Wade

by Jennifer Blake

  “So her husband died and you had closure, of a sort.”

  He shook his head. “I should have saved her. I was close, so close. But I didn’t see the danger. I forgot that the person most likely to kill a woman is a family member. Sylvie died because I didn’t, couldn’t, see that. And so did…”

  “No!” Chloe exclaimed as she saw the direction he was headed. She went on, the words tumbling headlong in her passionate need to make him understand. “You weren’t to blame for the greed and malice of the old man Sylvie chose to marry, nor are you to blame for Ahmad’s fanatical judgment that condemned Treena. Other people deliberately caused both deaths. It isn’t your fault.”

  “I should have guessed what was going to happen. I should have stopped it.”

  “Yes, and maybe you should stop the rest of the world from dying while you’re at it. Maybe you should take responsibility for all the cruelty and ignorance and vicious, mindless fanaticism of belief that causes people to die every day? Fine, but it won’t do any good. The only thing that will help is to make it stop.”

  He was quiet while the fire crackled and the wind soughed through the dark green limbs that waved above them. Below them, they heard the sound of a truck coming from the direction of the pass. They watched its headlights from behind their screen of trees, fast-moving pinpoints in the darkness that grew brighter before sweeping past in a flash that left the night blacker around them.

  “Is that what you’ve been trying to do,” Wade asked finally, “make up for the way your mother died by trying to stop the thing that killed her.”

  It was so unexpected, his insight. She felt the tears rising, crowding against her throat so it ached. “I couldn’t stop the stoning,” she said, her voice a thread of sound. “I ran out to her, and when they finally let me go, it was too late.”

  “You couldn’t have stopped it anyway,” he said. “Mob mentality has nothing to do with reason.”

  “Yes, I know, but…”

  “But you still feel it, don’t you? You still think you should have done something even when you know there was nothing possible. The rational mind sees one thing, but what you believe deep inside is different.”

  His voice resonated in her mind, touching chords of recognition that she’d never quite dared examine. He could do it, she saw, because he knew the same pain, had the same doubts and regrets. She closed her eyes, pressing her lips together as she tried not to think and especially not to feel. “I’m doing something now,” she said finally.

  “You’re fighting the Taliban that brought back the old laws. And you’re hiding behind your burqa because you’re afraid of what will happen if you don’t keep it on.”

  “I remove it among family and friends,” she said, the words layered with protest. She refused to allow herself to think that he might be right.

  “But not in front of men.”

  “It’s forbidden.”

  “Not here, it isn’t, and not in front of me.”

  He sat perfectly still, watching her with a steady regard that held no hint of command or threat, no enticement, nothing at all to which she could take exception.

  “I’m not hiding,” she insisted.

  “No?”

  “No!”

  “Then I’ll remind you, one more time, that we had a bargain. My end of it was kept.”

  His voice was implacable. She thought he meant to make her face the fact that she still wasn’t free, even though she had left the Taliban behind her. That seemed to indicate a kind of pity, as if he thought that she had no control over what she wore or why.

  It was insupportable. With a quick gesture, she caught the fullness of the cloth that covered her and lifted it up, until she was lost in its folds, unable to see, smothering in the clinging confinement. Then she wrenched the endless yards of cloth off over her head and whipped them aside. With a gesture of disdain, she let them fall to the ground.

  She felt exposed. Felt cold. Felt an odd, senseless terror. She lifted a hand as if to catch the scarf that she’d borrowed to confine her hair and pull the end across her face. Having begun the gesture, it was impossible to stop it. To disguise that compulsion, she reached to unfasten the scarf and slide it off, baring her head, her neck, her ears, everything to his gaze. To lift her chin and look across the fire at him took every ounce of pride she possessed, and the last tiny shred of courage. She didn’t know what she looked like, had barely seen herself in a mirror in years. She could feel the cool wind playing over her hair, filtering to cool her scalp, and the sensation was so acutely gratifying that the entire surface of her skin prickled into goose bumps. Panic gathered in her chest with suffocating pressure.

  “Dear God,” he said softly.

  She swallowed, feeling the movement of her throat with the acute realization that it was perfectly visible. Only then did she allow her gaze to leave the point just past his shoulder that she’d chosen to focus on and actually meet his eyes. Reaching for anger because it was familiar and sustaining, she said, “All right, the burqa is gone. Are you happy now?”

  “Ecstatic,” he said as a slow smile curved his mouth. “Truly.”

  It was then, while they sat watching each other with the red and gold of the fire painting their faces and leaping in their eyes, that they heard a shrill cry, and the sound of a rock clattering downhill.

  10

  Before the sound had died away, Wade was on his feet, sliding his hand behind his back and drawing his weapon. He motioned for her to stay put then moved away from the fire. Seconds later, he vanished, his long dark form blending with the shadows under the trees. Chloe listened closely, but could hear nothing to mark his passage or tell which way he’d gone.

  She felt far too visible in the campfire’s glow. The need to get away from it, to melt into the darkness after Wade, was so strong that she could taste it. The only thing that kept her seated was the fear that he might mistake her for an assailant in the uncertain light.

  A few minutes later, she heard the murmur of voices. Wade appeared at the edge of the small area they had cleared as they gathered sticks and dead branches for their fire. His weapon was no longer in his hand, though Chloe thought she saw its shadow under his shirt as he turned back toward someone behind him. Then he ushered forward a man and a woman trailed by two small children, a boy of about six and a girl a little younger.

  They were Uzbek, from their style of dress, probably from the western border area. They had traveled far, and much of it on foot if their shoes were anything to go by. Their faces were gray with dust and fatigue. The woman hung back behind her husband, her head bowed and her children close against her. The man had a gaunt look but seemed strong enough otherwise. His face was long and narrow under his beard, and his dark-shadowed eyes were searching as he looked from Wade to her and back again.

  “You are American,” he said. “From the United States. Is it not so?”

  “You have eyes to see, wise one,” Chloe answered when Wade remained silent. “Come, please, and share our fire.”

  They edged forward a little into the light. The man’s gaze rested the barest second on the tin can where they had boiled tea, but he answered politely. “We would not intrude.”

  Chloe looked again at Wade, since it was his duty to play host to these people he had brought into their camp. He was frowning, as if he couldn’t quite follow what was being said, and perhaps he couldn’t since the man’s Pashtu was overlaid by an accent that made it difficult. He had brought these people into the camp, however, so she could only suppose his intention was to offer them hospitality.

  “Permit me to give you tea,” she said to their guests, and reached to tip water into the tin can and set it to heat on a flat rock at the edge of the glowing coals. She also added a piece or two of wood to the flames. Sparks swirled in the updraft of fresh heat and smoke, dancing into the cedar boughs above them.

  The man licked his lips without taking his gaze from the water. “You are most kind, my lady.”

&nb
sp; She gestured toward a seat near the fire. “Sit, if you please. Would you and your family care to drink?” She wiped the edge of her cup with care, then filled it with water, and offered it with both hands.

  The man took it, sipped as if from politeness, though she saw the reluctance with which he removed the plastic rim from his lips afterward. He turned to offer it to his wife. She barely wet her mouth before holding the water so her children could drink, first the boy, then the girl.

  “Perhaps you’ll tell me why you travel and where you are going?” Chloe asked as she took the cup when it was handed back, refilling it again with a casual air so that it could make another round.

  The man had owned a farm near a tiny village, he said, where his family had lived since the time of Mohammed. But the opposition forces had stolen his sheep and goats, and the Taliban had burned his fields for the crime of not preventing this theft. They had burned his house as well, and he was lucky that they had not killed him. He had left the ruins of his life behind to save his children, and meant to go to a refugee camp. But they had spoken to other travelers this afternoon, after they had crossed the border, who told him there was no food in the camps, that it was promised and promised and did not come. They told him that the relief agencies arrived to take pictures of starving children and went away to show the films, but the money they took in donations went to line their pockets, and so people died. Now he did not know where to go.

  Wade came to squat beside where she sat. Keeping his voice quiet, he asked, “What is he saying?”

  Chloe told him, leaving out nothing. He listened, nodding now and then. Then he said, “It’s a long way from the border to here for people on foot, especially with two kids to slow them down. Ask him how he came so far so quickly if they crossed only a few hours ago.”

  She did as he asked, then listened to the answer. “He says that they were given a ride by a leather merchant who works in Kashi, but whose Number Two wife is Pakistani and lives in a small village near here so he travels back and forth several times a week. He dropped them where he turned off the main road.”

  Wade nodded, but his gaze was on the youngest child, the little girl with hair down to her waist and eyes that seemed to take up half her face. She was staring at the small pile of nuts and dried fruit that Wade had left lying on the blanket. She inched toward it as if drawn, her small toes moving visibly in slippers made from pieces of old carpet.

  Wade leaned forward, reaching his hand toward the food. The girl jumped back like a frightened rabbit, huddling against her mother. Wade stopped, then slowly picked up a nutmeat and held it out to the child.

  “No,” Chloe began, then indicated as Wade glanced her way that the father should be offered food first. Either he didn’t understand the protocol or deliberately ignored it. He turned back to the child, still holding out the bit of food.

  The little girl looked at her mother who had turned her face away. She looked at her father. She looked at Chloe. Then slowly, inch by careful inch, she crept closer to Wade. Reaching out with all the nervous delicacy of a frightened mouse, she put the tips of her fingers on the nutmeat. Then she snatched it and stuffed it into her mouth. Her small face bloomed in a smile like the opening of a morning glory to the sun. She put out her hand again in an imperious demand for more, and Wade carefully transferred the pile of food to her palm.

  Chloe’s own mouth curved in response. She glanced at Wade, then could not look away again. His strong features reflected such warmth, such rapt pleasure, that it made her heart ache. She had not known that a man could look like that merely from gaining a child’s trust, that he could show something very like love for a small girl that he’d never met before and might never see again after this night. That he could give instead of take, willingly going hungry so a child he didn’t know might not.

  With a quick glance at the girl’s father, Chloe said, “I am sorry. He is American, as you say, and doesn’t understand our ways.”

  The Uzbek nodded gravely, his gaze on his daughter. “I am not offended. It was well-done.”

  From the corner of her eye, Chloe noticed the girl’s brother, not much more than a year older than she was. He was not making a sound, but his distress and longing were in his face. Reaching behind her, Chloe took the bag and poured out another handful of nuts and dried fruit. With an encouraging smile, she held it out to the boy. He was braver than his sister, or else had learned from her experience. He took the food that was offered at once, then stepped backward until he could sit beside his father. He devoured his treat to the last crumb before his sister was even half done. But though he looked with longing at what she had left, he made no move to take it.

  Chloe gave him a nod of approval, and watched a small, tired smile curve the boy’s lips. Then remembering her manners, she extended the bag and the few bits of food that were left inside to their ranking male guest. She turned away at once, busying herself with picking up her burqa and straightening its folds, to give him the privacy to do what he would with it.

  Something, some awareness that she felt as warmth on the back of her neck, drew her gaze to where Wade still knelt at the fire. The homage she saw in his eyes, and the added heat behind it, made her flush to her hairline even as she gave a rueful shake of her head for the loss of their supper.

  The Uzbek wife, who had come to squat near her husband as she shared the last grains of trail mix, reached to catch his sleeve and tug him closer while she whispered in his ear. The man nodded with a serious expression on his long face. Speaking to Wade, though including Chloe in his glances as translator, he said, “My woman bids me tell you that she believes we have come to your fire at the will of Allah. You have extended your hospitality to us and to our children, for which you will always have praise. But there is a thing we may tell you in return for your kindness. Will you hear it?”

  “Verily, and in gratitude, traveler,” Chloe replied with a tight feeling in her chest. At Wade’s inquiring look, she gave him the gist of what had been said.

  “It happened in this manner. The leather merchant spoke to us while we rode. He said that he’d seen a great disturbance at the border when he crossed two days ago. Members of the Taliban were causing great delay as they searched for two people whom they had expected to attempt the crossing. With them was an officer in a great rage, because it seemed they had missed them. It happens that he had sworn a holy jihad against those he called bastard Americans for crimes pertaining to his honor. He intended to slit the throat of the woman, while the man he vowed to torture slowly and destroy utterly. He would wipe out the name of his tribe, even to the last and smallest child and if he had to travel to the ends of the earth to accomplish it. I believe, honored one, this Taliban referred to you and your lady, for there could not be many such as you here from your country.”

  “And the name he would destroy?” Chloe asked through dry lips.

  “A difficult one,” the man answered with regret. “I don’t recall it.”

  “Was it…Benedict?”

  His wife tugged at his sleeve again, nodding as she watched Chloe. He didn’t need her input, however, for he said at once, “Oh, aye, just so the merchant spoke. The name was Benedict.”

  “Chloe?” Wade asked, his voice sharp with concern as he stared from her to their visitor.

  She told him, and watched his face turn grim. The obvious implications took only seconds for him to assimilate.

  “The only way he could destroy the entire Benedict clan is if he plans…”

  “Yes,” she agreed as he stopped. “If he intends to follow us back to the States. Our route would not be hard to guess, since he must realize that we’d have to cross into Pakistan by the nearest pass.”

  A frown drew Wade’s brows together across his nose. “But would the Taliban spring for personal travel for Ahmad? Would they even allow it, much less make the special arrangements necessary for someone with his unsavory connections. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “What are you say
ing?”

  “I’m thinking he may have another purpose, that maybe he volunteered or was slated to go to the States already, and expects to combine his jihad with that mission. I need to make a few calls before I can work it out.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  The glance he gave her was brief. “Don’t you? Did he never mentioned any assignment beyond his duty with the Taliban?”

  “Not that I remember.”

  “Maybe not,” he said with a dismissive gesture. “God, what I wouldn’t give for the satellite cell phone I left back there.”

  “You’ll be able to call from Peshawar. Or the airport.”

  “Yeah. Wonder how fast we can get there?”

  “We’ll find out in the morning.”

  His only answer was a distracted nod. It was plain to see that he’d forgotten her, forgotten everything except whatever problem was occupying his mind.

  “Kemal may have had the right idea, after all.”

  That disgusted comment came from Wade after an hour and a half of trying to thumb a ride. Chloe sat on a rock beside the road with her elbow on her knee and her chin resting on the heel of her hand. She was tired and hungry, but most of all she was stifling under the burqa she’d donned again. She also felt extremely conspicuous sitting out in the open when Ahmad or someone who knew him could be in any of the trucks and cars that passed at lengthy intervals. It was possible that he was ahead of them, since he could not know that they had not left Ajzukabad immediately, but there was no guarantee of it.

  She worried about Wade, too. He still looked indefinably American despite the turban bartered from their visitors of the night before in exchange for the pitiful gear that they’d rescued from the station wagon.