A cold wind seemed to fill the street, her ears, as the Jeep filled the narrow way. It forced women and men against the battered daub walls. The fender scraped as she tried to turn a corner. Getting the Jeep out of here would be a challenge. They came to the narrow lane that joined two of the hillside roads.
“Stop. I’ll walk from here.”
She obeyed and he leapt out of the vehicle and almost fell. Khadija was around the Jeep to him, but he pushed her away.
“I want you to take the Jeep and go to the embassy. Ask for Simon Booker. You’ll be safe there and you can give him the message. Without me the watchers won’t suspect. There’s a good chance you’ll get through.”
“No.”
“You can’t help me, Khadija. You don’t know this business.”
He grabbed Safit’s fallen Kalashnikov from the floorboards and covered it with a drape of his petu.
“He’s my father.”
He grabbed her arm.
“Do you have any idea who these people are? They have no mercy. They’re the ones who slaughtered millions of Hazzara because they weren’t Sunni. They’re the ones who turned in doctors to the Taliban. They’re the ones who blinded your father.”
Her body wouldn’t move. It couldn’t be the truth. She had helped those same people, or ones like them.
“My father? He…it was cataracts that blinded my father.”
“No. It wasn’t. He may have had the start of cataracts, but it was the Taliban who burned out his vision. It happened after you left for England. He’d been a leader against the Russians for years, working with men like Massoud. Then he worked against the Taliban. They suspected and took him in for questioning. We bribed the guards to let him go, but he was lucky they left him alive. Luckier still they didn’t realize they had the man they were looking for all along. Since then we saw little of each other—until Yaqub’s death. Then I came by once to arrange people to help him.”
Her father. She hadn’t known he was a leader in the resistance. How could she not have known while she was growing up?
Because he was her papa and she did not think of him like that. Because he did not share those secrets with her, in an effort to protect her. She was the one who had been blind—for far too long. So many secrets and now she had her own. The question was whether she should keep them as well. Or wanted to. She looked up at Michael.
“He’s still my father. Besides—look at you—you’re still too weak.”
There was no way she was being left behind. He must have seen it in her face, because finally he turned and started towards her house.
The narrow way left no avenue of approach that could not be watched. Michael scanned the rooftops, the hillside of Kohi Asamayi. The late afternoon light turned the hillside golden and a lone red kite rode the updraft.
Khadija pointed. “There’s a man.”
Michael grabbed her arm and pulled her to him.
“You never let them know they’re seen. Now just keep walking. Whatever waits, we have the advantage of knowing they’re there.”
The pocked door soon came into view and Michael pushed her behind him. Let her father be all right. Let everything Michael suspected be the result of his fevered imagination.
Before they reached the door it swung open and her father stood there, his blind eyes searching.
“Pishogay?” His voice cracked with pain. “Run!”
“Papa!” She tried to pass Michael but he caught her arm. Her papa struggled for freedom, but someone dragged him back into the darkness of the house and a black-turbaned man replaced him, armed with a gun.
Khadija thought she just might be sick from all her betrayals. She should have listened to Michael. She should have carried the message. Now there was no one to do so.
“Hashemi,” was all Michael said.
Chapter 54
“You’ll come in, of course.” In the darkened doorway Hashemi stood aside and motioned them from the dusty street with the Kalashnikov.
Michael didn’t move, but allowed his senses free rein as he hefted his rifle underneath his petu. Yes, there were the rooftop shadows he’d felt. On the hillside, movement showed where a man in grey-brown clothing moved closer; he had blended into the stone before. His lone Kalashnikov would be no match in these circumstances.
He released Khadija and it was like releasing sunlight, but he had to get her free. She could still carry the warning.
“Let her go. She knows nothing.”
“But she has her uses, does she not? You have a taste for the daughters of Islam, I think. This one in particular.”
Hashemi turned his gaze on Khadija and there was such venom there, Michael wanted to protect her. He would not answer the innuendo in the man’s voice. What had happened between he and Khadija should not have, but it was not evil.
“Your comment dishonors this woman.”
“Come, come, Michael. I know your secret. I know you care.” He lifted his chin at Khadija. “She told me herself. Now come in before I grow impatient. I have The Doctor. He can tell me as much as you—more perhaps, before he dies.”
Michael swallowed, trying to find the strength to attack. He had expected this, hadn’t he—once he saw the watchers in the streets? He’d come anyway, because he knew his old friend was in danger. Hashemi must have sent his men to Skazar while he flanked Michael and returned to Kaabul by an easier route.
He sighed and stepped forward. It least this would get him inside. Perhaps his rifle could be used then, when his enemy didn’t have him in their sights. He shrugged the petu lower to shield the weapon further.
At the door he stopped. Close quarters beyond and he excelled at that.
“I’d wondered where you went. When your men died in the mountains, you weren’t with them.”
Hashemi’s face darkened. Another figure—young, strong, male—stepped out of the darkness and yanked Michael inside.
“Mizra?” Khadija’s voice, disbelieving. She followed Michael inside. “What are you doing?”
A stir of motion across the room and she turned.
“Papa!” She pushed past across the room to where her father stood, guarded by a hair-lipped man. Her arms rounded his chest, her cheek pressed into his chest; Mohammed’s arms came around her.
“Pishogay. My Pishogay. They told me you threw off your chador and ran away with a man. Was it Michael?” There was wonder in his voice.
“I’m sorry, Papa. So sorry for how I’ve acted.”
He ran his hands over her head, held her close. The tears in the old man’s blind eyes were painful to watch. Michael rounded on Hashemi. Beyond him, in Mohammed’s room, two young women cowered. Not a threat and Mohammed would know what to do.
“Bind him,” Hashemi ordered.
Michael whirled and brought the weapon up—slammed the barrel into the gut of the young man at the door and pulled the trigger. Rapid fire exploded. The man staggered back and back and back, his stomach gone. He hit the wall and slid, leaving a long smear of blood down the wall.
A scream from across the room as he turned. A knife flashed, slashed his forearm. Hashemi lunged—too close for Michael to bring the weapon to bear.
Another scream. So many screams and Khadija’s voice: “No! Stop.”
Her voice cut short.
“Drop the weapon or she dies.”
A woman’s voice. A short, plump, burka-clad figure held Khadija by an arm twisted behind her back, a knife at her throat. The tremor of the kitchen curtain told him where the woman had come from. Dammit, he was losing it. Should have seen, have known.
The woman yanked Khadija’s head back. The knife-edge had brought blood to the surface. It ran down to the edge of her jalabiyya. Pain and fear flooded Khadija’s face, but she shook her head.
“Save them,” she said, but the woman’s knife cut off Khadija’s words.
“I’ll kill her right now, for what you did.”
“Mirri, that’s enough. Michael knows what he must do.” Hashe
mi held out his hand for the Kalashnikov, a gloating smile on his face. “Your brother’s death is unfortunate, but Paradise awaits all warriors of the faith. Besides, look at this one’s face. He’ll do what we say for her life, just as her father will.”
Fear gripped Michael as his gaze locked on Khadija. If she came to harm, he would kill the Hashemi’s woman. To hell with what it might cost him.
Might cost the world.
To hell with the world! It was Khadija that mattered.
God, what was happening to him? What was it Khadija evoked in him? He wanted to live. He wanted a chance to be with her, to protect her forever.
He lowered the gun barrel.
“Michael, no!”
He allowed Hashemi to take the gun. Don’t show how you feel. But he knew it was too late. Far too late, for everything.
The hair-lipped man limped across the room and grabbed his arms, twisting them behind him, binding them, then lifting them until Michael was forced down to his knees. The floor was hard. The pain in his shoulders was overwhelmed only by the sense of skin tearing across his wounds.
“You have a choice, Amrikaayi. Give us the names. If you do, we might let the women live. If you don’t, we’ll turn our questions on the old man. Who knows how long he’ll live.”
Michael kept his gaze down. His lank hair shadowed his eyes. He shook his head. The yank up on his arms brought a groan to his lips.
“You’ll have to do better than that.”
Hashemi’s taunt brought another yank that sent red streaks across Michael’s vision. His body was too weak for this, and he knew it. Well, if they killed him, it would only be what he deserved. He closed his eyes.
“Who works for you in Kaabul?”
“The entire American Embassy.” It earned him a kick in the ribs from Hashemi that would have toppled him if not for the hair-lipped man’s hold.
“Who in Kaabul?”
“Fuck you.”
The toe of Hashemi’s boot caught him in his wound. He screamed. Worse than the knife blow. Worse than the bullet. It cut through to his heart—seemed to grab it and squeeze. The hair-lip released him, let him fall on his face on the floor. Hashemi’s boots found him them.
Again. Again. Again. The room filled with screaming. Khadija. Other female voices. His own groans. Until the Arab ordered him on his knees again. He swayed, where he knelt, only upright because of the other man’s hold.
“Tell me.” Hashemi bent over him. “Tell me or we’ll start on Siddiqui. His pain will be your responsibility.”
Michael shook his head. The blood on his lips joined sweat to taste of salt and copper.
“Let the others go. Siddiqui’s old—harmless. I’ll give names then.”
He’d lie. Tell them names of men already dead. Just get the others away.
Hashemi’s laughter cut through Michael. It was a sound from his nightmares. A sound that haunted him awake or asleep. The Siddiqui house disappeared and he was back in a crumbling mud-daub ruin and the night ran thick with screams. Too many victims. Too little time, and he and Yaqub weren’t prepared.
Screaming all around, faces of Hazzara women lit by the fires destroying their homes. Red off the cliffs. Gun fire and explosions.
Stop the screaming! Stop the laughter! He shook his head but it caught in his ears like a smell catches in the nose. He toppled, his arms twisting almost out of their sockets until he was released.
Then everything went dark.
Screams in the dark. Screaming that lifted to the sky to dissipate like smoke. No one listened to the screaming—except Michael and all he wanted was to cover his ears as Yaqub’s voice joined with the others.
“Allāhu akbar!” Yaqub screamed. God is great. It echoed off the red cliffs. It caught in the wind across the leaves.
There was a shot. Two-three-four-more. Who could say how many and Yaqub was screaming now. Screaming and there was laughter in the night as shot after shot rang out and the screaming just wouldn’t die.
Michael came to with Khadija’s hands on his face. He lay on the floor in Mohammed’s room, sweat stinging his eyes. The two stranger women cowered against the wall, Mohammed between them. The air stank of fear and urine. Someone had soiled themselves. He tried to move but the attempt sent pain spearing through him.
“Don’t,” Khadija whispered. “If they know you’re awake, they’ll come for you again.”
“We can’t stay like this.”
“They’ll kill you.”
“And I hope to die—after you’re free.”
“Michael, no.”
He grinned up at her, trying to find some fierceness for his gaze. He knew how it rankled her when he looked at her like that. He’d seen it in her gaze too many times.
“You got a better idea?” He asked it in English, using a mawkish Southern drawl.
She looked at her father and the other two women, then back at him.
“How?”
“If I can get loose, they won’t be expecting an attack. It’ll give you a chance to get the others out. Can you do that?”
Her gaze held all the gravity of the world as she shook her head.
“Why cling to a life until it is soiled and ragged?”
He saw her blink at the Sufi poetry, saw her expression harden. Good. Let her get angry. Let her think she would be better off without him.
“I have this.” From her pocket she produced the old scalpel, hidden in her palm.
“Allāhu akbar! Now cut me loose.”
She did as she was told, each sawing motion tearing at his battered body. Who was he kidding? Did he really think he could free them? He had to try.
When she was done he demanded the scalpel and hid his hands under his petu. “Where are they?”
“Hashemi and Mirri are in the garden. They bury Mizra. Ratbil—the man who bound your arms—he guards us. He’s seated in the other room.”
Slowly he pushed himself to sitting. The movement was agony, and his hands were numb. He nearly fell over. Just get this done. Just get them free.
“Go to the embassy. Take your father. They know him. Do I still have the Jeep keys in my pocket?”
She felt under his petu and blushed as she pulled them from his clothing. He glanced at Mohammed and was glad the old man did not see. When she had them, he tried to stand.
Once he would have been on his feet in one graceful movement, but Wakhan had changed all that. He didn’t know if he’d ever be the man he was before. Probably it was a good thing.
Slowly he stood, Khadija at his side, but he refused her aid. This he had to do himself.
When he was upright, he took deep breaths to set the pain aside. A stone I died. This time I will die a man and who knows what I will become.
He grasped her hand briefly, then padded to the door. Ratbil sat reading the Quran, his head bobbing as his lips moved. His forehead bore the kiss of the faithful—the red mark that came from all the bows in prayer.
Michael was on him before he could move. The scalpel slashed. Metal on meat. It cut through Ratbil’s forearm and he screamed.
“Go!” Michael shouted.
Khadija had the others were at the door. Please, Allah, let their way be open. Let the gunmen be gone. He slashed again and caught his foe on the face, splitting his lips into dangling flesh.
Pounding footsteps came from the rear of the house. He looked up in time to see a cast iron kettle coming towards his head.
Chapter 55
Khadija hauled Hamidah through the door. The woman was almost immobilized by what had happened. Her salwar kameez stank of urine and fear.
“Khadija, come!”
Her father’s voice. He clung to Zahra’s arm, leading the young girl down slope towards Asamayi Road. Khadija checked the rooftops but could see nothing. There had been men there earlier.
“Stay close to the walls,” her Papa said.
They hurried down to the Jeep. Zahra helped her father in. Hamidah looked shocked as Khadija climbed beh
ind the wheel. She fumbled the keys into the ignition and the engine started with a growl.
Just get them out of here and to the embassy. There would be safety there. There would be help there. She had to save Michael somehow. Perhaps the embassy men would know how.
She eased the Jeep around the first corner, but the fender caught in a jut of wall when she tried to turn downhill. She tried backing up, but there was not enough room. Tried gunning the motor and slamming the Jeep into gear. All it did was make the Jeep more firmly plug the road.
A shout came from uphill.
“They’re coming! We have to run for it!”
She stumbled out of the Jeep and grabbed her father’s arm, helping him clamber out of the vehicle.
“Just go!” she screamed as Hamidah hesitated. Zahra caught her sister’s arm and dragged her downhill.
Khadija came behind with her father. With no Jeep there was no way she could make it to the embassy on time.
“Allah, no. Don’t let Michael die.”
“If anyone can get free, it’s him.”
Her father’s voice. She hadn’t realized she spoke aloud. Down Kohi Asamayi, running through the people who stopped to visit, past the rubble of fallen houses, the children playing in the dirt. She let the slope lead them. Just get as far as possible. Save her father. Save herself.
They reached Saraki Kabul Wa Khandahar—the road to Kandahar city. Across the broad avenue was Darulaman Road and the long straight route to the remains of the royal palace and the camp of the kofr military.
She stopped and turned back up the hill. Michael had risked his life for her. He had brought her safely from Feyzabad. She would not leave him behind.
From down the road came the rumble of an approaching military convoy. She dashed into the street, placed herself in front of them and knew she was risking her life. Too many foreigners had been hurt by suicide bombers. They were apt to just shoot her.
“Help!” she yelled in English as the first Humvee neared. Armed soldiers stood lookout on the roofs of the armored vehicles. The convoy didn’t slow.
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