by David Poyer
Teddy bent double and scuttled into the side cave reserved for him. A tight little space, but with only one entrance he felt more secure when he slept. Dandan bustled about as they settled on carpets. He snapped, “Chai. Choy va nonni olib kelish.” She bowed and withdrew.
Vladimir’s gaze followed her. “That’s a different kid, isn’t it? What happened to, um, Dandan?”
“Fell off a rope bridge in the mountains. But you can call her Dandan too.”
“I see. How old’s this one?”
“Fuck if I know. Who gives a crap?” Hey, he was remembering. At least, how to flip somebody off in good old American.
Vladimir said mildly, “Just making conversation. And how’s the imam? Akhmad?”
“He’s … getting on. But still on top of things.” A white lie, maybe, but why rock the boat. Especially when Mr. al-Qaeda was angling to be next in line. “Okay, enough foreplay. Let’s talk about what you can do for me.”
“What I can do you for right now was on those fucking donkeys. But I’ve got a message you need to hear.”
Dandan set down the tea tray. Teddy waited while she poured herself a cup and sipped it. He eased his bad leg out in front of him and poured a cup for the Ranger, then for himself. Though he didn’t touch his own, having drunk more than enough tea during the sit-downs that morning. “Shoot.”
“That reminds me,” the agent said, “how about we start by getting me my Glock back?”
“Soon’s we’re done here. So what do I ‘need to hear’?”
Vladimir looked grave. He tapped the Bukhara between them with a gloved finger. “This is from up top. You have to cut back on targeting civilians. The IEDs are okay. The assassinations of cooperators—we never knew about that. But the massacre in the town, the Agency disavows.”
Teddy cracked his knuckles, getting angry. WTF, over? “Disavow. What the fuck’s that mean? Besides, that wasn’t us. That was the townspeople, taking their revenge. But, shit, wasn’t that what you tasked me with? Pull the Internal Security divisions west? Well, another one just got ordered in.”
The agent nodded. “And that’s appreciated. But nothing like Kanayi ever again. Copy? Your insurgency’s growing. Hurting Beijing. But it can blow back on the Allies, if the news gets out we’re promoting ethnic cleansing. I need a roger. This is serious, Ted.”
Teddy nodded. “Message received. But we’re getting pressured out here. Do you know what the Han are doing? They’ve installed facial recognition systems throughout Xinjiang. Tracking the native Uighurs. Public spaces. Markets. Roads. When they spot a suspect on a facial match, they raid at night and shoot his family. Not even a summary trial, they just leave them in the house for the neighbors to clean up.
“The latest is they’ve sent out some hot-shit, hell-raiser new general.”
“Chagatai,” Vladimir put in.
“You know?”
“Marshal Chagatai claims descent from the Mongol Khans. He was in charge of restoring ‘law and order’ in Hong Kong. We don’t have hard numbers, but probably over twenty thousand dead.”
Teddy nodded slowly. A serious opponent, then. Despite what some liked to believe, sometimes ruthless repression, the mass infliction of sheer terror, actually tamped down a rebellion, if carried out thoroughly enough. “Uh, we got reports of gas being used on one of the Uighur towns. Possibly, Kanayi itself. To punish residents for massacring their Han neighbors, I guess.”
“That’s not the only bad news, I’m afraid. Have you seen any patrols, any drones up here?”
Teddy shrugged. “Just the usual sweeps. So far we haven’t been targeted. Why?”
Vlad told him that the Hunza, the tribe downhill and west, had been bought off and turned against the Allies. “By the Iranians. An offer they couldn’t refuse. So now they’ll be pushing up along the road from Azad Kashmir into your territory.”
Teddy reflected dourly on this. So ITIM would be pincered, with enemies on both sides. Then did a double take. “Wait a minute. So how’d you get here? If the Hunza just flipped?”
The operative just rubbed thumb and index finger together, in the universal symbol for a payoff.
Teddy thought aloud, trying to remember his insurgency doctrine. “Okay, then, we’re being isolated. We get boxed in, surrounded, they’re gonna localize us. Then drop some big bunker-buster and bang, we’re history.
“That means we need to get out of here. And not just to another hole in the wall. We need to go to the next stage.”
“Mao’s three phases?”
“We already did the base area phase. Now we need to expand. Go to the cities, or maybe, in this case, the hamlets. Gather popular support, which shouldn’t be too tough, considering how hard the Han’s cracking down. Then, take on larger units. Build this to a full-scale rebellion, with forces down in the lowlands taking territory.”
“Fine. You want to grow this thing, we’re ready. More gold. More weapons. What else?”
Teddy eased his leg again, wondering if he should run Qurban’s proposal past him. Jettison the ITIM idea, uniting the Islamisists and the secular rebels, and go straight to hard-core jihad. But he didn’t think it would go over very well. Not after how that strategy had played out in Afghanistan.
“Deep thoughts?” The agent helped himself to a cookie.
“Forget it … If what you’re saying about the Hunza, they’re gonna outnumber us. And they know where we are. Remember, you brought those two guys here. Leonardo and what’s-his-name.”
“True.” Vladimir nodded. “A mistake, in retrospect.”
“So we’re gonna have to vacate the premises. Relocate.”
“Okay. To where?”
“Due respect, but let me think about that. I prepped two other caves as hide sites, but like I say, we need to get out in the population.” Teddy pondered a little longer, then added, “but if we gotta leave here … maybe we can exact a price.”
The agent cocked his head. “How so?”
“Need to think about it some more … maybe, some kind of ambush.”
They plotted over tea and cookies, and came up with the beginnings of a plan. The rebels would set up a false-flag IED school in the valley. Nasrullah would put out the word through his contacts that they needed recruits to build devices. But some he would involve would be known enemy collaborators. Instead of executing them, ITIM would employ them as channels to feed false information to the Chinese.
Teddy liked the idea. “With luck, we could tempt this Chagatai in. He’s under pressure from Beijing to close down the insurgency. How could he resist being in at the kill?”
“Maybe. Considering his profile. He’s a take-charge leader. Executes people himself.”
“My kind of guy.” Teddy gave it a beat, then grinned.
The other smiled back, but reluctantly. “Okay, so you get him here. Then what?”
“We blow the cave. The whole fucking complex. A massive charge up there with the bats. They’ll be sweeping for radio detonation, so we leave a suicider behind to fire it. Blow the whole thing down on him. Meanwhile we scatter, setting up cells to spread the insurgency.”
Vladimir nodded slowly. “We could get behind that.”
“Can you get us four, five hundred kilos of C-4?”
“You’d have to promise positive control. We don’t want this stuff getting into the wrong hands.”
Teddy nodded. Just what the guy had to say to satisfy the legal beagles down the line when, inevitably, some ended up blowing up somebody who at the particular moment wasn’t on the target list. Or mowed down a bunch of civilians in a truck bomb. But there was no way to infuse weapons and explosives into a war and not have some go adrift. Hell, even some SEAL units had had guys stealing shit, C-4 and radios and goggles. “Absolutely. Lock and key. Mission checkout only.”
The agent stretched. He got up, bent over to avoid the low ceiling, and smiled. “How about me seeing the sheykh now?”
Teddy got up too. “I think he’s at prayer, but I’l
l check.”
Vladimir halted in the exitway. “Oh. Before I forget. A message from your old girlfriend.”
“My … girlfriend?” Was this code for…? “What girlfriend?”
“In San Diego. Didn’t you have somebody there?”
He remembered then.
Mulvaney’s Gingernut, a fake-Irish pub across from the Del Coronado. A sign out front: Why do they call it tourist season if we can’t shoot them? Nothing to show it was a Team hangout, unless you counted the Harleys and jacked Jeeps and even the odd full-sized Hummer.
The bar had smelled like beer and corned beef and hot grease. It was full, SEALs, old-fart retirees, Viet vets, and people who came in to tour the zoo. A lot of women. Frog hogs, the operators called them. In a way it was annoying. On the other, wasn’t it what every man wanted?
On the back patio, drinking what he’d promised himself would be his last Harp before getting back to the base. The late afternoon sun falling through the trees, warming his face as he lifted it, seeing only blood red through closed eyelids.
She’d spoken first. “Fresh meat,” her opening words to him.
Muscular thighs, slim waist, the hard core muscle of her torso. Dark hair. Tight jeans-clad legs wrapped around the base of the stool. A bulge under her left armpit that wasn’t tit.
Salena Frank had been with the sheriff’s department in Vista. A smile that made you see what she must have looked like as a little girl in braids. And later, her drunken blond friend fingering herself in the bed next to them. And the pink plastic toy rabbit she’d handed him after. Telling him he was now an official San Diego Sheriff’s Department badge bunny.
It all seemed so long ago and so … American. “We didn’t actually have anything going,” he told the agent. “A one-night stand.”
“Didn’t sound like it, from what she said.”
“I already told her the guy she knew is dead.”
“She doesn’t seem to think so.” Vladimir took a worn, creased envelope out of his tactical vest, and handed it over.
* * *
THE old man’s guard confirmed he was asleep. “Let’s get you settled in,” Teddy told the agent, and led him to the guest quarters, which was a down bag in a side cave. A blanket served as a curtain, with a rug for prayer. A plastic bucket for piss and two bottles of drinking water completed the furnishings.
“I’m gonna have one of my own guys sleep outside. Oh, and here’s your Glock back.” He handed the weapon over butt first.
Vlad surveyed the room. “Rough, but I’ve slept rougher.”
“We can provide some comforts.” Teddy beckoned a dark-clad figure from behind him. Her thin fingers were locked in front of her. Her downcast eyes were the only part of her visible through the black chador. “Loula’ll keep you warm. Got smoke, too, if you want to try a pipe. From Helmand.”
The agent passed on the opium, but without a word gestured the girl over to his sleeping bag.
Teddy went outside. He sat on a rump-worn rock near the entrance, close enough he could duck in if they got a drone warning. He fingered the envelope thoughtfully.
Back then he’d wanted to make movies. Then the world had gone to hell, and since then he’d been sucked into one hot spot after another. Until the raid, and the capture, then torture and prison camp … Yeah, a lot of rapids under the bridge.
Over time, you changed. And remembering what he’d thought before was important, and cool, and would make him happy … made it all seem … pretty fucking shallow and pointless. So what if A Teddy Oberg Production was projected for a second on a big screen? So what the fucking fuck?
He’d had a vision, on a mountain.
Since then, nothing had been the same.
Now he served Allah. And was in turn served, by his mujahideen. And slaves. Like Dandan and Loula.
But he was still making movies. Sort of. In a way.
There was a hidden camera in the side cave. When the agent left, Teddy would retrieve it himself. Just for leverage, either with the Agency or Vlad personally, in case he ever needed it.
Espionage and guerrilla warfare weren’t about playing fair.
He toyed with the still sealed envelope for a few minutes, then finally limped inside again. The fire was glowing coals. He threw on a few more sticks—wood was scarce in the mountains, and had to be husbanded—and laid the envelope on them. It smoked. The edges curled up, turning brown. Writing showed for a moment through the crisping paper. Then the rectangle burst into flame.
He watched it burn until it was nothing but crumbling char.
* * *
ONE of his mujs found him outside sometime later, in the dark. “Al-Amriki!”
“Do not call me that,” he told the man in Uighur. “I have said before, I am one of you now. The only American here is the one asleep inside.”
But the man only waved him to silence. “Come quickly. Sir. It is the sheykh.”
When he got to the old man’s cavern he had to push his way through the throng. Guldulla was standing over the imam, holding a hissing gasoline lantern. The sheykh’s slaves were crouched a few paces away, trembling, hiding their faces. A guard stood over them with an AK.
Teddy bent over the old cleric. Those rheumy eyes stared up sightless now. The dirty hand was still outstretched toward the dish. He felt for a pulse in the neck. Behind him, someone murmured. He ignored it. Probed again. Nothing. The skin was already cold.
He straightened, and murmured, “Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi rajiun.”
To Allah we belong, to Him we return. The murmuring grew. Teddy glanced around at them, and that silenced it. Mostly. “What happened, Tokarev?”
“As you see,” Guldulla said. He gestured at the candy, at a teacup that lay on its side, at the brass pot. Teddy bent to peer into it. Empty.
They had to cajole the elder woman to talk. Teddy was surprised to learn she wasn’t a slave, as he’d assumed, but an Uighur, and the old man’s lawful wife. Apparently the only one, though he could have had as many as he liked.
The younger, of course, really was a slave. The older woman suddenly began cuffing her, screaming at her. The young woman cowered silently, head shielded beneath a black-clothed sleeve.
“Someone must die for this outrage,” said Qurban, appearing almost magically from the crowd, which edged apart to give him space. “Who has done this? Someone must die.”
Teddy caught sight of Vladimir, at the back. He beamed him a scowl, hoping he got the message. Get out of sight. Don’t get mixed up in this.
“The sheykh was very old,” Teddy said.
“It was the sweets,” the hajji persisted. “Do you not see? He died pointing to them.” The crowd murmured, passing the observation from mouth to mouth. “Either in the Han chocolates, or the qiegao. Or perhaps the tea.”
Teddy ruminated, stroking his beard. It could have been poison. A quick-acting one. But the question of murder or old age was secondary. Just now the rebels were looking to him and Guldulla. But if they didn’t act, the al-Qaeda zealot would take over. He was already muttering to certain young men in the crowd. Voices were rising, dissatisfied, suspicious.
“The young slave,” Teddy pronounced. The crowd quieted. “Her name?”
“The Han she-dog is called Bubu,” the wife spat. “Kill her!”
Teddy picked up the dish. Silently, he held it out to to the girl. She stared at it, horrified. He shook it, offering it as to a dog. “Názhe ta. Chile ta,” he said.
Take it. Eat.
She stared around again, terrified, then understood. She grabbed the dish and began stuffing candies under her niqab. The crowd murmured. Teddy seized her face scarf and threw it back. Chocolate stained her lips. Brown eyes blinked fearfully. Then closed as she reached for another handful.
When the dish was empty she covered her face again and stepped back. The crowd sighed. Teddy shook off his sleeve and ostentatiously consulted his watch. Minutes went by. The girl stood erect. Still trembling, but erect.
“How do you feel?” he asked her at last.
“I am perfectly fine. I did not poison him,” the girl muttered through clenched teeth.
“There was no poison,” Teddy announced to the crowd. Hoping they’d forgotten the teapot, since he’d done his diversion with the candy. “The sheykh was long in years and honor. Allah took him to his bosom, blessed be His name. There is no one guilty.”
They wavered, murmuring. Finally Qurban stepped forward. “We have no imam now. But I will say a du’a.”
Teddy nodded. Gave him a “you have the floor” sweep of one arm.
Lifting his hands in the shape of a begging bowl, the old fighter intoned, in flawless Arabic, “As the Prophet, peace be upon him, said at a funeral: Allah, have mercy on him. Forgive his sins, wash him with snow, clear him of his sin as a white shirt is cleaned of dirt. Give him a house better than his home on earth, a family better than his family on earth, a wife better than his wife on earth, and spare him the torture of hellfire. In Allah’s name, Amin.”
“Amin,” they all echoed. Qurban shot Teddy a narrowed look, but said nothing more.
As Teddy thought, Fuck. The bastard just dog-whistled the religious right.
Slowly, the crowd dispersed.
* * *
VLAD left the next morning. Their farewell was edgy. Vlad told him again ITIM had to cut back on the civilian losses. Teddy promised to, again. At last the CIA man mounted the donkey, tossed a salute, and rode off down the valley.
As soon as he was out of sight Teddy retrieved the camera, popped out the chip, and hid it in his cave. Had to start packing soon, if the Hunza were coming. Fortunately that wouldn’t take long. His drone rifle, his bedroll, his weapons. And Dandan, to carry everything.
When the old sheykh’s funeral was over, Teddy, Nasrullah, Guldulla, and Qurban sat down together in the cave.
Teddy kept his face serene. With the scars, of course, he always looked terrifying, but he tried to smooth his expression to placid acceptance.
It had been poison, of course. The old man might have been half blind, but from his wife’s reaction, he’d been hale enough to be actively porking the Chinese babe.
