Mansur nodded resignedly, as if he’d grown accustomed to that kind of dodge. Cole leaned closer and kept his voice low.
“Those men who brought you here tonight, in the black SUV, the black truck. Who are they?”
“The angry people.”
“Angry why?”
“Angry for Mansur, angry for me.”
“Angry at Mansur?”
He shook his head in apparent irritation, as if he’d been over this a thousand times. It reminded Cole of his son, Danny, the way he got frustrated when he couldn’t explain something.
“The angry people, who do they work for?”
“Not know,” he said, shaking his head again. “Bring here. I sleep home, then I bring here, the angry people. Now all places, the angry people.”
He looked at Steve as they tried to piece together Mansur’s fractured English.
“They came for you, in Afghanistan?” Steve asked.
“Yes. Sandar Khosh.”
The effect on Cole was electric.
“Sandar Khosh? That’s your home village?”
“No, no. Mandi Bahar. Mansur home.” He tapped his chest, placed a hand over his heart. “Mandi Bahar.”
The name stirred a memory, hazy and remote, another of those forlorn dots on the tactical map, one of hundreds. Surely he’d seen it.
“Sandar Khosh,” Mansur continued. “Very kilometers.”
“Very many kilometers?” Cole offered. “Far from Mandi Bahar, is that what you mean?”
“Yes. Far.”
“I know Sandar Khosh,” Cole said. “I’ve … been there.”
“Yes?” Mansur looked straight into Cole’s eyes, and for the first time he seemed pleased, almost hopeful. Cole wondered if Zach and he had ever seen Mansur during their recon of Sandar Khosh. Surely he must have been one of those robed men on the ground, moving like ghosts among their neighbors.
“In Sandar Khosh, did you drive a white truck?”
“Yes. No. He does, but …” His voice trailed off.
“Who does?”
“Truck gone. No truck.” Mansur shook his head, no longer smiling.
“Whose truck, Mansur?”
“Men’s truck.”
“The angry men?” Steve asked. “The ones who brought you here?”
“No!” He was irritated again. “First men.”
“From earlier?”
“Yes. From here.”
“Americans?”
“Yes.”
Had Cole’s missile strike killed Americans, then, along with the women and children? If so, then why had Castle wanted them killed? Or maybe that, too, had been a colossal mistake, a gross error of faulty intelligence. Unless they were talking about a different truck altogether. The way Mansur spoke English, he supposed that almost any interpretation might fit.
“The Americans,” Steve asked. “What were their names?”
“Not know.” Mansur shook his head again. “Not know. From Lancer.”
Lancer again, the handle Bickell had mentioned, that had popped up on Cole’s chat screen, whereabouts unknown. A name with no face, no affiliation.
“Lancer,” Cole said. “He’s American?”
“Yes, yes.”
“Working for who?”
“For who?”
“Who does Lancer work for?”
Mansur frowned and again shook his head, exasperated.
“Not know. Not know. He is American!”
As if that explained everything, all those Americans working for the same side. That’s probably how Mansur saw it, which would certainly explain how he could have been manipulated so easily by one faction or another. If one American offered to pay you more than another, what was the harm in switching if they were working for the same side?
“What about Hector?” Steve offered, trying out Castle’s code name.
“No,” Mansur said, his voice rising. “I say everything. I say everything and no more!”
Now he was downright angry. Cole worried the landlady would hear.
“Do you know about Magic Dimes?” Steve asked. “Did Hector or Lancer ever talk about that?”
“Magic? No magic. No one.” He was drifting away from them, on a cloud of either weariness or indifference.
“Shit, this is useless,” Steve said. “His English sucks.”
Cole tried another tack.
“Your family. Where is your family, Mansur?”
“Family?” His eyes brightened again.
“Yes. Your wife and children. Where are they?”
“Children, no.” He went glum, shook his head. “My children make toy. They make toy and it is ruin! Ruin!”
“Easy, Mansur,” Steve said. “Shit, he’ll wake up the whole house.
Cole, utterly baffled now, was about to try another question when a woman called out in Spanish from down the hall. Mansur went rigid.
“Great,” Steve muttered. “The bitch is back.”
“What is she saying?” Cole asked.
“The angry men. Here.”
“The ones in the black truck?”
“Yes. Here now.”
They heard the sound of car doors slamming from out front, an engine revving. Probably the same SUV as before.
“She say they bring movie.”
“A movie?” Steve whispered.
Mansur nodded. “Movie from taco.”
“What the hell?”
With a sinking feeling, Cole realized what Mansur must be talking about.
“From the security cam at Taco Rojo.” They heard the slam of a downstairs door, footsteps coming up the stairway. “They want to show him, see if he knows us. Or me, anyway.”
“He will now. Let’s go!” Steve said.
He and Cole moved to the window. Cole decided he had better do something about the fallen blinds, lest they rouse unwanted suspicion, so he hastily slid them beneath Mansur’s bed while Steve heaved up the sash. Cold air poured in. Cole half expected Mansur to try to come with them, but the young man sat impassively on the bed, rubbing his arms against the chill. He felt a stab of pity for the man, stranded alone and obviously lacking the means to help himself. And who knew what he’d say about this visit?
“Mansur,” Cole whispered, getting his attention one last time. “This is our secret, okay? Our secret from the angry men, or we will never be able to help you. You and your family. Okay?”
Mansur shook his head.
“My family. It is away.”
“Away where?”
“You not know? Then how you help?”
He was growing agitated again, so Cole moved to calm him.
“We will help them, Mansur. We will help them. But you must help us. You must keep our secret.”
Mansur nodded solemnly, then flinched as the footsteps pounded closer and stopped on the third-floor landing. The landlady called out. Cole followed Steve onto the fire escape, pulling down the sash behind him as he heard the snap of a deadbolt lock. He stepped away from the window just as they heard the door to Mansur’s room rattle open. A pool of light appeared at the spot where Cole had just been standing. He backed away slowly and followed Steve down the metal stairs. They heard the muffled voices of men in consultation, but no one was shouting in anger or alarm. Still, Mansur might tell them anything in his current state of mind, so they moved fast.
Steve clambered onto the ladder at the bottom. It sank toward the ground, the steel cable groaning as it raised the counterweight. Cole followed him down, dropping lightly to the ground. Figuring that it wasn’t yet safe to return to Steve’s Honda, they headed down the alley in the opposite direction from the way they’d come. It was nearly midnight, and the empty streets made them feel hunted and exposed. With the video from the security camera, these men would now know what Steve and he looked like. With good enough connections, the men might soon even learn their names.
Cole felt they’d gotten precious little information in exchange for their trouble. A location for Mansur, yes, and another tantalizing trace of the mysterious Lancer, whoever he was, plus some sort of link between the villages of Sandar Khosh, which he knew all too well, and Mandi Bahar, which was familiar, but he couldn’t recall why. But where was Mansur’s family now? Who was holding him here, and why? Steve and he were leaving with more questions than they’d brought.