by Mike Bond
From the mike came a rumble of voices deferentially greeting the newcomers. One of the two newcomers had a loud sharp voice that seemed to humble the others even further. “As you know the Shiites are massing against us. When the Americans are gone they will rise up to kill us. Already the Shiite Prime Minister is planning this.”
“We must drive them out,” a voice called. “To Iran. Let them swim the Gulf.”
“We must be ready.”
“So what has this to do with this woman spy?”
“It has much to do. To cut her throat in front of the world will bring us much awareness. Visibility –”
“Is that a good thing?” an older man called.
“More importantly, it brings us millions of dollars from our friends in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Yemen, all those places.”
“Every time we cut a throat,” the other newcomer said, “the money pours in.”
“With it we buy what we need to deal with the Shiites.”
“First the Shiites,” someone said, “Then the whites.”
“Like the old saying goes, First Saturday, then Sunday.”
First we kill the Jews, it meant. Then the Christians.
“But cannot we get the same money,” a new voice broke in, “from ransom?”
“People will pay much more for someone’s death,” the first newcomer said, “than their life.”
“Perhaps, however, we might wait to see how much they offer?”
“The new rules they are saying in London and Washington is do not pay ransom.”
“Then we must make some films showing how unfortunate she is, how she is suffering. Put them out on this internet you love so much. The money will come.”
“Unfortunately she’s not in a secure place... there isn’t time. Because of who she is we must assume all our enemies are looking for her. So we can’t risk a transfer to a safer place.”
The conversation turned to neighborhood issues, who was not living correctly and needed to be punished, what bakery was charging too much, who was to offer his daughter to whom and for what in return, which books could be read by the children when there would be schools. How to get more weapons and how to pay for them.
“If we go in,” Jack told Simon and Feist, “we can get these two new guys. They know where she is.”
“We’ll have to kill them, Jack,” Simon said.
“We can follow them,” Feist said. “We’ll put a drone over the garage – I’m doing that now, will let you know –”
“Hold tight, Jack,” Simon said. “If the Hummer leaves can you keep up with him?”
“On the Vespa? No.”
Hunched over the listening device, Darius waved to him. “Hold on, Simon,” Jack said.
“They are deciding,” Darius whispered.
“What? What!”
“To kill her.”
Jack grabbed an earbud. “I thought it was agreed, no?” someone was saying.
The voices rose and fell, argumentative, declarative, sardonic, amid coughing and spitting. “For you, then,” said one of the two new voices, “it is decided, yes?”
“We agree,” an old man answered, “it is wiser to execute her now. For the money.”
“When?”
“Now.”
“It shall be done,” the newcomer said.
“Film it well.”
“Don’t worry. We know how to do this.”
“Goodbye, then,” another said, “Ma’as salaama.”
“Peace be with you all,” the old man called. “Until we meet again.”
THE VESPA WOULDN’T START. He tried twisting the three wires he’d cut but nothing worked. He pushed the bike, running hard, but it wouldn’t catch. An old gray Peugeot was picking its way around potholes as it came toward him down the street. When it came beside him he pulled his pistol on the driver and yanked him out of the car. “Trade,” he nodded at the Vespa. “Where do you live? If I can I will bring back your car.”
The man gave him a tired, frightened look. “Here in this street.”
Darius ran up. “I have the ears. I’m going with you.”
Jack backed the Peugeot fast up the street and pulled round just as the dark camo Hummer rolled by, a black-masked face staring out the passenger window.
“We must stay back,” Darius said. “Or they spot us.”
The Hummer turned left onto the boulevard and began to accelerate away from them. Jack handed Darius his phone. “Call the first number. Tell him we need the drone on Karade Dakhil, the dark camo Hummer. Give him the GPS.”
“If you and I go in on them,” Darius said, “we have only two guns.”
“If anybody goes in it’s me. By myself.”
“You are trying to save the person you love? Have we not had enough of sacrifices? Of course I’ll go with you.”
Jack wanted to cry, to break down in exhaustion. I will not sleep, he told her, till I save you.
SHE REMEMBERED way back in the early days with her father’s big warm palm against her cheek, being enveloped in those strong sure arms smelling of hookah, cigars and raki. He was so kind and loving, his power so enormous... When he came into the room everyone turned with love and appreciation for this man who had done so much for everyone. When he could have gone with his family, as so many had, for relative safety in Paris, London or Los Angeles.
Dear Father was it worth it? Wouldn’t it have been better to have survived somewhere in the Cotswolds or Connecticut, having each other at the end of the day, being able to look into your loving brown mischievous eyes and know I am your beloved little girl? Your tortured death in a bloody basement room by the Ayatollah’s thugs, what did that make better? For us, for Persia, your beloved land?
“Hey,” one of her captors said. “You are a beautiful woman, no?” He ran his hands over her breasts, down between her thighs. “Perhaps I will fuck you when you’re dead.”
THE HUMMER swung fast off Karade Dakhil onto a dirty ramshackle street full of wrecked cars, piled stones, broken pipes, rusting wire and broken semis, a pale discolored mosque at the far end.
Part way down on the right was a great hole where a bomb had exploded, the shop walls smashed in, a bent, burned chassis upside down along one side. “Slow down!” Darius said. “This’s a dead end.”
Jack pulled the Peugeot over beside the bomb hole. In a puddle at the bottom a dead dog floated.
“They’ve stopped!” Darius said. “See, that house! They’re going in!”
Isabelle was close; he could feel her. Feel her begging him to save her. “Let’s walk down the street, one on each side –”
“They’ll have guards, they’ll see us.”
Jack called Feist. “Put Simon on too.”
“I’m here,” Simon said moments later.
“It’s a yellow two-story house with an overhanging balcony of the northeast side of this street part way off Karade Dakhil, can’t see the name but you have the locate. There’s a silver Mercedes and the Hummer out front. We followed the guys here who are going to kill her.”
“When?”
“Now.”
“We can’t get there for twenty minutes.”
“That’s too late.”
Silence on the other end. Then Simon’s voice. “Do what you have to do, Jack.”
It was the ultimate admission, the final defeat: you’re going to die but there’s no other way. “I’ll keep you posted,” Jack said.
“We’re trying to locate you and will be there fast as we can.”
“You stay here,” Jack told Darius. “They’ll need you to ID the house.”
A frightened smile flashed over Darius’ face. “You can’t get in there alone.”
“Two can’t either.” Jack gave him a quick nod, turned and walked fast along the street edge toward the yellow two-story building with overhanging balcony.
Culling the Infidels
THEY BENT HER HEAD over the tin bucket and tugged aside her hair so her neck was clear. Fingertips ran down
her vertebrae... it seemed impossibly terrifying to her that these vertebrae would in a minute be sliced by the gleaming blade they’d held up to the camera.
He yanked up her head. “Look at the camera!”
She tried to focus on the shiny black eye with the red light. That would take pictures of her dying, and after she was dead. He yanked her head higher. “Say it!”
“Say what?” her voice was a whisper, a tremor.
“Tell them allahu akhbar.”
“You are proof there is no God.”
“See,” another voice said, “that is surely reason to kill her.”
“It lacks twelve minutes,” the one twisting her neck said. “Till high noon.”
IF HE WAS KILLED he couldn’t save her. Had to get her out before he died. Get her free then cut pursuit. Kill them all.
Crouched in his thin coat with the Makarov in his hand he walked past the door under the overhanging balcony. The door was steel with bolts in the top, middle and bottom. The picture window facing on the street was barred and the blinds shut. Down the far side was a narrow piss-stinking alley with a broken birdbath, a cracked plastic bucket, old pallets and a shiny hubcap, nettles and thistles that stuck to his jacket as he reached the back corner and peered round at the rear yard of gravel and bare grass. Two windows on each floor of the back wall, both barred and curtained. He glanced up: there were no drainpipes below the second floor; those windows were barred too.
A footstep on the far corner of the building. Jack raised his gun, his back against the wall.
The toe of a shoe appeared beyond the corner, a hand, a gun muzzle’s black hole, the edge of a face. Jack tightened the trigger.
“Allah – it’s you!” Darius whispered, came up to Jack.
“What are you –”
“Nothing going on out there – Feist, those guys, don’t need me, can locate the Hummer. What are we doing?”
“Is the roof flat?”
“Think so.”
“I climb your shoulders, can reach the drainpipe up there, if it holds can climb to the roof and if it’s flat there has to a door, a trapdoor, anything.”
“I should go.” Darius’ instant smile. “You’re an old man.”
“I can see it. In my head, Darius. How it will happen. If we’re lucky.” Jack glanced up. “I’ll try to get back down inside, open up this back door... Lean back against the wall here, cup your hands and I climb up, stand on your shoulders...”
The drainpipe was nine inches too high. He slid back down Darius, ran back the side alley for the cracked plastic bucket, set it upside down against the wall. “Climb this and I can reach it.”
THE CAMERA WAS ON. What will I do when they bend my neck down? Or will they cut my throat first? It was a numb fog of terror, a dumb acceptance she was about to be murdered. She remembered an old photo of a man sitting at the side of a ditch full of bodies, a German officer pointing a Luger at his head. The last Jew in Vinnitsa, the photo was. She’d always wondered why the man didn’t fight. Now she knew.
Every breath was sacred, every second.
HE PULLED HIMSELF hand over hand up the drainpipe feeling it lurch and stretch with his weight, trying to go fast before it broke and gasping reached the roof edge and pulled himself over and there in the middle of the roof was the trapdoor almost as he had imagined it.
It was thick plywood with asphalt over it and down the sides. Locked from inside. He clutched it in both hands and pulled with the ferocious strength of one whose beloved is dying and it ripped loose, a piece of the rim falling inside and clattering on the stairs.
A ladder was bolted to one side of the second floor wall beneath the trapdoor. He slid through the door shutting it above him and went down the ladder to the second floor. Four rooms, one at each corner, corridors between them so you could see through the end windows the lights of Baghdad.
No sound from the four rooms. He did not dare open any doors, instead descended silently to the first floor. Here was the corridor to the triple-locked front door, and going the other way to the door at the back.
Music, in the distance. No, from below. From the basement. Like a TV intro? Somebody living there? Who?
The back door had three locks also. There was no key. He checked the windows. No way to open them.
No way to see Darius, to tell him.
He listened atop the basement stairs then started down.
THE PAIN WILL BE BRIEF because the spinal nerve gets cut before the pain has time to transfer. Unless they do it slowly like they sometimes do.
Can I ask them do it quickly? No, that will make them go slower.
There is the blade. He is holding it up in the air so the others can see, shows it lovingly to the camera. “This is what she will feel,” he is saying “The last thing she will feel.” And from the sound of his voice you know that under his mask he’s smiling.
How could anyone be like this?
I’ve been a fool to think people good.
He is what we are.
I’m not like that. Jack isn’t. My family. All our people.
I don’t want to die.
Please help me God. Please help me.
When my head is being held up to the camera, my eyes pulled open, the blood from my brain filling the tin bucket, what will I see? Will I know what has happened?
Please God save me.
AT THE BOTTOM of the stairs was a basement with each room separated by a corridor. A voice coming from inside one door. A man quoting the Koran, “On the day of culling the infidels from the true believers, on that day thou shalt see the unjust in great terror!”
The door handle turned easily. The room was low and wide. A camera on a tripod under the center light and person sitting before it.
Isabelle.
Behind her three men in balaclavas, one with a scimitar in his hand. “We seek only justice,” he was saying into the camera.
A man behind the door swung an arm down on Jack’s gun but he ducked and swung it into the man’s face knocking him down then shot the three men in balaclavas one by one, all in less than two seconds as they were turning and raising their guns. He shot the man behind the door and slid along the back wall but could see no one else.
He ran to her and with the scimitar cut her bindings. “You,” she said, “oh God you.”
“Let’s go. Fast. Fast.”
She stood leaning against him. He kissed her brow, tasting the dry blood. “Let’s go!”
“Why so fast?” A man said in English from the shadows behind them. “Put down the gun. No, don’t try to turn, just drop the gun, kick it behind you.”
Jack knelt and dropped the gun. With his heel he kicked it back toward the man. “A Makarov,” the man said. “How interesting.”
“Let her go,” Jack said, “and I’ll tell you whatever you need to know –”
“You have just murdered four young true believers. For that I will kill her first, then you.”
Jack remembered knowing how it would happen, that this was not a part of it.
“Stand in the center,” the man said. “In front of the camera. Both of you.”
When the gun fired Jack shoved her aside and leaped at the man but he was already down, his head twisted up in a last cry of pain, Darius standing over him.
“Jesus,” Jack said. “Jesus Christ.” He pulled Isabelle to his feet hugging her. “Let’s go! Go! Go!”
Darius drove while Jack called Simon and Feist. “You have her oh my God!” Simon screamed.
She snatched the phone. “Simon? It’s me! It’s me! Jack saved me. And you!” she said to Darius.
“Your man,” Jack told Feist. “Your man Darius saved us.”
“Get to the Embassy, the Hospital,” Feist said. “Fast as you can. We’ll notify the gate, have the doctors ready. Don’t stop for anything.”
Étoile du Monde
WAR’S ANTIDOTE, of course, is love. Yet love engenders war. He glanced at Isabelle dozing in the first class seat beside him,
white cloud reflections flitting across her still-bruised face. The docs had wanted her to stay in Baghdad longer but after five days they’d grabbed a Home Office jet to Amman then this Royal Jordanian nonstop to Paris.
What had it been all about, he asked himself, this life of endless war?
Beyond the plexiglas the white clouds below the plane extended like endless fields of snow – sastrugi, the Japanese called them, the wind patterns in the snow. He’d loved them as a boy in Maine walking on snow-clad Cobbossee Lake, the sense of infinite mystery he could explore forever.
But had he ever succeeded at comprehending, living in, this mystery?
To do that you need to be free. Free of lies and desperation. And the best way to be free is to help each other to be free. To follow the path with heart.
Therefore teach freedom, and the world will be healed.
Each person who learned to be more free was like a prisoner set loose who would help free others too.
Isabelle stirred, took his hand. “I was dreaming we were in El Cheltén. You were crossing a stream and got your feet wet.”
It made him think of Afghanistan, crossing the stepping stone bridge the night when he’d been shot in the shoulder and Bandit had been killed trying to save him. And then he’d been taken to Kabul and Sophie had saved him. And he’d killed her lover and taken her and her children to New York to die in the falling towers.
It was beyond belief.
He looked out the window. Down there somewhere below the white clouds was Greece, birthplace of western wisdom. Soon would come Rome, birthplace of the modern mind. Then Paris, étoile du monde.
The feedback is happiness. That’s how you know you’re free.
PARIS SPARKLED in late afternoon sun, the Eiffel Tower gilded under a bright blue sky, the Seine a jade serpent undulating down the middle of this magic city.
They took a taxi from CDG to the Home Office safe house on rue St. Bernard in the 11th Arrondissement. “I’m so happy to be back,” he said, watching the cavalcade of stone buildings, cafés, random streets, hurrying people and busy cars flash past. “In all my life, every time I’ve left France I didn’t want to. And every time I return I’m filled with joy. How can that be? How can anything be so special?”