Smoke and Shadow (4 page)

Baker held up his
hands. To his right, he could hear Carpenter stand up as
well.
“
You
don
’
t need to do
that. We understand.
”

“
No!
”
Fresh
sweat began to bead on Popanjar
’
s face. His voice began to boom
through the room. His eyes darted between Baker and the back of the
room.
“
You
Americans only pretend to understand. You are sheltered and weak.
You can
’
t stomach
real power! You don
’
t know my life! I
’
ll show you. I
’
ll show you right now!
”

Baker took
another step back, bumping into the chair, but his voice was low
and even.
“
We don
’
t
see power the same way, but that
’
s fine. You
don
’
t need to show
us anything right now.
”

Quivering madness
filled Popanjar
’
s
eyes. Baker wasn
’
t
even sure if the man could see anymore. They jumped back and forth
between Baker and whatever was behind them. Sweat dripped from his
face.
“
You are
going to sit! You are going to watch! If you want to know the
Kata'ib al-Karbala, you are going to help me! You are going to do
what I say! I need protection!
”

The Glock slid out from Baker's
belt and into his hands with the smooth fluidity born from hundreds
of practice hours and more than a dozen shooting incidents. The
manic look in Popanjar's eyes transformed first to impotent
confusion and then to desperate rage in the time it took Baker to
line up his sights on the target. Popanjar flinched, trying to use
the boy as a shield in the last moments of his life, but the
Mozambique drill Baker began ended before his target could move. In
a sudden flurry of motion and the barking of Baker's gun, Singh
Popanjar collapsed beside his victim. Two holes spewed blood from
his chest. A third point-blank shot near his nose mangled his
entire face.

Baker's action
created three simultaneous reactions. Closest to him, Carpenter
yelled some variation of
“
WHAT THE FUCK?
”
but that wasn't as important as the
other sounds Baker heard.

The door behind them had opened
with a crash. Baker turned and squatted, orienting his barrel
toward the silhouette of a man holding a rifle. There were two more
barks from the Glock. The shadow fell in the doorway with a heavy
thud. Only then did Baker pause to deal with the third reaction.
Still holding his weapon in the ready position, he unclipped the
earpiece from his shirt and put it in his ear. Trent's voice was
loud but controlled.

"Ghost, status?"

Baker scanned the room before
sliding his gun back into his belt. Carpenter moved toward the
door, his own weapon held down by his waist in both hands. The boy
cringed in a fetal position, involuntary spasms of shock making his
limbs quiver. Baker reached for the boy and made an effort to keep
his voice clear and calm as he responded to Trent. "We're coming
out hot. Two plus one..."

A short burst of gunfire ripped
through Baker's earpiece, then Trent responded. There was no panic
in his voice, but Baker heard the exertion in Trent's breathing and
imagined the operator running as he spoke. "Hold position. We've
got hostiles between you and the door." There was the squeal of car
tires and more gunfire as Baker reached down for the
boy.

"Fuck the plus one. Leave him
here!" Carpenter crouched next to the door and snarled.

For a small frail child, he seemed
to have the weight of a fully grown man as Baker struggled to lift
him.

"Ghost! Forget him! Let's go!" The
boy didn't resist, but his center of gravity sank into the floor.
Baker had to squat and gather the boy in his arms like an
infant.

Trent's commanding roar in his ear
provided a burst of energy when Baker stood up straight again.
"Let's go! More hostiles incoming!"

"Fuck!" Carpenter threw open the
door and poked his head out close to the ground and fast enough to
avoid random fire. Without another glance at Baker, he slid through
the doorway, maintaining his low crouch. The pistol was up near his
eyes and ready. Baker hefted the child in his arms and moved
through the door with all the speed his burden would
allow.

He concentrated on putting one foot
in front of the other as he hustled down the stairs, remembering
the mantra of his combat instructors. "Go slow," one of them once
said. "Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast, so go slow." He ignored the
traces of gun smoke turning the wooden stairwell into a surreal
nightmare. He didn't think about the two bodies convulsing in the
open doorway to Popanjar's office or the AK-47 rifles dangling in
their limp fingers. He didn't focus on Trent crouched near the
front door, pushing Carpenter toward the Hummer with one hand and
holding up the M4 to cover him with the other. The distant wail of
sirens didn't distract him. The weight of the boy in his arms
didn't matter. The tang of gas in the air from the bullets wasn't a
surprise. The stench of sweat, blood, and feces from the still warm
corpses was a sensory assault he was used to. Baker just put one
foot in front of the other, knowing his only concern was getting
across the threshold and into the Hummer.

Everything changed when he reached
the bottom of the stairs and passed the doorway to Popanjar's
office. He didn't see the man who fired the rifle. He didn't hear
the bullets. He didn't feel the 7.62 round slam into his leg. He
simply went down, face-first through the front doorway. He tried to
keep his balance and keep moving, but his limbs wouldn't respond.
There was the roar of gunfire over his head, more shouting, and a
cloud of dust in his mouth. He felt nailed to the ground

But he wouldn't quit. The echo of
his instructors still hammered into his head, as he tried to find
his footing. "You don't stop moving until you are dead. You don't
stop fighting until you are dead. If you get shot, keep shooting
back. If you get stabbed, you keep fighting. Don't let your mind
give up while your body can still move. Keep moving. Keep
fighting." He didn't quit, but he didn't move. He couldn't move.
His arms were pinned under the boy and he couldn't feel his
legs.

Something like a claw or a talon
snatched him up by the back of his jacket and dragged him forward.
There was an explosion of pain and the feeling of thick mud in his
pants then his body sank into the backseat of the truck. For an
instant, the din of noise was muffled, and the stifling air of the
hallway was replaced by the arctic chill of the Hummer. Then his
insides revolted as the Hummer fishtailed away from the curb. Baker
heaved and the nausea erupted vomit onto the floor.

Over his own dry coughs, there were
sounds of support around him. Trent's voice was close to his ear,
his body shielding them from any stray gunfire. "You made it,
Ghost. Stay with me. You've got a first-class ride to a five-star
infirmary. Just stay with me..." Baker nodded, the adrenalin from
the fight keeping him focused. In the front seat, Chu snapped
precise information to the support elements ready to cover their
extraction, while Carpenter barked orders to prepare the surgical
ward for their arrival. Baker smiled in spite of the gummy film in
his mouth and the searing pain below his waist. Nightwatch was a
professional squad. If anyone could keep him alive, they
could.

He stopped smiling when he looked
down at the boy. The child didn't cry or fidget in his arms. He
didn't blink as his glassy eyes looked up at Baker. He didn't
breathe, although his mouth was wide open. Baker felt the boy's
blood soak through his shirt. The limp lifeless body bounced like a
hollow shell as the Hummer sped down the unnamed road.

Shaw tossed the folder on the table
in a theatrical display of exasperation. "And in the three weeks
since then, I've had the local news media claiming we kidnapped the
kid and killed Popanjar when he attempted a rescue. Local militias
have threatened to step up their attacks and the State Department
is accusing us of derailing their diplomatic efforts with our
negligent operations." He pinched the bridge of his nose to add to
the drama. "Add in the lost asset, the dead kid, and the cost of
your injury, and I think we have the textbook definition for a
complete cluster fuck."

Trent sat back and folded his arms.
The scars on his dark skin made Baker think of tribal tattoos. "The
opposition intel was suspect. Popanjar had a whole team of
insurgents hidden in his office. We walked into an ambush. We were
lucky to get out without higher casualties."

Carpenter didn't
react well to the accusation. He leaned into the table, balling his
hands into fists as he spoke. "Popanjar wouldn
’
t put himself at risk to set us up.
We poked the bear, and we got bit in the ass for it." The next
statement was directed at Baker, even if Carpenter didn't turn to
look at him. "If we stuck to the script, the op wouldn't have gone
sideways. Popanjar was a quality asset. We just
didn
’
t handle him
the right way." And by "we," Baker knew who his partner meant
him.

Chu leaned in to challenge
Carpenter on Baker's behalf. "We were in an unwinnable situation.
How the hell were you supposed to ignore Popanjar's pedophilia,
when it was thrown in your face like that?" Chu's unspoken question
toward Carpenter, "How could you support and condone that shit in
the first place?" lingered between them before Shaw jumped back
into the argument.

“
It doesn't matter if the intel
was bad. You are paid to deal with the situation that arises. It
doesn't matter what Popanjar did with the kid. Your assignment was
clear; meet the asset and determine his worth. Your rules of
engagement were the same as they were for any recruitment op and
those rules don't include firing three rounds into an unarmed
man."

"He was a..."

"I don't care
what he was!" Shaw's eyes bulged out of his head when he shouted.
"I don
’
t care,
Trident doesn't care, the State Department doesn't
care
—
so you don't
care!"

He pointed an
accusing finger down at the file. "Do you really think this is the
first pervert we recruited as an asset? Fuck, Chu, almost every one
of the people we deal with in this war has some kind of twisted
shit going on behind closed doors. That's how we get them. We feed
their needs in exchange for what we want. If your field commander
wasn't such a faggot, he would use that to his advantage instead of
overreacting and nearly getting you all killed." Baker noticed Chu
didn
’
t even flinch
in response to the homophobic slur. After spending years in DSS and
a year at Trident, he had probably heard a lot
worse.

The silence in
the room was oppressive, but Baker let it sit for a while. Now that
they had all had a chance to talk around him, Baker knew it was his
turn to defend himself, lash out, or give up. He
wasn
’
t in a rush
to speak. The throbbing in his wounded leg felt like a never-ending
stab of a knife in his thigh. The sound of the child's whimper
still resonated in his memory, like the glassy look in the dead
boy's eyes. But this meeting had to end sometime, so Baker turned
to Shaw and his bulging eyes, giving him his best warm smile.
"Ladies, we all know how this story ends, so why don't we just play
it out and move on with our lives?"

Shaw smiled back as he gathered up
the files in front of him. "I'll tell you how the story ends,
Baker. It ends with your summary dismissal; effective immediately.
Even if you were mentally sound for field operations, which you
clearly are not based on this debriefing, your disability makes you
useless for field work. You're done in this business, so please
feel free to move on with your life." Then Kevin Shaw turned on his
heel, walked out of the conference room and slammed the door behind
him.

"Bullshit," Trent said to everyone
and no one.

"We can get him back in," Carpenter
said, looking around the table for support. "Ghost has a proven
track record and a long list of contacts in his pocket. I can
smooth things out with Shaw. It will only take a few phone calls
once he's back on his feet..."

Baker shook his
head. "I
’
m not
crawling back to Trident. Not like this." He looked down at his
leg. "Mr. Shaw might be right. It might be time to move
on."