Captured By The Mercenaries

“What’s the plan?” I asked, beginning to wash the plates in front of me.

“We lay low for now,” Rafe responded. “Let the heat die down. Hopefully, something will take Roj’s focus off us.”

“How did it get on us in the first place?” Arsen asked.

Rafe shrugged. “Who knows, but we’ll find out soon enough. For now, we’ll stay here and train our new little pet.” He gave Colby a sideways look.

I chuckled and shook my head. “You’d better sleep lightly, my friend.”

His grin was sharp and quick. “I look forward to seeing if she tries.”

“You should keep it up,” Arsen encouraged him. My brows lifted at his statement. Usually, he was overly protective of women. “Keep making her angry. It means she will try to kill you before us,” he explained. We all laughed at that. “Maybe I’ll offer her a piece of chicken if she tries.”

Colby gave us a sour look. It was almost as if she realized we were laughing at her expense.

“I spotted tracks for a herd of deer nearby last night,” I told Rafe, switching back to English. This was a topic she could be involved in if she chose.

“There’s deer out here?” she asked, looking surprised.

“Yeah, two different types. It’s rare for them to have wandered so far from the mountains. If we’re lucky we’ll run across some goats, too,” I told her, my mouth all but watering at the thought of it roasting over the fire.

Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open in horror. “You eat goats?”

“We eat anything we can catch,” Arsen told her with a patient smile.

“But…goats?”

“He’s messing with you,” Rafe told her. “We aren’t very likely to find goats down here. They mostly stick to the mountains.”

“It could happen,” I muttered. I couldn’t wait until we moved to our camp in the Zagros Mountains. It could be some time before we made that trek again. We were currently settled down closer to the Syrian Border and the Zagros were over close to Iran. It was typically about a two day journey by camel. Not to mention Roj’s main base was said to be somewhere over closer to the Zagros Mountains.

My hopes for roasted wild goat dashed, I went back to doing the dishes.

“We’ll go hunting after lunch,” Rafe told me.

It was Arsen’s turn to stay back with Colby. I always looked forward to hunting. It was something all three of us enjoyed and the only chore we took turns with.

Most times, when we weren’t actively tracking a target we migrated with the animals we hunted out here, living out of tents. That wasn’t something we were going to do with Colby in tow, however, so the hut would be our fixed home for now. We’d remain here as long as no one found us, or until we started hunting our target again. Eventually, we’d move on to another of our temporary shelters.

In a normal mission we would procure a stash house, a local building or apartment, gather intel on the area, attack the target, then get out. This mission was different. We were dropped in country with a supposed four-year time frame. We were expected to be nomads, move with different tribes, move through the cities and the rural areas. Never stay in one place for more than a few days. Because of the nomadic nature of targets like Roj, we had to adapt. It meant a lot more tribalistic practices, like hunting and gathering, in between hitting targets.

The prospect of hunting cheered me up and I whistled as I worked. The other two stood and began prepping our equipment for Rafe and me to go track the herd I’d spotted last night.