2

      Catherine Abood grunted as she was hurled against the jeep’s fender by the Jandarma goon. She put the back of her hand to her mouth, and wasn’t surprised by the bright red seeping across her skin when it came away. She took a deep breath and spit out blood, and glared, dark eyed, at the thugs.

      She’d taken pictures of what these creeps had done to a teenaged boy they suspected of knowing members of the Kongra-Gel. Her camera was torn open, its film exposed while another of the rifle-toting thugs crushed her remaining canisters of film.

      “We can’t allow this to fall into the wrong hands,” the Jandarma commander, Captain Yuli Makal, told her.

      “Since when do you care what the West thinks?” Abood asked as Makal snatched her wrist and pulled her close.

      Abood realized that antagonizing these thugs was the worst possible choice she could have made, but her father had raised her to be an independent woman. He’d taught her how to shoot, how to fight, how to protect herself, and encouraged her to break the mold of a demure, soft-spoken Arab woman. She was born and raised an American, a fourth generation New Englander, but by the time she was fourteen, she’d seen most of the world. From Kudu hunts in South Africa to skiing in Switzerland, she’d avoided a sheltered life.

      Makal smirked as he felt her waist, then pushed open her photographer’s vest. “You have a gun, young lady.”

      “I have a permit for it,” Abood stated. Her cheek and lips felt thick, probably swollen from Makal’s punch. “Your government wants me to have it.”

      Makal looked at the 9 mm Beretta Compact, admiring its balance and feel. “But you have the protection of the Jandarma, my sweet thing,” he said.

      Makal’s smile split his homely face. His head rested on his broad shoulders like a fireplug topped with curly, thick, greasy hair. A bushy mustache flapped over that yellowed smile. They were eye to eye, and though Abood was tall, at five feet, seven inches, it only pointed out how her willowy frame made her stand out among the Turkish people.

      Though her Syrian blood had given her an olive complexion, it was not as sun-and-wind darkened as the natives. She was relatively pale, and her long black hair flowed like silk. Her smile would have been much whiter had it not been for the blood smeared across her teeth from Makal’s punch.

      “Who gave you such a fine gun, my sweetie?”

      “My father,” Abood answered, her eyes narrowed. She struggled, but she was wary of the trio of riflemen watching her intently. She knew how to fight, how to shoot, how to protect herself, but she also knew that pulling a pistol against an armed force of semiofficial vigilantes patrolling the Turkish countryside would be tantamount to suicide. She bided her time.

      “Ah,” Makal said. “Did you add the pretty sights and grips, or did he?”

      Abood glowered. Makal’s fist squeezed her wrist, and she felt the bones in her forearm start to rub together. He would keep grinding them until her arm was crippled or he’d gotten an answer. “He did. But that’s why I like it so much.”

      “It’s worth money, then,” Makal said as he stuffed the handgun behind the buckle of his belt. Abood resisted the urge to warn him against shooting his dick off, partially because the pistol’s safety was on, and pissing him off would only make things worse for her. Makal rubbed a hard, callused hand across her smooth cheek. “As are you, no?”

      “My magazine does not make deals with terrorists,” Abood answered.

      The caress turned into a hard slap, and Abood sprawled across the hood of the jeep.

      “We are the law in this country,” Makal snarled. “We are justice.”

      Abood glared. Her ingrained response had landed her in trouble. Makal adjusted his belt and placed his rough hand over the crotch of his pants. “Usually, we’re not as well compensated for our efforts….”

      Abood looked at the trio of riflemen watching her. Their weapons were aimed at the ground and wicked smirks danced across their features. One slung his weapon and began to undo his belt.

      “That is Etter,” Makal explained. “He’s our warm-up for these things.”

      “Warm-up?” Abood repeated, a chill flashing across her skin like lightning.

      “Some women are a bit…tight,” Makal continued. “He loosens things up.”

      Etter chuckled, sounding like a mentally deranged cartoon character as he opened his trousers. While the Turk wasn’t a big man, only a couple of inches taller than Abood, he was freakishly endowed. Abood gritted her teeth, knowing she’d better think of something before these bastards had their way with her. Unfortunately, the two men who had been destroying her equipment finished and flanked the group.

      “We got everything,” one soldier said.

      “Almost everything,” the other said with a chuckle as he looked at Abood.

      Makal nodded. “Hold her.”

      The two newcomers slung their rifles, and Abood acted instantly. She kicked Makal in the stomach, the toe of her boot knocking the Beretta to the road and forcing the Jandarma captain to stumble backward. Etter paused, then lunged forward, one beefy hand grabbing at her blouse, but Abood reacted fluidly. The heel of her palm caught the Turk between his lip and nose and snapped Etter’s head back. Unbalanced, his legs constrained by his half-fallen pants, the Turk flopped to the road.

      She snaked her arm free from one of the soldiers who grabbed at her, but the other latched on to the arm that had knocked their partner onto his rear. Abood twisted and punched the goon in the sternum, but even driving the wind out of the Jandarma soldier didn’t relax the rapist’s grip.

      “Fuck you!” Abood screamed, letting the clingy Turk get a face full of her loudest yell. It distracted him from her foot snaking around his ankle and she folded her arm abruptly. The point of her elbow struck the man in the breastbone and he fell to one side, dragging her down with him.

      “Whore!” the other two would-be rapists growled, and they rushed forward. Abood twisted and pulled her wrestling partner against her, a shield that took the first brutal swings of their rifle stocks.

      It wasn’t much, and they were going to make her pay for her resistance, but she was not going to surrender meekly. She was going to go down fighting.

      “Drop the rifles!” a voice suddenly shouted.

      The gunmen paused. Abood thrashed free, clawing out into the open.

      “They’re trying to rape me!” she shouted.

      “Nobody move!” the newcomer shouted. Abood’s eyes cleared and she spotted the man. He was tall, well built, wearing a dark, body-conforming outfit that showed off his rippling arms and chest where his torso peeked through a pouch-laden harness. He held an AK-47 in his hands, and his gaze was hard and stern.

      Etter scooped up his rifle and triggered it, but holding the