Secret Soldier by Dana Marton Page B

a traffic light. Where were they going? And what would they do to her when they got there?
    Maybe her mother had been right. She should have stayed home and married Anthony. She would have been unhappy, but at least alive. Life was full of tradeoffs.
    She lost track of time, rattling in the back of the truck as it picked up speed. They must have left the city behind finally. Her limbs had gone numb from lack of movement, her shoulder pulsed with pain. The longer she lay there, the grimmer her thoughts turned. Maybe they were taking her out into the desert to shoot and bury her.
    She had to find a way to get away from them. Knowing what was going on would have helped.
    Spike had sneaked out of their room in the middle of the night. If he’d been taken by force, she would have woken up. He was a big man; she couldn’t imagine him being taken without a heck of a struggle. No, he had left on his own. But why?
    Had he caused the explosion?
    It made no sense. Jamal had offered them his hospitality. Spike had seemed eager to accept it, pleased to be allowed inside such a prominent family’s home. The more he learned about the country; the better his documentary would be. If he was a cameraman… The doubts she’d had about him after the attack of the bandits now returned with a rush.
    Only two possibilities existed—either he’d caused the explosion or he hadn’t. If he hadn’t, then who had? Presumably no one in Jamal’s family would want to blow up his own house. A business rival? But then why was she rolled up in a carpet?
    And if Spike had caused the explosion? This theory made more sense than the first. If he had blown up something, Jamal might have thought she was in on it. But the question remained: Why would Spike do this? If he wasn’t Gerald Thornton, the Barnsley Foundation’s cameraman, then who was he?
    She had forgotten her doubts about him in the scare of the firebomb and all that had followed. What if the firebomb hadn’t been from one of the villagers who resented her being there? What if it hadn’t been from Abdul’s son? What if it had been meant for Spike? But from whom?
    She supposed a secret agent would have some enemies. And she was becoming more and more convinced that was what he was. Some kind of a government operative. Her first instinct had been right. And it really, really ticked her off that he would use her as a pawn in some insane plot, risking her life and undermining her work. If he hadn’t died in the explosion, he was going to wish he had once she was through with him.
    After an eternity, the truck stopped, and she was lifted up by two men, one on each end. They carried her somewhere. She could hear doors open and close. Then she was put down, with care this time instead of being dropped, and she was grateful for the small mercy for a second before someone gave her a good kick to unroll her from the carpet.
    The light bulb hanging from a wire above blinded her. A door banged shut. She squeezed her eyelids together then opened them again after a little while. She was alone in a small prison cell-like room, still bound and gagged. And she was pretty sure she wasn’t going to leave there alive.
    She lifted her hands and removed the cloth jammed into her mouth. Marginally better. But she didn’t have time to enjoy the relatively small comfort before a man dressed in a camouflage uniform came for her and loosened the ropes around her ankles enough so she could walk, then dragged her from the room.
    “Where are you taking me?” she asked in Arabic.
    He spit in her face. The tobacco-smelling slime ran down her skin, into the neck of the abayah. The man held her by one arm so she couldn’t even lift her hand to her cheek. She tried to wipe her face on her shoulder instead, grateful when she partially succeeded.
    They went down a narrow hallway and turned left. Then he shoved her into a larger sparsely furnished room. A young man resembling Jamal, dressed in a camouflage uniform, sat on