The Disciple

“Better just kill me now,” I gasped out.

“And spoil all my fun?” she asked. “Oh, I think not.”

She gave my balls one last squeeze, which drew a grunt from me and caused every muscle in my body to contract as far as possible. She disappeared, although I could hear her somewhere in the room.

I was trying to get my breath when I heard a door open, then close.

“Major Larijani,” she said, her voice hard as a billy club. “I gave orders that I was not to be disturbed.”

Oh, great! Larijani was that ugly security asshole who worked for the MOIS.

He shot back something about Ahmadinejad, and then I heard her say, “No.” She paused, then said it again, almost begging, “No, no, no,” and then I heard a pop.

It wasn’t very loud.

The pain from my balls was lessening, and I could breathe normally again. I tried to turn my head. Larijani’s face appeared. He started working on the straps that held me down.

“Mr. Carmellini,” he said. “I am going to get you loose. Then you must quickly dress and help me with Davar Ghobadi and Ghasem Murad. They are in terrible shape.”

It didn’t compute. What was going on?

When the strap over my forehead and the ones over my arms were loose, I sat up and looked around while he worked on my legs.

Hazra al-Rashid was lying on the floor. I couldn’t see her face; just a pile of brown hide and legs and bare feet, and on the other end, a hank of hair.

“What happened?”

“I shot her,” Larijani said. I caught the glimpse of a pistol butt protruding from his belt. “There was no other way to get you out of here.”

He was working on the strap across my ankles and had his back to me. I reached around him and jerked the pistol free. The barrel wore a silencer. I put it against his head. He froze.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t pull this trigger,” I said.

“Jake Grafton asked my boss to give you some in-country help,” he replied. “I’m it.”

“You and who else?”

“Joe Mottaki is one.”

Larijani must be Mossad. At least, he knew someone that was. It looked as if I had been handed a Get-out-of-Jail-Free card, at the last possible moment, but my faith in the good guys was at low ebb. I pointed the pistol at Hazra, who was still sprawled on the floor, and pulled the trigger.

The gun made a nice pop, and as a spent cartridge was ejected, I heard the thump of the bullet striking flesh.

Well…

“I’ll keep your shooter for a bit, just in case,” I said. “Hurry up on that strap. I want to see what that bitch did to Davar and Ghasem.”

“It’s bad,” he muttered.

By God, it was.

Davar was covered with bruises and welts. Her pelvic area was a mass of blue and yellow and purple. They had also pounded her face, which was so swollen and discolored I hadn’t recognized her when I first saw her. She was semiconscious; probably with a concussion.

She groaned as Larijani and I got her loose from the gurney.

“Why did they rape her?” I asked Larijani.

“The Koran tells them not to kill virgins,” he said, “so they rape the women before they kill them.”

“Makes you wonder why Muhammad ever bothered,” I muttered.

With the pistol in my left hand, I picked Davar up, put her head on my shoulder and held her like a large baby while Larijani worked on Ghasem, who was bleeding freely. The knives Hazra had used on him were right there. I selected one of the larger ones while Larijani used a towel as a bandage to try to stop the bleeding.

I walked over to where Hazra lay on the floor. He had shot her high in the chest, over her right breast. I could also see a growing spot of blood on her lower torso, apparently where my bullet had prodded her. I turned her over on her back with my foot. Her eyes tracked and she wore a frightened expression, so she wasn’t dead yet.

I could help with that.

I bent down, still holding Davar against me with my left arm, looked Hazra right in the eyes and said, “Tell Hitler I said hello.” Then I buried the knife between her breasts, right up to the hilt.

Our clothes were lying on a bench, along with everything from our pockets. Working as fast as I could, I got clothes on Davar and ski

Leaving Davar on the bench, lying on her side, I went over to the gurney where Ghasem was.

Larijani had three towels packed around his pelvis, and they were slowly turning red. When he moved one, I saw that Hazra had sliced away much of Ghasem’s scrotum and cut so deeply into his thighs that he was bleeding from a major artery.

“I don’t think we can get the bleeding stopped,” Larijani said bitterly. “He’s going to bleed out in a few more minutes.” He exchanged one of the soaked towels for a clean one.

Ghasem’s face was pale and drawn from loss of blood. Still, his eyes fluttered open. He saw me and apparently recognized me. “Save Davar,” he whispered.

I nodded.

“The book… get it published.”

“Yeah. Sure.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

His eyes focused on the pistol, which I still had in my hand. Larijani had freed both his hands, and now he lifted one, held it out. “Give me the gun,” he said.

I handed it to him, butt first. Larijani backed off a couple of steps.

Ghasem Murad looked at Larijani, looked at me, then raised the pistol to his temple and pulled the trigger.

The gun fell onto the floor as the spent cartridge skittered along the stone, making a tinkling noise.

I picked up the gun and handed it to Larijani.

The backpack was on the floor by my gurney. I made sure everything was there and zipped it shut, then put it on. Then I picked up Davar. I put her over my left shoulder, too, in order to have my right hand free, and said to the major, “Let’s get the fuck outta here.”

Larijani screwed the silencer off the barrel of his pistol and pocketed it, and kept the pistol in his hand, pointed at me. “You in front,” he said. He pulled the door shut behind us.

In the anteroom were four guards. Larijani said something to them, and I caught the phrase “doesn’t want to be disturbed.”

The guards were curious as hell, but they knew better than to question orders. They looked at me, at Davar, then back to Larijani and nodded. He growled something, and they stiffened to attention.

We walked out, with me leading the way, carrying Davar.

When he was satisfied we weren’t being followed, Larijani said he was taking us to the safe house. He didn’t have much to say after that, and I didn’t either. We walked out of the building and got into his car. I put Davar on the backseat and got in beside her.

Maybe I shouldn’t have given the pistol to Ghasem. I knew he was going to shoot himself, and I knew damned well we couldn’t stop the bleeding. Hell, that could have been me on that gurney-and it would have been in another hour or so if Larijani hadn’t come in and shot the hell bitch-and if it had been me, I’ve have wanted the pistol, too.

I tried to put Ghasem out of my mind and focus on Davar. One eye was swollen completely shut. She could see a little out of the other. Her nose was broken, and she breathed through swollen lips. She was conscious enough to know what was going on.

“Hazra told me she knew everything,” she said, so softly I had to put my ear near her lips to hear. “Knew who I saw, what I did… knew about me and you.” She drew a ragged breath. “She said she was the one who serviced the drop.”

My brain was frozen. I couldn’t come up with words to comfort her.

After a bit she continued. “Said I thought I was committing treason, and since I wanted to, I had to suffer and die… Then she laughed. Said I had helped fool the Americans, the Great Satan.”