by Davis Bunn
Marc straightened. “Okay. I make one guard stationed outside the garage gates, another by the entry, and one on foot patrol inside the wall.”
“I confirm.” Lahm offered Marc a pistol. “Take this.”
“I can’t. If they notice it, my cover’s blown. And I intend to get in close and personal with those guys.” He mashed the kerchief down tight on his head. “Don’t you or your men move until you see the gate open up. You understand what I’m saying? If I go down, you fade away. I’m just one man. Stick your prisoner back underground, go to the judge tomorrow. Keep a team on patrol around here in case they shift their location. Maybe you can strike when they’re out in the open. Bring an army.”
Major Lahm gripped the sleeve of Marc’s jacket and demanded, “How will you take out the man on the inside without a gun?”
Marc’s teeth flashed in the starlight. “What’s the Arabic word for luck?”
Major Lahm released his grip. “There is no such word. Not here. Not this night.”
Sameh watched as Marc started down the side street, one that would take him back toward the shops. Sameh’s entire body was gripped by a fear the American seemed incapable of feeling for himself.
When Sameh was certain he could hold his voice steady, he used an expression more than a thousand years old. The Abyssinian caliphs called their highest military force the hajib, the group that formed the caliph’s personal bodyguard. Nowadays the term hajib referred to the barriers an Iraqi used to protect his feelings, his spirit, his family, his life. Sameh said, “This American is managing to penetrate my hajib.”
Lahm grunted his agreement. “For the sake of those children, I hope he can create the luck we have learned to live without.”
Chapter Fourteen
O n the bumpy ride from the prison, Marc had allowed himself a moment’s worry whether he still had a grip on tradecraft. After all, he had been effectively retired for three years and counting. But here in the street, with the rush of terror and thrill, it all came back. Like taking the proverbial bicycle out for the ride of his life.
He had no such worries about his other skills, the ones that would be required if he managed to get in close to the three guards. As Marc had told the Arabs, he had indeed studied accounting during his wife’s illness. But he’d also spent hours at a full-contact gym. It was only there, standing barefoot on the mats, facing opponents with backgrounds as rough as his own, that he could unleash the weight of fate’s cruelest hour.
Marc emerged from the side street just beyond the shops’ illumination. He stumbled down the center of the otherwise empty thoroughfare, his passage followed by those inside the cafes. Marc weaved about and mumbled to himself. One of the guards he passed laughed softly and spit in the dust.
He angled toward the house, walking sideways and leaning so the kerchief dangled about his face. Quick glimpses from beneath the checkered curtain confirmed that the two guards were watching his approach.
The front wall had two openings, a pair of sheet-metal doors for the garage and a gate of iron bars by the entrance. A guard stood sentry before each. As he passed, the guard by the garage said something to him, a bark of Arabic. Marc teetered closer to the front gate.
The garage guy moved over to where his mate stood and spoke again, more sharply this time. The second guard stepped forward and shoved Marc away. He went down hard.
Marc made an ordeal of picking himself off the road. He dusted himself off, his gestures slow, deliberate. As he did so, he stumbled back toward the front gate.
The two guards were angry now. Their words attracted the attention of the third guard on patrol inside the wall. He stepped up close to the bars. Which was exactly what Marc had been after all along.
Now both guards grabbed for him. Only Marc was no longer there. He ducked under their hands and reached through the bars.
The inside guard was still waking up to the fact that the drunk was not a drunk at all. Marc gripped the guard’s lapel with one hand and his hair with the other. The guard’s hair was long and plastered with some sort of oil or pomade smelling vaguely of lilacs. Marc yanked the inside guard forward with all his strength. The guard’s forehead clanged against the bars.
Marc did not wait for the man to go down. Nor did he take time to turn around. Instead, he leaped straight up and double-kicked, using his grip on the gate’s bars to steady his aim. His spread-eagle attack took one guard in the throat and the other on the chin.
The guard to his left, the one he had struck in the throat, went down on one hand and choked out tight breaths. The other guard spun and almost fell, but managed to hold himself upright. He turned back, drawing his pistol as he moved.
Marc rushed forward and chopped hard on the arm, paralyzing the hand. The gun clattered to the sidewalk unfired.
Marc closed in, striking the man in the chest and the temple. Two blows so fast they hit as one. The man was out before he hit the asphalt.
Marc wheeled about and realized the other guard had managed to make it onto his knees, one hand to his throat. His face was turning purple with the effort to breathe. His other hand held a gun. He took aim as he choked.
Marc saw the barrel coming into range, and knew he could not make it in time.
But Major Lahm had not followed Marc’s orders. The policeman raced out of the night to bounce his baton off the man’s wrist. With the speed of a thousand practice swings, Lahm struck the man square in the forehead. The man’s eyelids fluttered, but he remained upright. Lahm hit him again. He sprawled at Lahm’s feet.
What Marc wanted at that moment was a chance to step back, study the stars, feel the simple thrill of being able to draw another breath. What he did was turn to the gate and see that yes, the inside guard was out for the count. But the problem was, the man had fallen backward.
As he feared, Lahm finished searching the two guards and hissed, “No keys.”
It was standard security ops. The inside guard would be responsible for opening and shutting the gates. Which was locked from the inside.
Marc stripped off the two outside guards’ head-kerchiefs and knotted them around his hands. Behind him, Lahm’s men were swiftly moving up and down the street, showing badges to the other security, ordering them to remain absolutely silent. Lahm saw what Marc was going to do, moved over to the wall and cupped his hands. Marc stepped into the stirrup and allowed Lahm to lift him up to where he could get a grip on the top. Both kerchiefs were lacerated by the glass imbedded in the concrete. Marc felt something bite into his left palm. But he was committed.
Marc clambered up and stood upon the wall. The glass crunched softly beneath his canvas boots. Marc heard footsteps rounding the house. He darted along the wall and was above the guard when he came into view. Marc leaped down, landing on top of his opponent, and came up first. He hammered the guard once, twice. The man crumpled around his unspoken warning.
Marc raced back. Beyond the gate, Lahm was already on his cell, hissing softly to his men at the back. Lahm’s forward team hustled quietly into position. Marc felt through the moaning guard’s pockets and came up with the keys. He fumbled until he found the one that fit the gate. He sprang back and Lahm’s men spilled inside.
The silence only intensified once they were inside the compound. The house, large and two-storied, had a pale stucco finish and a massive nail-studded front door. Light splashed over the rubble-strewn ground from the downstairs windows. Marc held the keys in a tight grip so as to keep them from jingling. Lahm lowered his phone and whispered, “The two rear windows show empty rooms.”
“Let me try the front door.”
Lahm spoke briefly into his phone, then nodded to Marc.
The door responded to the third key. Marc turned it slowly, then tried the handle. When the door shifted open, Lahm halted Marc with a finger on his arm. The major then pointed at the ground by Marc’s feet. Stay.
Marc knew better than to argue with a professional. He stepped out of the way.
Lahm gripp
ed the door’s handle, lifted his cellphone, and hissed what Marc assumed was the Arabic version of green light.
Bedlam.
Chapter Fifteen
M ajor Lahm did not allow Sameh to enter the compound, not even when seven Palestinians were propped against the front wall, their hands manacled behind their backs. Sameh half listened to the policeman’s explanation of it being a crime scene. In truth, he had no real interest in going anywhere. The major said the children had all been found unharmed and were being rescued. The kidnappers were bathed in the light of the two Land Cruisers, which had been pulled up with headlights directed to glare upon where they sat cross-legged along the front wall. Sameh remained on the other side of the street, slightly apart from the cluster of onlookers. Marc Royce stood beside him. The man seemed calm, contained. Sameh might even have used the word detached, except for how his attention remained tightly focused on the house’s front gate.
Sameh asked, “Do you want to go inside?”
“Lahm ordered me to stay here. He’s right. I don’t speak the lingo and I can’t add anything. Besides which, Lahm and his men are pros.”
Sameh studied Marc. Up close the man revealed an odd aura, like bullets not yet fired. “I did not know a man could move as fast as you did. I saw it, and still I am not certain of what happened.”
Marc nodded, as though he had expected the question. “Back when I was growing up, Baltimore was mired in serious problems. A lot of the city was corrupt, including too many cops. Kickbacks were the name of the game. The kids I ran with, they hated and distrusted the police. I despised that attitude. I decided I was going to grow up and be the one honest cop in town.”
“But you became an intelligence agent.”
“By the time I went to college, Baltimore was changing. The people elected an honest mayor and city council. They asked the feds to come in and shake things up. The corrupt cops were mostly retired, or fired, or locked up. I studied criminology at university, and basically went looking for a challenge.”
Sameh pointed across the street, to where Marc’s attack still lingered in his mind. “And that performance I just witnessed?”
“There’s a dojo near my church. A gym where you practice hand-to-hand combat. After my wife got sick, I used to slip away whenever I could. Sometimes twice a day. If my heart was in it, I’d go into the church and pray. For my wife, for me, for God to change the lousy hand we’d been dealt. I tried to be honest with myself. If I was too angry to pray, I worked out.” Marc’s face tightened. “I worked out a lot.”
Sameh turned back to the house and the empty portal. Despite a lifetime of reservations, he felt a genuine and growing affection for this young man. “Are there many like you in America? I ask only because I lived there for a year and did not meet anyone who resembles you.”
“You were a student.” Marc offered a thin smile. “It takes a lot of practice to get where I am. A lot of hard knocks. Years, in fact.”
Sameh shook his head. Not in denial, but at how the American took a compliment and turned it into a reason for humility. “You are a man of faith. And a man of action. You have suffered great loss. But it has only opened you to the distress of others. You care deeply, it seems, for everyone and everything. Except your own life. You do not seem to have any personal aims. Even the way you come to be here, helping out a vanished friend and the retired boss who fired you. And now a family you don’t know whose child was snatched away.”
Marc turned his face away, offering a silhouette carved from stone against the darkness. He did not speak.
“I do not seek to criticize you. I am genuinely curious. Why are you here? What is it you personally want? Not just from this night. I ask because I want to trust you. As you do me.”
Sameh forced himself to stop. He knew he was babbling. But he was still nervous from what had just happened. And his nerves made him edgy. His words sounded confrontational to his own ears. As though he was in court, pestering a reluctant witness. “Forgive me. I should not have spoken as I did.”
“The truth is…” Marc stopped and swallowed, the sound so loud he might have been choking. “I basically stopped living when my wife died. Now I feel as though I’m being called back. To do more than just go through the motions. To reenter the world. To accept a real tomorrow.”
He turned toward Sameh. The night and the headlights turned his gaze into what seemed an open wound. “I just don’t know if I can.”
Sameh was still searching for a response when Major Lahm appeared in the doorway. Marc said, “Here they come.”
The police followed the major out. Each held one child or two. The young ones blinked in the headlights’ glare like it was full daylight. Most of them were scarcely more than toddlers. They clung like limpets to the police. They appeared fearful and exhausted and afraid to believe their ordeal was over.
Then one more policeman stepped through the doorway, carrying another little boy in his arms. Just another frightened little stranger. Only this boy recognized Sameh, or perhaps it was simply the way Sameh rushed over, arms outstretched, a caring face in a terrible time. The boy wailed and reached out. All the terror and pain of captivity were held in that cry.
Sameh swept the boy into an embrace. They were both crying. It did not matter whether the boy recognized him or not. His comforting arms and caring heart were all the child required.
– – All three females in Sameh’s household were still awake when Major Lahm dropped him off late that night. They met him with more questions than he had breath to answer. Thankfully, his exhaustion saved him from needing to explain precisely what had occurred. He wanted to avoid all such details in front of Leyla’s young daughter, Bisan, who was eleven. All he said was, they had found Abdul, and the boy was now back with his family. Oh, and a few other children had been rescued as well. How many? Sameh was asleep on his feet as he replied. Forty-six.
Chapter Sixteen
T he next morning, Sameh awoke feeling weary in a manner that went far beyond needing more rest. He had known many such times in years past, when chaos ruled and the darkness did not scatter even when the sun rose to its fiercest. But this morning was very different. As he rose from his bed, his mind flashed back to the reunion between Hassan’s family and their small son. Their joy had been so deeply overwhelming, Sameh had felt his chest threaten to explode. Even now, as he padded wearily about the bedroom and dressed, his spirit sang. He even had to shave around a smile.
To his surprise, the women did not feel compelled to pester him with more questions when he joined them in the kitchen. Which was extremely unusual. Miriam, his wife, was the most gently ferocious interrogator Sameh had ever known. She could winnow the truth from a cadaver. But she asked just one question, and that was on the drive to church. “This American, he will be joining us?”
“He said he would.” Several times each week, Sameh attended the morning prayer service. He had invited Marc while still at the hospital, where they had ferried all the rescued children save Abdul. Afterward, he could not say why he had done such a thing. Only that it had seemed right at the time.
The previous night, Major Lahm had called a hospital administrator, who was also a friend, alerting him to their arrival. The hospital staff had responded with tender zeal. A ward had been evacuated. The rescued children had been checked over and comforted and settled two to a bed, in some cases three. Lahm had asked for volunteers from his exhausted men to stand guard. All had wanted the duty. Sameh had watched the policemen argue with quiet intensity over who would hold the honor, and felt his own composure finally unravel. He was unaccustomed to so many miracles in the space of one day.
That had been the moment when he had asked Marc to join him for the next morning’s service. Marc had seemed to find it difficult to respond, his voice sounding rather strangled to Sameh. Or perhaps it was just that he too felt the day’s strain. Marc had thanked him, calling the invitation a gift.
Which was what Sameh related to his three women
as he drove through the early morning light. The American, Sameh told them, had called his invitation to wake up and find a taxi and travel across town for a dawn service a gift.
Bisan, Leyla’s daughter, declared from the back seat, “He is nice. I like him.”
Miriam replied, “You have not met him.”
“Mama has. She says he is nice too.”
Leyla said, “Bisan, shah, it is not proper.”
“Well, didn’t you say so last night?”
Sameh asked, “What else did your mother say?”
“Uncle, please. Don’t encourage her.”
Miriam said, “Bisan does not need encouragement. She takes after Sameh. She has all the encouragement she will ever need built inside her. She is like the battery bunny, no? She goes and goes and goes.”
“Mama says the American looks like Omar Sharif.”
“I did not say that.”
“You said he was tall and handsome and had eyes like the Egyptian. I know which Egyptian you meant. There is only the one for you.”
“Now you have embarrassed your mother,” Leyla said.
Miriam chuckled. “What is the embarrassment in this? We all know you moon over Sharif. Someone says his name, she can’t breathe.”
“You go like this.” Bisan sucked in a huge breath through pursed lips.
Sameh decided it was a good time to change the subject. “I am astonished that no one has asked me anything more about what happened last night.”
Bisan, not so easily diverted, added, “Mama said something else about the American. She said he has sad eyes.”