Warlord: Dervish (18 page)

“What’s up, Ahmed?”

“What will happen if we do find this city and find Al Qaeda or the Taliban there?”

“We get strong with these niggas, Ahmed,” Bronson raised the barrel of his rifle as he said it.

“Yeah, Bronson, thanks. That’s helpful.”

“
Bronson
.” Letitia remarked derisively behind them, loud enough for all to hear.

“What about it?” Bronson yelled back at her.

“What’d you tell Fleegle about his name?”

“You implyin’ what?”

“
Bronson.
”

“Yeah,
Bronson
.”

She gave Ahmed a withering look. “What?”

“You stay away from me,” Ahmed pointed a finger at her. “I know what you did.”

“Oh you do, do you?”

“Ahmed. Letitia.” Jason spoke firmly but calmly. “Cut it out. We need to pay attention here.” He felt like he was refereeing children.

“Why?” asked Letitia. “No one hit Fleegle and his guys. No one hit Aguilera and Hahn.”

“Maybe they been waitin’ for us,” Bronson offered ominously. “Waitin’ for you and your loud mouth to come waltzing over this hill.”

“Let them show themselves, then.” She tapped her M4. “I got something for them. You too you keep lookin’ at me,” she warned Ahmed, who muttered something under his breath.

“The kid got a name?” Bronson asked Ahmed.

“
No
,” Jason declared. “You are
not
going to give him a nickname, you hear me?”

“Calm down, Jay, I’m just askin’.”

“Yeah, but I know why you’re asking. You can call yourself anything you want—but
Buford
and
A-Rod
? Man, I hope you rap better than that.”

Bronson ignored him. “For real, Ahmed, kid got a name?”

Ahmed conferred with the child in his language.

“Areya.”

“Areya, aight. Give me five there little man.”

The kid slapped Bronson’s hand. He didn’t look happy doing it.

“So who were them other little kids Areya talkin’ ‘bout before?”

Ahmed shrugged.

“No one’s out here except us,” Letitia called out.

“No one talkin’ to you.”

“Hey wait! I’ve got to take a piss.”

“Pop a squat and catch the fuck up,” Bronson replied.

“I do not understand,” Ahmed looked back to make sure Letitia had stopped, that she could not hear him. “Why is she such an angry person?”

“Maybe because her momma and daddy give her a black girl’s name,” said Bronson. Deidre and Jason smiled. “The hell were they thinkin’?”

“Only you could say that.”

“True, Dee. Jay, help me out here, yo.”

“Huh? What?”

“Say ‘uh.’”

“Uh?”

“No, not uh.
Uh
!”

“Uh.”

Deirdre grinned.

“No, not uh. You sound like Michael Jackson.”

“That’s good, ain’t it?”

“Not for this. Put some balls in it. ’scuse me, Dee.”

“It’s okay.”

“You know, Jay—deeper.”

“Deeper?”

“Yeah. Like,
uh
!”

“Uh!”

“Yeah!”

“Uh!”

“Dat’s it.”

“Uh!”

Ahmed and Deirdre shared amused looks. Even the boy grinned.

“Okay hold on—when I tell you, aight? Get ready…” Bronson started to rap. “Is you a gangsta—” he signaled Jason with a finger.

“Uh!”

“—is you a kill-ah—”

“Uh!”

“—is you a trapstar—”

“Uh!”

“—is you a deal-ah—”

“Uh!”

“You got it Jay!”

“Uh! Uh! Uh! Uh!”

Areya laughed the way only a little kid could laugh, pure bliss.

“Jay, you killin’ that flow!”

“What was I doing?”

“Why you laughin?” Bronson asked Deirdre, feigning hurt. “My man Jay was tight, right?”

“Yes-yes-yes. He was
tight
.”

“That’s, what?” Jason eyed the summit. “Your rap song?” They were getting closer.

“That’s the hook, Jay.”

“The hook.”

“You know how important the hook is for a joint? That’s the shit people gonna remember when they bumpin’ my mix tape. They be like, yo, you heard that J-Todd joint, right, one go, ‘Is you a gangsta—’”

“Uh-huh.”

“Nah-nah-nah!” Bronson waved his gloved hand.

“I mean
uh
!”

Everyone laughed except Letitia, who had caught up and managed to look unpleasant the entire time.

“What’s a trapstar?” Deirdre wanted to know.

“A rock star.”

“Like Mick Jagger.”

“No.
Rock
. A drug dealer.”

“Oh.”

“Uh!” Jason blurted.

“Hey, Bronson,” Letitia offered, deadpan, “that was pretty good.”

“For real?” Bronson offered her a tentative smile.

“No.”

The smile turned into a frown.

“Can someone tell me,” Ahmed inquired, “are Mick Jagger and this Steven Tyler the same person?”

“Deirdre—” Jason called after the reporter, who sprinted ahead “—wait!”

He raced after her, catching up where the road crested the rise, offering a view of the terrain below. The road descended into a valley between several mountains. The valley was enveloped in a blanket of dust that roiled and swirled, sandy tendrils reaching into the sky before retracting back to the amorphous mass.

“I’ve never seen one like that.” She spoke quietly.

“Me neither.”

As the others joined them the storm continued to boil and churn.

“Where’d that come from?” Bronson wondered.

“Anybody see Hahn and Aguilera?” Letitia didn’t sound particularly solicitous.

“They drove into that?” Ahmed asked in disbelief.

As they watched, the sandstorm began to recede, the dust thinning out, settling to the ground, revealing first hints and outlines of buildings. They stood together and stared down into the valley, into a mish mash city with blocks of tightly packed two story homes, some whose roofs shared a common wall, others separated by brief gaps. Blocks of such homes were broken by rectangular compounds surrounded with twenty foot high dirt walls, watchtowers mounted in each corner. An onion-domed mosque boasted minarets stretching a hundred feet into the sky. Off in the distance, on the opposite side of the city from where they stood, the steep slope of a mountain had been terraced into fields.

“Have any of you ever seen a city like this?” Deirdre referred to the assortment of architectural styles.

“No.”

“What’s that?” Bronson was pointing to a lone monolith near the city’s center.

“It’s a sun dial.” Jason thought of the ancient river valley civilizations he had taught his ninth grade global studies classes about.

“They usually that tall?”

Jason shrugged.

“What’s the matter, Ahmed?” Deirdre asked the interpreter, who was glassing the city with a pair of binoculars. He handed them to her and she took a look.

“What is it?” asked Jason.

“People,” stated Ahmed.

“What ‘bout ‘em?” Bronson squinted through his own Vipers.

“There aren’t any,” related Deirdre.

“What?”

“Here, take a look yourself.”

They were close enough to the city that any movement within it would have been apparent. Jason discerned none. There was no sign of Hahn and Deirdre’s Humvee or the Mercs Stryker. There was no one.

Bronson tapped on his watch.

“Ask him where all the people are.” Jason spoke to Ahmed as he continued to scan the city. “Ask Areya.”

After the boy and the interpreter had conferred, Ahmed looked slightly annoyed. “What he says makes no sense.”

“What’s he say?”

“It is crazy.”

“What’s he say, Ahmed?”

“He says his city doesn’t always look this way.”

“What does that mean?” inquired Deidre.

“Whatever that means…” Bronson’s voice trailed off, “Fuckin’ watch.”

“Uh, guys?” Letitia’s voice turned them all around.

“Shit!” Bronson forgot whatever problems he was having with his watch.

Back down the road, blocking the path they had taken, a wall of grit and dirt whirled. The storm had cut off access to their vehicles, to the dump, an impenetrable wall.

“What’s he saying Ahmed?” Jason watched the sandstorm and remembered the checkpoint, remembered looking at the back of his glove, waiting to see which grain of sand would start to tremble, which would jump off first, vibrating nine trillion times like one of Kaku’s cesium atoms. He wondered if each was unique the way a snowflake was, every one unlike the other, hexagonal structures falling to the ground, melting because the dirt and asphalt were slightly warmer, others sticking, a beachhead for those that followed, piling one atop the other until a foot and half of white covered the ground on top of which a little boy knelt, surrounded by the gleeful, carefree voices of his friends. The little boy looks up at the man who has spoken to him, and the snow is gone now, the sand storm moving forward, towards them, more and more of the road disappearing under it, and Jason becomes aware that Ahmed has answered him, that he has been somewhere else, his attention diverted.

“This can’t be good…” Deirdre was saying.

“What we gonna do, Jay?” asked Bronson. “Jay-main?”

Jason blinked. “I’m okay.” No one had asked. “Sorry.” He jerked back to attention. “What was that?”

“He says we have to keep moving.” Ahmed translated for Areya, whose brow was wrinkled.

Jason looked from the storm to the city and back.

“Where were you, Jason?” Deirdre had seen the look in his eyes.

“What? Nowhere—nothing, okay! Let’s go. Not a word from anybody, understand? Letitia, you comfortable bringing up the rear?”

“No.”

“Do it anyway.”

“What about the boy?” Deirdre watched Jason. Something had just happened. The man had zoned out, but he was back. “Should we leave him here?”

Areya said something, protesting, and Ahmed answered for him. “No, he wants to come.”

“Spread out. I want a couple yards between everybody. Ahmed, you stick close to the boy.”

“My ass should be home pushin’ a Lambo,” Bronson lamented.

The Forbidden Valley

Systems reset

They descended into the city, each alert, anticipating, and anxious. Jason walked point, his M4 in the high ready position, covering the path ahead of them, the houses and buildings on the outskirts of the city, what he could see of the street. He turned his head periodically, checking that Bronson and Letitia were in position behind and on either side of him, a wedge formation.

“Where is everyone?” Deirdre asked the boy quietly. He replied but his words were lost on her. Ahmed failed to translate, concentrating on the closest buildings.

The road was not what any of them had expected. It was too smooth, not a rut in it. There were no signs of vehicular traffic, no garbage strewn on either shoulder. If a Humvee and Stryker passed this way within the last half hour, there should have been
something
, tracks in the dirt, some indication. Yet the road was unmarked.

Jason flattened himself against the mud wall of the first building. The window was closed, shuttered with thick wooden slats. Noting this, Jason ducked under it, stepping gingerly to the corner, peeking around the building into the city.

Something was definitely amiss. Though the buildings appeared lived in, there were no people out and about, no one on the street. No vehicles either, stationary or otherwise. Exactly what they’d seen with their binoculars. Nothing had changed. The street itself was similar to the road in, appearing untraveled. Silence hung over the buildings and streets, a ghostly quiet.

“Somethin’ ain’t right…” grumbled Bronson.

Jason signaled with his gloved hand, indicating that he would cross the street to the house on the opposite corner. Bronson replaced him at the corner as he did so, down on one knee, sighting down his rifle, waiting for the street come alive, ready to cover Jason. But no one fired on Jason as he sprinted across the road. No one yelled out, no one came out of their house. Nothing stirred, not even a breeze.

Pressing his back to the building, Jason looked back at the others. Deirdre brushed her fingers across her throat. She didn’t think this was a good idea, heading into the city. Jason didn’t think it was a good idea either.

He looked back up the road they’d come. A curtain of sand churned and seethed in the very spot where they’d stood overlooking the city. He felt no wind here, and he’d felt none on the road either. It was hot as an oven and Jason was sweating freely, from the temperature, from his fear. He ignored the fear but couldn’t ignore the heat. Jason understood the mechanics of a sandstorm, but this was something he did not comprehend. There was something fundamentally wrong with the storm, something uncharacteristic and out of place, though he could not tell what.

Turning away from the sands, Jason considered the street. He wondered if the dust they’d seen blanketing the city had wiped out any footprints or car tracks. That would be impossible. There would have been some sign. Have to have been. Hell, there should have been drifts of sand and there weren’t any. The road was coated with a fine layer of dust and that was all. Where, he pondered, had all the sand gone?

Bronson was still on his knee, peering over the barrel of his M-4, one hand on the barrel of the grenade launcher. Deirdre glanced back and forth quickly, licking her lips. Jason realized that standing around with their backs to these walls wasn’t going to work. If they did run into someone, this position wasn’t optimal as far as defense went. He took a long pull from his water bladder, watching the street, swallowed half of it, and spit the rest in the sand. The dust lifted from the ground, swirling around the liquid before settling back into place. The street was still empty.

The water he’d spit out was nothing more than a hint of dark shading in the sand at his feet. It could do that, the desert, swallow you up.

When Bronson acknowledged his signals, they stepped into the street as one, a man on either side of the street, close to the buildings, sweeping into the city. Jason scanned the buildings across from him, on Bronson’s side of the street and Bronson did the same for the buildings on his side. The houses were pressed together, some separated by dark gaps, the narrowest of alleyways.

“Spread the fuck out!” Hissing louder than necessary, Letitia betrayed her disquiet. Ahmed shepherded the boy to his side, while Deirdre crossed from them, following in Jason’s wake. Letitia stepped uncertainly behind them all, closing the rear, none too thrilled about her position or the fact that they were entering what she conceived as little more than some type of elaborate ambush that would see them all dead within moments.

And still no shots came.

They continued down the street until they reached the first intersection. Jason and Bronson exchanged looks and Jason followed Bronson’s lead, proceeding down this new street across from his friend, hyper-vigilant. The roofs above them loomed ominously, their parapets and balustrades perfect sniper positions. Every door was closed, each window sealed.

They found the Stryker around the next block. Jason covered Bronson as the other ran ahead, circling the vehicle, inspecting it. When Bronson held up a thumb, Jason growled “on me” and hustled ahead to the eight-wheeled armored truck.

The rear ramp was down, the interior of the vehicle yawning open to anyone that happened by. Bronson gave Jason a look like
what the…?

“Everybody in.” They knelt on either side of the ramp as the others raced up into the relative safety of the armored truck. Jason tilted his head to the side, signaling, and Bronson and he climbed in after the others. Jason headed up front to the driver’s seat.

“Where are they?” Letitia couldn’t take her eyes off the street.

“Don’t know…” Bronson studied the houses on either side, looking for some sign of life.

“The radio is missing,” called Deidre.

“Close this fucking ramp.”

“Chill, woman,” Bronson warned Letitia. “Relax.”

“Relax? Don’t tell me to relax mother—”

“Would you two
stop
, please?” Deirdre exhorted them. “Thank you.”

Jason returned to the troop compartment. “It won’t start.”

“What do you mean it won’t start” Letitia practically whined.

“Won’t start.”

“Why wouldn’t it start?” asked Deirdre.

“I don’t know. I’m not a mechanic.”

“Could be the sand,” offered Bronson, looking at his watch, frowning. “You give it enough time, the sand always fucks shit up. Mechanical failure.”

“You don’t sound convinced…” Deirdre pointed out.

“I ain’t.”

“Me neither,” Jason concurred.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” said Letitia. From where they huddled inside the armored vehicle the sandstorm was not visible. “Close the ramp. Some Haji fires an RPG in here, we’re fucked.”

“Jay, we need to get into one of these houses, main. See what’s going on.”

“Ahmed, ask the boy why all the windows are shuttered.” As the translator and the boy conferred, Ahmed looked and sounded frustrated. Jason interrupted them. “Ahmed, just translate whatever he says, all right. I don’t care if it makes sense or not.”

“He says they’re shuttered against the men of sand.”

“The men of sand?”

“The sandmen.”

“The sandmen…” Bronson sounded less than thrilled as he fiddled with his watch “…fuckin’ sand fuckin’ with my watch.”

“We haven’t seen anybody…” Letitia pointed out.

“We’re taking that house—” Jason pointed to a large, two story home recessed behind a towering mud wall. “Bronson, Letitia, you two stack on me.”

“Fuck that,” Letitia told him. “I’m staying here.”

“I’ll go,” volunteered Ahmed.

“Nah, Ahmed,” Bronson told him, “you stay with the boy.”

“No, I go.”

“Ahmed,” Jason asked the translator coolly, “you up to this?”

“…you should stick here, Ahmed, main. When the shooting starts, this gonna be the safest place.”

“He’s good,” Jason assured Bronson, thinking of the way Ahmed handled himself on the gun range. “He can take care of himself.”

“Aight.” Bronson looked away from his watch. “We gonna lay some 203 down on that house?”

“No.”

“
No
. We just walk in, let them spring it? That it, Jay?”

“Let ‘em spring it, let ‘em bring it. That rhymes. Don’t steal it.”

“Steal nothin’ from you.” Bronson scoffed. “We go in, we find them motherfuckas waitin’,” he didn’t sound amused, “tell me
then what
?”

“Then,” Jason repeated Bronson’s words from earlier, “we get strong with them niggas.” The corners of Bronson’s mouth turned up.

The targeted house was set well back from the street, behind twenty foot high mud walls. An ornate, brass gate in the wall hung open, granting access to an inner courtyard replete with fruit trees. The three men leap-frogged through the gate, each rushing forward a few yards, taking a knee behind the flimsy cover of a date tree, covering the next man into the courtyard.

They repeated this bounding tactic to the front door of the house. Jason scanned the windows, each secured. Ahmed was behind him, Bronson across from them on the opposite side of the doorway. The door, like the gates into the compound, was ajar.

Jason knew how to clear a house. They’d practiced breaching techniques in urban warfare training and he’d done enough of the real thing in the field. He knew his instincts would hold him back if he let them. Caution wasn’t the way here. They had to be in and out of the rooms fast, pure confidence and speed, or they’d be giving the enemy the time he needed to vanquish them. He flicked the Surefire flashlight mounted on the side of his M4’s barrel to life.

He held up three fingers of a gloved hand.
On me
, he mouthed,
one, two
—

Through the doorway, across the tiled floor of a vestibule, rooms branching off either side and a stairway turning a corner above. The white light beams of their flashlights jerked over the walls and floors and up the stairs. Jason ignored the steps, bee-lining it to the room on his left, going low through the open doorway, scanning the room—an overstuffed couch, scattered cushions, woven rugs, a television with some video equipment hooked up to it, light filtering in from the slats blocking the windows. He cleared the room, spying no other entryways than the one he’d taken.

Bronson had secured the room on the right of the vestibule while Ahmed guarded the stairwell and the hall that stretched further into the house. Jason signaled the interpreter to stay put. Bronson followed him down the hallway, deeper into the home, entering first one room and then another, each furnished, all empty of life.

After they had checked the first floor they did the same for the second and returned downstairs. Ahmed was kneeling in front of a video camera, its wires snaking across the floor into the side of the television.

“Ahmed,” cautioned Jason, “careful.”

“It’s not a bomb.”

“How you know?” asked Bronson.

“I know.”

“How you know?”

“I have had experience with these types of things.”

“Bet you have.” Bronson wasn’t sure if Ahmed meant he’d had experience with video cameras or bombs. He looked at his wrist. “Damn.”

“What is it?” Jason asked him.

“Nothin’. My watch actin’ funny, that’s all.”

“Mine too…” Ahmed looked up from the video camera.

“This thing’s seen better days…” Jason looked down on the smashed video camera. He’d be surprised if Ahmed could get it to play.

“
Onzor
!” Ahmed voiced triumphantly as the television screen came to life. Static was followed by a grainy image, the camera jerking around, abruptly focusing and pulling back.

“What…?” Bronson looked up from his watch.

The frame tightened on two kneeling figures, a boy and a man. The child was black and shirtless and stared off camera at someone defiantly.

“
Ma hatha
?” Ahmed’s question trailed off.

Assault rifle barrels and the lower torsos of pajama-clad men crowded around the two. Whoever was filming the video had no idea what they were doing—the picture lurched and lost focus as Jason, Ahmed and Bronson watched—but the audio worked well enough. The men around the two jabbered on in Arabic.