LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter 1

      Telskuf, Iraq

      Hud was in hell.

      He’d woken up here two months ago, buck naked and half-dead, caked in a mixture of blood and dust.

      This particular corner of hell was an underground spider-hole with four walls, a solid dirt floor and no light. The only exit was an impenetrable metal door. It had a slot wide enough to push a tray through. He ate whatever they served with his bare hands. On good days, the gruel had bits of meat and gristle. On bad days, he went hungry.

      Each week he was given a gallon of drinking water and an empty bucket. He’d learned to ration his water or suffer the consequences. He hadn’t bathed since his arrival, unless he counted that extended waterboarding session with his new terrorist friends. One afternoon of this method had almost broken him, despite his extensive Navy SEAL training, but they hadn’t continued. They must have decided it was a waste of water. Either that or they thought he’d die before he coughed up any useful information.

      In addition to waterboarding, he’d been treated to periods of sleep deprivation, electroshock therapy and regular beatings.

      He almost missed the beatings; they’d made him feel alive. He craved human contact, even in the form of fists. He preferred blood to dust. Blood was pain, hot and bright. Dust was oblivion. It was the dark nothingness that smothered him. It rained down on his head from the cracked ceiling like a slow burial.

      Sometimes he closed his eyes and pretended he was back in Iowa, in the storm cellar on his grandparents’ farm. He hadn’t wanted to be cooped up underground, protected from the elements. He’d never been afraid of thunder and lightning. He’d wanted to chase tornadoes and climb mountains and touch the sky.

      There weren’t any mountains in his hometown, so he’d climbed every tree. He’d climbed the water tower and the soybean mill and the bridge across the river. He’d broken both arms one summer. His mother had been at her wit’s end. She’d told him he was just like his father, a volatile race car driver with a taste for hard alcohol and low-class women.

      Hud hadn’t minded the comparison back then. He’d wanted to be fast and tough. Low-class women sounded pretty fun, too.

      Until he met Michelle.

      Thinking about her was a different kind of torture, twisting his gut into knots. She’d been a tempest, with her stormy moods and wild ways. Now she was another man’s problem. Hud didn’t envy the son of a bitch. He didn’t envy the happy-family photos on Facebook, or the fact that Michelle looked better than ever.

      Nope. Not at all.

      What was there to envy? He was in a dusty tomb in Iraq, waiting to die, while those two cuddled up in a cozy apartment with the baby he’d thought was his. They were probably ordering takeout right now, and watching movies in bed.

      Bo-ring.

      He was so over her.

      He was over this rat-hole bunker, too. The accommodations here left a lot to be desired. There was a gallon of water in one corner, a piss bucket in another. He had no blanket or sleeping mat. No clothes, other than a ragged pair of pants. No companions.

      The isolation and monotony was a torture in itself.

      It was the only torture, lately. He hadn’t been dragged out of his cell in weeks. The first month they’d been more attentive. They’d kept him awake with loud voices and blaring alarms. They’d tried to wear him down with frequent beatings and hours of interrogations. He’d responded with the same rote answers, so they’d strapped him to a chair and started the electroshocks. That phase had been unpleasant, but it also rendered him unconscious, which wasn’t the best way to make him talk.

      He knew what would happen if he talked. He was a Navy SEAL from Team Twelve. His men were infamous for taking out enemy leaders in the dead of night. They’d killed three of the Islamic Front’s top leaders in recent raids. Public beheading, after being dragged naked behind a vehicle, was how this story ended.

      It might end that way even if he didn’t talk, but he tried to stay positive. He had to wait for an opportunity to escape. He wouldn’t give up. SEALs didn’t quit.

      They also didn’t get captured—because

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