Secret Soldier by Dana Marton Page A

on the action. Their investigation had failed to turn that up. His involvement sure as hell raised the stakes. And put Abigail in danger.
    Spike grabbed a rifle without making a sound, and looked through a small gap in between crates. Jamal had about a dozen men with him, all armed to the teeth. He hoped none of them was stupid enough to start shooting in there.
    But, of course, despite Jamal’s hand in the air holding them back, one of them did. And once the first shot rang out, there was no stopping the rest. He loaded the rifle and lunged for the trapdoor to the kitchen. Blocked. Whoever was up there wasn’t letting him out.
    Then the crates exploded, and the house shook—the ceiling, the walls, even the dirt floor beneath him. The splitting pain in his head was the last thing he felt.
     

Chapter Five
    She was in her hut, trapped by flames, screaming for Spike. And then the walls exploded. Abigail sat up in the bed, disoriented. A bad dream—no. She looked at the phone that had been knocked onto the floor, her ears ringing. The explosion had been real.
    She was alone in bed.
    “Spike?”
    The bathroom door stood open. He wasn’t in there.
    She threw the abayah over her nightgown, the veil on her head, and rushed to the door, pulled it open. The two armed guards outside outyelled each other, their guns immediately trained on her.
    “What happened?” she asked in her best Arabic.
    They ignored her question. One of them used the long barrel of his gun to shove her back. Another man rushed down the hall, his clothes covered in plaster, his face bleeding. Jamal. He was yelling instructions she didn’t understand.
    “Are you all right? What’s going on?”
    He didn’t even look at her as he hurried by.
    The two men pushed her into the room and came in after her. One of them swung his rifle onto his back, while the other kept his pointed straight at her head. She got the idea. If she resisted, she was toast.
    Her arms and legs were tied before she knew what was going on, her questions halted when the man knocked her down, knelt on her chest and gagged her. They rolled her up unceremoniously in the Persian carpet she’d admired earlier; then she was being lifted. A punch into her stomach knocked the air out of her. No, it wasn’t a punch. One of them had thrown her over his shoulder, she realized as they began moving. She was rolled up tight, the dirty cloth stuffed into her mouth, gagging her. With each breath she sucked in the dusty smelling air from the carpet.
    She refused to let panic engulf her. She had to figure out what was going on, she had to come up with a plan. She was being kidnapped for some reason. By an old friend from college. Not that good a friend, obviously.
    She could almost hear her mother’s voice in her head. Be sensible, Abigail. You can’t possibly mean to go over there. You’ll be kidnapped and sold into white slavery or into some harem as a sex slave. These things happen, you know.
    She doubted very much that Jamal Hareb was dealing in sex slaves. But then what an earth did he plan to do with her? Her instincts said she wasn’t headed for a plush little harem.
    She heard voices as more men joined the ones who were taking her God knew where. Dogs barked. They were outside. She heard a motor start and another; she could smell the exhaust. Then she was dropped, smashing her shoulder against something hard. The ground vibrated under her. No, not the ground. She was in the back of a truck. And not alone. A couple of men were talking above her, bracing her with their feet so she wouldn’t roll as the vehicle began to move.
    She tried to ignore the pain and concentrate on what they were saying. Not much, probably aware that she could hear and understand them. Two of them had been injured in the explosion, the talk focused on that.
    The explosion, Spike missing and her being kidnapped-they were all connected somehow. The truck stopped, but only for a minute before taking off again. Probably