The Lore of Prometheus

by Graham Austin-King

  I pulled the Glock, nodding at a more lucid Samir to do the same. Our rifles were useless until we got out of the car.

  Smoke and dust obscured much of the view. The real irony was the British embassy was about fifty yards away from us. The place was a veritable fortress, but it would be on lock-down by now, and we were on the wrong side of the gates.

  A bullet pinged off the side of the car and I swore. I glanced up, making out a handful of murky figures heading towards us through the dust and smoke. If Gharfour was the target, then this car had just become more of a trap than a shelter.

  I leaned around the seat towards Gharfour, who was crouched in the footwell again, and spoke in a low, calm voice. “We need to get out of the car, sir. I can get you out of here, but we need to move quickly, quietly, and without asking questions. Do you understand?”

  Gharfour lifted his head and nodded. He glanced out the front and side windows in quick succession, then back at me.

  “I’ll go first,” I told him. “Samir, you follow out my door. We stay low and move fast. Sir, put your hand on my back and don’t take it off. I need to know where you are without looking. Ready?”

  Neither one of them looked happy about it, but then, neither was I.

  I eased the door open and slipped out of the car, keeping low and using the door for what little cover it gave me. I holstered the Glock whilst I waited and readied the M4. Range mattered and if we were spotted on the move then the time for quick and quiet would be over. I heard rather than saw Samir and Gharfour tumble out of the vehicle, and felt Gharfour’s hand land on my back.

  Then we were moving. I stayed low, sighting along the rifle through the swirling dust as we ran. Shots rang out again ahead of us, and then more as someone returned fire from behind our position. I crouched by a car, the others scrambling in behind me. ANSF soldiers would be setting up positions behind us. If we didn’t move soon, we’d be stuck in the middle of this mess.

  A figure emerged from the dust. Any civilians had picked up those they could carry and run by now. This was not somebody looking to make friends. I tucked the M4 into my shoulder and aimed for the chest, but the figure looked to have already been shot. Blood had soaked through one side of his torso, darkening the uniform with a stain that looked black from this distance.

  More shots rang out, the distant muzzle flashes half blocked by the figure staggering towards me.

  “Mr Thompson,” Samir hissed urgently. “We should be moving.”

  I ignored him, eyes fixed on the lumbering figure in combat dress.

  “Look at me!” the figure yelled out in English. “Look at the bloody mess I’m in, Carver. Will you look at the state of this?” Johnson picked at the front of his uniform, tutting over the blood. “Look at that. That’s going to stain, I’ll never get it out.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut against it all.

  Fuck!

  A fucking hallucination? Now? How much of what I was seeing was real?

  “Fucking Johnson,” I growled, blinking rapidly and drawing odd looks from both Samir and Gharfour.

  I looked back up and into a different scene. The dust was clearing and the forms of the dead and wounded littered the street. Three ANSF soldiers lay dead close to our car, the bloodied bodies of militants, probably ISIL fighters, could be seen not far in front of us. I took a deep breath and gripped the gun tight.

  “Let’s go,” I ordered, and took off between the cars, squatting down behind any cover I could find.

  This was shit. Gharfour was on the edge of all-out panic, and Samir wasn’t far behind him. We had to get off this street. Fighting militants like ISIL is an orgy of confusion at best, and this situation was getting worse by the second. We were caught between a force with no uniforms, and the approaching ANSF soldiers; my gun and combat gear were fast becoming a liability. I might as well have painted a target on my back.

  I peered up over the bonnet of another car, plotted a route, then we were running again. Gharfour was as good as his word—his hand never left my back. The rush across the road lasted only seconds, but then combat is so often like that; each moment stretched out thin until it’s a wonder they can hold all of the panic and pain. The real battle of times like this has nothing to do with your opponent. It’s about trusting yourself, and trusting the training you’ve been through.

  I saw the first bullet, saw the dust thrown up as it struck the road. And then all I heard was gunshots, coming from both directions. There was no time to do anything else—there was nothing to do but run.

  Gharfour was sandwiched between us, with Samir behind him. I felt the tug before we’d gone ten paces. Gharfour’s grip on my back changed. His fingers bit, a desperate grab against my jacket, pulling downwards as Samir collapsed.

  I whirled around and saw Samir on the dust-covered asphalt. My gaze darted across his body, searching for the reason he’d fallen, until my eyes settled on the ragged mess above his boot. The bullet had hit Samir in the ankle—probably one of the worst places to get hit. There’s almost no chance for the bullet to pass through tissue. It’s practically guaranteed to hit bone, and when a bullet hits your ankle, most of the time the bones don’t break—they shatter. The pain hadn’t hit him yet and he’d collapsed onto the road clutching his leg. He had that look on his face. I’ve seen it too many times before. It’s an odd mixture of shock and anguish that only comes from being really badly hurt. He couldn’t even see what kind of state his ankle was in yet.

  “Shit!” I grabbed Samir’s arm and hoisted him up, throwing him over my shoulder. “Keep moving!” I barked at Gharfour.

  The pain found Samir before we reached the edge of the road and hurried into an alley, his screams drowning out the gunshots for a moment. The alley was packed. Those that could flee already had, but the ground was littered with wounded and the frantic few that cared for them. I forced my way through, ignoring Samir’s screaming and Gharfour’s protests until we came out onto another street. The traffic was still moving here, there was a surreal normality to it considering the fire-fight taking place only minutes away. I dumped Samir on the pavement and stepped out into the traffic, levelling the M4 at the first car that came close.

  “Get out!” I’m not sure if the driver even spoke English, but a gun in your face and a jerked thumb are easy enough to understand no matter where you’re from.

  I don’t remember driving to the hospital. I do remember Gharfour’s face though; the utter helplessness and panic carved into his features—that and Samir’s screams.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I don’t enjoy my own company after a combat situation, especially one where somebody has been injured. It’s too easy to start second-guessing yourself, to fall into the trap of blaming yourself for what happened and overthinking it. That’s only natural, I suppose, but my situation was a little different. I was never really alone.

  “Well that was a right fuck-up, wasn’t it, Carver?” Johnson said again, calling over from where he leaned against the sink in the apartment’s kitchen. “You should have stayed in the car.”

  I ignored him.

  Rule Three: Don’t talk to the visitors.

  The thing was, he was right; and I knew it. The bomb had been a lure to draw as many emergency services and Afghan security forces into the area before the militants started shooting. Gharfour had never been the target. I don’t think they even knew he was there. But he easily could have been their target. There was no way of knowing at the time. I took a chance, and made a choice, and that choice may well have cost Samir his foot.

  I rolled off the bed and grabbed a beer from the small fridge. I wasn’t back on duty until tomorrow, and right now I needed a drink. I hadn’t even opened the bottle when the pounding began—a fist, thumping hard on the door.

  “What?” I barked into Mujib’s face as I wrenched the door open.

  “You!” he snarled, pushing past me into the room. “You are dangerous. You should have stayed in the car. You put Mr Gharfour in danger,
you put everyone in danger. You come in here, the so-called security expert, and you have turned everything upside down. I have been with this man for five years with no serious incidents, you have been here three days and already we have a man in the hospital! Allah only knows—”

  “How is he?” I asked, cutting Mujib off mid-flow.

  The man deflated. “I don’t know. The doctors were still working on him when I left. His family are with him.”

  I nodded. I felt for Samir, but I wasn’t going to take sole responsibility for this. I fixed Mujib with a hard stare. “Where the hell were you, Mujib? What’s the point in a chase car if you’re not behind us?”

  He glared at me. “We got separated. This was your fault. You should not have been going so fast. We did not need two cars.” He paused, meeting my eyes. “We do not need you.”

  “I wasn’t the one driving, Mujib,” I reminded him. “Look, everything went to shit pretty quick once the IED went off. Where was your radio? That’s my point right now. We didn’t know what was going on, or who the target was. In circumstances like that, you extract. Christ, you always extract. Clients get panicky, they do stupid things. When it goes to shit, you get out. You should know this.”

  “The radios do not always work well.” The admission was quiet as Mujib’s gaze slid off my face to skulk down by my feet.

  “And you didn’t think—” I bit off my retort, sighing explosively as I turned away. Johnson watched Mujib with interest, jerking his fist up and down in an obscene gesture. I scowled at Johnson, which just brought a grin to his face. Diplomacy was never his strong point, but right at that moment I agreed with him.

  “Fine, look,” I said, turning back to Mujib. “I’ll talk to Gharfour in the morning about getting new equipment. In the meantime, I want to go over everything again—all the procedures, the lot. If it isn’t good enough then it goes, and we’re not going to argue about it. This went to hell today because of an IED, but there’s always going to be something. That’s why we need the right gear. That’s why we plan for everything. I can make your team better, Mujib, and that will make everyone safer, but you’ve got to trust me. This just isn’t going to work if I have to fight you every step of the way.”

  Mujib’s face was impassive as he looked back at me. “You are not from here, Thompson. This is not your world. You westerners come in here thinking you can change everything and that everyone will just jump into line and follow you. It is not as simple as that.”

  I let another sigh escape. I couldn’t really disagree with him. It didn’t help that the country was crawling with western security contractors making a small fortune, while many ordinary Afghans remained poverty-stricken and jobless. “I don’t want your job, Mujib. I want to help you do your job better. Get me all your procedures, and we’ll sort this out. Gharfour will have to stay here tomorrow while we go through everything.”

  Mujib nodded. “Mr Gharfour wasn’t going into the office tomorrow anyway. He is hosting the banquet.”

  I closed my eyes for a moment while I bit back something vile. “What banquet?”

  “A private meeting,” Mujib told me with a shrug and a ghost of a smile as he caught my expression. “He does it every few months. There is often little warning.”

  My sympathy vanished. I hadn’t had much to begin with and this wasn’t helping. “I can’t keep him safe if he’s going to spring things like this,” I grated. “How long have you known?”

  Mujib shrugged again. “No more than an hour. Mr Gharfour asked me to inform you.”

  I reached for the beer and twisted the cap off. I had been going to wait until the security chief had left; some people here can be touchy about alcohol. I needed a drink though, and right now, as far as I was concerned, Mujib could get fucked.

  I took a long drink, and then a deep breath, before I spoke again. “So, who’s coming to this meeting?”

  “Local businessmen…farmers.”

  There was something in the way he’d said it that gave me pause. “What kind of farmers?”

  Mujib sighed. “What kind do you think? You know what it is that Mr Gharfour does. Who do you think he is meeting with?”

  “Drug-lords?” I burst out. “Jesus Christ, Mujib. And you’re telling me this now?”

  He spread his hands with a smile. “As I said, Thompson, I have not known long. This is how the director does things. I suspect the farmers insist upon it.”

  It made sense. How better to ensure your safety than to hold meetings at the drop of a hat? It prevented anyone planning anything. It prevented me from planning anything too.

  “What time is this thing happening? We’ll need to arrange things.”

  Mujib shook his head. “It is in hand. Mr Gharfour, he does not want you involved.”

  I frowned. “What?”

  The smile was slow to make its way across his face—a slow and insulting thing that made me want to put my fist into it. “That was Mr Gharfour’s instruction.”

  “Get out, Mujib.”

  He looked at me blankly for a moment, as if he hadn’t understood me until I said it again. “Just, get out.”

  I watched him leave through the open door and called after him. “And get me your damned procedures. And a map!”

  What the hell was the man thinking? What was the point in hiring in an expert and then keeping things from him? I glanced over to the bed, to where I’d stashed the phone under the mattress.

  This was the information Artemis wanted. This was the intel that would earn me twenty grand, if I just picked up the phone. On one hand this felt like a betrayal. On the other, I really was just here for the money and I owed Gharfour nothing.

  I took a long drink of the beer, still staring at the bed as I did, before I started moving. “Fuck him, then.”

  The phone snapped back together and I thumbed out a text.

  Meeting scheduled for tomorrow night at the residence. Local ‘farmers’ attending.

  The response was fast, less than two minutes.

  Understood.

  And that was that. From thinking about it, to actual betrayal, in less than five minutes. Was it really betrayal though? I hadn’t done anything to compromise Gharfour’s safety, or his men. Or had I?

  “This is probably how it always starts,” I muttered to myself.

  “I bet you’re right,” Johnson said, coming over to squat down in front of me as I perched on the edge of the bed. “I bet this is how Six get their agents. CIA too, for that matter.”

  I drank the beer, looking away. He’d vanish soon enough. They always did.

  “Thing is though,” Johnson went on. “How do you actually know she’s actually with the CIA or whoever?”

  I stopped, mid-swallow.

  “I mean, you found this phone in your kit, you agreed to meet this woman… Sure she was American, or she sounded like it, but that doesn’t mean shit does it? Not really.”

  I lowered the bottle and looked at him, breaking the rules again. Fucking Rule Three, as if the first two weren’t hard enough.

  “She could be anyone, couldn’t she, Carver?” Johnson dipped his finger into the blood pooling at his feet from the hole in his side, and used it to paint a rough circle on the clean floor beside him. “Hell, maybe you just tipped off ISIL? Wouldn’t that be a laugh?” He dabbed two dots and an arc into the circle and stood up, nodding down at the happy face he’d drawn. “Still, chin up eh?”

  I swore to myself as I finished the beer and grabbed another one from the fridge. The bastard might be right, but that didn’t mean I was going to admit it. The bigger issue was what Artemis was going to do with the information I’d just delivered on a silver platter. If she wasn’t from American Intelligence, then who the hell was she, and how big of a problem had I just created for myself? I avoided thinking about just how stupid I might have been. When someone has pulled the pin on the grenade they’re juggling, it doesn’t really help to tell them it was a bad idea.

  *

  I spent most
of the next day hunched over a desk down in the bunkhouse, as I sketched out replacements for the shambles that Mujib called procedures. The most important thing was new and functional equipment, but that would be the easiest fix.

  The work was easy enough and, to some extent, I’ve always enjoyed it. It gave me time to think, and took my mind off the fact that Gharfour had locked me out of preparations for the banquet. Planning and working out contingencies lets you keep things at an abstract level. It’s when a bomb blows your car over and you’re picking glass out of your face while trying to find your gun that life gets complicated.

  The men I had to work with were one thing, but the equipment was another matter. Gharfour’s budget wasn’t limitless, but the whole episode after the IED could have been avoided if we’d had proper kit. Requesting equipment on a private job isn’t that different to doing it in the forces. I drew up a wish-list, knowing I’d only get half of it, and made my way through the residence towards Gharfour’s office.

  Shabib intercepted me before I got halfway, stopping me with a smile. “Mr Thompson, please accept my thanks for your actions yesterday. I suspect that Samir owes you his life, and certainly Mr Gharfour.”

  I’ve never taken compliments well, and I cringed a little.

  “It’s not a problem,” I said with an awkward shrug. “I’m sure Mujib would have done the same if we hadn’t been separated.”

  Shabib’s smile faded a little. “I’m sure he would have tried, but there is a reason you are here, Mr Thompson.”

  He was diplomatic at least. I managed a tight nod and let it drop. “I need to see Mr Gharfour, if you think that could be arranged?”

  Shabib shook his head. “Not at the moment, I’m afraid. Is it something I could help with?”

  Gharfour probably was busy; though what getting ready for a dinner with a selection of drug-lords entailed, I had no idea. I wondered briefly if Shabib was under instructions to keep me away.

  I handed him the papers. “I’ve drawn up some new procedures that I want to implement with Mujib and his team, including four different routes to get Mr Gharfour to the ministry. We also need new equipment for the detail; newer firearms, protection, and secure coms equipment especially.”