Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 130, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 793 & 794, September/October 2007

by Donna Andrews

  “Hand me your duffel,” he said.

  Tenny lowered an ancient sea bag on which could barely be distinguished four stenciled letters: USMC.

  “Ain’t seen one of these in a long time,” Cone said. The closure of the bag folded in quarters over a steel hasp through which a combination padlock was fastened. “Heavy, too,” the pilot observed. “Whatcha carrying?”

  “The usual things,” Morgan Tenny said as he climbed down. “Guns, ammunition, laundered currency.”

  “Everything a tourist in Kabul needs,” Cone said with a smile. He nodded toward the terminal. “Follow me. Keep your mouth shut and do what I say. You ever been to Kabul before?”

  “No.”

  “Well, it’s a real shit hole. It’s like no place you’ve ever seen, man.”

  “I’ve seen a lot of places, Benny,” said Morgan Tenny. “Zaire, Saigon, Nairobi, Angola—”

  “Yeah, well, you ain’t seen noplace like Kabul. It is a real shit hole. The whole place.”

  “I thought the U.N. was cleaning it up after the Taliban got bounced?”

  “The U.N. is a joke, brother. Wait and see.”

  The two men entered the Customs and Immigration section of the shabby cargo terminal and found a heavyset, droopy-eyed Afghan man browsing through a U.K. edition of Playboy.

  “Moazzah, my friend!” Cone greeted him jovially. “How are you?”

  “Passports and visas,” the man named Moazzah said, without looking up from the magazine.

  “Moazzah, look what I have for your lovely wife,” Cone announced, pulling a carton of two dozen Hershey bars, with almonds, from his carry-on.

  Moazzah looked up and took the carton. “Very nice, thank you.” He held out a hand. “Passports and visas.”

  “And,” Cone further declared, “look what I have for your beautiful mistress!” He produced half a dozen packages of black pantyhose, held together by a thick rubber band.

  “Such generosity I do not deserve,” the Afghan official said. His free hand was still out. “Passports and visas.”

  “Moazzah,” Cone pleaded pitifully, “you know I am a stateless person without papers. All I want is a permit to unload. I won’t even be leaving the terminal.”

  “And your friend?” Moazzah inquired.

  “A tourist, that’s all. He missed his commercial flight from Karachi and out of the goodness of my heart I gave him a ride. But his passport is still at the Arabian Air desk back there. Be kind, Moazzah. He just wants to spend a few nights with the China girls at the Escalades.”

  “I see,” said Moazzah. The Escalades was the most notorious of Kabul’s brothels. It was currently being run by a White Russian woman who called herself Madam Kiev, who had the best body in the brothel but never sold it, and had two former sumo wrestlers at her side at all times to keep the peace in her busy establishment. Moazzah knew the place well. He eyed Morgan Tenny for a long, solemn moment. “Pray tell, what do you have in your duffel?” he asked.

  Morgan shrugged. “The usual things: guns, ammunition, laundered currency.”

  For a split second Moazzah frowned, then laughed out loud and pointed a finger at Morgan. “Your friend,” he said to Benny Cone, “is a very funny fellow.”

  “Yeah, a million laughs,” Cone agreed, smiling nervously. He handed Moazzah a British fifty-pound note.

  “Take him to the taxi queue,” the Afghan official said. “But you remain in the terminal.”

  “Blessings on your house,” Cone said as Moazzah put the candy and pantyhose into a deep desk drawer and locked it.

  The pilot led Morgan outside where several rattle-trap taxis waited. “You’ll find Donahue at the Dingo Club,” he told Morgan. “He’s partners in the joint with an Aussie ex-pat. Tell him I said cheers.”

  Morgan nodded. “Thanks for the help.”

  “Thank you,” said Benny, “for the stack of hundreds. Good luck.”

  I’ll need it, Morgan thought, getting into a taxi.

  The Dingo Club was on Chicken Street, one of Kabul’s main potholed thoroughfares. Night had fallen now and multicolored neon lit up the sidewalks and the milling people entering and exiting shops selling handicrafts, carpets, pastries, hijacked Western food, pirated DVDs, and, farther along, bars, clubs, brothels, massage parlors, fast-food joints, tattoo kiosks, and the like, all of it reminding Morgan of the last week before Saigon fell. Slim and slung Asian girls wearing purple and orange makeup plied their trade to passing mercenaries, war-zone hangers-on in combat fatigues, along with contract laborers in denims, U.N. workers in dress shirts with rolled-up sleeves and neckties stuck in trouser pockets, and a few young U.S. Marines on liberty. All of them were armed: automatic rifles held casually, shoulder holsters holding Walther PPKs, revolvers tucked under bullet-filled cartridge belts. It was a totally dangerous street, but no one seemed to be bothered by it.

  Morgan stepped inside the entrance to the Dingo Club. During the taxi ride to town, he had unlocked and opened his sea bag, and now had a Sig P230 automatic pistol in his waistband under his coat, an extra magazine of 60-grain bullets for it in his coat pocket, and a smaller automatic, a Kahr K9, in his belt at the small of his back. Standing just inside the club door, the big sea bag slung over one shoulder, he scoped out the noisy, raucous, smoky scene before him. Like a cautious falcon in unknown woods, his eyes flicked along the packed bar, the booths lining the walls, the tables in between, looking for familiar, especially unfriendly, faces among the patrons, bartenders, waiters, and pimps for the China girls who were working the room. Even after he spotted Donahue, the man he was looking for, his light-blue eyes kept moving, shifting, searching, until he had satisfied himself that he had no enemies there — at least none on the surface. Only then did he make his way to a back table where Donahue sat with three other men.

  “Hello, Donny,” he said when he got to the table. Donahue looked up.

  “Well, well, well,” he said. “If it ain’t the calm half of the infamous Tenny twins. I wondered when you’d get here.”

  “You can stop wondering now,” Morgan said.

  The man at the table stood up. Michaleen Donahue was a great bull of an Irishman, sixty-six years old, thick-necked, massive-chested, muscular-armed, wearing a skin-tight camo shirt over which was strapped a Roto shoulder holster and magazine rig holding a Glock 17 automatic on one side and a double magazine pack on the other. He grabbed Morgan in a grand bear hug. “How are you, boyo?”

  “Good, Donny. You?”

  “Never better, lad. Come on, I’ve an office where we can talk. ’Scuse me, mates,” he said to the other men at the table, and led Morgan into a nearby hallway to an office where he closed the door behind them. It was a sparsely furnished little room, with a metal utility desk, metal chairs, and several metal ammo boxes on the floor being used for files.

  “Sit, boyo, sit,” Donahue said, dropping his bulk into a swivel chair behind the desk and retrieving a bottle of Gilbey’s and a pair of metal canteen cups from a bottom drawer. He poured two doubles.

  “Cheers,” they said in unison, and took their first swallows.

  The swivel chair creaked as if in pain as Donahue leaned back. “I’m afraid you’ve made a trip for nothing, lad. What you’re here for is a lost cause.”

  “That doesn’t sound like the Donny I’ve known all these years,” Morgan said.

  The Irishman shrugged. “As a man gets older, he gets wiser. Wiser about everything: women, drinking, killing. He tends to realize there are some things he simply can’t do anymore.”

  “Aren’t you the one who always said life was doing what couldn’t be done, and the rest was just waiting around?”

  “Like I said, I’m older now.”

  “Well, maybe I’m wasting my time with you, then,” Morgan said. “Maybe I should look for someone with more grit.”

  Anger flashed briefly in the big Irishman’s eyes, but he quickly suppressed it and leaned forward, folding his thick fingers on the desktop. “Look, Morgan
, I know there’s a fine edge to you right now, with your twin brother Virgil being held in the Pul-e-Charki prison. But he’s been charged with the torture and killing of three Afghan citizens while attempting to get information from them as to the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden — all so he could collect the twenty-five million bucks bounty on the son of a bitch. Virgil’s going to be tried before an Afghan judge named Mehmet Allawi, who is as anti-Western as they come. He has stated openly that Western influence since the fall of the Taliban is ruining his holy land, and he’s the leader of a party that wants all non-Muslims thrown out of the country. Your brother is the first Westerner to be charged with a capital crime since the U.S. invasion in 2001. Allawi intends to use him to make a statement against the U.S., the U.N., and all other foreigners who are here. Virgil is going to be found guilty and hanged. And that, my boy, is that.”

  “I intend to break him out,” Morgan said simply.

  “Break him out?” Donahue grimaced in disbelief. “Out of Pul-e-Charki? You’re dreaming, lad. It’s not possible. There’s no way to spring a man from there.”

  “I don’t plan to just spring a man. I plan to liberate the whole damned prison, Donny.”

  Donahue grunted. “That would take a small army.”

  “I want to raise a small army. A strike force of trained mercenaries.”

  “You’re crazy. It would cost a million dollars.”

  “I’ve got a million dollars,” Morgan said. Reaching down, he patted the sea bag on the floor next to him. “Right here.”

  “You serious?”

  “Dead serious.” Morgan leaned forward, elbows on knees. “I know about that prison. I know men who’ve been in it. I’ve heard stories. It’s a filthy cesspool. Whips, chains, rats, vermin, slop for food — it’s a nightmare. They’ve even got torture chambers—”

  “Your brother Virgil is in there for torturing people,” Donahue reminded him.

  “The three men Virgil tortured—”

  “Two men,” Donahue corrected. “One woman.”

  That gave Morgan pause for thought. But only momentarily. “Makes no difference,” he said. “They were all al-Qaida. No telling how many innocent people they’d killed. Whatever the case, I want to blast open Pul-e-Charki prison.” He locked eyes with Donahue. “You with me or not?”

  Donahue took a long sip of gin, then pursed his lips for a moment. Finally he said, “Tell you what. You and me’ll go out and have us a good look at Pul-e-Charki in the morning. Then you can tell me how you’d plan to go about doing it. After I hear your plan, I’ll decide. Good enough?”

  “Good enough,” Morgan agreed.

  They toasted again and finished their gin. Then Donahue asked, “Got a place to bunk yet?”

  “No.”

  “Down the street to the right. The Mustafa Hotel. Use my name. Tell the desk clerk to give you an upstairs room in the back, away from the street noise. I’ll come by for you about ten in the morning.”

  With his sea bag again slung, Morgan left the Dingo Club and turned right down the busy street, his senses alert to everything around him. He knew before she got there that a young woman was hurrying up beside him.

  “Excuse me. May I speak with you for a moment, please?”

  “Not tonight, honey,” Morgan said, thinking she was street girl. “I’m dead tired, just in from a long flight.”

  “I know,” she said. “I followed you from the airport.”

  Morgan stopped, his right hand instinctively going to the automatic in his belt. “You followed me from the airport?”

  “Yes. In my car. I wanted to talk to you.”

  Looking more closely, Morgan now saw that she was definitely not a street girl. She was, he guessed, Afghan; modern Afghan: smallish, attractive, wearing a stylish pantsuit, carrying a large purse over one shoulder. He decided to play dumb.

  “Why on earth would you follow me?” he asked with feigned innocence.

  “My name is Liban Adnan,” she said. “I’m a broadcast journalist. For NKR — New Kabul Radio. I’m doing a series on mercenary soldiers in the city. I’d like to interview you.”

  “You’ve made a mistake, miss,” Morgan said. “I’m not a mercenary soldier. I’m a pharmaceuticals salesman.”

  “Oh?” Her full, dark eyebrows went up. “When you were leaving the Dingo Club, I saw you shake hands with Michaleen Donahue, a notorious mercenary soldier. Were you selling him aspirin, perhaps?”

  “I went into that club to ask directions to the Mustafa Hotel. I didn’t even know the man I was talking to.”

  “I see.” She pulled a five-by-seven black-and-white glossy photograph from her purse. “I suppose you’re going to tell me you don’t know this man either.”

  In the neon light above a lap-dance club, Morgan looked at the picture. It was his twin brother, Virgil, in handcuffs and belly chain, being held between two Afghani policemen.

  Taking Liban Adnan roughly by the arm, Morgan drew her into a nearby passageway between buildings, out of the busy sidewalk traffic. Once there, he kept her arm in a grip tight enough for her to know that she could not break away.

  “Exactly what do you want?” he asked coldly, evenly.

  “I told you. An interview. I want to explain to the citizens of Kabul why scores of heavily armed men prowl their streets at night. I want to try to make the public understand who they are and why they are here.”

  “If I was a mercenary, do you think I’d be stupid enough to let you interview me about my reason for being here?”

  “It could be an anonymous interview,” she said, squirming in his grip. “We could even use a vibraphone mic to disguise your voice—”

  “Look, miss,” Morgan said firmly, “you’ve got the wrong person, understand? I don’t know the man back at the club, and I don’t know the man in that photograph!”

  “But he looks just like you. Is it you, or — or are you his brother?” she exclaimed, as if that had just dawned on her.

  “Listen to me, lady,” Morgan tightened his grip on her arm, “mind your own business or you might be very sorry.”

  Liban squirmed even more. “Please, you’re hurting me—”

  Morgan let go of her arm. “Stay away from me,” he warned.

  Leaving her in the passageway, Morgan stepped back onto the sidewalk and continued toward the Mustafa Hotel.

  Donahue was in the hotel lobby at ten the next morning when Morgan came down. He led Morgan outside to a battered Jeep with no top. Donny was again wearing the double Roto holster, and now was carrying an AR-15 automatic rifle as well. Morgan carried his same two handguns, but also had with him a Mossberg 500 shotgun equipped with a Knoxx folding stock, which allowed him to carry and fire it as a long-barrel pistol. He again had his sea bag slung behind one shoulder, but it was noticeably lighter now.

  “Unpacked everything but the money, I see,” Donahue observed.

  “You guessed it,” Morgan replied.

  “Carrying it around like that, ain’t you afraid somebody might take it away from you?”

  “Somebody might die trying.” Morgan jacked a 12-gauge Pit Bull shell into the Mossberg’s chamber and held it between his knees next to the sea bag when he got into the Jeep. As Donahue slid behind the wheel, he observed that Morgan was wearing a flak vest under his jacket.

  As they pulled away from the hotel, Morgan noticed a green Volkswagen parked nearby. Liban Adnan was in the driver’s seat. Son of a bitch! he thought angrily. But he said nothing to Donahue. He did not want to alarm him.

  The two men drove out of town. As they moved past numerous destroyed buildings and out onto a vast, flat scrub plain, Morgan watched in the outside rearview mirror on the passenger side and saw that the green Volkswagen was following at a respectable enough distance behind not to be obvious. Glancing at Donahue, he concluded that the big Irishman had not noticed it. Cursing silently in his mind, Morgan decided to go with the flow of the moment; there was nothing he could do about it, not just then. But later
...

  About ten miles outside Kabul they pulled onto a gravel road that faced Pul-e-Charki Prison. From outside, the facility appeared antiquated, its walls crumbling in places, its turrets looking unsteady at best. The Russians had built the place when they occupied Afghanistan, and its upkeep had been inadequate even then. After the Afghan government took it over, maintenance deteriorated even more: the cells, plumbing, toilets, food, and prisoner treatment — all went to hell. Everything except security: That had improved.

  Donahue parked where they could get a view of the main gate and outer walls. “Picture yourself looking down at it from above,” he said. “There are four blocks of cells around an inside courtyard. Block One, called ‘Block-e-Awal,’ is there,” he pointed toward one front corner. “That’s for high-status prisoners, foreigners, mercenaries mostly. They’ve got Jack Idema in there. He ran Saber Seven, a freelance outfit that captured and tortured Afghan nationals, just like your brother did, trying to get a lead on Osama bin Laden. Jack’s doing ten years; he was smart enough not to kill anyone. Virgil’s in there too, along with some journalists and photographers who wrote about and photographed some things the new government didn’t approve of.

  “Block Two is directly across the center courtyard, over there,” Donahue pointed to the opposite corner. “It’s strictly for political prisoners, nobody really worth mentioning, mostly just ex-Taliban and protesters against the U.S.

  “Block Three is back there, behind Block Two. It’s full of common criminals: thieves, child molesters, drunkards, dishonest merchants, people who disrespect the Koran and Muslim law.”

  Donahue stopped talking and looked out over the wasteland toward a hazy, indistinct horizon. Morgan waited several moments, then: “You said four blocks.”