Gauntlet (50 page)

B
ACK AT THE INZAR GHAR FORTRESS, Jennifer and Richard were listening to heavy feet tromping down the narrow stone stairs leading to the basement dungeon. Two men, thought Richard, struggling to process information through a veil of Vicodin and pain. Only two.

There was a jangle of keys in the door, and a few words were spoken in Urdu. The best translation that Richard could put to them was “a jolly good time.” Oh, well then, let’s just get a few pints of Guinness going, an irritating voice in his brain answered. The voice shut up when the cell door swung open with a loud metallic creak, and two men entered the small subterranean prison. Both were dark and swarthy, and the smaller man had dull and lifeless eyes.

The two entered the small cell. There were now four of them, Richard realized. Enough people to square dance, the Vicodin added. Guinness and square dancing. Maybe they should switch to spiked lemonade. Fun, fun, fun. Richard tried desperately to bring his imagination to heel. This was no time for jokes, he told himself sternly.

As they walked in, the smaller man let loose with another stream of Urdu, addressing the larger man by name — Marak. Richard tried desperately to remember if he’d ever heard the name before, and who it might have been connected to. Before he could make any progress in that direction, Marak walked right up to him and snarled in his face.

“Are you ready to die slowly, you American Jew pig?”

“Doh-see-doh your partner,” was all Richard could think to say. The words slipped out before the more rational portion of his brain could voice an objection.

In spite of the precarious state of things and the horrendous fate that was awaiting them, or maybe because of them, Jennifer burst into a giggle. The smaller, younger man, with the dead-looking eyes, slapped her hard across the face. “Quiet, bitch,” he hissed in English.

Richard decided to let his giddiness take over just a bit more. Not that he actually had much choice in the matter. “Doh-see-doh, little man,” he babbled, nodding in the other man’s direction.

“What?” Marak hissed.

“And allemande right,” continued Richard, wondering what part of his brain knew the language of square dancing.

Marak put his face inches from Richard. “First I break your bones. Then I rape your bitch right here, in front of you. Then you will die, very, very slowly.”

Just then, the voice of sanity decided to make another appearance from the ever diminishing drug-free portion of Richard’s brain. He had one chance, he remembered. One shot. One move. And only one. He needed to focus all his power and concentration on that one move, and make it count. If he miscalculated, it would be over, and they’d both pay a severe price. He wasn’t going to let that happen. Richard knew exactly what his move was. He had practiced it over and over in his mind, but could he actually do it? How badly had the drugs affected his reflexes, his judgment? If he were 20 again... dammit all to hell, Richard, he told himself. You’re Navy. Or at least you used to be. Not just Navy, but super elite Navy. Tomcats on aircraft carriers, at night, remember?

He recalled the iron concentration he had felt every time the distant aircraft carrier lights came into view. One landing in particular jumped into his mind. It was night. Worse yet, an Indian Ocean storm front had come in, and there were strong cross winds. His concentration locked him unwaveringly on the tiny row of lights in the distance. He was flying by instinct, his hands feeling the engines, his eyes watching the carrier lights approach while simultaneously reading the information on the HUD. Only a few people in the world could do this, and he was one of them. By instinct. By feel.

Marak was bringing his face close to Richard’s as he started explaining, in greater detail, the promises of pain and mutilation to follow. Richard had stopped listening, but was snapped back to the present by the man’s close proximity. He almost smiled as he realized that this Marak had made two mistakes. The first was his failure to observe that Richard’s ring and pin assembly were no longer fastened to the wall. Richard had reinserted the pin when they’d heard the footsteps, but it was loose in the socket. The second was to mention that they’d had another American in that very room recently.

“This is where we cut him. Right here. While he was still alive. The American Jew pig. It was great fun,” Marak snarled, grinning hideously.

Without telegraphing the move, Richard’s left hand, gripping the steel ring, flew forward with amazing speed. The iron ring smashed into Marak’s temple, not quite hard enough to knock him out, but hard enough to send him staggering backward. Marak clutched his bleeding head, howling in pain and rage. Richard seized the moment and kicked the staggering man in the groin with all his might. Marak bent forward in pain, and Richard followed up with a knee to his face, cracking teeth and breaking his nose. As Marak staggered back Richard hit him with the heavy iron ring once again, this time on the back of the head. Marak fell to the ground and moaned once. Richard hit him a few more times until he was still.

“Doh-see-doh, you fucking son of a bitch. Doh-see-doh,” he muttered, breathing heavily.

Z
AK HEARD THE GUARDS come down the stairway, and enter the room where the new prisoners were being held. He heard the man called Marak taunting the prisoners. And he heard Richard’s caustic responses. There was the sound of a struggle, of metal hitting bone, and then the thump of a heavy body hitting the ground. Zak continued to dig feverishly. Richard had managed to get one of the guards down. If Zak could finish digging his way out before Richard made his own escape, he might be able to find him and join him. They would be on the run, and in one of the most dangerous situations possible, with little hope of success. But they would be together. He wouldn’t be alone anymore.

He pulled his left arm up and began to use the raw wrist joint to supplement the digging, ignoring the searing pain of mortar in the open wound. His only thought was to get out and find Richard.

J
ENNIFER HAD BEEN WAITING, and took advantage of Richard’s attack on Marak. The other man had been contemplating her in an overtly salacious manner and, in so doing, had for a brief moment lost concentration. He turned around when he heard the sound of Richard pulling the iron ring out of the wall. Jennifer immediately pulled her own ring out of the wall behind her, and smashed the man in front of her hard across the back of his head. A few more satisfying cracks, and the man with the dead eyes might as well have been truly dead.

Richard didn’t stop to survey their handiwork. He stripped Marak of his gun — a huge, ungainly thing that looked a bit like a Glock. Then he flipped open the man’s jacket and grabbed his cell phone.

“He’s got a gun, too,” said Richard, pointing to Jennifer’s downed guard. “Grab it and let’s run.” With some concern, Jennifer noticed that Richard had also grabbed the piece of bone that he presumed was Zak’s tibia. More weird behavior, she thought. Richard had truly gone over the top.

Richard and Jennifer were racing up the stairs when she turned around and ran back down. “Dammit, Richard, we forgot to lock the cell door. Could give us a couple more minutes,” she called over her shoulder.

She ran back to the basement cell door, taking the steps four at a time. Reaching the bottom, she saw that Marak had pulled himself up and was now stumbling toward the door, his eyes bright with a murderous rage. She was able to shut and lock the door mere seconds before the furious and bloodied man reached it. He pounded on the wall in frustration, raging to her about the dismemberments, tortures, and decapitations that would befall her once he got his hands on her. She ignored his words and ran back to the top of the stairs, where Richard was waiting.

As Jennifer passed him and raced for the door, she noticed that Richard had paused on the stairs, and was looking back down toward the dungeons.

“What the hell are you doing?” she hissed, running back down and grabbing his arm.

“Jen, I just heard someone call my name,” he said slowly.

“You’re crazy! You’ve taken too many of those drugs,” she whispered, tugging at him.

“No Jen, I’m serious. I heard it. And I knew the voice.” Richard was turning, attempting to go back down the stairs. “Jen, I recognized the voice. It was Zak.”

Jennifer almost hit him. She couldn’t believe that he was that delusional. They were in the middle of trying to escape a torture chamber alive, and he was hearing the voice of a friend who had died weeks ago. She pulled him around to face her, putting her face in his so that he had no choice but to look at her.

“Richard, listen to me,” she hissed through her teeth. “I know this is hard for you. I know you’ve lost a very good friend. I know things are going badly. But you have GOT to keep it together. If we’re going to get out of this alive, you have got to keep your wits about you. There is no way that Zak could be down in that dungeon, calling you. You’ve seen his body. You know he’s dead.” She saw the look of utter pain flash across his face, and felt terrible for saying these things to him. But her life, and his, depended on it.

“We’ve got to go,” she continued. “If we’re going to make it out of here alive, if we’re going to save the USA, we have got to go. Now let’s get out of here.”

She turned to climb the last steps again, and was relieved to feel him right behind her. He must have made another of his transitions from crazy to sane, because he now began moving at top speed, pushing her from behind. They came out of the staircase at a dead run, rounded a corner, and found themselves outside, where it was now night. There were three US Army-style Jeeps sitting in a large driveway, beyond which stood the large stone-walled and heavily fortified Inzar Ghar safe house. It had slits for windows, and armed guards could be seen on the roof.

“No problem. Just your standard Pashtun safe house. Heavily guarded. They probably process heroin here. There are probably rooms full of heroin, precursor chemicals, and stacks of cash inside,” whispered Richard. “God, it would be nice to come back here sometime with one of those fancy new Longbows. A lot of misery could be eliminated by blowing up this one building.”

“That’s just naive, Richard. You burn one down, and two go up in its place. Or the price of smack goes up in San Francisco. It would make no difference at all. Anyway, the keys are probably in those vehicles, right? Only mad or desperate people would try to rip off a drug lord.”

“I think that describes us perfectly,” he replied. “Let’s find out.”

“If we get out of the driveway, which way do we turn?” she asked.

“All mountain people know only two directions, Jen.”

“And what are those?”

“Up and down, my girl. Up and down.”

“Looks like down is to the left,” she replied.

“Hope you’re right. We definitely do not need up,” replied Richard, eyeing the Jeeps. ”Let’s try and sneak to the closest Jeep. If we’re spotted, run like crazy. I’ll drive,” he said.

“Like hell you will,” Jennifer snorted. “You’re juiced to the gills and your eyeballs are almost twice as old as mine. You actually think I’m going to let you drive down an unknown country road in a strange vehicle in the dead of night? No damn way. I’ll drive.”

“You do have a point,” Richard conceded. “Let’s go.” He grabbed her hand and they made a dash for the nearest Jeep. They were almost there when one of the rooftop guards started shouting.

“We’ve been spotted! Hurry!” yelled Jennifer. She shot into the driver’s seat, found the key already in the ignition, and turned it. The metallic wa-wa-wah of a weak battery and ailing starter motor greeted her.

“Come on, you bastard!” she screamed. She was fumbling with the vehicle controls, struggling with the handcuffs and the iron ring assembly still attached to her wrist. Richard jumped into the passenger seat, then turned around and pulled out Marak’s gun. He pointed it at the Jeep parked directly behind theirs. Jennifer was too busy trying to start the Jeep to ask him what he thought he was doing.

“Wa-wa-wa-wah,” went the stalling motor. A beam of light started to play across the driveway, and within a second would come across the Jeep. The engine started up just as the first gunshot was fired from the roof. Richard fired twice, then a third time, and then a fourth. A hail of bullets rained down on them as the Jeep spun gravel and whirled out of the driveway, taking what they both hoped to be the downward direction.

“What the hell were you shooting at behind us? Those assholes were on the roof, not in the driveway!” Jennifer fumed as they went racing down the road.

“I was shooting at the other Jeeps.”

“What the hell for? You’ll never disable a Jeep with a handgun,” she shouted.

“Only too true. But those Jeeps don’t have headlights anymore. And Jen, put yours on bright, please.”

“Oh for God’s sake, Richard, it’s almost dawn. We won’t need headlights in a few more minutes.”

They drove for a few minutes. Then she giggled.

“What’s funny?” Richard asked. “We’re one hell of a long way from being out of the woods here.”

“Doh-see-doh, Richard? Doh-see-doh? What the hell was that?”

“Square dance moves, partner,” he said. “For some reason it was the only thing I could think of to say.”

“That’s actually ’dosado,’ but I’m not sure those assholes care much about that distinction right now.”

They both laughed, sharing the momentary relief of being out of the cell and in motion. Jennifer shot an almost affectionate glance in Richard’s direction, then did a double take.

“Richard, you look like hell,” she observed cynically. “There’s blood in your hair, on your face, and all over your clothes. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“No, I’m not, actually,” said Richard, still clutching Zak’s tibia. “I’ve taken about 50 shots to the head. I’ve been knocked out three or four times. I’ve got major head wounds. I just had the snot beat out of me. I heard my best friend’s voice in that dungeon. And I’m in a lot of pain,” he said, popping a few more Vicodin out of the container. “But I’m still up and kicking. Just get us the hell away from this place. That guy has got to be totally pissed by now. If they catch up with us, whatever they did to Zak will seem like a walk in the park.” He paused for a minute and held the chunk of bone in front of him. “Right, Zak?”