[h3]A Shadow Over Babylon, Finale...[/h3]

...As they walked on, Farhad’s voice spoke to them. For a battle-hardened veteran of a guerilla war against the powers that threatened his people, he spoke like a tiny thing, “I want to go back.” Donnelley quirked a brow and looked at Farhad, whose eyes refused to leave his shuffling feet, and whose voice never rose above a dazed whisper, “They will be angry I left.”

Jason followed the entourage in the rear, eyes hidden in the coves of shade his brow cast from the overhead lights. He avoided the viewports on both sides, gaze darting from each metal door to the next. Making eye contact would be a moment of recognition he wanted to avoid, the agonizing moment two men realize the vast spectrum of difference they had between themselves. Of pure agony and its opposite, anything but confinement. 

“Who?” he asked. “Who’s going to be angry?”

“No speech in the hall,” the guard said. “Rules, baby. We haven’t released you yet.”

Jason swallowed an urge to protest, or at least ignore the guard. The phrase was too peculiar, too juxtaposed from what he expected.They continued down the corridor, walking a distance he couldn’t make out as either within the same building or further, as if the underground levels were interconnected. Angled turns and intersecting hallways made it that much more disorienting, and their turns seemed to snake further into the earth. 

“Where are you taking me?” Farhad said, looking first at Donnelley and then behind him at Jason. 

“Hey, shut your mouth!” the guard barked.

“Somewhere safe,” Jason muttered. “Your people.” In the distance echoed a voice, a quick rise and fall of someone shouting but Jason couldn’t be sure. By the time it reached them it was a hollow, garbled sound. Perhaps the wind above. 

“Don’t egg him on,” the guard said. “Any of these animals see it it’s like an infection. Days after everyone starts breaking rules, getting ballsy. So you wait to do your thing with him until you’re off my block, you got that?”

“Yeah, John Wayne,” Jason said, chuckling it out. 

“Put me back,” Farhad mumbled, eying the walls as both some place alien and all too familiar. “Put me back.”

The hallway changed several yards ahead, bulletproof glass windows at either side of a reinforced metal door the width of the entire hallway. A metal hatch lever suggested a sturdy steel bolt securing the threshold, and a sterile looking checkpoint office past both windows showed three guards manning a panel of CCTV feeds. Their guard activated a speech box, mouthing, “Gainsley 1-5-0-6, escorting some visitors for an inmate. CQ reach you yet?”

“Yep,” one said, leaned over to his mic. Something was said to him that stole his attention. Jason watched him exchange words with someone past their view, and then the guard activated his end of the comms, “hey standby.”

Jason looked at Donnelley, something about the situation making his back tense. He licked his lips, the skin dry and fraught with stinging cracks. Farhad was swaying nervously, fingers curled against his thighs. He looked understandably underweight, his hair was oily and unkempt. Still, he seemed too off. Too manic in Jason’s eyes. After an extended moment the door unsealed with a heavy clunk and swung outward, forcing them to step back.

“You hear anything on your way down here?” the guard asked their escort. “Sounds like there’s some commotion in some of the blocks above.”

“Fine to me,” the escort said. “Let’s get these guys out of here so they can enjoy the most out of the sand storm.” 

If Donnelley noticed Farhad’s body language he didn’t show it to anyone. He instead stood by, that being the only thing he could do in as cramped and quietly terrifying a place as this. Underneath the calm, his heart beat just a bit faster. Underneath his Mechanix gloves, his palms were slick. He felt like he should say something, crack a joke, anything. But in a place as lifeless and cruel as this the words would be worthless. For once, his smirking was somewhere far off. He looked to Jason, a quick glance, as if to communicate what his tongue refused to; [i]I don’t like a single thing about this.[/i]

But what else was new. Instead of the smoke-filled bar that Donnelley hoped was on the other side of the big door, a hallway that looked like the ones he’d been stepping lightly through stared him in the face. Just as cold. Just as empty. Just as cruel. They walked on, Donnelley taking a cue from Jason and keeping his eyes straight ahead, firmly away from the viewports in the gray metal doors set like jaws clamped shut in the gray concrete walls. Whoever Saddam threw in here before the big forever war, he really didn’t want getting out. 

Finally, after what felt like twisting, disjointed miles of hallway to Donnelley they’d made it to the door. Inches of metal separating him and the very man he’d been chasing for weeks. Months. It’d all end today. And it’d just be beginning for the genocidal monster that Anzor Bekzhaev had made himself into…

Or someone did.

“We’re there. Open ‘er up.” Their escort spoke into the radio clipped on his vest. Through the viewport, Donnelley could see Anzor Bekzhaev. His beard was longer than in the most recent photo the Agency had of him, and more wiry. His bald pate was struggling to hold onto a dying head of hair. In cases of malnutrition, hair and nails were the first to go. The body abandoning them just to keep your heart pumping so it could cannibalize itself.

“On the floor, hands behind your back and legs crossed.” The door unlocked, the steel pegs resting deep in the concrete slid to life and the door came open. Anzor was still standing, staring at Donnelley with a lucidity that Farhad might’ve envied. If he had the mental capacity to. Their escort strolled in nonchalant, a big smile on his face, “I like this part.”

He landed Anzor a solid uppercut just beneath the ribs and sent the wiry Chechen to his knees, gasping like a fish on the riverside. Their escort slapped the same flexcuffs Farhad was adorned with on Anzor, yanking hard as he could just to tighten the binds more painfully so and cement the idea in Donnelley’s head that he was the biggest asshole in Iraq. He had his simple pleasures with interrogations, but they were always a means to an end. This was just animal. Then again, he didn’t expect much out of this place to begin with, and Anzor didn’t exactly deserve any kindness. Anzor Bekzhaev gasped in a breath and smiled at Donnelley, showing him a mouth full of yellowed teeth, “Finally.” He croaked, “He told me you’d be here. Just not when.”

“I hope we’re not late.” Donnelley pursed his lips at the spooky talk coming from Anzor’s mouth. “Let me help you up.”

He stepped into Anzor’s cell and grabbed a fistful of his remaining hair, pulling up just enough to keep painful tension as the escort hauled him up squealing. At the last moment, the hair came out of his scalp in Donnelley’s fist. He slapped his hand on his pants to free the clinging strands and walked Anzor out from one prison onto his way towards another, a firm grip on the back of his neck.

“Time for us to go.” He said to Jason, a small bit of relief in his voice peeking through the cracks of the business casual.

An exhale puffed Jason’s cheeks out, the exaggeration all the confirmation both of them needed. Qassim was hovering over Farhad, who still swayed in that shallow rocking motion so customary with trauma. It was the compulsion of the wounded, the dance of the deranged, and all men present were familiar with its motions. Farhad’s lips were moving but no sound came out, pupils like pinpoints and locked to the mundanity of the wall as if reading its grooves. 

Before he turned Jason’s face had that peculiar expression, too much like anger wrinkling his brow, which said he was thinking hard. In truth, his mind was altogether silent. It only did that in the thick of danger, and he felt both in the midst of it yet also so distant from it. Everything around them, except the manic twitching of Farhad, was static. Jason finally nodded and took point with their escort, the other man’s gait relaxed, oblivious. Why oblivious, Jason wondered. 

They reached the checkpoint and reinforced door, each of the three guards huddled around the analog phone receiver as the one sitting at the CCTV panel nodded his head worriedly. As they approached the trio took notice and the seated one motioned for one of the other two to open the hatch, which he did hurriedly. All three looked at them with a sort of grim recognition, but they were too quick for the moment to linger. 

“What’s got them spooked?” Jason asked over his shoulder, but he could feel that culprit energy in the halls. Farhad’s silent wording turned to an audible mumbling, still incomprehensible but taking the tension in the air and pulled it taut. 

“Hey,” their escort said to Qassim, “why don’t you tell your boy to shut the fuck up or I’ll smack that haji shit right out of his mouth.”

“He’s praying,” Qassim said both disdainfully and matter-of-factly. Jason snapped his head to his shoulder, cracking it loudly, and with one hand whipped the guard into the wall. He hit with a dull thud, the impact blowing his wind out his mouth in a near comical “whoof.” Jason’s hand enveloped most of the guard’s shoulder, his bulky stature looming over the over man by nearly half a foot. 

“You touch our detainee you’re shitting your teeth out.”

The violence was altogether sudden, like a crack of thunder, and left everyone jarred, even Jason. Vehemence flared in his eyes, then it gave way to shock and confusion. Where had his composure just gone? He’d seen far worse said and done, so much so that this was out of character. But as soon as he let the man’s shoulder go there came a noise, muffled yet loud, from each of the cells. 

It started a few feet from them, the inmates shouting from the depths of their cells, some similar phrase but not in unison. It traveled far, first the cells closest to them and further on down the hallway, men shouting some phrase from their cells, the cacophony like an off-kilter chant. Everyone seemed to reset themselves from the sudden tension of the moment, another cascading wave of sound echoing out from the cells. This time it was chaos, laughter and anguish and the excited bellowing of men and their fists against the doors, the walls, their very chests. 

Another sound rang out, something faint and high pitched. For a moment it sounded like the pattering tick of 5.56 rounds, but Jason couldn’t be sure. He was still recovering from the impulsivity that had just overwhelmed him. 

“Go,” Donnelley said, following his own advice and upping his pace down the hall and back to the elevator, “Go, go, go.”

The tension in the air that had been there to silently breathe in had become a deafening roar throughout the halls. Farhad’s quiet prayers had instead become frightened pleas to God, Allah. Donnelley could feel the vibrations of Anzor’s quiet laughter through the grip he had on his neck. He squeezed tighter, not out of malice, but out of a need to shut him up. A fright in his mind at all the noise. It reminded him of that village in Pakistan, those years ago, leveled by two Hellfire missiles. But here it was, the maddening wails of then happening now, and Donnelley had an animal need to run, flee.

He chanced a look behind him and saw Qassim, Jason, and the contractor speed walking behind him. The escort so full of bravado and arrogance now looking like he was the one imprisoned here. His eyes darted from one side of the cell-lined corridors to the next. Donnelley returned his gaze to his front and kept up the pace. “Hey, asshole!” He looked back at the contractor, “Take point and get us the fuck out of here.”

The contractor looked at Donnelley, eyes still betraying his anxiety, but making no move to show if he’d heard Donnelley or not. A moment passed and he shook the stupor out of himself and jogged to the front of their queue, taking a left down a hallway, a right down another, another right. One more left turn had them at the elevator, that much closer to oxygen and away from the dead, stagnant air filled with screams. The contractor pressed the button to take them up, and then a few more times for good measure when the doors didn’t immediately open for them. Donnelley clenched his jaw and looked back at Jason and Qassim, and Farhad rocking in place and rubbing at his ears, shaking his head.

The sound of the elevator doors coming open was a welcome sound, Donnelley not wasting any time shoving Anzor inside and coming in after him. They funneled inside the small space, the doors closing in front of them, and suddenly the screams ceased. In the silence, Donnelley heaved in a breath of relief and jabbed his finger into the button that read ‘Ground’ a little harder than necessary. Anzor spoke, “Tueal Washahid.” Farhad stopped his manic jittering almost instantly, causing the rest of them besides Anzor to snap their eyes to him, “Walidu Alharb is still so far, far away from here. I can still feel him. And his words echo through our tongues still.”

Donnelley, hand still placed firmly around the back of Anzor’s neck, slammed his face into the doors and held him there, “You can tell us all about him when we get you to my neck of the woods.”

As soon as the last syllable left Donnelley’s mouth, the screen indicating the floors they were on flashed ‘1’ and the power cut off. For a second, Donnelley wondered if he broke the elevator in his aggression. In another second, he had to shove the thought away that this would be the appropriate moment in a horror movie for the elevator to start falling. It didn’t, and Donnelley dragged Anzor back away from the doors and tested his strength against them. He was only able to move them an inch or so, but he could see the hallway outside bathed in strobing secondary red emergency lighting. On. Off. On. Off.

“Jason, help me with these damned doors.” He said, his struggle only making them move another half inch or so.

“Sandstorm must have done something to the power. The doors to the cells are on another power source.” Their escort frowned, “CCTV is dead though.”

Jason slung his rifle around his back and began prying at the doors, first enough to slide his foot between them, then a knee, and wrenched his leg to get a shoulder in. One hefty grunt and the analyst was pressing his back against on door and using his legs to push the other open. Sand, rust, the general neglect of the place made it strenuous, but the elevator relented to the big man. As soon as he could fit through he darted to the hallway, rifle slung back over to a ready position. 

“Generator should back up the entire complex,” Jason said, thinking aloud. He turned to face the contractor. “Why don’t we have power?”

“I don’t know.” The was staring down the hallway at nothing in particular, knuckles white against the handle of his M-9 pistol. 

“[i]You’ll die here then[/i].” the prisoners spoke, cascading down the hallway in dissarray. Several of their accents were so thick it was as if they were just emulating English, repeating it without comprehension. “[i]Slow, painfully hungry.[/i]”

“What the fuck is going on?” Jason demanded. 

“I don’t know!”

“[i] And I’ll go back to my bunk, masturbate, and fall asleep like a baby[/i],” the inmates echoed. 

Jason didn’t want to move. His entire body tensed, now leaden, and fear demanded he push himself against the far wall of the hallway and hide, as nonsensical as it seemed. I took point instead, roused himself to move without regard to what every atom in his body insisted. 

“What’s our exit?” he said. 

“A ways,” the contractor said, his throat clearly knotted. “Guard post stairs, between this block and the next.”

“[i] Another sunrise-[/i]”                       [i] Another sunrise-[/i]”
            “[i] Another sunrise-[/i]”
    “[i] Another sunrise-[/i]”
                    “[i] Another sunrise-[/i]”        [i] Another sunrise-[/i]”

Then came laughter. A sick, amused cackle like the wailing chuckling of a hyena. And at its end came this deep whooping sound, some alien rumble of dozens of throats moaning. Beyond the threshold of understanding, even instinct in question, Jason thought it be one voice, a voice of many but just one. No, of three.

The contractor took off first, sprinting down the hallway. Jason followed immediately, the contractor’s gait and shallow steps making it easy to catch up to him. As the group moved they heard the unmistakable ticks and pops of gunfire, some distant, others eerily close and unseen. 

“Tênagim,” Farhad said in anguish, “Mn te nagem, Xweda!”

Anzor was laughing, dragged forward by Donnelley’s hand. They neared another set of doors, not as reinforced as the level below, but still fastened with a deadbolt. Beyond it semi-automatic fire cracked out, though at what distance none of them could tell. The contractor pulled on the handles without success, and then began to reach for his key loop on his belt. Back down the hallway from where came rang out a loud metal clang, the unmistakable sound of a cell door unlocking. Then another unlocked, and then another, each cell unlocking from the elevator and traveling down the hallway. 

Donnelley’s heart was between his ears and his guts felt like they’d drop into his pants at any moment. Those were [i]his[/i] words being spoken. Words no one else but he and Viktor had shared miles away from this place. He swallowed through a dry throat, letting go of Anzor’s neck to point his PDW down the hallway while the contractor fumbled with his keys. The more jingles he heard behind him the more his anxiety rose, heart beating and knuckles white beneath the gloves. He had to work hard to keep his breathing even. “Hurry the [i]fuck[/i] up!”

“I’m fucking trying, fuck!” The contractor finally found the set of keys and stabbed them into the hole, twisting so hard he might break the thing.

As soon as the first of the detainees stepped out of their cell Donnelley squeezed off two rounds into his center mass, watching his body slump forward before toppling to the floor, like his strings had been cut. Others only took shuffling steps out, barely there and empty behind the eyes, if they came out at all. The second he heard the door open behind him, he grabbed Anzor by the collar, shoving him through stumbling onto his face. The contractor was already in a desperate melee with another detainee, driving his knee several times into what looked like an African man, his eyes wild. Donnelley rose and wasted no time in sighting up, just blowing the detainee’s temple out with the bark of a .300 Blackout, watching him drop. The contractor looked to Donnelley, nodding his thanks.

“We need to get out of here…” Qassim stood with his Glock in hand, wide eyes frantically searching the hall for something to shoot.

Donnelley sympathized, the tension of before now snapping to full-blown violence. He pulled Anzor to his feet and tapped Jason’s shoulder, still covering their six, “Let’s go, man!”

“Moving!” Jason yelled, his movements half synchronized training, half frantic motion. A body leapt from the darkness of a cell and Jason responded with a quick squeeze of the trigger, his AR-10 roaring as it spit bullets. The man spun but Jason wasted no time whirling around and following the group. 

The door slammed shut, Qassim, the contractor, and Jason throwing their weight against it as the flat palms rattled the door from the other side. The other side was a similar set up as the checkpoint below. A simple guard office with a subsequent maintenance room on the other side of the hallway. The contractor bolted into the office and came back with a lock mechanism that didn’t look too far off from a steering wheel lock. He secured the handles of the door, spun around wildly to assess their surroundings, and looked at Donnelley. 

“I can call,” he said. “I can get a hold of CQ from this office.” He wasted no time rushing in and grabbing the beige LAN line receiver. 

Jason activated his mic, nothing but static  coming through. “Puma one three, puma actual. Puma one three.” 

Static. 

“Puma one three, puma actual in contact, respond. FUCK!”

More gunfire rattled in the near distance. At this level, though nearly twelve feet underground, the wind howled. It was either that or the inmates, and Jason didn’t want to dwell on which one it could be. 

He looked through the observation window at the contractor, who was talking to someone. His eyes, like all of theirs, was fear rounded with pinpoint pupils. They all looked wild, deranged, chests swaying as adrenaline coursed like ice through them. 

The contractor returned, his face a bit more deflated than a moment before. “They’re trying to secure CQ. There’s a QRF on the way.”

“Wait, what? American?” Jason asked. 

“Yeah, sometimes used for labor or guard duty. They have no idea what this is.”

“We cannot stay here,” Qassim said, eerily calm compared to the rest of them, besides Anzor. 

“Where’s our stairs?” Jason asked.

The contractor bit down on his lip, cheeks quivering. “Around the corner,” he said. “But we have to go through another hallway of cells to make it to the door.” 

“Armory?” Qassim asked. The contractor gulped. 

“Empty, must’ve cleared it when the cells opened.”

“[i]Fuck…[/i]” Donnelley’s quiet grumble, covering them while they talked behind him, Badger at low ready.

Jason unslung his AR-10 and thrust it Qassim’s way, who took it without protest. He gave Qassim two spare magazines and pulled his KSG into his hands, the compact shotgun almost like a toy compared to his frame. Fifteen rounds was all he had, but he hadn’t ever needed any more than both magazine tubes filled. It seemed woefully low.

“Okay,” he said, exhaling and giving Donnelley a grim, determined stare. “I’m not dying in this shit hole.”

Anzor cackled, it ending with a guttural wheeze. “No. Not here. Oh no, not here. What you will wish to come to pass. You will long for these halls.”

“I’m givin’ you permission to slap that shit out of his mouth.” Donnelley spoke over his shoulder towards the contractor. He didn’t do it, but Donnelley didn’t see this as a good time for arrogant cruelty either, “Take us straight to those fuckin’ stairs. Longer we’re here, more detainees’re gettin’ out.”

The contractor nodded and took point with his M9 at the ready, Donnelley following behind. The halls in this block were eerily quiet, the only sound the ambience of the firefight happening outside and on the upper floors, doors yawning open. Most empty. Donnelley hoped. There was no thought spared on stealth, their footsteps pounding echoes through the empty halls as Donnelley and the contractor only gave quick glances inside the cells. “It’s here.” The contractor said, the relief in his voice thick. “Lemme get it… it’s already unlocked.”

The contractor stepped to the side, Qassim covering the door while the contractor swung it open. Donnelley was the first through before the rest followed after his and the contractor’s call that it was clear.

“He is close. Coming for us.” Anzor cooed behind Donnelley, next to Farhad. Donnelley knew what Anzor meant by us.

“Walidu Alharb?” He entertained Anzor for a moment. The other man nodded.

“Fuckin’...” Donnelley shook his head. The sound of the sand blasting the exterior walls of the Ground Floor grew in intensity as they climbed the stairs, as well as the gunfire spliced with callouts and the sounds of screams and wailing, and laughter.

“Exit’s just past the door up here.”

“Sounds like most of the fightin’ is too.” Donnelley said after the contractor, “I’ve only got the one spare magazine. Two for my sidearm. Once we get on the other side, we make a go straight for the door, pop any detainee standin’ between us and freedom.”

Donnelley looked to Jason, “Soon as we get out those doors, radio Puma One-Three and tell them to rendezvous with us on the road.”

“Roger that,” Jason said.

“What about securing the prison?” The contractor asked.

“That’s y’all’s thing, we got what we needed.” Donnelley said, not giving any room for argument. The contractor sighed in resignation.

Jason’s nostrils flared, one big inhale before the breach. “High port, I’ll breach,” he said, coming  up on the door. “Taking left!”

He waited for Donnelley to stack on him, give him the ready-go pat on the shoulder. His one hand worked the door, the other aiming the shotgun high. In a quick, fluid motion the door swung open and he pivoted left, pulling down the KSG to threaten anyone nearby. He stepped through the threshold quickly, but before he could take another step there came a sporadic burst of fire. 

Rounds whizzed around them impacting the wall and floor. Jason fired back two slugs not knowing who was shooting at them or where, just throwing rounds back down the hall. Another burst of fire cracked on the wall immediately to his left and he instinctively ducked away from it.The chaos of the moment snagged his boot against the floor and he went down hard, KSG clattering against the ground but still in his grasp. 

Donnelley pivoted right to cover Jason’s six, mind not even registering the rounds slapping into the concrete walls, sending chips of it at him in such a flurry of fire that it made the air itself smell like concrete dust. Concrete dust and gunpowder, that familiar smell. The air was hazy with grey dust, the pops and whizzes of gunfire and bullets ripping all around them. Donnelley felt something punch him in his side and turned to see Jason on the ground. He feared the worst, but training told him to return fire, although he did it blindly. He hooked a forearm under Jason’s armpit and dragged him easily across the floor despite his bulk. Weight training with Ghost had been paying off, the heavy sled drags of weeks ago giving him strength, and so was the adrenaline.

He put them both behind a corner and again turned around, his PDW pointed down the empty corridor, ready and waiting to pop any heads peeking out. When he was sure there was none, and Qassim and the rest came diving and sprinting to join them, he asked Jason, “Are you dead, man?”

“Why do they shoot at us?” Qassim growled. The contractor wordlessly shrugged, mouth agape though no explanation came.

Jason, propped against the wall, pushed his back against it and walked back up to standing, replying, “Just fuckin’ pissed off now.” 

“Americans! Friendlies!” he yelled around the corner, brow wrinkled in anger. He gave Donnelley a once over, the strobe of the emergency lights teasing a blooming dark spot in the leader’s side every other second. Jason slid two fingers over his shirt and brought it to his nose. Coppery. 

“Boss,” he said, but couldn’t utter any other word. Another wave of rounds whizzed down the hallway at them, Qassim returning fire in long automatic bursts. 

Jason assessed Donnelley and their immediate hallway. He had no kit for combat care, and trying to half ass something would keep them static. “You good?” he asked, just hoping for any amount of coherency. He didn’t know how bad it was and wouldn’t for a few minutes. Jailbreak aside, they were on a timeline now. The contractor yelled something to his comrades down the hallway, or who they all assumed were his comrades, but it was drowned out in another exchange of fire. 

“Oh, [i]fuck.[/i]” Donnelley had found what was worrying Jason, and despite himself, it got Donnelley worrying too. As he always did, he went for his humor, “I guess I was due for another one.”

“Get us the fuck out of here, man,” Jason barked, every part of him wanting to shoot back but thought better of it. He had to keep what little ammo he had. Qassim was burning through the AR-10 quickly. 

The contractor whipped around, making sense of where they were, and barked a quick ‘follow me’ as he took off in an intersecting hallway away from their foes. Around them were screams. Some of pain, others of glee. Every one of them pitched in an unsettling mania. They could feel it all around them, some heavy and cold presence dancing in the chaos, taking flight with the sand. 

They passed scenes of red in the emergency light. Black blood stagnant on the concrete floor. Bodies of contractors laying in varying dressings of gore. Some prisoners looked away from their grim work to stare at them with glimmering animal eyes like coyotes in the dark. Down one hallway, a contractor screamed as he was being carried away. Donnelley forced his legs into movement, deciding the pain of running and the wound in his side was infinitely better than whatever was going to happen to the other man. Down one hallway, they spotted the door outside. “Fuck, it’s there!” The contractor was almost laughing.

He charged ahead, getting to the control room, but as soon as he opened the door, he was blown back into the wall behind him. His slide to laying on the floor left a curving stain of black. His hands grasped at nothing, eyes staring at nothing, and moving lips saying nothing. Donnelley pied the doorway and ducked back just as another flurry of shotgun pellets blew into the wall opposite the door. Qassim was the one to lean over and deliver a spray from the AR-10, the last belch of bullets it had. Donnelley checked over the controls, reading the labels on the panels until he found the one. With the press of a button a metallic buzz rang out and the doors slowly swung inward, a yawning passage to freedom. “Go, move!”

The courtyard was empty now as they sprinted for the Yukon in the blasting dust and wind, Donnelley hailing their Delta Force team to rendezvous with them as he frantically unlocked the doors. Qassim shoved his way into the driver’s seat, leaving Donnelley and Jason in the back. The engine came to life and they bullied their two-ton steel, up-armored government SUV through the gate, tires squealing and smoking. They made it out onto the road, engine screaming, Anzor cackling in the rear storage of the SUV and Farhad making some sound between praying and sobbing.

“Puma One-Three, Puma Actual.”

“Puma One-Three, go, Puma Actual.”

Donnelley made to speak but only let out a grating cough and wiped blood from his chin, “Oh, come on.” He muttered, switching his radio back on, “Puma One-Three, we are in contact, five klicks out, rendezvous A-S-A-P, how copy?”

“I can not see!” Qassim slapped the steering wheel, leaning closer to the windshield as if that would help the sandstorm’s visibility, or lack of.

“Good copy, Puma Actual. Puma One-Three moving to rendezvous.”

Jason worked while Donnelley was on the mic, one finger in tear of his shirt where the bullet entered, and he ripped it open to assess the wound. He punched the overhead light above them and saw a steady stream of blood ooze from puncture in the groove of Donnelley’s ribs, the wound bubbling.

“Fuck,” he hissed, one hand reaching for his back pocket. “Lung. Slow shallow breaths and tell me if it gets harder to breathe. We gotta avoid collapse. Tell me if you can’t inhale, alright?” 

He fumbled for a clip wallet, most items in it just fake accessories to corroborate whatever bullshit alibi he’d have to hypothetically use. Auto repair cards from Europe, international phonecards. He took a sturdy plastic one and slapped it against the wound. “Hold this against the wound, boss. It’ll make it easier to breathe.” It would keep the lung from collapsing, but only if Donnelley would hold it tight. In a perfect world he’d have tape to seal it. It wasn’t a good wound, not that any wound was, but this one was risky. It was deadly.

Jason pulled Donnelley’s shoulder and slipped a hand under him, checking for an exit wound. Not feeling one was both good and bad. The bullet was somewhere inside him, but hopefully not too close or in the lung. 

“Jesus christ, I thought it was my turn,” Jason said, the Yukon grumbling as it sped through the torrent. “You’d think they’d hit the big guy.”

Qassim ran over a large rock, the vehicle leaping and its back end swerving slightly before gaining traction again. 

“Puma Actual, Puma One-Three. We’re seeing approaching lights. Flash for us, how copy?”
“Qassim,” Jason said. “Flash those headlights. NOW.”

Beside their faint overhead light, which cast shadow more than illuminate, there was a sudden dark. Qassim flipped the beams on and off. Anzor was staring out the back window at nothing, some garbled words croaked, oscillating between confident and manic. 

“Puma One-Three, we’ll stop you approach. We have a casualty,” Jason said over comms, and then ordered Qassim to hit the breaks. Farhad immediate protested, pleading for them not to stop. “No, not here. Not here. The djinn walks, not here!”

Sand pummeled the car, a constant gritty wind to match the haboob’s howl. There was the sound of car doors slamming and the sudden intrusion of flashlights penetrating the windows. The back door flipped open, two team members training weapons on them and another pulling Anzor out of the back. 

“Where’s your medic?” Jason asked, and someone rounded the car. “Sucking chest wound, no exit, bullet in.” It dawned on them it was Donnelley, and though their faces belied a concern it didn’t slow the pace of their professionalism. Jason shimmied to lift Donnelley’s front as the medic took his legs. 

“Fuck me, he was talking?” the medic asked. Jason couldn’t help but chuckle, given the circumstances. It was serious, but some sort of spite was going to keep Tex alive. He was sure of it, he had to be. 

“Hey, give him some K,” Jason said. 

“Hey, I got visual on something.” The radio crackled to life, one of Stihlson’s men, “Fast movers, headlights. Count one… two…”

“Pack up, double-time, let’s get back to the Safehouse. Treat our casualty.” Stihlson’s words came quick.

Just as Donnelley looked up, sure enough, there were headlights in the sandstorm. Immediately, the Delta Operator at the back door slammed it shut. They were all in motion, moving to better positions. Whoever they were had caught them with their pants down. The flashing light and booms of a DshKA HMG signaled to Qassim that it was time to stomp the gas and hope the Delta guys could keep up. They were off down the road and Donnelley saw a shemagh-wrapped head flash by. The other black SUV fell in behind them, but it was now a chase. The steady booms rang out again amongst the din of the haboob and roar of the engine. Farhad was screaming then. Donnelley was feeling light, but he never got any of that K. “Shit,” he muttered, “Jason-“

The Yukon jostled as they clipped a white pick-up truck, sending it careening off the road and Qassim had them sliding left to right to left until he righted them again. A wordless roar escaped Qassim’s mouth as he once again gunned it. After a while, it seemed like they’d lost their pursuers, but they didn’t want to slow down. By the time they got to the Safehouse Donnelley was seeing double, his words slurred and the grip on the card sealing his wound was constantly slipping. His door opened and one of the Delta men grabbed him by the collar, dragging him out of the car. If they were going to make sure that Donnelley would see tomorrow, they couldn’t afford to waste time. Stihlson threw the door open and threw a map, a tea set, and some empty or near-empty beer bottles off of the table in the back room.

Donnelley’s feet had stopped shuffling until they uselessly dragged on the floor, all his weight being hefted by the sturdy Operator who wrestled his limp body onto the table. Donnelley groggily watched the team medic get to work. Beyond them, another of the Operators threw Anzor into a room and shut the door behind him as he followed him in. Captain Barzanji hung about the edges of the scene, “What has happened?” He asked.

“We got your fuckin’ guy.” Donnelley slurred, and then he was asleep…

>RASHEED MILITARY HOSPITAL, BAGHDAD
>31AUG2019
>0700...///

There was talking, but Donnelley couldn’t hear the words, understand them. It was muffled to him, gibberish in his ears as he stirred. The sound of the haboob was gone, he was in a bed, there was light beyond his eyelids. It smelled like chemical cleaners and the steady beep-beep-beep of a heart monitor sounded out its rhythm. He opened his eyes and it felt like they were going to burn out of their sockets. He hissed, closing his eyes, and heard the talking stop. “We can end the debrief here, I’ll get with Donnelley about the rest. Thank you.”

“Mhmm.” Donnelley grunted. It grew quiet again in the room before the door opened and then closed. He looked around, finding himself alone in the room. The windows were all drawn closed except for one that let an awful lot of painful sunlight through its slats. He found it difficult to get himself sitting on the edge of his hospital bed, no pain, but a hell of a lot of stiffness. Some macabre joke in his head that rigor mortis must be setting in. He shuffled to a corner of the room, where a plastic bag had his belongings, a buzzing coming from inside. He squatted down, rifling through his outside clothes to find a bloody shirt and pants, and within the front pocket the pictures of Farhad and Anzor. Looking at the two, even frozen in time and rendered into ink made him stop everything.

He stared at the pictures of the two men, remembering how they’d swapped their demeanors in the photos for what they’d become inside that prison that didn’t exist out in the deserts past Mosul. Farhad was less the strong-looking freedom fighter- or terrorist, depending on who you asked- becoming an unhinged madman in the prison. Anzor had fallen from his thick-bearded, shemagh wearing Chechen fighter image and into something much more sinister. More unpredictable. Unknowable.

More buzzing, this time just a short moment of it caught his attention again. His phone had a message from Smitty and a missed call from Foster. He checked the message first, they were renditioning Anzor somewhere safer and more secure. Likely outside the country. Letting them deal with that man-shaped vessel of madness made him nervous, not being there. He called Foster back next, the old Case Officer picking up almost immediately, “Moscow, Idaho. Everyone’s waiting, don’t keep them.”

“I gotta talk to you about-“ [i]click,[/i] “Fuckin’ asshole piece of…”

He sighed, tossing the phone back onto his bed. He could feel the tightness in his back as he got to standing, looking around at his empty space in this hospital, hearing the rhythmic reminder of his own mortality beeping away at him. It offended him, almost. Made him angry, but under it he was scared. Always was. Always would be. Scared he wouldn’t see the end of this forever war, wouldn’t be satisfied with the way he’d leave it, the state of things he’d fall back asleep forever in. He needed a drink and a double-shot of whiskey. That wasn’t how Tex thought, but Tex was somewhere else now.

He resigned himself to looking out the window, watching the people milling about the roads, crisscrossing the gridlocked and honking traffic. An amalgamation of the penned in animals humans always were and would be. A man across the street in baggy jeans and a leather jacket was stopped amongst a milling crowd. Long, thick beard and sunglasses. Staring at something. Donnelley took a step closer to the window and realized the man was staring at him. Donnelley swallowed, looking down at the pictures still clutched in one hand. Recognition. Donnelley looked back out of the window to see him still standing there, and just like Tex, he didn’t look away. Although he wanted to shrink back from the window, he forced his legs still and just shared the moment.

[url= https://open.spotify.com/track/7LHZ7HA45ezKcdN8sBrBuS?si=f2Wv8qZlSVaOoxiZ0t8Isg]A scowl[/url], squinted eyes sharp and stabbing for the man who couldn’t possibly be Anzor. Donnelley lifted his hand, fingers in the shape of a gun, and mimicked firing it at the man on the street. He only smiled, turning and walking on down the street and melting into the crowds. Whatever lay in that dark place near Mosul was now freed to feed upon the dark parts of humanity in the places where there was hardly any. Viktor Ozan, Anzor Bekzhaev, Walidu Alharb. His list of men to check off one by one just for another sunrise. A mess made bigger by him now.