Captive- Veiled Desires (28 page)

“Not according to Zawahiri. He’s telling everyone a different one.”

“What about Nora?”

“They don’t know she’s here. I thought you could break it to them.” Ian turned his back towards them. “The young woman is very excitable. I didn’t want her leaping out of the vehicle.”

“And Nora is my wife?”

Ian shook his head. “Like I said- nothing else.”

Adam gave him a pat on his arm and nodded again. “You did well to bring them here.”

He found her on a wooden swing, playing with the children. She was laughing as one little girl played with her hair and another entertained her with stories.

“Nora.” He smiled at her.

She lifted her head and smiled back. This was the happiest he had seen her at Kandahar. Finally, he would have good memories of her to linger onto when she went away.

“Are you coming to join us?” she teased.

“I wish.” He ruffled one little boy’s hair as he brushed past him. The children didn’t fear him. They loved him. And he loved them. “I need you to come with me.”

She rose up from the swing and skipped over to his side. “Are you going to show me the lake now? The oasis?”

“No. Not today. There is something else though.” He clasped her palm and led her towards the office.

“What is it Adam? Why don’t you tell me?”

“It’s gonna be hard to explain. And I think it would be better if you just saw it.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, growing more curious as they approached his office. 

He turned the door and let her step in first.

“What is it you want to show me?” She smiled broadly.

“Nora?” Amy uttered with shock.

Nora turned towards her, disbelieving the presence of her friend in the first instance. “Amy?” Her eyes watered, finally registering the woman standing before her. “And Jake. Oh my god, I don’t believe this.”

She ran up eagerly and hugged her friend tightly as they both cried and then jumped with glee and then cried all over again.

The two women sat by the window in Nora’s bedroom as Nora related her tale of capture.

“I’m sorry this happened to you,” Amy said softly, caressing her hair.

Nora leaned against her shoulder and sighed. “I would love to regret it, but somehow I can’t. I wouldn’t have met Adam otherwise.”

“You really do love him.”

Nora threaded her fingers through her friend’s. “I’m glad you didn’t give up on me. But you put your life in danger as well, Amy. You really shouldn’t have come.”

“Had I know you were shacking up with the love of your life, I might not have,” Amy teased, poking her tongue out at her. “But you would have done the same if it was me, right?”

Nora nodded. “I would. I’m just glad it all worked out in the end.”

Amy frowned. “You are coming back home, right?”

“Not if Adam won’t go. I love him, Amy and it would be only right if I stayed with him.”

Amy twiddled her fingers anxiously.

“What is wrong, Amy?” Nora prodded. “You don’t like him?”

“Well, I do. He is nice and polite. He treats you well. And my god, he is so handsome. But honey, don’t you think there is something that doesn’t make sense. Like what he is doing here being a warlord when he could have been so much more back home?”

“He loves his country and his people.”

“Okay, fine,” Amy conceded. “But what about the fact that your husband
is
a warlord? Doesn’t that concern you? The ethics of it, Nora. What does he really do? Does he traffic arms… drugs? What has brought him all this power? And are you willing to live the rest of your life married to crime?”

Nora stood up and began to pace the floor. “Adam is a good man. You don’t know what he does for the people here. He also has a farm so people don’t have to resort to crime and drugs. He actually hires them to work the fields and he rewards them graciously for it.”

“I am not judging his character. I am sure he is what he says he is. But if he traffics opium then that is just not right. While he tries to provide a life for his people, those drugs are shipped back home and killing ours.”

Nora stopped abruptly. “It’s good and well for you to preach. But you don’t know how these people live. You’ve spent a month in the city of Kabul and you think everything is just all rosy and dandy. Well, it’s not! You wouldn’t have an air of judgment if you had seen what I have! Gone through what I did!”

“Nora-”

“If… if that is what you think, then you should go back home, Amy,” she stammered as she cried. “Since you can see for yourself, I am perfectly safe and happy. Happy, Amy!”

The women refused to talk to each other all through dinner. The men noticed their silence immediately but were cautious enough not to ask. They were sisters after all and they would mend their wounds.

In the morning, Basel alerted Adam. “I’ve just got news that the Zawahiris are on the move.”

“Are you sure?” Adam asked, his temples pulsating with anxiety.

“Our men have been staking them out for days. They are sure. Besides, Saeed is dead and Hazrat is drooling for revenge. Why would he wait now? Especially since he’s got Mateen on his side.”

“We’d have to move fast then. Clear the property. Do what needs to be done. I want the house ready for battle by mid-day.”

“What about the guests?”

Adam’s jaw tensed. “I’ll deal with them.”

Ian got off the satellite phone. “Hawkeye has agreed. He’ll bring the chopper down in two hours. But because of the location, he won’t stay afloat for long. He will leave if we’re not there. So we have to get there on time.”

“You inform Jake and Amy and I will tell Nora,” Adam said, already on his feet and heading out of his office.

“What if she won’t go?” Ian asked. “She loves you Adam.”

Adam balled his hands. “She will have to.”

Nora packed what she could quickly. There was an attack by the Zawahiris, Adam had told her. There would be a battle, and he needed her out of there before she could be caught in the crossfire.

She raced down the stairs, her backpack bouncing behind her.

“Amy!”

“I’m here!”

“Where’s Jake?”

“Right behind me.”

“And Ian?”

“Right here,” the man said, walking towards them with Adam by his side.  “All ready to go?”

“I’ve had enough,” Amy groaned. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Where’s your bag, Adam?” Nora asked.

He looked away, turning towards Ian. “Take my vehicle in the garage. It’s faster and will handle the sands better than your rickety tin-can.”

“I would have argued on that if I had the time,” Ian grinned and gave out his hand to shake Adam’s. “Thank you.”

Adam shook it and then Jake’s and let Amy throw her arms around him and hug him.

“What’s going on, Adam?” Nora asked with puzzlement. “Aren’t you coming with us?”

“Someone needs to take care of the fort.”

“Adam-”

“Come here.” He grabbed her by her hips and kissed her deeply. “Promise me you will take care of yourself. Promise me you will do whatever Ian tells you to do.”

“Don’t let me go,” she whispered between her snivels. “Please let me stay. I can hide in the mountains with Husna and the other women. I will be fine with them.”

He cupped her face and caressed it slightly before stepping away. “Take her, Jake.”

Jake grabbed her arm and began tugging her towards the garage.

“Adam, no,” Nora pleaded. “Adam!”

She tried to writhe out of his arms, but he simply picked her up and carried her towards the garage.

The car skidded out of the courtyard and out into the desert. Adam clenched his jaw. She was gone. And he didn’t know if he would ever live to see her again.

He braced his gun.

“Basel!” he shouted. “Let’s kill these bastards.”

HAPTER 2
4

Two years later

Nora sat on a wooden bench, enjoying the breeze cooling her heated skin. After the day’s heat and Isla’s constant crying, she had to go out to the park for a break.

She glanced down at her baby, gurgling in her stroller. She was almost six months old now. Nora caressed her soft cheeks. She was beautiful. She had her father’s dark eyes and sharp features. She reminded her so much of Adam.

“Hello, beautiful!” Amy called out to the baby. “I’ve come to whisk you away and take you to a magical kingdom.”

Nora laughed as Amy kissed her and then moved on quickly to baby Isla.

“Hello, Jake.” Nora gave him a small kiss on his cheek. “Being ignored again, I see.”

“She’s been dying to get her hands on your kid. Sometimes, I think it is you who is married to her and not me. You’ve got this entire shared custody scenario going on here.” 

“You should give her a child then,” Nora teased.

“I am trying,” he complained and then smiled. “I would love one of my own.”

“You’ll make a great father,” she said, recalling all those times Amy and Jake had been there for her while she cried for Adam, discovered she was pregnant and then helped deliver Isla as well. Not once had they complained or uttered an excuse as they pitched in to help whenever they could in raising her child.

“And Adam would have been too,” Jake added quietly.

She grew quiet, drifting back again into her days in the desert. To Adam. To the man she loved. She never forgot the last day when she saw him stand there in the courtyard, watching her drive away. His eyes had deepened with sadness, his face growing dark and withered as if his life was being sucked out of him. And she could do nothing but sob in Amy’s arms, praying he would be fine.

She was flown out of Afghanistan without a choice in the matter. After the helicopter had landed at a military base, soldiers escorted them to a plane and without a word bundled and strapped to their seats. A day later Ian told her that Adam had killed Mateen and Hazrat Zawahiri.  Her joy was short-lived though because then he reported Adam had died also. And then she had broken down and wept. She had never loved another like Adam and she would never will again.

The apartment was still and quiet and she missed Isla immediately. She sighed. Amy was right. She was far too attached to her daughter and needed some space for herself.

She heard a creaking upstairs and her skin prickled from her nerves.
Who was it?

She crept up slowly and towards Isla’s nursery. The cradle was rocking and she put a hand on it to still it. Could it have been the people upstairs? Had the cradle rocked from their vibrations?

A little golden pendant in Isla’s cot caught her eye and she picked it up. It was a locket. How did it get here? She shook her head. It was probably Amy’s. She opened it and found a picture of her carrying Isla. She nipped her lip. Amy had never told her about this pendant.

She turned the locket over and inscribed in it clearly were the letters, AA.

Adam? A chill ran up her.

The floor below her creaked again and she raced downstairs in anger. Whoever it was playing a prank on her needed to stop!

She caught the thief heading towards the door and screamed at him.

“Stop! Who are you? Stop right there or I will shoot!” she bluffed.

The man stopped, his back still facing her.

“Who are you? Why are you here?”

His hood masked his head and much of his face. There was no telling who he was. Was it Jake? If he was, he was so screwed!

“Turn around!” she demanded. “I swear to god I’ll put a bullet through your head if you don’t turn. Turn around!”

The man turned, pulling his hood off his head.

Nora felt her blood drain. “Adam?”

“Nora,” he said.

She began to weep, her feet frozen to her spot. “How are you…? You were dead.”

“So they told you.”

“And you were not?”

“No.”

She gasped for air. Her emotions were entangled inside her. She wept because he wasn’t dead. She wept because he was here standing in her house and she wanted to throw her hands around him and kiss him and love him. But it had been almost two years since and she was angry because she had believed a lie.

“Nora?” he said again.

She looked up at him, her face stained with her tears and her eyes glowering with rage. She marched up to him and slapped him. And he took it. And she slapped him again. And he did nothing. He lowered his head as she hammered against his chest, venting out her pent-up fury for the days he dared live without her in his life.

He finally couldn’t hold back anymore, dragging her up to him and kissing her savagely in spite of her protests. She would succumb, he told himself. She loved him.

And she did as she opened her mouth, letting him in to explore her all over again. He pulled her hips, grinding his crotch against her juncture and snaking down her neck to the valley of her breasts.

She moaned between her little sobs, kissing him back with as much need.

But then she held him back. “Adam, why? Why did Ian think you had died?”

He cupped her face. “It’s because that’s what the Agency told him to say. Ian was helpless as well, Nora. We are trained to obey. It’s what we do.”

“I don’t understand. What agency?”

He let her go. It was time she learned the truth anyway. How much more could he endure watching her from the distance? Watching his daughter grow before him and yet never to hold her in his arms? To never be able to tell her he would always love her.

“When I was in high school, I was selected to become an undercover CIA operative. This was partly to do with the fact that my father was a Pashtun and had taken the necessary measures to teach me his culture and his language. My parents had just died in a car accident leaving just me and my two younger brothers to fend for ourselves. So when the CIA knocked on our door offering to help us, I jumped. I was the eldest. It was my job to make sure my brothers would survive.” He pulled in a deep breath. “My mission was to infiltrate the gang of Pashtun warlords who were trafficking opium through corrupt military officials in exchange for weapons. It was a long, unending process, because when one would be arrested, another would rise to take his place. I was ready to quit. I had enough of the life and I was more than happy to come back home. But then we discovered there was a larger syndicate. The biggest we’d ever had so far involving high ranking officers and important politicians. We needed to bust this ring. But then you turned up and I couldn’t hold back anymore. Carter thought you would compromise the mission and that’s why he wouldn’t allow you to return home. And the more I knew you, the more I couldn’t let you go… until that day at the farm… when Mateen … I knew then I had no choice.” He sat heavily into a chair, his head in his hands. “I thought Carter had given up on me but he came through in the very last minute. He’s the one who arranged for the chopper and a troop of soldiers to take down Zawahiri and Mateen. But there was one condition. That I stay and finish the job. And the only way Carter thought he could finally get you to settle and move on was to tell you I was dead.”

If she loves you, she will be there for you when you go back
, he recalled him say. It had made sense then.

Nora knelt down before him and caressed his face.

He looked up at her sadly. “I finished my assignment three months ago and yet I couldn’t face you. I didn’t know if you still loved me. It had been so long, I was sure you had moved on. I didn’t want to cause you any more pain.”

“And yet you were aching inside yourself,” she cried softly. She kissed his lips. “I love you, Adam. Is there any way I can convince you of just how much?”

He pulled her deeper into him. And he loved
her
. He picked her up into his arms. There was so much he had to rectify. He couldn’t wait to begin.