Rock Her (19 page)

Kip knew that a small infraction like letting Kip keep Annie in
his quarters was really no violation at all. But he also knew that the corporal
had told several larger lies to cover it up, and when one lie is unraveled, all
of them would unravel. True to Kip’s prediction. The corporal became very
nervous.

Ten minutes later, Kip was in the corporal’s quarters, wearing
desert camouflage fatigues and with a fully loaded rifle upon his back. He wore
a utility belt with extra magazines and two hand grenades attached to his
harness. The corporal told him the best way to get off base without much
fanfare. And thirty minutes after that, Kip was standing outside the gate
blending in with the other armed guards that were there. Kip was well trained
in evasive tactics. One second he was there, the next he wasn’t.

Kip knew Jacky would be in the nearest whorehouse.
And, of course, I know where it is.

It took him a few minutes to get his bearings, after all, it
had been several years since his last jaunt around the base.

Soon he forgot he had ever left. He knew the danger here was
twice that of most other marines, since he was alone. He had no back up. If
something went wrong, he had no one to rely on to cover him. But the adrenaline
he felt overwhelmed the fear and he continued on.

Within the hour he was standing at the double wooden doors of a
plain building on the corner of a nearly deserted street. The Afghans,
hypocrites that they were, denounced prostitution, and stoned women accused of
it when it suited their needs, but ignored the whorehouses just like every
other society on the face of the earth.

Kip lowered his rifle and back into the door. Inside he found
squalor and walls plastered with magazine tear outs of Hustler and Penthouse,
even Playboy pages. One the far wall was a window into another room with an old
bearded man sitting at a desk, watching porn from a beta VCR. The video was
something from the nineteen eighties.
 
Kip approached the man and slapped a photograph on his desk. The man
took his time to draw his attention from the small television screen, but when
he did, he quickly scanned the picture of Jack and looked up at Kip slowly.

Kip spoke in Pashto, the official Afghan tongue. “Have you seen
him?”

The bearded man nodded.

“Is he still here?” Kip asked him, again in Pashto.

The man shook his head. “Taken,” he said in accented English.

“Where to?” Kip asked him. This time in English.

The old man shook his head and turned his attention back to the
television.

Kip reached into his cargo pocket and pulled out about fifty
one hundred Afghanis, the Afghanistan currency. This equaled about one hundred
dollars US. If Kip knew anything about the Afghani people, it was that money
talked to them.

The old man slowly looked at the money on the desktop and then
looked up at Kip. He shook his head and ran his thumb across his neck,
mimicking the act of beheading.

Kip knew that if he had put more money down on the table, the
man would have spilled everything he knew. But he had no more. This is all he
could scrounge out of Corporal Dale.

Last resort then
. Kip
unslung his rifle and pointed it at the man’s head. The old Afghan man
recoiled, sliding back in his chair, which was apparently absent one wheel, the
way it wobbled.

“Tell me!” Kip demanded.

“Serena Hotel,” The man said in English, heavy with dialect.

Kip backed away. “Thank you. No one will know you told me.” Kip
scooped up the fifty one hundred Afghanis and Jack’s publicity picture, as he
backed out of the door, rifle aimed at the old man’s head, he nodded.

Kip knew where the Serena hotel was. He had been there before,
several times clearing it from Taliban and other radicals. It was only three
blocks over.

Kip used combat ready tactics as he travelled alone through the
city streets. The city was busy, but, as per usual, no one seemed to pay any
attention to him. To the locals, the presence of US forces had become a normal
part of the surroundings. It was a testament to the general population that,
even though terrorist and Taliban forces had carried out numerous attacks per
day, the people seemed to go on with their everyday lives. Ignoring the
dangerous, and embracing the abnormal.

Kip scanned the rooftops as he went, looking for lookouts and
snipers. He ducked down into alleys and crossed streets quickly, taking cover
behind ruined cars and shattered corners.

Soon, he was standing across the street from the Selena Hotel.
He used his rifle, even though it had no scope, to scan the rooftop. He saw
movement in several locations, mostly guarding the side and back entrances. He
decided to go through the front, waltz through the lobby and use the same
measures to find out where Jacky was being held. So he did.

Kip crossed the street in a flash and crashed through the front
doors. He rolled into a sitting position and aimed his rifle where he knew the
check in desk was to be. Another bearded old man stared at him quietly from
behind the desk. He held a rubber stamp in his hand.

“You need a room, soldier?” he asked in near perfect English.

“No,” Jack said scanning the room for snipers and standing. “I
need a man.”

“
No.No.No.No
. We don’t do that here.”
The old clerk said. “You get out. Get out now!” The old man started to come out
from behind his desk. Kip pointed his rifle at him and the man stopped holding
up his arms.

“It’s not that!” Kip said. “It’s not what you think! I am
looking for someone. Kip held up his picture. “Have you seen him?”

The old man scratched his beard while he craned his neck
forward and looked at Jack’s picture. Then his eyes flew wide. “I don’t want
any trouble here soldier!” he yelled.

“Where do I find him?” Jack demanded.

The old man slowly backed behind the desk again, shaking his
head.

“You won’t have any trouble. Just tell me where he is!” Kip
demanded again.

Then the old man did something that would haunt Kip for the
rest of his life. His hands disappeared behind the desk and came back up
holding an AK-47. Kip pulled the trigger and the man fell back behind the desk.

“God
damnit
!” Kip yelled. Then he
took tactical position again. The rifle shot would draw curious innocents and
determined not so innocents. Kip moved forward and rounded a corner into a
hallway. He remembered that every time he cleared this building he ended up
routing Taliban from the basement. He decided he would start there and work his
way up. He bolted to the end of the hall and took the door on the left. The
stairs led down to a false landing, turned and went down more to the basement
door.

Something was wrong. There was no one guarding the stairwell.
Perhaps he was wrong about the basement? Or even wrong about the building? If
that was the case, he was a civilian who just murdered an Afghan citizen.
Shit! I could have just started an
international incident!

Kip started to doubt himself then shook the thought out of his
head.
NO
!

Jack was here. He had to be here. And so what if he did start
an international incident? Friends are friends. He’d clear this up later.

Kip crept down the stairs slowly until he was at the basement
door. He slowly pushed it open and peeped between the door jamb and door. What
he saw made him cringe and gave him relief all at the same time.

Jack was there, tied to a bed frame. The memories came flooding
back to him of his own torture. He blinked them away, taking heartfelt relief
in the fact that he hadn’t just killed an innocent man upstairs.

He pushed the door open further and pointed his rifle through.
He scanned the room. Only Jack was visible. But he knew from experience that he
would never be left completely alone down here. Someone had to be nearby.

Kip cautiously entered in a crouched position, pointing his
rifle in all directions. He crossed the floor to where Jack was tied up.

“Jacky?” Kip whispered. Jack did not answer. Kip reached out
and touched his chin, shook his face slightly. “Jacky, wake up.”

Jack’s eyes were swollen. He had been beaten. But he stirred
and tried to open them without success.

“Kip?” Jack croaked. “Is that you?”

“It’s me, Jacky. I am going to get you out of here.”

“Oh, shit, Kip,” Jack said. “You shouldn’t have come. They knew
you’d come.”

“What?”

“That’s right, Mr. Jones.” A voice sounded off from behind. Kip
whirled around to see three men staring at him from a dark shadow. The voice
was in perfect English. American English.

“Step forward, show your hands!” Kip shouted.

“Wow, he knows the drill,” a second voice said.

“I’m not kidding,” Kip said. “Step forward now, or I’ll spray
the dark with bullets and drop you.”

“Relax, Mr. Jones. We’re coming. Or should I call you Mr.
Parker?”

Kip stepped back in shock. Whoever this was in the dark knew
his real name.

“Stephen James Parker, do I have that right?”

What the hell is going
on?

“He should know the drill, Reynolds,” The first voice came
again. “This is not his first time in this situation. We have us a real
bonafide
war hero here.”

Reynolds. Kip knew that name. He had heard it recently.
Didn’t Sparks mention that he thought he saw
a Reynolds when they stopped in Germany? Reynolds is the cop that was watching
our room the other night. What the fuck is going on!!!

Then another voice echoed in the dark as they stopped forward.
The voice spoke Pashto, and Kip would never forget the voice as long as he
lived. The doctor that tortured him during his captivity! Kip felt as if he had
just stepped into the twilight zone.

It took all of Kip’s discipline not to squeeze the trigger on
his M-16 and spray the area with rounds. But his curiosity overwhelmed his
hatred.

“Who, the fuck are you!” Kip yelled. “And, God
damnit
, I told you to step forward into the light! Hands
where I can see them!”

“We’re doing as you asked, Mr. Parker. Just have patience.”
Then, there they were. All three of them. The doctor drew his gaze first, and
Kip resisted the urge to spit when he first laid eyes upon him.

Then he saw Reynolds, slightly taller than the doctor but
shorter than the third man, who Kip had never seen before in his life.

“I know, you and you,” Kip said, “But who the fuck are you?”

“My name is unimportant, Mr. Parker. Let’s just say that
Senator Murphy send his regards.”

“Senator Murphy?” Kip asked. “That asshole that Annie wrote the
biography about?”

“An unfortunate lapse of judgment on his part, I am afraid.”
The taller man said. “If he had done a little more planning, none of this would
have been necessary, you see?”

“No, I don’t fucking see!” Kip yelled. He heard Jack moan
behind him.

Kip spoke to Jack without turning or taking his eyes off the
three men before him. “It will be alright buddy. I am going to get you out of
here.”

“Now, asshole with no name,” Kip said, “what the fuck is going
on? So help me I’ll drop all of you.”

“Relax Mr. Parker. Or Jones. Whichever you prefer, I really
don’t care.” The man said. “You’re girlfriend wrote a biography about the
Senator. The published version really was benign, but she took notes on
everything the senator said. It seems he told her about a two week stay in the
Florida Keys. Those two weeks happen to coincide with the disappearance of a
young college female that was vacationing down there. New evidence has been
found in that case, evidence that could implicate the senator, should his
whereabouts during those two weeks come to light. There were other records, of
course, but they have all been eliminated. Shit Parker, Jones, we searched high
and low for that notebook. But we just could not find it. So, proper security
says when you can’t find the notes, eliminate the writer of the notes.”

“Holy shit!” Kip said. “All this and all of the attempts on
Annie’s life have been about some
dickwad
senator?”

The tall man laughed. “He is a
dickwad
,
isn’t he? Unfortunately for you, though, that
dickwad
is going to be running for president. And we intend for him to win. But during
vetting we discovered this little inconvenience that could cause some serious
trouble for him. We can’t let that go.”

“Who the fuck is we?” Kip asked.

“You are one hardcore son of a bitch, you know that?” The man
continued without answering. “You protected that bitch like nobody’s business.
Even took out our first assassin. No one has ever done that before. Ever! We
are quite impressed.
 
Then you even
thwarted our third attempt at the hospital. Our man at the NYPD said we had
nothing to worry about. But your girl survived.”

“I had nothing to do with that.” Kip said, starting to put
pieces together in his head.

“Really?”

“Annie survived your shooter before I even got there.”

“Huh,” The tall man grunted. “I am going to have to have
another talk with the good Lieutenant Porter. Seems he was less than truthful
about what went down.”

“Porter?” Kip said, incredulously.

“Oh, yeah. How do you think we got the info about you coming to
this shithole part of the world? And how do you think we retained our watcher
here, Deputy Reynolds?” The man smiled. “He knew the faces. Told us the best
way to draw you out. Quite the asset to have on this mission.

”Why did you need to draw me out? What the fuck?” Kip started
to lose his temper. He was still in the dark about what was happening. And that
pissed him off to no end.

“Like I said, Parker, uh, Jones. You are one serious bad ass
mother fucker. We don’t come up against guys like you every often. But we have
before. And we learned our lesson. WE knew there was no way a hit was going to
be pulled off on your girlfriend, Ms. Beecher, with you around. The only way we
could pull it off was to get you away where our assassin could work unimpeded.”