Page 97 of Trapped

“Yeah,” Jonah answered. “And it wasn’t much fun.”

Cash laughed. “To put it mildly.”

“How do you feel?” Jonah asked.

“More like myself, I think.”

“Good.”

Cash realized the clothes he was wearing were stuck to him, and that he was drenched in sweat.

“I need a shower.”

“And you’d probably like a change of clothes,” Jonah added.

Cash sat up gingerly. Jonah and Sophia were both watching him. He waited a few moments then stood, swaying a little. He was still a bit woozy—but feeling a lot better than he had before he’d come to this room.

He looked at Jonah. “Thanks.”

“I won’t say it was a pleasure. You had some pretty nasty stuff shoved into your mind. And a pretty nasty experience on the mission.”

“Yeah.”

###

Half an hour later, dressed in jeans and a Ravens tee shirt, he was back in the lounge area. Sophia was beside him, holding tightly to his hand. And the other men and women were grouped on chairs and couches around him. The Decorah Security team—who’d set up the rescue mission to the bunker.

He looked at each of them in turn, ending with Frank Decorah. “Thank you for getting me out of there.”

Frank nodded. “Don’t keep us in suspense. We want to know what happened.”

Clearing his throat, Cash said, “The whole thing was Colonel Luntz’s show. He had us detailed to a covert operations unit. Then he created a false mission—something he could put down on the record. He sent us to pick up a guy named Jamal Al Feisal, who was supposed to be an Al-Qaeda defector. He said that the guy had information valuable to the U.S. But all of that was a lie. He was really an Afghan warlord who was funneling millions of dollars in illegal drug money to Luntz. Well, not just that. Antiquities. Gems and gold that were illegal to export.”

The man named Hunter Kelley looked like he was taking that under advisement. “How do you know the cover story was a lie?” he asked. “I mean, how did you get the real story?”

“Because I heard the attackers talking—when they thought they’d killed us.”

“Back up,” Frank Decorah said. “Who thought they’d killed you?”

“A rival faction. They had a couple of American guys with them. Nixon and Fromer. I guess they were mercenaries who were hired to protect the opium. They were speaking to each other in English, which is why I could understand them.”

Sophia made a small sound.

“What?”

“When I hypnotized you, you thought a man named Fromer was at the briefing with you. He attacked you.”

“Yeah, he attacked me. But not at the briefing. In Afghanistan. I guess I still had that jumbled up.”

She nodded.

“They were working for another warlord who was getting ready to kill Al Feisal. He’d found out he was in danger and wanted out. That’s why he contacted Luntz—who sent us in to rescue a guy we thought was a defector. They shot us all. And shot Al Feisal.”

Cash had to stop and swallow as the gruesome scene came flashing back to him. The blood, the heat, the flies. The shock and horror had penetrated his soul. He hadn’t been able to deal with the enormity of it, so he’d turned it into something else.

But he remembered everything now.

He kept his voice even when he said, “The rest of the unit was dead. And the bad guys thought I was too. I was shot and bleeding. And I had blood on me from the other men. Then, when it got dark, somehow, I got out of there and into a cart that was leaving the area. It ended up in a friendly village. They eventually turned me over to the Americans. They thought they were doing the right thing, but Luntz swept in and got custody of me. As far as anybody knows, I’m still missing in action.”

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