Calculated Contagion Read online

  * * *

  Dani sat in the dirt outside the tent, desperation clawing at her as she tugged against the hard plastic binding her hands. Whenever one of her captors looked at her, she tried to appear hopeless. That part was easy. She didn’t understand the language being spoken, but a translation wasn’t necessary to understand that the longer she sat in this place, the less likely it would be that anyone would find her body. Think, she chided herself, as she struggled in vain against the bonds that held her captive. Her kidnappers were a nasty group, and the one in charge of her, called Andrei, especially made her shiver. His eyes held no kindness and she willed herself to find a way to use it to her advantage. Out of other ideas, she gestured as if she had to use the restroom. While he might not care if she had to go, it would inconvenience him if she made a mess near his tent. Perhaps if he led her out of the dense grouping of his allies, she could figure out a way to escape. It wasn’t a very good chance, but it was probably the only one she would get. The longer she waited, the more probable the unthinkable became.

  Andrei grunted, with a flash of anger in his eyes, as he flicked away a cigarette and pulled her up roughly. He pushed her through a hole in the fence and the rough metal scraped her arms. He led her into the trees, curled his lip, and waved his hand at her. Dani gestured for him to turn around but he refused. Dani held up her hands. Andrei shook his head no, and she thought perhaps crying would distract him. Hardly having to work at it, Dani began to weep. He snarled at her and began to approach. Instead of loosening or removing her restraints, he slapped her face. Hard. The pain rang through to the back of her head and she fell to the ground, bringing up her bound hands to protect herself from further attacks. Dani scooted backwards and looked into the eyes of a man, but saw only unapologetic evil staring back.

  * * *

  Cam lost sight of the woman when her captor led her outside the fence. He quickened his pace to close the distance between them and heard the unmistakable sound of a slap and subsequent crying. Forcing himself to channel his rage into caution, he worked his way towards the noise. He approached the man from behind, just in time to see him push the woman down as she tried to stand. Once she fell, the man kicked her in the stomach. Biting back his rage, Cam brought the butt of his gun down on the head of the woman’s aggressor. The man collapsed and Cam pulled out his knife to free the woman from her bindings. Her eyes bulged at the sight of his weapon. The woman took a moment to look him up and down. She began to back away in earnest, half throwing herself, and half crawling away. She landed too hard, unable to break her fall with her hands still bound.

  “Easy. Easy. I’m not here to hurt you,” Cam said in English first, hands raised. When she only stared at him in confusion, he had to make his best guess on where she was from. Her dirty clothes told him nothing. She had a dark complexion, black hair, and brown eyes. She could be a local. He whispered, “I’m here to help. I’m not one of them,” in four of the languages common to the region. The woman stared at him blankly, and he resorted to gesturing his meaning, raising his hands in the air and pointing to the woods. She nodded and looked around her for company. They were still alone but wouldn’t be for long.

  She held her hands up and Cam cut through the zip ties. She flexed her fingers and wrists. Her wrists would be sore, but he’d been in this position before, and it wouldn’t slow them down if she could hold it together. Cam reached for her hand to lead her away. Her attacker still lay unconscious on the ground, and Cam’s respect for the woman grew when she paused to deliver a kick to his stomach before leaving. Good. She had some fight left in her.

  “Yeah, the asshole deserved at least that much. Hey, I’d love to stay and let you pay him back in full, but I’m afraid we’re in a hurry,” Cam said in English. Since she clearly didn’t understand him in any language, he tugged on her hand to indicate direction. Although the woman had not been seriously injured, he still had to fight the urge to kick the shit out of any man who thought it was okay to beat a tied-up woman for fun. He’d be happy to take on the man in a fair fight if he had more time.

  5

  The man leading Dani through the rocks and trees raised a hand to stop their progress. He paused to look back over his shoulder. After a few seconds, he resumed his brisk pace. Dani could only assume that they were still alone. He glanced at his watch again and muttered before meeting her eyes. A wordless communication was exchanged as her rescuer gestured away from the camp.

  He was dressed in the same clothing as her captors but wore a large backpack. Most importantly, his eyes didn’t hold the same cruelty as the men who had captured her. Even better, he seemed to be speaking freely around her in English and sounded American. While this was promising, the events of the last twenty-four hours had made her more wary of strangers than usual, particularly strangers that came out of nowhere with a gun and a knife. Regardless, she preferred her odds when she was one against one instead of one against hundreds. Dani relied on her Indian heritage to continue to feed the incorrect assumption that she didn’t speak his language, clinging to the only advantage she had. Only time and distance from her kidnappers would give her the confidence that he could be trusted beyond the present moment. He began to speak softly to himself. She took a few steps closer to the stranger to hear what he had to say, careful to look at her surroundings instead of him to hide that she understood his words.

  “Okay, we have seven hours to make it to the pick-up site. Plenty of time but not if we have company. Best case, we have a fifteen-minute head start. The shoes are no good, but they’ll have to do.” Forgetting to hide her deception for a moment, Dani looked at her ballet flats. The flimsy shoes stood in stark contrast to his heavy black boots. At least she left the heels of death in her closet back at the hotel. Dani was still wearing black trousers and a green dress shirt, which had transformed from a stylish loose top to a wrinkled hot mess sticking to her sweaty skin. The clothes were a disaster, but aside from a stinging cheek, sore wrists, and a few scrapes on her hands, she was doing okay. For now. She could ride the adrenaline rush that came with her singular focus on survival for a little longer.

  Dani followed the man through the trees until they reached an open field covered with stones. He gestured for her to step on the stones instead of the grass and she complied. The only viable explanation for the request was that he was trying not to leave tracks. Dani followed his lead but her ankles protested, aching with the constant twisting to compensate for the uneven terrain. A headache began to form as she finally had time to consider the absurdity of her circumstances. The kidnapping was inconceivable and the rescue–impossible. No one could know so quickly that she was missing.

  Dani shivered and her body fought a descent into shock. She tried to focus on the present but the events of the past twenty-four hours kept flashing, unbidden, through her mind. She had left the conference for a moment–a moment–before she was approached by the big, nasty one and then surrounded by three more of them threatening her life and the life of any innocent bystander unlucky enough to be in their path if she didn’t stay quiet. If their voices hadn’t convinced her that they meant business, the hard metal of the gun digging into her ribs finished the job.

  Dani had been scared, furious, and outmatched from the moment they’d approached. She’d been waiting for an opportunity to escape every second, knowing from watching too many TV documentaries that the first twenty-four hours of a kidnapping were the most crucial for escape. The men said very little to her on the journey outside of threatening her when she asked questions about where she was going and why she was taken. It didn’t take long for them to frighten her into silence. She focused instead on memorizing what details she could from outside of the Jeep window, which had worked well until they placed a dirty pillowcase over her head. On the rare occasion her captors would speak, she didn’t understand the language. She counted two total border crossings–those were the moments when the pillowcase was removed and a pistol was shoved into her ribs to ensure her
compliance. At the end of the journey, she deduced that they were going up in elevation based on the tilt of the Jeep, but she’d been unable to quantify any other helpful pieces of data. Once they arrived at the camp, it was clear they were in the mountains. But she didn’t know what country she was in or why they had taken her. Dani’s best guess was that they wanted a ransom, but they had said nothing about it before this man had come from nowhere to save her or…something. With all of those facts established, absolutely none of this made sense.

  * * *

  Cam rolled his tight shoulders, pulling at the straps on his pack to adjust them when they reached another patch of forest. He once again considered calling in his situation. However, explaining why he was bringing an extra package required too much time on the satellite phone when hacking technology seemed to get better by the week. Instead, he pushed the beacon switch on the side of his watch, sending a signal to Tyler that he would arrive at the extraction point earlier than planned.

  Cam checked the woman behind him. Her back was straight, even as her body began to show signs of her ordeal. Deep purple circles framed her eyes and her shoulders were covered in scratches. A red mark showed through the dirt on her right cheek. She said nothing, but her breathing was labored–not surprising if she wasn’t used to the thin mountain air. Distrust was clear in her eyes but it was partnered with a wary gratefulness. She was tired but wasn’t a delicate flower, either. The woman kept up with him while they picked their way through the uneven terrain, even though her ankles were probably screaming in those ridiculous shoes. Guess you couldn’t choose your footwear when you got kidnapped. He offered her a drink from his canteen and she drank from it eagerly. It was another step in the right direction. Cam always figured that it was hard to break bread or share drinks with someone you didn’t trust.

  Even though she didn’t understand him, Cam asked, “You okay?” He hoped his tone was at least universal and had been speaking his thoughts out loud with the hopes of putting her at ease. However, there was no answer, as expected, only a quizzical look and something else he couldn’t quite place. Cam wasn’t a man of many words and said nothing else. He and his brother, Parker, had always joked that between their mother and sister, they didn’t really have a chance to get a word in edgewise. However, Cam also wasn’t entirely comfortable with this much silence. If she didn’t trust him, his efforts would be for naught at best and dangerous at worst.

  Cam took the canteen back after the woman had finished a long drink and continued to lead her to the rendezvous point. He didn’t like having his back to the unknown, but given their situation, he had to trust his assessment of her was correct. His best guess was that she was afraid of him but less afraid of him than her previous company. However, the farther they got from camp, the more confident her steps became. She had more strength of will than the circumstances under which they met suggested.

  Hopefully, she could give them more information. She seemed like she could at least hold it together until they reached the extraction site, where they would take the necessary steps to turn her over to her home country. While he wanted to try a few more languages to see if he could determine her nationality, it wasn’t the time to play Q&A with his new friend. Dusk was quickly approaching and they would need to stay close to minimize conversation. Cam weighed the risk of making sure his companion knew he was trustworthy against the risk that they were being followed. He stopped to look at her with purpose. He tried to project compassion and her fear thawed a fraction. It would have to do.

  If she wasn’t local, he’d guess she was at least partially Indian. If she was from a rural area, that narrowed down his choices to hundreds of languages and dialects. Many Indians spoke English, but it wasn’t guaranteed, obviously. Recalling some Hindi and a handful of local languages from a previous op, he tried to ask her how she was doing, but she was unresponsive to his queries. They would have to call in a translator once they made it to the helicopter. Generally, they would call him, but given that he had already tried and failed, they would have to reach out to the Indian consulate to see if they could find someone else who might be able to talk to her.

  * * *

  Dani was grateful the man’s back was to her so that she didn’t have to work to keep her astonishment from showing. He had correctly used several Indo-Aryan dialects with barely a trace of his American accent. Her mother had insisted Dani learn her family’s language, and Dani had made it a game to know a few words from even those languages less commonly used in her mother’s hometown. However, she couldn’t speak so many languages without a strong American accent behind her words. Another point in his favor was that he seemed to keep asking her if she was okay–in her singular but impactful recent experience, kidnappers rarely cared.

  Dusk was beginning to make it difficult to see the details of terrain changes on the ground, and she wondered where they were going at such a speed. They hadn’t slowed down since they left camp and the man kept them oriented in a very specific direction. To the pick-up site, whatever that meant. When she turned to check the location of the setting sun, she ran into his back. Dani braced herself as he turned. He touched the top her arm gently and shushed her, pointing behind her. The man dropped his arm and crept quietly over a small rise in the landscape. He pulled a pair of binoculars from his backpack and used them to look past her. He sighed, and she startled when he lifted up the hem of his shirt to check his gun. Urgency in his eyes, he said, “I hope you trust me. Or at least don’t have a gun hidden on you.”

  * * *

  Well, shit. The man he’d knocked out wasn’t going to let his prize go without a fight. He didn’t bring a search party to witness his failures, but he had brought another man with him. If Cam and his new friend booked it through the valley in front of them, darkness would cover their tracks and make it next to impossible to find them once they reached the other side. They were still about a half-mile from the planned extraction site, and he could call Tyler to check in once they crossed the valley. Tyler would be timing his arrival from Cam’s GPS beacon and would arrive a few minutes later than they would unless Cam pressed it again. Cam considered it, but he needed to reach an area where Tyler could land, and their pursuers were still too close for his liking. Even if he hadn’t already rescued a kidnapping victim without authorization, he couldn’t risk shooting these guys. He didn’t have the authorization to engage with the enemy, much less to snipe them. Cam tried to gesture to the woman by pointing quickly but couldn’t help speaking out loud too, hoping that she would hear the urgency in his tone.

  “We have company. We need to run.”

  The woman nodded and said in perfect American English, “Okay, let’s go.”

  Cam raised an eyebrow at her. “You’ve been holding out on me. We’ll talk about that later.” He held out his hand in an offer to keep her steady. Her outfit looked expensive, but it had seen better days and wasn’t designed for escaping a kidnapping followed by a five-mile hike at altitude. She took his supportive hand gratefully. Rarely surprised at this point in his life, he shrugged and they sprinted through the valley towards safety.

  Cam braced his companion under her elbow as they ran over the uneven ground. They had less than a half-mile to cross, but the urgency to escape their pursuers made it seem twice that distance. They were both short of breath when they reached the other side. Cam led her down a hill and pulled out his weapon. The woman’s eyes went wide and she took a few steps backward.

  “It’s okay,” Cam assured her. “There’s an overhang here where we can take cover. I need to make sure no one else is around. Look, I don’t have time to explain, but I’m one of the good guys.” Cam did a quick sweep and declared the small area under the rocky overhang clear. He directed Dani towards an inside corner and pulled out a phone.

  “Watchman requesting extraction immediately at rendezvous point. Extra package acquired, repeat, requesting immediate extraction of two packages at rendezvous point, over.”

  “Affi
rmative, Watchman. Bird is nearby and will be there in under five. Is the package restrained? Repeat, is the package restrained, over?”

  “Package is a friendly, Green Eagle. Repeat, package is friendly. We have two tails looking for the package. Approximate location of tails is one half mile southwest of rendezvous. Repeat, we have company one half mile southwest of rendezvous.”

  “Roger that, Watchman. Help is on the way.”

  * * *

  Dani fought to keep her mouth from gaping as the day grew impossibly stranger. Surely this was some crazy dream. Then the man turned to her, waited for her to make eye contact, and said, “My name is Cam. I’m with the American government and a friend of mine will be landing a helicopter here shortly. Hate to sound like a broken record, but I need you to trust me. We’re doing okay so far, right?”

  Dani nodded, and soon, the faint, low-pitched noise of a helicopter broke through the silence. Dani began to shake violently, either despite or because of the relief of rescue rushing through her veins. What could have happened to her would haunt her for a long time. She took a deep breath and pushed the thought away, unable to process the potential death or torture she escaped. What possessed someone to treat a human being as a commodity–something to be won, acquired, traded, hit? While she’d been beyond lucky to get away from her kidnappers, the relief of imminent rescue had taken her out of survival mode and sucked her down into the uncertainty of what would come next. She had a feeling the man before her hadn’t been sent on her behalf, but his words and deeds indicated that for the first time in nearly twenty-four hours, things were going to get better. Tentatively, she stuck out a hand.