Dark Escape (DARC Ops Book 10) Read online

  Jackson said, “Hold on.”

  “I’m holding, but I don’t know for how long. I think I need to check it out, and do it fast.”

  “Hold.”

  “Everything else is quiet,” Declan said just before he heard another whistle, ducked his head into his shoulders and crouched, trying to fold himself into a ball, covering his head just as another explosion propelled chunks of dirt, stones, and melons into the air. Close. Too close! The blast wave ripped through his body and sent him airborne again. It was a familiar feeling, being pushed through the air in the heat of the blast, but this time he felt his body absorb more of it. It tossed him a shorter distance, but the force of it pounded through his bones, through the base of his skull. An instant ache in his brain, his joints not working properly to get back up to his feet. He tried again and fell over, something broke, something gone. His vision gone, too. Nothing but ringing in his ears and the mild sense that some American woman, somewhere, still needed his help.

  3

  Sophia

  She awoke in her parent’s basement back in sweet ol’ suburban Columbus, Ohio. Lying on the ground, for some reason. The television room dark, and with dirt floors. Aside from that everything was normal. She could feel the cool of the ground as she shifted her body, curling onto her side. Propping up on an elbow, she realized that she was much older. Her body felt the weight of years, the aches and pains. Maybe some bruises. How’d she get them?

  The story in her mind felt incomplete. It scared her, how strange the basement had become. How strange her body felt. Then, far off, she heard the distant muddle of voices. Men. Arabic. A stale taste in her mouth, like metal. Her ears ringing again.

  When the sound and the pressure went away, she could hear something like an air raid siren. The blast of an explosion prompted a startled yelp, and she instinctively ducked her head and covered it with her arms. Heart pounding, she heard another, and then one more, followed by the loud pop-pop-pop of automatic gunfire. Eyes wide, her pulse racing, fear pulsed through her. She wasn’t home. She was in Afghanistan—a soundscape of a place very far from Columbus.

  The fear washed in and made her weak and sick to her stomach. Sophia got on all fours, her head stooped down to facilitate the rhythmic spasms of her vomiting the variously digested meal from the mansion. She heaved twice, spat, and that was it.

  She collapsed back down to the ground, her body trembling with the fear of the unknown as her mind struggled to grapple with the situation. With how she got there. With where the hell she was. Inside some windowless tomb. Dirt floors and walls. She wanted to hide but needed to escape.

  Out of a growing sense of desperation, she crawled to the nearest wall and clawed at it like an animal before regaining at least some of her senses. Senses enough to follow that wall to a corner, back in it, sit in the corner, and look out to where she thought she saw light seeping in. A dim blue, like the early night sky, or morning sky, coming through beneath the slit of door.

  There was no furniture in the room. When her breathing escalated into a frantic panic, she heard the maddening sound of her own hyperventilating echo off the walls. That was what scared her most, more than anything else, the sound of her panic bouncing back into her. Her alone with it. Her alone and waiting.

  She wondered how long she’d be alone. And who would be the one to enter the room. And what their intentions were. And if they were good or bad or ambivalent. She could do with ambivalent. Ambivalent would buy her some time.

  She waited what felt like an hour, or maybe only minutes, and began to despise time. She suddenly had way too much of it, locked alone and sore and scared in this room.

  Do something. Something, at least. Any little thing.

  It was hard to even breathe now, the air feeling stuffed and used up. Sophia found herself taking bigger and bigger gasps of air, and still it didn’t take away the feeling that she was slowly suffocating in the thick air and darkness.

  Do something.

  It took her that long to finally will herself to crawl along that disgusting dirt wall, her hands scratching with it, until Sophia finally arrived to where the light was the brightest. Where she thought would be a door. She pressed on the wooden board but it did nothing. No movement, no give. No escape.

  She tried harder, leaning her weight into it in sways, then standing on her feet and launching her body into the wooded slat that was her door to the outside world. Whatever that would be. She didn’t care. She just wanted escape.

  But there was none.

  She resorted to mad screaming. Hysterical wailing. Until the door opened and man entered, grabbing her calmly, but firmly and roughly and forcing her back to the corner. He pushed her, Sophia’s body flying back through the dark and landing against her dirt wall. White flashes of light burst in front of her eyes as her head hit the wall. She yelped in pain. Then there was the sound of plastic, a tray placed on the ground. Another man had walked in, his silhouette in the doorway even brighter. He had leaned down and placed a tray on the ground. What the fuck was it? And then he slid it forward and said, “Eat.”

  He left soon after, the same way he came, wordless and dark.

  Eat.

  The last thing she wanted to do was eat. Unless it was the face of her captor. She could scratch and claw and eat that if she had to, stab his eyes out with her fingers. No other weapon. Maybe the tray.

  Maybe she could use the tray as a weapon or whatever else was on it. She suddenly discovered her appetite, aside from the appetite for revenge. The idea that the plate might just offer some help. She feigned an appetite, scrambling over quick to feel in the dark what they’d given her. A pile of rice. A plastic water bottle. Nothing else. Fine. She would wait to see what else they might bring her. She would wait to figure it out. She would figure it out. She would live.

  The siren again, its sound wafting in somehow from the outside world. Only this time the siren was the evening prayer. The call to prayers undulated over the city, a breeze carrying parts of it away. If she still wanted to escape, now would be the time, with the men kneeling over and praying, their minds delving into prayer, their senses abandoned, concentrating on everything but the physical world. Everything but her.

  But how would she escape?

  The door was too sturdy, and likely guarded—even if it was guarded by a praying man.

  She felt around again, first along the floor for any odd tool she could use. The tray was too lightweight to do any damage to the wall, or to her captors.

  She searched around for a rock, but there wasn’t one.

  Then along the walls, she retraced her early exploration, this time stopping at what she thought might have been a weak spot in the structure. The dirt felt softened, perhaps from previous water damage. What lay on the other side of the wall was anyone’s guess. But it was likely a better reality then the one closed in around her in the jail cell.

  Sophia began clawing at the softened dirt and plaster, but it only hurt and chipped her nails. She was likely bleeding, and making very little progress. It was also extremely slow progress, likely taking her a week to do what she only had time to do in a night.

  She stopped clawing, her mind starting to wander onto the bigger questions. The who and why of her situation. The what the hell happened?

  She had been drugged after the dinner, and then kidnapped. That was probably the easiest bit to figure out. But who did it?

  The who . . . perhaps some group looking for a ransom. She almost hoped it was that. At least a ransom was a clear objective. At least a ransom could end in her release. Any other ideas, the darker ideas, she pushed away from her mind.

  She returned her attention to the food tray. She had to make use of it. Her fingernails caked and cracked from scraping at the dirt walls, she needed something stronger. She swiped the now-cold rice from the tray and turned it in her hands. She tried to bend it. No use. No, she wouldn’t give up! She stood, slid half the tray under her foot, then pulled upward on it with both ha
nds. It was an awkward position, but she put all her strength into it. She bent it hard enough to break it into two, the plastic snapping loud and forcefully between her bent hands.

  She grabbed the side of the tray that had the sharpest end and used it like an extension of her claws, a plastic shovel, and continued digging into the wall. This time she was making progress, the claw digging in and then torqueing out by the flex of her arms, a sucking sound from the wall as the dirt broke free of its mortar and broke out, some of it crumbling against her face, some of it rolling back along the floor in a big messy pile. She wasn’t concerned now with hiding her escape like some patient prisoner with a life sentence. Her life may very well be only another an hour short, so she dug in harder until she felt something collapse. Something giving way for her arms. Suddenly, there was space on the other side. She couldn’t see it, but through her digging, through her hands, it gave way to open air. She pushed harder, her arms now going through, softer now, like dry mud up to her elbows. She scrambled onto her stomach and stuck her head through without thinking, just acting, just pushing through, just trying to escape. She backed out, ripped at the wall with her hands, making the opening a little bigger, enough to slide her shoulders through. She took a deep breath and then exhaled as she forced her body through the little space she’d created, squirming past a tight little hole until she could open her eyes and feel some sense of open space. Open air. Fresh air. Night.

  Freedom.

  She collected herself on the other side, taking account of her body, knowing she was in one piece and able to stand, able to run. Along the wall she jogged, keeping in the shadows, away from the bright moonlight that swathed the ground in front of the building. It was night, and the prayers were now echoing over the city loudspeakers. Behind her, she heard the sound of goats bleating, the bells around their necks filling the yard, and detected the smell of them and the night air. She felt just like an animal, driving forward with one singular purpose, finding her way along the wall until the alley opened up into a darkened interior courtyard.

  Sophia creeped along the gallery to the corner of the house, where she saw it abutting a dirt embankment. That was it. She had to jump.

  Feeling another wave of nausea and fear throbbing through her, Sophia willed her feet to move. Keep moving. Keep low. Keep steady. But the outside air, instead of re-energizing her, had somehow reminded Sophia of the sickness she’d felt earlier, how she went down in the first place. And when she moved faster, she could almost feel the edges of her perception blending back to the dizziness of when she’d passed out earlier.

  Steady, careful.

  Her only option was to jump down, and before the nausea and the fear could influence the decision. The ground disappeared beneath her feet as she fell through the air, then landed hard and ragged, rolling down the rest of the way to the bottom of the embankment.

  She got lucky, jutting out her knee and popping herself back up to her feet momentarily, her legs racing now to fight back the pace and keep up, keep her center of gravity, keep her up, and Sophia ran, seeking solid footing, a heart-pounding and panic-induced scramble to safety, scrambling like a wild animal, racing toward the outside wall where a strong grip squeezed her arm. A strong hand, and then another one covering her mouth, squeezing her lips and her jaw shut.

  The hand around her arm squeezed harder, and then yanked her down to the ground. In the darkness and the dust, she strained to see her most recent attacker, a large, dark shape, coming closer, and then a man’s weight on top of her, then the background glowing white with an explosion. She could almost see the light through his shape, certainly through the strands of his hair as he hunkered down over her, covering her. A protective white silhouette, her angel.

  Her moment with her angel ended as quickly as the rat-a-tat of gunfire. Close gunfire, close screaming. Close panic. She could feel her angel’s heart beating against her chest, almost as hard as her own.

  4

  Declan

  Declan listened to his spotter’s orders and took cover at the bottom of a dry ditch as the explosions rocked the ground. It seemed to follow him around all evening, mortars and car bombs and pot shots from hip-held AK-47s. Why was he so damned special? The special attention had followed him from the market fiasco to the other side of Kabul, where the mountains began to rise up. Where the locals suddenly seemed less inviting to foreigners. The DARC Ops reception had certainly been icy, if not murderous. Declan hunkered down against the rocky bottom of the ditch as more explosions blew over him. He didn’t want the reception to turn murderous.

  And neither did his spotter. Or Jackson. And neither did this missing woman.

  The sudden eruption of small explosions—grenades—and weapons fire couldn’t be a coincidence. Something in the sudden attention told Declan that he and his partner were close to finding the poor woman. And finding her still alive. She was likely being ushered away to a new location under the cloud of mortar explosions and gunfire at that very moment. A perfect distraction. He could barely open his eyes through the dust and the smoke. He choked on it, coughing into the crook of his arm while squinting to find a sense of direction. How was he supposed to find anyone in this chaos, let alone actually look for some beautiful, intelligent, sophisticated American woman? In this condition, he’d likely mistake her for a goat.

  He hunched down again and waited for the smoke to clear, cursing the nearly full moon as he popped his head up to look out across the urban battlefield. It was deserted, save for a woman scurrying along the shadows of a second-floor complex. What the hell? He watched in dismay as she ran, hunched over, a headscarf flapping behind her. At first it looked as if she was holding something. Then Declan saw that she was merely holding herself, arms wrapped around her torso as she struggled to run over the uneven ground. Struggling to run away from the explosions. What in God’s name was the woman doing running out through all this chaos? Could she be the woman he’d been sent to look for?

  No, he wouldn’t get that lucky. The missing piece of the puzzle wouldn’t just suddenly rush out of a cloud of smoke. Rush right out onto his lap . . . She was heading in that direction, toward him, leaving the safety of the shadowy wall and out into the open, lurching through the air off an embankment of dirt and rubble, tumbling down into his hiding spot. His ditch.

  He grappled with the mad scrambling force of woman, covered her shrieking mouth until her teeth bit into his hand, eliciting a dark yet quiet curse. Until he pushed her back down against the dirt as another shell exploded behind him. The blast and the light and the ferocity paled in comparison to what he saw in this woman’s eyes. The pain, the insanity, the outrage. Everything directed at him.

  Declan dropped his weight onto her, pinning her in place as another wave of debris washed over their hiding place, him feeling her body under him, every soft angle of her through her thin pajamas. Her curves. Her warmth. Her knee rising up fast and swift, aiming for his balls. He blocked the thrust with his forearm at the last second. Damn it! Declan blocked her attack and held her down again, harder, groaning with the struggle. She was going to get herself, or both of them, killed. It was like trying to grasp a wet snake. He hissed at her to relax and stay quiet and stop moving. Her hand again jutted up between his legs and tried again to squeeze his balls, but she only managed to grab a handful of his pants, just barely grazing over where she likely had intended to do the most damage.

  Jesus . . .

  She had fight in her. That was for damn sure. He had no idea who she was, where she came from, or where she as headed, but explosions, gunfire, and a strange man on top of her were not going to stop her. After another half minute of slippery fumbling around with her, trying to keep her still, he reached the end of his patience. If she messed this up, they’d both be dead.

  Declan held her down flat by her shoulders, and growled in her ear. “I’m trying to fucking help you, but I can’t do that if you kill me first.”

  There was a sound that came from her, a quick
, quiet fleeting sound that Declan first thought was a laugh. Could she really be laughing? He squinted through the darkness until a white flare trailed upward and then burst, casting a silver-white glow over them. In that instant, he saw the tears in her eyes. Her body went limp as she cried quietly in the ditch. She had heard his voice, his American voice. Seen his face. Felt him try to steady her, hold her in place, grip on to her sanity right when she was ready to let go. He knew that she could see now, and hoped that she realized that he was there for her. And Declan could see that he’d somehow found his American woman.

  She reached up for him, her arms wrapping around his back into a tight hug. A crying, shuddering hug. Then she quickly clasped his face, her face against his, kissing him with a desperation he’d never felt in his life. A kiss on the mouth, still animalistic, still perhaps scared. He felt it, too, a dizzying combination of relief, adrenaline, the impulse to survive. He closed his eyes and gave in to the kiss, tasting her, needing her somehow just as badly. Until that part of his brain clicked on, his better judgment, his duty, everything telling him to let her go.

  He let her fall back, Declan racing for a breath. He needed to get his mind right, and in a hurry. He needed to find some sanity, and it wasn’t in their kiss. He shook off the idea, amazed that she’d had this effect on him. He’d never held someone like this . . .

  Declan pulled away from her, then pulling her up by her wrists, said, “Are you okay to walk?” He’d already tugged her up and got her onto her feet before she could answer. “Can you run?”

  He had watched her run to get to the ditch, but she seemed so confused. She seemed wounded and still very scared.

  He wondered if she could really speak English.

  Until she said, clearly, “Let’s go.”

  It seemed to not matter so much where they were running as who they were running from. She stuck by him, tight at his side as they raced, hunched over, away from the ditch and away from the light and the heat and horrible clamor of battle. They made their way over the half-fallen outside wall of an adjacent compound, racing for cover in the shadows. Together there, his hand wrapped back around her wrist to move her faster, his voice urging the same. “Come on!”