by Tom Avito
“On my mark, let’s run in that direction,” he said, pointing West.
He looked around once more, carefully, through his night vision goggles. The coast was clear.
“Go!”
He started to speed up his step, staying by Nicholas’s side.
They ran on the flat land, where no vegetation or sloping grounds could hide their escape. Nicholas was soon exhausted and begged them to stop. They took turns carrying him and kept on moving as fast as they could. They were moving west, towards the archaeological site he had visited just the night before. With the help of his night vision goggles he desperately tried to catch sight of the excavation, while behind their backs Bagheli and his men had realized that the Wharzes had gotten away and were getting ready to hunt them down. They hadn’t made it far, no more than a few kilometers and if they didn’t find a shelter as soon as possible, their pursuers would be at their heels in a second.
Behind them, the glaring headlights of a car were exploring the darkness like the eyes of a feline looking for its prey. The ground below their feet suddenly went downhill and they found themselves in front of the red brick house.
“Stop! Lie down here and wait for me.”
He took out the gun he had placed in his belt and approached the building. The dim light of a portable lamp lit up the inside of the house. He removed his helmet and felt a surge of hope rise in him at the thought that he could count on Gordon’s help. From the half-open door, he made out the unmistakable silhouette of the British man, sitting at the table, his back turned.
“James,” he whispered, but got no answer.
He didn’t step inside, he wanted to make sure that Gordon was in there alone.
“James!”
He tried again, louder, but got the same result. He held up his weapon and broke into the room, aiming the gun at the dark corner, ready for anything. Gordon was alone. As the latin motto indelibly painted on his forearm read, USQUE AD FINEM, until the end, he had been a SAS.
Carotid and jugular had been cut by a long, sharp blade. Blood had sprayed onto the table and dripped down, drenching his clothes and body in a thick, dark purplish-red. His head was slightly bent forward in a meek and defeated demeanor, as if he had been expecting his violent fate. Nino felt helpless facing this gruesome scene - the man had been slaughtered like a pig. The savagery of the men who were after him was endless. He felt his legs give in and found himself kneeling by his friend’s dead body as fear took over, he felt empty, resigned, powerless. He’d run out of energy and of ideas, and now Gordon, his only point of reference in the sea of mud he was stuck in, was nothing more than a dead, ruthlessly butchered carcass.
He’d gotten it all wrong. He’d accepted a task that he wasn’t prepared for, it had been stupid and naive of him to think he could face that reality, like a character in a novel. He was now alone, in a situation in which a professional like Gordon had fallen so easily, what could he expect of himself?
He despised himself, Sara was waiting at home, oblivious to it all, carrying a child that was never going to meet his father. He hated himself with all his strength, for being so bold, so superficial, for how he’d misinterpreted the turns of events, for how he’d let himself be dragged into a world he didn’t belong to. He was now at risk of losing everything he loved, of vanishing, leaving no more than a memory in the minds of those who had known him.
Yet his last morsel of clarity finally won over his desperation and he managed to run outside and get the Wharzes, who were still crouching on the cold ground.
“Let’s go, quickly!” He said, gesturing to follow him. Thanks to the darkness, his devastated face remained hidden from the sight of the two Germans.
He decided against going inside and making Nicholas and Alexander witness the horrible scene, so he bypassed the house and kept looking for a hiding place where they could stop to think clearly about what to do next.
They were caught by surprise by a raucous, unsettling jabbering sound. Under an awning, sheltered from the wind and the cold of the night, were two fully-grown dromedaries. The sound they’d heard was one of the two animals acknowledging their presence. Nino had mounted those animals several times, both in Libya and in Algeria, and knew how to handle them, while he was also aware of the fact that they could be quick-tempered and stubborn. They were beasts of burden, used to carry excavation material from the point of extraction to the place where it was viewed and examined. He carefully approached the one that was awake and patted the base of its neck. The animal let him do so and let out a soft sound of approval. Hanging on the wall by the animals were two heavy, malodorous burnouses and two pieces of fabric, clearly used as work clothes and kefiahs. Nino gestured Alexander and his son to come closer. They crouched together next to the two dromedaries.
He needed to regain control over his emotional situation, to handle it as well as he could, to control his fears and face his fate, if he wanted to reach his unchanged goal.
“Make it out of that mess and get home in one piece, together with those two innocent souls. Sure!”
His purpose was the same, all he wanted was to have the chance to hold his future son in his arms and become a good father. God only knew how much he wanted it.
“Put these on,” he said, handing the garments to Alexander.
“They stink horribly! I can’t wear them,” the professor pointed out, gagging.
Nino pulled him closer and helped him wrap the wrinkly, smelly wool garment that had once been white around his body, then placed the kefiah on his head and artfully rolled it up. This all happened in complete silence.
“Come, Nicholas, check out this pretty kefiah!” He performed the same movements on him.
The kid let Nino dress him up, eyeing the worn fabric with curiosity, showing a hint of a smile. Despite the nighttime, his lively blue eyes sparkled as if lit up from the inside. His belief that he was fighting the good fight was growing; he felt that leading home that blond angel, with his overpowering joy, his lack of malice and hypocrisy, was a good reason to put his own life at stake. He put on the second burnous, harnessed the two dromedaries and approached Alexander.
“Have you ever ridden one of these?”
“Actually, no,” the German replied doubtfully.
“There’s a first time for everything. I’ll help you mount, take that one,” he pointed to the animal that looked the most docile.
Alexander climbed onto the kneeling dromedary’s back then Nino took hold of the reins and forced it to get up. The animal stretched out its hind legs first, then its front legs, in a movement that threw the inexperienced passenger dangerously off balance. He was almost thrown off the animal and catapulted forward.
“Are you ok?” Nino asked.
“I am now. Thank you,” Alexander answered after regaining his balance.
He swiftly climbed onto the other animal, picked up the reins on Wharz’s dromedary and held out his hands to hoist Nicholas up, helping the boy settle in front of him, then he spurred the lazy dromedary to pick up the pace.
“Isn’t it fun? It’s like being rocked by waves in the sea, isn’t it?” He asked the child, in an effort to relieve the tension.
“Yes, it’s like being on a boat. It’s super tall!” Nicholas replied, excited by the new experience.
Keeping a fast pace, they headed west.
The child let the animal’s rolling rhythm cradle him, going along with is movement, almost enjoying himself. Behind them, instead, Alexander flinched hysterically with every step. Despite the typical nomadic clothing, he would have stood out to anyone’s eyes as a clumsy, inexperienced foreigner.
The silence of the night enclosed them. The dromedary breathed rhythmically as it faced the endless stretch of barren land like an old steam engine. No lights behind them, no sign that their pursuers were on their tracks. He wondered whether Bagheli had already found out that he was the one who had helped the Wharzes out of the villa; he didn’t dare imagine the Minotaur’s wrath once he
found out for certain. Bagheli had probably managed to trace the sabotages to the pipeline and to the storage facility that had taken place a few days earlier back to Gordon. That must have been enough to unleash his fury towards the British man, slayed like a lamb in a ritual slaughter. What would become of Nicholas and him, useless, worthless pieces of meat, if they’d fallen into his hands? He chose to focus on how to avoid it rather than picturing the worst case scenario.
They weren’t far from the Iraqi border, that limit could be their safety, he knew it. It was the shortest way to get to a territory where Bagheli couldn’t reach them, but he also knew that they would be prepared to hunt them down and that the imminent dawn would give them further advantage. A Teutonic child and man wouldn’t go unnoticed, they would be identified from miles away, despite the clothing and the Kefiahs that tried to conceal their figures.
His case was different. He had a small advantage: he was basically a native Arab speaker, with typical Mediterranean features, pitch-black hair, olive skin, and he was riding that animal as if he’d been doing it since birth. Be it out of instinct or luck, he hadn’t groomed much in the past few days. As soon as he jumped off the animal he’d take care of the last detail and soil his hands and nails by digging in the sand. His long, unkept beard, the stench of the dirty clothes and his whole appearance were coherent with the character he was playing, in case of necessity he’d be able to blend in without difficulties. A bedouin leaving a trail of scented cologne and with hands cleaner than a London white collar would not have been credible. In his current state, he could easily impersonate a poor merchant from Southern Iraq looking for some small business.
They kept a strenuous pace as they headed towards the border, trying to put as much distance as possible between themselves and their pursuers. He was going to have to find a hiding place for Alexander and Nicholas to conceal their presence from the sight of Bagheli’s hounds, and knew it was going to be a tough task.
CHAPTER 15
Shahrak Bakhtiari (Iran), 01/17/2012 05:00 A.M.
-“The hiding place” –
The adrenaline from the escape had kept him vigile, but now his exhaustion was taking over like a pleasant drug, undermining his clarity, making him sluggish. Nicholas had fallen asleep in his arms, while the professor, behind them, jumped up and down at every step like an unhinged puppet. They were still heading west, hoping to reach the Iraqi border, which was their only chance of escaping the Minotaur’s jaws.
He wrapped his kefiah around Nicholas’s slight body, shielding him from the cutting wind, while his mind kept mulling incessantly. He’d dragged them into an impossible venture.
“Would they have had more shots at surviving in the hands of the Minotaur?” He asked himself. “Unlikely!”
But if they had stayed there, what would have been the price to pay in terms of other human lives? How many innocent souls would have perished due to the knowledge spread by Alexander Wharz?
He was hoping he’d made the right choice, unwilling to be burdened by responsibilities he wouldn’t be able to handle. His mind went over the adrenalinic moments he’d just lived through. The villa, Sergeant Allen, Gordon, his finger pulling the trigger, the three shots fired by the Sig Sauer. He’d extinguished a life. The life of an Iranian holding a child and his father, two vulnerable, innocent souls, at gunpoint with an AK 47.
“You did the right thing! Stop fussing over it. You’ll go see a shrink once you’re home. If you ever get there,” he told himself.
All uncertainties disappeared when he thought of Gordon, of the valiant soldiers who had sacrificed their lives to save the two Germans. They had all faced their own fate without holding back, until their last breath.
He dove back into the present that was calling for his attention. A few more hours of darkness, then the cold night would be lit up by the first rays of sun, making everything more complicated.
Finding a shelter, stopping, hiding, resting. These were their priorities.
“Sure! ‘Cause everything’s been so easy so far!” He thought sarcastically.
Rehashing those moments when instinct had overwhelmed his reasoning, he remembered the telephone. He’d knelt by the lifeless body of the Iranian and had rummaged through his pockets, finding the old cell phone. He felt his thigh with his free hand to make sure he still had it with him, at that point the exhaustion that had taken over vanished and made way to a timid energy, nourished by new hopes.
Small dim lights shone in the distance, he hit the animal hard on the back to push it to pick up the pace and he felt it panting more intensely. The freezing wind and lack of hydration had caused his chapped, aching lips to crack. His hand moved over his face and then on his mouth and on his beard-covered chin, as if to wipe the dust and the fatigue away.
Soon they reached the threshold of the small village, it didn’t look like a real town as much as an agglomerate of a few humble dwellings, built in bricks and mud, tossed in the middle of nowhere, like a set of dice during a yahtzee [13] game. As the sky gradually took on a new glow, prelude to a new day, he caught sight of a secluded building. Nino moved closer to it and gestured the professor to jump off the dromedary and pick up Nicholas. He carefully approached the half-ruined house, where a part of the roof had collapsed onto the earthen floor, the door and the window were missing, letting the wind blow inside and create small whirls of sand and dust that moved around and dissolved unpredictably. It was uninhabited and solitary, the ideal shelter. He tied the reins of the two animals to an iron ring in the wall and stepped inside.
“Gehirn, this way,” he invited him.
“Let’s stop, please, we’re worn-out! Nicholas is cold and thirsty,” Alexander replied, exhausted.
“We’ll hide here for a few hours, try to get some rest. Lie down in that corner, you’ll be more sheltered,” he gestured with his hand.
“We’ll never make it. Dammit!” Alexander broke down, distraught.
“Don’t even think of it. Think about your child, his future, what he still has to enjoy on this earth!” Nino scolded him.
“I’ll go and find something to drink and eat,” he continued in a placatory tone.
Their pursuers weren’t far behind and they had to get a move on, to stay one step ahead of them, but they also needed to regain their strength and rest a bit, otherwise they’d all have buckled, even him, despite his good shape.
Nino stepped away from the Wharzes to take a look outside and pulled out the cell phone. He checked it. It was halfway charged: more than enough. He had learned the house’s number by heart and he dialled it without hesitating, crossed his fingers and waited. As he’d thought, any attempt to get in touch with the overseas was useless, he tried again but couldn’t get the line. He retraced his steps and joined his fellow travellers.
“Professor, what the hell were you doing that was so important as to cause all this ruckus?”
His question went unanswered, it shattered against Gehirn’s troubled, exhausted dreams. Curled up in the dark corner, he was holding his son tight, wishing to protect him from the low temperatures of the winter night and from all that was wrong in the world.
He took advantage of it and lied down next to them.
“Just a few minutes. It will be enough,” he thought. He’d regain his energy quickly and then focus on providing food and water for everyone.
He jerked awake to his heart beating way too fast, as if he’d forgotten something important.
“Damn!”
He had only intended to sleep for a few minutes, but almost two hours had gone by. A ray of sun that had made its way through what had once been a real window had hit his dust-caked face, awaking him. Father and son were still sleeping in the same position when he stood up and rubbed his tired eyes that were slowly reacting to the sudden luminance.
He had to turn into the bedouin he’d been in the past, during his many trips with Amir in the Algerian Sahara, in the stunning nothingness and breathtaking beauty; now it was time for
him to get into character. This time not for his own fun and delight, but for their survival.
He untied his dromedary’s reins and pushed it to get up as the animal protested. He slowly headed west, moving along the outer perimeter of the village and entering it from the direction opposite the one he’d actually come from.
The small town was coming to life at the calm and steady pace typical of places where people don’t live in constant stress and only wait for one day to fade into the next, peacefully, leaving no trace in their existence.
From there on he moved by foot, walking slowly on the dusty road as a scrawny dog ran barking at the dromedary behind him. The dog playfully jumped around it, while it remained unperturbed. Nino realized he’d involuntarily entered a Situational Awareness mode, a quality he’d tried to exercise with Mc Gown in the days he’d spent with the SAD. He had to find the right location, the least exposed spot he could find; to remain discreet and blend in with the context, and to focus his attention on everything in his field of vision, processing the data he collected, acting as quickly and efficiently as possible. To observe, not just to look, to seize details that might appear out of place, unnatural in the context, dubious behaviors and attitudes, small elements that might have seemed of no account but that were actually extremely important in a dangerous situation. A license plate or a telephone number, overheard words or unexpected gestures. It was a psychophysical condition to which the SAD trainers gave a lot of importance. The human mind can only handle so much information at a certain time. For one’s personal safety, it becomes vital to be able to condition one’s instinct, to train one’s skills to screen data and only analyze the relevant information, because actions often develop very quickly and a few seconds can mark the difference between life and death. To some it’s an art, to others it’s just instinct for self-preservation, to him it had been a game that he now had to master and handle perfectly.