Promises Part 4 (Bounty Hunters 4)

The memory jolted Brian so hard he fell against the door, slamming his hands over his ears at the sound of nothing. Crushing his eyes closed, he shook his head, fighting it. No! No! He screamed at his mind. I’m in control! No dammit! Brian opened his mouth and unsuccessfully yelled that negative into existence. No wonder it didn’t work. Brian cracked one trembling eyelid and sure enough, there he was… back in that fucking cave.

Acrid scents of sulfur and gun powder filled his nostrils and threatened to gag him. He braced his hand on the wall behind him, expecting to feel the smooth drywall of their break room, instead his fingertips dug into baked mud and jagged stone. Brian desperately tried to inhale, he needed fresh air to clear his mind but there was nothing but foul human waste, dying souls and putrid desperation.

Brian shook uncontrollably at the bitter winds that came through the cracks and holes of the cave he and his lieutenant had been mercilessly dragged to after their convoy had been ambushed. His team had been under the ploy of transporting a general but something had gone very wrong and their twenty had been found. Eight of Brian’s men—SEALS—had been pushed down to their knees and executed right there on that desolate dirt road in Kandahar. Men of valor put to death like animals. Their bodies wouldn’t be sent home to their loved ones, so they could lay them to rest in the Arlington National Cemetery where they’d receive their final salute from the Honor Guard. Granted their glory. Instead, their remains would be left there for the vultures to pick at. Brian’s heart bled, his mind screamed.

He was on his knees with his hands locked firmly behind his head. His chest rose and fell so fast he thought he’d pass out before the king of terror, the man acting as God, passing judgment and taking life, got to him. He wouldn’t die like that; face down in the dirt, begging his enemy for mercy. Brian was a disciplined man, his father and brother had seen to it. He wanted to hold his head high and his spine steel-straight when that piece of shit fired that weapon into the back of his skull. He’d go down with integrity.

He was seventh in the row, next to his LT. Lined up by rank. As soon as the single round from the 9mm handgun exploded through the forehead of the man kneeling beside him—his best friend, First Class Jones—Brian couldn’t do anything but hate those terrorist bastards and pray his brother wouldn’t mourn him long. He cut his eyes over to Jenkins and saw him taking the same defiant stance.

Come on you fuckers! Get it over with, Brian screamed in his mind. He felt the hot muzzle of the gun pressed against the base of his skull. It burned like fuck, but he didn’t give those bastards the satisfaction of making a sound. Do it! He needed death to be quick. Anticipation of death was far worse than death itself. Shoot!

The shot never came.

Instead came something much worse than death.

Torture.

He and Jenkins weren’t sure how long they’d been in that small hollowed out mountain by that point, but he’d thought it’d been at least two months. With no way to see daylight it was hard to gauge.

“M-my b-b-brother will find us. He’ll f-find us,” Brian stuttered, his teeth chattering so hard he was sure most of them had chipped. He hoped his LT could hear him, could understand him. He’d been quietly mumbling those same words over and over for days. It was all he had. Ford was all he had. His brother was everything to him and vice versa. Ford wouldn’t stop. His team of SEALS were notorious for their rescue missions, his big brother leading them into every single one.

“D-d-don’t talk, King. J-just don’t talk and we’ll g-get out of here. A-a-and I f-fuckin swear to you, we’ll piss on their g-graves w-when we are,” Jenkins said behind him, his body wrapped tightly around Brian’s almost naked form while they battled through a winter in the mountains, with nothing more than torn clothes wrapped around their genitals.

The Special Forces had trained him for survival, resistance and escape, but there was no simulation designed to prepare a man for this. For what they did to them daily trying to get them to break. He was unbreakable. Brian was a spy—an intelligence officer—and so was Jenkins. They had highly classified information that the Taliban was relentlessly trying to retrieve. Their methods were barbaric and medieval. Still, he held on to his brother’s voice in the front of his mind the entire time and his Lieutenant and mentor in the back.

Brian heard footsteps, then the sounds of men’s voices speaking angry Dari. They were coming. It was time again. Time to start all over. Brian stiffened in Jenkins’ hold. He knew what those sounds meant now. He could no longer even mumble to Jenkins, no longer chant his brother’s name. Only silence now. He hated this long stretch of time, but the silence was all that was keeping him alive.