They didn’t wait for Zaidi to confess.
The moment they heard Pasha’s name, Bwana and Bear swung around the stall and grabbed Zaidi.
They bundled him into the second SUV and took him along with them, despite his screaming and protestations.
Broker grabbed the vendor’s phone and downloaded its entire contents.
He got Werner to track Pasha’s location as they left Tal Abyad behind in a cloud of dust.
Marwaan Pasha. Zeb exchanged glances with Broker and Roger in his vehicle.
They knew about the killer. He was Taariq Ayoub’s trusted man, and there were rumors that he was even more vicious than his boss.
There had been one execution in which Ayoub and another masked terrorist had raped two women before killing them.
That second man was widely believed to be Pasha.
Zaidi described Pasha once his nerves had settled, and once he found that his captors had no interest in his private parts.
‘As tall as that man,’ he told Chloe, who was in the rear of the second vehicle with him. He pointed to the vehicle ahead of them, in Zeb’s direction.
‘No hair. Black eyes. He wears a shawl around his neck at all times.’
‘Why?’
Zaidi shrugged. ‘I don’t know. No one asks him any questions.’
Pasha had six men with him always, Zaidi told them. All armed. His ride was a silver Toyota pickup truck, and it instilled fear into anyone who saw it.
‘He killed some of my customers.’ Zaidi’s voice trembled. ‘I was serving this family. Father, mother, one daughter. Pasha and his men came. The father didn’t move out of the way. Pasha shot him for it. Just like that. And then killed the mother and daughter.’
Zaidi shuddered at the memory and his fingers shook.
‘You didn’t tell the police?’ Chloe asked him.
‘Police, sayidah?’ Zaidi was shocked. ‘ISIS would kill us before the police arrived. In this region, you are either with ISIS or against them.’
‘Why did you call Pasha? There was no need for you to tell him.’
‘He would have found out,’ Zaidi replied candidly. ‘And when he did, he would have killed me.’
‘Got him,’ Broker interrupted in their earpieces. ‘Pasha is half an hour ahead of us. Going fast, in the direction of Tal Saman.’
‘He’s following Araz. He’ll want to grab the twins.’
Zeb heard Broker and his foot stamped on the gas reflexively.
They had to reach Araz first.
They didn’t.
Pasha’s attack came out of nowhere.
Araz’s trucks were rolling down a dirt track that ran parallel to the highway that went to the road that led to Tal Saman.
Their destination was forty minutes away, and Araz was making plans in his head when the first rocket struck his truck in the side.
The pickup broke apart under the impact, and Araz himself went flying several feet, along with wreckage.
He lay stunned and bleeding from the side of his head. He knew he was in shock, but he still had some of his senses. He could see and hear, and he now heard the dull whump of another rocket and the chatter of several rifles.
Voices rose and women screamed.
He heaved the metal sheet, the truck’s door, over his body and struggled to climb out of the ditch he was in.
Only then did he realize he didn’t have any legs. He had nothing beneath his waist. Just a bloody mass of flesh.
He wasn’t in pain, still. He knew that would come soon. His heart was pumping furiously, adrenaline surging through his veins that kept the pain momentarily at bay.
He squeezed his eyes tight, opened them, and crawled, groaning, to the edge of the ditch he was in.
What he saw appalled him.
Seven men, all in black, were firing intently into the wreckages of the two trucks. They were ISIS. There was no one else who wore such clothing.
The men who were with him seemed to be dead.
The YPJ women and the Americans seemed to be alive.
Even as he watched, he saw a terrorist race to the women’s vehicle. He saw a flash in the dim light and dark liquid spurt from one YPJ woman’s neck.
He scrabbled for his AK. It wasn’t nearby.
He slapped a hand to his waist and screamed in agony when he felt wet flesh and raw nerves.
And then the fiery agony came, and with it, a body appeared over him.
Marwaan Pasha. The terrorist’s head gleamed in the light, and his dark eyes glittered.
‘I have your women.’ His teeth shone whitely. ‘They are no longer your problem.’
His AK swung over Bedar Araz and it flashed, and the rogue YPG commander heard and felt nothing more.
‘I got them, sayidi,’ Pasha yelled triumphantly as he surveyed the American women and three surviving YPJ captives.
‘Araz?’
‘He’s dead, sayidi. I killed him personally. They outnumbered us, but we took them by surprise. We were not even scratched.’ He swelled with pride.
If he was expecting Taariq Ayoub to congratulate him, he was mistaken.
‘Take the women to Tal Saman. This night, we will behead not just the Americans, but the YPJ women too.’
‘Five women, sayidi,’ Pasha agreed in relish. ‘But first, we will have fun?’
‘We will see.’
Pasha had made a mistake, an elementary one. He had called his boss on an open line.
It was understandable. He was excited, his body throbbing with the high of a victory, his loins tingling in anticipation.
Besides, who was there to listen? The Americans with their drones? They were so far away. He would be away before they could act.
Werner recognized his voice and replayed the call to the operatives.
Zeb gripped the wheel so tightly that his skin felt like it was bursting.
The beast, instead of its savage howling, was calm. It shook itself and lay down again. A predator in waiting.
‘Fifteen minutes. Pasha was stationary for just that long.’
‘You can track him?’
‘I am. He’s nearly an hour ahead of us. Racing to Tal Saman.’
Zeb didn’t say anything more. None of them needed to talk about the man Marwaan Pasha had spoken to. They knew who he was. Taariq Ayoub.
The watcher heard the call too and cursed savagely in the deepening evening.
He had caught up with the team who was following Araz. They hadn’t been close enough to mount a rescue, and when the watcher caught up, they briefed him on the massacre.
This hadn’t been part of the plan.
The watcher fumbled with his cell in one hand and brought up the voice mail number.
He left a message for the old man. ‘Marwaan Pasha has captured the twins, along with three YPJ women. He’s heading to Tal Saman, where Ayoub will arrive. They’re planning a killing.’
He dropped the phone and eyed his mirror.
He had overtaken Carter when the operatives had stopped in Tal Abyad. Half an hour separated him from the pursuing Americans. Pasha was another half an hour ahead.
I told the old man these guys couldn’t be trusted. They weren’t pros.
He clamped his teeth and narrowed his eyes as he drove, waiting for instructions from his boss.
Taariq Ayoub was delayed by several calls with his leaders. He finished them as quickly as he could and left Raqqa with ten men in two trucks.
He had to move carefully because the Americans were always looking. Their satellites and drones never slept.
Over the months, he had perfected his getaway from his hideout, however.
He, and many of his men, dressed as women, in abayas, and they sat in the rear of their vehicles.
It was a disguise that worked, and if anyone stopped them, Ayoub would produce a document that claimed he was a doctor.
A doctor in the besieged town of Raqqa was rarer than gold dust. No one attacked a doctor, especially a female one.
‘Take care,’ he instructed his driver. ‘We have to reach Tal Saman by night.’
He would let Pasha have some time alone with the women.
He was confident his man wouldn’t start anything until he arrived, but that alone time, that was a reward for his lieutenant.
They all underestimated Marwaan Pasha.