Knuckle Bones

by David Berens

  Troy nodded as Aasif’s Uncle rushed past him and out the door. He leaned out into the hall and watched as the man hurried down the hall through the apartment building and disappeared out the front door.

  He stuck his head back into the room, “Okay, Aasif, let’s get Sedra back to town and see if my guys can fix her up.”

  “But what about Uncle Ramin?”

  “No problemo, Amigo,” Troy walked to the bedroom door, “we’ll have her back before he knows she’s been gone.”

  Aasif’s face brightened into a smile, “this is wonderful news Mr. Troy. It will be good to have my Aana back into good health.”

  “Mmhmm,” Troy didn’t have the heart to tell the boy this wasn’t likely to happen.

  The two of them picked up the old woman and eased her out of the apartment and down the stairs. When they got outside, Troy picked her up, cradling her like a small child. She was light… too light and Troy could feel her sharp bones pressing into his arms.

  Sedra wrapped her arms around his neck and whispered, “Thank you.”

  Troy didn’t feel much like he deserved to be thanked, but they trudged the long walk back to the embassy and he carried her into the medical facility.

  Upon seeing them, the nurse on call immediately grabbed a wheelchair and rushed to them.

  “What’s the story?” she asked.

  Sedra was sleeping and her breathing was more ragged than Troy had heard before, “emphysema or something like it.”

  He eased the woman into the chair and motioned toward the door, “Aasif, can you wait outside for a bit. I’ll be right here. Don’t go far.”

  The boy nodded. He kissed his Grandmother on the cheek and brushed her hair back. Her eyes fluttered open and she smiled. She spoke something in Arabic and then fell back asleep.

  The nurse wheeled the old lady through a set of double doors and Troy waited. He paced the floor until he thought maybe an hour had passed.

  When she finally returned, her lips were pursed tightly. She had an x-ray in her hands.

  “Well?” Troy asked, “is it bad?”

  He knew the answer, but wanted confirmation.

  “It’s not emphysema,” she said quietly, “we had her on oxygen, but it wasn’t helping. She started coughing and… well, she’s coughing up blood. So, I ordered an x-ray.

  The nurse held the film up to the light motioning to a hazy section in the middle. Troy didn’t know what he was looking at, so he shrugged.

  “It’s lung cancer,” the nurse inhaled deeply, “and she’s apparently never been treated.”

  Troy nodded.

  The nurse put her hand on his arm, “it’s not bad… it’s over. She’s not likely to make it through the night.”

  Dangit, Troy thought, wondering how he was going to explain this to Aasif and his Uncle.

  “Okay, thanks,” he said to the nurse and turned to the door.

  He stepped out into the night wondering how the boy would take the news, but there was no sign of him. He looked left and right, but saw no one.

  “Aasif,” he called into the dark.

  No answer. He pulled his cigarettes out of his pocket and tamped the packet. He stopped short seeing the Surgeon General’s warning printed on the side: Smoking Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease, Emphysema, and May Complicate Pregnancy.

  “Dangit,” he muttered to himself, stuffing the pack back into his thigh pocket.

  The door behind him opened. It was the nurse that had admitted them.

  “What is it?” he asked her.

  “I’m sorry,” she shook her head, “she’s gone.”

  7

  Demand

  Troy woke to what sounded like gunfire. He jerked up in bed and bumped his head on the bunk above him. Harry Nedman dropped from that top bunk and fell hard on the floor.

  “What in God’s name is that?” Troy asked him, rubbing his forehead.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Harry picked himself up and gave Troy a confused look.

  “The gunfire,” Troy said, “didn’t you hear it?”

  “Aw, for cryin’ out loud, Troy,” Harry tugged on a sore shoulder, “I didn’t hear anything. You must’ve been dreaming again.”

  “Dangit,” Troy inhaled slowly, calming his racing heartbeat.

  The dreams had started after his chopper had taken some serious fire on a mission just outside of – well, the location is classified, but suffice to say, it was a dangerous mission. The fuel tank of the Apache had been hit and caught fire. There wasn’t an explosion, but Harry and Troy dragged a swath of flame behind them all the way back to the base as more and more bullets pinged against their helicopter. Troy had been sure the flame was going to set off one of the warheads strapped to their bottom and make them into a flying bomb. But, it hadn’t happened. Thankfully, they’d survived even if their chopper didn’t. It was retired and they were reassigned a brand-new model. But the dreams had stayed.

  “I’m goin’ for a smoke,” Troy stood up, “want one?”

  “Dude, it’s three-thirty in the morning,” Harry climbed back up to his bunk, “I’m not getting up for another hour at least.”

  “Alright,” Troy sniffed, “suit yourself. I ain’t tired no more.”

  He walked out the door and into a mild night. He was worried about Aasif and hoped the boy was okay. Maybe after the sun came up, he’d make the trip out to the boy’s house and tell them Sedra had passed away.

  He took the crumpled pack of cigarettes from his thigh pocket and thumped them a few times. His eye caught the warning label and he paused. Cancer. In the middle of a bombed-out city in Afghanistan, cancer had taken the old woman down. Didn’t seem fair.

  “Mister Troy?” a small voice brought his eyes away from the pack.

  In front of him stood Aasif.

  “Hey, Aasif,” Troy tucked the cigarettes back into his pocket, “you okay?”

  “I am,” the boy nodded.

  His eyes began to well with tears.

  “You went to the hospital?” Troy asked.

  Aasif gave one quick nod.

  “And they told you about Sedra?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m so sorry, Aasif,” Troy started, “It was worse than we thought. She didn’t stand much of a chance.”

  The boy shrugged his shoulders.

  “Why don’t we grab some grub at the mess?” Troy put his hand on the boy’s shoulder.

  “Yes,” Aasif wiped his eyes.

  The two walked down the empty street in silence. Finally, Troy spoke.

  “So, um…,” he started in a quiet tone, “Your Uncle knows?”

  Aasif snapped his head up, “Oh, Mister Troy, I almost forgot.”

  He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a small box. It was exactly like the others he had delivered with the finger and toe bones.

  Troy shuddered to think what might be in this one. He took the box from the boy.

  “Aasif,” he asked, “where do you get these?”

  “My Uncle,” he said matter-of-factly.

  Troy wasn’t shocked by that. He had expected that Uncle Ramin was involved in the kidnapping somehow, but the implication that he was dismembering an American diplomat was disconcerting. He stopped walking.

  “Aasif,” he knelt down to look the boy in the eyes, “is your Uncle a member of the Taliban?”

  “No,” he said, “he runs a grocery store.”

  Troy held the box up, “then, what’s up with these packages? Where is he getting them from? Why is he sending them to us?”

  The boy shrugged, “I do not know. He only tells me to bring them to the embassy.”

  Troy stood, “Okay. I’ll take this in. Grab yourself a quick bite at the mess. Tell them Troy Bodean sent you and they’ll wrap something up for you to take with you. Then get back home and stay there. Okay?”

  * * *

  General Buff Summerton opened the box and spat. He pulled a piece of paper out of the box and then tossed it o
n the desk. Several bones rattled and bounced out of it.

  “I knew this was going to happen, dammit!” he eyeballed Troy, “you don’t negotiate with these bastards. They get all high and mighty and start getting more and more dangerous. We shoulda cut our losses a long time ago.”

  He unfolded the piece of paper and looked at it, his lips moving silently as he read. He slammed his fist down on his desk.

  “Three goddamn million,” he growled, “Now the bastard wants three goddamn million.”

  Troy stood at attention saying nothing. The general stood and walked around his desk.

  “You know where this kid’s Uncle is?”

  “Sir, yes, sir.” Troy answered.

  “Good,” Summerton poked his finger in his chest, “You and Harry get your chopper down there and blow this guy away. No questions, no interrogations, no nothing. End this today.”

  Troy was taken aback for a second and said nothing.

  “Is that clear, soldier?” the general snapped.

  “Um… sir, yes, sir,” Troy stuttered, “but, what about the Ambassador. Don’t we need to run this by him before…”

  “The Ambassador is out of country. And his payoff-the-terrorists plan failed miserably. Now, we get to implement my clean-up-the-trash plan.”

  Troy didn’t know what to say so he snapped a salute. The general returned it and waved him out of his office.

  As he turned away he heard Summerton pick up the phone. Walking into the hall, he overheard him say, “it’s plan B time. Yes, it ends today.”

  Troy ran. He burst into his bunk to find Harry lounging in the bunk with a book open on his chest. He was snoring loudly.

  “Harry,” Troy shook him, “get up, man. I need your help with something.”

  “Huh, what…?” Harry was clearly disoriented being shaken out of a deep sleep, “what’s going on?”

  “I need your help with something,” Troy nearly dragged him off the bunk.

  “Okay, okay,” Harry rubbed his eyes, “what do you need help with?”

  “Saving a terrorist’s life.”

  8

  Taken

  The Apache landed in the bank parking lot across from Aasif’s apartment building. The scree flew in all directions sandblasting everything within a few hundred feet of the helicopter’s rotor wash.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” Harry said through the mic as Troy took off his helmet and jumped down.

  He jogged across the lot with his head low in the rushing air. He took the stairs three at a time and ran down the hall toward the boy’s apartment. He didn’t knock. He just shouldered his way into the door. It flew open with little protest.

  Ramin jumped up from the kitchen table.

  “What the hell is this?” he yelled.

  Troy held his hands up, “I need to know what’s going on with the boxes.”

  Ramin said nothing, he just stared at him.

  Troy jerked his pistol from its holster and pointed it at him, “I’m not joking around here, Ramin. I’ve been sent to blow you away, but I think something funny is going on here.”

  He shook the gun, “now start talking, or I’ll follow my orders.”

  Ramin sat back down. He sighed and rested his hands on the table.

  “It started with a letter. I was told that my brother and sister-in-law had been taken by the Taliban and that they had a job for me to do.”

  Troy lowered his gun.

  “I was to have Aasif deliver packages to the embassy or his parents would be murdered. And then the first box came.”

  “And you don’t know where they come from?” Troy asked.

  “No,” Ramin said, “I have no idea. But they have my brother and his wife. I had no choice.”

  Troy thought for a minute, “and you have no idea who’s putting them there?”

  “No.”

  “There’s no chance you have a security camera is there?”

  Ramin sighed, “no.”

  “Where’s your store?”

  “It is next door, of course.”

  “Show me.”

  Ramin walked him out of the apartment building and down to the corner. A small shop with dingy posters of food displayed in the windows stood next door. A black mailbox hung on the door frame.

  “This is where they are delivered,” Ramin pointed at the box.

  Troy examined it for a moment. Nothing unusual. He thought about trying to get fingerprints, but there would be hundreds of sets of prints on the mailbox including Ramin’s. And the bone boxes had been dusted and they hadn’t found any to match anyway. He looked across the street at the now calm helicopter. Harry waved.

  “Dangit,” he inhaled, “Ramin. You gotta get outta here. The people I work for want you killed and I was sent to…”

  His voice trailed off as he saw the blinking light behind the chopper. The ATM. Still powered up. Still working. Still recording everything in its path.

  Troy took off running toward it. Upon ripping open the machine, locating its video recorder, downloading the video to a flash drive, and watching hours of empty footage… he found what he was looking for… a delivery in progress.

  He could not believe what he was watching. Special Envoy to Afghanistan, Sid Phillips, was dropping a small package into the mailbox. He had all his fingers.

  9

  General

  General James “Buff” Summerton glared at the footage, “what the hell is this?”

  “Sir, it appears to be Sid delivering his own ransom note to the…”

  “Shut the hell up!” he interrupted Troy.

  Summerton chewed on an unlit cigar. He clicked a button on the laptop displaying the footage.

  “Who else saw this?”

  Troy was confused by the question, “sir?”

  “Who else has seen this video, soldier?”

  “Um… Harry, and the boy’s Uncle,” Troy answered, “and now you.”

  He considered this for a long moment and finally asked, “and we don’t know where Sid is now?”

  “Well, I have an idea.”

  “Go on.”

  “Ramin said the boxes look like…,” Troy started.

  “Who they hell is Ramin?” the general interrupted.

  “The boy’s Uncle,” Troy said then continued, “He says he recognizes the boxes from a nearby jewelry store.”

  “And…?”

  “Harry and I investigated.”

  Buff waved his hand to indicate Troy should continue.

  “It seems Sid has been buying jewelry there. The store owner says he always talks about shipping the jewelry back to his wife.”

  “Sid’s been divorced for over a year,” the general protested.

  “Maybe he’s trying to get her back,” Troy shrugged, “Anyway, he always comes down the street from the North side. Toward the mountains.”

  “Okay… and?”

  “The jeweler says there’s an old Taliban camp up there. Abandoned, but probably still a good place to hide out in.”

  “Shit,” Buff slumped forward and steepled his hands, “what in the hell are we gonna do now?”

  “I have an idea,” Troy said.

  “I’m all ears.”

  10

  Shrapnel - Today

  Harry Nedman landed them just South of the rocky hills outside of town. Based on what the locals had told them, the old, abandoned camp was just a mile or so up the trail. Troy shouldered an M-16 and prayed desperately that he wouldn’t need it. Harry powered the chopper down and jumped out. He looked nervous. The camp was well within the safe zone, so they shouldn’t encounter any resistance, but if this war had shown them anything, it was that anything was possible.

  They walked slowly up the road for a few minutes before finding a cave tucked into the rocky face of the hills. Outside the hole in the ground was a ring of rocks with a pile of ashes in the center. Propped against one of those rocks, blade pointed upward, was a large survival knife. It had what looked like blood
stains on it.

  Troy pointed two fingers at his eyes, then back to the cave opening. Harry understood and nodded. Troy pulled his rifle from his shoulder and pointed it at the hole. He walked slowly toward it.

  “Afternoon, soldier,” a distinctly American voice called from above them.

  Troy dropped to the ground and looked up. The sun blinded him, he couldn’t make out where the voice was coming from at all. He was a sitting duck.

  “So, I guess you’ve figured out my little plan, eh?”

  Troy said nothing.

  “They were going to fire me, you know?” the voice said, “All the great work I’ve done in this God forsaken place and they were downsizing me.”

  “Mr. Phillips,” Harry called out, “we’re just here to help.”

  Troy shushed him harshly.

  Ambassador Phillips laughed sarcastically, “Help?!? What are you going to help with? You going to get me a new job? Get my wife to come back to me? Hell, I’d settle for get my wife to leave me alone.”

  Harry slid up beside Troy crouching low, “He’s straight back there.”

  He pointed to a rocky outcropping about thirty feet above the cave. At that point, Troy Clint Bodean didn’t know the I.E.D. would go off in exactly fourteen minutes and fifty-nine seconds burying a piece of jagged metal almost two inches deep into his knee and blowing both of Harry Nedman’s legs off at the hip. If he had, he would’ve smoked his last Morven Gold cigarette before stepping down out of the cockpit of the AH-64 they’d dropped in the middle of the road just outside of Kabul. Hell, if he’d known that, he would’ve put the chopper in the air and gotten their asses out of Dodge!

  “You keep him talking and I’ll see if I can get a bead on him,” Harry said.

  Troy nodded.

  “Ambassador, we’re just here to help you get back to the Embassy,” Troy called up to him.

  Harry scrambled a few feet away and stopped, waiting.