by Jay Brandon
Jack walked across a painted concrete floor. There were about a dozen people in the room, scattered among all those tables, some of them sitting alone, only two or three paying apparent attention to the singer. Jack sat at a table by the wall, near one of the sconces. There was no menu and no waiter appeared. Some of those people at the tables had cups sitting in front of them, but they might have brought their own. Jack sat quietly for five minutes, soaking up atmosphere, and finally walked over to a counter at the side of the room opposite the singer. He tapped his fingers quietly on the countertop, and suddenly a man popped up, a rotund man wearing an apron, who appeared old at first in the dimness but then revealed himself to be no older than Jack. The young man had a round face divided by a thin black moustache, and wide eyes that gaped blankly at Jack for a long moment.
“Coffee?” Jack said. “Or maybe a brandy?”
The man stared as if he didn’t understand, then suddenly said, “I’ll bring it to your table.”
Jack walked slowly back. No one seemed to have looked at him. This place seemed to be a sort of European opium den, each person sunk into his or her own concerns, including even the singer, who stared upward and made no eye contact with her audience.
In a minute the man from behind the counter arrived at Jack’s table bringing both a coffee cup and a brandy snifter, which Jack actually sniffed as it was set in front of him. The waiter remained standing, staring down at Jack.
“Welcome to Erenray’s, señor.”
Jack smiled to himself.
The waiter didn’t leave. “We don’t often have Americans in here,” he said, in an accent that was hard to place. Certainly not Spanish, as his greeting had implied.
Jack glanced around. “I’ll recommend it to my friends when I get back home.” He pushed the other chair out with his foot. “Why don’t you sit down, make me feel welcome.”
The waiter declined, but did lean forward over the chair back so their conversation was a little more intimate. “Things are going very badly for your country,” the waiter said, in a completely neutral voice that expressed neither sympathy nor satisfaction.
Jack nodded. “But I think they will get worse before they get better.”
The waiter frowned. “How can they get worse?”
Jack spoke as if viewing a scene. “Rallies celebrating American withdrawals from various places in the world, turning into anti-American riots. Counter-demonstrators. But then, who knows what will be left in place once America withdraws?”
“You have some idea?” the waiter said.
Jack nodded. “A worldwide terrorist network that has succeeded in pushing America out of the world. Then what? Will they just disband? Go back to their homes and children and tend their orchards? What will come after the pax Americana?”
Jack didn’t answer any of his own questions, just sat there musing like a young doctoral candidate in history talking about the thirteenth century. The waiter looked down at him with troubled eyes.
Jack stood up, but before he exited said one more thing: “Have you seen me in here recently?”
The waiter’s look of puzzlement was answer enough. Jack moved carefully away from the table, having touched neither of his drinks. As he walked he suddenly felt observed, though no one in the café seemed to be looking at him. He stopped for a moment, then changed direction. Stopping at the next occupied table, he spoke briefly to the two men sitting there. They answered back, looking at him curiously. Jack did the same thing at the next table, and the next. At one table he simply rapped his knuckles on the tabletop in a complicated little riff. The woman there looked up at him and nodded, which was nice. Jack smiled.
Before he stepped back outside he turned to look at the singer as well, giving her a long, significant look. She lowered her eyes from the ceiling and looked back. Then Jack turned quickly and went outside.
The nighttime city street seemed different just from the short time he’d been inside, as if a major building on the block had been razed and replaced. The streetlight flickered, and the buildings shimmered like a stage set. Jack looked left and right, saw no one and no cars in either direction, and walked straight across the street. Over there he turned left, back toward his hotel, and walked quickly, shoulders back and arms swinging like a tourist out for a hike. He kept up that pace for a block, which brought him to a shopping district, where the shops had awnings and wide picture windows. Jack slowed as if window shopping. He didn’t hear anything, but still had that feeling of being watched. He walked along idly for a moment, then darted around the next corner.
That set off noises. Footsteps came running. Moments after Jack rounded the corner, two men jumped around the same corner from the direction he’d come. One of the men was short and heavy, with very broad shoulders. The other was taller and thin, with hair long enough to sway as he ran. They came to a stop together and stared down the empty street. “Which way?” the shorter one asked in French, and the other answered in a strangely-accented English, “That doorway. Look.”
There was a deeply-recessed doorway just past the shop under whose awning they stood. The bulky Frenchman jumped with surprising speed toward the doorway, drawing a gun as he did so. He waved it in a small half-circle, stepping all the way into the recessed doorway, and saw nothing but a door, plain and nondescript like a service entrance. The man turned and said one negative syllable to his companion.
“Maybe he picked the lock,” the taller man said. He continued to speak English, but in an odd accent, one difficult to place. As his companion bent to examine the door’s lock and knob, the taller man lit a cigarette and stared around the silent block thoughtfully.
Above him, Jack lay stretched in the awning. He had swung himself up into it as soon as he’d rounded the corner. It was a scary hiding place because his body weight made the awning sag, and if it began to tear or he otherwise gave himself away he would be helpless. There was nowhere to go from here.
But it made a good observation post, and that was what he’d wanted, just to check out who might be following him. He’d half-thought he knew the answer, and he was right. He looked down at the thin man with the longish hair as the man lit his cigarette and Jack got a good look at his face. He recognized it.
It was Jack’s face.
CHAPTER 6
Major Everett Sloane in his desert camo fatigues took the call standing up, as if he was in the presence of his commanding officer, who was actually three hundred miles away. Sloane had the call on his speaker phone so the handful of other people in the room could hear the call.
“Your withdrawal is proceeding a little slowly,” came the voice of General Barker over the speaker. “I was hoping for more efficiency from you, Everett.”
“Things are proceeding very efficiently here, General. But we’re not withdrawing.”
A long silence was followed by the single word, “What?”
“General, I’m standing in a base in Southern Afghanistan which is situated between the Sunni and Shi’ite sections. And we’re not fighting. Neither are they. This is neutral ground. In the last year I have brought these sides together. I have eaten in their homes, attended their funerals. Most days I don’t even wear a uniform. This base is more Switzerland than the headquarters of an occupying force, General. We have had breakthroughs—”
“That’s great, Everett, and I’m sure you deserve to get written up in Newsweek as well as a couple of commendations, but you have different orders now.”
“Yes, General, I know. That’s why I’ve decided to resign my commission. I’ll stay on here in a civilian capacity. Leaders of both factions have asked me to do so.”
Another long silence sounded more hostile than the last. Major Sloane could imagine General Barker chewing on a cigar as he snapped out the next response: “Abandoning your post in wartime is an act of treason, Major.”
“I’d say it’s my post that’s abandoning me, General. And I’d be happy to debate the definition of treason with you anywhere, includi
ng in a court martial.”
Barker sounded like a man with no more time for this minor nuisance, though Major Sloane thought otherwise. He knew the commanding general of the American forces in Afghanistan had had similar problems with other battalion commanders in other parts of the country. He continued in a more placating tone, “General, we are right on the verge here. These people are talking to each other civilly, which they have never done in their history. Never. We haven’t had a bombing or shooting in a month, and none committed by locals in six months, I believe. The only insurgents are those coming in from outside, and some of the locals are even helping us deal with them. Given six more months…”
“You don’t have six more months,” Barker snapped over the speaker phone. “You don’t have six more hours. You’re relieved, Major. Your replacement will be—”
“Any replacement won’t get much cooperation here,” another man in the room suddenly said, stepping forward from the wall. He did stand at attention.
“Who said that?” yelled General Barker. The others, who had seen Barker in the past, could picture him standing at his desk, cords standing out on his neck as he screamed into the phone.
Major Sloane tried to wave the man who had just spoken to silence, but the enlisted man ignored him. “Chief Master Sergeant George Lehane, General. I’ve already put in for retirement, and I’m overdue for it. I think I’ll hang on here and help the major out. So will about two-thirds of my men, I think.”
“You don’t have that many men due for retirement. Not remotely.”
“Then they’ll desert, General. I’m quite sure of it.”
The longest silence of all made both men wonder if General Barker had just had a stroke. When his voice resumed it was very low and bitter. “You’ll be hunted down like criminals.”
“Who’ll do the huntin’, General?” the master sergeant asked. “Since all the American forces are runnin’ home with their tails between their legs? Sounds like all any criminal has to do is get beyond our borders and he’s home free. Besides, you ain’t got nobody—”
The major jumped in then. “I think that would be a very bad idea, General, if you don’t mind some advice. Do you really want to see American forces fighting each other on CNN?”
“I think we can keep those idiots out of this,” General Barker snapped. “They’re all too scared to venture out of the Green Zone for more than—”
Another man in the room in Fallujah cleared his throat. “May I quote you on that, General? And do you mean all war correspondents, including the one hundred and forty who have been casualties of this conflict, or were you speaking of my network in particular?”
A short silence made them think the line had been cut. Then Barker asked quietly, “Who is that, Major?”
The man in civilian fatigues answered. “Matthew Esquivel, General. CNN. I’ve been imbedded with this unit for eight months now. I’m surprised you haven’t seen any of my stories.”
General Barker’s voice ignored him and spoke directly to his subordinate. “Everett, this has been a deliberate trap for a superior officer. Insubordination of the worst kind. I’m recommending your demotion as well as removal.”
“Yes sir.”
“That is all for now.”
“Yes sir.”
A loud click ended the call. The half dozen people in the room looked at each other. The chief master sergeant was grinning. “I believe that was orders for us to carry on,” said the major.
“Yes sir,” snapped out everyone in the room, including, with a broad smile, the CNN correspondent.
They all left the room, leaving Major Sloane looking grim, thinking he had to start watching his back again.
Hanging in the awning three feet over the heads of his pursuers, Jack felt his weight shift, though he hadn’t twitched a muscle. The awning sagged an inch lower. The Jack lookalike below him, now holding a gun like his partner, looked around alertly. Jack turned his neck ever so slowly and saw that the awning had begun to tear, next to the metal strut that held it. As he watched, the rip lengthened to six inches. He tried to distribute his weight more evenly, but that only stopped the rip for a second.
“Got it!” the burly thug said in French. And he pulled open the door in the recessed doorway and started inside.
Several things happened at once: An alarm sounded, a shrill clanging in the dead night. The awning ripped completely, dropping Jack toward the ground. His lookalike below him looked up. The burly thug froze just inside the doorway.
And Jack swung down, holding the horizontal metal support, kicking his double in the shoulders and knocking him into the doorway, pushing the door closed and trapping his partner inside.
The Jack lookalike was momentarily stunned, dropping his gun. Jack fell to the ground in a crouch and lunged toward the gun. But his double alertly kicked it to the side, and before Jack could grope for it again there was the sound of gunfire as the thug inside tried to shoot his way out through the wooden door. Both Jack and his double ducked aside as bullets flew past them. Jack turned and ran. His double took a few seconds and found his gun. Jack was running full out down the street by then, when gunfire started up again. In an idle part of his mind, the tiny part that wasn’t scared to death, he noted the effect of gunshots being aimed at a person, which was much more unnerving than any video game had ever depicted. It caused panic to fly in all directions, making him want simultaneously to burrow into the ground, keep running, and fall to his knees whimpering for mercy.
He kept running, just out of momentum, darting out into the street so that a line of parked cars partially protected him. A car would have been a good idea, he wished he had one. Also a cell phone. What kind of idiot went out without one?
The gunfire had stopped, which drove his panic higher. He risked a look over his shoulder and saw that the men were no longer shooting at him. They were no longer in sight, in fact.
He skidded to a stop in the middle of the street. They were circling the block, obviously. Or had gone for a car they had nearby. Or knew that they had confederates just ahead, and Jack was running right into their arms. Jack stood there trembling, afraid to keep running, afraid to go back, afraid to turn a corner. Every choice seemed bad. He had never in his life so badly wanted to fly.
Now would be a good time for Arden to reappear, screeching around the corner in a Porsche to rescue him, as she had predicted she would have to do again. But Arden didn’t appear, and he saw no way she could. He hadn’t told her where he was going, hadn’t even told her he was going out.
A screech of tires did happen, though. A pickup truck pulled out of the line of cars, a weird European conglomerate sort of vehicle, very boxy, but with good acceleration. It had eaten up half the distance between them before Jack had a chance to react. Then he turned and ran, to the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street from where he’d started. He looked for an opening, an alley, a fire escape, night club entrance, anything. But the street was dark and quiet. Wide glass windows showed empty display cases, their goods locked away for the night.
The car/truck had almost caught up to him now, and because it was European the passenger side was on the left, the side closest to Jack. That window was already down, and as the car nearly came abreast of him a hand emerged holding an automatic pistol. The gunman began firing before he was quite level with Jack’s running position. Bullets stitched their way across the brick storefront right beside and behind him.
Jack fell. It could have been deliberate or just that his legs stopped working, but he went to his hands and face on the pavement just as the line of bullets passed over his head. The shooter didn’t stop, either. The spray of gunfire continued, coming to a window and blasting it apart, showering Jack with shards of glass.
Then he heard the screech of the truck’s brakes. In a subconscious part of his mind Jack had thought of the truck as a boat in a current, that would keep sailing on by, while Jack could stop on the bank. But the truck could stop too, of course. Jack made
a quick calculation. He could get up and keep running, in which case the truck would catch up to him and someone inside would shoot him. He could run back the way he’d come, making the truck back up, which would be a little more difficult for the driver. And wouldn’t police arrive soon, with all this gunfire and alarms going off?
Or he could run toward the truck, and try—
No more time for thinking. Jack stood up, still crouched, and his body took over. Right beside him, the gunman’s bullets had shattered the show window of a small shop. Jack leaped through the new opening into the dark interior.
Behind him he heard car doors slam. Two of them, at least. So either the burly thug had broken out of his momentary trap, or they’d had another confederate close by. Jack fell to his hands and knees again, this time on broken glass, jumped up, and ran deeper into the darkness of the little shop. He had no idea what it sold, but apparently a lot of display cases were required. Jack banged into two, caromed off like a billiard ball, spun and kept heading toward the back of the shop. Behind him he heard feet hit the floor.
A real secret agent would duck down behind one of these cases now and set a trap for his pursuers. But a real secret agent would have a gun and some fancy high-tech equipment like maybe a cell phone. Jack had only fear and adrenaline. He kept going. Behind him, his pursuers moved more cautiously, maybe thinking he was more dangerous than he was. Jack reached the back wall of the shop and scrabbled along it. He found a door and gratefully yanked it open. Just before he went inside, though, he caught a whiff of disinfectant and realized this was a bathroom. He closed the door again and kept going.
