The Mullah's Storm (12 page)
Read The Mullah's Storm Online
Authors: Tom Young
“That’s all I know.”
“Shaheen,” Marwan called. Chatter in Arabic. Parson looked at Gold.
“People depend on us, sir,” she said.
“Quiet, woman!” Marwan shouted. He slapped her face. A drop of blood slid from her nose. “You and I have much to discuss,” he said, “but the men are talking now.”
Another insurgent stood behind Parson’s chair.
“Your destination, Major Parson?”
“They didn’t tell me.”
“That would make it hard for a flier to do his job, now, wouldn’t it?”
Marwan nodded, and the man behind Parson grabbed his right hand and twisted. Flames shot from Parson’s wrist throughout his body. He didn’t know nerve endings could transmit that much pain. Parson cried out, a high-pitched wail. Arched against the ropes.
“Memory getting any better?”
Parson tried to think and reason. Fear and pain overwhelmed every word of every thought. “Seeb,” he said. “Seeb International in Muscat.”
“I doubt that very much,” Marwan said. “That is a civilian airport. Your leaders are decadent, but not stupid. Neither am I.”
Marwan unsheathed a bayonet and pressed the tip to Gold’s cheek. Her eyes widened, but she made no sound.
“When I’m done with this harlot, she will want to cover her face as women should,” Marwan said.
Now Parson had nothing left. Maybe he could handle a blade through his own flesh, but not through hers. “Masirah Island,” he said. “Off Oman.”
“Recalling that flight plan a little better, are we? And from Masirah to some secret prison, I presume. So those Ibadhi fishmongers in Oman continue to cooperate with infidels. Why does that not surprise me?”
My God, this guy knows a lot, thought Parson. And he didn’t learn to speak English like that in some raghead madrassah.
Marwan put away the bayonet and gave orders in Pashto and Arabic. “Now,” he said, “you are going to get your fifteen minutes of fame.”
Parson sweated despite the cold, struggled to control his bladder. Insurgents, all with faces covered by balaclavas or scarves, took their places behind Parson and Gold. Each terrorist brandished an AK or a grenade launcher. One tacked a black flag with gold lettering on the wall behind them. Parson nearly broke down, but then he saw that Marwan’s bayonet remained sheathed. Enough of Parson’s reason still functioned for him to realize they would make at least two videos. They would not kill him in this one. First, they’d make an impossible demand. Then they’d kill him when his government didn’t meet the demand. The recordings would show up on Al Jazeera and on radical Web sites, downloaded, burned onto DVDs, and passed around the jihadist world like snuff porn.
On the other hand, Parson thought, they might as well make both videos at once. That’s probably what happened to Nunez. Parson shivered from sick fear, knowing his fate lay entirely in the hands of people who thought killing him bought a ticket to heaven.
Marwan stood between Gold and Parson, held a Koran in his right hand. A guerrilla with a video camera aimed it and pressed a button.
“In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate, this is a message to the White House from the defense ministry of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, its true government, the Taliban,” Marwan said. “You attempted to transport one of our top spiritual leaders to one of your torture centers. But you failed.
“The soldiers of God struck the plane from the sky. God Himself sent a mighty blizzard to prevent a helicopter rescue. And now we have recovered our mullah and captured the crew. They will be punished for their treatment of our cleric, the Commander of the Faithful, peace be upon him. But they will be executed outright if you do not release all Muslim warriors from your CIA detention centers. You have two weeks to meet this demand, or you will witness the slaughter of these two infidels at my side.
“Your only hope of peace is to return to Islam. I say ‘return’ deliberately. All are born Muslim, and some turn away. You must return to the one true faith, your Capitol becoming your Grand Mosque.”
Is he that crazy? Parson wondered. Can you reason with someone like this?
“If you fail to do this,” Marwan continued, “I warn you a storm is coming. A blizzard like you have never seen on your soil. One greater than the storm that has grounded your aircraft in Afghanistan. One greater than the storm you witnessed that day in September.
“In the name of God and His fearsome justice, I caution you to consider my words carefully.”
The video operator lowered his camera. Parson let out a long breath. So they would not kill him now. But two weeks? They’d kill him eventually, and the waiting would be horrible. If they’d killed him during the first taping, it would be over by now. Twenty seconds or so.
All of the Taliban fighters filed out of the room except Marwan.
Parson tried to remember his training. Establish a bond. Make them see you as human. Not that it had ever worked with jihadists before.
“Where did you learn such good English?” Parson asked. He wanted to sound in control, but his voice quavered.
“England.”
“Is that where you’re from?”
“You are a good soldier,” Marwan said, “albeit an enemy of God. You are using what you’ve been taught. Excellent. But it will not benefit you and this harlot. I think we all know how this ends.”
Parson felt his bladder start to let go, and he clenched his muscles to stop it. The warm liquid soaked into the seat of his flight suit. His heart raced. So did his mind.
He tried to think. How can this motherfucker read my thoughts? What the hell was he doing in Britain? It doesn’t matter, Parson decided. No use. This all leads to that bayonet, agony, gouts of blood.
He tried hard, but he lost it. Parson inhaled with a sob, then bit his lip to keep his breakdown silent at least. Tears ran down his face and dripped onto his clothing. Gold looked away, her shoulders heaving.
“Phase One,” Marwan said. “Despair.”
“Go to hell,” Parson said.
“Not likely. You will certainly see it ahead of me. But before you go, we will talk more.” Marwan left Parson and Gold alone, joining his men in the next room.
Parson had always felt that his most important prayers had gone unanswered, so he’d given up talking to God. What was the point? But he prayed now. To wake up from the nightmare. For deliverance. For a bullet instead of a blade. He closed his eyes hard and repeated all of it silently, nodding his head all the while.
His wrist hurt so much that he would have cried from pain alone had the pain not been overtaken by dread. My lot in life, he thought. Pain and now failure. Because I can’t fucking think and move fast enough, a horrible death. And as far as the mission goes, defeat snatched from the jaws of victory. The mullah should be under interrogation by now. Instead, Parson thought, that raghead gets honored as a returning hero, his stature magnified.
Parson could tell the sun was going down only because the light went grayer. He saw no shadows lengthening; the snow and fog allowed for none. Just an insidious gloom that eventually took over completely. Chant of Muslim prayers next door. Growl of turboprops overhead. The HC-130 was looking for him, surely calling for him on the radio.
Parson remembered that he’d reported his position, but he dared not pin hopes on that. Ceiling remained damn near zero. Aircraft could orbit over his position all day long and do him no good. In this weather, no one could see the strobe he’d left outside except from the ground.
He considered the life he might have had, a future ripped away like leaves in a hurricane. Parson hadn’t ever given much thought to his own death, and he’d certainly never pictured anything like this. He’d heard of the stages people go through: denial, anger, bargaining, acceptance. That must happen in more normal settings, he thought, because he felt it all at once. One moment shaking with fear, the next moment unable to comprehend it, the next in a rage.
After a time, two of the insurgents came back in. One held an AK on Parson while another tried to feed him rice. In the flickering of an oil lamp, Parson watched the dirty spoon approach his mouth. He had no appetite, and he forced down only a few bites. That went against his training for this situation. Eat when they feed you, he’d been taught, because you don’t know when you’ll get food again. But he just could not make himself. Gold didn’t eat, either.
When they were alone again, Parson said, “So they plan to keep us alive for a while.”
“Not for long,” Gold said.
Parson stared at the floor. “What happened to the family?” he asked.
“I’m pretty sure they killed them. I heard shots.”
I brought this on them, Parson thought. Might as well have shot them myself.
Footsteps interrupted his mourning. Marwan entered the room, carrying one of the family’s wooden chairs. He placed it on the floor and sat in it with his legs crossed as if he were about to take tea. No bayonet, Parson saw. Not yet, then.
Marwan took a notepad from the pocket of his field jacket and began scribbling.
“You’re doing well,” Marwan said as he wrote.
“What?” Parson asked.
“Your composure. I’ve seen people in your situation reduced to incoherence.”
“Does that disappoint you?”
“Not at all,” Marwan said. “In fact, I have come to believe your faculties make you too valuable to behead. That’s why I’m here to offer you a proposal.”
“What are you talking about?”
“If you do two things for me,” Marwan said, looking over his reading glasses, “I promise you and the harlot a quick and painless exit from this world.”
“What are they?”
“First of all,” Marwan said, “it is my distinct honor to be your speechwriter. You will make a statement for my camera confessing your indiscriminate bombing of Muslim villages.”
Marwan held his pad so Parson could see the page. In precise, flowing script, it began: “My mission was to take as many Muslim lives as possible. These aerial murders came as part of a larger campaign to crush Islam in a new Crusade. I must now ask the forgiveness of God and His people, the faithful of Islam.”
“I fly cargo,” Parson said.
“Come now, Major. Surely you understand psychological operations.”
“That’s why I won’t do it.”
“Oh, I think you will. I don’t enjoy using the blade, but I have done it in service of Allah. Some of my men, however, relish it, and they know how to do it slowly.”
Parson looked at Gold, who stared out into the dark through a window of oiled paper. No cues from her at all.
“The other thing I need you to do is to make a radio call,” Marwan said. “When the weather clears, bring in your helicopter. I will video its destruction at close range. Psychological operations, you understand.”
“Forget it.”
“I thought you’d say that at first. I will give you until the morning to take a decision. At that time, we will shoot a video of one kind or another.”
“Fuck you.”
Marwan folded his notepad and picked up his chair.
“Choose well, Major,” he said.
CHAPTER EIGHT
P
arson sat awake all night. He watched Gold stare at the floor. Sleep deprivation gummed his thoughts; he could not concentrate on any line of logic. He still heard aircraft engines thrumming overhead from time to time, but the plane might as well have flown in another dimension. Parson saw no way it could help him now. Nothing registered clearly in his mind except fear and resolve, in that order.
arson sat awake all night. He watched Gold stare at the floor. Sleep deprivation gummed his thoughts; he could not concentrate on any line of logic. He still heard aircraft engines thrumming overhead from time to time, but the plane might as well have flown in another dimension. Parson saw no way it could help him now. Nothing registered clearly in his mind except fear and resolve, in that order.
“What are you going to tell him?” Gold asked finally.
“That I won’t do it.”
“Good.” Gold looked squarely into his eyes. “Good.”
“I’ve gotten enough people killed already.”
“You didn’t kill them.”
“Still. I won’t give him a helicopter crew,” Parson said. “Fucking raghead.”
“At least we’ll go out doing the right thing,” Gold said.
“No one will ever know it.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Do you believe in heaven, Sergeant Gold?”
“Yes, I do.”
She didn’t even have to think about that one, Parson realized.
The window went from black to dark gray, the only indication of daybreak. Large snowflakes struck the oilpaper pane and disintegrated, piling on the sill like ground glass. Parson knew he would never see the sun again.
Footsteps. Parson felt a droplet of sweat fall from his armpit down his side.
Marwan entered, again carrying his chair and notepad. He placed the chair next to Parson and stood with one foot on its seat. Marwan studied his notepad, resting it on his knee. Parson noticed the guerrilla leader’s hands. Ropy veins. Some kind of class ring. A Breitling watch. What the hell kind of terrorist was this?
“Have you taken a decision, Major?” Marwan asked. “I have crafted quite a statement for you.”
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