“Very well.” Deuben smiled tightly. “He will be there, insh’Allah.”
The old men bid their good-byes to the doctor, eyeing Quinn as a curiosity, shaking their heads as they disappeared into the crowded night.
Deuben collapsed back in her chair, releasing a pent-up groan. She pushed a lock of blond hair out of her face.
Belvan Virk turned, brooding. “This is madness,” he said. “Umar is a giant…”
Ronnie had watched the entire episode with a string of noodles hanging from her chopsticks. “Would someone like to tell me what just happened?”
“I wouldn’t mind that either,” Quinn said, though he had a sinking suspicion he knew already.
Deuben pushed the plate of suoman toward Quinn, urging him to eat. “Umar is a local businessman who considers himself the best fighter in all of Kashgar. But for Umar, Gao and his little crew were some of the toughest men in town. At least until you came along. When you beat them, you took away some of Umar’s street cred.”
Quinn shook his head. It went against everything he stood for to run away from a fight, but he had the mission to think about. “We don’t have time for this.”
“I agree,” Ronnie said.
“It doesn’t matter.” Deuben picked up a piece of grilled mutton and popped it into her mouth. “It is something you must do.”
“I’m not sure you understand, Doctor,” Quinn said. “I’m not frightened of this Umar. I simply don’t have time to deal with him right now. My superiors are awaiting word about the orphanage.”
Deuben swallowed her mutton and dabbed a bit of grease off her lips with a cloth from her vest pocket. “You simply don’t have time not to deal with Umar.” She pushed Quinn’s plate of suoman closer to him. “He’s the man providing your motorcycles and there’s no one else in town who would rent to you if you snub Umar. Now eat up. He’s a big fellow. You will need all your strength.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Local hunters said the high valley was inhabited by Pari, beautiful female beings with supernatural powers. Dr. Badeeb had played on that fear, calling his school the Pari Children’s Home-or simply Pari.
To an untrained eye, the face of the school looked like a pile of flat gray stones at the foot of a sheer rock face. Two similar peaks rose from the edges of a high alpine meadow surrounding the blue waters of a glacial lake. The peaks were covered with snow year-round, not quite tall enough to draw the attention of world-class mountaineers and much too dangerous to provide any negotiable pass for opium smugglers. Massive golden eagles soared unmolested in the rectangle of blue sky. A small herd of female ibex and their kids nibbled scant vegetation in the craggy peaks.
Flanking the hidden valley on three sides, these giant rocks formed the perfect palisade, protecting the high meadow from unwanted intruders. At the base of the largest mountain, almost hidden among the pile of flat stones, was a dusty wooden door framed by heavy timber supports. A closer inspection revealed a tiny, one-foot-square window, similarly framed a few feet past the door. Seven identical windows strung out along the mountain’s base toward the apex of the valley.
A cluster of smoke-gray felt yurts dotted the valley floor. The protected Pamir provided excellent grazing grounds during summer months, and even now, well into the fall with a skiff of ice ringing the emerald lake, herds of yaks and scruffy sheep still munched on the frost-nipped pastures.
On the other side of the third window down, CIA paramilitary officer Karen Hunt sat in a clammy room carved into the bowels of the mountain. An oil lamp sputtered in a chipped hollow along the inside rock wall.
She’d thought her spine would snap before the caravan arrived at the valley. Two men, one on each arm, had dragged her on wobbly legs from her yak and into the dark twelve-by-twelve cell. When her eyes became accustomed to the flickering lamp, she’d been startled to find Lieutenant Nelson and Specialist Nguyen already lying on a pile of rags in the uneven corner of the cave-like room.
A plastic bucket sat on the floor under a constant drip from the carved stone roof. The water appeared to be clean, but smelled of sulfur. It was a small bucket for the needs of three people, no bigger than a table pitcher, but the dripping kept it full.
The concussion from the stun grenade, coupled with the rigors of the never-ending yak ride, had left Karen’s skin raw and her body past the point of exhaustion. A knot from her beating throbbed behind her right ear. Relieved just to be alive, she collapsed beside a similarly docile Nelson and Nguyen before passing into unconsciousness.
Karen stirred as a ray of pink light sifted in from the single window to paint the only flat wall of the cell. Her eyes were matted shut and every inch of her body felt as if she’d been dragged over an acre of broken glass. Moaning softly, she realized her head was resting in Lieutenant Nelson’s lap. She forced open her eyes to see that he was leaning against the wall, looking down at her. Specialist Nguyen was curled up against her back, keeping them both as warm as possible against the damp stone floor.
“How long have we been here?” Karen blinked. She moved her neck from side to side, awakening the searing pain in the knot above her ear.
“I couldn’t say,” Nelson said. His eyes were glazed in the thousand-yard stare of someone lost in thought. “I’m hungry, if that means anything.”
“Is anything broken?” Karen pushed herself gingerly into a sitting position beside Nelson, being as careful as she could not to disturb Nguyen.
“My collarbone is toast,” he said through clenched teeth. “Won’t be much use to you in a fight.”
“We’ll see ab-”
Karen’s answer was cut short by the creak of the metal door. A Tajik guard with close-cropped gray hair stuck his head in and gave the cell a quick once-over. A moment later, three boys-none of them looked over twelve-brought in trays of dates, nuts, and rice along with three red cans of Coca-Cola. They were not the sort of cans with Arabic script that U.S. personnel called Abu Dhabi Cokes-these were American pop cans with English writing.
Karen felt Nelson’s body go tense. They both realized the leader of the boys was Kenny, the same child who’d approached the front gate at Camp Bullwhip. The same one who’d so cavalierly thanked them for the chocolate while shrugging of the fact that they would soon lose their heads.
“Hey,” Kenny grunted, a sullen preteen even in the wilds of… wherever they were. “You guys look like crap.” He motioned for the other two boys, both younger and a few inches shorter, to place their trays of food on the ground and back away. For a child, he seemed to have a lot of experience dealing with prisoners.
“Go ahead.” He waved at the piles of apricots and clumped rice. “You should eat when they give you food. One of you will need all your strength by the end of the day.”
Specialist Nguyen rose up on one elbow beside Karen. “Hey,” he muttered, rubbing his eyes. “How did you get here?”
Kenny smirked, glancing back at his two companions. “I told you,” he said. “I’m from Milwaukee.”
One of the boys, a freckle-faced kid of eight or so, bobbed his head and shoulders quickly, giggling.
Karen fought the urge to jump up and pound the little kid’s face against the rock wall. “Listen, you guys, I don’t know where they took you from. But we’re Americans too. Kenny, just before we were attacked you said you were from Wisconsin. I’m from Boston. We’re all on the same side here.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Kenny snorted. “After what the Americans did, we’ll never be on the same side.”
“What do you mean, the Americans?” Nguyen gasped, his voice wobbling like he might cry. “Why are you guys doin’ this? We didn’t do nothing to you but give you chocolate. Have they brainwashed you or something?”