Читать книгу The Seal's Return - Patricia Potter - Страница 9

PROLOGUE

Nigeria

JUBAL PIERCE KNEW he probably wouldn’t live to see the next dawn. It wasn’t that he had seen many dawns in...what was it? One year, two years? Maybe longer since he’d been taken prisoner by a band of terrorist rebels?

He knew his time was limited because his most frequent guard had brought him something more than a small dish of insect-filled rice.

“Gift,” the tall, thin figure said in the limited English he’d picked up while guarding Jubal.

Jubal grabbed the bowl with his chained hands. The usual rice, but this time there was also some kind of meat. There was no spoon. He was expected to eat with his fingers. He was allowed nothing that could be turned into a weapon. His sole possessions were the filthy pants and remnants of a shirt he was captured in.

“Why a gift?” he asked, using his hands to help the guard understand.

The man simply shrugged.

Jubal bowed his head in thanks. The guard left, closing the door to the tiny windowless hut that was home. There were enough cracks that he could hear activity outside. Excited chatter. A lot of movement.

Jubal ate the food, licked the sides of the tin bowl, then struggled to get to his feet and walked the length of the chain attached to the wall. He was so damn weak from lack of food. He figured he had lost nearly half of his two hundred and thirty pounds. With pure strength of will, he finally stood and peered through a crack.

His eyes slowly adjusted to daylight. Most of the fifty-some members of this particular group were scurrying around like ants. Tents were being loaded in an ancient truck. Three men, including his keeper, gestured wildly.

They were leaving. Something had happened and it didn’t bode well for him. The terrorists didn’t know who he was. If they did, Jubal knew he would be dead. All they knew—or thought they knew—was that he was a doctor.

His SEAL team had been sent to rescue a medical unit caught between warring tribes in Nigeria. They were too late. The medical civilians and their patients had been killed, and enemy soldiers were waiting for them.

His fellow team members had been killed as well, and Jubal was badly wounded. But so was one of the rebel leaders. When Jubal claimed to be a doctor instead of a soldier, he was tasked with saving the life of the wounded leader. He had enough medic training to stop the bleeding and was taken along to care for the leader.

When the man recovered, Jubal was kept prisoner to provide care for others in the tribe. After several escape attempts, he was kept chained.

Jubal was quite sure that he, like his teammates, was believed dead. There had undoubtedly been a search, but the clinic had been burned with the bodies of his team and medical unit members inside. All identifying objects had been stolen as souvenirs.

He knew that he could die any day, especially after the supplies they had taken from the clinic ran out and his patients started dying. He heard the loud debate outside his hut after one fatality. But the head man, whose life he had saved, prevailed. Jubal knew, though, that time was running out...

Now something—or someone—had alarmed his captors. A rival tribe? A government raid? The question was whether they were taking him with them or planning to kill him. He suspected the latter. He was in no shape to move. That meant they would either kill him directly or leave him locked in the hut to starve to death.

His guard stepped inside, threw him a chunk of bread, then left without a word. Another “gift.”

He heard the truck take off, then the three jeeps followed with armed men hanging onto the sides. No one looked back at the hut...

To them, he was already a dead man.