The Prisoner's Wife (25 page)

The central burrow, airless, was lit by a single electric bulb. A goddamn grave, Shawn thought. I could die down here.

You think like that, he told himself, you
will
die. Concentrating, he considered his surroundings, working out the way forward and—when he'd need it—the way back.

Taking shallow breaths, he followed the central tunnel deeper into damp earth, guessing he was now amid the foundations of the warehouse, or some earlier structure. Around him rose smells of rot, of corruption. Dead flesh. The walls here were shored with metal sheeting, which, farther on, gave way to stone. This section, Shawn thought, must have been a cellar, maybe before the warehouse was built above. He stopped short, taking in a dimly lit shape ahead; seeing then that this was the ass end of a kneeling man on a straw mat, praying to where he thought Mecca might be. Beside him on the mat lay a machine pistol—a Steyr, Shawn guessed, though in this light, it was hard to tell. Moving quietly, he knelt beside the man, picked up the pistol—it was indeed a Steyr—and touched his own Beretta to the side of the supplicant's head. Shawn had always found that a gun barrel in an earhole would reliably get a man's attention.

It worked. Moving gently, the praying man sat up, glancing at the place where his pistol had been. Not seeing it, he raised his hands in the air and murmured words under his breath.

In basic Arabic, Shawn told him, “You make a noise, my friend, I will kill you. Kill you quietly. Now, show me where the Americans are.”

Moving carefully, the man raised a single finger. One American.

“Stand up,” said Shawn. “Show me.”

The man stood. Like the guard on the street, he wore a blue shalwar kameez. Leaning his head a little away from the Beretta—which, Shawn thought, was understandable—the Pakistani walked down the tunnel at a slow, somnambulant pace. From somewhere, Shawn heard the sound of voices raised in argument. If he could hear these guys, they would certainly hear him, if he had to fire a shot. For several reasons, he hoped that would not be necessary. Apart from the noise, he would have to kill the small man beside him, who now paused before a metal-braced door, set in a wall of stone.

“Open it,” Shawn told the Pakistani, who was shaking slightly. Not cut out for this business, Shawn thought. The man pointed to a pocket in his shalwar kameez. Without shifting aim, Shawn took a key from the pocket, passing it to his prisoner.

Still shaking, fumbling the key, the man unlocked the metal-braced door.

“Okay. Go in.” The man didn't move. “I said, go in.”

Still moving slowly, glancing at the object in the shadows, the man did as he was ordered. Within the cell sat Dodie Sale, tearful, snuffling, but apparently unharmed. His back was against a wall, his head bent to upraised knees. Farther into the cell, in shadow, was the object that Shawn knew, instinctively, that he should not see.

To Dodie, he said, “Where's Rafe?”

Dodie looked up, wiping his eyes. He seemed unsurprised by Shawn's appearance. He pointed upward. “They've killed him.”

The Arab understood. “No,” he said, slowly turning his head until he could see Shawn. In Arabic, he said, “No, no. Not true. Not yet.” He pointed westward. “He is moved there. To the place of gas.”

Shawn passed the man's machine pistol to Dodie. “Stand up,” he said. “Move. We're getting the hell out of here.” He pointed to the end of the cell, averting his gaze from the thing he would rather not see. In Arabic, he told the Pakistani, “Get over there.”

Moving slowly, looking back, the man stood against the far wall.

“Please,” he said to Shawn. “Please do not shoot.”

“I won't, if I don't have to,” Shawn told him. “I don't want to kill you.” Pushing Dodie out the door, he locked it behind him. In the tunnel, the sound of voices was louder. Moving fast now, Shawn led the way toward the steps he'd come down from the street. Over the prevailing odor of rot, he smelled something else. Keeping his voice low, he asked, “Did you shit yourself in there?”

“No, sir,” Dodie whispered. “Pissed my pants is all. That thing—what was on the floor there—”

“Shut it,” Shawn told him. “Shut your mouth.”

“A head, a cutoff head,” Dodie said, still in a whisper. “You know whose head it was?”

There were close to the steps now. “I told you—shut the fuck up.”

Dodie wiped snot from his nose. “Lieutenant Bartosik, sir. I played cards with him one time. Before he was dead, I mean.”

“If you don't shut up,” Shawn said, “I swear I'll shoot you myself.”

Dodie was weeping again. “His head, sir—his head, on the floor back there. I thought they—” Behind him, deeper in the tunnel, Shawn heard shouting—voices raised in a torrent of abusive Arabic. “Sir,” Dodie whispered, “that's them. They cut off his head. They're coming after me.”

Shawn grabbed Dodie's collar and pushed him up the cellar steps. At the top, they paused. The street door was ajar. Shawn saw the guard was at the end of the alley, leaning on the warehouse wall. Somewhere, the man had found cigarettes; he was relaxed, smoking.

To Dodie, Shawn said, “Move fast. Go left, onto the street, then slow down, walk toward town. Should be a taxi there—shit-colored Morris. I paid him. Call Langley, tell them we'll have Ramirez out.”

“Sir? What are you doing?”

“Covering your back, right now. Then getting Rafe. Move.”

“I really want to thank you,” Dodie said, wiping his nose with his hand. “I thought, sir, thought, like I'm too young to die. They'll cut my head off—”

Dodie and Shawn exited the street door at the same moment. Shawn shoved Dodie out and to the left. He dropped to a crouch, facing right; saw the guard, at the end of the alley, spit out his smoke, go for his Kalashnikov. Shawn took a moment to aim—left hand steadying right wrist—then shot the man's legs out from under him.

“Sorry about that,” Shawn said, more to himself than to the Pakistani, who was now on the ground, doubled up, yelling. Shawn
was
sorry, too. The guard's need for a smoke somehow made him human—a fellow being, a fellow addict, not a man to be killed without thought, or casually condemned to a life of pain. This was not a country, Shawn guessed, where you'd check in to order new knees. Nevertheless, American lives were at stake, and between his countrymen and the Taliban, Shawn saw no contest.

*   *   *

Hearing the throaty growl of a Humvee convoy, Shawn saw that the guard was still on the ground, still struggling. He checked the road, then emerged from the alley, waving down the lead vehicle of the strike squad.

“Shawn Maguire,” he told the captain who opened the forward door. “Special Ops, sir. I just got one of our boys out.” He pointed to the warehouse. “Out of there. They're still holding my partner, Ramirez. I'll show you where we'll find him—above a gas station, next to this place. What we need to do—”

“Stop right there, son,” the captain said, without raising his voice. “We don't work for Ops. We're here helping get you out of the ratfuck you got yourself in—you and your buddy. We decide what we do.”

*   *   *

What the captain decided was a simultaneous hit on the warehouse and the gas station. The squad used Humvees to clear the street. The garage—a three-story cinder-block building—had only two gas pumps, both rusted, but working. Behind them were a car, another shit-colored Morris, and a Dodge truck. Both on chocks, both without wheels.

Bearded men appeared from stores and apartment buildings. Some carried weapons but backed away when they saw the Americans' armament. One thing we do real well, Shawn thought, is weaponry. Sure as shit have the rest of the world outgunned.

The captain ordered his men to blow the doors of the garage building, follow up with gas grenades, and then, gas-masked, rush the upper floors.

Shawn said, “You do that, sir, you're going to get my man killed. He's in there someplace, with a bunch of hajjis. If I talk to them, these guys might bargain. You rush them, sir, no one gets out alive.”

“Correction,” said the captain. “Your man's not going to get hurt. We'll get him out. Surprise assault. Anyone terminated, it's going to be a fucking hajji.” He pointed to the body of a frail bystander, now sprawled in blood near the gas pumps. “We got one already. Armed insurgent.”

Shawn didn't argue. There was no time. He went at a run around the back of the building. All of its metal doors were padlocked. A lightweight aluminum extension ladder leaned against a wall. Stumbling, rushing, Shawn doubled the length of the ladder then shifted it along the wall until its top touched a wide window on the second floor. Moments later, he was on a level with the glass, except, he now saw, it was not glass but some kind of reinforced and semiclear plastic.

From where he stood on the ladder, Shawn looked directly into a large unpartitioned space. Rafe Ramirez was near the window, staring toward it. He was bound by duct tape to a swiveling office chair. The strips of insulation wrapped tight around his body made him look like one of the mummified bodies Shawn had once seen in coffins in the Cairo Museum, where al-Zawahari's men came close to killing him.

Rafe's mouth was taped, only his startled eyes uncovered. Beside him was a white-robed man, exceptionally tall, his face fully masked. He wore a flat Afghan cap and held a skinning knife. His head cocked, he seemed to be listening. As the second round of explosives smashed through a door on the far side of the building, the masked man drew his knife around the skin of Rafe's neck, leaving a fine and bloody line. When Rafe jerked his head away from the blade, the executioner took a handful of the prisoner's hair to adjust his position, as a barber adjusts the set of a customer's head.

Now the big room's floor filled with rolling mists of gas. Somewhere below, men beat at metal barriers. Shawn heard a muffled explosion—dynamiting a door, he guessed. Rafe's disbelieving eyes swiveled rightward, then downward to where the blade caressed his neck. Shawn smashed a fist vainly against the window's double plastic. Then, gripping the ladder, he lifted the Berretta and fired two shots. Both punched neat holes in the plastic, which, diverting them, left the executioner to complete his work. Concentrating now, he hacked and sawed: Muscular, he severed sinew, cartilage, and bone, struggling to separate Rafe's bloodied head from the column of his neck.

The prisoner's beating heart pumped fresh blood over the fingers of the man beheading him. The robed man at times glanced behind him, then went back to the work at hand, like one who rushes to finish a given task in a too-short space of time.

Rafe, still conscious, glanced first sideways and down, disbelieving his own dismemberment. He turned wide, weeping eyes to Shawn at the window.

Helpless, Shawn saw his buddy pull and strain against the ties that bound him. Under the tape, Rafe's mouth seemed to form some final words, or a shout, it might have been. There was a howl then, a bawling scream, and Shawn knew it was he who had screamed. Drawing back on the ladder, he punched at the window, using all the strength he had. Though the plastic did not break, the blow sent the ladder arcing away from the building. For a moment, it stood perpendicular, hesitant—it could have gone either way—and then, as Shawn gripped its sides, the ladder tipped backward and fell, taking him down to the metal-strewn ground, stunning him. At that same moment, or moments later, the filling station exploded, triggering fuel-fed fires. For an instant, Shawn lay still, the ladder sprawled across him. Something heavy fell from the building. Turning, he saw Rafe's head askew on the concrete slab; startled eyes still open, mouth still taped, blood clotted on the severed neck.

Another of the station's tanks exploded. In waves of heat and fume, the head blew, rolling like a tumbleweed toward a burning gas pump, and Shawn was on his feet, running for his life, running from the severed head, from the flaming tanks, racing out, bent double, before the next explosion hit.

When he collapsed finally on the far side of the pavement, Shawn lost consciousness. He remembered nothing until he woke in a helicopter as it landed in a strange town, which, he learned, was Rawalpindi. There he was treated for shock and burns and later, in D.C., for post-traumatic stress.

It was, he told Bobby Walters, a while before he could sleep through a night.

Since then, when Shawn heard of hostage taking, he had moments of nausea, recalling the time he lay on concrete, beside Rafe's head, staring into its wide bewildered eyes.

*   *   *

“You did good, son,” the captain told Shawn when they met again. “Got a live one out.” He put a hand on Shawn's shoulder. “More'n what we did. That's something stays private—just the two of us. We clear about that?”

By then Shawn had seen the captain's written account of a successful antiterrorist action in Peshawar, with one American agent saved and another unfortunately beheaded before the rescue force arrived. All other casualties were enemy aliens from across the Afghan border. “Armed antiliberation forces” was the term used.

At that moment, speaking with the officer, Shawn, still traumatized, made no reply. Later, though, recalling the startled gaze of his buddy's eyes, he did think of things he might have said.

 

29

PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN, 31 MAY 2004

Four years after Rafe's death, traveling back to Peshawar—this time with Danielle—Shawn was restless. The flight across the Gulf seemed not just long but endless. Until they changed planes there were two hijab-shrouded women in the row ahead. They huddled, unspeaking, among a hundred white-clad males: pilgrims returning from the hajj. The women occupied a full row of seats on that crowded plane; no man would sit beside them.

After Karachi, there were only men aboard. Some carried long-barreled handguns beneath their loose robes. That was the kind of thing Shawn noticed. These days, he thought, weapons weren't generally approved on planes, even in his own gun-loving country.