Warlord: Dervish (14 page)

“Sit down,” Jason told him. “Sit down, Bronson.”

Bronson turned, glaring at the mercenaries. Jason reached out and tugged the man’s arm. Bronson pulled his arm away but settled himself back on the bench.

“
Bronson
.” Jason said the name and laughed. “I fuckin’ love it.”

“Like Charlie Bronson, yes?” inquired Ahmed.

“Like Charles Bronson,” Bronson nodded, the hostility gone from his voice.

“You give yourself that name?” Jason asked him.

“Nah, main. Someone else did.”

“Well,” Jason put down his fork and turned on the bench. “I bet there’s a story there.”

As they had the day before, the double doors in the middle of the room flew open, disgorging the taser-armed twins. They proceeded to their position and when they were standing rigidly in place Major Hess entered the room.

Unlike the day before, Jason did not stand.

Hess snapped his fingers and a screen rolled down from the ceiling on the wall behind them. Without any introduction, Hess launched into his speech. “Allow me to introduce you to some of the nastiest individuals you may ever meet.”

A picture of a man appeared on the screen.

“Khan…” muttered Deirdre.

“This is Abdul Qadeer Khan. Pakistani national. Dr. A.Q. Khan is a nuclear scientist and metallurgical engineer. He helped usher Pakistan into the nuclear age. That country, incidentally, is now the fourth largest nuclear power in the world, having surpassed the Brits and the French.”

“Who are the top three?” Bronson asked and Deirdre whispered back: “The Yanks, Russia, and China.”

“Day-em. Who knew the Chinese?”

Jason was staring at the picture of Khan on the screen when an image flashed through his mind. A black kid’s face, gold tooth. He blinked his eyes and the kid was gone.

Major Hess was discussing Khan’s connections to the worldwide spread of nuclear weapons. “The United States government considers
Doctor Khan
—” Hess’ voice dripped with thinly veiled contempt as he spoke the man’s title and name—“a serious nuclear proliferation risk. Allegations of his sales or his attempted sales of nuclear weapons-grade fissile material have tied the doctor to North Korea, Libya, Iran and the Taliban.

“After a few years of house arrest, Khan is free to roam around his native Pakistan and is currently believed to have his hands in the development of next-gen plutonium bombs.”

“This—”

A new face appeared on the screen and this time it was Jason’s turn to whisper: “
al-Sadr
.”

“—is Muqtada al-Sadr, all around general-purpose Iraqi scumbag. He traces his paternal lineage back to the prophet himself—”

Jason looked over at Ahmed as Hess spoke, but if the interpreter took any offense to the Major’s words or tone it didn’t show. When Jason looked back at the screen Rudy’s face flashed in his head and he quickly closed his eyes, rubbing his fingers across the lids.

“—and since 2004 he’s been viewed by many in his country as a freedom fighter, with his Mahdi army actively fighting U.S. and coalition forces.”

“Muj faggot,” one of the mercs yelled out.

“Our next boy scout needs no introduction.” A third image appeared on the screen behind Hess. “This is Osama bin Laden. You all know why the U.S. government is interested in him…”

Jason focused on the picture of the man on the screen. His lean face and subdued eyes. His beard. When Jason blinked, an image of Vice President Sabian flitted through his mind and he couldn’t help himself, he blurted out, “Fucker.”

“Yeah,” Bronson agreed. “But he dead, ain’t he?”

“…but let me tell you something you might not know about Osama,” Major Hess’ voice boomed across the hall. “He himself has lost two close family members in airplane crashes. His father in ’67 in Saudi Arabia and his oldest stepbrother in ’88 in Texas. Osama is believed to have fathered somewhere in the vicinity of twenty five children.”

Jason was blinking his eyes rapidly and shaking his head.

“You okay, Jay?”

“Yeah-yeah. I’m fine.” He noticed how Deirdre and Hahn were both looking at him the way Mook had looked at him. “What?” he asked them, a little more loudly than he should have.

“…despite recurring kidney problems, despite reports of his demise at our hands, Osama is believed to be alive and well somewhere in the Pakistani badlands.”

Satellite photos began to appear on the screen.

“This, ladies and gentlemen, is Pakistan. And these…”

Jason blinked. The images in his mind had ceased.

“…are the caves of Tora Bora. It was widely suspected that Bin Laden was holed up in these caverns, but we know on authority—”

“Navy Seals!” Snork called out but the Major ignored him.

“—that he is not. In two days time, these three men will be meeting in one place.”

An aerial view of a middle eastern city was on the screen.

“This place.”

A quick succession of photographs took the viewers down into the streets of the city.

“They will be meeting in this city, over the Afghan border. Inside territorial Pakistan.

“And they’re not just getting together to trade war stories and praise the prophet.” Jason looked towards Ahmed again but the man appeared unperturbed. “Bin Laden,” Hess explained, “is brokering a deal between Khan and Al Sadr. Our intelligence indicates Khan is selling the Iraqis a plutonium weapon.”

A picture of a mushroom cloud appeared on the screen. The cafeteria was completely silent. Hess allowed the quiet to reign for a few moments before continuing.

“As you’re all probably aware, international law says we cannot engage the enemy in the sovereign nation of Pakistan. Buy you know what I say?”

“Fuck Pakistan!” shouted Snork.

“I say
Fuck
Pakistan.”

Jason’s mind briefly registered that there was something strange about the way Snork had yelled out and then Hess had repeated it. It hadn’t sounded like Hess was agreeing with the merc or reiterating his words. It was almost, thought Jason, like Hess hadn’t even heard Snork speak.

“You’ve each shown, in your own ways, what John Q. Public and the fobbits would consider a reckless disregard for international law and human life. But that is not how I view you. I view you as men and women who are willing to do what is necessary to see a mission through to completion. I view you as survivors, each of whom is willing to dish out a whole lot of pain in order to make sure you live.”

Jason didn’t consider himself a survivor. He’d done what he’d done because—he had to admit—something wasn’t right in his head. He’d destroyed an entire family for God’s sake. A little girl. And here he was watching this power point display and he was seeing more shit.

“In two days time these three men will be meeting and we will be there to intercept them.”

Snork and the young merc high fived one another.

“You
all
have something to prove. To yourselves, to your friends, to your countries. This is your chance to make right three wars and to rid the world of some truly nasty men.

“I will be accompanying you into the field. I will not tolerate any insubordination. I will not entertain insolence, nor will I countenance disregard of my commands. Is that clear? Good. This mission you are to embark on is of paramount importance to your countries. Perhaps you have some understanding of the significance of the contribution you’ll be making. Perhaps you do not.

“History will look back on each of you as a hero.

“Tomorrow we leave. The remainder of your day will be spent preparing, suiting up, arming yourselves. I suggest you all get a good night’s sleep. We’ll be disembarking at oh-five-hundred tomorrow morning.”

Once more, Major Hess did not ask if there were any questions. As he had the previous day, he turned on his heel and marched from the room with the two other men. When the door closed behind them, Hahn said something.

“What was that?” Bronson asked Ahmed.

“She said something is not right about this.”

“All these scumbags gathered in one place…” Jason mulled it over.

Deirdre agreed. “A veritable rogues’ gallery.”

“If this is true…” Ahmed’s voice quavered “…we are walking into—”

“A death trap,” Jason finished for him.

“Yes.”

“Yeah,” Jason sighed, resigned, “that’s it.”

“What’s that?” Bronson asked him.

“They’re sending us somewhere to die.”

“Fuck that. You don’t know that, main.”

“You’re right. I don’t. How’s that real nigga vision working for you?”

Bronson didn’t smile.

“Don’t be such a cynic,” Deirdre said to Jason. The way she said it and the look on her face as she said it, Jason thought she was trying to tell him something. He looked at her, but he had no clue what she might be alluding to.

“Payback time, motherfuckers!” Snork called out, pounding fists with his fellow mercenaries.

“Evil never sleeps, but nor does justice…”

The room with the flat screen television was empty, the game controllers resting on the folding chairs.

“And while the forces of evil are afoot in the land, the forces of good are on the hunt.”

The President was on the television, giving a speech.

“When I was a little boy, my granddaddy took me on my knee, and he told me this. Evil never sleeps.”

Jason watched the screen. The man did not look comfortable.

“And I stand before you today, and vow, to the best of my abilities, the United States of America will not be driven to its knees, but will be risen from the ashes like the proverbial bird.”

He turned his back on the screen and made for the doors.

“And seek and root out and destroy evil in all its evil manifestations. God bless America.”

The president kept talking, even after he thought the cameras had stopped filming.

“Everybody’s heard about the bird, right?”

Jason caught up with Fleegle on the gun range. He stood in the ante chamber and watched the mercenary leader speed firing a semi-automatic pistol.

They were alone on the gun range.

Jason had never seen anyone fire a pistol that quickly.
Pop-pop-pop
until the pistol emptied and Fleegle’s hand swiped up, replacing the magazine that had just dropped out of the well, the succession of shots continuing, nearly unabated,
pop-pop-pop
.

Snork might not have faired very well going toe to toe against Hahn, Jason thought, but Fleegle at least could shoot.

When he was done, Fleegle replaced the pistol and stepped through the sliding glass door into the ante-chamber. If he was surprised to see Jason, he didn’t show it.

“What’s your thinking on this?” Jason asked.

Fleegle scratched the side of his mustache. “I think we’re fucked.”

“You believe Hess?”

“I don’t believe
in
Hess.”

Jason thought it was a peculiar thing to say.
Peculiar
, but it made some kind of sense. “What do you mean?”

“You haven’t noticed anything out of the ordinary about our major?”

“Like what?”

The corners of the other man’s mouth turned up briefly but he didn’t answer.

“So, what do you think we’re walking into?”

“Well, I
don’t think
we’re walking into a pow-wow for America’s most wanted.”

“Too convenient, right?”

“Something like that.”

“Pakistan?”

“Highly unlikely. Washington doesn’t have the balls to send us in there and get the job done.”

“Then what?”

“That’s what we’re going to find out. Aren’t we?”

“So we are fucked?”

Fleegle nodded. “That’s what I said.”

Later that afternoon, Jason was enjoying what he thought might be his last shower for a long time, if not forever. The hot water pounded his hair and rushed down his back, running in streams off his legs.

He heard someone enter the shower room with him but didn’t turn to look. Even if it was Snork, Jason didn’t think the man would attack him. He had no reason to. And Jason figured if he was Snork, he’d be questioning his combat effectiveness now, what with Hahn taking him out so fast last night. It
had
to eat away at a guy like Snork that a woman had choked him out.

“Jason.” Before he could respond, Deirdre pressed her body to the back of his. “No, stay there.”

What the
…? She had her hands on his shoulders and he felt her naked breasts against his back. He immediately began to stiffen.

She took one hand off his shoulder and reached out to the tile facing them. Deirdre used her finger to draw a line and then another and Jason realized she was writing something, smudging it on the fogged tile. When she was done, there was one word.

Diogenes