Sabotage: Beginnings (8 page)

Their Jeep was scavenged for everything except the windshield wipers. Justice kept an eye across the path on the truck they’d put Batya into. The rocky terrain, dust trails and nightfall made eye contact impossible. He sunk in the passenger’s seat and tried to conserve his energy—it’d be a long night. Chin tucked into his chest, he tried to overhear the conversation from the back seat. He couldn’t relax at what he’d heard—it was too hard to tell if they were legitimate or not.

The building was small, typical for government outpost offices. Cinderblocks reinforced the traditional mud structure. The flat roof was held sturdy with a combination of wooden poles coated with a mud and straw mixture. Justice noticed the series of tall solid walls that served to protect the building and provide privacy. There wasn’t anything suspicious about the layout—but that wasn’t a good sign for Justice. It meant they’d soon be isolated and unreachable—as the police office was intended to be.

Jabar’s tone shifted as his small feet hit the tile-covered patio area. Justice was crowded and kept away from Batya as they maneuvered through the courtyard’s covered sitting space. Sinister in his orders, Jabar yelled commands to his men. They shuffled their feet with a slump-shouldered resistance Justice recognized. He peered across the huddled groups for the leader. The real leader. He’d fallen back. That wasn’t a good sign.

“Inside.” Jabar waved his pistol at Justice for him to enter the building.

“Where is my counterpart?” Justice filled the small threshold’s opening.

Jabar tried to push Justice, but neither budged. “I said inside.”

“You’ve been a good host up to this point. No need to change the direction of this meeting,” Justice said in Dari. His gaze darted across the dim-lit courtyard searching for Batya.

“American, I will not tell you again. Go inside,” Jabar drew back and slugged Justice in the gut with as much force as it appeared he could muster.

Justice’s light body armor absorbed the blow, but he still felt a twinge where the vest stopped above his waistline.

“That was a mistake, my friend.” Justice lunged for Jabar, but he scurried behind a line of his men. The smallish soldiers looked undernourished, but in a clump of about twenty, they made an unbreachable barrier.

“Next time it’ll be your throat. Now go inside,” Jabar yelled.

Justice pushed against the other men, but he felt a searing pain in his gut. He whipped his fingers below his bulletproof vest and wicked off moisture. He brushed it off on his pant leg—no need to look—he’d been stabbed.

“Jabar, you coward. You’ll regret this.” Justice yelled out to Batya in Yiddish as he gripped his weapon to ready for the ultimate in close quarter combat.

“
Goilem
,” Justice yelled out in hopes Batya heard him. Although the term meant a Frankenstein-type monster without the smarts to do the right things, it was the only term that came to Justice’s mind.

“
Broche. Broche
.” Justice heard from inside the building. It was weak, but unmistakably Batya’s voice. She was calling out to pray, pray.

His heart sunk at the outnumbered odds and the stupid decision to cooperate with Jabar. They would’ve been better off fighting to the death back in the Popi village.

Justice assumed Batya was incapacitated—panic swept through him. It was up to him to save them both. He huffed as his heart pounded in his ears while he pulled and swung his rifle from side to side. He couldn’t shake the bastards off. Every one of them seemed to have a grip on his weapon. Except Jabar and the white smile guy.

The harder he fought, the more he felt the burn of the stab wound in his stomach. He felt the blood pump as the hole enlarged with each exertion.

“Do something,” Justice screamed out in English.

The man averted his gaze.

“Fuck you, coward,” Justice yelled as the throng of men shoved him backward.

Justice wormed his right index finger into the rifle’s trigger guard. He gritted his teeth while he pulled back as hard as he could. Three red-hot flashes erupted from the muzzle. Bodies jumped and flailed. Shoved and fell forward.

He crashed to the ground as the swarm of inhumanity piled on. They sliced the nylon harness, stripped his rifle and body armor. Even his tactical blouse and t-shirt were torn off. Feet kicked relentlessly at his face and torso until he’d back crawled into a small corner. Blood splashed across his stomach. The dark tattoos that covered his upper body were indistinguishable beneath the crimson flow.

Justice came to
alone. The jagged mud walls tore at the skin on his back and shoulders. He grimaced as his body pressed against the tight corner. He lurched to his feet. His head remained bent beneath the low ceiling. The metal bars wouldn’t allow him to advance any further. Rage exploded. His fists rattled the cage.

Justice bit his tongue as Batya began to call out. His left eye was still swollen, and now his right eye pulsed with every heartbeat.

He patted himself for a weapon—for anything to use in an attack. No fucking way he’d die in this cell. It got cramped quick and he gagged at the stench.

He saw Batya across the narrow hall, pressed against the far wall in her own cell. Justice motioned to capture her attention. Her face lifted from her palms. A quick glance and she buried her own bloodied face.

He grunted because they’d stripped him of everything but his pants. He licked the bloody moisture that painted his busted lips, and muttered, “As if one of them could wear a size 15 boot.”

Noise caught Justice’s attention. His forehead scraped against the rusted hinge as he angled to look for the source. He pulled on the door and howled to get their attention. They never even looked at him. They were focused on Batya.

Her gender had to still be unknown to them, but Justice knew their interest was that Batya was still fully dressed, and possibly armed.

He tried reaching through the bars—no luck. Two gunmen took a post on either side of Batya’s cell door, their weapons pointed straight on her. A third man uneasily unlocked the door. Two others forced their way into the small cell and began to grab at her.

She kicked and punched from a classic ground fighting position on her back. She was highly trained but how much could she resist?

Beckoned by a gunman, another man entered the hall. Unshaven face, dead expression. He spun around the threshold and immediately began wailing blows to Batya’s head and face. Justice pressed his lips tight as he heard her grunts. She wouldn’t scream out or they’d know she was a female.

Justice frowned at the sound of something other than flesh striking flesh. It sounded like a solid wooden baton. Her grunts stopped. He peered through the tangled bodies and saw Batya’s boots sprawled flat on the dirt floor. They didn’t move.

His yell bellowed through the hallway. Several men jumped at the ferocious sound.

“Let me out,” Justice demanded. He was like a beast inside a cage. The gunmen pressed their bodies against the opposite wall to distance themselves from his limited reach.

“Quiet, spy.” The man with white teeth said in English.

“You know we’re not spies. We are security forces just like you. This is an outrage that our country will not tolerate.”

The man clucked his tongue against his teeth, “I hated my time in America. Your country sucks.” He rubbed a finger across his top row of teeth. “Your president did give me free dental though.” A quick smirk and flip of his raggedly styled hair, and the man disappeared.

Loud chatter across the hall returned his focus to Batya. He heard the sound of ripped cloth. Next, her garments were tossed into the walkway. Justice’s breathing grew rapid. His gut knotted in twists that drove vomit up the back of his parched throat.

Justice heard the man with the wooden baton call in broken English, “Whore. Whore. It’s woman.”

Justice cursed Allah and Mohammad. Anything to draw their attention away from his unconscious partner.

“Quick, tell Commander.” One of the men yelled from Batya’s cell.

Justice listened to the buzz as news spread that they’d captured a female fighter. Sweat dripped from his long hair as he hoped they’d mistake her for an American. Possibly they’d think twice about what they were planning to do to her.

“Tell Jabar she is a dirty Jew,” The man with the wooden baton called in a hate-filled tone.

“All or nothing,” Justice snarled. He slammed his big body into the door. Nothing budged.

There wasn’t room to get a running head start, so he smashed his shoulders against the cell’s thick metal bars. His skin exploded open with every crash. The open knife wound in his gut pulsed blood with each effort. He was weakening, still he felt nothing but loathing. The more they laughed and taunted, the more fucking furious he became.

“Settle down hero, we’ll rape you after we finish with her,” A gunman said. The small man pumped his pelvis toward Justice and simulated fucking.

“Be patient American. We will take all night with your Jewish girlfriend.” Another man laughed.

“Piss off. I’ll kill every one of you cowards,” Justice threatened in perfect Dari.

Their expressions changed once they realized he spoke their tongue.

“Piss off on you,” the same man said. He moved in front of Justice’s cell and reached beneath his tunic. “You better get used to seeing this.” He pulled out his dick and waved it at Justice then let loose a stream of urine through the bars.

Justice scrambled back, but there wasn’t enough room. He turned his face away and lifted his hands but his pants and feet became saturated.

The man grunted as his flow trickled to a drip. His laughter grew more bold. He called for the others. Two more relieved themselves into the cell and spit at Justice while the remaining men dragged a nude Batya from the cell by her bare feet. Justice saw her bloody torso and perfect form that had been wrecked by the cowards.

He snapped.

His bare feet slipped in the pools of piss that turned the cell floor into a soft surface. Justice ignored shards of metal that embedded into his palms and knuckles. He raged against captivity. Screams of wrath echoed through the tiny outpost as he slammed against the bars with everything he had.

He’d only known Batya for a few days, but she deserved better. No high-level Mossad training or even the U.S. military’s SERE survival program could prepare her. He knew the horror Batya would undergo—and she would too once they revived her.

He heard raucous laughter down the hall. There wasn’t much distance from his cage to the office. When he jammed his face as hard as he could into the old metal, he caught a glimpse of them in the front room. He listened as their jeers grew angrier and more vile.

There she was.

Justice actually regretted that she was still alive—she’d soon be better off dead. She was completely naked except for the combat boots they’d left laced on her feet. Her pale body stood in stark contrast to the horde of dark-skinned men who had begun to disrobe.

His ears rung with a hell-borne shriek. He watched her elbow swing viciously into the crowd of rapists.

Batya stumbled down the hall on wobbly legs—reached for Justice as they slammed her to the ground. She whispered, “
Slicha li
.”

Four naked bastards sneered hungrily as they snatched her back by the legs and her long hair that was covered in blood and straw. She whimpered and thrashed, but to no avail. She’d been beaten within an inch of her life—there was no physical fight left. Only her spirit.

“Forgive me?” Justice repeated in English. “But I failed you, Batya, daughter of God.”

He fell into the wall and slid against the rough surface until his ass landed in puddles of piss. His all hadn’t been enough. Justice struggled to stay conscious as blood loss from Jabar’s stab weakened him.

He mustered what strength remained in his soul. “Jabar, I’m going to kill you, motherfucker.” Justice screamed until his temples pulsed and his throat burned like hell fire.

Jabar jabbed his meaty head into the hall so Justice could see him. The fat across his soft chest and round gut shook as he laughed. He sneered, and in perfect English spit out, “Fuck off, American.”

B
en was always
partial to Justice Boudreaux. He’d never held the hunting and executing of the other experimental diplomats against him. They were both products of the same fucked up federal agency that had taken advantage of their sense of duty through military service. Justice was a machine on autopilot—just like him.

Although he’d never met Justice, Ben enjoyed the cat and mouse game of surveillance/counter-surveillance. Both men were skilled at stalking, and although Ben had never intended to kill Justice, he did have a vested interest in knowing where he was and what he was up to. It was a simple line in a life of non-simple lines—slip up and Justice would kill him.

Ben had laid up about a quarter mile outside the Popi village after his blood fest. He didn’t feel well and assumed digesting the different types and tastes of flesh had upset his system. Hands pressed against his gut, he cringed at the thought his mommy might be right about getting sick.