The Pale: Volume One, Jacob Long [best beach reads TXT] 📗

The man stood and grabbed Adam by the crook of his arm. Harun walked out, and the thug forced Adam to follow, pushing him with a surprising strength.

Adam stumbled forward and did his best to keep up. He didn’t have full mobility in his right leg and limped every time he was forced to put his weight on it. Of course, the thug dragging him up the hallway was in some kind of damn hurry. He walked with long, swift strides, and Adam nearly jogged to keep up without the use of his arms to propel himself.

Harun led the way down the hall. Harsh daylight waited at the far end, where the other half of the mansion lay in a charred smoking heap. What used to be the foyer was littered with debris. One-half of the grand stairwell had been taken in the collapse. The clean, polished elegance abruptly gave way to ruin and death that baked in the relentless Afghani sun.

When the trio emerged from the hallway that led into the newly installed open-air atrium, El-Hashem grabbed Adam by the arm and yanked him brusquely to the fore. Adam reeled toward the bannister on the second-floor balcony and peered down into the foyer just in time to see four soldiers aim their weapons at his chest from the ground. His heart jumped. For a split second, he was sure they would open fire and turn him into Swiss cheese, but they didn’t. Recognizing one of their own, the four soldiers hesitated. One of them stared in awe that it was a battered soldier who appeared, lowering his gun absentmindedly.

Adam looked like hell. Dried, crusted blood stained his forehead, and he was covered head to toe in dirt. Black streaks of soot crossed from his right side in a ballistic pattern from when the flames licked his skin right before he was sent screaming into the air and landed in a pile of charred earth and ashes. Adam’s eyes were unfocused, and he swayed uncertainly, favoring the numerous injuries hidden just under his clothes and skin. He was a man in desperate need of help.

Harun pulled Adam close, placing Adam between himself and the bullets. “I wouldn’t do that, bro!” Harun shouted. He unclipped a radio from his belt and waved it around for the troops on the ground to see. “My men are listening in! They’ll know if I’m harmed.”

One of the soldiers lowered his weapon, and the others followed suit, then the soldier stepped forward and spoke. “We got your message, and I have authorization to negotiate with you. What do you want?” It was Captain Donowitz.

“I want to leave!” Harun replied over Adam’s shoulder. “No more death! I just get in my car and drive out of here! I already called! It will arrive shortly to take me away!”

“And why would I let that happen? You’re holding one of my men hostage. Specialist, are you all right?”

Adam coughed once.

“He’s fine,” Harun said. “We haven’t harmed him any further than when we found him. You will let me leave, or I will execute the women and children I have in the back. You will see.”

Harun keyed his radio and spoke Arabic into it, then he spoke to the soldiers in English. “Look. There is a TV against the wall below me. Look at it.”

The captain and the other soldiers turned their attention to the space under the balcony. Sitting there was a large flat-screen TV on a table. It was on. In another moment, the screen flickered from “no signal” to a video of one of El-Hashem’s thugs operating the camera. The man stepped out of the frame to reveal a room full of destitute women and children. There could have been no less than two dozen. Most of them were terrified and crying. A few only stared at the floor, blank and hopeless. Another thug wearing a balaclava stood at the front with a little girl. She looked to be no more than thirteen, and the thug held a pistol to her head. The girl was brave. She looked frightened but did not cry.

Normally, Harun would have used the TV to display the merchandise for his rich, perverted friends to buy with money. That day, he was displaying the merchandise for Captain Donowitz to buy with the promise of freedom. It made Captain Donowitz’s breathing intensify as a flame of righteous fury burned in the pit of his stomach. All the soldiers felt it. Their faces grew even harder.

Adam couldn’t see the display. Frankly, his vision was faltering. He struggled to stay conscious and swayed gently on his feet like a cattail in the wind. His body cried out for rest. He might have slept for hours or even days, had El-Hashem not roused him back to consciousness.

Harun squeezed Adam’s arm hard and growled in his ear. “Stay awake.”

Adam rolled his eyes.

Harun raised his voice to speak with the captain. “You see? Their lives are in your hands!”

The captain glared at the drug lord. “You won’t kill them. They’re your only leverage. With them gone, there’s nothing to stop us from taking you in. You’re in a no-win situation.”

“You misunderstand,” El-Hashem retorted. “It is you who is in the no-win situation, bro. You see, the other half of this building has been rigged with bombs as well. If I give the word, it will be destroyed.”

“Ridiculous. You’d kill yourself. You’d kill your men.”

El-Hashem stared at the captain blankly. “Yes. I would. It is a far better fate than becoming your prisoners. I will destroy this place. Adam here knows. Go on. Tell him, Adam.”

Adam exhaled slowly through his nose. After a moment, he reluctantly nodded.

“You see? The specialist here, we have talked. He knows of my conviction. He knows you are without option. This is not a negotiation, as you say. I am informing you of your situation. Killing me does nothing for you, and I know allowing these women and children to die is unacceptable for you. You let me go, I don’t die, the information you seek doesn’t die, the women don’t die, the children don’t die . . .” El-Hashem paused and added playfully, “Let me go, maybe you catch me another day, huh?”

The captain was quiet. Only his enraged exhalations could be heard. His eyes searched for the answer in the walls and floor. Finally, he shook his head and looked up at El-Hashem. “No. I can’t let you go.”

Harun sighed. “I was hoping it wouldn’t have to come to this.” He raised his radio to his mouth and spoke an order into it. On the TV screen, there was a loud report, and a splash of blood sprayed from the young girl’s skull. Her body went limp, and she crumpled to the floor.

The three other soldiers in the foyer immediately aimed their rifles at Adam and El-Hashem.

“You killed one?” Adam growled.

Harun slapped a hand over Adam’s mouth and pulled his head back. He shouted to the captain below. “Do not think for a second that I am not serious! I will bathe everyone in this building in the fire! Withdraw your men and allow us to walk out of here!”

“I cannot give that order!” Captain Donowitz barked in reply.

“I’m going to count to three! If you do not order your men to withdraw, this negotiation is over, and we can all burn in hell!”

The captain replied, “I could have my soldiers or any of the choppers outside gun you down right now! You back down from this, or you’ll be the first to go!”

“One!” El-Hashem shouted simply.

Anxiety welled up in Adam’s chest. He had it figured that he was a dead man earlier, but hearing it approach was terrifying.

“What the hell is wrong with you, man?” Donowitz roared. “You have no right to drag all of us down with you! You have no right to kill all of those people!”

“Two!”

Adam’s heart beat so furiously in his chest he could hear it inside his head. His eyes darted about wildly. He could probably struggle free of El-Hashem’s grasp and move out of the way, then the soldiers would pepper the balcony with gunfire, but then his thugs might hear all the shooting and really level the place. Adam was terrified to a standstill. He could only hope the captain would make a move and that it would be the right one.

All three of the other soldiers in the foyer stood their ground. They made no move to run or fire. Adam couldn’t believe it. They were ready to die for . . . what? For what reason would they die? Duty? Was that good enough?

“Thr—”

“All right, goddammit!” Captain Donowitz screamed. “Wait! Just . . . just wait, all right?”

There was a quiet moment, tense with the expectation of catastrophe. A soft wind stirred the loose sand. El-Hashem glared at the captain with hate and furious conviction like burning coal behind his eyes. Captain Donowitz hesitated a moment more, still trying to reconcile in his head the terrible gauntlet placed before him. He really was in a no-win situation.

He turned to his soldiers. “We’re going to withdraw,” he said.

Adam’s heart sank into what felt like relief at first, but it couldn’t be called that. His heart continued to sink ever lower, into defeat. The captain had saved his life. The captain had saved everyone’s life, but it felt so wrong to quit. He couldn’t quite rationalize it with words.

A sick grin of satisfaction grew like a profane flower between Harun’s cheeks.

“We’re going to withdraw!” Donowitz called. “Just don’t . . . kill anyone. Release Specialist Rodriguez, and we’ll give you space to escape.”

El-Hashem chuckled. “No . . . no no no. I’ll be keeping Adam.”

Adam’s face flushed with anger. El-Hashem stubbornly insisted that Adam was to continue to be his captive and that they were on a first name basis.

Donowitz was incensed. He fidgeted angrily, his lips forming silent words while his eyes searched for meaning in this nonsense. Finally, his chest heaved in preparation, and he shouted in a furious, thunderous voice. “You bastard!”

El-Hashem’s thug aimed his weapon at the captain, and all three of Donowitz’s soldiers aimed back before another heartbeat could pump blood back into Adam’s face. The two sides managed not to squeeze their triggers and fry everyone in holy fire.

“Unacceptable!” Captain Donowitz continued his tirade as if nothing happened. He wasn’t used to being denied, threatened, or manipulated. “You will give me my soldier back!”

Harun didn’t flinch. “Why? So your chopper can blow up my car as soon as everyone is clear?” He shook his head at the captain’s absurdity. “Negative. I will keep Specialist Rodriguez as my hostage until I reach my destination safely.”

“No,” Captain Donowitz denied him flatly. “You will release him, and then we will let you go. You already have all the women. You don’t need to leave with that soldier!”

“This is not a negotiation!” Harun’s voice broke. “Maybe I need to execute another young girl to remind you!” There was a short pause where all the two sides could do was give each other dirty looks. El-Hashem continued, “Don’t play the chicken with me, Captain. I’ll go farther than you every time.”

It slowly dawned on Adam why his continued captivity was non-negotiable for Captain Donowitz. If Adam left that mansion with El-Hashem, he was dead. El-Hashem would blow his brains out the moment he didn’t need him anymore. It didn’t faze Adam as much as he thought it would. The realization was just a quiet shudder among all the turmoil that had been going on around him. Somehow, it felt almost comfortable.

“It’s all right, sir.”

That Adam had spoken up appeared to come as a surprise to the soldiers in the foyer. All their eyes averted to him. He could see how nervous they all were. They didn’t want to die. No one needed to.

“Shut up, Adam,” Captain Donowitz replied simply. “This isn’t your decision.”

Adam was not prepared to tolerate that position. He’d had just about enough of not being in charge of himself when he wasn’t staring death in the face. At that moment, when he finally had the chance to be the hero, he wasn’t going to let “chain of command” dictate his destiny at the cost of so many lives.

His face bunched up in outrage. “The hell it’s not!”

One of the soldiers with his weapon still poised to eliminate El-Hashem’s thug actually flinched a little at Adam’s insubordination. His eyes darted from his target, to Adam, to the captain, and then back again.

“If the price of all those girls’ lives is my life”—Adam chuckled nervously—“I’m ready to pay.” He could have avoided the nasty reality of his nearly inevitable death, but he didn’t want the captain to think he wasn’t aware of the gravity of his situation. He didn’t want the captain to think he was just being a valiant moron.

El-Hashem didn’t bother to correct him if the situation had been any different. He didn’t even try to lie.

“I don’t care!” Donowitz shouted at Adam. He just couldn’t get his mind past the idea of abandoning a soldier, even for such a reason. “Now shut your mouth!”

Adam was shocked at the captain’s arrogance and