Quest for Honor (2 page)

Surely the Americans would be willing to bargain for that. His life, for that of their newest and most dangerous enemy. They would offer money, as well, but he cared not a whit for that. His life, that was what he cared about, and the chance to repent.

He would have to be very careful. Which of his men could be trusted? None of them, that much he knew, even Amir, his most loyal, who had been by his side for twenty years now. Worse, al-Qa’im now had his own eyes and ears in the camp. No, he would have to be very clever, a challenge very great, even for a clever man such as himself. But it could be done. For the next hour he turned the problem over in his head, and finally an idea came to him. It was dangerous, and perhaps the longest of long shots, but it might work. The success or failure of it all would depend on one man. Yusuf didn’t know where the man was; he hadn’t seen him in nearly three decades now, since university. Was he still around that town? Was he even still alive? There was only one way to find out.

He slept, and he did not dream.

CHAPTER TWO

Wisconsin

T
he engine roared
as the driver slammed the accelerator to the floor, and Jim Hayes had to hold on to the handles of the machine gun as their modified Humvee raced through the streets. Images flashed past him on the right: the faces of the Iraqis, some frightened, some angry, some cloaked in scarves. Those were the ones to watch out for, because they always had an RPG or an AK-47 ready to fire. They hadn’t been quick enough to trigger the IED right under the vehicle, but the sound of the blast was still ringing in his ears. They were in it now, and only their skill and some luck would get them out.

There, at two o’clock, two guys with an RPG, standing up on the roof of that building! Jim swung his weapon up and pressed the trigger, holding on tight as the machine gun roared, and he fought to bring it to bear on the target. He was a bit low, and the snout of the damn RPG was lowering toward them. He yelled up at his partner on the top turret gun: “Billy, at our two, RPG, help me out!” But the kid was too slow, and Jim saw his tracers arc far to the left of the target. Jim fought the urge to duck and instead struggled to keep his breathing steady. He sighted his weapon and fired. The two men went down, the rocket still in its launch tube.

“Two miles to go!” the driver screamed, wrenching the wheel to the right, throwing Jim back into his seat. He cursed as he tried to right himself. Where did this clown learn to drive anyway? Not for the first time, Jim wondered how the hell he’d gotten assigned to this crew for the patrol. Two miles would be an eternity here, and the way things were going, they just might not make it.

But they did. There were a couple more close calls, but they got clear of the village and the Humvee careened to a halt. Jim sagged back in his seat and wiped away the sweat on his forehead. A face appeared at the window, a young guy with a high and tight haircut, wearing Army camo. “How’d you like it, sir?”

“Pretty neat,” Jim said. “Thanks.” He knew he was dating himself even more by not using “cool”, but what the heck.

“Need a hand getting out, sir?”

Jim shot the kid a look, trying to keep it friendly. What was he, about twenty-five? That made him half Jim’s age. The gray at his temples must’ve given him away. “No thanks, Sergeant,” he said, noticing the stripes on the soldier’s front tab. Three up, none down. Jim let him open the door of the Humvee and he unfolded himself with only a little cracking in the knees. “They don’t make these for real tall guys, do they?”

He laughed. “No sir, they don’t.” When Jim stood straight next to him, he topped the soldier by about two inches, making him about six-one. “Did you serve, sir?” he asked.

“No, I didn’t, I’m sorry to say.” That was his stock answer, but it was sincere enough. “Blew my knee out playing ball. Even in those days, they wouldn’t take a guy with a bum knee. I have a younger brother in the Army, though.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes, he’s a lieutenant colonel, commands a firebase over in Afghanistan.”

The young sergeant perked up. “Which one would that be, sir? I just finished my last deployment three months ago.”

“Camp Roosevelt, but I forget what province it’s in. He said it was close to the Pakistan border.” Actually, Jim couldn’t remember much more. Mark’s emails were infrequent and those that he did bother to send weren’t very descriptive.

“I wasn’t there, but I’ve heard of that outfit. The Rough Riders. If your brother’s the C.O. there, sir, you should be proud.”

Jim just grinned, but not as broadly as he might have. He offered his hand. “Thanks for the ride, Sergeant. Good luck, and thanks for your service.”

The soldier’s grip was pretty strong. “You’re welcome, sir, and thanks for your support. Tell your brother the guys back home give him a big ‘Hooah!’” A shout from the top of the vehicle drew their attention. The twelve-year-old kid who’d been manning the .50-caliber machine gun had barked a shin as he was being lifted out by another soldier. The sergeant smiled. “He had a little trouble with the .50,” he said, then he looked back at Jim. “But you handled that M60 nicely, sir. I would’ve bet you were a veteran. Persian Gulf, maybe.” Well, at least he hadn’t said Vietnam. Jim didn’t want to feel any older than he was.

The simulation called for four people to man the vehicle. There was a driver, a guy on top with the M2 heavy weapon, and one on each side with window-mounted M60 7.62mm machine guns. In real life, there would be no side-mounted weapons, according to what he’d been told by a soldier while he was waiting in line outside the simulation tent. “I wanted the .50 but the kid was too fast for me,” Jim said. The sergeant laughed.

Outside, the sun was shining, breaking through the morning clouds that had almost kept them home, thinking rain might wash out the air show. But Jim had been waiting to see the Blue Angels for years and was willing to take the chance the weather would break. Annie hadn’t been quite as confident as him and wouldn’t have minded staying home, but he had the feeling she would’ve preferred that regardless of the weather.

“Have a good time?” she asked. He noticed that while he’d been on the sim run, she’d changed out of her jeans into shorts. More than a few other men noticed that, too, judging by the heads that were turning as they walked by.

“It was great,” he said. “They had big screens on three sides, and the vehicle was on a platform so you really got a feeling of movement.”

“Kill anybody?” Her eyes were hidden behind her sunglasses, so Jim couldn’t tell for sure whether she was being playful or slightly sarcastic. Knowing Annie, it was probably sarcasm, but he let it pass.

“I think I got a couple,” he said. He checked his watch. “Showtime in a half-hour. Want to get something to take back to our chairs?”

“Sure.”

He’d thought that watching the blue Navy jets screaming through the sky, with gorgeous, blonde Annie sitting next to him would have made him forget about the date, if only for a little while. He always wound up sitting around moping on this day, but then he heard about the air show here in Madison and figured it was time to do something different. Six years had passed, after all, and some said that even the most traumatic memories start fading after less time than that. Jim was still waiting for that to happen.

There were a lot of couples out here today, not too many teenagers, and a fair number of seniors. Everybody appeared to be having a good time, enjoying the weather, glad the threat of rain had passed. Just in front of them was a couple a few years younger than him, a married couple judging by their rings. How long had they been together? No way to tell, of course, but they had that easy familiarity of a couple long together. He didn’t have that with Annie, not yet, and he was beginning to think he might never have it. That was too bad; he’d enjoyed being married to Suzy, twenty-two of the best years of his life. All ended so suddenly, six years ago tomorrow. He glanced at his watch. Right about this time, in fact, when the gun had fired—

Stop it. He didn’t want the memory to spoil this day. That wouldn’t be fair to Annie. The memory was always there, always would be, but he’d learned to deal with it, pushing it back into a little corner of his mind, the corner where it always stayed. Until it came creeping back out at him, usually at night, but sometimes during the day, and almost anything could trigger it, or nothing. Memories were like that, at least according to the grief counselor he’d met with for a while.

The pilots assembled in the reviewing area, lining up in perfect precision, wearing blue jump suits and khaki garrison caps, standing at parade rest as they were introduced over the public address systems. They got a big hand from the crowd and then headed to their planes, which were already warming up, the thrumming of the engines rising very gradually until Jim could almost feel the sound waves. The pilots boarded, put on their helmets, and then the canopies came down. The six blue and gold F/A-18 Hornets moved gracefully out onto the runway and took off with terrific roars.

Jim thrilled at the display as the jets soared and knifed through the air. What discipline! He thought about those six pilots, four Navy, two Marine Corps. Most likely they were all married, or had been, and dealt with challenges in their lives, too, perhaps even tragedies. Yet here they were, doing what nobody here on the ground could ever dream of doing. Whatever had happened in their lives, they had overcome the challenges to get here, to the very apex of their profession. Nothing had stopped them.

He was a long way from them, but Jim felt the tenuous strands of a kinship. He knew a thing or two about overcoming challenge. There had been some times, some dark times, after that day six years ago, times when he didn’t think he’d make it, but the counselor had hung in there with him, and Jim had somehow found the strength to persevere. That was one of the five tenets of
taekwondo,
after all. He recalled them now as easily as he knew his own name: courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control, and indomitable spirit. Four months after the sessions started, Jim told the counselor he had decided not only to resume his martial arts training, but in fact wanted to step it up, and when he told the man why, Jim could tell from his reaction what he thought of that. Jim walked out of his office that day and never looked back. What did he know, anyway? Some egghead prof who lived a nice secure life in academia, where the most dangerous thing he might encounter would be a balky lawnmower. What did he know about a man’s desire to avenge his wife? What did he know about becoming a warrior?

Jim reflected later that he hadn’t really been fair with the man. He’d helped Jim deal with Suzy’s death, and especially the manner in which it happened, and for that Jim was thankful. The next several months after that terrible July day had not been pretty, and some parts were downright scary in retrospect, but he came out of it in one piece, still had his health and a job and hadn’t gotten hooked on drugs or porn or liquor, like so many men did when they lost their wives way too early. There were some close calls, but he’d made it out of that emotional cave, at least out of the worst of it. The darkness still called for him now and then, but not so much anymore.

The counseling helped, and he got back in touch with the religious faith of his youth, but what really had saved him was his martial arts training. Two hours after leaving the counselor’s office for the last time, he was on the mat at his
dojang,
stretching and feeling the tightness in his muscles that he’d have to work through in the days and months ahead. The tightness in his heart would take a lot longer.

The jets came screaming overhead, nearly at the speed of sound along the runway, the engines drowning out the cheers of the crowd. The skill of the pilots was almost unbelievable. Jim could hardly imagine the training they must go through to get picked for this team. Did his brother ever go through that kind of training? Well, of course not, he was an Army infantry officer, not a pilot, but certainly he’d been through the wringer many times. There was West Point, and how many overseas deployments? Jim couldn’t remember them offhand, but that was probably because he and Mark, well, they hadn’t been talking that much in recent years, had they?

Six years. He could’ve stopped the guy. He was
right there…
It took him months to pull himself out of the muck, but he finally decided that rather than let that failure destroy him, he would rise above it. He had to. There was no other choice, not really. He had not been strong enough, fast enough, proficient enough to save Suzy.

That could be fixed. He dedicated himself to become the best martial artist he could be, to push his middle-aged body as far as it could go, and then to go farther still. He pushed himself in the dojang, got his black belt, and expanded his horizons, discovering a world of vast depth and possibilities, a world filled with men and women of discipline, courage, honor.

What did it really mean, to be one of these kinds of men? What kind of philosophy, what kind of ethos, did they have? It was more than just training. It was knowledge, discipline, and tying it all together was a sense of honor. He had to learn how to live that kind of life. When he got home, he started reading every book he could find about warriors, past and present. He re-discovered the writings of his boyhood hero, Theodore Roosevelt, and soon his ever-expanding library shelves were overflowing.

He would become a warrior. He was too old to go into the military himself, so he would never come close to his brother’s level, but he would get as close as he could. And the next time, he would be ready.

They packed up their camp chairs and started winding their way through the crowd as the Blue Angels soared into their finale. When they got behind the seating area, toward the concession stands and static displays, Jim said, “Let’s hold up here and watch the finale.”

He could hear a little sigh from her, but she turned around to watch the jets along with him. It was worth it, as far as Jim was concerned, and when the Hornets made their final pass in an amazingly tight six-plane Delta Formation, screaming over the airfield and peeling off to a huge roar, he felt a surge of exhilaration. It was worth the wait all morning long, worth the heat and the crowds and the long walk back to the car, just to see that discipline and precision.

“Wow, wasn’t that terrific?” he asked, almost giddy.

“Pretty cool,” Annie said. “Well, let’s head back.” She hoisted her folded-up camp chair and slung it onto her back. “Shall we?” She had that time-to-move-on look, something Jim had not learned to deal with quite yet. But he didn’t object.

“Yeah, sure.”

Wherever Anne Boswell went, she turned heads, and Jim watched them now. Teenagers with sideways ball caps and droopy pants, twenty-somethings showing off their tattoos with muscle shirts, family men with their own wives and kids in tow, they all looked. Some of them looked at him, too, and he saw that familiar envy in their eyes. Being with Annie was a rush, and not for the first time he caught himself thinking that was the main reason he was with her, because it made him feel good about himself, perhaps even satisfied, for the first time in…well, about six years.