“Yeah, I wonder if he has his uniforms custom made. Sergeant Schwarzenegger reporting for duty.”
Early that afternoon, both groups reconvened around Kamaal’s table. He served them a light lunch while they compared notes.
“Did you find anything at the medical supply stores?” asked Alton.
“Nope. Not a damn thing,” said David. “Maybe Fahima was right, the kidnapper is buying Ketamine on the black market.”
“It’d certainly be harder to trace,” said Alton. “If I were trying to cover my tracks, that’s what I’d do.”
“So, what about you guys? Any luck?”
“Not really. Poya hadn’t heard of the Brotherhood. He said he’d let us know if he hears anything, but you heard him talking about civilian crime the other day. Unless the Brotherhood somehow gets involved in terrorist crimes, I don’t think they’ll get a lot of attention from the police.”
“Agreed.”
“You know, that makes me think, though,” said Alton. “What about Colonel Rand at Camp Eggers MI? Can you see if he’s heard of these guys?”
“That’s a thought,” said David. “Military Intelligence might have heard something, especially if the Brotherhood is operating in Kabul. Let me go call Rand now.”
David called Camp Eggers. After three transfers, he finally connected with the colonel. After posing the question to Rand, he spent most of the remaining portion of the conversation listening. He thanked the man and ended the call.
“So?” asked Mallory.
“Pretty much the same as Poya. Rand hasn’t heard of the Brotherhood but he’ll let me know if he does.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Yeah.” David pursed his lips. “You know, it seemed like Rand was holding something back.”
“Like what?” asked Mallory.
“I can’t say exactly. Remember a long time ago I told you that growing up on a cattle ranch in Wyoming helped me develop a good sense for JDFR?”
“‘JDFR’?” asked Kamaal.
“‘Just doesn’t feel right.’ Back when I worked the ranch, the cattle would generally know when something was up. After a while, I started to pick up the same kind of subtle cues they did. When I was talking with the colonel, I got that same vibe.”
“We’ll just have to hope that if he does have any information about the Brotherhood, he’ll share it with us,” said Alton. “Mastana’s time is surely running out.”
CHAPTER 42
Mastana estimated she had enjoyed freedom from her floor shackle for a day. Of course, she couldn’t be sure exactly how long she had been unchained, but her body’s circadian rhythm suggested a twenty-four hours interval.
The heavy clang of the hallway door and the approach of footsteps raised Mastana’s anxiety, as it always did since her arrival in this dismal place. She backed herself into the darkest corner, praying the tread would continue past her door.
The sound of a key in the lock refuted her wish. Divband entered the cell. Until now, he had always appeared in a black robe, but today he wore a more modern look, sporting a shirt and pants made of linen. Did the relaxation of his attire in her presence denote a loosening of other attitudes respecting her?
Divband wrinkled his nose. “By Iblis, when is the last time anyone emptied your chamber pot?”
Emerging from the shadows, Mastana hung her head in affected shame, as if she had anything to do with the timing of the filth’s removal. “I do not know, my Lord. Many hours, I believe.”
“We must get that taken care of. But that’s not why I’m here. I came to ask you how you’ve enjoyed your taste of freedom.”
Praise the heavens, no walk down the hall! “I have enjoyed it very much. I thank you, my Lord.”
Divband smiled. It seemed no amount of false praise was too much. “Yet the guards tell me you have hung back, that you have not made a show of your freedom from the chain.”
“That is true. I believe my Lord would prefer a companion capable of exercising restraint.”
“A companion? And where did you get such an idea?”
“I apologize, my Lord. I merely meant for those moments we share together in this cell, I hoped my Lord would find my conduct pleasing to his taste.”
The man nodded, and Mastana breathed a silent sigh of relief that her attempt to suggest the possibility of a deeper relationship between them hadn’t backfired.
“And yet, if I were to choose a companion, I would value such restraint. The companion of a leader must not outshine her man.”
No, her suggestion definitely hadn’t backfired. “Indeed, my Lord.”
Divband took two steps towards her. “And how would you feel about a little more freedom?”
“I am content in any measure of freedom my Lord finds pleasing.”
“Come, come. You’d like to have a little more, wouldn’t you?”
She brightened. “Yes, my Lord. Perhaps I could use it in service of you.”
“How so?”
“That would depend on the nature of my freedom, my Lord. I cannot say until I know what privileges I would be allowed.”
“Fair enough.” Divband tossed a package on the floor, a small parcel wrapped in brown paper. “I brought you a clean garment, but I must say that another freedom comes immediately to mind,” he said, glancing at the chamber pot once more. “How would you like access to the bathroom?”
“I would like that very much.”
“You’d have to be escorted by a guard.”
“Of course, my Lord.”
“Very well—it’s decided. I’ll send Walid down here to empty that pot. And I’ll instruct him to escort you to the bathroom. He’ll check with you every couple of hours to see if you have the need.”
“You are generous, my Lord.”
The man smiled, and Mastana wondered how much unmerited praise she would have to heap on his head before he became suspicious.
Divband left and locked the door behind him. Although the illumination from the narrow hallway’s florescent bulbs hadn’t changed, the light in Mastana’s cell nonetheless seemed of a brighter hue.
CHAPTER 43
Divband sat in his office, lost in thought. Until now, he had rejoiced at the screams and terror of the brides of Iblis as they had been sacrificed. Why not? Their repulsion showed in every look and action. They were just the sort of harlots who would laugh at him if they knew the truth about his condition.
But this new girl, Mastana, was different. Of course, a sexual relationship with her remained out of the question, but she had a pleasing, compliant way about her. And although intercourse wasn’t an option, there were other forms of intimacy that were satisfying in their own way, methods the teen had all but suggested.
What would it be like to have someone like Mastana around? The Brotherhood only allowed men to join their ranks—this was Divband’s own regulation—but the leader could be allowed a companion, just as his followers had their wives and girlfriends at home.
He recognized that the teen could not yet be trusted. She would have to prove herself over time. But the current timetable could be a dilemma. Following the normal protocol for the brides of Iblis, Mastana would soon be starved, then sacrificed. Divband had half a mind to stay this sequence of events in favor of giving her the opportunity to demonstrate her trustworthiness. Worst case, she would fail and be sacrificed, no different from the current plan.
As he mulled over this course of action, Ghoyee and Meskin arrived at his office.
“Master, you sent for us?”
Divband sighed. He would have preferred to remain alone, contemplating Mastana, but being available to his followers, including those who answered a summons at an inconvenient time, was a price of leadership. “Yes, come in.”
Meskin bowed again and again, while Ghoyee entered in silence.
“We are now two days away from performing the next bride-of-Iblis ceremony,” said Divband. “As you know, the ceremonies proceed more smoothly when the bride is
weak from hunger. You’ve already put the next bride on half-rations, right?”
“Yes, Master,” said Ghoyee. “And may I tell Meskin of our earlier conversation, the one about the Americans?”
Divband nodded.
Ghoyee turned to Meskin. “Some Americans were inquiring about the Brotherhood.”
“Why were they asking?”
“They’re trying to track down one of the brides. I guess they’re friends of hers.”
Meskin looked worried. “What do we do about this?”
“Oh, it’ll be taken care of,” interjected Divband. “Some of our Brotherhood members are, shall we say, uniquely placed in the government. We’ll soon hear the details of the Americans and their investigation. I don’t think they’ll learn anything useful, but if it turns out they do, well…I’m sure Iblis would like to have a few more servants in his kingdom.”
CHAPTER 44
Grateful for the chance to wear clean clothes, Mastana immediately discarded her old rags and put on the new garments.
Recognizing the need to avoid appearing overanxious, she declined a trip to the bathroom the first time it was offered. The second time, she accepted yet made as meek a show of the journey as possible, walking with her eyes cast down to the floor and completing her time in the public latrines in the space of two minutes. On this first visit, she scarcely looked around the building. Her priority lay with giving all indications of abiding by Divband’s rules. Such an impression should raise the odds of success if she eventually had an opportunity to attempt an escape.
Several hours later, shortly after a meal of rice, naan, and water, Walid peered through the bars of Mastana’s cell door. “Would you like to go to the bathroom?” The man wore a frown, apparently unhappy with this new responsibility. He reeked of beer, the influence of which probably did little to improve his mood.
“Yes, thank you.”
Again, Mastana kept her gaze fixed to the floor. As she reached the threshold of the bathroom, she turned to her male captor. “I am sorry, but this may take a little longer. The meal, you know…”
“Fine, just get on with it.”
Mastana passed to the left of one crumbling, stacked-mudbrick wall, then to the right of another, finally entering one of the ancient temple’s public baths. The building’s architects had been ahead of their time. Behind a row of vats used for bathing lay a trench, a sloped indentation on the floor used as a latrine. A narrow stream of water flowed into the trench from the right side of the room, and gravity did the rest, carrying away the waste through a small opening on the left wall.
Mastana examined the cavity through which the rivulet exited the room. The opening was only several inches high, but the wall around it was made of stacked mudbrick rather than the indestructible granite stones used to construct the exterior walls. She could see cracks in the mudbricks, and some pieces had already broken away in places.
Bracing herself, she kicked the wall, hoping her captor could not hear the dull thud. Since this might be her only opportunity to escape, it was a risk she had to take. On the third kick, a jagged crack nearly two feet long lanced up the wall. Mastana wiggled the mudbrick at the edge of the crack until a fist-sized piece came off in her hands. She repeated the procedure on the other side of the crack, widening the opening a little more.
The building’s architects had been advanced, but even they had no remedy against the deteriorating effects of two millennia on clay masonry. Ever-widening chucks broke off in Mastana’s hands. She laid them inside one of the bathing vats, hoping to minimize the pile of rubble near her escape route. In the space of three minutes, she had enlarged the hole to roughly two feet high and wide.
She glided back to the bathroom’s entrance to ensure her guard had not started calling for her. If so, she would have to make some excuse for needing a few more minutes. Otherwise, the alarm would be sounded too soon for her to escape. She didn’t hear anything at first, but then she cocked her head at a strange noise. Was that snoring? It was. What an enormous stroke of luck! She decided she didn’t detest the smell of beer so much after all.
Mastana hurried back to her escape hole. Suppressing a gag, she lowered herself into the trench, wiggling herself through the hole as her stomach slid through the filth. She pulled her legs through the hole and stood up, finding herself in an unlit storage room.
Using the faintest trace of light from around the doorframe, she felt her way to the door, which—thankfully—seemed to lie on a different hall from the one from which she had entered the bathroom. She pulled open the storage-room’s door and tiptoed down a narrow hallway, scarcely daring to breathe for fear of alerting someone to her presence.
Mastana continued skirting down a series of narrow passages, heading away from any source of light or noise, all the while thankful for dark shadows that enshrouded most of the ancient structure like a crypt. In under five minutes, she reached a room containing a speaker dais, a collapsible table, and a wheeled rack of folding chairs—but no exit from the building. The items seemed oddly out of place in the aged building.
Pressing forward through the darkness, Mastana detected the faintest hint of external light. In seconds, she reached a small room with a fire pit and, directly above it, a narrow hole cut out of the ceiling. Peering up, she saw a splash of stars twinkling through the gap.
Although the ceiling was quite low, it was nonetheless too high for Mastana reach from the floor. She cast her gaze around the room but saw nothing she could use as a makeshift ladder. Remembering the previous room, she returned to it and lifted a folding chair off the rack. Making her way back to the second room, she unfolded the chair and placed it in the fire pit. She reached for the ceiling, praying it would prove to be more durable than the bathroom’s wall. Fortunately, the ceiling’s construction held firm as she struggled to pull herself up through the hole.
Emerging through the opening at last, Mastana squatted down and swiveled to take in her surroundings. Her building seemed to lie near the center of some type of large, aging compound. A nearly-full moon illuminated a frosty mountain range in the direction of the North Star. To the east and west lay desert, and behind her rose another, smaller mountain range. She decided to make for the desert, figuring she could put the greatest distance between herself and this compound on such terrain. Plus, the buildings between here and the western desert were all dark, suggesting the absence of occupants who might spot her escape.
Her next step, though, involved getting off this roof without being detected. She low-crawled to the roof’s edge, raising and lowering each limb with deliberation in order to minimize noise. At the first roofline, she encountered a straight drop. Jumping from the squat building at this height wouldn’t hurt her, but it could quite possibly make too much noise. She crawled to an adjacent roofline and found a retaining wall running away from the building. After studying the surrounding area to ensure her privacy, Mastana slid from the roof onto the wall. She then lowered herself off the wall, her feet dangling a mere twelve inches off the ground. She dropped in almost perfect silence and bent into a crouch.
The buildings in the direction of the western desert remained dark and silent. Hugging shadowed walls and swiveling her head almost constantly, Mastana worked her way from one building to the next. As the edge of the compound neared, she forced herself to not let the proximity of escape lead her into recklessness.
She reached the last building. Only then did she see the security perimeter, a series of small huts located about a hundred meters outside the compound proper. She plotted a path between the two huts that seemed to have the greatest distance between them. Using a large boulder in the distance as a landmark, she crawled on hands and knees across the ground, determined to avoid capture with the prize so close. A straight route would have been quicker, but she turned time and again to avoid patches of dried Calligonum desert shrubs, the rustling of which could betray her presence.
Were they already looking for her? She imagined that had her
escape already been discovered, someone would have sounded an alarm. But she couldn’t count on this assumption. She had to maintain a stealthy escape.
Desert winds sent a chill down Mastana’s spine. More determined than ever, she slipped between the two guard shacks without incident. She could hear the faintest murmuring of music on the radios of both locations, confirming her absence from the bathroom had not yet reached the guards’ ears.
As she moved past the shacks, she heard a great noise erupt from the compound. Intermittent shouts mixed with curses. In seconds, the phones in both guard shacks rang simultaneously. Mastana couldn’t make out the conversations, but she had a pretty good idea they revolved around her.
While the desert still represented the best ground for making good time, Mastana knew better than to walk in open terrain in such close proximity to the compound, recognizing that her silhouette could give her away. She spotted a dried creek bed off to the right, leading in a southwesterly direction, and headed towards it.
Mastana entered the channel. By bending forward slightly at the waist, she dropped out of sight of her pursuers. Balancing the need to move quickly with the necessity of minimizing noise, she settled on a quick walking pace. As she strode, the drone of noise from the camp grew louder. Once or twice, the beam of a spotlight flitted over her head, illuminating dust motes kicked up by the evening breeze.
After fifteen minutes of brisk walking, Mastana peered over the top of the riverbed. In the distance, lights continued to flash and a hum of noise could still be discerned. None of the searchers, however, appeared to be headed in her direction.
Feeling an irresistible urge to put as much distance as possible between herself and her captors, Mastana emerged from the riverbed and dashed toward the open desert—and freedom.
CHAPTER 45
Minutes earlier, Divband had been roused by a frantic visit from Walid, the guard.
“Master, the girl has escaped!”
The Devil's Due (The Blackwell Files Book 5) Page 14
