Page 94 of Trapped

The map was a piece of crap. Maybe the whole mission was a piece of crap. They’d already made a couple of detours around huge rock formations that weren’t supposed to be there.

Jonah looked at him. He could tell his buddy was thinking the same thing. But they couldn’t go back. Al Feisal was too big. And if they left him here, he’d be killed by his own people. They thought he was a traitor, and he was counting on Colonel Luntz to hold up his end of the bargain.

Too bad the unit was on radio silence. So they couldn’t ask for directions.

“What do you think?” Cash asked.

This time Shredder answered. “Let’s see what’s over the next ridge.”

They plowed ahead. And when they climbed the rise, they could see houses among the rocky landscape. So, was this the place where they were supposed to pick up Al Feisal?

Cash didn’t know. But there was supposed to be a contact in the village. A young guy who had helped the Americans before. If the map was correct and it was the right place.

They started moving cautiously down the slope toward the houses.

From below him, he heard music. Something foreign that could have been a dance tune played on flutes and percussion instruments.

It was coming from the village.

He stopped short.

“Something wrong?” Jonah asked.

“I don’t know,” Cash answered. But he was lying. The music told him that the bad part was coming. He didn’t want to remember the bad part. He felt his legs twitch as he tried to get away.

He remembered gunfire. Men lying on the ground, some of them already dead. Some of them screaming in agony.

“Easy,” someone said.

Cash gasped, his body jerking as blinding pain shot through his head.

His eyes flew open, and he felt himself shaking as he looked around in disorientation. A moment ago, the Afghan landscape had been spread out in front of him in vivid detail. Now it had vanished.

No, not just the landscape. The ambush.

He struggled to grasp onto that memory, but it flitted out of his mind, and he cursed.

When he tried to sit up, he found he was lying on a bed—but he didn’t remember lying down.

He screamed, then screamed again as he looked wildly around, trying to figure out where he was.

All he could think was that Montgomery had him. Montgomery was doing something horrible to him.

He heard a door bang open, heard a woman’s voice call his name—her panic leaping toward him.

Turning his head, he saw her rush forward, her face contorted with fear.

“Cash. Oh God, Cash.”

He stared at her. Who was she? Why did she care about him? Was she one of the villagers?

No. He could tell she was an American—from her clothing and from her golden hair.

For a terrible moment, he was lost as he scrambled for context. And then memories came flooding back. “Sophia?”

“Yes!”

“What are you doing in Afghanistan?” he asked, even when he knew that the question had no meaning. He wasn’t in Afghanistan. He was . . .?

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