Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

Once outside, he walked the alley toward the Abbey Gate. The closer he got to the actual checkpoint, the worse the stink got. To his right, across the sewage canal and through coils of barbed wire, a line of densely packed refugees stood, patiently waiting their turn on one of the canal’s narrow banks. They were the lucky ones. Even more people who were not so lucky stood in the thigh-deep gray water of the sewage canal.

On his side of the canal, a few contract security people stood by themselves, hands in pockets, chatting. About a hundred yards farther, he came on a clutch of Marines standing next to an off-white civilian flatbed. All the civilian vehicles in use had been hot-wired by the Marines first on the ground, seeing as how the Afghan Army had simply melted away and been inconsiderate enough not to leave the keys. (On the other hand, three months earlier, the Americans had turned out the lights and skedaddled from Bagram in the middle of the night and done exactly the same thing. Turnabout only seemed to be fair play.) A big, drippy, olive-green B had been spray-painted on both sides of the vehicle to mark the squad to whom the vehicle now belonged.

He spotted the sergeant who’d brought the pregnant woman to the med tent with a clutch of other, much younger Marines next to the truck. All the soldiers were relaxed, chatting, seemingly on break. Most guzzled from either water bottles or energy drinks. When the sergeant saw him coming, he excused himself, walked over, and asked, “Hello, sir. How’s that mom? Is the baby okay?”

“They’re fine, Sergeant,” John said then added, “For now.”

“Ah.” The sergeant was about his height, though a little older and with a trim sandy moustache. He couldn’t see the man’s eyes behind his wraparounds, but he watched his face smooth as the smile slowly slipped from his lips. “But not?—”

“To term? Depends on how accurate her dates are. I’m not an OB, although if I had to guess, I’d say I sure hope so.”

“Doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement, sir.”

“Because it’s not. She’s close; that’s baby’s definitely dropped. I did a quick exam, and she seems okay for now. It’s just...” He shook his head. “I don’t think I’d want any child to be born here, especially not now. I know I can’t help every pregnant mother here, but she’s mine for now. Or, at least, until that next IV bag runs out.”

“And then?”

“We got to get her out of here.”

Now the sergeant did pull down his shades to give John a look. “They all need to get out of here. Not to sound unfeeling, sir, but what makes her different?”

“You mean, other than being very pregnant?”

“Spend some time on the wall, sir, and you see a lot of that.”

“Okay, then, maybe nothing makes her different other than her husband has what seem to be the right papers. Maybe she and her husband sail through the State Department and they’re on the next plane to Ramstein.”

“But?”

“You probably know the State Department people better than I do. You’ve been walking people over to those guys for a couple of days. I’m not an expert, but I looked at the dad’s papers, and they seem legit...”

When he hesitated, the Marine said, “Except what, sir?”

“Except his employment started back in 2016 but was terminated about six months ago.”

He watched the sergeant think about that. “Does the paper say why?”

John shook his head. “Just that he served with distinction but got marked security-ineligible.”

“Mmm.” The sergeant smoothed his moustache with a forefinger, one side before the other, first the left and then the right. “Usually means that the person fails a polygraph or, maybe, has ties to a militant group. Mostly, though, it’s about a polygraph.”

“Which we both know, from numerous television shows and movies, is unreliable, especially if the subject is nervous. A guy with a high-risk job and a target on his back and now a newly pregnant wife just might be. Counting backward from the date of the letter, that would’ve been around the time that his wife could be pretty certain she was pregnant.”

“Oh, his head was probably spinning, that’s for sure.”

“Yeah. I’m thinking a tough break.”

“Can’t disagree. I have three of my own. It’s why I’m shooting blanks now because every time my wife sat me down to tell me something ,” he said, inserting air-quotes, “I think my blood pressure inched up another couple notches. What do you want to do, sir?”

“I want to get them on the next plane,” John said. “The father seems like a good guy.”

“Yeah.” The sergeant’s head moved in a short nod. “I think so, too. Did you see his leg?”

“What?” He’d been so busy hoping he wasn’t about to deliver a baby or send the woman across base to the hospital for an emergency C-section, he’d spared no thought to the man at all. “No. Why?”

“Figures,” the Marine said. “Got himself hooked on some barbed wire when the crush started. Bad gash. He tied it up, though, and insisted on carrying his wife most of the way. We only stopped him when he got to limping so bad, I worried he would dump her. He’s a good guy, you ask me.”

“They’re back at the med tent. I can get someone to take a look or do it myself. In the meantime, though, I need a favor.”

“Which is?”

“I’d like you to walk me over to the State Department guys and point out who’s likely to be a little more sympathetic. If you’ve got a couple minutes,” he said, checking his watch. “It’s about 1740. I don’t know when they rotate, but since tempus is fugiting ?—”

That was as far as he got.

From behind and to the east, there was a sudden, very loud crump .

The sound—the shock of it—made them all flinch and duck and pull their shoulders up around their ears. John, who’d been looking over the sergeant’s right shoulder, saw the sudden red-yellow flash, the fingers of flames and brown dirt spreading from the epicenter, and then an immediate mushroom of dun-colored smoke pillowing into the sky.

The time was 1750.

A split second later, the screaming started.