23Homs Governorate, Syria
The explosion rolled over the plain.
It was followed by a rain of earth and metal and human body parts. Severed fingers landed with a splat by Al Siyad's boot. Callously, the Syrian flicked them away with his boot. He and the surviving members of his team hunkered in the shelter of a hillock until the last echoes of the blast had died.
Silence returned to the land. Al Siyad dusted his shirt, stood, dusted his hat. It was IS modus operandi, he knew, to booby-trap an incident site to inflict losses on investigators and first responders. And at least one of the two men Al Siyad had ordered into the crash crater had suffered for his carelessness. He adjusted his wide-brimmed hat on his head, and, readying his sidearm, marched up the hillock.
The crash site was lai
