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

by Donna Andrews

  “Yes, well.” Donahue cleared his throat. “Block Four is where the executions take place. Some hangings. Beheadings. Occasional lesser punishments: cutting off the hands of a thief, blinding a man who spied on another man’s wife that he coveted, stoning to death of women adulterers—”

  “Rough justice,” Morgan commented.

  “If you can call it justice at all.” Donahue’s voice, Morgan thought, sounded unusually soft and sympathetic. Especially for a man who had for more than forty years killed for a living.

  Glancing off in the distance, Morgan saw the green Volkswagen parked where its driver could observe them. He was going to have to decide what to do about the woman. He could not let her upset his plans to save his brother.

  “So what do you think, lad?” Donahue asked, interrupting Morgan’s thoughts.

  “You have any guard contacts inside? That can be bought?”

  “Maybe.” The Irishman shrugged.

  “Can you get me a dozen men — good men — on the outside?”

  “Depends. You want specialists?”

  Morgan nodded. “Four explosives men, two rocket experts, six tough ground troops.”

  “Possibly. Weapons?”

  “AR-15s for the ground troops, plus any handguns they want for backup. Thirty-seven-millimeter launchers for the rocket men. K-2 plastics, coils, and timer detonators for the explosives.”

  “Ammo?”

  “The works. Armor-piercing, incendiary, tracers. The best available. And plenty of it.”

  Donahue rubbed the stubble of beard on his chin. “Vehicles?”

  “One armored halftrack with dual tactical mounted .50-calibers. And a Devil’s Breath with dual tanks.”

  “Jesus, Morgan! A flamethrower?”

  “Yes. And two armored specialists to handle the whole rig.”

  Donahue sighed. “Anything else?”

  “Two armor-plated Humvees for the rest of us, to flank the halftrack when we charge the main gate.” Morgan took a deep breath. “That’s it.”

  “You’re sure now?” Donahue asked, a little sarcastically. “Sure you don’t want a couple of fighter jets to strafe the place ahead of time?”

  “Can you get it all or not?” Morgan asked flatly

  “I’ll let you know. Come see me tonight at the Dingo.”

  As Donahue drove them back to Kabul, Morgan watched the green Volkswagen follow them in the passenger rearview mirror.

  His lean jaw clenched.

  Half an hour after Morgan returned to his room, there was a soft knock at his door. Holding the Sig 230 close to his right leg, he stood to the left of the door and said, “Yes?”

  “It is I,” a female voice said. “Liban Adnan.”

  Snatching the door open, Morgan jerked her into the room and locked the door behind them.

  “You’ve got a hell of a lot of nerve coming here after following me all morning!” he said angrily. “Didn’t I warn you to stay away from me?”

  “I am not afraid of you!” she snapped.

  “That’s obvious. What the hell do you want now?”

  “Perhaps,” she said, her voice as angry as his, “I came to show you these bruises you left on my arm last night!” Pulling up the sleeve of her blouse, she held out an arm with several dark, purplish bruises on it.

  “You’re liable to get more than bruises if you keep meddling in my business!” Morgan threatened.

  “Again I say, I am not afraid of you, Mr. Tenny. Whatever you are planning, you surely would not interrupt it to do anything foolish to me. Especially since I have a friend at my radio station who knows I’ve been following you. The authorities would be on you in a heartbeat.”

  “If I did do anything to you,” Morgan said confidently, “believe me, nobody would be able to prove it.”

  “They could certainly prove you are in the country illegally,” she retorted. “I saw how you came in at the airport with Benny Cone. That alone is enough to get you inside the prison you and your friend Donahue studied so closely this morning.”

  Turning away from her, Morgan walked across the room. She had him on that. All he could do now was figure out a way to handle her. He walked back to her.

  “Look, I’m sorry about the bruises,” he said as contritely as he could. “But you came on pretty aggressively and I wasn’t prepared for you. Can we start over?”

  “Without the rough stuff?” she asked, sounding more American than Afghani.

  “Definitely without the rough stuff.”

  “All right. I want to talk to you. But not here. Your friend Donahue has ears all over this place. I’ll pick you up out front at six and take you to a little place I know on the edge of the city. We can have supper and talk about a compromise arrangement between us. Will you agree to that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” Liban Adnan nodded brusquely. “Until six, then.”

  Unlocking the door, she left.

  Morgan stared thoughtfully at the closed door behind her. Where in hell, he wondered, was this going to lead?

  As Morgan walked out of the Mustafa Hotel, the green Volkswagen pulled up at once and he got in. Liban swung the car back into traffic and headed out the western highway toward Jalalabad. Neither of them spoke at first, until finally Morgan asked, “Have you told anyone else about me? Besides your friend at the radio station?”

  “No, of course not.” She glanced at him. “I want this story for myself.”

  Morgan nodded. Several minutes later, he said, “I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.”

  “Liban Adnan. Just call me Lee.”

  She drove to a small settlement just outside the city and parked in front of a surprisingly nice-looking roadside restaurant, the name of which was written in Arabic across its facade. “This is a respectable family establishment,” she said, “so please don’t flash your guns around.”

  “What guns?”

  “The ones I’m sure you are carrying. Let’s not play games, Mr. Tenny.”

  Inside, Lee selected the table she wanted, off to one far side, and they were seated. “Are you familiar with Afghan food?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Then let me explain what you can order. Mourgh is skinless chicken marinated overnight in lemon pulp and cracked black pepper, then broiled. Aush is chopped beef, spinach, and dark makhud — sorry, yellow split peas — fried in coriander and turmeric, and served with dried mint sprinkled on it. Qabili pilau is lamb and yellow rice boiled with carrots and black seedless raisins.” She raised her eyebrows inquiringly.

  “I’ll have whatever you have,” Morgan said. She ordered the aush, with sweet red tea and pistachios to munch on while they waited.

  “I’m sorry you can’t get something stronger to drink,” Lee apologized, “but alcohol is not served here. You see, in our faith, especially among the Tajiks, who are the predominant population—”

  “Look,” Morgan interrupted, “can we get down to the business of why we’re here?”

  “Well, yes, of course. I was just trying to be cordial.”

  “Forget cordial. Specifically, what is it you want in order to leave me alone?”

  Her eyes, dark like ripe plums, fixed on him. “I want the complete story of what you and Mike Donahue are planning and how you are going to go about it—”

  “You’re crazy,” Morgan scoffed.

  “Let me finish, please. I want the complete story — to be released after it happens. After you’ve done what you’re planning to do, after you’ve gotten away with it — if you get away with it—”

  “We’ll get away with it.”

  “Fine. After you get away with it and have safely escaped. When everyone is running around, pointing fingers, blaming everyone else, trying to figure out who did it, how it was done — that’s when I want to reveal everything.”

  “What do you expect to get out of that?”

  “A reputation. Stature as a broadcast journalist. A move from radio to television. Perhaps even a
position with CNN International.”

  “I see. You want to be famous.”

  “I want to be successful.”

  “You want to be another Christiane Amanpour.”

  She shrugged. “Perhaps.” From her expression, Morgan knew he had nailed it.

  Before they could converse further, an older man entered the restaurant, followed by two younger men, an older woman, and two younger women. They walked in single file, toward a family section in the rear that was configured with larger tables. But as they started to pass the table where Morgan and Lee sat, the older man abruptly stopped, as did everyone behind him. Standing ramrod straight, he glared down at Lee. He did not speak. Lee looked down at the table. Morgan saw that the five people behind the man also had their eyes downcast.

  The silent confrontation lasted perhaps forty seconds, but it somehow seemed much longer. Presently, the older man moved on, his entourage following.

  “What was that all about?” Morgan asked.

  “That was my family,” Lee replied quietly. “My father, my two brothers, my mother, my two sisters.” She looked over at him woefully. “I have been banished from my family, you see. When I took up Western ways, Western dress, got a Western job as a radio broadcaster, my father ostracized me. I am not allowed to go around any member of my family, or to communicate with them in any way, or they with me. None of them may cast eyes upon me except my father, and then only to revile me with his look.”

  Morgan saw a sadness in her eyes, but it did not seem to be for the painful scorn of her father and the loss of her family. Rather it was a sadness of fear, the kind Morgan had seen in the eyes of many who were about to die; it was a sadness not of something that had already happened to her, but of something that was going to happen to her, and she knew it.

  At once, as he looked at her, she became appealing to him, her despair coupled with a longing, all of it concealed to some degree by her effervescent aggressiveness — no, not aggressiveness, he rethought it — more like assertiveness, an anxious assertiveness. Morgan felt something emanating from Liban Adnan that he could not define or understand. But he knew he had to respond to it.

  “All right, I’ll help you, Lee,” he told her, suddenly deciding. “I’ll give you your story.”

  A glimmer of a smile came tentatively to her lips. “Thank you, Mr. Tenny.”

  “Call me Morgan,” he said.

  Later that night, back in the office of the Dingo Club, Morgan again sat across the desk from Michaleen Donahue.

  “I want a hundred thousand for myself,” Donahue said.

  “You want it now?”

  The Irishman’s thick black brows went up. “That would be nice.”

  Morgan unlocked and unzipped the bag that constantly hung from his shoulder, and from it counted out ten banded sheaves of hundred-dollar bills, fifty to a sheaf, and twenty sheaves of fifty-dollar bills, also fifty to a sheaf. “That leaves me with nine hundred thousand, Donny. Will that do us?”

  “I think so. I put a pencil to it earlier—” He pushed a yellow lined pad across the desk, which Morgan picked up and began to study. “I figure twenty thousand each for the two guard contacts we’ll need on the inside,” he told Morgan. “Four explosives men at forty each is a hundred-sixty. Two rocket-launcher men at thirty-five apiece is seventy. Six ground troops to back up you and me at—”

  “You and me?” Morgan interrupted. “You’re coming along?”

  “Certainly,” Donahue said, taken aback slightly. “You think I took a hundred thousand just to sit on my ass?”

  Morgan shrugged self-consciously. “Well, I–I mean — well—”

  “Well, hell! A well’s a hole in the ground, lad! Your brother’s a friend of mine. And so are a few others in that hellhole of a prison. Yeah, I’m coming along. You bet your ass I am.” Donahue cleared his throat. “Now, as I was saying: Six ground troops at twenty-five per is another one-fifty. The half-track, used but in good condition, will cost us two hundred thousand. And the two armored Humvees will run seventy-five each, that’s one-fifty.” Donahue got out a bottle and poured drinks for them while Morgan studied the figures. Taking a long sip of his own, he sat back and licked his lips appreciatively at the taste. “I make it seven-seventy,” he concluded. “That leaves one-thirty for weapons and ammo.”

  “One-thirty will be a stretch,” Morgan guessed, frowning.

  “Might, might not,” said Donahue. “Depends on where I have to buy. If I can run at least half of what we need from Uzbekistan, we’ll be okay. If I have to deal with the Pakistanis, those bloody bastards will try to rob us blind.” He paused for a moment, then said, “It might be possible to steal some ammo from the U.N. forces arsenal down in Qandahar. I don’t know how you’d feel about that, you being a Yank and all—”

  “Steal it anywhere you can,” Morgan said flatly. “I don’t owe the U.N. anything.”

  “Right. Well, then.” Donahue rose and drained his glass. “I’ll get the ball rolling first thing in the morning. You want to interview personnel?”

  “Not unless you want me to.”

  “I’ll do it meself then. How do you plan to get Virgil out of the country?”

  “Same way I got in. Billy Cone.”

  “Billy might not be up for anything that heavy. What if he says no?”

  Morgan locked eyes with the Irishman. “Then I’ll kill him, take his plane, and fly it myself.”

  The next night, Lee invited Morgan to her apartment, where they would have the privacy to talk more openly.

  Lee lived in one of the older, modest buildings in a more or less grubby section of south Kabul, but she said she liked the location because it was convenient to the traditional Afghan food markets as well as a newer, Western-style superstore that sold canned items imported from the U.S. Plus, the sparsely but comfortably furnished apartment offered a parking shed for her little green Volkswagen. Morgan noticed at once that the apartment’s cracked and pitted walls were colorfully concealed with a variety of posters: Emiliano Zapata, Muhammad Ali standing over a prone Sonny Liston, Mother Teresa touching the forehead of a sick child, Roy Rogers with six-guns blazing.

  “Roy Rogers?” Morgan said in surprise.

  “Yes. I watch his old films on the new satellite station. They have subtitles, of course. I think his horse is nice. And I like the way he sings.”

  She had prepared a cold supper for them.

  “Samboosak,” she told him. “Cold meat pies with leeks and mild spices. And there are boiled eggs and a spinach-and-chickpea salad with pine nuts. And,” she added proudly, “just for you—” She produced a bottle of Australian wine. “Another reason my father has disowned me: I like a glass of wine now and then.”

  As they ate, Morgan outlined for Lee in detail his plan to breach Pul-e-Charki prison with a small armed force, an armored vehicle, and two armed Humvees, to liberate his twin brother Virgil from Block One, where the high-profile prisoners were kept, and then how the two of them would escape the country in Benny Cone’s plane.

  “What about the other prisoners in Block One?” Lee wanted to know. “And in the other blocks?”

  Morgan shrugged. “They’ll be pretty much on their own. If they can get to the main gate, a lot of them can pile onto the half-track and the Hummers when they retreat.”

  “And the guards?”

  “Most of them at the main gate and around Blocks One and Two will probably be killed in the initial assault.”

  Lee looked down at the table. “A lot of those men are just ordinary family men, working men, most of them not political at all.”

  “They chose to work there,” Morgan said evenly. “They knew the risks involved.” He paused, then continued in a softer tone. “Look, Lee, everyone makes their own choices in life. Everyone pays their own prices for those choices. That’s just life.”

  “Or in this case, death,” she amended.

  They finished supper and went outside to sit on the building’s back steps and drink the r
est of the wine.

  “I try very hard to understand you Westerners,” she said. “All of you who are here in my country: Americans, British, Irish, Australians, the mixed Europeans. I try to understand the little regard you all seem to have for human life if something stands in the way of what you want.”

  “I’ve been trying to understand your people, too,” Morgan said, “since I saw your own father stare so hatefully at you, and you told me how you’d been ostracized by him from your family. I don’t understand that. My brother Virgil and I are twins; we were together in the womb, born together. We grew up together as dirt-poor Catholics in a steel-mill town in a place called Pennsylvania. Our father was a drunk; our mother washed other men’s dirty, stinking mill clothes to feed us. We got made fun of as free students in a hard-knock Catholic school because of the shabby hand-me-down uniforms we wore. We never got invited to join school teams or clubs, or come to school parties. But we got away from all that. When we were old enough, we joined the Marine Corps. We went through boot camp together, then weapons school, where they taught us to use rifles, pistols, machine guns, flamethrowers, hand-held rocket launchers. Finally we went to sniper school together and learned to kill. We lived by the sniper motto: One shot, one kill. When we left the Corps, we both had confirmed body counts in the high twenties. The day we were discharged, we were recruited for a mercenary team to fight in Zaire. We’ve been fighting, and killing, ever since.”

  Morgan fell silent then. The two of them sat there in the shadows, the wine warming them, listening to mixed night sounds of Kabul. Someone, somewhere not too far away, was playing one of the new Western stations on the radio, and the mournful voice of a mournful woman was singing “Blues in the Night.” They listened until the song ended, then Morgan spoke again.

  “I know what my brother is accused of doing, and I don’t condone what he’s done. But he’s my brother. I can’t disown him like your father has disowned you. It’s not in me to do that.”

  In the darkness, Lee reached out and took his hand.

  Later, she moved close to him and he put an arm around her shoulders.