by David Hosp
‘Get off me!’ he shouted.
The cadence of his plea caught in her consciousness, and she was transported once more to her youth, kneeling on her little brother, torturing him as he called out to be released. She recoiled, horrified. For a moment she was frozen, her mind incapable of grasping all that had happened in such a short time. She looked around the room, taking it all in. The stench of blood and gunshot and death brought her back to the battlefields of Afghanistan: the streets and the mountains and the desert, each one splattered with the lives of those with whom she’d served, and those she’d sought to protect. ‘Oh, Jesus,’ she said softly.
‘Cianna!’
She looked at Toney. He still had one arm over his face, as though afraid she might attack again. She sat back in despair.
‘We know where they were,’ Toney said, standing. ‘The cop saw them, and he knows how to get up there.’ He was moving toward the door. ‘I’m going up; it’s our only chance.’
She sat there, watching Toney’s man work to keep Saunders alive, her head feeling as though someone had filled it with gravel. Then she got to her knees, leaned forward and kissed Saunders’s forehead. She hovered there for just a moment before she got to her feet and followed Toney outside.
They found the path easily with Morrell’s help. It sliced like a wound off the northeast corner of the property, through a roll of tall grass at the edge of the trees. Even in the gathering darkness, it was difficult to miss. Cianna, Akhtar, Morrell, Toney and his last man sprinted up the mountain, ignoring the branches that clawed at their faces as they went.
The schoolhouse was a quarter of a mile away, its foundation drilled into an expansive slab of granite at the peak. Cianna wondered who could have conceived of such a spot for the local center of education. It was a tiny rundown structure with an abbreviated steeple over a doorway where a bell had once sent its clarion call over the valley below. The bell was gone now, the steeple’s wood shingles had partially pulled away revealing the wood skeleton underneath.
They approached quietly but without hesitation, all with guns drawn, hoping for a confrontation. They were disappointed, though. As Ainsworth had predicted, the place was deserted. All that remained was a scattering of food wrappers and empty water bottles.
‘They were here,’ Akhtar said.
‘This trash could have been here for months,’ Toney grumbled in frustration, kicking an empty bag of pita chips. ‘It could have been left by campers for all we know.’
Akhtar picked up a bottle of water near the center of the one-room structure. The top was off, and it was still half full. ‘The air is dry up here,’ he said. ‘The water would evaporate quickly, as in the mountains back home. Whoever left this was here recently.’
‘So, campers could have left this here days ago. What does it matter? We would have seen them come through Ainsworth’s property if they had been here tonight. We were right there.’
‘There must be another way down,’ Cianna suggested. They all looked at her. ‘It’s the only thing that makes sense,’ she said.
They headed outside and spread out, walking the perimeter of the granite slab, moving east from the path by which they’d come, looking for another way down. In the dark the search was treacherous. Twice Cianna stumbled and almost pitched down the mountain. She saw the path the second time she lost her balance close to the edge. She would have missed it were she not looking straight down the narrow ledge, but it was there, snaking down the east side of the mountain through the sparse, low brush.
They headed down the mountain, their pace hindered by the steep slope and the darkness, until they came to a high valley between two peaks, running like a river of green for a half-mile before climbing on the other side, back up the second rise of granite. They were two hundred yards into the lush vegetation when they heard the plane. It started as a low drone, like a dull ringing in the ears. Cianna at first thought it was the buzz of dehydration she had experienced so many times before on the humps through the arid Afghan mountains. The noise continued to grow in volume, though, and she noticed the others with her looking up in the sky, searching for the source.
At that moment the valley seemed to ignite with bright spotlights and a trail of tracers that ran in two parallel lines along the valley floor. It startled the group so badly that they all dove for cover.
‘What the hell?’ Toney barked.
‘Airfield,’ Cianna said, picking her head up and looking over the valley.
‘Up here?’ Toney sounded incredulous, but it was true. A narrow strip of land had been cleared, paved and lined with lights. It wasn’t elaborate, and it would service only small prop planes with limited range, but it was functional. At one end there was a little weather-beaten shingled hut with a windsock hanging off the top. Several of the lights along the runway were out, but there were enough to give a good sense of the landing strip’s parameters. It looked as though the strip had been there for years, but had fallen into disrepair. ‘Ainsworth must have put this in so he could fly up from Virginia when he used to use the house more often,’ Toney said.
The plane had circled back and was now coming in on approach. The lights were on in the small cabin, and Cianna could see through a large window that there were two men in the building, moving about and getting ready to exit. ‘We’ve got to stop them,’ she said. Everyone looked at Toney, but he faltered. He dropped his head, and the other men looked back at Cianna.
She glanced around at the terrain, assessing their situation. The path cut through scattered waist-high shrubs. The rest of the vegetation looked to be wispy mountain grass. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘We have to split up. If we all come down the path, they’ll be able to pick us off one by one as soon as we hit the runway.’ She looked at Morrell and Toney’s man. ‘You two, split off here to the west, and make your way off-path toward the building. Make sure that they don’t get back in once they come out. We don’t want to be dealing with a siege.’ She motioned to Toney and Akhtar. ‘You two split off to the east and head to the far end of the runway. The plane is going to have to turn around to take off again. Get there before that happens and take the plane out. Everyone move fast and stay low; try not to be spotted until the last second possible. They heard the gunfire from before, so they’ll be looking for us, but the more we can surprise them, the better off we’ll be.’
‘What are you going to do?’ Toney demanded.
‘I’m going straight down the middle of the path.’
‘They’ll see you,’ Akhtar protested.
‘I certainly hope so.’
‘A diversion,’ Morrell commented, catching her plan.
She nodded. ‘Like I said, they’ll be looking for us, so let’s give them something to focus on. If they’re dealing with me, they’ll be less likely to see you until it’s too late.’
‘But you’ll be out in the open,’ Akhtar said. ‘You’ll be an easy target.’
‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘But it’s the only way. I’ll be fine, you just worry about getting to the plane before it takes off, you got it?’
He nodded reluctantly. She looked at the rest of them, and they nodded as well. ‘I’ll wait thirty seconds. Get moving.’
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Fasil looked down at the wooden box on the table next to him. He felt nothing; no sense of awe or reverence, and it angered him. Here he was, inches from one of the great relics of Islam – the very Cloak that the Prophet Mohammed wore into battle – and yet still he felt totally unconnected to God. He wished he was more surprised.
The truth was, this was consistent with the experiences of his entire life. He’d attended the madrasa near his home as a young man under Taliban rule. He had learned the Koran backwards and forwards, and spent the better part of three years rocking back and forth, chanting the verses, waiting for the hand of God to reach down and touch him. It never happened, though.
Others in the madrasa claimed that it had happened to them – that they had reached a point of div
ine inspiration through the repetition of the sacred words; that God had come down and laid his hand upon them with his blessing. He doubted many of the stories, but the mullahs seemed pleased by every report that confirmed their methods, no matter how implausible. And so eventually Fasil too gave in. He claimed the privilege of rapture one day after an exceptionally long prayer. In reality, nothing had happened to him.
The authenticity of his claim had never been questioned. Indeed, the mullahs seemed even more pleased than usual. They had recognized that Fasil was a gifted young man from the outset, and had great plans for him. Fasil went along with their desires willingly, even as he felt the blackness of the hole within him. Perhaps it was this emptiness that allowed him to do the things he had done throughout the Taliban reign and thereafter. He was not tainted with a truly God-given sense of morality, and was therefore willing to go to extreme lengths to enforce the orthodoxy that others told him was essential to God’s desires. That was an enormous asset in uncertain times.
And now he had the Cloak. It would give him great earthly power, he knew. When it became known that he had saved the relic from the Americans, the support he already had would increase. In short order, much of the country – and particularly the fundamentalist elements – would coalesce around him. He intended to use that power to enforce the will of Mohammed. Perhaps then he would truly be given the gift of divine inspiration.
The plane was on its approach and, in less than an hour, he would be out of American airspace. Then he would breathe easily again. Until then . . .
He looked across the airstrip at the path that led back toward Ainsworth’s house. Ainsworth and Stillwell would be able to fight off any assault for hours. The chances that anyone would be able to storm the house and get enough information to come after him and his bodyguard seemed remote. And yet there was always a chance, and he intended to stay vigilant.
He saw the movement on the path before his bodyguard did. At first he thought it was a shadow playing tricks on his eyes, but then a gunshot echoed in the distance, and the window of the little hut exploded.
‘They are coming!’ he shouted in Farsi. He and his bodyguard took up positions along the bottom edge of the shattered window. He expected that their attackers would have taken cover in the brush, but it was not the case. Instead, the woman – Phelan’s sister – was coming down the path at full speed. She took loose aim and set off another shot at the little cabin. This one went well high and wide, though, and Fasil could hear it ricochet off the roof. She wasn’t even keeping low to the ground as she ran, and so she made a generous target. He strained to see whether there was anyone following her, but the path seemed empty. ‘She may be alone,’ he said to his men. ‘Take her out.’
His man squared himself in the window and carefully sighted down the barrel of his pistol. Time stood still for just a moment. Then he pulled the trigger, giving off a deafening report in the confined space. A moment later, the woman fell, her momentum broken, her body toppling backwards.
‘I got her!’ Fasil’s man said. There was pride in his voice. Then, more sheepishly, he said, ‘All praise to Allah.’
Fasil looked at him scornfully. ‘Get out there and make sure that she is finished,’ he said. The man looked at him apprehensively. ‘We don’t want her shooting at the plane if she is only injured. Make sure she is dead and then get our things out on the tarmac and ready to go.’ The man nodded at him and began to move. His bodyguard was a useful creature to have around, he knew, though he viewed him as devoid of any creativity or independent thought. He wondered whether that was what happened to those who had truly experienced the touch of God.
He followed his man out of the shack, and stood watching the plane. It was at the far end of the runway, and he assumed, given the wind conditions, that it would turn and come back to them so that it could take off into the wind. With the short runway, they would need every advantage if they were going to get out of the valley and off to Canada.
He still held the wooden box that contained the Cloak. He would let his man handle the guns and other baggage, but he wasn’t going to let anyone else take possession of the Cloak. There was too much at stake, and even the closest loyalties were corruptible in Afghanistan.
His bodyguard walked slowly toward the shrubs to find the body of the Phelan woman, Fasil called to him, ‘Jabar, hurry! We will be leaving soon!’
The man, who was almost at the edge of the tall grass where the tarmac ended, turned and waved in annoyance. ‘Maybe you wish me to shoot her ghost?’ he called back derisively.
As the words left his mouth, a gunshot rang out. Fasil looked over at him, assuming that he’d finished off the American woman. The bodyguard stood there, at the edge of the tarmac, his gun pointed out into the vegetation. ‘What happened, Jabar?’ Fasil called. ‘Is the woman’s ghost tougher than you believed?’ The bodyguard began to turn, and Fasil expected another witless retort. It didn’t come, though. He teetered, took one step, and crashed to the ground.
At that moment, gunshots erupted at the far end of the runway, and the plane began to swerve. Fasil heard glass shattering. ‘Shit!’
Fasil, still clutching the box with the Cloak in one hand and his gun in the other, dove for cover. He remained very still, waiting. He had been in enough battles to know that his survival would depend primarily on his wits and his patience.
Cianna was lying in the grass twenty feet from the spot where she’d pretended to fall victim to the distant gunshot. Originally she’d planned to take up a new position and fire off some more long-distance shots, but she quickly realized that Fasil’s man was actually coming to look for her. At that point, she had a better idea. She stayed still and waited. He was standing there at the end of the tarmac, fewer than ten yards from her position. She’d been afraid to move, assuming that he would see her and get off the first shots. Her opportunity came when he turned to Fasil. He was no longer looking in her direction, and she had enough time to raise her gun and fire it.
The look on his face was one of pure shock. It hadn’t occurred to him that there was a possibility that he had missed her – that she had faked being hit by his bullet. He scanned the grass with glassy eyes, but it was clear that he had no ability to see beyond a few feet. Then he collapsed, and she heard the gunplay at the end of the runway. She crawled to her knees, and looked out at the scene unfolding on the tarmac.
The plane was weaving from side to side. She could see Toney and Akhtar emerging from the brush, running at the plane, firing their weapons. It seemed as though the plane stalled for a moment, then the engines were gunned, and it lurched forward, sending Toney and Akhtar diving out of the way. The plane bucked and lurched, and turned steeply to the right, headed into the bushes. Even from her distance, Cianna could see the silhouette of the pilot slumped over the controls. The plane gathered speed as it headed off the tarmac. Once in the brush, it hit a rock and flipped forward, hanging there, balancing on its nose like a drunk circus animal, before toppling to its side.
Cianna turned her attention to Fasil. He had no one left to help him; no one to protect him. He was lying on the tarmac, taking cover behind a stack of bags outside of the small shack. Morrell and Toney’s man were at the far end of the runway, moving toward the shack, guns drawn to prevent Fasil from taking cover there.
Cianna got to her feet and started moving across the runway, pointing her gun at the bags. ‘It’s over, Fasil!’ she yelled. ‘Come out from behind there!’
He screamed something in Farsi she didn’t understand, put his gun over the top of the bag and fired wildly. Cianna ducked down. Morrell and Toney’s man fired at the bags from the far side of the runway, and Fasil returned fire toward them.
‘It’s not worth it!’ Cianna called. ‘You’re not getting out of here!’
Fasil screamed and fired two more shots in Cianna’s direction, forcing her to take cover again. Even as her head was down, she saw him scurry to the other side of the runway. He had the wooden box in o
ne hand and a gun in the other, and he moved quickly. A trail of bullets followed him, ricocheting off the cement, but it didn’t appear that any of the shots found their mark.
‘He’s making a break for it!’ Cianna shouted. She was on her feet, running so fast it felt like her lungs were on fire. She had to get to him before he made it up the slope on the other side of the second peak. If he reached the trees, he might be able to disappear. ‘Come on!’ she screamed to the others, who followed.
She could still see him through the shrubbery, his head bouncing into sight and then ducking down low. It was enough for her to track him, though, and she could tell that she was gaining on him. She was tempted to call out to him again, but she knew it would do no good, and her chest already felt like it was going to explode.
She paused for a moment and looked up to follow his direction. She could see that he had come to a spot where the path diverged. The main path continued to the west at a gentle slope and wound around back to the top of a steep rise. A second path went straight up the hill, meeting the longer path higher up the slope. It was a treacherous stretch of steep rock, but it was a shortcut and less than half as long as the main path.
Cianna turned and shouted to the four men following her. ‘Stay with him!’ she ordered them. Turning, she stuck her gun into the back of her pants, and started moving up the rocky cliff as quickly as she could. At first, the slope was manageable, and she could take the path upright. As she continued to climb, though, the rock face became steeper and steeper, and she started using her hands to pull herself along. Several times she thought that she had made a mistake in taking the shorter path, but she pushed on.
It took only a few minutes for her to reach the crest and pull herself over the edge and onto the main path. She was gulping for air, doubled over as she tried to gain her bearings. She looked up and down the path, but could see no one. She coughed as she cursed herself, wondering whether her eyesight had deceived her. Perhaps the two paths really didn’t meet up, and this was a different trail. Or perhaps Fasil had found another offshoot and had headed in a different direction. In any event, there wasn’t any sign of her quarry, and there was little she could do about it.