The Taste of Fear (16 page)

Scarlett cleared her throat. “Let’s stick to the facts, okay?” she said, trying to remain rational. “Have there been any other Al Qaeda kidnappings in Africa?”

“There were those eleven Europeans in Egypt,” Miranda said.

“No, hon,” Joanna said. “Militiamen from Darfur were responsible for that.”

“The Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat,” Sal said.

“Who are they?” Scarlett asked.

“A rebel group that’s been fighting the Algerian government in a civil war for the past decade or so. When they couldn’t win support at home, they started looking global. With Al Qaeda’s support, they’ve become an umbrella for radical Islamic factions in neighboring countries like Morocco and Tunisia. They run training camps in the Sahara and ship fighters off to Iraq, where they make up as much as thirty percent of the foreign fighters there. Recently they’ve become known as the Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.”

“You know a lot about terrorists, Mr. Brazza,” Joanna said, and it was tough to tell whether there was suspicion or deference in her voice.

“They fascinate me,” he said simply.

The truth, Scarlett knew, was before settling on Mauritius as the site for a future hotel-casino, Sal had looked into several other African nations, and he would have received regular reports on their political and economic environments. “Are these Salafist guys involved in kidnapping?” she asked.

“Yes,” Joanna said. “In 2003 they kidnapped thirty-two Europeans. I believe the German government paid a five-million ransom. Last year, again, they kidnapped two Austrian tourists in Tunisia. Eight-million ransom that time.”

“You see,” Sal said. “It’s all about money.”

“But remember,” Joanna said. “Salafist is North African.”

“Who was responsible for the East African embassy bombings ten years ago then?” Scarlett asked.

“The Jihad Organization. They’ve been around since the late seventies.”

Sal grunted. “It’s all the same thing. They all follow bin Laden.”

In the silence that followed, Scarlett thought about everything that had been said. It made her head spin with incredulity. You read about stuff like this happening all the time. You saw it on TV. But it was always happening to someone else. You never in a thousand years thought it would happen to you. How could it? It was part of a different world. Even now that she had been thrown headfirst into that different world and was experiencing it all first hand, she still had a difficult time internalizing it.

Cold and bleak depression washed over her in waves.

She saw the black smoke curling above the embassy.

She saw the young Marine’s half-missing face.

She saw the crazy bastard with the third-degree burns staring at her madly before running her and Thunder off the road.

She shoved the images aside decisively and forged her resolve. Sal was right. The kidnappers likely only wanted money. No problem. Name a price. One million? Ten? God, when they found out how much Sal was worth. “They’re going to wants tens of millions, Sal,” she said.

“Will you pay them?” Miranda asked. “Whatever they ask?”

“Of course,” Sal said shortly. “What good is money if you’re dead? Besides,” he added, “I’m insured against this type of thing.”

A new thought stuck Scarlett. Maybe in a normal kidnapping-hostage situation, the kidnappers wanted money. But this wasn’t a normal situation. She and Sal were one of the most famous couples in the U.S. Al Qaeda was well-funded. Money was secondary to them—a means of achieving the end goal of spreading propaganda and terror. So what if whoever was calling the shots decided no amount of ransom would be worth the coverage their deaths would bring?

It was a chilling possibility, one which she kept to herself.

Several hours later the van stopped. The rear doors swung open, letting inside gray light. Three gunmen dressed in drab-colored clothing, including the driver with the burn marks on his face, shouted at them to get out. Scarlett gently moved herself out from beneath Thunder, whose head was still resting on her lap, and got to her feet. She followed Sal out and hopped to the ground. Her cramped legs immediately gave out and she almost toppled over. The nearest gunman laughed at her; she resisted the urge to spit in his face.

She looked around. It was dusk, but the dying light seemed bright compared to the complete blackness of the van’s cargo body. The air was fresh and raw, not a trace of civilization in it. They were in some sort of forest clearing. Tall, foreboding trees surrounded them on every side. Two primitive huts faced each other across an open hearth. They were constructed from sturdy wooden poles, thin branches for horizontal tie-beams, and thatch. In fact, they resembled crude facsimiles of the villa Scarlett and Sal had stayed in up on the rim of Ngorongoro Crater. Only she didn’t think these would boast interiors flush with long-stem roses and Persian silks. Definitely no bathrooms with hand-beaded chandeliers and views of Africa’s Eden.

The gunman who’d laughed at her ran his grubby hands up and down her arms and legs and fondled her crotch and breasts. She gritted her teeth and endured the harassment. He stuck his knobby fingers into the pockets of her dress and found the two Australian fifties Thunder had given her, which he kept. Next he examined the lion claw and compass-pendant around her neck. Apparently he decided they were worthless and left them where they were. He ordered her to take off her wristwatch. She fumbled with the clasp and handed him the gold jewelry piece. He held it up in front of his face for inspection, then dropped in it the same pocket that held the fifties. Finally he pointed to her engagement ring and wedding band.

She glanced over at Sal. He was surrendering his $300,000 Patek Philippe watch to the gunman with the burns. Joanna and Miranda were also shedding their valuables. It was the first time Scarlett had seen the two embassy women. Joanna was somewhere in her fifties with a sharp, intelligent face and short-styled hair. Miranda was the complete opposite—early twenties, mousey features, long, flat hair. Her cheeks were streaked with tears, and she was biting her lower lip.

The gunman in front of Scarlett barked something at her. She returned her attention to him and quickly twisted off the diamond engagement ring and platinum wedding band. She dumped them into his greedy, outstretched hand. He grinned at the size of the diamond and made a crack in Arabic to his buddies. They laughed. He tied a black piece of cloth around her eyes. Blinded, she felt a renewed surge of panic. He gripped her roughly by the shoulder and steered her across the clearing. She stumbled and fell to her knees twice. Thirty or so steps later he shoved her inside what she thought was one of the huts and tied her hands behind her back to a thick corner post. She heard more movement and grunts. Booted footsteps left the hut and the door clattered shut.

“Sal?” she said.

“I’m here.”

“Joanna? Miranda?”

They answered as well.

Scarlett tested the rope binding her wrists. There seemed to be about two feet of slack. Enough to lie down, enough to touch feet with the others, but that was all. She listened for the terrorists but didn’t hear them. Even so, that didn’t mean they weren’t right outside, standing guard. She swallowed hard. She hated not being able to see. She felt perfectly exposed and vulnerable. What if the bastards decided to rape her? What would she do then—what could she do? She imagined their hot, smelly bodies rubbing against hers, their rough beards scraping her face, their snorts of pleasure as they mounted her one after the other.

She would bite them, she decided. She’d rip off their goddamn noses with her teeth if they tried anything.

They didn’t try anything. The hours slipped away without event. The night grew colder. She didn’t speak to anyone, and no one attempted to speak to her. What was there to say really? How’s it going over there? Sort of like camping, huh? Got any marshmallows?

Mosquitoes feasted on her exposed flesh, their incessant whining around her head almost as bad as their pinprick bite. She couldn’t slap them away because of her restraints and had to lay there for them, a blood buffet. From somewhere not far away an owl hooted, a deep, resonant ooh-hu. It almost sounded like, Who you?

Who am I? she thought. My name’s Scarlett Cox. You might have seen some of my films? No? Well, next time you’re in Times Square or cruising down Hollywood Boulevard take a gander around and you’ll probably see one of my billboards somewhere. Maybe the Estée Lauder one. It’s right across from the Kodak Theatre. You can’t miss it.

More minutes ticked away. More silence. Scarlett’s shoulder muscles began to stiffen and her wrists ached. She stretched out on the lumpy dirt floor and remained like that until her left arm went numb below the elbow, then she shifted to the other side. She heard the others tossing and turning as well. At some point—by then, time had ceased to mean anything to her—she ended up going over everything that had led to the current nightmarish predicament.

The safari had started out well enough, she thought. The morning in Arusha had been nice. Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti had been fun too—until she’d overheard Sal on his phone in the balloon. That’s when it all started to go downhill, wasn’t it? Yes, because if she hadn’t overheard him in the balloon, she wouldn’t have confronted him about it later on. He wouldn’t have felt the need to go off into the forest to make another call during dinner. If he hadn’t done that, he wouldn’t have stirred the lionesses. They wouldn’t have gotten in the subsequent argument. They wouldn’t have been on non-speaking terms during the flight back to Arusha the next day, and they likely would have sat down for coffee or tea while waiting for a legitimate taxi to show up.

She wondered what was going to happen between her and Sal if they got out of this mess alive—
when
they got out of it. This morning she’d told him she wanted a divorce. Had she really meant it? She wasn’t sure. How could you worry about divorce when you were kidnapped and being held hostage by the most ruthless, or at least infamous, terror group on the planet? Right now there was no future. It was day by day, night by night.

Scarlett heard sobbing. It was the girl.

“It’s all right, Miranda,” she said.

“No, it’s not.”

“Just hang in there.”

“I want to go home.”

“We’ll go home, soon. All of us.”

Silence. Some tossing and turning. Sal began snoring softly. Scarlett couldn’t sleep. It was too cold. She was too uncomfortable. Thoughts kept squeezing into the blankness she was attempting to create. When was the last time she’d had anything to drink? Orange juice at the Shell station. It felt like weeks ago.

At what might have been around midnight Scarlett heard the faint ring of a cell phone. She quickly worked herself into an upright position. The ringing continued, shrill and unnatural in the stillness. She guessed it was coming from the other hut. It stopped. Muffled Arabic followed.

A distant door banged. Footsteps approached. The door to her hut rasped open.

“You are Scarlett Cox? The actor?” a voice said—a voice that could speak perfect Oxford English.

“Yes, I am.”

“And you? Salvador Brazza? The hotelier?”

Sal answered in the affirmative.

“May I ask why neither of you were carrying identification?”

“We were robbed,” Scarlett told him simply.

“What an unfortunate day you are having.”

She didn’t say anything. The bastard might find her predicament amusing, but she certainly didn’t.

The door clattered shut.

Scarlett let out the breath she’d been holding, but her heart continued to knock rapidly against her ribcage. Now the terrorists knew who she and Sal were.

Was that good news or bad?

“Can you believe that?” Sal said. “Did you hear him? The man’s a bloody British national—”

“Shhh,” Joanna said. “Listen.”

More Arabic was being spoken. The conversation sounded one-sided, like the man was on the phone with someone again. “Yes, I’ve confirmed it is indeed Scarlett Cox and Salvador Brazza,” Scarlett imagined him saying. “Where would you like us to drop them off? Certainly. And we do apologize for the embarrassing mix up.”

That, of course, wasn’t how it played out. Instead the man—or one of the gunmen—reentered the hut and untied her from the pole. He yanked her to her feet, rebound her hands behind her back, and marched her across the clearing. The others were being moved as well. She wondered briefly where Thunder was. Had he been in the hut with them? Lying there unconscious? In the van? In the other hut? But those thoughts were eclipsed with darker ones. Where were they going? To a firing line, a mass grave?

Miranda was crying. Sal was negotiating, offering money. Joanna was recanting a prayer.

This is it,
Scarlett thought.
This is the end.

God, she didn’t want to die. Not now, not at thirty. Not like this.

A click and a squeal as something opened. An oven? Mother Mary, they were going to cremate her. Alive. They were going to cremate her and—

She was shoved forward, hard, and she banged her knee against cool metal. Not an oven. The van’s bumper.
The van.
She ignored the pain and scrambled into the cargo body. Someone stepped on her heel, tripping her up. She had no free hands to break the fall and landed flat on her face. Coppery blood filled her mouth. But that was okay, that was just fine, because she wasn’t crawling inside an oven, just the van. The others clambered inside as well. The tailgate slammed shut.

As Scarlett struggled back up into a sitting position, she bumped an inert body. Thunder? Had to be. They’d left him in the van after all.

“Where are we going?” Miranda asked between hiccups.

“Likely somewhere a little more secure,” Joanna told her. Her voice was calm, but a fragile terror soaked her words.

“So they can keep us for a lot longer?”

“We don’t know that.”

“It’s true! And it’s all because of you!”

Scarlett couldn’t see Miranda, but she knew the girl was speaking directly to her.