whirled.
Hila stood there, pistol in one hand.
“I told you to stay down there!” I cried through a whisper.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go see Zahed! I know where!”
She grabbed my wrist and tugged me toward the hallway ahead.
I grabbed her by the mouth, pulled her into the kitchen, then ducked down beneath the bar and stools. I rolled her over, my hand still wrapped around her mouth, and said, “If they see you, they’ll kill you.”
She didn’t move.
I slowly removed my hand.
“You have to go back,” I told her, pointing down toward the basement.
She shook her head.
I gestured to my eyes. “If they see you, they will kill you.”
“I know what you said. I don’t care. I am dead already. To my family. To everyone who knows me. Let me help you. Let me get revenge against Zahed.”
The decision pained me. If I dragged her along, the second we were spotted we’d be accosted, maybe even shot. I could concoct some story, but I didn’t like that. I didn’t want her around. I couldn’t bear to see her get killed, not after what had already happened to her.
I told myself that if I could save her, maybe it all meant something. Maybe I wasn’t just a puppet whose strings were being pulled by asinine politicians.
But she could save me time, get me to Zahed more quickly. I would have to comb through the entire house. She seemed to know exactly where he’d be.
She made the decision for me. I released my grip on her at the sound of approaching men, and she bolted around the bar before I could grab her.
The men passed, heading toward the basement door, and she ran out into the hall, waving to me.
So it was the middle of the night in a small town deep in the desert of southern Afghanistan, and I was chasing a teenaged girl carrying a pistol through a terrorist’s house. If I started a conversation like that, would you believe me? I wouldn’t believe me.
Hila ran all the way down the hall, made an abrupt right-hand turn, and when I followed, I found her stopped dead, raising her pistol at another man coming toward us.
She shot him right in the heart. As he fell, she ran past him, down another hall with doors lining both sides. I was indeed crazy. I’d turned the girl into a cold-blooded killer; then again, maybe Zahed was responsible for that.
As we ran I couldn’t help but realize this wasn’t a house but a mansion, perhaps the biggest place in the entire town, although you wouldn’t know it when looking on Sangsar from above. The buildings were so closely situated that it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began. The doors here were ornate as well, heavy oak, deeply carved. The fat man had spared no expense.
Hila reached a door at the end, pushed through it, and ran inside.
I called after her, reached the doorway, turned into the room, and found her at the far end, running toward a window, a real window, which was rare to find.
We were in a massive bedroom with a four-poster bed, heavy furniture, and yet another flat-screen TV. It was like a room in a five-star hotel that had been built in a neighborhood of utter squalor. Very surreal. I’m sure parts of the village didn’t have electricity, but Zahed sure did; either that or he ran his TV off a generator.
I rushed to the window to find Hila pointing. “There!” she cried. “There!”
Across a long, tree-lined courtyard, past fig trees and a wall covered in rose bushes, were the silhouettes of three men standing near a wrought-iron gate.
One of them had to be the fat man. He was tall, six feet five at least, and huge, more than four hundred pounds, I guessed.
Stacks of luggage were lined on the walkway beside them. They were waiting to be picked up.
Damn it. I tried the window. Locked. I couldn’t find a way to open it! I turned back—
And when I did, a man was standing in the door with his AK pointed at us. “What’re you doing?” he asked in Pashto.
I shifted in front of Hila but didn’t raise my rifle. “The infidels come from the basement,” I tried to say.
The man took a step forward and frowned. Aw, no. I must’ve made a mistake. Maybe I’d told him his mother was a whore, I wasn’t sure.
Before I could react, another man jogged up beside the first and began screaming and tugging at his buddy.
I stole a look out the window.
A car had rolled up outside.
The first guy shouted at me again. I threw myself to one side, raised my rifle, and fired a salvo into him and his buddy, no silencer, just me and the AK dishing out lead loud and clear. Both went down, but the first guy had started firing—
And Hila let out a scream.
As both men fell, I clambered up, shouldered my rifle, and rushed to Hila, who’d fallen onto her back and was clutching her side. I immediately pulled away her shirt and saw that a round had pierced the right side of her abdomen, no exit wound.
I chanced another look out the window. The wrought-iron gate was open. The three men were fighting over something, their voices raised as they rushed to get in the car while two others hurried to load the luggage.
“This hurts,” said Hila. “Please. Can you help?”
“It’s not that bad. You’ll be okay.”
She clutched my hand. “Please. I need help.”
“But I need to go,” I told her. “He’s outside. He’s going to get away…”
She grabbed my hand even tighter as tears welled in her eyes.
TWENTY-NINE
I’d thought Hila would beg me to stay with her, but she narrowed her gaze and said, “Okay. Get him. Then come back to help me.”
“I will.”
“Okay.”
I understood now. She had wanted to die, but ironically the gunshot now gave her the will to live. I dragged her behind the bed, out of view from the doorway, and then I grabbed the pistol I’d given her, tucked it into my waistband, and bolted to my feet. I seized a pillow from the four-poster bed, then braced the pillow in front of my face. With a running start, I launched into the air and let out a string of curses as I crashed through the window and landed in a shower of glass on the dirt below.
The three figures ran toward the car now, a black Mercedes, probably fitted with bulletproof glass. I came rolling up with the pistol in my hand and shot the two guys loading luggage.
The driver opened his door and raised a pistol. I shot him, and then, as I sprinted toward the gate, I got my first clear look at the men:
Bronco.
His Asian buddy “Mike.”
And the fat man himself, decked out in silk robes and clean turban and with a beard that splayed across his chest. He wore big gold and diamond rings, and when he faced me, he frowned for a second as both Bronco and Mike reached down to draw weapons.
“Unh-uh,” I said, tugging down my
“Aw, Joe, I can’t believe you’re this stupid,” said Bronco, slowly raising his palms now. “Didn’t you get your new OPORDER? We got you pulled off this job. Finally…”
