by Lee Stone
Lockhart stopped the bus at the side of the road. The journalist turned out to be helpful after all because he could translate the girl’s cries.
“She’s having a baby.”
Lockhart had no intention of helping a Turkmen woman give birth in the back of a clapped-out school bus while being cheered on by a group of freeloading passengers, a goat, and a Spaniard dressed as a woman. He got back to the driver’s seat and started up towards the city at full speed.
“Ask one of them to point the way to the hospital,” he called back to the Spaniard. “We can drop her off there.”
The man in the burka translated and sure enough an old man shuffled to the seat nearest the front and as they entered the city he began pointing left and right as they got to each junction. The woman had started making some alarming noises.
As the streets became more urban and busier, Lockhart was too focused on getting the girl to the hospital to notice that the city was modern and crowded. It was full of neon lights and communist bronzes and mausoleums. Suddenly, as they rounded a corner, the bus-load of passengers stood up at once. Apparently, it was their stop.
Despite the drama of the pregnant woman gripping them for the last twenty minutes, they didn’t want to miss their stop. Lockhart couldn’t help but laugh. The old man dutifully stayed in his seat and the journalist stayed on at the back, but the other fifteen people and the goat alighted from the bus and headed off down the street.
The hospital was minutes away, and the three men helped the girl into the main entrance. She had been traveling alone and Lockhart suspected someone would need to accompany her. He realized that they had more chance of getting a poor girl into a city hospital if he had a few dollars in his pocket. As he turned to reach under his seat, he realized that the journalist was behind him. It was too late for pretense now, and Lockhart reached into the blue bale under his seat and pulled out a stack of fifty-dollar bills.
The journalist looked at Lockhart, knowing that it was a good time to ask a question because the driver was in a hurry. The skill to getting the story is knowing when to ask the question.
“Smuggler?” he asked. “I’d love to hear your story.”
Lockhart pulled about a thousand dollars from the pile and handed them to the journalist. The guy in the dress didn’t think twice about taking them.
“No,” said Lockhart as he handed over the cash. “I’m no smuggler. I don’t want to tell my story, and I don’t want to see you again. Understand?”
The journalist hitched up his burka and stuffed the money into his combats without counting it. Lockhart noticed that his knuckles were cut and that two of his fingernails were black. He wondered what kind of journalism the bearded Spaniard specialized in.
Without saying another word, the man straightened his veil and sauntered off up the street. Despite the need to get the pregnant girl inside, Lockhart took a moment to watch the journalist disappear into a café further along the road. His veil was back on, and he didn’t look back.
The old man had offered to stay with the girl, which was helpful. Lockhart paid the front desk enough money to see that he was ushered straight in for an audience with the hospital director. He explained that the girl should be well looked after, and he paid twice the hospital’s usual fee to ensure that she stayed in the best room.
Then Lockhart made a substantial donation to the hospital funds. The money in the suitcases had probably been meant for hospitals before it was stolen from Afghanistan. The hospital director was beside himself with excitement. Lockhart wondered whether he was pleased for his patients or whether he was planning on taking his cut. He looked like he was a decent guy. Lockhart wanted to think he was happy for the patients.
He had hardly finished counting out the money when there was a knock at the door. A nurse spoke quietly to the director, and he beamed.
“It seems to have been a quick labor,” he smiled. “Your passenger has given birth to a very healthy baby girl!”
Lockhart didn’t go and see her. He didn’t know the girl who had gone into labor on his bus. While throwing a few dollars at the hospital director felt like the right thing to do, he didn’t feel it gave him the right to intrude on her personal moment.
The director acted as a translator as Lockhart spoke to the old man who had helped to get the woman to the hospital. He pulled out another two hundred dollars and gave them to the old man. He explained that he should ensure that the woman’s husband and family could be sent for. He told him to keep the rest for himself for his troubles.
*
Two streets away, the journalist sat in the café and pulled out his Blackberry. He wrote what he knew. The driver was definitely English and had a fresh tattoo. The only point of his driving from Mary to Ashgabat would be to escape from Afghanistan back to Europe. He was smuggling US dollars which meant he was involved in something big. The journalist could smell a story. All he needed to do was to work out which would pay him best; writing a story about smuggling or asking the driver for a cut of the cash in return for staying silent. He typed the registration plate of the yellow bus into his Blackberry, and thought about his next move.
Chapter Thirty-One
Leaving Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.
“Everybody here comes from somewhere,
That they would just as soon forget and disguise.”
- REM, Supernatural Superserious
Since setting out to travel the world, Charlie Lockhart had learned about people and he had learned about nature. Over the last few days he had followed the direction of the birds and watched the few clouds in the sky beginning to change shape. At night when he rested he could smell the salt on the air as he got closer to the Caspian Sea.
After leaving the old man and the young girl in the hospital, he had returned to the bus and driven out of the city. Ashgabat had a million inhabitants and he could easily have hidden amongst the churning humanity. But it stood to reason that anyone fleeing Afghanistan would end up in Ashgabat after two days, so anybody looking for him would be sure to scour the city. The yellow bus didn’t blend in so well.
So, he kept driving through the city and out of the other side. He stopped once for fuel and then took the main road west towards Turkmenbasy, which was three days away on the Caspian coast.
Soon the capital city was small enough to fit entirely into the bus’s rear-view mirror, and Lockhart was back surrounded by poverty and emptiness. The bus had begun to rattle again, pining for the passengers who got off in the city. The sun was losing the will to hang in the sky, and the view along the road became obscured as the shadows lengthened and the light began to glint off anything reflective up ahead. The tranquil waters of a Russian irrigation canal suddenly turned to fire as the falling sun cast onto it. Despite his glasses, Lockhart drove pretty much blind.
As the blaze of pinks and oranges was subsiding, he made out something in the road ahead. He was on top of the silhouette before he could see that it was a small boy clutching a football, staring straight at him. Instinct kicked in, and Lockhart pulled everything at the right-hand side of the wheel. The bus began to turn, its locked wheels scoring black lines along the tarmac. The boy didn’t move as the bus missed him by inches, the wind from the wing mirrors ruffling his hair as it passed.
Lockhart felt the back of the bus starting to lose traction and flail outwards, so he released the brakes and the bus straightened up clear of the boy and plowed straight into the dusty field at the side of the road. The windscreen smashed as the bus scoured into the unforgiving dry earth. Lockhart’s head hit the steering wheel, and for a minute everything went black.
As he started to come around, Lockhart could feel blood on his forehead. There was an insistent banging coming from the door of the bus, and without thinking he released the hydraulics and it hissed open. He was immediately aware of the sound of the boy’s high voice, shouting at him angrily.
Lockhart looked up to see that the boy must have been seven or eight years old, wearing
a bright red replica football shirt. Lockhart tried not to let his football prejudices cloud his judgment. The boy stood in the doorway, shaking his fist at the driver of the bus that had almost run him down. He had learned some English, because he kept shouting “Sixty-Three, Sixty-Three” at the top of his voice.
Through the smashed windscreen Lockhart could see a woman, presumably the boy’s mother, skirt gathered up, running across the arid field. Behind her was a small courtyard and a collection of low-slung buildings. A donkey was standing in the courtyard looking startled by the yellow bus which had disturbed the tranquil sunset.
The woman had now crossed most of the field and was waving her fists around just like the boy. She yelled as she ran, her long skirt bundled up in her hand. It soon became clear though that she was not angry with Lockhart. As she clambered through the open doors, her sound filled the bus. She was deeper and far louder than the boy. She grabbed him by the ear and shook him. He looked baffled. She yelled and scolded him, pointing at the bus, and the road, and the driver.
He didn’t understand her words, but Lockhart could see in her eyes the emotions of every mother who comes close to losing a child; relief, rage and guilt all pouring out on top of each other. The boy didn’t look at the driver, but got off the bus and meekly trotted back to the buildings across the field. The donkey watched him with idle interest as he passed.
The woman watched him until he disappeared from sight, her shoulders falling and her composure returning. She turned to the driver and pulled her wild hair from her eyes. Then she took Lockhart by the ear just as she had with the boy. Except more gently. More professionally.
“So sorry,” she said in a clear voice. “You are bleeding from your head. Come with me, I am a doctor.”
Lockhart didn’t want to bring the family any trouble. He insisted on moving the bus out of sight of the road and diligently picked up any recognizable bits of bright yellow bodywork which had shaken loose during the accident. The doctor put this slightly odd behavior down to concussion and waited for him to clear up. The head wound was not so serious, but she had heard about concussion patients becoming disorientated and aggressive, so she waited for him to park his bus behind her house out of sight.
The light was dying outside and as Lockhart entered the house it didn’t take too long for his eyes to adjust. The man of the house stood up to meet him as he walked in. He looked as though he had not been designed to work the land, but the land had molded him as best it could. He had clear honest eyes which picked up the glow of the small fire burning in the corner of the house. He held out a hand and Lockhart took it. His handshake was firm and dry, surprisingly strong considering his frame. He introduced himself as Jeyhun.
“Sorry for auto-bus,” he said, pointing towards the back of the house. His wife was the linguist in the family, but Lockhart appreciated the sentiment.
“No problem,” replied Lockhart, looking around for the rest of the family. “Where’s Pele?”
Jeyhun laughed but didn’t answer the question. The men fell into silence, as Jeyhun busied himself with the fire. The doctor soon emerged with the boy alongside her. She was running her hand through his hair gently. The boy with the football shirt stepped forward towards Lockhart sheepishly with his hands clasped in front of him. Lockhart felt sure they had been rehearsing next door. He played his part and sat stony faced in front of the boy.
“Sorry for auto-bus,” he said, in the same tone as his father.
Lockhart smiled and gave the boy a wink. The boy’s face lit up, and he skipped to his dad. He was off the hook. His mother had a small metal bowl full of water. She began to boil the water on the fireplace in front of the stranger. She had an electric kettle next door, but she was worldly enough to know how westerners worried about disease in strange countries, so she boiled up the water in front of him, so he could see.
She had a bright green first aid box which reminded Lockhart of Miller, the tattooist from Kandahar, and for a moment his mind wondered back to her. He wondered if she had liked the glass jug he had left for her, and whether he had made any lasting impression on her at all. The smell of disinfectant and a stinging forehead bought him back to the moment, and the doctor looked at him closely.
“I should really tell you my secret,” she said, as she carefully mopped at his head. “I am a doctor of philosophy rather than medicine; I studied in Baghdad, but I should be able to deal with a cut like this.”
Lockhart smiled. He had enjoyed his time in Baghdad.
“My name is Rosalina and my husband here is Jeyhun.”
“Yes, he told me,” replied Lockhart. He guessed that the woman had been teaching him English and that she would be pleased that he had been speaking the language. She seemed more cosmopolitan than her husband, and her surroundings. Her eyes lit up a little in the firelight. Lockhart had guessed right.
“Oh, he told you, did he?” she said, and she chuckled. “He speaks very good English when he tries.”
*
Less than a mile away, Tyler had been scouring the road for any sign of Lockhart. He was rewarded as the sun set on a narrowing stretch of the main road out of Ashgabat. He slowed as he approached a hollow in the road. He sensed danger and realized that the earth to the right-hand side of the highway was freshly disturbed. He was trained to spot roadside bombs, and he hit the brakes hard. Then he remembered that he had left Afghanistan, and that life here was safer.
He was about to set off again when he spotted the glass in the road. Safety glass. He knew that safety glass was most likely to be from a bus or a truck. His eyes scanned the field, and he made out wide tracks heading towards a low house about a hundred meters from the road. There was a warm light coming from the windows and smoke coming from the chimney. Someone was home. His gut told him he was in the right place, so he pulled off the highway into the hollow and waited patiently for nightfall.
Tyler had been chasing a ghost for the last three days. He had been traveling for hundreds of miles with no idea who or what he was chasing. He had found the stranger in the marketplace in Mary, but he couldn’t be sure he had the money. The bus he was driving was big enough to stash the bales in, but where had he found the passengers? It was a mystery.
It was over two days since Tyler had found the empty Mastiff in the boneyard in Herat, with no sign of the driver or the cash. He and General Lang had been planning the shipment for months, and they had risked everything to get the consignment out of Kandahar. In return, he’d been left with an empty vehicle in a scrap yard in the middle of nowhere.
The cash wasn’t legal. But then lots of illegal things happened in the middle of a war. Tyler and Lang had been creaming money from the civilian contracts in Afghanistan and stashing away millions of dollars. They had carefully planned the trip to Herat for months; the moment they would flee the country with their hard-stolen currency. Now someone else was running away with the stash.
As Tyler sat in the car, just outside Rosalina’s cottage, he mulled over the last couple of days. Remembered the rage which had flooded into his body as he had stared at the empty Mastiff in the boneyard. Standing amongst the broken vehicles, he had controlled his temper for a moment, his mind straining to keep control of his anger like an archer’s fingers holding back the taut string of a bow. Release was inevitable. His brow furrowed, his turned to the local guy running the bone yard.
“Tell me everything about the man who left this truck here,” he demanded, all calm and menacing.
Where was David Barr? Had he even been here? Barr had been tasked with getting the cash to them on the border with Turkmenistan, and Tyler had planned to shoot him when he arrived. Until they crossed the border, Tyler and General Lang would have had complete deniability.
Now though, Barr had disappeared. He had told them he had found a ghost driver to do the job for them. He said it was a civilian who had no knowledge of the operation and who was not known at Kandahar. Tyler had never seen this mysterious stranger and couldn’t be sure t
hat he really existed. Frustrating.
The owner of the bone yard had been wide-eyed. He shrugged and smiled apologetically at Tyler. Maybe the owner didn’t know much about the man who had left the Mastiff behind, but the shrug and a nervous smile were enough to unleash Tyler’s fury. He kicked out at the man, hard and high. His smile disappeared as he fell to the ground. Tyler’s gun was in his hand, and he aimed where the annoying smile had been.
The first bullet took out the man’s teeth and ripped through his cheek and the back of his throat. Hatred gripped Tyler as he fired again and again. The violence released his anger, and he felt good as he continued to empty his magazine as accurately as he could towards the man’s face. He was definitely dead by the time the second round hit him, but the bullets continued to pulverize his soft flesh and smash through his bone.
Tyler fired again and the man’s eyes ripped and his face caved in. The fourth and fifth bullets went into his neck and spine until his whole head gave way and came away from his body. Tyler ignored the decapitated corpse and continued to fire at the head, which bobbed about as more metal dug in. A few stubborn bits of sinew kept it within a few inches of the rest of the dead man’s body.
When all the bullets had gone, Tyler stamped on the remaining bits of skull and brain, mashing them into the dust. Then he regained his composure and caught his breath, and phoned Lang to break the bad news and to work through the plan. Dust clung to his bloody shoes as he paced back and forth next to the headless corpse.
“So, are we looking for David Barr, or this Fearless guy?” he asked, agitated.
Lang explained to Tyler that they were looking for the money, nothing else. He would stay in Kandahar for a few hours to see if he could flush out Barr there, and Tyler would head for the border and see if he could pick up tracks.
“Whoever he is, he’s got to be in a truck because of the cash,” he explained. “He’ll be about 4 hours in front of you. Any signal?”