Easy Day for the Dead

by Howard E. Wasdin

  Pancho was silent for a moment. Suddenly he broke out laughing, but not the earth-rumbling Pancho laughter—this laughter was feeble. He was delirious. He had the most meat on his bones, so he heated up the fastest and the dehydration affected him the worst.

  Leila encouraged Pancho to stand up. Then she helped him return to his trench. She gave him a drink of her water. Alex thought Leila must be part camel not to have drunk all her water yet, but he was grateful to her for helping out Pancho. Alex felt embarrassed about feeling so weak and sorry for himself that he hadn’t been the one to help Pancho.

  Alex looked out across the desert and spotted water. Then he realized it was only a mirage. The heat reflecting off the surrounding sand seared his eyes, so Alex reached into his backpack and pulled out an Iranian shirt. Then he sank back into his trench, closed his eyes, and covered his face with the shirt.

  Later the sun disappeared, giving everyone relief. Alex and his team were slow in getting up, but John started shivering, so Alex and the others hastened to move out. Even though they hurried, they moved like turtles.

  The cool air, their weakened condition, and uneven terrain all worked against Alex—his left ankle twisted and a horrible pain shot through his body. Alex didn’t think he’d broken it, and he hoped he hadn’t torn ligaments—maybe he’d only strained them. He limped.

  “You okay, chief?” John whispered.

  Alex’s swollen tongue and deteriorating physical condition turned talking into torture. Alex saved his breath by ignoring John. Hot pain throbbed up Alex’s leg.

  They pressed forward into the night.

  Pancho stumbled, Leila slowed, and Alex continued to feel the pain in his ankle. Alex looked back and saw John shivering more violently—hypothermia. Shit. At this rate, we’re all going to die.

  On the fifth day, the sun had risen and Alex was lying on his back in a trench. I don’t even remember digging this—my grave. He looked forward to seeing Sarah but realized his anger at God might prevent him from doing so. It was time to make peace, so he said a short prayer in his heart. God, I’m sorry for being angry at You all these years. I still don’t understand why Sarah had to die. I still don’t understand Your ways, but I want to be patient. If I survive this, please help me be patient with the things I can’t understand. If I don’t survive this, please help me see her again. Amen.

  When evening came, somebody said they had ten more kilometers to go. Alex wasn’t sure because his GPS was fried and he didn’t have the energy to ask Pancho or John, who also had GPSs—and he was too tired to count his paces and record them with knots on parachute cord. The four of them marched through the dark like zombies. At first, Alex’s left ankle hurt and he shivered, but after a couple of hours, the pain and the shivering stopped. Alex blacked out, and when he came to, he was walking alone through the desert. The others stopped him.

  He couldn’t go any farther, and he was sure no one had the strength to carry him.

  “Just another kilometer,” Leila said.

  Alex hadn’t realized they were so close. He could walk another kilometer, so he pressed on. As time went on, he complained, but he could manage only a whisper: “We’ve been walking more than a kilometer.”

  “Just half a kilometer,” Leila said.

  Alex figured he could last five hundred yards more, so he forced one foot in front of the other. After a while, he was sure they’d walked more than half a klick.

  “Just a little bit farther,” Leila said.

  Alex realized she was tricking him into pushing forward just a little more. Because he’d persisted this far, he figured he could persist farther. He might not make it all the way to Leila’s house, but he wasn’t going to give up until he passed out or died—whichever came first.

  The sun had begun to brighten the sky, and Alex saw the squat cluster of buildings—Abadi Abad. Maybe he was dreaming it. He continued forward until he reached the village. Pancho led them along the outskirts until they reached Leila’s house. After Alex entered her house, he collapsed on the floor. Leila held his head up and gave him water. Alex’s mouth and throat were so dried up that he felt like the water was tearing up his insides. Being severely dehydrated, the water gave him cramps, cinching his gut so tight that he passed out. He’d been so focused on his own survival that he’d forgotten about his men—he didn’t even know if Pancho and John had survived.

  In his unconscious state, Alex’s mind began to work overtime. Alex abruptly sat up. “Where are Pancho and John?” he asked.

  Leila turned from the kitchen sink and walked to him.

  “Where are Pancho and John?” Alex repeated.

  Sadness filled her voice: “I’m sorry. Pancho didn’t make it.”

  Alex’s soul sank. Maybe Pancho was still alive. “Where’s his body?”

  “In the back room. I’m sorry.”

  Alex heard a vehicle stop in front of Leila’s house, car doors slam, and voices. “You expecting visitors?”

  “No,” Leila said.

  Alex looked down at his hands—no weapon. “Where’s my weapon?” he whispered.

  “Behind you.”

  Alex turned around and grabbed it.

  “Is the door locked?”

  “Yes.”

  The front door flew open with a bang. Four Iranian men dressed in plainclothes poured in, wielding pistols.

  “Contact front!” Alex yelled. He fired two rounds into the chest of the first man. Beside him, another aimed in Alex’s direction, and Alex gunned him down. Meanwhile, the two others fired. Rounds hit the floor next to Alex’s face—too many enemy too close firing too fast. Alex picked one off just before a round tore through his right hand. Shit! The remaining agent aimed carefully at Alex’s head. The agent looked like he was smiling until two bullets struck him above the nose.

  Alex turned to see where the bullets had come from. John stood in the hallway. “Thanks, brother,” Alex said.

  John looked troubled.

  “What’s wrong?” Alex asked. He followed John’s eyes to Leila, who had fallen to the floor. “Leila.”

  She didn’t respond. Blood spread across her blouse like a blooming rose.

  With his left hand, Alex felt the carotid artery in her neck for a pulse. There was none. Leila was dead. Alex didn’t have time to mourn. He pulled gauze out of the blowout kit in his thigh pocket and bandaged his bleeding hand. The blood soaked through almost immediately. He stood, walked to the sink, grabbed a thin towel, and wrapped it around his wound.

  Alex turned back to John.

  “We need to get out of here,” John said. Suddenly a loud crash sounded from behind John and his forehead exploded. John fell dead on his face.

  No! Alex could feel the words, but he couldn’t say them. Instead of making his escape out the front door, Alex wanted payback, so he rushed to the guest room. Inside, one Iranian agent stood in the room while another crawled through the window. Holding his AKMS in his left hand, Alex gunned them both down. Alex looked outside for more, but there were none.

  The pain in Alex’s hand shot through him like bolts of electricity. He donned his backpack and dragged John’s and Pancho’s bodies out the front door, hoping to find a vehicle nearby. Alex discovered a black Mercedes sedan idling, then loaded Pancho and John into the vehicle before jumping in and speeding off.

  Iranian police lights lit up Alex’s rear. He stomped on the accelerator. Gunshots blasted through his rear window. Alex wanted to return fire, just to get them off his back, but his right hand was useless, and he needed his left hand to steer. He raised his left knee to steer and grabbed his AKMS with his left hand. Before he could return fire, a bullet struck him in the back of his head. His upper body hunched over the steering wheel and his eyes closed.

  Alex opened his eyes and sat up. He was in Leila’s living room on the floor and Leila was doing something in the kitchen.

  “Where are Pancho and John?” he asked.

  “They went out to find a vehicle.”


  Alex closed his eyes briefly, reflecting on how real the dream was and how close to delirium he must have been. He felt a weight lifted from him, knowing that they were all still alive, but his ankle still hurt when he walked.

  He changed into his Iranian clothes. Somebody had already filled Alex’s CamelBak with water. As he grabbed a jug full of water, he heard a vehicle drive up near the front door.

  Alex checked the door to make sure it was locked and readied his weapon. The door unlocked and a figure stepped inside. Alex aimed. It was Pancho. “Great to see you, too, amigo,” Pancho said.

  Pancho and John entered the house wearing their Iranian clothes.

  “We brought you a Christmas present,” John said.

  “A car,” Alex guessed.

  Pancho closed the door. “Ah, you peeked.”

  “You both got water?” Alex asked.

  “We’re all filled up,” John replied.

  “Then let’s roll,” Alex said.

  The SEALs and Leila grabbed their things and exited her house. Outside, an unmarked black Mercedes SUV sat idling. On the roof above the driver’s seat sat a single blue police light that appeared removable.

  “Leila, I need you to drive,” Alex said. Pancho might look less conspicuous as a driver, but if asked questions in Farsi, he wouldn’t be able to answer. Besides, Alex was anticipating having to shoot his way out of Abadi Abad, and he wanted both of Pancho’s hands on his gun, not on the wheel.

  Leila nodded.

  The SEALs and Leila loaded their kit into the SUV, then climbed inside with Leila in the driver’s seat, Pancho sitting next to her, and Alex and John in the back.

  Leila had been driving east for only a minute when a white and green police car turned the corner and followed them. The car didn’t flash its lights but continued following.

  “We’ve got a police car behind us,” John said.

  “Stay calm and turn right at the next intersection,” Alex said.

  Leila calmly turned right at the next intersection. The police car followed. Fifty yards ahead was what appeared to be a police car parked in the middle of the road.

  “No side streets, and we’re heading straight for another cop,” Pancho said.

  “Turn on the police lights and siren,” Alex said.

  “What does siren mean?” Leila asked.

  Forty yards.

  Pancho looked at the center console, where a line of four small red switches rested. Pancho tried one, but nothing happened. “I can’t read which is which; it’s all in Iranian.”

  Thirty yards.

  Leila reached over and flicked all the switches but still nothing happened.

  Twenty yards.

  Above the line of small red switches was a big red switch. “The big red switch,” Alex said.

  Ten yards.

  Pancho flipped the big red switch and the SUV came alive with siren blaring and blue light, front lights, and rear lights flashing. “Don’t slow down,” Alex said, hoping that in the world of Iranian law enforcement, an unmarked black Mercedes SUV reigned over white and green police sedans.

  Five yards.

  Leila drove around the police car. Even though the road had stopped, Leila drove off-road, heading south. Both police cars’ lights and sirens came on, and the police followed her. They turned off their lights and sirens. Alex didn’t want to kill law enforcement officers, but if he had to defend himself and his team, he would.

  “Just keep driving straight,” Pancho calmly advised Leila.

  A voice spoke out of a police car’s speaker.

  “He is telling us to stop,” Leila translated.

  Pancho laughed.

  One police car pulled up next to Alex’s team. The SEALs readied their AKMS rifles. Over the loudspeaker came a voice again, followed by the driver waving his pistol. Enough is enough. Somebody is going to get hurt, and I don’t want it to be me. “Pancho and John, tell him in Spanish and French that you don’t understand Farsi, then shoot out his tires,” Alex said.

  Pancho and John rolled down their windows and spoke Spanish and French. The policeman looked at them strangely. Pancho and John opened fire. The loud noise in the small area of their car’s interior made Alex’s ears ring. A hot shell from one of the weapons bounced off Alex’s arm, making him wince. Terror flashed on the policeman’s face and his tires on the SEALs’ side blew out. The police officer had difficulty maintaining a straight line as he skidded to a stop. The other police car stopped beside the one with the blown-out tires. They probably didn’t get paid enough for fighting SEALs.

  When Alex was sure no one else was following, he told Leila to turn east and head for Afghanistan. She did.

  Soft sand and barren desert had given way to hard sand and occasional trees and plants. Alex and Pancho drank constantly, replenishing their depleted cells. Leila avoided small Iranian villages by driving around them. Alex and Pancho continued to drink until their cells were saturated, but they were running low on water again. Hours of driving fatigued Leila, so she stopped and switched places with Pancho.

  Pancho drove them east out of Iran and across the border into southern Afghanistan. Soon they reached a lake, so Pancho stopped and they replenished their water supply. The SEALs popped in iodine tablets to disinfect the water. After thirty minutes, they drank some. It tasted like iodine, but they didn’t care.

  Night fell before they neared the small Afghanistan town of Bandare Wasate. The four abandoned their vehicle several kilometers outside the village and walked into town, where they stayed the night.

  In the morning, they found an Afghani local to drive them nearly five hundred kilometers to Kandahar. Alex loosened the laces on his left boot—since they finished their death march through the desert, the swelling and pain had gone down, but after sitting in the car for a couple of hours, the swelling and pain returned. He remembered his nightmare. Alex was relieved that Pancho and John were okay.

  11

  * * *

  A week after the biological weapons lab was destroyed, Major Khan stood outside General Tehrani’s office. He studied the lobby for signs of an ambush. The destruction of the lab wasn’t his fault, but he was the ranking officer at the Russian roulette game where Captain Rapviz decorated his game room with his brains. The penalty for such lapses in judgment often meant death. Of course Major Khan didn’t fear death itself, but he did fear dying on someone else’s terms, and he would fight to die on his own terms, even if it meant killing the general.

  The general’s assistant asked, “Are you carrying any weapons?”

  Major Khan was armed, but he wasn’t about to disarm himself. He stared through the assistant.

  “Please remove any weapons before entering the general’s office.”

  Major Khan stood still.

  The assistant seemed uncomfortable but persisted. “Are you carrying any weapons, sir?”

  “Do you see any?” Khan asked.

  “No, sir.”

  Major Khan cracked his knuckles with impatience.

  “General Tehrani will see you now,” the assistant said.

  Major Khan entered the general’s office.

  General Tehrani finished up a call on his black cell phone before putting it away. “Sit down,” Tehrani said to Major Khan.

  Seated to the right of the general was Lieutenant First Class Saeed Saeedi, Major Khan’s friend—the hothead who started the Russian roulette game in the first place. The irony that Lieutenant Saeedi was sitting next to the general instead of standing in front of him wasn’t lost on Major Khan.

  To General Tehrani’s left sat the other friend who was present at the Russian roulette game, Pistachio. When the general wanted to get rid of a commando, he used the commando’s closest friends to snuff him. Both of Major Khan’s best friends were here now. Major Khan knew he could take Pistachio and Lieutenant Saeedi separately, but he didn’t think he could beat both at the same time.

  “What’s wrong, Major Khan?” Lieutenant Saeedi said with hi
s chest puffed out. “The general offered you a seat.”

  Major Khan didn’t like the disrespectful tone of Lieutenant Saeedi’s voice. Sitting would give them more of an advantage if this was an ambush, but they were all seated, and maybe General Tehrani was simply being polite.

  “Maybe you’re afraid we’re here to, oh, how do the Americans say it—terminate your command?” Pistachio said with a chuckle.

  Major Khan remained standing. Pistachio’s probe for a weakness—fear—irritated Major Khan even more, and he thought he would like to kill Pistachio first.

  Lieutenant Saeedi chuckled. “That’s a good one. Terminate his command.”

  “Please, sit down,” General Tehrani said. “We’re all family here. No one, save perhaps me, is in danger of losing his command.”

  Major Khan felt like he didn’t have a choice. He sat down, but he didn’t let his guard down.

  “Major Khan, you owe me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Can you tell me why?”

  “I was the ranking officer when the Russian roulette game took place, and I was responsible for the senseless death of Captain Rapviz.” Major Khan’s gaze shifted to Lieutenant Saeedi. Lieutenant Saeedi lowered his head and stared at his shoe tips.

  “Do you realize how much money goes into training a man like Captain Rapviz?” General Tehrani asked.

  “More than a billion rial.”

  “Yes. Now I am going to tell you how you’re going to repay me,” the general said. “Someone destroyed our secondary biological weapons lab, and I want you to obliterate the bastards who did it. They think they can act with impunity against us, but they are wrong. The Supreme Leader wants this. I hope you understand how important that is. So I want you to find them and cut them into little pieces so we can feed them to their mothers. I have called in your two best friends here so we can get to the cutting soon. I know you three have had successes together in the past, and this will be your next success.”