CHAPTER ONE
Someone groaned. The sound barely reached through the fog weighing her down as Fox struggled into a state of consciousness. God her head was throbbing. A groan reached her again and this time she realized that the sound had passed through her own lips.
The bastard must have hit her harder than she had been expecting. Fox moved her hand to explore the damage that had been done to her skull; only to find herself unable to move it up more than an inch. Damn. Tugging on her other hand, she encountered the same problem. This time the groan she let out was one of frustration. Fox cracked open her burning, pale, jade-green eyes finally and glared down at the metal bracelets adorning her wrists and effectively holding her to the chair she was sitting in and restricting her movements.
As she became more aware, Fox shifted her numb legs in an attempt to get the blood pumping through them again and found herself unable to move those either. Sure enough, leaning over the arm of the chair and looking down, Fox discovered her ankles securely chained to the chair legs. Sitting back in the chair she let out a frustrated sigh and shook her head to get the strands of her straight jet black hair that had flopped into her line of vision out of the way. Before she started cursing out loud she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then another and another. She couldn’t let her discomfort and frustration show too much. That would not do any good.
Pushing aside the throbbing pain in her head, the burning dryness of her eyes, the metal biting into her wrists and ankles, and the numbness of her legs; Fox let out another breath and opened her eyes again to survey the room she was in. Her chair, the only piece of furniture - the only anything really - sat in the middle of the room, which couldn’t be any bigger than twelve feet by twelve feet. The walls, floor and door were all white but were pretty dingy looking. There were no windows and only the one door. A single light bulb dangled from the ceiling above her, the light filtering out of it not really doing much to brighten the room. Fox knew that the smallness of the room combined with the empty feeling from the lack of furniture, the dirtiness of the walls, the discomfort of the hand and ankle cuffs, as well as the pounding in her head were all meant to make her as uncomfortable as possible in hopes that she would spill details once they started questioning her.
Unfortunately for them, she was expecting something like this and was trained to handle such situations. Also unfortunate for them was the fact that she and her team members wanted to be where they were and would not give up anything that would either get them released or disposed of, depending on the Prince’s mood, until they had what they had come to get. Fox wondered idly where Cougar, Badger, Hawk and Bear had wound up. Probably in rooms and situations similar, if not exactly the same, as hers. Hopefully they would all wind up in the same room at some point in time. If not, they would just have to find some other way to communicate. She wondered who they would begin questioning first and if they would resort to force right away.
They might start with her since she was the only female team member and was young, leading them to think that she was the weakest team member and would be the one most likely to spill the beans. They would be wrong in that assumption. None of the team members were in any way weak, but people will react differently to physical force, even when they are conditioned for it like the team had been. It just so happened that events in Fox’s past made her even more capable to handle interrogations.
Forcing herself out of dark thoughts of the past, which she could not and would not linger on while she was on the job, she closed her eyes and took a deep, calming breath. Two more breaths and she opened her eyes again. There, it was gone. Now she could focus on the job at hand while she waited for someone to show up.
She and the team were mercenaries and had been hired by King Basir, king of Saudi Arabia. The king’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Aminah, had been missing for two days. King Basir and his closest assistants believed that she had been kidnapped by the king’s nephew, Prince Rasim. Rasim had shown an interest in obtaining the throne and the title of King for several years, but if King Basir had anything to do with it Rasim would never inherit the throne. King Basir had made his dislike for the Prince and his ways - he was known to be very shrewd and cruel - very evident. It was well known that the king’s daughter was his most prized possession and he would do anything for her.
They figured that Rasim thought King Basir would exchange the throne for his daughter. Men from the king’s own security detail had slipped into Prince Rasim’s home unnoticed and searched every crook and cranny looking for Aminah but had not seen any sign of the girl. King Basir believed that she was being kept in a different facility that Prince Rasim was known to possess, which was used for housing prisoners and apparently anyone who disagreed with him too much. Who knows what all went on there. That was the problem. Besides the fact that it existed, no one knew anything about the facility, including where it was located. No one that the team had access to anyway. Not the king, not anyone in his employ and not any of the team’s own contacts. They could have questioned people working with the prince, but they didn’t want to let on that they thought he was the one who had Aminah kidnapped. So the team had to come up with a different and fairly dangerous plan in order to find out where the girl was being kept, rescue her, and return her to King Basir.
The plan had been to get caught trying to steal information from Prince Rasim, be taken as his prisoners and hopefully end up in the same facility Aminah was being kept in. The “hopefully” was the tough part. There was no way to be sure that they would be taken to the same place the girl was, or that Rasim’s guards would even want to take them alive. It was highly likely, however, that the prince would want to know what information they were looking for and who they were working for.
Now, to most people getting purposefully taken as prisoners would seem like a very idiotic idea, especially by someone such as Prince Rasim who was known to be particularly cruel when he was trying to obtain information. For the team though, it was just another job. It was not the first time that one or more of them had been arranged to be purposefully taken as prisoner. Nor would it be the first time they would be tortured to obtain information, if it came to that this time. However, it would be the first time that all of them would be taken prisoner. Normally just one or two of them would have that task. Without knowing the layout of the facility and what they would be up against once inside, they had all agreed that it would be best if they stuck together this time.
The plan had gone off without a hitch too. Dressed head to toe in all black - black bandanas wrapped around their heads, long-sleeved black t-shirts, black cargo pants, black combat boots and black packs slung over their backs containing rope, lock picks, maps of Prince Rasim’s home and the surrounding area and a flashlight - they had descended upon Rasim’s palace under cover of darkness. Each of them had a M16A4 cradled in their arms as they crept across the lawn, as well as at least one or two knives strapped to their thighs and ankles. Fox had one of each - one strapped onto her right thigh and the other on her left ankle. Of course she had also snuck two more into her ensemble by concealing one under her long-sleeved tee; it lay flat and cool along her right side. The other one she had tossed in her pack with her other tools.
The tools in the pack were all part of the rouse to make it look like they were there to either steal information or something of value and then make a quick getaway. The weapons were also unnecessary since they wanted to be caught in the act and taken as prisoners, but it would have been suspicious if they had not brought anything to defend themselves with. Not to mention it just plain went against their natures to be unarmed. Fox hardly went anywhere without at least one knife strapped to her thigh and hidden under her pants. Although that had been a habit of hers for longer than the six years she’d been a mercenary it was even more so now.
She knew the others also carried at least a knife on them while they were between jobs, but as far as she knew that was just a job hazard from being a mercenary for them. On the other hand, there may be more to their pasts than she knew - none of them really talked much, if at all, about their personal lives. Sure, little tidbits here and there, but nothing really personal. Fox shared next to nothing, even though if there was anyone in the world that she trusted, it was the four men who were her teammates. Well, them and one other. But he was a part of her past and he was going to stay there. Even though she trusted each of them with her life, she was not ready to share anything outside of the job with any of them. It wasn’t worth the risk to get close to them, to let them in.
They were great guys and with the addition of Fox, they made a very diverse, but efficient team. Cougar, their leader, was American like Fox with black hair and grey eyes. He was about medium build, but all muscle and stood at just over six feet. Fox guessed Cougar, the oldest of the guys, to be around thirty-six years old. He and Badger were the more serious members of the team, always keeping the rest of them on task. Badger was stockier than the other three men on the team and the shortest at just under six foot. He was Australian with auburn hair and hazel eyes. Since he was not the only Australian on the team, at least he did not have to feel too far away from home when they were on the job. Bear was the other Australian. Standing about the same height as Cougar, Bear seemed to be the epitome of the surfer stereotype to Fox with his shaggy sun-bleached dirty blonde hair and his grey eyes. That was one thing that she did know about Bear’s personal life; is that he loved surfing. According to him, that was practically all he did while off the job.
Hawk was the youngest of the guys, probably only two or three years older than her nearly twenty-six years of age, while both Badger and Bear were somewhere between him and Cougar in age. Aside from being the youngest of the men, he was also the tallest at six and a half feet. Hawk was Irish with black hair, emerald eyes, and a light freckling across his nose that gave him a slightly boyish appearance.
Reaching a side entrance to the sprawling palace home belonging to Prince Rasim after their sprint across the lawn, Cougar had signed for Badger, Hawk and Bear to spread out on each side of the doors along the dark stone of the building while he stood over Fox as she kneeled if front of the large French style doors, which had what looked like heavy navy blue drapes hanging over them on the other side. She had hoisted her pack from over her head and off her back and then slung her M16A4 over her shoulder, leaving it in a position that she could easily bring it up and fire it if need be. Since the door was largely a glass panel, Fox had grabbed a nifty little toy that would allow her to cut a hole in the glass so she could stick her hand in and unlock the door out of the pack instead of dealing with the lock picks just yet. They could have just smashed through the glass door since they wanted to get caught anyway, but they didn’t want to appear completely inept.
They wanted to get caught without it looking like they were trying to get caught. Which is why they had planned to “accidentally” set off the new alarm system which had just been installed the week before and not that many people would have known about it yet. It sure was not on the plans and maps of Rasim’s home that they had placed in their packs anyways. But they knew it was there and they were going to purposefully set it off when they walked through those doors and into Rasim’s study by not deactivating the system.
The round piece of glass had popped out of the door and into the palm of Fox’s hand and she had slipped it into one of the pockets of her cargo pants with one hand as she reached her other one through the hole and flipped the lock. As she had moved to a standing position, Badger, Hawk and Bear had slid back along the wall moving closer to the door. Her pack settled back in place and her M16A4 went back into firing position, she had moved behind Cougar as he took point and slowly pushed the door open. He had moved his gun and head from one side to the other, checking to make sure no one was in the room and then motioned with a tilt of his head for the others to follow him in.
They filed into the darkness of the room after him, each of them pausing once inside to shoulder their guns and grab the packs off their backs to get out their flashlights. They had gathered in the center of the room and Cougar had looked around their little circle, his face serious as he signed. It shouldn’t be long. You know what to do. He looked each of them in the face and they each nodded at him and one by one turned away from the group to get to work. They knew what he was doing. He had been silently telling them that if they wanted to back out of the job, they needed to walk out and leave right then and there.
It was an unwritten and unspoken agreement that the team had. If ever a job seemed too much for a team member to handle, they could walk away. No questions asked. Yet in the six years Fox had been on the team, not one team member had ever walked away from the job and this job had been no different.
They had moved to different parts of Prince Rasim’s study and began to make the room look like it had been tossed as if there had been something they had been searching for. Keeping her M16A4 slung over her shoulder, Fox had gone to the desk and began taking drawers out, flipping them over and emptying the contents onto the top of the desk. After each drawer was emptied she also rifled through the papers, tossing a few here and there on the chair behind her.
All the while she worked, her gaze flickered from under her lids from one entrance into the room to another. There were three in total. The doors they had come through from outside, one behind her and to her right, and one on the far north side of the room to Bear’s left where he had found a safe in the wall and was working on cracking it. They worked quickly, completely trashing the room within minutes of entering it, which was good because it was only six minutes after they entered that all hell broke loose.
Fox had been just about to yank another drawer out when there was the sound of splintering glass and then a flash as the room filled with smoke. Smoke grenade. Fox had ripped the bandana off her head and went to wrap it around her face so it covered her nose and mouth, when the door on the far north of the room and the door from outside both flew open simultaneously. She had swung her gun up into firing position just as she saw one of the dark shapes that had entered the room from the north strike out with something at Bear, hitting him in the leg and a second shape getting him in the head. Bear crumpled to the floor.
Hearing a thud from close to the doors leading outside Fox had swung her gun in that direction and saw Hawk, who had gone in that direction to confront the people entering, splayed out on the floor. These people were lucky that the team was just trying to put up the appearance of fighting back. Normally it would take a lot more work to get any one team member down for the count. Badger had started towards Bear’s direction and Cougar had gone towards Hawk’s when suddenly the door to Fox’s right swung open. She turned quickly to confront the dark figures, but in the darkness had missed the shape moving with an alarming force towards her head. She had felt a sharp, piercing pain. And then nothing as she descended into the darkness.
So, here she sat. Her combat boots had been taken off and her feet stripped of her socks so that her bare feet were left flat on the floor and her long-sleeved black tee had been removed, leaving her with the black tank top she had on under it. And there she was - in a metal chair made to be uncomfortable, with her wrists and ankles bound so tightly with the metal cuffs that there would certainly be marks left on them when this was all over. Fox almost chuckled at that. Were they really expecting little her to bust through the metal cuffs? She was nowhere near weak with all the training she had but, she also was of a rather slight build and certainly not strong enough to accomplish that. No. It was more than likely part of their plan to make her as uncomfortable as possible.
It felt like it had been forever since she had regained consciousness, but Fox was sure it had most likely only been one hour, maybe two. They would have known almost the second she was awake since they would be watching the feed from the camera in the corner of the room and she had seen shadows of what was probably a guard under the door and he would have heard the metal of the cuffs clinking together as she moved and reported it. So, they could have come in right away to question her, but they wanted to give her the time to think about the situation and make her sweat a little bit. Fox couldn’t say she blamed them, if their situations had been reversed; she probably would have done the same thing.
Fox suddenly heard a flurry of movement outside her door. The guard moving around it sounded like. Then what sounded like footsteps slowly making their way closer to the room. Probably the head honchos finally and the guard had most likely hurried into a more alert position so it didn’t appear that he was slacking on the job. Closer and closer the footsteps came, until they paused right outside her door. There were voices in hushed tones now. Arabic.
They were speaking Arabic. Of course, they couldn’t know that Fox knew Arabic and she wouldn’t let on that she knew it either. She strained to hear what was being said beyond the door, but they were speaking too quietly for her to understand anything. The voices stopped and there was the sound of a key turning in a lock and a bolt sliding out of place. The door swung open and two men entered, shutting the door with a click behind them. She could hear the bolt sliding back into place and a key turning in the lock. The two men strode across the empty room to stand before her. Fox made her face void of any expression as she looked them over.
They were both Arab of course; semi-dark skinned, with dark eyes and hair. They ere both probably in their mid-to-late thirties and wore green slacks and short-sleeved button-down shirts with black combat boots. That was where the similarities ended. One was shorter and couldn’t be much taller than Fox’s 5’6”, while the other had to be several inches over six feet. The shorter one also had a stockier build than the taller one who had broad shoulders but a narrow waist. The tall one had a harder look about him in general, his eyes ice cold as they glared through her. The scars criss-crossing over his left cheek only added to his hard edge.
Fox knew all about scars. Of course she had a few here and there from her years as a mercenary, but there were many more - physical and emotional - including one slashing across her right cheek slightly under her eye from that one event ten years ago. She shoved the thoughts of the past aside again, silently chiding herself for thinking of it while working. Now was not the time.
She sat in her chair staring blankly ahead while they stared down at her. Finally they glanced at each other and the taller one nodded at the shorter one. The shorter one crouched down so he was more at eye level with her, while the taller one moved back a little further and began to pace a little back and forth. Ooooo, the good cop, bad cop routine. Nice. The shorter one even seemed to try and school his features into a more gentle appearance, but it didn’t really seem to help all that much. The gentleness didn’t reach his eyes. At least he looked far less menacing than his tall companion.
“My name is Fahd,” he said speaking in Arabic, “I would like to help you get out of here in one piece, but in order to help you, you must help me. Could you do that?”
Fox remained silent and cocked her head to one side and schooled the features on her heart-shaped face into a confused expression. Mentally she translated what he was really saying. Tell me everything or we will make you and once you “help” us we will blind fold you and take you out and leave you in the middle of the desert to die from heat stroke, dehydration, or any of the damage we have inflicted upon your body.
The one called Fahd glanced back at his partner and then back at Fox. “Do you speak Arabic?” he questioned.
Fox remained silent, keeping the confused expression on her face. Not that she was foolish enough to believe that she would never talk. She would eventually. It would be near impossible to not let anything out once force came into play. Of course, most of what she would be letting out would be curse words and false information if she had to go that far.
She could talk right now if she wanted to. About anything and everything but what they wanted to hear. All they would find out when she talked would be that she was American. That in itself wouldn’t tell them much of anything because they weren’t even doing a job for an American. Not to mention she and Cougar were the only ones with American accents. Bear and Badger both had Australian accents while Hawk had an Irish lilt. That would throw them a bit in their search for who the team worked for. But she wouldn’t talk. Not yet. They were going to play their game with her, and she would play her game with them.
“I don’t think she speaks Arabic,” Fahd threw over his shoulder to his tall companion. The taller one remained silent, narrowing his eyes at her.
Fahd switched to English, “My name is Fahd. I would like it if you would help me out with something. If you do, I will make sure you get out of here in one piece. Do you think you could do that?”
Fox just continued to stare at him blankly and just to switch things up, she tilted her head to the other side.
The taller one glared at her and a growl seemed to erupt from him. He strode up to Fahd’s side. “She’s either stupid or she’s playing us.” He spit out in Arabic to Fahd.
Fahd scowled up at him. “Not necessarily. Maybe she really doesn’t speak Arabic or English.” The taller one glared at him incredulously. “Well Hashim, it’s not like we don’t have enemies in nations that don’t speak Arabic or English.”
Hashim must be the taller one’s name Fox gathered from their conversation.
“That may be true, but those people would most likely speak English as well as their first language.” Hashim growled.
Fox mentally rolled her eyes as Fahd ignored Hashim’s comment and tried a couple more languages. The one called Hashim was right. Most people in the type of profession that would have them rifling through someone important’s home study looking for information, would know more than one language and one of those was usually English. Apparently this Hashim was the smarter of the two. Fahd repeated his request in French and German, neither of which Fox so much as blinked at.
“That exhausts my language skills,” Fahd sighed, his forehead crinkling in concentration, “do you think maybe she’s Russian, or….”
He broke off as Hashim pushed him out of the way and strode over so that he was standing right over Fox. He leaned over, his face mere inches from hers. In English he spat out, “Look little girl, we are not playing games here. You either willingly tell us what we want or we make you tell us what we want.”
Yes, she was little by comparison to the two men in front of her; but she was not a little girl anymore. Little girls were not little girls anymore after they had seen the things she had seen. Gone through what she had gone through.
Slightly irritated at this Hashim guy for mistaking her for a little girl, Fox decided she could irritate him too and so looking directly into his cold, dark eyes; she gave him the best smug smile she could muster. His anger was so instantaneous that in any other situation, she may have found it humorous. His eyes narrowed, lips flattened, nostrils flared and his breathing got noticeably heavier. “Impetuous witch,” Hashim snarled. With his right hand he struck out against her, backhanding her against her left cheek. Fox didn’t even flinch as he hit her, throwing her against the right arm of the chair, jarring her wrist as the metal cuffs dug even deeper into her skin. She righted herself, masking her face in an innocent expression, making a growl erupt from deep in his chest. His hands clenched an unclenched as he stood glaring at her through narrowed eyes.
“Mark my words little girl, you will regret not telling us everything when we first asked it of you. I will make sure of it.” He paused, as if letting her absorb that bit of information, or waiting for her to break down and spill everything before he carried through with his threat. When Fox didn’t make a peep, he continued, “And I will make sure that you do tell us everything eventually. No matter how long it takes. No matter what I have to do to make you. You will talk.”
With that, Hashim turned on his heel and stalked to the door rapping his knuckles on it, Fahd close behind him. A key turned in the lock and the bolt slid out of place before the door creaked open to admit the guard. Hashim spoke to the man - also Arab with dark skin, hair and eyes and wearing garb nearly identical to Hashim and Fahd - in rapid Arabic, motioning back towards Fox with his hands several times. The guard stood there obediently nodding at everything Hashim said and then stood aside to let the other men through the door. Fahd started through and Hashim turned to follow and then turned back slightly to look at Fox. Then he muttered, smirking a little almost to himself, in Arabic, “I think I just may have fun breaking this one.” And then he turned and walked out, leaving Fox with the guard.
The man strode towards Fox, unclipping a set of keys from his belt. He bent and turned the key on the cuffs - the part that was hooked to the chair arm - then hooked the two cuffs together. Fox cursed silently, wishing she was getting rid of the tight cuffs. She knew though that if Hashim followed through with his threats, then the pain the metal cuffs were causing her would be the last of her worries.
The guard proceeded to kneel on the stone floor, unlocking the cuffs around her ankles. Both sides of the cuffs were unlocked this time and the cuffs were clipped onto his belt. At least there was some relief there. Fox desperately wanted to lean down and rub the aching flesh, but refrained from doing so. If she really wanted to make a run for it now, all she would have to do is reach down and wrap the chain from the cuffs around his neck and hold on until he lost consciousness. Definitely possible. Of course she couldn’t do that; she still needed to find out where Aminah was being kept and try to figure a way out.
Getting back to his feet the guard grabbed where the cuffs holding her wrists joined and tugged up. At his urging, Fox stood - every muscle in her body protesting the movement. Her body did not appreciate being forced to sit in the same position for hours on end. She followed obediently behind the guard, stumbling a little bit at first as her legs struggled to cooperate. Outside the room, Fox took in as much of her surroundings as she could without being too obvious as she was guided down a hallway. Sand floors and rock and sand walls, ceilings. No wonder King Basir and his men could not find Prince Rasim’s secret hideaway; it seemed to be underground. Possibly built into a cliff. Out in the middle of the desert most likely. That would make escape a bit difficult.
Directly outside the door, the hallway split in three different directions. Straight ahead, to the left and to the right. Fox and the guard followed the hallway to the left of the doorway. Every once in a while they passed a closed door. Each one bolted and with a sliding window that could be opened for a guard to see in. Fox wondered which of these rooms held her team members. Light bulbs hung from chains every ten feet or so, swaying slightly from side to side; casting eerie shadows along the sandy walls. Fox’s heart rate kicked it up a notch as she felt a swell of panic well up inside her.
She remembered being underground before. Except it had been dirt then, not sand. Clenching her hands into fists, she forced herself to calm down. She couldn’t think about that right now. It was not the time or place. Her life; not to mention her team members and Aminah’s lives depended on her keeping her focus. Her focus could be completely shattered if thoughts of the past kept popping up. Those memories had always stayed hidden during jobs before; only haunting her every waking thought when they were between jobs while she had herself locked away within the privacy of her own home. Being underground again was not helping. It also probably didn’t help that the anniversary was only a few short weeks away.
The guard came to an abrupt stop in front of a door, unlocking it and sliding the bolt out. Grabbing Fox, he pushed her ahead of him through the doorway. Looking around, she flinched inwardly. From her reaction to being out in the hallway, she had hoped that it would be like the first room she was in; which had been at least somewhat finished off and painted white. This was not like that. This was like the hallway; a room carved out of the sand and rock. And way too similar to that room ten years ago. It was void of pretty much anything except a wall of what looked like high powered lights lined up against one of the walls almost floor to ceiling. There was also a chain hanging from the ceiling and another one bolted into the sand floor directly below it. She knew what those were for and that was unfortunately exactly where they were headed. Damn.
The guard lifted his arms above his head, motioning for her to do the same. Fox did not follow his lead, couldn’t follow his lead. This time she was not being purposefully annoying, she was simply frozen with fear even though it did not show in her face.
The guard grunted and forced Fox’s arms above her head for her; he looped the chain from the ceiling with the cuffs around her wrists, locking them in place. He then unclipped the cuffs from his belt and knelt to refasten them around her ankles. He hooked the left cuff onto the right cuff and then proceeded to lock them into place with the chain in the ground. Tugging on the chain and rising to do the same with the one above her head, the guard double-checked to make sure they were secure. Nodding his satisfaction, he turned and headed back towards the door stopping to look back at her.
“Hashim will give you some time to rethink your options,” he told her in thickly accented Arabic and then walked through the door, swinging it closed behind him. The bolt clicked into place and the key turned in the lock.
Beads of sweat broke out across her forehead from the heat of the enclosed space, yet a shiver still stole its way up her spine. The position she was in, with her hands above her head and feet fastened to the floor, was one that she was all too familiar with. Except then it had been wire, not cuffs. And she hadn’t been alone.
Fox squeezed her eyes shut, pleading with the memories to go away; leave her alone until the job was done. But it wasn’t working; the memories were forcing their way up to the surface. When she opened her eyes it wasn’t her cell that she saw and she wasn’t Fox anymore. Fox did not exist yet. But Audrey Grace Lambert did.
Someone groaned. The sound barely reached through the fog weighing her down as Fox struggled into a state of consciousness. God her head was throbbing. A groan reached her again and this time she realized that the sound had passed through her own lips.
The bastard must have hit her harder than she had been expecting. Fox moved her hand to explore the damage that had been done to her skull; only to find herself unable to move it up more than an inch. Damn. Tugging on her other hand, she encountered the same problem. This time the groan she let out was one of frustration. Fox cracked open her burning, pale, jade-green eyes finally and glared down at the metal bracelets adorning her wrists and effectively holding her to the chair she was sitting in and restricting her movements.
As she became more aware, Fox shifted her numb legs in an attempt to get the blood pumping through them again and found herself unable to move those either. Sure enough, leaning over the arm of the chair and looking down, Fox discovered her ankles securely chained to the chair legs. Sitting back in the chair she let out a frustrated sigh and shook her head to get the strands of her straight jet black hair that had flopped into her line of vision out of the way. Before she started cursing out loud she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then another and another. She couldn’t let her discomfort and frustration show too much. That would not do any good.
Pushing aside the throbbing pain in her head, the burning dryness of her eyes, the metal biting into her wrists and ankles, and the numbness of her legs; Fox let out another breath and opened her eyes again to survey the room she was in. Her chair, the only piece of furniture - the only anything really - sat in the middle of the room, which couldn’t be any bigger than twelve feet by twelve feet. The walls, floor and door were all white but were pretty dingy looking. There were no windows and only the one door. A single light bulb dangled from the ceiling above her, the light filtering out of it not really doing much to brighten the room. Fox knew that the smallness of the room combined with the empty feeling from the lack of furniture, the dirtiness of the walls, the discomfort of the hand and ankle cuffs, as well as the pounding in her head were all meant to make her as uncomfortable as possible in hopes that she would spill details once they started questioning her.
Unfortunately for them, she was expecting something like this and was trained to handle such situations. Also unfortunate for them was the fact that she and her team members wanted to be where they were and would not give up anything that would either get them released or disposed of, depending on the Prince’s mood, until they had what they had come to get. Fox wondered idly where Cougar, Badger, Hawk and Bear had wound up. Probably in rooms and situations similar, if not exactly the same, as hers. Hopefully they would all wind up in the same room at some point in time. If not, they would just have to find some other way to communicate. She wondered who they would begin questioning first and if they would resort to force right away.
They might start with her since she was the only female team member and was young, leading them to think that she was the weakest team member and would be the one most likely to spill the beans. They would be wrong in that assumption. None of the team members were in any way weak, but people will react differently to physical force, even when they are conditioned for it like the team had been. It just so happened that events in Fox’s past made her even more capable to handle interrogations.
Forcing herself out of dark thoughts of the past, which she could not and would not linger on while she was on the job, she closed her eyes and took a deep, calming breath. Two more breaths and she opened her eyes again. There, it was gone. Now she could focus on the job at hand while she waited for someone to show up.
She and the team were mercenaries and had been hired by King Basir, king of Saudi Arabia. The king’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Aminah, had been missing for two days. King Basir and his closest assistants believed that she had been kidnapped by the king’s nephew, Prince Rasim. Rasim had shown an interest in obtaining the throne and the title of King for several years, but if King Basir had anything to do with it Rasim would never inherit the throne. King Basir had made his dislike for the Prince and his ways - he was known to be very shrewd and cruel - very evident. It was well known that the king’s daughter was his most prized possession and he would do anything for her.
They figured that Rasim thought King Basir would exchange the throne for his daughter. Men from the king’s own security detail had slipped into Prince Rasim’s home unnoticed and searched every crook and cranny looking for Aminah but had not seen any sign of the girl. King Basir believed that she was being kept in a different facility that Prince Rasim was known to possess, which was used for housing prisoners and apparently anyone who disagreed with him too much. Who knows what all went on there. That was the problem. Besides the fact that it existed, no one knew anything about the facility, including where it was located. No one that the team had access to anyway. Not the king, not anyone in his employ and not any of the team’s own contacts. They could have questioned people working with the prince, but they didn’t want to let on that they thought he was the one who had Aminah kidnapped. So the team had to come up with a different and fairly dangerous plan in order to find out where the girl was being kept, rescue her, and return her to King Basir.
The plan had been to get caught trying to steal information from Prince Rasim, be taken as his prisoners and hopefully end up in the same facility Aminah was being kept in. The “hopefully” was the tough part. There was no way to be sure that they would be taken to the same place the girl was, or that Rasim’s guards would even want to take them alive. It was highly likely, however, that the prince would want to know what information they were looking for and who they were working for.
Now, to most people getting purposefully taken as prisoners would seem like a very idiotic idea, especially by someone such as Prince Rasim who was known to be particularly cruel when he was trying to obtain information. For the team though, it was just another job. It was not the first time that one or more of them had been arranged to be purposefully taken as prisoner. Nor would it be the first time they would be tortured to obtain information, if it came to that this time. However, it would be the first time that all of them would be taken prisoner. Normally just one or two of them would have that task. Without knowing the layout of the facility and what they would be up against once inside, they had all agreed that it would be best if they stuck together this time.
The plan had gone off without a hitch too. Dressed head to toe in all black - black bandanas wrapped around their heads, long-sleeved black t-shirts, black cargo pants, black combat boots and black packs slung over their backs containing rope, lock picks, maps of Prince Rasim’s home and the surrounding area and a flashlight - they had descended upon Rasim’s palace under cover of darkness. Each of them had a M16A4 cradled in their arms as they crept across the lawn, as well as at least one or two knives strapped to their thighs and ankles. Fox had one of each - one strapped onto her right thigh and the other on her left ankle. Of course she had also snuck two more into her ensemble by concealing one under her long-sleeved tee; it lay flat and cool along her right side. The other one she had tossed in her pack with her other tools.
The tools in the pack were all part of the rouse to make it look like they were there to either steal information or something of value and then make a quick getaway. The weapons were also unnecessary since they wanted to be caught in the act and taken as prisoners, but it would have been suspicious if they had not brought anything to defend themselves with. Not to mention it just plain went against their natures to be unarmed. Fox hardly went anywhere without at least one knife strapped to her thigh and hidden under her pants. Although that had been a habit of hers for longer than the six years she’d been a mercenary it was even more so now.
She knew the others also carried at least a knife on them while they were between jobs, but as far as she knew that was just a job hazard from being a mercenary for them. On the other hand, there may be more to their pasts than she knew - none of them really talked much, if at all, about their personal lives. Sure, little tidbits here and there, but nothing really personal. Fox shared next to nothing, even though if there was anyone in the world that she trusted, it was the four men who were her teammates. Well, them and one other. But he was a part of her past and he was going to stay there. Even though she trusted each of them with her life, she was not ready to share anything outside of the job with any of them. It wasn’t worth the risk to get close to them, to let them in.
They were great guys and with the addition of Fox, they made a very diverse, but efficient team. Cougar, their leader, was American like Fox with black hair and grey eyes. He was about medium build, but all muscle and stood at just over six feet. Fox guessed Cougar, the oldest of the guys, to be around thirty-six years old. He and Badger were the more serious members of the team, always keeping the rest of them on task. Badger was stockier than the other three men on the team and the shortest at just under six foot. He was Australian with auburn hair and hazel eyes. Since he was not the only Australian on the team, at least he did not have to feel too far away from home when they were on the job. Bear was the other Australian. Standing about the same height as Cougar, Bear seemed to be the epitome of the surfer stereotype to Fox with his shaggy sun-bleached dirty blonde hair and his grey eyes. That was one thing that she did know about Bear’s personal life; is that he loved surfing. According to him, that was practically all he did while off the job.
Hawk was the youngest of the guys, probably only two or three years older than her nearly twenty-six years of age, while both Badger and Bear were somewhere between him and Cougar in age. Aside from being the youngest of the men, he was also the tallest at six and a half feet. Hawk was Irish with black hair, emerald eyes, and a light freckling across his nose that gave him a slightly boyish appearance.
Reaching a side entrance to the sprawling palace home belonging to Prince Rasim after their sprint across the lawn, Cougar had signed for Badger, Hawk and Bear to spread out on each side of the doors along the dark stone of the building while he stood over Fox as she kneeled if front of the large French style doors, which had what looked like heavy navy blue drapes hanging over them on the other side. She had hoisted her pack from over her head and off her back and then slung her M16A4 over her shoulder, leaving it in a position that she could easily bring it up and fire it if need be. Since the door was largely a glass panel, Fox had grabbed a nifty little toy that would allow her to cut a hole in the glass so she could stick her hand in and unlock the door out of the pack instead of dealing with the lock picks just yet. They could have just smashed through the glass door since they wanted to get caught anyway, but they didn’t want to appear completely inept.
They wanted to get caught without it looking like they were trying to get caught. Which is why they had planned to “accidentally” set off the new alarm system which had just been installed the week before and not that many people would have known about it yet. It sure was not on the plans and maps of Rasim’s home that they had placed in their packs anyways. But they knew it was there and they were going to purposefully set it off when they walked through those doors and into Rasim’s study by not deactivating the system.
The round piece of glass had popped out of the door and into the palm of Fox’s hand and she had slipped it into one of the pockets of her cargo pants with one hand as she reached her other one through the hole and flipped the lock. As she had moved to a standing position, Badger, Hawk and Bear had slid back along the wall moving closer to the door. Her pack settled back in place and her M16A4 went back into firing position, she had moved behind Cougar as he took point and slowly pushed the door open. He had moved his gun and head from one side to the other, checking to make sure no one was in the room and then motioned with a tilt of his head for the others to follow him in.
They filed into the darkness of the room after him, each of them pausing once inside to shoulder their guns and grab the packs off their backs to get out their flashlights. They had gathered in the center of the room and Cougar had looked around their little circle, his face serious as he signed. It shouldn’t be long. You know what to do. He looked each of them in the face and they each nodded at him and one by one turned away from the group to get to work. They knew what he was doing. He had been silently telling them that if they wanted to back out of the job, they needed to walk out and leave right then and there.
It was an unwritten and unspoken agreement that the team had. If ever a job seemed too much for a team member to handle, they could walk away. No questions asked. Yet in the six years Fox had been on the team, not one team member had ever walked away from the job and this job had been no different.
They had moved to different parts of Prince Rasim’s study and began to make the room look like it had been tossed as if there had been something they had been searching for. Keeping her M16A4 slung over her shoulder, Fox had gone to the desk and began taking drawers out, flipping them over and emptying the contents onto the top of the desk. After each drawer was emptied she also rifled through the papers, tossing a few here and there on the chair behind her.
All the while she worked, her gaze flickered from under her lids from one entrance into the room to another. There were three in total. The doors they had come through from outside, one behind her and to her right, and one on the far north side of the room to Bear’s left where he had found a safe in the wall and was working on cracking it. They worked quickly, completely trashing the room within minutes of entering it, which was good because it was only six minutes after they entered that all hell broke loose.
Fox had been just about to yank another drawer out when there was the sound of splintering glass and then a flash as the room filled with smoke. Smoke grenade. Fox had ripped the bandana off her head and went to wrap it around her face so it covered her nose and mouth, when the door on the far north of the room and the door from outside both flew open simultaneously. She had swung her gun up into firing position just as she saw one of the dark shapes that had entered the room from the north strike out with something at Bear, hitting him in the leg and a second shape getting him in the head. Bear crumpled to the floor.
Hearing a thud from close to the doors leading outside Fox had swung her gun in that direction and saw Hawk, who had gone in that direction to confront the people entering, splayed out on the floor. These people were lucky that the team was just trying to put up the appearance of fighting back. Normally it would take a lot more work to get any one team member down for the count. Badger had started towards Bear’s direction and Cougar had gone towards Hawk’s when suddenly the door to Fox’s right swung open. She turned quickly to confront the dark figures, but in the darkness had missed the shape moving with an alarming force towards her head. She had felt a sharp, piercing pain. And then nothing as she descended into the darkness.
So, here she sat. Her combat boots had been taken off and her feet stripped of her socks so that her bare feet were left flat on the floor and her long-sleeved black tee had been removed, leaving her with the black tank top she had on under it. And there she was - in a metal chair made to be uncomfortable, with her wrists and ankles bound so tightly with the metal cuffs that there would certainly be marks left on them when this was all over. Fox almost chuckled at that. Were they really expecting little her to bust through the metal cuffs? She was nowhere near weak with all the training she had but, she also was of a rather slight build and certainly not strong enough to accomplish that. No. It was more than likely part of their plan to make her as uncomfortable as possible.
It felt like it had been forever since she had regained consciousness, but Fox was sure it had most likely only been one hour, maybe two. They would have known almost the second she was awake since they would be watching the feed from the camera in the corner of the room and she had seen shadows of what was probably a guard under the door and he would have heard the metal of the cuffs clinking together as she moved and reported it. So, they could have come in right away to question her, but they wanted to give her the time to think about the situation and make her sweat a little bit. Fox couldn’t say she blamed them, if their situations had been reversed; she probably would have done the same thing.
Fox suddenly heard a flurry of movement outside her door. The guard moving around it sounded like. Then what sounded like footsteps slowly making their way closer to the room. Probably the head honchos finally and the guard had most likely hurried into a more alert position so it didn’t appear that he was slacking on the job. Closer and closer the footsteps came, until they paused right outside her door. There were voices in hushed tones now. Arabic.
They were speaking Arabic. Of course, they couldn’t know that Fox knew Arabic and she wouldn’t let on that she knew it either. She strained to hear what was being said beyond the door, but they were speaking too quietly for her to understand anything. The voices stopped and there was the sound of a key turning in a lock and a bolt sliding out of place. The door swung open and two men entered, shutting the door with a click behind them. She could hear the bolt sliding back into place and a key turning in the lock. The two men strode across the empty room to stand before her. Fox made her face void of any expression as she looked them over.
They were both Arab of course; semi-dark skinned, with dark eyes and hair. They ere both probably in their mid-to-late thirties and wore green slacks and short-sleeved button-down shirts with black combat boots. That was where the similarities ended. One was shorter and couldn’t be much taller than Fox’s 5’6”, while the other had to be several inches over six feet. The shorter one also had a stockier build than the taller one who had broad shoulders but a narrow waist. The tall one had a harder look about him in general, his eyes ice cold as they glared through her. The scars criss-crossing over his left cheek only added to his hard edge.
Fox knew all about scars. Of course she had a few here and there from her years as a mercenary, but there were many more - physical and emotional - including one slashing across her right cheek slightly under her eye from that one event ten years ago. She shoved the thoughts of the past aside again, silently chiding herself for thinking of it while working. Now was not the time.
She sat in her chair staring blankly ahead while they stared down at her. Finally they glanced at each other and the taller one nodded at the shorter one. The shorter one crouched down so he was more at eye level with her, while the taller one moved back a little further and began to pace a little back and forth. Ooooo, the good cop, bad cop routine. Nice. The shorter one even seemed to try and school his features into a more gentle appearance, but it didn’t really seem to help all that much. The gentleness didn’t reach his eyes. At least he looked far less menacing than his tall companion.
“My name is Fahd,” he said speaking in Arabic, “I would like to help you get out of here in one piece, but in order to help you, you must help me. Could you do that?”
Fox remained silent and cocked her head to one side and schooled the features on her heart-shaped face into a confused expression. Mentally she translated what he was really saying. Tell me everything or we will make you and once you “help” us we will blind fold you and take you out and leave you in the middle of the desert to die from heat stroke, dehydration, or any of the damage we have inflicted upon your body.
The one called Fahd glanced back at his partner and then back at Fox. “Do you speak Arabic?” he questioned.
Fox remained silent, keeping the confused expression on her face. Not that she was foolish enough to believe that she would never talk. She would eventually. It would be near impossible to not let anything out once force came into play. Of course, most of what she would be letting out would be curse words and false information if she had to go that far.
She could talk right now if she wanted to. About anything and everything but what they wanted to hear. All they would find out when she talked would be that she was American. That in itself wouldn’t tell them much of anything because they weren’t even doing a job for an American. Not to mention she and Cougar were the only ones with American accents. Bear and Badger both had Australian accents while Hawk had an Irish lilt. That would throw them a bit in their search for who the team worked for. But she wouldn’t talk. Not yet. They were going to play their game with her, and she would play her game with them.
“I don’t think she speaks Arabic,” Fahd threw over his shoulder to his tall companion. The taller one remained silent, narrowing his eyes at her.
Fahd switched to English, “My name is Fahd. I would like it if you would help me out with something. If you do, I will make sure you get out of here in one piece. Do you think you could do that?”
Fox just continued to stare at him blankly and just to switch things up, she tilted her head to the other side.
The taller one glared at her and a growl seemed to erupt from him. He strode up to Fahd’s side. “She’s either stupid or she’s playing us.” He spit out in Arabic to Fahd.
Fahd scowled up at him. “Not necessarily. Maybe she really doesn’t speak Arabic or English.” The taller one glared at him incredulously. “Well Hashim, it’s not like we don’t have enemies in nations that don’t speak Arabic or English.”
Hashim must be the taller one’s name Fox gathered from their conversation.
“That may be true, but those people would most likely speak English as well as their first language.” Hashim growled.
Fox mentally rolled her eyes as Fahd ignored Hashim’s comment and tried a couple more languages. The one called Hashim was right. Most people in the type of profession that would have them rifling through someone important’s home study looking for information, would know more than one language and one of those was usually English. Apparently this Hashim was the smarter of the two. Fahd repeated his request in French and German, neither of which Fox so much as blinked at.
“That exhausts my language skills,” Fahd sighed, his forehead crinkling in concentration, “do you think maybe she’s Russian, or….”
He broke off as Hashim pushed him out of the way and strode over so that he was standing right over Fox. He leaned over, his face mere inches from hers. In English he spat out, “Look little girl, we are not playing games here. You either willingly tell us what we want or we make you tell us what we want.”
Yes, she was little by comparison to the two men in front of her; but she was not a little girl anymore. Little girls were not little girls anymore after they had seen the things she had seen. Gone through what she had gone through.
Slightly irritated at this Hashim guy for mistaking her for a little girl, Fox decided she could irritate him too and so looking directly into his cold, dark eyes; she gave him the best smug smile she could muster. His anger was so instantaneous that in any other situation, she may have found it humorous. His eyes narrowed, lips flattened, nostrils flared and his breathing got noticeably heavier. “Impetuous witch,” Hashim snarled. With his right hand he struck out against her, backhanding her against her left cheek. Fox didn’t even flinch as he hit her, throwing her against the right arm of the chair, jarring her wrist as the metal cuffs dug even deeper into her skin. She righted herself, masking her face in an innocent expression, making a growl erupt from deep in his chest. His hands clenched an unclenched as he stood glaring at her through narrowed eyes.
“Mark my words little girl, you will regret not telling us everything when we first asked it of you. I will make sure of it.” He paused, as if letting her absorb that bit of information, or waiting for her to break down and spill everything before he carried through with his threat. When Fox didn’t make a peep, he continued, “And I will make sure that you do tell us everything eventually. No matter how long it takes. No matter what I have to do to make you. You will talk.”
With that, Hashim turned on his heel and stalked to the door rapping his knuckles on it, Fahd close behind him. A key turned in the lock and the bolt slid out of place before the door creaked open to admit the guard. Hashim spoke to the man - also Arab with dark skin, hair and eyes and wearing garb nearly identical to Hashim and Fahd - in rapid Arabic, motioning back towards Fox with his hands several times. The guard stood there obediently nodding at everything Hashim said and then stood aside to let the other men through the door. Fahd started through and Hashim turned to follow and then turned back slightly to look at Fox. Then he muttered, smirking a little almost to himself, in Arabic, “I think I just may have fun breaking this one.” And then he turned and walked out, leaving Fox with the guard.
The man strode towards Fox, unclipping a set of keys from his belt. He bent and turned the key on the cuffs - the part that was hooked to the chair arm - then hooked the two cuffs together. Fox cursed silently, wishing she was getting rid of the tight cuffs. She knew though that if Hashim followed through with his threats, then the pain the metal cuffs were causing her would be the last of her worries.
The guard proceeded to kneel on the stone floor, unlocking the cuffs around her ankles. Both sides of the cuffs were unlocked this time and the cuffs were clipped onto his belt. At least there was some relief there. Fox desperately wanted to lean down and rub the aching flesh, but refrained from doing so. If she really wanted to make a run for it now, all she would have to do is reach down and wrap the chain from the cuffs around his neck and hold on until he lost consciousness. Definitely possible. Of course she couldn’t do that; she still needed to find out where Aminah was being kept and try to figure a way out.
Getting back to his feet the guard grabbed where the cuffs holding her wrists joined and tugged up. At his urging, Fox stood - every muscle in her body protesting the movement. Her body did not appreciate being forced to sit in the same position for hours on end. She followed obediently behind the guard, stumbling a little bit at first as her legs struggled to cooperate. Outside the room, Fox took in as much of her surroundings as she could without being too obvious as she was guided down a hallway. Sand floors and rock and sand walls, ceilings. No wonder King Basir and his men could not find Prince Rasim’s secret hideaway; it seemed to be underground. Possibly built into a cliff. Out in the middle of the desert most likely. That would make escape a bit difficult.
Directly outside the door, the hallway split in three different directions. Straight ahead, to the left and to the right. Fox and the guard followed the hallway to the left of the doorway. Every once in a while they passed a closed door. Each one bolted and with a sliding window that could be opened for a guard to see in. Fox wondered which of these rooms held her team members. Light bulbs hung from chains every ten feet or so, swaying slightly from side to side; casting eerie shadows along the sandy walls. Fox’s heart rate kicked it up a notch as she felt a swell of panic well up inside her.
She remembered being underground before. Except it had been dirt then, not sand. Clenching her hands into fists, she forced herself to calm down. She couldn’t think about that right now. It was not the time or place. Her life; not to mention her team members and Aminah’s lives depended on her keeping her focus. Her focus could be completely shattered if thoughts of the past kept popping up. Those memories had always stayed hidden during jobs before; only haunting her every waking thought when they were between jobs while she had herself locked away within the privacy of her own home. Being underground again was not helping. It also probably didn’t help that the anniversary was only a few short weeks away.
The guard came to an abrupt stop in front of a door, unlocking it and sliding the bolt out. Grabbing Fox, he pushed her ahead of him through the doorway. Looking around, she flinched inwardly. From her reaction to being out in the hallway, she had hoped that it would be like the first room she was in; which had been at least somewhat finished off and painted white. This was not like that. This was like the hallway; a room carved out of the sand and rock. And way too similar to that room ten years ago. It was void of pretty much anything except a wall of what looked like high powered lights lined up against one of the walls almost floor to ceiling. There was also a chain hanging from the ceiling and another one bolted into the sand floor directly below it. She knew what those were for and that was unfortunately exactly where they were headed. Damn.
The guard lifted his arms above his head, motioning for her to do the same. Fox did not follow his lead, couldn’t follow his lead. This time she was not being purposefully annoying, she was simply frozen with fear even though it did not show in her face.
The guard grunted and forced Fox’s arms above her head for her; he looped the chain from the ceiling with the cuffs around her wrists, locking them in place. He then unclipped the cuffs from his belt and knelt to refasten them around her ankles. He hooked the left cuff onto the right cuff and then proceeded to lock them into place with the chain in the ground. Tugging on the chain and rising to do the same with the one above her head, the guard double-checked to make sure they were secure. Nodding his satisfaction, he turned and headed back towards the door stopping to look back at her.
“Hashim will give you some time to rethink your options,” he told her in thickly accented Arabic and then walked through the door, swinging it closed behind him. The bolt clicked into place and the key turned in the lock.
Beads of sweat broke out across her forehead from the heat of the enclosed space, yet a shiver still stole its way up her spine. The position she was in, with her hands above her head and feet fastened to the floor, was one that she was all too familiar with. Except then it had been wire, not cuffs. And she hadn’t been alone.
Fox squeezed her eyes shut, pleading with the memories to go away; leave her alone until the job was done. But it wasn’t working; the memories were forcing their way up to the surface. When she opened her eyes it wasn’t her cell that she saw and she wasn’t Fox anymore. Fox did not exist yet. But Audrey Grace Lambert did.