* * *
Forty-eight hours later their hoped-for miracle began to happen when a violent blast shattered the stillness of the night and shook the walls of the cellblock.
Stunned out of a sound sleep, Emma struggled up to her knees and squinted through the mortar dust sifting down from the ceiling and obscuring the walls of her cell. Then, she heard a strange screaming sound somewhere off in the distance.
David shouted, “Incoming!”
She crawled to the nearest wall and crouched there, arms over her head as exploding grenades and rocket shells sent repeated shudders through the cellblock walls. She gathered her scattered wits, silently blessing Sam for having dragged her along with him to countless war movies during their childhood. The violent explosions assured her, of course, that this wasn’t simulated warfare in a movie. This was real, and potentially deadly. Mortar dust continued to float down from the ceiling and the walls, clogging the air with gritty debris.
Emma squinted up at the window of her cell. She saw strange flashes of light and heard the shrieks of additional incoming rounds. The resultant explosions briefly deafened her and sent her sprawling across the hard-packed dirt floor of her cell.
“Emma!”
“I’m okay!” She struggled back up to her knees.
“Whoever they are, these guys aren’t too far away. And they obviously mean business.”
“Do you think … ” She broke off as a rocket exploded in the adjacent courtyard, the floor seemed to tilt, and she fell flat on her face.
“I don’t know what the hell to think!” David shouted back at her. “That last one was too close for comfort. If you haven’t already done it, move into the corner of your cell. Get as much distance as you can between yourself and the outside wall. Cover your face and keep your head down. These guys don’t have the greatest aim in the world.”
Emma hurriedly crawled into the corner farthest from the back wall of her cell. The acrid stench of exploding bombs and the dense rain of mortar dust stung her eyes and filled her nose. Coughing, she wedged herself tightly into the corner and shielded her face with the burqa. And then she prayed.
A sudden silence settled over the cellblock. Emma thought it as ominous as the sound of exploding grenades and rockets. “Now I know how those plastic ducks at the county fair must feel.”
David laughed, but Emma almost missed the sound. Instead, commands shouted in Arabic and rifle fire eclipsed the silence of just moments earlier.
“I’m sorry I hoped this would happen,” she called to David. “I really don’t want either one of us to die.”
“We won’t. With any kind of luck, this might be our ticket out of the hotel from hell.”
Blast after blast shook the cellblock.
Emma kept her head bowed, and she remained wedged into the corner of her cell. During a ten-second respite a few minutes later, she peered through a gap in the burqa she’d draped over her head. Disbelief flooded her when she spied a small hole in the wall of her cell.
“David!”
Several successive explosions hurled her across the floor, twisted the barred door of her cell, and widened the hole in the rear cell wall. Emma gasped for air. Tendrils of flame licked and danced along the overhead beams as she tried to scramble back to her original position.
She gagged on the dense smoke. Yet another explosion sent rubble tumbling across the floor. She felt a chunk of stone slam into her hip, and she couldn’t smother her cry of pain.
Ceiling timbers cracked and splintered overhead, nearly drowning out David’s voice as he shouted her name. A length of wood crashed to the floor, missing Emma’s head by only a few inches. Heart racing, she bit back a scream.
Additional rubble cascaded across the backs of her legs. Still sprawled on the floor of her cell, she peered into the smoke and darkness, but she couldn’t see anything.
Emma moaned, desperate to find a way to protect herself. She pitched aside chunks of stone and splintered pieces of wood, struggled to her knees, and began to crawl across the floor, praying all the while that the ceiling wouldn’t cave in on her. The deafening chaos of guerilla warfare continued to shriek and wail in her ears.
“… answer me, damn it!”
A heartbeat later, strong hands seized her shoulders and yanked her upright. Terror filled her. She cried out and began to struggle.
“Emma … stop struggling … it’s me.” David’s hands gentled as he stroked her arms.
She went still with shock. And then she sank into him, her arms sliding around his waist, her forehead falling against his shoulder.
“This is our shot.” He hugged her, his embrace fierce and protective. “We’ve got to make a run for it now.”
She eased back, coughing again. “Whatever we do, we do it together.”
“That’s my girl.” He hugged her one last time, grabbed her hand, and cautioned, “Don’t let go, no matter what happens.”
Another rocket attack began, the assault on the prison compound growing more intense and deadly with each passing second.
David guided Emma through what had become a gaping hole in the seam of the cell’s rear wall and the common wall that had separated them for three terrifying weeks. The ceiling of her cell caved in a heartbeat after they stepped out into the adjacent courtyard.
Emma kept pace with David, trusting him to protect her. They dodged armed soldiers shouting at one another, ambulances speeding into the courtyard to collect the wounded, exploding mortar shells, and a seemingly endless series of shoulder-launched rockets that exploded all around them.
Zigzagging through the sprawling compound, they finally spotted the front gate. They ducked into the shelter of a darkened doorway in what appeared to be an abandoned structure in order to survey their options.
“It looks too easy,” she whispered to David as they huddled together and studied the now unguarded prison entrance.
“I agree, but it’s all we’ve got.”
Emma glanced up at David. She registered the smudges of fatigue beneath his hazel eyes, the tension visible in his angular facial features despite his beard, the frown that marred his brow, and the dirt and mortar dust that covered him from head to booted feet.
He loomed over her, rugged, heavily muscled, and almost profanely masculine. Not a pretty man by any means, but the safety she felt just being at his side trumped everything else. She’d never been into the smoothly polished diplomats or the power brokers of the international community she’d encountered during her time with Child Feed, and she never would be. She wanted a real man, and David Winslow was all man. Best of all, he was real.
He met her gaze. Pressed against his body, swathed from shoulders to ankles in the shapeless abaya and her head still covered by the burqa, and heavily dusted with her own share of mortar dust, she was still everything he’d imagined and then some. As if unable to stop himself, he leaned down and dropped a hard kiss on her parted lips.
She blinked in surprise when he drew back. Then, she grinned at him. “What now?”
“We’re going to have to take a chance and get the hell out of this compound.”
She nodded, ready to follow him into the fires of hell. Hadn’t they managed to survive – at least up until now – their own personal versions of hell as the political prisoners and potential sacrifices of a rogue Middle East state and its dictator?
A convoy of heavy tanks, followed by a half dozen jeeps and trucks, rumbled through the open gates and roared past them. Still hidden in the shadowed doorway, Emma and David clung to each other. Their hearts raced in concert while they waited for their chance to make a break for freedom.
Once the area cleared of vehicles and personnel, David eased his grip on Emma and looked down at her. Vivid blue eyes stared up at him. His thoughts scattered with the realization that a man could easily drown in those huge, bottomless blue pools.
He found his voice. “Ready?”
Emma squared her shoulders. “Yes. Shall we try to make it to my
friend’s house?”
“Yes, but only if you’re certain she won’t turn us over to the authorities.”
Emma shook her head. “She absolutely will not do that. Mary’s a Canadian. If she’s in the country, she’ll help us. If not, we can wait until she returns. I trust her, David. She would never betray us.”
“Let’s get going then.”
“Her place is about three miles northeast of here.” She swallowed against the anxiety that thrummed inside her. “I’ve driven there at night, so it won’t be hard to find.”
He cupped her face with his big hands and titled it upward. “We’re going to be alright.”
Tears stung Emma’s eyes, but she managed a nod.
Her shattered little smile nearly drove David to his knees. Leaning down, he tenderly pressed his lips to hers. She clutched at his forearms, drawing strength from him until he drew back and released a ragged breath.
“Trust me,” he said. “We’ll get through this.”
“I do trust you.” And I always will, she realized. “There is no one I trust more, David.”
CHAPTER 7