ceiling.
“What the hell?” Brown gasped.
“Captain!” cried Hume. “I hear gunfire coming from somewhere outside! And mortars!”
“We have to move now, Scott!” added Warris.
“We’re coming! We’ve got some girls up here. They’re coming down. We’re getting them out!”
As Brown freed the girls, Hila told them where to go, and one by one they took off running.
“They made us drink wine,” she told me as I cut another girl free. “They made us do things.”
“I know. It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not okay. I am filthy. I am not a woman anymore. I am a dog.”
I looked at her, grabbed her hand. “You’re not a dog.”
“But I can never go home.”
She started removing the gags from the remaining girls and reassuring them, while the guys kept screaming for me to come. The final two girls dashed off.
“All right, get them and Warris out of here. Ramirez and the rest of Bravo should be waiting for you,” I told Brown.
“What about you?”
I lifted my chin to Hila. “She knows where Zahed is.”
“Boss, what if she’s wrong?”
I widened my gaze on Hila. “Are you sure?”
She gave an exaggerated nod. “I hate him. He was the first one to have me. I know where he is.”
“Oh my God,” Brown muttered under his breath.
“I’m going with her.”
“Not alone,” said Brown. “You fight with your buddy.”
I shoved my silenced pistol into Hila’s hand. “That’s right. She’s my buddy.”
She looked at me, scared, the weight of the pistol causing her shoulder to droop.
“You’re crazy,” said Brown. “This is crazy!”
“Just listen to me, Marcus. I need you to protect Warris. I need you to get him out. I’m worried about Joey, you know that.”
“I know, boss. I won’t let Joey do anything stupid.”
“Good. ’Cause I’m betting Warris won’t talk.”
“Me, too. He owes us. Big-time.”
“All right, so when you get out, contact Gordon. Tell them to track my chip. You’ll know where I am.”
“Will do.” He thrust out his hand. “See you soon, you crazy mofo.”
I gave him a firm handshake. “Thank you, Marcus.”
Then I turned to Hila. “Which way?”
My father raised three sons and a daughter, and my sister Jenn was unquestionably Daddy’s little girl. The old man was a hardcore disciplinarian with us boys, but my sister could get away with bloody murder. As a kid I could never understand his leniency toward her and was entirely jealous of it. As I got older, I didn’t begrudge my sister anymore. In fact, it took my entire life for me to realize that Dad was a cynic who simply needed my sister to remind him of all the beauty still left in the world.
I wondered if Shilmani had felt likewise about Hila. As she led me through the next tunnel, I wondered if he’d be able to look Hila in the eye after what had happened to her. I knew the culture. I knew what happened to girls like her. But I didn’t want to believe that.
She held up my pistol, and I had my rifle at the ready now, with the penlight attached. She led me down two more tunnels, and we descended yet another ladder into a small room with crates piled to the ceiling.
“Guns,” was all she said.
“So you came through here?” I asked.
She frowned a moment, then realized what I was asking. “Yes, yes.”
“Zahed is here? In the mountain?”
She stopped and shook her head.
“No?”
“No.”
“Then where is he?”
“He is in Sangsar.”
My mouth fell open. “Aw, no. That’s no good. What do you think we’re going to do? Walk right down this mountain and into the village?”
I guess I had spoken too fast. She frowned in thought, then finally said, “No, no. We don’t walk. We’ll run.” She tugged my arm, but I stopped dead.
“We can’t go to Sangsar.”
“Yes, we’ll go!”
“How?”
She made a gesture with her hand. “Under…”
“You mean there’s a tunnel that leads all the way there?”
She beamed at me.
While I was heading off to Sangsar, Brown, Hume, and Warris, along with the group of girls, were rushing back through the tunnels, following the beacons we’d left. The guys were not happy with my decision to free the girls and attempt to save them, but they obeyed orders and later told me they would’ve done the same thing. It was sickening to realize what’d been happening in there.
Warris had told them that my decision to search for Zahed alone was foolish and indicative of my poor judgment. Brown had told him that saving his sorry ass was also indicative of my poor judgment. I liked that.
As Hila and I kept moving, I reminded myself that no, you could not generalize and say that all Taliban liked to rape young girls, but we could definitively state that Zahed’s men had taken it upon themselves to establish a terrible prison for them. The acts were inexcusable and when I looked at Hila, even for just a second, I wanted to kill Zahed more than anything. He was, in my mind, the symbol for all that was wrong with the country, all that was wrong with the war. And my hatred burned hotter as she dragged me by the wrist and led me down the next tunnel.
The emotions were all over the place at that moment. I felt as though I’d been chasing the fat man all my life, and soon there’d finally be closure, but then I worried for Hila and imagined my own death, the gunshot to my heart, the throbbing pain, the blood seeping into my lungs.
The passageways grew shorter, each ending abruptly with another ladder that we took down, always down, and it was clear we were descending the mountain from the inside. A lantern lit the passage at each ladder, and we encountered no resistance. I grew more at ease—
Until at the end of the next passage we spotted a man coming up a ladder.
Hila fired at him first, the kickback of the pistol startling her. She hit him in the shoulder with the first round, but the second went over his head and ricocheted off the wall.
I put two rounds in his chest, and he fell backward off the ladder. I ran over there, checked below. No other movement. Thankfully, he’d been alone.
It wasn’t until I started back that I felt the pain in my arm and stopped, directed a second light down, and saw that I’d been hit, probably from that ricocheting round.
She saw it, too, and started crying and pointing to herself, as if to say,
“It’s okay,” I said. “Just caught me a little. See? In and out?”
I reached into my back pocket, where I kept a small plastic bag filled with antiseptic wipes and bandages. I handed the kit to her. “Fix me up. Quick,” I said.
She nodded and got to work, applying the antiseptic and the bandage. The wound looked worse than it was, but it still hurt like a mother. When she was finished, I thanked her and she grabbed me by the other arm. “This way.”
