Oath of Office

And so he walked, falling forward, catching himself, and then falling forward again. It was painfully slow, but it was progress. A low whine above the moan of wind caught his attention. He held up a soot-black hand to shield his good eye from the dust.

Another motorcycle. Damn it. The rider had surely seen him.

Caruso stepped to the edge of the muddy ditch, closed his eyes, and waited.

* * *

Jack awoke unable to feel his hands. He could, however, feel every bone-jarring bump and pothole against his shoulders and hips. He had no idea how long he’d been unconscious, but long enough for it to get dark. The dusty bed of the white Bongo truck provided an unyielding platform, and the three prisoners slammed against it as if on the end of a flail as they sped down the road. Jack thought they were going northwest, but the shifting wind and the inability to see the sun from behind the short rails of the truck made it impossible to be sure. It didn’t matter. He had no friends for miles in any direction. Ryan wanted to think Caruso escaped from beneath the burning van, but his rational brain — or what was left of it — told him the odds were against that. Positive attitude was essential for survival, but the bald truth was that they were all as good as dead. Depending on who’d taken them prisoner, burning to death in a muddy ditch might even be the quicker way to go.

The cab light in the truck was on, illuminating Ysabel’s face, slack, inches from his. Her scarf was gone. Her head lolled, long black hair pooling against the filthy truck bed. Her clothing was torn, her shoulder bloodied, but her face was amazingly clean. A crystalline trickle of saliva hung from her open mouth. For a time, Jack thought she was already dead, but they wouldn’t have bothered to bring her if that were true, let alone tie her up. The three of them were bound hand and foot, faces pressed to the bare metal, heads toward the rear, which only made the ride worse. They’d not been hooded, which was worrisome, since these guys didn’t care if they were identified or not.

The bouncing grew less pronounced as the Bongo truck slowed, making a turn.

Ysabel’s eyes flicked open. She swallowed hard, coal-black eyes darting back and forth as she tried to get her bearings.

“I am so sorry,” she whispered.

Jack tried to shake his head, but found the movement made him sick to his stomach. “Not your fault,” he said. “Let’s just see what happens.”

“You’re hurt, Jack,” Ysabel said. “You may not know it, but you are really hurt.”

The truck slowed.

“Listen to me,” Jack whispered. “My passport says my name is Joe Peterson. Whatever happens, you cannot call me Jack. Understand?”

She nodded. “Joe,” she repeated. “I understand.”

“Remind Dovzhenko.”

Ryan heard the growl of motorcycles as the Bongo truck slowed and made another turn. They drove behind a tall fence, and the howling, dust-filled wind was suddenly quiet, replaced by the pleasant smell of new-mown grass and wet earth after a rain. Date palms rose in the shadows on either side of the narrow road. Weeping willow fronds scraped the side of the truck. The barricade wall was tall enough that only the tops of the tallest trees swayed with the wind.

Jack slid forward when the Bongo squeaked to a stop. Men barked in Pashto or Dari, he couldn’t tell which. The tailgate fell open and rough hands grabbed first Ysabel, dragging her out by the shoulders. She pretended to be asleep, and the men laughed, slapping her almost playfully on the face. Ryan counted five of them — two from the Bongo and the three murderous bastards on the motorcycles. All of them wore dusty shalwar kameez. Jack guessed them to be in their twenties or early thirties, lean and intense. Two of them grabbed Jack next, dragging him out as well. They looked at his face, shaking their heads.

“You speak English?” Jack asked. He wasn’t so much naïve as to believe he could depend on the kindness of these strangers, but he wanted them to see him as another human being and not simply another neck for their knives.

They just looked at him, stone-faced and gaunt, as if sucking in their cheeks.

Jack and the others were taken to a covered veranda, what would have been called a lanai in Florida or Hawaii. Persian rugs covered a concrete pad maybe twenty-by-twenty-feet square. Thick cushions were arranged around a low wooden table in the middle of the space. Earthenware pots and intricately stacked rock fountains sat among elaborate shrubs and flower baskets. A fire popped and crackled in a small pit not fifteen feet from the table, just off the edge of the concrete.

A deep voice said something in Russian, and a tall man dressed in a clean shin-length robe called a perahan stepped from the doorway. He wore a black turban common to the Taliban. His beard, black as the turban, was long and full. Stylish glasses with an orange Nike swoosh on the earpiece perched at the end of his nose.

Dovzhenko said something to him in Russian, prompting the man to turn to Jack.