“I don’t know how Abd al-Aziz survived. But I was sure when you found out that I’d killed him, you’d be furious. So I gave you away. They’ve tracked you. I thought the Saudis would have you dead by now. But they took your wife instead. That’s what happened, that’s everything. I swear.”
Incredible. His father-in-law believed Arif was behind the assassination attempt. This explained why he said he would take Arif’s life. It was only tha’r. Revenge.
Ghalib’s admission came too late. Arif, like a man who’d dropped a stone, could only watch it fall.
Over the barrel of the gun, he eyed the middle of Ghalib’s forehead.
“Arif, I can get her back. Stop. I can do it.”
Arif did not move the gun or his finger from the trigger.
“You have seconds left. You know that.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me how.”
Ghalib made the same patting motions with his hands that Arif had seen before. The last time, the rich son was growing cozy in his large home. Now he made those gestures desperately, to urge the killer in his house to lower his weapon.
“We’ll check the airport to see if there have been any private flights in the last hour. If there were none, then your wife’s being taken by car.”
“If she’s on a plane, you die.”
Ghalib rubbed both hands across his face. Outside in the courtyard, his family had not lowered their voices. He stood to raise a window in the mabraz and shout down for them to be quiet: he had the situation in hand. When he sat again before Arif, the Makarov had not moved.
Arif faded off his knees, to sit cross-legged. Hurriedly, Ghalib reached into a silken pocket for his cell phone. He called the Ma’rib airport. No planes had landed or taken off since dusk. No more flights were scheduled for the night. Nadya was in a car.
Ghalib held up the cell phone.
“It’s a long way across the desert.”
Chapter 13
Sharurah Domestic Airport
Sharurah
Saudi Arabia
Wally and Berko viewed the desert moon side by side. From his seat on the lowered ramp of the cargo plane, LB watched them standing on the starry tarmac, wondering if they were talking about tactics or women, Wally playing the experienced man either way.
A light breeze blew from the west, easing the temperature. The rest of the team sprawled beneath the wings of Kingsman 1; no one spoke but tapped out emails, read, or listened to earphones. The big plane rested on a round pad at the end of a runway, surrounded by sand that held its warmth as the air cooled.
The flight from Djibouti had taken three hours. The pilots flew high above the Gulf of Aden, then into Saudi airspace, avoiding Yemen. LB dozed for much of the flight except for the time spent admiring the strapped-down GAARVs, looking at new photos from Mouse’s Oakland Raiders cheerleader girlfriend, or listening to Doc worry about one daughter or another. He played crazy eights with Dow and Quincy, then slept again until the plane touched down.
They’d been on the ground a half hour when another transport approached out of the north. A US Navy C-130 Hercules zoomed in and taxied to the opposite end of the runway. There it parked. No sooner had the plane shut down than six ATVs revved and rolled off the plane’s lowered ramp. The SEALs roared the length of the runway to buzz the loitering PJs. They drove in a crazy circle around the pararescuemen, kicking up sand. Wally and Berko walked forward to check the ground-to-ground freq and call signs with the SEALs, who then disappeared in arrowhead formation south over the dunes.
In the quiet that followed, the night sky was cut into halves. North of the airfield, the lights of Sharurah obscured the stars; the small Saudi border town was isolated in this southernmost corner of the Kingdom. It was no more than an outpost for oil workers, border control, and desert scientists. To the south, stars winked, and the moon laced the blank immensity of the Empty Quarter. The earth lacked contour and, rare on land, left the curvature of the world visible, spectral in the gray light.
Wally moved among the team members, chatting, giving Mouse a thumbs-up over the pictures of his cheerleader. Berko kept an appreciative eye on him.
LB cracked an ice pack to lay it over a water bottle. Berko dropped on the tarmac next to LB. The kid didn’t grunt or creak when he sat; nothing on him hurt. Berko tucked his own water bottle under the ice pack.
“Clever.”
“Twenty years. You learn a few things.”
“That’s a long time.”
“Please don’t say you were only four years old when I started.”
“Okay. I was five.”
Berko leaned back on his hands and crossed his ankles. The kid was a specimen, powerfully built. Only Quincy on the team might take him in a fair fight, maybe Wally on a good day.
“Wish I had a cigar.” Berko corrected himself. “Two cigars.”
With Wally circulating, LB waited until the cold pack faded, then opened both chilled water bottles. A shooting star left a long tail over the desert.
“LT, what are you doing here?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, why’re you sitting on a landing strip in Saudi Arabia?”
“Instead of what?”
“What’s your old man do?”
“Lawyer.”
“That.”
The lieutenant took a swig, wiped his mouth, and caught LB waiting.
“You don’t think I fit in?”
“What I think is that you could be doing anything. Why this?”
“I don’t have a great answer.”
“Give me what you got.”
Berko pursed his lips, considering his options. LB nudged.
“Lieutenant.”
“What.”
“Nothing you say will be the first time I’ve heard it.”
Berko stirred his hands, stalling to compose some eloquence.
“Okay. It’s not romantic or anything. But I didn’t want an office job right out of college. I wanted the military.”
“Adventure.”
“I heard about the GAs. I looked into it and liked the idea of being a combat rescue officer. I figured there was a challenge.”
“You wanted to be elite, be a Special Operator.”
“Roger that.”
LB passed a hand across the other PJs arrayed around the HC-130, all sitting in their own worlds.
“I’ve known each of these guys since they started.”
LB pointed at every PJ in turn.
“Mouse was an army medic. His big thing was motorcycles. Dow was navy security, served on speedboats. He’s a surfer. Both of them are adrenaline freaks. Jamie wanted to be like the PJs he saw in some air force TV ad. He and Dow are gun nuts. Doc came over from the marines, and that big cowboy Quincy was a SEAL. They both got a look at PJs in the field and thought it was a better fit than what they were doing. Wally was in the Rangers, where I used to be. He knew what I was into and figured it would work for him, too. All these guys wanted that test, just like you, to do all the rescue and recovery stuff. The washout rate for the PJ wannabes is nine out of ten. They all wanted to see if they had what it took to be that one.”
Berko looked uncomfortable, screwing the cap on the water bottle and stowing it.
“So why’d you bother asking me?”
LB took his team in, silent and sharp-looking men, sloppily splayed on the tarmac. He didn’t intend to smile, aiming for a more somber moment with the young lieutenant. But these men were LB’s brothers, his only family, and if Berko was to join them, he needed to hear how he did fit in.
“Everyone’s different now. They’re not mountaineers or skydivers or whatever, they don’t care. That might be why they joined, but that’s not who they are anymore.”
Wally, Jamie, Doc, Dow, Quincy, Mouse—LB had been pres
ent when all had taken part in their first rescue. In those moments, with death screaming at them in a storm, in a battle, in a rage, these men who had been many things became Guardian Angels, PJs and CROs.
“Do they know? The other guys on the team?”
“Do they know what.”
“Why you became a PJ. Why you gave up your commission.”
“Just Wally.”
“So tell me. Wally can’t be your TC13 forever.”
“Why’s it matter to you?”
The young CRO started to speak, then interrupted himself. He spread his hands again, fumbling. To LB, Berko appeared younger than he had since his arrival.
“Just spill it, LT.”
“Okay. I want to be the best. That’s you.”
LB patted the kid on his broad back.
“Thank you, sir.”
“I admire you and I want to know.”
“Okay, okay. We’re not going to date.”
Berko made to stand. He’d taken this as more sarcastic than LB meant. LB stopped him.
“Every man, lieutenant.”
Berko settled. LB continued.
“Every man has a cemetery inside him. You don’t know how big yours is until you dig in it. Civilians bury their families and friends. That’s tough enough. But guys like you and me who go to war, we bury a lot. Friends, yeah, and enemies, too. Trust me on this, the memory of killing someone is pretty fucking keen. I spent eight years with the Rangers doing a lot of covert work. South America, Iraq. I just about filled my graveyard. The PJs gave me the chance to leave some open ground. I get to sleep at night seeing the faces of people who’re alive because of me, instead of just the ones who are dead.”
The freshest graves inside LB were Somali: the three he’d knifed face-to-face and the three he’d shot point-blank on the hijacked freighter just four weeks ago. He made no mention of them to Berko. That mission would be classified for a long time.
The young lieutenant nodded thanks for LB’s trust. He shifted his gaze over the desert, a dim and vacant space, vast enough to see what might be.
“What’s that like? To save somebody?”
LB climbed to his feet. “Get up.”
Berko followed.
He walked the young lieutenant to Doc, who called Jamie to collect the rest of the team. The squad gathered in a ring on the warm tarmac.
Every PJ told his story. Their missions took place in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Haiti. LB had a turn; in Somalia, a Nigerian captain had been gutshot while serving with a UN peacekeeping force. A year later, the officer sent LB a picture of himself and his six beautifully chocolate children.
All the stories were the same at their core. You know a man will die if you stop: stop swimming, running, fighting, pumping, something. If you quit, if you’re beat, he won’t make it. That’s when all the training becomes real. It’s your hands keeping him alive, you pulling him back to safety. In those moments, nothing else matters. Nothing. Not even your own life.
The session went on. The stories shifted to fuckups. LB slipped away from the ring to sit alone against his pack. He chilled another water bottle, drank half, and watched the moon drift higher and brighter above the desert.
Wally squatted beside him. “That was good of you.”
LB handed him the water bottle. “The kid’s got to find his way.”
“You know what I remember?”
“What?”
“When you did that for me.”
“That worked out pretty well. Figured I’d try again.”
Wally drained the bottle dry, then stretched to his full height. He dropped the plastic empty down to LB. “You were right. Nice moon tonight.”
LB tossed the bottle at his back.
* * *
13 team commander.
Chapter 14
Ramlat al-Sab‘atayn desert
Hadhramaut governorate
Thirty-five miles east of Ma’rib
Yemen
Josh wasn’t a desert lover.
Growing up on the Louisiana bayou, spending every summer visiting his mother’s clan in Maryland, he’d grown fond of big water. Shrimpers on the Gulf, tankers on the Mississippi, crabbers and sailboats on the Chesapeake. In the immense night of the Ramlat al-Sab‘atayn, he thought of these and not the rolling swells of starlit sand. In the army, Josh hadn’t taken to the endless plains of Kansas where he’d trained, or the bleak valleys of Afghanistan where he’d served. Now he was in Yemen, after dry Saudi Arabia. For his next posting he’d request somewhere in the Pacific, though his Arabic would probably keep him in this parched part of the earth.
In the pale glow of the car’s dials, Khalil drove with both hands on the wheel, intent on the road. This was his personal vehicle; he had maps and breath mints stashed away. Khalil made no conversation. Josh listened but could not hear one breath taken by the cloaked princess in the rear seat.
The road ran true east with little contour to make it curve or rise. For the third time since leaving Ma’rib, Josh entered the all-clear code into the blue force tracker. Beside him, Khalil showed no interest.
The land and road offered up nothing but great emptiness. One truck passed, headed west on the N5. Its many lights had been visible a long way off, and Josh watched them come, heartened until they were gone. Far behind the truck, a sallow and shivering glow lay on the horizon. Josh let himself be pulled across these next miles while the glimmer revealed itself to be the belching flames of a refinery in the middle of nowhere. After this, the desert stretched interminably, void, and the waves of sand did little but make shadows from the Mercedes and the moon.
An hour outside Ma’rib, Josh keyed in another all-clear code. Khalil spoke for the first time since leaving the town.
“I apologize. I’ve been a little tense.”
“What are you worried about?”
The Yemeni hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “She’s very important.”
“No one’s chasing us.”
Josh meant this as humor but Khalil looked in the rearview.
“No.”
Josh looked back at the princess. “Her breathing’s pretty shallow.”
“I’ll check on her in a little while.”
Left and right of the road, the constellations no longer touched the rim of the earth. The Mercedes seemed to be speeding through a valley.
“The dunes are getting taller.” Khalil waggled a finger at the night coursing by in his headlamps.
“How high?”
“Some are five hundred feet. The south faces are the steepest, out of the wind.”
Khalil reached to his shirt pocket for a cigarette pack. He lit up and cracked his window to bleed out the smoke. The air that coursed in had a nip to it.
“You know the desert well?”
“Of course. In Yemen, in every family tree not too far removed, there is a tribesman or a Bedouin whipping a camel over these dunes. Every child is taken into the desert to learn it.”
“What’s your tribe?”
“I am Huashabi, from the south, near Aden.”
Khalil spoke of the desert, how to live under the sun, travel the dunes, dig for water. He described the many hues of the sand, how the desert changed colors through the day with the timing of the prayers: dull gray before dawn, the honey of flesh at noon, brick-red in the first shadows of afternoon, yellow-orange under the slanting late sun, and finally the black of sleep.
Khalil brightened with his chatter, smoking in a chain. Cool air flowed into the Mercedes. Several miles ahead in the straight distance, a car’s headlamps flicked on. Khalil tapped the brakes. This may have been why the princess stirred.
Khalil slowed, pulling the car off the road.
“Get out, please.”
“Why?”
“For modesty’s sake,
you should not watch.”
Josh figured he could just turn his head, but complied and got out. The desert whispered a light breeze, lifting the checkered kefiyeh off his shoulders. The night was warmer near the sand. Khalil cut off the headlights and climbed into the back of the Mercedes to sit beside the covered woman. He closed the car door behind him, shutting off the interior lights. The spy did whatever he intended to do in darkness.
When he emerged, he beckoned Josh, holding open the rear door.
“Please ride in the back.”
“With her?”
“I’ll explain in the car.”
Josh stood his ground beside the blacked-out Mercedes. “You’ll explain right here.”
Khalil put his hands to his hips. His jacket opened enough to reveal the butt of a pearl-handled Beretta in a shoulder harness.
“Why?”
“I don’t like what just happened. She shouldn’t be that unconscious for this long.”
“She is exactly as she should be. Trust me in this.”
“I don’t. I want to know what’s going on. Right now.”
“You have no power in this situation. Why do you insist on exercising it?”
“It’s a habit.”
“I do not want to leave you out here. Truth be told, you don’t want to be left. So please get in the back. I’ll tell you what I can.”
Khalil was right, Josh had no cards to play. He might be able to hitchhike back to Ma’rib, but he was more likely to find himself isolated out here, an American alone in a remote, tribal, and potentially hostile region. The dangers, the desert cold, the failure of his diplomatic assignment, all this put him in the back of the Mercedes next to the knocked-out princess.
Khalil flicked on the headlights and motored onto the road. The woman in her burqa was again motionless, head against the passenger window, bare left hand still lifeless on the seat. Knifing into the long night ahead, Khalil took a gracious tone.
“I’m sorry to speak to you this way. But your role tonight is not what you wish it to be. You were an army officer, I respect that. Likewise I ask you to respect my command in this car. Can you?”
The Empty Quarter Page 18