Finding North (55 page)

“ 
. . .trust that some of the goodwill we’ve tried to
create will return in the face of strangers,” Joseph and Alex
repeated in unison what Charlie, their old CO, used to
say.

Alex dropped her head into
her hands to rest for a moment. Raz reached up and held her
hand.

“
Have they killed Zack and
Cliff?” Alex asked.

She waited while Colin
relayed the message to Margaret, and Leena used her feet to
communicate to Troy. Every moment, the shovels came closer and
closer to her. Alex bit her lip to keep from screaming her
impatience.

“
She says they have not
killed Zack or Cliff,” Margaret said. “Troy’s just been taken. They
are in the tunnel at Leena’s feet.”

“
Matt and MJ seem to be
hidden,” Colin said.

“
I sent Dusty on,” Alex
said.

“
So we have backup,”
Joseph said.

Alex felt the fresh air
before she saw the moon. Hands grabbed at her and pulled her from
the tunnel. They pulled her onto her feet and then screamed for her
to kneel down. She saw only the bottom edge of the men’s
cotton
kameez
.
Glancing up, she noted their long beards. A tip of a machine gun
came into her view.

“
Head down!” the man
yelled in Arabic.

Alex reached out her arm
and hooked it with Raz’s. She felt him reach Joseph. She knew that
Joseph would follow suit. Soon, they would be hooked together for
support, connection, and communication. About ten minutes after
she’d hooked elbows with Raz, she felt him inform her that they’d
rescued Leena, that James had a head wound, and that they still had
not found Matthew or MJ.

She felt a hand on her
head. A young girl, maybe fourteen, was arranging her scarf so it
covered her head. The girl went to Margaret and Leena to do the
same thing.

“
Who are you?” a man
yelled in Arabic.

She heard someone get
kicked. Their linked arms bent with the blow.

“
Fey Team, sir,” Colin
coughed.

He was the tallest and
heaviest of them, so it made some sense that they would go for
him.

“
Where is the fairy?” the
man asked in Arabic.

Out of the corner of her
eye, she saw the man stick the machine gun in Colin’s face. When he
didn’t respond, the man kicked him again. Colin grunted, and their
line of elbows absorbed some of the blow.

“
Where is the fairy?” the
man screamed.

To prove his point, he
fired the machine gun into the air. He placed the muzzle against
Colin’s shoulder. She knew he would blow out Colin’s shoulder with
ease. A non-life threatening injury, Colin would survive. However,
he’d keep doing this until he got what he wanted. She looked up, as
if to find inspiration from the stars, and saw the glimmer of
something enormous soaring with ease above them. Jesse appeared
beside her, ready to support her in whatever she did.

She stood up and
immediately felt dizzy. She realized that her actions were contrary
to standard training. She knew also that standing up just might get
her killed.

But it was what Captain
Charles O’Brien would do. If it was good enough for Charlie, it was
certainly good enough for her. She bit her lip to keep from
throwing up.

“
I’m the
jinniyah
,” Alex said in
English using the Arabic word for fairy.

Chapter
Thirty-eight

“
No!” Colin yelled. He
lunged toward her but was held in place by the man’s
foot.

Raz tried to hold her in
place.

“
How can I be of service,
sir?”

Alex bowed her head to
keep the vertigo at bay. A man walked to her and looked her over.
She could smell the sweat and dirt on him. But she didn’t smell
desperation or fear. She took that as a good sign. He tilted her
head up.

“
You are wearing the wrong
color of scarf,” he said.

“
We traded,” Alex
said.

The man ripped the
headlamp off Margaret and went down the line to look at the each of
their scarves.

“
I do not see the
bright-blue one,” the man said. “I see the dark-blue
one.”

He grabbed Zack’s arm and
pulled him to his feet.

“
This creature is too
scrawny to be her football-player partner,” the man
said.

He threw Zack to the
ground. Cliff and Leena grabbed him. He nodded that he was all
right and returned to his knees. They linked arms again.

“
We traded scarves, sir,”
Alex said.

The man turned around to
look at her.

“
There is a bounty on your
head,” he said.

“
No, there isn’t,” Alex
said.

A man near her punched her
across the face for her insolence. She fell to all fours and gasped
with the force on her right shoulder. She saw Raz’s eyes. His eyes
seemed to smile at her. She nodded and got to her feet. She kept
her head down.

“
Okay, there is not a
bounty on your head,” the man said. “I could make one for trying to
infiltrate our camp.”

Alex didn’t reply. He
nudged her with the tip of the machine gun, which she saw now was
an AK-47. She looked up at the leader.

“
You were trying to
infiltrate our camp?” the man asked.

“
The Fey Team never
hides,” Alex said. “We never sneak in anywhere. Never have, never
will.”

The man gave her a long
look. He nodded to the man near her, and the man punched her again.
She fell but remembered to catch herself with her left hand. She
got up, adjusted her scarf, and returned to looking
down.

“
Why do you favor that
arm?” the man asked.

“
I was stabbed last year,”
Alex said.

He nodded to the man near
her. The man pawed through her scarf and balaclava to unzip her
jumpsuit. He pulled the fabric off to reveal the healing scar. The
leader nodded, and the man near her removed his hands. She zipped
herself up.

“
Who is Wafa?” the man
asked.

“
There are many great
Wafas in the history of Afghanistan. Wafa Begum is the name of my
favorite of the many heroines in Afghanistan,” Alex said. “She was
the Pashtun wife of Shah Shuja ul-Mulk and saved Afghanistan many
times with her good sense. It is also a good, solid Afghan name for
a daughter.”

Any direct mention of
Alex’s daughter would have met with immediate reprisal. Daughters
were rarely acknowledged to strangers and never mentioned by name.
The men around her shifted, and the mood lightened. The men looked
at their leader.

“
And Amir?” the leader
asked before walking away from her.

“
As with Wafa, there are
many, many Amirs,” Alex said. “I named my son after Amir Kror Suri,
who was a Pashtun poet, fighter, and ruler.”

“
I
knew
it,” the leader turned around
to look at her. “My brother thought it was for Amir Abdulla Khan
Niazi.”

“
No, sir,” Alex said. “I
would never name a native son of Afghanistan after a warrior and
governor in Pakistan.”

“
He is Pashtun,” the
leader said.

“
Amir is a son of the new
Afghanistan,” Alex said. “My hope is he will have the strength of
Kror and the mind of a poet. It’s my belief he will need
both.”

“
That he will,” the leader
nodded. “Why do they not bear their father’s name,
Kohzad?”

“
Legal reasons having to
do with the adoption,” Alex said. “In the US, children are not
named as they are in Afghanistan.”

“
But he will know of his
father?” the leader asked.

“
And his mother, his
grandparents as well,” Alex said. “When they are old enough, we
will journey to Afghanistan so they can know their country. In the
meantime, my twins are surrounded by those who love
them.”

“
Even in the US?” the
leader asked. “With their family dead?”

“
Ask him,” Alex nodded
toward Raz.

He stood up.

“
Who are you?” the leader
asked.

“
Arthur J. Rasmussen, US
Department of Homeland Security, sir” he said. “I am the Fey’s
football-player partner and a Godparent to the children. They have
many people who love them. They are . . . wonderful.
Would you like to see photos?”

The leader looked at Raz
and laughed. He pointed to one of the men, and the man took the
cellphone Raz offered. The man pushed Raz back into place. He
dropped to his knees and hooked elbows while they flipped through
the photos.

“
What are you doing out
here?” the leader asked.

“
We got caught in a secret
prison slated for destruction,” Alex said. “We kept our mission a
secret to be able to interview the target.”

“
An Afghan?” the man
asked.

“
An American,” Alex
said.

“
Torture?”

“
I’ve never found it very
effective,” Alex said.

“
I’ve heard that,” the
leader said. “Why were you in the tunnel?”

“
We did not inform command
of our mission and, in turn, were not informed that the site was
slated for destruction,” Alex said.

The leader nodded to Alex.
He looked at her for a long moment and then began pacing away from
her. Alex saw Matthew and MJ peek out of the tunnel to see if they
should intervene. She closed her eyes twice to signal
no.

She waited and
thought . . . about . . . Máire and
Joey . . .and John . . . and
Max . . . and the many days and nights she’d spent
in this mountainous country. She smiled.

“
Why do you smile?” the
leader asked her.

She was so surprised that
she jumped. He repeated the question.

“
I was thinking of
Afghanistan, sir,” Alex said. “I grew up in a mountainous region of
the United States. Afghanistan is beautiful. When I feel like she
cannot surprise me, I turn the corner and see something so stunning
that it takes my breath away.”

The man scowled, and Alex
gestured to the bright moon on the early spring grass. He
scowled.

“
I feel fortunate to have
been able to see her,” Alex said.

He snorted a kind of
laugh.

“
My cousin’s cousin says
that you are letting people live in the valley owned by your son,”
the leader said.

“
That’s correct,” Alex
said. “We’re investing in returning the valley to farms and homes.
People are allowed to move there to farm the land. We are supplying
the seed, pomegranate root stock for orchards, rebuilding homes,
facilities, and the infrastructure many homes require. But only for
those who do not grow poppies — no opium.”

“
That’s all?” the leader
asked.

“
Yes,” Alex
said.

“
What happens when Amir
wants his land back?” the leader asked.

“
Amir is six months old,”
Alex said. “Our hope is that he and his sibling will grow up in the
valley and know those who live in peace there. It is what their
parents wanted for them.”

“
But he holds ownership to
the land,” the leader said.

“
The tribe holds the land.
Amir, his sibling, their aunt, uh . . .” Alex
remembered just in time not to mention Felicia by name,
“ . . .Emal’s widow and her charges — they own the
land.”

The leader
nodded.

“
We are on our way there,”
the leader said. “We are hoping to get land to work and raise our
families.”

“
Then you should go,” Alex
said. “My guess is that there will be a lot of people wanting to
farm the valley. The children are babies. You could live fifteen
years or more before Amir or his sibling may be ready to consider
changes in the valley. It’s a great opportunity for a quiet
life.”

“
If I bring you, it might
help,” the leader said. “Negotiate land for your
freedom.”

“
If you take us, you’re
likely to get killed,” Alex said. “Emal’s widow does not play
nice.”

“
She is Pashtun woman,”
the leader nodded.

“
Leave us here,” Alex
said. “We will get back to Kabul. In exchange for our freedom, I
will give you my scarf and a note for Emal’s widow. She will know
my scarf — and my handwriting — and contact me.”

“
I could get your scarf
and note and kill you.”

“
Emal’s widow will not do
anything if she cannot contact me,” Alex said. “She is
my
children’s aunt. She
is
my
family, and
I am hers.”

The leader nodded, and
Alex held her breath. Jesse followed the man back and forth as he
paced. He stopped and faced Alex.

“
There is a boy in the
camp,” the leader said. “He works with the doctor and his
wife.”