The Identity Thief (20 page)

He turned to Traci. "A second time I must apologize," he said, head hung low. "I should not have questioned your order to scream. I was brought up in a very strict household; I was told that it is the man who is to give the command to the woman."

"It is true what they say: 'What is learned in youth is carved in stone,' " X said. "Next time, don't wait for me to confirm an order."

Harry shook his head. "No, don't listen to him. It is written that obedience to a woman leads to hell."

Asar looked in confusion from man to man, trying to read their earnest expressions.

X laughed and punched Harry in the shoulder. Harry returned the playful gesture - a bit too hard for X's taste - and chuckled as well.

Harry threw Asar the keys. "Good news, my young friend. You can take the wheel for a few hours."

Asar's eyes lit up and he flashed a smile that put the sun to shame.

* * *

Two hours later a city came into view, rising like a mirage out of the dusty plain.

"It is the city of Gardez," said Asar. "We will find assistance and fuel. There are many I know there who are loyal to the Cause."

The Cause
, thought X
. Wasn't that what the Confederates called their gallant mission too?

"Praise Allah for protecting us on our journey," said the identity thief, who sat beside Asar and had been keeping him awake with small talk on the ride.

Traci and Harry were dozing in the rear. Or perhaps fine-tuning details of the mission. The equally uptight duo both acted as if they were too dedicated to sleep, X thought. It's a safe bet they weren't making out, although he was beginning to think Harry had a thing for her.

"She's beautiful, is she not?" Asar said abruptly.

"Who?" X craned his neck to see if there was a billboard featuring some Afghani movie star along the road. If the Afghanis were making movies yet. The Taliban had put something of a damper on the industry, if he recalled properly.

"Fatima, of course."

Huh
? The woman's face was hidden behind a veil and not an inch of her body was exposed. When she walked, the natural sway of her hips was modestly subdued.

I suppose it's been a long time since he's seen a woman,
X thought.
Or at least not one menacing him with attack dogs and mocking his naughty bits.

Asar nudged him and winked. "Come on, my friend, I have seen you gazing at her too. Those eyes, ah, what do you call that color? Hazel. It is like looking into a peaceful lake."

She did have nice eyes, but X simply didn't look at her that way. Sure, when they were in the hotel and she was posing as a masseuse, wearing that tight mini that showed off her high, round booty, he'd found her sexy. But a lot of water had passed under the bridge since then. Being caught by her and tasered by her henchman after fleeing through miles of sewer; being snarled at by her as he hung half naked from a crucifix - none of that was a particularly potent aphrodisiac.

Asar was waxing poetic now, a dreamy look in his eyes. "Her scent, it is like myrtle - no, rose perfume. They say that African women are passionate lovers. And she has proven herself to be courageous and devout. Islam allows a man to take four wives. Do you not admit she would be a fine wife No. 4 for you?"

It irked X that this teenage simpleton would presume to know who would be the perfect wife for him. The little idiot didn't even know who he was. Maybe it was the heat, maybe it was weeks of being chased and tortured, but he was getting a wee bit p.o.'d and decided to let the kid have a piece of his mind.

"First of all, I do not need a boy half my age to play matchmaker," he chastised Asar, waving a finger in the teen's face. "Second, as I recall you are a virgin and so your thoughts about which nationality of woman - "

A whooshing sound came from overhead. The two men looked up to see a drone in the sky behind them.

"Oh, hell," said X in American-accented English. Whoops. He was pretty sure the young Arab hadn't paid any attention to the slip. He was too busy flooring the accelerator.

Machine-gun fire erupted and bullets peppered the road not five yards in front of them. He assumed these were warning shots. But the next ones probably wouldn't be.

Asar swerved off the road, to the right, around the path of the bullets, then back on it. The machine guns roared to life again and, this time the bullets pounded the highway behind them.

"Buckle your seatbelt, my friend," Asar said. To X's amazement, he saw that the teen was grinning ear to ear.
You've got to be kidding
. Was this fun for The Chief's driver?

The truck sped off and X felt his back pressing against the car seat as if he were aboard a rocket ship. He swore he could feel the muscles of his face pulling back like those of a test pilot pushing a new fighter plane to Mach 4. Had the vehicle been souped up? He didn't put it past Mr. Jones and his real-life Qs to install some kind of turbo drive in the thing.

At any rate, the vehicle seemed almost to be matching speed with the drone. Asar swerved right, then left, weaving like a football player making a broken-field run.

Bullets drilled into the sand and cement on either side, barely missing the vehicle. X had been under the impression that drones carried only bombs, but apparently the latest generation came equipped with a menu of weapons.

What WILL they think of next?

The city was less than a mile away. X could see a checkpoint and the open gates behind it. They would have to crash right through it, braving the potshots of the half-dozen guards. But their more immediate problem was the flying killer robot. A mile was a long, long way to go with a drone firing some kind of high-tech Gatling guns at you.

Bullets ripped through the roof of the truck and into the seat next to them. X screamed as a piece of jagged metal from the roof tore into his thigh.

"F-Fu-!" This time he caught himself. "Bloody hell," he shouted in the British-accented English of Eton, the boarding school the real Ali Nazeer attended. He followed that up by spewing a stream of Arabic obscenities.

As they neared the city gates the sound of the unmanned aircraft became less deafening. The remote-controlled plane was ascending and X prayed that it was going away, although for the life of him he couldn't imagine why.

"I think it's going away," he shouted to Asar. "Maybe the city is too densely populated for them to chase us."

"Perhaps," Asar said. "But I fear it is going to fire a - "

BOOM!
The truck tipped over onto two wheels. A huge piece of the road right next to them shot into the air, a flaming chunk of smoky, molten cement. Two missiles left a crater in its place.

The truck skidded precariously along on two wheels, the driver's side tilting in the air. X was sure they were going to flip.

"Lean toward me," Asar shouted, grabbing X's arm.

With considerable effort, the identity thief lurched toward the driver. Whether his trim 150-pound frame (smaller, perhaps courtesy of a prison diet) really made a difference, he didn't know. But the truck slammed down on all four tires and bounced down the road.

The city was less than 50 yards away now and guards had massed at the gates, pointing automatic weapons straight at them.

"Any thoughts?" X said.

Asar smiled as if he were some NASCAR hotshot about to cross the finish line.

"Yes. We improvise, my friend."

X was sure he'd heard that line in some Hollywood buddy movie, but the boy's backsliding into corrupt Western pop culture was the least of his concerns.

Asar swerved off the road and began racing parallel to the city wall. Shots rang out after them and slammed into the back of the truck. For the first time in the chase, X thought fleetingly of Traci, back there bouncing around, and wondered if she was okay. More of the high-caliber bullets had penetrated the back of the truck than the cab.

Asar made a sharp left turn and through the window X saw the drone speed past them.

The boy floored the accelerator and like a charging bull directed the truck at the city wall.

"Are you crazy?" X screamed. "You're going to kill us both!"

"Then we will be martyrs and virgins await us."

"I'll settle for a woman with experience," X snapped. "Stop right now. I'm ordering you."

But Asar didn't stop. X shut his eyes as the truck smashed into the wall at top speed. Only it wasn't wall, he saw as bits of plaster exploded in all directions, coming down in chunks and fine powder, along with pieces of two-by-fours.

The truck turned down a narrow street and continued, still going 90 m.p.h. X was able to confirm with a high degree of certainty that he was still alive: the pain in his thigh was excruciating and the dead were presumably immune to pain.

Asar tapped his forehead.

"I knew there was a gap in the wall created when the old munitions warehouse accidentally blew up. The government promised to stone it back up months ago, but you know how that is."

The drone, useless to their pursuers now, rose and swerved off. But within seconds a green Humvee appeared in the rearview mirror.

"Now the thrilling part begins," Asar said, taking his hands momentarily off the wheel to clap them together.

The Russian truck raced through the narrow streets, not missing a single one of the potholes that dotted the road. One especially deep rut launched the two men so high, their hats struck the ceiling. Venders selling kebabs dived out of the way. It really WAS like something out of a James Bond movie, X thought. All that was missing was a button to pour tacks or an oil slick out the back.

Asar glanced at him and saw how white his face was.

"Do not worry, my good friend. Many times when I was driving The Chief I led the police on chases through Kandahar and this city as well, and didn't put a scratch in his BMW."

"I hope he tipped well," X replied.

"Oh, see if there are any cigarettes in the glove compartment," Asar said casually. "I haven't had one in months."

Through the side mirror X could see three Humvees in pursuit. But Asar didn't seem to be the least bit concerned. It was the first time the young man had seemed competent - something other than a young, misguided fool. Clearly he was in his element.

X popped open the glove compartment and found a dusty pack of cigarettes. There was a picture of genie perched on a flying carpet on the box and a brand name in Turkish. It looked as if they might have been there since the Russian invasion. X shook out one of the three remaining cigarette, blew off the dust and placed it between Asar's lips. He fumbled in the glove box and, amid some papers and petrified condoms, found a lighter and lit the cigarette.

"It's a good thing for you the Russians smoked like chimneys," X said as he watched the teen take a long drag.

"Ahh, Turkish," Asar exhulted. "I've miss this. And tea, how I've missed tea."

As they raced along, X looked out the window. Many of the buildings had been bombed out and rubble littered the streets. It was impossible to tell if it was left over from the Russian invasion, the civil war that followed or the America's turn at bat.

The turns got sharper as they barreled down progressively narrower back streets. The two Humvees separated, presumably to cut them off.

Asar laughed. "They think they know this city better than we do."

"The arrogance of those Americans," X said. But he estimated that inside of a minute they'd find themselves surrounded.

Asar made another razor-sharp turn and sped down a ramp and into a mechanic's shop. A sign over the garage door read "Jamal's Auto" in both English and in Arabic lettering. The garage door rolled down behind them and the truck screeched to a stop. X realized that this was the first time in the chase the boy had applied the brakes.

"Well, we are here," Asar announced cheerily.

As to where "here" was X didn't have a clue. But as he clambered out of the truck, his head aching from being repeatedly bounced against the roof during the pursuit and his thigh gushing blood from the shard of metal, he thought that he'd never been gladder to be any place.

Fatima and Moammar, better known as Traci and Harry, emerged unscathed from the rear of the truck. The interior of the garage was filled with spare parts and an old Jeep sat on blocks, the hood open. But it was quickly apparent that Jamal's Auto was a front.

The fugitives were greeted by a pair of Afghani men who gestured to them to follow. They were both dressed in black.
In vogue on both sides of the War on Terror
, X observed.

"We heard that the mighty Ali Nazeer was on the run from the Americans," the older of the two said. "We are servants of the Warriors of Allah. We hoped that you would grace us with your presence."

"The honor is mine," said X.

He gritted his teeth as one of the men pried the metal shard out of his thigh and hastily applied a bandage.

"Can you walk?" the fighter asked. X nodded.

The fugitives were led through a series of doors and tunnels, a twisting labyrinth in which they changed directions so many times it made X's head spin.