“Good, we know she’ll be home. She lives alone.”
“Want me to go with you?”
“No.” She hesitated, and then frowned. “This is important to you. I don’t want to let you down. Maybe you should send someone with me.”
“I’ll go. It’s not only important, it’s vital. We need both of these people.” Murdock motioned to Dobler. “Have the men get some rest. As soon as it’s light we’ll have them head for the airport. Send Franklin along. Have him go to different airlines and change the tickets of two of his friends for earlier flights. Get them all out of here before noon if possible. Different flights or different airlines, so the counter people won’t remember.”
“Got it. We all have money if there are any more charges. We’ll leave here about six. You be careful out there.”
It was less than a half-hour drive into one of the poorer sections of town. Few street lights, litter in the streets. The houses and apartment buildings in poor repair. They parked, and went down a crooked street to a door that had a name on it and the word, evidently in Pashto, for “doctor.”
Jeru didn’t hesitate. She went past the door to a narrow walkway between two buildings and round to the back of the place. There were two doors. She knocked on one, then banged loudly. They saw through a window when a light came on. Jeru let out a held-in breath.
“Oh, good, she is home.”
The door opened a crack against a chain, and the two women spoke quickly. Then the chain came off and Jeru and Murdock stepped inside. The woman wore a robe, her hair was mussed. She rubbed her eyes as she and Jeru talked. Murdock had no idea what they said. Then he heard the word SEALs and he frowned. Jeru turned to him.
“It’s all right, she is one of us. We can trust her with our lives.”
The woman smiled at Murdock, shook his hand, and said something.
“She said you’re the most handsome man she’s seen since she toured Washington, D.C., five years ago.”
“Thank her for me. Can she come?”
“Yes. She needs her bag and some supplies.” The doctor went into another room. She was back in five minutes, in traditional women dress, and with a medical bag and carrying a paper sack.
She spoke to Jeru.
“Martha says she will do what she can and give you medications that you can use through the long flight back to Greece.”
They went to the door. Martha looked out, nodded, and the three went out the door into the small alleyway next to the building behind her home.
They had moved only twenty feet when a man with a gun trained on them stepped out of the shadows. He barked something in Pashto and the women stopped suddenly. Murdock saw the weapon at once and froze.
Jeru whispered to Murdock as the man came closer, “He says not to move, we’re all under arrest.”
25
Murdock judged the man with the gun. A professional. He stayed six feet away when he came up to them.
“Faint,” Murdock whispered to Jeru. She didn’t look at him, but frowned.
“Oh, my,” Jeru said. She put her hand to her head. Then her knees shook and a moment later she fell against Murdock, eyes closed, arms flapping as she went down. She was still dressed as a man.
“Now look what you’ve done,” the doctor barked at the gunman. “You’ve scared him to death. He’s fainted. We were going to his home for treatment. I’ll have to give him some medication and some smelling salts. What in the world are you doing?”
The gunman, who Murdock figured was a Secret Policeman of some kind, hesitated. When he spoke, he stammered, then coughed. He touched his forehead, where sweat had appeared, and he cleared his throat.
“This person is on our list of subversives. He must be watched. All right, treat him. Then all four of us are going to my supervisor and get some answers.”
Murdock didn’t understand any of the talk. He had one chance with the gunman. He crouched beside Jeru, whose eyes fluttered, then stayed shut. The doctor stayed beside her, and took some pills from her black bag.
Murdock moved slowly, his left ankle out of sight of the gunman behind Jeru. He lifted the hideout from its leather holster and kept it behind Jeru.
“Hurry up,” the Secret Policeman said.
Murdock started to stand.
“No,” the cop snapped. He motioned down with his hand. “Stay down, big man. I’ll deal with you later. It is the tall one, Jeru, we are interested in.”
“Cover is blown, Murdock,” Jeru whispered. “Shoot him.”
A siren sounded somewhere far behind them. The Secret Policeman turned, then looked back. Murdock pulled up the short-barreled.32 and fired four times with a point-and-shoot aim. Two of the four rounds hit the cop’s chest and he went down. His trigger finger spasmed and fired two rounds into the pavement as he fell.
“Get the car,” Murdock snapped. “We can’t leave him here.” He hurried to the Secret Policeman on the ground. He hadn’t moved since he went down. Murdock checked him for a pulse. None. He lifted him over his shoulder and carried him into the shadows of a building at the near side of the alley.
No windows had opened when the shots came. No one had opened a door and looked out. No one wanted to be involved. Good, Murdock decided. The doctor was with him in the shadows as Jeru drove her car up to the mouth of the alley. Murdock carried the body to the car and pushed the body into the backseat. Then he stepped in after it.
A moment later the car turned around and Jeru drove it away.
“Where?” she asked Murdock.
“Landfill, garbage dump, river?”
“Nothing nearby.”
“Any old wells, coal mines…”
“Wells. Yes, in an old section. Not used. Yes. About ten minutes away.”
Murdock systematically stripped the body of all identification. There wasn’t much, a wallet with some cards, a pin on the man’s shirt. Murdock had brought the dropped gun. It would go down with the body.
By the time the car stopped, Murdock was ready.
“Let me look around a little,” Jeru said. “We don’t need any witnesses.”
She was back quickly. She helped tug the body from her car. Then Murdock bent, lifted the man over his shoulder, and carried him where Jeru led. She had removed three old boards from the well top, and Murdock unceremoniously dumped the corpse off his shoulder down the hole. It didn’t take long to hit. Thirty, forty feet deep, but it would do. They put the top boards back on the well top and hurried back to the car.
Twenty minutes later, Martha had examined Kat.
Jeru translated. “She says the lady is in good shape. The ricochet caused a lot of bleeding, but the wound isn’t deep and should heal well. The bullet hole is a painful one, but Martha put on some antibiotics and treated both wounds. Kat will be fine on the plane ride.”
Martha took longer with Ron Holt. She shook her head twice and looked up at Jeru. She talked to her for several minutes in Pashto then went back to checking his chest.
Jeru talked to Murdock and Dobler. “Martha says that the bullet definitely hit Holt’s lung. She’s not sure how bad it is. There’s a danger his lung could collapse once he gets to altitude on the plane. The other problem is infection. That and the fact that the bullet did not exit his back. It’s still in there, and will have to be found and removed. Three days, tops, for that. She will load him up with penicillin and antibiotics. He can walk with assistance. No hint of any health problem, or they won’t let him on the plane. She says the shoulder wound was a graze that dug a half-inch groove. It will be fine in a month.”
Murdock considered his options. He would send six men to the airport with first light. Franklin, who spoke Arabic, could get their tickets exchanged for flights going out today.
That would leave five more of them to get out. Jeru would be coming with them. Jeru would be their interpreter at the airport for the last five tickets. Yes, that part would work. Somehow they had to keep Holt on his feet and moving through the lines to the plane, and do it without attracting any notice.