14

Murree Road, Dor River, Pakistan
February 14, 2011, 2114 Hours Local Time

Charlie let go of the Iraqi and slumped back, breathing hard. His stumps hurt like hell because he’d put all of his weight on them. His hands were sticky slippery from Saif’s blood. He leaned over and wiped them on the Iraqi’s corpse.

Charlie didn’t like killing. He’d done enough of it over the course of his life not to like it. But he also knew, as do all true Warriors, that it was a necessary skill in the real world, and that through training, experience, and instinct, he was quite efficient at it.

He also understood a second truth: that some individuals just deserved to die.

Saif was one of those. Saif, who’d beheaded sixteen Iraqi policemen one after the other only because they were Shia. Saif, who’d disemboweled children in front of their parents to make a political point. Like most of his brothers in arms, Charlie Becker preferred peace to war. But they hadn’t started this war. Usama Bin Laden had started it. Charlie was where he was to help finish it.

Quickly Charlie checked the trunk. It held two cinder blocks and a short roll of what looked like fence wire. He tossed everything out, then pulled himself out of the trunk and rolled onto the roadside.

He looked around to get his bearings. Saif had parked next to a river with a pretty fast current. The road was about ten feet above the bank, separated by a low metal guard rail. Charlie looked up and down the road. No lights. No signs of life. Perfect.

First things first. He checked Saif’s body—carefully—for documents, papers, ID, pocket litter. He stashed everything in his own pockets. He’d look through them later. He couldn’t find car keys, so he scooted himself to the driver’s side door, opened it, hoisted himself inside, and checked.

They were in the ignition. Better: Charlie’s padded dolly and his push-sticks were stashed behind the front seats. Also tossed in the rear were Charlie’s knives and a rolled-up black plastic garbage bag. Which Charlie unrolled.

And discovered a heavy, curved, razor-sharp butcher’s knife with a twelve-inch blade. A beheader. Saif was planning to extract revenge and take a souvenir, maybe to his al-Qaeda pals.

Charlie laughed. He couldn’t help himself, given the morbid irony that it had popped into his mind that he and Saif shared something in common: a favorite old adage. Don’t get mad. Don’t get even. Get . . . a head.

He crabbed back to the rear, took Saif’s body by the collar, trying his best not to get himself all bloody, dragged him to the guard rail, then pushed him under so the body would roll down to the riverbank.

He repeated the trip thrice, with cinder blocks, then fence wire, then garbage bag. By the end of the third, he was bathed in his own sweat. It was yet another episode during which he thought it would have been s-o-o-o much easier with legs.

Hyperventilating, Charlie peered over the edge. The slope wasn’t too bad. There was a fair amount of vegetation. He figured he could claw his way back to the car easily enough.

He tossed the cinder blocks and wire over the guard rail. Then he shoved Saif’s corpse and watched it slide two-thirds of the way down the scrub-covered incline.

Charlie followed, the big knife stuffed in his vest. He dragged Saif to the edge of the river. Rolled the body so it was parallel with the bank.

That was when he realized that he couldn’t do what he wanted to. Sans legs, it was impossible to drag Saif far enough into the river where it would be deep enough to sink him.

But he could do the other thing.

He maneuvered the body so that he could straddle Saif’s chest. Then he unrolled the big, sharp butcher’s knife and set to work.

When he finished, he tossed the head into the river. A good throw—maybe thirty-five, forty feet. He saw the splash.

He did a quick forensics check. He was leaving behind a headless corpse with no ID. Probably not the first of its kind in this neighborhood, either. Charlie heaved the cinder blocks and the fence wire into the river. Policed the riverbank. Glanced up toward the road. The blood on the shoulder next to the guard rail would stay there. Nada he could do about it. That left nothing else to clean up.

Except himself, and the knife. He washed it first. Then he doused his hands in the cold water, rubbing his face only after they were clean. Then he soaked his vest, tunic, and trousers to get rid of the blood, wrung them out semidry, and put them back on.

He rolled the big knife back in its garbage bag, stuffed it inside his vest, and crabbed his way toward the car. On his way up the embankment, he decided not to report any of what had just happened. There was no reason to. It would just complicate matters. Charlie understood the system, be it Army or CIA: Give them a bone and they will chew on it. Don’t give them a bone, and they won’t have the opportunity.

He made it to the top, scuttled under the guard rail, and pulled himself inside the car. Only then did he give in to the fact that he was totally spent.

He put his head back and reconsidered his position. Was he doing the right thing in not reporting? Yeah, he was. But what about Saif’s ISI contacts? Had the Iraqi mentioned anything?

And if he had, would the Paks be coming after him?

Not necessarily. Charlie had seen this sort of thing in Iraq. The local services treated foreign nationals as disposables. Sure, ISI would make use of Saif, pay him well. But he wasn’t a part of their culture, or their clan. They’d use him and then forget him. Unless, of course, he had mentioned that he’d seen one of the Gitmo Infidels sitting outside a zam-zam shop.

But all of Charlie’s instincts told him Saif hadn’t said a word. Not to ISI or anybody else. Saif had said it himself: he wanted to kill Mr. José and do it slowly. He wanted revenge on Mr. José. It had been personal.

Personal. That was Saif’s mistake. Too bad for him.

And good for Charlie.

Time to move. Charlie adjusted the seat, maneuvered his sticks—he’d use one in his left hand to control the gas pedal and the brake—and turned the ignition key.

That’s when he remembered he hadn’t closed the trunk.

“Oh, shit,” he said out loud.

The words brought a laugh. They were the first English he’d spoken in more than a month.

As he rolled out and dragged himself toward the rear of the car, he was already thinking about where he would abandon the vehicle. Of course he was. Exhausted or not, Charlie always tried to follow the Ranger’s Rule of the Five Ps: Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance.

He knew a neighborhood on the southwest side of Abbottabad where he could leave it. He’d take the plates. The car would be stripped clean within twenty-four hours.