by Brad Taylor
Rafik said, “There’s been a complication, old friend. I’m afraid I must put more on your shoulders than I wanted. In addition to your requirements in Europe.”
23
Knuckles looked like a caricature of someone injured. He was covered in bandages from his head to his waist, with irregular red polka dots splotching through where the wounds were still seeping, like oil spots trying to join together. In the twenty-four hours he had been in the hospital, he hadn’t gotten appreciably better. But he hadn’t gotten any worse, either. The doctors kept marveling that he was alive at all, which was something I didn’t need to hear.
The hospital in Alexandria turned out to be pretty damn good, as far as foreign hospitals go. It was very clean and modern, and handled the trauma of the terrorist attack efficiently. We had been given the presidential suite because they’d run out of room, which was small compensation. It gave Knuckles an anteroom he wouldn’t use with a TV he couldn’t watch.
I had been conducting a vigil since we’d arrived, not for any emotional reasons, but because I was petrified the staff here would miss something if an alarm went off on one of the plethora of machines hooked to him. So far, we’d been okay.
Jennifer had stayed as well. I could tell she wasn’t sure what to do, and was probably traumatized by the carnage she had witnessed. I knew I was being an asshole by letting her flounder, but I didn’t have the energy to help her cope. It was all I could do to deal with my own emotions. Seeing Knuckles’ torn body was eating into me like acid. I felt a darkness coming back.
After the murder of my family, I had lived in an abyss, full of rage and hatred. The senselessness of their deaths had consumed me, bringing on a blackness that wanted to take over my soul. Those days were now a distant memory. I had tricked myself into believing they weren’t even that, but just a bad dream that had no substance. The terrorist strike that had ripped my friends apart had also awakened something, a small sliver on the edge of my consciousness asking to grow. Reminding me that my past was all too real.
Had my friends been killed or injured on an operation, in combat, I would have been able to handle it differently. I had had many friends die that way, and it was something I inherently understood as the price of my job. This was different. This was just as senseless as my family’s death. A random killing of people I cared deeply about, and I could feel the beast wanting back out. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hold it back.
“Pike,” Jennifer said, “you should eat. You haven’t taken a break since we got here. Let’s go take a walk.”
I thought about it and decided she was right. I needed to get out of here.
“Yeah. Okay. I want to stop by the nurses’ station, though, let ’em know we’re leaving.”
We exited the hospital onto a tight, busy street, the buildings crammed together without any space and the sunlight blinding me. Looking around, all I saw was a small industrial area with metal workers shaping fenders on cars, and lathes shooting out sparks into the alleys.
Jennifer asked a cab driver for directions and we headed out. Four blocks later, we had left the industrial area and entered a congested shopping district. We stopped at a roadside stand and ordered some local food.
Sitting down at a coffee table, Jennifer said, “Pike, I think someone’s following us.”
I didn’t alter my demeanor. Just asked, “Who and where.”
“There’s an Asian guy at your nine o’clock. He was outside the hospital when we left, and now he’s across the street at the other café. I only noticed him because he was Asian. He stuck out.”
“Can you see him by looking at me?”
“Yeah.”
I didn’t bother to try and ID him. “Let me know if he leaves.”
If Jennifer had called it, he was probably surveillance. She had an uncanny eye for this type of thing, and I had never seen her call a ghost. We ate our lunch at an unhurried pace, staying longer than any ordinary patron would. When the man didn’t leave, the chances of a mistake became smaller and smaller. We finished up and began walking away from the hospital. The man followed. We entered a pharmacy and bought some aspirin, just as an excuse, then began walking back in the direction of the hospital. The man reappeared on our tail. The glimpse of him brought irrational anger.
Dumb motherfucker’s going to follow me when he sticks out like a whore in church?
“Jennifer, I’m going to find out what this guy’s doing.”
She looked at me sharply. “How?”
“There was an empty warehouse in the industrial section. When we turn the corner to it, I’m going to stop and jerk his ass inside.”
She became alarmed, seeing where I was going. “Then what?”
I stopped and locked eyes with her. “Then he tells us what the fuck he’s doing. Don’t you think it’s strange that we’re following a guy from Indonesia who gets killed in a terrorist attack, and now we’re being followed by an Asian guy? He’s probably fucking Indonesian.”
“Pike, let’s call the police. I don’t think this is a good idea.”
We turned the corner and I stopped. “Tough shit. We’re here. Go inside and see what’s there.”
“Pike—”
“Get inside. Now.”
She opened the door and disappeared. I squeezed inside the door frame and waited on our tail, my fists clenching and unclenching spasmodically, the blackness spreading.
He came around the corner and reacted instantly, throwing his hands up and stumbling backward. I batted them away and grabbed him by his throat, slamming him against the brick wall. Then I threw his ass through the doorway. All one hundred and thirty pounds of him.
I stepped into the gloom of the warehouse and smacked him in the head, stunning him again. I ripped off a satchel he was wearing and opened it, finding a beat-up Chinese Type 67 semiautomatic pistol. The barrel had a built-in suppressor, and the caliber was unique to the weapon. It wasn’t something you could buy on eBay.
Well, well. Not a coincidence he’s behind us.
I checked the chamber, saw it was loaded, and pointed it at his head. “Empty your pockets.”
He sat up and did nothing, just stared blankly at me. He looked familiar, and it clicked. One of the tourists from the catacombs. I cracked him in the head with the barrel, splitting open his scalp and knocking him to the ground again. I heard Jennifer say my name, but ignored her.
“I said empty your fucking pockets.”
He still did nothing. I raised the pistol again and Jennifer moved to him, pulling on his pockets.
“Get the fuck away from him!”
She did, but said, “I don’t think he speaks English. Pike, don’t hurt him.”
The man was now emptying his pockets onto the ground.
“Bullshit. That’s the first line of defense. Play like you can’t understand. He was at the catacombs when the strike happened. He knows something, and he speaks fine. I promise.”
I looked around the warehouse, seeing a table and chair. I pointed the pistol at him and said, “Take off your clothes.”
“Pike,” Jennifer said, “what are you—”
“Quit questioning me in front of the detainee.” I wanted to get the man feeling as vulnerable as possible, and being completely naked was a quick way to get there, but I couldn’t tell Jennifer that in front of him.
I repeated, “Take off your clothes.”
He didn’t move until Jennifer mimicked unbuttoning her shirt, then he began to undress.
“Jennifer, quit playing into his hands. Let me deal with this. Go find something to tie him up with.”
She paused for a second, then began exploring the warehouse.
I picked up his belongings and found a passport. To my surprise, he wasn’t Indonesian but Chinese. And he had an exit stamp from Indonesia the day after I had left. I flipped a page and saw that he’d entered Indonesia a day after me as well. I motioned him over to the chair, making him sit down. His face was completely blank, without a trace of
emotion. The fact that he was completely naked didn’t seem to faze him. Jennifer returned with an old lamp that had about a four-foot electrical cord. I ripped it out.
“Tie his hands behind his back and behind the chair. Make sure it’s good.”
When she was done, I moved the table until it was about five feet away and put the pistol on it. Then I picked up a length of hose lying on the ground. It was heavy rubber, and would hurt a great deal.
I rubbed his chest with it. “You’re lucky in one respect. I’m not going to beat the shit out of your face. I don’t want to give you the excuse that you can’t talk. And I know you can speak English, so save yourself the pain. I’m going to find out what you know about the death of my friend. That’s just a fact.”
He looked at me with that blank stare, making my rage grow. I slammed the hose against his stomach, causing him to scream. I picked up a rag and shoved it in his mouth, then swung three more times. His eyes squeezed shut and he screamed again, but only a muffled sound came out.
Jennifer shouted, “Pike! Please stop. Please.”
She looked sick to her stomach. I said, “Go to the door and watch for someone coming.”
“Pike…”
“Go.”
She left and I returned to the man. He was sweating profusely and breathing hard.
“I’m not going away. You nod your head and I’ll remove the rag. We’ll start with an easy one. What’s your name?”
I waited for him to nod. When he didn’t, I striped his thighs, feeling the rage build. Blaming him for making me give him pain. Taking out my grief over a dead friend. Taking out my rage over another friend who would probably die today. My vision blurred and I hit him again and again, almost missing him nodding. I removed the rag.
His head sagged for a second, then he whispered, “Camera.”
What the fuck? Speaking gibberish to get me to stop? His pathetic attempt to act like he didn’t understand broke through the small bit of sanity holding back my blackness. The beast came out, looking for pain.
Jennifer kept her eyes glued to the street through a crack in the door, not wanting to witness what Pike was doing. Not wanting to be a part of it in any way. She flinched every time she heard the hose strike flesh, her conscience screaming at her to stop it, but a fear of what Pike might do overweighing her impulse.
She had never seen him like this. She’d watched him sit in Knuckles’ room, morose and brooding, and somewhere during the wait, he’d crossed a threshold. For the first time, she feared him. Feared what he was capable of.
She heard Pike ask the man his name, then heard the hose whipping into his flesh, her eyes involuntarily squeezing each time. Then the sound stopped. When it resumed, it was no longer the crack of the hose, but a dull, meaty drumbeat. She turned from the door and saw Pike straddling the chair, his fists a blur as he pummeled the man’s face.
Without conscious thought, she ran to him, grabbing his arms and pushing him away.
“Stop it! Stop it! You’re killing him!”
She registered that the man had fallen and was writhing on the ground, snaking his hands underneath his legs, then saw him spring to his feet and run to the pistol. Before she could warn Pike, he ripped out of her grip and flung her bodily into a wall, then raced to beat the man to the weapon.
Pike reached the table a split second after the Chinese, clamping his hands on the man’s wrists and forcing him to the ground. They writhed on the ground for control of the pistol. She heard the pop of a suppressed round and waited to see who was hit.
Pike rose and stood over the body. Breathing hard, he turned and looked at her, his face twisted in rage.
She got her legs underneath her and did the only thing she could.
She fled.
24
The terror on Jennifer’s face devastated me, smothering the rage. I tried to talk but got nothing out before she ran. I turned back and looked at the man on the ground. He was no longer human. A body topped by a popped balloon of blood. I threw the pistol across the room in frustration.
What the fuck just happened?
I had lost control. Something that had never occurred on a mission. When I was operational, I was always—always—in control. It was what made me the top one percent of the top one percent in the world.
And I had just killed the only lead I had into the murder of my friend, after beating the shit out of him. Because I’d lost control.
Dammit, Jennifer. If she hadn’t tackled me, he wouldn’t have gone for the gun.
I knew blaming her was bullshit. She’d done exactly what I would have if the situation had been reversed. The right thing.
For the first time since I had come back to the Taskforce, I questioned my ability to serve my country. Maybe my psyche was too damaged to do this work. Maybe I was now too sensitive to the price the job might entail. Maybe you can’t separate the consequences from your emotions anymore.
Jennifer’s expression returned. The memory of her fear and revulsion sliced through me like a razor. She had literally run from me. Afraid that I’d hurt her.
I grabbed the man’s satchel and shoved everything in it, then ran out to find her. To explain. Although I had nothing to defend what she’d seen. It was what it was.
Amazingly, the neighborhood was going about its normal business. I shoved everything but the passport into a Dumpster and started in the direction of our hotel.
As I walked, the one word the man said finally penetrated my brain. Camera. I had thought he’d just uttered nonsense, but now, with a clear head, I put together the utterance with his passport entries from Indonesia. Jesus. Surely this has nothing to do with Kurt’s father. I picked up my pace.
Entering our room, I startled Jennifer. I noticed her bag on the bed, with clothes in it. I immediately held up my hands.
“Hey… I… I don’t know what to say. I lost control.”
She looked at me warily, like she wanted me to give her a clear shot at the door.
“Pike, I’m going home. I don’t know what that was back there, but I want no part of it.”
The words drove a spike into me. “Jennifer, please. Don’t do this. That guy was bad. He was in Indonesia the same time we were, and was at the catacombs two minutes before the bus blew up. He had something to do with it.”
“I’m leaving.” She threw a shirt into her suitcase. “I’m not like you.”
She said nothing for a second, then continued, “I don’t want to be like you. I thought I did, but I don’t want to cross that line. Maybe it’s necessary. I don’t know. I just don’t want any part of it.”
“That wasn’t me. It wasn’t. I don’t like it either. Something happened. I… I would never hurt an innocent person. I would never hurt you.”
“You can’t say that. You might believe it, but you can’t say it. I saw you. You would have killed anyone, innocent or not.”
The unspoken accusation hammered me, that the man I had killed might not have done anything wrong. “You can’t believe that. The guy murdered Bull! I wasn’t going to kill him. Just make him talk. You’ve worked with the Taskforce enough. You know that’s not true.”
She stopped what she was doing, facing me head-on. “Bullshit! You’re all alike! I’m not sure who’s the good guy and who’s the bad guy. Terrorists kill people, and the Taskforce reacts, running off killing people. Maybe you both just found an outlet for your psychopathic tendencies. They use God as an excuse to bomb, and you use them. Maybe there are no white hats.”
I couldn’t believe what she had just said. “Jesus. You can’t think that we’re like terrorists? We’ve never driven a plane into a building, for Christ’s sake. I’ve never enjoyed killing. We do what we do to protect people. Nothing more. If they’d quit, so would we. The opposite isn’t true. If we quit, they’ll just keep killing.”
She backed off a little. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t know what I believe, but I know I’m not cut out to be a part of it. I’m going
home.”
I remembered the camera, and the possible connection with the bus strike. I couldn’t do what I needed to do on my own. I needed a team. And I could use Jennifer’s help to get one.
I knew that was just an excuse to keep her here, but I had to do something. She had seen something good in me a year ago, when I was drowning in the abyss, and I needed to prove she wasn’t wrong. I needed some time. Some space from what had happened to mend the rip between us.
And I really could use her help.
“Okay, okay. I won’t stop you, but I need you to do something first.”
“What?”
“The man mentioned a camera, and his passport showed him in Indonesia at the same time as us. Something’s going on here. The bus strike wasn’t random. I’m going back to that convention center to find out what. I need a team on the ground, and I need you to bring them in.”
“Bring them in? Why?”
“Because they’ll be falling from thirty thousand feet.”
25
Rafik kissed Kamil on both cheeks, saying, “As-salamu alaikum.” He shook the hands of the men with him, then touched his heart with his right hand.
“Good to see you,” Rafik said. “Any issues getting here?”
“None,” said Kamil. “But I’m anxious to hear why you called us to Cairo.”
Rafik told him what had happened in Alexandria, and the dilemma the plan now faced.
Kamil said, “So we need to convince these heathen pilots to continue with the plan despite the fact that their boss is dead?”
“Yes. They don’t know why they’re here, and will probably resist. Which is why I brought you. We need to make an early lesson.”
Kamil pulled out a seven-inch fillet knife. “I can do that. What’s your plan?”
Rafik pointed into the hotel. “The elevator’s right past the reception desk, but we’ll be taking the stairs on the other side. The head pilot’s in room 232. We take him, have him call the others, then hold a meeting. There’s a loadmaster and three pilots. We only need one.”