopped and looked back. All the men were yelling and scuffling with each other. She couldn’t understand a word they were saying, but she was worried for her rescuer’s safety.

  Kevin took hold of her arm and jerked her along. “Come on, Arianna. We’ve gotta get out of here.” Everyone took off again and didn’t stop until they were safely inside their house.

  “Are you all right?” Kevin asked trying to catch his breath.

  “I think so,” Arianna panted, as she examined a welt on her arm. “Boy, it’s even worse than I had imagined over here. These guys are evil.”

  “Except for two that is,” Kevin said. “That’s twice now our two Kervistan friends have come to our rescue... once to fix our car and now this. Guess not all of these people are bad.”

  “Well, two out of two million hardly counts,” Arianna said. “This incident makes me all the more determined to bring this story to the attention of the world. Someone has to speak out for all the defenseless women that endure this treatment on a daily basis.”

  “We got a good start tonight with the interview. And I hate to say it, but your beating will make for an interesting story too,” Kevin said. “Too bad I didn’t get any of this on film.”

  Arianna had to agree although it was a tough way to get a story.

  “Here, let me put some cool water on those welts,” he said to Arianna. “I’m afraid we’re fresh out of ice, honey.” He dabbed the three large welts on Arianna’s neck and arms with a wet cloth. “You know, we don’t have to do this documentary. We can pull out whenever you say.”

  “I appreciate your concern, Kevin. I couldn’t ask for a better partner. But I need to gut this out. This story is too important for me to wimp out, but right now, I’m exhausted. Let’s turn in and call it a day.”

  As she settled into her bed, a mix of emotions washed over her. The day had been full of highs and lows, but for the most part, it had been a good day. She had a fabulous interview and some great footage to go with it. Just a bit more material like that, and they’d have all the makings of a powerful documentary.

  Another image flashed through her head too as sleep closed in. It was the vision of the Kervistan man who’d come to her rescue tonight. She was very grateful for his intervention, and the thought of him lifting her out of harm’s way made her feel warm all over. There was something very intriguing about that guy. Thinking about him was a silly waste of time, but he definitely added some spice to what had been an otherwise rough day.

  “FUCK!” ZACH said to Tony, as the Kervistani men moved on. “That was too close for comfort.”

  “Yeah, but I think they bought our story,” Tony said.

  “It’s a good thing, or we would have been in a lot of trouble.”

  Zach had convinced the men that the Kervistan woman was his cousin and that she and her husband were visiting from the province of Maza Sharif. He told them the couple had lost their way home and that’s why they were out late. Have mercy he urged them. Fortunately, though skeptical, they finally dropped the matter.

  Zach’s concern about the fate of these two Americans had just deepened. By this time tomorrow night, they would be in more danger than they could handle, but no one would be here to help.

  “So what do we do about them?” Tony asked.

  Zach shrugged his shoulders. He still did not know, but they should have rendezvoused with the rest of the team twenty minutes ago. “Let’s get going. The men are going to think something’s happened to us and come looking,” he said.

  Zach and Tony rushed to meet the rest of the team at a remote location, far outside the city. “You’ve seen Fasi’s compound. What do you think?” Zach asked the group.

  “We’ve got the compound layout from Massi, our undercover connection in Pakistan,” Juan said. He drew a rough outline of the dwelling in the dirt. “Carlos and I will take out the two guards at the front gate, so you can enter here.” He pointed to the location on the diagram.

  “You’re sure you can trust Massi to have the gate open?” Zach asked.

  “He better have it open. He cost us enough.”

  “If the gate’s not open, this op will be severely compromised.”

  “Don’t worry, Zach. He’ll be there,” Juan reassured him.

  Looking around the team Zach said, “Okay, then, we strike tomorrow night at zero dark thirty. Fasi will be back in his compound by then. In the meantime, everybody lay low for one more day.”

  With that, they put their hands together and whispered a soft hoo rah then, disappeared into the night.

  Arianna woke stiff and sore after a fitful night’s sleep. With no modern plumbing, her morning toilette consisted of a bowl of tepid water and a rough towel. Next, she brushed her teeth using bottled water from her knapsack and finished by running a brush through her hair while asking herself why. As soon as she put the lovely burqa on, no one would see her hair anyway.

  In the sitting room, she found Kevin and Tarique eating a breakfast of some kind of gruel accompanied by a piece of flatbread. “What?” she quipped. “No fresh-squeezed orange juice or Western omelet?”

  “Western omelet?” Tarique looked confused. “What is a Western omelet?”

  “Never mind. It’s a joke,” Arianna said. “This food will do. I’m starving.”

  “Okay, today we meet Fasi,” Kevin said scraping the last remnants of cereal from his bowel. “And also we go for the interview with the woman Turilla told us about, Fadia. I have the directions to her house written down somewhere.”

  “I also have a time set up with a group of men who have agreed to be interviewed on women’s issues,” Tarique said, and then paused.

  “That’s great!” Noticing Tarique’s puzzled look however, Kevin asked, “Is there something more?”

  “I think so. Arianna will not be allowed to go with us. No women are allowed.”

  “That figures,” Arianna grumbled. “After all, what else would you expect in this male-dominated society?”

  “I won’t go if you don’t want me to.” Kevin came over beside Arianna.

  “Don’t be silly. Of course, you have to go. We need lots of material for our exposé. Now, if everyone is ready, let’s go get this interview with Fadia. Then, we’ll meet with Fasi.”

  FADIA LIVED in an area far outside Nabolis, so they packed up their camera equipment and piled into the Land Rover. The road to her house was more like a rutted cow path than a real road. The Rover bounced along causing Arianna to feel carsick by the time she arrived.

  A young girl greeted them at the door. Though only three years older than Arianna, she looked many years her senior. Life here was hard and aged a woman fast. Her story, as interpreted by Tarique, was much like Turilla’s.

  “I have a cousin who was killed by her own father, my uncle,” Fadia began, “all because she dared to choose her own husband. It is called an ‘honor killing’. It was said she had dishonored her father by choosing her own husband, something no girl would dare to do.”

  “Is this a very common thing?” Arianna asked.

  “I’m afraid so,” Fadia explained. “The only way for my uncle to save face, he believed, was to kill his daughter. And worse yet, the man has never been arrested nor do I believe he e
ver will be. All the authorities are men, so you see, there is little hope for justice.”

  “This is terrible!” Arianna was fuming inside. “Is there no one to speak for these women?”

  “No, there is no one. You will tell our story?” the girl pleaded, grabbing Arianna’s hands.

  “Yes,” Arianna assured her. “We will tell the world. In the meantime, you must be brave and be safe.”

  Thanking Fadia, they loaded their gear into the Land Rover and began the bumpy trip back to town. They’d captured another powerful, yet sad testimonial.

  When they arrived in the city, they went immediately to their appointment with Fasi. He had agreed to give them five minutes of his time. Before the guards led them into his headquarters, they thoroughly searched both Kevin and Tarique for any weapons.

  “Your Excellency,” Tarique began, “I have brought you my good friend, Kevin Baxter, from a Western newsgroup. He wishes to do a story about all the great improvements you have brought to this province. He only needs your permission to move about the village and take photos and talk to the villagers. I have also asked my sister here,” he lied, “to accompany him so there would be a woman present if we speak with any women. It would only be proper.”

  “Hmph!” Fasi grunted. “And what will your story say?”

  “It will tell about all the prosperity you have brought to your village. You will be known as a great leader in Kervistan. It will greatly enhance your image in your country and in the world.”

  “I see,” Fasi said, suddenly pleased. “I will agree to this, but you will have only two days to get all your stories and photos, and you must not take any photos of my army or their weapons. If you abide by these rules, I will tell my people to allow you to go freely in our village. Do you agree?”

  Tarique interpreted for Kevin who nodded his approval.

  “My friend agrees,” Tarique replied. “Thank you, your Eminence. We will follow all of your rules. And before we go, may we take a picture with you?”

  “Yes,” Fasi smiled and posed for the camera. As the one man had said, he loved the media attention.

  Having shot several photos, and also gotten some video, they took their leave and got into the Rover for the ride back to the house.

  “Well, that was easier than I thought,” Arianna said. “Two days is a not much time, but we can do it. Actually, I don’t think I could stand to be here much longer than that anyway.”

  “Okay,” Kevin said, “I better get moving. The clock is ticking. I’m going to interview that group of men Tarique spoke about. I shouldn’t be long. Will you be alright staying by yourself, Arianna?”

  “Sure. Just get us more good footage, and when you return, I’ll have a nice hot meal ready for you, honey.”

  “Right,” Kevin said, laughing. “We both know that’s not happening.”

  LATER THAT night, Zach and all his men were in place outside Fasi’s compound. “Okay, gentlemen. Time to get your sneak on.”

  Juan and Carolos set up their sniper rifles, silencers attached, a hundred yards away from the front gate of the compound. Firing off two shots, both guards at the front gate dropped to the ground. As soon as the guards were down, Zach, Tony and the other two mercenaries dashed across the open hundred yards and stopped at the gate. With a slight creak, the gate swung open and Massi, the Pakistani plant, ran quickly away… his job done.

  Tony entered first, followed by Zach and the rest of the team. The compound layout was exactly as they had studied. The team moved stealthily in the darkness to the building where Fasi slept.

  At the front of his building were three guards. Two stood at the door while the other sat twenty feet away and appeared to be sleeping. Zach snuck close to the sleeping man and waited for his snipers to take out the two at the door. The two fell dead to the ground. Zach stepped up behind the third guard who had awakened with the sound of falling bodies. He snapped his neck, then dropped him to the ground.

  The two snipers waited and watched outside for any other guards who might happen along, while Zach and the team hurried into the home of Fasi. They found him sleeping in the upper bedroom with two women. Without hesitation, Zach put one shot in his head. Fasi was dead. Thankfully the women sleeping beside him never stirred. Zach had no heart for taking them out too. The mission was accomplished, so wasting no time on target, the group left as they came, clandestine warriors of the night.

  “Well done, men,” Zach said as they met up a short distance from the compound. Now, take off for the hills. I have one more thing to do before I meet you at the rendezvous point.”

  Everyone stared at him in surprise, not moving.

  “I have to go get the American journalist, the girl. This place is going to be a war zone in the next twenty-four hours, and she’ll never make it out of here. I just can’t leave her. You guys go on.”

  “We’re not leaving you,” Juan said. “We’ll all go.”

  It was Zach’s turn to stare. He knew they were loyal and wouldn’t budge without him, but he couldn’t let them stay.

  “No, there’s too many of us. It will attract too much attention. You guys take off. I shouldn’t be more than twenty minutes behind you. Now, go. That’s an order.”

  “Roger that,” they said reluctantly, and headed for the rendezvous point… everyone except Tony.

  “I’m going with you and don’t try to stop me.”

  Zach looked at Tony and knew there was no talking him out of staying. “Okay, let’s move then. We don’t have much time.”

  They darted in and out of the shadows of the sleeping village and quickly reached Arianna’s hut.

  “What about the guy… Kevin?” Tony whispered.

  “There’s no way to take him. We’d risk too much if we tried. He’s a man so at least he stands a fighting chance of coming through this especially once the Americans arrive. We just take the girl.”

  “Roger that,” Tony answered.

  They silently stepped through the glassless, bedroom window where Arianna slept. As the moonlight shone in the room, for the first time, Zach saw the girl without her burqa on. Her shimmering blond hair lay tumbled around her shoulders. He couldn’t help but notice the bikini panties and t-shirt that revealed her long legs and nicely rounded breasts.

  God, she looked enticing. But there was no time to enjoy the view since they had to get out of there. He pulled a hypodermic needle out from under his tunic. He signaled Tony to cover her mouth should she rouse while he was sedating her. He plunged the needle into her hip.

  She began to rise even as Tony held her down. He put a scarf over her face so she couldn’t see or scream. She struggled for an instant, but the powerful sedative took only seconds to work. She slumped into a deep coma. As soon as she was out, Zach grabbed the khaki shorts that lay near by and pulled them on. He threw her over his shoulder, climbed out the window, and took off for the rendezvous point.

  “Do you want me to carry her for awhile?” Tony asked about a mile into their trek.

  “No, I got it,” Zach said. This reminded him of boot camp in special ops training. Part of the training was carrying a heavy log around for hours to build up endurance. If he could manage that, he could certainly handle a woman weighing a little more than a hundred pounds. Plus, she was his burden to bear. A half an hour into the hills, they caught up with the men. At this point, he was happy to hand Arianna over to them.

  “If she starts to wake, sedate her again. We need to make sure she doesn’t come to while we’re around. She must never know what happened to her. Since according to our government, we don’t exist, we cannot have any witnesses to say otherwise.”

  He got on his two-way radio and made a call to the USS Hornet stationed in the Indian Ocean. They would send a helicopter to take them to Turkey where they would get a private plane home. The government would never acknowledge their existence, but they would get them out of there. He called in their coordinates and waited for the chopper.

  One of the men ga
ve a low whistle, looking down at Arianna lying unconscious on the ground. “I can’t believe this is what was beneath that burqa. Very nice!”

  Zach nodded as he bent down to check her pulse. The girl was beautiful. Under different circumstances he might have enjoyed getting to know her, but that was impossible now. He planned to take her to the Isle of Costa Luna, the resort island where he lived. She would wake up and find her way back home, their paths never to cross again.

  Ooow!” Arianna tried to raise her head off the pillow only to fall back in pain. She had the worst headache of her life. She lay there hoping the veil of fog that consumed her would soon lift. Images floated in front of her in slow motion. Everything was a blur.

  Rising up again, she blinked rapidly to adjust her eyes to the surroundings. By the looks of the room, the only thing she was pretty sure of was she was no longer in Kervistan. The bed had sheets and a comforter. The room was carpeted and air-conditioned, and drapes adorned the windows. Also, she could see a bathroom with real plumbing just past the foot of the bed. She fell back on the pillow once again, her mind scrambling to make sense of things. She was absolutely sure when she’d gone to bed, it had been in Nabolis, Kervistan.

  She dozed for a few more minutes and then, woke with a start. Struggling to a sitting position, she slipped back the covers and saw she was still wearing the same t-shirt and panties she remembered going to bed in, and her khaki shorts lay on a chair beside the bed. These were the only things that seemed even remotely familiar.

  Thinking her bladder would burst if she sat there one more minute; she rose gingerly, wobbled and grabbed the nightstand to steady herself. It was then she noticed some money on the stand. Reaching over, she fingered through twenty, one hundred dollar bills. Two thousand dollars! Whew! What was going on?

  She made a visit to the bathroom and as she pulled her panties up, she noticed a large bruise on her hip and wondered how she’d gotten it. Taking a closer look in the mirror, she detected a couple of needle pricks. Of course! She’d been tranquilized with something. That’s why she had no recollection of how she’d gotten here. But who and why?