The Pale: Volume One by Jacob Long (portable ebook reader txt) 📕

stubbornness. “There’s no way you can stop me! Even if you don’t allow me to, I will go with him on my own! So back off! Let this go! Save some lives!”

Even shouting was exhausting for Adam. When he was done, his headache resurfaced, pounding at the back of his skull. He knew he was violating orders and maybe even breaking a law by leaving with El-Hashem, but it was right. He knew that too. It was unusual for Adam to feel so much conviction, but he knew it when he felt it.

The captain had been stepped all over again. He was caught powerless. The look of rage and determination eventually faded from his face, and he looked up at Adam with new eyes. They were softer, almost sad. He had resigned his conviction.

“Let’s pull out,” he said to his soldiers, and then he turned and walked away, back out into the desert, no more hesitation.

The other soldiers did hesitate a brief moment, exchanging glances. They still couldn’t believe it. All their loyalty, duty, and programming was being violated, but orders were orders, and there was nothing they could do. Even though it hurt, they lowered their weapons, turned, and followed the commander.

“Wow, bro.”

Adam turned to look at El-Hashem. He was sick of his stupid face.

“You stood up to your commanding officer and offered yourself to escort me out of here. You saved everyone’s lives.”

Adam could hear the mocking in Harun’s voice. He wasn’t in the mood. The altercation had left Adam physically and emotionally drained, so he simply turned away in silence. “Let’s get this over with.”

4

The car El-Hashem was waiting on arrived not long after the meeting with the captain. It was a large black SUV with opaque windows. It made the mistake of approaching from the direction of the nearest town, where the Seventh Infantry Division had set up their operations while they waited. Soldiers pulling security aimed their weapons at the vehicle and ordered it to stop. The terrified driver, who had probably been surprised with this task, was pulled out and detained. He was patted down while every inch of his car was searched. A translator and interrogator questioned him as quickly as they could. He didn’t know anything useful. He was just a villager from Kohsān who had been conscripted to drive the vehicle for a small fee. The SUV didn’t belong to him; he just happened to know how to drive. Not wanting to test El-Hashem’s patience, the commanders cleared the man’s release so he could continue on his errand.

Word reached El-Hashem via his handheld radio, and he led the way out of the mansion with Adam in tow. Adam took the long walk, battered, arms tied behind his back. He looked less like a martyr to be sacrificed for the greater good and more like an outlaw on his way to the gallows with El-Hashem leading him by the arm. They stepped out into the harsh sunlight with the faceless thug just behind.

The car waited diligently at the front gate of the compound, clear on the other side from the mansion, and Adam was made to walk again. He was exhausted. His every laborious footstep launched small plumes of sand into the air around his feet. The path before him sloped downhill, and he could see the soldiers standing guard on either side of the road. This horrified Adam. He was already ashamed, first at his defeat and then his complicity in that scheme. He didn’t want his fellow soldiers seeing him like that. All he could do was lower his eyes to the ground as Harun goaded him along.

Adam was not accustomed to walking with his head down. Periodically, he would glance at the face one of the passing soldiers out of the corner of his eye. They stood as sentries on either side of the path, straight and dutiful, with their rifles held low. Their expressions hid boiling rage just beneath the surface. They were enraged, appropriately so, that that they should have to stand and watch as another soldier was dragged off to his death. Worse yet, they had to guard the perpetrator and ensure he left safely. Adam never held the gaze of these soldiers for more than a split second. He looked away as fast as he could once their eyes met.

During one of these interactions, Adam had the misfortune of finding his friend Benito. Their eyes met, and Adam didn’t look away as fast as he should have. At first, Specialist Alvarez observed with the same grim look as the other soldiers, but then recognition slowly took hold. It took a moment for Alvarez to recognize Adam through the blood and the dirt, the defeat and depression on Adam’s face, but once he did, his jaw unclenched. A look of shock grew—outrage. It was his friend that Harun El-Hashem held hostage to make his escape.

Benito started searching to his left and right, looking around for someone to tell. He knew then, more than before, that he should do something, but he didn’t know what. He couldn’t do anything, so he searched frantically from his post for someone who could. There was no one and nothing. If he just shot El-Hashem, he condemned the hostages still inside. All Benito could do was watch as Adam was led away. Hopelessly, Adam tried to affect a reassuring smile, but he just couldn’t.

The large SUV waited just outside the gate at the bottom of the hill. Harun drove Adam forward, and the three men hopped inside without a word. Adam was shoved into the back first, and Harun entered afterward. The masked thug sat in the front passenger seat. Harun then ordered to the driver in Arabic, and the SUV slowly pulled away. The driver maneuvered around the Army camp and got on the road to Kohsān.

Adam leaned his head against the window and looked up into the sky. It was over. He was a prisoner, and El-Hashem got away, but perhaps, not quite. No helicopters followed the SUV, but they would have been too obvious. Adam knew the Army also had reconnaissance drones watching all the events that had transpired. Doubtless they were watching El-Hashem’s progress through the desert even then, flying higher than any of the passengers could see or hear.

Suddenly, El-Hashem smacked Adam on the shoulder. “Buck up, bro!” he said.

Adam turned to look at El-Hashem in irritation. The man was grinning like a thief.

“You did it!” El-Hashem was nearly shouting in his joviality. “You helped me escape, and now all the hostages are safe! My men will eventually surrender to your Army, and the women and children will be released!”

“I can’t believe you got your men to agree to something like that,” Adam mused.

Harun shook his head, still smiling. “Oh, I didn’t.”

Adam looked at him like he was an idiot.

“My men had no idea I was just going to leave them,” Harun explained, “and there was no way I was going to blow myself up either!”

Adam was immediately outraged while Harun started chortling like a newborn.

Once he’d gained enough control over himself to speak, Harun continued, “I convinced my men that if they rigged explosives and we threatened to blow ourselves up, I could make it convincing enough to secure release for all of us. If I succeeded, we would all be free, and if I failed, we would all be captured, which is what would have happened anyway. It was all a show!”

Adam couldn’t believe it. He’d been tricked; they all had. Harun wasn’t a psycho. He was an asshole, albeit a convincing actor. He’d lied, cheated, and betrayed all to secure his own freedom while his hired thugs were arrested in his place, and Adam had fallen for it.

Harun continued chuckling while he shifted in his seat and sat back. He sighed contentedly. Meanwhile, a cold rage covered Adam’s heart like thin sheet of frost, and it showed on his face. He stared at the side of El-Hashem’s smug, self-absorbed countenance with a contempt he hadn’t felt since Billy Mathers destroyed his sandcastle in the third grade. He wanted to strangle Harun and watch the light go out in his eyes. Adam was tied, and tied well, but he knew he could break free. All it would take was time, and the hate gave Adam dark patience that simply wouldn’t quit.

Adam tilted his head back and settled into the chair, closing his eyes as if he were going to sleep. He was very tired, and the chair in the brand-new SUV was comfortable; but if he was going to die, there was something he had to take care of first. Adam started working at his binds as inconspicuously as possible. It was difficult. The binds were tight, and any strength he used to loosen a knot might have been noticed, so he took to slowly wiggling the rope. It would take time, and Adam didn’t know if he had the time to spare.

The drive proved to be disappointingly short. “Wake up, Adam!” Harun ordered. Adam opened his eyes in irritation. “I want you ready to go as soon as we arrive. Look, we’re almost there.”

Harun pointed toward the windshield of the SUV and Adam leaned forward to see his destination while continuing to work at the rope. Ahead of them stood the town of Kohsān. The low buildings were made of mud, timber, and clay. On every side were neat, square patches of well-irrigated grass, the work of countless engineers and farmers to make the desolate area more livable.

“Great,” Adam said listlessly. “You got away. Can I go now?”

Harun looked over at Adam. All the humor had been drained from his face. “You go when I say you can go.” He turned to look out the windshield. “I know I haven’t gotten away yet. One of your American drones is doubtless watching us even now.” A short smirk appeared on his lips before he continued, and he nodded to himself. “But I have a plan for that too.” When he turned his head to look at Adam once again, he looked like a snake appraising a defenseless little rodent. Adam absentmindedly stopped tugging at his binds, and he would have shivered if his muscles weren’t already so defeated.

“I’ll need your help just one more time, Specialist,” Harun finished.

El-Hashem’s predatory gaze held Adam for a moment, but he managed to tear his eyes away and look outside to see what had the snake so excited. The vehicle had driven into the town and was advancing toward its center. It being the middle of the afternoon, the Kohsān market was in full swing, and Adam quickly figured out Harun’s angle. There were dozens, if not hundreds, of stalls set up in the square and reaching deeply into every connecting street. Many of them had awnings to defend the merchants from the sunlight, which cast long shadows in cascading streaks across the ground. Thousands of animals and people moved in every direction, bleating and shouting.

The driver stopped the SUV at the edge of the marketplace, and El-Hashem snapped orders at the other men. The two in the front seats immediately exited, and the masked thug moved around to the door next to Adam. He opened the door and tore Adam out of the vehicle by the arm. Harun scooted out of the same door just after. He took control of Adam and held out his hand, into which the masked thug deposited a pistol. Adam watched the pistol disappear behind him and then felt the muzzle pressed into the soft flesh just under his ribcage.

Harun growled into Adam’s ear. “Keep up. Don’t try anything stupid.” He turned to the other men and barked another order. Immediately the two walked quickly into the crowd. Harun shoved Adam ahead, and the drone operators, who were absolutely watching from the sky, observed their glowing white shapes join with the huddled masses.

Adam staggered along, jostled by nearly every passerby while Harun motivated him brusquely in the trail of the two men before them. They zigzagged through the market, cutting under open awnings and pushing into closely knit groups. This actually served to assist Adam. He was able to put more strength behind escaping from the ropes tied around his wrists. It just felt like Adam