by Ron Lealos
No more distractions. We made it up the stairs to the top level and down the dimly lit hall in a few minutes.
Doors could be dangerous, as they were always unpredictable. The slightest squeak, and whoever was inside would grab for their handgun and scream for the guards. No need to fret this time, though. This one was heavy wood, and the hinges were strong enough to hold the weight without squealing when the door opened.
Washington stayed outside, while Finnen and I crept into Dostum’s bedroom.
Candles. A bottle of wine and two crystal glasses on a bulky end table next to a Beretta Px4 Storm pistol. An open copy of the Koran and a pair of reading glasses. A canopied bed large enough to sleep my infiltration squad without touching even if we were blanket carnivores. Original oils on the walls, one surely a Chagall. A large window curtained in flowing crimson to the right of the bed. Passionflower incense still burning in a pewter holder beside a bottle of KY jelly. Silk sheets and two people, one a balding, middle-aged, mustachioed man. The other, a black-haired girl about twelve years old. She was awake and appeared to be crying. At least the tears and her quivering flat chest made it look that way. She was naked. I held my index finger to my lips in the universal sign to be quiet. Her eyes couldn’t open any wider, but she looked down and pulled a sheet over her legs and boyish breasts. Finnen went to her and shot his dart gun into her arm. Now, she would sleep.
Complications. If the girl was found in bed with a dead general, no pleas of innocence would be accepted. Summary execution. This was a land of disposables. Finnen swiveled to me and nodded. We were thinking the same, and the girl would be coming with us on the exfiltration even if we had to carry her.
Dostum’s lips were flapping on each exhale. A bottle with an Ambien label sitting on the end table might have been the source of his heavy breathing. The room had been warmed by a fireplace against the far wall. Dostum had pushed the thick blankets to his feet and was covered only by a sheet to the armpits. He was one of those hairy Neanderthal gorillas with kinky curls growing to his chin. His back was probably Velcro, too, but I wasn’t going to see it. I walked to his side of the bed and took out the Hush Puppy, since there would not be a need for tranquilizing darts. His would be the long sleep, and he’d already had one of his promised virgins tonight.
Just a few questions before I sent him on his journey. Not bothering to slap him awake, I used standard procedure and shot him in the thigh. A flesh wound, but enough that I had to cover his mouth as his eyes snapped open, and he tried to lift his head. The other hand held the Hush Puppy to his temple.
“If you scream,” I said, “it will be the last sound you ever make. Nod your head if you agree.”
He did.
The blood was seeping through the gold silk. His leg was trembling, and Dostum made no attempt to reach the wound while he stared at me. I took my hand away from his mouth, leaving the silenced pistol on station at the side of his head.
Time. In ’Nam, they called them mad minutes. When a firefight erupted, the insanity seemed never-ending as tracers crossed paths, and the world exploded in a fireball. Screams of the injured and dying. Flames and smoke. Deafening noise. Blood haze in the air. A coppery dirt-and-fear odor. But, mostly, the sounds of my mad minutes were soft voices and the phuuup of the Hush Puppy. The smell was always shit as the target did the death void. We had only a few minutes and no time for a lengthy interrogation, certainly no chance to survive a true mad minute.
Dostum’s head sank deeper into his feather pillow as I pushed harder.
“Is Karzai involved in the heroin business?” I asked.
Even if we couldn’t kill the president, at least it might be good intel to trade with the Company for our lives. An awful big might. The Agency probably already knew when Karzai blinked.
“What heroin?” Dostum asked.
The never-ending pattern. I slumped involuntarily.
“Just shoot the bastard,” Finnen hissed. “I got a fresh bottle of Bushmills reserved on the jet.”
The Ka-Bar in its sheath at my waist came out faster than a Dostum heartbeat. I nailed his bicep to the mattress. If he was planning to jump at me, he would have to chew off his arm. For the first time, Dostum began to struggle, and I immediately clamped down on his mouth.
“Last lie,” I said. “Is Karzai part of the heroin trade?”
Dostum nodded his head.
“Was he mixed up with Wintershall and Schultz?” I asked
Not a tough General, Dostum began to sniffle. He shook his head no. This was a complete role reversal. He was the one always doing the torturing. He wouldn’t last long, and I sensed Dostum would give up his entire family and Allah to save him more pain. Genocidal cowards were that way. This one hadn’t even begun reciting his Koranic verses.
Finnen was searching the room for the girl’s clothes. He found them draped over an overstuffed chair in the corner. They were only a set of pajamas and a robe, a pair of slippers below on the rug. He came over to the bed and began gently dressing the girl.
“Is Karzai helping arm the Taliban like you?” I asked Dostum.
Hesitation. Always a sign a lie was coming. A new wound, and he might bleed out. I twisted the knife and then slapped Dostum before he could scream.
“Is he?” I hissed.
“Yes,” he said.
“Why?” I asked.
Dostum’s eyes began to flutter. I slapped him again.
“Why?” I asked again.
“No one wants the Americans to leave. There is too much money to be made. Where will it come from if you go home?” He stopped and gasped. “The war must continue. The Taliban will kill the poppies if they take control again. The aid money cannot stop, or the government will fall.”
“Oil?”
“No. It is not our oil. We charge only for the pipeline to cross our country.”
“Did you suffocate prisoners in sealed containers?”
No reply.
Finnen was finished dressing the girl and lifted her to his chest.
“Fuckin’ shoot him,” Finnen said. “Or I will. Quit playin’ with the right and wrong of it, and kill him.” He started toward the door.
For the first time, Dostum seemed to notice Finnen was in the room. He looked at him, and his eyes opened wide.
“Why don’t you ask the Irishman these questions?” Dostum asked.
As he neared the end of the bed, Finnen stopped and stared down at Dostum.
“Just kill him,” Finnen said. “Or I will.” He started to lay the girl down.
I looked back and forth between Finnen and Dostum.
“You know each other?” I asked.
A last chance for Dostum. Divide and conquer. Make the cancer grow.
“Of course,” Dostum said, nodding feebly toward Finnen. “He helped set everything up. Him and his bosses at the CIA.”
The girl was asleep at Dostum’s feet, and a Hush Puppy was now in Finnen’s hand.
“No time for his lyin’,” Finnen said.
The predictable bounce of the head when Finnen shot Dostum between the eyes. The impact of the hollow-nosed bullet crashing into the skull always caused the little jump as the lead began to rattle around in the target’s brain, scrubbing away all the evil inside.
Dostum had already pissed on the plush sheets. Now, the urine smell was joined by the odor of diarrhea. I breathed through the mouth, cursing myself for forgetting the Vicks. All I could do was gape at the lifeless body and wondered if Finnen would shoot me next.
He was waiting with the girl by the door.
“You go first,” he whispered. “I’ve got the suitcase. We’ll talk later. Now, we gotta di di.”
I followed him into the hallway, making sure I stayed behind him.
Outside, Washington signaled there was no danger, only glancing at Finnen’s luggage before he moved off down the corridor in the lead.
Nothing slowed the short walk back to the still-attached line on the castle wall. No alarms or guards.
Sloppy, but these weren’t Dynacorp or Special Forces guards. Their incentive was to stay alive and collect the few Afghanis Dostum doled out. With his death, the morning would mean neither had been accomplished.
When we reached the exit point, I moved into the lead and motioned Finnen and Washington to stay still. The only other sentry capable of viewing our run across the open space below to the truck was in his room twenty yards away. The other one was still snoring. I crept to the guard and shot him with a dart, letting him slide to the stone floor.
Washington was the strongest and most experienced at rappelling. He took the girl from Finnen and went down first, while Finnen and I scanned the castle and the courtyard. I tried to make sure Finnen’s weapon was never pointed at me. All of us were on the ground and moving across the empty terrain within a minute, not nearly as worried about snipers as mines. I tried to lead us in the same path.
The Toyota pickup chugged to a stop just as we got to the rendezvous point, and we headed for the waiting Gulfstream warming its engines at Bagram. And Khkulay. Now she had a new little sister. And I had apparently lost a friend.
Since leaving Kansas and joining the Company, religion was something I had only thought about. And not that often. My career led to being introduced to a level of bad people lightyears beyond the average criminal. Most of them were either mass murderers or involved with mass murder. At times like now, I often wondered if the angels Finnen spoke of protected us. Or made us invisible to evildoers. Sure, we were skilled assassins, but being on the right side must help. The real challenge was understanding what the right side was and believing we weren’t the bad guys.
The girl slept all the way to the airstrip. Engines already warm, the ultra long-range Gulfstream V waited exactly where it was promised to be. Washington carried the girl and began to climb the steps to the cabin. The Toyota driver didn’t bother to wave before he sped off.
Finnen and I had unloaded the truck and were standing at the bottom of the stairs. I pressed my Hush Puppy into Finnen’s side and yelled to Washington. “We’ll be up in a minute,” I said. “There’re a few things left to clean up.” Washington nodded and disappeared through the door.
The fucking grin. Finnen was almost laughing, but I kept the pressure from the barrel pushing into his side.
“Shocked, are we?” Finnen asked. “I’ve been warnin’ ya you gotta lose that Kansas trust in the way the world works. There’s witches and goblins out there. And now, I’m thinkin’, you believe I’m one.”
“Are you?” I asked. “Or did you and Dunne figure me and Washington for the fall guys? I wondered why Dunne kept sending me out with Washington and keeping you at the base. Gave you two the time to figure who to blame if things went bad.”
“Maybe you oughta ask Khkulay. Let’s go upstairs and talk ta her.”
A gasp. It could have been the altitude sickness again. Or a hint the woman I had obsessed over was something other than the icon I had designed.
“What are you up to, Finnen? Khkulay doesn’t know anything.” I twisted the Hush Puppy and pushed harder.
“Is everyone in Kansas as stupid as you, Morgan? Now why would Dunne have allowed her on the base? Because he’s a big-hearted soul and gives a shite about one Afghan woman? Or maybe she was a good distraction, especially in light of your teenage sense of heroism. Setting up that fake Taliban scene took a lot of work. Didn’t you notice there was an Afghan government seal on the door of the truck? And one of the fake Taliban didn’t take off his army hat. You gotta watch every step with those eejits.” Finnen shook his head in disgust. “Now let’s get outta the cold and closer to the nectar. Dunne’ll tell all.”
He started toward the stairs, whistling the first bars of “Cockles and Mussels.”
I could shoot him now. It would surely be easy to escape from one of the most highly guarded and reinforced spots on the planet. I could jump the fence and disappear into the Hindu Kush to live the rest of a short life out as a . . . what?
I followed Finnen into the Gulfstream.
Khkulay. And Dunne. They were sitting across the aisle from each other. Khkulay held a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice, and Dunne had something amber colored in his crystal glass. Neat.
“I hope that’s not my Bushmills,” Finnen said as he gazed down at the sleeping girl Washington had laid down in an empty seat.
Dunne frowned, and I glanced at Khkulay. No greetings. Washington went straight to the head, not bothering with the social niceties.
“A regular refugee camp this is becoming,” Dunne said. “Don’t tell me, ‘She would have been killed if you left her.’”
“Just as you will be if there’s no Bushmills left,” Finnen said, moving the few steps to the desk at the front of the passenger cabin.
Khkulay’s jaw dropped, and her eyebrows rose into her forehead as she took in the sight of our outfits, blackened faces, and weapons.
“Is this what accountants do?” she asked.
Laughter from everyone but Khkulay and me.
Finnen began to take the tape off his weapons and set them on the small writing desk at the front.
“Let’s see,” he said. “This one shot off all those naughty zeros,” putting the Hush Puppy down. Releasing his Ka-Bar and the Sig Sauer strapped to his ankle next, he placed them beside the Hush Puppy. “And these two helped us solve the mystery of the missing receipts for dinner at Chez Jalalabad.” Last, besides his jacket stuffed with the high-tech equipment and tools, he took out the grenades. “And these beauties were just in case anybody lied about their expense accounts.”
He finished by dropping his wind breaker on top of the pile. “There we go. Must of misplaced my adding machine.” He stepped to the bar, grinning and delighted at the still-unopened bottle of Bushmills. “I’ll drink to that,” he said and twisted his hand to break the seal.
Washington came out of the head, fluffing the front of his pants, a small dark spot forming below his crotch.
“Almost didn’t make it,” Washington said. “Abdul the driver couldn’t miss a pothole.” He looked at Khkulay. “Pardon me, ma’am. I’m not used to having ladies around.” Washington began to unload his arsenal.
Dunne looked at Khkulay.
“Could you please step into the rest room for a few minutes?” he said. “The flight will be leaving soon, and I need to speak with these gentlemen in private.”
Speechless and dizzy. Too much information. Too many tricks. I stood close to the door, feeling like the jet was already airborne and swaying in the high-altitude currents.
Khkulay stood, and the girl from Dostum’s bed continued to sleep.
“Certainly,” Khkulay said.
Finnen began to laugh, slapping his free hand on his thigh.
“Give it up, Dunne,” Finnen said. “Morgan knows. But I think you owe him a wee bit of explanation.” Finnen turned to Khkulay. “Ms. Masari, you can sit back down, too. I’m sure there’re parts of this you weren’t made aware of and might find enchanting.” Finnen nodded to Washington. “And I think he’d love to hear about how low his new employers will stoop.”
We all sat, Finnen with a glass of scotch, Washington a predictable cold Grolsch, Dunne sipping something brown, and Ms. Masari tasting her orange juice. Nothing yet for me. My head was already spinning like the turbines in the Gulfstream’s engine that was now warming up for takeoff.
The co-pilot came out of the flight deck and closed the jet’s outside door. He was wearing a starched white shirt, dark tie, and those phony pilot-striped shoulder pads. He couldn’t have been more than thirty, barely older than me or Washington. But not Finnen or Dunne. The co-pilot’s black trousers were creased sharp enough to cut a grapefruit, and he still didn’t need to shave.
“Gentlemen and ladies,” he said, “our flight plan takes us over the Himalayas, across northern India and through cleared Chinese air space . . .”
“Stow it,” Finnen said. “Get this baby crankin’. I have a date tonight. Or is it tomo
rrow?” He looked at his watch and slapped the face. “Darn thing.” There was a lady present.
“We’ll have lift off in just a few minutes,” the co-pilot said. “Please fasten your seat belts.”
“What about the weapons?” Washington asked, motioning toward the pile on the desk and taking out his Sig Sauer. “They didn’t find them at security. Aren’t you worried about a highjacking?”
“I’m sure you gentlemen can protect us,” the co-pilot said. “Have a good flight.” He pivoted and walked to the pilot’s cabin, ignoring the rest.
“Darn straight,” Washington said. “If either of these spooks tries anything, I’ll throw them out the door. They need to know what it means to be in the Airborne.”
“You and how many divisions of your Army?” Finnen asked.
“Wouldn’t take even half a me,” Washington said.
“Which half would that be?” Finnen asked. “It wouldn’t be the part that holds your brain. You ain’t got one.”
Not now. Not with the noise in my head.
“Shut the fuck up!” I yelled, angry at everyone, including Khkulay—or whatever her name was. “Tell me what’s been happening.” I looked at Ms. Masari. “Especially with her.”
Dunne was in the front row of seats, not enjoying the show.
“First,” Dunne said. “I want to know what went down with Dostum. That’ll have a bearing on what I tell you.”
“Had ta shoot him meself,” Finnen said. “Double-oh-seven there was actin’ like Father Murphy in the confessional.”
Dunne paid no attention to Finnen, continuing to stare at me.
“What did Dostum say?” Dunne asked.
“Not Hail Marys or Our Fathers,” Finnen said. “Personally, I wasn’t payin’ too much attention since I was takin’ care of the little lass the bastard had just raped.” He lifted his glass toward the nearly comatose girl. “At least that was until Dostum said I was his mate.”
Washington’s mouth opened and immediately curled into an “I’ll be goddamned” smile. He was getting confirmation in his belief of native spook sleaze. I just turned my head to the ceiling, afraid I might shoot someone if I looked him—or her—in the eye.