The name rang a distant bell, but he didn’t place it immediately.
‘Kenton Ashland,’ he rolled it around his tongue. ‘I think I have heard it before.’
‘You would have,’ she said as she crawled out from underneath the trunk and went to where he was pointing, the small pool.
She cleaned her face, rinsed her mouth, and drank from the canteen of water he thrust at her.
Abbas’s canteen. Which the killer no longer needed.
‘If you followed the news,’ she said, finally completing the thought, ‘Dad was a famous journalist. It was his video and testimony that put Namir away.’
It came back to him. He recollected the news reports he had followed. The Agency dossiers on the terrorist’s escape, arrest, and subsequent trial.
‘He swore he would get Dad. He did.’ She started shivering again, her eyes hollow, empty of any hope.
‘What happened?’
‘We came camping yesterday. From Erilyn, where we live. The plan was to stay here till Saturday, return in the evening.’
He gave her a jacket. She draped it around herself, without any questions.
Abbas’s jacket.
‘Namir came in the evening. I was helping Dad set up the tent, the stove.’
She sniffed and wiped her eyes on her sleeve.
Something about her accent. Her looks.
He looked away and closed his eyes, hearing her words. Thought about the way she rolled some vowels and accentuated syllables.
‘“Hello, Kenton,” he said,’ she recalled, crying softly, ‘before torturing him.’
Zeb made no move to go closer to her. She had a remote look about her, despite her tears.
Grief. Shock. Anger. Fear. She’s trying to process all of them.
‘He cut Dad …’ A gut-wrenching moan escaped her. She fell to her knees and hugged herself, swaying, giving up all pretense of holding it in.
He let her cry. He let her bawl and rage, her screams lost in the wilderness
‘How did you escape?’ he asked her when she was all cried-out and had gotten up to wash her face again.
‘I kneed him, the man holding me, in the groin. Dad was close to …’
‘You are Iraqi,’ he interrupted her. ‘You are Yazidi.’
‘How did you know?’ she asked in surprise.
‘Your accent. I’ve been trying to place it. Then, your looks.’
‘Just who are you, Mr. Carter?’
He fumbled in his pocket and drew out his sat phone, lifting a finger to stop her questions.
No signal.
He frowned and looked at its screen.
Tried again.
The same result.
He brought out Abbas’s cell, fumbled with his sat phone and dropped it.
As he was bending to retrieve it, he saw a diving eagle abruptly change direction.
Move!
He lunged forward and grabbed her.
Raced deeper inside the forest, ignoring her squawk of surprise.
Just as a couple of men came into view.
And fired in their direction.