Morgan fell silent then. The two of them sat there in the shadows, the wine warming them, listening to mixed night sounds of Kabul. Someone, somewhere not too far away, was playing one of the new Western stations on the radio, and the mournful voice of a mournful woman was singing “Blues in the Night.” They listened until the song ended, then Morgan spoke again.
“I know what my brother is accused of doing, and I don’t condone what he’s done. But he’s my brother. I can’t disown him like your father has disowned you. It’s not in me to do that.”
In the darkness, Lee reached out and took his hand.
Later, she moved close to him and he put an arm around her shoulders.
Within a week, Michaleen Donahue was almost ready to move.
“The CV-6 Russian half-track,” he reported to Morgan, “is hidden under a camo tarp about five miles from the prison. The Hummers are concealed nearby; we got lucky and stole one of them from the Marines down near Ghazni, so we saved a nice piece of change there. The launchers and rockets are stowed in a house on the outskirts. The K-2 explosives are stashed in another house not far away. All weapons and ammo, including the flamethrower, are at a third location convenient to the other two. And I’ve got personnel all over the bloody city, paid and waiting to be summoned.”
“What kind of men have we got?” Morgan asked.
“Good men, the lot of them. Three have relatives in the prison that they’re going to try and spring. Those are Afghanis, of course. Then,” he began to count on his fingers, “I’ve got two of me own Irish lads from Belfast; two Aussies who’ve worked together as a team for twelve years; a couple of real killers from Tajikistan who deserted the Russian army; a Pakistani, and two Turks.”
“Turks, good.” Morgan nodded. “I’ll fight with Turks any day.”
“I feel the same way,” Donahue agreed. “We’ll put them on the Hummers with ourselves.”
“Right. Inside help?”
“Two guards have been bribed. They’ll see to it that the Block One prisoners will be let into the courtyard for exercise ten minutes after our mechanized force breaks cover and heads for the prison. All the men will be armed before daybreak and rendevous at two separate locations to be picked up by the Hummers. The K-2 will have been placed on each side of the main gate during the night; I’ll carry one igniter switch and one of my Irish lads will have the other one in the second Hummer. Launcher gunners and their rockets will be in slit trenches fifty yards away on each side; they’ll take out the gun turrets. The flamethrower man will be on the half-track.” Donahue lighted a fat Cuban cigar. “All’s left is for us to set a time.”
“You said we had money left?”
“Sure. What we saved by stealing one of the Hummers. What d’you need?”
“I’m thinking some kind of diversion on the side of town farthest from the prison, to distract the civilian law and the local army garrison.”
“Good idea. Let’s see what we can find here...” Donahue unrolled on his desk a map of the city and began tracing it with one tobacco-stained finger. “Over here we have a sugar-beet plant and a few food-processing and canning factories. There’s a rather large woolen mill here. At this point here, farther out, there’s an industrial district with some metalworking shops, a lumber mill, a number of woodworking businesses—”
“How big’s the lumber mill?”
“It’s quite a good size.”
“Let’s set it on fire.”
Donahue frowned. “All the wood’s pretty dry this time of year. The place’ll go up like a tinderbox. Could spread and burn down a couple square miles of the city. Including a lot of homes.”
“Too bad,” Morgan said. “I don’t owe these people anything. Let’s set it on fire.”
Donahue shrugged. “All right. It’s your call.”
Morgan could tell that the idea didn’t sit well with Donahue. But it wasn’t Donahue’s brother in Pul-e-Charki. “Can you get somebody to do it?” he asked.
“Sure,” the big Irishman said quietly. “I know a couple of Iranian thugs who’ll do anything for a laugh.”
“Okay. Set that up and then we’ll decide on a time.”
As Morgan started to leave, Donahue said, “Incidentally...”
Morgan stopped. “What?”
“One of my lads saw you in a restaurant with that radio woman, Liban Adnan.”
“Yeah. She’s been after me to do an interview on mercenaries. I’m just stringing her along.”
“Well, you might want to be extra careful with her. She’s a police informant.”
That night, walking arm in arm back to Lee’s apartment after a late dinner, Morgan was trying to decide how to kill her.
Breaking her neck was probably the best way; it was quick, quiet. And with the difference in their size and weight, it would be easy enough.
But he hated like hell to do it.
During the past week they had been developing — something; Morgan wasn’t quite sure what. Ever since they had sat in the shadows on the back steps of her building and he had told her about himself and Virgil, and she had ended up with her head on his shoulder, they had both begun feeling — something.
It had started with casual touching, quick, spontaneous hugs, brief kisses on the cheeks, then the lips, lightly at first, barely, then longer, more serious, urgent.
“What are we doing?” she had asked just the previous night. They had stepped into the doorway of a shop to get out of a sudden downpour. She had come into his embrace, her arms crossing behind his neck, her lips and body hungry. And then: “What are we doing?”
“I don’t know,” Morgan said. “Are we falling in love?”
Then it was her turn to say, “I don’t know.”
“I’ve never had feelings like this before—”
“Nor I—”
“It’s a crazy thing to have happen—”
“I know. It’s insane—”
“With what’s going on and all. It’s not rational—”
“No, not rational at all—”
Still, they had kissed some more, and when the rain stopped they had walked with their arms around each other back to her apartment. But she would not let him come in.
“Wait, Morgan, please. Until tomorrow night. Let’s give ourselves a night to think about this.”
“I don’t have to think about it. I want you.”
“And I want you—”
“Then let’s go inside.” Gently he took her arm.
“Please, Morgan. Not tonight. Today is Friday. There is a khutba tonight. A special congregational prayer. I want to go to it. To see if perhaps there will be a message in it for me. For us.”
“I don’t understand,” Morgan said, confused. “I thought you walked away from all that. I thought you were liberated.”
“I am. But I still have my own beliefs. So, please. Wait. Until tomorrow night.”
So Morgan had waited.
And later that night Donahue had told him she was a police informant.
Now tomorrow night had come. And instead of thinking about making love to this pretty, sad-eyed, anxious young Afghani woman, Morgan was thinking about how to kill her.
At Lee’s apartment, she led Morgan into her tiny bedroom and lighted ivory votives in each corner that threw enough flickering yellow light to illuminate a bed made up with pristine white satin hemmed in puce, stitched with gold thread.