She stood from the bench as she spied her mark. He was a young soldier she knew had driven for Colonel Zach Garrett, the fabled and revered Special Operations commander killed in the helicopter crash. The news was devastating to this small military compound in Afghanistan. Every soldier killed in action was an individual tragedy of immense human proportions. Because of his stature, the Special Forces commander’s death sent huge shock waves across this base and, she figured, around the world within this closely stitched community. The number of lives he must have touched, she thought almost out loud. That would be her angle.
Though he did not wear a name tag, none of these guys did, she recognized the driver’s face from the one time she had seen Colonel Garrett going to the Big Army side of the base for a meeting. This soldier had been driving the SUV that had pulled up directly in front of the headquarters building and from which Colonel Garrett had stepped. She had walked up to the window of the SUV, which this soldier had rolled down for her.
“I’m sorry, I’m trying to find the PX,” she’d said. “I’m new here.”
He had been gracious, speaking with a slight Southern drawl and pointing her in the right direction. “Don’t sell much other than toothpaste and razor blades, ma’am,” he’d said.
“I’m not much older than you, big guy, so watch it with that ‘ma’am’ stuff.” She had playfully punched him in the arm.
So now, she strode toward him, intercepting him as he walked toward the small store that sold the basic essentials that Sergeant Eversoll had mentioned to her.
“I found it,” she said, waving her arms at him.
It was a bright morning, and he was wearing Wiley X protective sunglasses. Sergeant Eversoll paused for a moment, and she could tell he was processing where he knew her from, if indeed he remembered her at all.
“Excuse me?”
“The PX. I found it, thanks to your great directions.” They were standing on the gravel parking lot outside of a small trailer the size of a mobile home. The sun was set against a pristine blue sky, and the temperature was the perfect balance between cool and warm. Say what you will about Afghanistan, she mused, the weather in the spring was as good as it gets.
“Yesss, the reporter,” Eversoll said with time-delayed recognition. “So, you bought some toothpaste and razor blades?”
She rubbed her face with an open hand. “Closest shave I’ve ever had.”
He didn’t smile, but acknowledged her joke with a nod. She could see that he was not in a mood to chitchat, if he ever was. She took in his broad shoulders and round face. He was handsome in a country boy way.
“Mary Ann Singlaub,” she said, holding out her hand.
“Sergeant Eversoll.” His firm grip nearly crushed her slender fingers.
Removing her hand from the vise and shaking it gingerly, she smiled at him.
“Sorry,” he muttered, and began to step away. “Just gotta pick up a couple of things. So, nice to meet you, ma’am.”
“It’s Mary Ann, and could I ask you one question?”
She watched him pause, could see he was uncomfortable. “Like, where’s the PX, or, like, what happened the other night so I can print it in my newspaper?”
“Well, I’ve found the PX, thanks to you. What I wanted to ask you about was Colonel Garrett. He seemed like such a wonderful man and had touched so many lives. I wanted to do a feature piece on him.”
Mary Ann suddenly felt like a bug underneath a kid’s magnifying glass as Sergeant Eversoll stared at her. Was it the soldier’s standard distrust of the media, or was it something deeper, as if she were violating a bond? Had she gone too far?
“You were his driver, correct?” she prodded carefully.
“No comment.”
“I do human interest stories on soldiers and their families, Sergeant. I’ve never written a single story with a negative overtone. The research I’ve done on Colonel Garrett, and what others have told me, indicates he was a great man. I doubt there’s anyone who could tell his story better than you.”
More of the magnifying glass.
“He is a great man. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get moving.”
With that, Sergeant Eversoll left Mary Ann Singlaub standing in the gravel parking lot. She wanted to scream after him, “You mean, was a great man.” Unless he was trying to tell her something. She dropped her arms to her side with a flapping motion. Wishful thinking, she scoffed. There’s no pony in that stable, as her dad had always said when a situation lacked substance or possibility.
“He is a great man,” she whispered to herself, unable to let go of the connotation.
Then she had an idea.
CHAPTER 30
Mansur had debated what to do about Kamil. Finally, as they had arrived at the port of Karachi, he took Kamil into the dockside warehouse where they would wait for a truck back to Peshawar. They had made the trip in under two days so far and Mansur hated flying the leaky propeller airplanes of Pakistan Airlines.
“What’s your better idea, brother, Mansur?” Kamil asked.
The warehouse was quiet, the occasional sound of a rat scratching along a rafter, the close boom of a tug pushing up channel, or the wind pushing against the corrugated metal roof. They stood next to two partially disassembled Tata Motors trucks from India, their notorious transmission problems apparently having sidelined both vehicles.
“We need to keep half the money,” Mansur said. “With $500,000 we can live good lives in some country like India or Indonesia. Start a business.”
Kamil regarded his childhood friend closely.
“Not possible.” He shook his head sullenly.
“Think about it. We leave now—”
“And Rahman kills our families. I have two children, you have one! How can you suggest such a thing?”
“Rahman will not kill the children and we can find new wives. As Muslims we are allowed four, no?”
“How can you joke around at a time like this? Rahman was expecting two million and we only have one million and now you are talking about giving him nothing?”
“Did you see what we gave the man in Dubai?”
“Of course not. Did you?”
Mansur smiled, holding up the pocket sized Coby Ultra DVD player he had purchased for $25 at a local bazaar on the way to Dubai.
“We are forbidden. They have ways of determining whether it has been viewed.”
“They let us go, no?”
Kamil fidgeted for a second. Mansur could see that he was curious.
“It is a video of an American special operations colonel denouncing the war and giving very detailed American withdrawal plans to Mullah Rahman. He said the Americans were tired of the war and were pulling out of their base camps along the border so that Afghan forces could get in there and defend their own country. And he described how Al Qaeda could effectively attack Bagram Air Base.”
Kamil grimaced, as if knowing made him complicit in Mansur’s scheme.
“I cannot know of this. Do not include me in your ill deeds,” Kamil said, turning away.
“How long have we known each other?” Mansur asked.
“Since we were able to know our names,” Kamil said. “Since Khagozi.”
Khagozi was a small village to the northeast of Chitral, toward the sliver of Afghanistan that led into China, where the two men grew up together herding sheep. Now, they were carrying a million dollars in two bags.