by Mike Kraus
“It’s a bit of bad luck for you, being here and all.”
“What do you want?” He spat at Linda and she laughed as she wiped her cheek and chin with the back of her sleeve.
“A lot of things, Aref. Turning back the clock would be a good start but I’m pretty sure you can’t do that.” The position Linda was sitting in put strain on her leg and she felt a pain lance through it. She grabbed at it instinctively, sucking in a gasp of air.
“Looks like you’ve got a problem there.” Aref’s smile was more genuine, with some of the fear gone as he sensed his enemy’s weakness. “May you die quickly and terribly from it.”
Linda kept her composure as she stretched out her leg, feeling the pain slowly subside. “I’m sure I will, Aref. But it’ll be long after you do the same.” She glanced at Frank. “My colleague and I are here for answers. And you’re going to provide some.”
“Or else what?”
Linda’s eyes narrowed and her tone grew cold again. “I didn’t say ‘or else.’”
Aref’s face fell again and Frank started to wonder why he was so obviously afraid of Linda. It could have just been an act but Frank was starting to think that it was far more genuine than he first realized.
“Do your worst, bitch.” Aref’s voice wavered. “I know all about you and what you’ve done.”
“Do you?” Linda smiled and leaned close to Aref. “Or do you know what Omar’s told you?
The man responded by lashing forward with his head, striking Linda on the forehead and sending her bouncing back into her seat with a sharp groan of pain. Aref began struggling against his bonds as Linda was distracted, kicking and thrashing his legs to try and break free.
As Aref attacked Linda, Frank was near the front of the café checking their surroundings. Upon hearing Linda’s cry of pain he ran back to the booth to see Aref thrashing back and forth with his arms and legs, trying to free himself. Feeling a surge of anger and the same “click” he felt several days prior in the walk-in clinic Frank jumped forward and slammed into Aref, battering and pushing the man against the back of the booth to keep him from succeeding in his escape attempt. Frank got in several hard punches on Aref’s chest and face before Linda recovered her senses and pulled on Frank’s shoulder.
“Frank! Ease up; that’s enough!”
Frank stepped back, massaging his aching hands as he looked at Linda. “Are you okay?”
“Jesus, Frank.” Linda looked at Aref, then back at Frank. “What got into you?”
An image of the two men lying dead on the floor of the walk-in clinic flashed across Frank’s vision and he shook his head. The sight of seeing Linda being assaulted combined with Aref trying to escape had stirred up his rage and determination. He shrugged sheepishly and stepped back as Aref moaned and yelled.
“What the fuck?! You broke my nose!” Blood streamed from Aref’s nose down around his mouth and his voice sounded congested.
Linda, seizing on the opportunity presented by Frank’s outburst of violence, turned to Aref. “Try escaping again and I won’t stop him. Understand?”
Aref leaned forward to wipe his nose on a part of his jacket that was caught on the table before glaring over at Frank. “Asshole.”
Linda looked back at Frank, flicking her eyes to the side. He nodded at her and stepped back around the corner, leaving Linda and Aref to talk by themselves. He could still hear parts of their conversation, though, and kept his ears sharply tuned to pick up as much of what they said as he could.
“How long’s it been, Aref? The last time I remember seeing you was through a scope in Baghdad.”
Aref cleared his throat and spat a mouthful of saliva and blood onto the floor. “What do you want? I’m not giving up any information.”
Linda chuckled. “No small talk. Fair enough. You know we already know about Omar, right? The CIA’s been keeping a close eye on him.”
“You’re working with the CIA now?” Aref laughed, then winced as pain shot through his nose. “I can’t believe you’d let yourself be muzzled by those incompetents. And that’s bullshit, anyway. Omar’s on no one’s radar except yours.”
“That used to be the case.”
“Again, what do you want? Besides slitting throats and putting more notches on your belt.”
“It’s simple, Aref. I want to know everything about Omar’s plans.”
“I’m not—”
“You have a lovely wife, you know.” Linda spoke over Aref. She didn’t bother looking at him but could still tell that his eyes were growing wide at the mention of his family. “I never did figure out how she got into the country but I’m betting whoever you have working for you on the inside arranged that, didn’t they?”
“What—” Aref tried to speak again, failing miserably to contain his surprise, but Linda continued talking over him.
“Your children, too. Bethany and Lee. Adorable names. Not very traditional, though. But that was to blend in, right? To assimilate. To keep them from being discovered by me.” Linda looked at Aref, giving him a slight smile. “I watched all three of them for six months straight, you know. Learned everything about them. When they went back to Iran a year ago I thought it was odd but I kept tabs on them anyway. Three-story home, brown exterior, small backyard, silver trim on the kitchen cupboards. Nice tile on the floors, too. Omar pays his top men very well.”
It took Linda less than thirty seconds to communicate to Aref what she knew about his family. Her tone was gentle, her voice soft and her face neutral. In that time, though, he underwent a series of radical transformations. His initial shock wore off relatively quickly and was replaced by anger which was replaced in turn by numbness and more shock. By the time Linda finished speaking Aref’s shoulders were sagging and he shook his head slowly at her.
“He was right.”
“That I’m a monster?” Linda shrugged. “I suppose. But I’m not the one who smuggled enough radioactive material into the country to kill millions of people with a dirty bomb.”
“You—how… what?” Aref stuttered for a few seconds in disbelief. “How do you know about the material?”
Linda pulled her chair closer to him, well within striking range again. This time, though, he remained still instead of lashing out as he watched her pull a black case from her pack. She opened the case to reveal the satellite phone given to her and Frank by Sarah.
“You see this? It’s a sat phone. It runs on the military’s network. With it I can call anyone in the world.” She picked up the phone and slowly rotated it in her hands. “There’s a number I punched in while we were driving here. I didn’t dial it but all it would take is a couple of button presses to make that happen. After that it’ll take a few seconds for the call to connect and once it does someone will take a short walk to a three-story home with a brown exterior, small backyard and silver trim on the kitchen cupboards.
“Right now there’s one person in this world who can keep me from pressing those buttons and dialing that number, Aref. And that person is you. So tell me—is Omar worth that? You know I’ll find him with or without your help. If you help then that three-story home will be passed over and you can go to your grave knowing that the people inside won’t be harmed.” Linda stopped turning the phone over in her hands and looked Aref dead in the eye. “Or I can push the buttons.”
***
“It’s a terrible idea to hit somebody in the face with your bare fists, you know.”
“No kidding.”
Frank rubbed his hands, grimacing at the bruises that were starting to appear and trying to massage out the pain in his joints. He and Linda sat on the far side of the café as they talked, each of them keeping a close eye on Aref who was still tied to the table in his booth. The man’s initially defiant demeanor had swiftly deflated to the point where he appeared to be a shell of the man who Frank had brought into the café a short time earlier.
“I’m surprised you didn’t whale into him to get him to talk.”
“Nah.
That kind of interrogation doesn’t work. You can pull someone’s toenails out and waterboard them and do all sorts of other things but if they’re trained properly they won’t reveal a thing. Torture sounds nice and it gets the masses riled up but evidence proves it’s not the way to get the information you need.”
“I’ve never heard that.”
Linda shrugged. “It never gets much press because everyone likes to grandstand instead of doing what works. Back in WW2 there was a Nazi by the name of Hanns Scharff. He was one of the grandfathers of the type of interrogation that actually works.”
Frank raised an eyebrow. “A Nazi?”
“Oh yes. He was a sharp son of a gun, too. The FBI studied his methods extensively as they worked to develop new interrogation techniques.”
“So what was his secret?”
“Getting to know them. Conversing with them. Treating them like human beings, no matter who they are.”
“I didn’t know threatening to kill his family counted as treating him like a human being.”
Linda snorted, then nodded and laughed. “Yeah, well, I’m working on a minutes and hours timetable here, not days and weeks. It’s not ideal but using his family as leverage seems to have gotten him to open up.” She held up her hands. “It wasn’t all threats, you know. That was just to get him to drop the braggadocio and have an actual conversation.”
“It worked?”
“More or less. He doesn’t know very much but I got everything I could. I think he’s holding a few things back but I didn’t sense that they were earth-shattering.” Linda sighed. “I honestly don’t think he knows anything earth-shattering.”
“It’s too bad you couldn’t get more from him.”
“Mhm.” Linda nodded as she watched Aref. “Omar’s been doing a good job Chinese firewalling his people.”
“Doing what now?”
“It’s a legal term. Chinese walling, or firewalling. You keep people isolated from each other and from information that they don’t need to know. Like a cell in a terrorist organization. That way if they’re caught then they won’t be able to give out very much information because they won’t actually know anything more than they absolutely need to.”
“Clever. How can you be sure he’s telling you the truth, though?”
She looked at Frank. “I’ve been following Omar and his people for years. If I thought this guy was lying we’d be having an entirely different conversation right now.”
“But you said he was holding some things back.”
“That’s where having days or weeks to talk to him and try to make friends with him would have helped. I think the parks around here are closed for the season, though. Regardless I’m pretty sure I got everything from him I could.”
Frank sighed and shook his head. “Whatever you say. So, what’s our next move?”
Linda stroked her chin. “I’m not entirely certain. He confirmed that they brought in enough radioactive material to make a couple dozen dirty bombs that could contaminate large metropolitan areas. He doesn’t know where the material was taken, though.”
“Did he explain why he’s been down at the docks? I missed that part of the conversation when I went outside.”
“He’s supposed to report back on the type and amount of aid supplies coming in as well as where they’re going. Omar probably wants to know as much information about that sort of thing as possible.”
Frank paused for a moment before asking his next question, not sure if he wanted to know the answer. “Do you really have someone near Aref’s wife and children?”
Linda smiled and patted Frank on the arm. “Some questions are best left unanswered. Come on, let’s go.”
“What about him?”
“We take him with us back to the airfield. He’s our proof. We’ll deliver him to the commanding officer, phone up Sarah and she’ll hopefully get the ball rolling on getting some help here on the ground to track down Omar.”
“Shouldn’t we call her now? Or at least send a message?”
Linda paused and nodded. “Yeah, not a bad idea. You get our stuff back in the SUV while I send her a message.”
“Consider it done.” Frank grabbed his backpack first and headed back to the SUV. When he walked outside the café into the light of the early afternoon sun he stopped next to their vehicle and cocked his head to the side. The area had been unusually quiet each time he had stepped outside throughout the day but as he walked out with his backpack in hand he realized that their situation was undergoing a rapid change.
The silence that had filled the air was overshadowed by a dull, distant roar that—at first—sounded almost like the ocean. As he listened, trying to identify the source of the sound, bits and pieces of it became more distinguishable. There was a voice here, the sound of crashing metal there and even a gunshot or two. The underlying cacophony was a raucous mixture of the screams and shouts of hundreds—perhaps thousands—of individuals as they marched together, heading south towards the port. While the crowd wasn’t yet visible to Frank their tone made it clear that they weren’t taking a stroll through town looking at the scenery.
Frank threw open the back door of the SUV and tossed his bag in before running into the café. Linda was sitting down at the table near Aref having a conversation with him when Frank skidded to a stop near the table, nearly tripping and falling over in the process.
“Frank, what’s—”
“People. A lot of them. Heading this way.”
“People?” Linda’s eyes widened.
“Yeah. They sound pissed.”
“Looters?”
Frank shrugged. “Looters, survivors, gangbangers… how the hell would I know which is which?”
“You didn’t see them?”
“No. They sound like they’re just to our north and they’re heading this way. We need to get out of here right now.”
Linda glanced at Aref. “Help me get him into the car.”
Frank looked at the front door and the SUV just beyond. “I don’t know if we have time.”
“He’s not getting away.” Linda looked at Aref who was sitting very quietly with his head down, trying his best not to be conspicuous in any way, shape or form.
Frank rubbed a hand down the side of his face, dragging his cheek and the side of his mouth downward. “Dammit. Fine. Let’s go, let’s go!”
“I’ll get my bag in then I’ll help you with him.”
“No, here, give it to me.” Frank grabbed Linda’s bag and handed her his rifle. “Just remember,” he said, speaking loud enough for Aref to hear, “his life’s forfeit if we get into a bind.”
Linda nodded and Frank ran back to the SUV. He threw Linda’s bag in the back and glanced around, looking for any sign of the people he could hear shouting nearby. They sounded as though they were only a hundred feet away but he still couldn’t see where they were. Given the location of the café, though, he assumed that they were walking on the street just to their west.
The only reason the SUV was hidden from their sight was due to a tall wooden construction fence that ran alongside the small plaza. While the fence provided visual cover from the crowd it would do nothing to conceal the noise of the engine when they started the vehicle up. Frank briefly considered recommending that they sit tight inside the café doing nothing until the crowd passed by but he soon dismissed the idea the more he thought about it.
We can’t turtle up like that. Need to stay mobile. That’s how we stay alive. He closed the door to the SUV slowly and ran back into the café. Linda already had Aref up and out of the booth, having cut the rope around his legs. The man was still passive, neither speaking nor trying to escape nor doing so much as looking at Frank and Linda.
“You ready to go?” Linda asked Frank.
He nodded and motioned at Aref. “You want him in the back again?”
“Yup. Same as before.”
“Let’s go, Aref.” Frank took the man by his arm and pushed him forward. Aref shuffled along slowl
y, keeping his head down without struggling. Linda went ahead of the two men and opened the driver’s side door to make sure everything was set when hell broke loose.
Aref jerked to the side, breaking free of Frank’s grasp. He ran forward, barreling into Linda and pushing her against the inside of the open car door. Before Frank or Linda could get him out of the front of the vehicle he slammed his head against the steering wheel, setting off a loud honk from the SUV’s horn.
The sound of a functional vehicle in a time when vehicles and the gasoline to propel them were both in such short supply was like presenting a wounded buffalo to a pack of starving wolves. The people who were walking nearby almost immediately broke through the wooden construction fence as they searched for the source of the sound. Realizing that they were about to be swarmed Frank grabbed Aref and threw him to the ground before helping Linda get into the back seat. He then jumped into the front of the car and locked the doors just as the first few people ran up and threw their bodies against the side of the vehicle.
Pieces of wood, garden tools and other blunt instruments struck the SUV as Frank turned the key and started the engine. He threw it into gear and lurched forward, turning sharply to the left to get away from the encroaching crowd. Their shouts of desperation and irrational anger intensified as Frank pulled away, leaving them—and Aref—behind.
***
A few members of the crowd ran after the SUV for a few hundred feet before giving up. The rest began searching the nearby buildings, looking for scraps of food, clean water, clothing, medical supplies and anything else they could make use of. The half dozen or so that thought of themselves as leaders of the crowd spotted Aref as he was trying to stand up and get away and grabbed him.
“Who were they?!” A man with long, greasy hair and several tears in his jeans grabbed Aref by his shirt. “Where did they get the car?”
“Military! They’re trying to protect the port, the supplies at the port!” Aref spat out the words as fast as possible, trying to direct the attention of the man from himself to Frank and Linda. “They took me captive because I was working there; please, help me!”
