The Mercenary

by Dan Hampton

  There was only one message, from an informant who provided specific information about persons of interest. The man had no idea to whom he sent these odd bits of information, and for the stipend he received, couldn’t have cared less. Several years ago he’d received a list of names and a request for any information relating to them. He had various methods for accomplishing this. If he discovered anything, he sent it to a forwarding account and it disappeared into cyberspace. Not even he could track it.

  In this case it was simply a link to a week-old online edition of the U.S. Air Force Times. For five minutes, the mercenary scanned the contents, articles, and editorials. Finally, at the end where transfers, retirements, and promotions were listed, several paragraphs caught his eye. This was plainly the reason the link had been sent, and for a long moment he stared at the screen.

  It was an incredible piece of good luck.

  Getting up, he walked slowly to the window. Gazing at the hard blue line of the horizon he considered the information again. Seemingly unrelated events that occurred in a manner only meaningful to him. Recognizing this phenomenon and taking advantage of it made some men rich. Or dead.

  How much of the world, he wondered, was fueled by the opposing actions of betrayal and revenge? He absolutely believed that there were people in this world who were better off dead. Call it revenge or call it justice, but there was a reckoning for those who deserved it.

  The Sandman had ceased to believe in justice long ago.

  He’d settle for revenge. Lex talionis. The ancient law of vengeance. For several minutes the clear, gray eyes became unfocused on the present and stared back at the past.

  Nothing would ever settle that score. Nothing.

  Long minutes passed and his eyes slowly cleared. A glimmer of a plan had formed, and the mercenary turned from the window, his mind made up.

  Payback.

  Chapter 8

  The Citadel was a teeming place in the afternoon. Tourists strolled about holding their phones up, taking endless pictures and staring into travel books. Taxis lined the curbs, their drivers leaning on the hoods smoking endless cigarettes. Hopeful teenagers and young men hung about the entrance, offering their services as guides for an hour or two of made-up facts—cheap at twenty U.S. dollars.

  Vendors sold warm lemonade in tiny paper cups and real Coca-Colas in icy glass bottles. Shwarma stands, with tray after tray of tasty lamb and beef rolls, filled the air with the spicy, slightly burnt odor of meat.

  A tour group of very badly sunburned Germans milled about the forecourt, waiting for their harried guide. The group parted and a slender man dressed in black pants and a white shirt emerged from the throng of heavy bodies. Gabbling and pointing, the Germans dutifully trooped through the entrance past a solitary weathered stone column.

  Yet another group, all Asians, stood silently in the shade. They all wore dark sunglasses and had cameras swinging from their necks. Every one of them was taking a picture of something. Through it all, over the smell of meat, was the pervasive odor of sweat, dust, and automobile exhaust.

  Sitting atop the Jabal Al Qalaa, the Citadel had splendid views of eastern Amman. The road for tour buses ran along the northern edge of the hill before turning past the Byzantine church, the Temple of Hercules, and the museum parking lot. Every shade of tan seemed part of the museum’s cut stone façade. Softened by rows of trees along its front, the building had a wide staircase rising some fifteen feet to the entry door. Flanked by glass blocks and topped by a dark blue sign, the doorway was crowded with people having one last cigarette before their tour.

  No one noticed a man sitting under the trees at the bottom of the steps dressed in black pants with sandals over tan socks. A dirty white polo shirt showed beneath a dark blue sport coat with worn elbows and frayed cuffs. The green pages of Al Azar were open on his knees and he appeared completely engrossed in the news of the day. But behind dark glasses the Sandman’s eyes were on the crowd. It was fifteen minutes till four and he’d been on the bench for two hours.

  Watching.

  Watching people moving in and out, every face, every movement. Anyone who seemed aimlessly waiting or scanning the crowd. He looked for taxis that took no fares. Parked vehicles that never left and street vendors that weren’t trying to force themselves on everyone within earshot.

  And at ten minutes till four he found him.

  A municipal street cleaner who was busy picking up trash. Except he never moved more than ten yards from either side of the museum entrance and hadn’t picked up much trash.

  The gray eyes narrowed as the man shuffled past the bench. Dressed in the plain blue jumpsuit of a city worker, he was small and dark like most Palestinians and wore a skullcap. But the hands gripping the trash sticker looked clean and he was wearing shoes, not the sandals of a menial worker.

  The Sandman relaxed slightly as he passed. The man was most likely not with the Mukhabarat, the secret police. There was no earpiece or cell phone visible, and a trained agent would’ve gotten the details of his dress correct. There could be any number of reasons the man was here. But the Sandman hadn’t survived to this point by making optimistic assumptions.

  At precisely four P.M., a taxi pulled up before the museum and a man got out. He was on the small side, about five feet eight, and pudgy. His suit was dark gray, cut in the European style, and he wasn’t wearing a tie. Pausing at the curb, he looked around, blinking in the sunlight, before walking to the Temple of Hercules.

  Rama Buradi was always punctual, even by western standards. But the Sandman ignored him and watched the trash picker. The man had stopped next to the museum wall and seemed to be fussing with the handle of his sticker. He was, the mercenary saw, glancing cautiously at Buradi.

  So.

  Letting his eyes roam over the crowd, the Sandman waited for the inevitable partner to show himself. Shifting slightly, he turned a page and glanced up and down the street. Nothing there either.

  Rama Buradi walked around the ancient columns, then sat on the low stone wall facing the street. He unrolled his newspaper and calmly began reading. The trash picker had moved from the wall and was slowly working his way across the museum’s entrance. Every few feet he glanced up at Buradi.

  The mercenary waited.

  After thirty minutes, the fixer folded his paper and glanced at his wristwatch. Removing his wire-rimmed glasses, he wiped them and looked carefully around at everyone nearby, including the old man beneath the trees.

  Sighing, Buradi rose, walked to the curb, quickly hailed a cab and disappeared into the afternoon traffic. For fifteen more minutes, the picker continued his meandering. Then, as the Asian and Italian tour groups left the museum, the man moved over next to the wall and did a strange thing. He unzipped his jumpsuit and shrugged out of it at the shoulders revealing a faded blue polo shirt beneath. Tying the sleeves around his waist, the picker then followed the tourists onto a large chartered bus waiting on the avenue.

  The Sandman glanced around again at the taxis, so he could at least follow the bus until it stopped, but stayed where he was. After a minute, the bus door opened again and the picker emerged. It was an amateur’s trick to spot a tail. The man was supposed to look like he’d just gotten on the wrong bus. He walked directly through the crowd and down the street away from the museum. The mercenary slowly got to his feet and shuffled away from the trees like an old man who’d been sitting too long.

  He stayed behind the picker as he crossed Al Hashimi Street and headed into the rabbit warren of the Jabal al Haj, southeast of the city. The clean avenues and gleaming buildings of the tourist district were replaced by crumbling cinder-block shoeboxes crammed together in ugly piles. Windows were covered by dirty fragments of striped cloth and doorways were low, dark openings full of blank-eyed children.
These were the substantial residences—the real poor lived beyond the ghetto in lean-to tents made from cast-off sheets and filthy rags.

  The picker suddenly veered left and shuffled into a shack. Pausing, the mercenary slumped onto an overturned crate to light a cigarette. Looking over the flame, he surveyed the area. Several groups of old men clustered around, talking and smoking, but none were close by. There was also no light in the picker’s shack and no urchins around the door. It was a risk he had to take. Straightening, he casually ambled to the door and opened it, smoothly sliding inside against the wall.

  A shape suddenly moved in the darkness and he froze.

  “You have the wrong house, old man.”

  The Sandman’s eyes had adjusted well enough to make out the picker standing beside an old metal table. He wasn’t alarmed, just startled.

  “Are you lost?” The man asked. “Who are you looking for?”

  Taking advantage of the Arab deference for the elderly, the mercenary shuffled confusedly toward the table.

  “Ahmad . . . Ahmad, where is your grandmother?”

  “There’s no Ahmad here, old grandfather.” The picker stepped around the table, arm outstretched as if to steady the bent figure.

  “But . . . but . . .” the mercenary stuttered.

  “Here,” the trash picker laid a kindly hand on the old man’s forearm. “Let’s go outside and I’ll help you on your way.”

  But it wasn’t an old man’s arm. Hard coils of muscles bunched beneath the smooth skin of a much younger man. Before that could fully register, the arm snaked through his grasp and the picker felt a viselike grip fasten around his hand. His wrist was bent back but before he could cry out, another hand clamped under his throat and forced him back against the wall.

  “Now my friend, you will listen to me. If you answer my questions you will live. If not . . .”

  The voice was low and steady, in clear Arabic. The picker gurgled in reply, eyes wide with pain and fear. It was all he could do.

  “The man you met today on the bus. Who was he?”

  The rock-hard forearm relaxed a bit and the picker gasped as fresh air leaked down his throat.

  “I . . . I . . . don’t know . . . he only wanted directions . . .”

  The mercenary could feel the thin bones in the man’s chest balloon as he strained to suck in air.

  “Directions to what?”

  “To . . . to the souk.” The picker tried to straighten but was pinned against the wall. “He . . . he wanted to buy gold . . . and jewelry. Like all huwagas.”

  Surprisingly, the mercenary smiled. A disarming smile that showed his teeth. The picker relaxed slightly and tried to smile back. He’d been quick and clever and the man seemed to believe him. Once the dark man left, the trash picker would go to the Asian man and offer to tell them of this. It would certainly be worth more money. If not, he’d go to the Mukhabarat and turn them all in.

  Suddenly, bright lights exploded under his eyelids and unbelievable pain stabbed up through his groin into his belly. The mercenary pulled his knee back from the man’s smashed testicles and drove his forearm back into the picker’s throat.

  “If you lie to me again I will slice off your prick and make you eat it.”

  “He’s . . . he’s foreign . . .” the other man whispered.

  “Who does he work with?”

  “He works at . . . an . . . embassy—aS-Seen.” His head sagged forward. “That’s all . . . all . . . I . . . know.”

  aS-Seen. China. The Sandman’s eyes narrowed slightly. It was always possible they’d found Buradi, and through him, who? The Sandman or someone else? Of course, the picker could be mistaken. Most ordinary Arabs couldn’t tell one Asian from another or a Canadian from an American. They were all huwagas. Foreign and infidel. Good for selling things to and nothing else.

  “And why did he have you watch the Iraqi?”

  “For . . . to . . . find out who . . . he was meeting . . .” The man was breathing hard and trying to clutch his smashed groin. “I don’t . . . know why.” He gulped again.

  The mercenary regarded him for a long moment. Then, almost gently, he raised the Arab’s face up and stared into his eyes. Smiling, he patted the man’s cheek. “Very good.” He felt the man relax. “You’ve saved your balls.”

  The trash picker managed a weak smile. Once the man left, he’d—

  The hands on his cheeks tightened suddenly and a violent twist brought his head nearly backward. The picker’s last impression was surprise from seeing the ceiling of his kitchen. Then his neck snapped. Twisting and snapping in the opposite direction to be sure, the Sandman dragged him by the armpits and dumped him in the small side room. A strong fecal odor filled the room as the dead man’s bowels let loose, so the mercenary pulled a wool blanket over him.

  Looking around the two rooms, he decided there was nothing to indicate he’d been there. Anyone casually entering the house would assume the trash picker was asleep, until he began to smell. By that time the mercenary would be long gone.

  Sliding the door bolt, he settled down by the front window to wait till dark. The Sandman, as far as the world knew, did not exist. That, at least, was the way he’d operated for more than five years. If someone had discovered him, then he had to know.

  Leaning his head back, the mercenary stared out at the dropping sun and closed his eyes. As he drifted into a light, troubled sleep the dream returned.

  The last mourners had left with whispered farewells and the house was empty now. Empty but for the memories. Echoes of laughter from happier days and nights. Friends drinking and talking in the big dining room, small feet on the stairs and joyous squeals on holiday mornings, quiet dreams by the huge fireplace. All of the sounds and pictures that make a home.

  Empty now except for the man sitting alone on the dark porch with a drink in his hand. He’d watched the light gray sky thicken and deepen with approaching night. He’d seen the birds come out again once the well-wishers had left. He’d listened to the rain falling.

  He stared absently at the line of trees behind his house. He’d cut the path himself that ran down to the small lake. Something splashed by the water’s edge and he saw ripples spreading outward on the rain-pocked surface.

  Drops of water. Infinite drops of water. Absorbed and forgotten. Here one second and gone the next. He took a long drink of the vodka martini and thought about that.

  Just like people. Here once second and gone the next. His eyes flickered to a small yellow picnic table at the edge of the trees. A child’s table. He couldn’t see the small handprints or the tiny painted flowers but he knew they were there. The man’s throat tightened and he took another drink.

  She’d been so little. So happy. As only a child can be. Happy to play for hours with a colored rock. Delighted at the butterflies that flitted around her small world. Overjoyed at the sight of her mother’s face. At her father’s face. . .

  His vision blurred and matched the cold mist. For a few seconds he saw nothing and the terrible ache in his chest clenched his heart and squeezed. He gripped the wicker chair and tried to fight back the images. Tried to fight back the desperate and dawning realization that they were gone. That he’d never see them again.

  Wake up. . . . Wake up. . . .

  For a long moment he didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.

  It was a dream. A horrible nightmare, and when he opened his eyes it would be over. The kitchen lights would be glowing and Sinatra’s magic voice would float onto the patio. He’d see Stefanie and the baby dancing happily around the living room. Smells of baking bread and dinner would wash over him like a warm blanket. Life would be good.

  He slowly opened his eyes.

  The porch was still silent and the house was still empty. No lights, no music. No family.

  A single hot tear rolled down his cheek. It clung to his chin but th
e man ignored it. He ignored the spreading darkness and the rain. He ignored the cramping in his legs and the cold on his bare feet. Sometime before midnight the phone rang and he ignored that too.

  All night he sat on the porch. He let his mind wander all the way back to the beginning. The good times, the warm times. He relived the day he watched Lynn walk over the tiny white blossoms and down the aisle to him. The newfound happiness of a complete life with another human being. His other days behind him. The unexpected chance to live like a normal man. The amazing gift of his daughter. The way his wife’s hair smelled after a shower, the feel of his daughter’s warm tiny lips on his neck. Their eyes when they looked at him. He swallowed hard and closed his eyes tightly. He lived it all again in his mind, slowly and carefully. Remembering every detail. Hours later he opened his eyes and stared blindly at the wet forest behind his house.

  There were so many things he was unafraid of. Combat. Dark nights and fast jets. Even death. But always, deep, deep inside, he’d been afraid of losing them. Afraid that it all was a cruel joke played by a vengeful God. Like offering a cool drink of water to a thirsty man and pulling it away. He was afraid that his loved ones would pay for his sins.

  When the night gave way to a gray, wet dawn, he slowly and stiffly rose to his feet. Leaning on the cold black iron railing he stared again at the still waters of the lake. The emptiness had become a hollow ache. Painful but bearable. Somewhere in the night, amongst his memories, the suffocating desperation had given way to anger. A slow-burning, bottomless anger that he recognized only too well. It would give way to a violence that he’d thought was behind him. But he knew now it was still there inside.

  Good, he thought.

  Good.

  Gripping his wrists behind his head, the man arched his back and stretched. His gray eyes were clear again as they stared into the misty Virginia dawn. They were sharp and focused. He knew what to do. If he couldn’t have peace, then he’d have justice