“Why didn’t they fight, Zahid?”

“I don’t know. It was as if their souls had been taken. I aimed my gun at one of them and he had a good rifle on his back. But he just fell to his knees and looked up at the sky.” The Afghan paused, losing himself for a moment. “I praised Allah and he said to me that there was no God.”

His voice shook audibly and again she wasn’t sure if it was his injury or the weight of the memory. The deaths of Sarabat’s innocent women and children would mean little to him. But the abandonment of God—even by an enemy—would be even more disturbing than their bizarre surrender. The only thing etched more deeply into the Afghan identity than combat was faith.

“Why did you take their heads?” she said, trying to catch a glimpse of the man to the west through her scope. He hadn’t budged, but it wasn’t him she was worried about. At best speed, his partner would nearly be above them.

“We were told to take them by the men who paid us.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. They told us that they were never to be found. So we put them in a cave.”

“A cave? Where?”

“Ten kilometers to the southeast. In a mountain we call Muhammad’s Gate.”

She was familiar with that particular geographic feature—three marines had been killed there a few years ago. “There are probably a hundred caves there. Which one?”

“There is only one you can get to from above. The heads were—”

A spray of rounds filled the tiny space and Randi shoved herself away from the wall, rolling awkwardly toward the gap behind her. Adrenaline had her breathing hard by the time she made it inside and she took a quick inventory of her body. Nothing that wouldn’t heal.

Even after everything she’d seen, she’d underestimated the speed at which that son of a bitch could take the high ground. Curiosity killed the cat and one day it was going to do the same to her.

The gunfire stopped but this time the deep silence she’d become accustomed to didn’t ensue. Instead, she could hear the footfalls of the man approaching from below and the sound of rocks being knocked down as his partner came at them from above.

“Zahid,” she whispered. No answer. He had tipped to the side and his head was resting at an unnatural angle on the butt of her M4 carbine. The sniper rifle was still set up at the edge of the wall and that’s where it was going to stay. The approaching men would have identified that they’d been attacked with two weapons and if either was missing, they’d know someone else had been there.

Randi reached out and snatched her pack, sliding it back and forth across the marks made by her boots and body in the dust. The sound brought another volley, this time from both directions, forcing her to retreat into the gap. It would have to be enough.