Free Fiction Ebooks: Free ebook sample of "Prism (Story of CI)" by Rachel Moschell (powered by Smashwords)

THE SILVERY BRANCHES OF THE MOLLE tree whispered in the shade, sprinkling soft leaves in the dirt of the boy’s path. The sky shone sapphire behind the lacy branches, and the only other life along this back road were two tawny cows grazing in the silver white grass of the ditch. Behind them ran the same crumbling adobe wall the boy saw every day as he walked this way out of town for the afternoon session at the Christian academy his parents sent him to.

Today was Tuesday, and that meant Bible class. In one coffee-colored hand, the boy clutched his fat black Bible with gilded letters, a present from his parents on his last birthday, fourteen. He shuffled slowly along the road, feeling the Bible burn into his fingertips, trying not to free the furious tears scalding the back of his eyes.

He should leave the Bible here in the ditch by the cows.

Because now the boy knew: none of it really mattered. Oh, he was quite sure there was justice and virtue in the world, and he intended to find it. But it was not here. Not in this book, and not in anything that his parents had ever taught him about it.

The boy had finally told them what had happened and they hadn’t cared. They were too busy with religion to move a finger to help. The boy’s eyes narrowed and his lower lip trembled. What in the world was he supposed to do now?

And then he saw the blackened fingers rising from the silky grass in the ditch. The boy’s mouth opened in slow motion and his whole world froze; then he felt himself lurching forward towards the horrible sight, heard his heavy Bible thump to the dirt.

The fingers were a child’s, even darker than his own, blackened by dirt. The boy fell to his knees on the sharp stones of the road and flung the grass aside, shaking so badly he could hardly breathe. Another boy was sprawled face-up in the ditch, face bloodied and swollen, unmistakably dead. The fingers hadn’t belonged to a small child, but to someone the boy’s own age, dressed in torn clothing and lying here dead in the ditch on the road to the Christian school. Oceans of bile rose up in the boy’s throat and he collapsed into the white grass, emptying his stomach into the weeds until he felt himself heave, insides completely dry.

It was him. The boy’s best friend. The one no one cared about. The boy forced himself to stand up, tears dripping off his chin. His friend was dead, and he hadn’t been able to stop this.

Slowly backing up, the boy began to march back towards town, stepping over the Bible’s crumpled, muddy form. He would take his things from his parents’ house and leave. If he never saw them again, that would be preferable.

The Bible would be staying here.

pistachio

Peshawar, Pakistan

2017

ALEJO PERCHED ABOVE THE ANCIENT LABYRINTH that was Old City Peshawar, counting down the seconds until he would take a man’s life. The tri-colored apartment complex where he waited soared to the cloudless sky, cream, cinnamon, and pistachio. A giant block of Neapolitan ice cream, sizzling under the Peshawar heat. In a dusty courtyard with solid walls below, the three men who marched between grave Pakistani police were mere specks to Alejo. Gabriel was at the scope, reporting the details of the scene below; Benjamin lay prone as Alejo did, both of them one with the black rifles propped on sandbags.

“So, they just entered the courtyard,” Gabriel said softly. Sweat poured down his pale face from the tightly-wrapped black turban. They were alone on the cement rooftop high over Peshawar, and abandoned the Pashto language for their native Spanish. “The Paki police are pretty nervous. Ok! Here come the gringos.” Gabriel’s bony fingers tightened on the scope and his voice rose with excitement. “The gringos have, like, a dozen bodyguards. The prisoners are wearing bullet-proof vests.”

Not surprising. The Americans wouldn’t want any crazy Talibs to take out their precious little prisoners before they get to “justice” now, would they?

Security was tight around that little compound with the courtyard, as the whole surrounding area would like to see those three young American men in Pakistani custody mutilated and dead.

But no one would expect a shot to come from this distance.

A cacophony of horns blasted from the matchbox cars snaking along below. The sound would cover the shot perfectly. Alejo knew Gabriel would tell them when the prisoners/targets had moved into position. He shifted one leg, ever so slightly, letting blood flow back into one of his thighs that had been riding a rock for the past half-hour. Not knowing exactly at what time the American prisoners would be handed over to the United States government, Alejo and his team had been on top of this roof since yesterday morning. It was now two in the afternoon.

In a few minutes more, the wait would be worth it. In the eyes of justice. Real justice.

The three prisoners in the courtyard below were soldiers in the United States army and had been stationed in Afghanistan, just a short drive away over the border. Apparently, legally killing Afghans in the fight against terror hadn’t provided enough entertainment for these three boys, all under the age of twenty-three; they had formed their own little band, sneaking out at night to kidnap Afghan children. The soldiers started simply chopping off fingers and toes, then moved on to disfiguring faces. After a while, they began dousing the children in gasoline and setting them on fire.

There had been thirty-three children who were no more. The soldiers had armed a photo album of their little trophy killings, and when the pictures came out on the internet, a raging wildfire of outrage had swept through the region.

The war between the Taliban and the United States was never-ending, and this wasn’t the first time rogue soldiers had been out trophy killing; a few years back, a group of four of them had been captured and turned over to the U.S. government for justice.

At the trial, they were sentenced to six measly years in prison. They maimed or murdered over fifty Afghani children.

And now Alejo lay flattened on a roof, charged with making sure that, this time, justice didn’t close her eyes.

He belonged to the Prism, a secret Muslim organization dedicated to bringing Allah’s justice to the world. Trained by Hezbollah’s militant wing, Alejo was the lead trainer for his native Bolivia and all of South America, excluding Colombia and Venezuela.

They were called the Prism because they had given themselves to God to be instruments for spreading light. They knew they were not the pure, white light that enters the prism; the illegal, sometimes violent activities they needed to be part of to fight for the oppressed and poor put somewhat of a damper on the light. But when the light of God passed through them, their different abilities and contributions to the cause of justice shone in a vast array of colors, spreading light in the world in many distinct ways.

“Targets are moving towards the mark,” Gabriel said calmly, then lay the scope down onto the roof. He rolled into place in the line of three men on their stomachs and positioned his gun on the sandbag. The three of them gazed through the gun scopes now at the Americans. Alejo evened his breathing and willed still his weak arm, plastered to his side in a sling to keep his rifle from quivering even a hairsbreadth. He smoothly ran through the calculations again: the range to the target. The height of the target in yards times one thousand, divided by the height of the target in milliradians gives the range in yards.

Bullet drop, exactly calculated according the estimated range and ammo type Alejo currently had loaded.

And then there was gravity. Gravity does not act perpendicular to the direction the bullet travels. Only the fraction of gravity equal to the cosine of the angle of fire with respect to the horizon affects the rate of fall of the bullet, with the remained adding or subtracting negligible velocity to the bullet along its trajectory.

The prisoners were nearing the center of the courtyard, blond and thin inside their bullet-proof vests. Their eyes shifted up towards the waiting American officials and they grinned, wriggling in anticipation of a cozy American jail with cable and the three square meals a day that most Afghan children could only dream of. They would probably be out of jail before they were thirty.

The television images of the murdered children surged to Alejo’s mind and he drew a slow lungful of air, then held it, finger exact and deathly-still on the trigger. He heard each beat of his heart echo in his ear, steady, full of purpose. He waited until one heartbeat had just drummed, then murmured in the space between, “Now.”

Below in the Old City, the timing was perfect. An ornately-painted bus lumbering around the corner of the compound honked and belched black smoke, just as Alejo’s bullet entered the medulla oblongata at the base of the middle soldier’s skull and he slumped to the dirt in a crimson mist. The other two collapsed on top of him, the part of their brains that controls involuntary movements effectively destroyed. It took a full five seconds for all hell to break loose in the courtyard as mustachioed policemen and high-up American officials all turned up dust diving for cover.

Alejo could tell there was no need to take a second shot. He felt cold, and lowered the rifle from his eyes, staring at the dim outline of the mountains encircling the city. Still lying low, he pulled a small grey cell phone from his pocket and punched a button. Ishmael Khan, recruiter from the Prism and Alejo’s handler, would be pacing the floor in his mansion until he heard the soldiers were dead.

The Khan’s three little nieces had lived in Afghanistan, killed by a stray rocket fired by the Americans. This mission was especially important to the Khan; Alejo knew that when the man saw the pictures of the dead Afghani children he imagined the broken hand of two-year old Jamila protruding from the rubble of her home in the mountains.

The Americans had apologized. The Khan hadn’t accepted.

Alejo set his jaw, then motioned to Benjamin and Gabriel. They slunk into the tri-color apartment building and into a room filled with grimy shalwar kameez, ammunition, and cigarette butts. Afghan-made cigarettes. This was the kind of hole Taliban fighters always frequented, and whoever one day discovered this place Alejo had set up would not be surprised to see a slew of rifles on the kitchen table next to the moldering rice and half-eaten naan. Everyone in Peshawar packed lead.

Slick with sweat and fine concrete dust, the three men dumped their soiled shalwar kameez with the rest of the filthy ones on the bathroom floor and pulled on jeans and t-shirts, the clothes of upper-class Pakistani students. With bronze skin, wavy black hair, and perfect Pashtu, Alejo never had problems passing as a Pakistani on his many trips to the country.

“Death to the infidels,” Gabriel grinned, stuffing wads of tattered rupee bills into a bag around his thin chest. Benjamin and Alejo rolled their eyes.

“Goodness, I’m just kidding.” Gabriel flashed merry eyes at them and winked. “Let’s get out of here.”

They locked the door to the apartment behind them and meandered down the staircase to the sweltering street below. Happily, the Pashto doorman, a withered man in a mustard-colored shalwar kameez, didn’t even recognize Alejo and the guys as they departed. Old Ali had chatted eagerly with the three of them every day this week when they came and went, taking the three of them for native Pashto. But now with the trendy jeans and Hollister shirts, the man barely even graced them with a glance.

Alejo grinned as the heat wave from the street hit them. They were getting away. The three of them would walk through this entire maze of a city, get to the Khan’s house, and report a successful mission. Alejo felt the grin fade and the set of his shoulders slump a little as the throbbing wail of a siren cut the air, racing towards the murdered Americans. The white orb of midday sun still blazed through the murky haze of pollution over the city. And less than twenty blocks away, three lives had just been extinguished. Alejo’s throat grew tight and he picked up his pace along the trash-strewn sidewalk.

And before that, thirty-three more, innocents, tortured like animals, just for fun.

Alejo felt queasy. Why is this getting to me?

He dragged his mind away from his emotions and over to the details of the mission they had just executed, willing himself, as always, to stop feeling.

dusty brown

Cochabamba, Bolivia

2017

SHE HAD SPENT FIVE YEARS ALREADY in the middle of the Andes, in a country called Bolivia, but Wara Cadogan still got a thrill out of the cancha. The bustling, massive, blindingly colorful market that the city of Cochabamba called the cancha: today Wara and her Bolivian friend Nazaret were shopping right in the middle of it all.

Wara planted her feet on the dusty pavement of Aroma Avenue, main thoroughfare signaling the beginning of Cochabamba’s mammoth open air market. There was barely room for the twenty-six year old missionary to stand between a pushcart full of rolls and a crate of cavernous squash. Crouched on a box next to mosaic of rainbow fruit and vegetables, a slender teenager in sweatpants and the blue-checked apron nearly all women who worked in the cancha wore flipped her stout black braid back over her shoulder with a bored expression as she carefully polished her nails from a tiny cherry red vial.

Wara griped the rough plastic handles of her market bag, bursting with bread and juice. At the school where Nazaret Martir worked, one hundred fifty children were tucked away in battered desks, trying to concentrate on mathematics while probably dreaming of their afternoon snack. Today Nazaret was on market duty and Wara had agreed to tag along.

The heavy bags burned Wara’s hands as she leaned from the corner into the street, teeming with belching traffic. Vehicles barreled past at full speed, dowsing everyone in a thin film of exhaust, all trying to jockey their way into the coveted right lane where they could pick up or disgorge passengers. Tank-like, red and blue striped relics from the 1940’s and diminutive white Japanese Toyota vans competed with each other for space on the street.

If the bus she and Nazaret wanted didn’t happen to thunder by three lanes over, everything would turn out fine.

Nazaret squinted hazel eyes into the searing afternoon sun and her dyed blond ringlets bobbed around a heart-shaped face. “Ok, here it comes!” She jutted her chin out towards the street Bolivian style, signaling that their bus, the “F”, was approaching. Wara yanked her hand out of her jean pocket and stuck her arm straight out into the street to flag down the ponderous red and blue bus which was rapidly roaring towards them.

“Sube, sube,” the young harried driver urged them as he drew the “F” to a jerking halt in the middle of the street. “Get in, get in!” A multitude of horns blared from behind, communicating the same. Nazaret giggled as she hoisted herself up the high metal steps into the bus, dragging two market bags behind her. Wara staggered up the steps, spreading her legs in a stable stance as the bus hurled back into motion, racing north on the 25 de Mayo. Then she and Nazaret squeezed past a Quechua woman in an ample sage pollera who lurched towards the door of the bus, yelling, “Leave me at the corner!”

Sliding past sideways, the two girls made it into a bench of torn vinyl seats, side by side. Wara heaved the prickly shopping bags on top of her lap and flopped over onto them to catch her breath on the forty-five minute ride to the school in Villa Candelaria.

Yes, shopping in the cancha might be more work than a trip to Walmart, but Wara wouldn’t trade Bolivia for anything. She had first come here for a few months, doing a little internship for a masters in linguistics. Those months had turned into years, and, for now, the masters was indefinitely on the shelf.

Stifling a huge yawn, Wara’s eyes fixed on the front of the bus, where a large, fluffy feather boa strung along the top of the windshield, like a neon green Christmas garland. A tattered image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus graced the center of the feathers, surrounded by a myriad of stickers: Snoopy, Garfield, and Daffy Duck. Keeping time with Shakira, five iridescent CDs jingled and swayed from strings along the windshield, scattering prisms of light around the interior of the bus.

“It’s 2:45,” Nazaret announced, flipping open her tiny canary yellow cell phone. That cell phone took pictures, connected to Entel internet, and was in constant communion with Facebook. After losing three cell phones, Wara had finally given up and resorted to mooching minutes and the time off of her friends. She grinned at Nazaret. “I need to call the Bennesons about the music at the café tonight.” Café Amara, the ministry Wara worked with when she wasn’t helping Nazaret or holed up at home translating materials into Quechua. “Can I use your phone?”

Nazaret rolled her cute little eyes and pretended to turn up her nose. “I suppose.” Always the same answer. Wara accepted the miniscule phone and smiled her thanks, already dialing Mark Benneson.

Villa Candelaria was in the northernmost extreme of Cochabamba, at the foot of the jade Andes mountains that surrounded the city. In fact, the neighborhood itself was one big uphill climb, with every block a higher altitude than the one before. Wara was always impressed that the rickety old “F” line buses made it up the steep incline of Villa Candelaria’s main cobblestone avenue. The “F” was not one of the newer lines of buses in Cochabamba, but the tank-like vehicles certainly did their job.

The school was only two blocks from the end of the line. As they approached the four-story building of unpainted brick, Nazaret chirped, “In the school, please.” The young driver, much more relaxed now that he had the bus far from downtown, bid them a pleasant farewell and then lazily pulled the bus into gear again after the two girls had clumped down the steps. An acrid billow of dust slid gently along their backs as the bus strained up the hill.

“How about we leave these monster bags in the kitchen?” Wara waddled awkwardly across the stony gravel under the weight of the shopping bags.

“Yeah, let’s dump them ,” Nazaret agreed heartily. “I can’t feel my fingers anymore.”

After leaving the children’s snack in the school kitchen, Wara trailed Nazaret to her father’s church and the children’s home, barely two blocks away. Pastor Martir’s small congregation had forty members on a good day, mostly from the immediate neighborhood. The bland church building of squat bare concrete was nearly camouflaged in the dusty brown landscape of Villa Candelaria. Behind the church sprawled a small campus of blue and yellow buildings and a cheery playground with emerald grass. A sign with rainbow letters said simply “Jesus Loves the Little Children”.

This was the home the Martirs had started for children with AIDS, and where Nazaret’s father Pablo spent most of his time. The only home for AIDS children in the surrounding area, children were sent to live here from all over Bolivia. The Martirs and their small, well-trained staff took care of the children and tried to show them Jesus’ love.

Nazaret pushed open the whining metal door of the church, and the muted sounds of Pastor Martir’s baritone voice carried through the concrete-block wall that separated his tiny office from the sanctuary. Nazaret plunked her pink fake Gucci bag onto one of the pews and plopped down beside it, crossing her short legs. Wara sank down next to her and shivered in the coolness of the concrete church’s interior. The varnished wooden door to the office opened and a chuckling Pastor Martir stepped out, followed by Marcos Valle, a young teacher who was on staff at the children’s home and about three other ministries. Wara honestly didn’t know when the guy had time to eat or sleep.

“Wara! And my oldest daughter.” Pastor Martir flashed that debonair smile, white teeth flashing against coffee-colored skin. Wara felt, more than saw, Nazaret roll her eyes at her over-affectionate father. In Bolivia, where having two children at most was in vogue among educated folk, the Martir family of seven offspring was considered outrageously exaggerated. “Just wait til Nazaret finally gets married,” Pastor Martir would often tease. “When the grandchildren start coming, I’ll have to get a bigger house.”

Wara eyed Marcos nervously and cleared her throat, hoping Pastor Martir was about to assign her and Nazaret to some task over at the children’s home. Instead, Marcos Valle spoke, fixing his bright eyes on Wara.

“Wara Cadogan! Just the person I wanted to see. I’ve been wanting to talk to you forever, because, as you know, the old director of the Quechua story-telling ministry left over two years ago. With no one to take her place.” Wara had stood up to greet Pastor Martir’s skinny assistant, but now she felt her knees become woozy under her weight.

Yes, of course I know the old director left, as did the one before that and before that. As did I. Didn’t we have this conversation a month ago?

Were they really going to ask her again? Marcos was trying his most convincing grin on her. He was, wasn’t he? Wara began to feel sick.

“C’mon, Wara.” Marcos crossed his arms and stared her down at Pastor Martir’s side. “No one was as good as you were. We can’t find anyone else who can speak Quechua like you can, who’s had the storytelling training. The others just want to teach the women in Spanish, or else train them to preach three-point sermons. You know how the Quechua culture learns through stories. We really need you over in the ministry. How can you say no?”

Wara’s head was beginning to buzz, and she let her gaze flit over to Pastor Martir, who was watching her eagerly. He thought she should accept, and he was the man she respected more than any other here in Bolivia. But he didn’t know what Nazaret and her mother, Noly Martir, knew. And right then, Wara felt sure she would have to disappear forever if he ever found out.

“How can you say no?” Marcos had asked.

How could she say yes?

Behind her on the pew, Nazaret was nervously tapping one sandaled foot on the tiles. Wara was finding it very hard to meet anyone’s eye. “I can’t,” she finally told Marcos, hearing her voice scrape like a swamp monster. “I’m sorry. I just can’t.”

Obviously disappointed, Marcos said he understood and made another minute of pleasant conversation. Pastor Martir eyed Wara suspiciously and then turned to his daughter on the bench to give instructions about some paperwork that needed to be done back in the children’s home.

For the millionth time since it all happened four years ago, Wara closed her eyes and tried to shoo away the darkness and regret that ripped through her stomach like a viper. The past was never going to go away, was it?

Wara sank down on the bench next to Nazaret and willed herself to somehow forget and keep on living for today.

The sun was close to setting as Wara exited the rusty gate to the church. After helping Nazaret tackle the mound of bureaucratic nightmare that was the children’s home paperwork, she headed out for a quick walk around the neighborhood before going downtown to set up at Café Amara. Nazaret was primping in the church bathroom, and Wara knew that it could be awhile til her friend had finished with all the Avon makeup nestled in her pink purse.

The chilly mountain air she supposed could only be felt in Cochabamba at 8,500 feet in the Andes was already wrapping its embrace around her bare arms. She untied the navy knitted sweater from her waist and shrugged into it. As Wara neared the corner of the school, her lips spread into a grin at the sight of a tall figure ducking out of the door of the medical clinic.

“Hola, Noé!” It was a low, brick doorway and Wara enjoyed seeing how Noah--his real, gringo name--had to hunch over and twist his head to one side to squeeze through the space. Noah Hearst, Wara’s best guy friend and missionary with another organization here in Bolivia.

Noah loved Bolivia way too much, but he was definitely, undeniable, a gringo. Six foot three, with emerald eyes, curly sandy blond waves of hair to his shoulders, and skin a rosy pink, he stood out in any crowd. To make matters worse, Noah had studied Spanish in Spain before coming to South America, and he would often forget and lapse into his European Spanish, which sounded, to Bolivians, like he had a very silly lisp.

“Hey!” Noah called back to her, turning his head quickly and heading her way, long arms swinging inside a black fleece sweatshirt. “How are you?” Noah grinned, staring down at her from his height. “I almost didn’t recognize you from far away, because you always look so downright Bolivian!”

Pride swelled up in Wara’s heart and she knew he had good reason to be jealous. Her skin was not so dark, but with the right tan, such as the strong rays in Cochabamba provided, she didn’t look like a gringa. Her hair was dark, though at the moment she had added burgundy highlights to the shoulder-length, messy haircut. Light brown eyes framed by trendy maroon glasses let her fit right in with all her Bolivian friends—until they picked up on the slight accent in her Spanish, that is.

Having a grandmother who was pure Quechua from the mountains of Peru had certainly helped Wara camouflage in the appearance area. Add in her grandfather, the missionary who had married in the Quechua village and then made sure his only granddaughter spoke fluent Quechua, and South America had always seemed to be Wara’s destiny.

“You wanna have a salchipapa with me?” Noah queried, looking back towards the little open window at the corner of the school’s brick wall. “I’m starving.”

“Sure,” Wara shrugged as the two of them touched cheeks quickly in a Bolivian-style greeting, “Nazaret’s primping and Pastor Martir is on the phone. I probably have time for two salchipapas.”

Wara and Noah walked together over to the little food stand, where Silvia sold big chunky French fries and sliced hot dogs striped with ketchup and mayonnaise, a snack known as salchipapa. Noah paid for two salchipapas, and the two of them sat down on a few lumpy stones near the school wall to eat. Since Noah was willing to laze around in front of the school and talk for a while, Wara assumed he had already finished all his home visits for the day. As the neighborhood social worker, he kept quite busy doing home visits and community referrals. Wara leaned back against the rough bricks of the school and gazed beyond the dust and litter to the panorama beyond.

The jagged form of Tunari, Cochabamba’s highest peak, cut majestically into the turquoise sky, soaking up any remnants of the day’s sun into its awesome bulk. There was still enough light that Wara noticed Noah’s silver hoop twinkling from one ear. She and Noah had recently been involved in minor scandals in their own respective missions, he because of the earring he had acquired about a month ago, and Wara because of the golden star stud she had recently begun wearing in her nose.

“So,” she began, pointing towards Noah’s ear with her chin, “are the troops still up in arms because of that?”

“This? Oh yeah.” Noah sighed. “Who would have thought? I mean, probably two thirds of my friends here have an earring or two, and most of the guys who come into the café do. I just thought…I mean, I guess I just didn’t expect that it would be such a big deal. They’ve said it’s ok for now though.”

Wara was silent for a minute, munching on a salty, soft potato with mayonnaise. “I guess the other missionaries have said my nose ring’s ok for now, too,” she shrugged, licking stray ketchup off a finger. “Oh well. I didn’t mean to cause a rumpus either.”

Noah smiled back at her, and she could see the edges of his emerald eyes crinkling in the near-darkness. “We’re leaving next weekend for the countryside, right?” The Quechua Bible conference trip that Wara had somehow let herself be talked into. As a helper. Only as a helper.

“Bright and early, Mark Benneson claims,” she said. “You’ve been studying the Quechua notes I gave you, right?” Wara grinned and Noah pretended to gulp. He knew she was kidding. No one spoke Quechua like her. Especially not Noah, who couldn’t have spit out a Quechua greeting to save his life.

All fell quiet again. A mangy stray dog hustled down the hill in the darkness, on a mission unknown. From somewhere around the corner, a soccer game from Spain blared, leaking its enthusiastic reports from someone’s window.

“Well, I’d better head down to set up at the café.” Noah stood up and stretched, then snatched his bright blue backpack and slung it over his shoulder. Noah carried that thing everywhere, and he claimed he had bought it in a market in the heart of Egypt on a college trip. The shiny white lettering on the front prominently displayed the words NIKEY, with the familiar white check mark by the side. Obviously a cheap knockoff.

“The guy was wearing this little wrinkled turban, and he practically swore on his mother’s grave it was a genuine Nike backpack! I paid like forty dollars for this thing,” Noah had swiped tears of laughter from his eyes as he told her, sometime when they had just met. “I just had to buy it!”

Wara thought she would rather have laughed about it without losing the forty bucks on a fake Nike backpack, but then, that was Noah.

“You’re going to ride down to the café with the Martirs, right?” Noah asked, moving closer to the road as the familiar roar of one of the “F” barreled around the corner and began its descent down the hill. “Cause I don’t want to leave you out here in the dark.”

“Oh yeah, the Martirs are going to bring me in their Smurfmobile,” Wara assured him. Pablo and Noly’s distinctive , pale-blue VW Van was more than recognizable anywhere in Cochabamba. “They’d give you a ride.”

“Oh no.” Noah shook his head, grinning. “I know how long the good pastor can take to get out of the office. I have a guitar to tune. I’ll meet you down there.”

Wara waved and stood back as the “F” halted and Noah swung inside with one easy step. “See you downtown,” he called as the “F” continued its race down the hill, soon turning into a tiny, dust-cloaked miniature which disappeared into the dusk.

gaudy gold

IT WAS NEARLY ELEVEN WHEN ALEJO was finally able to get away from the Khans, and he made his escape that early only because he had put his foot down about eating dinner with Ishmael Khan and his brother Ghulzar. Six days had trudged by since taking out the American targets, and Alejo’s two teammates had long ago disappeared: Benjamin back to Bolivia, Gabriel to a meeting in Iran. Dragging his soul through the past few days had been like pulling an open wound through a pile of salt, and Alejo was tired. He was beginning to answer in monosyllables and cave-man-like grunts. His feet were aching and he felt an exhaustion he had never before experienced.

It was definitely time to get back to the bungalow. He left the entire Khan clan hunkered down on the scarlet carpet of the marble-arched hall, ogling multiple silver platters of spicy spinach and meat kabobs. Just at the door, the Khan convinced him to gulp down one last cup of milky green tea with cardamom as he made his excuses.

No, he didn’t want one of the Khan’s henchmen to drive him back in one of the Khan’s fleet of silver BMWs. Yes, he would be ready at four a.m. to head out with Ishmael to the Tribal Area for the little trip they had planned.

I’ve really got to talk with the Khan about my pay, Alejo yawned. His pay was good, but possibly not good enough for these kinds of hours. He nearly missed a step on the way out of the Khans’ marble mansion, six white stories straight up, complete with a gigantic crystal ball emblazoned with Quranic verses to light up the night.

The spicy sweet smell of lamb curry wafted after Alejo as security let him past the hulking gate onto the street. His gut felt as if it housed a boulder-sized ball of lead, and he sensed a wicked headache coming on. Frustrated, Alejo squashed the riotous thoughts trying to besiege his mind, unwilling to examine the ripples of discontent that had been drifting through his soul for the last few months. He took a deep, steadying breath and began a brisk walk down the darkened streets of Peshawar.

As Alejo wandered the labyrinth that was the Old City, his gaze fell upon a worn-looking old shopkeeper shuffling out of the dim alleyway, carrying a brown paper sack.

“Asalaam aleiykum,” Alejo greeted the man steadily, and the shopkeeper, squinting up at him with rheumy eyes, returned the greeting warily. Alejo could see that the man was straining under the weight of the sack. “Could I help you with that?”

For the briefest second, the old man’s eyes flashed afraid. “Oh, no thank you, young man,” he quickly recovered with a chuckle. “It’s just a stack of books that I’m taking home to deliver to a client. No trouble at all.”

“Books? What kind of books?” Alejo wondered why he was even engaging this hunch-backed bookseller in conversation. Was he really so desperate to avoid going back to his room, alone? “Is that your shop there?” Alejo noticed a small sign tucked into the alley, announcing that books were sold.

“Yes, that is my shop. Nothing you’d be interested in, I’m sure.” A thin gleam of sweat had sprouted from the old man’s forehead.

“May I see? Why wouldn’t I be interested in your books?”

“Because they…they are books about the Injil,” the man responded after much hesitation, using the Muslim word for the Christian New Testament.

“You have Christian books?” Alejo scrunched up his face and the bookseller flinched involuntarily. There were Christians in Pakistan, but most of them were born into Christian families. Trying to convert a Muslim to Christianity was a capital offense in Pakistan. Thus the man’s reluctance to talk. The sheen of perspiration on his forehead had condensed into a single bead above his left eyebrow.

“Don’t worry.” Alejo tried his most disarming smile. “I’m a Muslim, but I’m not even from here. I come from a little place called South America. I’m definitely not interested in causing any trouble for you. Can I see your books?”

The man held out the bag reluctantly, and Alejo pulled out the stack of dry looking titles and began flipping through them. Several phrases suddenly leaped out at him, and he realized he was staring at a book written in Spanish. A Bible.

“Whoa, a Bible…in my language.” Alejo glanced curiously at the man. “Where did you get this?”

The shriveled shopkeeper shrugged nervously, obviously ready to carry on towards home. “It’s been around in the store for a while, but no one knew how to read it so I’m giving it away to a friend who’s a collector. Maybe he will know what to do with it.”

For some reason, Alejo did not want to shove the Bible back into the bag along with the other books. He found himself reaching in the deep pocket of his shalwar kameez for his wallet.

“How much does it cost?” he blurted out. “I’ll buy it from you.”

“You’ll buy it?” The old book-seller’s face spread into the first smile Alejo had seen since they had begun talking. “I think that 2000 rupees should be enough.”

Che, why are you doing this? Alejo felt his lips curve in a wry smile as he forked over the cash. The dry leather of the fat book felt cool in his hands.

“I think you will like this book.” The old man tried a nervous smile. “It is the word of God too.” Having said this, the book-seller quickly said his farewells and shuffled off down the street at a quicker pace. Alejo stared at his new acquisition, then grinned.

I’m about to go walking around one of the most Muslim cities in the world carrying a big old Bible under my arm. It’s a good thing no one here knows Spanish.

Suddenly nostalgic for his home in Bolivia, Alejo sighed and set off towards the lavish bungalow the Khan always reserved for him when he came to Peshawar.

Tomorrow at 4 a.m. The Bible was going to have to wait awhile.

It was actually only a few minutes after four when the sleek black Hummer glided to a stop in front of the bungalow, purring in the slight chill of the early morning. Alejo approached the monstrous vehicle as the front door popped and a bulky man in a shalwar kameez that was cotton candy pink emerged to hold open the rear door. A smile twitched around Alejo’s lips as he recognized Mateen, a man one would be wise not to mess with, pink clothes notwithstanding. Mateen nodded wordlessly at Alejo as he climbed in the car and deferentially closed the door.

Alejo found himself shivering on the cool leather of the Hummer’s seats, surrounded by Ishmael Khan and two of his burly employees. The two men wore round woolen caps that were traditional Pashto garb, and each held a well-cared for AK-47 very comfortably between their legs.

“Peace be to you,” Alejo greeted the one next to him in Pashto.

“Asalaam Aleiykum,” the man grinned back at him merrily, missing teeth gaping above a thick, unkempt beard.

“Ishmael,” Alejo nodded at his boss, who, eerily, was impeccably dressed even at this ungodly hour of the morning. While Alejo respected all the good works the man did through his charitable foundation, he had to admit that the pretentious side of the Pakistani man was beginning to wear on him more with the years. Apart from the cavalcade of silver BMWs, the Khan family owned three jet-black, armored Hummers. Ishmael claimed that the militants outside of the city would just as well blow his Hummer up as one belonging to the United States Army. Every few weeks, however, Ishmael believed it was necessary for him to travel up into the locally-governed Tribal Area near Afghanistan, to check on the progress of his foundation’s work. And he always went in a Hummer.

“Why don’t you just take a bus or hitch a ride on a truck?” Alejo had once pressed his boss. “Wouldn’t that make you much less of a target than driving these beasts?”

“No, no, no,” Ishmael shook his head, spitting a stream of hashish off to the side and wiping his beard on his sleeve. “That would never do. These poor, ragged people, they know when someone is not like them. They would know me the moment I boarded a bus or truck. Money, power, and education cannot be disguised, even with the most dirty and poor of clothing.”

Well, that had been an interesting point of view.

The truth was, as the years went by, Alejo was learning that sometimes, when working towards a common goal, one had to tolerate others who may think differently about some issues. Yeah, the Khan had too many Hummers and his views on things could sometimes be just a little bit backwoods. But the man was giving his money to found hospitals and schools in places no one else cared about. That changed lives, and showed everyone that there was hope for us to see Allah’s justice on the earth.

Plus, there was the fact that Ishmael Khan seemed to love Alejo like a nephew. To a Pashto, that kind of trusting, family relationship was extremely serious, until death.

The roads outside of Peshawar were cut into dry, dusty mountain faces, incredibly sheer drop-offs framing their narrow edges. Eventually leaving the mountains, the Hummer began jolting its way across a stony field where the rutted tracks were barely visible in the weak light of the dawn. Everywhere, mud-brick houses that were barely sheds sprung up out of the rocky dust; most were shattered from missiles, empty shells of the family life that must once have filled them. Small children sometimes lined the road, staring with huge, kohl-lined eyes as the impressive Hummer roared past, clouding their ragged bodies in billows of thick dust.

Alejo felt his heart turn over in his chest. The pitiful children reminded him of the little ones in the extreme countryside of his own country: poor, hungry, freezing in the frigid mountain air, and much too young to have to know the sorrow of such a terrible fate. These small children by the road, thin shalwar kameezs flapping in the dusty breeze, surely felt cold and hunger in their mud hovels at night, and Alejo’s heart went out to them.

If only I could sell this darned Hummer, and build decent houses for these children, right here! And a school!

Eventually, the armored Hummer arrived at a run-down village, consisting of a cluster of houses around a stone well. Mangy, skeletal donkeys wandered about, tethered to fraying ropes, and scrawny chickens had free range of the dusty central courtyard. Alejo could hear the frantic crying of a baby from inside one of the single-room homes, until a piece of burlap hung over the small window stirred, a dark form peered out, and the baby was immediately hushed.

Somewhere in the near distance, the dull echo of a missile launcher pounded against the surrounding mountains.

Alejo started, and realized they were near the current battle zone.

With a cool hiss, the metallic doors of the Hummer unlocked and opened. The Pashto guards leapt out of the car, weapons gripped tightly in their rough hands.

“Settle down, settle down,” the Khan barked in Pashto, appearing amused. “There’s nothing to be afraid of right here, in this village. This village is still ours. Our commander is in constant contact with me, by sat phone.” Ishmael patted the pocket of his grey wool jacket from a posh London shop.

“You all stay here and guard the car.” Ishmael instructed his guards and driver. “Keeping a sharp eye out towards us, of course, as a precaution.” The Khan cleared his throat, spit on the ground again, and turned towards Alejo, all smiles. “And you, your hour has come. Did I tell you I had a surprise for you? I didn’t? Well, I have something I want to show you, and I think you will be very surprised. Pleasantly.”

Alejo felt his brows sink darkly. Yeah, he was surprised. What could be here, so near the battle zone, that the Khan wanted him to see? There was nothing here but run-down huts. And people who needed help.

“Come, Alejo, come,” the Khan was saying, heading towards a larger, low-slung mud building that was on the close side of the courtyard. Alejo’s leather sandals sucked at the mud as he followed, and he noticed a thin plume of smoke snaking from the chimney of the building into the slate gray of the morning sky.

Alejo halted impatiently outside the splintered wooden door as the Khan called into the building in Pashto, A curt answer came back to him, and the Khan motioned happily for Alejo to open the door. Curious, Alejo pushed his way into the darkened building and found, more or less, what he had expected: a room tightly packed with mud-caked, exhausted mujahedeen, taking an early-morning snooze by the fire before heading out to fight the enemy combatants. Most wore grimy shalwar kameezs and the traditional Pashto hats, with a ring around the bottom, bulging like a wool muffin on the top. The men looked thin and under-fed, and many had body parts wrapped up in dirt-encrusted, ratty bandages mottled with dried blood. Around one hundred pairs of brown, battle-weary eyes stared back at Alejo as his vision adjusted to the dim lighting. He felt the Khan push past him, forcing him further inside the room.

“Well, come see your surprise!”

Alejo was confused, but didn’t let it show, only cocking an eyebrow at Ishmael. He wasn’t interested in radical fighters and all their petty battles over slight differences in religion or generational blood feuds. What was he doing here?

“Asalaam aleiykum!” Ishmael greeted the men enthusiastically, and they, obviously knowing who he was, made an effort to sit up straighter with respect and returned the Pashto greeting.

“This is the man I told you about, the man I told your commander I would bring to you.” The Khan motioned widely towards Alejo, as pleased as a kindergartner presenting his newest coloring page to his favorite teacher. “Please greet our visitor.”

Alejo was perplexed to see grins spreading across the chapped faces of many of the Pashto men in the room. An unexplained feeling of dread crept across his chest as he watched them.

And then the men opened their mouths and spoke.

Alejo’s last few days in Pakistan dragged, a haze of strategic meetings with Ishmael and replaying the scene in the Tribal Area until he felt his brain would explode. There were many things that weren’t right with the new picture he had acquired of the Khan’s work, and those misaligned details only heaped themselves onto Alejo’s already-heavy heart, creating emotional meltdown. Why hadn’t he known about what was going on out there before? Probably because the Khan had imagined, quite correctly, that it would really tick him off.

Alejo listlessly picked at his rice and saffron lamb curry during his last lunch at the marble palace, running through his options and not finding very many.

When he finally finished his work with the Khans and made it back to the bungalow, it was just after four, a good seven hours before his flight back to Bolivia. Alejo slammed and locked the heavy wooden door and dropped his bags of goodbye presents from the Khans onto the red silk bedspread. He stood rooted to the center of the silver marble floor, staring at the familiar, studio-style space. He was caged in by ornate, gold-painted furniture in the seventeenth century style, including a giant gilded wardrobe that could have doubled as a coffin for King Tut. Pakistanis did love their gold furniture.

Alejo’s gaze traveled to the corner, where his small black suitcase was already packed. Actually, its interior was almost empty, since his collection of shalwar kameez would be staying here in the cheesy gold wardrobe. He was flying through Washington D.C., and didn’t want any immigration officials unnecessarily seeing Islamic clothing in his bag.

Apart from the Spanish Bible and a change of Western clothing, there was little else in the suitcase. Alejo had seen so many beautiful things for sale in the bazaar: gorgeous embroidered chador shawls, intricate wood carvings, and ornate gold necklaces to die for. But there was no one to bring them home to, and so he had resisted the purchase each time. Alejo hadn’t seen his family in years, and there certainly wasn’t any woman in his life to be bringing jewelry home to. Bolivian girls seemed to prefer a lighter hue than his own bronzed skin. Add to that the fact that Alejo seemed to possess about as much charm as a tree stump. At least that’s the way it had seemed in high school, when the girls always passed Alejo over for all his friends.

The decade that flew by since graduation hadn’t seemed to improve matters much, but that might have something to do with the fact that Alejo was always off in Iran or Pakistan, rambling on about justice and everything that was wrong with the world. Not exactly the kind of guy to show up with roses and chocolates.

For a moment, Alejo’s mind filled with the memory of another day, when he had taken his eighth grade class trip to Brazil. His family had never had money, but somehow, through a grant from a private organization, the entire class had traveled to the beaches. Coming home, Alejo’s suitcase had been bursting at the seams, filled with presents for his parents and siblings: a machete for his little brother, jute sandals for his sisters, a whole slew of brightly painted bamboo kitchen utensils for his mother, and a shiny bottle of Brazilian rum for his father, who had accepted it with a worried looking sigh. His father, as a dedicated Christian, had never approved of anything alcoholic.

Of course, for a Christian, alcohol was infinitely more evil than, say, letting the poor be trampled underfoot.

Or murder.

Alejo shook away the memory of his father with a groan, and picked up his almost-empty suitcase. He tossed it over by the door and sank on the unmade bed, rolling over and pulling the pillow against his face to try to shut out the light from the mid-day sun. Maybe he could sleep away the rest of the afternoon until it was time to head to the airport. He had worked hard enough during the rest of his time here; surely no one would complain if he took the day off. Anyway, since the Khans were through with him for now, there was really no one else who cared a drop if Alejo was curled up in bed in a gaudy gold and red silk room somewhere in Pakistan.

moonlight

WHEN MARK BENNISON MENTIONED THAT the Quechua Bible conference was a ways out in the Bolivian countryside, he certainly hadn’t been kidding. It was eight hours since they had left Cochabamba in the Jeep, leaving behind the vibrant garden city to climb higher and higher into the clouds. At this altitude, the beauty of the Andes was different, not of flowers and greenery but of majestic cliffs and towering silver peaks.

Wara had mercifully surrendered to sleep, slouched against the window pane of the Jeep. The sound of gravel spinning under the tires finally broke through the haze of her slumber, and she started, then forced her eyes to slit open. The glass pane had grown frosty in the chill of swiftly approaching darkness. In a few moments, the sun would sink behind the jagged peaks of the Andes. Wara groggily cleared a small circle to peep out the window and saw that the mountains encircling them were already black against the sapphire blue of the late afternoon sky.

She felt Nazaret stirring at her side, along with the other two girls also in the back seat, students from the Quechua seminary. All of them were bundled up in their warmest sweaters and woolen gloves for the trip up into the mountainous province of Potosi. Two male Quechua students were waking up in the front seat, next to Wara’s upstairs neighbor Mark Benneson, who had just braked his trusty, rust-brown Jeep to a halt. Somewhere in the back of the Jeep, Noah moaned and stretched, probably trying to untangle his long legs from all the sleeping bags and sacks of potatoes.

“Where are we?” she heard him mutter under his breath. “This place looks like the Twilight Zone.”

Ok, maybe Wara could kind of see why Noah found their surrounding a tad spooky. Up ahead, not even a single light clued them in to the presence of a town. Thick shadows were tossed off by the murky sky, and the skeletal remains of a dead tree rose up out of the gravel path, beckoning the Jeep forward.

“So, I think it’s that way,” Mark announced, squinting at the dried tree and then jerking the car into gear. Wara’s teeth rattled as the vehicle bounced over violent gashes in the mud until Mark finally killed the engine near a shadowy adobe house. Doors cracked open and the people inside the Jeep began to pile out, lugging backpacks after them and yawning sleepily.

Two maroon tennis shoes thrust out of the open Jeep door, and then Noah’s gigantic form spilled out and hit the ground with a skid of gravel. Noah towered over the guys from the Bible school, and was unfortunately awake enough to attempt a Quechua joke.

Well, at least he tries, Wara smiled wryly. There weren’t very many missionaries at all in Bolivia who could speak Quechua or Aymara, the two main indigenous languages.

“I hate to say it, but I think I’m getting a cold,” Nazaret squeaked, huddling closer to Wara for warmth. She rubbed her eyes and pulled a pink knit stocking cap down lower over her ears, shivering. Wara screwed up her face and peered at her friend in the darkness.

“Are you sure? That’s terrible!” Well, it certainly was bad that Nazaret was getting sick, way out here in the wilderness. But Wara had to admit that the first thing that came to her mind was the children’s program, which she and Nazaret were in charge of. With Quechua families walking across the mountains to this conference from all over the region, there was sure to be a milling throng of children there. What was she going to do with them all if Nazaret got sick?

I can’t ask Consuelo and Lucero to help if Nazaret is sick tomorrow. They have to teach the women.

The two girl Quechua students who had been in the seat next to them moved closer to the two city girls, wrapping their embroidered shawls tightly around them against the cold. Consuelo and Lucero were wearing the velvet, knee-length skirts that most Quechua women wore, called polleras. Their brown legs were bare and their shoes were black plastic ballet flats. They both had on white lace blouses with puffy sleeves and thick, fringed shawls covered with embroidered flowers and sequins. Lucero’s shawl was pale green, and her two jet-black braids were tangled up in it in a comical fashion as she giggled and pointed at the adobe house hugging the shadows. Consuelo’s shawl was lilac and matched her pollera. Both girls wore huge gold earrings shaped like crescent moons that dangled under their thick braids.

Wara suddenly felt very grungy. She had pulled on some old, frayed jeans for the trip, and had donned her blue alpaca sweater over a wrinkled t-shirt. The worn Doc Martin boots on her feet suddenly felt very man-like compared to the other girls’ feminine attire. But there was no use trying to change it. No matter how hard Wara tried to imagine herself in heels or dabbing on a little blush and powder before dinner, the attempt was futile.

Nazaret covered her nose with one tiny hand and muffled a shrill sneeze, which echoed off the mountains in the night. In the firelight from the adobe house, men were hefting the ministry team’s belongings onto a haggle of scrawny burros. Wara threw one more glance at the imposing bulks of the mountain peaks above them. It was now so dark that she only knew the Andes were there because in their place no stars could be seen, only a dark shadow. Mark had said that it would be better to do their climb up to the community where the conference would be held at night, because the searing sun at this altitude would tire them much more quickly. Right now, Wara really hoped that Mark knew what he was talking about.

They still had a seven-hour hike ahead of them, up the forested granite. Wara stifled a heavy yawn and fixed her gaze on the diamond stars.

A chicken scratching among the pebbles immediately outside the school house wall served as Wara’s alarm clock the next morning. As her eyes slit open, she could see the mottled, stick-like legs of the creature through a small hole broken in the adobe bricks along the floor at the level of her eyes. Daylight filtered through the tiny opening, as well as through a few cubed windows circling the low ceiling of the cramped room. Wara rolled over onto her back on her pallet of wooden boards, where she had dozed in her sleeping bag with another itchy wool blanket that had been on the pallet as a pillow.

She felt bad even thinking it after all the work the local Christians had done to prepare wooden pallets in the one-room school and give them this place to stay, but it had hardly been worth going to sleep. After several hours of rifting around, squawking and swatting at fleas (by the gringos and Nazaret), morning seemed to have come much too soon. But yet, it felt so good to be lying down, not walking on her blistered, tired feet. Wara felt that, images of fleas sharing her bed aside, she simply couldn’t move. Maybe it was that Raid that Nazaret had coated all their beds with before they had drifted off to sleep.

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