Uplifted fists and nasty epithets had been hurled like shards of glass at the pensive pilgrims standing in the village square, but Karim’s caravan drove east, leaving those left behind to assume he had conceded the contest. Jinny’s disabled M-24 sniper rifle pointed straight up, and the hands of time stood still, or so it seemed. She and Abdul watched from the rooftop as other hands, willing hands, reverently lifted Safeed’s limp limbs onto a litter. Like courtiers of a caliph, the solemn assembly escorted his body into the hospital to be washed, anointed, and wrapped for burial.
A venous canal, brimming with consternation, pumped through Jinny as she watched the procession disappear. She stretched for a life-preserver but linked arms with Abdul-Akim; then she thought better of it. Abdul forced a weary smile. Soaked in salty sorrow, the two veterans of a foreign war sat down side by side and leaned against the parapet. Both were emotionally and physically dehydrated. Abdul had no way of knowing that Jinny suffered from P.T.S.D, but she did.
“Sergeant, I need to rest for a few minutes, but will you lift and look beneath the unriveted section of flashing to your left? It covers a hollow.” Jinny’s countenance betrayed surprise as she discovered and retrieved a stowed grapnel and coil of rope long enough to expedite their exfil to the courtyard. “Scout Motto: Be prepared, ” chuckled Abdul, “but this not my favorite way down.” He gently linked arms with his companion and spoke again–not loudly, but as a shepherd would console his sheep, secured for the night in the fold.
Abdul called her by name. “Jinny,” he paused, “there is something Safeed would have you know.”
“Safeed? He spoke of me?”
“Yes, but only a few well-chosen words,” Abdul chuckled. “Safeed always spoke in large caps so I could easily read his meaning. But excuse me, I do not mean to embarrass you or intrude on your private thoughts.” Their weary eyes and sentiments converged. Then, realizing his own thoughts were also under the microscope, Abdul pulled away, drew his linen thwab close against his chest, folded his hands between his knees, and swayed back and forth like a listless reed. For a time, all he could hear was the pumping of his own broken heart. “It is too soon for me to speak further of Safeed.”
“Yes, and for me—too soon.”
“Whom else do you miss? Tell me of your family.”
Jinny laid her rifle on the coiled rope, leaned her head back against the parapet, and spoke as if from a trance. “ Papa . . .. my hero . . . he raised children . . . and wheat, encouraging all to sprout and achieve their full potential. Papa was a patriot and a Christian . . . he died on his knees by his bed . . . so suddenly. The next day the President and Congress convened and declared war on your people. For me it was a sad day, but a day of decision. Papa had taught me that America is a land of promise and that maintaining freedom requires sacrifice. He expected me to govern myself accordingly. And so . . . you see . . . I am here. And my Mama? . . . but excuse me for babbling on.”
Abdul replied, “Child, you babble like a brook. Babel on.”
Jinny suddenly wanted to tell all. “To be sure, I’ve bumped my way downstream; but Abdul . . . the nightmares.”
Abdul shifted so he could face Jinny head-on. “You will understand that I am in no hurry to knot a rope around my body and abseil forty feet like a bag of sand. I want to know what you are willing to share. I am listening.”
“Jinny! Father! Are you alright?” It was Dalal. She had climbed to the roof to gather in her laundry.”
“Yes, we are commiserating. Is all well, Dalal?”
“All is as well as can be expected, but Gharam is a mess.”
“Then perhaps it is it’s time to go. Sorry Jinny, I hope I may call you Jinny from now on. We must see to my niece and the boys. I didn’t realize how late it is. And I forgot–the fire escape wouldn’t burn; its made of steel. May we follow you down, Dalal?”
***
Karim had requisitioned a new driver from the motor pool—one who had never been behind the wheel; and Seaman’s Cap dared not refuse. He’d not spoken aloud since joining the gang, but inwardly he he had become hoarse with chatter. I’ve driven many an ass into a corral but never one toward the capital of Pakistan, He struggled to ignore Karim’s braying as the boss picked Dalal’s stray buckshot from his own left arm.
“STOP,” he yelled over the roar of the engine. “I’m sick.”
“Stop?” Seaman’s Cap delicately tap-tap-tapped to pinpoint which pedal operated the brake. “Donkey-dung, donkey-dung; not that one, S.C. . . . YES, that one. Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang.” Each jeep rear-ended the one ahead like a derailing freight train, and the Humvee wasn’t spared. Karim’s cranium dented the dashboard and popped open the glove box—no airbags—Karim being the possible exception. Head and tail-lights shattered; radiators leaked; tempers flared, and Billie Joe Quagmeyer swooned, unable to piece together what had just happened. His men buzzed around him like bees around their dead queen. They all wanted honey. No luck.
After decommissioning Seaman’s Cap, Karim wiped the blood off his knuckles and appointed a new driver—a kid called Crackers. And then, miraculously, a goose-egg appeared on Karim’s forehead at the precise moment he announced, “I’ve hatched a plan.” But his plan, like his scrambled brain, had neither fully developed nor hatched. “We’ll drive east for a few miles, hang out until it gets dark, and then sneak back to the village. This time boys, no horns, no lights.”
That would be easy.
“Snag the gas, douse the village, and light it up–underwear and all. Born to burn, boys–just like that—born to burn. And I want that woman.”
“Uh, boss.” Crackers raised his grimy hand and snapped his fingers. “We’re not armed, don’t you know it? You want that we should sneak up, start fires, and not expect to be blasted to hell just because it’s nighttime? And are you going to lead the charge?”
“Charge? Are you questioning who’s in charge, Cracker Jack? Everybody moves. Now. Follow me.” The men returned to their car-seats; starter motors whirred, but not one engine responded to the command. Only Karim’s vehicle spun around, slowly passed each idle jeep, and then it stopped, too.
Billie Joe Quagmire climbed out and craned his neck so he could look overhead at a matched pair of American-made Pakistani Bell AH-1Z Viper helicopters whoop-whooping at an altitude of ten football fields laid end to end. Like eagles, the birds’ talons extended and eyes their zeroed on the target. Down they swooped to harvest a bunch of what looked like a family of field mice and one rat. Jeeps exploded, flipped over, and bodies trampolined into the air. Wounded men scattered like cockroaches do when the lights are turned on. A single PAF 26J swung in low and strafed the road, taking down a solitary soldier, ugly as sin, waving a white flag. Karim was dead.
From sixty-five thousand feet, a Lockheed U-TR-1 photographed, recorded, and simultaneously transmitted live-action photos to DOD, US Command, Kandahar, and also to a technician bunkered near Kansas City, where he massaged a joystick with his fingertips. His orders: “Continue the vigil over Peshawar.”