watching them. They were always back home before morning, sleepy but able to work.
As all boys of that age do, they thrived on tales of great adventure. In the mountains of Pakistan lived clans of fighters who had battled invaders like the Russians and the Americans and other soldiers from other countries over hundreds of years. There were Taliban fighters, and Pakistani army troops, and fierce troops loyal to warlords, and all had exciting tales that fascinated impressionable boys. Ali and Ahmad could not wait to grow up and join the ranks of some fighting corps. They did not understand, or care, about politics or the religious aspects woven into it. They just wanted adventure.
So, not for the first time, they had slipped into the forbidden territory to explore at night, each daring the other to go a step deeper into the shadows. At the destroyed bridge, they decided to rest a while before heading home and made themselves comfortable in amid the angles of the steel girders on the fallen span. They ate some nuts and a few dates and kicked with bare, callused feet at the water flowing beneath them.
From where they sat, the boys could easily see the bright bubble of light at the new bridge a mile upriver, where trucks and construction equipment were always on the move, building the biggest thing the boys had ever seen. The new bridge, seeming to be a mountain itself, was already allowing some traffic to cross, but the construction never slackened. The boys heard the clanking of metal machines and the faint shouts of the crews.
“They are doing more work tonight on the left column,” Ali noted, chewing. “I hope they will use explosives.”
From the woods along the riverbank came the growl of a dog, followed by an angry bark, a brief burst of snarls and snaps, a cry of agony, then sudden silence. The dog had caught whatever it had been chasing.
“We could go and find it.” It was another dare from Ahmad to box his friend into a corner. Both knew they had to leave in the next few minutes to be back home on time. Even bravery has its limits, and they understood that in the early morning hours, this area was said to belong to the Djinn. Too many strange things had happened in this low valley beyond the bridge for the boys not to at least pay attention to the stories that an evil spirit roamed the area. That made their daring adventures even more frightening and fun. As they talked and splashed, they never noticed that danger was approaching.
Ahmad was knocked senseless when a club smashed into his head, and then he was toppling off the bridge and into the water below, his right arm cracking on a big rock before he was swept downstream. He heard a distant cry from Ali, then just the rush of the water. His right arm would not work, but he flailed and kicked as he gasped for air. He managed to get out of the main flow of the river, and a whirling eddy pushed him to calmer water, where he dragged himself ashore. He struggled to turn over, coughed up some water, and flopped onto his back to catch his breath.
Ahmad struggled to his feet, cradling his hurting arm, knowing it was broken. He had been taken down the river, but not too far. As his thoughts cleared, he called, “Ali?” Steered by the lights on the new bridge, he saw the tilted beams of the collapsed old one and broke into a run.
He could not find Ali at first and thought that maybe he also had been thrown into the river. He stepped onto the span and edged forward, feeling the rusty steel beneath his feet and reaching for handholds. Something was at the far end. “Ali?”
Ahmad took one final step, then stopped in shock and horror. The body of his best friend hung from a steel beam, hoisted like a goat for butchering. A rope was looped over the brace and tied around Ali’s ankles, with the arms hanging straight down, as if pointing toward the pool of blood on the deck below the body. There was no head.
Ahmad gripped a big girder with all his might as his aching head reeled, and he heard a man shouting from the darkness on the far side of the river.
“Go home! Tell everyone what you have seen tonight. Tell them what the Djinn does to those who intrude in his valley.”
Ahmad ran.
6
“WHAT ARE WE LOOKING at?” Major General Brad Middleton had unfolded two blurry photographs and spread them flat on his desk with his palms.
Beth Ledford fought her anxiety at being in the general’s presence, and at the whole operation in which she had become so unexpectedly involved. “Those are blown-up versions of the last two pictures that my brother sent to me from his cell phone. They lost quality when I downloaded and made those prints. Sorry. I don’t have the technology to get better pictures.”
Middleton arched his heavy left eyebrow. “I know they are photographs, Petty Officer. But of what?”
“Sir, the one on your left is of an old steel bridge that has fallen into a river in Pakistan, maybe washed away by the floods, or even earlier. Joey attached it to a text message that asked, ‘Remember this?’”
“Why would he think that? Were you ever in northwest Pakistan?” The general reached into his desk drawer and scuffled around until he found a large magnifying glass. He bent closer to the photo, studying it.
“No, sir. My brother was referring to an old abandoned bridge near our family’s farm in Iowa. It once was part of a spur rail line, but that closed in the fifties, and eventually, the bridge fell down. We played on it when we were kids. The skeletons of the two bridges are remarkably alike.”
Middleton grunted. He saw nothing of interest. He pushed it aside and ran the magnifying glass above the second picture. A huge new bridge was under construction, a colossus that looked more like a dam. “And this one?”
Ledford shifted, and her hands drew into fists on the arms of the chair. “I think that’s why he was killed.”
Middleton lifted his eyes to meet her gaze. “Tell me.”
“Here’s what the text message on this said.” She helped herself to a pen and a yellow legal pad from the gerneral’s desk and wrote N TRBBL RUNNING CC. He passed it around without comment. “That was the last contact anyone had with the team. Since I never take my phone or personal effects off base during a mission, I didn’t receive these until we finished a multiday patrol in Somalia. By then, it was too late.”
The general grunted and slid the pictures aside. The photos had already been examined by Summers and the Lizard, and they would not have passed them up the chain of command to him unless they thought the information was worthwhile. “I still don’t see anything.”
“You probably won’t, sir, not in the picture at least.” Ledford was more certain of her ground now. At least the members of Task Force Trident, including its commanding general, were listening to her. “It’s in the message itself, sir, not only the photographs. The ‘CC’ initials. Our father was an Army infantryman in Vietnam, and since he was small, he sometimes was assigned as a tunnel rat. He used to tell us stories about being underground with a flashlight and crawling through these amazing networks of tunnels, like an anthill. One place he worked was around the town of Cu Chi, not far from Saigon. Joey and I were too young to take it all in, but when we would find some exciting place to explore, we would call it Cu Chi. Then we shortened the name to just CC.”
“Your conclusion, then, is what, Petty Officer Ledford?” Middleton pushed back in his chair and was watching her for signs that she might be lying, or making it up as she went along.
“Sir, I think—I know—that my brother’s medical team stumbled into somewhere they were not supposed to be and discovered something that reminded him of Cu Chi. Somehow he figured out they were tunnels, and probably for military use. The Taliban chased them down and killed them to keep it secret.”
“You informed your superiors and people in here in Washington of everything you just explained to us?” The other four members of Trident had sat by without comment as the general addressed Ledford.
“Yes, sir. Nobody listened.” She hesitated. “Nobody cared.”
Middleton glanced at Swanson. “Now she is being followed by the FBI?”
“Best as I can tell, although I didn’t ask to see their badges. It’s a total surveillance package.”
“But the FBI did not confiscate your cell phone when you spoke to them?”
“No, General. The two agents showed no interest in me, or my story. They listened politely and told me how
