Marc Cameron - National Security

“It fit,” Mahoney said.

“In the Pandora myth,” Jericho said, resting his hand on top of hers, “do you remember what was left in the box after our girl opened it and let all the evil stuff out to torment the world?”

“Ah.” Mahoney smiled. “ Hope.”

“That’s right. Hope,” Quinn said. “I have to hope for the best, or I’d go crazy doing this kind of work.”

“Yeah, about that.” Mahoney sat up again. She took another bite of ice cream before pointing at him with her spoon. “I wanted to talk to you about this job of yours.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well.” Mahoney shook her head, leaning back in her chair to look him up and down. “I’ve been following you for less than a week and I feel as though I’ve been beaten half to death. I can’t imagine doing this sort of work all the time. I think my head would explode.”

Jericho chuckled. “You don’t give yourself enough credit, Doc. You stayed icy calm out there, through all of this. It’s not so hard, what I do. Win Palmer is right. I’m a hammer. Someone gives me a nail to hit and I hit it. Simple really, especially when the world is full of so many nails.”

“But it’s so taxing,” Mahoney said. “On you and your family.”

“That it is.”

“Then why?” she asked. “Why do you keep doing it?”

Jericho thought for a long moment, tapping his icecream spoon on the edge of the carton. His mind drifted back to when he was fourteen and happened on the college bullies on the Coastal Trail in Anchorage. He scooped another bite of ice cream and grinned.

“It’s my job.”

Northeastern Afghanistan

Sheikh Husseini al Farooq used an olive wood walking stick to negotiate the rock-strewn trail in the mountainous region near the Khyber Pass, southwest of Jalalabad. The evening was cool, the shadows barren of the air he so desperately needed. The wizened old coffee bean of a village headman moved down the path with the dexterity of a mountain ibex. His barrel chest swayed back and forth as he waddled swiftly on short, crooked legs toward the dark entrance of a stone hut built into the side of the cliff.

The sheikh stopped, resting on the stick to catch his breath. He knew where they were going now so it didn’t matter that the headman outpaced him. Another man might have been embarrassed that the old man was faster considering the fact that he carried the sheikh’s two heavy bags. But Farooq was used to others doing the work for him. He was accustomed to opulence, fine silks-and getting exactly what he wanted.

All that had changed because of an infidel named Jericho.

Two days after the unthinkable capture of his servant Zafir Jawad, a source from Baghdad sent word to Farooq’s safe site in the mountains of Northern Pakistan. He was now the most wanted fugitive in the Global War on Terror. The messenger had flaunted the news, as if it was something of which to be proud. But Farooq knew better. His friends in the Saudi government had turned against him at once. With a bounty of five million U.S. dollars on his head, he didn’t know whom to trust. Government spies in Pakistan could be purchased for a cup of strong coffee. Iraq was out of the question, and the Saudis had made it clear they would be happy to have him beheaded and collect the easy reward. He had embarrassed them, and for that, there would be no forgiveness. From the time he’d heard the news, he’d been constantly on the run.

At length, he hiked up the hem of his long woolen coat and started after the headman, panting at each treacherous step until he collapsed inside the filthy little hut.

Farooq spoke only rudimentary Pashto, but like many of these unlearned border people, the headman spoke smatterings of at least four languages-his native Pashto, Persian Dari, Pakistani Urdu, and thankfully, Arabic. They all came in handy in his opium-smuggling trade. If pressed, he probably spoke enough Russian and English to ingratiate himself with military patrols.

Once they were seated on threadbare, lice-ridden cushions, the headman’s stooped wife brought in a wooden tray of butter tea and flat bread. Small dots of indigo dye tattooed her forehead, cheeks, and chin. The more dangerous of the two, the old woman made no effort to conceal the scowl in the jade of her flint hard eyes. Farooq accepted the strong tea with both hands and offered a smile to the woman. Afghan females in general were vessels of a fiery temper-extremely volatile if left unchecked. In Farooq’s experience, green-eyed Pashtun women were the worst.

“I am in need of a place to set up the computer,” Farooq said at length, taking the time to finish his foul-smelling tea before getting down to business.

The headman smiled, tipping his cup to lips covered by a sparse mustache. It was the color of the chalky rocks outside his rough home. The air in the confined room was full of smoke and the sour odor of human confinement.

“Ah,” he sighed in a nasal, high-pitched voice. “You have a computer, but you would need a satellite phone to connect to the Internet.”

“I was told you could help with that,” Farooq said, impatiently pursing his thin lips.

“You know the Americans often monitor signals sent up on satellite phones?” For an illiterate drug smuggler, the headman had an excellent knowledge of the ways of the world. Though he lived in a stone hut, decades of fighting Russians and Americans alike had taught him to keep up with technology.

“I am aware of this,” Farooq said. “I plan to send no messages that will bring American Predators to bomb your homes. I will be looking at nothing of interest to them.”

The headman sat motionless, like one of the stones that made up his house.

“You can help me, then?” Farooq finally said, breaking the silence.

“Indeed,” the headman said. In the corner, his green-eyed wife muttered something under her breath. He ignored her. “Our valley is perfectly suited to speak with the night sky.”

He waved a weathered hand at his wife, motioning her out of the corner where she lurked in the shadows. “Here, pour our friend another cup of tea and then fetch me the phone.”

Farooq accepted the second cup, peering into the greasy sheen under the glow of the smoking oil lamp. Taking a sip out of polite necessity, he set the cup to one side and unzipped his computer case. He’d been trying for a week to connect to the Internet, one of the many things he’d taken for granted back in the Kingdom. It was important he find out about this man Jericho.

The old woman produced a black phone, roughly the size of a brick, rolled in a greasy woolen rag. The headman took it and the two men went outside, into the gathering dusk. Pinpricks of light began to appear as stars filled the darkening sky. Farooq opened his case and booted up his computer while the old man cranked a rusted Chinese generator next to the front door of his hut. Next, he turned on the satellite phone and waited for a signal. Surprisingly, he got five bars almost instantly.

The old man took a dented square tin from his pocket and held it toward Farooq. It was naswar, Afghan snuff-a potent mixture of pulverized tobacco, lime, and indigo. Farooq raised his hand, feeling a little sick at the thought of putting such a mixture in his mouth. He bowed his head to politely decline. Grunting, the old man opened the tin and tucked a pinch of the dark powder inside his bottom lip behind rotten teeth.

The computer finally connected with a familiar ping. Farooq settled in as comfortably as he could on a flat boulder with the computer in his lap and began to type. Reflections from the screen flashed across his face as he searched every database he could think of. He only needed to find out who this Jericho was. After that, he could go to him and exact a proper revenge for Zafir’s death-for ruining everything. Farooq still had money. Not as much as he would have liked, but there would be enough for his purposes, stashed in a safe deposit box in Pakistan along with an Uzbek passport no one knew about but him.