Rex Dalton Thrillers: Books 1-3 (The Rex Dalton Series Boxset Book 1)

by JC Ryan

  Rex was disturbed by the fact that he couldn’t get the child’s cry out of his mind. Even after he’d returned to his bare apartment and resumed his study of satellite images to locate the heroin labs he’d target when the time came, the cry haunted him.

  He didn’t know much about children. It had been nearly ten years since his younger brother and sister had died on that horrible day in Madrid, and even then, they were teenagers. He remembered them as they were, not as small children, young enough to cry over a bruised knee. Since then, he’d had no close interaction with children.

  But somehow, that cry hadn’t seemed as if it were over a small hurt.

  It sounded more like despair.

  It’s none of your business.

  But his conscience wouldn’t let him take that cop-out. Every abused child is every right-thinking adult’s business, and he had the sneaking suspicion this child was abused. No matter how he tried to talk himself out of the notion, he knew he’d return to that stall the next day, without the coat he’d already bought, to investigate.

  The next day found him shivering and looking over the same goods he’d picked up to compare the day before. When he stepped into the shop, he’d been greeted by a younger man than the one who’d stopped him from interfering the previous day. Seizing the opportunity, he struck up a conversation.

  He had to think fast. He’d gone there with no other plan than to listen for the child again. To begin a conversation, he asked the young man which coat he’d recommend for a visit to a small mountain town he named, high in the mountains. He added that he was going there to negotiate a bride price for the woman he wanted to marry.

  That led to a jocular discussion of marriage, and from there to children. Rex asked casually if the young man had any children.

  “I have a small son,” he said with pride. “My father is very fond of him and spends much time with him.”

  So, Rex thought. The man I met yesterday is the grandfather. That makes it even worse if he is abusing the boy.

  It also made more inquiry even more ticklish. The young man he was conversing with was obviously proud of his father, as well as his son. Rex wondered if he’d made a mistake in his suspicion. Surely the young father would know if his father was an abuser.

  Rex made an excuse for not purchasing that day. He wanted to observe the family and try to decide what, if anything to do. The fact that he hadn’t heard anything today made him even more hesitant to make an accusation that might have no foundation.

  Though Rex didn’t know it, because child abuse was not in his repertoire of expertise, his hesitancy was not uncommon. No one likes to think the worst of their neighbors, friends, and especially family. More children endure abuse long after it comes to someone’s attention because someone hesitated and then, because of the time-lapse, the accusation is much harder to prove. But Rex knew none of that. He did know that sexual abuse of young boys was rumored to be prevalent in the Middle East, but he had no proof. He didn’t even have credible evidence. All he had was his memory of a cry that he interpreted as despair rather than pain. It wasn’t enough.

  For the next several days, Rex trolled the coffee shops and tobacconists’ stalls where men congregated and watched for the two adults he’d met from the clothing stall. He used his spycraft skills to escape their notice as he observed their comings and goings, to whom they spoke frequently, and eavesdropped on their conversations. It did nothing for his investigation. Neither of them walked up to a friend and bragged that they’d had sex with their child that morning. Who would?

  Rex couldn’t keep going to the shop and walking away empty-handed. He couldn’t even go every day and buy something, much less hang out there and wait for the child to cry out again. Nor could he intercept a female family member on her way to market and ask after the child. It would have been most improper to speak to a woman not of his family.

  He was coming to the realization that he couldn’t do anything about his suspicion, when, on the fifth day after he’d first heard the cry, he was passing the stall on his way to a coffee stall he frequented. And on that day, his suspicions were confirmed by a high, shrill voice raised in protest.

  “No! I don’t want to! It hurts!” were the words Rex heard emanating from the narrow alley separating the clothing stall from the next shop.

  Rex stopped in his tracks and looked around. No one else appeared to take any notice. Bikes and donkey carts kept moving, as did the mass of people in the street. No one seemed to notice him, either, though the pedestrian traffic had to part to flow around him. He edged closer to the alley, moving slowly to avoid exciting attention, and slipped into the alley, melting into the shadows like a wraith.

  Rex listened for more protests, but all he could hear was a rhythmic slapping sound. Was someone beating the child? If so, why wasn’t he or she crying? As the minutes passed, he began to doubt what he thought he’d heard.

  And then the slapping stopped. Within seconds, the sound Rex heard changed to a soft sobbing. He couldn’t doubt his ears any longer. There was a child inside who needed help, and he was going to give it. But how?

  It was painfully obvious to him that he couldn’t simply stride into the shop and demand to see the child. Sneaking into the residence and looking for the child for himself was equally impractical. At first sight of him, any women in the place would begin screaming, and he’d be accosted by the men of the family.

  Rex concluded, not without a good measure of frustration because he couldn’t do anything himself, that all he could do was report what he’d heard to a policeman. With sinking hopes, he went back out into the street and looked for one. They were hard to find in the poorer parts of town where Rex was used to wandering. His mission took him to places where the destitute hung about hoping for work. The police were more interested in protecting the wealthy – the drug lords who’d become the new elite social class.

  When at last Rex found a policeman to help him, he was blocks from the stall. He urged the policeman to hurry as he turned around and started to lead the way. But the officer stopped him.

  “Tell me what crime you are reporting,” he demanded.

  Rex had to admit, he didn’t know the exact crime. Only that a child had screamed, had cried out that whatever was being demanded of him hurt, and that Rex had heard him crying after listening to what sounded like a beating.

  “What business is it of yours?” the officer asked. “You must not be from here, to think you can interfere in the discipline of a child you are not even related to. Don’t waste my time again.”

  Rex had to fight the urge to choke the life out of the policeman. He felt defeated. Was there no one or no way to help this poor child? After this experience, he decided to investigate whether institutions for child protection existed in this benighted country. He reasoned that the child had survived whatever punishment he’d been given, so his interference could wait another day while he did the research.

  That required a visit to the Phoenix compound, where he could use the internet for the research. Dressed as he was, he wouldn’t be welcomed in a government building or a library, assuming the latter would even have what he needed. Half an hour later, a bicycle rickshaw deposited him at the compound gate. He waited for the driver to leave before grinning at the familiar guard and being admitted.

  Half an hour after that, he’d learned that snatching the child and handing him over to authorities would be equivalent to taking him out of the frying pan and depositing him into the fire. In a word, child protection in Afghanistan was an oxymoron. If he was going to interfere, he’d have to do it on his own. He despaired of making it stick, and furthermore, he was aware that saving one child was a feeble protest at best.

  It didn’t make him any less determined to do so. He felt responsible for this child, because he had heard the cry for help. If he could do nothing more, he’d at least discharge his responsibility to this one.

  The next morning found him once again shopping in the stall. This ti
me, he was comparing various headgear. He’d noticed that both times he’d heard the child, it was about the same time of morning. So, he’d entered the shop at the same time, and he was taking his own sweet time in handling the merchandise. His ruse also had a practical side. The coat he’d bought kept his body warm, but his head could use some seasonal protection as well.

  He was comparing the traditional Peshawari turban to the paktay, and those to the pakul, a round-topped wool hat, which he thought might be easier to learn to wear, though it wasn’t as common here. He had to decide on whether it would set him apart, as well as whether it was warm enough.

  While he dithered, deliberately taking more time than a typical customer would have, the younger man he’d met here before kept an eye on him. The older man had not made an appearance since the first time he’d been here.

  Suddenly, a cry from behind the curtains rang out through the shop, and the young man’s expression changed from carefully neutral to pained.

  “Is that your boy?” Rex asked. “What’s wrong? Do you need to go to him?”

  The man looked at the floor and mumbled, “No. My father is taking care of him.”

  Rex took a risk.

  “Your father is abusing him,” he said firmly. “I will not stand by and listen.”

  He took a step toward the curtain, but the young man was between him and the entrance to the residence immediately.

  “Please. You cannot help. Go away.”

  Rex swept him aside with a strong arm. “Yes, I can.” He rushed through the curtain to find a young woman crouched on the floor of a hallway, weeping. “Where?” he asked.

  The young woman’s eyes grew round, and she screamed. Rex felt the rush of air as the young man rushed through the curtain.

  “Father! There is an intruder!”

  From a doorway a few feet beyond, the older man he’d met nearly a week before strode out, adjusting his clothing. “Who are you? How dare you enter my home uninvited?” he yelled.

  Rex swept him aside as well, rushing into the room he’d come from. On a bed in the room, Rex saw a child of no more than four years old, naked and curled into a fetal position. A rage he could barely control took him by surprise. Whirling, he rushed out of the room and searched wildly for a sight of the older man. The younger man was raising the woman from the floor and murmuring to her. Rex rushed past them as she started for the room where the child lay sobbing.

  He caught up with the older man in the shop, where he was talking to a customer as if nothing had happened. Rex grabbed him from behind by his khet and jerked him off balance. In a smooth continuance, Rex pushed the man’s shoulder, turning the bastard to face him, and punched him in the solar plexus with all the power he possessed. The old man went down like he’d been shot.

  The customer stood with his mouth open and his eyes wide, before he began yelling, “Help! Help us! A robber!”

  Rex punched him, too, just to shut him up. A straight right to the chin sent him to the floor, out cold. When no one else entered, he turned back into the residence. He found the young father helplessly wringing his hands, but the woman was nowhere to be seen.

  Rex felt like punching the boy’s father, too, but he restrained himself. There must be an explanation, though he couldn’t think what it could be that would make a man allow his father to abuse his son in that way. Rather than ask with his fists, he schooled himself to speak calmly. Compassion, though, was outside his ability.

  “Why?” he hissed through clenched teeth.

  “He is my father,” the man said, apparently believing that was enough of an explanation.

  “I will be watching,” Rex said. “If I hear that child crying again, I will kill your father. You tell him that, and while you’re at it, grow a pair.”

  The man just stared at Rex, nodded slowly. He had no idea what Rex meant by that last statement.

  Rex stomped out of the residence and past the customer, who was beginning to rouse from his brief period of unconsciousness.

  He was halfway down the block when he heard the hue and cry. He forced himself to walk at the pace of the crowd and not turn around. He’d be impossible to pick out from the back, unless he reacted to the chase.

  In a moment, two men ran past him, still yelling, “Stop him!”

  Rex would rather have taken the child from his inadequate parents, but he had no way to know the kid wouldn’t end up in even worse circumstances. He certainly couldn’t take on a kid. But he would make good on his threat. He almost hoped he’d get the chance, except that he wouldn’t have wished that on the child. All he could hope was that the young man would indeed man up and stop his father from continuing his abuse.

  Rex’s heart ached for the thousands of other children he couldn’t rescue.

  Maybe someday I’ll find a way.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Kabul, Afghanistan March 2014

  A FEW MORE productive operations netted more documentation of how heroin was moved from Afghanistan to trade routes with exotic names. “The Golden Crescent” route moved it from Afghanistan through Turkey and Eastern Europe to Germany, thence to the US and Canada. “The Golden Triangle” moved it through China and the Southeast Asia peninsula, from there across the Pacific to the west coast of the US and deep into central Canada.

  Rex’s reports went into CIA maps, where the information languished, still with no action. Poppy fields in areas where Rex had disrupted production were green again, and they would be ready for harvest within two to three months. The few poor farmers who became even poorer due to Rex’s efforts had borrowed money from opium buyers to clear and plant even more fields, to make up for their loss, and in some cases, to rebuild their small labs. To repay their debts and recover financially, as well as to feed their families, they were determined to bring in a bumper crop.

  Rex now felt he’d entered a myth; that of Sisyphus, founder and king of Corinth, who, for his sins, was condemned to roll a boulder uphill and watch it roll back down, only to roll it back up again. Or an African dung beetle that spends its days forming dung into little balls and roll it into holes in the ground and cover it up, just to do it again.

  He’d learned that the demand for heroin in the US meant the suppliers in Afghanistan needed warehouses full of it to stockpile throughout the growing season, so the supply wouldn’t be interrupted. But his previous intel placed all the large warehouses in the southwest provinces, near the poppy fields. Lately, he’d gleaned enough from the records of the minor drug lords he’d targeted with Trevor and Digger to be confident in kidnapping one to interrogate him about the bigger fish. This was far outside his legitimate mission parameters, but he was through waiting for permission to act.

  It was the thought of the dung beetle that set him on his next train of thought. If I’m destined to roll shit into balls and hide it then I might as well do it properly with nice big balls of shit.

  They snatched the target on his way home from an important meeting among his fellows and took him to the Phoenix compound to be interrogated. Rex was still leaving no witnesses who could report that there was someone looking too closely into the drug lords’ businesses. This one would have to go, too, so it didn’t matter if he knew where he was, but they blindfolded him anyway until they got him inside one of the outbuildings.

  Trevor was gratified to learn that even the bosses were superstitious enough to exhibit fear in Digger’s presence. The man they’d captured was called Mudawar, meaning ‘round’ in his native tongue, and round he was. His legs had failed him upon sight of Digger, and it took both Rex and Trevor to get him into the pickup and out again. When he collapsed on the ground inside the Phoenix compound, they told him he’d better find his way inside on his own, or they’d let the djinn beast eat him. Digger must have had supernatural powers, because one growl and miraculously, the man recovered the power of mobility and walked with as much dignity as he could muster into the building where he would spill every secret he knew under Digger’s watchf
ul gaze.

  Each time the flow of information slowed, Trevor would whisper a command into Digger’s earpiece, and Digger would inch closer to Mudawar, then break into the grin that always freaked Rex out. To Mudawar, it must have looked like the beast was salivating for a meal of raw drug lord. He’d talk faster and offer bigger secrets. Rex wondered if the man actually thought he’d survive.

  About two hours into the questioning, Mudawar let slip the location of the biggest warehouse he knew of, and to Rex’s surprise, it wasn’t in the southwest provinces at all. It was in the mountains north of Laghman, about three hours from Kabul. He didn’t know exactly where it was, however, and no amount of threats from Rex or Digger could extract knowledge he didn’t have.

  Mudawar was exhausted and, according to his claim, near starvation by the time he gave up and asked to have a last meal before being killed. The request let Rex understand that Mudawar truly didn’t have knowledge of the exact location of the warehouse. He had one more question. “Who does?”

  Mudawar gave a name that Rex recognized. To show his appreciation, he gave Mudawar a crumbling energy bar whose wrapper had seen better days. “What is this?” the man asked.

  “Your last meal,” Rex answered.

  With tears rolling down his fat cheeks, Mudawar lost the last of his dignity and stuffed the unappetizing mess into his mouth. He was still chewing when Rex put a bullet between his eyes.

  Unfortunately, the man Mudawar had given up was nowhere to be found. Rex had to take care in his inquiries, because the man, one Ra’id Asad, was the last one he would have targeted before declaring all-out war on the major drug lords. The most powerful of the minors, Asad had his eye on ascending to the next level, and to get there, he’d been open in his brutality. Everyone knew him, and all who knew him feared him. If Rex had gone looking for him in the underbelly of Kabul, word would have gotten back to him faster than one of his own racing camels.