“Not so fast.” Enzo held up a hand as he read something on his phone. “Zale sent another update. ASF was tracking a plane known to be carrying Tubeec Hirad and his team out of Ethiopia. The plane was originally scheduled to land in Wajir, but then it diverted mid-air and is tracking toward El Wak.”
“Where is El Wak?” Julian asked.
“It’s east of here, on the border. ASF has an outpost there and the Kenyan military uses it as a hub for delivering aid and provisions into Somalia,” Taye said.
“That’s also where the Irungus are constructing greenhouses. Their private airstrip is right outside of that town,” Glaze said.
“That’s right,” Enzo nodded. “If Hakeem hijacking Mena has anything to do with Tubeec, then I bet he’s headed there now.”
Sliding his hand into his pocket, Julian gripped Mena’s bracelet in his hands, then said, “Let’s head to El Wak.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
The men kicked Hakeem in the side, once, twice, three times. Hakeem doubled over, vomiting a putrid yellow mass onto the red dirt. Coughing violently, he tried to shield himself from further blows and curled his body into a ball near the overturned Jeep.
Mena laid motionless as the men surrounded her. Two of them leaned over, lifting her from the ground like a rag doll, and dragged her toward the military-grade 4x4 several feet away. She didn’t resisted. The malice in the dark eyes watching her sent a chill through her body. These were not men to fight back or disobey. They held none of the undercurrent of kindness she had witnessed with Rahim and even Hakeem. These men wouldn’t think twice about killing her if she tried to run away from them. They’d quickly put bullets in her back and leave her dying carcass for the animals to feast on in the hot sun.
Opening the back door to the vehicle, one of the men lifted Mena into the air and rolled her into the rear compartment. Her body tumbled, flipping over and over until she landed with a hard thud against the back of the front seats. There were no side doors, only two rounded, thin rectangle windows near the roof of the vehicle on each side. As the sun began its full ascent into the sky, hot shafts of heated air shone onto the metal of the compartment. The men entered behind her, then slammed the door. The air grew still and quiet as each aimed a pistol directly at her.
Closing her eyes, Mena tried to steady her heartbeat. Her arms and shoulders screamed with pain from being tossed into the vehicle. No doubt bruises were forming, but that was the least of her worries.
She had become a commodity, traded back and forth amongst rebels. These men were her new owners, but who were they? Had Tubeec offered to pay the rebel groups in exchange for returning her to him?
She’d heard Hakeem on the phone before dawn, relaying an account number for a funds transfer. Would her new captors be paid instead?
But what if these men didn’t know anything about Tubeec Hirad? Where would they take her? What would they do to her?
Mena closed her eyes and cautioned herself to be calm.
What would Julian tell her to do in this moment?
She could almost hear his voice, encouraging her to stay positive and not lose hope.
Julian was always thoughtful and rational in the most dangerous of circumstances. She never once saw him panic or give up, even when the stakes were high. She had to follow his example right now, doing whatever her abductors told her to do.
Trying to take matters into her own hands hadn’t worked last time. Another attempt to overturn a vehicle would likely get her killed. Her unplanned and ill-timed hasty decision had resulted in swapping her previous kidnapper with a group of men who were no doubt more deadly. Hakeem was surely the lesser of these two evils. She should have thought longer and harder before crashing the Jeep.
The temperature inside the vehicle ratcheted higher. Mena watched the men as they drank from canteens, the water dripping along the sides and plopping to the floor. She prayed for a drop to quench her parched throat but they offered her nothing.
Through the small windows, Mena saw the other two gunmen. The front doors of the vehicle opened and the men got inside, yelling instructions in a language Mena didn’t understand to the men in the back with her. They responded quickly, then maneuvered into new positions, each lifting a hand to hold onto a bar as the vehicle roared to life. Jerking forward, Mena banged her head against the floorboard as the vehicle took off.
Time passed excruciatingly slow as the vehicle bumped and banged across the rough roads. Mena drifted in and out of sleep, exhaustion racking her body from the fear she’d been battling since she realized Hakeem wasn’t going to take her back to Nairobi.
A cell phone rang. Mena peered up over her shoulder and saw the driver hand the phone to the rebel sitting in the passenger seat. The man spoke quickly in another language, his hands gesturing wildly as his voice grew more insistent. Then he was silent for a long moment. The gunmen in the back compartment watched him, waiting for an answer or a reaction.
The man turned to face the others with a bright, toothy grin as he kept the phone pressed against his ear. The conversation had obviously become more satisfactory to him. After several more seconds, the man tossed the cell phone into the center compartment and let out a shout.
The other three men joined in the joyous chorus as they pumped their fists in the air.
A part of her held out hope that the men had contacted Tubeec Hirad, who obviously wanted her alive for some reason. If she was handed over to Tubeec, that would give her another hour, another day to survive. Another chance to find an opening to escape or … to be found by Julian.
As the minutes ticked by into what felt like hours, Mena closed her eyes and imagined Julian. She fantasized about being back in his arms, laying on the bench of his yacht, staring up into another perfect cloudless Caribbean sky on the island of St. Basil. Her only wish was to be back there with him for good. Leaving behind her fellowship and Africa to return to the place that had become her home. To the man she wanted to spend her life with.
Sweat slid along her face and she swiped at her eyes, then reached for her bracelet.
It was … gone.
No.
