For Duty and Honor

by Leo J. Maloney

“Stop the car,” Badri said.

  Morgan parked, looking for a sign of what Badri might have seen. It took a few seconds for them to reveal themselves. Three men, Arabs with trim beards, swaddled in winter clothes. In their arms were Kalashnikov automatic rifles.

  Morgan turned off the headlights and Badri opened the door to the jeep to show himself. The men lowered their weapons. Badri walked toward them like the prodigal son and embraced them one by one, kissing their cheeks.

  Morgan emerged from the car. The three men got one look at him and pointed their rifles at him.

  Morgan was getting really goddamn tired of staring down the barrels of guns.

  One of them asked Badri a question in harsh Arabic.

  Moment of truth. Either they would accept him or they would kill him.

  “He is a friend,” said Badri in English, for Morgan’s benefit. “He helped me escape.”

  They did not lower their guns. “He is American,” one said. “He is the enemy.”

  Morgan took a step away from the car, toward them. They tensed their grips on their weapons. “I have no more love for my country. They are murderers without honor.”

  They talked among themselves, and finally Badri yelled at them. The boss, laying down the law.

  “Come on,” said Badri. “They have an airplane hidden on the other side of the mountains. They’re going to get us out of here.”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Alex woke up to a slap in the face. She opened her eyes, woozy, trying to get her bearings, and realized she was in the trunk of a car. It was open, and above her, silhouetted against the bright blue sky, stood a man. The taxi driver. A man some ten years older than her, green eyed, with black hair cropped short. He was a man she might have called handsome, in different circumstances.

  She tried to get up out of the trunk and found she’d been tied up. She tried to wriggle free and her arm chafed against the scratchy felt interior.

  “Who are you?” she demanded.

  “No one important,” he said. Russian, definitely, but his English was more than passable.

  “You work for Suvorov?”

  “You have other people in your life who would abduct you off the streets?”

  “Real wise guy.” She shifted her weight, trying to find a more comfortable position. She looked out, trying to get a feel for their surroundings. She could see trees, evergreens, but no buildings. “What happens now?”

  “What happens is, I don’t know,” he said, throwing up his hands. “They tell me to take you, so I do, and then I find out Suvorov is dead—”

  “He’s dead?”

  “—and now I have a girl in my trunk I have no use for.”

  “Then let me go!”

  He smirked. “It’s not that easy.”

  “I have money!”

  “I took your money already. Come.” He took her by the armpits and shifted her weight, getting a stable hold on her. “Don’t move too much. The only reason I did not kill you right there in the trunk is that I hate moving dead weight. That and the blood. You know what blood smells when it stays in the trunk in the hot sun? I know. It is terrible.”

  He pulled her up and out of the trunk. She swung her feet, trying to hit him in the groin and missing. He released her, and she fell to the hard-packed dirt of the ground. She shook off her daze and took in her surroundings. She saw a barn some two hundred feet away that looked as if it hadn’t been used in a long time. Back the way they came was a dirt road, overgrown grass intruding upon it from both sides. It was deserted for about a mile, where it bent out of sight.

  “You had to make it hard, didn’t you?” he said. “You could have had a little more time, it could have been pleasant. Maybe we have a little conversation, some last words for you. But no. You had to be a bitch.”

  Alex squirmed, trying to move into a position where she could see more than his feet.

  “Now I have to kill you here and haul you all the way to hurk—”

  A thump as the man’s body hit the ground next to her. His face was inches from hers, a blank expression on his face. Blood was pooling around him, and sticking out of the back of his head was a massive meat cleaver. And she saw legs in leather boots, moving toward her and then behind her, and then rough man’s hands holding her wrists and the scritch scritch of a serrated knife, and her ties were loose.

  With her arms free, she turned her body to look up and see Dobrynin unbinding her feet.

  “Come on, girl,” he said in his weary, guttural voice. “Let us get you home.”

  He drew out the meat cleaver, cursing as he shook off the blood, and then wiped it off with a handkerchief. He made a face and cast the handkerchief aside. Alex wondered whether he’d use the knife at the shop again. She felt certain the answer was yes.

  Alex stood, rubbing her wrists to get rid of the soreness.

  “Come, girl,” he said, motioning for her to follow him. “Car is down the road.”

  “How did you find me?” she asked as she caught up to him.

  “I called friend, told him stupid girl was going to get in trouble. He watched you. He saw you taken and followed the car. And he called me. So I am here.”

  She moved ahead of him and stopped him with two hands. And then she gave him a tight hug, resting the side of her head against his bloody shirt. She knew he was mortified. But she didn’t care.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “You want to thank me? Go home.”

  Chapter Thirty-five

  They flew low until they cleared any reasonable search radius. The men ignored Morgan and spoke quietly to Badri. Morgan instead looked out the window on the Russian countryside, gaming out what his next steps would be.

  With the riot at the camp, there would be chaos for a long time even after the Russian authorities managed to regain control from the prisoners. Hell, with weapons, they were practically in a fortress, and would be able to hold out for days, unless the Russians chose to bomb the place to oblivion, in which case they’d probably never be done sorting the body parts and would never find out there was anyone missing at all, except for a jeep, abandoned at the foot of a nearby mountain.

  In any case, nobody would know to look for these two missing prisoners for a long time, which gave them plenty to get the hell out of Dodge.

  They switched planes in an airfield a few hours out, then crossed the border to Kazakhstan in the back of a truck, squeezed in between bales of hay, daylight filtering through only in tiny pinpoints. And then Morgan slept.

  When he woke up, to the sound of the truck’s driver’s side door opening, those pinpoints of light had grown dark. Morgan heard the tailgate being opened, and the bales of hay at the back were removed one by one.

  They emerged into a dirt yard of a house surrounded by high walls on all sides. The sky was clear, and Morgan figured they must be in a small town, because he could see the stars with a clarity that’s impossible near a city.

  A man standing at the door embraced Badri and watched Morgan with suspicion. They exchanged some angry words, of which Badri had the last, and he called Morgan to come in.

  In the small, sparse dining room, the rich smell of meat wafted through the air. They ate a meal of lamb and flatbread, which, after weeks of almost nothing but spoiled potatoes and onions, seemed like the best thing he’d ever tasted. After they finished, Morgan wiping the last of the sauce off his plate and popping it into his mouth, a woman in a niqab served them black tea. Morgan said, “So what happens now?”

  The Arab grimaced. “I don’t know.”

  “I didn’t really ever think we’d get this far. You dream of freedom for so long, of getting out, and now that I’m here, it’s not . . . I don’t have a life to go back to anymore, Badri. Even if I did go back, if they find out I helped you escape, or that you helped me—well, I can tell you they’ll put me somewhere that’s not any better than where we just got out of.” He sat back in his chair. “Not that I’d want to. They abandoned me. Screwed me. So
screw them.”

  “What about your family?”

  “Better that they think I’m dead. They got a good payout from it.” He drank tea from his cup, hot and bitter. “Won’t do any good to anyone, my coming back.”

  “And your future? I could take you somewhere. Drop you off. We never have to see each other again. I may even be able to give you some money. You saved my life and won me my freedom. I owe you that much.”

  Morgan closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He found Badri looking at him expectantly. “What about if I help you?”

  A heavy silence hung between them. Morgan studied Badri’s face. He was looking off to the side, avoiding eye contact. “You are not even Muslim,” he said. “Why—”

  “—would I want to join the effort? I got screwed, Badri. I got no home, no family, nothing to live for. The only thing I got is this rage at the people who did this to me.”

  “I am sorry,” said Badri. “I am grateful to you. But we cannot allow—”

  “I can offer you something no one else can,” Morgan said. “Information. Insight. On the inside, you told me you had something planned. Something big. I can help you with that. I know the vulnerabilities. I know how to cause damage.”

  “I don’t know,” said Badri.

  “You don’t trust me.”

  “I have put my life in your hands,” said Badri. “In there. Out here, things are different. We are not joined by a common purpose.”

  “I’m telling you we are.”

  “No,” said Badri. “Tomorrow, we have a long drive into Uzbekistan. But for tonight, we rest. It has been a long road.”

  Chapter Thirty-six

  They arrived in Tashkent in Uzbekistan in the early morning, a driver taking the wheel and Morgan and Badri riding in the backseat. The car had no air conditioning, and the ride under the central-Asian sun turned into a hotbox.

  Badri talked to Morgan like they were old friends, telling him about his childhood in Abu Dhabi, prosperous but not rich, and about his education in London. His family was made up of devout Muslims, but not radicals. His eyes were opened, he said, after he came back from college. It was not only the wars of imperialism, the meddling of the United States in the lives of Muslims, the deaths wreaked by bombs and soldiers and drones. He saw what Westernization was doing to his country, to all of the Arab world. Changing it, eroding their character.

  Morgan listened in spite of the heat as Badri told him about getting married and the joy of having children. And he spoke about adopting the radical fundamentalist faith of the Wahhabists and its return to a true Islam.

  “The entire world is becoming decadent,” he said. “They need a wake-up call. And talk cannot bring the change that is needed. That is why I fight. That is why we must kill.”

  They entered the city of Tashkent in the middle of the afternoon. Like most ancient cities, it was marked by the juxtaposition of the old and the new. The city was sprinkled with old Soviet monuments, and many of the streets were lined with trees.

  The driver pulled into a parking lot adjoining a large sky-blue dome. Chorsu Bazaar, their destination, was where they were to meet Badri’s contact, who would sent the terrorist along to his mission and arrange for Morgan to be transported where he wished.

  “It’s a pretty goddamn open space,” said Morgan. “Lots of people, too.”

  “My contact insisted we meet here,” Badri said. “He wanted a public place. He is wary of you.”

  Morgan and Badri walked together into the bazaar, a round area under the dome, arranged in concentric circles of wares. The butchers were along the outer rim in enclosed refrigerated shops. The floor held a wealth of foodstuffs, nuts and dried fruit and spices, pungent and rich, ranging from the vivid yellow of turmeric through the red of paprika to the black of pepper.

  Morgan took in the space with trained eyes as they rounded the bazaar, Badri looking for his contact.

  After they’d completed a full circle, Morgan leaned close to Badri. “We’re being followed,” he whispered.

  Badri’s eyes widened, but then returned to a neutral state. He was well practiced, Morgan saw, and knew how to keep his cool in a dangerous situation.

  “Look, but use your peripheral vision. Pretend we’re looking for our contact. Guy over on the other aisle holding the briefcase. Guy looking at meats over at the butcher. Man leaning against the wall near the bathroom.”

  “We are surrounded,” said Badri.

  “It appears so.”

  “They do not look Uzbek. Nor Russian, I believe.”

  “Might be American,” Morgan said. “Doesn’t really matter.”

  “What does?”

  “Getting out of here. Keep your eyes out and follow my lead.”

  They continued their way around, the men following them moving along to maintain a line of sight. The nearest one, now examining a table of nuts, began his approach.

  “They’re making their move,” said Morgan. “Wait for my mark.”

  “What will that be?”

  “You can’t miss it.”

  The man was close now. He was wearing a baggy Hawaiian shirt, open over an undershirt, than covered a concealed-carry shoulder holster.

  Morgan bided his time, waiting as the man approached from the side. When he was five feet away, Morgan turned and hit him with a head butt. As the man staggered back, Morgan reached into his shirt and drew out his gun. He turned to see the others closing in from the periphery of the domed market, three by his count.

  Morgan aimed at the chest of the nearest one. A woman spotted his gun and screamed.

  Morgan aimed down. He fired twice into a row of bags of spice.

  A plume of red and yellow shot into the air. People were coughing. The man covered his eyes, hollering in pain.

  And people were running, panicked, away from the gunshot.

  “Run!”

  Keeping low, they ran under the cover of the spices and blended into the crowd. Morgan jumped over a stall, overturning a bucket of pistachios. Badri was at his heels. Morgan turned to look at their pursuers. At least one had spotted them, but the rest were running around trying to navigate the crowd.

  There would be more waiting for them outside.

  Morgan and Badri ran out into the hot sunlight along with the rest of the crowd. Morgan hid the gun in his waistband. Blending in might give them a few precious seconds.

  He saw them—men dressed in various different guises as tourists, standing at the edges of the court that surrounded the bazaar, looking through the crowd.

  No way out but through it.

  He ran with the crowd as long as they were not spotted. And then the nearest agent looked into his eyes, and Morgan saw the expression of recognition.

  He lowered his torso and hit the man full force, lifting him clear off the ground before sending him sailing on his back. He took off running with desperate speed, Badri behind him, as the other agents moved toward them. But they had broken the cordon, and now the agents were behind them.

  Morgan and Badri were in the parking lot now. Morgan spotted a man getting into a Daewoo sedan. He pulled out the gun and pointed it at the driver.

  “Out!”

  The man stepped away from the car, his hands up, holding his keys. Morgan grabbed them and jumped into the driver’s seat.

  “Get in!”

  Badri got into the passenger seat and Morgan gunned the reverse before his door was closed. He cleared the parking space and put the car in first, accelerating, tires screeching, as their pursuers drew their weapons and readied to shoot. They accelerated away as gunshots hit the trunk. One bullet shattered the rear window.

  Morgan turned at the end of the row and saw more trouble ahead. The exit to the parking lot was blocked by two cars. There were more agents there, guns already drawn and trained on their car.

  He turned with squealing tires into the next row and gamed the situation out in his head. The exit was blocked, and the lot was separated from the street by a low wa
ll that was probably too solid to ram.

  That left one possibility.

  He turned the car back toward the bazaar.

  “What are you doing?” Badri yelled.

  “Getting us out of here!”

  He drove onto the pedestrian walkways toward the dome of the Chorsu Bazaar. The pedestrians had cleared it by now, and the door was wide, more than enough for the car to pass. Just one obstacle stood between them—a staircase, some twelve or fifteen short steps.

  The car wasn’t going to like it. But it would have to do. The Daewoo lurched as they hit the steps, and then climbed, heaving, until they were level with the bazaar.

  Morgan felt the tires low, blown out by the impact. And then they crashed through the doors of the bazaar, sending glass flying in every direction. Morgan maneuvered around the space, deserted of people, sending up clouds of spices and rain of nuts and dried fruit.

  They crashed through the door on the other side, bulldozing through an aisle of the covered vegetable market. No one waiting for them there. No one thought they’d be crazy enough to make the maneuver.

  They came out amid a crowd of screaming people, who parted for them to pass. And then Morgan drove the car onto the street, with the two front wheels scraping the ground and the windshield cracked from end to end. But it was whole enough to carry them away from the bazaar, and from their pursuers.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  “How did they find us?” said Badri in a fevered panic.

  Morgan was driving the car away from the populated, tourist-thick area of the bazaar toward the outskirts of the city. They needed to ditch the car soon. They were attracting attention, with its front tires in rags and entire front scratched and bent.

  “They must have made your contact.” Morgan’s heart was still pounding, adrenaline still coursing through his veins, but he was calm. This was just another problem to be solved. “We need to get out of town. But we need a new car first. This car is going to get stopped as soon as a policeman sees us.”

  Morgan turned into a side street and parked the car. They got out on a street that bordered a series of office buildings, all concrete and reflective glass. Morgan took a tire iron from the trunk and led the way to the nearest parking lot. He checked that they were not being seen and shattered the driver’s side window of a Chevy Cobalt. He motioned for Badri to get inside.