by Brad Taylor
* * *
Jennifer was shocked by the story. She thought she might be hearing something that hadn’t ever been said aloud. She looked at Pike, gripping the steering wheel like he was trying to choke it to death, and didn’t know how to respond. She knew that what he’d said wasn’t true. Nobody with those character flaws would do what he just did. Nobody else on God’s green earth would even attempt it, saint or otherwise.
She asked a simple question. “Would you have come for me if your wife was still alive? Would you have attacked that place all by yourself?”
Pike considered the question, reflecting on it for a few moments. “Yes. It’s what I used to do. It’s what I used to be when I believed in a lie. But I’m not that man anymore.”
Jennifer smiled to herself in the darkness. She gave a simple response, not realizing the implications of the words. “Well, I don’t think it was a lie. Welcome back.”
* * *
I’m sure she made the comment simply to break away from the awkward conversation, but it struck a chord deep inside. Back when I was operational, I had a quote from George Orwell hanging inside my Taskforce locker that defined the essence of what I believed I was: People sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would do them harm.
The death of my family had shattered that illusion, leaving me believing my life was nothing more than an act in a play that others directed. I had turned my back on everything I once held as sacrosanct, convinced that I had been used like a puppet because all of the terrorists I had killed had done nothing to prevent the death of all that I held dear.
Even so, deep in my soul, I desperately wanted to believe again. I wanted to feel the faith of my past, to be what I once was. Jennifer’s comment sliced through the pain, opening up a window, albeit small, to the hope beneath. I liked the feeling. Is it really that simple?
I glanced over at her and squeezed her hand, choking out two words that meant far more than she could possibly realize. “You’re welcome.”
44
Passing through a small town, really just a collection of huts spanning the highway, I began to look for a vehicle to trade for our Suburban. I needed one that appeared mechanically sound but was old enough to allow me to carjack it without too much trouble. Something built before all the newfangled computers, laser keys, and complicated steering-wheel locks. On the outskirts of the village I saw a Ford Fiesta parked in the yard of a house that looked like it had been made from flattened beer cans. The car itself was at least twenty years old, dented and patched many times, with a coloring consisting of mottled spray paint covering the original finish like a bad rash. I drove past it a hundred meters and pulled over.
“I’m going back to get that car. You get behind the wheel here. When I start it, I’ll pull out and flash you with the headlights. Let me pass you, then pull in behind me. We’ll go about a mile down the road, then pull over and swap cars.”
“Are you sure you can steal it?”
“Yeah. I’ve done it before. Shouldn’t be too hard.”
I pulled out the little Suburban tool kit from the glove box, consisting of a pair of pliers, a small hammer, and both a Phillips and flathead screwdriver. Leaving the car, I fell into a light jog down the darkened highway to the Fiesta.
* * *
Using the giant side mirror of the suburban, Jennifer watched Pike approach the vehicle and peer through the driver’s side window. She watched him rear back with the hammer, shielding his face from potential flying glass. Saw him shatter the window, only to be met by an ear-splitting alarm. Saw him running back toward her like a scalded dog.
She jammed the SUV into drive and hit the gas as he jumped in. She threw a rooster tail of dirt, fishtailing back onto the highway, weaving left and right. She started laughing uncontrollably, tears in her eyes, fighting to stay on the road.
Pike first looked indignant, moving on to aggravated, and ending with plain angry. “What’re you laughing at? Christ! Watch where the hell you’re going!”
Between hitches of laughter, Jennifer gave a poor impression of Pike’s baritone. “I can rip that car off. Shouldn’t be any trouble.”
Pike shook his head, looking out the window. Jennifer continued to laugh, unable to stop, letting off pent-up emotion. The laughter was genuine but had a little bit of a brittle edge. She finally calmed down enough to look at him. Seeing his annoyance, she tried to mollify him. “Come on. You have to admit that was funny. You looked like a teenager caught in the girlfriend’s bed by her father.”
* * *
I tried hard to maintain my annoyance, but it was a losing battle. Running through what had happened, I broke down with an embarrassed grin.
“Who in the hell puts an alarm on a vehicle like that? Who would steal that piece of shit out here?”
“Maybe there’s a huge market for twenty-year-old American-made cars in Guatemala. Or maybe a lot of commandos come through here after blowing the hell out of Guatemala City and he’s sick of them taking his cars for a getaway.”
“Okay, okay. Let’s find another car.”
“Are you sure? Maybe we should stick with the Suburban while we’re ahead. I’m not saying you can’t do it. If you say you can, then I’m sure you can. I just don’t want you to be forced to kill half the village to prove it.”
She looked at me mischievously. “I’ll bet you never ask anyone for directions, either, huh?”
She saw me grimace and said, “I’m just teasing. We’ll do whatever you think we need to.”
“We need it, and I won’t kill anyone to get it. I have done this before. Trust me.”
She lightly touched my arm. “I do trust you.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I was completely unused to being on the receiving end of someone’s trust, and it did nothing but embarrass me. Before the silence could grow uncomfortable, I saw a Chevy Cutlass ahead on the left side of the road, circa 1984.
“All right, mission number two. Same plan. This time, if an alarm goes off, wait for me to get inside the vehicle before you act like Dale Earnhardt, okay?”
“You got it. You want me to honk when we pass it? See if I can save us some time with the alarm?”
Man, she’s got some balls.
“Please just pull up a hundred meters.”
I exited the vehicle and cautiously moved up to the Cutlass. The doors were unlocked. This was more like what I expected from the back-woods of Guatemala. Opening the door, I sat down behind the wheel. I took out the hammer and began smashing at the base of the turn indicator on the left side of the steering wheel stalk, attempting to get at the mechanism underneath the sheath of alloy steel. I opened up the steering column, with the cheap alloy coming off in quarter-inch flakes. I jammed a screwdriver into the mechanism usually rotated by the key and yanked backward. The car sputtered, coughed, finally catching itself as it warmed up. Satisfied that the vehicle would run, I took the wheel and began forcefully yanking it left and right, breaking the lock holding the steering wheel in place.
I hit the lights to warn Jennifer I was on the way, pulled onto the deserted highway and picked her up, and transferred the weapons and assault kit to the Cutlass. Within seconds we were back on the road to Puerto Barrios, leaving the Suburban abandoned on the side of the road.
* * *
Jennifer spent the next couple of hours staring out the window, savoring the fact that she was still among the living. She couldn’t control the thoughts and images flying through her head — her kidnapping, how close she was to being violently gang-raped by a bunch of savages, the vivid punishment Pike had brought to those same savages, the murder of her uncle — all competing for attention in her conscious mind. She turned on the radio of the Cutlass, looking for an outside diversion. She got nothing but static or Spanish music. That figures. What I wouldn’t give for an iPod right now. Wait a minute…
“Hey, you still have my MP3 player? I’d like to use it if it’
s handy.”
She saw Pike look out the window and waited for him to answer. After a few seconds, she thought maybe she’d said something wrong, but couldn’t figure out why.
He finally said, “I don’t have it. I’ll buy you a new one.”
“Huh? Where is it?
“Man, who gives a shit about the MP3 player? In the end, it didn’t matter what was on that thing. I said I’ll buy you a new one, for Christ’s sake.”
“You don’t have it? Seriously? What happened to it? Did you sell it or something?”
Pike sighed. “I was mugged, okay? It was stolen. I don’t want to talk about it.”
What? That’s absolute bullshit… There’s another story here. She waited to hear it. After a moment of silence, she said, “Really? Are you telling the truth? You got mugged?”
“More like an attempted mugging. A couple of Arabs attacked me at the central market. Probably trying to get enough money to pay for some flight lessons. I chased them off pretty quickly, and they didn’t get my wallet or watch or anything else valuable. All they got was the MP3 player. Let it go. I’m pissed off enough.”
Jennifer started to ask another question, then thought better of it. “Hey, I don’t care. I wasn’t trying to get you mad. Let’s drop it.”
A lost thought tickled the back of her brain. Something about the theft of the MP3 that she wanted to follow up on, but hadn’t. Like a person who just set her keys down and now can’t find them, it tugged at her subconscious, an itch begging to be scratched.
45
Exiting the bus in Flores, Sayyidd was anxious to start looking for the temple. After checking in, he set about cataloging the belongings that Bakr had packed. He began to search at a faster past, clearly upset about something.
Bakr said, “What’s wrong? What’re you looking for?”
“I’m missing a shirt and a pair of American workout pants. Didn’t you pack them?”
“I didn’t have time to search the entire room. I took what was in front of me. I didn’t see any other clothes, but they might’ve been there. I myself couldn’t find my sandals. Don’t worry about your Western disguises. We can replace them.”
Sayyidd debated telling Bakr why he was concerned. In the end, Allah would either protect them or not. Did it matter whether he said anything? Insha’Allah guided his life. If God wasn’t willing, then He wasn’t willing. Nothing Sayyidd could do would alter that. Even so, it wasn’t in his nature to hide things.
“I understand that I can purchase more clothing, but there’s something in the shirt that we’ll need. I had a scrap of paper in the pocket with the emergency e-mail addresses on it.”
Abu Bakr’s face contorted in anger.
“You wrote down the e-mail addresses? What were you thinking?”
“I know — it was stupid, but we aren’t in the Land of Two Rivers, and nobody is actively hunting us. I did memorize them, but this mission was too important to rely on memory. I knew we wouldn’t have the opportunity to conduct a meeting if we forgot them. They were our lifeline! Either way, didn’t you say everyone was dead at Miguel’s? It shouldn’t matter. Allah has guided us to this point, and He will still guide us.”
“You’re proving to be an idiot. One of the dumb little neophytes who believe everything told them, driving a truck full of TNT because they’re told they’re delivering groceries. They make good martyrs but are not of Allah’s chosen. Allah guides those who show they are worthy, not those who spit on his favor. Please tell me you didn’t have the passwords with them.”
Sayyidd couldn’t bring himself to tell the truth. He thought Bakr was acting like an old woman, afraid of his own shadow, but didn’t want to cause him to question the mission. He didn’t believe he had the strength or courage to succeed by himself. Years ago, before giving himself to the jihad, he might have been up to the task, but his experiences in Iraq had paradoxically given him an Achilles’ heel — his complete trust in Allah had left him with no faith in himself. He longed to be like men such as Bakr, but in his heart knew he wasn’t. He held a secret shame that tore at the fabric of his being, an individual weakness that corroded the essence of his capability: He didn’t believe he had the courage to be a shahid.
A suicide bomber’s detonator wasn’t pressed by Allah. It was pressed by the man wearing the bomb. A man who executed Allah’s will by his own action. A man like Bakr. Deep inside, Sayyidd questioned whether he had that same strength, afraid of the answer he would find when put to the test. He told Bakr a small white lie to protect the larger one festering in his soul.
“Of course I didn’t keep the addresses with the passwords. I’m not that stupid. They’re just e-mail addresses. They won’t mean anything to anyone at Miguel’s estate. Even if someone goes to them, they’ll get nothing.”
Bakr appeared to be mollified and let it go.
“We need to figure out how we’re going to get to the temple and package the weapon. From Eduardo’s description, it sounded like anthrax or ricin, only it acts instantly. Judging by the way Eduardo described the victim’s distress, I’m almost positive it must be drawn into the respiratory tract and doesn’t act on contact with the skin. Since it’s not made by modern man, it should have particles large enough to be filtered by the 3M masks we brought.”
Sayyidd had some training on WMD, but very little. Bakr had specialized in them at training camps in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon, and thus Sayyidd deferred to him.
“If you say so.”
Bakr smiled at Sayyidd’s trusting ways. “I said I believe it must get into the respiratory tract, but I’m not sure. It could just as easily be some sort of nerve toxin that kills on contact. Are you willing to risk that?”
“If it’s Allah’s will that we die, then we die. I don’t believe He would get us this far only to kill us deep in the jungle. I’m willing to risk it. Are you having second thoughts?”
Bakr internally cringed. Sayyidd’s blind faith left him wondering how Sayyidd had lived for three days in Iraq, much less three years.
“No. This path isn’t any more dangerous than what I’ve done in the past. I believe I’m correct. We should be protected.”
Sayyidd pulled out the GPS.
“It looks like the temple’s only twenty kilometers from here. We should be able to rent a four-wheel drive and get within ten kilometers before traveling on foot. If all goes well, we should have the weapon within a day. The only thing we’re missing is food for the trip.”
“We need more than simply food,” Bakr said. “We need to purchase some equipment that will allow me to decontaminate whatever we find. Start thinking about what we’re trying to do. We aren’t going out to pick flowers. You don’t follow my instructions exactly, we’ll both be killed.”
46
I woke early the next morning, while it was still dark. I was disoriented for a minute before remembering where I was. I snapped completely awake. I hadn’t thought I was in my own bed, at my old house. I hadn’t thought my family was still alive. I had no split second of happiness. I also had no gut-wrenching letdown. I’ve lost my happiness. I wasn’t sure what to make of the trade-off. I didn’t want to lose Heather, and that split second was all I had left.
I lay in bed thinking about the shift that had just occurred. Before I could get too melancholy, the last twenty-four hours of my life came back with a vengeance. I thought about the absolute insanity of what I had done, and the fact that I was still walking. It made no sense to me. How I had been allowed to live when I had practically begged God to kill me in the maelstrom of Machete’s compound? Why had my family been taken when they’d done nothing more than go about their daily lives? It wasn’t fair. I should be dead. I looked over at the other bed, watching Jennifer snoring softly. We should both be dead. I watched her roll over and felt a weird twinge, an unfamiliar pang. Maybe it’s payback for Heather.
Dawn was starting to break. I slipped silently out of bed and went to our small bathroom. I splashed water on my face and
stared in the mirror for a half minute. Well, I’m up now. What to do?
I went to the door and looked at Jennifer’s slumbering form again. The twinge came back, making me feel uncomfortable. Making me think about Heather. Like a magnet repulsed, I wanted out of the room, away from the feeling. I went through the sliding door to our little outside courtyard, watching the sun break the horizon.
I sat down, enjoying the view for no other reason than it allowed me to focus on something else. I lost track of time and was startled out of my reverie by the sliding glass door opening. Jennifer came out, still dressed in the long-sleeved cotton shirt and sweatpants. She’d cleaned up the blood but still looked pretty ragged.
“How’re you feeling?” I said.
“Better than I would have been, I’m sure.”
She stood there for a moment, then said, “I’ve got something I want to talk to you about.”
“Okay…”
She said nothing, clearly wrestling with the issue in her mind.
“Well? You have to speak if you want to talk to me.”
She hesitated a second more, then said, “I think something bigger is going on than just us running from El Machete. I meant to bring it up last night on the drive, but it slipped my mind.”
I walked to the door of our room. “What do you mean?”
She said, “Uh, well, how do you know that Arabs took the MP3 player?”
Please. Not this again. She must have really loved that thing. “I thought we were dropping that. I’ll buy you a new one.”
“No, no. It’s not that. I just think that something’s going on. I don’t want you to think I’m crazy, and maybe it’s nothing.”
I shrugged. “I heard them talking. They spoke Arabic. No doubt in my mind. Now, what’s the big secret?”
Jennifer hesitated, like she was embarrassed to say what was on her mind.
