A Douglas-DC 4E departed Burbank for Honolulu and cleared the California coast above Venice Beach at 9:45 PST, August 3, 1947. Far below, scantily dressed Angelinos watched fireworks launch from the boardwalk by the Santa Monica pier. The summer night was warm, the surf restless.
High above the dark Pacific, fifty-two seniors—clad in wrinkled Hawaiian shirts, gauchos and capris—polished off dinner, cocktails, and soon slept as if there were no tomorrow. Hours droned by until, thirty minutes beyond the point of no return, starboard P&W engine number three sputtered, choked, and caught fire, startling the stewardess and shocking everyone into consciousness. Quieted by the pilot’s voice, passengers prepared for a water landing. Heads ducked into pillows; hands clutched buoyant seat cushions; but then, black smoke infiltrated the cockpit and cabin, suffocating the crew and passengers. Starboard engine number four stalled, and the airplane spun like a top, slapped the water, lost a wing, and flipped over in the salty sea.
**
For two days the Taliban had taunted U.S. forces and succeeded in blocking airline traffic from landing at the Kandahar International Airport in southern Afghanistan. A ten-vehicle convoy–slated to transport captured enemy combatants to Kabul, far to the north–finally slipped away under cover of darkness; but things soon went from bad to worse. Much worse. Sand blasted and pitted everything perpendicular and slowed forward progress to a crawl. When at daybreak the convoy finally emerged from nature’s denuding, its camouflage proved authentic–sand everywhere. Soldiers in the seven roofless jeeps had endured the worst of it, but everybody coughed.
Captain Edmund Durant rode shotgun in the lead Humvee and looked like a mummified bandit, his scarf wrapped tightly across his mouth and nose. “You should soon see the bridge, Corporal Duffy,” he said to his driver. “Call it The Bridge of No Return.”
“I’d rather call it The Bridge That Hasn’t Been Blown All The Way To Buffalo, Sir.”
” Whatever. This map shows Eagle Camp 230 miles up the road. ” The captain pocketed the map, leaned forward to activate the single wiper, and jigged his head hypnotically back and forth. The wiper struggled. The captain struggled. “Do you see it yet?”
“The bridge? No. I MEAN, YES! HANG ON CAP.” Duffy spied calamity just in time. He plunged the lead Humvee off the road, down the bank, and into a dry, rocky wadi. Everybody followed suit. “Woe-woe-woe Nellie!”
Durant braced against the seat, dash, and floor to keep from smacking his head while subconsciously fumbling with a thumb for his absent-without-leave wedding-band. “Easy does it, Corporal, easy does it; you’re doing fine. You must be a prophet. I’m chuffed you saw it before I did. Keep both hands on the wheel, both eyes on all those belly-scrapers, and be thankful you’re not bucking in the back of that five-ton 12-wheeler with our cargo—zip-tied, bothered, battered, and bewildered.” How clever. Isn’t that a song lyric?
“Cap, this is a wide reach. I’ll lay odds that by now those fellas in the truck wish they’d never left the Mississippi good life, or wherever they crawled out from under a rock from.” Duffy’s demeanor dampened as he took in what remained of the twisted girder bridge rudely dismantled to his left. Its remnants resembled the Santa Monica pier after the worst storm in its history—battered pylons, collapsed trusses, and clapperboards dangling like fractured ribs forty-feet overhead. “Looks like a dark angel used the bridge for target practice, Sir. Think we’re the first to cross this river bed?”
Deep down, the Santa Monica transplant wished he were cruising Sunset Boulevard seated next to his famous brother in a Lamborghini–a car neither could afford, top down, on a cool evening. He wistfully looked to see if his surfboard was sticking out the rear of the Humvee. He knew better. It wasn’t. But every vehicle in the convoy pitched back and forth across no-man’s-land as if it were being tossed by a relentless surf, around and over boulders the size of breakers.
“Your job is to get this $220,000 armored alligator across this hazard, then on to Kabul, so dodge that rock, if you please. I’ll keep an eye out for the best place to claw our way up and out of this hazard. And Corporal, don’t call me Cap.” Durant picked up the walkie-talkie, tapped it to his lips, and barked an order. “Listen up everybody. Keep your eyes fastened on our flanks. Let’s not become somebody’s road kill. Remember, nobody briefed us that this bridge had been buggered. Are you boys in the back seat staying on task?”
“Yes, Sir, and there’s just me—Kramer.”
Durant twisted around. “Don’t look at me, Kramer. Unhook your seat-belt, turn around, grab hold of the back, and watch our six. Keep your eyes on our boys back there. Keep track of the Humvee, the truck, and all seven jeeps–that would be n-i-n-e, not counting us. Holler if anybody falls behind. Let’s blaze this trail and get back on the road headed north. ” Durant thumped Kramer’s knee and added, “Bottom line? Don’t play stupid, or as John Wayne put it, ‘Life is tough, but it’s tougher when you’re stupid.’” The captain unsnapped his holstered Glock but left it at ready. “What I still can’t figure is why we needed two platoons to escort 40 detainees to the capital.”
The convoy ground tediously forward, but its progress suited Tariq Basheed just fine. He and his men had lain concealed behind the far bank–as invisible as chlorine gas–for an hour, waiting to squeeze American blood from a turnip. Waiting was a small price to pay. The Taliban chieftain’s head—shielded from the elements by a kufiyah held in place by a circlet of rope—bobbed guardedly up and down like a lion sizing up his prey. But to him, the convoy looked more like a host of pesky aphids crawling single file, intent on devouring his poppy fields. Americans are insects; insects are junkies.
“We’re almost back on track,” mumbled Duffy as the four-wheel-drive clawed its way up the river bank.
In staccato Tariq snapped orders to his men to be alert and ready to fire on his signal. “Keep coming, Americans. Keep coming Americans. Yes, yes. Three. Two. One. ALLAHU AKBAR!”
An explosive collided with the undercarriage of the lead Humvee, forcing all four wheels to levitate for a split second, and ejecting Durant like a rag doll. The vehicle rolled and pinned Kramer’s left arm to the ground. Tires spun. The engine roared. Fires flared. Action thriller? Take One? The men turned to ash were not manikins, and there was no one on hand to weep. Durant could only whisper, “Take cover, men. Take cover.”
Rapid-fire automatic weapons splayed hot lead, riddling soldiers as they leapt from the second Humvee, the cab of the truck, and the jeeps behind. The Americans were over-exposed, outflanked, outnumbered, and outgunned; but boys became men and stood their ground during a fearsome firefight. It lasted four minutes.
“Medic. Medic.”
Lying folded in half backwards and bleeding through his ears and nose, an eighteen-year-old PFC from Tacoma quieted, gurgled, and gasped, “Never mind me, boys. Mother, I’m home.” Except for one soldier, the entire platoon lay dead or dying.
Tariq ignored the plight of the wounded. Like an armored picket fence he and his clansmen surrounded the canvas covered truck, eager to heft and confiscate everything on board. On signal, rifles poised like stiffened fingers, parted the heavy tarpaulin flap, and exposed the ugliest Mississippian in Afghanistan: Karim of Kandahar—Billy Joe Quagmeyer–and his band of bullies.
As yet uninjured, they huddled together—a defenseless phalanx kneeling on the railed bed. But not Karim of Kandahar. He leaped from the truck, took a knee, covered one nostril, and blew his bloody nose on the ground while his men—bound hand and foot—were prodded off the truck like contestants in a potato sack race. The last man standing went head over heels and landed on his skull. His neck snapped. He stopped breathing. The rest huddled together, postured like frightened animals—but not Karim. He remained silent but defiant as he calmly faced the picket of rifles being jabbed indiscriminately at his disciples.
Tariq warily approached, leaned in, looked up, studied the hairy Mississippi native, and then spat at his feet. Karim hoped the gesture to be an Arab greeting or perhaps the beginning of a ritualistic cultural exchange. His hope paled when Tariq bared his teeth, shook his head disgustedly, circled Karim, and probed his stomach, arms, and back with a sharp stick as one might do to see if his trophy buck was completely dead. In Pashto, he exclaimed, “Look what we have here, guys—a poorly preserved Neanderthal. Or perhaps he just escaped from the Kandahar City Zoo,” he chortled. Tariq clapped his hands three times and jubilantly proclaimed, “I will stuff this one with almond husks and hang him before my tent, to the delight of my grandchildren.” Teeth bared and bobble-heads nodded approval.
The self-ordained chief of the Okefenokee—well equipped to upstage the entire cast of miscreants—had cleverly worked himself free of his restraints but had not understood a word spoken by the chieftain; nor did he feel threatened by Tariq’s men, who frenzied like caged chimpanzees clamoring for a mid-morning feed.
Karim bared his teeth, raised his tatted arms overhead, and vigorously pumped up and down like King Kong while flashing Nixon’s fingered “V” for victory—which absolutely no one understood. He resorted to ordering his Pashto vocabulary words into intelligible sentences. No verbs. No luck. He huffed and puffed, “Okay, what you see is what you get.”
The Taliban chieftain interpreted the big man’s grin to be a sneer, and the sign a vulgar gesture; he circled Karim’s motley crew like an alley thug searching for further vulnerabilities he could exploit.
“Will somebody please help me?” cried Durant, his arm still pinned beneath the Humvee.
Karim, unaware that only Durant remained alive, responded by pantomiming a request for a weapon and his willingness to kill all the wounded. Frustrated, the Mississippi native tried again. He pointed at the troops, gesticulated the slashing of his own throat with a filthy thumbnail, and then demanded, “Give me a gun or knife, and I’ll finish them off.”
The captors seemed amused by the sideshow but as yet unwilling to comply with his request. As a last resort, Karim turned toward his men and demanded, “Repeat after me three times, ‘Rah, rah, for our Taliban brothers who has come to our rescue.’” The chorus was pathetic, the performance, tragically unamusing.
Tariq fisted his right hand and yelled in the King’s English, “Silence. I am Tariq of the Tangnuni.” He ominously poked his finger toward Karim and declared, “YOU, I choose you, big mouth. Kneel for your execution. I said, ‘kneel.’ You see, I am a merciful host, for you won’t have as far to fall as the others. ALLAHU AKBAR!” Tariq’s men repeated the chant three times while thrusting their rifles triumphantly up and down like they’d seen done in American movies.
Forty odd inmates collapsed to their knees like rotting peaches drop from a tree during an east wind–but not Karim. He refused to kneel to anyone. Tariq drew his cimeter. After stroking his beard and shearing off a few kinky hairs, the Taliban chieftain conducted a staring contest with the giant thug, whose eyebrows arched up and eyes bugged out. One glared down. One glared up. Not taking his eyes off the stubborn giant, Tariq randomly gestured in the air with a finger and counted aloud who was to be executed first, second, and so on. He stopped at seven. “On your knees; you are number one, pig. You go first.” Karim didn’t budge. Tariq fumed. Again, he leaned forward. Shocked, he abruptly grabbed and pinched his own nostrils between two fingers.
“You smell of moldy hashish.” His men nodded. “I detect by the stench that you have been caged in Kandahar. Do you know you got out just in time? Talibani warriors have overrun the American base, but did you know? IT HAS BEEN TOPPLED LIKE A WORMY TREE!” Tariq’s men jubilantly shook their weapons and popped a few rounds into the sky. What went up came down. Gravity sped one round through an occupied Taliban hijab–dead-center.
Karim was impressed and nodded approval. “Good shooting, brother.”
Short one man and shorter on patience, Tariq narrowed his bloodshot gaze for effect. “How dare you call me brother? To me you are a prickly a cactus covered with motor oil; but and however, since I am a merciful man—Allah be praised—I give you a test by which you may live or die.” He spoke slowly and deliberately. “If we are brothers, as you say, name your clan?”
Tariq spat on a dead soldier and fired a round through the head of another while Karim cogitated over the question. He straightened and replied, “That would be Ku Klux Klan,” and then he forced out another desultory, stupid grin.
“Ahh.” Taliban sabers twisted and glistened in the timid sunshine. The chieftain’s parched lips sported a grim smile. He beckoned his men forward and ordered, “Behead them all, the ugliest first,” which left room for a wide margin for error.
“Wait! Wait! Wait!” Devoid of hostage negotiating skills, Karim attempted to upgrade his ticket by replying with a mix of Pashto and English. “Ah, but mobile lord, before we dry I must test you, I am a large Land Rover and bleeder of all Okefenokee Tribes. Yes, yes. It is true.” Puffed by his own quick response and using only leg muscles to think, Karim rose to his tiptoes like froth atop warm beer. He crossed his arms, squared his shoulders as best he could, completed one squat, and broke wind.
“Ohh.” Now the clansmen were impressed.
Tariq said, “Hmm. I am curious. I would know, are there children in your tribe who look like you?”
With a few prompts, Karim’s Pashto improved. “No. I am one of a kindness. No one likes me. I has been through many bottles. I wash to jihad all over Americans.”
Tariq licked his fingers and pulled gently at his speckled grey beard, restoring its pointed end. “Ah yes, yes, now I see, I see. You plan to gas your enemies with your scent? But that’s against the Geneva Convention, so step back. I said, BACK.” Karim tippy-toed two steps back, tripped, and fell on his buttocks, allowing Tariq the opportunity to drive his point home. He skillfully thrust his cimeter against the lathery skin on Karim’s buxom neck. “Since we both wage Jihad against the Americans, I will assume you want to leave behind a good impression, yes? Karim nodded. “Well then, since you are one of a kind, as you say, I will remove your head and mount it on a pole in front of my tent. You will be famous in every camp and even on TV.”
As rigid as an icicle, Karim kept dripping. Salty sweat oozed from the Mississippian’s every pore, evoking a surge of adrenalin that spiked a brazen outburst the likes of which his henchmen had never witnessed. A throaty rejoinder gulped past his Adam’s apple and broke his silence into small, lethal shards. “FORGET YOU, A-RAB! I AM GRAND MASTER OF THE KU KLUX KLAN. I-me-I am potentatoe of the Okefenokee swamp where my warriors are as putrefied as the warts on a washtub full of frogs; so, pay attention cause I’m only going to tell this once: I’m an ex-con and mighty proud of it; I’ve been cornered before and come out swinging. During my stint in the cooler I got nearly beat to death, but I never give in; I graduated. I know how to carve a shiv out of a chicken bone and spike a rat nearly as mean as you; and this here fella (he pointed at Ajani) will tell you I chested him and swum on my back through a slough full of gators. I surely did save his skin; and one muggy night we got so hungry I bit a cottonmouth in half, skinned it, and we ate it raw. Ain’t that right Ajani?”
Ajani nodded, “Yep, yep.”
“But now look at you, Arab, standing in this god-forsaken place in a bathrobe and pantaloons, wearing a silly thing-a-ma-bob on your head while the U. S. of A. stakes claim to your whole country. And you are here messing with the very folk who wanna help exterminate trespassers. Don’t there seem to be something off about all that? They burn your poppy fields, pollinate your water, molest your women, and chew on your crops like cockroaches who snuck into a box of Wheaties. So, here’s the deal—desert moth—give us what we want, and the grand master and his men will eliminate these American roaches. And while I’m considering aloud, where in blazes is this ISIS we’ve heard so much about? I want a souvenir flag, free of charge.”
Karim patted Tariq on the head. “All of what I’ve rehearsaled makes us brothers, don’t you see?” Karim overshadowed Tariq and continued. “So, looky here and listen up; we need a few things to get this show on the road: First my Klan needs transportation. We’ll take one of them Hummers—oh, I see there’s only one for the taking. We’ll strip the dead of their ammo and load up their firearms. We need all the jeeps, and I have dubs on that soldier; ” Karim pointed at Edmund Durant; “he’s the one stuck to the truck with the bloody nose .” The captain, in shock, shaking uncontrollably, suffering from a concussion, and temporarily deaf, saw Karim point an index finger in his direction and pull the trigger.
“Gotcha.” Karim blew imaginary smoke from his finger tip. In a cockier tone he added, “Oh yeah, Chief Tariq, we need water. Let’s see, have I forgot anything?”
Tariq furrowed his brow,You forgot I am going to behead you first. He fisted his dagger but courteously allowed Karim time to pronounce a benediction on his mortal existence. But Karim leaned forward and muttered something which no one understood but Tarik and Ajani, who had remained silent throughout the peace talks.
Tariq backed off and consulted with his number two man. “That big ape is a poacher and a fool. He should be put down, but let’s give him a few weeks and see how many Americans he can eradicate. Give him no water, but do we need to be worried about the Okefenokee? Are they coming, too?
“I have no idea. I need to call the consulate.””
Tariq drew the zaraf from his waste-band and pointed. “We agree, but the truck is mine. Load all the bodies and then leave before I change my mind.”
Karim nodded, approached Captain Durant, stooped, clutched his shoulders, and then spat in his face. “You’re dead but we won’t bury you yet. You are my salty negotiating chip. Your uniform is mine, because now I’m in charge here. Got it? You’ll ride in your skivvies, and when you wish to die, just remember, you are already dead. But Karim? Karim of Kandahar? I will become famous for killing Americans and anybody else who stands in the way of treasure. Do you hear me now? J-i-h-a-d!” After examining and brushing dead grass from the captain’s uniform, he backhanded him across the face and stripped off his identification tapes. Then, after looking to the chieftain for an approving nod, Karim grabbed Durant’s arm and beckoned to Ajani and the men to lift the truck.
“Remember stud, good first impressions pay off. Now strip this clown, and then wrap him up and throw him in the back of the Humvee. You drive, and I’ll change into my uniform after we get on the road. I don’t want nobody staring at my skivvies. Now move it.”
Tariq waited for Karim’s men to load the dead onto the 10-wheeler; then he stepped up into the cab and started the engine. Like Floridians at a flea market, his men climbed aboard, stripped the bodies of shoes and valuables, and fought over who got what. Slim pickings. The truck spun around, bounced back across the rocks up onto the pavement and drove south toward Kabul. Except for exhausted smoke, it was soon out of sight, but one of Tariq’s men stayed behind. Before disappearing into the barren landscape, he turned, waved his arms, and whistled. “Don’t go to Kabul. Kabul is going to hell, just like Kandahar. Go to Jalalabad, far to the east of Kabul. Many Americans to kill there.” Cursing, he offered up a vulgar sign which Karim acknowledged and reciprocated.
Unseen by all, the canvas-backed truck pulled off the road. Everybody scampered off and headed for the hills. Tariq planted explosives, set a timer, and ran away yelling, “Only a fool drives around with a target on his back.”
Meanwhile, Karim concluded that he had masterminded a daring escape. He rode shotgun and chanted, “O-o-gah! O-o-gah! Praise be to Allah and my Taliban fathers who now see me as a son, the great Karim of Kandahar, chief of the Okefenokee.”
Ajani steered the Humvee with his knees and, sighing under his rancid breath, tried to read a road-map. “What have I gotten myself into?”
Karim slapped him on the shoulder and said, “Just the two of us could have took down them Taliban scum back there, but it’s too late now. Keep driving until we come to a 7-Eleven. When we get there, kill the clerk and bring me a large cherry Slurpee, some food, and beer for the men. But no plastic straws.” Karim yawned and relaxed. “And keep an eye out for the army. We need more guns and gas. Now step on it!”
Ajani looked up from the map as the Humvee swerved back and forth on the road. “Since I’m the one charting our course, you need to remember that I’m driving as fast as I can.”
“When I ordered you to step on it, there was a scorpion on your shoe heading up your leg.”
Ajani slammed on the brakes. The unconscious hostage overcame inertia, slammed against the seat-back, and flopped on the floor. Ajani jumped from the Hummer and pounded his leg. Karim broke into a fit of laughter. “Get in the truck.”
Furious, Ajani climbed into the driver seat and wailed, “Not funny, boss.” He slammed the door, threw the map on the dash, ground into first gear, and rolled forward. After biting his lip until it bled, he played navigator. “So, here’s the plan. We’re now going north then west and join up with ISIS. The map shows lots of small towns along the way. Yep. Yep. There is a junction three kilometer ahead. We’ll turn left and head toward Iran . . . “
Karim exploded, blistering Ajani’s suntanned skin with pustules of anger. “Never, ever, tell ME what WE are going to do! WE are going to Jalalabaddle to make America’s mothers mourn, but first, WE are going steal guns, food, and after WE kill and collect our dues, WE are going to Pakistan through the Khyber Pass, just like Genghis Khan. WE. WE. WE.”
All the way home.“Yep. Yep. Right, boss.” Ajani wished himself dead—dead-drunk and safely back Charleston SC —but then, Karim had saved his skin. Every pickle has its sour moments, I guess.
Zip-tied and unconscious, Durant’s head bounced on the floor behind the front seat like a tethered billiard ball. Behind the Humvee, seven loaded jeeps played follow-the-leader as they angled east-north-east across a barren landscape. Some men argued over who was Karim’s favorite, while others silently wondered where the journey would end—as did those monitoring the convoy via satellite surveillance.