by Alex Carr
The boy swallowed, hard enough for Kat to hear it.
Kat pushed all pity from her mind, as she'd been taught to do, and pressed on. “Where is he?”
Nothing.
“Aquí!” she yelled, and this time the boy's hand flew to hers.
“Please,” he begged. “Please. I saw him. He was here.”
Kat looked back over her shoulder and watched the cops slow, then move on again. “When?” she asked.
“He came last night. He stayed in Abdullah's room.”
“He's still here?”
The boy shook his head. “I saw him at the docks this afternoon.”
“The ferry docks?” Kat asked, thinking, The trucks. He was heading back as he'd come.
The boy nodded. His hand was still on hers, his grip desperate.
Kat eased her arm away, reached into the pocket of her jacket, and pulled out her billfold. “Here,” she said, fishing out twenty euros for the boy.
He snatched the money from her, but the look on his face was accusatory, as if he knew how little the money meant to her, and that it was merely a salve for her own conscience.
JAMAL HUNKERED DOWN behind a stack of Gauloises boxes and watched the milky aureole of the Spanish customs inspector's flashlight play across the ceiling and walls. There was a part of him that wanted more than anything to be found, and he had to fight the urge to cry out.
The beam paused for a moment and Jamal caught a glimpse of shaky Arabic on the far wall, the writing of someone who had come before him. The beginning of a prayer for those near death, the letters fading toward a crooked scrawl, the request verging on heretical, for no good Muslim was supposed to ask for the end: “O Allah, keep me alive so long as it is in my best interest and give me death when it is in my best interest.”
Then the light was gone, and the inspector with it. Jamal felt the container's massive door slam shut and heard the sound of the long steel bolt sliding into place.
He drew his knees to his chest and closed his eyes against the darkness, trying not to think about the prayer or the fate of the boy who had written it there, trying not to judge the odds of his own survival. He had been lucky on his first crossing, had emerged from his carbon dioxide–induced haze with nothing worse than an unrelenting headache and brutal nausea. But he couldn't help worrying that he'd spent all of his good fortune and that this time things would be very different.
When the truck started up Jamal smelled the diesel fumes almost instantly, the saccharine odor mingling with the tobacco in the boxes. Two, three hours if he was lucky, he told himself. And if he wasn't, it could be days before the door opened again. He switched on the small flashlight he'd brought and surveyed his provisions: a thin blanket and a gallon jug of water, a box of biscuits and a plastic bucket for a toilet. He had prepared himself as best he could.
The truck lurched forward and the floor swayed beneath him. Yes, he thought, forcing himself to turn the flashlight off and tamping down the welling panic in his throat, what happened from here was beyond his control.
“I see you got your French chocolates,” Susan had remarked, glancing at the shopping bag in Harry's hand.
It was nearly a month since they'd met at the Caravelle, and Harry hadn't recognized her at first. In the daytime ex-pat squalor of the Duc Hotel's bar, Susan had seemed like another person altogether, younger and more vulnerable than the woman he remembered. She was wearing a white sundress made of eyelet cotton. Her hair was drawn back in a school-girl's ponytail.
She extended her hand. “Susan Maxwell. We met at that awful dinner.”
“Yes, of course. Harry Comfort.” Harry returned the gesture. Her grip was surprisingly strong, a man's handshake. Harry looked self-consciously at the shopping bag. “It's not what you think. I mean, it's a thank-you is all, for my housekeeper.”
Susan looked amused. “How are you liking Nha Trang? Getting plenty of stargazing done with that Celestron of yours?”
The Vietnamese bartender came over before Harry could answer, and Harry ordered a vodka martini. The man paused and, when Harry didn't say anything, gestured to Susan. “And for the mademoiselle?” His tone was polite yet condescending, his contempt for Harry's coarseness barely restrained.
Harry could hear his father, some drunken counsel on manhood: Always order for the lady, son. “She'll have the same,” he blurted, glancing at the empty martini glass in front of Susan.
The bartender looked at her for confirmation.
“A Gibson, please,” she told the man.
“Sorry,” Harry apologized.
But Susan waved her hand dismissively. “To tell you the truth, I'd rather order for myself. Sometimes I feel like a goddamn child with all that chivalry.”
She was drunk, Harry realized. And, what's more, she looked as if she might have been crying. The Duc was the Agency's transient facility in Saigon, and there were any number of reasons that she might be there, but Harry had the distinct impression that she was waiting for someone. Morrow, he thought.
She fumbled a cigarette from her pack on the bar and Harry rushed to light it.
“So Nha Trang,” she said. “You never answered my question.”
Harry smiled, trying to lighten the mood. “I've been sworn to secrecy,” he said, “so don't repeat this, but it's a nonstop party up there. Shuffleboard at the Czech consulate on Friday. Bridge with the Poles on Saturday. Lately the Soviets have been hosting a potluck Sunday. They don't call it the Schenectady of the East for nothing.”
Susan tipped her head back and laughed. Just a bit too enthusiastically, Harry knew, but he felt triumphant nonetheless. “You should come up sometime,” he continued. “We don't normally let the Saigon riffraff in, but I could vouch for you.” The invitation was made without any serious expectation, but he could see something click in Susan's face, the recognition of an opportunity.
“You'll show me the stars?” she asked.
“If you'd like.”
The bartender came with their drinks, and Susan took a long, grateful sip. Yes, Harry thought, she had definitely been crying. There was a faint smear on each cheek where her makeup had run. And how long, he wondered, had she been waiting? Two drinks? Three? More? She seemed like a woman who could hold her liquor, so it must have been quite a while.
“You don't find it disconcerting?” she asked. “I mean the universe and infinity and all that.”
Harry shrugged. “Not really. Do you?”
“Honestly?” She turned on her stool so that her leg was just touching Harry's. “The idea of all that space has always scared me. It's something I try not to think about.”
Harry could feel the warmth of her skin through his pant leg. He knew he should move, but he couldn't bring himself to. “Actually,” he said, “it's kind of comforting to me, knowing my place. None of us are ever as important as we think we are.”
She set her glass down and looked intently at him, as if pondering something. “Do you have a room?” she asked at last.
Harry nodded.
Susan moved her leg closer to his, then put her hand on his knee. “Can I see it?”
Harry was confused. “See what?” he murmured stupidly.
“Your room, Harry. I want to see your room.”
HIS CHOICE, Harry thought, as he turned into the parking lot of the Kona Pack and Mail. He had seen the consequences clearly that afternoon at the Duc, had understood from the beginning what his role in Susan and Morrow's affair would be, just what she wanted from him, and yet he had not been able to stop himself.
Their sex had been hurried and disappointing, begun and ended in a matter of fumbling seconds. An act to be endured, Harry had thought, watching Susan's grim face beneath him, her small breasts jerking up and back as he moved into her with the sloppy eagerness of a schoolboy.
Afterward, watching her sleep, he had felt ashamed. In the untempered afternoon light, the shoddiness of their surroundings was in full view. The room's scuffed walls and mildewed curtains. The
ancient stains on the frayed sheets, relics of prior trysts.
Harry had left a note on the bedside table, something about a meeting at the Saigon station, which he'd meant as a merciful out for both of them. Then he'd taken a trishaw to a bar in Pham Ngu Lao and spent the rest of the evening wondering how they would avoid each other in the future. When he finally went back to his room early that morning, he was relieved to find Susan gone.
HARRY TURNED OFF THE ENGINE and glanced in his rearview mirror, watching the same white Escort he'd noticed on the drive down pull into a parking space across the street. There were two men in the car. Too burly to be Agency and certainly not discreet enough. Though it occurred to Harry that being noticed was probably what they wanted, that they had been sent more as a warning than anything. Morrow's way of letting Harry know that it would be in everyone's best interest for him to share whatever he knew about Jamal.
He's in real trouble, Harry could hear Morrow say. He wondered if it wasn't Dick who was in over his head here. The boy was disposable, after all, and would not have merited even the Escort's rental price, much less the monkeys in the front seat.
Harry climbed out of the car and waved pleasantly to the two men. No harm, he thought, in letting them know they were doing their job. Then he crossed the breezeway and slipped into the Pack and Mail, where, he knew, Irene's papers would be waiting for him.
LIKE A KID AT CHRISTMAS, Kat had thought, watching Jamal hesitate, unable to make up his mind where to begin. On the table between them was a scavenged bounty of junk food. Beef jerky, a can of Pringles potato chips, various candy bars, blueberry Pop-Tarts, and a can of Mountain Dew. It wasn't exactly what the Red Cross would have considered a balanced meal, and Kat couldn't help wondering if she hadn't crossed some kind of ethical line.
Jamal opened the red Pringles tube and shook out a handful of potato chips. “So perfect!” he exclaimed, marveling at the uniformity of the chips. His command of English was a skill he was determined to show off, despite Kat's persistent efforts to communicate with him in Arabic.
Kat gave him a moment to absorb the miracle of modern food preparation. “Were you able to get some sleep?” she asked.
Jamal nodded enthusiastically. “It's very good here.”
Kat had managed to find a spot for him on the upper deck of the prison facility, in one of the makeshift cells the interrogators had created and set aside for prisoners who were deemed either too fragile or too important to be mixed in with the others. With its pallet bed and bare overhead bulb it was the most basic of accommodations, but it was paradise compared with the cages. Jamal had been made well aware of how lucky he was.
“I want you to tell me about your parents,” Kat said.
Jamal set down the Pringles and picked up the Pop-Tarts, examining the box carefully. “It is sweet?” he asked.
“Yes.” Kat pressed on. “Your parents, Jamal. Your mother died when you were a baby?”
He looked up from the box. “I told you already. She is not dead.”
“Of course. She lives with the king.”
“It's true,” Jamal insisted, reading her skepticism. “The cook told me.”
Kat nodded benignly. “And your father?”
The boy set down the unopened Pop-Tarts box and picked up a Snickers bar instead. “I think this is better.”
“Sweeter,” Kat observed.
“It's chocolate, yes?”
“Yes.”
Jamal smiled. “I like chocolate. Do you like chocolate, Mrs. Kat?”
“Yes,” Kat told him. “Very much. And it's just Kat, okay? Not Mrs.”
“Why not?” It was a scholarly question.
“Because Mrs. is only for married women.”
“And you are not married?”
“No.”
“Your husband is dead?”
Kat shook her head. “I don't have a husband.”
“Oh.” Jamal said, his eyes widening in a look of sudden comprehension. “You are a soldier, yes? Like the women at the camp. Mr. Hamid told me about the women soldiers.”
“Yes,” Kat agreed. “We are all soldiers here.”
“And at the camp in Herat as well. Mr. Hamid said so.”
Kat was puzzled. “Herat? Was that where you were heading?”
Jamal nodded. “He said the women were in charge there, that I would have to get used to it being this way.”
“In charge, how?” Kat asked, thinking surely this was Bagheri's version of a joke, his comment on the men there.
“In charge of everything,” the boy answered. “He said they were soldiers, like you are, that they carried weapons and even killed people.”
“American women?” Kat asked.
“No,” Jamal told her. “Muslim women.”
Kat shook her head, smiling at the boy's gullibility. “No, Jamal. I don't think so. Not Muslim women.”
Jamal shrugged, unwrapped the candy bar, and took a bite.
“Jamal?” she asked cautiously, watching him eat. “What would you think about helping us?” There, she had said it.
The boy stopped chewing and looked at her. “You mean like a spy?”
So he knew the word. “No. Like a friend. You could help us, and we could help you.”
“How?”
“I don't know yet.” She stopped, choosing her words carefully. “There are people who want to do bad things to other people.”
“Like the towers?”
He was smart, Kat thought. Perhaps too smart for Kurtz's purposes. “Yes, exactly. Like the towers. You could listen for us, and if you heard something, someone planning something bad, you could let us know.”
He took another bite of the Snickers bar and contemplated Kat's proposal. “And you would help me?”
“Yes. We would give you money. And other things. Chocolate.” God, she couldn't believe she was saying this. Would they give him money? she wondered. Surely they would. They would have to. She thought back to those two brief days in Tangier, the urchins at the ferry dock. Yes, she told herself, it was all for the best. “You would be taken care of.”
“And where would I live?” Jamal asked, already starting to come around to the idea.
“I'm not sure. You might go back to Spain, I suppose.”
His eyes lit up. “Or to America?”
“I don't know.” It was possible, wasn't it? “Maybe.”
And, just like that, the worst was done.
The blanket that served as the cell's door opened then and Hariri ducked his head inside. “There's a man here to see you,” he said. “In the ICE.”
Kurtz, Kat thought. Like a shark to the kill.
“I'll be back later,” she told Jamal, rising from her chair and following Hariri out into the corridor.
“How's the prince?” Hariri asked.
“Who?”
“The prince,” Hariri repeated, motioning toward Jamal's cell. “That's what the MPs are calling your boy.”
Kat shrugged, smiling slightly at the nickname. “As good as can be expected. He just told me some crazy story about a camp in Herat with Muslim women soldiers. He claims that's where he and his buddies were headed.”
“MEK?” Hariri suggested.
Kat shook her head. She was hardly an expert on the MEK, but she knew Afghanistan was well outside its territory. The group had traditionally conducted its military operations from within Iraq.
Originally founded by students at Tehran University, the Mojahedin-e Khalq had been serious players in the Iranian revolution years earlier, but they had since transformed themselves into a kind of bizarre military cult, combining Marxist ideology and Islamic theology with strident feminism.
Not long after the overthrow of the shah, the ayatollahs, threatened by the MEK's burgeoning power, had turned on the group, waging a fierce and bloody campaign against it. Its leadership all but obliterated, the few remaining members of the MEK had fled into exile in France, where, under the influence of a charismatic leader and his iron-willed
wife, and with the help of friends with extremely deep pockets, they had refashioned themselves entirely.
“In Herat?” Kat asked skeptically.
“I guess not,” Hariri agreed.
“It sounds to me like his friends were having him on.”
They had reached the ICE, and Hariri stepped hurriedly forward, opening the door.
She had done it, Kat thought, steeling herself for the imminent encounter with Kurtz. She had done what he asked, and she did not feel good about it.
But when she stepped into the ICE she saw that it wasn't Kurtz who was waiting for her but Colin. He was filthy, his face and clothes covered with grease and dirt. There was dried blood beneath his right eye and the beginning of a bad bruise.
“I heard you were over at Camp Gibraltar,” he said. “I came straightaway.”
“MITCHELL!” It was Stuart who woke them the next morning, his voice penetrating the darkness of the cargo container where they'd slept. The giant box was one of four that had been joined together to make the British interrogation facility. From what Kat could see, there was no indication that the structure had ever held prisoners. There was, however, ample evidence that Kat and Colin were not the first couple to have sought refuge there. “Hey, Mitchell, your friend's got a visitor at the gate. An American civilian named Kurtz.”
Colin rolled over and switched on the camp lantern he'd brought, then glanced at his watch.
“What time is it?” Kat asked.
“Six-thirty.”
“Shit!” They'd been asleep for nearly twelve hours, longer, it seemed, than the total number of hours Kat had slept since coming to Afghanistan. She sat up, scrambling to find her boots, feeling groggy and disoriented.
“Don't worry,” Colin said. “The MPs won't let him into camp.”
Colin leaned back on the makeshift bed he'd fashioned for them out of camp blankets and pulled Kat down toward him. “You'll come back tonight?”
Kat felt suddenly awkward. They had both been too exhausted for anything but sleep the night before, but the intimacy of it, here in this place where such unremarkable acts were taboo, seemed almost obscene, more so than if they had had sex. “If I can get away,” she said, pulling back, finally locating her boots.