by Marc Cameron
The missile’s impact had rendered Quinn partially deaf. He could hear snippets of Ronnie’s frantic shouting, but her voice sounded like it was coming from the inside of a metal can. He couldn’t see over the edge, but her hands clutched his forearm and he knew he had a good grip on some piece of her clothing. He could just make out the dust-covered crown of her head over the ledge.
Bracing with his legs against a thin fissure in the rock, he rolled backward, gaining inch by slow inch until he was able to haul her up like a fleshy, wriggling fish. She collapsed, wheezing on top of him, and he realized his handhold had been at the small of her back, on the bunched waistband of her wool long johns.
She looked down at his face as she rearranged her bunched clothing. “In some parts of Cuba, a wedgie like that would mean you’d have to marry me.” Bits of gravel covered her lips. “Good thing I wore my big-girl panties... .”
“Yeah, good thing.” Jericho was already working out a plan to get them up the sheer ten-foot face and back to the smoldering crater where their camp had been. He explained about the Breitling while he studied the rock.
“All this time you had an exploding watch and you didn’t tell me?” She shook her head from side to side, her ebony hair a tangled nest of dirt and ash. “I am riding through China with James Bond.”
“The watch just sent up a signal. The explosion was courtesy of the U.S. Air Force. And, technically—” Quinn grunted, trying to pull himself up with a shallow handhold, then slipping back down to hug it so he didn’t fall backward into the dizzy drop behind him. “We’re in Afghanistan ... and now I won’t even know what time it is.”
“How far do you think—to the Kyrgyz camp?”
“If they haven’t started their trek back out of the high pastures ... maybe six miles according to Gabrielle’s map.”
Garcia faced the rock, raising her arms above her head. She arched her back and stuck out her butt.
“Come on,” she said. “Give me a boost.” Even under their desperate circumstances, the stance took Quinn’s breath away.
“As inviting as that looks”—he grinned—“you’ll need to push me up first. That way I can pull you up.”
“Okay ...” Garcia shot a worried look over her shoulder toward the sheer drop. “But you know how I feel about heights. Don’t leave me down here long.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
The sounds of Nguyen’s hoarse screams still rang in Hunt’s ears when the kids came back in the room. Kenny was all grins, but he didn’t mention the killing. They came and went at least five times a day. Both Hunt and Nelson talked to the other boys but refused to speak to Kenny again.
“What do you call it when a person likes to set things on fire?” A freckled blond boy of eight or nine asked Hunt from his cushion next to a sullen Kenny. His name was Sam and he had an earnest look in his eyes Karen found disarming.
“Pyromania,” Lieutenant Nelson said, deadpan. He leaned against the curved stone wall of the cell. “Why? You know somebody who’s into it? It usually means they wet the bed like Kenny.” He’d talk sports or hunting with the other boys to pass the time, but he didn’t pass up the opportunity to give the little jerk a jab if it presented itself.
The rest of the boys giggled until Kenny stared them down.
Little Sam scribbled in his spiral notebook, then looked up under blond bangs. “Don’t you sometimes call them something else? I know there’s another word... .”
Karen shrugged. “Just plain pyro.” She’d decided to play along. Since the guards had dragged poor Nguyen away, a number of boys—all between the ages of eight and twelve—had come to the cell every few hours to talk. Karen counted seven different boys in all, but they came three or four at a time. Kenny was always with them and appeared to be their de facto leader. All spoke perfect English.
Sam seemed to be the most tenderhearted among them. He scooted his cushion closer, smiling up with the gap-toothed adoration of a kid brother. She tried to reach out to him a little, whispering in Tajik while the other boys were busy in a deep conversation with Nelson about baseball and the last World Series. He shook his head as if stricken, throwing a terrified look toward the door. He put a finger to his lips.
“The teachers will beat me if I talk like that,” he said. All the boys called the guards teachers. “You should be careful so they don’t hurt you.”
“I see.” Karen nodded. “I’m going to ask you something, Sam. Have you been taken from your parents? Are you American?”
He frowned, setting his jaw. “Americans killed my mother and sister,” he said, tears forming in his eye. “I saw it.”
She couldn’t help but notice the hint of Boston in the boy’s accent. The boy sighed, the weight of the world on his tiny shoulders. “I hate Americans ... but you’re a good lady, Miss Hunt. You sorta remind me of my mother. I wish ...” His little voice trailed off and he stared blankly at the cell wall. He shook his head, stifling a sob.
“What?” Karen asked. She kept her voice calm and hushed so as not to alert the other boys just a few feet away. This conversation was something Kenny surely wouldn’t approve of. “Tell me what you wish, Sam.”
“Miss Hunt,” the little boy said. “I should study.”
“Sam.” She gave him an exhausted smile. “I think you work way too hard.”
“That sounds funny—‘ya wook too hod... .’ ” He mimicked her Boston accent perfectly, dropping his Rs.
“Don’t you see what they’re doing?” Nelson had stopped his sports talk with the other boys and was now staring. “They’re English bandits—learning how to speak like us. Copying our accents. That’s why they killed Nguyen first. His parents came to the U.S. from Vietnam when he was just a kid so his accent wasn’t perfect enough for them.”
“Way to go,” Kenny sneered. He stood to tower over the younger boy. “Idiot!” He knocked Sam off his cushion with a swift kick to the ribs. “Now they’re on to us.”
Hunt snatched Kenny’s arm, yanking him down to face her. The guards might be able to push her around, but she wasn’t about to let some runty kid get away with it.
“You didn’t have to kick him, you little shit.” Her fingernails dug into the flesh of his arm, drawing blood.
Kenny stared back at her with black pig eyes, breathing softly. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll let go of me ... you little shit.”
Karen’s entire body shook with rage. She shoved Kenny away and reached to comfort a crying Sam. He buried his face into her shoulder, sobbing.
Kenny rubbed the nail marks on his arm, and then looked at the other boys. “Come on, guys. That’s enough lessons for the day.” He said. “Let’s go get a Coke. Come on, Sam. Stop being such a baby. You’re not in trouble.”
Sam sat up, nodding at Kenny, unconvinced. “Okay ...”
“I’ll tell you what I wished for, Miss Hunt.” His solemn eyes glistened with tears. “I wish ... I wish I could save you... .”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
The surviving Enfield was cramped riding two-up, but they didn’t have to worry about gear since most of it had been obliterated by the missile. The impact of the Hellfire had knocked the bike over and snapped the clutch lever, forcing Quinn to shift by feel alone. It was something he often did on the track, but the rough terrain made it touchy.
But for Ronnie’s pants, the armored Rev’it riding suits had been blown to bits. The warmth of Ronnie’s body pressed close behind him, unencumbered by heavy clothing, made it doubly difficult to concentrate on the narrow confines of the bumpy path.
He’d just warned her for the fifth time to stop breathing in his ear if she didn’t want him to drive off the mountain when the Kyrgyz encampment appeared in the valley ahead.
After hours of nothing but rock and ice, finding the little congregation of smoky yurts and grazing sheep was like discovering life on the moon.
Nine felt yurts were strung along a small glacial lake in a broad meadow. A handful of snot-nosed kids scampere
d out to meet them as the motorcycle chuffed into camp with two foreign devils aboard.
A stooped woman wearing a heavy wool sweater and a long skirt ducked out of her yurt to scold the gawking children. She was bent by years of childbearing and heavy lifting. Her face was so smudged with grime and soot that it looked permanently blackened. As soon as Quinn mentioned Gabrielle Deuben’s name, the woman’s eyes brightened and she motioned them inside.
“Ainura,” she said, motioning for her guests to sit on the coarse piles of wool rugs against the wood lattice walls of the felt yurt. Her English was poor—just a few words, apparently taught to her by Gabrielle—but as a child she’d spent enough time in outpost towns that she spoke passable Russian. She bustled around the smoky yurt, preparing tea and bread as she introduced herself and asked for news about her friend, Dr. Gabby.
Quinn recognized the overly sweet, musty-incense scent of opium smoke as the woman gave him a chipped clay mug of tea. She was probably in her late thirties but looked fifty.
Her eyes narrowed, noticing his look. She turned to speak to Ronnie in Russian.
“She says she can tell you still smell the thief.” Ronnie interpreted. Ainura sat on the rug beside them, hands folded quietly on the lap of a colorful, handwoven apron.
“She says her oldest son is addicted to opium,” Ronnie continued. “She told him he could not smoke it in here so he went down the mountain to Sarhad.”
Ainura’s face remained stoic, but her eyes were heavy with the misery of a woman mired in the hopelessness of a land where half of the children die before they reached their fifth birthday.
Quinn took a sip of his salt tea, nodding in genuine thanks. “Dr. Deuben told us of an orphanage somewhere in the mountains... .”
The Kyrgyz woman’s green eyes flashed and the words began to spill out of her mouth.
Ronnie translated as she spoke.
“She thought perhaps that is why we were here. There are stories, she says, of soldiers who come in the night. They butcher the men and rape the women in front of the children before taking them away... .” Ronnie stopped translating for a moment and spoke in rapid-fire Russian, clarifying a specific point. She shook her head, but the old woman was adamant.
Ronnie looked at Quinn. “She says the soldiers are Americans.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
“Listen to me, Karen,” Lieutenant Nelson said in a voice that made Hunt want to cry. “I’m not much help to you here. I don’t know what the game is with these kids, but it can’t be good. I’m thinking they must be using them to infiltrate American bases or something.” He leaned against the gray stone wall of their little cell. Beads of sweat covered his upper lip. His fever had broken for the time being, but he had some kind of infection. She knew the fever would return soon and with a vengeance.
“Funny.” Nelson gave a rattling chuckle. “I told my best bud back in Montana that I’d die over here.”
Hunt put a finger to his lips. “We’re not dead yet.”
“It won’t be long.” He looked at her with sparkling eyes that belied the hopelessness of his words. “I broke up with my girlfriend before I deployed. Didn’t want her to have to put up with worrying over my sorry ass. Wrote a death letter to my dad and left it with my brother... .”
“Shut up with the dying stuff,” Hunt pleaded. “There’s got to be a way out of this. I’m sure of it.”
Nelson let his head fall back against the wall, wincing as the move wrenched at his collarbone. “Karen,” he sighed. “Being sure isn’t the same as being right. I envy your positive attitude, but you heard what they did to Nguyen. I don’t know how far they brought us—and no one back home does either. We’re MIA ... very soon to be KIA... .”
“Don’t give up,” Hunt said. “I need you to stick with me here.”
“I’m not giving up,” the young lieutenant said. “I’m making a decision about how I go out. I plan to make them kill me quickly and you should too. Steal the joy of cutting my head off while I’m still alive.”
Hunt scooted up beside him, shoulder to shoulder. If she was near death, she wanted a little friendly human contact before her time came. She rested her hand on Nelson’s thigh, hoping it would provide some comfort.
He turned to look at her, smiling for the first time in days. “I’ll tell you one thing—the next one of those little shits that gets close enough, I’m gonna rip his head off.”
Hunt’s laugh was cut short when the metal door flung wide. Five guards filed in and stood along either side. Two carried stiff rubber truncheons.
Nelson gathered himself up in a flash and charged the men head-on. Adrenaline pushed him past the pain of his broken bone.
Following his lead, Hunt rolled sideways, springing for the two men the lieutenant had already engaged.
The crushing blow of a truncheon caught her square in the back of the head. She staggered forward, slamming face-first into the rock wall. Stunned, she watched as two men dragged Nelson to the center of the room, where they dropped him unceremoniously on the rough stone floor.
Before Hunt could make sense of what was happening, rough, stinking men clawed like vises at each arm. The more she kicked and struggled, the tighter they held her. Soon, two more men had her by each ankle. She tried to kick free, but another dose of the rubber truncheon across the bridge of her nose brought waves of nausea and sapped her will to fight. Her head lolled back. Blood poured from her nose.
“Take me... .” Nelson whimpered from where he lay in a heap on the floor. “Please ... not her.”
The room spun around Hunt as the men dragged her toward the door. She wanted badly to fight, but was working too hard not to vomit from shock, pain ... and what she knew would come next.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Bethesda Naval Hospital
Maryland
Jacques Thibodaux crammed himself into the flimsy plastic chair that must have been meant to discourage hospital visitors. He’d already read the stack of Soldier of Fortune and motorcycle magazines at his feet and decided to click through the TV channels on the hardwired controller. It was all mindless game shows and pontificating celebrity judges discussing peoples’ angst-ridden lives. Camille was resting so he kept the volume to a hushed buzz.
In the end it didn’t matter. A male nurse with a blond goatee and green hospital scrubs came in to wake Camille up and see if she was resting properly.
Thibodaux bit his tongue and walked over to gaze out the window.
“You think you’re foolin’ anyone with that vest?” The nurse’s voice surprised him. He should have been taking care of Camille, not quizzing Thibodaux about his clothing.
“Pardon?” He kept his gaze out the window in an effort to keep from getting confrontational. Camille had often said, only half joking, that one of his hateful looks could give a decent person chronic diarrhea.
“The vest,” Nurse Greg said. “I mean, who wears a fisherman’s vest in D.C. unless they’re using it to cover up a weapon? You a cop?”
Thibodaux nodded, still facing away. He could see the nurse’s reflection in the window as he placed a probe in Camille’s ear to check her temperature. “In a word,” he said.
“My dad’s a cop,” Nurse Greg said. “He wears a shoot-me-first vest too. I think you should just wear the gun in the open for everyone to see. I mean what’s the point of wearing a vest where everyone knows you’re a cop?”
“I bet your daddy’s sure enough proud of you,” Thibodaux muttered.
He watched as Camille reached up to touch the nurse on the elbow. Her voice was thick and hoarse from an exhausted sleep. “You should really go before he turns around,” she said. “My husband isn’t much for chitchat about his work with folks he doesn’t know.”
“Nearly done,” the nurse chirped, not taking the hint. “Just need to check your blood pressure.”
Camille coughed, clearing her throat. “Seriously, you need to go. Your being here is raising my blood pressure.”
“Won’t take long,” the nurse said. He picked up her arm to put on the BP cuff.
Camille threw her head back against the pillow. “Jacques,” she sighed. “I have asked this man to leave and he won’t.”
Thibodaux turned slowly to face the wide-eyed Nurse Greg. His jaw flexed, nostrils flared. The muscles in his neck tensed. Moving in close, he put his arm around Nurse Greg, eclipsing him with hulking shoulders. Leaning down he whispered a few words in the man’s ear. Nurse Greg looked up, slack jawed, as if he’d just been slugged. He took one tremulous breath and left the room without even gathering up his kit.
“What did you say to him?” Camille narrowed her eyes.
“Not much.” Thibodaux shrugged. “I told him he was gonna have a hard time picking up all his teeth with broken fingers.”
“My man, the poet.” Camille grinned, but he could tell she was hurting.
“How you doin’, Sugar?” Thibodaux patted the back of his wife’s hand. It was cool and the veins seemed to stand out more than he remembered.
“I’m okay,” she said. “How’s Jericho?”
“Quinn?” Thibodaux cocked his big head to one side. “He’s ... on an assignment. Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know,” Camille said. “I just haven’t heard you talk about him much lately. Seemed like you were becoming pretty good friends.”
“We are,” Thibodaux said. “But let’s us worry about you now. The doc says the baby is okay, but you were losing some blood. You’ll need to stay on bed rest for a little bit.”
Camille suddenly sat upright in bed. “The boys! Who’s watching the boys?”
Thibodaux ran hand across his wife’s forehead, easing her back against her pillow. “They’re fine, Sugar.” He shook his head. “Sandy’s with them.”
“Sandy’s just sixteen.” She turned her face away.
Jacques’s mouth hung open. “Honey, Sandy watches the boys all the time. She knows how to handle them.”