“Bastard!” I roar, suppressing my instinct to throw the phone, trying to think calmly. What would I have felt if Nazia’s suicide bomb had exploded? Nazia’s still dead, sure, but if she’d succeeded there could have been many more. Soldiers and innocents. For a moment I don’t know what to think. At least part of me sympathises with Smythe. If I’d left the kids there, Pooh would be alive, I’d still be a SEAL…
“Something smells, Stormy. I don’t know what. I don’t even know why I’m calling you.” Because you wanted to share shit around? Bring me down? “I just… I don’t know what you’re doing now, man. But you used to be able to find shit out. If someone got to Nazia while she was in custody…”
What he’s saying is, it had to be one of us, and that he wants me to find out. Could I?
“Do you know what’s happened to the other girl, Marjan?”
When he tells me he’s got no fucking idea, I realise I’d like to know. But what can I do? “I’m not on the ground, Tailor.” But as I say that, my mind’s whirring on whether I could find a way to touch down in the sandpit I’d thought I’d left far behind, as a civilian of course. I’d have no authority, and no one with me.
“Yeah. I know that.”
“I can look into it from here, but that’s all I think I can do for now.”
“All I can ask, isn’t it?”
“I don’t like Smythe being around.”
“You and me both. But he won’t be here long. He’s just with a politician checking up on the troops.”
I really don’t like the coincidence he was there at the right time. “Keep in touch, Tailor. If you find out any more—”
“I’ll let you know.”
“Watch your backs.” With that, I end the call. It’s only when he’s off the line, I realise I didn’t ask about the rest of the team. But then, his contact hadn’t been social.
It just goes to show a blast from the past isn’t necessarily rainbows and sunshine. For the last few years, I’ve managed to put what happened behind me. Of course I’ll never stop regretting Pooh’s death, nor that I lost my career. But I’ve gained a new one, and more than that, a family, the likes of which I’ve never experienced before.
But Tailor’s phone call has caused me to blame myself all over again. Nazia, apparently so fuckin’ dirty, means her staying alive meant Pooh’s death was in vain. Damn it to fucking hell.
What can I do? Sure, I can hack into almost any database, but what would I be able to find out?
I could ask my brothers for help.
Which would mean coming clean and telling them my secrets, and in this case, I’d come off the worse. How could they ever trust me knowing my error of judgement let Pooh die in order to save someone who’d take US soldiers with her to her grave?
I thought I was doing the right thing. The only saving grace had been that she and her sister had lived another day, albeit in Nazia’s case, hers were numbered. She, at least, hadn’t ended up living a good life.
Pooh died. Those kids lived. Well, now there’s only one of them hopefully alive. Shit.
I return to the clubhouse, not because I want company, but I need a drink like I need my next breath. Unfortunately, as I reach the bar, I’m not the only one there.
“You okay, Stormy?”
“Yeah, Prez.” I’ve never been the life and soul of the party, but even I know I’ve gone unusually quiet, trying to sort out crap in my head. One drink, then I’ll get down to the comms room and start searching around for any information I can find.
Smythe’s in Afghanistan. I don’t like coincidences.
I could go back.
It’s the worst possible time. Smythe would call for a lynching party, using what’s happened to heap more blame on my head.
I sip my bourbon. I could do it. No one needs to know that I’m there. I speak the language and had gotten on with some of the local guys who we had trained. Maybe I could come at this from two ways, by mining data, and talking to people on the ground. If I could find out Nazia was coerced, that she was left no choice, it would at least settle something inside me. The bomb she was wearing hadn’t exploded, why not? She was in custody, but she died. Again, why?
So many fucking questions and not enough answers.
Pip had absorbed my answer to his innocent enquiry. Now I elaborate my response. “Actually, I’m not okay. Something personal has come up, Pip.”
“Anything we can help with?” If this was a situation occurring in the US, I might have asked him. But the team only works on national soil, none of our missions take us out of the country.
So I shake my head. “Nah. This is down to me. I might need some time off.” If I take some personal time away from the MC, I can go by myself. Not that I have any expectation of being able to do anything, but it’s better than staying here and regretting decisions I’d made in the past.
Pooh’s death can’t be meaningless. I have to find something to balance that out.
Someone must know what’s happened to her, and that someone is likely to be her sister. I’ll have to find her. And if she’s deep in crap as well, extricate her.
Still casually leaning against the bar with one foot propped on the rail, Pip, while I’ve been lost in my head, has had his attention caught by a joke Rascal is telling. He laughs loudly at the punch line. I wait until he glances at me again. He reads my expression immediately.
“Want to talk in my office?”
“Yeah.” I trail after him as he leads me there.
“What’s up?” He barely gives me time to sit down.
I’ve had minutes to come up with a story I think would work, just as long as no one investigated. But why should they? I’m a trusted member of the MC and have my patch to prove it.
“It’s my mom,” I tell my prez, lying through my teeth. “Look, you should know I’m not close to her, haven’t seen her in years. But I just got a call to tell me she’s had a heart attack. It doesn’t look good. I’m going to need some time to be with her before it’s too late to make amends.” I cross my fingers hoping he doesn’t know I haven’t heard from her since I was six.
Pip stares as though he can see right through me. He taps his fingers on the desk. “Never took you for a dutiful son, Stormy.”
“Didn’t have much of an incentive. Mom’s not a good mother. But,” I shrug, “perhaps it’s because I need closure if she’s going to die.”
“Closure,” he repeats. “Yeah, I can see that. Sure. You want to bring this to the table?”
“I kind of got the impression time is of the essence,” I tell him, hating that I’m lying through my teeth, but knowing the truth would open a can of worms I’d rather keep closed. I’ve never been one to air my dirty laundry in public. Even Pip knows just the headlines about why I’m no longer a SEAL, or that’s all he’s revealed to me.
“Urgent, huh? You leaving tonight?”
“I think I have to.”
He sighs. “Well, I’ll update everyone tomorrow. You take what time you need, Stormy. I know losing family is always hard, even if you’re estranged from them. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
So do I. Thanking him, I turn and walk out. Forgoing finishing the drink I’d promised myself, I head straight for my room. There, I pack a small bag with only the essentials a man who likes to travel light requires and add my laptop. After lifting the bottom of a drawer, I extract the documents I had hidden there. Having taken one last glance around what’s been my home for the past three years, wondering when, if ever, I’ll see it again, I walk out.
Giving absolutely no thought to my mom who could already be rotting in her grave for all I care, I ride to Salt Lake City, park my bike in storage, then head to the airport. I board a plane, my fake passport in the name of Jeremiah Briggs causing no issues. After changing a few flights, I arrive halfway across the world.
It’s hot, dusty. I breathe in the air I last inhaled into my lungs when I was a serving Navy SEAL. I’m a white American, I stand out.
Heading to a bazaar, I purchase some local clothing, and change in the hotel room I’d booked for the night. With my head covered, my swarthy complexion, though paler than the locals, allows me to blend in more easily. I also hook myself up with a trader who deals in more illicit items and purchase a couple of handguns and knives.
I’m on my own here, but that’s alright. While I’ve no one to have my back, conversely, I’m not responsible for keeping anyone alive, or letting them die, which is probably more to the point.
At first my voice sounds rusty as I try out the language I’ve not spoken for years, but my ears soon become attuned to hearing it, and once again, I’m fast communicating like a native.
Now disguised I rent a jeep and find a different and more suitable hotel that’s run down and where they’re unlikely to ask questions. Ignoring the less than savoury smells in the room I’m given, I settle down and open my laptop. At first, I wade through local articles, finding information in the public domain. My reading of Dari is rusty, but the unfamiliar characters soon begin to form intelligible shapes and before too long, I’m reading it fluently.
The story, reported from different angles, reveals nothing more than what Tailor had already told me.
For the next four weeks, I live as an Afghan, trying to blend in. I visit the haunts where I know the locals go and am lucky enough to meet up with one of the men I’d previously trained. He’s a dour, serious man, with an attitude much like my own. His drive is to make his country safe. We’d clicked during the training all those years ago.
Sure, at first, he’s suspicious, knowing I’ve no official position anymore, but again, like me, he doesn’t like mysteries. After I’ve got him onside, he does try to help me, but what he finds out brings forth more questions than answers. Marjan, the girl I’d wanted to find, has disappeared off the face of the earth.
“Should I talk to the family?”
Sharmeer considers my question carefully. “I don’t think it would help. After the affair with Nazia, one of my men made contact. They wouldn’t even talk to us which means they won’t give you the time of day.”
“She’s only twelve years old,” I tell him. “They must be worried sick about her.”
He shoots me a look. “Or protecting her to keep her alive.”
Is he right? Could Nazia have agreed to do what she did to keep her safe? That would make some kind of sense. The girls had been close, I’d witnessed that, but that was three years ago.
“One thing, that suicide bomb was unusual.” When I raise my eyes, he shrugs, then continues, “Your forces are retreating, going home to the US. We have far fewer US soldiers deployed here now. If anything, if that bomb had taken out US personnel, it would have increased the presence, not lessened it. You trained us, Stormy. You know we can take over the peacekeeping role, and your lot moving out would lower the tension. So why risk the likes of you coming back?”
He’s made a good point. That just adds to my long list of questions that after twenty-eight days, I’m still no closer to finding answers for. Did Nazia really commit suicide or did someone manage to get inside the prison cell and kill her to keep her quiet? And if the latter, why? Where is Marjan? Is she safe or even alive? Nazia wouldn’t have been able to build a bomb, so who gave it to her and why? Who wanted to upset the fragile newly found stability of the region? So many damn questions. It’s frustrating as hell.
What’s worse, I’ve seen Smythe in the distance, and my original intention to get close to some of the base personnel has to be forgotten. He’d eviscerate me were he to know I was around, and I’d risk anyone previously willing to speak to me clamming up.
Oh how I wish Afghanistan was more like the US, with access to CCTV footage and all the technology back home I’d have at my disposal. I’m restricted to using the only tools at hand, but one man, a foreigner at that, walking around and asking questions, was never going to get far.
I’d told Tailor not to expect much. In that, I didn’t disappoint him.
Pip has contacted me a couple of times, remaining in ignorance that I am no longer in the same country as him due to the rerouting I’d put in place for my phone signal. I brushed him off with a mom’s doing well, but she’s not out of the woods yet. Time is fast coming when I have to head home or give up another chunk of my life for the girls I’d once rescued. I was a SEAL, now I’m a Satan’s Devil. If I didn’t have that, I can’t see a future ahead of me.
Daily, a rage burns inside me until I have to accept, I could spend a year here and not find anything out. It’s best to go home, however frustrating I find that.
As I head back to the airport, swapping my Afghan robes for my American t-shirt and jeans, I hate to admit I was a failure. But try as I might, I can’t locate Marjan. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.
My run of bad luck, in that things don’t go my way, has clearly not come to an end as my plane’s delayed. I roll my eyes at the announcement. Over the past few weeks I’ve checked in with Tailor and kept him updated with my lack of findings. We hadn’t bothered to meet. There was too much risk my presence would get back to Smythe and that was bound to cause issues. With time to kill, I decide on one last call, even though I’ve got nothing to tell him. I’d tried my best—it wasn’t good enough. One man wasn’t enough to find answers.
The phone rings out. I don’t leave a message and am not disturbed. He’s probably been called out on an op.
I sit in the lounge, waiting for my flight to be announced, idly watching the local news on the monitor. When four familiar faces and two I don’t know fill the screen, I rise to my feet, cursing my ability to read the Arabic script, wishing I could remain in blissful ignorance. Quickly, I take out my phone and google. The news has to be wrong.
Jesus. My worst fears when I first saw their picture is confirmed as the correct interpretation. Tailor, Buster, Slice, Gun and the two team members who’d taken my place and Pooh’s are all dead, their transit being taken out by a terrorist explosion.
My brain refuses to process the information. How could they be gone? Tailor? I only spoke to him yesterday. One of them, perhaps, taken out by a mine, but all six at once? It had been a goddamn rocket fired at the vehicle in which they were travelling.
But the vehicle was armoured. They knew the territory. They’re SEALs for fuck’s sake. They knew to remain alert to threats. What could have happened to them?
If I’d still been part of the unit maybe I’d be dead along with them.
If I’d been part of the unit, I’d have assessed the intelligence, maybe picked up on warning…
But I hadn’t been. All because I disobeyed an order from a superior whose brain wasn’t worth shit. I’m alive. They’re dead. I’m the last surviving member of my team.
I’m unable to process it.
I hadn’t stayed in close contact with them for my own reasons. Had never asked whether my replacement was solid. I hadn’t bothered to ask Tailor anything personal, like whether he was still with Tanya, or whether he was single, let alone the rest of the men who’d been as close to me as brothers.
But Gun, Slice, Buster and Tailor still held a place deep in my soul. Now they’re gone. Worse, I’d been in the very same country on a wild goose chase. If I’d been part of the team…
I’d lost them once when I was tossed out of the platoon. Now their loss is permanent.
Tailor, Slice, Gun and Buster are dead.
I’d failed in my mission to find the girl.
Could things get worse?
9
Four years ago
Stormy…
I came back to the States a changed man, and not for the better.
Still lying to Pip, I stayed away for another month, unable to get things straight in my head. Nothing made sense. Nothing. I’m ashamed to admit, I resorted once again to getting drunk, only to find that didn’t solve problems. No answers come from the bottom of a bottle, all alcohol brings is a raging hangover.
I had to return to th
e Devils, I could do nothing else. Not only was I a disgraced ex-SEAL, the intervening years I’ve spent with a one-percenter motorcycle club would be unlikely to provide me with a good reference on a résumé should I try to attempt to do anything else.
I sobered up and began avoiding the escape offered by alcohol. When Pip next phoned, I was able to think rationally, and recognised that his more probing questions revealed an impatience with me.
I knew it was past time to return. I also thought I was strong enough and would be able to compartmentalise shit and pick up where I’d left off. I thought I could slot right back in with my MC family, that just going back to the familiar would make everything right.
As it turns out, I was very fucking wrong. I no sooner walked into the club when instead of seeing my laughing, smiling brothers around me, I see their dead faces superimposed over those of my old teammates. They greet me warmly, welcoming me home, but all I hear are their anguished cries as they lie dying, and all because something I’d done went tits up.
I’m a coward. I don’t want to be there to witness their deaths, don’t want to be responsible.
It isn’t that I’m afraid of dying, far from it. I welcome it. I’ve already lived more than my time. I should have died with Pooh or instead of him. But if I was going to leave this earth, I didn’t want to drag anyone down to hell with me. I’d made a call, it had been wrong. If I’d still been a SEAL, maybe my team would be alive. I stand in the doorway to the clubroom, then swiftly turn on my heels bumping into Pip.
One look at my face is all it takes, and he beckons me to follow him. When we get to his office, he directs me to a seat.
“How’s your mom?” Pip enquires, his eyes softening.
“She died.”
He gives me a sharp look that I can read nothing into, then shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Brother.”
I shrug. “End of a chapter, that’s all.” That book had closed years back, though hopefully Prez doesn’t know that. My mom could be still breathing, but nothing would make me seek her out. In the same way that she hadn’t bothered about me, I couldn’t care less about her.
Stormy's Thunder: Satan's Devils MC Utah Page 10
