Prologue: Set in Stone
SrA VALENTINE, M.
521st Expeditionary Security Forces Squadron
U.S. Air Force
Zargabad District, Western Afghanistan
Seven Years Ago
My shoulders ached. Dust filled my nose as the column came to a halt. I let my M4 hang on its sling as I pulled off my eye-pro and wiped my face with my shemagh.
Word came down the line that we were going to be here for a while. The Cavalry soldiers we were embedded with fanned out and took up good defensive positions. Being a team of enablers, we were just expected to stay put unless they needed us. That was okay with me. My rucksack wasn’t sitting right on top of my body armor and needed to be adjusted. After a quick check of my area, to make sure I wasn’t near any pressure plates, I set my pack down and plopped down next to it.
“That’s a good idea,” said my partner. Senior Airman Arlene Chambers was a dog handler. Her military working dog, Muttley, was tired from the oppressive heat and sat next to her, panting.
At least there was shade. The village of Murghab was so far from the nearest US FOB that our only support came via helicopter, and was uncomfortably close to the Iranian border, but it was picturesque in its own way. Our patrol had come down a narrow dirt path that ran alongside a small, babbling creek. On the other side of the trail was a six-foot mud wall. Behind the wall was a row of tall poplar trees that sighed in the hot breeze and kept us out of the sun.
A Cavalry NCO stopped to check on us as he made his way up the line. “How you doing, Air Force?” Sergeant Hanover wasn’t really checking on us so much as he was checking on Chambers. She wasn’t the only female out with us in Murghab. We had a two-woman Female Engagement Team up in front, interfacing with the Afghan women as part of our ongoing counterinsurgency efforts, but Chambers was easily the best looking female out with us, and she knew it.
My partner smiled at him. “Oh, I’m a little tired but good to go.” She cracked open a bottle of water and tilted it forward. Muttley lapped at it eagerly, wagging his tail as he drank.
“How’s the dog doing?” Hanover asked, kneeling down so he could pet Muttley.
“He’s hot, but I’m watching him. He’ll be good for the rest of the op I think. We’re still flying out after sundown, aren’t we?” There had been talk of extending our mission another day. It’d already been two days since a pair of Chinooks had dropped us off outside of the village.
“I’m okay too,” I said with a sarcastic grin. “Thanks for asking.”
Hanover laughed at me. “Patrol’s been extended.”
“What’s going on?” Chambers asked. “Why are we stopping now?”
“We ran into some contractors up there. PMC guys in armored trucks. The ANA commander is flipping out because I guess nobody told him they were operating in ‘his’ AO. Our ‘terp is trying to convince him that nobody told us, either, but he’s pretty pissed.” We’d only been operating with this Afghan National Army unit for a couple of days, but it had already become apparent that its commander enjoyed theatrical temper tantrums if it helped him get his way. I guess he thought it showed his men that he was willing to stand up to the Americans. All it really did was make Captain Drake, the Cavalry troop commander, want to punch him in the face. Hanover’s radio squawked. “Alright,” he said. “I gotta get up there. We’ll call you if we need the dog to check anything.” Muttley was pretty good at sniffing out explosives and drugs, both of which could easily be found in Afghanistan.
“Have fun!” I said encouragingly as Sargent Hanover jogged forward. I then stood up to stretch. So far, the mission to Murghab had been a bust. No contact with insurgents, no weapons caches, and thankfully no IEDs. It had been three days of just walking around, talking to the locals. It was still better than sitting back at the Expeditionary Air Base, stuck in a guard tower for twelve hours at a time. At least we got to get out into the war.
I scanned the village for threats, doing my best not to get complacent, as the leadership dickered with the ANA, the locals, and the PMC guys. Across the creek were more buildings made of mud, then a two-story mosque that was a lot nicer than anything else in the village. It wasn’t made of mud, which was pretty remarkable for a village this remote, and was topped with a blue minaret. The generator behind it indicated that it even had electricity. Fancy.
Up the trail, I could see the PMC vehicles Hanover told us about. They were MATVs, like the ones US forces used, but painted white instead of tan. The dirt road they were parked on was one of few in the village wide enough for a big vehicle to use. The contractors were clad in Desert Tiger Stripe fatigues and mismatched head gear, and a couple of them were walking down the line with Captain Drake.
The ANA took the halt to mean that it was chow time. They were easy to spot in their mint chocolate chip digital camouflage fatigues, and were already stripping off their armor, laying down their weapons, and breaking out the rations. ANA units varied widely, from pretty decent to dangerously incompetent. This particular unit gravitated more toward the incompetent end. When we bedded down in strongpoints for the night, they busted out the hashish and started getting high. It was ridiculous.
“Great,” I said to Chambers. “The ANA’s hungry. We’re going to be here for a while.”
Chambers stood up, keeping one hand on her M4 and another on Muttley’s leash. “They already had breakfast a few hours ago!” It was only about ten thirty in the morning, but we’d been on the move since first light.
“Second breakfast, I guess. Like hobbits.”
Chambers laughed at me. “Nerd.”
“I’m just saying. Afghanistan would be way nicer if hobbits lived here instead of Afghans.” I paused for a second and looked around. “Hey . . . where’d the little dusties go?”
“Yeah, you’re right,” my partner agreed, looking around. A troop of Afghan children, aged five to probably thirteen, had been following us around all morning, begging us for treats and candy. “I haven’t seen them in a while.”
The air was suddenly filled with music as the nearby mosque began its call to prayer. Islamic music blared tinnily over a loudspeaker, making it difficult to be heard.
“That’s weird too,” I said, raising my voice. “Don’t they usually do it after noon?”
A wry smile appeared on Chambers’ face. “Do you think they have an atomic clock in there or something? This is Afghanistan. It’s whatever time they say it is.”
“You don’t know that. Maybe they have a sundial or some—”
Chambers suddenly fell to the ground, landing in a puff of moon dust. She had a very surprised look on her face. I was about to ask her if she was okay when I saw the blood. I’d heard the shot. It just happened so fast it didn’t register. My heart dropped into my stomach as I processed what was happening. “Medic!” I screamed. “Contact right!”
The ambush began in earnest. I fell to my knees and tried to apply pressure to Chamber’s wound as gunfire erupted from every direction. I tried to ignore that and focused on keeping my partner alive. Bullets buzzed and snapped overhead like so many angry hornets, pock-marking the mud wall we’d been leaning on. I screamed for the medic again as blood poured out from under my hands. Chambers’ eyes were wide as she writhed in agony. Muttley whined and licked her hand.
Oh God, oh God, oh God! I let go of the wound long enough to fumble for my medical pouch. I had some hemostatic gauze in there that might stop the bleeding. The bullet missed the plate on her vest, blasting right through the soft armor of her vest and deep into her side.
“I got this!” A Cavalry medic materialized at my side. “Give me that.” He took the gauze package out of my hand and went to work. I didn’t move. “Hey!” he said, looking up from Chambers to stare me down. “I got this! Cover me!”
I nodded my head, turned, and tried to process the chaos around me. The ANA had been caught completely off guard. They scrambled for the weapons they’d laid down, and most of them didn’t have time to get their armor back on. A low BUUUUUURRRP sound echoed through the village as the PMCs opened fire with the minigun mounted on their MATV.
The mosque. The shot had come from the mosque. Above the cacophony of battle a very loud rifle report resonated from the direction of the mosque. An ANA soldier’s chest exploded, sending him tumbling to the ground in a cloud of dust.
“Shooters in the mosque! Shooters in the mosque! They have a fifty-cal up there!” No one seemed to hear me. Orders were shouted over the radio. Complex ambush. Many insurgent personnel. Multiple wounded. KIA. Assault through. MEDEVAC delayed until attack helicopters could be spun up to escort.
Boom! Someone found an IED. Christ. All the while, the medic struggled to stabilize Chambers. She was either unconscious or dead. I couldn’t tell.
Something strange happened to me then. There was a coldness deep in my belly. It slowly made its way up, enveloping my heart and spine. My heart rate slowed, and my breathing slowed with it. The sounds of gunfire faded just a little, and everything seemed to slow down enough that I could process what was going on.
I was Calm. I hadn’t felt like that since the day my mother died. My fear faded into the background. A plan rapidly formulated in my mind. The Cav guys were getting ready to counterattack, but this village was prepped for an ambush. There would be IEDs. The soldiers would have to move carefully, sweeping everywhere they went. They wouldn’t get to the mosque before the shooters got away.
That wasn’t going to happen. Before I realized it, I was moving. I left my partner with the medic and slid down into the ditch, splashed through the creek, and scrambled up the other side. Sprinting forward, I slid to a halt behind a mud wall, next to the two contractors who had been talking to Captain Drake. One had his head wrapped in a brown bandanna and carried an AA-12 automatic shotgun. The other was a grizzled-looking SOB with a trimmed, graying goatee, a body armor vest loaded with ammunition, and a brown South African-style bush hat. Around his waist was a leather gunbelt. A big revolver hung from one side, and a big knife hung from the other.
The old guy snapped off several shots from his stubby FAL carbine before covering back down behind the wall. The heavy rifle had a deep bark to it, being more powerful than the M4 I was carrying. “There are shooters in the mosque over yonder, son,” he said to me, coolly. “You boys might want to do something about it.”
A hole exploded in the mud wall we were using for cover as the enemy sniper put a round from his fifty through it. “They have a fifty-cal rifle up there,” I said. “We need to take it out before the MEDEVAC chopper arrives. I can’t do it by myself!”
“What about the rest of your troops?”
“I’m in the Air Force. My partner will die if that chopper is delayed. Will you guys help me or what?”
The old man with the FAL nodded. “Alright then, let’s get it done. Lay down some fire, I’ll move first.” As he bounded off to the right, seeking the cover of another building, I started rapidly firing shots into the second level of the mosque. Civilians were running around in terror in front of it, and I hoped my rounds were going over their heads. The other contractor, the one with the shotgun, removed the drum from his weapon and replaced it with a box magazine that I guessed was loaded with slugs. He looked through the holographic sight bolted to the top of his boxy weapon and tore into the mosque.
These contractors didn’t seem to be concerned with the rules of engagement. Neither was I. You couldn’t tell who was who. The snipers in the mosque weren’t the only enemy personnel shooting at us. The ones we could see were dressed the same as the Afghan villagers. Some of them may have been Afghan villagers. I didn’t give a damn.
A man dressed in dirty white linens stepped around the corner of a mud hut. Weapon! He had an AK-47-type rifle with the stock folded. I put my red dot on his chest and cranked off probably half a dozen shots. He fell to the ground and I shifted my fire back to the mosque. The Cav soldiers behind me opened up on it as well. Several M4s and a SAW streamed rounds into the building.
“Now! Move!” the old contractor shouted. He leaned around the corner and fired. His friend with the AA-12 and I bounded over the wall and sprinted forward and to the left. The big rifle in the mosque roared again, kicking up a huge divot on the trail behind me. We took refuge behind a small building before the sniper could fire again.
From behind me, I could hear one of the Cav NCOs shouting at me. “Airman Valentine! Where the fuck are you going?” I ignored him. More shooters appeared in the doorway of the mosque, firing on us even as civilians ran into the building past them. We shot back. People fell to the ground. There wasn’t any going back now.
Coughing from the smoke and dust, I removed the partial magazine from my M4 and replaced it with a full one. I stood above the bodies of two dead men. Unlike the Taliban insurgents we normally encountered, these two looked like they’d been pretty squared away. They both wore desert camouflage uniforms, and each had been wearing body armor. On the floor in front of them was a Steyr HS50 rifle, a monstrous bolt-action chambered for .50 BMG.
“Holy shit, son.” It was the leader of the contractors. The old man shook his head. “I think these boys are Iranians, judging from the equipment.”
“Huh,” I said absentmindedly. I was going through adrenaline dump and was coming down off of the Calm. My hands were shaking. I could barely stand.
“You okay, kid?” he asked.
“Yeah . . . yeah. I just need a minute.”
“That was some damn fine work . . . C’mon, let’s get back downstairs. Your friends are here.” We were on the second level of the mosque. The two contractors and I had cleared the place before the Cav had arrived. “What’s your name, kid?”
“Valentine. Mike Valentine.”
“John Hawkins,” he said. “People just call me Hawk. I’m with Vanguard Strategic Solutions International.” He handed me a business card. “When you get out of the Air Force, you give me a call. I’ll put you to work making four times what they pay you for this.”
I nodded jerkily and put his card in my pocket as we arrived on the lower level of the mosque. My heart dropped into my stomach when I took in the carnage.
The air was dirty and stunk of burnt powder. Several dead bodies were scattered on the floor in pools of blood. Several more Afghans were wounded. Only a couple of the Afghans had been armed, but they’d used the civilians seeking shelter in the mosque as human shields. I didn’t know whose rounds had struck who, but it didn’t make any difference to those that had been hit.
“Holy fucking shit.” One of the Cavalry soldiers appeared in the doorway. He turned and yelled for a medic. The same medic that had been treating Chambers pushed past him and ran to a wounded Afghan man. I left Hawk where he stood and approached the medic, stepping over bodies as I went.
“What happened to Chambers?”
He took a deep breath and shook his head. “I’m sorry, man. She didn’t make it.”
I nodded at him as my chest tightened, but I couldn’t choke out any words. I knew he’d done the best he could. I wasn’t angry at him. I just needed air. The mosque felt as if it was suffocating me. The air stank of death. The wounded survivors stared at me with wide eyes. The dead seemed to be staring at me too.
Stepping back out into the sunlight, I leaned against the wall of the mosque and slid down to the ground. I unsnapped my helmet and set it on the ground next to me. I took off my safety glasses and buried my face in my hands. People came and went past me, but I paid them no mind.
After a few minutes, I was tapped on the shoulder. It was Captain Drake. I immediately came to my feet. “Relax, Valentine,” he said calmly. “What the hell happened?”
He listened quietly as I explained, his face a mask.
When I was finished, he simply nodded. “We got a problem. You ran off with some civilian contractors without orders from any of my NCOs. There are a bunch of dead civilians in there. You’ve been briefed on the ROE. You know how this is going to play out, don’t you?”
I felt like I was going to throw up. My partner was dead and I was probably going to be court-martialed. This day couldn’t have gone any worse. At that moment, if I could’ve gone back in time and taken that bullet for Chambers, knowing full well that I was going to die, I would have done so.
But there is no going back, is there?
The Cavalry officer put his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry about Airman Chambers. And between you and me, that was some impressive shit you pulled off there. I can’t believe some Air Force puke can shoot like that. I’ll vouch for you when the time comes. I’ll tell them the truth, but I’ll vouch for you.”
“Thank you, sir.”
He left me alone.
In the distance could be heard the sound of a helicopter.
The room rattled slightly as an outbound C-130 took off. I stood at the position of attention in the office of Colonel Christopher Blair, the commander of the 521st Air Expeditionary Wing. I had on a clean uniform and was freshly shaved. I was in enough trouble without going in front of the Wing King looking like a bag of ass. The colonel told me to stand at ease after he sat down. I relaxed a little and moved my hands behind my back.
“Senior Airman Valentine,” he began, folding his hands on his desk, “I’m afraid I’m in kind of a bad position here. On one hand, your actions in the village of Murghab were commendable. You advanced under fire and without support onto an enemy position, and cleared that position with almost no help. Senior Airman Chambers was killed by an enemy sniper team, and your actions resulted in that sniper team being neutralized. On the other hand,” he gestured at the computer on his desk, “your actions, while not technically insubordination, did involve you disregarding your chain of command, standing general orders, and the rules of engagement. Furthermore, you were aided by employees of a PMC, which is to say, civilians. As a result, six Afghan noncombatants were killed and four more were wounded.”
“Sir, the enemy personnel in the mosque were using those people as human shields. They were also firing indiscriminately through the crowd.”
“So the report says. That works in your favor. Not working in your favor is the fact that you and these two civilians entered and cleared a mosque without any Afghan personnel with you, which is a violation of the current ROE.”
“Sir, we were under direct, immediate, and lethal fire from that position. Half our ANA had either been killed or run away. The ones that stayed were shooting up the entire village in a panic. They were useless.”
“Also noted, Airman. Now listen to me. You stirred up a shit storm. An epic shit storm. The Afghan government is calling for you and the contractors from Vanguard to be put on trial by an Afghan court. There is no way that is going to happen, but they’re incensed, to say the least. Worse, the Army wants to crucify you. A lot of people who weren’t on the ground with you say that you’re an undertrained Air Force kid with no business being in their battle space. They say you blatantly disregarded the ROE, killed a bunch of civilians, and they want you court-martialed. You committed the mortal sin of creating headaches for staff officers somewhere.”
“Sir—”
“Now, before you get too upset, the Cavalry unit you were with spoke very highly of you and Airman Chambers. They said you two had been a valuable asset to them on other missions and that you made the best decision you could while under fire.”
“What does the Air Force say, sir?”
“I’m going to be honest with you. Some people above my level are telling me to throw you under the bus, recommend you for a court martial, and wash my hands of you. If word of this gets out, they say, it’ll reflect badly on the Air Force, and the last thing we need is more bad PR.”
I took a deep breath and lowered my head slightly. I was going to Fort Leavenworth. I could already see it.
Colonel Blair ignored my moping and continued. “It’s more complicated than that, however. You also uncovered the first concrete evidence we’ve had that Iranian special operations forces are in Afghanistan. The Afghan government has been denying this for years, even though we’ve suspected all along they’ve been dealing with the Iranians on the side. That causes nothing but headaches for the brass and their bosses on the civilian side. So as much as they want you crucified, they want this thing quashed so they can deal with it on the down-low. It hasn’t gone public yet, but it will if you’re put on trial. And believe it or not, there are a few people on the Air Force side who are willing to go to bat for you.”
“So what’s going to happen to me, sir?”
“Right now? Nothing. Your leadership put you in for the Combat Action Medal, which I intend to sign off on. You’ve earned that much. But you’re not going out on any more missions with the Cav, or anyone else. You’re not even going to stand watch. I told your squadron commander to put you in the armory or some other place out of sight. You’re going to stay there, keep your head down, and finish out your deployment without any more incidents. You lost your partner out there. Take some time for yourself. Believe me when I say I don’t want to see your name come across my desk again. Your term of enlistment is up in, what, a year?”
“About that long, sir.”
“Right. You’re going to just get out. As a matter of fact, you’re not going to be allowed to reenlist, but in exchange for you quietly getting out of the Air Force and keeping your mouth shut about this whole thing, you’re not going to be court-martialed. Your punishment will be handled administratively, and this verbal counseling session will suffice, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Look,” the colonel said, his demeanor softening. “I’m sorry about Airman Chambers. The official notifications have all been made, but I’m still working on the letter to her parents. We lost one of our own out there, and you were in a bad situation. I don’t think what’s happening to you is right. I think you should be getting the Bronze Star instead of punished. But there’s not much else I can do for you. The best thing you can do is go along, get along, and just leave the military behind.”
“I understand, sir,” I said quietly. “Thank you.”
Hours later, as the sun sank slowly over the horizon, I found myself wandering the base alone, reflective belt around my waist.
I found a good spot where there wasn’t too much background noise, and pulled one of my unit’s satellite phones out of my pocket. I unfolded the antenna and, in the failing light, strained to read the card in my hand.
John Hawkins, Director of Special Tactics Training, Vanguard Strategic Solutions International.
I wasn’t getting out for almost a year. I wondered, is it too soon to call? What the hell, I thought. It’s worth a shot. That phone call changed my life.
LORENZO
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Seven Years Ago
Hari Merdeka is Malaysian Independence day, and this particular one, was one hell of a party. The place was packed with the rich, famous, and powerful, all struggling to hear each other over the extremely loud band. The crowd was Malay, Indonesian, Thai, Indian, Chinese, with a smattering of Westerners, all of them wealthy, many of them distracted by the huge fireworks over the city, and the remainder were schmoozing or cutting deals. For a supposedly Muslim country, there was a surprising amount of very expensive alcohol being consumed, and most of the beautiful women gyrating on the dance floor were thousand dollar an hour prostitutes.
The restaurant was forty stories above the street, suspended at the intersection of two ultramodern buildings. It was a five-star, luxury establishment, most of which was currently open to the night air, a veritable hanging garden over the busy street below. The massive Petronas Towers were visible through the rooftop tropical forest. Occasionally, a really bright firework would illuminate the catwalks above us, and you could just make out the shadows of the guard force stalking about, watching the crowd.
Security was tight, but fragmented. There were private guards for some of the more important people, and the perimeter staff made up of hotel employees. I had passed through two sets of metal detectors to get to this point. The food in the dinner cart I was pushing had been tasted by three separate people to check for poison. The guards had forced the chef, his assistant, and the waiter who would be delivering it, played by yours truly, to try some. The foie-gras had been delicious.
I passed swiftly between the kitchen and the private dining area, with two black suited men flanking me. They had patted me down before I had picked up the food, just to be certain, and they kept an eye on me the entire time. They were big for Malays, thick with muscle, shoulder holsters poking out from their unbuttoned coats. This particular private dinner party was a little on the paranoid side.
You would be too if you had stolen from Big Eddie.
Another guard was waiting, and he held open the heavy wooden double door for me and my goon escort. Away from the teeming crowd, the screeching pop band, and the Japanese businessmen eating sushi off of naked chicks, the private dining area was silent, almost peaceful. The roof on this section had not been retracted, and the restaurant had been decorated in the manner of a Zen garden, with lots of those funny little trees and sand with designs drawn in it.
It was a large room, normally capable of holding fifty diners, but tonight there was only one group allowed inside. The proprietors knew that these people needed privacy to discuss their business.
This latest guard held up his hand. I had been through this a few times tonight, to take their orders, to bring their drinks, I knew the drill. I left the cart, and raised my arms for yet another very thorough pat down. The first two guards did one last check of the large dining cart, lifting up covers and steaming trays, looking under the fabric, probably checking to make sure no guest had managed to stick a bomb onto it in the minute it had taken to walk here from the kitchen.
Grimacing as the guard checked what would be a very uncomfortable place to carry a weapon anyway, I thought about the plan and tried to look as unthreatening as possible, which is actually pretty easy when you’re as forgettable as I am. Tonight I was wearing a tuxedo like the other staff, but with the red sash of the chief waiter. My ID said that my name was Pard and I was a resident of the Salpeng Valley and its Tamil minority and I had worked here for five boring years. Being just another nobody was my specialty.
“Smells great,” grunted one of the guards as he finished checking the food.
“Well, you’re eating noodles when you’re off shift, so don’t dwell on it,” said the other as he straightened my sash and patted me on the shoulder. “You’re good. Make this quick and get out of here. The boss is talking business.”
“Of course, sir.” I rolled the cart toward the diners. Only one guard stayed at my side, the other two took up positions back outside to dissuade partygoers in search of privacy. The heavy door closed behind them.
The dinner party consisted of two men and a woman. The males were Indonesians in very expensive suits. The woman was a stunning blond in a slinky black dress. They were seated on thick cushions around a short table. Another guard stood at attention a few feet behind his principle, the Browning Hi-Power in his shoulder holster plainly visible under his open coat. Only the guard noticed my approach. I slowed, but he nodded for me to continue. Ever subservient, I dipped my head, rolled the cart into position, and began removing steaming lids.
The woman was speaking. “Big Eddie will not tolerate you operating in the Strait of Malacca without his permission. That last freighter you hijacked belonged to him, and he is not pleased.” Her voice had a slight European accent. “This is not a fight you want to pick.” She really was a looker. Her hair had been pulled back into a tight bun, revealing a very perfect neck. She had movie-star looks, a body better than any of the professional girls at the party, and the eyes of a serial killer. I knew her very well.
The man laughed. “Katarina, please, I’ve had far too pleasant an evening to entertain idle threats. My people have controlled the Strait from Selenor to the sea for ten generations.” His name was Datuk Keng and he was a pirate. He didn’t look like a pirate in the traditional sense, lacking parrot, eye patch, or wooden leg, but believe me, he was the real deal. Keng had approximately three hundred men under his direct command, and they specialized in taking down merchant cargos, selling the boats, and holding the crews for ransom. “You can tell Big Eddie that if his ships are to pass through the Strait, then he must pay for protection like everyone else.”
“Our records indicate that Big Eddie owes us twenty-five million in passage taxes.” The other man at the table was Keng’s assistant. Even pirates need accountants nowadays. “Ten thousand per shipment, plus interest and penalties for sixteen months of noncompliance.”
“You really think you can extort money from someone like Eddie?”
“Ahh . . . dinner has arrived,” Keng said merrily. “Ms. Katarina, I’m the king of this world. I can do whatever I want. Take that back to your employer, and tell him that twenty-five million is my final offer.”
I placed the first dish of five-star goodness in front of Datuk Keng and made eye contact with Katarina.
“Smells wonderful,” she said. Translation: Negotiations failed. Time for violence.
Two guards behind me, two more outside, but they were bored. This was just another meeting. They were pirates, tough guys, brutes. This standing around stuff dulled the senses, and I was just the submissive little waiter, whom they had dealt with all night long. Complacency kills.
“I must implore you one final time, don’t force this issue with Big Eddie, or he will kill you.”
Datuk Keng scowled, all pretenses of cordiality gone. Now I could see the man who plundered ships and murdered sailors. His face creased with rage. “You dare threaten me? I’ll make this quick—“
I moved with lightning speed, reaching into the nearest guard’s coat. The problem with shoulder holsters? The guy standing in front of you can draw your gun faster than you can. I popped the snap, yanked the Browning, and tossed it to Katarina.
She caught the Browning by the grip and leveled it at Keng.
“I’ll make it quicker.” BLAM.
Datuk Keng’s head snapped back in a spray of red. The guard tried to hit me, but I blocked it with my elbow, grabbed him by the tie, and fell, choking off his air and taking us both to the ground. That’s why I won’t wear a tie.
Katarina brought her hands together smoothly and pointed the gun at the second guard. He froze, hand on gun. She smiled. There was no question how that was going to play out. He raised his trembling hands slowly, aware that the only reason he wasn’t dead was because we didn’t want to make any more noise.
I rolled, sprang to my feet, grabbed a serving platter, and smashed the second guard in the head. He went right down. Then I kicked them both repeatedly in the face—tuxedo shoes are not the best for beating people senseless—until I was sure neither would be causing any trouble. One quick glance at the exit wound on the back of Keng’s skull told me mission accomplished, now to get out of here in one piece.
I removed the other Browning from the second guard’s belt and two spare magazines from his offside, stuffed those in my pocket, grabbed his radio, and headed toward the door. We had no idea if the room was insulated enough to dampen the sound of a gunshot.
Katarina placed the 9mm muzzle against the accountant’s head. He began to whimper and plead for his life in Indonesian. “Listen to me very carefully.” Her voice was utterly cold and distant. “Big Eddie wants his money. You will repay him triple the value of his stolen cargo. You will also pay him ten percent of all future takes. You will clear every attack with us from now on. Or we’ll burn your little pirate kingdom to the ground. We can find you anywhere. We can reach you anywhere. You work for Big Eddie now. These negotiations are closed. Do you understand?”
He started to respond, she smashed him in the head with the butt of the gun. “In English!” This was the part of negotiation that Katarina excelled at.
“Yes, yes! Whatever you say, please don’t kill me!”
Kat called over to me. “Status?”
I had taken up position behind a wooden column and had the gun trained on the door. There was no traffic on the radio. I was really glad that the party was so blaringly loud. “They probably thought it was fireworks.”
“Good.” Katarina turned her attention back toward Keng’s assistant. “We’ll be in touch.” She hit him in the head with the pistol again, hard enough the sound of the blow made me cringe. The assistant flopped onto the floor unconscious.
“Let’s go,” I said as I changed the radio to a predetermined channel and hit transmit. “We’re on the way down. Prepare for pickup.”
“On the way,” Carl, my partner in crime, responded over the airwaves. I knew that the car was already in motion and he would be waiting at the service entrance in exactly two minutes. Carl was reliable. I stuffed the Browning into my waistband and made sure my tuxedo covered it. The radio went into a pocket.
“Damn it!” Katarina hissed as she lifted the cloth of the cart. “The soup spilled. I can’t ride in there. You know what this dress cost me?”
“Just go,” I grunted. She had just murdered a pirate, but she was worried about her outfit. My girlfriend was psychotic. “You got a better way to walk out of here past twenty security guards?”
“You are handsome when you’re stern, Lorenzo,” she replied as she ducked under the cloth, slipped out of her high heels, and folded herself into an almost impossible position. “And you look like a Bollywood James Bond in that outfit. Very handsome.”
“Shut up,” I grumbled as I flipped the cloth down to conceal her, then pushed the cart to the door. It was heavier now. Katarina was taller than I was and extremely athletic, so she added a lot of weight to the cart. Not that I would ever guess her weight out loud, since she made her living killing people for an organized crime syndicate.
And I was what? Her helper?
It was a pretty shitty job when you thought about it that way.
We walked right out. I kept my head down, eyes averted. The guards at the door grunted at me as I passed. From observing them, I knew that they had approximately two to three minutes before another radio check, plenty of time to get out of here.
The crowd was thicker now, more people accumulating around the railing. The fireworks show was reaching its climax and the city was beautiful in the smoky light. Weaving the cart between socialites, I kept my head down and kept moving, not paying any attention to the sparkles or explosions. I risked one last glance back toward the private area as I reached the kitchen. One of the guards was pulling out his radio, checking in prematurely.
As soon as I was into the kitchen I was moving fast, the doors swinging wildly behind me. I nearly ran over one of the chefs, and collided with another waiter. The kitchen smelled of exotic meats and curry, lots of curry. Flames were leaping from a grill under a row of neatly carved chickens. We had to get out of here, now.
“Pard? What’s going on? Is Mr. Keng not happy with his food?” the chef asked nervously.
“He’s really not happy,” I responded as I threw back the cover. “We’ve got to move.”
“Which way?” Katarina asked, sliding out of the cart. I took off running. She carried her five-inch heels in her hand so she could keep up with me as she followed.
“Pard? What’s going on?” the chef shouted after us, totally unaware that the man he thought he was speaking to was on a boat to India with a ten thousand dollar bribe in his pocket. I shoved past more kitchen staff, leaving them confused with what an Anglo woman in a party dress was doing running through their work space. I went right to the freight elevator and mashed the button furiously.
“What about the security check on the first level?” Katarina asked as the elevator started down.
I pulled out the stolen radio. “Carl, put the kid on.”
“This is Reaper.”
“Reaper . . .” Katarina hissed, rolling her eyes. “Such a terrible nickname.”
“I need you to jam Keng’s channel. Then I need to know what’s going on at the first floor checkpoint. And tell Carl and Train we’ve been spotted. This might get hot.”
“Okay,” Reaper responded, sounding slightly distorted as the radio waves passed through layers of concrete and steel. “Their channel is now filled with crap.”
“You know, if he’s over sixteen I would be stunned.” She bent over and put her shoes back on.
“He told me he’s twenty one, and he’s a technical wizard. And since our last tech guy got blown up in Singapore . . .”
Reaper came back. “I don’t think they were able to contact security, but they may try the courtesy phones. I’ll kill those.”
“Do it.”
“On it,” he responded enthusiastically. “Reaper out.”
“What kind of name is that supposed to be?” Katarina snorted.
“I told him he couldn’t go by his real name. Too dangerous.” The floor numbers changed rapidly, but I didn’t know if we would be fast enough.
“Yes, real names are dangerous in this business . . .” She put her hands on my shoulders and pushed me slowly back against the elevator wall. “Hector.”
“Business, Katarina. Stick to business,” I grunted as I pushed her away. She was the first person I had told my real name to in years. It was stupid, and weak, but infatuation does that to a man. She did that fake pout that I had found cute at first, though now it was just annoying.
“Whatever you say, Lorenzo, darling.” She was beautiful, lethal, and I had been lonely. I had let her suck me into working for Big Eddie, and what a mistake that had been. Bad guy. Villain. Robber. Thief. Look up the definition and there was my picture. It was what I was good at. I was probably one of the best in the world. It was all that I knew, and all that I could do. And honestly, I loved it. I was a predator, through and through. But since everything had fallen apart back in Africa, I had tried to only prey on other bad guys. They had more to take, and I could always console myself that when I had to off one of them, I left the world a better place. According to my twisted moral code, they were fair game. Normal people were off limits, but working for Big Eddie, those lines often blurred. I had seen how real evil operated, and I was employee of the month.
I hate what I’ve become.
Concentrate on escaping. Be bitter later. I yanked the waiters sash, opened my coat, undid my tie, and tried to look casual, sloppy. Just a guy wrapping up a night on the town and taking home a professional girl. I grabbed Katarina around the waist—her abdominal muscles were hard as rock—and held her close. “Look like we’re guests leaving the party.” She held out the other 9mm.
“Take this.”
“Why?”
“Where am I supposed to conceal a full-size pistol in this thing?” she growled, gesturing at her dress.
True enough. She couldn’t hide most of herself in it. I took the gun and shoved it into the front of my pants and made sure the cummerbund hid it. I didn’t like carrying a cocked and locked handgun over my manhood, but didn’t have time to think of a better spot.
First floor. The elevator clanked to a stop and the doors hissed open. Katarina giggled loudly and snuggled up; she was a superb actress. I did the half drunk wobble out onto the linoleum. This was the service entrance, and guests shouldn’t be coming down this way, but it was a heck of a party upstairs, and what happens in Kuala Lumpur, stays in Kuala Lumpur.
A few workers noticed us, but the place was swamped tonight. What was another drunk and his harlot? An older woman behind some sort of registration desk was wearing a traditional head scarf, and she shook her head sadly at the sight. She was old enough to have watched her traditional backwater country super modernize, and all of the ancillary moral decay that came with it.
“Excuse me, sir. You should not be in this area,” she said politely.
I waved my hand in her general direction. “We’re leaving,” I said dismissively, playing the lost rich guy. Katarina giggled again. The woman frowned, apparently deciding that she needed to notify somebody of lost guests, and lifted her phone. She jiggled the receiver a few times when she didn’t get a dial tone. Way to go, Reaper. We continued down the hall.
The area terminated in some doors and a loading dock. Several workers were moving in cartons of food and booze from a truck. Carl would pick us up on the other side.
Katarina’s nails sank into my arm. I froze. Several men were entering, squeezing around the delivery truck. They had the look of toughs, not dressed for a quality event. The guy in the lead was still wearing his sunglasses at close to midnight, was plainly hurried, and was talking into a cell phone. Can’t jam everything, damn it.
He saw me as I saw him, across twenty feet of concrete and harsh fluorescent light, and he knew that these were the people who had just shot his boss in the face. His hand moved in a blur as he shouted to the other pirates.
Katarina had her arm around me, and her hand was only inches from the Hi-Power in the back of my waistband. I felt it leave as she dove to the side. I drew the second gun as I went the other way.
It was on.
The gun in my hand was a worn old military model. I punched the gun straight out, shifting focus from the pirate to the rudimentary front sight. I fired twice as I moved against the wall. Now I was crouching, moving forward, into the loading area. I had to get out of that fatal funnel. Had to attack.
Katarina had the same idea. There were multiple gunshots from her side. The lead pirate stumbled, dropped his cell phone, started to turn toward her, black gun coming up in his hand. I nailed him again, and then he was down. The workers were screaming, scattering, hitting the floor, or running.
The other pirates were in a bad position, squeezing past the truck with no place to maneuver. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. I took the left. Katarina took the right. The wall behind me exploded into concrete fragments. The noise was deafening in the echoing space. A worker trapped in the crossfire spun, vegetables flying out of the cardboard box in his hands. A fine particulate mist seemed to hang in the space that he had filled. I fired down the narrow passage, dropping another pirate.
“Magazine! Magazine!” Katarina shouted. I reached into my pocket and tossed one to her. She was at slide lock, gun empty, and barely looked up to catch the mag. She slammed it home, dropped the slide, and kept shooting.
I dove behind a stack of boxes. Bullets zipped right through. Glass bottles shattered, splashing me with wine older than I was. There was only one more pirate on my side of the truck, and he was firing wildly, trying to retreat, to get away from us. He disappeared around the rear of the truck . . . only to reappear a moment later, falling head first onto the pavement. The crack of a .223 echoed through the alley.
The radio crackled. It was Carl. “Got him! Now hurry up. There’s more coming. It’s like a fucking pirate convention out here.”
“Clear right!” Katarina shouted. I pulled the last mag and reloaded without thinking.
“Clear left. Let’s go.” The worker that had been shot was still moving, but he wouldn’t be for long. Blood was welling from his chest in great violent gouts. He was lying on his back, hands twisted into claws, blood flowing from his mouth as he coughed. His dark eyes were open, staring at the buzzing fluorescents, seeing Allah, or Buddha, or Vishnu, or who knew what in this country.
Standing over him, gun dangling loose in my hand, I froze. I had seen this hundreds of times, and didn’t know why this hit me. He looked right at me, and extended a hand, probably wondering why I wouldn’t help him, wondering why he hurt so bad, why his heart was pumping blood out of his chest instead of to his brain . . .
“Lorenzo! Let’s go!” Katarina shouted.
The old lady with the headscarf pushed past, oblivious to danger, oblivious to the stranger with the gun. She fell at the young man’s side, cradled his head in her hands and began to scream. He was already dead.
“Murderer!” she shrieked in Malay.
“But I didn’t kill him,” I said in English, but she wasn’t paying attention. She was trying to stop the bleeding that had already stopped forever.
“Lorenzo!” Katarina shrieked. I snapped out of it and ran for the exit.
The next hour was a blur. There were more of Keng’s men in the alley. And I killed them as I had killed so many before. The cops arrived, and Carl eluded them by driving like a madman through the streets of KL. Nobody could catch Carl, nobody.
All I could think of was that old woman with the head scarf. Murderer . . .
Dawn found us at a safe house in the Malaysian countryside. We pushed the van with bullet holes into the lake. Datuk Keng was dead. Big Eddie’s work was done.
The new guy, Reaper, may have been young, but he’d done well. Carl had cracked open a beer and was sitting on the couch, surly as usual. Train was his usual jovial, goofball self. A nerdy computer kid, my best friend the angry mercenary, and a mountain of muscle with a teddy bear’s heart. This was my crew, this was my family. They did this for me. They were watching the news coverage about what the local authorities were calling the Independence Day Massacre.
I left the room, wanting to be by myself. Carl studied me as I walked away. He knew me better than anybody, and I had no doubt he knew what I was about to do. I watched Katarina through the window as she paced back and forth on the lawn. She was on her cell phone, giving details to Big Eddie’s representatives. She was dressed down now, just wearing normal clothing, not made up at all, and even then I had to admit that she was probably the most beautiful woman I had ever known, and fun, and amazingly smart, talented, pretty much everything I could ever want.
Too bad she was evil.
I overheard Reaper whisper to Train. “A massacre? Man, that was crazy. I’ve never seen anything like that before . . . How many people have you guys killed?”
“That’s a stupid question, kid.” Carl muttered. “Really stupid.”
“Sorry.”
“I can understand you asking,” Train said. “Me, I’ve had to do it a few times. Carl here, if you had to get all of the people he’s killed together, you would probably fill a bus. A big Greyhound bus. He and Lorenzo were mercenaries in Africa for a few years.”
“Dude . . .”
“Shut it, Train,” Carl growled.
“What about Lorenzo?” Reaper asked with a reverent tone.
“Lorenzo, well . . .” Train hesitated.
Carl responded. “If I need a bus, then Lorenzo needs a football stadium. Now both of you shut up.”
I sighed, and banged my head against the window.
I intercepted Katarina on the lawn as she hung up her phone. She got right to business. “Big Eddie is not happy.” Her accent was Swiss. She was half Spanish, half Swiss, and sometimes when she wasn’t playing at being something else, her accent was very obvious. It sounded like “Big Eddie eez not happy.”
“And why’s that?”
“Too much attention. Too much collateral damage. He says that next time—”
I cut her off. “There is no next time. You tell him I’m done.”
“Lorenzo . . .” she spoke calmly. “Think this through. Nobody is ever done with Eddie.”
“I am. Sorry, Kat, it’s over.”
“Are you talking about our employer, or are you talking about us too?” She looked sad, and even bit her lower lip, but I knew that was an act. A year ago I would have believed she was capable of sadness but now I knew that it was fake. Any normal human emotions Katarina had, had long since been expunged.
“Both.”
“I thought you loved me . . .” she said, voice cracking, and this time, I almost could believe her. Almost. I turned my back on her and walked away.