Veil of Civility

Chapter Sixty-Eight

"You can't just keep me here!" Sharpuddin shouted. "Albek! He's going to kill me! You can't just keep me here!"

The door to the grubby bathroom opened a few inches and a vertical shaft of light came from the room beyond. A shadow passed in front of it as a bearded face appeared. "Quiet, boy." The door closed again returning the room to complete darkness.

Sharpuddin pulled against his restraints, but his wrists were too bruised from previous attempts to keep pressure on them for long. He gave up, wincing. He didn't know what time it was, or even what day. The only people he had seen in what seemed like days were the men who came in to use the toilet that stood next to him, many of them turning towards him as they urinated. He'd attempted to leave the building as soon as Abu Tabak and his chief deputy had gone, but had only found what he had already suspected, that they had no intention of letting him leave.

"Albek! Help me! He's going to ki—"

The door to the bathroom opened wide with a bang and Sharpuddin squinted as bright light flooded in. "Shut up boy!" he heard someone say, as a hand was placed around his throat, forcing his head back against the porcelain sink he was chained to.

"Easy, Anzor," a voice said from outside of the bathroom. Sharpuddin opened his eyes and blinked as Abu Tabak wandered into the doorway, casually holding a serrated bowie knife.

"Don't kill me, Abu! Don't kill me, General! I'm not going to cause any trouble. I swear!" Sharpuddin was pleading for his life, even though he didn't think it would do much good. He had watched Tabak kill several times during their days in Chechnya. On one occasion, Tabak had even taken the time to decapitate slain Russian soldiers so that he could place the men's heads near their own crotches as a final insult and as a warning to those who would discover the grisly scene. At the time, Sharpuddin had cheered the deed; the soldiers were foreigners trying to dominate Chechen land. But looking back, he wished he had done differently. He wished he hadn't been there at all.

"Vakha is already dead. Let me go. Let me bury him with honor. Put his body in the trunk of his car and I will take him home. By the time anyone discovers I was here, your plans will be completed. I won't get in the way. I swear."

"We should kill this traitorous dog!" Anzor said, spitting at Sharpuddin as he stood alongside Baktayev.

"No," Baktayev said. "I have other plans for him." He bent down and placed the serrated edge of the bowie knife at Sharpuddin's throat. "You're going to bring news to the world of the brave servants of Allah who are about to lay down their lives in service to our God and our country." He turned his head to look over his shoulder and called, "Albek?"

The thick-bearded man who had been keeping watch over Sharpuddin appeared in the doorway.

"Make sure everything is in the vans and ready to go. We're leaving, now."

"Yes, General," Albek said, as he turned and moved hurriedly into the workshop outside the grungy bathroom that had become Sharpuddin's prison.

"We cannot rely on this dog to tell anyone anything! He will lie with his forked American-loving tongue!" Kasparov protested.

Baktayev smiled as he smelled the air. The sound of engines starting came from the workshop, the smell of exhaust fumes filling the cramped building. He looked up at Kasparov. "Well, I wasn't going to fork it, and who said anything about him speaking?"

Sharpuddin's eyes went wide and his feet scrabbled against the concrete floor as if there was somewhere he could escape to. "No, Abu — No — anything but that! Please! Anything but that!"