Penguin

PENGUIN

Once upon a time, about a week before Christmas, John and Roni watched a movie during a lull on-call. This wasn't unusual. They'd met at Fort Benning during DCC, the Army's Direct Commission Course designed to teach civilians commissioned in college how to be soldiers (whether they wanted to learn or not). After DCC, both John and Roni were assigned to stay on at Martin Army Hospital. By the time that particular Christmas rolled around, they'd watched a lot of movies and shows together.

John, a complete cinema geek, chose the film. The story revolved around a girl named Susie who was murdered by a neighbor. The story, based on a novel, didn't really dwell on the gruesome how of her death but what happened to the girl's family and the killer afterward. The movie was pretty good in a weepy, three-hanky, good-cry way. What stuck with Roni most, though, was the film's first scene, which revolved around little Susie, her dad, and a penguin.

The penguin lived in a snow globe. Little Susie worried about that because while the snow was pretty, the penguin was all alone in there. Susie's dad told her not to worry, though. The penguin was happy, he said, because the world in which it was trapped was perfect.

Among other things, Roni was a shrink. She recognized that what the father in the movie said was a good, wise dad-thing to say. Like all parents, Susie's dad probably figured his kid had plenty of time to wake up, Little Susie, wake up . After all, the girl was young; her world was circumscribed and insular. Her world was her family. Susie existed in a perfect world, with plenty of food and clean clothes and love—and so was blissfully unaware of how much things always change. Families. The world. A kid, too, much to her parents' chagrin as they watch their sweet child morph into a narcissistic alien whose myopic worldview is reduced to a pinprick. Where she is center stage, like the ballerina in a perverse kind of music box: someone about whom the rest of the world revolves instead of the other way around.

The penguin was a metaphor for the whole movie, of course. Nothing and no one stands still. That hammer called Reality trembles on an insubstantial thread over a child's perfect world.

Eventually, though... boom. That hammer must fall and the glass shatter and, to mix a metaphor, down comes baby, cradle and all.

Despite what Roni's training analyst once said, Roni finds dwelling on the past futile.

When she became a shrink—how she got there from emergency medicine is a whole other story—Roni told her patients that life was a bit like a doughnut. Look at the doughnut, she told them, not the hole. The hole is nothing. The only reason the hole exists is because you're standing on the doughnut. Give up the hope of a better past and stay with the doughnut. Stay with what exists. Stay with the Now.

She clings to that belief: that there is a doughnut. A life raft that is her real life to which, one day, she will return, if she can.

Although this will be tough, seeing as how everyone else has gone—and only she is left.

Other than knowing how many days have passed since that disaster at Kabul Airport before the U.S. pulled out for good, she doesn't know much other than in the most general sense. She is very far away from anything remotely resembling civilization. The only reason she knows she's still in-country is because her guards are all Taliban. From the look of the soaring, snow-covered peaks, though, she thinks she is well north and east and way past the Korangal Valley. There are many days when the mountains are socked in either with clouds or snow, but, on a clear day, the view is dizzying: a wide plateau far below hemmed by jagged mountains for as far as the eye can see.

It's not as if she never sees another soul. She tends to the injured. She patched up all the boys who survived. An auntie—any of the half dozen or so older women who cook for her jailers and the workers—brings her meals and clean clothes, accompanies her on the noon walks she is allowed along the mountain paths, and even keeps an eye out as she takes her nightly bath, a luxury that, much to her surprise, her captors have not been unwilling to allow.

The Taliban aren't nasty . No one slaps her around. None of the men touch her, though that is more likely something passed on by orders from above because they don't like her. Even if she weren't an American, her presence is like a pebble in a shoe: an irritant. She's a woman but also good at her job. So, they can't afford to lose her.

What this really boils down to is simple. She is a good-luck charm, a get-out-of-jail-free card, and the equivalent of a really well-balanced knife or a trusty Kalashnikov.

And when you have a great tool—or that lucky rabbit's foot—why, you take care of it.

Looking on the bright side, being squirreled away in a lightless cave for fourteen hours out of every twenty-four does gives her plenty of time to think and regret.

Which is also driving her kind of crazy.

That is why, when she actually hears something at a time when she should've heard a whole lot of nothing except her memories and the imaginary conversations she holds—some with Driver, a few with her dad, but many...no, most with John John John John—rattling around her skull like the last few nuts in a jar...she thinks, Oh. My God. I really have gone insane.

Which she keeps on thinking—until the sound comes again.

When, from the darkness, something...squeals.

Oh. She freezes. Her breath hangs in her throat. Her skin tingles. That was ? —

Another squeee. Then... pop .

Oh. Her heart stutters. A thrill of fear pebbles her skin with gooseflesh. She knows what this is: the sound of rock under a heavy boot.

Someone is coming.

Can't be food. She's fed twice a day: Afghan bread, yak butter tea, and yogurt in the morning and, for supper, a steaming bowl of ash , more bread, assorted fruits and vegetables in season—peppers and okra and legumes and sweet apricots—which she assumes her captors either buy or steal from the villagers in the valley below. Always a bowl of sweet, creamy chai at the end of the day, too. (My God, she would kill for a cup of coffee, though.)

But she isn't due for a meal for several hours yet. She's only just finished dressing wounds. Not right. She sniffs her hands to be certain, to be sure her mind isn't playing tricks with time—and catches the faint sting of antiseptic. That always fades by the time an auntie arrives with her evening meal. So, it's too soon, way too soon.

Another pop. And now, finally, the dull thud of boots on rock.

A single set, she thinks—and that, too, is wrong, really wrong. An auntie is always accompanied by a guard. Men always come in pairs: one to stand guard as the other fits a key into the manacle around her right ankle. They also are never the same two men for any length of time. The pairs rotate, switch off; a man she sees one day might not return for the next three or four. She can't imagine why except the fear that, perhaps, familiarity might breed a sense of camaraderie or even sympathy. (Or temptation, there is always that.) Whoever is in charge probably worries that the men might even get to like the woman who takes care of their boo-boos the way that, perhaps, their own mother had when they were boys—and liking or feeling any kind of gratitude toward her. Seeing her as a person, won't do.

Her eyes strain to make out something, anything, and then she realizes what else is wrong.

No bob of a traditional flashlight, no silver beam at all. Only a faint fan of grainy red light, which can mean only thing.

The guy is wearing NVGs. Someone with night-viz can't use a normal flashlight because the light blinds him. The only light which works is a beam shone through a red filter.

Bad news. She can think of only one reason they would send someone down here alone and kitted out like that. No need for two guys if all that's hanging off the end of her manacle is a body.

Which begs the question: after all this time, when she has been MIA for more than two years, why?

Why kill her now ?

Every morning, she scratches another line. Every evening, she counts scratches. Up to 962. She's been off the doughnut for almost three years. Long enough for her to understand no one's swooping in to rescue her. For all intents and purposes, she is MIA, something she is sure the U.S. has denied up and down because after Vietnam, you know, appearances .

The other problem with being missing is someone has to know where to start looking.

The only reason the Taliban must have decided to off her now is that someone in command has decided that she will be less dangerous—or more useful—dead. A body is a bargaining chip.

Or, perhaps, the operation is pulling up stakes, and they figure she's not worth the bother. Prisoners always try to escape. She was lucky they didn't cut off her head the first time she bolted. Touch and go there, for a bit. She remembers Sarbaz's dark eyes measuring her worth. She hadn't bolstered her case by burying a blade in a guy's throat, but, oh, that had been so satisfying. Of course, it would've been better if she'd actually been able to make it more than halfway down the mountain—but, details.)

So, why now?

Two possibilities. The first is that someone who hasn't been read in and doesn't even know she's here, is coming down that tunnel.

Or the second possibility: word's reached Sarbaz that someone has come looking and is getting too close. If that someone makes it to this camp, the Taliban have to ensure she isn't here to be found.

But who's looking for her after all this time? How does anyone even know where to look? And what about the boys? The kids all know about the American lady doctor. Which means, if she dies, they'll be killed. Sarbaz won't want any slip-ups. Everyone knows what a well-aimed drone strike will accomplish.

You have to think.

The only upside about being held in a cave like this is there are many rocks to choose from and she's had time and patience. She's ground and tested rocks against other rocks day after day in the hopes of making a reasonable approximation of a stone knife. She honestly doesn't expect one to do her much good. After all, they have guns and real combat knives. Dagar, their appointed executioner, sports a wicked foot-long blade. There's a guy who takes pride in his work. A lot of heads have rolled. Oh, and hands. Don't forget those. A worker steals food only once. She's tended to a lot of those stumps, too.

She feels her way to her weapons stash, quickly finger-walks the stones then scoops up a nearly spherical stone about the size of a baseball. God, she wishes John was here. He'd been a pitcher. She bets he could bean anyone, first try.

If she is lucky, she'll have one chance and the advantage of surprise.

So, make it count. Weapon in hand, she carefully lifts the chain attached to the manacle around her left ankle. Taking care that the metal doesn't clank or scrape against the cave floor, she shuffles to her left as quickly as possible. She's measured the chain's length and knows she has about six feet to play with.

She also knows her cave very well. Could find her way blindfolded, ha-ha. After about four feet, her nose wrinkles at the tang of urine and feces steaming from the bucket they allow her to empty twice a day, morning and evening. The stink is a great marker.

Because here is what she bets none of those guys have considered, quite possibly because none have suffered through ninth-grade geometry.

A straight line drawn from a fixed point from left to right—or vice versa, take your choice—does not inscribe a straight line.

It inscribes an arc.

She's betting these guys thinks in straight lines. Up, down, left, right, forward, back. She is now to the left of the entrance. Which means that if this guy moves in a straight line toward where he thinks she usually is, he will step into that arc of attack.

Go low, go fast. She cups the rock in her right hand. Put her weight into her swing and clobber his face good and hard. If she's lucky, she might smash his nose, his eye sockets. And when he doubles over, smash his windpipe. Or she's got the chain. Do a Princess Leia. No air means no ability to call for help. That the guy suffocates...well, life sometimes really sucks.

Have to take him down fast, too. Grab a piece of him—an arm, part of his tunic—and haul him in. No matter what, as soon as he's down, get his knife. All the men tote one. That way, if the rock isn't enough, finish him off with the knife then grab his other weapons. He's sure to have an AK, a weapon she could handle in her sleep, and a Makarov for a sidearm?—

The thought stutters at the sharp crack of a stone. Her lungs squeeze down. The steady thump of booted feet on stone and earth continue. One person. She's sure of it.

And then, pulsing in the darkness, she sees, again, that faint red glow.

Good. That glow's a marker. She'll know exactly where he is. Moving with exquisite care, she bends at the knees and lays her small spool of chain on the rocky floor. She stays down, too. Even with NVGs and the red flashlight affixed to his AK, he'll need maybe two, three seconds to both find and then shoot.

Nerves tingling, she keeps her gaze fixed on that bobbing red glow...which goes out.

What? Why did he do that? Playing games? Trying to freak her out? Her pulse drums. She stares so hard into the dark well of the entrance her eyes feel as if they'll pop from their sockets. She strains to hear something, anything over the wild knock of her heart?—

Another crack makes her jump and nearly cry out. This is followed by a short rasp of a boot scraping rock?—

And then the air shifts. The darkness thickens, feels almost crowded.

He's here. He's just inside the entrance. To my left.

She is blind...but she feels him. Smells him: an unctuous reek of unwashed flesh, the fug of old sweat, the sting of gunpowder. The rusty tang of dried blood.

Plus, this guy has made a mistake. He's turned off the flashlight. NVGs are not magic. NVGS only amplify existing light. Anything in a pitch-black room—or the depths of a cave where no natural light penetrates—is invisible.

Unless he's got thermal imaging, this guy has just made her invisible, something he'll figure out in about three seconds.

As soon as he turns on the flashlight...you go. Her skin tingles. She gathers herself. Go high. She's a soldier, a Marine's daughter, and there is no way she'll cower, piss scared out of?—

And that's when she gets another idea.