The Caliban Program

by Richard Fox

foreign city in local dress and don’t get caught. If he got caught, then the Paki police and intelligence service would work him over until he spilled his ridiculous, and unverifiable, story of how he ended up wandering down a Peshawar street carrying a briefcase full of surveillance gear and a very illegal pistol.

  The briefcase was heavy enough that he fought a lopsided gait. Maybe it wasn’t that heavy, maybe it was the pistol loaded with hollow point rounds hidden in the briefcase that preoccupied his mind. Ritter wasn’t a stranger to pistols, weeks of Basic Training followed by marksmanship training at Officer Candidate School taught him enough to be, as Carlos put it: “more likely to shoot someone else than himself.” Hollow-point rounds were something new. Carlos promised that one round was all it took to end a threat as long as they weren’t wearing body armor.

  Tony assured everyone that Haider would be in Rawalpindi or any other major Pakistani city receiving his regular wire transfer from Saudi financiers. Ritter wondered if Baida’s father was somehow involved in those transfers. He’d met the man once, a nasty drunk who thought his newfound devotion to religion would excuse decades of philandering and neglect for his family.

  The plan was simple enough. All Ritter had to do was walk down the target street and hope the surveillance gear, which both Carlos and Shannon demurred to explain, would figure out which house Haider was using. They would then pass that information on to the spooks at the embassy and they would handle the rest.

  His hand passed over the lump of Pakistani rupees in his pocket. A tight roll of bills held together with a rubber band. Carlos said it might be enough to bribe his way out of a tight spot, but if he was caught with the briefcase then Ritter should “stick your head between your legs and kiss your ass good luck, Pakis like pretty boys in prison.” Ritter wasn’t sure if Carlos was serious or joking. Neither option filled Ritter with confidence.

  The street was a riot of early morning traffic. Street vendors packed the sidewalks selling stacks of flat bread and hawking ruddy looking oranges. Ritter stopped next to a curry shop; the smell of cardamom and turmeric wafted towards him from large bags full of spice as he looked down the street. The target buildings were a hundred yards away, grey concrete buildings loomed over the dirt road bustling with goat laden vans and women obscured by the hijab.

  “Why are you stopping?” cracked a voice in his ear. Ritter stiffened at the sudden noise.

  “God damn it act natural!” Shannon hissed through the tiny ear piece.

  Ritter took a deep breath and rubbed his nose to mask his mouth as he spoke. “Just how many ways is this situation unnatural? Wait…how can you see me?” Ritter glanced around; no one was supposed to be anywhere near the target building in case Haider and his cell knew what Shannon and the rest looked like.

  “There’s a drone overheard. Stop screwing around and complete your task.” Tony joined in. Ritter mumbled incredulously and stopped scratching his nose. No one mentioned a drone to him, the whole “need to know’ bit was starting to get on his nerves.

  The shopkeeper pouring dry lentils into a hanging scale called out to Ritter. Years of watching Bollywood movies taught him enough Hindi, and by extension Urdu, to get by, but he was forbidden from opening his mouth. He wore the local dress, a long tunic, baggy pants and sandals, and his complexion was tan enough from the Arizona sun that he could blend in well enough with the locals, but if he uttered a single word his accent would betray him as a foreigner. Carlos insisted that speaking with a Hindi accent would get a lynch party on him faster than a Western accent. Decades of hate and war in South Asia bred an especially virulent form of xenophobia.

  Ritter smiled at the shop keeper and turned away, and looked straight at a passing police car. He let his gaze pass the laconic police officers and walked towards the target buildings as the ice-shock of adrenaline hit his system making his heart pound.

  “Stay cool, you’re doing great,” Shannon’s tinny voice half-whispered.

  Ritter lengthened his stride and focused on the flat bread cart at the end of the street. Just get to the cart, he told himself. He brushed past an elderly man with a cane and stepped around a pile of manure.

  “Stop, we’re getting something.” Tony ordered.

  Ritter slowed and mingled into a small crowd around a cart selling grilled meat on a stick. None of the morning’s customers seemed to mind, or notice, the dark stream of raw sewage a few feet from the cart.

  “There’s a blue sedan across from you, point the briefcase at it,” Shannon said.

  Ritter rotated his wrist slowly until the narrow side of the briefcase lined up with the blue sedan, stopped in the middle of the road. The front passenger door opened, and a large man with a bushy beard got out. He quickly scanned around before his eyes locked onto the distant police car. The man slapped his palm on the hood of the car three times.

  “Does this seem odd to you?” Ritter whispered.

  “Maintain radio silence. We’re watching.” Shannon said as furious keyboard clicks filled the background of her transmission.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Ritter saw the police car drive through the intersection and out of view. The bearded man smacked a closed fist on the top of his car several times. A black silhouette stepped out from an alley behind the car and walked towards the car. Ritter felt his heart beat harder as the figure stepped into the street, and was promptly blocked from view by a huge and garish gold covered truck.

  Half a dozen colorful metaphors came to Ritter’s mind as he side stepped around the crowd, keeping the briefcase pointed at the sedan.

  The gold truck lumbered off with a cough of exhaust.

  Ritter and Haider saw each other at the same moment. Ritter hoped that the intervening years and local dress would keep Haider from recognizing him, but that hope vanished when Haider pointed at Ritter and screamed “CIA! American!”

  The large man reached into the car as Ritter squeezed the two hidden switches on the either side of the briefcase. A trap door popped open and Ritter grabbed the pistol, the hammer already locked back. His world slowed to a crawl as he saw the large man pull an Uzi from the car and racked the charging handle with practiced ease. Ritter kept his eyes on the large man as he brought the pistol in line with the man and pulled the trigger.

  The pistol snapped up as Ritter fired. He half-lowered the pistol as several things happened all at once. The man stumbled back against the car, his bloody arm clenched against his side. Haider opened the car door and leapt into the driver’s seat, and everyone around Ritter started screaming.

  “Go!” the wounded man yelled in Arabic as he tried to raise the Uzi with his good arm. Ritter aimed and fired. The man’s head hinged back as blood and brains splattered against the car. The man slumped against the car, his right foot twitching. The sedan tore off in a cloud of dust, dragging the man’s head against the car, leaving a comet’s trail of gore along the side. The dead man flopped against the ground as the sedan weaved its way through the street, horn blaring.

  Ritter started at the dead man lying in the road, a bloody puddle growing beneath his body. He looked down at the pistol, cordite smoke wafting from the barrel. Had he really just killed a man?

  A tin shrill broke through the air causing Ritter to put a finger against his ear. Why couldn’t he hear Shannon? The shrill grew louder as he looked around, the crowd was radiating away from him, like a film of oil fleeing a drop of detergent. A second later Ritter realized the shrill wasn’t his earpiece, it was a police whistle.

  “Get the hell out of there!” screamed his ear piece.

  Ritter didn’t care who said it, he turned and ran as the two police officers came running around the corner. The locals immediately pointed towards Ritter and screamed “CIA!” as he shoved his way past the flat bread cart.

  “Do we stay on the asset or the target?” Ritter heard through the ear piece. Ritter looked down the road Haider took and saw the car turn off several blocks away. The locals on this stree
t ducked into stores or behind food carts as they pointed at him. The police whistles grew louder.

  Ritter sprinted down the street and saw a young, clean-shaven man swatting at a street urchin who used the confusion to stuff his pockets full of dates. Ritter rushed towards the young man. He looked enough like Ritter that his idea might work.

  “Target vehicle pulled into a garage. What’s the play?” Ritter still didn’t recognize that voice as he ran past the young man and tossed the pistol to him. The young man caught the pistol, purely out of reflex. Ritter glanced over his shoulder and saw the police come around the corner and point at the young man, who looked shocked and terrified that he was holding a gun

  Ritter put a truck between him and the police and hoped the switch would work long enough to put more distance between him and the cops. “Ritter, was that Haider in the car?” Shannon asked.

  Ritter slowed to a brisk pace as public attention focused on the cops and the young man. He felt a bit of pride that he had misdirected the pursuit. The pride vanished a half-second later when he realized that he’d also tossed away his only tool for self-defense. A frantic voice screamed from the knot of people around the cops. “Yes, that was him. How do I get out of here?” Mike and Carlos were supposed to pick him up next to a mosque blocks from