The Colonel's Mistake

by Dan Mayland

His body was searched. When they were satisfied that he wasn’t hiding any physical paraphernalia, they dragged him back out onto the helipad.

  Blood from Mark’s nose ran in small rivulets down his chest. His nakedness, and the rough wet rubber of the helipad beneath his bare feet, made him feel vulnerable and defenseless.

  The Iranians spoke to Amato in Farsi and pointed to a flat-bottomed inflatable boat that was tied to the edge of the helipad.

  “Get in,” said Amato. He gave Mark a push. At that point the Iranian soldiers stepped up, grabbed Mark by each of his arms, dragged him to the boat, then shoved him forward so that once again he fell flat on his face. Someone threw a blanket over him. The two Iranians climbed in the boat.

  “Stay down,” said Amato.

  Mark turned his head so that his left eye could see through a slit in the blanket. They motored quickly along a route that took them under several stilt roads and then followed a newer road along which men were working and derricks were actually pumping. Little patches of oil floated all over the water. He saw a white van driving along one of the stilt roads.

  After a while one of the Iranians kicked him in the gut and pulled the blanket completely over his head so that he couldn’t see anything. When the boat finally came to a stop, and the blanket was pulled away again, Mark found himself looking at a dismal concrete-block Soviet-era building that measured about a hundred feet long and was surrounded by water. The small scrap of landfill on which it sat had been reclaimed by the rising Caspian, leaving the ground floor about two feet under water. The stilt road which used to provide access to the building had fallen into the sea, leaving behind only a few rotting posts.

  In the distance, maybe a quarter mile away, Mark saw the vague shape of a newer lime-green building with a shiny silver roof.

  One of the Iranian soldiers tied the boat to a rusted metal stanchion, then waded in knee-deep water to a door. A new soldier emerged from inside the building and a frantic conversation about where to take Mark ensued.

  “Stand up.” Amato jammed the butt of his pistol into the back of Mark’s neck. “Get out of the boat.”

  Mark stepped into the water. It was warm and smelled of oil. Beneath his bare feet lay an algae-covered concrete staircase. He slipped a bit before righting himself.

  Upon entering the building he saw two Iranian soldiers, one of whom punched him in the gut before dragging him down a hallway.

  He imagined he was back in Baku, in his apartment, on his balcony. The sun was setting. It was warm. Pain was just an illusory sensation that his mind could shut down if it needed to, he told himself. Put it aside.

  The soldiers took him to a cramped room—an old dorm, Mark thought—with a bare minimum of space for the two Soviet laborers who would have been crammed into it back in the day. After hitting him again, the Iranians secured his hands to a bolt on the floor. Because his hands were cuffed behind his back it was a struggle to keep his head above the two feet of water sloshing about in the room. Eventually he realized that if he just took a deep breath, and then relaxed and let himself slip fully under until he needed to take another breath, he’d be better off.

  Oily water slipped into his ears. The muffled sounds echoing throughout the building had an unreal and distorted quality to them. He heard a door slamming and what could have been more yelling. But no sounds of motorboats or gunfire, which is what he was hoping to hear. He wondered whether he’d pushed his luck too far this time, and whether Amato had even activated the GPS signaling device on his phone.

  He wondered whether he’d been foolish to have trusted Amato.

  After a while, Mark was brought to a larger room, the old cafeteria he guessed. In it were four soldiers, an older-looking Iranian, and Amato. Everyone stood in knee-deep water.

  Amato looked crazy.

  His jaw was closed, his chin was jutting out, his nostrils were flared like a bull’s, and he seemed to have grown a few inches taller. This wasn’t a man feigning anger, thought Mark. This was a man on the verge of exploding.

  A second later, he saw why.

  Mark had been prepared to see Daria in a bad way. And he’d thought that his own brushes over the years with intense brutality had dulled his ability to be deeply affected by such depths of depravity.

  But he’d been wrong.

  Seeing her there, tucked away in a corner, drug-addled and shivering, stripped and beaten and broken, abandoned like a piece of garbage that had floated in with the sea, cut him more that he had thought he was capable of being cut.

  He forced himself to stare at her for a moment. Her eyes were glassy and fixed on the motion of the water below her. She gave no acknowledgment that she’d seen him.

  “Daria!” he said.

  Someone hit him and he fell to his knees. She still didn’t look up. “Daria!” he called again.

  This time one of the Iranians jammed his head under the water until he began to choke. When he was released, he heard Amato talking to the older Iranian, the interrogator, a man of average height with an angular face, a bony nose, and a trim black beard. They were arguing in Farsi about how to conduct the interrogation. It was just Amato stalling for time, Mark knew.

  After a little more back-and-forth the Iranian interrogator shrugged and ordered that Mark be tied flat on his back to a bench, the top of which rested an inch below the surface of the water. He ordered that Daria be similarly restrained on an identical bench.

  “Hold on, Daria. You’re going to be OK,” Mark called out as they strapped him down. He had no idea whether this was true, or whether, given the state she was in, it would be possible for her to ever be OK again.

  After his outburst, one of the Iranians kicked Mark in the side. A few of his ribs cracked. If Daria had heard his words of encouragement, she gave no indication.

  Amato appeared above him and demanded to know who he’d told about the stolen uranium.

  Mark detected a note of hesitation in Amato’s voice. And asking about the uranium straight away pegged him as someone unfamiliar with interrogation techniques.

  “What you tell me will be matched against what she’s already—” Amato turned away from Mark. “What the hell are you doing!”

  Mark raised his head. The bench to which Daria had been strapped had been turned on its side by one of the soldiers. Daria’s legs were kicking underwater.

  “Answer the question.” The Iranian interrogator spoke to Mark in clear, calm British-accented English. “When you do, we’ll let her breathe.”

  “One person,” said Mark. “John Decker is his name. For Christ’s sake, let her up.”

  “Tell me about this John Decker.”

  “He’s a former SEAL, I worked with him in Baku.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “He’s dead, killed in France.”

  “I’ll need to know more than that.”

  “He’s an independent contractor, I hired him to help me. Let her up! I’m not telling you anything else until you let her breathe.”

  “She’s no good to us if you kill her!” bellowed Amato.

  The interrogator gave Amato a questioning look. “Very well,” he said.

  The bench to which Daria was strapped was righted. She coughed up water and gasped for air. Mark listened to her desperately trying to breathe. At least she was still trying, he thought.

  Directly above him, Mark saw Amato’s face and was afraid the man might do something rash. Four armed soldiers stood in the room. There was no way Amato could take them all on at once. But he clearly wasn’t capable of completely concealing his concern for Daria.

  Next it was Daria’s turn to be questioned and Mark’s turn to be held underwater. He couldn’t hear what she said, which was the point. It was a violent twist on the classic interrogation tactic of going back and forth between two people in separate rooms, playing one off the other and comparing information. He was under for a long time, but instead of struggling he tried to distance himself from the pain by envisioning his raging
need for oxygen as something that was a removable part of himself, a desire that he could calmly exhale out and let float away on the water.

  After a couple of minutes he pissed himself, and then he passed out. He woke up to one of the Iranian soldiers punching his stomach.

  Amato said, “You shared information about the uranium with people you trusted in Dubai, as a backup in case one of you was ever captured. What are their names?”

  Mark tried to think the way Daria was thinking, but it was hard for him to think at all given the intense, mind-numbing pain he felt in his gut and chest. He wondered whether one of his broken ribs had punctured a lung.

  Had she given them Bowlan’s name? Or had she just made up names? Mark didn’t want to mention Bowlan.

  He made up two names.

  “Wrong answer,” said the Iranian interrogator.

  Daria was held under for a long, long time. And then, after Mark gave them Bowlan’s name, it was his turn again. And then Daria’s…

  Mark was beginning to lose hope when he heard the sound of gunshots coming from outside the building.

  One of the soldiers in the interrogation room received a call on his radio. As he held the handset to his ear the staccato bursts of gunfire outside grew louder. After a moment he clipped the radio back to his belt and ran out with two other soldiers following on his heels. One soldier stayed behind with the Iranian interrogator. Daria and Mark were left strapped to the benches.

  Amato faced the interrogator. “What’s happening?”

  The dispassionate calm the interrogator had projected during the interrogation was gone. Now he looked a little frightened. “I don’t know.”

  Amato pulled out his pistol and turned to face the hallway, as though preparing to fend off an armed assault. The interrogator had drawn a pistol as well. “How many men do we have in the building?” Amato asked.

  The interrogator looked unsure of whether to answer. “Eight, I think, maybe ten more nearby.”

  Amato gestured to the remaining Iranian soldier, who was pointing his assault rifle at Daria and Mark. “Tell him to cover the back hall. You guard the prisoners. I’ll cover the front exit.”

  The interrogator hesitated but then issued the order. As soon as the soldier with the assault rifle turned his back, Amato raised his gun and shot him in the head. A half second later, he shot the interrogator in the face.

  Amato bound over to the interrogator and fired one more shot, at close range, directly into the man’s forehead. He did the same to the downed Iranian soldier and then holstered his pistol and raced over to Daria. Without saying a word he worked frantically to release her restraints.

  Some of the buckles were under the bench and hard to release. Amato briefly ducked his head beneath the water.

  Mark heard more shots from outside, and screams. He kept one eye on the two exits leading out from the room and one eye on Daria.

  Amato finally got her free. His suit was sagging on his bulky frame and the fat around his gut was visible where his dress shirt was plastered to his skin. “Follow me,” he said to her.

  She just lay there, so he began to raise her up.

  What happened next flashed by so quickly that Mark, who was still trying to watch the exits, barely saw it from the corner of his eye.

  One second Daria was deadweight, and the next she’d slammed her knee into Amato’s crotch and was going for his gun. Amato barely caught her hand as she tried to yank the gun out of its holster.

  “For the love of God, girl, I’m—”

  At that moment an Iranian soldier with an AK-47 appeared. The compound was under assault, he roared, and orders had been given to execute the prisoners and evacuate. With the butt of his AK-47 pressed to his shoulder and his finger on the trigger, he ordered Amato to step back.

  Instead Amato wrenched his pistol from Daria’s hands and placed his body between her and the Iranian.

  Three bullets ripped through Amato’s chest. He kept standing long enough, however, to fire off a single shot in return.

  As he slumped to his knees, Colonel Henry Amato’s mind flashed back to a moment in time over thirty years ago, in downtown Tehran. He was on Taleqani Avenue, just outside the US embassy. A black Volkswagen Beetle with a dented fender screeched to a stop a few feet in front of him. An old woman in a black chador slipped out. She had leathery, sunbaked skin and a dowager’s hump.

  “Mr. Simpson! Mr. Simpson!”

  He kept walking at a fast clip, as though he hadn’t heard, but the old woman was nimble and managed to glide directly in front of him on the crowded street. As she walked backward, keeping step with him, she opened her robe to reveal a little girl swaddled tightly in a green blanket.

  The image in Amato’s mind was clearer now than it had been that day.

  He’d only glanced at the baby for a moment, just long enough to look into her miniature brown eyes and notice the little wisps of dark hair poking out from underneath a white knitted cap trimmed in pink. But in the decades that followed he’d tried to re-create those eyes and every other detail of that day, as if by doing so he could somehow go back and change what had happened.

  Because not taking his daughter in his arms that day, not caring for her and loving her when she’d needed him most, had been the biggest mistake of his life.

  “You know who she is!” called the old woman. “You must take her, take her to America!”

  She followed him all the way down the street, calling out to him again and again, trying to thrust the child into his arms, until he ducked into a cab and slammed the door in her face.

  With one hand the woman held the baby girl and with the other she banged on the back window of the cab. “Cursed are those who hold back the small kindness! If you cannot care for her, find her a home! Take her I say! Her mother is dead!”

  Cursed are those who hold back the small kindness…

  It was as if the old neighbor woman was still yelling those words in his ear.

  Minutes later she’d dropped the baby girl into the hands of a dumbfounded embassy worker, insisting that he—that the American government!—force Derek Simpson to take responsibility for the life he’d helped create.

  He never had.

  Amato opened his eyes and saw bleak concrete walls and dirty water. He suddenly realized he was going to die in this hellhole, within seconds. To have even a chance at salvation he needed to ask God for forgiveness. Now, for what he had done to his daughter—it was a mortal sin—and across all these long years it had gone unconfessed.

  Then he looked at Daria standing above him. Her eyes were glassy and unfocused. But they were the same eyes he had seen all those years ago.

  “Save her!” he called out, pleading to his God not for his own salvation but for hers.

  His voice came out as a gurgled, inaudible whisper.

  “Save her!”

  Amato wobbled on his knees in front of Daria, looking old and sad and beaten. The Iranian soldier he’d shot in the chest collapsed against the far wall.

  Daria was shaking, a thin reed, looking as though the energy she’d just expended fighting Amato was the last ounce she’d had in her. Her eyes, heavy-lidded, slowly scanned the room.

  More gunshots erupted from another part of the building. Amato crumpled into himself and then his head dipped underwater.

  “Daria,” said Mark. “I’m over here.”

  She turned and made eye contact with him for the first time.

  “We’re getting out of here,” he said.

  Daria approached. She was shaky on her feet and her right arm was deformed. Mark had the sense that a light breeze would blow her away. Her face, and the damage that had been done to it, filled him with a sense of blinding despair.

  “Can you untie me?” he asked.

  Daria nodded, but then she didn’t move. Whether it was drugs or trauma or some combination of the two, she was hanging onto consciousness by a thread.

  “You can do this,” he said.

  Dari
a looked at him again and Mark nodded at her. “We’re almost home.”

  She walked a few steps, knelt down in the water next to him, and then tried to release the straps that bound him. But she was incapable of loosening the buckles with her left hand alone and when she tried to use her right, her face contorted into a look that was part anguish, part exhaustion. Her fingers wouldn’t move, the arm was too broken.

  “I can’t,” she whispered, “I can’t…”

  Mark felt her good hand brush up next to his bound wrists, beneath the bench. He took her hand between his palms and said, “Stop trying.”

  Daria let her head rest on his chest. He could feel the warmth of her cheek on his bare skin.

  A minute passed. In the hallway gunshots rang out and then a voice. “Mark! Are you there! Mark!”

  “I’ve got her!”

  Seconds later John Decker appeared, dressed in full battle gear and gripping a machine gun.

  “Oh man,” he said as soon as he saw them. At first Mark thought Decker was reacting to what had been done to Daria, but then he realized that Daria’s face was turned and that Decker was really looking at him.

  “I’m OK,” said Mark. “She’s not.”

  Daria didn’t move while Decker untied him. Her head was still on his chest, her eyes closed. Decker was about to lift her to his shoulder but Mark said, “I’ll take her. You guide us out. Give me your pistol.”

  Decker unholstered the 9mm Glock at his waist and handed it over butt-first. Mark sat up with Daria and fired twice into the chest of the Iranian soldier that Amato had shot, having noticed the man was still breathing.

  “Let’s blow, boss, we got a boat outside.”

  Mark carried Daria in his arms as he slogged through the water after Decker. Near the exit they passed the bodies of several fallen Iranians who were bleeding into the dirty water, tinting it red.

  Outside it had started to rain. Mark blinked for a moment before he saw the seven unmarked Soviet-era landing craft—the same kind of old boats that regularly delivered supplies to the outposts on Neft Dashlari. Azeri soldiers were wading in the water and standing on the boats and guarding the nearby stilt roads.