CHARLES MALLORY SURVEYED THE countryside, listening to the wind above the pit, the fading echo of the gunshot. There was no road beyond the pit, just craggy rolling woodlands. The perimeter of the property on the eastern and southern sides was bounded by metal mesh fencing, topped with concertina wire, and he suspected the rest of it was, too. He could hide in the woods, he supposed, and try to find a way through the fencing, but he knew they would eventually come for him. Any way he figured it, that didn’t seem like a good option.
He could try to drive the truck back out himself, but he’d have to go through two checkpoints and there wasn’t much chance they would just let him pass, no matter what he told them. If he tried to bust through the barriers, he would only set off alarms.
That limited his alternatives pretty severely.
The only viable option, he decided, was for John Ramesh to drive the truck back through the checkpoints. This option presented a few challenges, of course.
Charles Mallory studied Ramesh’s crumpled body. A little shorter than he was, maybe five ten, but with an enormous upper torso. Arms almost as big as his legs. He probably weighed 210 pounds, he guessed. Charlie walked back to the pick-up, turned the ignition key, and drove it over the rocky pavement to where Ramesh had fallen. He crouched beside Ramesh’s body, undid the shoelaces on his work boots, and stripped them out. He lifted him up under the armpits and dragged his body to the truck. Heavy, but not impossible. He yanked him up to the level of the seat. Shoved his butt inside the cab, then twisted him into a seated position, folding his legs in sideways and tucking them under the steering column. Then he adjusted the body so that Ramesh was facing forward, his head slumped against the steering wheel. Closed the door and propped his lifeless left arm on the top of the door. Manually opening the small vent window, he tied one end of Ramesh’s shoelace around his left thumb, the other end around the vent window column. Then he bent the elbow out the window, so it appeared that he was leaning it on the outside of the door. Charlie walked around to the passenger side, then, and got in. Pulled Ramesh’s head back, so he was flush against the seat, then placed the lifeless right hand on the top of the steering wheel, curled his fingers. Using the other shoelace, Charlie tied Ramesh’s wrist to the top of the steering column. Then he broke one of his discarded toothpicks into thirds and used two of the pieces to prop open Ramesh’s eyes.
He slipped the truck into gear and let it coast back down the path away from the pit. Charles Mallory was six-foot-two. If he leaned forward, sitting on the front edge of the seat, he could reach the pedals with his left leg and steer with his right hand, turning the wheel so that for someone looking at the oncoming truck, Ramesh’s hand would appear to be steering. It wasn’t perfect, by any means, and there wasn’t any guarantee that he was going to get through the gate. But it beat trying to force his way out.
Most of the drive to the second gatehouse was downhill, over a dirt road. Mallory pumped the brake repeatedly, letting the truck coast, getting a feel for the pedals and the steering. When the road evened out, he pressed the accelerator, let it pick up speed, touched the brake. Back and forth.
As they neared the fence, Mallory lifted the radio. He pushed the “Speak” button, as Ramesh had done, said, “8-C 13 coming through.” Whatever that meant.
He held Ramesh’s head back by his ponytail as the truck came toward the gate. Pumped the brake with his left foot.
But the gate remain closed. Charlie saw a heavyset, crew-cut guard emerge from the gatehouse, standing there, waiting for them. A man wearing some sort of uniform—light blue shirt, navy slacks, gun holstered at his waist. About forty feet away. Thirty-five. Thirty.
Mallory pressed his foot on the brake. This wasn’t going quite as smooth as the entry. Maybe 8-C 13 was the wrong code for coming back. Maybe they recognized the voice was not John Ramesh’s.
He shifted into neutral and gunned the engine. Honked the horn twice. Then shifted back into drive, moving the wheel slightly side to side as the truck drifted forward. The man lifted his eyes, then turned back to the gatehouse. Looked once again at the truck. Charlie gunned the engine again, readying to slam through the gate. But then the guard motioned with his left hand. Mallory pulled his foot off the brake, grabbed Ramesh’s ponytail to hold up his head. The gate rose and Charlie pushed down on the accelerator pedal. Coasted ten feet and then shot through, lowering and lifting Ramesh’s head, as if he were nodding a thank you. The guards raised their hands without looking.
The first guard station was maybe three quarters of a kilometer farther down the road. But the gate there had been opened when they came in and it was open as they approached going out. Mallory didn’t brake. He just let his foot off the gas for a moment as they went through, turning Ramesh’s head slightly and punching the horn. There were two armed Jeeps there still, along with a military vehicle parked on the other side of the road. Four men standing outside, talking. They lifted their hands in a greeting.
After that came a winding stretch of road, through slightly rolling country. Mallory looked for a pull-off to get rid of Ramesh’s body but didn’t see one. At the fork off the property, he turned right, back toward the city, seeing small clusters of mud huts in the fields to his right.
Several minutes later, a truck came speeding up behind them. Charles Mallory gripped the handgun against the wheel, keeping his foot on the pedal. He was going forty-five, the other truck maybe sixty. Mallory maintained his speed. The truck began to move into the right passing lane. He let his foot off the gas as it approached behind him, ready to fire through the open window. The truck drew even with them but didn’t slow down.
After another half kilometer he came to a turn-around and a trail into the woods on the left side of the road. Charlie coasted to a stop. He pulled John Ramesh out and dropped him behind the truck. Checked his pockets: no identification, just some cash and a cell phone. About $300 in American currency. Charlie took it and dragged his body by the arms into the woods. Covered him with leaves and loose dirt and branches. Then he got behind the wheel and followed the road back toward the city, pushing his foot down on the accelerator, watching the needle climb to sixty, seventy, seventy-five.
It was 12:47, according to his watch.
IN THE SHANTY towns, his eyes watered with the scents of cooking meat and human waste. He parked beside a giant village of tin and cardboard lean-tos and left the truck, with the keys in the ignition. Began to walk, passing a football-field-sized pit latrine and another sprawling neighborhood of shanties. In all directions, makeshift hovels without electricity or running water or flush toilets. He heard radios, children shouting. Saw a group of women lined up in the midst of all the people. Two boys had come here on bicycles, and they were rationing out water into people’s cupped hands from two-gallon plastic jugs.
He continued in the direction of the city. Before long the shanties were replaced by crude mud-brick buildings and then white-washed storefronts, and he began to feel less conspicuous. He stopped and checked the address book on Ramesh’s cell phone. Saw several sets of initials, and names he didn’t recognize. One that was marked “P.”
Mallory pressed it. After two rings, someone responded.
“Hello.”
He listened.
“Hello.”
An American accent, it seemed. Mallory began to walk. He heard someone breathing on the other end. Tried to make out the background noise. He stopped again.
“Priest?” he said.
The other man said, “You’re making a mistake. You know that.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I will.”
The other man hung up. Mallory felt a kick of adrenaline. He kept walking through the busy streets, past a row of bicycle taxis, vegetables lined up on blankets, sidewalk BBQs, knowing that Priest would be able to identify his location by the cell phone. He came to a small corner café, which smelled of porridge and grilled fish, and he stood at the counter, waiting beside a line of other men. He studied the menu on the wall behind the counter, then turned and walked away, as if changing his mind, and re-entered the pedestrian traffic, leaving the cell phone on the counter.
JON MALLORY FELT the cold concrete against his face and arms, and a throbbing in his head. A horrible, pounding pain. He opened his eyes again, had no idea where he was. His pupils tried to widen again, but there wasn’t enough light for him to make out anything. He heard something, though: a faint echo, of wind. Or breathing. Everything felt dreamlike, disconnected from reality, except for the odor and the pain in his arms and his ribs. As he tried to sit up, he became dizzy. Closed his eyes and tried to remember what had happened. Imagined he was at home in Washington. Knew that if he stood and walked left, feeling his way along the wall, he could find the front door.
But he wasn’t in Washington. And he wasn’t in the chalet where he had slept the first night, either. This was concrete, cold and dirty, the air damp and rank.
Sitting in the darkness, Jon conjured a jumbled recollection: an explosion, a sudden bright flash. Gunshots. Someone pulling back his arm, shoving his face into carpet. Smells of gunpowder, leather. Screams. A scream. No, that was what had wakened him. A scream. He heard it in his memory and knew it: a strained, agonizing sound, echoing off these stone walls. Had it been him, or part of the dream? He didn’t know. His head felt thick, as if he’d been drugged. His brain wasn’t working right.
And then later, much later, it seemed, he heard the footsteps. Solid heels on stone, coming closer in the darkness. Toward him. He tried to sit up again and felt the pain as he breathed, as if his ribs had been broken. The sound stopped, and when it started again, it seemed to be moving in a different direction. Away from him. Step, step. Step, step. Becoming fainter. Fading to nothing. To darkness.