Over the Panj

“What do you know about Matthew McCann, Lieutenant?”

Lt. William Fox heard the colonel’s voice over the shouting gale of the wind and the propellers. He held onto the strap above, by now all too used to the heat and the dry air that buffeted into the helicopter.

“The same as anyone else does, sir.” He almost couldn’t hear his own voice. “Terrorist leader, religious extremist… he’s wanted by almost every government west of Lebanon. And a few to the east.”

The colonel nodded.

Col. Albert Barnes had been silent since ordering Fox and his detachment to accompany him. His gaze stayed intently out the open door of the helicopter, scanning the desert cliffs and the river far below. The Panj was just as wide here as it was anywhere, and the cliffs on either side were just as barren.

“Can I ask, sir, what this is about?” Fox asked, when the colonel said nothing further.

“Matthew McCann was shot three days ago,” Barnes said finally. The usually stoic lines around the colonel’s eyes betrayed what Fox thought was a hint of pain. “He had been in our custody since the twelfth of September, and while he wouldn’t cooperate, we had reason to believe that he and his wife Aisha shared the information we were looking for. She was in our custody until this morning.”

“Yes, sir,” Fox said. “If you’ll excuse me, sir, why are you telling me?”

Barnes kept his eyes out the open door.

“I don’t believe in that whole ‘do what you’re told, damn the context’ thing.”

Fox considered that for a moment, not bringing up the irony of only telling him.

“Yes, sir.”

They both continued in silence, along with the four others, watching the cliffs. But for what exactly, Fox didn’t know. The escaped woman? A place to hide? Or something else? He assumed the colonel would know when he saw it.

“Aisha McCann was cooperative when we told her her husband was dead,” Barnes said, with more than a shred of what sounded like respect. “She accepted our offer: transportation, security, cash—the usual incentive shit—in exchange for the location we’ve been wanting. Which should be out here.” He pointed out along the cliffs.

“How did she escape, sir?” Fox asked.

“Killed her two escorts,” Barnes said. “Took the case of money with her. We’re hoping she came here and we can kill two birds with one stone.”

“How much was it?” Fox asked. But the colonel shook his head dismissively.

“Twenty thousand,” he said. “But it could’ve been a lot more. We’re more interested in what it was in exchange for.”

“Which is what exactly, sir?”

The colonel didn’t answer immediately. He held onto the strap above, ducking further inside as they flew through a cloud of dust. When he did speak, he seemed hesitant.

“Back when McCann was getting prominent,” he started, “there were rumors he had some kind of secret weapon.”

“Yes, sir,” Fox said. “I thought that was a smokescreen.”

Barnes nodded.

“That’s what we’ve tried to maintain. It’s more or less true, though.”

Fox continued to watch the cliffs, but he tried to imagine what kind of weapon would have governments all over the world so up in arms.

“What is it?” he asked. Barnes didn’t answer immediately.

“A book,” he said. Fox frowned at the revelation, trying to comprehend it.

“Like a codebook… sir?”

“Something like that,” Barnes said. Then his attention shifted. “There.”

The colonel pointed out the door to a cliff some distance ahead; and, holding onto the strap, Fox leaned closer to the open sky. There, stood a run-down shack that might’ve been built in the eighteen-hundreds. Not far from it was a section of cliff that jutted out from the rest, protruding almost to a point over the riverbank below. A figure in a long black dress stood atop the cliff, her arm outstretched and her hair flying undone. Something was trailing down from her palm and into the wind.

“What’s she doing, sir?” Fox shouted.

“Mourning,” Barnes said. “She burnt the money.”

As they flew closer, Fox could see what looked like a charred briefcase lying open at the woman’s feet.

The helicopter set down just outside the hut.

“Weapons on, let’s move!” Fox said, leading the soldiers to file out behind the colonel, into the dust and the heat. The colonel’s own sidearm was holstered.

“Hold your men here, Lieutenant,” Barnes said, when they were within a stone’s throw of the cliff.

Fox signaled the halt, watching the woman carefully as the colonel approached her. The woman kept her back toward them as she dusted the ash from her fingers and, reaching up, pulled a black covering over her head, tucking her long waves of hair inside it.

Despite his wariness, Fox’s stomach turned. Fox thought he knew beauty when he saw it, even before she turned and he saw her face. Her skin was olive and tan, angular cheekbones above a smooth jaw. A strand of her black hair remained free, dancing in front of her eyes: stoic Arab eyes, that hardened dangerously as she faced the colonel. The hazel in them matched sparse bruises on her face.

They exchanged words Fox couldn’t hear and, after a moment, the woman Aisha threw something at the colonel’s feet.

A book.

Fox felt his pulse rising. It was a small, black book with nothing on the cover. Nothing, at least, that he could see. The colonel picked it up and flipped it open, appearing to sift through some of the pages. He looked up, eyeing the woman, whose expression was unchanged, rapping the book in his hand. Without ceremony, he tossed the book back on the ground.

A fake? Fox thought. Wouldn’t he take it for chemical tests?

Silence chilled the otherwise heavy desert air. Some of the soldiers were glancing at each other, waiting on the exchange by the cliff. Finally, the colonel spoke, saying words that sounded like, ‘where is it?’ When the woman was silent, Fox felt his pulse rise further, blood now pounding in his ears. A rush of cloth, and a gun appeared in the woman’s hand, small and shiny metal. The soldiers jumped, training their weapons onto the woman.

“Colonel!” Fox shouted.

But Col. Barnes showed no sign that he heard. He stared down the woman’s gun, his back to the soldiers. And when the woman pulled the trigger, Fox felt more than heard the shot, as if it had ripped through his own stomach. Shock rammed through the soldiers like a wave of ice as the colonel flopped dead against the ground.

The woman stood over him, hate in her eyes.

“FIRE!”

Fox wasn’t sure then if the scream had left his mouth moments before or after a succession of shots tore through her. Neither would he remember the calm in her eyes as she staggered back and fell over the side of the cliff.

** ** **

The sun was still high when Lt. Fox and his men rounded the last switchback to the bottom of the cliff. Fox was still searching through the pages of the black book; not a single page was marked. Hale and Richards had stayed behind to radio for help and tend to the colonel’s body.

When they reached the bottom, Fox hurriedly tucked the book away, ordering the soldiers to spread out as they searched for the McCann woman. When they neared the protruding cliff where the woman had stood, Fox looked up, judging the height.

No way she survived that fall.

“Lieutenant!” Jameson, who was closest to the water, called out. Fox and the other soldier rushed over, avoiding tangles of brush.

The woman laid staring up at the sky, her head half submerged in the river. A dark trail in the dirt gave the impression she had dragged herself to the water, and a stream of blood ran from her head, dispersing in the clear current. Her breast still rose and fell, but slowly and solemn.

“Fox,” she breathed out as they drew near, her accent still distinguishable.

Lt. Fox froze. She said his name again, but this time more insistent. Seeing no danger, as the woman’s limbs were broken, Fox approached her.

“Closer,” she said. He bent to kneel over her, bringing his ear to her lips. He thought he could feel the warmth leaving her.

When she began to whisper, Fox’s body seized. He was unable to move, unable to think… and she poured into him words he wouldn’t remember, charming and caressing a part of him so hidden he didn’t know it was there. In his vision the river flowed by, but he couldn’t see it. He had only the awe and the numbness that the woman filled him with.

Before she released him the woman spoke a single name. And when Fox was free he collapsed and fell into the river, kicking and fighting to wake himself up. He returned to the shore only to find the woman dead.

** ** **

William Fox walked a dirt road lined with refugee tents, a name on his tongue.

A man with a basket and head wrap was hurrying past, and Will stopped him by the shoulder. He whispered the name in the man’s ear and the man nodded hurriedly, pointing down the road. Will let the man on his way and started toward a tent at the end of the long line.

The tent was taller and occupied more space than any of the others. Potted desert plants grew by the opening and wooden beads were draped over it in many places around. Will entered, pulling aside a painted animal fur.

More flora took up much of the space inside, bookcases and luggage chests filling in between. Behind a table by the center pole of the tent stood a woman turning the page of a book, who looked up when Will entered. She was dressed in khaki desert drab pants and a white buttoned shirt, her long blond hair tied halfway up by a net of red and indigo beads.

“Mary Anne?” he said, and he felt a sigh of relief as the name left him.

The woman appeared shocked, her fingers falling on the open book. When she spoke, her accent was English.

“Yes,” she said. “Who are you?”

“I’m William Fox,” he said. “The wife of Matthew McCann gave me your name.”

“And?” the woman said.

“I think you have some answers I need.”

The woman, Mary Anne, stared at him for a long moment, her blue eyes piercing him.

She nodded slowly, and when her gaze broke, Will let out a breath he didn’t remember holding. Mary Anne turned toward a trunk along the back wall of the tent, and she knelt before it, undoing the latches and pushing it open. When she returned to the table she held something delicately in her hands.

A book. A little book with a plain black cover.

When Will approached the table, Mary Anne appeared to want to recoil.

“Did Aisha tell you what this was?” she asked.

Will shook his head.

“She said a lot of things, but I don’t remember.”

Mary Anne slid the book toward him, and Will could see the hint of excitement in her otherwise anxious eyes.

“What is it?” Will asked. She was watching him closely.

“What Matthew told me the last time I saw him.”

“What’s that?”

“‘We need more foxes.’ I thought he meant…” Mary Anne shook her head.

“Read it,” she said.

Will's chest had begun pounding inexplicably. He touched the black cover, his fingers brushing against hers.

“But, read it only if you want to know.”

“Want to know...”

“What you're here for."

The dust and the heat crept into the tent and, before he could decide otherwise, Will opened the book.