Captured By The Mercenaries

“He’d be grateful if we go in and find him being tortured,” Colby pointed out. She was coming out of her shell more and more every minute. This was the woman we’d all been captivated by in the beginning. She hadn’t really changed the last couple of weeks that she’d been with us, it was just sort of like her shine had been dulled. It took it coming back to realize it. It confirmed that we made the right decision in agreeing to her terms.

“He’s not being tortured,” Arsen argued.

“How do you know?” she insisted.

He shot her a dark look and she turned back to the compound, putting the binos back to her eyes. Her gasp was loud and I wanted to snatch them out of her hands. I didn’t, but the urge was strong.

“What?” I asked. I squinted down the hill and saw a lone figure on a camel riding out toward the opening to the west.

“That’s got to be him,” Arsen said.

We shoved to our feet, hopped on the remaining camels and rode like hell to meet Rafe.

As soon as we saw him coming around a bend, Colby sagged in my arms. The relief poured off her. If any of us had doubts about how she felt about us, seeing her like this eased them.

“What happened?” she asked as soon as he was close enough.

Now that he wasn’t within sight of anyone from the compound I realized he was riding full speed toward us. Something was wrong.

“We have to get to Tikrit!” he called out.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

Ayad pulled up beside us and though Rafe looked annoyed at stopping, he explained. “Fucking Roj has a bomb heading toward the city. He’s hidden it in a food shipment, headed for the market in Tikrit.”

“What?” Colby asked in horror. “Oh no…”

“What’s wrong, Little Warrior?”

“Where are all the places you know of that Roj has bombed? Is it always in a market? Does he ever plant them in Mosques or schools, anywhere else?” she asked.

I craned my neck so I could see her face. It was pale and her eyes were large. Rafe listed off the areas we knew he’d hit.

“Always open markets. Sometimes in food, sometimes in clothing. But always outdoors in places of trade. Why?

Colby buried her head in her hands. “He’s the reason they brought me out here!”

“What do you mean?” I asked her.

“I’d only been here for about a month before you guys took me. They’d brought me here because there was a terrorist attacking villages and US bases. Whoever it was didn’t seem to care, he put IEDs in locations without rhyme or reason. Or so it seemed. The only thing they had in common was the outdoor market locations. They brought me out to see if I could identify the types of IEDs he was using. The triggers. How he was delivering them.” She looked at me over her shoulder. “I was on my way out to a test site where I was going to detonate some to try to narrow down his methods when we were shot down.”

“So you were after the same man we were,” Arsen said, a note of humor in his voice despite the dire circumstances.

“Well, the US Army was. I was just supposed to help pinpoint any information that could help us identify him. They didn’t have a name or any suspects, which is why I didn’t put together that Roj was probably the same man. That and I only had the one briefing about him.”

“Why is he sending a bomb to Tikrit?” Arsen asked.

“I heard his men talking. They didn’t say why, just that it should reach the city in less than an hour,” Rafe replied. “I didn’t stick around to ask why.”

“So they have at least thirty minutes on us,” I said.

“We have to go. Now. Brandon and his team are still there,” Rafe called out as he sent Ayad into a sprint again.

Colby yelped as I kicked Dasha into a dead run. As soon as we caught up with him, Arsen pulling up on our other side, Colby yelled out, “Did they say how big it was?”

Rafe shook his head.

Colby gave him a grim look. “They were worried he was escalating and that was over a month ago. He’s been trying to get his hands on materials to make a dirty bomb. This place is on a trade route from Iran. He might have what he needs. If he plants a dirty bomb it could kill hundreds, even thousands of people.”