Free BoneMan's Daughters by Ted Dekker

Way.”
    “City?”
    “San Antonio, Texas.”
    Kahlid withdrew a radio from his pocket and spoke the address into the mouthpiece.
    The men forced the boy to kneel beside the metal chair, positioning his forearm over the edge.
    Nausea swept through Ryan’s gut. His mind quickly ran through his remaining options.
    Escape was out of the question at this moment.
    Suicide would take too much time now, assuming he could really go through with it.
    The radio crackled. Soon. Only seconds had passed. They’d planned this down to the last detail.
    “The address doesn’t exist,” a voice said in Arabic.
    “Please… okay. Just give me a minute!” Ryan cried the words without intending to yield to emotion.
    “Watch! I want you to watch what you have done. You can’t hide your head in the sand like the rest of your country! Watch
     what your decision does!”
    “Please…”
    Kahlid shifted his eyes to one of his men. “Break his bones.”
    Something snapped in Ryan’s mind. He could feel it break loose and fall away like curtains dropping to the stage.
    The chains that held him gave him a mere six inches of play, but he didn’t care about that. He had to do something, anything.
     So he lunged forward with all of his strength, screaming a wordless protest.
    His backside barely cleared the seat before the chains stopped him.
    He heard the boy screaming through his tape. And above the scream he heard the sound.
    It was only a soft
pop
of bone breaking within flesh, but it was a sound that would haunt even the coldest heart.
    The pop chased Ryan into darkness and he slumped into unconsciousness.
    WHEN RYAN’S MIND drifted back into the dim light, the first thing he discovered was that the metal chair that had been occupied
     by the boy Ahmed was empty. He looked left and right and saw no one.
    So then he’d imagined it? A flash of relief was immediately followed by reason.
    No. He’d heard the pop. Kahlid had simply removed the boy. In what condition, Ryan refused to consider.
    An overwhelming sense of remorse flooded his mind. Remorse for the boy, Ahmed, yes. But even more, remorse for his own daughter.
     For Bethany.
    He now knew with very little uncertainty that at the end of this ordeal, Bethany would be either dead or fatherless, and he
     was surprised by the pain he felt at the latter possibility. Not because he feared death; and in truth he was dead. But because
     now he realized that Bethany already was fatherless.
    He’d abandoned her already.
    What had he been thinking?
    And Celine? Yes, his wife as well! How could he blame her for needing love if her own husband wasn’t close to love her?
    Suicide was his only option now. He had no choice but to take his own life and end this madness. It was the only way to save
     his family and any more children like Ahmed, whom the butcher named Kahlid put before him.
    Something else had changed. His arms.
    Ryan looked down and blinked. They’d bound his arms in towels and strapped them tightly to the sides of the chair. His first
     thought was that they intended to break
his
bones.
    But then he saw that they had taped his legs to the chair as well. They had immobilized him. Crude but effective means to
     keep him from cutting his wrists on the chains.
    They’d put him on suicide watch.
    A knot formed in Ryan’s gut. Kahlid knew his psychology. He’d trapped Ryan in a predicament that could not end with an escape
     into his own death.
    A soft whimper sounded behind him. He twisted his head around and saw two things that etched a bitter chill down his neck.
     The first was Ahmed’s dead, badly bruised, and twisted body on the floor just behind his chair.
    The second was a teenaged girl hog-tied in the back corner, staring at him with brown eyes through long stringy hair.
    Miriam.
    Dear God. Dear God, forgive me…

8
    RICKI VALENTINE SLOWLY paced along the two tables on which she’d carefully organized the reams of reports and photographs
     from BoneMan’s files. Laid