[Rogue Warrior 18] Curse of the Infidel

by Richard Marcinko

  The lieutenant tried radioing the men who’d been with him, but also got no answer. He sent his men wading into the woods.

  Tufts of clothing were hooked into the barbs near the fence, but it was impossible to tell who they belonged to. I began walking up along the fence line, training my ears to listen for human sounds—hushed voices, maybe, or better, footsteps through the brush.

  Finally I heard something to the left, in trees beyond a short hill covered with thick weeds. Someone was running in my direction.

  I ducked down and got ready to grab whoever it was. A white shirt shot out of the trees, running almost directly for me. It dodged left, then right, materializing into a person and pushing brush away as it went. When the runner was within five yards, I coiled myself, then sprang.

  My knees had been battered during my African narco-pirate safari, but the pain had subsided to the point that I’d mostly forgotten about them. They apparently felt neglected, and gave me a sharp reminder as I sprang to grab the runner. I ignored them, concentrating on my target. He was a thin young man, so fragile that as I tackled him I thought I cracked half his bones.

  His threadbare clothes didn’t seem capable of holding a penny, let alone a weapon. He was so scrawny he looked like he’d hurt himself hitting me.

  “Why are you running?” I demanded.

  He just stared at me.

  Something black flashed through the woods in the distance. It was one of the men who’d come over the border earlier, though at that point I had no idea who or even what it was. While my head was turned, the man I’d tackled jumped up and began running in the direction of the fence.

  The man in black pulled his rifle up and began firing—probably at the runner, though the bullets came in my direction.

  I started to get up, then fell immediately on my face as my knee gave way. That proved to be a good thing—either the man with the black shirt didn’t see me or thought he’d killed me, because he ran directly toward me without stopping, intent on getting the other man. Just as he was passing, I threw out my arm and caught the back of his boot. He flew forward, tumbling into the bushes and losing the gun as he fell.

  Had Murphy been on my side, he would have sent him into a tree. But that bastard has never been particularly friendly.

  We both dove for the rifle. I grabbed it first, rolling it away from his grip. I lifted myself onto my left side, ready to shoot.

  The man in the black shirt froze, fear in his eyes. My knee had me in a bad mood, but somehow I managed not to fire.

  “Hands up,” I told him.

  He immediately complied.

  The lieutenant I’d been with came trotting up from the road, where apparently he’d observed the entire encounter from a safe distance. He obviously has a real future as a C2 officer.20

  “Commander Marcinko—are you all right?” he asked. “You have captured a smuggler!”

  He ran over to the man who had his hands up and punched him in the side of the head. Either the punch wasn’t very hard or the man had a particularly high pain threshold, because the prisoner barely flinched. The lieutenant gave him a few more smacks, then a kick to his side. The prisoner took it stoically.

  “Easy,” I told the Indian. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

  “He is a criminal. A smuggler.”

  “What is he smuggling?” I asked.

  “You name it, they bring it.” The lieutenant yelled at the man in Bengali, the native language of Bangladesh. It’s also commonly spoken on the Indian side of the border in Tripura.

  The smuggler didn’t answer. The lieutenant smacked him again, then hauled the man to his feet and began marching him toward the ATV.

  A few minutes later, the lieutenant’s two men emerged from the woods with Junior’s escorts. The escorts told a greatly embellished tale of having been ambushed by dozens of black-shirted smugglers. The shirt color was significant, at least to the border guards, since it signaled that the men were part of a local gang known in English as the Shirkers. The leaders were Muslim deserters from the Indian army who had found refuge in Bangladesh.

  I interrupted their tale of bravery—in their account, they’d each killed half a dozen before running out of ammo—to ask what had happened to Junior. They claimed they had seen him turning his bike around toward the base in fear.

  “He should be there now,” said the mouthier of the two. “He turned as soon as he saw them. Not a brave man.”

  Junior has his faults, but a lack of courage isn’t one of them. I knew they were lying, even before I found his bike in the grass a short time later.

  By then, more troops from the border guard station had arrived. While the lieutenant organized them into search parties, a sergeant with drooping eyebrows and thick forearms began asking the smuggler what he knew. The first two or three questions came in a calm voice; then the intensity level began to increase exponentially. By the sixth question, it was clear the man wasn’t going to respond no matter how hard the words. The sergeant resorted to using his fists, first on the man’s midsection, then on his face.

  This didn’t work either. If anything, it only seemed to stiffen his resolve not to say anything.

  “Let me talk to him,” I said, interrupting. “You’re not going to get anywhere like that.”

  The sergeant was a little shorter than me, but wider—heavy without seeming fat. He blinked at me. Apparently no one had ever questioned his interrogation techniques.

  “Commander, you should go back to camp,” said the lieutenant. “We will carry on from here. We are used to these searches.”

  He pointed to the three groups he had organized, which were moving into the woods on the Indian side.

  “If the smugglers are from Bangladesh, why the hell are you looking on this side of the border?” I asked. “Aren’t they likely to have gone back over?”

  The lieutenant smiled indulgently. “You do not understand our ways, Commander. We will see you back at the base.”

  * * *

  While I was trying to make sense of the nonsensical, Junior was imprisoned in one of the gang’s safe houses across the border. His captors had realized he was American, and while kidnapping was out of their line, they figured he would bring them a good amount of ransom if handled properly. With other things to worry about at the moment, they locked him with the goods they were planning to smuggle across the border after dark.

  These goods happened to be poor Bangladeshis hoping to find work across the border, and willing to sell themselves into virtual slavery for it. A dozen men were packed into Junior’s room, which measured roughly ten by twelve. They had been there for two days, waiting for their chance to get across the border. Women and children, including the little girl Junior had tried to rescue, were in the room next to them.

  “Does anyone speak English?” Junior asked as soon as the door was closed behind him.

  No one answered.

  “English?” he asked again, raising his voice slightly. It was a small room, but no one seemed to hear him.

  “English?” he repeated, this time even louder.

  “Sshh,” admonished one of the men. “Keep your voice down. Do not anger our jailers.”

  Junior lowered his voice to a whisper. “You can speak English?”

  “Most of us can.” The man, dark-skinned and skinny, looked about forty years old, with knotted fingers and deep wells around his eyes. “But reminding them of that is bad health. They think we are planning, like the others who left.”

  “How many got away?” asked another man, shorter and younger.

  “I’m not sure,” said Junior.

  “They have some chained outside. Did you see them?”

  Junior shook his head. He suspected that most if not all of the escapees were recaptured, but saying that felt too pessimistic.

  The older man explained that most of the people had been in the house for several days. Tired of waiting, a few had hatched a plan to pry boards off the floor of the women’s cel
l. The smugglers naturally objected, since that meant they wouldn’t be paid.

  Junior examined the walls and ceiling as the man talked. The three-room structure was made of clay bricks with a wood-shingle roof. The single window consisted of an opening filled by thin slats of wood—it wouldn’t take much to break through them. Junior could see parts of the four other buildings in the small complex through the openings.

  There was a commotion out in the courtyard. He craned his head but couldn’t see.

  “They’re trying to decide what to do,” said the older man. “They aren’t sure whether to decide if he’s dead or not.”

  “Who?”

  “One of the guards. He was left behind in the gun battle. They think he is dead, shot—we could hear the gunfire. Weren’t you there?”

  “I was,” admitted Junior. He wasn’t sure how many details to give. “I didn’t see anyone get shot.”

  The man listened some more.

  “Are they going to look for him?” Junior asked.

  The man shook his head.

  “No. They are blaming the people who escaped. They are trying to decide whether to kill just the ones they returned, or all of us.”

  (II)

  Less than a mile away as the crow flies, I was making a plan to find and then rescue my son. It was pretty damn clear that either the border guards had no clue, or weren’t interested in putting themselves in danger to find him. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to go meekly back to the outpost. The Indian commander assigned two men to escort me and the prisoner back. While they were pulling him to his feet, I took out my sat phone and called Shunt.

  “Man, you know what time it is here?” he asked in a groggy voice.

  “I need you to locate Junior.”

  “Uh, he’s like, with you in India.”

  “Pull up the GPS locator map. I think he was kidnapped and taken across the border. Or he’s lost somewhere in the woods.”

  “Hold on.”

  If I’d been in a better mood, I would have asked Shunt when he started sleeping at night—it’s not like him. We don’t break down our office costs by food items; if we did, I’m sure the coffee and caffeinated drink bill would look high enough to feed several third world countries.

  “Just under a mile from you,” he told me.

  “I need you to send actual GPS coordinates to my phone,” I said. “And stay on the line with me.”

  “Uh—”

  “You got something better to do?”

  “Not after I take a leak.”

  “Use an empty Coke can, Shunt. I need you on the line.”

  * * *

  Back in his makeshift jail, Junior had just stepped away from the window when the door to the room flew open. Two of the black-shirt gangsters came in and began pushing the men out of the room. The first two were slow to realize what the men wanted; they were hurled against the wall on the other side of the threshold; after that, the others filed out as quickly as they could, more or less on their own power.

  Junior ended up at the tail end of the line. The black shirt at the door held out his hand and said something in Bengali.

  “You’re to stay,” said the man he’d been talking to.

  “Where are they taking you?”

  “Finally, to India to get some work.” The man smiled. “Good luck.”

  Alone after the door was closed and locked, Junior went back to the window. He watched as two rows of refugees, men and women, were marched into the small compound. As soon as they stopped, the black shirts began opening fire.

  Junior shouted and pounded helplessly on the slat window, which despite his earlier assessment failed to give way. The gunfire continued, drowning out his yells.

  At the right side of the courtyard, he saw the little girl whom he’d unhooked from the fence. She was frozen, staring at the soldiers gunning down the others.

  “Run!” yelled Junior. “Run!”

  She looked in his direction, then bolted. At the same moment, bullets began slicing the ground near her.

  “Son of a bitch!” yelled Junior. “Run!”

  He punched the slat window. When it didn’t budge, he spun and ran full speed at the door to the room, crashing into it and tumbling free, into the hallway.

  * * *

  “You, here,” I said to the shorter of the two men who’d been assigned to escort me to the border guard camp. “Give me that gun.”

  The man opened his mouth to object. I snatched the rifle before he could talk. It was loaded with a twenty-round magazine. I held out my hand and demanded the rest of his supply—which amounted to a grand total of two more magazines.

  “What are you doing?” asked the other man, a sergeant well past retirement age.

  “My son is on the other side of the border. I’m going to go get him. Are you coming with me?”

  The sergeant turned pale. “We have to escort the prisoner.”

  “Great—I’ll take your ammo, too.”

  “I do not have a rifle.”

  “I will come,” said the private who’d given up his gun. He still had a sidearm.

  The sergeant started to object.

  “You’re welcome to try and stop me,” I told him, heading toward the hole in the fence.

  * * *

  Junior bounced off the wall to his feet and charged down the small hallway to the empty front room. Sliding on his heels as he reached the front door, he grabbed at the handle and threw it open.

  One of the black-shirted thugs was standing a few feet away, his back to the house. Junior bowled him over. Flailing wildly—his martial arts teachers would have been appalled—he knocked the guard unconscious and scooped up his rifle.

  The gunfire in the courtyard had reached a crescendo, the metal rap of half a dozen guns echoing against the hills on both sides of the border. Junior ran like a wildman, barely breathing as he raised the gun and prepared to fire.

  He halted just before the corner of the yard. The little girl lay at his feet, dead, her orange shirt soaked with blood.

  * * *

  There’s nothing like the sound of gunfire in the distance to make a Rogue’s heart go all pitter-patter. I quickened my pace, moving up along the side of a narrow but well-trodden trail that went nearly straight up a thirty-foot rise and led through a fallow farm field. The throb in my knee had faded, as if it couldn’t quite keep up with me.

  The same was true, though in this case literally, of the private who had come to help me. By the time I reached the field, he trailed a good twenty yards behind.

  The field was open for about a hundred yards. I sprinted for the first ten, then dropped to a trot for the rest, the pain in my knee gradually catching up as my speed fell. I reached the woods and grabbed for my sat phone, wanting an update from Shunt.

  “You’re five hundred and fifty three meters away,” he said. “I tried getting Junior on the phone, but he didn’t answer.”

  “I know. I tried myself.”

  “You sound tired.”

  “Fuck you.”

  I pushed on through the trees. What had looked like a thick jungle from the field was actually a set of undulating hills with widely spaced trees. Bushes and smaller trees about a man’s height filled in the gaps, but there was still plenty of room to move through.

  The gunfire had stopped by the time I got close enough to see the cluster of houses where the bandits were camped. A wire livestock fence, its strands forming large rectangular boxes, enclosed the entire area. I could see part of what looked like a military vehicle parked just beyond the fence; rather than green it was painted black, the finish worn and full in sunlight.

  The border guard who’d been following me slipped in behind me.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Sil.”

  “Can you understand my accent?” I asked him.

  “I understand.”

  He didn’t sound convincing, but there wasn’t any time to give him a competency exam.

  “I�
�m going to move up to the fence and reconnoiter,” I said, pointing to the area of the compound near the road, which was on our right. “I want you to move a little closer to the road. We don’t shoot until I say so, all right?”

  “Yes. Do not shoot until ordered.”

  “Make sure you can see me. If I wave to you, come forward. Got that?”

  “Come forward with wave.”

  “Good.”

  Head low, I started trotting toward the fence. After having UAVs and satellite photos and laser dazzlers, this was a very old-school operation.

  Modern’s better. Though I would trade an army’s worth of high-tech gadgets for a single SEAL any day of the week.

  Screened by the truck, I ran up toward the compound, searching for a good vantage. I found one near the fence, where a row of bushes provided cover. Still, much of the view was blocked by the nearby building. Two or three men were standing out of sight. They sounded angry, but I had no idea what they were saying.

  I turned and signaled to Sil. He made a little more noise running than I would have liked—there was something jangling in his pockets—but he reached the fence without attracting any attention.

  “Can you hear what they are saying?” I asked.

  “Yes.” Sil listened for a few moments. “Bury the bodies.”

  That made me feel all warm and fuzzy.

  “Come with me,” I told him. “Stay low. Cover my back.”

  I moved along the fence, pausing a few feet from the entrance as the interior of the compound came into view. I saw a little more than half of the yard, which was empty except for two large feed troughs.

  And bodies. A pair lay a few yards from the nearest trough. Neither of them looked like Junior, but that was small comfort.

  Making sure Sil was behind me, I ran forward to the building nearest the entrance to the compound. Checking quickly through the slats and seeing no one there, I moved up to the corner, cleared the area in front of me, and then began moving down the side of the house.

  Two men in black shirts walked over to the dead men, arguing.