desired information, there was little reason to keep an American alive. The mercenary tallied his likely fate. Plan A: his captors would keep him indefinitely. Plan B: they would sell him back to his employer, or, Plan C: they would kill him.
Briefly he wondered about Plan B.
He pondered Plan C: would they take time to cut off his head or merely put a 7.62 round through his cranium? Since neither Alfa, Bravo, nor Charlie were acceptable options, he went to work on Plan Delta.
Abdullah Hussain was restless. Like many of Kassim’s operatives, he was young and headstrong, feeling a need to prove himself among the veteran
Here was an opportunity.
When Sheikh Tahirkheli went to relieve himself, the twenty-year-old guard decided to show his mettle. Pointedly ignoring the older man’s warning to delay feeding the prisoner, Hussain unslung his AK and opened the wire gate to the pen. He shoved the rice gruel ahead of him with a sandaled foot, keeping his distance from the reclining infidel. The man had barely moved all morning, leaving most of his breakfast untouched.
Hussain noticed the whip marks on the American’s back, the shredded remains of the shirt. As he rested on his side, the man’s slow, regular breathing showed that he remained asleep.
Despite nearly fourteen months with Kassim’s cell, the youngster had never seen an infidel so close before. This was too good a chance to pass up: a minor test of manhood, facing an enemy eye to eye. He poked the Kalashnikov’s muzzle into the prisoner’s back, ordering him to rise. The only response was a half roll onto the stomach.
Abdullah Hussain wanted more. He kicked at the prone form, again ordering the captive up.
J. J. Johnson shot a glance between the guard’s feet. As he expected, the young one was alone.
In the upward glance he permitted himself, Johnson took in two salient facts. The kid’s finger was on the trigger but the selector remained in the upward position.
Johnson had mentally rehearsed the disarming technique dozens of times during the night. In a fluid movement he used both hands and one foot to knock the guard down. Hussain hit the ground with a muted
Johnson reversed the weapon, butt down, and stepped on the guard’s right arm. Three solid blows to the head rendered him immobile. Two hard vertical strokes, more carefully delivered, fractured the skull.
The SSI man knew time was crucial. He flipped the AK’s selector to full down — semi-auto — and pulled the bolt handle back. A live round was ejected.
The legionnaire was breathing hard from the exertion. Forcing himself to concentrate, he pulled off the corpse’s sandals and scooped up both the meals in their tins. He combined them into one container, losing some gruel over the side. With one more glance around, he noticed a cheap ornamental dagger on the guard’s belt. Johnson took it and made for the rocks behind the hut.
The hut’s contents were disappointing: two nearly empty water bottles and a burlap sack containing some grain. Johnson deposited his goods in the sack, unconcerned about spillage. Then he took a worn quilt off a cot, threw it over one shoulder, and checked outside through the cracks in the door. Seeing no one, he stepped out, the rifle shouldered, muzzle low.
Sheikh Tahirkheli came around the corner, fifteen feet away.
Both men stopped dead, requiring a heartbeat to absorb the situation.
Johnson held the initiative; he was ready to shoot, whereas the Muslim held his rifle at waist level. But a gunshot could be heard for a mile or more, and the man was too far away to take him with the knife.
Johnson’s mind raced, trying to retrieve the Urdu word. It came reluctantly, sulking amid the pain and fear inside him.
Tahirkheli was an experienced fighter. He dropped his rifle and raised his hands, instantly changing the dynamics of the situation. Johnson nodded slightly in acknowledgment of his opponent’s intelligence.
Johnson stepped aside to let the Pakistani pass. Then, picking up the man’s rifle, the American pointed his prisoner uphill into the rocks where they could not be tracked.
As they began the ascent, the former legionnaire began musing whether he had it in him to commit murder.
Forty minutes from the farm, Johnson called a halt. He motioned for the Muslim to squat, then opened the burlap sack. The American drained the contents of one water bottle and part of the next. Then he offered the remainder to his prisoner.
Tahirkheli paused, then accepted the bottle. He raised it to the American, muttered,
Since the escape, Johnson had tried to approximate his location. He had a general impression that safety lay to the east, but even in the hills behind the farm, he saw mainly more hills and rocks.
He picked up three stones and arranged them at his feet. From right to left, he pointed to them in turn. “Quetta, Chaman, Kandahar.”
Tahirkheli leaned forward, studying the arrangement. Slowly he raised his left hand and rearranged the stones in a northwest-southeast axis. He nodded. “Quetta, Chaman, Kandahar.”
Johnson made a circular motion, then pointed to the Muslim and himself. “Us? Where?” He suspected he was near Chaman but did not want to venture that option.
Tahirkheli cocked his head and rubbed his bearded chin. He picked up a pebble and placed it beside the middle stone.
Johnson assumed that the man meant
Looking at the sky, Johnson assessed that it might rain later in the day.
Time for a command decision. Johnson realized that he could go directly to Chaman and probably find help, but he discounted that option. There were almost certainly people looking for him there, and in any case a beat-up westerner would draw attention. He thought again of the map he had studied on the previous operation: a road paralleled the border northeast of town while a rail line ran back toward Quetta. Spin Buldak was just across the border from Chaman: there would be a crossing station in between.
Johnson stretched himself upright, feeling the stinging pain in his back. He wanted to rub his knee but did not, lest his captive see an infirmity. As a military athlete, Jeremy Johnson knew his limits, and the vicious beating had taken its toll.
