Blowback

by Al Pessin

  The thing wouldn’t move.

  He twisted it. That worked better. He twisted and pulled, but the pain stopped him. He buckled to the ground, kneeling.

  “You okay?” Nic came from behind him. He had a blood-soaked towel wrapped around his injured leg.

  “Got this thing in my arm. Damn it.”

  “You should leave that. We’ll see if the doctor survived.”

  “No time. He’s probably dead, anyway.” Faraz took hold of the nail again and pulled it out in one smooth, twisting motion. “Oh, damn that hurts.” Blood oozed from the hole. “Take my ripped sleeve and tie it tight.”

  Nic took the sleeve and twisted it into position, wrapped it once around, and tied it.

  “Tighter,” Faraz said. “It’s gotta hurt, or it’s not doing its job.” Nic pulled on the material. Faraz winced in pain. “That’s better. It’ll hold for a while, anyway. Thanks.” He picked up his AK with his good arm.

  “What now?” Nic asked.

  “Now?” Faraz had only one thought. Amira. He said to Nic, “See who’s alive. Post some guards. I gotta go.”

  Faraz took off at a run toward the women’s part of camp. The kitchen was destroyed. He hoped she hadn’t taken cover in there.

  Beyond the kitchen, half the women’s barracks was a pile of rubble, but the far side was still standing, its windows shattered and its wooden walls pockmarked with bullet holes. He ran up the three steps to the door and found it swinging on one hinge.

  Inside, a woman’s voice called for help. In the darkness, he could make out several bodies on the ground, some holding AK-47s in their hands. He crouched to check one of them, but she was dead.

  “Karim.” It was Cindy, sitting against the far wall. As he approached, he saw she was bleeding from a stomach wound. “Help me,” she said, grabbing his leg with dwindling strength.

  Faraz knelt down. “It’s Okay. Let me look at it.” He pulled away some of her ripped and bloodied shirt.

  Cindy screamed. “Oh, shit that hurts!” Then she coughed hard, and blood spurted from her mouth. “I’m dying, Karim. Don’t let me die.”

  Faraz saw that she was probably right. Even at a U.S. Army field hospital, she was likely a goner. Here, with no doctor and no supplies, there was nothing he could do.

  He took a bedsheet from the floor, crumpled it into a ball, and pressed it to Cindy’s wound. She screamed again.

  “It’s okay,” he lied. “Press on this. Someone will come to help you. Have you seen Amira?”

  Cindy took hold of the wadded sheet, but he could feel that she had little strength. Her eyes rolled back, her head flopped to the side, and she passed out. Her hands fell from the sheet, and the blood flowed again.

  Faraz put the sheet back, put her limp right hand on top of it, and moved on. He checked each person on the floor. They were all dead, including the kitchen chief Katya. There was no sign of Amira.

  Maybe she was farther back in the camp, in a safe place. Maybe she had gone out the back gate and fled to the woods. That would have been the smart move.

  Through a gap in the damaged roof, Faraz saw the first hints of light in the sky. Outside, the crying and moaning continued. His view through the holes where the windows used to be showed some of the survivors trying to help the wounded. Others knelt on the ground and cried or wandered aimlessly, seemingly shell-shocked. People were calling the names of their friends, trying to find them amid the horror.

  He turned back toward the room. “Amira,” he said, hoping one of the still, dark shapes would answer. Then, louder, “Amira.”

  With the morning light growing stronger, he looked through a hole in the wall into what had been the other part of the barracks, the part that was little more than rubble. He moved to the opening.

  That’s when he saw her.

  Amira was on her back under what was left of a window, a rifle by her side. The wall was riddled with bullet holes. Her shirt and dress were covered with blood. Her hijab hung around her neck, exposing her short black hair.

  “Amira!” Faraz screamed as he ran to her, fell to his knees, and dropped his weapon next to hers.

  He checked her neck for a pulse. He slapped her face and shook her shoulders. He whispered a string of urgent requests: “Amira, wake up . . . Can you hear me? . . . Open your eyes . . . Amira, please . . . Please!”

  But his tone was increasingly hopeless. He had known the truth as soon as he’d seen her. He sat back on his heels. There were four bullet holes in her clothes. Faraz looked at her face, undamaged, eyes closed, serene, beautiful. The lips he had kissed—minutes ago, it seemed—were slightly parted, as if ready for another.

  He turned his gaze to the sky, toward Allah, and wailed, “Nooooo!” The sound surprised him. It came out not as a moan or cry. It was more of a howl, the noise an injured animal might make.

  “No, No, No!” He stood, picked up the remains of a table, and threw it across the room. He grabbed a heavy beam that had fallen from the ceiling, but the weight of the thing put him off balance, and he fell next to it onto the floor, hitting his head on some debris.

  Faraz ignored the pain. He looked at the brightening sky again. “No. Allah, please no,” he said, but without conviction. His plea was more of a whimper. He knew it was no use.

  He moved to Amira, cradled her head in his right hand, drew her close with his left. Faraz knelt there in the debris and blood, sobbing. He pulled her head to his chest, stroked her hair. His breath came in short gasps.

  Faraz had experienced much death in the last year, but this was not like any of that. What he was feeling wasn’t simple sadness or anger. It wasn’t just revulsion, shock, or even despair. Surely, it was all of that. But there was something more. This was a crushing pain, a sharp, ripping, devastating blow to his body and spirit.

  He should have kept her with him. Should have protected her. Should have run away with her, not taken her back into the kill zone. He should never have come here, never have taken this mission, never have met Amira.

  As a soldier, Faraz had been trained to put his emotions aside in stressful situations, to focus on the mission. But as he held Amira amid the devastation, the emotions took over. The anger blew out of the box he’d put it in at Guantanamo.

  They had taken everything from him. Now they’d taken Amira, too.

  He eased her back onto the floor, fixed her hijab, closed her eyes with his fingers. He was almost in the Muslim prayer position. Allah, please, make it not so. Allah, please . . . He rocked forward and back. Allah, please take me, too. But he knew such a prayer was a sin.

  Allah had left him alive for a reason. He would avenge Amira’s death. He’d kill the men who attacked them. He’d destroy their organization so it couldn’t hurt any more women like Amira. Then he would go home. He wouldn’t let army or the DIA take anything more from him. There was nothing more to take.

  A hand on his shoulder made Faraz jump and lunge for his gun.

  “Easy, man,” Nic said. “It’s me.”

  Faraz relaxed, and turned his gaze back toward Amira.

  “She’s gone,” Nic said. “Cindy, too. Lots of others.”

  Faraz didn’t respond.

  “You all right?” Nic pointed to the blood covering Faraz’s shirt.

  Faraz looked down. “Yeah. It’s hers.” He wiped his bloody hands on his pants.

  “I can’t believe this,” Nic said.

  “Yeah.” They were silent for several seconds.

  Nic took hold of Faraz’s good arm. “Come on, Karim. We have to get out of here. The commander has called everyone to the headquarters.”

  Faraz didn’t move.

  “We’ll come back for her. But we have to go now.” Nic pulled on Faraz’s arm to help him up, but Faraz pushed him off.

  “Please, Karim, come with me.”

  Karim. Oh, Allah. In the midst of all this, Faraz had to be Karim.

  Nic knelt next to him and whispered the Shahada for Amira.

  The gesture penetra
ted Faraz’s thoughts. He swallowed. “Thank you.” He touched Amira’s hand in farewell. Then he let Nic help him up.

  They passed the bodies of several women, including Cindy, still posed as Faraz had left her. They took the path to the central road, past the blood of the attackers’ leader, past the crater dug out by their bomb, past the tracks of their vehicles and more dead bodies.

  The desert sun was up now, starting the quick process of baking the camp. Faraz and Nic joined the small group of foreign survivors in front of what was left of the headquarters—parts of two exterior walls and piles of broken furniture and other rubble. There were eight sand cats—seven men and Tasha, from LA—of the three dozen who had been in the camp.

  “Is this all?” Faraz asked, the first words he had said since he’d left Amira’s side.

  “There are a few wounded in what’s left of the clinic,” Nic answered. “But most of the injured died. More will, too, I imagine. The doctor and his assistant are both dead. A couple of volunteers are doing what they can.”

  Faraz’s arm ached. He rubbed it and tightened the bandage.

  Al-Jazar emerged from the building with two fighters, the only Syrian survivors. One of them had his right arm in a large, blood-soaked bandage. The other fighter and al-Jazar were unscathed and carried their AKs pointed at the ground. They came down the building’s front steps, and the survivors formed a semicircle in front of them.

  “This is a dark day,” the commander began. His clothes were caked with dirt on one side. “All of you, and our martyrs, fought bravely. This betrayal of jihad will not go unpunished.”

  Al-Jazar continued, but Faraz wasn’t listening. He looked at the destruction. The camp gate was lying in pieces. Parts of the wall were down. All of the buildings were unusable. Most important, Amira was gone. It was as if she had only been there for a brief moment.

  Faraz looked back at al-Jazar. The commander was dirty only on one side. Something was not right. The lieutenant’s army brain was sluggish but starting to reassert itself. As the pieces came together, his anger surged.

  “It was a difficult fight,” the commander said.

  “And where were you?” Faraz heard himself talking before he knew he had decided to say it.

  Al-Jazar cocked his head and looked at Faraz. “I was fighting just as all of you were. I was behind the headquarters, firing all the time.”

  “You were not,” Faraz said. He had him, now. Liar. “I was behind the storage building. I saw the back of the headquarters. I saw it twice. I never saw you.”

  “Do not question me, Karim. I know it is a difficult day, but be careful.”

  “Why are you covered with dirt on one side, while your other side is clean?”

  “We are all dirty from the battle.”

  “But not like you.” Faraz had no filter for this coward who had gotten Amira killed. “You did not come out of a fight looking like that. You came out of a hole. While we fought and our friends died, you hid in a hole in the ground.”

  “You make a serious charge,” al-Jazar said. He started to raise his rifle.

  Faraz moved more quickly. He lifted his AK and fired one round into al-Jazar’s chest at a range of five meters. The bullet made a small hole to the left of the commander’s breastbone and a huge crater as it exited his back, trailing blood and flesh that splattered on the stairs. The force of the round threw al-Jazar backward. He was dead before he hit the ground.

  The other armed fighter appeared frozen with shock for a split second, enough time for Faraz to hit him with two quick rounds before the man could raise his weapon. He fell next to his commander.

  The wounded fighter collapsed to his knees, pressed his face to the ground, raised his hands, and begged in Arabic, “Please, my brother. Please!”

  “Holy shit, Karim,” Nic said. “What the hell are you doing?” He and some of the other foreigners had hit the ground when the shooting started. Others stood there, immobilized in disbelief.

  “He hid in the ground,” Faraz said. “Go inside the building. I’m sure you’ll find his coward hole. We were not ready for this attack. All this . . .” He turned toward the camp, saw the smoldering women’s barracks. His voice caught in his throat. “All this is his fault. Al-Jazar was willing to let us die while he hid from the fight. We already knew he was crazy. Today we saw he was a coward and a traitor.”

  Nic stood and looked at al-Jazar and the other dead man. “But this isn’t a damn video game. You can’t just kill him.”

  “I already did. He got what he deserved.”

  “What if you’re wrong?” Nic asked.

  “He’s responsible for the deaths of our friends. I’m not wrong about that. Incompetent asshole. Go on. Go inside, check around the back, maybe. You’ll find his hiding place.”

  Nic looked at the pool of blood growing around the two bodies. “I guess it doesn’t matter now. But he was the only one who knew anything. What the hell are we supposed to do now?”

  Faraz gestured toward the injured fighter. “Tie this man up. Collect the dead for burial. Tend to the wounded. Then we’ll see.”

  “So, you’re in command now?”

  Faraz looked at him. “You have a different plan?”

  Neither Nic nor anyone else had an answer.

  “What if the attackers come back?” Nic asked.

  “If they come back, we’re all dead. But they won’t. They accomplished their mission, and I wounded their leader.”

  “You did what?”

  “Yes, shot him in the side just before they withdrew. Now go, all of you. We have lots of graves to dig.”

  “All right, all right,” Nic said. He looked back at al-Jazar’s body. “You’ve left us no choice.”

  Chapter Thirty-two

  While the others went to work clearing debris and moving bodies, Faraz went into the ruins of the headquarters building to confirm his theory and see if he could find any useful information. In al-Jazar’s office, the desk was moved to the side, papers and equipment were scattered, and half a dozen floorboards had been removed. The late commander hadn’t bothered to replace them when he came out of his shelter, the crawl space between the floor and the ground—the right place for a rat to hide. Theory confirmed.

  Faraz rummaged through the desk drawers. He didn’t know what he was looking for until he found it. The old tourist brochure was from the years long past when adventure travelers would ride the desert roads, explore the market in Aleppo, and bargain with the Bedouin for camel rides. It had a map on the back.

  A hand-drawn star several hundred kilometers northeast of Damascus was apparently their camp. West of it, maybe twenty kilometers, someone had drawn a small square and written something in Arabic. Faraz could read the letters from his Koran studies. It said, “Al-Kufaar.” He knew that word. It meant “Infidels.” Faraz stared at the square. The location seemed about right, based on his recollection of his briefings—one of the Syrian militia bases where U.S. troops had been deployed.

  If he was right, he could lead his motley group to the Americans, surrender, make his report, and go home. But that’s not what he had in mind.

  Much of the area around the “Infidel” base was empty desert, with only a few small villages indicated. But farther northwest was another square. The handwriting next to it was hard to read, but after a struggle, Faraz figured it out. “Al-Souri,” it said, and it was underlined three times.

  Faraz folded the brochure and put it in his pocket.

  * * *

  By late afternoon, there was some semblance of order.

  The bodies had been carried to the cemetery, each one lying next to a fresh grave, including two of the injured who had died during the day.

  The survivors had cleaned each other’s wounds and wrapped them with bandages salvaged from the clinic. The central road and main paths had been cleared of debris. Serviceable weapons and other equipment sat in neat piles.

  Someone had gathered what was left of the food and set it out on a
blanket on the ground in front of the headquarters building. There wasn’t much—some bread, canned goods, vegetables, dried fruit.

  The two injured foreigners were well enough to join them, making the team ten men, three women, and the wounded Syrian fighter, who had given them no trouble. They all sat on the ground for a solemn meal.

  Faraz hardly ate. He felt sucker-punched, but his head was clear. He saw that Nic had changed out of his bloody pants. The bandage around his right leg formed a bulge under his new ones.

  “This is all the food,” reported Tasha. Her natural Afro was matted, her shirt was ripped, and her fingers were bloody from the day of work.

  When most of the food was gone, Faraz said, “Save the rest. We’ll bury our brothers and sisters, then sleep a few hours. We leave at two a.m.”

  “To go where?” Nic asked.

  “To find food and shelter, and to kill the bastards who did this.”

  “To kill the bastards? Are you kidding me?”

  Faraz glared at him. “You can assume I’m not joking.”

  “But, Karim, we have two working vehicles and a handful of people, all minimally trained. Maybe we should head for the border, back to the safe house, go—”

  “Go home?” Faraz said. His anger flared.

  “I was going to say, go get new assignments.”

  Faraz relaxed a bit. “No.”

  “No? That’s it?” Nic looked toward Latif for support, but got none.

  “Yeah. That’s it. You want to argue with me?” He didn’t reach for his weapon, but he was ready to. Faraz looked around the circle. “Listen, you think we’d make it? You know where to go? How to find the guides? We’d be shot up by the Syrian Army before we got to the border, or by the Turks if we crossed in the wrong place. There’s nothing left for us but to take our revenge and then look for a new group to join.”

  Tasha spoke up. “Revenge? Revenge on who?” She sounded skeptical, but also interested.

  “I know who did this.”