Part 22 (2/2)

OmiG.o.d, omiG.o.d-it's real. She crawled to it-and found a hammock. A hammock!

Was this a new kind of relief? The latest mindf.u.c.k by Shoo Juh?

Jamie didn't care. Defying the limits of her clumsy hands, she suspended this treasure from the tie-downs, stretching it diagonally across the cell.

At just the right angle, keeping her feet together, she could fully extend herself in it. Soon she slipped into another deep, restorative sleep.

Sometime later, she heard scratching, tapping near the air vent.

Morse code? Hoping it, too, was real, she ransacked her memory to translate it. First came three dashes. That's an o! The scratches and taps continued.

”Out of the night that covers me, black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever G.o.ds may be for my unconquerable soul”

The first verse of Invictus-every letter, even the commas, scratched and tapped in full. Then, ”d04 m04.” A pause was followed by ”h09”.

Who had risked s.h.i.+ng to send her hope and tell her she'd made it to 0900 on the fourth of April? And should she signal back?

h.e.l.l yes. ” - - - - ” -thku.

” - - - - - - - - ” -oohrah.

Jamie cried first, then she giggled, then she pumped out a hundred pushups.

* 188 *

Chapter tWenty-one.

Breath on the Wind A sultry whiff of the coming habagat at last reached Jamie's cell and strengthened into meaning. Could be May by now.

What seemed like soon after, the door to the cell creaked open to a ferocious glare.

”Suh!” ordered a pair of intensely backlit legs. Whenever had arrived. Jamie sheltered her eyes and crawled toward the cell door, trying to stave off The Fear with the hope that all those pushups and crunches would somehow help her.

Before she could attempt to stand, her hands were manacled behind her back, but for once the Zhong soldiers left her ankles unfettered. They had to lead her, and slowly. She was blind and nauseous; the insides of her head clamored to escape her skull, her legs faltered. Eyes squeezed shut against the blazing light, she tried to count the steps she walked.

Perhaps a hundred, perhaps more. And then people she couldn't see sat her on a stool beneath a dazzling spotlight and hosed her down with deliciously cold water.

”Now that you have a better understanding of your options, are you ready to continue our conversation in a civil manner?” The special chief interrogator's words triggered too many memories. Shoo Juh always began with that same chilly veneer of civility.

Oh G.o.d, I can't do this again. Jamie kept her head bowed, unwilling this time to look into the woman's always-animated eyes and suffer the inevitable punishment for such insolence-a merciless slap across her face.

”You're not quite done yet...” The familiar voice was barely more than breath on the wind. Jamie knew better than to seek its source or doubt its sagacity, but she begged for reprieve. No, please...

* 189 *

”She prefers to believe you. But he's here again to get you to recant and then find a way to kill you so you don't say anything else that's inconvenient.”

What? I don't get it. Panic gnarled Jamie's belly. Please. I don't get it! What am I supposed to-? Then Jamie heard a voice-her own voice, steady and calm-saying, ”You don't care what I know or what I say.”

The special chief interrogator's shadow loomed. ”Oh, but I do care.”

Jamie couldn't see the spa.r.s.e, cruel smile teasing the interrogator's delicate lips, but memory told her it was there. She shook her head.

”You care about having an excuse to hurt me, about watching me try to jump out of my own skin.” Squinting now, Jamie looked up into that icy gaze and finally understood what she'd seen there all along: Shoo Juh was turned on.

Eyes sparking wildly, the interrogator slapped Jamie so hard she fell to the floor. ”You are punished because you do not respect your superiors, hong mao.”

This deeply derogatory term for non-Asians meant ”red fur,” to denote they were less than human. It was the interrogator's favorite insult, and it worked. After the soldiers picked her up and returned her to the stool, Jamie bowed her head and didn't look up again.

”Tell me about Banggi, hong mao.”

Ignoring the taste of her own blood seeping from her lacerated lower lip, Jamie risked an attempt to stall. ”Please, may I have some water?”

After a minute, one of the four soldiers guarding her put a canteen to her lips and she swallowed as much as she could as fast as she could, leaning forward to get the last of it as the guard withdrew the canteen.

And that's when she realized someone else was there, too. Jamie tried to sneak a look, but saw only a civilian's hiking boots and blue jeans. A wave of acidic terror shuddered through her. This is him. The one who wants to kill me.

”Gwun mo garn,” he said then, oozing contempt. ”'The soldier in endless h.e.l.l.'”

Jamie couldn't identify his accent. Certainly it wasn't any sort of Chinese, but it paralyzed her. She'd heard that accent, that voice before.

* 190 *

”Cantonese is so useful,” he said, ”for exposing darker truths like yours, c.u.n.t. Gwun mo garn, the sniper who shoots innocent children and-”

”Zhu zhuay!” Shoo Juh barked. ”You've had more than your share, lee-eh huaw.”

She just told him to shut up, didn't she? And I think she called him a b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

The interrogator turned to Jamie. ”Tell me about Banggi, hong mao.”

But Jamie could find no words. This b.a.s.t.a.r.d who knew too much about her had robbed her of words.

”I will not wait much longer.” Shoo Juh came close enough for Jamie to glimpse her eyes churning with impatience.

The threat in those eyes stutter-started Jamie's brain. Banggi...

Banggi... Oh s.h.i.+t! Borneo! She stared at the floor. Invasion of Borneo.

And heard a tremulous echo. There was only... only...

Jamie imitated the echo as it faded. ”There was only one briefing b-before, before I was...I-I can't remember-”

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