Iraq 2000 …
Dust boiled up in the small village a few miles outside the city. Like most villages in the region, most of it's residents were involved in oil mining. Children played in gangs all along the main drag into the village. A gaggle of boys played a heated soccer game on the outskirts. Girls helped their mothers with various chores, most of them covered head to toe in the traditional burka of their Muslim faith. All that could be seen were their keen, dark eyes and brows. The first time Meg had put on one of the voluminous garments, she was surprised how well she blended in. Her face soon tanned and it was difficult to recognize herself in the mirror beneath a dark veil. She felt lost in the garb, like she'd lost her identity. Meg reminded herself that it was part of her assignment. It made her miss the red serge of her RCMP dress uniform.
The misplaced Canadian ducked down an alley way and knocked on a door barely high enough to admit her. A few moments later a young girl opened the door, her long, dark hair flowing down her back as she looked up at Meg's face. Meg winked, their signal.
"Hello, Hana, is your mother home?" Meg knelt down and spoke to the five year old girl. Hana moved aside and let Meg enter. It had been nearly two years and the girl had yet to speak in Meg's presence. The house was small, barely bigger than the inspector's office in Chicago had been. Some days she longed to hear one of Constable Turnbull's long winded, muddled explanations.
"Miss Meg, come in, sit down." Amina said as she stirred something in a pot over the fire. Meg moved into the small space, taking a three legged stool near Amina. Quickly, she pulled her veil off to reveal her face. The other woman always stared at her for a moment when she saw her face. It was a foreign concept that in other countries women were not required to cover their faces and much of their bodies.
"Did Syed get the information for me to pass on?" Meg tried not to wrinkle her nose at the smell of broiled goat and spices that Amina cooked nearly every day for her family.
"Yes, my brother gave me this to give to you." Amina stopped stirring the pot and pulled a canister of film in a plastic bag from inside a large jug of lamp oil. Meg took it and slipped it into a pocket inside her clothes. She thought to herself how much Fraser would have liked to try the broiled goat and spices. She'd heard of him eating some pretty gamey things. With a deep breath, Meg pushed him from her mind.
"Be careful, Miss Meg, if they catch you with that they will kill us all." Amina warned her Canadian friend. Meg had helped her with her English while Amina had taught her Arabic.
"I will, Amina, you be careful as well." Meg stood up, adjusting her veil.
"I scored the winning goal." A little boy of about nine came rushing into the small house, his eyes wide and bright with victory.
"That's good, Omar. Wash up for dinner please." Amina ruffled her eldest son's hair. The boy stopped when he saw Meg. His eyes narrowed and he lifted his chin defiantly.
"What are you doing here?" The boy said in perfect English. Meg took a deep breath and tried not to scold him, as she would have done back home. Since the first time they'd met, she and Omar had had a keen dislike for each other.
"Wishing your mother and sister a good day, that's all." Meg schooled her features, glad for once that he couldn't see the lower half of her face as she gritted her teeth. The boy simply stared at her, he could feel his mother's glare at the back of his head as he stood with his walnut sized fists on his hips. Meg ignored him and turned to leave.
The Canadian walked the five miles back to her desk in the main mining office. Most of the time she played secretary to the safety inspector. It was a demeaning job, especially considering that she'd had Fraser and Turnbull for her subordinates in Chicago. It hadn't taken her long to realize that she was getting a taste of her own medicine, and what a bitter bite.
"Thatcher, have you arranged for my box at the race track for this weekend?" Desmond Jones' voice came over the intercom as Meg seated herself behind her desk.
"Yes, Mr. Jones. I finalized that three days ago." She sighed as she worked on an invoice he should have finished the previous day. Meg could have screamed some days at the man's incompetence. Being stationed in Iraq with the CSIS had initially been her idea of a plum job. Finally, she'd been recognized for her ability, her intelligence and determination. She'd felt like she could conquer the bureaucratic mountain.
Working at the oil company, she spent her days surrounded by men; men who had very rigid ideas of a woman's place in the world. That took more adjusting to than Meg had anticipated. She longed to finish her assignment and go back home.
"Make certain that I have a gift for the prince, make it a good one." Jones buzzed the intercom again. Meg rolled her eyes, gritting her teeth.
"Yes, Mr. Jones." She'd bought his gift for the prince two weeks before. Meg began to mumble to herself.
Once at home, Meg immediately showered and fixed herself a pot of camomile tea. The RCMP officer had to wash off her job and her day. An encounter with Omar always left her feeling grouchy. The only thing that helped was perfect silence for twenty minutes and chocolate before bed. Until her assignment in Iraq, Meg had limited her chocolate intake, but in a country where the women practically wore tents, even a woman who could stand to lose ten pounds was eye catching in a business suit. Without Fraser around, there wasn't much reason to keep her svelte figure anyway.
A heavy knock on the door interrupted Meg's twenty minutes of perfect silence. Sighing, she got up to answer. Two men in ragged clothing took hold of her, one on each arm. Meg used her training, trying to free herself of their grasp.
"Miss Meg, don't fight them." Omar's shrill voice stopped her immediately. Behind them, in the hallway beyond her apartment door, stood a man holding Hana by the arm, his free hand holding a handgun to her head. The wide eyed girl had been crying. Meg went limp. She knew that if she fought them Hana would suffer.
Meg let the men drag her and the children down the stairs to a covered, military truck. More, rough looking men were waiting inside the truck, holding Amina and Syed at gunpoint. Looking back at her apartment windows, she saw figures moving back and forth in front of the windows. They were searching her house for the film she'd been couriering for the last nineteen months. In just a few months the assignment would have been over and Amina, her brother and children would have been given safe passage to Canada for their help.
The former RCMP officer knew that there was little chance she'd make it out of this predicament alive. By the time her back up knew she was missing, the terrorists would have killed her and disposed of the body. A million things ran through her mind. She thought about never having heard Hana speak. Meg thought about never seeing snow again or getting to kiss Fraser at least once more before dying. Mostly she thought about all the missed opportunities she'd let slip through her fingers.
"I should have told Fraser I love him." Meg thought as she fought tears in the darkness surrounding her.
Meg, Amina, Syed and the children were taken into the mountains and held in a camp. The children were staked out like livestock. Meg and Amina shared a metal cage while Syed was chained to a stake. None of them were fed enough or given much to drink.
The first night, Meg was taken into the largest of the terrorists' tents. Bound and gagged, she was photographed with a current newspaper and questioned. They wanted to know the kind of information that she had sent out of the country, where it had been sent and who was aiding her besides Syed and Amina. Every time they heard an answer they didn't like, one of the interrogators struck her.
They questioned her for twelve hours, never letting her rest. The Mountie didn't let them break her. She knew that there was more to come, more that she didn't want to imagine. Her training came to mind with every blow. Meg held onto the image of Fraser the last time she'd seen him. Her mind let her relive their stolen kiss on the top of a runaway train. She held onto her time at the consulate, reliving every moment, event the times she'd wanted to put in a transfer request and head back to Ottawa.
The second day, the terrorists changed tactics. They brought in Syed. He had already been beaten into submission. He had given them Meg's address and name before they came for her. Meg shook her head sympathetically when he asked for her forgiveness in Arabic. None of it mattered now. Meg had accepted that. She watched in horror as they brought in Hana and Omar. One of the terrorists forced Syed to bend over and bared his neck. While the children watched, Syed was beheaded. His blood spattered across Omar's face, he was so close. Meg went numb inside. She wasn't about to let Syed's death be in vain. They would never get the information they sought out of her.
Years later, Meg would wake up, Omar's eyes boring into her as his uncle's blood dripped off his chin, onto his clothes. Meg woke up screaming often. She never remembered all the things the terrorists did to her, thankfully, but she remembered with unerring clarity the things Amina's family endured for her sake. She never forgot Omar's vow to avenge his uncle's death either.
On the tenth day, after the terrorists had finished with Meg, after Amina and Hana had both been killed to motivate her to talk, she saw her opportunity to escape. The rope binding her hands and feet had been cutting into her flesh. She was certain that there would be permanent nerve damage. Sitting in her cage, she concocted enough of a story to get them to let her out to talk to the one calling the shots. Somehow, she found it in herself to draw him close to her. She strangled him until she felt his windpipe collapse. Meg cut her ropes, stripped the terrorist and put his clothing on over her clothes. The voluminous, dingy garment hid her well enough to slip past the sentry and into the darkness beyond the tent. She carefully made her way to where Omar had been staked. The boy refused to move at first. Meg had to physically make him follow her into the mountains.
She eventually stole a farmer's truck and drove into a nearby village, across the border into Jordan. She had been beaten, raped, shot and tortured. They had not broken her. Omar was sent to an orphanage run by missionaries.
The stress of what had happened sent Meg into a nervous break down. She was sent to a first class mental hospital where her physical wounds were treated and healed for the most part. Her psychological wounds took far longer to knit together. After eighteen months of physical rehabilitation paired with therapy, she was released. Mercifully, she spent September 11, 2001 in the hospital. Medication and close supervision got her through. The doctors worried that her lack of personal connections in the outside world would hinder her progress. Thinking of Fraser still helped her through her days spent talking about her feelings, something Meg had never been comfortable with.
The CSIS gave Meg their most prestigious commendation. It was also classified. They suggested she take early, medical retirement and go back to the civilian world. Pissed as hell, Meg Thatcher did take time off, the better part of two years. In that time she rebuilt herself and re-qualified for the RCMP, taking her old rank. The RCMP review board were well aware of her classified assignment as well as her previous record with them. Her physical scores were excellent, higher than any officer in her age bracket. Her mental acuity hadn't slipped either.
After a refresher coarse at the Academy, Meg re-joined the RCMP and chose Spencer Falls as her next assignment. The RCMP breathed a sigh of relief that she had chosen such a sleepy, little hamlet to manage.
Author's Note: This is probably my weakest chapter. I can't bring myself to write the atrocities it would take to cause the fear Meg felt.