Page 32 of What Remains

4

The hardest partof driving a Humvee full of kids was worrying about the boy with the silvery-blue eyes riding shotgun. Like, literally, ridingwitha shotgun. Well, Kalashnikov. Different flavor, same idea.

“Kazim is quite competent,” Mac said, as Flower and Meeks loaded and folded the other children into various configurations before settling on having the older and larger kids hold those who were younger and scrawnier on their laps. “He also speaks more than a bit of English. His father was a schoolteacher before he was killed. Again, fortunate, should the two of you come upon some emergency.”

“Uh-huh.” Honestly, if the proverbial brown stuff hit the fan, the kid might have to think for himself. There was also something almost familiar about the boy. What was it? He watched the kid checking out a rifle: safetying the Kalashnikov, inspecting the chamber, popping out the magazine, counting rounds. Peering through the weapon’s bore to make sure there was no debris or buildup. All the right moves which indicated the kid knew what he was doing.

But watching the kid was also a little eerie, like seeing himself as a boy. There washunting. Lots of kids did that with theirdads or uncles. But there was also war. There was the knowledge that people might very well be drawing a bead and squeezing a trigger with about as much thought as they might give to swatting a fly or turning out a light.

Thiskid was prepared to kill, a feeling with which he was quite familiar. He wondered, for the first time, what it had been like for Uncle Dare after all the dust settled and everything said and done. Had Dare, alone in his cabin, looked back on all those months of his nephew’s very peculiar tutelage and thought,What in God’s name have I done?

“How old is he?” He avoided using the kid’s name. Didn’t want the kid to know they were talking about him. Although he had a sense Kazim knew precisely what was going on.

“Fifteen.” Then, Mac had added, “Owned for five of those years. Liberated during the sixth.”

John did the math. “He was taken when he wasnine?”

“Oh, not taken.Bought,and for a very handsome price, or so I’ve been told. His unfortunate mother was left with many mouths to feed and little income. She could tutor, of course, but only girls and then even that modest income was taken from her.”

“Taliban?”

“Only long after the fact. Once farmers there had their opium crops destroyed by coalition forces, no one had money to spare for education. So, what was she to do? Kazim’s brothers weren’t as,” Mac searched for the right word, “pretty? Desirable? I only know of this second-hand, mind you, but from what I heard, the broker had himself quite a bidding war. The boy was well-proportioned, of course, but it was the color of his eyes, that otherworldly blue, which made him doubly attractive. Do you read much?”

The sudden shift caught him off-balance. “Uh, sure. Why?”

“Do you recall this very famous photograph of a young girl with?—”

“Her eyes.” That was what made the boy seem so familiar. “I remember.National Geographic.”

Mac was nodding. “Sharbat Gula, yes. She was living in a Pakistani refugee camp and in school when that photo was taken. Very hard life she’s had, a bit like the boy. Her eyes were what captured the photographer. Hehadto take her picture; hehadto pose her in what is, essentially, a glamour shot.”

“Get out.”

“No, seriously. Go back and look sometime if you don’t believe me. Study the fear in her eyes. Here’s this grown white man cajoling a ten-year-old girl, while her teachers do nothing to stop him. Well, the same goes for Kazim. The boy was beautiful and quite a catch. His owner’s friends wanted this gorgeous chai boy, too, and didn’t mind parting with some monetary recompense for the privilege of a few hours.”

Just the thought of the boy being passed around for sexual favors by a bunch of men made him ill. “How long has he been with Shahida?”

“A year. She’s his savior and he is devoted. Believe me, he’s not at all happy parting from her even for a few hours.”

That, he thought, might be a problem. “Is he going to be trouble?”

“You mean, will he turn the gun on you and rush back here?” Mac shrugged. “I doubt it.”

“Which is another way of saying maybe yes, maybe no.” He paused then added, “Heavy on themaybe no.”

“If the two of you were alone, perhaps. But there are the other boys, so he will follow orders. An unfortunate byproduct from his upbringing, however, is that you’ll find he’s quite hardened. Not completely lacking in empathy, but he is efficient and quite…”

“Ruthless?”

“I was going to say dispassionate.” Mac gave him a side-eye. “If there’s a problem, he’ll do what’s necessary.”

“Well,” John said, “let’s hope for all of our sakes, he doesn’t have to.”

As luck would have it,the three dusty and very hot hours it took to reach the rendezvous point flew by: John, pushing the vehicle as hard as he could while keeping an eye on the odometer; Kazim, watchful, his head on a perpetual swivel as he checked left, right, and then their rear in his side-view mirror. The two other boys sandwiched between them were still as statues. None of the seven boys in the rear seat chatted. In fact, lulled by the motion and steady drone of the engine, the majority slept. John spotted no other vehicles, though they did pass several villages and swaths of farmland he’d not seen on the outbound leg. The only people out there were at such a distance as to be mostly suggestions.

Right around the time his odometer showed that he was halfway to Kabul, Kazim suddenly straightened.

“What?” John’s pulse tripped into double-time. He flicked a quick look at the boy, who was leaning forward now and squinting. “What is it?”

---