story.” She wound the bandage on, sat on the mattress and removed a wipe from the packet Hamid had left. She ran it across her forehead, leaving a pale streak.
“So you said. We have time.”
She scrubbed her cheeks like she wanted to erase them. “God, I hope you’re right.”
She studied the wipe, now the same dusty gray as the floor. How long had she been here—a week? In solitary, under threat of death, with a couple of rounds of interrogation and torture. Enough to send a commando berko but she seemed calm. Tougher than she looked, maybe. Or just good at hiding the damage.
Dirt—technically mud, now—was swirled over her face, mixed with scoured pink streaks. He itched to lean over and finish the job, so he could stare at something beautiful for a minute. He hadn’t seen much of that in a long time.
Not that he was about to hit on Tess Newell. Hell, no. Journalists cared about headlines, not people, no matter how much they pretended otherwise. He wouldn’t fall into that trap again, just in case these weren’t his last days.
“Hold still.” She leaned forward and smoothed a clean wipe over his forehead and around his eye. “So,” she said, sitting back and hugging her knees. “Interesting times to be a soldier. Where have you served?”
Changing the subject? “Classified.”
She sighed. “And here’s me thinking it might be nice to have someone to talk to.”
You want polite conversation, you got the wrong cell mate. He dragged his sorry arse along the floor and sat on the mattress cross-legged, a hair short of touching her. So the warm, pliant body he’d woken up pressed against was hers. He’d thought it was a soldier from his commando unit. Pity he hadn’t figured out the truth before he’d panicked and leaped up—or maybe just as well.
Ah, crap, her guilt trip was working—she looked genuinely bummed by his brush-off. He could give the woman some company without going into details. “You don’t last long in this business without seeing a bit of action. I’ve served in a lot of places. Too many. One dusty, pointless conflict after another.”
“What had you expected?”
He shrugged, shamelessly watching as she drew out another wipe and attacked a cheek. At least talking gave him an excuse to stare. “I didn’t get into it to be noble, if that’s what you mean.” Even at twenty, when he’d signed up, he hadn’t been naive enough to think it was all exercises and hard drinking—though that would’ve suited him fine. But he hadn’t counted on seeing so much death and misery in so many places. Like he hadn’t lived through enough of that growing up. He scratched his elbow and found a Band-Aid on it. Did she do that last night, too?
She closed her eyes and ran the wipe over them. It felt weirdly intimate, watching a woman clean her face—the kind of thing you only usually saw if you were screwing her. And this was not a woman he’d be screwing.
“Why did you get into it?” she said.
Deflect attention, a-sap. “You said al-Thawra’s a cover—for what?”
“You tell me. Who benefits from those conflicts you’ve been sucked into?”
“No one,” he spit out. Pain stabbed his torso, where that bitch had kicked him.
“Really?”
“No one I’ve seen,” he gasped, clutching his side.
“Maybe I should take a look at your ches—I mean check your ribs.”
He held up a palm. If he could survive broken ribs without medical help as a kid, he could survive them now. Anyway, if his ribs were cracked, a Band-Aid and nail scissors wouldn’t do shit. And the last thing he needed was those pretty fingers skating all over his chest. “Just bruised.”
A pause. “But someone benefits, right?”
“From war? Yeah, journalists.”
“You think?”
He shuffled back to rest against the cool stone wall, buying himself a few inches of space. “Gives you a job, doesn’t it?”
“I could say the same about you.”
“I’m guessing your job pays better than mine.”
“But there are easier and safer ways for both of us to make a living, right?” She stretched her legs out, angling them awkwardly to avoid his. “If the US and its allies invade Somalia tomorrow, to crush the supposed threat from al-Thawra, who benefits?”
“Supposed threat? That’s a whacked comment coming from a woman sitting on jihadist death row—or whatever kind of death row you think this is. Who benefits? How about the people who don’t get blown up in the next terrorist attack?”
“Oh, come on—you don’t believe the PR about war making us safer?”
“Ah, crap, really? I’m stuck in a hole in I-don’t-know-the-hell-where, about to have my head sliced off, having some philosophical debate with...” With a woman who was getting more attractive—and formidable—by the second. He swallowed. “With some lefto greenie...tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy-theory crusader.”
“Power and money, right?” She bulldozed on, but with a hint of a smile. “That’s what it’s about—what it’s always about.”
“Not from where I’m looking. You missed survival and the fact that some of us actually like defending innocent people.” God, now he sounded like he was on 60 Minutes, or whatever self-righteous program she worked for.
“Yeah, but you’re looking at the foot soldiers, right? And the victims—the poor people just trying to keep their goats and children alive. Who benefits from a war in Somalia?”
“Ah. That would be no one.”
“No one in Somalia, sure. But how about in America? In the UK, in France, in Australia, in every other country al-Thawra’s trying to provoke?”
“Sunshine, my brain’s too fuzzy to decode your conspiracy theory. And I’m guessing you’ve had no one to lecture for an entire week, so how about you lay it all out for me?” At least she wasn’t interrogating him about his yo-yoing Australian-French accent.
She smiled again, the pale light catching her eyes. He could get used to looking at a face like that. Pity he wouldn’t get a chance. “What about the good old-fashioned war profiteers? In the Civil War they were the carpetbaggers. In World War II, the industrialists. Now they’re the contractors and suppliers.”
“Bloody hell, I’m gonna need more painkillers—you’re saying al-Thawra’s a military contractor?”
“Not directly, but I have—I had—a paper trail proving that al-Thawra is controlled by the biggest military contractor and supplier in the world—Denniston Corp.”
“Seriously?” Half the legion’s supplies were stamped with that logo. “Okay, that could be interesting, if it’s true.”
“Oh, it’s true. It was the story I was chasing before I was captured. Denniston’s
