Oath of Office

“The cook,” Dovzhenko said matter-of-factly. “Thought he might try his luck with a butcher knife.”

Jack took a deep breath. “Any idea where we are?”

“We came west,” Dovzhenko said. “We had perhaps two hours until dark when we were taken — and it was dark by the time we arrived here.”

Jack grabbed the satellite phone off Omar’s body, taking a moment to search for and find the key ring they’d taken. A flashlight might come in handy in the not-too-distant future.

Ysabel found the headscarf Omar had given her on the ground and used it to dab the blood from her face. “A two-hour drive west from the attack would put us over the Iranian border.”

Dovzhenko shook his head. “Eastern Iran is plenty lawless but still receives far more patrols than western Afghanistan. We must have turned off one way or another.”

Ysabel got to her feet with an exhausted groan and tiptoed over the pools of blood to step off the veranda so she could look up at the night sky.

“Hey,” Jack said, moving up beside her. “What about the vipers?”

Ysabel rolled her eyes. “That poor little gerbil crawled out from under this porch. I doubt it was sharing its home with a snake.” She turned to Dovzhenko. “Would you turn off the lights?”

He did, and then joined them at the edge of the concrete pad.

An incredible carpet of stars appeared as their eyes adjusted to the darkness. Ysabel pointed beyond the dying fire with her open hand. “That faint triangle is the zodiacal light.”

“Sounds like the name of a cult,” Jack said.

Ysabel elbowed him in the ribs. “For one who is so smart, there are so many things that you do not know. The zodiacal light is a reflection on the dust and ice particles within the sun’s path.”

“Which means that’s roughly west,” Jack said, trying to redeem himself.

“Exactly,” Ysabel said.

“Zodiacal light,” Dovzhenko mused. “Didn’t Muhammad use that to determine the timing of the five daily prayers?”

“Full marks,” Ysabel said. “Finally a man who studies something besides guns.”

“Hey,” Jack said. “You called me, remember. If that’s west, then we were heading north for most of the time after I woke up. You think we’re north of Herat?”

“We crossed some mountains,” Dovzhenko said. “I felt the truck climbing.”

“There is a high ridge that runs north and south just below Herat,” Ysabel said. “I doubt they took us across the Islam Qala Highway. There is not much above it anyway by way of roads, and it would mean greater risk. No, they most likely skirted Herat and stayed south of the Islam Qala. The Hari River valley is a sort of greenbelt. I imagine we’re somewhere along that. I’ll be able to tell more once it gets light.”

“That’s pretty damn impressive,” Jack said. “You’re like some Iranian Daniel Boone.”

The adrenaline of the fight gave way to the knowledge that they needed to put some distance between themselves and this carnage before Omar’s business partners decided to show up. But first Ryan had to make a call.

Omar’s computer was in the front of his house, in a small office with tapestries of Persian poetry on starkly white walls. A simple wooden desk faced a window overlooking the tree-lined approach to the estate — beautiful and practical.

“He’s a smuggler,” Jack said, “so he’ll take precautions with his communications. Satellite phones are too easy to intercept.”

“Perhaps he pays many bribes,” Dovzhenko said.

Jack picked up a white plastic box about the size of two decks of playing cards.

Dovzhenko nodded. “A Thuraya Wi-Fi hotspot.”

Ryan connected Omar’s sat phone to the device.

Dovzhenko said, “You know a call from this device can be easily tracked.”

“The signal can,” Ryan said. “But I’m betting this guy’s got a method to make it more difficult for anyone to get the content.”

He hit the space bar on the open laptop and got the password prompt, and then slid open the lap drawer on the desk. It didn’t take long to find what he was looking for. Omar was a proud man — haughty enough to want to show off even to his captives. A Khan — he thought of himself as an emir, a king, surrounded by a phalanx of armed guards, secure from intrusion, when in reality he was a dope-smuggling thug who couldn’t remember his password.

Ryan stepped aside to let Ysabel decipher the Persian script on a worn spiral notebook and log in.

“He’ll be using a virtual private network,” Ryan said.

Ysabel glanced up at him. “You think?” She referred to the list of passwords in the drawer. Her fingers clicked on the keyboard. “He’s got all the passwords written here for his VPN and a VoIP.”

“The quality of the voice call will be poor,” Dovzhenko said. “And, as I said before, the satellite signal will still be visible.”

Jack nodded. Apps like Flying Fish or any number of government hardware options could be used to sniff out radio or the poorly encrypted GPS signals from a sat phone. He’d done it many times himself.

“True enough,” Jack said.

“I will gather three rifles,” Dovzhenko said.

“And I’ll find us some keys to a vehicle that’s not a Bongo truck,” Ysabel said.