tooth.” Omar motioned to the two chaperones, F.U. and Cage, to disrobe her, which they did immediately and without fanfare.
“Aaaahhh,” the Arab terrorists said as one.
Scar-face made an arrogant slash of his hand to Omar that could only be interpreted as Take the rest of her clothes off .
Omar shook his head vehemently, rattling off a bunch of Arabic. Back and forth they argued. Only then did he repeat some of it in English. “You have seen enough. If you want to see more, put an offer on the table. Let us say, fifty thousand dollars.”
Several of the terrorists laughed at that, obviously thinking she wasn’t worth that much.
“I have more like this one,” Omar inserted slyly.
Scar-face stood and walked toward her. Omar stepped in front of her, and she could feel F.U. and Cage stiffen behind her. Then everything went haywire at once. Scar-face grabbed her by the arm, pulling her to the side with a head-lock, his chest pressed to her back, a sharp knife to her neck. Omar and the two chaperone SEALs were screeching something in Arabic. The girl captives were screaming. The Arab woman was running around like a chicken with its head cut off.
And in her ear a message was being shouted, “Mayday! Abort mission! Tangos approaching! Stand down, stand down! Mayday!” Omar and the other SEALs were getting the same message and trying to assess how to get out of this place with her and not alert the Arabs to their true identities. The fact that she was now half-naked didn’t seem important in view of these other calamities.
Just then, a bomb went off outside, diverting everyone’s attention. She was able to escape Scar-face’s hold on her, and everyone was rushing for the back door. “Wait here ’til we see if the coast is clear,” Omar told her, then muttered under his breath, “This is a freakin’ cluster fuck.” For just a moment she was left alone in the room.
But then there was another boom. Closer. The building shook. Ceiling plaster fell.
And everything went black.
Yep, she was barmy, all right . . .
The first time Joy awakened after the explosion, she noticed the goose egg that felt as if it was splitting her skull open. And she noticed that she was wearing a drab brown gown with a rope belt over the plain white underwear she’d donned that morning. She was lying on a wide bench attached to the wall of a strange, primitive room. Like a hut of some kind, with woven twig sides and a thatched roof.
She must be dreaming.
So she succumbed to unconsciousness again.
The second time she awakened, she registered that she was not alone. There were others. Men, women, even children, similarly attired. Some of them were weeping. Others were murmuring amongst themselves. In some foreign language. It wasn’t Arabic. Or German. No, it was something else that almost sounded like English. And, oddly, she could understand what they were saying. Like she had some translator in her brain.
“What language are they speaking?” she asked the old woman next to her.
“Norse.”
“You mean Norwegian?”
“No, lackwit. Norse.”
Okaaay. “Where are we?”
The woman frowned at her as if she was crazy. “Hedeby.” “Ah.” They had passed the quaint model village on the way here yesterday, Joy recalled. Apparently, it was a reproduction of a Viking market town from a thousand years ago when this part of northern Germany was actually part of Denmark. The Danes had lost the territory to the Austrians and Prussians during some seventeenth-century war. She would have liked to visit it if she’d had time.
But why would the Arab terrorists bring her here? These people hardly qualified as sex slaves. Only one of the women was even passably pretty.
And where were the SEALs who had been with her? She pressed the implant behind her ear three times, paused, then pressed three times again. Code for distress. Nothing. And she wasn’t hearing anything, either. Well, hopefully, someone would follow the GPS
“Aaaahhh,” the Arab terrorists said as one.
Scar-face made an arrogant slash of his hand to Omar that could only be interpreted as Take the rest of her clothes off .
Omar shook his head vehemently, rattling off a bunch of Arabic. Back and forth they argued. Only then did he repeat some of it in English. “You have seen enough. If you want to see more, put an offer on the table. Let us say, fifty thousand dollars.”
Several of the terrorists laughed at that, obviously thinking she wasn’t worth that much.
“I have more like this one,” Omar inserted slyly.
Scar-face stood and walked toward her. Omar stepped in front of her, and she could feel F.U. and Cage stiffen behind her. Then everything went haywire at once. Scar-face grabbed her by the arm, pulling her to the side with a head-lock, his chest pressed to her back, a sharp knife to her neck. Omar and the two chaperone SEALs were screeching something in Arabic. The girl captives were screaming. The Arab woman was running around like a chicken with its head cut off.
And in her ear a message was being shouted, “Mayday! Abort mission! Tangos approaching! Stand down, stand down! Mayday!” Omar and the other SEALs were getting the same message and trying to assess how to get out of this place with her and not alert the Arabs to their true identities. The fact that she was now half-naked didn’t seem important in view of these other calamities.
Just then, a bomb went off outside, diverting everyone’s attention. She was able to escape Scar-face’s hold on her, and everyone was rushing for the back door. “Wait here ’til we see if the coast is clear,” Omar told her, then muttered under his breath, “This is a freakin’ cluster fuck.” For just a moment she was left alone in the room.
But then there was another boom. Closer. The building shook. Ceiling plaster fell.
And everything went black.
Yep, she was barmy, all right . . .
The first time Joy awakened after the explosion, she noticed the goose egg that felt as if it was splitting her skull open. And she noticed that she was wearing a drab brown gown with a rope belt over the plain white underwear she’d donned that morning. She was lying on a wide bench attached to the wall of a strange, primitive room. Like a hut of some kind, with woven twig sides and a thatched roof.
She must be dreaming.
So she succumbed to unconsciousness again.
The second time she awakened, she registered that she was not alone. There were others. Men, women, even children, similarly attired. Some of them were weeping. Others were murmuring amongst themselves. In some foreign language. It wasn’t Arabic. Or German. No, it was something else that almost sounded like English. And, oddly, she could understand what they were saying. Like she had some translator in her brain.
“What language are they speaking?” she asked the old woman next to her.
“Norse.”
“You mean Norwegian?”
“No, lackwit. Norse.”
Okaaay. “Where are we?”
The woman frowned at her as if she was crazy. “Hedeby.” “Ah.” They had passed the quaint model village on the way here yesterday, Joy recalled. Apparently, it was a reproduction of a Viking market town from a thousand years ago when this part of northern Germany was actually part of Denmark. The Danes had lost the territory to the Austrians and Prussians during some seventeenth-century war. She would have liked to visit it if she’d had time.
But why would the Arab terrorists bring her here? These people hardly qualified as sex slaves. Only one of the women was even passably pretty.
And where were the SEALs who had been with her? She pressed the implant behind her ear three times, paused, then pressed three times again. Code for distress. Nothing. And she wasn’t hearing anything, either. Well, hopefully, someone would follow the GPS
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