Lyangar Air Field
Southern Tajikistan
Angra walked into the cell. It was dark—cold and damp, with the musky odor of rot. Three guards followed him in, while another held the door open, allowing light from the hall to illuminate the dark interior.
Tia hunched in the corner, her face white with dread, her mouth dry from dehydration and fear. She watched Angra carefully as her heart pounded in her chest. Since she had been taken captive, she had not said a word, not so much as a whimper, not so much as her name, which had infuriated her captor and excited him at the same time.
Angra nodded to one of the guards, who shouted down the hall. A tray of food was brought into the cell and placed on the floor; boiled carrots and onions and a thick chunk of dried meat. A wooden jug of water was also placed next to the food.
Angra stared down at the woman. She was extraordinary, yes, perfect in feature and form, but she had to be a harlot, an ugly, filthy whore, or she would never had made it so far in the military, which was a man’s world. So he sneered at her angrily, a hungry look on his eye. Tia stared at him defiantly, then dropped her head.
Angra smiled again, his thin face and long beard sagging under his cheeks. Tia saw the craving and averted her eyes.
Angra lifted a narrow finger. “Eat,” he commanded her in a gruff voice. He wanted her stronger, he wanted her to have her wits back before he returned. It would be more fun, more of a challenge, if she had regained some strength.
Tia pushed herself to her feet and glared at Angra, then moved for the food. Though she didn’t want to, she knew that she had to eat. If she wanted to live she had to regain her strength.
Angra watched her a moment, then turned and walked from the cell. “I’ll be back for you,” he muttered before he slammed the steel door closed.
Tia looked up and stopped eating, feeling suddenly sick.
Sometime later, he came back, but this time he was alone. Tia shivered in her corner, knowing her time had come.
There were no words to describe what he did to her then. It was far more than torture, far more than abuse, far more than humiliation, torment, or shame. When he was finished, she lay beaten and barely alive on the floor, surrounded by her blood, his spit, and her teeth.
Spent and weary, Angra stood over her and glared down at her face. A few hours, a day maybe, she was not going to live. He had seen enough death to measure its pace. And if she was lucky, she would die before she regained consciousness.
But he didn’t want her to die without knowing that she had failed. “Can you hear me?” he shouted as he stared down at her. She moaned and looked away and he knew that she could. “You have failed,” he hissed. “The warheads are ours. You are going to die. We’ll destroy you. You have failed everything.”