Captive- Veiled Desires (3 page)

The door swung open again. The man had returned.

Nora stood up. She had been waiting for him. She was getting desperate for answers. She had tried screaming and they let her scream her heart out until she had tired. No one had bothered to pay her the slightest attention. Not even to scold her.

“How are you feeling now?” the man asked.

“Why have you brought me here?” she asked back with a little more boldness than the last time they had met.

“I see your meals have brought back your confidence,” he said with slight amusement. “But I’m afraid, in here, I do the questioning.”

He neared her and she stepped back.

“You took some photographs at Dal Lake a few days ago,” he started. “But there are no pictures of the man on the pier.”

“What… what man?” she stammered, her mind racing through her activities of that day. Had she accidently caught something dangerous on camera?

“Don’t play with me,” the man warned.

“I’m not. I swear. I just don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Miss Jennings, you are a photographer for the
Chicago Herald
, are you not?”

“Y-y-yes.” She swallowed. What was he getting at?

“Is that all you are? Or is there more to what you do?”

“I am a photographer… I was.”

“Why did you resign?”

“What has any of my personal life got to do with this?” she screamed, the frustration from his inquisition rising inside her.

He swung his arm and struck her harshly across her face. She stumbled and braced herself against the wall. Her eyes welled from the pain and her cheek bruised immediately. She glared at the man. He might as well kill her! She gritted her teeth and charged for him.

“You bastard! You fucking bastard!” She clawed at him, trying to hit him at the same time.

He swung her against the wall and hit her squarely on the face again. She fell from the heavy brunt of his fist, the corners of her mouth bleeding.

“I told you I asked the questions here.” He pointed down at her, warning her. “Are you a spy?”

“No, you asshole, I’m not!”

He tugged her head up by the hair and pulled her bruised face up to him. “You will speak to me with respect.”

“The fuck I will.”

His mouth scrunched angrily and he threw her against the wall. “Where are the pictures?!”

He kicked her in the belly and she screamed. The pain tore her insides, her head reeled. She doubled over, trying to protect herself from his violent kicks to her body.

“Where are the pictures?! Where are the photographs?!”

The door flung open and the woman ran in, trying to pull the man away from her. But he would not relent as he grabbed a fistful of Nora’s hair and dragged her across the floor. The woman pushed him with brute force. But it was not until Nora thought the woman had threatened him, did he stop.

“Tomorrow, I will come back,” he minced at Nora. “You better have some answers then.”

He gave one final glaring glance at the woman and then stormed out of the room with rage.

Nora groaned on the floor as she clutched her stomach. The woman bent down to check on her. She clicked her tongue with sympathy and said something. Nora didn’t understand what it was, but it did sound like English.

The woman left her and Nora cried softly, suddenly missing her. She didn’t know her. And she certainly didn’t trust her. But she didn’t want to be alone for now.

As if an answer to her prayer, the woman returned, but this time with a bowl of warm water and a towel.

“Sshhh,” she said when Nora cried on seeing her. “He’ll hear you and he will come back.”

Nora nodded and bit her lips hard, trying to stifle her cries.

The woman washed her face and the warmth of the damp towel against her swelling flesh soothed her. She winced slightly as the woman dabbed on the cut on her lip.

“Thank you,” Nora mumbled after a little while. Her voice croaked and she could barely speak. Each syllable she uttered hurt her diaphragm, the sounds feeling like they were hammering at her ribs, breaking it into pieces.

The woman lifted her shirt and exclaimed in horror. Nora could tell she had released some vulgarities by the tone of her voice. She didn’t need a translator to understand that.

“Is it bad?” Nora asked, trying to sound as courageous as she could.

“He’s a mad man. It’s all blue and black.” The woman shook her head and dabbed at it with her damp towel. “But don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.”

Nora winced at the mere touch of the towel against her ribs. The spasm speared through her nerves and she ground her teeth. “Why are you doing this?”

The woman said nothing, dabbing gently at her bruised ribs.

“Why won’t you speak to me?” Nora groaned.

The woman withdrew the towel, bracing herself to stand up.

Nora clutched onto her hand quickly. “At least, tell me your name.”

The woman gave her a small, sympathetic smile. “My name is Freba. You mustn’t talk too much to me. Mateen doesn’t like it. He will only hurt you more.”

“But why has he brought me here? What is he going to do to me?”

“Shhh,” Freba said nervously, glancing quickly over at the door. “Don’t worry. I’m bringing help. Okay?”

“Okay.” Nora nodded, sighing thankfully. Help was good. Help was coming. All she needed to do was be patient. But being patient was also the hardest thing to bear when she was doubling in pain, and the thought of her tormentor walking back anytime through that door lurking at the back of her mind.

Just as she had expected, Mateen, the tormentor arrived back again in her prison.

She withdrew to the end of the room, trembling. Being dead didn’t hurt at all. It was the torture leading to that that did.

He sneered. “Have you decided to tell me where those pictures are?”

She tried to keep a bold face, pulling her chin up. “Yes, I took some pictures at Dal Lake. And I took a couple of shots of that man you’re referring to. But they came out dark and I deleted them.” Her lips quivered. If she told him that she had uploaded it to her online database, she would surely be dead and no one would know what happened to her. If she had to die, then at least the photographs might give a clue to people looking for reasons to her sudden disappearance. She gave a silent prayer to Amy.
Find me, Amy. Please, find me.

He stepped threateningly towards her.

“I swear,” she cried. “The sun was behind him and the picture came out dark. I’m a photographer. It would have been no use to me so I deleted it.”

“Is that the truth?”

“Y-y- yes.” She shivered. “I didn’t even get a good look at his face. I wouldn’t be able to pick him out in a crowd. Is that why I’m here?”

He moved towards her. “But now you have seen my face. What do we do about that?”

“I’ll never tell a soul. I promise.” She shook with fear.

He let out a mocking laugh. “Too bad I don’t trust promises.”

She fell to the floor, cowering to her knees. She had quickly learned that she could cushion much of the blows if she doubled her body.

The door swung open again, catching them both by surprise. A man strode in, giving her a sharp glance as he walked by and towards Mateen. His face was masked with his scarf, revealing only his gray steely eyes. He was similarly garbed to Mateen, except he wore a turban on his head and not a
[5]
pakol
like Mateen’s.

He tugged Mateen by the collar and pushed him into the wall, threatening him in a language she didn’t recognize. Freba rushed inside the prison and over to her.

“Are you okay?” the woman asked her. “Did he hit you again?”

“No. Not yet.” Nora shuddered at the mere thought of it. Her body trembled visibly and Freba clutched her hands, trying to calm her down.

“Don’t worry,” Freba whispered. “I told you help was coming.”

The woman smiled at her and nodded at the man strangling Mateen against the wall.

“
That
is help?” Nora asked with disbelief. Her disappointment clouded her face. Help was one Afghan terrorist who might treat her better than another Afghan psychopath? She covered her face with her hands and wept silently, the bitter fact that she might never be rescued washing over her.

“Sshh,” Freba said. “It will be all okay now.”

HAPTER 3

He had first seen her in Dal Lake. He hadn’t realized she was taking pictures, attracted first by her long hair fluttering in the breeze.

Her boat passed by and he immediately tensed. He glanced behind him and discovered that Mateen and his two companions had noticed the incident.

He strolled casually as he could up to them, hoping that his nonchalance towards it would ease them down as well and perhaps dismiss it altogether. “The guns are in the lake as promised.” He informed them, wiping the droplets of water with the back of his hand. “It’s in a bag attached to a pole in the pier, probably right below where we’re standing.”

“I’ll get Merzad to retrieve it in the night,” said Mateen. “We have a shipment going into Paktika tomorrow.  Might as well, send it then. We’ve paid good money to border officials this time. We don’t want to lose the opportunity.”

“Okay.” He nodded. “I’ll be in Kabul the next few days. Some things have popped up with Jahandar. I’ll need to sort it out with him.”

“Why don’t you let us pop the guy and not the issue?” Mateen grumbled.  “Jahandar is nothing but a hindrance.”

“If it were only that easy. Everything can’t be solved with killing, Mateen.” He turned to walk away. “I’ll see you in a few days.”

“Adam.” Mateen stopped him. “Don’t you think you’re forgetting to solve one more issue?”

He raised his brow. “What is it?”

“What about the girl? She definitely took pictures of you. We should find out who she is.”

He thought briefly before speaking again. “She’s just a tourist taking photographs.”

“The fact that she took pictures of you is a problem enough. If we’re in the background, that doesn’t forebode well for us.”

Adam nodded thoughtfully. He didn’t want to appear as if he was siding with Westerners. “Very well. Get the camera. But leave the girl alone. We don’t want any international attention. So just the camera.”

Mateen wrung his hands slowly, watching him. “You’re sounding careless, Adam.”

Adam lifted his eyes, anger seeping into them. “I’m being cautious. Had it not been for me, none of you bastards would be breathing the air in Kashmir right now.”

He swung around and strode away. His name was Adam Afridi. He was the leader of Darul-Ilhaam, an underground guns supplier for the Middle-East. Mateen was just his co-pilot. A fearsome, murdering psychopath. Mateen wasn’t a terrorist for the purpose of fulfilling a nationalistic or patriotic cause. He wasn’t a criminal either because he was in need of the money like his comrades. He was in it only because of his dire need to murder. And Darul-Ilhaam gave him a reason to legitimize his killings. That made him dangerous.

“Why don’t you let me talk to the American contact?” Adam asked, an eyebrow raised with curiosity.

The little café bustled with men talking in loud voices, calling out to the tea boys to refill their jugs. Jahandar ignored them, stubbing out his cigarette into an ash tray.

“The Americans don’t talk to anyone. Do you know how long it took to get them to trust me? Fuck long, that’s what,” the chubby man grumbled. “There are US marines involved and high-end military officials. That’s why they’re very careful in bringing anyone into their circle.”

Adam picked up his cup of tea and sipped from it, watching the man carefully.  “All I know is that I’m not selling our opium for a petty price anymore Jahandar. We’ve got better offers from the Russians. If your American contacts are still fussy about coming to an agreement, then they would have to take their business elsewhere.”

“I said I’ll talk to them. I can’t promise you if they’ll negotiate with you but I will try.”

“Do it quick, Jahandar. I’ve got better clients in queue.”

The man snarled and rose out of his chair. “I’ll call you when it happens.”

Adam looked on as the fat Afghan stumbled out of the café, bumping into others as he did. He sighed. Jahandar was ill-mannered, but he was great at keeping secrets. And in this business, that was a bigger asset than learning to give your salaams.

His phone buzzed and he glanced at the caller ID. Freba?

“Adam?” Her voice quivered when he answered it.

“Freba, what’s wrong?”

“Adam, Mateen kidnapped a western woman. A foreigner. And he’s beaten her real bad.”

“A woman? Who?”

“He keeps saying she has some photographs she needs to give to him.”

He paled. It was the woman in Dal Lake. He swore under his breath. Fuck Mateen! He and his trigger finger were going to ruin everything!

“Freba, make sure he doesn’t get to her. I’m coming over now.”

“Where is he?” he snarled as soon as he arrived at the abandoned house that operated as an operational base. He had driven seven hours straight into the desert in Paktika. And now he was hungry and tired and mad.

“He’s gone back to the woman,” she said, running after him as he headed towards the room she had indicated. “I’m afraid he is going to kill her.”

He flung the door open, glancing at the woman cowering on the floor. His rage inflamed. He grabbed Mateen by the lapels of his shirt and pushed him back against the wall.

“I told you to keep your hands off her!” he roared.

“She didn’t have the photographs. I checked her camera.”

“What do you mean?”

“She erased them.”

Adam held him still against the wall, his mind rapidly processing through everything Mateen was telling him.

“That could only mean she is a spy,” Mateen continued.

“It doesn’t mean jack,” Adam minced. “She could have just erased it for the heck of it.”

“I was trying to figure that out when you barged in here!”

“You were going to kill her! And that’s not something I’m willing to risk when we’re hoping to secure relations with the Americans.”

“We don’t need those cocksuckers.”

“Tell that to your dick, when you have the need to fuck with new guns again,” said Adam, glaring into the man’s eyes. “These are marines and they have the best weapons in the market. We can’t risk being in the centre of an international media warfare. We don’t want them withdrawing from negotiations, Mateen. I worked my ass off to get this close. And I’m not going to let you fuck it all up because you got trigger happy with a fucking tourist! Now, are you gonna back-off?”

Mateen threw up his hands against the wall as a sign of submission. Adam drew back and then waited until he left the room. He let out a breath of relief, thanking his lucky stars that Mateen didn’t choose to fight him on the matter.

He strode up to Freba. She was sitting next to the woman with a protective arm around her, trying to calm her down. The woman was visibly shaken, not a particularly healthy sign for someone who was allegedly a spy. Spies went into the battlefield knowing that they would probably suffer a worse fate than a POW. They made peace with their deaths long before they were captured and killed. He should know.

The woman raised her eyes and the moment they locked with his, he could almost feel his heart clamp. His instincts told him that her fate was going to be sealed with his forever.

Mateen rolled some hash into his cigarette. He needed to calm himself down after that altercation with Adam.
Fucking cunt
, he swore under his breath. She had come between brothers. There was no room for cunts like her in this world.

It wasn’t the first time Adam had disagreed with Mateen over something. But this was certainly the only time Adam had hauled Mateen by the collar over a woman. Mateen sniffed the odor rising out of the powdery hash. He wasn’t afraid of Adam. If opportunity had it, he’d give Adam as good as he got. But he knew there were skills Adam had that he had never mastered. One of them was hand-to-hand combat skills. Adam moved too fast for any one’s good.

He sneered. They may be brothers in war, but Adam was one brother he’d gladly put a bullet through if he had the chance. The problem was he didn’t have the social skills Adam possessed. Adam carried all the burdens of negotiations and other bullshit like that in Darul-Ilhaam, giving him all the time he wanted to play with his guns. The best days were those when he caught a traitor lurking about in Darul-Ilhaam. He would salivate with eagerness while he would watch the fucker scream and beg for mercy as he would torture him. Executions of the bastards were only carried out once he had got bored with them. Then, it was time to find another playmate. Except in this instance, Adam had interfered in the game, disrupting it.

He lit his cigarette and then put it daintily between his lips, drawing the fumes into his lungs. Was Adam perhaps personally interested in that foreign whore? She
was
beautiful. He remembered some people at Dal Lake referring to her as Aishwarya when he had enquired about her. With that fair skin and green eyes, it was possible she had captured the heart of the otherwise rogue leader of Darul-Ilhaam. The Adam he knew usually refused to keep any kind of sordid affiliations with a woman. But Nora Jennings could probably be the first whore Adam was likely to add to his harem.