The Rendition (3 page)

Above me in the room, the woman said something to her friends and they all laughed. Mixed in with the Albanian, I thought I heard the word “ketchup.”

I may have dozed during the night, but I never really slept. The lack of circulation and the dampness had caused all my joints to ache. Maybe the worst pain was in my head, where one of them, probably Quemal, had caught me with a boot. I could taste blood in my mouth. I suppose I spent four or five hours in the hole before I heard the tinny sound of a cheap radio, someone playing pop music, Albanian-style. After a while, the music was interrupted by a guy chattering excitedly, some kind of Albanian language newscast. In Kosovo, what passes for news is such transparent propaganda no one even pretends to believe it.

For maybe the third or fourth time, I threw up.

After they'd been moving around and talking for about an hour, things became quiet. Without my watch, I found it hard to gauge time. I heard a car engine turn over. A short while later, Nadaj pulled open the trapdoor. As I looked up, he pointed an automatic pistol at me and shouted something. He had a bandolier over his shoulder. As I staggered up out of the hole, he kept his weapon pointed in my direction. He needn't have bothered. I wasn't in shape to make any sudden moves.

But the weapon in his hand definitely caught my eye—a 9mm machine pistol, an MP5. So far as I knew, these were used exclusively by Special Forces, and were favored by “special ops” people in Afghanistan. I wondered how these characters could have gotten their hands on one of those babies.

I was aware how filthy my coveralls were, caked with mud and
smeared with every kind of filth. I felt lightheaded, and not sure of what to do, I just stood there. Finally, the woman told me to sit down at the table with my hands out in front of me. In the center of the table was a partially filled bottle of water and a wormy-looking apple. She took out my passport, flipped through it, then smiled, obviously enjoying her little power trip.

“We know why you're here, Alex Klear.” When she nodded in the direction of Nadaj, something told me the two of them were lovers. If they were, they deserved one another. “You people wanted Ramush. You wanted to grab him and take him back. Right?”

Still playing dumb, I frowned. “Ramush?”

“We don't think you're with KFOR. You're not military. Is that right?”

I was thirsty and tried not to look at the water. This character with the bandolier slung over his shoulder sitting opposite me at the table was definitely the individual in the pictures we'd been shown, all of which were in the glove compartment of our van. I told myself that this was going to have a good ending. I also told myself I'd gotten out of other scrapes, some of them worse than this one. I told myself I'd get out of here one way or another.

But while I'd been in some tight scrapes, I'd never before been so dumb as to let myself become a prisoner.

I was close to the point where I was running short on optimism. The danger in black operations of this kind is that you don't have fallback. For all we knew, Buck Romero, the guy who'd organized the Nadaj rendition, was still in the States. He'd given us a number to call in case of an emergency, but I had to wonder whether KFOR, even assuming Angel and Scott reached someone in Camp Bondsteel, would lift a finger to get me out. The military would only regard us as a bunch of bounty hunters, and now that I thought about it, who could blame them?

Nadaj fixed me with a stare, and just having to look at him up close was enough to shake my confidence a little more. Behind his unkempt curly hair, deep-set brown eyes, and black beard, there was a crafty, malicious look, the look of someone who can smell weakness and will
always go for your jugular. I already knew Nadaj was good at sucker punches. The truth was, I was surprised that I was still alive.

“If not Ramush, what then? You tell us, you get something to eat and drink.” Vickie tossed my passport onto the table.

I said, “Give me something to eat first, Vickie. Then we can talk.” My voice sounded strange. The throbbing ache in my head was making me dizzy, and the room was beginning to spin.

She shook her head. “We know you're not with KFOR. You'd have ID.”

“I want to speak with someone at the American embassy.”

“You'd have one of those badges. Am I right?”

“I'm thirsty.” I tried not to sound as tired as I felt.

She hesitated, glanced at Nadaj, then pushed the water and the apple in my direction. Drinking the water in Kosovo can be a ticket to a case of dysentery, but I was thirsty and I took a couple of sips anyway. When I started gnawing on the apple, I became aware of my loose teeth.

“Fadilj and Quemal will be back in an hour. You're going to wish you talked with me, Alex.”

“Sure, Vickie.” I took another bite out of the apple. Despite the worms, it was sweet, tasted good. I said, “Did you like America?”

Vickie looked at Nadaj and said something. When he laughed, she looked back at me. “Bridgeport's a shithole. I worked in a furniture factory. All day long I glued pieces of wood together. I wore a mask. I got less than fifty dollars every day to take home.”

“That's more than you can make in a month in Kosovo, Vickie. And you don't have to give half to a warlord.”

“I gave it to a landlord, asshole. My apartment was six hundred dollars, more. The landlord was a son of a bitch, and he kept the heat turned off. And your goddamned supermarkets charged for food like—”

“You should've gotten a green card. You could've earned more.”

“I had a goddamned green card, asshole. You people and your stupid green cards. I hate your fuckin' goddamned country!”

Before I could say how much we Americans love our country, Nadaj said something and she nodded. “Ramush wants to know if you know about Afghanistan.”

“What about it?”

“About what happened there.” When I shrugged, she said, “Answer! Do you know what happened there?”

I shook my head, and Nadaj started talking excitedly, gesturing with his left hand, the hand without the gun. He shouted something at me, leaning over the table, sticking his dumb face in front of mine. I wondered what had gotten him so excited. Vickie started talking to him, as though she was trying to quiet him down.

“Ramush is unhappy with you, Alex Klear. He wants to know who sent you. He wants to know how many of you were back there. He thinks you know about Afghanistan. He knows you were after him.”

Like I say, I couldn't have told Ramush exactly who sent me since I didn't quite know myself. I had no idea why they were asking about Afghanistan. This operation had been shrouded in mystery from the beginning.

Nadaj was still talking, but now he had his knife out. I became aware of my pounding heart. The knife had a curved black handle, a shiny steel blade, and I couldn't take my eyes off it. He stuck it in front of my face and kept it there for maybe a minute. The room started spinning again. As Vickie continued to talk with Nadaj, he calmed down. When he finally put the knife away, I breathed a shade easier.

“You just had a close call, Alex. Ramush says in his village the custom is to punish an uncooperative person by cutting off his nose. Ramush says without a nose you would be willing to talk. He says then you would tell the truth. He still wants to know who sent you.” She paused, looked at Nadaj, who was smiling and nodding like the village idiot.

How could I have been so dumb as to fall into the clutches of people like this?

“I think you should tell us,” she said. She picked up my passport. “Why is there no entry stamp? How did you get into this country?”

I tried not to look at Nadaj, who I'd decided was a total creep. I could have told her that I got the passport, my wristwatch, and the Leatherman from Buck Romero, the guy who sent us off on this little
expedition. I could have said that we flew into Skopje, in Macedonia, and bypassed the customs officials at the border by paying them money. It was somebody's thinking that there shouldn't be any official record of our having been in Kosovo.

Since I couldn't say any of these things, I continued to play dumb. While Vickie turned the pages of my passport and spoke with Nadaj, I heard the sound of a car. The driver was gunning the motor, and it was working hard to get up the hill. In Kosovo, it's not generally understood that you have to keep a car's engine tuned for it to run efficiently. Even when it is understood, there aren't any tools or timing lights around to do the job. A civil affairs officer, a woman with a lot of experience in these parts, once told me that in Kosovo the people are obsessed by only one thing—their struggle for independence. When they talk about politics, they always end up discussing some battle they fought with the Serbs in the 1300s. Efficient engines are way down the list in importance.

Kosovo ain't America. Believe me.

A few minutes later, Quemal and Fadilj pushed their way in through the narrow door, both of them talking a blue streak. Fadilj had a basketful of food, which he set down on the table and which Nadaj immediately began examining. Within seconds, he had a box of cookies open and was stuffing the contents into his mouth, indifferent to the crumbs falling into his beard. Quemal, I noticed, was carrying a camcorder.

Fadilj pointed at me and laughed.

The worst of it was, it was probably my euros that had bought the camcorder. I had an idea I knew what it was for. And I now knew why Vickie had been able to talk Nadaj out of cutting up my face. They wanted me to look pretty. I also had an idea that I'd remain alive only for as long as I was useful to them.

While I sat at the table wondering if I should make a break for it right there, the four of them talked among themselves. Then Vickie said, “How do you like the idea of becoming a television star, Alex Klear?”

The Assassin said something, and Vickie nodded. “Quemal says he's going to make you famous. You'll be on television all over the world, Alex.”

Behind me, Fadilj and Nadaj stood in front of the bare wooden wall holding their weapons. Both had scarves wrapped around their faces. Nadaj now had a bandolier slung over each shoulder, his fatigue cap covering most of his face. Very macho. They'd moved the table, and I was on my knees in front of Fadilj, who was seated on a chair. I guess I was the star because they had the camcorder pointed directly at me.

Vickie was standing off to the side sucking on a bottle of soda pop. She'd spent fifteen minutes explaining what they wanted me to say. She motioned to Fadilj to begin rolling the film.

“You can start now, Alex,” she said, smiling.

With the camcorder rolling, I looked into it. “Mr. President. I'm in Kosovo. Through my own fault, I've been captured by freedom fighters. That's what they call themselves. My only hope to be freed by these morons is if you take our troops out of Afghanistan and demobilize the army. Before you do, I hope you will send an air strike and completely exterminate these creeps and their—”

Suddenly, Vickie started waving her hands and shouting, obviously telling Fadilj to stop filming. As she continued to talk, Nadaj, looking puzzled, asked what was going on. A second later, I felt what could have been a rifle butt against the back of my head. Two of them dragged me to my feet, and Nadaj drove his fist into my stomach. I wasn't too aware of whatever else he did because at some point I passed out.

Sprawled on the floor, I could hear voices, which grew loud and then faded. After a time, I could hear Vickie. Since she was speaking English, I knew she was talking to me. But it sounded as though she was in a tunnel. Then she was shouting my name. When I didn't respond, someone kicked me. Then I got some water thrown on me.

Then I was sitting up with everyone looking at me.

“We want to try it again. It's important to us. We'll keep doing it until you do it right.” She again told me what they wanted me to say.
“It's your only hope. You want to live, don't you?” She grinned. “Even though you won't have a nose?”

Behind her, Quemal was smirking and making a sawing motion with the Leatherman.

A few minutes later, we started in again. “Mr. President. I'm in Kosovo. Captured. There are people here who want to set me free. But they prevaricate. They say they are freedom fighters. Enemies of America and lowlifes is what they really are. Vickie was in Bridgeport. Find out who the hell she—”

This time Vickie slugged me.

After a while, we tried it again, but for some reason it didn't go any better. I guess we didn't get a wrap. I felt myself smiling. That's what they say in Hollywood. “It's a wrap.” I wanted to say that even after they'd beaten me up and while they were dragging me across the floor.

Even while Vickie was telling me I was going back in the hole, I wanted to say, “I guess we didn't get a wrap.” I wanted to say something funny, let them know I thought they were a bunch of goofballs and nothing they could do would ever change that. But I was finding it difficult forming the words.

“You better talk tomorrow. Ramush is becoming very unhappy with you.”

There were other voices, then a loud noise, something slamming shut—the lid of a coffin that I feared would never again be opened.

I'm having trouble breathing. Face down in a pile of filth. No idea of time. Smell makes me want to throw up. Like it was in Ranger School, eating mud on the obstacle course, DIs shouting and screaming. Vickie said I was stubborn. Who was it who always said that? It was Irmie—long time since we've seen one another.

Irmie, I still think about you
.

Can hear the dogs. Keep stumbling. And those stupid Vopos, the East German Army, one dumber than the other. Buck, you remember that day? They were yelling. “Halt! Halt!” I fell. Really took a header. Hard ground. Frozen. Shots. I'm swerving one side to the other—don't
want to give them a target, but that slows me down even more and, Buck, you're already in the chopper.