He just smirks. “I know. You need to be pissed. Pissed is better than scared.”
Ahmed reaches into his back pocket and comes up with a pair of black zip ties. “You must be bound.”
I grit my teeth against the rippling fear—I don’t know this man, and have only Thomas’s word that he’s trustworthy. I’m really going into the lion’s den, now.
I allow him to bind my wrists, fastening the ends of the zip ties together and then around my wrists, zipping them so tight it hurts.
“Tight is good,” Ahmed says. “Tight, can break.”
“He is right. Hold your wrists apart, like so.” He presses his wrists together as if bound and then wedges the heels of his palms as far apart as they can go, without moving his wrists away from each other. “Then, smash on your knee, so hard as you possibly can.” He brings his knee up and smashes his wrists down on his knee, allowing his wrists to burst apart. “It will hurt. But it will break them and you are free.”
Ahmed lifts his chin at my wrists. “You struggle. Is good. Look more real, to have hurts on your wrist.”
I walk over to the truck and wait by the rear passenger door. My heart is pounding out of my chest, fear like a hot bar in my throat.
Ahmed opens the door and slides in, scooting to the middle.
The door closes—it’s stiflingly hot in the cab even with the windows down, smells of decades worth of cigarette smoke and body odor. Through the window, I see Alexei, Thomas, Duke, and Anselm standing together, watching me. None of them look happy.
Good.
If they’re unhappy, the bad guys are going to have a bad time.
Ahmed gets into the truck, starts the motor with a rattling chug, and then we’re clattering away to the south, leaving Tunis—and everyone I know, along with the last vestiges of safety—behind.
“You are brave,” Ahmed says, apropos of nothing. “Stupid. But brave.”
“They have the man I love, and an innocent little girl.” Isoundbrave—resolved, determined. I wish I felt that way inside; in reality, I’m terrified, shaking all over.
Ahmed frowns. “A little girl?”
“Four, maybe five. His little cousin. They took her to make him cooperate.”
Ahmed’s frown deepens. “I have a daughter. Just four. If anyone was to take her? I would kill everyone, until she was back.”
“That’s why I’m doing this.”
He nods. “Is good you tell me.” A glance at me in the rearview mirror. “I work for them. I drive trucks. I see what they do. Is no good. But I need the money, huh? They pay best. I don’t like it, you know.”
“I’m not judging. You’re helping us, after all.”
“Thomas save my life, once. I owe bad people much money. Thomas pays. Says someday, he ask for a favor.” He shrugs. “I am not a good man. But for a little girl, like my Aiza? I do this.”
“You’re doing the right thing, Ahmed.”
He shrugs. After a while, he eyes me again. “We reach the convoy, I must not be so good to you. Do not take it to heart. I will keep my eyes upon you.”
“I understand. Thank you.”
* * *
A while later,we reach an outpost in the middle of nowhere, just a small hut with a large, freestanding gas drum and pump. At the pump is a large truck like I’d seen in the video. Several men mill around it, chatting, casually wielding automatic rifles.
Ahmed sits straighter behind the wheel, glances at me in the mirror. “Have courage.”
I nod, swallowing around the hot iron bar of fear in my throat. I can’t summon words.
We stop.
