Page 3 of Trapped

He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to come up with more details. They evaded him.

But he knew he’d made it to safety.

In the bunker?

A secret bunker in Thailand?

Yeah, the U.S. government had dug them for the king at various locations around the country. Or that was the story. What else would they be for?

He looked around the little room. It was maybe seven by ten feet, just big enough for a single bed, a night table bolted to the wall and a small chest of drawers. Besides the door to the hall, there were two others. When he checked them, he found a shallow closet where uniform pants and shirts hung. Not his usual uniform. These were navy blue.

The bunker uniform?

He had some vague memory of having someone strip off his clothing, then take him through a special biological decontamination area. When he came out and dried off, he was issued all new clothing.

He kept moving along the wall and found that the other door led to a small bathroom. Switching on the light, he looked around and saw a toilet, sink, and narrow shower stall.

On the shelf over the sink were shaving cream, razor, deodorant, toothbrush, and toothpaste.

The toothpaste tube was half used up. How long had he been here?

A time frame came to him. Three weeks. He’d been here healing and waiting out the epidemic.

They’d separated the security detail from the diplomats. He remembered that now. And Doctor Montgomery was in charge of this section of the bunker.

So, the dream about Afghanistan was something he’d made up. But why? Or was that a little farther back in his past?

He ran a shaky hand over his face, as though that would clear his mind. It didn’t help. But at least he could use logic. If he’d been part of a village massacre in Afghanistan, he’d hardly be the choice for a diplomatic mission. Probably he’d be in the brig instead.

Maybe he could ask . . . Dr. Montgomery about that. The name brought back vague memories of being in the doctor’s office. Not for medical treatment. The man was a psychologist or something like that, and he was supposed to be helping Cash cope with post- traumatic stress.

Except that he didn’t trust the guy, even when he kept saying what sounded like the right things.

So, did that make Cash Baker paranoid?

He leaned over the sink, staring at his reflection in the mirror. At least he recognized the man who stared back, although he got the impression from the lean look of his face that he’d lost some weight in the past few weeks.

Picking up the glass from the shelf above the sink, he filled it from the tap and took several swallows of cold water. Then he turned off the bathroom light and went back to the twin bed, where he straightened the covers again, tucking in the bottom corners with military precision.

The pillow was half off the bed, and he saw something that had been under it. When he reached for the small white object, he found himself holding a pill.

A pill? What the hell was a pill doing there?

Wait a minute. It was something he was supposed to take. Only it had made his head muzzy. So, when the sergeant had given it to him, he’d pretended to swallow it. Then he’d spit it out and tucked it under his pillow.

But what was he thinking? He couldn’t leave it there. With a dart of panic, he leaped up and flushed the pill down the toilet. Climbing back under the covers, he turned off the bedside lamp and tried to go back to sleep. But he lay there staring into the darkness, listening to the sound of his own breathing.

One thing the room lacked was a clock, so he had no idea what time it was. But it felt like the small hours of the morning.

Of course, his sense of time could be completely off, since Thailand was twelve hours different from the eastern United States.

That got him thinking again about where he’d grown up.

A city? A town? Or on a riverboat?

Yeah, Sure.

When he failed to dredge up one single detail of his early life, he felt panic bubbling up inside him again.

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