by Weston Ochse
Boy Scout raised an eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t like modern weapons.”
The initial inviting look presented by the dervish had been replaced by a stiffness that afforded no room for pleasantries. “Sometimes they are needed. Now, step out of the vehicle.”
Boy Scout glanced at Lore, who sat stone-faced, taking everything in. He turned off the engine, then stepped out of the SUV. He was unarmed except for an obvious 9mm chest rig on his body armor.
“Give me your weapon,” said the dervish, his right hand out, palm flat.
“I don’t even know your name,” Boy Scout said, giving him the same grin he’d once given a colonel who had asked if he didn’t mind being extended for a third time in Iraq.
The dervish didn’t even bat an eye. “I am Faral. Weapon, please.”
Boy Scout pulled his Sig from the chest rig and handed it over, using the barrel.
Without even a thank you, Faral said, “Please tell your woman to remove herself from the vehicle.”
Without turning his head, Boy Scout said, “Faral wants my woman to remove herself from the vehicle.”
Lore snorted but complied.
Once she was standing beside Boy Scout, Faral asked, “How did he die?”
“He was shot back in the cistern along with the old mystic. There is now no one to guard the daeva,” he said.
“The old mystic?” His brow knitted, then his eyes widened. “Erhan. Erhan is dead?”
“You act surprised,” Lore said, but received no response.
Instead, Faral’s mouth twisted into a frown. He turned and watched as two dervishes removed Faood from the back of the SUV and carried him up the stairs and into the palace. Then he turned back to Boy Scout. “How long ago was that?”
“Fifteen… maybe sixteen hours,” Boy Scout said.
“Why did it take you this long to bring him? You should have brought him right away. We could have saved him.”
Boy Scout shook his head. “He was dead. I saw him die.”
“Not his life. His soul. We should have been there to collect it.”
Lore turned to look at Boy Scout, but he remained facing Faral.
“You could collect his soul?” Boy Scout asked, each word seeded with doubt.
“Of course. We have many old souls among us. Why did it take so long for you to bring him to us?”
“We were chasing his killer.”
“Did you catch him?”
“No.”
Faral shook his head. “That’s unfortunate.”
“Yes it is. But things just took a turn for the better,” Boy Scout said.
Faral stared at him with dead eyes. “How can that be?”
“We know where he is.”
Faral seemed determined to play the game to the end. “Who? The killer? Where is he?”
Boy Scout raised his hand and pointed to the palace. “In there.”
Faral let his eyes follow Boy Scout’s finger. He stared at the front door a moment, then said, “Ahhh.”
“Yes. Ahhh,” Boy Scout said.
Faral locked gazes with Boy Scout and neither of them said anything for almost a full minute.
As usual, it was Lore who broke the silence. “Why aren’t you concerned about the daeva you have chained in the cistern?”
Faral spoke without looking at Lore. “We have that under control.”
Lore snorted. “Lots of control you have. Oh look, dead dervish.”
That made Faral turn to address her. “Your disrespect is noted.”
“You hiding a homicidal maniac is noted.”
“About that,” Boy Scout added. “We want our man back.”
Faral glanced at the palace, then at the ground. “He is no longer your man.”
“Indeed he is. We’re on contract. I’m his boss.”
“There is no contract. There is no boss.”
Lore spat, “But you admit you have our friend Narco, homicidal maniac.”
“We have a vessel that has been filled. That is what I know.”
Boy Scout let a few seconds pass, then said, “This is how it’s going to go down, Faral. You are going to let us go inside your precious palace and speak with our man, Dakota Jimmison. He is an American citizen under a Department of Defense contract. Keeping him against his will is tantamount to declaring war on the United States of America. If I’m not allowed to go inside and if anything happens to either me or Ms. May here, I have my people standing by to contact the 160th Special Operations Air Regiment at Bagram Air Force Base. They will be more than happy to bring all of their power to bear and blow this fucking precious palace to smithereens.”
Faral stared at Boy Scout with dead eyes, but by the way his lip was almost twitching, Boy Scout knew he’d gotten through.
“Just in case you don’t know what smithereens means,” Lore said, holding out her hands and wiggling her fingers. “It means into little bitty pieces.”
Faral said, “You would also blow yourselves and your man up if that happened.”
Boy Scout shrugged. “I guess so. Lore, how do you feel about that?”
She lifted one shoulder, jutting her wounded leg out and crossing her arms. “Whatevs.”
Faral’s eye twitched as if he wanted to look at Lore but couldn’t bring himself to break his own ethos. “As I said, he is not your man. He isn’t that person anymore.”
Boy Scout nodded. “I hear you and I respect what you’re saying, but you know I’m going to have to verify that, right?”
“You both can’t come in. Please tell your woman to remain in place.”
“If you refer to me as your woman one more time, I’m going to—”
Boy Scout raised his hand, cutting her off. “Lore, stay here.”
“But you can’t go in there without backup.”
“I got this.”
“But—”
He whirled on her. “What? I gave an order. You. Stay. Here.”
She looked hurt by his response, but he couldn’t help it. He turned to Faral. “Let’s go.”
Together they marched up the stairs and through the gigantic double wooden doors. The inside was spartan but regal. Crossed scimitars hung on the entry wall. Here and there upon the marble walls were verses written in Persian. The ceilings were at least twenty feet high. They turned left and walked to a set of wide stairs. They passed a pool of blood that was being cleaned up by a young boy. They went up one floor, then moved down a hallway until they came to a room with a plain door. All along the way, whenever they would pass a dervish, he’d bow his head and put his right hand over his breast. Boy Scout absently wondered what Faral’s rank was or if he was some sort of dervish nobility. He had to admit, before the events in the valley with the JSOC general and the daeva, he’d only been barely aware that there was such a thing as a whirling dervish.
Faral knocked once, then opened the door.
Narco had changed into full dervish apparel, complete with the long whirling shirt. He knelt on a prayer rug and was praying towards the west, which was the closest to the holy Kaaba in Makkah. That was all fine and good, but Narco wasn’t Muslim. He was Catholic. Or at least he had been.
Boy Scout remained silent out of respect. As far as he knew, it wasn’t time to pray, so whatever Narco was doing, it didn’t fit. After about two minutes, Narco stood, rolled up his prayer rug, and put it in the corner of what looked to be a monk’s cell.
He glanced at Boy Scout, then said something to Faral in perfect Persian. Hearing the words from Narco was absolutely the most surreal thing Boy Scout thought he might have witnessed in this entire experience.
Faral spoke back to him in Persian, then in English said, “We’re going to speak English, Hamad. You must think of speaking in English, then it will happen. This is a new body. You must trust it.”
Narco narrowed his eyes as Faral spoke. Then he opened his mouth a few times. Nothing came out at first. Then the single word: “please.” He said this several times, getting the taste of it, t
hen finally nodded and addressed Boy Scout with his hand over his heart. “Pleased to make your acquaintance. May I have your name, please?”
Boy Scout blinked at the formality of it. Never had Narco ever used such language. He licked his lips and answered, putting his hand over his own heart. “My name is Bryan Starling. Some people call me Boy Scout. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Hamad.”
Narco grinned from ear to ear. “Boy Scout. You are named after a youth who designs to learn different crafts so that he might earn patches to put on a uniform. Interesting.”
“I think they gave me the name because I like to help people, I’m unwavering in my loyalty, and I will give the shirt off my back if you ask.”
Narco nodded, still grinning happily. “Sorry I made you wait. I’ve been unable to pray for more than five hundred years. It was the first thing I wanted to do after I cleaned myself.”
Faral turned to Boy Scout. “Do you see what I mean? Do you understand now?”
“I don’t understand this at all. Where’s Narco? Where is my friend?”
“I’m sorry, but your friend no longer exists,” Faral said. “He’s been replaced.”
“Been replaced? Replaced by what?”
“By Hamad, of course.”
Boy Scout turned from one man to the other, watching them, waiting on the punch line, but all he got was a stern look from Faral and an almost comical grin from Hamad—no, Narco. He was about to say something when everything faded to black.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The Cistern, Afghanistan
BOY SCOUT WOKE in a flash. Unlike other fugue states, he wasn’t hung over and was fully conscious of his surroundings. He was clothed and dry, lying beside the water instead of in it. He climbed to his feet, cautious about his right shoulder, but he felt nothing. He examined it. No gauze. No pain. Because the shattered shoulder had never happened.
What had they just done? Had they gone forward in time? And now that they were back, where were they? He searched for Faood’s body, but he wasn’t there. Neither was the old mystic, Sufi Sam, or Erhan, as Faral had named him. But that hadn’t happened because it was in the future or the sideways. Damn, he was confused.
He moved to wake Lore, then McQueen. Lore woke Criminal. It was Criminal who noticed Narco. He was naked, sitting on a stone, captured in a much deeper fugue than they had been in.
“Can anyone tell me what the hell is going on?” Criminal asked.
“I needed to show you what was real,” Faood said, entering the room with a tray of food and a jug of water. He set them on the ground, then folded himself down. He gestured for them to join him.
“But you’re dead,” Boy Scout said, lowering himself next to Faood.
“Like they thought you were dead on the road in the fugue? The attack wasn’t my doing, You and your people created that, as they did the dead sheep… or maybe that was you.”
“How did you…”
“I was there, like you.”
“But that didn’t really happen. It was a fugue. So how do we know that our brains didn’t just make it up?” Lore asked.
“It’s because I was there with you. I came as a dead man, my mind controlling the fugue. Remember how we prepared you for each previous fugue? We’d sit down and talk about where you were going and what you were going to do, then as a group you would make it happen. In this case, because of the spirit in Narco, we had no time. It was I who created the landscape of the fugue. It was I who populated it with what was necessary. You merely added the details from your own experiences.” Faood gestured at the food and water. “Eat. Drink. You’ll need energy for what’s to come.”
“So we went into the future,” Lore said, glancing and nodding at Boy Scout to make sure he was paying attention.
Faood shook his head as he bit a fig in half and chewed. “It would seem so, but like before, you did not go anywhere. You were here all along.”
“I knew it,” Lore said, slapping a hand against her thigh.
“So you made it up? Why? So you could escape Narco?” Criminal asked.
“Partly,” Faood said, swallowing. “I admit that I was in fear for my life. Wouldn’t you have been?” He raised his eyebrows. When no one responded, he continued, “But I wanted you to know the truth of it. For too long you have been duped by my people.”
Criminal and McQueen surged to their feet.
McQueen asked in a menacing voice, “What do you mean, duped?”
Bully stood as well, eyes narrow, hands rolled into fists.
Boy Scout looked at the faces of his team and could see their anger rising. “You better explain yourself, Faood.” To the others he said, “Sit down. Eat. Let’s hear him out.”
But no one made any move to sit.
Faood put his hands on his crossed legs and gave everyone a friendly but stern look. “This,” he said, “all of this, is a lie.” He waved his hand. Then he pointed at the daeva. “That is not the threat.” He put his hand on his chest. “I am the threat, or at least I was. Your whole reason for being here was a ruse.”
Boy Scout’s eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”
To Boy Scout, Faood said, “Tell them what you saw inside the Bagh-e-Jahan nam Palace.”
Boy Scout nodded, then glanced toward the water. “I saw Narco but it wasn’t Narco. He was Muslim and praying. Then when he spoke to me, it was in Narco’s voice, but it wasn’t his words. He spoke in perfect Persian.”
Lore shook her head. Her mouth was stretched in a thin line, like she was sick of it all. “But it wasn’t Narco. It was in our heads.”
“I took you to what could have been to show you what probably is,” Faood said.
Criminal spat, “Fucking dervish bull shit mumble-speak.”
“Dickensian,” Boy Scout said. Then he frowned, because he knew that if Narco were with them, he would have said something like Gesundheit, and they all would have laughed, easing the tension of the moment. Oh, how he missed his friend. He vowed right then to do everything he could to return Narco to what he’d been… or as close a version as he could manage.
“Excuse me, boss? What did you say?” Bully asked.
Boy Scout sighed, the loss of one of them just too much. “Dickensian,” he said. “The last fugue we took was Dickensian. I’m talking about the old English author, Charles Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities. Great Expectations. Or more appropriately, A Christmas Carol. Faood was our Ghost of Christmas Future.”
Everyone stared at him as if he’d gone crazy.
“Doesn’t anyone remember A Christmas Carol? Ebenezer Scrooge?”
“Oh, Scrooge,” Lore said. “What about it?”
Criminal said, “I saw the Simpsons version of that. Holidays of Future Past.”
“Will everyone just shut up!” Bully suddenly screamed. She slapped her hands against her head. “Will you all just shut the fuck up!”
Everybody jerked at her outburst.
Bully surged to her feet, grabbed one of the rifles, then locked and loaded on Faood, the barrel inches from his head. “You just going to sit there and take what he did to us? What he fucking made me do?”
“Easy, Bull—er, Sara,” Lore said carefully, getting to her feet. She stood, her hands out, placating as she backed up a few steps.
Faood remained still.
Boy Scout stood slowly.
“Don’t tell me to take it easy,” Bully said. “You have no idea what I’ve been doing all of these months while you’ve been playing in your minds… getting drunk… smoking pot… fucking. Sure it wasn’t real, but you didn’t know that at the time. It was real enough.”
“Sarasota, put the gun down,” Boy Scout said.
She whipped her face in his direction. Tears streamed from her eyes. “Didn’t you hear him? He said all of this was a lie. He said that fucking thing hanging there isn’t a threat… never has been.” A sob escaped her in a miserable bark. “I watched it sleep, throbbing and humming like a giant fucking lightbulb all this
time, waiting for it to wake up and kill me. The damned dervishes told me stories of how evil it was and what it could do. It was a fucking devil to me. When I was washing you, it was there. When I was cleaning your shit every day like a damned nurse in a coma wing, it was there. When I was picking scabs and cutting your hair, it was there. And you know what? It terrified me. I used to go outside and run ten miles just to make myself tired enough that I could sleep, because I dreaded every new day. I knew it was only going to be more of me cleaning your shit and worrying that the devil was going to wake up.” She shoved the barrel of the rifle against Faood’s head hard once, then again.
His head rocked with the blows, but he made no move to do anything.
“You didn’t know what I was doing. You couldn’t know how I was feeling. And now to find out that this asshole was the real threat? Boy Scout, you tell me. You’re our leader. What’s real, huh? What’s real anymore?” Abruptly she threw her weapon on safe, dropped the magazine and emptied the chamber of the live round. She tossed it to Lore, then ran out the door.
Boy Scout, Criminal, and Lore stared at each other, then turned their attention back to Faood. His head was bleeding where the barrel had struck him, but he made no move to wipe the blood away.
Faood shook his head. “We used you. We used you just as we’ve used people for almost a thousand years. She’s right and I deserve whatever you do to me, but I want the chance to make it right.”
“Why’d you do it?” Boy Scout asked, his voice barely a whisper.
Faood took a deep breath. “We put you in a fugue and told you a lie so you’d create overly complex realities so that you could draw near to Sefid. The daeva here isn’t the one you shot down. That one is elsewhere. We’ve had this one for over a century. It gives us the power to create the fugue, to invent realities. We use its mind as a pathway.”
“But why?” Criminal asked, his voice cracking. “Why would you do such a thing? Why would you make us spend our lives thinking we had to save the world from that?” he asked, pointing at the daeva.
Boy Scout shook his head. They were a victim of their own addiction to responsibility.