‘Man, you guys don’t mess around,’ said the slight copilot with an air of admiration.
Jason wasn’t about to explain why they’d set the house ablaze. The act was not something to be glorified.
But Meat felt the kid deserved to hang on to the outlaw image, saying, ‘We like to be thorough.’ He managed a thin smile.
‘I’ll say,’ the copilot said. ‘Who was in there anyway? Some of those Al-Qaeda fuckers?’
Jason gave Meat a stern glance. Meat said nothing.
‘Even for a rookie you’re an idiot,’ Candyman chastised the copilot. ‘Why don’t you go jerk off to Full Metal Jacket for the two-hundredth time and leave these guys alone?’ He worked the controls and lifted the Blackhawk smoothly into the air. As he banked north, the chopper’s downdraught whipped up the smoke and flames.
To the west, two klicks out, Jason spotted three Humvees angling fast along the dirt roads that bisected the fields, heading for the blaze. In the glare of their bouncing rectangular headlights he spotted Iraqi Security Force insignias. His jaw clamped tight. Now they were showing up?
‘Don’t worry about the sand cops,’ Candyman said as if linked into Jason’s thoughts. ‘Our guys will get there first and send them on their way.’ He swung the chopper a bit. ‘There … see?’ He raised his hand for Jason to see, then pointed down and left.
Down below, only a klick away, a second convoy was cutting its own path through the wheat fields on a beeline for the burning house. This time, the headlights highlighted nothing but desert camouflage. Six marine Humvees.
Jason’s jaw slackened.
‘Two more platoons are heading for the cave,’ Candyman added. ‘Another unit’s already handling the chopper wreck. Said they found a bunch of shot-up Al-Qaeda in a ditch. That your handiwork too?’
Jason said nothing, so Meat spoke up. ‘They were taking pictures of the wreck, like they were at Disney World … probably looking to update their Facebook page. We didn’t feel that was appropriate.’
The eager copilot chimed in with, ‘Yeah, gotta teach these sand monkeys some manners.’ But Candyman shot him a biting stare and he sank into his seat.
‘By the way, Google,’ Candyman said solemnly, ‘sorry to hear about Camel and Jam. That’s a goddamn shame.’
‘Thanks.’
A few more seconds went by without conversation.
Eventually, Candyman had to ask, ‘Did Crawford fuck things up as badly as you said?’
‘Worse,’ Jason said. ‘You have no idea.’
‘That guy’s going to be in a world of hurt when the BG finds out what he’s done …’
The BG, thought Jason. Despite his distaste for conspiracy theories, there was no telling if the brigadier general wasn’t part of this too.
68
The inverted-V ceiling dropped precipitously once more as the passage drilled through the mountain in a wide hollow tube that reminded Shuster of an earthen storm drain. He kept the procession drumming along to a steady, furtive cadence — Ramirez, Holt and Hazo following in his wake. Sweeping his light in wide arcs over the rough stone confirmed an absence of mining or tool marks. Only time and the elements had been this tunnel’s quarrymen.
The tunnel curved gently from left to right, then back again, the ground rising and falling along a general downward trajectory. The air quality was degrading quickly, and Shuster worried that if something were not soon found, he’d need to abandon the exploration. One thought kept cycling through his mind: why would Fahim Al-Zahrani have retreated back towards his enemy? If Al-Zahrani had met a dead end, they had to be nearing it — which coincided all too well with the strange sounds that were growing stronger with every step. He paused once more to try to decipher the noise.
‘Goddamn it, what is that?’ Ramirez said.
‘No idea,’ Shuster replied, trying to conceal his deepening anxiety.
‘Sounds like something’s alive down there,’ Holt said.
No one challenged the idea.
‘Wait here,’ Shuster suggested. ‘I’ll go check it out.’
‘Absolutely,’ Ramirez said. ‘That’s a very good idea.’
They all watched in silence as Shuster disappeared around the bend.
With time to rest, Holt became acutely aware of Hazo’s worsening health. Hazo, bracing himself up with the tunnel wall, was ashen and sluggish, and his chest heaved every time he inhaled.
‘Hey, Hazo,’ Ramirez said. ‘You know anything about this place?’
Hazo shrugged. ‘Just legends.’
‘That’s a start,’ Ramirez said. ‘What legends?’
Hazo paused. ‘A demon was buried here,’ he explained bluntly. ‘This is what some say.’ His thoughts flashed back to Monsignor Ibrahim and Michelangelo’s painting of a half-woman, half-serpent entwined around a tree.
‘Demon?’ Holt jumped in. ‘Exactly what kind of demon?’
There was no reason to keep secrets at this juncture, thought Hazo. ‘Those are her pictures on the wall near the entrance. Her name is Lilith,’ he explained weakly. ‘Thousands of years ago, she came to this place … these mountains. She killed every man and boy.’ The conversation quickly exhausted his lungs, forcing him to cough.
‘Crazy bitch,’ Ramirez seethed as if one of the victims had been his own brother.
‘How? How did she kill them?’ Holt pressed. He felt like he was a boy scout again, hearing haunted campfire stories. Hazo reluctantly cast his bloodshot eyes to the ground. ‘Come on, Hazo. If we’re stuck in a demon’s grave, it would be nice to know what we’re up against.’
Trying to catch his breath, Hazo managed to force one tentative word from his lips: ‘Pestilence.’
‘Pest-a-what?’ Ramirez asked, agitated.
‘Disease, Ramirez,’ Shuster said. ‘Learn the language, will you?’
Ramirez lingered on the word, his M-16 drooping in his grip. He repeated it to himself with a sense of fatalism: ‘Disease.’ He pulled a gold crucifix out from under his collar and blessed himself with it.
‘It’s just a story,’ Holt reminded him.
‘A story? You saw Al-Zahrani when they pulled him out of here. Man, he was sick … real sick. You saw him.’
Holt rolled his eyes and spread his hands.
Then Ramirez took a hasty step back from Hazo, looking spooked. ‘And look … now he’s sick,’ he said accusatorily. He tightened his hold on the M-16. A psychosomatic tickle came to the back of his throat and he grabbed at it. ‘I don’t want to catch no damn disease …’
‘Settle down,’ Holt said.
‘Guys!’ Shuster’s voice echoed up from the mountain.
Holt cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted back: ‘Yeah?’
‘Get down here … I found something!’
Holt set off on a brisk pace through the tunnel, Ramirez and Hazo bringing up the rear. The passage essed twice and curled sharply before spilling into a cavernous black hollow. Holt stopped dead in his tracks. ‘What the …?’ he gasped.
‘Over here,’ Shuster called to him from deep within the hollow.
He spotted Shuster’s flashlight floating in the voluminous darkness. The light played over the surface of a massive angular form plonked down in middle of the cave, which resembled an unhitched semi-trailer or a railroad boxcar. And it seemed that the sounds they’d been hearing — now clearly recognizable as the whirring of mechanical parts — were coming from inside it.
‘Come on, Holt!’ Shuster shouted. ‘Get over here!’