by Mark Alpert
Monique moved her lips close to his ear. “I’m scared,” she whispered. “I’m scared and I need you. Right now.”
“Where should we—”
“The smaller cabin. While Lucille’s eating breakfast, we’ll have the room to ourselves.” Then she took David’s hand and led him toward the deckhouse.
25
AFTER THEY LEFT THE BURNING CRATER, TAMARA SPENT THE NEXT EIGHT hours driving through the Karakum Desert in pitch-black darkness. She refused to turn on the Land Cruiser’s headlights because she was certain that Brother Cyrus would order the True Believers to search for her, and she knew they could spot her from miles away if the car’s lights were on. So she crept along at a walking pace, judging the location of the sand dunes by the tilt of the Cruiser and steering blindly around them. Because Cyrus’s convoy had gone southwest toward Kuruzhdey, she figured it would be safest to go in the opposite direction. Luckily, Michael was able to help her with the navigation. He’d apparently memorized a bunch of star charts, and by looking at the sky and checking his watch every ten minutes he was able to keep them on a northeasterly path.
The sun came up at 5:30 A.M. and Tamara stopped to refill the Cruiser’s tank from the big jugs of gasoline stored in the back of the car. Now that it was daytime she could drive much faster, going up to thirty miles an hour in some stretches, but it was still a grueling, bumpy ride. By 9 A.M. the car was blazingly hot, and although they’d driven more than a hundred miles since leaving the Darvaza camp, they were still surrounded by sand dunes. The desert seemed endless. Every ten minutes Michael checked his watch and pointed out the correct direction, now judging by the position of the sun, but otherwise the boy was unresponsive. He hadn’t said a word for hours. Tamara was getting worried about him—there was no food in the car and only one bottle of water. Every now and then he let out a low moan, which Tamara assumed was from hunger pains.
And then, shortly after ten o’clock, Michael said, “Look,” and pointed to the right. Tamara thought at first that he was correcting their heading again, but this time he seemed to have made a mistake.
“Michael, are you sure that’s northeast? It seems too close to the sun to be—”
“No,” he said, still pointing. “A village.”
Tamara leaned forward, squinting. She saw a cluster of gray shacks on the horizon. She immediately steered the Land Cruiser toward it, driving as fast as she could. To the left of the village she noticed tall poles sticking out of the sandy ground, a whole line of them stretching eastward. They were telephone poles.
She stepped on the gas. She needed to find a telephone in that village and place a call to the U.S. embassy. If she could talk to the American ambassador and explain the situation, maybe he could help them get out of Turkmenistan before the True Believers tracked them down. She didn’t care about her own life, but she was determined to save Michael, even if it meant blowing the whistle on Brother Cyrus. Ever since she’d joined the True Believers she’d clung to Cyrus’s prophecies, his promise that she would see her brother Jack again. But now she saw that Cyrus had been wrong—the promise had been fulfilled on earth, and not in the Kingdom of Heaven. Tamara saw her brother’s spirit inside Michael. Jack’s helpless eyes stared at her from the boy’s blank face. Saving him was more important to her now than redeeming the universe.
After a few minutes she reached the edge of the village. Calling it a village was really an overstatement—there were only a dozen crude shacks built from sheets of rusted metal. The shacks leaned against one another in a crooked jumble, and several cooking fires smoldered in blackened pits nearby. The village lay at the end of a long sandy trail, but Tamara didn’t see any cars or trucks. The only motor vehicle in sight was a dusty motorcycle parked behind a blocklike concrete structure, which was by far the biggest building in town. There was also a camel tethered to a pole, a mangy dromedary standing in a patch of sand littered with its droppings. But no people were outside. The hottest part of the day was approaching, and the village’s residents were probably sweating inside their shacks.
Tamara stopped near the settlement, wondering what to do. Then she spotted two children carrying a tin washtub, one at each handle, like a Turkmen version of Jack and Jill. They were about six years old and quite adorable. The boy wore shorts and a striped T-shirt, and the girl wore a long colorful dress and a flowered kerchief. They were carrying water from the village pump to one of the shacks, but they slowed once they saw the Land Cruiser. They seemed more curious than afraid. Tamara stepped out of the car and walked toward them.
The children stood very still, looking her over. They’d probably never seen a woman in a uniform before. Tamara gave them a smile. “Hi, kids! I’m looking for a telephone.” She said “telephone” loud and slow, hoping the Turkmen language had a similar word for it. “Do you know where I can find a telephone?”
They stared at her, intrigued but uncomprehending. Then Michael got out of the car and the children seemed to get nervous. They stepped backward and some water sloshed out of their washtub. Their eyes were fixed on the M-9 pistol tucked into the waistband of Michael’s pants. Tamara went over to him and pulled the bottom of his T-shirt out of his pants so that it hid the gun. Then she turned back to the kids. “You know what a telephone is, right? Do your parents have a telephone?”
But the children continued to stare at Michael. Something about him fascinated them. He turned to the side, averting his eyes, but after a few seconds he stepped forward and knelt on the sand next to them. Then he pursed his lips and made a ringing noise. Tamara was dumbfounded—it sounded exactly like the ring of an old-fashioned, rotary-dial phone. Then Michael flattened his lips and let out a warble that sounded just like a cell phone’s ring.
The children finally understood. The girl nodded and laughed. The boy shouted, “Hanha!” and pointed at the blocklike concrete building.
Tamara felt stupid. She should’ve realized this from the start. Although the concrete building was ugly, it was a lot nicer than the metal shacks, so it probably belonged to the richest family in town, the only residents who could afford phone service. “Thank you,” she told the children. Then she turned to Michael. “Come, we’re going to make a call.”
Taking a shortcut, they approached the building from behind, striding past the motorcycle parked by the back door. It was a Ural, a rugged, well-made Russian bike with a sidecar. Tamara gave it a quick once-over as she walked by, but Michael stopped and stared. His face was so rapt, Tamara had to smile. “You like motorcycles?” she asked.
He pointed at the Ural. “This looks like the motorcycle that Monique Reynolds let me ride.”
“Monique Reynolds? She’s your adopted mom, right?”
He nodded. “We were on the beach. She let me ride in the sidecar. And she showed me how to start the engine and work the controls.”
Tamara waited a few seconds, letting the teenager examine the bike. Then she said, “Come on,” and Michael reluctantly followed her.
They walked around the building to the front door, which was painted black. Tamara knocked on it, and when the door opened she felt even stupider than before. The man in the doorway wore a green uniform with red epaulets, and behind him was a dark, grim room with the green-and-red flag of Turkmenistan hanging on the wall. Shit, she thought, this isn’t a private residence. It’s the local police station. And judging from what she knew about third-world policemen, she sensed that this officer would be more of a hindrance than a help.
The man said nothing. He simply narrowed his eyes. His face was square and swarthy and suspicious.
“We’re Americans,” Tamara said, pointing at herself and Michael. “And we’re very lost. We were wondering if we could borrow your telephone.”
The officer remained silent. He poked his head out the door and looked behind them, probably wondering how the hell they got there. Then he spotted the Land Cruiser, which was parked about two hundred feet to the right of the police station.
“Yes
, that’s our car,” Tamara said, playing the hapless tourist. “And we’re almost out of gas. We really need to make a telephone call.”
The man frowned and stuck his hand out. “Passport!” he barked.
Tamara put on an abject expression, tilting her head in a hangdog way. “And that’s another problem! Someone stole our passports and all our money! We have absolutely nothing!”
“Passport!” he barked again, louder this time. It was apparently the only English word he knew. When she didn’t respond, he leaned toward her and shouted in Turkmen, spraying her cheeks with saliva.
She gritted her teeth and looked the guy over. He had a semiautomatic in the holster hanging from his belt. A Russian Makarov, by the looks of it. Tamara had seen Makarovs before. A few of the True Believers carried them. “We just need to make one phone call, all right? Then we’ll explain everything.”
The officer turned sideways and pointed at the grim room inside the station. He shouted more incomprehensible Turkmen, but the message was clear: he was ordering her and Michael to go inside, and she doubted very much that it was an invitation to use the phone. She took a step toward the doorway and peered into the darkness. She saw a cracked cement floor and a couple of desks and an empty jail cell with rusty iron bars. But no other police. Officer Spittle was alone.
She looked over her shoulder at Michael. “I want you to do something for me, okay? Pretend to trip on the doorstep.”
“Excuse me,” Michael said, “I don’t—”
“You don’t have to understand. Just pretend to fall down.”
She stepped inside the station and positioned herself next to the Turkmen officer. Then Michael surprised her again. Staring straight ahead, he banged his foot against the doorstep and fell sprawling to the floor. When the officer shouted at him, he let out a convincing groan. And when the man bent over to grab him by the elbow, Tamara pulled the Makarov out of his holster and cocked the pistol. Before the officer could turn around, she fired a warning shot into the ceiling. The man stumbled backward, his arms flailing.
“OVER THERE!” Tamara shouted, pointing at the jail cell.
She kept the gun aimed at the officer’s forehead until he stepped inside the cell and closed the door behind him. She tested the bars to make sure it was locked. Then she started looking for the telephone. “Shut the front door,” she told Michael. “And lock it.”
The phone was on one of the desks. She picked up the receiver and heard a dial tone.
“Tamara?” Michael stood in the doorway, gazing outside. “Someone’s coming.”
“Who? Another officer?”
“No, another Land Cruiser.”
26
LUKAS LEANED FORWARD IN THE PASSENGER SEAT. HE SAW THE CAR THE prisoners had taken, parked in the dunes next to an oasis village, about a quarter mile ahead. “That’s them!” he shouted at Jordan, the lanky, red-haired True Believer who was driving their Land Cruiser. Jordan stepped on the gas and the car rocketed down the trail. They would make contact in fifteen seconds, Lukas estimated. He turned to the two soldiers in the backseat.
“Remember my orders,” he warned. “Shoot the tires, but not the passenger compartment. I need to interrogate Tamara before we execute her. Understand?”
He pulled back the slide on his Heckler & Koch. Lukas didn’t really need to interrogate the bitch. He wanted her to survive the firefight so he could shoot her in the guts afterward and watch her die. He wanted her to die a slow, painful death, to suffer as much as Angel had suffered after his pickup fell into the burning crater. Although the Redemption was fast approaching, there was still a little time left for payback.
THE LAND CRUISER WAS GOING AT LEAST SEVENTY MILES AN HOUR, ITS wheels hurling long rooster tails of sand. At first the car followed the trail toward the police station, but when it was about two hundred feet away it veered off the path and started leaping through the dunes. Tamara saw it was heading straight for her car. The idiots probably thought she and Michael were still in the vehicle.
The Makarov was still in her hand, still cocked. She put herself in the shooting stance she’d learned seven years ago in basic training, planting her feet squarely in the doorway of the police station. The Land Cruiser was passing from left to right, about a hundred feet away. She closed her left eye and sighted down the barrel. Then she started firing at the car’s right front tire.
After the second shot, the tire exploded and the car swerved. She shifted her aim, firing at the rear tire now, but the car tilted on the edge of a dune and toppled over, rolling down the sandy slope and coming to rest on its roof. She targeted the windows, trying to hit the car’s occupants before they could crawl out of the upside-down vehicle, but the front half of the Land Cruiser had slid behind a sand dune, so she had to pour all her fire into the backseat. Then she saw some movement behind the car. An instant later, a bullet hit the police station’s doorframe, just inches above her head. She scrambled back inside the station, crouching on the floor beside Michael. More bullets whizzed through the doorway. They slammed into the desks and chipped the cement floor and ricocheted off the iron bars of the jail cell. The Turkmen police officer let out a yelp and backed into the corner of the cell, trying to get out of the line of fire.
The shooting continued for about fifteen seconds, then abruptly ceased. Shuffling closer to the doorframe, Tamara peeked around its edge and spotted two figures behind the overturned Land Cruiser. A soldier with flaming-red hair aimed his rifle at the police station, and a big, ugly lummox pointed his handgun in the same direction. Tamara recognized them—Jordan and Lukas, two of her least favorite True Believers. They were former Delta Force commandos who’d been recruited to the cause by Brother Cyrus and General McNair, and both were excellent marksmen. Tamara quickly withdrew into the station.
Michael tugged on her sleeve. He looked scared but not panicky, which was damn good under the circumstances. “Are they Brother Cyrus’s soldiers?”
She nodded. “I got some of them, but two are still standing.”
She heard a gunshot, but no bullet hit the police station. Then she heard another shot, followed by the sound of a distant ricochet. Tamara peeked around the doorframe again and saw Lukas aiming his pistol at her Land Cruiser. One of its front tires was already flat. Lukas fired again and burst the other front tire. He’d obviously realized by now that she and Michael weren’t in the car, but he was shooting at it anyway to eliminate their means of escape. Feeling a surge of anger, Tamara started to aim her Makarov at him, but as she pointed the gun through the doorway a bullet from Jordan’s M-16 whistled past her right ear.
“Goddamn it!” she screamed, falling backward on her ass. “I can’t get a shot! That redheaded asshole is covering the door!”
Michael bit his lower lip and stared at the floor. For a moment Tamara thought he was going to start crying. Then he pointed to the back of the police station. Past the desks and the jail cell and the Turkmen flag was another door, the station’s back door. “We can go out that way,” he said. “And ride the motorcycle that’s parked behind the building. The Ural, the one with the sidecar.”
Shit, Tamara thought, why didn’t she think of that? She felt a burst of relief so strong she laughed out loud. But then she pictured the area behind the police station and shook her head. The shacks behind the station were too tightly clustered. She knew she couldn’t maneuver the Ural motorcycle between them. She’d have to go around the shacks, and that meant they’d be exposed. They’d have to ride across Jordan’s line of fire, less than a hundred feet from his position. The bastard could easily pick them off.
Unless he was distracted by something else. As Tamara crouched on the cement floor of the police station, a plan began to form in her mind. It wasn’t a perfect plan. But in combat, there was no such thing as perfect.
She gazed at Michael. She wanted to grab his shoulders and look him in the eye, but she knew it would upset him. Instead she spoke softly and slowly. “Michael, how much do you know about th
e Ural? You said your mom showed you how to start the engine, right?”
He nodded. “Yes, and how to work the controls. The throttle and the brake are on the right handle, and the clutch is on the left. The gears—”
“Do you think you can ride it by yourself?”
He nodded again, smiling. “Yes, I can ride it. Monique Reynolds said the sidecar gives the motorcycle more stability. She was going to let me drive it on the beach, but then David Swift came running toward us and said it wasn’t safe to—”
“Okay, Michael, listen up. I want you to go out the back door and get on the Ural and start it up. Then turn the bike to the south and ride as fast as you can. You got that?”
“And you’re going to sit in the sidecar?”
Tamara shook her head. “No, I’m going to stay here. Cyrus’s soldiers will try to shoot you while you’re riding away. But I’m going to shoot them first. I’ll run out the door and fire so many bullets at them that they won’t be able to aim at you.”
“Do you want me to come back here later? To pick you up?”
“No, I want you to keep going. Ride south until you come to another village. Then find a telephone and call David Swift. Tell him what Brother Cyrus is planning to do. You know David Swift’s phone number, right?”
He nodded a third time. “Yes, it’s 212-555-3988.”
Tamara smiled. She wanted so much to hug the boy, but she kept her hands to herself. Her stomach churned as she looked at Michael, knowing she would never see him again. But it was the only way. She had to save him. “Okay, go!” she said, pointing at the station’s back door. “Don’t forget what I told you!”
