Encountering Evil: Dark Horse Guardians Book Two (28 page)

As Nadia thought about what she wanted to do with her life, one calling stood out to her. She wanted to be a spokeswoman for women suffering the horrible repression in the culture of radical Islam. But to do so would put her life in grave danger. Linda Jorgenson suggested that Nadia finish her final year of high school; then decide what she wanted to do.

~ Ben ~

The first week of September was beautiful in Massachusetts. The days were warm and sunny and the evenings were getting cooler. Ben remembered meeting Lara in September and his thoughts immediately turned to her. She made him the happiest man in the world and he couldn't wait until this mission was over. His days at the compound had been filled with phony scientific experiments, depressing medical examinations and planning the anthrax drone attack. The nights were the worst. He lit the candles that bore the scent of Lara's perfume and laid in the dark for hours before falling asleep. He vowed not to take a mission like this one again that separated him from Lara for so long. Some nights he felt like he was dying inside.

In the meantime, Ben had taken care to forge a relationship with Rashida, the young cook in the main kitchen. At night after dinner, he would often visit her kitchen for a snack. She would serve him even though the kitchen was closed. The room in which she prepared the food did not have a security camera. Her living quarters were situated next to the kitchen, so she could start work early and end late in the day. He was only able to extract small details from Rashida
early on. For the first week, in Arabic Ben chatted about his fictitious wife and three daughters back in Pakistan, hoping Rashida would open up to him -- and one night she did.

Unexpectedly, about ten days into his routine evening visit, Rashida spoke softly of her relatives in Egypt, “Most of my family members were killed during the Arab Spring and my two sisters escaped to Lebanon and Syria. But the violence had become worse there. They were kidnapped and killed. I was alone, living on the street and desperate. I was recruited by Ali Farouz's top man, Salim. He told me a cook was needed in America and he could get me in. I dreamed of America and having freedom, so I accepted his offer. Salim lives on this compound for six months of the year. When I first arrived, Salim raped me repeatedly. One night he came to the kitchen, right here, and tried to rape me
. I finally got the courage to fight him with a knife. He has a large scar on his face as a reminder. But I was not strong enough. He held my face on the stove and burned me. I thought I was going to die.” Rashida wore a full burka and removed it for the first time. Ben tried not to wince when his eyes lingered on the hideous burns marring her young features.

Ben asked her what Salim did the other six months of the year. Rashida explained, “He escorts groups of Americans to Yemen, Palestine, and Syria for military training.” Ben made a mental note to have Salim eliminated the next time he set foot in the Middle East. Moshe and his men would draw a bead on him.

Despite his connections with Habib and Rashida, Ben felt himself periodically spiraling into a depressive state. The weeks at the compound dragged on. During quiet moments in the middle of the night he questioned everything he was doing. What difference would it make if he destroyed
this
Islam-berg? Fifty others were springing up all over the country. They were pouring into the southern border of the United States freely. But, in the end, the argument within him always ended the same way:
I have to do this
. No one else will. No one else is crazy enough. And, although he hated to admit it, in the end he loved the challenge. However, becoming a truly convincing actor wasn't as easy as he thought it would be. This wasn't anything like acting in a play or a movie. His very life depended upon the authenticity of his performance. And, he felt the pressure of that every minute twenty-four hours a day.

The living conditions on the compound were beyond deplorable. Even though Habib managed to obtain some decent food occasionally, Ben dreamed of a good hot meal. The sanitation at the compound left a lot to be desired. Recruited in prison, many of Farouz’s henchmen running the place were ex-convicts. He wondered why criminals who were getting a second chance would waste their lives this way. But he mingled with the men, as was the custom of the tribe. He ate their camel meat and drank the goat milk and bonded with his enemy. And, he even scolded women on occasion to make a good impression on the men. It killed him to do those things, but he had to see the mission to the end. He knew if he was made, he would end up beheaded in an unmarked grave.

The most difficult part of his mission was watching the innocent suffer. His heart broke daily as he watched the women and children dominated and abused on a regular basis by these sick, twisted men. Ben reminded himself the end game was to free the women and children from this horrific existence. Calling the guys running the compound "men" was too high a compliment; they were worse than animals. On a daily basis, he had to stop himself from intervening when he heard a woman screaming as she was being beaten. Even worse, he saw the children hiding from the men because they knew they were next. The beatings took place publicly and served to keep the others in line. Ben marveled at the so-called “war on women” constantly touted in the media. Those women who were complaining about a glass ceiling or how difficult it was to live in a world dominated by men should have been there filming what he was observing.  This was the
real war on women
– and the media didn’t dare to touch the subject for fear they’d be considered insensitive to the culture of Islam.  Politically correct hypocrites. 

The children were treated worse than slaves. The men forced the young girls to wash their feet and often took them into a tent and raped them. Young boys were taught the methods of the tribe. They were shooting AK's by the time they were twelve years of age and taught to rape by the time they were fourteen. The one thing that kept Ben focused every day was the look of utter desperation and fear he saw in the eyes of the innocents. Their souls seemed to be missing when he looked into their eyes. They had lost all hope.
He had to do the right thing to protect them
. There was no doubt in his mind that what he had to do was justifiable on so many levels.

On a trip into town with Habib, Ben called the university and was told the first class he was scheduled to teach would be September 15
th
; student orientation was the week prior.
Perfect
, he thought. He could not wait to be back in the normal world with Lara and Einstein. He'd fall asleep dreaming of walking on the beach and eating dinner and making love. Then, he'd awaken in the middle of the night grabbing for his weapon or roll off the bed silently onto the floor waiting for his attacker. His heart would pound and he’d sweat profusely. But no one came. He knew this mission was making his PTS worse, but he thought he could conquer it. Instead, night after night the demons returned and some days he was utterly exhausted from lack of sleep.

~ Lara ~

Toward the end of a hot and humid September day Lara was in the neighborhood and decided to stop home to take Einstein out for a quick walk. She had just finished a walk-through of Eliot Stone's project and everything in phase two was going smoothly, thanks to Tony. She had enough time to walk the dog before she drove to her last appointment of the day to meet with Hawk for a potential landscaping project in Portland. As she stood on the back porch, she tossed her leather sack over her shoulder and carefully typed the password into the newly installed alarm system and the green light blinked. Success on the first try; she silently congratulated herself. She opened the door to a very happy English Bull Terrier. Lara grabbed a bottle of water and Einstein's leash and walked up the long driveway and through the beautiful seaside neighborhood. The heat of the late summer day was waning and a refreshing sea breeze suddenly kicked up. Lara picked up the pace as she saw signs of a thunderstorm brewing on the horizon after walking a couple of miles.

Just before the black sky opened up with a pelting rain, Lara and Einstein made it back to Clearwater Farm. Einstein was frightened by the rumbling thunder. She tapped the password on the security pad and they entered the house in one swift move. Just as Lara closed the door, a clap of thunder rang out like a gunshot, followed by long fingers of lightening reaching across the sky. Lara swore there was an acrid smell after the lightning strike, but couldn't detect where it was coming from. With the next lightning bolt and clap of thunder, the power went off. "Damn!" Lara exhaled. Einstein was now curled up underneath the kitchen table shaking uncontrollably. Even though it was daytime, the blackness of the storm blotted out the sun and the house became shadowy.

Lara was startled by someone banging on the kitchen door and she wondered
who could possibly be at her door in a storm like this
? It was a man wearing a Maine Power Company cap. Maybe he was there regarding the power outage. As she opened the door and said, "Yes?" the man stepped into the kitchen in an aggressive manner. A sinking feeling came over her. Lara instantly felt something was out of place. The man did not introduce himself and she immediately sensed she had put herself in danger. The door remained open. Einstein detected Lara's fear and lunged to protect her, but the stranger had a tennis ball and tossed it out the door and Einstein chased the ball. The stranger shut the door and Lara was in the kitchen with him alone. Sizing him up, she crouched into a martial arts stance. He was much bigger than her -- he had to be as big as Bettencourt.

She spoke in an angry take-charge tone, "Who are you? What do you want?" He said nothing but the look in his eyes said everything she needed to know. She noticed he had something in his pocket -- it looked like a small plastic bag. She turned to grab her leather sack, but he was already on her. He pulled her hair from behind and tightly clamped one arm around her neck as he held a piece of cloth over her face. She screamed and fought him as he attempted to suffocate her. She turned her head so her windpipe would not be crushed by his arm, as Ben had taught her. Lara struggled with all the strength she could muster but felt herself getting weak. Her screams were muffled by the cloth soaked in chloroform.
She fought to keep her eyes open but within two minutes everything went black.

~
Grant Hawkins ~

Shocked that Lara didn't show up for her appointment in Portland at 5:00 for a landscaping quote at her renovation project, Hawk began to wonder where she was. He waited in his truck at the site for a while as he watched a thunderstorm approaching. Then he called her cell phone for the third time but it went to voicemail. Perhaps the gathering storm made her decide to cancel last minute. Whatever the reason, he knew Lara well enough in his dealings with her to know she would not leave him in the lurch unless something happened…something that prevented her from calling him. The only other time she missed an appointment with him, she had shot an intruder at the dojo saving her police officer friend.

Her house was a ten minute drive from where he was, so he drove through the heavy rain to Falmouth and pulled into the driveway at Clearwater Farm. While driving there, he observed several severe flashes of lightening and noticed the stop light was not working on the main road. He guessed the lightening hit somewhere close by and knocked out the power.

As soon as Hawk arrived at Clearwater Farm he saw Einstein on the outer porch in the pouring rain. The dog was scratching and pawing at the door and trembling with fear. Lara would never leave her beloved animal outside in a thunder and lightning storm. He instantly knew something was wrong. There was a battered black pick-up truck in the driveway unfamiliar to him. He memorized the license plate and when he tried to open the kitchen door, it was locked. In the pouring rain he pulled a post-hole digger out of his truck and breached the door. Einstein ran inside straight to the master bedroom. The house was silent and only flashes of lightening illuminated it once or twice. Hawk remembered the master bedroom was on the first floor and heard muffled sounds coming from that area. Einstein started barking wildly.

Hawk ran to the bedroom door only to be met with a scene that shocked and horrified him. Lara was splayed upon the bed and a man was ripping off her clothing. With the power of a heavyweight boxer, Hawk attacked the stranger. With every ounce of strength in him, he grabbed the guy from behind and pulled him onto the floor. Once on top of the intruder, Hawk pounded the man's face bloody with his fists. The man grabbed a shoe near the bed and hit Hawk in the head with the high heel stunning him momentarily. Blood poured into Hawk's eye. Einstein wanted in on the conflict, but Hawk didn't want the dog to get hurt. He tried to wave Einstein away, but the canine snarled and circled with his hackles up waiting to pounce on the intruder.

Blood was everywhere as Hawk realized he had broken the man's nose and possibly his eye socket. But the bastard was still punching and kicking with all of his might. Although Hawk was lighter, he was stronger and much more determined to kill the son-of-a-bitch if he had to. He pulled the man up and punched him as hard as he could in the gut. The man fell to the floor. Hawk pulled him back up and punched him again in the side of the head and the well-placed blow knocked the intruder unconscious. In a split second his attention turned to Lara.

Panic stricken, Hawk noticed she wasn't moving. He jumped onto the bed and administered mouth-to-mouth and the smell of chloroform was overwhelming. Dialing 911, Hawk called for an ambulance and police. As he held a limp unresponsive Lara in his arms his eyes filled with tears. "Oh God, please Lara, don't go away. Please try to breathe." He was pleading with her. His voice became a hoarse whisper as he wiped the blood from his eyes. He heard the intruder on the floor groan and quickly grabbed Lara's bathrobe belt and bound the bloody man's hands and feet. Then he punched him one more time for good measure, knocking out a few teeth. Hawk's knuckles were raw and bleeding but he didn't care. He kept shaking Lara and talking to her. He placed his head on her chest and listened for a heartbeat; he heard her heart beating but it was weak. He took her pulse; it was slow but there. Hawk was terrified but hopeful. Yelling and shaking her more forcefully didn't seem to help. He continued giving her mouth-to-mouth, hoping he could force her lungs to expand on their own.