The Saffron Falcon (Transition Magic)

by Hopkins, J. E.

  “The gods ask difficult things of those who have much to give,” Wali said. “Of course we can hide Ali and help him get home.” He looked at his watch. “You have five hours before daylight.”

  “Thank you,” Tareef whispered.

  He turned and hugged Ali. “Be safe.”

  Tareef walked over to his pack and unclipped a water bottle, which he fastened to his belt.

  A.C. followed him and removed a second bottle. “You’re three kilometers away from the mouth of the Birir Valley Road,” A.C. said. “You may be a mountain wizard, but I know the back paths of the Chitral Valley. I can get you past Ayun and be back home before sunrise.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Ayun

  Islamic Republic of Pakistan

  “Well?” General Ahmed Pasha kicked the mud from his boots on the bumper of the SUV. The car blocked the western end of Ayun’s main street. He turned and glared at the sergeant who led the ISI’s paramilitary unit. “You have anything useful to report?”

  The setting sun was low on the mountains at Pasha’s back, casting long shadows and a blood-orange glow over the town. The ISI covert unit had been in Ayun for a day.

  No one had come forward with any information about Tareef. Sergeant Hassan’s men had been kicking in doors and conducting house-to-house searches, beating anyone who resisted. The level of violence escalated as the day crawled on. When a farmer approached Hassan to complain that the ISI’s camp near the bridge was destroying his wheat field, Hassan had slit his throat and hung him from a sign post in the middle of the main street. The stink of smoke hung over the town from a half dozen homes that had been burned to the ground.

  Hassan wiped his forehead, squinted at Pasha and the setting sun behind him, and shook his head. “These fucking people are tough. Doesn’t matter what we do. Rape, cut their kids, kick their men to death. We got nothing. Half the fucking homes in the damn town are empty. The people are running into the mountains.”

  Pasha sighed. “Okay. Pull everyone back to the camp. We’ll burn our way up the Birir first thing tom—”

  The Iridium X550 sat phone hanging on Pasha’s belt chimed. He pulled it loose and glanced at the screen—the director general.

  Shit. Third time today. Wish he’d go work on something else.

  He waved the sergeant off and pressed the green button to accept the call. “Sir?”

  “Rahman gave you a bad translation.”

  “What?”

  “I just met with your backup linguist.”

  Fuck. Be careful what you wish for.

  “He swears the translation done by Rahman was bogus and that he’s corrected the errors.”

  Pasha spun on one heel and marched down the street, toward the dying sun. “Sir, you need to remember that Rahman is the one who identified Professor Malik as a backup. Why would Rahman give me a bad translation and then point me toward a man who could fix it?”

  “How do I know? Maybe Rahman didn’t think anyone else could translate it, so Malik was just another way to delay us.”

  “That’s possible,” Pasha said. “I need to test the translations. Both Rahman’s and Malik’s. I’ll finish here in the next couple of days. As soon as I get back to Islamabad, I’ll find a couple of kids, and we’ll see what works.”

  “You don’t need to hurry.”

  A sense of dread washed over Pasha.

  I thought this man was a weak-minded fool. Was I wrong? Did he send me up here to get rid of me?

  “My men have grabbed two kids off the street who are in Transition. I’m stuffing them full of food, ice cream, and promises. Won’t take long to get them ready to do anything I want. I plan to use the codex by this time tomorrow.”

  “Use the codex for what? That could be dangerous.”

  The DG laughed. “Did you really think I’d let you have access to unlimited magic?” His voice derisive, taunting. “I thought I’d start by cleaning up your mess.”

  The phone went dead.

  My only hope is to act first. Find the kid and persuade him to use magic.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  The Birir Valley

  Islamic Republic of Pakistan

  “At this rate,” Stony said, “it’s going to be tough to find Tareef’s home before we have to bounce.”

  They’d been in the Birir Valley for an hour, following the wash down the mountains, stopping at each home they encountered to ask for assistance in locating the tribal elder. The people they’d met were friendly, gathering around in a chattering crowd whenever John would approach with the interpreter at his shoulder.

  Friendly, yes. Helpful, not so much.

  Before they left for the op, their Green Beret interpreter had explained that the Kalash spoke their own language but should be fluent in Urdu and might even understand some English. The people they’d met so far apparently didn’t get the memo. Each of John’s questions were met with a puzzled expression, followed by gales of laughter and a response that the interpreter couldn’t understand.

  A nice, passive-aggressive way of giving up nothing to strangers.

  Colonel Liberty consulted his GPS. “The Grambet Gol should be around the next bend. Maybe there’ll be a big sign in front of the elder’s place with an arrow pointing to his door.”

  Stony laughed. “I think Google should take that on as a project. Put labels on the ground to match their maps.”

  The sun had been up for several hours, but the wash was still in deep shadow. Postage-stamp plots of wiry grass and scrawny vegetable gardens dotted the narrow strips of flat land that bordered the stream bed. Steep hillsides of loose shale and rock outcroppings crowded close to the patches of green, as if unwilling to yield any more ground to the forces of erosion. The few homes they’d found were perched on the sides of the hills and stacked one on top of the other, connected by a network of rickety wooden stairs and bridges.

  The stream moved in a wide arc to their left, wrapping around the base of an oak-covered hill. They rounded the curve and discovered a small Eden. The hills receded, cradling a lush green meadow the size of three football fields. The wash they’d been following broadened and was joined by a smaller dry creek descending from the mountains on their right.

  “Grambet Gol, I’m guessing,” John said. “Pretty damn close to having a label on the ground, huh Stony?”

  A fifty-foot-long pedestrian bridge suspended from the graceful arc of steel cables spanned the width of the dry wash.

  “I’m surprised by the steel,” John said. “We’re not as isolated as I expected.”

  The structure looked absurd, like the bones of a beached whale hanging fifteen feet above the small trickle of the summer stream.

  “The spring runoff must be a bitch,” Stony said.

  The same stacked houses they’d seen higher up the mountain were cut into the hills surrounding the meadow.

  “Over there,” John said and pointed to a sprawling one-level house off by itself on a patch of flat land. “No big sign pointing to it, but that reeks of very important person.”

  Liberty led the column toward the house.

  “Hold on a sec,” John called. “Everyone gather around.”

  The colonel stopped and turned in a slow circle, staring at the houses around them. Several people had emerged from their homes and were staring at the strangers.

  “For God’s sake,” John said, “there are no bad guys around, and these people aren’t a threat. Circle up. I want to talk about our approach.”

  Liberty hesitated another couple of seconds, then nodded. “Fair enough.” He glanced at his men. “Fall out.”

  The column regrouped into a tight arc around John. “We’re probably scaring the shit out of these folks. It’s no wonder they pretend to not understand us. So let’s try not to look so military. Just a friendly group of visitors who want to pay their respects to the elder and have a chat. Stony and I’ll walk in front. How threatening can an old man and a half-pint woman be?”

  “That�
��s only because they don’t know me,” Stony growled.

  John looked at their young interpreter. “We need your language skills, not your weapon, so give it to one of your buddies and hang close to us. The rest of you, keep your weapons down and to the side. And everybody nod and smile, for God’s sake.”

  Liberty looked around the meadow again, then nodded at his soldiers. “Do it.”

  John led the group along the creek and up to the house, collecting a mix of kids and adults as they went. A three-foot stone wall surrounded the weathered wood home, enclosing a courtyard of grass tufts and dusty soil. A solitary goat was pulling at the grass, ignoring them.

  John faced the house and called out, “We’re friends. We’d like to speak with Elder Khan.”

  The locals surrounding them fell silent when the PFC translated John’s words into Urdu.

  The only sound was the buzz of grasshoppers flying across the meadow. John felt like the house was staring at him, judging his words, waiting for more.

  What would a house want to hear?

  “My name is John Benoit. I’m an American. I have news about Elder Khan’s son, Tareef.”

  The crowd around them started murmuring at the sound of Tareef’s name.

  They know the name.

  A lone boy about Stony’s height opened the screened front door and stepped out onto the porch that covered the front of the house. He stayed under the shadow of the porch’s shed roof and shifted his weight from foot to foot, as if he might bolt at any moment.

  “I’m Tareef. What do you want?”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  The Birir Valley

  Islamic Republic of Pakistan

  “They know we’re here,” Pasha said. “They’re just too afraid to show their faces.” He looked at Sergeant Hassan. “Give them a wake-up call.”

  At 0600, Pasha had left the ISI encampment with three of the SUVs and twelve men. The other half of the unit remained at the camp with orders to continue pressuring the people of Ayun and the surrounding farms.

  Forty-five minutes later Pasha directed his driver to stop in front of the first cluster of Kalash homes they’d encountered on the Birir Valley Road. He counted a dozen of the timber hovels cut into a steep hill, stacked helter-skelter beside and on top of each other.

  The sergeant pointed his H&K MP5 into the dawn sky and pulled the trigger.

  “BRAAAP! BRAAP!

  Men, women, and children screamed and poured out of their homes. They stumbled, tripped, and fell down the rickety stairways that connected the huts. Some wore shorts, others were naked. Children cried in terror and clung to their parents. Pasha caught a glimpse of a woman’s bare breast with a baby clinging to her nipple.

  His land hardened and pressed against the front of his trousers.

  The terrified tribespeople threw themselves on the ground, begging for mercy in a mix of Kalash and Urdu.

  Pasha did a fast head count.

  Twenty-five. Must be that many still in the huts.

  He keyed the switch on the battery-operated megaphone and lifted it to his mouth. “We’re looking for Tareef Khan. We will burn every home in this valley until we find him.”

  He turned to Hassan. “Light them up.”

  When Pasha was planning the incursion, he’d given considerable thought to the best way to burn a large number of wooden buildings. He wanted something easy to use, portable, and certain to work. His solution was the devices used by the Forest Service to start backfires. They could be used from a distance, weren’t bothered by rain, and always—always—worked.

  The soldiers in the unit formed a line about twenty meters from the hill on which the huts were perched. They each pushed a compact cylindrical cartridge about the size of an American baseball into a gun that looked like a track and field starter’s pistol. A dozen fingers yanked on a dozen triggers, and a dozen incendiary fire starters peppered the huts, landing on porches and flying through windows and doors, even those at the top of the hill.

  The results were immediate. Smoke and flame leaped into the early morning air and danced from one home to another. Several women who’d remained inside bolted through the doors and tried to climb down to safety. A few made it; others fell to their deaths on the rocks at the bottom of the hill.

  Pasha put the megaphone back to his mouth. “Send runners up the mountain.” His voice swamped the cries of agony that came from those still in the huts. “I want Tareef Khan. I will destroy your homes and kill your people until I have him.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  The Birir Valley

  Islamic Republic of Pakistan

  John stared at the young boy standing on the porch. “I was going to tell your parents that you’d fled Islamabad. That you know a dangerous secret. And that I hoped to talk with you.”

  “My father died in Islamabad, and my mother is gone from here.” Tareef’s voice broke. “Leave me alone.” He turned to walk back inside his home.

  John’s heart raced.

  Keep him outside, talking.

  “I’m very sorry, Tareef.” John paused. “I’m here because I received a message from Professor Rahman.”

  Tareef stopped and looked back.

  “The message said that the ISI wished to capture you. That you know the secret of the ancient codex that the professor translated. Please, will you talk with us?”

  “The professor is alive?” Tareef asked.

  “I don’t know, but I don’t think so.”

  Tareef slumped to the porch floor, his back against the front wall of the house, and scrubbed his face with his hands.

  Stony sauntered through the gate in the stone wall surrounding the house and kept moving until she was about halfway to the porch. She sat on the ground. “When did you get home, Tareef?”

  The children who had been gathered around John followed Stony and sat on the ground in a circle around her. The handful of adults drifted back to their homes.

  “ISI soldiers are in Ayun. I slipped past them and climbed up the Birir all night.”

  John gestured for Colonel Liberty and his men to sit in place and started to walk toward Stony when Liberty’s satellite phone chirped. John paused and turned back.

  “You must be very tired,” Stony said. “What happened to your father?”

  The colonel answered the phone with a hushed “What?” He listened for several seconds, his face reddening. He put the phone to his chest and whispered in John’s ear, “We’ve got a big problem. The drones have spotted men in SUVs and black clothes burning homes and moving up the mountain. Lots of dead, including women and kids.”

  “He took me with him to Islamabad,” Tareef said, “to meet with some government men. The ISI took him and put him in jail. They killed him.”

  “Shit!” John said. He turned back to the house, glanced at Stony, then at Tareef. “I have some bad news. The ISI men who are in Ayun? They are attacking the people who live in your valley, burning homes and killing people. They are coming this way.”

  Tareef jumped to his feet. “How can you know this?”

  “We have a way of watching from the sky,” John said.

  “You brought the invisible airplanes with you?” Tareef asked. “The devils that kill from the sky?”

  Of course he’d know about drones, even if we’ve never used them on the Kalash. Everyone in this damn country knows about them.

  “Don’t be afraid,” Stony said. She held her arms out toward Tareef. “We’re your friends and here to help you.”

  Tareef spun around and bolted back into the house. A moment later John heard a distant door slam.

  Stony started to run after him, but John called her back. “Forget it. He must know every nook and cranny in these mountains. No way you’ll be able to find him in the time we have.”

  John looked at Liberty. “How long before the ISI gets here?”

  “Hard to guess. An hour, maybe two.”

  John nodded. “Shit. We can’t just let the Kalash get wiped o
ut. Set up your drone gear.”

  “Hurry,” Stony said. “We take them out, we’ll have longer to find Tareef.”

  John looked at this watch. “Maybe. But we still have to worry about detection and an air attack. If we follow our orders, we have sixty-five minutes.”

  “Since when do we follow fucking orders?”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  The Birir Valley

  Islamic Republic of Pakistan

  Tareef scrambled up the hill behind the house and slipped into the holly oak forest that covered the mountainside.

  Several times while he was trying to get back home from Islamabad, he’d thought about where he’d hide from the ISI if he could just make it into the mountains. His hiding place would work just as well with the Americans.

  He kept climbing, gasping for air, moving as fast as he could without breaking tree branches or stepping on the dried twigs that littered the rocky ground. When he reached the top of the ridge, he turned downhill, following a narrow game trail to a massive rock outcropping.

  Tareef faced the cliff, put his right foot in a shallow depression, and with his right hand grabbed onto a stone protruding above his head. He pulled himself up, planted his left foot in another shallow depression, found a handhold for his left hand, and started moving up the rock face. Fifteen meters above the ground he encountered the branches of a scrawny pine and slipped behind the rough limbs into a shallow cave. He crawled into the hole, turned, and sat back with a smile on his face. This was his favorite hiding space. No one had ever found him here.

  He reached into his pocket and withdrew the piece of paper that Professor Rahman had given him.

  My tribal brother Rahman is dead. General Pasha is killing my people. For the words on this paper. And now the Americans want the words for themselves.

  White-hot fury surged over Tareef. He crumpled the paper, threw it in the corner, and beat his fists bloody on the rocky floor of the cave. He thought about his conversations with Rahman.