Acts of Honor (43 page)

For the first time in hours, maybe days, she heard Jarrod clearly.
No, Sara. Deal with the emotions. Deal with the emotions.

I’ve tried and tried. But I’m too weak.
Her stomach burned and ached from hunger. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth—
so dry
—and her lips were split and cracked; the corners of her mouth, raw.
I’m too weak. Too tired and too weak.

This was her coffin. She would die here.
I just need to go to sleep, and it’ll all be over.

You’ll never wake up, Sara.

It’ll be over.
The rhythmic thumping seduced her, mesmerized her, and Sara let her eyes drift closed.

Where are you, Sara?
Her voice, not Jarrod’s.
What about the others? They’ll die, too. Will you let them die, too?

She shoved the voice away. Why wouldn’t it leave her alone? No one would leave her alone.

Sara, damn it, tell me where you are. Tell me what will happen to the others.

Where she was? What would happen to them? She snapped her eyes open, fear shredding her insides.
I don’t know.
She began to cry.
Oh, God. I
 . . .
don’t
 . . .
know!

Salty tears slid over her cracked lips, setting them on fire. She prayed for water, swore that right now, she would kill for water. She slammed a fist against the top slats. Tried to call out, and failed. Her throat was too dry. No sounds would come.

But someone must have understood; the splashing noise—the sweetest sound Sara ever had heard—pattered against the box. This time, the water didn’t come in just at her feet. It covered her head to foot, gushing into the box. She lay in bliss, jaw stretched wide, mouth filling and swallowing the cool water down. Elated and overjoyed, she drank until she couldn’t drink anymore—and still the water came.

It puddled under her, turning the dirt to mud. Soon, the water began rising inside the box, higher and higher. When Sara’s nose bumped against the underside of the top slats, she began to panic. “Turn it off!” she yelled. “Turn the damn water off. You’re going to drown me!”

The water kept coming, kept rising. The gap between it and the top of the box dwindled, becoming more and more narrow. Sara’s fear rose with the water. She dragged her fingertips over the rough-hewn slats, measuring. Eight inches
 . . .
Five inches
 . . .
Two inches
 . . .
Oh, God, two inches!

“Hey! Hey, I’m going to drown in here! I’m—” Water splashed up over her face, flooding her mouth and nose. She sputtered, swallowed and coughed it up, then craned her neck, seeking precious air. One inch. One inch—and narrowing.

They
were
going to drown her!

Urgently, she felt the bumpy boxtop, found a knothole at the edge of a slat. She braced her arms, curling her fingers in the mud for leverage, and thrust her nose up into the knothole. Water covered her ears, lapped at her eyes. She closed them and prayed the knothole too didn’t fill up.

The gushing water buried everything except the tip of her nose. She inhaled short, rapid breaths, fearing that with each of them, she’d inhale water instead of air. Why hadn’t Jarrod warned her about this? Had he not remembered it? Good God, how could he not remember it?

Her muscles cramped and twitched, protesting the strain of holding her up. Clenching her teeth, she forced herself not to relax her arms. If she did, she would die, and she knew it.

By the time the gushing water stopped, she ached from the small of her back to the base of her neck. Her arms were numb. Her fingers and wrists as stiff as if rigor mortis had set in. Still, she sobbed in relief. The water had stopped coming in, stopped flowing out through the top slats.

Little by little, the dirt absorbed the water and the level began to recede. When it finally drained low enough, Sara let her elbows bend. Her arms collapsed in spasm, and her head thudded against the muddy floor. Still, triumph flooded her. The bastards had done their best to kill her, and they had failed.

This time.

The box lid opened.

Light flooded the darkness, and Sara shrank back from the blinding brightness.

“She’s pissed herself,” a man said.

“They always do. You got a bladder that’ll hold for three days?”

The voice sounded familiar, but Sara’s eyes hadn’t yet focused. Foster? Was it him? No. No, it was the beefy lieutenant.

“Get her out of there and hose her down.”

Two men grabbed her by the arms. A woman stood back, watching them. Why was she watching?

They pulled Sara out of the box. Her leg muscles stiff and cramping, her knees too weak to hold her upright, she tripped over its ledge. Confused and disoriented. Dizzy. Depth perception off. Bones fluid, lacking substance. The constant thumping still inside her head. Light-headed and nauseous, she leaned heavily on one of the guards, stumbled to keep up with them, and inhaled deep breaths of crisp autumn air. Air that wasn’t stale and used and urine-tainted.

They rounded a five-foot cinder-block wall, a topless cubicle. She could see over it, thank God. Thank God. No more claustrophobia. Metal bands attached a pipe to the wall. Midway floor-to-top was a crank handle and, at the top, a showerhead. Water. Sweet, blessed water.

The woman was wearing fatigues, a red band on her upper arm, and a grim expression. Outside of the cubicle, she climbed onto some kind of step. “Major,” she shouted. “You are a prisoner of war. Strip to your skin and leave your clothes on the floor.”

The concrete scraped at Sara’s bare feet. She leaned against the wall for support, unzipped the jumpsuit, and then shrugged out of it. IWPT. She was at IWPT, and this was part of the psychological warfare training. So far, aside from being drugged and maybe nearly drowning, everything she had gone through had just been part of the program. The near-drowning might have been intentional.

The woman turned the crank.

Water hissed in the pipe and sprayed over Sara’s naked body. Cold water. Frigid water. Chill bumps raised on her skin. Her teeth began chattering. Folding her arms, she covered her chest and rubbed, elbows to armpits, shivering hard.

She tipped her head back, drank in huge gulps of fresh water. Never in her life had anything tasted so good. After the near-drowning, which seemed to have happened lifetimes ago, she hadn’t been given anything more to drink. Even as she cursed the cold, cursed her years of taking warm showers for granted, she reveled in the feel of the caked mud sliding off her body, of feeling clean again.

The water hit her stomach and rushed back up her throat.

“Wet your head,” the woman ordered, as if not noticing Sara was vomiting. “It’s as filthy as the rest of you.”

Sara wet her head, rinsed her mouth, and took small sips of water. This time, it stayed down.

She wanted soap. She didn’t ask for it; that would only open her up to censure. POWs make no demands, not without suffering. But in her mind, she visualized it. Lavender soap. She smelled it, felt it lather on her skin.

“That’s enough.” The woman turned the crank, shut off the water.

Inside, Sara rebelled.

The woman tossed her a towel. “Dry off.”

As good as the sips of water had tasted, they burned Sara’s throat, her stomach, and again she fought the urge to heave. She rubbed dry with the scratchy towel. Her skin was chafed and irritated from the mud and wet clothes that had dried stiff and crusty on her body. Wincing, she slung the dripping water from her hair and then passed the soggy towel back across the wall to the woman and waited, hoping for clean clothes. And shoes. Oh, how she hoped for shoes. Her feet felt like chunks of ice, and shoes would be warm. She craved warmth. Warmth and comfort. She craved Jarrod.

“Put this on,” the woman ordered. “Hurry. Transport is waiting.”

Sara moved to the dry end of the cubicle, leaned against its rough surface, pulled on the blue jumpsuit, and then zipped it up. Still dizzy, she hugged the wall, letting her hand glide over its ragged surface to the opening, struggling to orient herself.

The woman shouted an order to the two guards, and they again clasped Sara by the arms. She would object, but she lacked the strength to walk alone. She needed their physical support.

They stopped in front of the woman. The beefy lieutenant shoved up Sara’s sleeve. The woman inserted a needle into Sara’s arm. She drew back, fighting the sting. “No, not again.”

She blacked out before the needle left her arm.

Sara awakened in a small room,
sitting in a metal folding chair, her head resting against a wobbly metal table. A low-slung light dangled from a cord above her head and emitted a blinding yellow light that reflected off the empty chair across the table from her. The rest of the room fell into deep shadows, but on the west wall, she saw a three-by-four-feet reflective surface—a two-way mirror. No windows. One door, to her left. An armed guard standing beside it, wearing a red armband and glaring at her.

He rapped his knuckles against the door. “She’s awake.”

Two men came in. The beefy lieutenant and Dr. Owlsley. The lieutenant looked impatient; the doctor, ill but maddeningly calm.

He sat down across the table from her. “I’m disappointed in you, Sara.”

The beefy lieutenant stood directly beside her, off her left shoulder. Sara sat up straighter, looked at Owlsley, and said nothing.

“I had hoped you’d be totally honest with me in our initial discussion. Instead, I learn you’ve withheld important information.” He paused, but still Sara said nothing. When it became apparent she wasn’t going to answer, he went on. “Tell me about Joe.”

Oh, God. “He’s a PTSD patient.”

“And?” Owlsley prodded.

Her face reflected in his glasses. The thick lens distorted her features, made her look ghoulish. “And he’s not recovering—yet.”

The beefy lieutenant slapped her. A thunderous sound cracked through the room. Certain he’d broken her jaw, Sara felt her heart catapult to her throat. But her face didn’t sting. He’d hit the table, she realized. Not her.

Owlsley didn’t seem ruffled at all. Evidently he was used to the lieutenant pulling punches. “Tell me the nature of your relationship with Joe.”

“I did,” Sara insisted. “He’s a patient suffering PTSD.”

Owlsley removed his glasses, glared at her. “And do you have a personal relationship with him?”

He was searching for an Achilles’ heel. “That wouldn’t be ethical.”

“Answer the question.”

“No, I do not.”

Owlsley nodded, pursed his lips. “I see.” He feigned a sigh. “So, you hug and kiss all of your patients, then?”

Fontaine had briefed him. Or Bush or William. Maybe all of them. Sara swallowed her fear. She couldn’t let him get to her. She wouldn’t be the only one to suffer the consequences. “No. Only those who need it to help them attach.”

Owlsley stared hard into her eyes, looking for any emotion to latch onto. Sara refused to give him one.

“Well, then. You should find this interesting.” He nodded to the guard, who opened the door and then wheeled in a television and a VCR. “Your patient obviously feels an attachment to you that goes beyond the bounds of a professional relationship, Sara. He followed you here.” Owlsley laced his hands against the tabletop. “Unfortunately, he was misidentified as a terrorist and shot. But he did have some enlightening things to say to you.” Owlsley’s expression turned grave. “Considering the circumstances, we accommodated him.” He nodded, and the guard started the tape.