The setting sun was pale gold, giving light but little warmth as it moved toward the western horizon, and there was a jarring hint of fall in the air. The sky was pink above the horizon and dark blue, almost purple, overhead. Everyone noticed it now, the different colors in the sky, the shifting shadows and translucent hues. The cold wind blew in from Lake Michigan on the north shore of the city and swirled around them, stirring dry leaves at their feet as it funneled between the high buildings. The sky was full of color but cloudless, the rain clouds having moved off to the east, where they had already mixed with a blast of arctic air—months early down from Canada—to form a line of heavy snow showers over Pennsylvania and New York.
Azadeh Ishbel Pahlavi, Mary and Kelly Beth Dupree, and Captain Samuel Brighton sat on a rusted metal bench in a small, littered courtyard crammed between two of the high-rise apartments. Kelly slept, her head resting on Mary’s lap. The afternoon was calm, and for the first time in days, they had time to think.
Although they didn’t know it, very similar feelings had settled in all of their hearts. Together, they worried about the future of their terrifying new world.
The streets and sidewalks were full of people, people moving everywhere. Sam watched, wondering where they might be going, where they were getting food. He noted the different sounds: voices, footsteps, sometimes shouting, far off a sharp crack—maybe a gunshot—but never the sound of trains or cars. To their right, the elevated train tracks stood against the afternoon light, dark spindles of steel reminding them of what used to be just a few days before.
Sam wore his camouflage pants and shirt, which caught everyone’s attention. At first glance, some of them probably thought he was an imposter, for though his hair was short and tight, his face was dark with five days’ worth of beard. Seeing the holstered weapon under his left arm and the backpack at his feet, most of them turned away.
Sam tried to relax, though it seemed his eyes were always moving, looking at each man or woman who walked by. Inside, his gut was tight. He was in America, but he felt like he was back in the Middle East and, like an American in Kabul, he knew that he stood out. He also knew there were more illegal weapons in the neighborhood around him than there were in Kabul, one of the poorest cities in the world. Funny, he thought, how much it was the same. Here, like there, unemployment was rampant, the homes in disrepair, the abandoned warehouses, old buildings, and crowded housing complexes providing a haven for criminals. Here, like there, it came down to clusters of families and tight groups of thugs. The Americans called them gangs, the Afghans called them tribes—didn’t matter, they were the same. Even the looks on the faces of the people were familiar: vacant stares, resigned acceptance, hopelessness, uncertainty, anger, fear, some open rage, a few shy smiles. It shocked him how similar the two places felt. Opposite sides of the world. Opposite cultures. Very different people. Still so much the same.
He thought about their situation. He believed it had been a mistake for his mother to make the call. But it didn’t matter. Too late now. They probably needed to move, go somewhere—he didn’t know—someplace else. He looked again at the devastation all around him, and was convinced. Soon as Luke and Kelly Beth were able, he was going to get them out of this place.
Azadeh sat quietly on the bench opposite Sam. Mary sat at her side, her arm around her shoulder, holding her close. Sometimes Azadeh rested her head against Mary’s arm; sometimes Mary leaned against her head. Dropping his eyes, Sam looked at Kelly Beth, who was asleep curled up on the bench, her legs tucked up to keep warm, her head on Mary’s lap. She slept contently, her breathing slow and deep. Although healed from the ravaging cancer that had taken her to just a few hours from death, she was frail and recovering from the emotional and physical ordeal. Weak still, sometimes disoriented, she would need weeks to build her strength back, maybe months before she completely regained her health. Meanwhile, she needed food and water, proper sanitation, and lots of time to heal and rest.
And everything she needed, they couldn’t give her now.
He looked down at his hands, then held them up to the light, thinking of that night along the road, hidden in the cluster of trees, running as if his life depended on it, looking for his family and finding them in the trees, praying for the lives of his brother and the little girl on Mary’s lap.
He moved his hands together, rubbing them gently as he thought.
Sometimes he could almost feel it, the heat against his hands.
They had been there, he was certain. His father. Someone else. Sara told him she thought it was Azadeh’s father. He didn’t know if that was true, but someone had been beside him on that rainy night two days before.
Mary stared down at her daughter, absently stroking her brow. Her face was peaceful, her black eyes calm.
“She’s going to be OK now,” Sam said to her as he watched the mother and her child.
Mary looked up and smiled gently. “Yes, I am sure she will.” She spoke with unwavering confidence. “The good Lord didn’t heal her just to let her die a few hours later. One day she’ll tell her children of these wonderful days.”
Sam pressed his lips and nodded with a barely perceptible movement of his head. Stealing a glance at Azadeh, he felt his heart skip a beat again. She made it hard to think sometimes. Her soft skin. Her dark eyes. Her thin neck and delicate fingers. He thought about her too much and he hated that. He didn’t need the distraction and neither did she. She wasn’t American, not even Christian. The two of them were opposites in almost every way.
Still, sometimes he wondered . . . .
He sucked on his teeth and said nothing, just leaned back and gazed up at the empty sky.
*******
Azadeh kept her head slightly bowed, but her eyes hardly left Sam’s face, noting the anxious movement of his pressed lips. He seemed to fidget at the silence, sometimes acting as if he wanted to speak. She noticed that about the Americans: They expected conversation even when they had nothing much to say. It was very different from her people, who loved the silence; many of her closest moments with her father had been without words.
Sam kicked his feet, nervously moving the small backpack, then dropped his hands onto his lap.
She watched him and wondered. Did he notice how she looked at him? Did he notice her at all?
No. He was an American, an officer, and a soldier. He was far beyond anything she had to offer. He was part of another world.
Still, there was something about him, something different, something—she didn’t know, something stronger than bone and muscle. She didn’t understand it, but this much was certain: She was glad he was her friend.
Feeling the touch of Mary’s hair against her cheek, she brushed at the tickle. The wind gusted and she turned her face to the sun, feeling welcome and cared about for the first time since she had said good-bye to the old woman back at the refugee camp in southern Iraq. With the thought of Pari, her only friend in Khorramshahr, the memories suddenly came flooding back. She didn’t want them to, but she couldn’t control it. She might as well raise her hands to stop the wind as to hold back the memories once they had been released. The London doctor had tried to explain it to her before sending her to the States.
“How are you sleeping?” he asked her.
Azadeh didn’t answer for a moment. “All right,” she finally said in Farsi.
“Are you having any nightmares?”
“Sometimes.”
“Do you find it hard to concentrate? Do the memories sometimes flood your mind?”
Azadeh looked up at him with pleading eyes.
The doctor saw it and noted her response on his pad. “The emotional devastation you’ve experienced is very similar to that of combat soldiers. Your emotions have been jarred. Sometimes the memories will come out like a monster, too powerful to hold back. Don’t worry about it too much. They’ll eventually go away.”
So it was that, as she sat in the afternoon light, her face turned up to the sun, the memories was
hed like a sudden flood into her mind. She thought about her father, a man she loved more than any other person in the world. She thought of her old friend in Khorramshahr. The afternoon the flesh dealer had come to take her away. The first time she had seen Sam back on the hilltop overlooking her tiny village in Iran. The Iranian troops, their black uniforms and unmarked armored personnel carriers, the greasy smoke hanging in the air, her father’s cries of anguish, looking into his dying eyes, the vertigo and crushing loneliness of knowing that she was alone.
*******
The afternoon sun was low and cold, but Sam felt warm and safe and he started to relax. Watching Azadeh, her face soft and full of thought, his mind too drifted back to the first time he had seen her, the battle in the valley so very far away.
Closing his eyes, he relived the entire scene.
*******
Sam took a step to the right to see past his men and his shoulders slumped as he looked at the smoking tree. The lower branches had been scorched, all of the leaves burned to ash. The corpse lay in a heap at the base of the tree “Anything else?” he demanded as he looked away.
“No, Sam, that’s all.”
“All right then, let’s go. There’s nothing more we can do and the Honcho wants to get out of here. Move to the helicopter. Let’s get out of this hell.”
“Roger,” the soldiers muttered. They all wanted to leave. There was too much death, too much darkness, too much destruction and despair. And it seemed to be for nothing. None of it made any sense! His team gathered their gear and moved down the hill in a run. Sam watched them go, standing alone atop the hill.
A slight wind picked up, blowing up from the valley and lifting the smoke to the tops of the trees, bending it over the branches like the long, misty fingers of an enormous, dark hand. Sam turned his face to the breeze, hoping the wind would remove the stain from his memory and the smell of smoke from his clothes. He closed his eyes and listened, feeling the breeze on his face and the weight of his gear pressing against his shoulders and chest. The radio receiver beeped in his ear as the other squads announced they were ready to go. He pulled out the earpiece and let it hang at his neck. He needed a moment of silence, a moment of prayer.
He bowed his head slowly. “Dear God,” he began, then paused for a time. He wanted to say something, and he felt that he should, but try as he might, he didn’t know what to say.
He didn’t feel like praying. He felt like kicking someone’s head in.
He paused, then finally mumbled the only thing he could think of. “Please help them,” he muttered, then lifted his head.
Turning, he started to walk down the muddy road. He had only walked twenty paces when something spoke in his mind. He tried to dismiss it, but the feeling remained. He paused, then peered back at the smoldering tree.
She crawled from the high grass on the other side of the road. She was young, wet, and muddy, with long hair and a tan dress. She moved toward the body at the base of the tree, and knelt beside it, holding her hands over her mouth. Watching her, he saw her shoulders heaving and heard her muffled cries.
“Go to her,” an unseen voice seemed to say. “She is your little sister and she needs your help.”
Sam stared in frustration. “But what could I do?” he thought in desperation to himself.
The voice didn’t answer and Sam didn’t move. The sound of the helicopter blades began to beat from behind him as the pilots spun the rotors up to operating speed. He turned to the landing zone to see that his squad had loaded up in the helicopters and were ready to go. He heard his name being called through the tiny radio earpiece that hung at his neck. “Captain Brighton,” his team leader called him. “Sam, let’s go!”
He eyed the helicopters, then glanced back at the girl who wept by herself in the mud.
“Go to her,” the voice repeated.
The helicopter blades spun, ready to lift in the air. Bono moved to the side of the lead helicopter and stared up at Sam. The leader motioned to his radio and pointed to him. Sam slipped in the earpiece and heard the captain’s voice. “Sam, come on, man, we’ve got to get out of here.”
“Please, Sam,” the voice pled. “I can’t do this alone!”
Bono’s voice broadcast into his earpiece. “Let’s get out of here, Sam! Come on, man, let’s go!”
Sam reached for the transmit button. “Stand by,” he said.
“What are you doing up there, Sam?”
“Stand by!” Sam replied.
He turned away from the helicopters and looked at the girl near the tree. She kept her head bowed and her hand at her mouth. Sam took ten steps toward her and she finally looked up, her eyes wide with fear. She started to back up, pushing herself through the mud and Sam lifted his hands, holding them away from his body in a gesture of peace. She cowered, her head low, almost bowing to him.
Sam took another step forward and she slowly raised her head. She looked at him and his heart seemed to wrench in his chest. She was so young and beautiful; vulnerable as a piece of ash in the wind. Her eyes were brimming with tears, which left a small trail on her cheeks.
Sam caught a sudden breath. The feeling so strong it was like a kick in the chest. “I know you,” he said.
She watched him intently, then cocked her head. Her face softened and she quickly wiped a rolling tear from her cheek. Sam saw the pain and desperation and he felt his heart wrench again. He felt breathless and hollow, his chest growing tight.
He moved to her slowly and she backed up in the grass. She kept her eyes low, too terrified to look at his face. Sam stopped a few paces from her, then knelt down at her side.
He shot a quick look over his shoulder. Bono and two other soldiers had come up the road and were watching in silence from twenty paces away. They didn’t move toward him, letting him talk to the girl.
Sam moved a few inches toward Azadeh. “I’m sorry,” he said. He spoke slowly in English, hoping she would understand.
She forced herself to stop weeping and lifted her eyes.
And Sam saw it, a flicker of recognition, as if she knew him too!
He gestured to the charred body. “Your father?” he asked, locking her eyes with his.
She nodded in despair, then turned away from the tree.
“Where is your mother?” he asked her.
She only stared back.
“Mother?” he repeated.
Azadeh shook her head.
“You are . . . alone?”
“Now . . . I am.”
Sam leaned slowly toward her and reached for her hand. “Look at me,” he told her.
Azadeh kept her head low and Sam lifted her chin to look into her eyes. “Khorramshahr,” he asked her. “Do you know where I mean?”
She backed away from him slowly, her face uncertain with fear.
“A refugee camp,” Sam repeated, pointing with one hand to the north. “Khorramshahr,” he repeated. “Go there. They will help you.”
Although she nodded slowly, Sam could see she did not understand.
“Khorramshahr!” he repeated. “If you can make your way there . . . .”
“Sam,” Brighton heard his friend’s voice. Bono had moved to his side and he placed his hands on Sam’s shoulder. “Sam, we have to leave. Come on, man, let’s go.” He pulled on Sam’s shoulder, then put a hand under his arm, lifting him up and pulling him toward the road.
“Khorramshahr!” Sam called out to her before she disappeared in the grass.
*******
Opening his eyes to look at Azadeh, Sam couldn’t help but notice how much older she was now. She had seen a lot, lived through a lot, since the first time they had met. Both of them were different now. The entire world had changed.
It was getting dark, and the noise and hustle from the street was getting louder as the shadows grew. Sam looked around anxiously, the hairs on his neck suddenly standing on end. He didn’t know what it was, but there was a sudden dread inside him. Like a little kid, he was growing fearful of the
dark. “Let’s go upstairs,” he said, standing suddenly.
Mary looked up at him. “This will be our last night in Chicago?”
Sam looked down at her and thought. “Probably not. I want to check our route before we leave. It might take a couple days. Better to know what we’re walking into.”
Mary motioned to the neighborhood. “I wonder if I’ll miss this.”
Sam looked around at the chaos and ugly devastation, wondering how she could. “I’m going to go out tonight and check a few things,” he said.
Mary nodded to the streets. “It doesn’t get any better, not until we get a long way south.”
“That’s why we’ve got to take some time and figure out the best way out of here.”
*******
The apartment was as dark and quiet as a morgue. In fact, that was what it felt like—death, sadness, despair, and impending doom. Sara hated it. It was oppressive and claustrophobic. She knew her sons felt they were prisoners in the apartment, unable to walk around the neighborhood or even step out on the street. And though she tried to hide it, sometimes she felt the same way too.
She rolled over on the sleeping bag, listening to the breathing around her, then sat up. Her legs pulled up to her chest, her arms wrapped around her knees, she thought of her husband, Neil. For the thousandth time, she longed for his touch, his voice, his strength, his ability to make a decision, his optimism for the future, his courage, his willingness to help others regardless of what it meant to him, his eyes, his laughter, his sense of humor, everything he was or used to be. For the thousandth time, she wished that he were there. If she closed her eyes, she could almost smell him. She could feel him, his spine taut, his arms around her, his hands against her back, his stubbled face against her cheek. She closed her eyes as she imagined, then felt an overwhelming sense of peace.
“Patience,” the Spirit told her. “You have this to look forward to.”
Patience. She almost viewed it as a friend now. Life had taken them to an interruption, but not the ending. With such hope, she knew that she could wait.
Wolves in the Night: Wrath & Righteousness: Episode Seven Page 13