The Return Of Dog Team

by William W. Johnstone

  Debbie Lynn bit down on a corner of a pillow and stuffed it in her mouth, stifling her outcries.

  Later, the two slept in each other’s arms, damp sheets tangled around them. Kilroy hovered in a feverish, half-drunken state before fatigue took over and he fell into a deep sleep.

  He felt like his head had barely struck the pillow, and now it was daylight. Not sunrise, but the pale pearly glow of predawn. Curtained windows were oblongs of grayness against the fuzzy dark bulk of shadowed walls.

  Kilroy lay there in the dimness, on his side, curled against Debbie Lynn’s curvy body. Her breathing was deep and even, but somehow he sensed she was awake, too. He was right. She stirred restlessly, as if in her sleep, pressing her warm smooth rear against his groin. His reaction was immediate. He rolled her on her back and got on top of her as she opened to him.

  Soon they were thrashing and writhing. She started wailing again. Her mouth was close to his ear, and she sounded louder than ever. Before it got too far gone and woke up everybody on the floor, if not in the damned building, he clapped a hand over her mouth to silence her.

  That put her over the edge and she started spasming beneath him. She tried to bite his hand but he held it clamped over her mouth so she couldn’t sink her teeth into it. Her nostrils widened and she bucked under him, coming.

  At four A.M., she rolled out of bed, hopped up, and began doing a routine of stretching and aerobic exercises. Where did she get the energy?

  Kilroy dragged himself out of bed and pulled some clothes on. He kissed her good-bye and went out into the hall, looking for his room. He had to find out what floor he was on first.

  He stumbled into his room and hit the sack. Before falling asleep, Kilroy had the thought that he’d been wrong earlier in the mess hall, when he’d observed that Debbie Lynn looked just as good leaving as she did coming.

  Hell, she looked a lot better when she was coming.

  Six

  The next night, Hassani Akkad came out. With The Package.

  The storm was high. It had blown in from the south, from as far south as the Gulf, masses of superheated air that barreled north for several hundred miles, hurling along a mountain range’s worth of windborne sand and dust. Like a sandstorm, only dirtier.

  Searing hot winds scoured topsoil from the land, peeling it down layer by layer. A brown fog, cutting down visibility, cloaked the scene in murk. The wind howled.

  No one ventured out of doors tonight without good reason. All but the most confirmed malefactors and evildoers were inclined to stay safely dug in their holes, waiting out the storm.

  Only the most motivated came out. Such persons were no doubt to be found in the Red Crescent ambulance that crept out of the border foothills, heading deeper west into Iraq.

  Like the Red Cross, the Red Crescent provides emergency medical service and humanitarian relief in distressed areas. Presumably the ambulance was returning from some errand of mercy in the Iraqi borderlands.

  It pushed west along a dirt road, a back road snaking its way through some bumpy and irregular open land. Bold red crescent emblems were blazoned on the roof and sides. It looked like a hearse, except that it was painted red and white and had a roof-mounted light rack. Headlights were twin cones of amber light, poking into the mass of cottony brown dust clouds.

  Its progress was slow and crablike, as if it were crawling through rushing streamers of muck and ooze along a dirty river bottom. Hillocks and ridges occasionally arose to blunt the wind and force the vehicle to detour around them. At a point about six miles or so west of the border, the road tilted upward, climbing a gentle slope and coming out on a flat.

  Now that the ambulance was out of the relative shelter of the lowlands basin and in the open, it was subjected to the full force of the wind and given a buffeting. There was less cover here, the ground was more open. The way was easier. The ambulance’s speed edged up, reaching about ten to twelve miles per hour. It slowed as it neared a canal, meeting it at right angles. A bridge spanned the gap between banks. The canal was little more than an overgrown ditch, about twenty feet across and between four and five feet deep. It was not filled with water but with dirt. It had been dry for a long time, long enough for its floor to be dotted with bushes, brambles, and reeds that had taken root there.

  The bridge was a low, wood plank one. Nothing marked its presence, no warning signs, reflectors, or flashing lights. You were supposed to know it was there. If you didn’t, then you didn’t belong there.

  The ambulance driver knew it was there. He slowed to a few miles per hour for the approach, nosing the ambulance on to the bridge. It was a stout-planked bridge, strong and sturdy, and it neither groaned nor sagged under the vehicle’s weight.

  The ambulance had reached the midpoint of the crossing when a pair of dull, muffled crumping noises sounded from beneath the bridge.

  It was the sound of two minibombs exploding. Two small squares of puttylike explosive material had been molded to joints where the bridge’s main horizontal support beams met the vertical upright posts in midspan. Miniaturized radio-controlled detonators were fixed to the explosive wads and triggered remotely.

  The microblasts were set to collapse the bridge with minimal damage to the vehicle. The bridge imploded, pitching the ambulance down into the ditch about five feet below. Neither the driver nor the cab passenger were wearing seatbelts. The driver pitched forward over the top of the steering wheel, hitting the windshield with his head. The windshield starred, frosted, and then went opaque white, but it held and didn’t shatter.

  The way the ambulance hit the ground caused the front passenger side door to pop open. The passenger was pitched out of the cab and thrown to the bottom of the ditch, where he lay unmoving.

  The ambulance front crumpled. The engine stalled. The vehicle came down hard, rocking from side to side, teetering on two wheels. For an instant, it threatened to topple over on its side before righting itself.

  The blast and crash generated a cloud of dust and smoke. Storm winds dispersed it quickly enough.

  The ambulance had a crushed front and battered sides. It was unsprung and squatted heavily on its frame. One headlamp was broken and dark, but the other still shone, its cyclops eye beaming at a tilted angle toward the opposite side of the ditch. The lens was cracked, and it vented splintered shards of light. The stalled engine kept it from burning.

  Steam clouds rose out from under the crumpled hood, stinking of coolant. A pool of oil grew under the vehicle.

  The man who’d been thrown from the cab stirred. Groaned. His limbs thrashed feebly, like he was swimming on dry land. He was dazed, stunned. Half conscious. A slash across his forehead was dripping lines of blood down across his face. His eyes were glazed, unfocused. Still, he had enough left to be crawling away from the wreck rather than toward it. Away from the light, into the darkness.

  Other survivors were heard from. Thrashing movement and feeble choked cries came from the rear compartment of the ambulance. Someone was inside, trying to get out. The rear door handle rattled. The survivor found the strength to fling open the door. He crouched, framed in the open doorway, clinging to the edges of it with both hands.

  He was known as Kamal the Turk. His name wasn’t Kamal and he wasn’t a Turk; he was an Iraqi who looked like what his fellow Iraqis thought a Turk looked like. In Hassani Akkad’s circle, almost no one gave their right name anyway. The Turk was a longtime member of the gang, of Hassani’s inner circle.

  He was battered and dazed, having taken quite a pounding inside the compartment when the vehicle had crashed into the ditch. He clung to the sides of the hatchway, head lolling, body reeling. Hauling himself forward, he stepped down to the ground. His legs weren’t working properly, and he fell, crying out in pain.

  The Turk crying aloud in pain? That scared the man in the ditch, prompting him to increase his efforts to crawl away. But he was semiconscious at best and didn’t have much strength to draw on to drag himself away.

  New cries
sounded from inside the ambulance. They were weaker and more feeble than those made by the Turk.

  Kamal labored, trying to gather himself into a sitting position. He had hard, thuggish features, but he was hurting, and now he didn’t look so tough. His big strangler’s hands were impressive, though. He managed to get them around the ambulance’s rear bumper and use it to haul himself up to his feet. He braced himself by half leaning, half sitting on the vehicle.

  Behind him, inside the compartment, a voice tried to call his name. The speaker suffered a coughing fit, subsiding finally with a groan. Then in faint, quavery tones, the voice called, “Kamal, Kamal!”

  Kamal turned his head, looking dully over his shoulder. He could see little inside the compartment space beside thick, murky gloom. But he recognized the voice. He said, “Sirdar.”

  “Yes.” Sirdar’s voice was low, urgent. “Help me, Kamal . . . My leg. I think it’s broken.”

  “What of Ali Mahmud? He was in there with you.”

  “Help me, Kamal—”

  “Ali Mahmud?”

  “Dead,” said Sirdar. “Never mind about him. He’s beyond help. Help me.”

  “Are you sure he’s dead?” Kamal lacked the strength, or he would have checked for himself.

  Sirdar said, “No man can live with his head hanging off his neck like Ali Mahmud’s is doing.” Sirdar was peevish. “Help me get out, I can’t do it by myself.”

  Kamal blacked out for an instant, coming to as he pitched forward. That scared him, and he found the strength to scrabble for a handhold on the doorway.

  Sirdar tried to pull himself out but failed. He writhed around in the compartment, suddenly shrieking with pain. “My leg! I tell you it’s broken!” He choked off a sob.

  Kamal buried his face in his hands and rubbed it. After a pause, he looked up. A figure stood facing him, about eight feet away. He hadn’t been there an instant before. He stood to one side of Kamal, a huge black man in goggles who held an assault rifle pointed at him. The goggles were there to protect his eyes from the sandstorm. The rifle was there for what rifles are for.

  Kamal was not so dazed that he didn’t realize he was a dead man. Cursing, he grabbed for the gun holstered at his side. A single shot ripped through him. It made a loud, flat cracking sound like a piece of deadwood being snapped in two.

  Vang Bulo stepped forward, moving toward the back of the ambulance. The wind from the dust storm was stiff, but even so the scent of cordite was thick and heavy in the nostrils for a minute before being blown away. He poked the rifle barrel into the compartment.

  Sirdar gasped, recoiling. “No—Don’t!” Vang Bulo did. The shot filled the compartment with light, noise, and smoke. One hand held the rifle by the stock; the other held a pocket flashlight. He held it to the side, away from his body, so as not to draw fire.

  He shone the pencil-thin beam into the compartment, shining it on Sirdar and then on Ali Mahmud. The corpses’ heavily shadowed features took on a hobgoblin quality. Ali Mahmud’s head hung down on one side of his neck, like a too-heavy flower whose weight has snapped the stalk that bears it.

  Vang Bulo went around the side of the ambulance, approaching the driver’s side, prepared to give the coup de grace. But the driver was already dead.

  The man in the ditch had not been idle during this time. The sound of shots spurred him on to greater efforts. He crawled forward on his belly. He was already in the shadows. It was possible the enemy hadn’t seen him yet. He felt around in his pockets, but his gun was gone. He’d lost it sometime during the crash.

  He lowcrawled forward, proceeding no more than a half dozen paces before a pair of combat boots filled his field of vision. They came upon him so suddenly that he almost bumped his head into them. His gaze rose, following the boots upward to the baggy camo pants worn by their owner. Right around then the gun muzzle came into view, too, the bore of a Kalash rifle barrel that was being held pointed downward at his upturned face.

  The newcomer said, “Hassani Akkad.” It was not a question but a statement of fact, like a presiding judge reading the accused’s name from the bench before delivering sentence.

  That was his name, the name of the man in the ditch: Hassani Akkad. The voice of the speaker was that of a foreign devil. Before Hassani Akkad could react, one of the booted feet became a blur of motion that delivered a smart snap kick to the point of his chin. He fell facedown into the dirt, limp, unconscious.

  Hassani Akkad had come out earlier tonight and brought The Package with him. Kilroy had been periodically monitoring the locator for hours, anticipating such a development. The Package was human cargo, an abductee with a microminiatured transmitter implanted in a chip hidden in his flesh. When he was finally moved, his movements showed on the locator.

  At about the same time, Jafar Akkad had contacted Kilroy by a onetime-use-only cell phone. Jafar was excited. You could tell from the throaty, husky quality of his voice that he was getting all choked up, anticipating the end of his beloved brother.

  The Package was being taken from Azif to a farmhouse. The farmhouse was a safe house located near the border. It had been used before, in other kidnappings where the victims were transferred to the Iranians. Jafar supplied names and locations. He was thorough and precise—he didn’t want Hassani to escape.

  The Package would be transported by ambulance, a dodge the kidnappers had used before. The authorities were less likely to interfere with an ambulance than with most other vehicles. Whenever Hassani Akkad needed one, he sent some of his gang members out to steal one from the Red Crescent or the emergency ward of the nearest hospital.

  It was unusual for Hassani to personally accompany this shipment of human goods. Unlike Jafar, the elder brother had no liking for going out in the field on action operations. He’d long since had his fill of that. But he made a point of personally escorting this abductee to the handlers on the border.

  The Package must be very important to Hassani. Not even Jafar knew why, though he suspected that it had something to do with Hassani’s high-level Iranian contacts, border patrol headman Captain Saq and secret police powerbroker Colonel Munghal.

  Early in the evening, the ambulance had arrived at the place where the abductee was being held. His name was Ali al-Magid. To the gang members who guarded him, he seemed perfectly ordinary, almost drearily so. Nor was he rich. But he was valuable to Hassani and to the Iranians, too.

  Ali al-Magid had been unconscious, drugged, as he had been throughout much of his captivity. It made him more easily handled. When the massive dosage finally wore off and he came to, he would find himself possessed of no small narcotics habit. But that would only furnish the Iranians with a handle by which to control him.

  Hassani Akkad had set off with some of his most trusted men. He rode in front with the driver. Ali al-Magid, still unconscious, was strapped to a stretcher and loaded into the back of the ambulance. Riding in the compartment with him were Ali Mahmoud, Sirdar, and Kamal the Turk. Ali Mahmoud was the muscle, and Kamal was a shooter. Sirdar was a hospital orderly with some medical experience. He could monitor al-Magid’s vital signs and make sure that he did not slip too deeply, perhaps fatally, under the influence of the drugs.

  The alleys and warrens of the Red Dome neighborhood had been empty, abandoned due to the storm. The ambulance had crawled through streets made treacherous by sifting sands. It had exited Azif, traveling eastward on some of the lesser, rougher roads running parallel to the border highway.

  It drove out to the farmhouse, nestled at the base of the foothills’ western slope. The crew of handlers at the farmhouse were all trusted Akkad crime family veterans. They would make the final transfer, delivering the captive across the border to the Iranians.

  Hassani Akkad had seen no need for his presence for that particular transaction. Captain Saq had been unhappy with him of late, suspicious that he’d been involved with the recent unrest on the border that had culminated in the massacre of the gunrunners, the murder of four border patro
l guards, and the disappearance of an armored scout car. Hassani was furious and frustrated by this development, especially since he hadn’t been involved in the attacks. It galled him to be suspected of something he hadn’t done, gaining him all of the notoriety with none of the plunder. He wished he had done it.

  The ambulance had not lingered but left the farmhouse almost immediately after Ali al-Magid had been delivered. Captain Saq was not beyond making a quick thrust across the border with his troops to corral Hassani for a little questioning. Azif, with its double guard of the Akkad organization and the Red Dome militia, had never looked more inviting to the gang chief.

  The ambulance headed west, following a back-roads route that would inevitably take it to the plank bridge and the canal. Jafar had taken great pains to describe it so Kilroy would be sure not to miss it.

  While the ambulance was at the farmhouse, Kilroy and Vang Bulo had rigged the minibombs on the bridge. Then waited for its arrival to spring the ambush.

  Kilroy had had enough advance notice so that if he’d wanted to, he could have outraced the ambulance and ambushed it on the way to the farmhouse before it delivered Ali al-Magid to the handlers. But that wouldn’t have suited his master plan.

  Seven

  Now the trap had been sprung, and Hassani Akkad bagged. Kilroy looked down at Hassani stretched out facedown in the dirt, out cold.

  Vang Bulo clambered over the top of the front of the ambulance. He eyed the man on the ground. “Hassani?”

  Kilroy said, “Yes.”

  “Dead?”

  “Just knocked out. I think. Unless I kicked him too hard and broke his neck.”

  Kilroy toed the body, working a foot under it and flipping Hassani over on his back. He was limp, unresponsive. His face and front were coated with dirt. The dirt had made a kind of paste on his chin where it dribbled with a trickle of blood from a split lip. His mouth gaped open and he breathed thickly, heavily.