The second part of Deborah Hastings’ story on Roy’s rescue.

NC Times: EDITOR'S NOTE: The ransom demands had stopped, and the trail had gone cold. More than 10 months after U.S. contractor Roy Hallums was abducted in Iraq, a local man being interrogated by coalition soldiers claimed to know where the American was being held. This is the second part of a two-part AP serial narrative. This story is based on hours of interviews with Roy Hallums, Susan Hallums and Dan O'Shea, and their recollections of Roy Hallums' kidnapping in Iraq.

The coalition soldiers didn't know it, but this man they'd hauled in for questioning was about to deliver a bombshell.

Someone had fingered him as part of an extended family of kidnappers whose relatives abducted Iraqis and foreigners ---- it made no difference. The common denominator was money.

The interrogators were only five minutes into it when the man, trying to jump-start a plea for leniency, blurted the name of an American contractor who had been missing for most of a year and given up for dead.

"I know where Roy Hallums is," he said.

He knew about the house. He knew about the concrete prison under the backyard storage shed. He knew about the freezer covering the hatch in the floor.

The coalition soldiers jumped. In less than hour, they assembled a rescue detail and rolled, fully armed, charging in helicopters toward a barren farm in the Triangle of Death.

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