On Fire

by Thomas Anderson

An urgent siren wails across the blackness of the night time ocean as a cruise missile pops explosively out of its launch tube aboard the American destroyer in the north Arabian Sea. Its rocket motor kicks and in that instant the missile is obscured by a blinding light accompanied by a billow of acrid smoke and a guttural roar. The cruise missile departs the environs of the ship quickly, a scientifically contained explosive force powering itself skyward, illuminating the sea around the ship for a moment. Shortly the pitch black sky closes around what remains of the missile’s luminous tail, which continues to ascend until diminishing to a minute spark. After a bit, even the spark disappears from sight, gone in the blink of an eye.

  The ship’s siren wails again, deafening and disconcerting, and another launch takes place, and then another, so many launches in such a short space of time. Tied to a satellite above, the group of cruise missiles flies north in an evenly spaced, single file line of death. They travel near the ocean’s surface, and they rise and fall to closely follow the contours of the land. They move at high but constant subsonic velocity, approaching the speed of sound, and their rocket noise can be heard by those it is approaching. After that, there are only a few scant seconds before human recognition can occur, really no time to act.

  The area along Nisatta Road out of southwest Mardan runs to the town of Nisatta and the M-1 Highway to Peshawar. Since Tariq’s forces have managed to target the few aircraft, mainly helicopters, stationed at the Punjab Regiment Centre in central Mardan, there are no aircraft flying in the vicinity, this on the night after the day that Mardan was captured by Tariq Usami’s forces, the group known as the Kalpar Trust. Tahir Bhatti, with the aide of only one body guard, finds himself on this night of all nights on the refugee strewn Nisatta Road trying to get to the Bacha Khan Airport in Peshawar. For years he has been a prominent opponent of the Trust as leader of the Yousafzai tribe, the tribe whose heritage dominates in Mardan. Now, he has to flee with them.

  Bhatti and his bodyguard have had their car taken by a group of thugs too large to challenge. They were unrecognized and on foot along with many other refugees when they decided to rest. They stayed among the group and with its tents late that night. There were campfires and some kindly shared food, greatly appreciated, in the small grove of dead trees on the edge of a dusty farm field.

  But Tahir was oblivious to the fact that one among the refugees had recognized him. Worse, that refugee had texted a friend about it. The friend, it turned out, was back in the City and somewhat sympathetic to the Kalpar cause. It went from there.

  When later the distant barely heard buzz of incoming missiles became a discernable noise and then finally a frightening thunder, the texting refugee had left the area. For the dozens of sleeping refugees at the locale, they knew nothing about the texts. Each missile carried cluster bombs with hundreds of bomblets ejecting as smaller sub-munitions. The bomblets streaked down in a long, wide pattern, falling and detonating among the fires and the tents, spewing shrapnel in all directions, tearing into clothing and flesh, raising clouds of dirt and debris high into air reverberating with the sound of so many multiple explosions occurring near simultaneously. Afterwards, there is but a moment of silence as the dust settles.

  Following that, there is only a wail of screams.3

  It is the next morning and madness has descended on the tiny Hotel Mardan. Jessica stands in the middle of the fray in a serpentine line of western journalists, all deciding that the time has come to take their leave of the besieged city, and more specifically, of the Hotel Mardan. The noise of close gunfire and more distant mortars seeps easily into the tepid air of the hotel lobby, making her sweat. The tension is etched on the dozen faces around her, other journalists lined up, holding onto the extended handles of rolling luggage, checking airline e-tickets for Peshawar. They are from so many different places that, brought together like this, they look like some kind of meeting at the UN.

  Jessica hears the rumble of vehicles outside the hotel and turns to look out the front windows at the street. In the process of lining up at the curb are military, but clearly not government, vehicles, armored Humvees and an improvised pick up with a fifty millimeter machine gun mounted in the bed. In an instant a young man dressed in some kind of mismatched pseudo military garb, a rifle hanging at his side, comes in the front door.

  “Is there a Miss Hughes here?” he asks in an accented but subdued voice, one probably more used to shouting insults at fellow soldiers than addressing international journalists.

  If Jessica thought she could lay low she was mistaken. Suddenly everyone in the room is looking at her like a prize turkey at thanksgiving.

  “Uhm, I’m Jessica Hughes,” she responds uncertainly, looking around at the others hesitantly.

  “Tariq is waiting in the Humvee. He asks you to come. He has something to show you.”

  The boy’s eyes are wide as he stares, regarding her with interest, short of awe. He has seen her interview of Tariq on U Tube.

  Now it is plain. The journalists in the room are envious and abashed to be caught in the process of leaving the country, all at the same time. Screw them, she thinks.

  “Okay. Sure,” she nods at the boy and grabs her bag, not knowing if she will return to the hotel, not really caring if she ever does or doesn’t.

  The soldier holds the door for her but as she gets outside she turns to the parking lot, there to find Sameer waiting beside his car for her. Jessica waves and shouts for him to go on, that she is leaving with the soldiers.

  She is led to the lead Humvee and the young man opens the back door. Inside is Tariq, wearing a pillbox hat and traditional clothes.

  “Sorry, but I couldn’t come in. It would have been a feeding frenzy,” he apologizes, scooting over on the bench seat and offering her a hand.

  She takes it, jumps in and drags her bag along with her.

  “Where are we going?” Jessica wastes no time in asking.

  “Nisatta Road.”

  “This Road?” she asks. The Hotel Mardan is located at the intersection of Nisatta and Bypass Roads.

  He nods.

  “You were on my way, so I figured I’d stop and see if you were interested in joining me,” he says.

  “For what?”

  The vehicle starts up with a jolt and they do a U turn at warp speed, which presses her against the door.

  “You’ll see,” is all he says, ending the conversation and lapsing into brooding silence.

  They drive for a while. When they finally slow down Jessica looks around the desert and sees not much of anything but for a few people. In tattered clothes, they wander among tent remnants flapping in the breeze, under the strong gaze of an early morning sun.

  “The Americans were looking for us last night when we heard that one of the Yousafzai

  chiefs, Tahir Bhatti, was waylaid here on the road. We fed information to the Americans, making them think that it was us who were here. The result is as you see.” Tariq informs her.

  The vehicle slows and pulls over, as do the trucks and Humvees behind them. Jessica clambers out, already working the camera in her hand.

  Tariq, getting out on the other side of the Humvee, quickly reaches her side, placing an arm in front of her, practically accosting her.

  “There are a lot of unexploded ordinance. You can’t go in there,” he tells her gruffly.

  Jessica is still shooting with her camera. She can’t take her eyes away from the sight of the burnt ground, cratered and mounded by heavy ordinance, and the indecipherable human remains scattered everywhere.

  “How many?”

  She wants to ask how many innocent people were killed, but she doesn’t.

  “Fifty or sixty. We don’t know yet.”

  “Show me,” she demands.

  Tariq leads her around the site as Jessica continues to shoot. She has equipment that can connect her directly to the satellite and soon she will be on the phone back to Jim Lenard’s staff at News
World.

  Suddenly she stops. She is dizzy and can feel that bile from her stomach is burning in her throat. Jessica gives in and bends over, letting go of her rage.

  Chapter 88