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Rafe Stoner looked around the saloon bar when he entered through the back door of Ma Kelly's in Jalalabad. Ostensibly a guesthouse, it was a little known secret that the place was a brothel. He moved in after the insurgents murdered Madeleine Charpentier, the girl he'd planned to grow old with. The girl he met soon after the break up with Faria, when she chose to go off with the other guy.
A fucking Russian of all people; Greg Blum, Jesus, what did she see in him!
He'd wanted to take Blum apart at the time, but he eventually calmed down enough to see sense. Then he met Madeleine and once again fell in love. He felt the twinge of pain as he always did when he thought of her. He'd moved into the whorehouse because it felt like putting two fingers up to a crazy, cruel world. A symbolic 'fuck you' to anyone who criticized his dubious choice.
In spite of everything, he'd grown to enjoy living in this place. Some of the girls were even nice, although they weren't Maddie. Once again he thought of the vivacious and beautiful French girl. He pictured her in his mind. Slim, lithe, always a smile on her lips, and a UNHCR id badge pinned to her blouse. She had dark hair cropped in a neat bob. The way French girls knew how to make it look pert and sexy. Her skin was smooth and unblemished, and she possessed a curvy body a man could die for. He would have died for her, but they'd killed her first.
After the death of Maddie, he had little left to live for, an apartment in a brothel, and a crappy surplus machinery business that barely broke even, although it served as a front. His main income came from his connections to certain high-ranking people in Kabul. They used his Special Forces expertise when they needed to take care of a problem. Permanently. The pay was good, and there was a bonus. The possibility the other guy would shoot first and put an end to his pain. He often wondered when some gun happy nutjob was waiting around the next corner to pop a bullet into his hide. He thought about death often. Welcomed it always.
One day, it'll happen. Finish.
Stoner kept a suite of rooms on the top floor of the brothel. He owned half of the place. Yet was content to allow the feisty redheaded Irish-American, Fiona Kelly, to run the place. She also owned the other half.
He felt weary as he walked into his apartment. He'd just finished a contract for a Kabul finance minister. It'd been hard, much harder than usual. The reason why wasn't difficult to work out. Instead of carrying out a discreet surveillance of the target as he'd intended, the principal had insisted he rush the job.
As a result, he ran into serious trouble. The target was a man who'd assassinated a government tax collector in a restaurant in Jalalabad. The victim was a relative of the minister, trying to collect money owed to the government coffers, or more specifically, to the personal coffers of the finance minister. His relatives, especially the minister, were sufficiently pissed to put up a big cash reward to persuade him to take on the job. Not for justice. Afghanistan was a land of revenge. They wanted revenge, not justice. They'd already pronounced sentence of death on the murderer, so it was just a question of killing him or bringing him in to face the rope. They weren't too particular about the way he met his death.
It started to go wrong when he was sitting in a bar, quietly drinking coffee opposite the home of his target. He watched through the dirt-streaked windows, knowing the layers of grime were so thick they hid him from view. The house across the street was opulent, with high steel gates and even an armed guard standing watch just inside.
The man he'd come for, as well as a killer, was a wealthy opium trafficker. He preferred to keep all of his profits rather than hand a proportion to the government. Like everyone, he would have known it would never reach the government coffers. But it would pay for the lavish villas and armored limousines of the politicians, already wealthy after years of skimming the foreign aid budgets as well as their own people. Personally, he didn't give a shit. It was a job, no more, no less. Besides, a crooked politician was nothing new.
"What are you doing here?"
He turned quickly, his hand reaching for the Desert Eagle strapped under the left side of his coat, identical to the handgun on the right side. He froze as he eyed the man standing in front of him. Like most Afghans, he was short, wizened, his face etched with the deep lines of unending poverty, starvation, and warfare. However, it was the man's eyes he took seriously. Faded brown, with the icy chill of an Arctic pool, and the vacant gaze of a heroin addict. He clutched an AKS; a compact assault rifle Stoner knew well, the folding stock variant of the venerable Kalashnikov AK-47. The weapon even used the same banana shaped magazine.
The end of the barrel was only a few inches away. So near it looked like the entrance to a tunnel. The man had the rifle half hidden under his coat. Stoner had no doubt his finger was on the trigger, and he wouldn't hesitate to squeeze it and pour 7.62mm rounds into his body. He kept it casual.
"Doing? Enjoying a cup of coffee. It's good, why don't you join me?"
The man's granite expression didn't change. "My boss doesn't want you here. He says you're to leave now, or I'll kill you."
The American’s expression didn't change, but inside he sighed.
What a way to earn a living. What if I was just here to enjoy a cup of coffee, and I got this hassle? Although it's true I’m not here for the coffee. Jesus, it's not that good. His boss will be the guy they sent me here to kill. Decision time, do I pull out or not? Then again, I've never pulled out of an operation. Not before. Not, now.
He slowly brought up his hands to show the man they were empty. The Afghan relaxed, but only slightly. He decided the man needed more convincing. Before he killed him.
"Pal, if it means that much to you, I'll find somewhere else."
"Go back to Jalalabad."
So they know who I am, where I'm from, and why I'm here. Shit.
He fixed a goofy smile on his face. "Hey, look, I'm going. No sweat."
Slowly, so there'd be no mistakes, he climbed to his feet, keeping his hands visible. He eased away from the table and walked toward the bar. He had his back to the gunman, and his spine tingled with tension, waiting for the bullet. The barman caught his eye, and he waved.
"Hamid, I need the check."
The man looked puzzled. "But you paid when I brought you the coffee. At least, I think you did."
His memory hadn't failed him. Stoner always paid in advance on a surveillance job. It wouldn't do to have the local cops chasing him for an unpaid bill. He put on a puzzled expression.
"You've made a mistake. It was that table over there."
As he said the last word, he started to turn. With his body shielding his right hand from the gunman, he used his left to point sideways at the table he'd just vacated. The gunman had heard the exchange and saw only a simple transaction between the bar owner and the customer. It was the last thing he would ever see. Stoner dragged a Desert Eagle from under his coat. He'd cocked and loaded it; all he needed was to release the safety. He thumbed it forward, aimed, and fired in a split second. The man didn't even have time to raise the barrel of his rifle before the huge, fifty-caliber Action Express cartridge smashed into his chest.
Weighing almost an ounce, the kinetic shock of that amount of lead striking the human body is hard to envisage. Like being hit by a truck. Yet this truck put all of its massive energy into a bullet half an inch in diameter and one and three-quarter inches in length. The enormous force smashed his body backward, and he was dead before his corpse broke through the plate glass window and ended up on the dusty sidewalk outside.
The loud explosion of the fifty-caliber bullet fired inside the bar echoed around the walls, freezing both customers and barman as if they were suddenly locked in ice. Stoner hung his right hand at his side, keeping hold of his gun, and walked outside. It was time for a sharp exit; the target would come later. Unfortunately, the target had other ideas in the shape of two more gunmen waiting outside the bar. Both men carried conventional wooden stock AK-47s, and both barrels were pointed at him.
A frac
tion of a second before the first rounds flattened against the wall of the building, he dived back inside. He had no illusions. As powerful as a Desert Eagle was, a pistol was a poor match for fully automatic weapons. He kept close to the floor and crawled to where the gunmen he'd killed had dropped his AKS. Scooping it up with his left hand, he went to the window and peered out. The men were about to enter the bar, and as they came through the door, he leapt over the sill into the street outside. He ran to the door and stepped back inside the bar. His two opponents were searching for him beneath the tables while the customers were still sitting like statues in their chairs.
"Looking for me?" he called.
They spun around, too late. He squeezed the trigger of the AKS and knocked them both down with a short burst. He ran to check they were dead, and left the bar in a hurry. The man he was hunting had no shortage of soldiers, hungry men who'd kill for their next bag of opium. It was time to get out of Dodge.
He raced out of the bar and started along the street to where his Jeep Wrangler waited around the corner. He didn't make the corner unscathed. A burst of gunfire checked him, and he cursed as a bullet creased his right hand, causing him to drop the Desert Eagle. He brought the AKS around to shoot back, but after two bullets left the barrel, the firing pin clipped on empty. He tossed it to the ground and stooped to pick up the dropped handgun, cursing the gunman for failing to load his weapon with a full clip.
Cheapskate.
More lead smacked into the stonework, and he ran. Around the corner, his Jeep was only fifty meters away. Standing in front of it was an Afghan. The man was staring at him with cruel eyes. He had a hooked nose, pockmarked skin, and wore a black turban on his head. Two hard-looking men, his bodyguards, flanked him. He knew they were shooters because their AKs were pointing at his belly. Stoner slowed as he recognized his target. Sima Sirobi. The man he'd come to Ghazni to either bring back or kill.
As he came close, Sirobi smiled. He'd won, and he knew it.
"It's time for you to say your prayers, Stoner. If it's any consolation, I'll send my men to deal with your principal, the finance minister. He's been trying to muscle in on my business for too long, so I'm pleased you gave me an excuse to kill him." He stared at Stoner's bleeding right hand, "A pity about your hand, otherwise you may have had a chance."
He turned to the man on his right and said, "Kill him."
The American flung himself flat on the packed earth of the street. His left hand dived inside his coat and dragged out the fifty-caliber strapped to his right side. The huge handgun boomed twice, and the two men dropped to the ground. Sima Sirobi froze in terror as he saw his two bodyguards fall, leaving him defenseless.
Stoner walked forward, took out steel handcuffs, and clipped them on his wrists.
"Sirobi, you're finished. I'm taking you back to Jalalabad."
"No, no, there's no need to do this. I can make you rich."
"Yeah, and I can make you dead. I guess you know about the sentence they passed after you murdered that tax collector. Death, as I recall."
"How much do you want? You know whom I'm working with? Massoud. He can raise more money than you'd believe. Besides, you wouldn't want to make an enemy of that man. He'll find you and kill you, I promise."
Stoner grinned. "Plenty have tried and I'm still breathing. Let's go."
He hustled the protesting man into the passenger seat of his Wrangler, clamped the cuffs to a ringbolt on the dashboard, and climbed into the driving seat. He took a last look at the two bodies on the ground. They were both suckers, working for a nasty shit like Sirobi. A man involved with an even nastier shit than himself. Massoud had a reputation as a vicious psychopath, in a land where vicious psychopaths were two a penny. These men had paid the ultimate price for getting involved. Even so, he'd been slack, letting that shooter get the drop on him in the bar.
Next time, it'll be different, although, maybe there won't be a next time. It came to close, much too close. Is it time to look for alternative work? Maybe.
Local children were already coming to rifle the bodies. Most prized were the weapons, followed by money, cigarettes, and jewelry. Opium was in demand, of course, heroin if they had any in their pockets; it was the common currency of Afghanistan. He went to turn the key with his right hand but winced at the pain.
I should never have fallen for that one. I'm getting too old for this.
He used his left hand to turn the key and start the engine. He drove away, steering one-handed, and headed for home. He'd got away with it, but only just. Drug people didn't like government hitmen gunning them down, which is why he always kept his operations secret. But now he'd engaged them in a gunfight in broad daylight on a crowded street.
Will they come after me to extract revenge? Yep, as sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Too bad!
He drove back to Jalalabad and took Sima Sirobi to the police station. The cops grinned at their illustrious prisoner and put more manacles on his ankles. Then they led him to the condemned cell. He glanced at the desk sergeant.
"What about the reward money?"
The man looked irritated. "Reward?"
Does he really think he can keep it for himself?
"You heard me. The reward, when do I get paid?"
"The Afghan Police will settle with you in due course, Mr. Stoner. Why not call back tomorrow to speak to the Commander."
"I'll do that." And arrange the Commander's commission at the same time.
He knew it would be six months, if he were lucky, before he saw the money. No problem, he could wait. In the meantime, he wondered if it was way past time for him to hang up his spurs and retire. He had his U.S. Navy pension and a substantial pile of money in his bank account. Yet the idea of retirement irked him. Sitting in a dusty bar, drinking beer, and swapping stories with old pals didn't appeal. He lived for adventure, for risk, but this time he'd nearly died for it. Still might, if the drug goons came looking for him.
No sweat, I'll worry about that tomorrow.
Even as he had that thought, he smiled.
What am I, Scarlett O'Hara?
He walked into Ma Kelly's, and almost immediately one of the whores approached him with a beaming smile. Her name was Anahita, and he knew she'd have been waiting for him. Her face fell as she looked at the blood dripping from his hand.
"Stoner, what happened?"
"Shit happened. It's nothing serious. I need a dressing and then a long hot shower."
"I'll go find the doctor to attend to it, and make sure the water's hot. Anything else?"
He gave her a good long look. She was pretty, attentive, and always willing. "Sure, whatever's on offer."
The smile returned to her face, and she swiveled her hips provocatively as she ran to fetch the doctor.