“Fortier, shut up,” Sgt. Müller snaps at Marcel.
Lt. Ramadier looks the medic in the eye. “Sgt. Katsourianis and his men can handle this, légionnaire,” the young officer adds, his voice flat. A few meters ahead, Kat glances back at Marcel but says nothing.
The older Arab looks in Marcel’s direction, then at the Raffaele. <Arabic>“It’s food,”</Arabic> he says, looking around at the legionnaires. <Arabic>“Our donkeys got away, and we found them and are taking them home,”</Arabic> he adds.
Raffaele slits open the goat’s wool bag and finds a tin of couscous in olive oil, an old British Army canteen, and length of rope woven from hair, just like the ropes leading the two donkeys standing anxiously by. Raffaele: Handle Animal check, please.
Normand pats down the Arab man as he speaks to the paras – from a pocket in the drover’s robe the Frenchman removes a string of prayer beads and a small rusty pocket knife. Pamuk does the same to the teen – pulling back the young Arab’s sleeve, the para reveals a rag wrapped around the teenager’s forearm, tinged with reddish-brown blood. “This one’s injured,” the Turkish legionnaire tells Nedjar.
“Kat, the young one has a cut or something on his arm. Can you send Marcel over?” Nedjar calls back to the platoon. The section leader looks back at Lt. Ramaider, who gives a curt nod. “Vidal, Marcel, let’s go,” the sergent orders, and the three cross the gap to where the Arabs kneel on the sandy ground.
Up the oued a short distance, Pyotr slinks along from shadow to shrub, his senses working overtime. A thin breeze provides the only sound or movement disturbing the parched landscape. Looking down the Ukrainian sees the donkeys' hoofprints stretching along the streambed.
