Andrew Britton - The American

After the guard had completed a cursory inspection of the jeep, the BMP-3 infantry carrier was rolled back to allow them to pass. The road led into a small clearing contained on three sides by towering granite walls that kept out much of the inclement weather. The clearing was dominated by a large canvas tent powered by a command vehicle and its generator, both of which were miniscule by comparison. Two more soldiers of the Taliban stood guard outside the imposing shelter, but otherwise the clearing was devoid of human life.

After leaving the jeep, al-Adel and March approached the tent slowly, careful to keep their hands in plain view. One soldier checked them for weapons, taking both of al-Adel’s while the other stood back and covered the two arrivals with his rifle. Once again a quick conference was held by radio, and then the tent flap was pulled back to allow both men to enter.

Ryan and Naomi walked for twenty minutes before he found a suitable location just opposite the predetermined collection point. The alley entrance was just below a recently installed streetlight, and the glare of the bulb made all but the first few feet of the black corridor impenetrable to the eye. The space between the brick walls of the buildings was perhaps 4 feet wide, and dominated by the smell of rotting garbage in close proximity. The stench was slightly quelled by a cool breeze that felt like an arctic wind in the narrow confines of the alleyway.

He moved deep into the dark space before pulling one of the two blankets from his pack and folding it into thirds. He placed the neat square of material on the litter-strewn ground and pulled Naomi down onto the makeshift seat. Then he reached for the second blanket and draped it over her, watching with satisfaction as she pulled the coarse wool around her body. After taking his own seat on the rough cement several feet away, Ryan focused his attention on the road adjacent to the alleyway and tried to ignore the biting cold.

After a few minutes he turned to check on Naomi and found her watching him, the luminous green eyes clearly visible even in the shadowed confines of the alley. He could also see that she was shivering hard, the thick material having fallen down from around her shoulders. Sliding over, he wrapped the blanket even tighter around her, and then pulled her shaking body close to his. After another moment she relaxed and rested her head gently on his shoulder.

“Ryan?”

“Hmmm?”

“When you shot him, did you feel anything?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is it hard for you? I mean, killing someone?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a lie,” she mumbled after a moment. He did not respond. “I watched your face when you pulled the trigger… There was nothing there.”

Her eyelids were growing heavy, and she pushed herself tighter into his body as the sleep began to wash over her like a warm sea. “What was the little girl’s name, Ryan?”

He felt his muscles stiffen with apprehension. He did not want to remember that, to remember what they had done to her. It had taken so long to forget…

“It’s not right, you know. It’s not right that you feel nothing when you take a life…” A long pause. “The girl in Bosnia. What was her name?”

“Safiya,” he finally said. Her head was dipped, her face hidden from view. She could not have known the pain it caused him. “Her name was Safiya.”

“Thank you.” The words were so soft that he almost missed them.

Once again he stayed silent, and after a few minutes heard her breathing settle into the soft rhythm of sleep. Looking down, Kealey found her features hidden by layers of lustrous hair falling about her face. Only her nose was visible, the very tip peeking through the black waves. Instinctively, he pulled her even closer, turning his head away from the alley’s entrance just as a police car screamed past.

He willed the hours to pass and waited for the image of a young girl’s torn body to fade from his mind.

The air was warm and thick inside the tent, the combined effects of an overworked space heater and the trapped odor of men who had not bathed in weeks. There was a section separated from the sleeping quarters by a threadbare blanket hung from a wooden pole. The makeshift curtain was not pulled all the way across, and March could see the communications gear set up on a wooden fold-out table. A soldier wearing a headset was seated before the array of equipment. Monitoring the radio net, he thought. He’d done the same thing many years before.

There was a flurry of activity in another cordoned section and two men emerged, one with a rifle in his hands. The other carried no weapon, and wore a thick woolen sweater over a linen shirt and wrinkled dress pants. The eyes behind the simple steel-frame spectacles were bleary with lack of sleep, but March could still easily identify the distrustful gaze that was aimed in his direction. The younger man with the rifle watched March carefully as his superior pulled al-Adel aside and began speaking rapid French in forceful tones.

March was fluent in the language, a fact that he had never revealed in al-Adel’s presence. He clearly understood that the older man was angry with Saif for bringing him into the mountains. Abruptly, the man turned to speak to March in cultured English. “Do you know who I am?”

“Of course.”

“Why have you come here?”

“To speak with the Emir.” March tilted his head a fraction to the left and appraised the man who stood before him: Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Director’s private physician and closest confidante. March knew it was widely suspected in Western intelligence circles that this man had died several years earlier in an air raid over southwestern Afghanistan. “I thought Saif would have explained this to you. I do not think it is too much to ask, considering what I have contributed to your organization.”

“What you have contributed,” the physician repeated, an edge to his voice. A short, barking laugh as he turned to al-Adel in amusement, and then back to the American. “What have you done that is so special? I was fighting the jihad from an Egyptian jail when your mother was dressing you for school. The death of a politician, the destruction of an empty building… These are your grand accomplishments? That is all you have to offer?”

“It is more than your entire organization has achieved in four years,” March pointed out. He watched the arrogant smirk fade, slowly replaced by a strangely indifferent expression.

The older man turned to the junior soldier with the rifle and issued a command in French. Before the last word left his mouth, March had taken three lightning-fast steps forward to deliver a vicious blow to the young man’s throat. The soldier’s iron grip on the rifle slipped as his hands shot to his neck, groping at his crushed windpipe, his eyes bulging wide. March pulled the weapon out of the air, ejected the magazine, and snapped the round out of the chamber before the clip hit the ground. Only then was al-Adel screaming for security. The American’s hands were out and open, the rifle disarmed at his feet as the two soldiers standing guard outside pulled back the flap and moved quickly into the tent.

March ignored the muzzles held to his head and the violent Arabic curses. He ignored the tortured choking sounds of the dying soldier. He stared straight into the shock-ridden face of Ayman al-Zawahiri before speaking again.

“I won’t let you give that order,” March said, making no attempt to hide the snarl in his fluent French. “I didn’t come this far to lose my life at the hand of some pimple-faced child. You would be the one dying now if it pleased me to see it happen. I am here to give you an opportunity, perhaps the greatest of your life. Trust me when I tell you to take it. If nothing else, I should have your trust by now.”