Page 8 of What Remains

Except, John noted, for Mac and Shahida. The two had moved off from the others and seemed to be in some sort of quiet argument. No raised voices, no shouts, no waving of arms. But Shahida was shaking her head in an emphatic negative while Mac leaned in. Fromhisbody language, the man was at the end of his tether.

Trouble in Paradise?Interesting, if true. These were Shahida’s kids, boys she and Driver’s men had rescued from lives spent as playthings for pedophiles. Many of the older boys had eventually become fighters under her command against the Taliban. Even if that hadn’t been the case, he could understand why she wouldn’t want to leave a single kid behind. From what he’d gathered, Mac already had doubts whether they couldreallyget them all on a transport. There were just as many Afghans who’d worked for the Americans and deserved to get out, too.

Maybe that’s what they’re arguing about.He shrugged on his pack.Maybe there are just too many kids. Unless?—

“Hey.” When he turned, Roni gave him a tense smile that showed no teeth. “Everything go okay?” she asked.

“Fine.”How could anything be bad when I’m near you?“Other than Flowers really ought to try a Monster Truck derby.”

“What?” she asked, her brows knit, at the same moment that Flowers said, “Hey, I resemble that remark.”

Meeks, who was nearby, only rolled his eyes. “He do that to you, too? He’s like that when he gets jacked on caffeine. That Red Bull habit of his?—”

“Enough chit chat!” Mac gave a brusque clap of his hands, like a scout master rallying a bunch of bored ten-year-olds. Which, oddly, John thought they sort of were. “We need to get a move on here,” Mac said in his clipped, almost Brahmin accent. Anyone listening to the man might be forgiven for thinking him British. “We have a number of boys to process and only limited time—andspace.” This last he seemed to direct at Shahida, who now stood with Musa, the two of them looking thunderous. Clearly, their argument with the CIA agent hadn’t gone in Shahida’s favor.

John put his hand up. “Can I ask a question?”

Mac looked first startled and then pissed. “Yes, Worthy, what is it?”

“You said we have kids to process.”

“Yes,” Mac said. “And?”

“And, well,processingmeans making sure the kids are fit to fly.”

Mac’s jaw worked as if he were mouthing something foul. “Do you have a point?”

John squeezed a bit of air between two fingers. “Just a teeny-weenie one. What happens if we find a kid whoisn’tfit to fly?”

Silence. Everyone swapped glances. Finally, Roni said, “I haven’t found that to be the case, John.” At the same moment Shahida declared, “We no leaveanyboy behind.”

John put up both hands. “Whoa, whoa, easy. I’m just trying to understand what you want me to do. If Idofind something, I need to know now whether or not I should outrightlie. You know, falsify a record and in so doing, maybe put other people at risk. Little things like that.”

More outraged noises from Shahida, some shuffling of feet, but it was what Mac said next that struck home.

“Why,lie, obviously. In fact, I should thinklyingis something at which you excel given all your years of practice.” And then Mac’s lips curled into a smile a crocodile would envy. “Isn’t that right, Captain?”

POYA: THE BOY WHO LIED

November 2023: Bam-e Dunya, Afghanistan

1

Everyone goes to the stoning.The villagers know to obey. Best not to attract the wrong kind of attention.

Poya walks ahead of Mami.He is his mother’smahramnow. He leads the way by several paces, not looking at his own feet but staring straight ahead, shoulders back, his face a studied neutral. He takes care not to check over a shoulder to see if Mami, hidden away in the billowing folds of a dusty bluechaadar,follows. Every escort knows he will be obeyed, even if that escort is a boy whose ears this very same mother boxed only that morning.

In matters such as this, a woman—wife or mother or sister—is a bit like a dog, although no one trulykeepsdogs. A dog isnajis, unclean and impure.

So, too, a woman’s face isawrah, not unclean but a temptation, just as the sight of a woman’s entirejuyubihinnais meant only for a husband. Different label, same idea.

Touch a dog, though, and not only can youwashyour hands, you get to keep them.

But touch someone else’s wife? If the man is unmarried, he gets off with only twenty strokes from the branch of a date palm and a suggestion that heading into the wilderness is ineveryone’s best interest. All a man has to do is leave and keep it zipped.

But for the woman? No such luck. Her lush breasts and smooth belly, her supple skin, that throb along the side of her neck as her heart bounds with desire, her groans and sighs of pleasure, her juyoobihinna? Every part of a woman, especially a young one, is forbidden flesh after which a man might lust.

So, everyone knows. For certain women, only death will do.

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