by Jason Kasper
“I can’t hear you…my left ear is fucked …”
“Khasham Khada ,” I shouted. “What does it mean ?”
“I have no idea .”
“Me neither. But it turned all those fighters around as soon as their commander heard it .”
He glanced at the stain of blood and brain matter in the sand, the last remaining trace of the fighter I’d killed with the case. “David, what happened ?”
“It doesn’t matter what happened. All that matters is what’s about to .”
“What?”
“You were wrong about one thing. Your team wasn’t wiped out completely. There was a single survivor from their last mission .”
He squinted in confusion. “You’re not making any sense, David .”
“Just like there’s going to be a single survivor from this one .”
I waited for recognition to pass over his face, and when it did, I saw his right eye searching again for a weapon on the ground beside him .
“Don’t bother,” I said. “You’re not leaving this hilltop alive .”
At this, a flurry of muscle movement rippled beneath his shirt. He planted one blood-smeared palm down, then turned onto his stomach to brace the other hand against the sand. Both arms flexed in a shuddering current of strength as he pushed himself to his knees, holding onto a boulder beside him to fight his way upward .
His left leg remained straight as he used his right leg to support his bodyweight, shuffling his foot sideways to lean his spine against the rock behind him .
The wounds on his face and body began a new purge of blood as he completed the effort and faced me with his open eye watching me coldly. “I don’t know if that mortar impact hurt your brain or if you’ve just lost your motherfuck ing mind. But you’ve got one second to stop pointing that gun at me before I kill you where you stand .”
I shouted back, “You said we’d only be outgunned as long as we were missing. The last person who told me that was Matz. I worked with him, and Boss, and Ophie. And Karma. None of them survived that day, and yet there’s a survivor. That’s how I know who you are .”
The intense anger in his face melted away, yielding instead to unmistakable fear. He said nothing as I continued, “You had already left by the time I met them. They didn’t call you Jais; they called you Caspian .”
He didn’t answer .
Instead, a deathly silence filled the void between us. I could practically see his mind racing to comprehend his predicament and find a way out. Before he spoke again, a stream of moments rushed through my memory .
The first time I’d heard Matz say Jais's name .
We’re not a depression rehab center. And being down a man shouldn’t be an excuse to keep everyone we bring in for a job. We’re not getting Caspian back .
Ophie's words to Luka in the basement .
We know you killed Caspian. You’re just here to answer for it .
Then Boss .
I had a dream right before Caspian got killed …
For the first time, I watched the man I knew as Caspian, now a wounded figure covered in blood and standing face-to-face with me on a hilltop on the far side of the world .
When he broke the silence, it was with a yell. “I didn’t betray them !"
“And yet you’re working for their killer .”
“They were pushing it too far, David—every mission was riskier than the last, and it was only a matter of time before they knew too much for the Handler to let us retire. I tried to tell Boss a hundred times, but they wouldn’t back down. There was no other way. They wouldn’t let me leave. I had to make them think I was dead .”
You tell me, David. How does one escape an enemy such as this ?
I said, “I watched Ophie torture Luka to death for killing you .”
“Luka was a traitor to his own — ”
“I don’t give a shit who your fall guy was, Caspian. Luka kept saying it wasn’t him, that the Iranian killed you. That was your scout, wasn’t it? In the desert I asked if Sergio recruited you. You said it was an Iranian named Roshan .”
“David, listen to me,” Jais said in an appeasing tone, using the back of his hand to wipe the blood flowing from his mouth. “My mom came down with ovarian cancer. It was stage four before they found it. I couldn’t afford the treatments, not even with team money. He promised to take care of her, and he has. She’s in the best facility with the best specialists in the world .”
Karma’s voice again, on the back porch .
Caspian went home to see his mom when she got her diagnosis and he disappeared within a week .
I took a quaking breath, trying to calm the rage threatening to consume me. “And in exchange, you betrayed your team. How did you do it? Did you plant listening devices before you defected ?”
He shook his battered head emphatically. “I didn’t need to. He knew everything already. Where the house was, who they were, all of it. I swear .”
“But he made you prove yourself, didn’t he? He put you on the ambush to see if you would do what he ordered .”
At this, Jais said nothing .
I heaved a breath, feeling a surge of anger rising in my chest. “You don’t have survivor’s guilt, Caspian—you’re a fucking traitor. Which car did you hit, the one with me, Karma, and Ian, or the one with the team ?”
“The one with the team. They made me stand on the side of the road and fire before anyone else did. To make sure I wouldn’t miss on purpose .”
“So Boss saw you . That’s how he gave the Midnight call before a shot was fired .”
His hands clenched into fists before falling loose again. “Their fates were already sealed, David. If I didn’t shoot, the only difference is that I would have been killed, too .”
“Funny, because that’s what’s about to happen now. Fucking hilarious .”
“You need to listen to me, David. We’re both in very deep. You can’t go back alone, or they’ll — ”
“I know. I could have kept my mouth shut and pretended I didn’t know who you were. It’s too late for me to save Boss’s team, anyway. Or Karma .”
He nodded in agreement. “Exactly. So we’ll work together. This never happened. I’ll make sure you get promoted in the Outfit, and in return you save my life right now .”
“I don’t need your life, Caspian. I need your meeting .”
His expression fell, and a warm breeze coasted over the hilltop as he stared at me. “You don’t think you can actually get to him .”
“I can, and I will .”
“He’s had more assassination attempts than Hitler .”
“Not by me .”
“Listen, David. If you get close to him, it’s because he wants you to. He doesn’t let things happen by accident .”
“I made it this far .”
“Well that’s—” He stopped abruptly and smiled. Then he began laughing, his expression grotesque amid the swollen disfigurement of his left eye. “Of course! You’re dead no matter what you do. He knows you’re coming. It’s the only possible explanation .”
“The only explanation for what ?”
He locked eyes with me. “I didn’t pick you for this job, David. He did .”
I felt my hands tense on the rifle. “Tell me how .”
“When you were in that interview room, I wasn’t asking the questions. They filmed it, and someone on the other end did the talking. And chose you. I’ve never heard of that happening on an interview before, but it happened with you .”
“Why should I believe anything you say ?”
“Why would I have picked you over all the experienced candidates? Why would anyone?” He began laughing again. “It all makes sense, doesn’t it? The two of us from the same team, out here at the end of the world? We’re rats in a maze, and he wanted to see what would happen. He’s probably watching right now…” He began scanning the sky, then looked at me with a haunted expression, the color draining from his face .
“It doesn�
��t matter anymore, David. We’re all damned. But he must have something very special planned for you .”
His right foot suddenly advanced one step toward me, and then he slowly dragged the left leg alongside it in an eerie, limping stagger, grimacing with the effort .
I said, “I’m going to kill him, Caspian. And I’m sorry you won’t be around to see that .”
Ophie again, speaking as he held the knife to Luka’s throat .
Say hello to Caspian for us .
I shot him four times, once for each of the teammates he betrayed .
After he’d fallen, I gave him a final bullet for me .
* * *
I hurled the AK-47 off the hilltop with one arm, watching it spin out of view before the distant clattering of its impact rang up from below .
Then I stood alone, my left hand and the case it held stained with blood. My body felt exhausted, almost on the brink of physical collapse. But my mind was the sky after the storm, clearer than ever before, vivid and free of the dark shadows accumulated after the team’s death .
I checked my watch and looked to the horizon’s edge for an approaching helicopter, instead seeing that the huge bird of prey I’d spotted before the gunfight was now soaring high above me, surveying the hilltop. Glancing at the crater made by the mortar impact, I dwelled on what Caspian had said and wondered if I was proceeding into certain death .
One way or the other, I probably was .
If he was telling the truth, if the Handler really did know the identities of everyone on Boss’s team and the location of the team house, then the Handler surely knew about me as well. It was the only way to explain my dead teammates’ words reverberating in the interview room, quoted flawlessly by someone unknown as I faced myself in the mirror .
And if so, who could be responsible but Ian ?
Then there was the Silver Widow. Jais had been right about everything in our mission brief, with the sole exception of describing her as elderly when the woman I’d met was not yet old enough to drink. Was she one of the Handler’s agents sent to test my true intentions? Or had her most suggestive words—or mine, for that matter—existed in my own mind, the outcome of whatever substance I had smoked in her presence ?
It didn’t matter, I thought. I’d stay on the path until its end, secure in the knowledge that death waited whether I was successful in killing the Handler or not. Even if I somehow escaped, even if I was inexplicably granted mercy and released into the world, what then ?
I recalled visiting Boss after the final dinner we shared together. I had entered his room to find him crying without shame, holding a photograph of young twin daughters, certain of his imminent death. His final wish for me was to take my share of the money, get married, and start a family. To compartmentalize everything I’d done in combat, just as, he assured me, veterans had been doing since the dawn of war .
But there was no longer any space for me in this world .
My sleep was a broken wasteland, my hearing an endless high-pitched ringing from gunshots and explosions. Forever transformed by war, my mind would never return to domestic routines. I had never hunted an animal in my life, yet I had been hunting humans since I was nineteen. I was good for nothing except combat—combat, as I had told Sergio, that I would take however I could get it. No matter where I went in life or what I did, even if Laila took me back, even if I found someone new, no matter how many children I had or how happy I could become in daylight hours—the grandest home I could ever attain would nonetheless transform into the same space where I was the only one awake, the only creature wading through the darkness, negotiating time and space back to the bottle so I could sleep at last .
The specific memories of war and loss and death were tangible, definable, coherent in form if not meaning. But the nothingness that pulled me awake in the depth of night, and would continue to do so for life, did not have the definition to be resisted. It was the formless vapor that evaded my best attempts to avoid it. No matter what I did, it would seep back in, reclaiming my mind and soul in the endless fog of darkness .
It didn’t matter how much longer I survived this journey—whether a day or a decade or ten, the length changed nothing about my situation. The darkness had claimed me long ago, and any other details about the extent of my life or lack thereof were meaningless by contrast .
Just as Boss had vowed to me, I would meet my end with open eyes .
It hurt to kill the man I knew as Jais, despite the truth of his betrayal. This sin added to the tally, to Boss’s team and Karma, to the pain that kept building like a pyramid of human skulls that I continued to stack. I let the pain wash over me in that moment, as I always had. I drenched myself in it, immersed myself in it, wrung it out of my heart like a dishtowel soaked in blood because I had nothing else to give .
In my mind, I wanted to kill the Handler .
At my core, I wanted to kill myself .
Onward I would trudge, continuing my march toward the Handler’s distant figure, enduring the sleepless nights of true isolation that would continue to occur at intervals unknown. My own life was the endless sandy road dividing the pines ahead in perfect symmetry all the way to the night’s horizon .
Until it didn’t .
* * *
I heard a chopper’s rotor blades approaching. Turning east, I caught my first glimpse of a helicopter in the distance .
I set my Galil on the ground and walked to the center of the hilltop, extending my right arm straight out at my side in a prearranged signal for the recovery team .
The helicopter swerved away and then banked toward me, circling my position a hundred feet overhead. I saw it was a gleaming white Eurocopter with two men seated shoulder to shoulder inside the open door, their rifle barrels sweeping the area below. The aircraft vanished behind me while I stood motionless .
Turning, I watched the helicopter sweep back into view on my opposite side. This time its engine scaled back from full throttle as it began a sharp descent toward me .
The pilot transitioned to a near-hover a few meters over the boulder-strewn hilltop, inching downward to expertly place a single skid on a patch of open ground. The rotor wash whipped sand and debris until the aircraft had settled into its hover, at which point both shooters climbed out .
They wore ball caps and sunglasses, their faces covered by shemaghs as they approached me with M4 assault rifles at the ready. One man stepped sideways to maintain his aim on me as the other lowered his rifle on the sling, placing one gloved palm firmly on my sternum and the other on my upper back as he swept downward to search for a suicide vest. Then he frisked my arms and legs before raising an arm to give the all-clear to the crew on board the aircraft. Finally, he grasped my shoulder and arm and led me toward the open door of the helicopter .
I walked to the skid and set the case atop the metal floor, the handcuff links stretching taut as I climbed on board the vibrating aircraft. A medic immediately directed me to sit on the floor facing the pilots .
“Are you hurt?” he yelled over the throbbing noise of the rotors .
“No,” I replied, but the medic nonetheless began sliding his hands across my body, this time checking for injuries—broken bones, bleeding, or anything else that could have escaped the notice of a patient in shock .
I let the medic do his job and watched the two shooters shuffle toward the aircraft, carrying Jais’s body between them. They slid the corpse atop the metal floor of the helicopter, then climbed inside and returned to their seats. One gave the pilots a thumbs up as the aircraft slowly lurched off the hilltop. Its nose dipped toward the earth amid the thundering wop of rotor blades gaining traction against the air, propelling us forward and upward into the sky .
The flight medic shouted something to me that I didn’t acknowledge. Instead, I watched the hills slip by as we gained altitude and banked sharply northeast toward Mogadishu .
RETURN
Contra mundum
-Against the world
1
2
January 1, 2009
1,500 feet over the Complex
From my window in the small, twin-engine plane, I watched the landscape as we descended toward the airstrip .
Drenched in the pale mid-morning light of a winter sun, the scene appeared as a washed-out replica of the African terrain through which I had treaded scarcely twenty-four hours earlier. The fawn-colored sand was a more tepid shade than the red-deer hue of Somali dirt, and its far reach ended in steppes and plateaus rather than the rolling hills outside Saakow .
I observed the similarities with an amused sense of detachment. I was still filthy and battered, with my wrist chained to the blood-stained case that now rested on a bench beside me. In the enclosed space of the aircraft cabin, I could smell myself—the hideous body odor and dust of the African continent permeated my being as surely as the memories of the battles I’d once again emerged from, alive .
I could make out the Complex as we banked toward our final approach, the unmistakable outline of jagged dark brown fence that shielded it from every view except from above. The bone-white buildings were now visible, the most prominent among them a large, H-shaped structure that housed the interview room and eight planning bays. Bay Six had been used to chart the course of the Somalia mission, and another of the seven, or possibly the same one, had been used last summer to plan the annihilation of Boss’s team as we tried to extricate ourselves from the chaos of assassinating the Five Heads .
And as I peered down at the buildings just before our descent, I knew without a doubt that I’d been caught .
While my time at the Complex had been relatively brief, I knew the aerial view of its premises well. After all, I’d observed it closely over the course of two dozen training jumps with Jais. This familiarity made the existence of a number of additional security measures all the more indicative that my journey toward the Handler had ended .
Sniper teams now maintained vigil atop the buildings, including the hangar. Their precision rifles faced outward toward half a dozen vehicles posted in a perimeter spanning a quarter mile beyond the fence. Additional trucks loaded with security men were positioned at both ends of the runway, while roving vehicles patrolled a mile away from the Complex’s center point, circling as the outermost line of defense .
