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his senses were telling him, she began to babble in Arabic.
    â€œPlease don’t kill me! Please don’t kill me! I’m not a soldier. I stole this uniform. I’m a woman. I didn’t belong in that camp.” Blind panic pushed the plea from her throat. She was speaking so quickly that her words ran together, but she didn’t care.
    Finally, finally, the cold steel left her throat. His forearm, still pulling her head back at an awkward angle, tightened, cutting off her breath. His other hand felt along her chest, finding her unbound breasts through the uniform top she wore. The hand jerked away, hesitated, then fumbled lower, cupping her pubis. The man snatched his fingers away like they’d been lit on fire.
    â€œYou gonna take ’im to the prom? Let’s go, Jace.” A second man had come back and now squatted beside them.
    â€œHoly fuck!” the man on top of her breathed.
    â€œWhat is it?” the second man asked. “We gotta go.”
    English! They were speaking English! As she opened her mouth to speak, to reveal herself, to beg for help, the man clamped a hard hand over her jaw and shifted back onto his knees, pulling her up with him until her back rested against his front. On her knees, bent back at an awkward angle, she could not gain any leverage. But she wasn’t fighting to get away. She struggled to drag air into her lungs past his hand. Spots began to appear in front of her eyes. Panic flared as life-­giving air eluded her. Her desperate movements against the man’s chest grew fainter as her strength waned. As she struggled, little whimpering noises tore from the back of her throat.
    â€œHold still,” he snapped in Arabic. “Settle down, now. I’ll let my hand up, but you need to settle down.” He switched to English, head twisting to look at his teammate. “I think we found the woman ol’ Omaid’s so pissed about losing,” he said.
    The other voice was startled. “Woman?”
    He eased his hold on her mouth and throat, and she fell to her hands and knees, great huge rasping gulps of air pulling into her lungs as fast as she could.
    â€œSlow down,” the man said. “You’ll hyperventilate.”
    Heather barely heard him through the roaring in her ears. Between her concussion and the choke hold he’d put her in, she struggled just to stay conscious. She stayed on all fours, forearms resting in the dirt and her head on the backs of her hands.
    Someone else materialized out of the blackness. “Tick tock, boss.”
    Heather froze along with everyone else as she heard movement through the woods. Shit. The terrorists had rallied and were now searching for her. And for these men, presumably the ones who’d blown up the camp.
    Large male hands touched her head scarf, then withdrew. “Hey,” the man said. “You okay?”
    Without these men, she was as good as caught. Before she could take a breath to beg, she heard the sweetest words she could imagine.
    â€œWe’ll take her with us.”
    â€œT HE FUCK?” S ANDMA N expressed it for all of them. “You nuts, Jace? She’ll slow us way down. She’s just some whore. Cut her loose.”
    Jace felt a flare of anger at his teammate. But the Sandman couldn’t know what Jace did. This woman was no Azakistani, short of stature and broad of hip and shoulder. This woman was tall and willowy. He stood, dragging her with him, keeping her flush against his body, one arm snaked around her waist, the other cupping her chin, thumb across her mouth, tacitly warning her not to make a sound. Despite the mere sliver of moon, despite the keffiyeh—­the traditional male Arabic head scarf—­Jace looked into her eyes and knew her.
    Heather Langstrom. He’d seen those eyes enough times as he stared at her photo, recognized the body against his from watching her.
    He’d found her! Against the odds, against all