Secret Soldier by Dana Marton Page B

was the damn thing doing there? It was the middle of the day. They were supposed to sleep under rocks in the heat and forage for food at night. It had been one of the first things she’d learned upon arrival to Tukatar-to always check her shoes in the morning.
    The nasty thing skittered toward the wall. She moved, too, to keep the largest possible distance between them at all times. She tried to calm herself with the thought that scorpions were probably scared of people. Few animals attacked without being provoked.
    She mirrored its movements as the scorpion ran along the perimeter of the room. She had to get rid of it. Now. She glanced at the hole. If one came in, so could another. That freaked her out so badly she couldn’t even think about it.
    She took off her veil and moved toward the animal, bent at the waist, and standing as far from him as possible, lowered the end of the cloth to the ground in front of him. The animal backed away from the black material. Excellent. All she had to do was to herd the damn thing outside.
    For an insane moment she felt infinitely grateful to her captors that they had left her light on. Spike had been in the dark. She shuddered at the thought of that happening to her, scorpions crawling over her body.
    She shooed the animal back, but it bolted sideways. She jumped away, her heart clamoring in her chest. Scorpions and humans had coexisted in these regions for thousands of years, she told herself. It didn’t make an iota of difference to her frantic mind.
    She had to get it out.
    She moved forward, pushing the veil toward the animal. It stared at the cloth. Would it attack? She stopped. The scorpion backed away. Toward the hole, thank God. She took a cautious step. The scorpion skittered back to the wall. Almost at the hole. Her hands trembled. Just a little more. She shook the veil and, holding her breath, watched the animal back out of the room. She jammed the cloth in the hole with trembling hands, blocking it from any other intruder, and sank into the farthest corner.
    She was breathing heavily, her blood rushing through her veins, the picture of the nasty thing still in front of her. Rubbing her arms didn’t help. She seemed to have permanent goose bumps.
    She cringed when she heard footsteps outside the door. They couldn’t possibly interrogate her again. Not now. She couldn’t take it. She had had all that she could bear for one day.
    When the door opened, the man who came in didn’t grab her, but set a plate of food and a flask of water on the floor instead. He stared at her hair, the veil jammed into the hole in the wall, but he didn’t say anything as he left.
    She fell on the food, starving all of a sudden, as if her body were just now remembering how hungry it was. She could barely taste the round noodles and sauce as she shoveled the meal down, breaking only for greedy swallows of water now and then. Then it was gone, too soon, and she felt slightly sick to her stomach. She’d eaten too fast.
    She lay down, pressed a hand to her abdomen. After a while, the nausea passed. They’d given her food. The significance of it hit her finally. They wanted to keep her alive, at least for a while yet. A day or two? More? Hopefully long enough for someone to figure out where Spike and she had disappeared to and to come get them. She didn’t want to die. Not this way. Not here.
     
    “WHAT DO THEY say?” El Jafar tapped his gold-ringed finger on the desk.
    “Nothing.”
    He nodded. “I think the woman is just a pawn, but Thornton—he wasn’t in that cellar by accident.”
    “We’ll get him to talk.”
    “Do.” He shot the man a level look. “Then get rid of them. I want no trace left of either one.”
    “It will be done.”
    “By tomorrow night. I’m going to need every man. I don’t want the distraction of prisoners. I can’t spare enough people to guard them.”
    The man bowed and backed out of the room.
    Damn the Americans. He tapped his fingers on the desk. How