by T. Ainsworth
“A man cries blood! Women cry water!” he said with a cold laugh. “As I thought, the poppies have made you weak.”
Morgan’s sniffed hard and audibly gulped the snot from his nose.
“As you will see,” Tawfik said, “Khalil and Bashra are prepared. Today—their wounds will smell sweet! Blessing their families with honor…Models for others to follow!” Tawfik came close again. “But you,” his finger pressed between Morgan’s ribs, “You, as the infidel Americans say…are just going along for the ride.”
He pushed his glasses back up then held up a large bag of heroin. “When the sun is high today, you will beg to throw the switch yourself!”
Turning away, as he opened the door to the house he laughed and said, “When I see your charred bones on the TV…I will rejoice!”
The men pushed Morgan to the meeting area where the entire camp had already gathered around Khalil and Bashra. Their heads were shaved clean and their beards were gone. They wore embroidered green headbands, white shirts and pants. The men chanted their names.
Morgan saw a jagged piece of glass on the ground and he inched forward until a butt stock slammed in his gut. Collapsing to the ground, he writhed on his back while the men standing nearby spit on him. As Morgan tried to catch his breath his fingers searched and found the glass. Before the guards forced him to his feet it disappeared between his wrists.
They took Morgan to a van with tinted windows, pushed him in and lashed his legs to the metal struts supporting the middle back seat.
Morgan strained his neck to look in the back of the van and saw a lumpy rug. He had no doubt what was hidden beneath. Slowly the piece of glass began to work its way from between his wrists to his fingers.
Khalil sat to the left of Morgan, Bashra to his right. Both wore unbuttoned oversized shirts covering vests. They mocked him.
“What’s it like to die for nothing, Barif?” asked Khalil.
The front door opened. The pit-faced driver brandished his Makarov, touched it to Morgan’s forehead then with a smile added a quick look down its sights toward the other men. He winked and holstered it. If necessary, everyone’s participation would be involuntary.
Nadia climbed in the front seat, turned, and gave each of them a callous smile. Holding her eyes on Morgan, she showed him a vial of heroin.
She saw him yawn, then gave an unsympathetic head cock as he advertised a pleading look. She raised her bag so he could watch her drop it inside. By delivering him to his destiny, her Pashtun duty had been fulfilled. She turned and faced front. She would not look his way again.
The motor coughed, and the van began to roll through the gate and down the road. The driver turned on the fan and rolled up his window. They were soon soaked in sweat, but Morgan could see that the driver wasn’t just clammy from the warm blowing air. His face expressed worry-laced intent as the van shifted one way then back while passing another rock pile.
His intense concern meant only one thing: Mines.
The stuffiness condensed the humidity, making Morgan’s skin slick. As the glass edge gnawed the fibers of the twine, he soon felt some release. His surreptitious work continued until they could slip freely out of the knot, then he stopped.
The van staggered along the road. Behind his seat, amid the serenade of rattles and creaks, Morgan heard metal cylinders banging against each other. As they bounded along, Khalil and Bashra engaged in an occasional animated conversation trying to express their excitement, but mostly they sat in silence, staring out the windows.
After passing several hamlets, the driver stopped and Nadia got out. As she walked away, she showed the back of her hand once to bid them goodbye, turned onto a side path, and was gone.
The widening roads grew thicker with traffic and the signs grew specific. The van followed an arrow. They were going to Peshawar.
“Where?” asked Khalil.
“Qissa Khawani,” said the driver. “On Fridays the market is filled with immodest women and men holding hands.”
Morgan noticed both men were perspiring more heavily as reality approached.
“I need to piddle,” said Khalil.
Morgan knew even the most resolute martyr lost bladder control at the end—a telltale giveaway to anyone who noticed.
The van exited the roadway, stopping deep in an overgrown lane. The Makarov came in view before Khalil and Bashra were allowed to steal into the bushes.
“Ana kaman?” asked Morgan. Me too?
The driver shook his head, until Morgan released a fart. The driver knew smelly flatulence inside closed windows might cause nausea, weakening the young martyrs resolve.
With the pistol pointed at Morgan’s head, the driver untied his legs and motioned him toward some trees. With his loosely bound hands behind his back, Morgan wiggled his waist while pulling his pants and underwear just below his hips, freeing his right hand from the knot at the same time. Morgan farted again, smiled at the driver and squatted.
The man turned his back.
Pulling up his pants, Morgan jumped noiselessly and buried the jagged glass deep in the man’s neck until blood gurgled in the windpipe. The body gaged, coughed, and fell to the ground.
Wiping his hands on the driver’s shirt, Morgan picked up the Makarov and dropped the magazine to count the bullets. He racked it back in place and confirmed a round was chambered.
In the distance, Morgan heard Khalil and Bashra talking so he patted down the driver’s pockets removing a small transmitter and a bulging wallet. Morgan opened it and quickly looked at the number of large bills.
“Blood money,” he chided the dead man. “Won’t get you to Disney World anymore”
Sliding both items in his pockets, Morgan clicked the pistol’s safety off, put his hands behind his back and walked to the van.
Khalil and Bashra smiled at Morgan until they noticed he approached them alone.
“Take those vests off and drop them,” he said.
“No,” said Bashra.
“Sorry,” Morgan replied. The Makarov came forward. The bullet ripped through Bashra’s pelvis knocking him to the ground. He screamed in pain.
When Morgan saw Khalil reaching for his detonator, he put a round through the man’s wrist. Khalil buckled over.
“Bad luck,” Morgan said. “Should have done as asked.”
Morgan walked to Khalil, lifted up his shirt, and yanked a wire off the battery then he walked over to Bashra. He’d be dead shortly. Morgan bent down and disconnected the same wire and motioned to Khalil. “Now, take your vest off and go get the gorilla.”
Trembling, Khalil loaded the driver in the front seat.
Morgan looked at Bashra. He’d let him exsanguinate for a few more minutes before moving him.
“Khalil,” Morgan said, “Open the back and pull off the rug.”
Pairs of propane cylinders were wrapped with duct tape and nestled in cardboard boxes filled with nails. Wired to a radio receiver and car battery, plastic explosives lined the inside walls.
“Nice.” Morgan grimaced when he saw it.
The planned horror would be sequenced. The vests would detonate at specific points on the street. As terrified shoppers fled, many would run in the direction of the parked van. An instant after the C-4 blew out the sidewalls, waves of nails and propane fireballs would kill anyone within fifty yards. In a crowded market, scores would die.
“Take that shit out,” Morgan ordered.
Khalil pretended to reach in but spun around and lunged. Morgan kicked his neck, rupturing his airway. When the gasping ceased, his body would join Bashra in the back seat.
Morgan tossed everything in the thicket except for a screwdriver and a small amount of C-4. He wired it to the receiver and battery and placed the charge under the passenger’s seat.
After starting the engine, he looked at the gas gauge.
“Too much.” Morgan got out to siphon several gallons to the ground.
With the bodies loaded, he draped the hand-knotted rug over t
he driver then looked at the two bodies in the back seat.
“Fear not, my friends.” He started the motor. “I’ll make your wishes come true today.”
Some women carried bags on their covered heads, while others walked with braided hair and bright lipstick. Everywhere men sat in cafés drinking tea and arguing after the noon prayers. A crowd of giggling schoolgirls skipped past, their heads decorated in white hajibs. A watchful teacher strode behind, mindful of her children as they wove through the shoppers. Morgan smiled and waved at them, then resumed his evaluation of the pedestrian flow while automobiles wove the bustle together.
Morgan’s stomach churned. The market had been well chosen for terror, so he drove slowly through the surrounding streets, searching for a less busy parking space. He put up his window so no one could see in. The drying blood grew more pungent.
On an overpass above a wadi, he found a spot on a one-way street. Hopefully, the debris would blow toward the dry creek bed, minimizing the danger at street level. Morgan prayed he could time the explosion to prevent innocent deaths. The news reports only had to mention that three bodies were discovered in the wreckage—the number needed to convince Tawfik and the other planners that Barif Ali was dead and the driver had escaped as planned.
As people passed without curiosity, Morgan studied the parked cars across the street, and then shut off the motor. Reaching down to the floor of the backseat, he turned on the receiver and took another look in the side mirror. He opened the door and walked diagonally against traffic down the street to the opposite curb to a small sedan and got in. He put the screwdriver in the ignition and turned it.
The motor started.
Ripping a pocket out of his shirt, he gloved his hand with it, turned the wheel sharply toward the street and engaged the parking brake. He shifted the car into gear, rolled down the window and got out.
He waited for an opening in the traffic, quickly glanced around, reached his hand in the car then released the brake.
The car forced itself into middle of the street, blocking everything that moved. People stopped walking to study the driverless vehicle.
Morgan looked at the scene over his shoulder while he walked away.
No one was too close to the van.
He toggled the switch and ran away from the frenzied swarm.
FORTY-NINE
Morgan bought some new clothes and shoes from a street vendor. He changed in a café washroom then drank tea and watched the TV news reports.
“In synchrony throughout Pakistan today, several car bombs blew up…yet another attempt to terrorize our citizens. This explosion outside the Qissa Khawani market”—the TV showed the mangled van lying lopsided on the street—“left shoppers in shock, but miraculously there were only a few minor injuries. The three vehicle occupants are the only confirmed dead. Although the perpetrators of these horrible acts remain unknown, sources confirm that a passport found in the debris of this attack suggests one of the terrorists was a Lebanese national, possibly with ties to Hezbollah. His name is being withheld by the ISI while their investigation…”
Morgan smiled. It had been a pain-in-the-ass day until he heard that.
Either Nadia or Tawfik had placed his passport in the van. That might have helped their cause, but it sure as hell benefited his. He was dead, and truly—a phantom.
Morgan stole a motorcycle. By dusk he stood at the mouth of the road that led to the camp. Watching bats whizz around, gobbling insects, he took a swig of his pabulum from the water bottle. In the fading sunlight, he looked across the meadow at the craggy cliffs, then at the ridgeline to his side.
Sneaking back into the camp was not a task he relished, but with the events of the last twenty-four hours his confidence grew that Tawfik had information that would be helpful. Nadia’s arrival last evening and his subsequent rude sendoff that morning had thwarted his original plan but he was trained to adapt. Still, Morgan hated to come back to the zealot purgatory, but would have anyway.
He wanted his satchel.
The road, with its hidden mines and machine gun at the top end, would be an impossible approach. Rubbing his beard with a dirty hand, Morgan assessed the cliff area where Tawfik had his home. Crossing the carpeted meadow to climb the rocks would take until after sunrise. The lookout on the ridge would see him. Before that he had to get through the bushes lining the road. They were unquestionably decorated with stick mines; Morgan had seen them crated in the camp. Strung together by wire, any step could set off a chain reaction that would shred flesh for yards.
Morgan blew deeply into his cupped hands for warmth and looked to his right side at the steep, rock-studded hills rising where only mountain sheep grazed. No human visitor would come from there. The spine of the ridge was well above the lookout. He pulled the driver’s Makarov from his pocket. The six remaining bullets would provide little protection. Stealth would be his bodyguard.
He walked back down the road several hundred yards, dropped into a slight ravine, and began climbing.
The clear starlight guided his feet while the rocks hid him. Protected by the isolation, he relaxed in the constant breeze. For a time his mind drifted, and he imagined Caroline was with him, walking by his side under the stars.
Ahead in the distance at the ridgeline, a horse whinnied.
Morgan dropped to the ground and listened. Slowly he lifted his head.
With his rifle shouldered, the lookout shuffled to the top. Never even glancing Morgan’s direction, he soon returned to his chair and blanket, assuming that whatever had startled the horse was probably just a sheep.
When Morgan heard the lookout checking in, he knew he had two hours. After using Jupiter’s position to mark the time, he rolled several feet over the ridge and slowly stood up.
The man was already snoring.
Morgan estimated the number of paces to get around the lookout and began his skulk below the ridge.
He crawled over the top to look at the camp gate. The second lookout was slouching on the truck’s tailgate under the machine gun.
“Stay right there and you’ll be fine,” Morgan pretended to warn him. Masked by his black clothing, Morgan vanished amidst the trees trunks.
There was one more group of sentries, and they would be the noisiest: he would stay far away from the goat pen.
Morgan got to the office door and licked his fingertips to lubricate the door hinges; the morning before, they had squeaked.
Using a little flashlight, he recovered his satchel and Koran, then looked at a calendar with a newly drawn circle on a Friday twenty-eight days hence. The wall map had pencil marks where two roads converged in a tribal area of Swat. There was a pinhole mark several miles away.
If correct, the site was well chosen. In that district there was no such thing as a casual tourist. The locals could quickly identify any outsider. Morgan’s death writ was simple housecleaning: the elimination of anyone not related by blood before the men in the camp made the journey.
He heard footsteps.
Morgan’s flashlight went dark while he stepped out of Tawfik’s first line of sight. The latch jiggled, and he entered, closing the door behind. He went immediately to his computer, where his hand found the mouse. When the screen lit up, his eyes saw a reflection, but it was too late.
Morgan’s blow to the stomach knocked the wind out of him and he bent over. Loosing his glasses, he tried to find air. Morgan’s fist slammed into Tawfik’s nose. Before he dropped to the floor, Morgan grabbed him to quiet his descent.
He raised Tawfik’s bleeding face and bridled the satchel’s handle into his mouth to prevent him from crying out.
Tawfik’s eyes narrowed.
“You’re dead,” came a wet grunt.
“I’m haunting you,” Morgan whispered, tightly gripping the man’s balls. Pressing his face close, he whispered, “I saw the map. The meeting…”
“Go to hell,” Tawfik uttered.
“Let’s try again.” Morgan squeezed his testicles hard
er then smashed his forehead into Tawfik’s bleeding nose. “Will bin Laden be there?”
“Fuck you, American,” Tawfik spluttered.
“We’re not communicating,” Morgan said in his ear, exchanging the rope handle for a rag.
Tawfik tried to punch him but missed. Morgan reached into the box of sharpened pencils and jammed one through Tawfik’s cheek. The point came out on the other side.
“You need fresh air,” Morgan whispered again, yanking the pencil. “Up! Now!”
Morgan raised the man’s arm high behind his back and forced him out the door. When Tawfik resisted, Morgan broke his arm.
He pushed Tawfik to the cliff and pulled the rag out. As Morgan held him off balance by his belt, he leaned Tawfik over the edge and said, “Will he be there?”
A goat bayed. Men would soon be up and moving.
“No escape, whoever the fuck you are,” Tawfik growled around the pencil. “They’ll cut you up slowly.”
Morgan pulled him back, watching his face flush with relief.
“Afraid of heights?” Morgan asked. “Cay wasn’t.”
Morgan punched his gut again. When Tawfik’s jaw dropped, Morgan crammed in a clump of fibers.
“Pig,” he said, “a souvenir from America.”
The man couldn’t spit them out.
“Only the…righteous…who submit…” Tawfik tried to say.
“You really believe God wants to annihilate innocent men and women?” asked Morgan.
Flashlight beams slashed the darkness. Men were moving everywhere, calling Tawfik’s name. Morgan had less than a minute to get away.
“Fuck you…”
Morgan turned him again into the void.
“Weak delivery,” Morgan said calmly, “but tell me, and I’ll spare you.”
The flashlights were coming through the forest.
“He’ll be there,” his voice rasped, still trying to spit out the hairs glued in his mouth.
“Thank you,” said Morgan. “And—for future reference, I’ve deceived you again. Here’s how.”
He released Tawfik over the edge, his scream ending with the thud.