Chapter Thirty

Saleem wasn’t there but a small, angry mob of men in their twenties and thirties was. They were heading toward the opening to the alley, still about ten seconds away at their current brisk pace. Most wore traditional garb; a few were in Western clothes. All brandished some form of weapon. There were a couple of sticks that looked like they could hit a baseball further than a Louisville Slugger. Several rifles. One rolling pin. The men were all heavily bearded, observing Sharia law regarding facial hair and Taliban law regarding being angry and violent. Jarvis looked behind him toward the alley but he wouldn’t get far, particularly if Cigar Guy’s men decided his hall pass had expired. Too much traffic to cut across the street. Running seemed cowardly. He looked up the street and could make out Saleem’s taxi at a standstill, the wheels cutting toward another unmarked lane as he tried to work his way through the mass of cars to Jarvis. The men would get there long before Saleem did and Jarvis had no idea why they were bearing down on him with anger in their eyes. Jarvis reached behind his shirt for the larger gun hidden there and waited. Pulling it too soon would just agitate others near him and get him shot before the focused mob reached him. The men were only a few steps away now and Jarvis turned slightly to make himself a smaller target, also putting his shoulder against the building’s stone wall for leverage. The mob got to the corner where he stood and their voices were harsh, angry, violent. But they ignored Jarvis. They swept past him as if he were no one of interest and continued another few feet down the sidewalk. Jarvis did not relax his grip on the gun but looked ahead of the passing crowd. He saw a woman, her rich, black hair bouncing on her shoulders, the rest of her body covered by a heavy cloth down to the tops of her shoes. She was walking without haste, looking at the vendors’ stalls, until she heard, or sensed, the furor behind her.

 

She turned just as the man leading the group reached her. He’d already raised his arm, the thin, mean stick high above his head. He brought it down across her face while he was in full stride. His momentum added vicious weight to the blow and the woman’s shock took a moment to transform into pain. Inexplicably, she did not cringe or turn away. As if mesmerized, she stared at the man even as an angry welt rose from her forehead to chin. The man bumped into her as he came to a halt and sprang back as if touching a hot stove. He raised the switch again and as he did, the other men in his small mob surrounded the woman. Their timing was impeccable, as the woman began to emerge from her surprised stupor and look around for escape. There was none. A man behind her, younger than the others but with a look of vengeful fervor in his eyes visible across the distance to where Jarvis watched, had his rifle in his hands. He drew it back, butt first, and brought it down toward the back of her head just as the first man swung the switch again. It saved her life, temporarily at least, as she tried to cover her face with her hands and bend away from the blow from the switch. Her movement made the younger man miss what would otherwise have been a devastating strike on the back of her skull.

 

All the men were shouting now and a crowd was beginning to gather. Jarvis caught the words for “whore” and “blasphemy” or something similar. This band, sanctioned or not, was patrolling the streets for anyone violating Sharia law. She had gone out in public without proper covering – not the only woman on the street who failed to wear the head-to-toe burkha, but something in her step had caught the attention of the vigilantes. Too light-hearted, too confident. Too happy. Other men in the group crowded in closer, striking the woman until she fell.

 

Jarvis itched to pull out the guns, to run over, to be the hero. He had seen this before but those times he had been with a squad of well-armed soldiers and it had been easy to intervene. Today, though, he would only be mobbed and maybe killed; at minimum he would end up in a prison. The woman probably wouldn’t be killed, but she would suffer bruises, cuts, and at least a few broken bones. Her face, if the group was particularly fervent, might be sliced and made ugly, an inducement to cover it and her hair from now on. Jarvis’ hands quavered and he made fists. They stayed clenched as he turned and walked toward where Saleem inched toward him. He cut across the barely moving cars and got in. His friend had seen what was happening a hundred feet away and there were tears in his eyes.

 

“This is not my country. This is not how I want my children to grow up. Taliban are strong again. It is…it is not what Allah wants.”

 

Jarvis was grim-faced and tried not to look at the crowd watching the men as the taxi crept past the scene. But he did look, he stared hard. Some in the crowd cheered the abusers on. But a few, mostly older men and women but among them some youngsters, were quietly disgusted. They hid their outrage, fearful they might be next. Jarvis looked at them but could feel little optimism as the screams of the woman on the ground faded and she lost consciousness.

 

“We have a long drive. You can’t come all the way, but if you get me as far as Bar-al-Akar I’ll get a local driver.” Jarvis touched the gun inside his jacket. In his mind, he dismantled it and put it back together. He did it in real-time, skipping no steps and not pretending to go faster than he was capable of – twenty seconds later he mentally stripped the larger pistol tucked in his belt.

 

“You know I want to help you more, my friend. To do more.”

 

Jarvis looked at Saleem in the rear view mirror. “You have a family to take care of. You’re already risking too much.” The truth didn’t ease Saleem’s guilt over not taking up arms. He drove silently through the miasma of cars until they thinned at the outskirts of town. The road widened and traffic moved. It was late morning and the heat was beginning to build. Saleem closed the windows and turned on the air conditioning.

 

Jarvis thought back to the woman he shot in the throat in Mohan’s New York apartment. She knew his name. She blamed Jarvis for the death of her son. It could have been one of the men he’d had to shoot during any one of a dozen firefights. A raid on a village where there’d been collateral damage. But Mohan had been there that day when the RPG hit the school. Children had died along with parents and at least a few of the Taliban who’d ambushed Jarvis. Mohan had been there, part of the capture and near-slaughter of Brin. It had to be connected. He directed Saleem toward the village, along the same road he’d ridden years earlier. This time though he wasn’t in a Humvee, no armored plates or .50 caliber machine guns. No comrades who had his back except Saleem. And no idea what he was walking into except that it was part of the puzzle that led to people dying in the US and Brin struggling in the hospital.