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Rapp had stashed the bike in the same trees as the week before and was now walking a similar path. This time without his young guide and protector, Akhil.
The afternoon sun was fully overhead, but the altitude and intermittent shade were keeping temperatures reasonable. Even more important than protection from the sun, though, was the protection the forest would provide from flying rocks.
By the time he reached the clearing where Kadir lived, he suspected he was being watched. That suspicion turned to certainty when a stone suddenly arced from an irrigation ditch to the north and cut through the branches in front of him.
“I’m not going back!” came a muffled shout followed by another rock. This one went wider, clacking off a partially collapsed stone wall before falling into the dust.
“Kadir! It’s me, Mohammed! I was here with your nephew. Do you remember? The Russians took me, too. But I escaped!”
The man rose, wearing clothes this time, but also brandishing a hoe lashed together from a tree branch and a sharp rock. Otherwise, he was just as wild-eyed and filthy as when they’d first met.
“Why are you here? Did they send you?”
“No one sent me. I came to talk.”
A switch seemed to flip in the man’s damaged mind. He dropped the makeshift weapon and turned toward his house. “We should have tea.”
Rapp accepted an invitation to sit on the ground and watched Kadir build a fire. Best to let the man process this visit on his own terms, and the act of making tea seemed to be centering him a bit.
“Thank you,” Rapp said, accepting the steaming cup as Kadir sat on an upturned log that was out of the smoke’s path.
“What do you want to say to me? No one comes here. No one wants anything from me. Not anymore.”
“When we talked last, you said you wanted to kill the Russians who imprisoned you in that facility. The ones who addicted you.”
Kadir leapt to his feet. “I have something for you to see!”
He wrenched open the door to his home and disappeared into the gloom, reappearing a moment later with the IED he’d shown Rapp the last time.
“I built this,” the Syrian said proudly, holding it a little closer to the fire than was advisable. “I need more explosives, but they’re expensive. The fighting’s started again now. I may be able to find some unexploded ordnance. It’s heavier and more difficult, but I can make itwork. I used to be an engineer. I worked at a university. Then I can take it back to that place. I can kill them.”
Rapp nodded approvingly.
“Do you know where the facility is?”
Kadir dropped onto his log again, hugging the bomb. “They took me there in the back of a truck. Me and the others. They took us out the same way. I don’t know where exactly. But I can find it. God will guide me.”
“Maybe Allah is already guiding you, Kadir. Because I know exactly where it is.”
His eye widened. “You do? You can tell me how to get there?”
Rapp ignored the question for the time being. “Have you seen the exterior?”
“No. There were no windows where I was and they only let us outside in an interior courtyard. They made us fight there. They made us fight to get the drug.” His eyes moistened. “And I did.”
“There’s heavy security,” Rapp said. “A fence topped with razor wire, guard towers, and no way to hide your approach. They’ll see you coming for kilometers. You wouldn’t even make it to the gate.”
“Allah will protect me. He sent you to me, yes? He’ll make me invisible.”
“Maybe. But if He does, how much damage can you do with that explosive? Kill a guard? Two? And they aren’t the people who did this to you. They’re not the ones responsible.”
“Maybe it will only be a guard,” Kadir responded defensively. “That’s for Allah to decide. But He doesn’t want me to live like this. Alone. Remembering late at night who I once was. An engineer. A man of respect.”
Rapp took a sip of his tea. It tasted like it came out of one of the goats in the corral behind him. “Did you see inside the garage?”
“Yes. They brought us in and took us out there.”
Rapp pulled up a rendering of the facility on his phone and handed it to the man.
