"This is just a library."
"A library in the middle of a Muslim country full of terrorists, where you want to look for information on a bunch of terrorist assassins. If anything's there do you think they don't know about it? Do you think they aren't watching? You have to assume they are, because if you don't you could end up dead."
Selena was getting angry. Nick knew the signs. "Why do you assume I can't figure that out for myself?"
Carter felt his face get tight. Blood pressure going up. "God damn it, Selena, it's not about that. Like I said, this is the first time you've done something like this. You think you know what I mean but you don't."
"Just another dumb woman, huh?"
"God damn it…"
They were a few blocks from Nick's apartment in D.C. She braked hard and came to a stop.
"I think you can find your way home from here."
Nick got out and slammed the door. Selena pulled away in a fishtail spray of slush and snow.
The guard took one look as Nick came in and went back to his paper. Carter smoldered as he rode the elevator up to his floor. He let himself in and walked over to the bar. He poured a double Irish and drank most of it down. He stood at the window and watched the snow and waited for the whiskey to do its work.
What the hell was it with women, anyway? It was simple, wasn't it? He knew what he was doing and she didn't. Why couldn't she see that? He was trying to help her, not criticize her.
He'd have to get this straight with her before they went to Mali. It was hard to sort out what was personal and what wasn't. As her boss, he couldn't let her refuse to hear what he said. That could compromise the mission. As her lover, he was just plain pissed.
He poured another whiskey and sat down. He thought about food, but his stomach was in knots. He got up and put on some music. Miles Davis. He liked Davis and Coltrane and Horace Silver and John Desmond. Carter settled back in the chair again and sipped his whiskey.
Goddamn it, he'd never come close to understanding the women in his life. Except for Megan. Megan was different. But Megan was dead.
He glanced at a picture taken a few months ago of his mother and his sister, Shelley. His mother looked vague, his sister like she'd eaten something unpleasant. He thought about his mother. She was going downhill with Alzheimer's. A few weeks before, he'd had a blow out argument with Shelley and her asshole husband. They wanted to put her in a home and sell her house. Prime property in Palo Alto. They couldn't wait to get their hands on the money, but they couldn't do it without him. They'd had to agree to 24/7 live in help instead. Carter could afford it, now.
At least Shelley had stopped needling him about his work, now that she knew he wasn't just another Washington bureaucrat. After Jerusalem, there was no way to keep her in the dark. She didn't know exactly what he did, but she knew paper pushers didn't end up on CNN and carry guns and hang out with the President. Guns or not, she still defended their father. She still tried to bully Nick with the big sister act. She was a pain in the ass. He wished it were different.
Another woman problem. Carter was tired of thinking about it. He got up and opened the refrigerator, found some cold Chinese take out and ate it. He poured another whiskey, sat down in his chair and tried to read. The words kept blurring. To hell with it. He'd been up since three in the morning. He got undressed and went to bed.
He dreamed the dream.
The rotors echo from the sides of the valley. The village is there again, the same worthless, dust-blown cluster of crappy buildings. It bakes in bright Afghan sun, the light glinting from sharp brown hills that circle it. A single dirt street runs down the middle.
Like always, he drops from the chopper and hits the street running. Like always, his M4 is up by his cheek, his Marines behind him. Houses line both sides of the street. On the left is the market, ramshackle bins and hanging cloth walls. A cloud of flies swarm the butcher’s stall.
He's in the market. He can smell his own stink, the adrenaline sweat of fear. He keeps away from the walls. A baby cries somewhere. The street is deserted.
Men rise up on the rooftops and begin shooting at him. The market stalls turn into a firestorm of splinters and plaster and rock exploding from the sides of the buildings.
A young child runs toward him, screaming about Allah. He has a grenade. Carter hesitates. The boy cocks his arm back and throws as Nick shoots him. The boy's head erupts in a fountain of blood and bone. The grenade drifts through the air in slow motion…everything goes white…
Carter came awake, shouting, slick with sweat. The grenade had left ridges of scar tissue on his body. It had left his mind scarred in ways that couldn't be seen. The flashbacks didn't happen much anymore, except when he was asleep. He got up and walked naked into the bathroom. He showered, shaved, got dressed and made coffee.
He hated the dream. He hated that he'd killed that kid. It didn't do any good to tell himself it was self defense, or that bad things happened in war. It didn't do any good to tell himself there wasn't a choice.
Carter didn't believe in religion. He didn't think redemption for what he did in life could be found in the words of men, even if they were supposed to have the blessings of God. That was exactly what the Jihadists believed, and look what the results were. If there was such a thing as redemption he'd have to find it in himself. If it was in there, he hadn't found it yet. For now, he'd try and stop the people who sent children out with grenades from doing it again. One terrorist at a time. Maybe that was redemption.
He waited for the comfort of dawn.
The phone rang.
"Yes."
"It's me."
He wasn't sure what to say. "Where are you?"
"At the hotel." Selena kept a suite of rooms at the Mayflower. Neither of them were ready to live together full time. Maybe they never would.
"I'm sorry about earlier," she said. "I guess I'm a little stressed these days."
"I'm not trying to tell you how to run your life."
"I know."
"I worry about you. I don't want you getting killed. Maybe I ride you too hard."
"Is that an apology? We knew this would come up. It's not the first time. But I know what I signed up for. I know there are lots of things I have to learn. I'm not dumb."
"You're anything but dumb."
"Then give me credit for it."
"You have to…" He stopped, began again. "It's important you don't take it the wrong way if I tell you something. I've been doing this for a long time. I have to treat you the same as I would anyone new. I can't change that because we're lovers."
"What does that mean, Nick? We're lovers because we sleep together?"
"I thought so."
"Maybe there's more to it than that." She hung up.
CHAPTER SIX
They took commercial air to Mali's capitol at Bamako and a connecting flight to Timbuktu. Stephanie had made arrangements. Their pistols would be waiting for them at the hotel.
Carter wore jeans and a short sleeved plaid shirt, a baseball cap and Ray Bans. He had a thick black beard and mustache that made him look like pictures he'd seen of Civil War soldiers. No one would recognize him. According to his passport he was John Depp. Selena traveled under her own name.
Six hundred years ago Timbuktu had been the crossroads of the Western Sahara, the capitol of an empire. Now it was a fly-ridden shadow of its former glory, plagued by drought, poverty, heat and the encroaching desert. Except for adventurous tourists and Islamic scholars, it was a place the world ignored.