Free The Seventh Pillar by Alex Lukeman

chopper here tomorrow. We can’t carry him out."
    "I know."
    "If he’s still got a chance, it’s in that cave."
    "We’re outgunned. We can’t win a firefight with them."
    "We could take away the advantage their weapons give them if we get them out of the cave and into the open. Then we could ambush them."
    "How do we get them out of the cave?" Selena wiped dirt from her forehead.
    "You ever hear of a Japanese named Miyamoto Musashi?"
    "The Samurai who wrote the Book of Five Rings?"
    "Yes. He was the greatest swordsman in Japanese history. Five Rings is about self discipline and the art of combat. Musashi said that when you’re outnumbered, you get your enemies to come together in one place, because you can’t fight them when they’re spread out."
    "Then what?"
    "Then you kill them."
    "They are in one place, in that cave."
    "Yes, but we can’t get to them there."
    Carter thought. Problem: How do you persuade a bunch of paranoid religious fanatics to come out of their lair? In a moment the solution came to him. Get God to do it.
    "What time are the Muslim prayers," Nick asked. "Do you know?"
    "Which one? There are five daily prayers."
    "Something a few hours from now."
    She looked at her watch. "Well, the sunrise prayer would be around six."
    "Prayers are a big deal for the faithful, right?"
    "A very big deal."
    "Can you imitate a muzzein? You know, the guy who chants the call to prayer?"
    "Me? Make the call to prayer? I was brought up a Christian."
    "I don’t think God cares about that. You know the words?"
    "Yes, but…"
    "Hear me out. Let’s say you’re a Muslim terrorist sitting in your nice cozy cave. There isn't a mosque or minaret within hundreds of miles. You’re getting ready for the prayer and all of a sudden you hear the call coming from outside. What would you do?"
    "I don't know what I'd do. I’d probably think it was the voice of Allah or something."
    "What would you do?" He watched her run it through.
    "I’d come out of the cave. I’d want to find out what was going on."
    "What would you be thinking?"
    "I’d be confused, wary. All my cultural conditioning would be operating but my suspicion would be running wild."
    "There’s a wide ravine leading up to the cave. It slopes up to a ridge about fifty feet high along one edge. There are big boulders up there. Some of them didn’t look all that stable to me."
    "You want to lure them out and roll rocks down on them?"
    "Why not? I remember a western I saw where the Indians did that, right before they wiped out the cavalry patrol."
    "But this isn’t a movie. You couldn’t get all of them."
    "No, but they won’t know what’s happening. We start shooting when the boulders hit. They’ll be confused. We can do it."
    "It’s crazy."
    "You have a better idea?"
    "What if they don’t all come out?"
    "We’ll deal with that if we have to."
    "What about Harmon?" She gestured at him. He pawed with his hand at the bag covering him, his face slack and gray in the moonlight.
    "We have to leave him. We’ll come back and get him. If we can’t pull this off he’s finished."
    "Well." She hummed a few bars under her breath. "My Dad once told me I had a voice that could break glass."

 
    CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
     
     
    The moon had gone. The night shaded from dark to gray. The eastern sky glowed with reddish orange and deep blue behind the mountains. Selena stood between two slabs of jagged rock, thirty yards from the entrance of the cave. Nick crouched behind a massive, tottering boulder perched on the edge of the ravine. Large, loose rocks on the slope below were bound to follow it down. He was pretty sure Cochise and Geronimo would approve.
    He laid Ibrahim’s rifle on the ground, cocked and loaded. He placed his hands against the hard stone and felt a hint of heat from the previous day. The sun was about to crest the ridge. It was showtime.
    The unearthly sound of the call to prayer echoed off the rocky walls of the ravine. Even though Carter knew it was