Retribution (30 page)

CHAPTER 58

 

“D
id you hear that?”

Malik Mahmud looked to the top of the ridgeline above the cave.

“What did you hear?” Mohagher Iqbal asked. They were speaking in English, as Mahmud's Bahasa Indonesian and Iqbal's Filipino Tagalog didn't mesh well.

Iqbal pointed his AK-47 to the north and threw his cigarette to the ground beside the Toyota pickup truck. The three trucks were parked pointed down the valley between the separate mud huts. The walls of the huts hid the vehicles well, except from someone looking above.

They both looked into the dark.

Mahmud put his finger to his lips, signaling for his fellow guard to be silent.

The mountains were silent. The cloud cover blocked any shape of the higher mountains to the west.

Finally, after several minutes of silence, Mahmud spoke.

“These bastards always have us on guard duty.”

“Your complaining only pisses him off.” Iqbal had had enough of Mahmud, as had the others.

“What time is it?”

“I thought you wanted us to be quiet.”

“It was nothing.” Mahmud hesitated. “Maybe it was a wild goat?”

“That would be meat!” Iqbal's hunger could be heard in his words. “I miss meat. I don't think they would know what to do with meat.”

The rations had been short since they had moved to the cave.

“Do you think we should see if we can hunt it?”

“If you want your throat cut by Yousef. Fool!”

Mahmud hung his head.

Suddenly Iqbal noticed Yousef standing next to them.

“Oh, Yousef!” Mahmud turned around.

“Are you on guard, brothers?”

“Yes, of course. It will be dawn soon.” Mahmud looked to the east. The first color of dawn was beginning to turn the clouds to a pink tint.

“Our brother should be in Peshawar picking up our guest. It is important that we be like Bu Zaid and treat our guest with hospitality. It is our supreme duty.”

Iqbar nodded enthusiastically. In his mind he couldn't help but imagine a plateful of roast goat. He sneaked a glance at Mahmud, who clearly had the same thought.

CHAPTER 59

 

R
obert Tranthan had hoped that Pope would be of more help with the photo. So far, he had heard nothing. The picture still lay on the desk in front of him.

The locket around her neck had turned out to be a dead end. After he noticed it in the picture, it had been checked and rechecked.

The books could have been another clue. They looked typical for an agency's embassy office.
Jane's
books on ships and weapons of war were the bibles of the observers. Nothing unusual there. Another seeming dead end.

A thought suddenly occurred to him. He took out a ruler from his drawer and held it over the photograph. His eyes ran across the line of the ruler, looking at every detail.

The old editorial trick caused one to see things in a different light. Misspelled words stood out if you read a paragraph backward. But nothing in the picture called attention to itself.

He sighed and took out a magnifying glass.
One last try
. He pored over the magnified photo, looking at the details.
Hmmm
. Maggie's books were disorganized, much as her desk had always been. Volumes were out of order. But that was all.

Again, nothing.

The cigarette burned through to the filter.

“Damn it!” Tranthan stubbed it out and leaned back in the chair, his mind wandering to Billie Cook.

Cook had only three years to retirement. It would be a miserable three years. But she would keep her mouth shut.

If necessary, it would have also been easy to frame her with some drug-abuse charge. She would be accused of having access to the cart that was missing morphine, or Percs, or Oxy. Her drug test would come back positive. At the very least her retirement would be screwed up so long that she would be cold before the first check could be cashed.

Tranthan pulled open the drawer and put the photograph in it, then picked up the telephone.

“I need the car.”

It was late. The house would be dark, and his wife would be in bed. She had stopped sleeping with him years ago. Her bedroom was on the other end of the house.

Tranthan pulled on his overcoat.

He turned off the lamp and cut across the room in the dark. The hallway was well lit. Tranthan knew that once he reached the door and opened it there would be plenty of light.

He swung the door open.

The hallway had photographs of different sizes hung on the wall, black-and-white pictures of locations from around the world. Tranthan glanced at the pictures, many different sizes but in perfect order.

He stared at the framed photos, some small, some large, but in a row.

Robert Tranthan turned and raced back into the office. He turned on the lamp without taking off his overcoat and took out the photo again.

Oh, my God
. It showed Maggie's hand on one of the shelves.

Tranthan pulled out a pen and pad of paper.

If the volumes on that particular bookshelf had been arranged in any order, it seemed to be by size. No, that wasn't it. But here was something: Each of the books was a volume from a different series, all showing their volume number on the spine. He started with the book just above her hand and followed the row. The first book was volume ten, but it was upside down. Likewise, the sixth book was volume ten upside down.

He double-checked it. Each number was correct. If he weren't mistaken, Maggie had been quite clear with her message.

CHAPTER 60

 

T
he auto-rickshaw slammed on its brakes, causing the tail end to jump up off the street, throwing its passengers into the driver. The mule cart ahead ignored them.

William Parker awoke from a light doze and shook off the sleep. Liaquat was wedged tightly next to him on the bench seat in the back of the small taxi.

It was nearing dawn. The sky was still dark; the clouds were a griseous blue-gray. But the lights of the Khyber bazaar lit up the street with lurid red-yellows and white and fluorescent tubes of artificial light.

The taxi driver passed the mule cart with only an inch or two to spare between it and a green three-wheeled taxi heading in the opposite direction. Parker pulled his arms in as the two carts passed by close enough that he felt the draft caused by the two moving objects.

The bazaar was full of men of all sizes and shapes, but virtually all were dressed in long white shawls that went down to their knees. Most wore small white caps on top of long, stringy heads of black hair. Occasionally, one would pass with a black-and-white turban.

Parker studied Liaquat's face as they moved through the traffic. Liaquat was dozing off again in a contorted, odd position, with one hand holding on to the bar in front of him and the other holding up his head. He had a chiseled nose. In an exotic way, Liaquat and his people were quite handsome-looking, with noses and eyes and chins all in balance with the shapes of their faces.

Above the street, odd-looking signs were stacked, one above the other, with oversized paintings of red-and-white dentures marking a dentist's office. Legal scales with Arabic script underneath marked a lawyer's office. The main street of the Khyber bazaar was the main street for the professionals of the city. Poles with wires lined up one on top of the other, string after string, paralleled the main road.

Peshawar exuded an ever-changing combination of smells and scents. Some were typical of a city. The charcoal-burned smell of barbecued meat stood out. But there was another . . .

Parker's mind was wondering.

He rubbed his face with his one free hand. The other held tightly onto the edge of the roof of the scooter.

“
Hayl?
” Parker meant to ask the question of only himself, but he spoke it aloud.

“Yes, I think so. It gives coffee a special taste.” Liaquat also apparently slept extremely lightly. He tapped the driver on his shoulder. “Over there.” He pointed to an alleyway. It was a tiny, dark side passage with barely any light. On the corner next to it was a shop crammed and stuffed with blankets and shawls like the ones on the old man's cart. The blankets were hung from the ceiling. The shop was brightly lit, but the alleyway beyond looked like an entrance to a cave.

The Qingqi scooter stopped just short of the alleyway.

“Thank you, brother. May Allah be with you.” Liaquat handed the driver ten rupees. “You see that over there?”

Parker looked across the street. The windows were boarded up. The face of the building was burned, and twisted rebar stuck out from torn cement.

“Yes.”

“Our brother sent a message to this government. Over forty were killed.” The bomb had been ignited in the middle of the busy street just as a bus passed by. Well over a hundred were seriously injured.

“Why?” Parker regretted the question as soon as he said it.

Liaquat looked at him oddly. “A true soldier. The government had killed a leader of the Taliban the week before.”

“Who was he?”

“The Taliban leader?”

“No. The bomber.”

“I don't know, an orphan, a street worker. Does it matter?”

Parker looked at him with confusion.

“He is now respected. He has regained his
karam
.”

“Allahu Akbar.” Parker repeated the phrase. “Give us victory over the unbelievers!”

“Indeed!” Liaquat led him up the alleyway in the dark.

Parker could barely see. As he followed Liaquat, he noticed a shape in the dark corner of a building from its movement.

“Hello, brother!”

A man dressed in the long white shawl, with the same painter's cap, stepped out of the darkness. Parker could see the shape of an AK-47 automatic rifle.

“Welcome back.”

Liaquat turned into a smaller alleyway. A dim lightbulb marked a stairway at the end. The stairs went up the side of a two-story building. Liaquat climbed the steps two at a time. It seemed that he had gained energy from being back.

At the top of the stairs a door was open to an apartment. Liaquat disappeared inside. Parker followed.

Inside, several men grabbed Parker and threw him against the wall. One stood in front of him.

“So, is this Sadik Zabara?” The man with a rough red beard stood in front of Parker. He had a deep, long scar that crossed the upper part of his cheek down to his neck.

“I am Abu Umarov.”

It was black, but Parker sensed daylight beyond the rough linen hood that was over his head. As he turned, the ropes cut into his wrists. There were men talking in another room.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I followed him like we planned. I have no doubts.”

The last voice was Liaquat's.

Footsteps. The hands of a strong man grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him up.

Umarov yanked the hood from his head. The sunlight blinded him. The room looked plain, barren, and small. A simple green wooden table was in one corner. Two windows marked the southern wall. The sunlight came, unrestricted, in the room.

Umarov pulled a knife from his side. It reminded Parker of the Marine KA-BAR knife, a sharp tongue of black steel the length of a man's hand from the wrist up. He sliced the rope around Parker's wrists.

The knife didn't cause him to jump. Something did, however. Parker noticed the small tattoo on the inside of Umarov's wrist. It was a sign of the
Crni Labudovi
.

“So, my Brother Sadik, you must forgive me.” Umarov's voice didn't sound very apologetic. “Your belongings.” Umarov walked over to the table.

“Yes, brother?”

“A passport. Some pounds, a few rupees.” Umarov seemed to be conducting an inventory. “What's this?”

He held up the PDA.

“For the newspaper.”

“You must show me how it works.” Umarov tossed the cell phone to him.

“It gets e-mails. And I can record on it. For interviews.”

Parker turned on the phone, logged in the password. In the millisecond he had time to glance at it, he saw an e-mail from the team. It was a satellite map. It marked a location in a valley for the tent. It also marked the location of a Taliban encampment in the joining valley. He quickly deleted it with his thumb and logged out.

“Ah, here, see? An e-mail from the newspaper. They are waiting for the first story on your boss.” Parker held up the ordinary e-mail for Umarov to see.

“Even the bastards have not stopped our paper!”

In fact, the bomb hadn't.
Al Quds
had moved further down King Street and already set up shop. It didn't take much in this electronic world.

“Daily, political and independent!” Parker smiled as he quoted the paper's saying.

“They will have to wait for some time.” Umarov took the cell phone from Parker and crushed it with his boot.

“And what is this?”

“The gum?”

Again, Umarov tossed the object to Parker.

“I haven't had anything to eat in some time.” Parker took the third piece from the second row of the packet and placed it into his mouth. The one that he slipped into his mouth had a small black dot on the edge of the foil. It had a strange saccharine-like taste.

The clock began ticking.

He smiled.

“Would you like one?”