by Eric Meyer
"We have a problem," Khan began, "My friend here wants to kill you, but I'm not so sure. I don't wish to do anything to upset the ransom negotiations. That is why you came to Pakistan, is it not? To negotiate a ransom."
He didn't answer, and Griggs kicked him again. Stoner stared at him. "I came here to kill you, Griggs. Your death is way overdue."
The man chuckled. “You’re dreaming, pal. Right now, you're this much away," he held up two fingers close together, "from me killing you. And there’s not a damn thing you can do about it."
They'd fastened Stoner's wrists behind his back with some kind of electrical tape. The bindings were so tight he'd lost all feeling in his hands, and numbness was creeping up his arms. He had no chance of getting free.
“Stop this nonsense," Khan snapped at his second-in-command, "It seems to me you've given us a unique opportunity for more profit. An extra hostage, and I've decided to increase the amount of ransom the American government will have to pay to get you back. The price for the women is one hundred million dollars, and I estimate an extra two million dollars for your life. I’ve already sent a message to Ambassador Adams, in case he deludes himself into thinking there is another way he can free his wife. Tell me, Mr. Stoner, did you come here to negotiate, or was it some quixotic idea to free the women without paying?"
"Like I said, I came to kill him."
"Griggs? Why him?"
"Because he's a rancid piece of shit who deserves to die."
He sighed. "I grow tired of your stupidity. I will leave you here to think about your replies. If I don’t get the answers I require, I’ll instruct the Colonel to break every bone in your body, and then beat you until you’re almost dead. If you still don’t cooperate, he’ll finish you with a bullet in the head. Do you understand me?"
"Fuck you. Is that enough understanding?”
He ignored the insult. “My men will give you a taste of what is in store for you, should you decide not to cooperate. I suggest you think very seriously about your answers before I come back.”
He nodded to Griggs, and they left the vault. Two men remained, and without a word they set about beating him with the butts of their rifles. When their arms ached they used their boots, and all he could do was try to roll with the hardest blows. The beating lasted for ten minutes, and when they left, he spat out a bloody tooth on the floor and tried to move his body to favor the worst of his injuries. They'd beaten him on the head several times with wooden rifle butts, and his vision was blurred, so he was seeing double. He assumed it would clear. Unless they’d cracked his skull and he was suffering from severe concussion. In which case, he’d probably die anyway. Why worry?
He cursed himself for trusting an Afghan. For not suspecting Colonel Rahman was using his Presidential connections as a cover so he could carry out his own agenda. Like many Afghan soldiers, that agenda could be descried in a single word. Loot. With the President behind him, he’d be untouchable. His unit of former insurgents, drug traffickers, and hitmen would follow him as long as they thought they'd get rich.
They'd thrown in their lot with the Haqqanis, and were no doubt already working out their share of the ransom money. Which meant he was on his own. Back at the coffeehouse, Greg would have no idea what had happened. When he failed to return, Blum would assume he'd run into more trouble than he could handle, and he may return to the Ambassador and report failure. In which case maybe they'd cough up the ransom. By then he’d be long dead. He briefly thought of Ivan but discounted any help from him. The man was CIA through and through, and under strict instructions to avoid any Pakistani entanglements. He was screwed.
He passed out again from waves of pain and surfaced after a further few minutes. He felt his head clearing, and it helped him think straight. He’d been about to give up hope, and that wasn't the way he operated. Nor was it the way they taught him in the SEALs, and since then, he'd operated on a simple set of principles. Well, one principle. As long as he was breathing, he was in with a chance.
His vision cleared, and he glanced around the bank vault that they'd made his prison. The glow of an emergency light was enough for him to see his surroundings. Unsurprisingly, there was a single way in and a single way out. The massive steel door, and it would be opened by means of dialing a combination on the outside. He continued gazing around the room. Looking for anything that might make an opportunity to get out. He faced two problems. One was the plastic tape that held his hands fastened behind his back. The other was getting the door open. He didn’t have a solution for either.
After several minutes of searching the room, examining every possibility, he came up with some ideas. He staggered painfully to his feet. They’d left a drawer to a filing cabinet slightly open, and when he reached it, he managed to open it further using his bound hands and found what he'd expected to find. The thin steel runner that supported the drawer along the bottom edge was unfinished metal. With a feeling of elation he put his hands against the thin metal slide and began rubbing the sharp edge over the tape. After several minutes the tape parted, and he brought his hands in front of him to examine the damage.
He’d cut the skin of his wrists to a bloody mess, but the cuts were superficial, and he wiped the blood away on his shirt. The circulation was returning to his hands, and he started on the next stage. Looking for a way out of the vault. The door was massive, impossible to open without either the outside combination or an oxy acetylene torch. He was still searching when he found it. The manufacturer had taken precautions against an employee locking themselves inside.
An emergency release button, or so he assumed. The label below the big red button was printed in Urdu, which read like Martian. The problem was deciding what would happen if he pressed it. A squad of men could come running inside and start blasting, or maybe not. He stared at the strange letters for several minutes, trying to decide. Either it was the way out, or it’d bring a heap more trouble down on his head.
Although sooner or later men would come, so it would be better if they came at the time of his choosing, rather than theirs. He searched the vault again, looking for a weapon. He found a single possibility, the cabinet he’d used to free himself. He slid the steel drawer all the way out. It was weighty, sharp-edged, and all he had. He rested for a short time to recover his strength. Preparing for when he pressed that button, and armed men may come pouring into the vault. His last throw of the dice, until waves of dizziness came over him. He realized the beating had left him weaker than he thought.
Will I be able to take on a couple of men armed with assault rifles? With no more than the drawer of a metal filing cabinet?
On the face of it, it seemed impossible, but through the dizziness, a picture took shape. Sara Carver, the girl he still loved. She was a captive of these same people, and she may not be far away. She would be in a dark prison, praying that someone would come to get her out. Someone like him, and his mind cleared.
She’ll expect me to come for her, and why not? Stoner, the man who fights battles for those too weak to fight for themselves, she’ll be waiting for me to come. Yet here I am, stuck in this miserable vault. It’s time to gamble. Time to kick ass.
The dizziness came back. He swayed violently and fell on the floor. The fall was all that saved him. The lock snapped open, and the door swung outward on its hinges. He held his hands behind his back, so they’d assume he was still tied.
The two Haqqanis who'd beaten him stepped into the vault and stared down at him. They didn't seem to notice the filing cabinet drawer lying on the floor.
"We have a message."
"What does that tubby little shit want now?"
His eyes narrowed, but he chose to ignore the insult. "General Khan wants you to tell him the truth. Do the Americans intend to pay the ransom or not? If you are honest with him, he’ll consider sparing your life. You should know we’ll be leaving this place soon to go to the town where we’re holding the women. A wrong answer will mean you won’t be coming with us. You’ll be
dead, and he’ll assume they don’t intend to pay. Which will leave him no choice but to start killing the women to make the Americans take him seriously.”
The guy had given him important information. One, his time frame was limited, two, the women were elsewhere, and their time frame was also limited.
The guy stared down at him. "Well, what is your answer?"
"Tell him to give himself up, and I won't kill him, but not Griggs. No matter what happens, he dies."
The man sneered, snarled something in Urdu to the other man, and they left the vault. The door slammed shut, and he was on his own. Waves of dizziness returned to leave him nauseated, and he felt weaker.
He was one man, and even if he did manage to get out, how could he fight his way through them with a chunk of metal office furniture? Then escape the town and find where the women were held. Even then, he’d have to find a way to free them. Khan held all the cards, and even worse, he was in Pakistan. Which cut Stoner off from any help.
Once again, he cursed Ivan for leaving him in the lurch. But then he thought of Sara, and the doubts fell away. Nothing would stop him from doing everything possible until he’d drawn his last breath and fired his last bullet. He gave it a few minutes, picked up the metal drawer, and after taking several deep breaths, pressed the red button.
An alarm began to chime, and within seconds, the outside lock rattled, and the vault door began to open. He waited at the side of the door. A man stepped into the vault, followed by another, the same two men who'd come to make the offer, the Haqqanis who'd given him the vicious beating. He swung the metal drawer hard, and it smashed against the head of the first hostile. The man went down, and already Stoner was leaping toward the second man, who was starting to bring up his rifle.
He had one chance, and he swung the steel drawer when he slipped. The first man he’d hit cracked his skull when his head struck the edge of the vault door. Blood and brains had spilled out onto the floor, and he’d stepped into the slippery mess. His feet went out from under him, and Stoner tumbled to the floor, throwing up a hand to stop himself hitting his head on the steel doorframe. The fall gave the man time to step back, level his rifle, and the thick lips drew back in cruel snarl.
"You will die for that, American pig. Your death will be longer and more painful than you can imagine. The man you killed was my brother-in-law, the husband of my sister. She will want to know I took revenge. Your life is over, American pig. Hell is waiting for you.”
He was shaking with a fury, and in that moment, Stoner knew he was finished. He'd come so close. The room outside was empty, and if he could have taken out both guards, he’d have scooped up their rifles and had a good chance to get clear. The freak stumble, something he couldn’t have foreseen, had finished him. His eyes darted everywhere, looking for a way out, but he was helpless on the floor. There was no way out.
The man who stood over him had his finger on the trigger, and a round in the breech. In a couple of seconds, he’d take up final pressure on the trigger, and the bullet would tear into him. Probably a gutshot, he'd want to carry out his threat to make his death painful, and Stoner knew he'd bleed out in agony inside the vault. The guy may even put a bullet into each of his knees to make sure he couldn't even crawl, maybe a bullet through each hand so that he was totally helpless. It wasn’t going to be pretty. He'd spend the last minutes, maybe an hour of his life in extreme agony, a tortured death in a dark vault in Nowheresville, Pakistan. And there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it.
The man’s fury peaked. "Goodbye, American. After I put the first bullet in you, I intend to stay a while and watch you die. No one will hear your screams. This vault is in a sub-basement level, and no sound can escape. When I leave, all you will have left for company is the devil himself. Soon you will descend into the darkness of hell for what you have done."
Stoner watched the finger tighten on the trigger, seeing the eyes narrow to tiny slits. If he were going to die, he’d die like a man. Not show him he was scared. He was better than this sonofabitch. But the waves of dizziness overcame him at the crucial time, and his eyes closed. He knew he was cringing, waiting for the bullet to tear into his belly, and he cursed himself for not having the strength to face down the bastard. There was nothing he could do, except die.
After several seconds, he’d heard nothing. No shot, no agonizing stab of pain. Nothing. He opened his eyes, and the man was still standing in the same position. Still with the rifle pointed at him, but he wasn't alone. Someone had come up behind him, brought a thin dagger around his head, and stabbed it into his eye. He hadn't cried out, for the simple reason the long, narrow blade had penetrated all the way through to his brain. The assailant was supporting him, holding him to stop him crashing to the floor. It was clearly a struggle to hold the weight of the man, because the assailant was a mere boy. A boy named Javed. Orphaned by the war, an expert thief, and a kid who could move across ground like a wraith. A survivor. And a killer.
"Javed."
With an effort he lowered him to the ground. "Mr. Stoner, I couldn't let him go, not until I was certain he was dead. If he’d dropped his rifle, it might have made too much noise.”
“You did well. Are there other hostiles nearby?”
“There are men in the room above. Are you okay?"
He dragged himself up from the floor and picked up the rifle dropped by the man whose brains were still leaking onto the vault floor. "Kid, I’m okay now. How the hell did you ever manage to get in this place?"
He grinned. "I waited until they were looking the other way. Some of these men are very stupid, and even when I couldn’t avoid them, they didn’t see anything wrong with a boy creeping around. Should I take the other rifle?"
"Good idea. Take all the spare magazines you can find. Anything else that might be useful. How many men are there in the building?"
Javed didn't answer at first. He dragged his dagger from the man's eye, and it came out with an obscene sucking noise. He wiped the blade on the dead man's robe, and almost like a conjuring trick, it disappeared inside his sleeve.
"Four men, but I don't think they'll be a problem. They seemed to be asleep.” He stopped and considered for a few moments, "I could smell alcohol, perhaps they’d been drinking."
"Let's hope so. Let’s hope they’re ratted. I’ll take a look. "
He crept up the staircase and opened the door at the top a couple of inches. The room was long and wide, with four couches and a huge coffee table in the center. More filing cabinets lined the walls, and Stoner assumed the bank had used the space for meetings. Confidential meetings. Confidentiality in a land of drugs, people, and arms smugglers was important, especially for those banks catering to that shadowy line of business.
Four men were in the room, and one lay prone on each of the four couches. They were asleep, and the noise of their snoring resembled the roar of aircraft engines. A number of open bottles lay scattered on the coffee table, and he spotted an open cupboard squeezed between two filing cabinets. A liquor cupboard for when the bank entertained their less abstemious clients. The insurgents had smashed the lock and consumed enough of the contents to render them senseless. They were all dead drunk and sleeping it off.
He beckoned to the boy. "They’re not in any position to stop us. We need to go."
Javed followed him across the room. Stoner was about to open the outer door when he spotted his guns lying on a small table. They'd removed them from the holsters and slid out the magazines. Bullets had spilled out on the table, and he took a few seconds to reload and stuff the guns into his shoulder rig. He strapped it back on and felt almost human again. There was no sign of his M4A1, but he had the AK assault rifle he'd taken off the guard, and the boy had the other. He was about to leave when he realized Javed wasn't with him. When he looked round, the kid had just finished plunging his dagger into the eye of the last of the sleeping men. He looked up at Stoner and shrugged.
“I thought I'd make sure."
"They
were drunk, Javed. They weren’t going after anyone."
“They were our enemies.”
One day, he’d need to explain certain facts to him. Warfare was dirty, but there were certain niceties. Like not putting a dagger through the eyes of sleeping, drunken men. The boy followed him to the first floor, and Stoner halted to peer through a narrow crack in the woodwork. Men were milling around, and he gestured to Javed to step back. The boy was staring across the room, looking at a guy coming in. He was carrying an ornate silver tray containing a coffeepot and small cups. No doubt refreshments for the General and his men, and Javed pushed past him, the dagger drawn once more. The man froze in terror, and Stoner raced to intercept before he cried out.
"I’ve got him. Just take the tray off him before he drops it."
He jabbed the muzzle of the rifle into the man's belly, slammed it forward again, this time into his groin, and while he was gasping for air, jabbed him again. The steel barrel smashed into his throat, smashing his vocal chords and cutting off any chance of him calling for help. Javed grabbed the coffee tray before it fell. Stoner lowered the body to the floor and hit him a fourth time, a scything blow across the carotid artery, leaving him unconscious. Javed raised the dagger, but he stopped him.
“We need him to find out where they’re holding the women. We’ll take him back with us.”
The boy looked disappointed, but he didn’t argue. He glanced out the door, and the street outside was empty, except for two vehicles. One was the truck Colonel Rahman had used to transport his men, and the other a luxurious SUV, a late model Porsche Cayenne. Not the most effective off-roader in the remote boonies of Pakistan, but certainly the quickest. He dragged the still unconscious man to the vehicle and looked inside, but there was no sign of the ignition key. He looked at Javed.