The three hikers were in the cells. They looked terrible. Haunted faces, emaciated bodies, fresh bruises, and healed-over scars. However, I noticed that the jailers had provided each of the young prisoners with a big plate of fresh food and plenty of clean water. It was a small courtesy, but it said a lot about the men we’d just roughed up. Human beings. They couldn’t do anything about what had been done to the hikers, and they had no say in what was planned for them—a bullshit trial and either execution or life in a much more terrible state prison—but here, on the street level, these were frightened, starving young people and the cops did what they could to take care of them. They’d even rigged blankets on the bars to give the girl, Rachel, a measure of privacy and dignity. Top saw me looking at that and when I noticed him looking, he flicked an eye to the front room and nodded. I nodded back. There was nothing else to say or do.

The college kids, however, were jabbering and screaming and yelling. The panic was such a huge thing for them that they’d lost all control. Bunny kept trying to calm them down, but his voice was lost beneath the barrage of theirs.

From the doorway, Top yelled, “Shut the fuck up!” with all the volume that his leather-throated drill instructor’s voice could manage.

The hikers shut up at once and stared at him, goggle-eyed.

I said, “We are United States Special Forces. We’re here to take you home.”

They started yammering again, rushing the cell doors before we could even open them.

“Stop!” I snapped, and they did. Scared as they were, they paid attention, which I knew was going to help make this work. Hysteria would get everyone killed. I was also reassured by seeing them all on their feet. I’ve heard horror stories about prisoner rescues where the people the SpecOps forces liberated were broken and catatonic wrecks who had to be carried out.

One of them, the only woman among them, stepped forward. She wore a scowl that was half anger and half hope. “They tricked us once with something like this. How do we know—?”

“Smart question. When you were ten your mom gave you a guinea pig for your birthday. You named it Olivia.”

Her eyes stayed hard, but they grew wet as well. She nodded.

“God, thank you—” she began, but I cut her off.

“Listen to me. We will get you out of here but you need to do exactly as you’re told. No questions, no talk.”

Khalid produced a PDA and called up photographs, matching them against the faces of the prisoners. “Three for three,” he confirmed and handed the device to me.

I unlocked one cell and handed Top the keys.