by Mark Mannock
I’d known clearly why I was doing what I was doing, and it was knowledge that would haunt me forever. I was the sniper in that alleyway in suburban Baghdad. I had been sent out there by Giles Winter. I had pulled the trigger. I had murdered Leyla’s husband.
3
3I awoke to screeching tires as the plane touched down on the tarmac in Portland. I must have dozed off. It was now time to move quickly. The combined international and domestic airport in Portland is not large by American standards, and I had no luggage to collect, so I moved quickly through the terminal to collect my rental car.
I headed south on the 205. I had been to Portland several times to check in on Leyla and Amira over the last few years. I felt like her overprotective older brother. Leyla had wanted to live in Portland because she had heard that it rained a lot there. It didn’t rain much in Iraq, and she had wanted to get as far away as possible from her memories.
I understood and had arranged a small house for the two of them in a quiet suburb not far from the beach. I hadn’t mentioned at the time that I was quietly pleased with Leyla’s choice of location because it was close enough to LA that I could be there quickly if something went wrong. It appeared something had gone wrong.
I drove quickly. No one pulled me over, no one slowed me down, I made good time. Around thirty minutes after leaving the airport, I turned into Leyla’s street. I didn’t know what to expect. I had tried her on my cell phone several times on the way over, there was still no answer. My unease increased as I turned into her driveway.
What I saw before me was something I was certainly not expecting. Leyla’s Toyota was in the driveway, and there were lights on in the house. Through the drapes I could see two people moving around in the lounge room, and their silhouettes looked remarkably like Leyla and Amira. As I got out of the car, I heard their television. I relaxed a little. It was looking as though this may have been a big misunderstanding, a lack of communication, and hopefully a needless trip.
I virtually leaped up the pathway and knocked on the door. To my relief, Leyla opened the door. I could feel the smile widening on my face as she led me into her small lounge room.
The time it takes to react to a dangerous situation is considerably longer from a relaxed state of mind than an alert one. Just ask any soldier who’s been on patrol in or near enemy-held territory. For this reason, it became apparent that my relief was not only premature but also part of someone else’s plan.
In my excitement I hadn’t noticed the stress in Leyla’s welcoming smile or the stiffness with which she moved. I noticed it now; it was pointed out to me clearly by the sharp pain inflicted by a gun barrel shoved in my back. Any uncertainty was removed by a male voice with an overly negative vocabulary saying, “No movement, no reaching into pockets, no talk.”
Looking across the small lounge room, the first thing I saw was Amira, her sleek dark hair cut in a new, fashionable bob style. She was in the far corner playing with a doll. I recognized the doll; I had given it to her for her last birthday. Leyla had moved to the couch on the far wall and was sitting down. She looked a bundle of nerves. On the positive side, both Leyla and Amira appeared to be unharmed.
“I am so sorry, Nick,” she said. “They came out of nowhere and surprised us in the mall car park.”
There was a lack of certainty, a frailty in her usually self-assured voice.
“Don’t worry, Leyla,” I said. “We’ll—”
My sentence was stopped short by an agonizing pain in the back of my head. The man behind me had pistol-whipped me. Through my light-headedness I saw Leyla grimace, and I heard Amira’s piercing scream.
“Uncle Nick,” she cried out.
“I said no talk. For a musician, you don’t hear so good,” said my attacker. More of a sarcastic chuckle, really.
I could feel adrenaline flowing through my body. I had felt pain such as this before. I knew it would eventually recede, but the horror displayed in that little girl’s voice would stay with her for a very long time. I started to speak again but realized that would only cause more pain for me and more stress for Amira and Leyla, so I bit my tongue.
It seemed like an age, though it was probably only a few seconds before anyone spoke. During this time, I recovered quickly, and a plan started to form in my mind. I always like to have a plan.
I put the musician in me to one side, perhaps a little too easily. As a Marine, I had been trained in hand-to-hand combat, and the man behind me had made a mistake. If you are going to cover another person with a gun, it should be done from at least four feet way, or your prisoner can pivot and sweep the gun from your hand before you have realized what was happening.
I had a plan, then I didn’t.
There had been no mistake. Another man, around six-foot-four and built like the proverbial barn, came from the kitchen. His gun was around eight feet away and pointed directly at me. This guy had me totally covered. I would have more chance of singing my way out of the situation than using hand-to-hand techniques. I didn’t sing.
“Nicholas Sharp.” The second man had a voice, and it was no friendlier than the first. “Sit down on the couch next to your lady friend. I think you would be less dangerous if you were sitting down.”
I didn’t feel very dangerous, but there was no point in arguing. I sat down next to Leyla. Amira had run over to her when I was hit, and the little girl would not let go of her mother’s arm.
“We will keep this simple and brief.” The second man was definitely the alpha here.
“Is that because you don’t know any long words?” I said.
I wanted to destress the situation for Amira’s sake. Also, humor helped me convince myself I was not worried when the reality was the opposite.
The first man started to raise the butt of his pistol and move toward me.
“No,” cried Leyla and Amira simultaneously.
“No,” said the bigger intruder. “No more violence unless absolutely necessary.”
“There you go,” I said, turning to my potential assailant. “The no’s have it.” I winked at Amira. She almost smiled.
If looks could kill, the man behind me would have no trouble staring down a nuclear bomb. I wasn’t making any new friends.
“Mr. Sharp.” Number two again; number one seemed to have lost his will to speak. “You will shortly be asked to perform a series of small tasks. What you will be asked to do will be relatively simple but with some risk, though only to yourself. We needed to set up this meeting to make sure we would have your complete attention and to ensure your total cooperation.”
I started to interrupt but again thought the better of it; the first man was ready to boil over.
“In the meantime,” continued the second man, “you are to carry on your activities as normal, including fulfilling all your musical commitments, until you hear from us. We will know if you deviate from your normal routine, and there will be consequences. For the moment, these two ladies will be our guests at a location of our choosing. Basically, from this point on, you work for us.” The man’s smile conveyed purely evil intent.
I didn’t believe for a second that I was the only one experiencing risk here, and although worried as all hell, I then asked the stupidest of stupid questions.
“Why do you need to take Leyla and Amira?”
“It is an old cliché, Mr. Sharp, but you are a musician now; you should be used to clichés. We need these ladies to ensure that you will do exactly as we ask, when we ask, and do it without alerting any authorities. Is that clear?”
“Like crystal,” I responded, this time no joke.
As I spoke, the front door opened and another man, probably even bigger than the first two, walked in the room.
“I’ve disconnected and removed some essential parts of Sharp’s car engine. He will not be following us.”
My dad, the late Colonel Brighton Sharp, had a saying he’d always lived by when it came to any sort of conflict: “never let them know you’re scared.” It appeare
d to have rubbed off on me.
“The three of you,” I observed, my mouth starting to go into gear without requesting permission from my brain, “you don’t seem the types to have the intellectual prowess to roll with this. Who’s really behind this sick little plan?”
From there, all I remember is pain and darkness. It must have just got too much for my number one friend with the pistol butt.
4
“Where to next?”
The early afternoon Californian sun was warm, and the Heineken in front of me was ice cold. The Pacific was a glistening mass of blue, an endless and surrounding seascape. I looked across the water and took in views from Malibu in the north, down the coast to South Bay.
It was the afternoon of the day after my failed rescue bid in Portland. Jack Greatrex and I were sitting at our preferred table at the Mariasol Cocina Mexicana at the ocean end of the Santa Monica Pier. He was waiting for an answer to a question that I hadn’t even heard.
My mind was going over and over the events of the last twenty-four hours and the seemingly growing list of stupid mistakes I had made.
I had regained consciousness around twenty minutes after being knocked out by the thug at Leyla’s house. I spent the next fifteen minutes trying to get my brain to function with some sort of normality. In movies, people get hit in the head all the time and just seem to bounce back straight away. No one ever mentions the lingering effects of concussion. I’d been hit twice, and my brain just didn’t seem to want to play ball with my intentions.
I eventually got myself sorted out and then spent an hour combing Leyla and Amira’s home for any sign of who their abductors may be, or where they had taken them. There was, of course, no sign, no clue, nothing.
It then took a wait of thirty minutes for a cab to arrive and take me to the airport. During this time, I phoned the rental car company and told them I’d had a breakdown and my car needed to be picked up. I didn’t tell them the circumstances. The one thing I remembered clearly was the instruction not to call the authorities, and I didn’t want the rental company alerting them either.
In the cab on the way to catch a plane home, I phoned Greatrex. He picked up on the first ring. I told him briefly and quietly of the events of the previous couple of hours.
It was on the flight back that I really began to beat myself up. Why hadn’t I played for longer to try to find out more information instead of making wiseass cracks to the abductors and provoking them? Why had I gone to Leyla’s house alone? If Greatrex had been there we would have been some sort of match for those idiots. But, of course, those thugs were not idiots; they were professionals who had set me up, and I’d acted exactly as they had expected. Who was the idiot now?
By the time I’d arrived home I’d been exhausted, and after filling Greatrex in with a few more details I’d gone straight to sleep. It was relief, even if only temporary.
Greatrex had stayed over. He’d had enough medical training to know that in cases of concussion the first twenty-four hours are vital, and the patient needed to be monitored. Of course, I had refused to seek any more formal medical attention. That would involve too many questions.
In the morning we decided to test the waters and check out if we really were being watched, or if it was a bluff. I drove down to the Santa Monica Police Department just off the freeway and pulled the Jag up directly out front. I sat there for about twenty seconds before my cell rang. It was a text message, a one-word warning: “mistake.”
We were being watched and warned. I drove off.
Greatrex and I had then wandered the length of the Santa Monica Pier trying to spot any tail behind us. We didn’t see anyone.
We were regular customers at the restaurant and had enjoyed many meals there, but on this day we had little appetite. The location, however, enabled us to keep our surroundings under careful view.
We poked at our food. Even the cold beer did little to improve our state of mind. It certainly didn’t numb the fear we felt for the girls’ safety.
“Where to next?” Greatrex repeated his earlier question.
“I just don’t know.” It was not the response he was hoping for. Nicholas Sharp, man of indecision.
“We need to plan. We always used to have a plan,” said my friend.
“The trouble is, back in the day, we were the ones instigating action; now we’re the ones responding to it.” We were in unfamiliar territory here.
I watched a thirty-foot sailboat glide past in the distance, seemingly without a care in the world. I was jealous. I loved sailing. I loved the idea of not having a care in the world. I sighed.
“From what you’ve told me, we know these people are professionals,” said Greatrex.
“But what we don’t know is what they want,” I continued. “I think we can assume that it’s me or us that they are after, and that Leyla and Amira are hopefully just a sideshow, temporary collateral damage.”
“The real worry is that if you do what they want, will they release the girls?”
There you go; Greatrex had said it out loud, the great fear that was clearly at the forefront of both our minds. It only felt worse hearing him say it.
“What I don’t get is who would want a retired Marine sniper turned musician to do anything. There are plenty of people out there who are current, not rusty like me. There are also plenty who are willing to take on a contract for cash. More to the point, most of those people have not turned away from the assassination business with a clearly stated lack of willingness to ever kill on order again.” It made sense as I said it.
Greatrex took a sip of his beer.
“What if …” Greatrex paused, but he had my attention. “What if it was the combination of your music and military skills these people were chasing?”
It seemed far-fetched to me, but we had nothing else.
The last thing in the world I wanted was to be drawn back into the past … Correction, second last thing. The last thing I wanted was for Leyla and Amira to be harmed.
“We can talk until the sun goes down,” I said, “but at the end of the day we won’t know anything until they contact us. We can only assume and hope that the girls are all right and that these people need them to keep us in line. In the meantime, as difficult as it is, we must carry on as normal.”
I paid our bill and we headed back down the pier toward home. Between the fear and the anticipation, I couldn’t help but feel we were going to know a lot more very soon. Perhaps it was better not knowing.
5
Three hours out of LA, in the middle of the Mojave Desert, inspired by the vast desert environment in which it sits, the Rancho de la Luna recording studio is worlds away from the city’s madness. Greatrex and I stared silently ahead as we drove there through the sun-soaked desert.
We were surrounded by almost endless space, scattered Joshua trees and 140 miles of darkest thought. Someone once said that to appreciate this kind of country, the “desert needs to be in you.” The desert certainly influenced a lot of musicians through the years. This is probably why Rancho de la Luna existed. I was a sea and saltwater kind of guy, but I was in awe of this vast landscape. It also suited my bleak mood.
I was booked for a session there with an aging progressive rock band trying to rediscover their magic and capitalize on the current retro music revival. I had no choice but to keep the date.
It had been two days since my visit to Leyla’s house, and we had heard nothing. Knowing we were being watched, we had been careful about making some discreet inquiries about the three men who had taken the girls. Nothing but dead ends. We were tired, we were angry, and as each hour went by, we were growing more and more frustrated.
Greatrex was driving. His SUV allowed us to sit high enough above the road so that we had a clear view all around us, or so we thought.
Out of nowhere, a loud motor thundered above us.
“Probably sightseers,” said Greatrex, as the chopper fled into the distance.
“It was pretty low,”
I responded. “You would think any tourist would be freaked out traveling at that height.”
Before Greatrex could respond, the chopper turned in the distance. We could only just make it out in the glare of the desert sun, but it seemed to be coming back toward us. It was flying low, very low.
“Watch out,” I yelled. They were wasted words, as Greatrex was already pumping the breaks and swerving to avoid the flying machine in front of us. The chopper landed about ten feet in front of where our car had stopped. It was like a dark mechanical ghost, jet-black with no markings. The windows were also tinted black. We could not see inside.
“Not liking this,” said Greatrex, as he reached into his glove box for his old Glock 19 service revolver. At this point I was kind of glad he’d hung onto it from the old days.
“I’m with you, but I don’t see a lot of choices in front of us right now. Keep the gun close but play it cool.” Greatrex was born cool. He also reached down and pulled a couple of small black boxes out of a side compartment and slipped them into his pocket. I recognized them as electronic trackers. Greatrex always thought ahead of the game.
In front of us, the chopper door opened. I wasn’t surprised when two of my new best friends from Portland got out. It would have been a fairly even match if they weren’t each pointing an AK-47 machine gun directly at us.
“Never liked those things,” said Greatrex, “inaccurate and messy.”
I didn’t want to be part of the mess.
“Out, hands behind your head,” ordered the first man that I had met in Portland. He looked as though he expected to be obeyed.
We got out of the car.
“I believe you were instructed to put your hands behind your heads.” These words came from a different voice, the source as yet out of sight, behind the helicopter. The cold, lifeless, arrogant tone continued, “It’s not a day to be rebellious, Nicholas Sharp, that is … if you want to see your lady friend … and her daughter again.”