Major Rob Harris knocked on the door then entered without waiting for an answer. Katz lay there with his eyes closed. Before surgery the left side of Peter Katz face was sunken and loose-skinned. Now it was swollen and tight. Harris wasn’t sure which looked better. He counted ten stiches in Katz’ cheekbone but could only guess how many were in his heavily bandaged leg.
“I am not an animal. I am a human being!” Katz moaned slowly still with his eyes closed.
Harris laughed. “The Elephant Man. Loved that movie.”
Katz opened his eyes and looked painfully at his visitor.
Harris extended his hand and introduced himself. Katz smiled as well as he could manage and motioned to Harris to pull up a chair.
“Thanks for the lift.”
“It was no trouble. Cheryl Ferguson felt like a little ride in the desert and I just thought I’d tag along. I’m on leave and heading home for a break. The boss asked me to drop in on the way. He thought you might have a few questions.”
Katz reached for the bed control panel and raised himself to a half sitting position.
“Damned right I have a few questions. For one, what the hell did he think he was doing releasing a terrorist who had just blown up a school and killed a dozen kids? I didn’t want to be where I was, but I sure as hell don’t want people like Khan running free either.”
Harris could see that Katz was genuinely agitated. If it was me, he thought, I’d just be glad to be back. No questions asked. Harris poured himself a glass of water and one for Katz and began to explain the events of the past week starting with the capture of Khan and finishing with an explanation of how they implemented Lieutenant Colonel Frank Elliott’s plan.
“When the CO took one of those GPS microchips out of the plastic bag we could hardly see it, it was so small. None of us was all that convinced his plan would work but we all, well nearly all, agreed it was worth a try. Besides, the Americans were keen to see their new technology applied to a real-life situation. And you were it.
We all just hoped it would play out after the exchange as Elliott planned.
Wednesday July 3rd – Helmand Province, Afghanistan
Ahmed Khan stood in the sparsely furnished room and began to undress. He removed his glasses and placed them on a small table. He dropped his clothes on the floor.
“Take them and burn them,” he ordered. He wrapped himself in a new robe, hoisted himself onto a smooth timber bench and told the surgeon to start his work.
The surgeon applied some local anaesthetic to Khan’s forehead and after a minute started to unpick the stitches placed there by the Australian doctor a day earlier. The sides of the wound had already began to mend together so the surgeon reached for his scalpel.
“This will hurt, Ahmed.”
Khan stared at the ceiling and did not reply. Even as the blade cut through his skin and reopened the wound his unblinking eyes remained fixed and emotionless. I do not deserve the great privilege and honour of undertaking this procedure on such a great and heroic man, the surgeon thought.
“You were right,” he said suddenly. He swapped his scalpel for a pair of tweezers. A few seconds later he victoriously held up the minute tracking device for all to see.
He carefully re-stitched and bandaged Khan’s head wound. Khan climbed off the bench and dressed in his new clothes and sandals.
“Show it to me,” he demanded as he reached for his glasses. Khan inspected the tracking device with a disdainful smirk, “Yes, they should stick to cricket.”
With that he dropped the microchip on the floor and crushed it beneath his sandal.
Katz shook his head. “Well that doesn’t sound like much of a plan to me. What did I miss?”
“The same thing Khan missed – the second microchip. We planted it in the frame of his glasses when we repaired them. We’re still getting a signal from it but that’ll only last another two days, three at most. As you can imagine, you can’t get much of a power source into something that small. At present he hasn’t moved from his home village. If he does, we’re hoping it will be to his cubbyhouse in the mountains to meet up with his murderous cronies. If that happens in the next day or so, then we’ll have him, and the rest. That’d put a nice big hole in the Taliban’s holiday plans.”
“Risky.”
“I agree, but Ferguson reckons you’re worth it.” Harris stood and shook Katz’ hand. “All the best, mate. Australia, here I come.” He turned to leave.
“Oh, almost forgot.” Harris reached into his pocket and took out a small, silver key. “I believe this is yours.”
Katz had lost count of the number of times Khan had dangled that key in front of him demanding information and threatening all sorts of things against whoever this Alison person was. However, with every taunt and torment, Khan unwittingly reminded Katz of the reason he had to survive. The very thing that was meant to weaken him gave him strength.