Time Sensitive Target

Part 3 - For Something Greater

"Good," the man nodded, apparently pleased with his audience. "I am Bazish al-Raheem. Would you like to see your women?" The tone immediately provoked a lurch of rage within Jase's gut. Agent Lorres sucked in a breath and lowered her eyes automatically; she'd probably seen worse  than they had; as the most senior field-agent at the table it was her job to review the grisly details of the worst cases. The camera panned, and Jase realised there were only two hostages bound and slumped in fear on the ground. By their accounts there should have been four, the translator was already dead, but they were expecting two other older women, also aid workers at the Lesbos camp. Typically, the two remaining hostages now shown on screen were the perfect catch; young, western and attractive. One was clearly in shock, and a syringe laying next to her on the ground told Jase she'd been summoned back to consciousness with adrenaline.

"Are you both ok? Are either of you in need of any medical assistance?" Agent Lorres asked clearly but impersonally, her famous disassociation taking full effect. The camera swerved to face the second female; Paige, Jase realised from the brief. British, twenty-five. She had long dark hair that cascaded gently around her face and over her shoulders, the ends were tangled and matted together with blood.

"Go on, I told you to respond if they ask you anything," Bazish urged his captive.

"We're ok-" the girl began before a belt struck down across her cheek. A scream rang out from the hostage beside her, clearly in great distress with the aid of the adrenaline injected in to her body. As Paige struggled back up Jase watched a streak of blood across her face quickly seep down to drip gently from her chin. Tiny shards of metal had been attached to the belt.

"Why are you doing this?" The other hostage begged in a muffled tone away from the view of the camera. Jasmin, twenty-seven, serial do-gooder, he deduced from the folder. Jase had little patience for people who put themselves in these kinds of situations. Squealers, they called them. Aid workers and humanitarians who refused to heed any warning about dangerous territories, but then squealed for help as soon as the shit hit the fan.

"Every time you make a noise, I hurt her, alright?" Al-Raheem explained calmly to Jasmin. The camera shook as it was set down at a vantage point where both hostages were in full view, slumped on the ground. Al-Raheem approached them with something Jase couldn't make out, it was a reel of something metal- wire, he realised; barbed wire.  It was weaved around Paige's wrists, ankles, and then her neck, and Jase felt Sonny adjust his position with the same anger that boiled in all of them. It was common for captors to do this, to pick one main punching bag to abuse and break the spirits of everyone else; a form of psychological torture for the others, as well as physical torture for the unlucky hostage.

Jase studied the folder in front of him, scanning through the profiles of the women. Jasmin was a humanitarian by trade, Paige was a psychologist. The journey to certain death made sense on Jasmin's part, but what was Paige doing there? The thought irritated him; anyone who looked like that was going to get into trouble. A piercing scream tore Jase's eyes from the folder. With every bolt of electricity that shuddered through her body, Paige contorted in pain and writhed around desperately; all this did was tear her skin as the barbed wire chewed at her wrists. Hysterical sobbing echoed from Jasmin, who watched helplessly as her friend was mercilessly abused.

Jase watched for several minutes as both of the hostages were tortured, he didn't look away. A quick scan of the table told him the only eyes fixed on the screen were those of his team. Were they so desensitised to these sorts of atrocities now? They had seen some shit, but nothing prepared a man for the sight of real torture; real, bloody, inhumane torture. As bad as it was, Jase would have been more comfortable watching a man suffer. Though they would be just as innocent and undeserving as anybody else, there was something intensely sickening about watching a female victim. Paige was the sort of woman he would take a second glance at in everyday life, maybe in a bar he'd buy her a drink, Sonny would try more than that. But instead she was a bloodied figure on a screen, miles from home with Jase as her only hope.

"So now you see," Bazish al-Raheem twisted the camera around to face him. He looked bored, Jasmin was now entirely unconscious, and after a defiant and strong-willed battle to show no weakness, Paige was reduced to a shaking huddle on the ground. "This is what happens to your women in our care. I stopped my brothers from raping them today, what would happen if I wasn't around? This is just the camera sport. The things my friends would do, the humiliation and degradation they would inflict if they truly had their way with them would be something else." He waved a hand around for emphasis. "So now you see I am not a man to be messed with, and if you want your women back alive you will grant me whatever I ask for."

Camera sport. That was all it was, just a bit of camera sport. The sad thing was, Jase knew what he had just witnessed wasn't anywhere near the worst they could, and would do. Maybe it was a good thing he and his team were there to witness, because now they were filled with the right kind of hunger to complete the mission headed their way. Jase zoned out as the particulars were discussed. He tuned his ears back in just in time to hear the punchline; a prisoner swap. Of course it was a prisoner swap, of course they wanted some of their most high value assets freed and back home to run their camps. Think of the stories they could tell, think of the people they would inspire. He could feel the brass consider the situation. He knew exactly what they were thinking, only because it was an option they occasionally had to consider when other avenues seemed hopeless, and he had made peace with that. This time however, it made him sick.

Did anyone else know they had Western hostages? Did they have any photographic proof, any recorded proof already uploaded somewhere else? In other words, could they airstrike and write the hostages off as civilian loss in order to retain high value prisoners? Nobody would ever know how they died, and certainly not that it had technically been at US hands. Al-Raheem had given them 36 hours to respond.

"Do we have an estimated location?" Someone mused aloud nonchalantly, but the question was laced with insinuation. A ball of rage surged in Jase's gut that he swallowed down carefully, readying himself to deliver a cool warning.

"If anyone says another fucking word to even so much as hint at what you're suggesting, I will personally deliver you over to their fucking holy land so you can be restrained with barbed wire and tortured." The words came out so calm and collected, but he had snapped. Fortunately his position allowed him a little weight to throw around, and he considered it his duty to occasionally remind the suits who they called upon for help.

"Yeah I'll get in on that," Sonny echoed in his Southern drawl.

"Alright!" Lorres snapped curtly, they were all drained, and bickering amongst each other would do them no favours.

"Send us in, get us clearance, I don't care how long we have to sit on the location for because we'll find them, and I'll take him alive." Jase punched his finger towards the frozen screen with a tight jaw. If they had an estimated location, he'd find them. Then he'd take the captors to nice little black hole site and really let off some steam. He wasn't normally one for revenge, and he didn't have a sadistic nature even at the worst of times. Something about what he had just watched put him in the mood to make somebody bleed.