by Al Pessin
* * *
In the morning, Nazim was true to his word. After prayers, and tea and bread, he ordered three of his men to fetch a vehicle so they could escort Rasheed to the main road. Rasheed thanked Nazim for his hospitality and said he was happy to have been of some small service to the jihad.
Rasheed got into his truck, and while waiting for the escort vehicle to come to the gate, he saw Nazim speaking to one of his men. The fighter was pointing toward Rasheed, and Nazim appeared to be at first surprised, then distressed.
When the other vehicle arrived, Rasheed followed it out of the camp. At the crossroads, he bid the men farewell and headed southwest. He opened his phone and kept an eye on it to see when he might catch some signal. He had been trained to report any information as soon as possible. When Rasheed had two bars—the most he could hope for out here—he pulled to the side of the road and dialed.
His report was short—he had found a Pashto-speaking man, badly beaten and held prisoner at al-Souri’s camp. The man appeared to understand the message he delivered but offered no intelligence in return. How could he? Rasheed gave the location and said he had nothing more.
That was when he heard the vehicles approaching. He looked at his side-view mirror and saw the sand they were kicking up. They were beside him before he could think of any way to dispose of the phone.
Nazim got out of the lead vehicle. “Problem with your truck?” he asked through Rasheed’s open window.
“No, Commander. Thank you for your concern. I only stopped to drink water.” Rasheed knew it was a bad lie as soon as he said it.
“You cannot drink water while driving?” Nazim asked. His eyes moved to the phone, still in Rasheed’s hand.
“I also called my wife,” Rasheed said, pleased that a better lie had come to him. “She was worried.”
“Is that so?” Nazim said. He reached in and took the phone. “One of my men is good with languages. He does not speak Pashto, but he says you used too many words speaking to the prisoner. A few of the words he recognized from other languages. He thinks maybe you were not making an honest translation.”
“Commander, I’m sure your man is sincere, but he is wrong. Pashto is a difficult language, different from Arabic. I assure you, my translation was as good as I could do with my poor Pashto.”
Nazim seemed unconvinced. He opened the phone. “This is your wife’s number?” he asked, looking at the screen.
Rasheed felt sick to his stomach. He wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Yes,” he said, barely audible. Then he had a thought. “But she has gone out now.”
Nazim pushed the button to redial and activated the speaker. “What is your wife’s name, my brother?”
Before Rasheed could come up with a fake name, he heard a man’s voice answer the phone. They all heard it.
“Is this the wife of Rasheed Abu-Ramzi?” Nazim asked.
There was no response.
Rasheed could not hide his panic. “Commander, I can explain—”
“No. I can explain. You are a spy and a liar.”
“No, Commander, please. I have a son. My wife is preg—”
By then, Nazim had raised his AK. Through the truck’s open window, he shot Rasheed in the face.
* * *
Bridget sat wide-eyed, staring at a secure email with the verbatim translation of Rasheed’s first call. Faraz held prisoner by al-Souri’s men. Near death. Her left hand came up to cover her face.
Another message alert sounded, and Bridget leaned in to read it. It was a transcript of the second call, including the conversation between operative #SN247 and an “unknown male,” and the dry notation that the call ended with the sound of gunfire and someone apparently destroying the phone.
Bridget’s stomach turned. She had never met Rasheed, didn’t even know his name. She hadn’t known about his wife or his son, or the baby who would be born, until he mentioned them. But she’d always known there was a man behind the number, a man who pledged loyalty to the cause of freedom and took an assignment in dangerous territory—from her. He completed his mission and died for it.
And it looked like Faraz could be next.
Bridget picked up her phone and dialed the ops center. General Hadley, Liz, and several other folks in Washington were about to get wake-up calls.
* * *
“No,” Hadley said. “I’m sorry, Bridget, but no.”
His voice sounded strained—some combination of distance and having been awakened at two a.m. Or maybe he felt some of the angst Bridget felt.
“But sir, we sent him out there, we—”
“I know. I feel as bad about it as you do. But at best, he’s being held inside a terrorist camp. If we attack, they’ll kill him before the choppers land. At worst, he’s already dead, and honestly, after they cracked our agent, you know that’s the more likely scenario.”
“We have to try, General.”
Hadley took a moment. “The lieutenant knew what he was getting into. We’re not risking a dozen men on the small chance he’s still there and the smaller chance we can get him out alive. Whoever we heard on that call knows the agent called in. He also knows we won’t bomb him in case our man is still alive. He’ll have his defenses up, maybe bring in extra men. We’d have to do an air-ground assault against heavy resistance. And probably just to recover a body, if that. So, no. I’m sorry, but no.”
Chapter Thirty-eight
Nazim blasted through the door to Faraz’s cell breathing hard, sweating, and screaming Arabic curse words.
Lying on the floor, Faraz tried to crawl away.
Nazim kicked him hard in the belly. “You are a spy!”
Faraz knew that word. “No, Commander, please,” he coughed.
Nazim kicked him again, sending Faraz twisting backward in agony. Nazim grabbed the waistband of Faraz’s pants and flung him toward the middle of the room, forcing two of his men to jump out of the way. Faraz landed facedown.
“Hold him,” Nazim ordered.
The fighters pinned his arms. The pain was intense. He was weak from loss of blood.
Nazim put a knee in the small of Faraz’s back and pulled his hair to lift his head and extend his neck. Faraz looked through the open door. He saw two more fighters holding Rasheed’s body between them, his face a mangled mass of blood and flesh.
Faraz’s breath caught.
“This is what we do to spies,” Nazim said. “You are next.”
The men threw Rasheed’s body into the cell. The two agents lay side by side.
Faraz whispered the Shahada.
“You do not deserve to pray to the one true God!” Nazim shouted, jerking Faraz’s head farther back. “This time, I will not change my mind.”
Faraz heard Nazim remove his knife from its sheath. He thought of his mother. No matter. She thought he was dead, anyway. How did he allow himself to get talked into this mission? Damn them. Damn them all!
He felt the blade on his neck. He closed his eyes. He had no idea why he said what he said.
“Al-Souri.”
His voice was hoarse and faint. He wasn’t sure whether he’d actually said it.
“What did you say?” Nazim asked. He kept the knife against Faraz’s neck.
“Al-Souri,” Faraz said again, a little louder. Then he used two more of his Arabic words. “Hua sadiqqi.” He is my friend.
“Al-Souri . . .” Nazim went on in a furious stream, but Faraz didn’t understand it. When Nazim finished, he glared at Faraz from above, knife still poised.
“Hua sadiqqi,” Faraz repeated. He choked on a bit of his blood. Then he said slowly, struggling with the language. “Akhbarah al-Souri, Hamed fi hon. Hamed Anwali. Min Afghanistan.”
Tell al-Souri, Hamed is here. Hamed Anwali. From Afghanistan.
PART THREE
Chapter Thirty-nine
In the small, wood-paneled ceremonial room in the Navy wedge of the Pentagon, several dozen people sat on straight-backed wood and leather chairs chatting amiably
until the master chief came in. “Attention to orders.”
Everyone stood, and the military members snapped to attention. Lieutenant Commander Will Jackson and Rear Admiral Jeffery “Lumberjack” Kowalski came through the door and climbed the two steps to the stage. Will used the handrail and made it up without too much trouble.
The recessed spotlights glared off Will’s impeccable summer white uniform as he stood at a slight angle, leaning on his cane to ease the pressure on his bad leg. He was working hard to suppress a smile.
Lumberjack stepped to the lectern. “By order of the Chief, Naval Operations . . .” The admiral read the document promoting Will to commander, then executed a sharp turn to the right to face Will. They exchanged crisp salutes.
Admiral Kowalski gestured toward Will’s parents in the front row. Will’s father, the six-foot-five great-grandson of Swedish immigrants who settled in Minnesota, wore a beige Western shirt and a bolo tie. He offered a hand to his petite Jamaican-born wife in a blue and white navy-themed dress, and they stepped onto the stage. Standing on each side of their son, they removed his lieutenant commander shoulder boards. The master chief handed them Will’s new boards, with the three wide stripes of a full commander, and they struggled to thread them onto his shoulder straps.
“I’m just too short,” his mom said, getting a friendly laugh from the crowd.
Cameras clicked, and a young seaman got it all on video. When they finished, Will’s father stepped back and gave him a salute, then a hug, drawing more applause. Will kissed his mom and shooed his parents back to their seats so Lumberjack could make his speech.
Will scanned the crowd, acknowledging friends and colleagues who had come from as far away as Naval Station Norfolk in southern Virginia. It was gratifying to get the promotion. He had worked hard, been injured twice—in Afghanistan and again in Bethesda—and had earned the respect of his men, his colleagues, and his superiors.
But his joy was tempered. He was being promoted into a desk job, thanks to his bad leg. And the person he most wanted to be there to share the bittersweet experience and help him navigate it was in stuck in Baghdad, babysitting some poor bastard on a top-secret mission somewhere in Jihadiland.
* * *
An hour later, Will insisted on walking his parents to the exit in spite of his limp and his mother’s protests. He was glad to do it for them and to fill a few minutes of his day with something other than sitting behind that desk.
After kissing his parents goodbye at the Metro exit, Will and his cane worked their way back through the long, wide corridors to the SEAL Operational Support Center, a war room of sorts, where updates on SEAL activities arrived in close to real time, along with routine requests for supplies, personnel, and other support. It was irritatingly close to the action he wanted to be part of.
His new rank got him a small office on the edge of a workroom filled with cubicles. Will would be spending the next who knew how long making sure other people did their jobs providing needed services to still other people, who would distribute it to more other people, who were the people actually doing what SEALs were supposed to do.
Will sat in his chair and leaned his cane against the wall. It was a gift from his parents, with a BUD, the SEAL symbol, hammered into its handle. The BUD signifies that a SEAL has passed the Basic Underwater Demolition course. The insignia is a golden eagle perched on an anchor holding a trident and a flintlock pistol. Will had earned the right to display it more than ten years ago, but he wasn’t sure whether it was relevant anymore. He didn’t need a BUD to do a desk job.
He rubbed his bad leg. It ached from the long walk, and he had an hour until he could take another pill. Will stared out his window into an air shaft. Do this for now, he said to himself. Be the best damn support supervisor the navy has ever seen. Take the time. Do the physical therapy. Then get back into the field, or get the heck out.
“Yes, sir, Commander,” he whispered. Then he turned to his computer, logged on, and started supervising.
That afternoon, Lumberjack knocked on Will’s open door. “How’s it going?”
“Great, Admiral. Getting the hang of it, I think.” Will was trying not to sound sarcastic.
“Well, you might not want to get too comfortable.”
“Sir?”
“Will, I’ve got a problem, and I think you can solve it, if the docs will clear you for travel.”
“I’ll take it, sir, whatever it is.” Will’s enthusiasm was obvious, but he also knew he wouldn’t be joining an operational team anytime soon. At least maybe he could be a support supervisor someplace other than the Pentagon.
“You know Tim Miller from Team Two?”
“Sure, sir, good man.”
“Yes, well, he was supposed to take this post, but he has a health issue and the docs pulled his clearance.”
“I hope Tim’s okay.”
“He will be, but he can’t deploy this week. Can you?”
“Um, yes, sure sir. But I don’t know if I can pass the physical, either.”
“You’re healthy except for the leg, as far as I know.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem, then. This will be a desk job—Mission Coordinator. You’ll be the touch point for this office, ops, command, other branches—making sure our teams are ready to go, that missions and rules of engagements are clear, areas of operation are deconflicted. You know the drill.”
“Yes, sir. I worked with MCs all the time.”
“Still lots of reports to write and paper to push, but at least you’d be out of here. You up for that?”
“Oh yes, sir. Assuming the docs clear me, where am I going?”
“Baghdad.”
Chapter Forty
After seventy-two hours, the air in Faraz’s prison shack was barely breathable. His hands and legs were in shackles, with chains that allowed him some movement, but not enough to have any chance of escaping. His leg chain was bolted to the floor. Nazim’s men had fixed most of the gaps in the window covering, so it was almost totally dark.
Faraz was weak from the skimpy rations they gave him—little more than scraps, much of it inedible—and the frequent beatings by Nazim, who still didn’t believe this traitor knew al-Souri, but seemed unwilling to take a chance and kill him before the commander got back from his trip.
The small building was piled with junk and supplies. Faraz kept his corner as clean as he could. It was the corner as far from the door as possible, which gave him a second or two of warning when Nazim came in for another session. Faraz divided his time between sleeping, little bits of painful exercise, and preparing for what was to come.
He was going to see al-Souri. The prospect scared him and excited him. The man was the key to both of Faraz’s goals—the one Bridget had given him and the one he gave himself after al-Souri’s men killed Amira. In his weakened state, it was difficult to focus, impossible to separate duty from emotion. Faraz knew he had to be very careful or he would fail at both.
The door flew open, and the flood of light blinded Faraz. This was the usual prelude to another beating. He shielded his eyes with one hand, put the other between his legs, and pressed himself into his corner. His breath quickened.
But this time, he did not hear the usual sound of Nazim’s approach or feel the pain of the first blow. Faraz peeked through his fingers as his eyes adjusted to the light. He saw a figure silhouetted in the doorway, with another just behind.
“Lower your hand,” a voice said. A familiar voice, but not Nazim’s. It took Faraz’s brain a split second to realize the voice was speaking Pashto.
“Lower your hand,” the voice repeated, more insistent.
Faraz complied. He blinked his eyes a few times, still adjusting to the light.
“Leave us,” the voice said, now in Arabic.
From behind, Nazim objected. “Commander—” But the man waved a hand to cut him off. Nazim left, and the man stepped into the shack, moving to the side, away from the glare of ligh
t from outside.
Now Faraz could see him. He looked like he had aged more than the three months they’d been apart, perhaps because he had nearly died that night Faraz saved his life. The lines on his face seemed deeper. His beard was longer and grayer. But he stood straight, close to six feet tall, and had the same aura of quiet authority Faraz remembered, enhanced by the imam’s skullcap he now wore in place of his Afghan turban.
“Qomandan,” Faraz said, using the Pashto title. Commander.
“Hamed,” al-Souri replied. He knew Faraz only in his Afghan cover identity. “I did not believe them when they told me.”
“Yes. I can understand.”
Al-Souri crossed the small room and slapped Faraz hard with the back of his right hand. Faraz’s head jerked to the side and he fell onto all fours, tasting his own blood yet again.
“Qomandan, please,” he said.
“Traitor,” al-Souri whispered, with more venom than Faraz had ever heard him express, even toward the infidels. The commander stood over him and took a knife out of a holder strapped to his waist.
Faraz turned his head up. “Please, Qomandan, let me explain.”
Al-Souri brandished the knife, ready to strike. “Explain? Explain how you gave our location in Afghanistan to the infidels? Explain how you helped them kill my friend and our leader, Ibn Jihad? Explain how you got away? Explain how even here, you led a spy into our midst?”
“I saved your life, sayyid. Would a traitor do that? I was almost killed setting a bomb for you. Would a spy do that? You were my qomandan, my imam. You were my father in jihad. And sayyid, I was like a son to you, was I not?”
Al-Souri seemed to back off slightly.
“Qomandan, please. Allow me to live a few minutes, to tell you what really happened. Then, if you want to kill me, I will accept it as Allah’s will.”
Al-Souri kicked Faraz in the ribs, knocking the wind out of him. He fell over, gasping for air.
“Talk,” al-Souri said.
* * *
While he waited for the prisoner to catch his breath, al-Souri stared at Faraz. The commander’s thoughts wandered to the young man he had met in Afghanistan, the one who had gone from doubting his role in jihad to being the hero of an operation, and later, a trusted member of his personal security detail.