15

Aaron heard the rustling in the darkness and knew they were coming for him. He was in no shape to fight, having already suffered a brutal interrogation at the hands of Johan. Even if he was in perfect condition, there were too many to win against, but he would make it painful. Make it much, much more expensive than the watch on his wrist.

Mentally, he had already made the choice. He would fight to kill from the first blow. He knew that a pathetic attempt at an escalation based on their actions would only lead to an inevitable outcome. Having lived in a world of violence that few on earth could understand, he knew where this was going, and no restraint on his part would alter the trajectory he was now on.

Once he was overpowered, they’d beat him unmercifully. Punish him for his insolence. The only thing he had going for him was his propensity for violence, and he intended to use that to his fullest advantage. He knew he wouldn’t be killed outright, even as he planned to kill those who attacked him. But his death would be real all the same. He wasn’t going to risk catching HIV in some prison hospital. If they even bothered to take him to one.

He’d initially wondered why they left him with his Rolex when they took everything else, including his shoes in exchange for nasty-smelling tire sandals. Once he got into his cell with twenty other prisoners, it had become clear. It was to be payment for the block commander.

Most of the guards were okay, just bored with their jobs. Some were even nice, giving him additional rice for the extra seventy pounds he had on him compared to the other prisoners, who’d clearly been locked in the dark for a long, long time. The block commander, however, was different. He was a sadistic son of a bitch who ran the prison like a little kingdom, granting favors for payment, even if the favor was simply not getting pounded with his baton. He was tall and thuggish, skin as black as coal, with deep-set eyes in a stretched face; Aaron called him Lurch. It seemed the respite from his punishment in Durban had been the proverbial jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

The interrogation had lasted most of the night. When Johan finally tired of the questioning, Aaron had been thrown into the back of a dented Toyota 4Runner, his hands and feet flex-tied together. He’d lain still, taking stock of his condition. Johan had been clinical in his beating, taking care not to do any permanent damage, but Aaron still felt the pain in the soles of his feet and had trouble seeing from the swelling around his eyes.

Still, he surmised he would live, and he was sure he’d given them enough to want to hunt Shoshana, feeding on their mistaken belief that she was his control and had to be contained as well.

His thoughts turned to Alex, wondering what had befallen her. His biggest fear was precisely that they’d surmised she was nothing more than she professed—an employee at the diamond exchange—and thus expendable. To prevent that, he’d debated sprinkling her with a little bit of intrigue during his interrogation, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so. Giving them the idea that she had lied—that she was hiding something—was asking for her to undergo the savage pain he was experiencing, and he simply didn’t have that in him.

Now the decision tore at him. Maybe he should have. She’d have been tortured—most likely sexually—but she’d be alive. The second-guessing and recriminations were pinging back and forth in his brain, like a handful of rubber balls, when he was rewarded with the one bright spot over the last twenty-four hours: Alex was unceremoniously thrown into the back with him.

Relieved to see she appeared unharmed, he whispered, “How are you? Okay?”

When she saw him, her lips trembled and her eyes began to water. Clearly, his condition wasn’t that reassuring. She said, “Oh God, what have they done to you?”

“Nothing. It looks worse than it is. It was a necessary evil to get us out of here. How are you?”

“Get us out? How is you getting beat on helping? Are they going to do that to me?”

He realized she was on the verge of breaking—but also that she hadn’t been touched. Yet. He said, “Keep calm. We’re alive because they want us to be. We’re useful, as long as we aren’t a liability to them. You need to be strong, because if they feel you’re incapable of following orders—if you curl into a ball and just quit—they’ll kill you. Understand?”

She nodded, then slid her hands forward, touching a bruise on his cheek. She said, “We’re truly screwed, aren’t we? You can tell me. Be honest.”

He smiled, the expression turning to a grimace when the smile reached his split lips. He said, “No, we’re not screwed. At least not totally. What we are is alive, and we need to keep ourselves that way, because there’s someone coming for us.”

She said, “The Mossad?”

They heard the car doors open and close, and they remained silent. Someone lifted the back hatch and threw a section of carpet over them, hiding them from view, then slammed the hatch closed. The SUV began moving, and Aaron whispered, “Not the Mossad. My partner. Shoshana.”

Alex looked deflated at the answer. “What on earth can she do all by herself against this? She doesn’t even know we’ve been taken.”

Aaron said, “She will soon. Have some faith, because believe me, she does. Hopefully I’ve set in motion something that will force her to track us. And she will not quit. Ever.”

Alex began to softly weep, saying, “They’ll just kill her, like they’re going to do to us.”

Aaron said, “They’ll try, but they won’t be able to.”

Alex wiped her nose and said, “How can you say that? They caught you. They’ll kill her. She doesn’t even know they’re coming.”

Aaron took the barb and let it slide. He said, “Look at me.”

She did. He locked eyes with her and said, “You are my responsibility. You will come home. Stay alive. Whatever it takes. They’ll probably separate us when we stop, but don’t give up hope. Shoshana will come for me. She’ll come for the both of us.”

Wanting some spark of hope, Alex said, “She can’t stop them. Even you couldn’t. What can she do?”

Aaron held her hands and said, “She’ll come. And when she does, she’ll be bringing enough friends to ensure success.”

“What friends? Who?”

“I honestly don’t know. But I trust her. And you should too. Keep the faith.”

That had been twelve long hours ago, and now that he was facing a cell full of hostile prisoners, Aaron wasn’t nearly as sure as he had been in the back of the SUV.

He had an iron faith in Shoshana and knew she would unravel what had happened to him, but that would take time. He’d naïvely thought he’d just sit as a hostage until Shoshana arrived, but that was not to be the case.

If he wanted to leave the prison alive, he would have to fight to stay that way. He watched the waning rays of the sun out of their lone window and knew that when it hit the horizon, the waiting would be done. They were coming, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.