Caught In The Crossfire: A Bernadette Callahan Mystery

by Lyle Nicholson

  The spinning slowed. Just like the merry-go-round she’d been on with her friends back in school. Her eyes stopped spinning, stopped twitching, and then came to a stop. She pulled herself back from the edge of the bed and lay on her left side, turning her head straight down. This was supposed to flush out the crystals in her inner ear and restore balance. She counted another twenty seconds then sat up.

  “Whew, now all you have to do is to keep your eyes straight ahead and your chin up for the next twenty-four hours.”

  She got slowly off the bed. Getting dressed while not looking down was a challenge. She somehow got into her jeans put on her bra and slipped her t-shirt over her head. Getting into her boots was interesting. She had to walk towards where she knew they were and kick around with her feet until she found them.

  She decided to put a towel around her neck as a brace. That way if anyone asked why she wasn’t lowering her head she could say she pulled a neck muscle during the night. She walked out of her room in search of coffee.

  The smell of breakfast drew her to the bistro in the courtyard. It was another cool Afghanistan morning. A series of propane patio heaters kept the diners comfortable. Bernadette felt like she’d dropped into an outdoor patio in Palm Springs in January, not Kandahar.

  Bernadette took a seat at a lone table. A young male waiter took her order of coffee and eggs, hash browns, bacon and rye toast. She asked if they had peanut butter and jam for her toast, they did, and a smile spread over her lips. She was going to fuel up before resuming her hunt for Chris. So far, everyone she’d talked to was lying to her. She wasn’t even sure about Lackey.

  She took out her phone, making sure to put it up to her eyes to dial. Then she realized she was going to have one hell of time eating breakfast.

  Before she could dial, her phone rang. She put it up to her ear, looking ahead at two men across from her. One stared back at her, probably thinking her actions only slightly weird.

  “Callahan.”

  “I hear you’re looking for me.”

  “And you are?”

  “Jason Radic.”

  “Ah,” Bernadette said. Her coffee arrived. She tried to put milk and sugar in the cup and failed. Realized it was futile and lifted it to her lips. She winced at the bitterness. “I was told you might call. Where are you?”

  “I’m at the gates of paradise.”

  “Where?”

  “The gates of the compound that you’re in. The marines won’t let me in without a word from an insider. That would be you.”

  “Sure, who do I have to talk to?”

  “I’ll put him on.”

  A gruff sounding voice asked if this man could gain entry, and Bernadette gave him the code she’d been given by Lackey.

  Fifteen minutes later a tall muscular man with a long black beard, Arab headdress and scarf walked into the bistro. He walked towards Bernadette.

  “Jason Radic, I’m here to lead you to your lost lover or the gates of paradise. I promise neither, but the rate is seven hundred fifty U.S. dollars per day, and a bonus of five grand when I find him.”

  Bernadette sipped her coffee and looked at him. He was good looking, maybe thirty years old, with a scar that slashed across his left eye and disappeared into his hairline. He wasn’t tall, kind of square and stocky with muscles that bulged everywhere, including his neck. His eyes were a soft blue with specks of gray. But there was something about him. He had an odor of stale alcohol and hashish.

  “You’re confident you’ll find my fiancé?”

  “Bernie…can I call you that?

  “Nope, Bernadette or Callahan, Bernie is saved for my grandmother and my lover. You’re neither.”

  “Okay then, Callahan. Here are the goods. I live and breathe Afghanistan. I know every tribe and what every warlord is up to, and which donkey farted on Tuesday. I can track your guy down better than you could back in Canada with your Cree tracking ways following moose turds on a moonlight path. Lady, I’m the best there is.”

  Bernadette chuckled. “Well you certainly got balls.”

  “Yes, I do and you’ve had your bell rung. How long since you did the Epley maneuver to manage your vertigo?”

  “How did you know that?”

  “I took two sips of your coffee since we’ve been sitting here. It needs milk and sugar.”

  Bernadette sighed. “Okay, call me Bernadette. Please put two scoops of sugar and some cream in my coffee and yes I had my bell rung as you put it.” She stared into his eyes. “Can you really find a lead on Chris?”

  “I already have one,” Jason said as he put sugar and cream into her coffee. He ordered himself a coffee from the waiter and another for her.

  “What have you got?”

  “Right after I got off the phone with Anton, I made some enquiries to all my contacts. There’s a warlord some hundred klicks from here has been talking loud about how he has a hostage. Says he got one of the men who stole the robe.”

  “Holy shit, we need to get moving,” Bernadette said.

  Jason put up his hand where Bernadette’s eyes could see it. “Not so fast. We head outside the wire tomorrow morning. I need to make some arrangements with some of my contacts. I want them to cover my ass, not shoot it off.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “If you want to travel to a warlord’s area to pay him a visit, you let him know and he makes sure his little army of fighters, who are sometimes ex-Taliban or just some stoned Afghanis, don’t try to shoot you or take you hostage. To do that we set up a payment for our visit.”

  “How much is that?”

  “You’re going to have to come up with about one thousand US dollars. That’s just for the meeting. If he has someone, it’s extra, in cash. He will not take anything else. Someone tried to do a crypto currency exchange once to pay him in bit coin—he shot the guy. You okay with that?”

  “Absolutely. I’ll have the money. How come the CIA and the marines don’t know about this bit of information?”

  Jason smiled and sipped his coffee. “Because they don’t have the contacts I have. Most of my Afghani connections won’t speak to Americans or any of the NATO soldiers for that matter. They consider them invaders, who should be gone, just like they wanted the Russians gone and the British before them.”

  “And they trust you?”

  Jason shrugged. “I’m Muslim by birth in Croatia, I have an Afghan wife. They consider me one of them, not an infidel like the rest of them.”

  “Okay, sounds good. What time do we roll tomorrow?”

  “At zero seven hundred hours. Do you have an interpreter?” Jason asked.

  Bernadette was taken aback. “I thought you were one of them, a Croatian Muslim. Don’t you speak Pashto?”

  Jason shook his head. “No I speak Croat, German, French, and my Pashto is limited. My Afghan wife speaks fluent English. We need someone who doesn’t get any of the finer details of a warlord conversation and meanings wrong. That can mean a bullet in the head in the wilds of Afghanistan.”

  “Okay, I get it, I’ll get in touch with Reza, he’s been my interpreter since I’ve been here. I’ll have to see if he’s up for a visit outside the wire.”

  “Good, I’ll see you tomorrow.” Jason got up and started to walk out. He stopped and came back to her table. “Don’t worry about what to wear to this meeting, I’ll have something for you.”

  Bernadette put a piece of bacon up to her mouth and chewed on it thoughtfully. She wondered what Jason meant by something for her to wear and how she’d convince Reza he needed to come with her to do translations for a meeting with a warlord?

  17

  When morning came, Bernadette rolled carefully to her right side on the bed. No spins. A smile crossed her face—things were looking up. She pulled on her jeans, sports bra, t-shirt, and laced up her boots. She had no idea what kind of gear Jason had for her, but her mind went to full combat gear and body armor.

  She grabbed a coffee and a muffin from the bistro and walked to t
he front gate of the large compound. The neighborhood looked like an upscale street in Miami, with large buildings surrounded by walls and gates. Each one housed a different nationality, either another American enclave or German or British personnel. A string of military vehicles from different NATO forces lined the streets with Army milling around getting ready for the day’s duties.

  The one thing that was a possible problem was Reza. She’d called him last night. They’d had a long talk, and she’d finally offered him four times his normal fee to come outside of Kandahar. He’d almost been killed with her last time, he was understandably gun shy, to say the least. He’d said he’d go with her, but his voice was not reassuring.

  As she approached the gate, she saw Jason standing outside with Reza beside him. Things were coming together, she thought. Her heart skipped a beat. She felt like this was a positive omen that they’d find Chris or some information as to where he was today and bring him back.

  “I see you two have met,” Bernadette said when she passed through the gates.

  Jason nodded, “We need to get you dressed and ready to roll.”

  “Sure, what type of fatigues have you got for me? Military issue or hunting style?”

  He smiled. He took out a long blue garment and gave it to her.

  Bernadette took the garment and looked at it. There was a hood at the top with an opening for the eyes that was covered in mesh. “What’s this?”

  “A burka.”

  “A what now? You want me to wear a frigging burka? Are you out of your mind?”

  Jason shook his head. “You need to hear me out first.”

  “Sure, I’ll hear you out, then you can stuff that thing back in the sack where it came from,” Bernadette said crossing her arms.

  “This is your disguise. A woman cannot be in a village meeting with a warlord, not going to happen,” Jason said.

  “Okay, uh, you think walking in wearing a burka doesn’t clue him in that I’m a woman? What the hell have you been smoking?”

  “No, that’s why you don’t understand their customs. You can’t come to the meeting as a woman, but you can come to the meeting as a man, who is in the disguise as a woman.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Bernadette looked at Reza to see if he understood. He nodded his head in agreement as if this all made perfect sense.

  “Okay, let me explain. In the Arab world a man may don a burka if he needs to conceal his identity. We’ll tell them you’re being hunted by the Taliban, you’re a bad ass operative that is hunting for the robe.”

  Bernadette looked at Reza. “Is this true?”

  “Yes, a man in grave danger goes to the imam and gets a… permission. He must pay something to the imam, but yes this is done.”

  Bernadette shook her head and looked at the garment. “Hard to believe that women would put up with these. And why is blue instead of black?”

  “The special burka color of Afghanistan, now, I’ve got some special things for you to wear under it,” Jason said.

  “Better not be something crazier than this, cause I’m about hitting my limits on going native,” Bernadette said.

  “This you’ll like.” Jason produced a Glock with extended clip and an H&K MP5 submachine gun. “I’m got special holsters to strap the Glock to your leg and a harness for the MP-five.”

  “Now you’re talking,” Bernadette said. She strapped on the firearm and put the harness over her shoulders that came around and secured the submachine gun to her chest. “Okay,” Bernadette said after strapping on the weapons and putting on the garment, which billowed around her. “Now, this burka is loaded. Let’s go.”

  “My ride is back here,” Jason said as he led them past a row of black SUV’s with tinted windows. He opened the door of a well-aged Toyota Camry, its body rusted and dented. The once white paint job had blistered off some time ago, so it looked beige. The front window was cracked, a selection of Arab tassels hung from it, making it look like a local ride.

  “This thing road worthy?” Bernadette asked.

  Jason winked. “Yep, and paid for. You’ll get a lot further in one of these than those black SUV’s. The Taliban love to take shots at the corporate security wagons. Mine, they think it’s one of theirs. They always let me pass.”

  Bernadette got in the back. An AK47 lay on the seat. “Is this your backup weapon?”

  “Oh yeah, sorry about that. Just throw it on the floor,” Jason said.

  They got in, the engine fired up with a mild groan and a cough. Jason winked and patted the dash of the car, then drove the car away from the compound..

  They moved towards the main highway and followed it out of town. At the various checkpoints, Reza talked them through, saying they were visiting a sick relative in a village in the south. The Afghan army took pity on the derelict vehicle and the obvious poor passengers and let them pass. Some even shook their heads at the condition of Jason’s Toyota.

  After a half hour on the road they came upon an American armored convoy. Jason slowed to a crawl behind them.

  “Can’t you pass them?” Bernadette asked.

  “Only if you want a bunch of fifty millimeter lead in your car,” Jason said. “You see that big sign on the back in Arabic, it says do not pass on pain of death.”

  “What do we do? These guys are moving at twenty kilometers per hour. It’ll take all day at this rate, we’ll never make our meeting,” Bernadette said.

  “We wait until the top gunner sees us and we wave like crazy,” Jason said.

  Bernadette had no idea what Jason was talking about. The machine gunner on the top of the last vehicle turned and looked at them. He moved the gun turret around and trained it on them.

  Bernadette felt her stomach turn to mush and she broke out into a sweat.

  “Okay, everyone, start waving, wave like the guy with the machine gun is your long-lost friend,” Jason said as he waved his hand out the window.

  Reza leaned out the side window and waved, Bernadette followed suit. Waving frantically as if she’d just seen Chris, her lost lover, on the top of the hulk of armor with the largest caliber machine ever pointed at her.

  The machine gunner spoke into his mike, and then waved at them to pass. Jason gunned the ancient Toyota and they sped passed the column.

  “What the hell was that about? How come they let us pass them?” Bernadette asked.

  “Simple. The Taliban don’t wave. Next time you have any NATO soldier point a gun at you, wave like hell, it will save your life,” Jason said.

  Bernadette sat back in silence, watching the desolate countryside pass by them. There were few trees, mostly rocks, and then a small farm would appear in the distance, like a slash of green, an oasis in a barren landscape.

  The road became rougher; they bounced over the ruts on the poor shocks of the Camry. A motorcycle approached from behind. Bernadette tensed. She pulled up her Burka to ready her weapon. A motorcycle had carried an attacker a few days ago. She didn’t trust this one.

  “Relax,” Jason said. “Put your weapon down. This is our escort.”

  18

  They followed the Afghan on the motorcycle, the road narrowed, becoming more of a track used for goats. The Camry bounced wildly in the ruts. Bernadette felt the jarring into her back teeth. She leaned forward to speak with Jason over the creaking and moaning of the rusted out car.

  “What’s the story of this warlord we’re meeting?” she asked.

  Jason steered hard to avoid a rut that looked like a deep hole. “His name is Mohammad Mirwais. He’s a crafty old fossil, all of sixty-three I’m told, but that’s old for Afghanistan where the men die in battles long before old age hits them. He was a legend in fighting Russians when he was young, then he took on the Taliban. Most of them won’t mess with him. They even pay him to leave them alone.”

  “Sounds like quite the racket. He could teach the Mafia something.”

  “These Afghan’s learned their corruption from the Russians, the Brits before th
em, and every other nation that has tried to defeat them. Genghis Khan was one of the first ones to try, and his people were assimilated into their culture. Warlord Mirwais is one of the best when it comes to playing all sides. He’ll work for NATO if they provide him guns and money, then he uses that power to provide protection to the Taliban to secure their opium fields.”

  “So, how do we play this meeting?”

  “Speak very low and only to Reza if you have something to ask. They’ll respect your need for privacy once I’ve set up your cover. Make sure your face is covered at all times. This should be quite cordial and friendly.”

  “Then why am I packing weapons?”

  “So that we make it back from the meeting alive. The Afghans are well known for attacking the very visitors that come to see them. In their meeting, we are safe, it’s the leaving part that can get a bit dicey.”

  “Got it,” Bernadette said as she leaned back in her seat.

  They approached a small village of mud and brick houses surrounded by high walls. The motorcycle stopped in the middle of the village square, which was little more than a lone tree with a wooden bench.

  Bernadette watched as a group of Afghan men carrying machine guns appeared. One balanced a rocket propelled grenade launcher over his shoulder like it was nothing more than a beach umbrella.

  They got out of the car. Jason and Reza approached the first man in the group. Half his face was scarred by burn marks. He seemed to be the mouthpiece for the warlord. Bernadette could see much waving of arms and pointing in her direction.

  Jason came back to Bernadette, he kept his voice low. “I gave them your story, the guy there wants to see under your Burka. I told him it’s not happening. I called him the ass of a sheep and that we are here to pay for information.”

  “Is he buying the story?”