Page 64 of Viral Justice

“Thanks, Max.”

“Any knife wounds, cuts, or other damage?” Max asked as he pulled out a stretchy, self-adhesive bandage from his backpack and began wrapping it around Bull’s rib cage.

“Nothing so specific. They beat the shit out of me, but it was all fists and feet. No weapons were used.”

Max nodded. “You can put your clothes on. Please repeat your story for your youngest brother.”

Bull pulled a T-shirt over his head, then carefully shrugged into his shirt while he said, “Cornett was CIA. He’d been in that French group for a couple of years. He tracked a rumor that Akbar was here, but found no evidence of the man. The goons who grabbed me acted like your standard extremist group. All holy jihad and destroying the infidel. The thing was, some of them whispered that they weren’t supposed to shoot any of the Westerners they caught.”

“How was Cornett’s cover blown?”

“He didn’t know, but someone gave the goons an accurate description of him and what his cover story was. They knew exactly where to find him.”

“How did you get caught?”

“Pure, dumb, bad luck. I’d found him in one of the tents with a couple of other people from the aid group he was with. We got corralled together and no one asked us a thing until we were tied up.”

“Were you questioned?”

Bull smiled, showing off split lips and two black eyes. His whole face was one giant bruise. “Yeah, I played dumb son looking for his mother and sisters.”

“So, killing Cornett was a mistake?”

“Yeah. Some of those goons were afraid of what would happen if the nutcase leading them killed any of their captives. They’re afraid of someone. Very afraid.”

Chapter Fifteen

“What about the otheraid workers?” Max asked, his stomach tight. Cornett might have been CIA and aware of the risks he was taking, but the people he was using for his cover probably weren’t.

“We were separated into two groups. The other three were taken somewhere else.”

“Anyone trying to leave is being forced back into the village by armed men, so they’ve got to be here somewhere,” Ali said.

“We don’t have enough people or weapons to liberate them,” Max said, knowing he wasn’t the only one to consider the idea. “And a firefight inside this village would result in too many civilian casualties.”

“They’re dying anyway,” Bull grumbled. “Out in the tents, people are dropping like flies.” He sucked in a breath and let it out slowly, testing his ribs and the bandage around them.

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