He opened his eyes to see two men looking curiously at him. He scrambled up, keeping his back to the pylon. He had a knife in his bag, a cheap switchblade that had once been his dad’s.
But the men didn’t seem threatening. They were much older than he was, and their faces were weary. One was the thinnest man Jordan had ever seen. The other was fat and held a bottle of Red Star. As Jordan looked at him, he sat down slowly. Jordan couldn’t tell if he had meant to sit or just given up on standing.
‘So you’ve found the Hotel Guangzhou,’ the thin man said. He laughed, a rasping laugh that became a hacking cough that shook his body. Jordan’s mother had coughed that way a few months before she died. When the cough stopped, the man pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He put one in his mouth. ‘Want a cigarette, boy?’
‘I don’t smoke.’
‘May as well start. You’ll die faster. Less time to suffer.’ The man laughed and tossed him the pack and the lighter. Jordan looked at the cigarettes. Basketball players didn’t smoke, he was sure.
‘Try one,’ the man said. ‘You’ll feel less hungry.’
At that, Jordan put the cigarette to his lips. His hand trembled as he lit it. The sour smoke filled his mouth and he coughed.
‘Easy, boy. A little at a time to start.’
Jordan took a small puff and choked the smoke into his lungs. His brain seemed to come alive. The feeling wasn’t entirely pleasant, but he hadn’t felt so awake in weeks. He took a longer drag.
‘Not so much, boy, or you’ll regret it.’
Too late. Nausea filled him. He slumped against the pylon. But he held on to the cigarette, and when the feeling passed he took another, more tentative puff. This time he felt better. And the man was right. His hunger was gone. ‘It works.’
The thin man rubbed his hands together. ‘Yu, I’ve gotten him hooked. My good deed for the day.’ He laughed his awful hacking laugh. A moment later, Yu giggled drunkenly back, a high-pitched sound that didn’t fit his heavy body.
The thin man sat beside Jordan, who flinched. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’m not one of those. My name’s Song. What’s yours?’
‘Jiang,’ Jordan said.
‘Where do you come from, Jiang?’
‘Sichuan Province. I came here to work.’
‘Of course you did. If only you’d come last year, or the year before that – Well, anyway.’ Song braced a hand on the ground and stood, slowly unfolding his skinny limbs. Watching him made Jordan smile. Song moved like a puppet whose strings had gotten tangled.
‘Do you like basketball?’ Jordan said. He suddenly very much wanted Song to stay and talk. The skinny old man was the first person who’d treated him with any kindness in months.
‘Sure. Why?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘If you like, we can look for work together tomorrow,’ Song said. ‘We may not find any, but at least Yu and I can show you the city. You see what a success we’ve made here.’ He kicked ineffectually at Yu, who lay on his side with his eyes closed. ‘Don’t you want your blanket, fat pig?’ But Yu simply rolled away.
‘Good night, Jiang.’
‘Good night, Master Song.’
And Song laughed again, so hard that he had to lean against a concrete pylon to stay upright. ‘Master . . . master . . .’
Jordan closed his eyes and listened to Song’s hacking. Life had to get better, he thought. It could hardly get worse. He sipped his bottle of Red Star until sleep took him. And as he finally drifted off, he had no way of imagining that soon enough he would provoke a crisis whose repercussions would echo around the world.
SEVENTEEN
THE FLASHLIGHT FLICKED off and in the dark the shots ricocheted past Wells like a jackhammer gone mad. Wells pressed his head down, brushing his lips against the stone and dirt, as shards of rock rained down on him.
The pace of firing slowed and Wells lifted his head. ‘Stop!’ he yelled in his perfect Arabic. ‘Stop! It’s Mohammed! Don’t shoot!’
Silence. Then another fusillade of shots. For now the darkness and the tunnel were protecting him, making it hard for the Russians to get a bead on him. Only his head and shoulders were visible, making him a very narrow target. They would need a perfect lucky shot to get him. But if they kept shooting from twenty yards out, they’d get that shot eventually. Or they might roll a grenade his way – though blowing up the tunnel would block their only sure escape route.
The shooting stopped. ‘Mohammed?’ a man shouted.
‘Mohammed, brother of Ahmed.’
‘Brother of Ahmed?’ The Arabic was rusty, Russian-accented.
‘Brother of Ahmed!’ Wells yelled. He only needed to distract them for a few seconds. ‘I know these tunnels. I can save us.’ Wells braced his right hand, the one holding his Makarov, against the tunnel. A surge of pain ripped through his damaged shoulder and he gritted his teeth.
With his left hand, Wells reached for his flash-bang grenades. He still intended to take at least one of these men alive. He unhooked the flash-bangs and wriggled his left arm forward until the grenades were in front of him. He braced his right hand, the one holding the Makarov, against the side of the tunnel.
‘Yes, my Russian brothers. I know these tunnels. The path to the left leads –’
‘Wait – speak slowly –’ the man at the other end called in his broken Arabic.
‘Topko ubeyte ego!’ the second man yelled.
Wells had heard enough Russian during his days in Chechnya to know what that meant. Just kill him. ‘Grenade,’ the man added, a word that needed no translation.
‘Nyet,’ the other man said. Wells relaxed a little. Nyet on the grenade, da on the flashlight, which would make an excellent target.
He chattered in Arabic down the tunnel. ‘You must know Ahmed. He wears his robe loose but his shorts tight. Men love him, though sheep fear him –’ For the second time in an hour, the thrill of combat filled Wells. Crackheads must feel this elation when they put flame to pipe. Zeus. I am Zeus.
‘Topko ubeyte ego,’ the man said again. The unmistakable click of a magazine being jammed into an AK-47 echoed down the tunnel.
At the end of the tunnel, the flashlight clicked on. This time the Russians wouldn’t fire blindly. They started shooting in short bursts. A rock fragment cut Wells’s cheek, under his eye, and blood flowed warm down his face.
But now Wells could aim too. He squeezed off two shots from the Makarov. He heard a yelp in Russian and the flashlight dropped to the ground. Now they might be desperate enough to send a grenade at him. Before they could, he tumbled the flash-bangs down the tunnel. As the grenades rolled away, he buried his head in his hands, closed his eyes, and counted to himself like a kid playing touch football at recess: ‘One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Missi –’
The name flash-bang didn’t begin to do justice to these grenades. Through his squeezed-tight eyelids, Wells saw a pure white light. The noise from the explosions was louder than anything he had ever heard, something more than sound. A shock wave pummeled his ears. He knew he wasn’t moving, couldn’t be inside the narrow tunnel, yet he seemed to be spinning in two directions at once. The men howled in Russian, their voices barely audible over the noise in Wells’s head.
Wells opened his eyes and breathed in deeply. The heavy thermite smell of the grenades brought him back to reality. He needed to move fast, before the Russians regained their bearings. On hands and knees, Wells crawled forward in the dark. The tunnel spun around him. He concentrated on the blood flowing down his cheek and didn’t stop moving. His stomach tightened and a surge of nausea overcame him. Before he could hold back, Gatorade and soda crackers burned his throat and poured out of his mouth. He ate lightly before missions and this was why.
Wells grabbed the side of the tunnel. Somehow he kept moving, pumping his legs forward. Hours passed, or seconds, and then the walls opened up around him. He lost his balance and fell, landing on one of the Russians. The man was tw
isting sideways, moaning, hands wrapped around his ears. The grenades had blown out his eardrums, Wells thought. The man grabbed feebly at him, but Wells jammed the Makarov into his mouth and pulled the trigger. The Russian’s arm trembled and fell, a last hopeless flutter.
Wells rolled off the corpse and waited, listening in the dark. He was guessing that the man he’d killed had taken the worst of the flash-bangs. The second one might be able to move, or at least to crawl. He waited, listened, and –
There.
In the blackness, Wells heard the Russian’s breath, as close and quiet as a seashell in his ear, no more than ten feet away. Where? Wells couldn’t turn on his flashlight without giving away his own position. The Russian must have the same dilemma. Wells crab-scuttled left, silently, silently, his back to the wall of the cave, holding the Makarov in his right hand.
Step. Step.
Then a burst of AK fire.
But Wells was untouched. The Russian was hitting only the corpse of his partner. Wells threw himself off the cavern wall. The Russian spun toward him, but Wells knocked the barrel of his rifle up and away. With a low arcing kick, he swept the other man’s legs out. The Russian fell back, landing hard. Wells jumped him, and with a knee astride his chest landed a clean left to his chin and another to his nose. The fight went out of the Russian fast. As Wells punched him a third and fourth and fifth time, he hardly resisted. Wells didn’t know if he was disoriented or just resigned to his fate.
Wells flipped the Russian onto his stomach and looped flexcuffs – the temporary plastic handcuffs that police sometimes used in place of regular metal cuffs – tight around the man’s wrists and ankles. Then he snapped open a yellow glowstick.
The cavern was small, no more than eight feet high and twenty-five feet around. On one wall, a guerrilla had spray-painted the Arabic phrase ‘Allahu akbar’ – God is great – in black on the grayish-green stone. Small stalactites hung from the ceiling. The walls and floor bulged as if the mountain were laced with tumors.
Three rusty oil drums sat near the far wall, next to a child-sized BMX bicycle. Bizarre. Maybe the guerrillas had been practicing a circus act in their downtime. Aside from those odd relics, the cavern seemed empty. Beside the oil drums two passages led deeper into the mountain. They were just three feet high, narrower than the tunnel that connected the cave with the surface. Wells understood why the Russians had hesitated to take them. If they dead-ended, they’d be little more than traps.
Wells tossed the glowstick aside. ‘Speak English?’ he said to the Russian.
‘Sure.’
‘Is anyone else here?’
The man spat on the ground. ‘See anyone?’
‘If I do, I’ll kill you first. Understand?’
‘I understand. No, we are alone.’
Wells drew his knife. The Russian’s eyes widened. He rolled onto his back and tried to squirm away. ‘I just want to be sure you’re not hiding anything,’ Wells said. He put a knee on the Russian’s chest and slashed at the man’s sweater and T-shirt, pulling them off. Then he hacked away the man’s camouflage pants until the Russian was naked except for ill-fitting cotton briefs. But the guy didn’t seem to have any extra weapons. A surprise. Every decent commando carried an extra knife, just in case.
‘Now the boots.’ Wells sliced at the man’s boots. The Russian kicked wildly.
‘Boots? Nyet. My feet.’
‘Nyet?’ Wells turned the Russian onto his stomach, grabbed the man’s little fingers, and pulled them sideways until he could feel the tendons about to snap. ‘Nyet nyet, Vladimir. If I didn’t need you, I’d leave you down here for the spiders. Got it?’
‘Okay, okay.’
Wells wondered if he’d meant his threat. He’d killed many men, but never an unarmed prisoner. In New York, he’d spared the life of a Saudi terrorist he’d captured. Treating captives with decency was one way the United States separated itself from its enemies. At least it had been once. Now America seemed to have lost its moorings. Wells wondered if he had too.
Wells flipped the Russian on his back and sliced into the black leather of his boots. He tore them off. The stench of the Russian’s feet filled the cavern. ‘Time for a bath, Vladimir.’
‘I told you leave them on.’
Wells peeled down the man’s socks. As he did, a sharp metal point, warm with body heat, pricked his left palm. A knife was taped to the back of the man’s right leg.
Wells stepped on the Russian’s chest, leaned in with his steel-toed boots until he felt the man’s sternum compress. A slow groan escaped the prisoner’s lips. Wells lifted the Russian’s leg and ripped off the knife. The tape tore, taking a chunk of skin with it. ‘Now you’re ready for beach season, Vlad.’
‘Name is Sergei.’
‘Congratulations.’ Wells tossed the knife into the darkness. He ran his flashlight over the Russian, looking for other hidden knives or guns, but saw nothing.
‘Any other surprises?’
The Russian said nothing.
‘I’ll take that as a no.’ Wells cut open the flexcuffs binding the Russian’s feet but left his hands tight. ‘Now. You’re going in there.’ Wells pointed to the tunnel that led to the surface. ‘When you’re in, I’ll cut your hands free so you can drag your ass out of this cave. Understand?’
‘What about you?’
‘I’ll be right behind you. Please be smart. I’m guessing getting shot in the colon is an unpleasant way to die.’
‘Colon? I don’t understand.’
Wells grabbed the Russian’s arms and dragged him toward the entrance to the tunnel. Allowing the prisoner to lead was dangerous, Wells knew. If he had to kill the man in the narrowest part of the tunnel, he might end up stuck behind the corpse. But if he led, he risked the Russian’s jumping him from behind. This way he could easily watch the man. Anyway, he didn’t think this guy wanted to die underground.
At the entrance to the passage, Wells flicked on his headlamp and pushed the Russian to the floor of the cavern. ‘Lift your arms behind your back.’ The Russian obeyed.
Wells put a knee on the man’s back. With his left hand, Wells pressed the man’s head down. With his right, he cut the cuffs. This was the moment of maximum danger, the last chance for the prisoner to lock him up in hand-to-hand combat. When the Russian’s hands were free, Wells stepped back.
‘Now crawl.’
‘Naked?’ His accent lengthened the word – naaaked – so it sounded vaguely pornographic.
Wells kicked him in the ribs. ‘Not my problem. Anyway, you’re not naked. Crawl.’
Twenty minutes later, Wells saw the dim light of the entrance. The Russian hadn’t tried anything. As the tunnel widened out, Wells flexcuffed his hands and legs again and dragged him out.
A flashlight stunned his eyes.
‘Halt!’ Gaffan yelled.
‘It’s Wells. Got a hostile with me.’
‘Yessir. Step slowly, now.’ Wells stepped forward. ‘You okay? You’ve got blood all over you.’ Wells had forgotten the cut on his cheek. ‘Nothing, Sergeant. Looks worse than it is.’
The ground shook with the rumble of a fighter jet. Gaffan quickly filled Wells in. While he was underground, the Special Forces had gotten air support in the form of a pair of F-16s from Bagram. ‘Those Air Force boys don’t like flying in the mountains at night, but once we told ’em we could lose two squads if they didn’t get off their asses, they came through all right.’
Because of the tightness of the terrain and the fact that the Special Forces were so close to the Talibs, the jets hadn’t eliminated all the enemy positions. But their presence had given the Americans a chance to regroup. Now the SF had killed at least a dozen Talibs. The rest were trying to escape into the caves or down the mountain. Still, this fight had been anything but a cakewalk. The Special Forces had taken three dead and three more seriously wounded, including Hackett, who probably wouldn’t last the night.
‘We shoulda come in with another squad,’ Gaffan sa
id. He looked at the prisoner, who sat hog-tied against the side of the mountain. ‘So who’s he?’
‘Good question.’ Wells nudged the Russian. ‘Who are you?’ The prisoner strained against the flexcuffs.
‘Take these off and I will show you who I am.’
‘He went soft in the cave and it looks like he’s not too happy about it,’ Wells said. ‘All I know is his name isn’t Vladimir. It’s Sergei. Who are you, Sergei? Tell us about yourself.’
Part 3
EIGHTEEN
THE STEWPOT BUBBLED and burped above a low fire, filling the hut with the rich aroma of chicken and carrots and potatoes melting together. Jordan reached for the pot, but his mother swiped his arm away. No, she said. First your father eats. She sat above him on a wooden throne, reaching an impossibly long arm down to stir the pot. Saliva filled Jordan’s mouth and the hole in his stomach swelled to the size of a basketball. He looked around but didn’t see his father.
A scoop, its thin aluminum handle twisted from years of use, lay by the pot. Jordan grabbed it. Wait, his mother said. He’s come back. He’s right behind you. Jordan turned and saw his father, a blush of purple tumors crawling across his face. The old man reached out with a skeletal hand. And though he knew he shouldn’t, Jordan wanted to keep this wrecked, dying man from dirtying the stew. He blocked his father from the pot and reached in with the scoop. But the pot was empty, aside from a tiny chicken wing. As Jordan watched, the wing fluttered out of the pot, a final insult.
‘No,’ he said aloud.
Jordan opened his eyes and looked around. The stew – along with his poor dead parents – vanished as he woke. Nothing had changed. On the concrete highway above him, trucks rumbled. The morning air was hot and humid. Song and Yu slept under a thin woolen blanket, Yu clutching an empty bottle of Red Star.
The stew was gone, but Jordan’s hunger stayed with him as he pushed himself to his feet. Nothing metaphorical about this feeling. Jordan didn’t want love or hugs or a pony. He wanted food. All day, every day, his stomach ached.
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