"Mm. And some other stuff. Jacko's very inventive. I've got a PhD and I've never heard that stuff before." Jacko, who was a very gifted mechanic, had once had a piece of engine bite him and she'd learned a lot of interesting expressions before he discovered she was there, listening to him with a grin. He'd shut up immediately.
Nick winced.
"Never mind that." Kay leaned forward. "What happened at the FOB?"
It was as if she'd waved a wand. It wiped the slightly amused wince from his face and replaced it with an expression she couldn't quite pin down.
"Matt and his team were on endless patrols. We're not even at war anymore in Afghanistan but goddamn if fine men aren't still being killed. So anyway, in prances this CIA prick. Not gonna say his name because it's still classified, but his middle name was mother-" His eyes glanced to the side, then back. His jaw clenched as he bit back the word motherfucker. "He briefed Matt on the new mission. Turns out the new mission was sort of the old one, except for one thing. They were supposed to keep the local warlord happy at all costs. Give him the total white-glove treatment."
Now it was her turn to wince. "I've heard that some warlords were-are-nasty people."
"Scumbags, most of them," Nick nodded. "This particular scumbag was the worst of the lot. Ignorant and brutal. Matt said he took an extra-long shower whenever he had to visit the warlord, keep him pacified. Then one day he arrived unexpectedly, had some patrol schedules to share with the fuckhead." Another sideways glance away. "Sorry."
Kay nodded. "I'm a scientist. I know how to recognize correct technical terminology. Fuckhead sounds about right. So, your friend Matt arrives unexpectedly … "
"Yeah." Nick drew in a deep breath. "He entered the compound, went to what passed for the warlord's office, which was crumbling stucco walls and a beaten earth floor with some flea-laden rugs over it. Matt heard screaming and broke into the warlord's room. The warlord, he had," Nick swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing up then down, "he had a little boy bent over a table and was raping him brutally. The boy was screaming and crying. Warlord looks up, frowning, says the Pashto equivalent of 'the fuck you want?' Totally ignoring the little kid who's screaming under him. There's a charming practice in that part of the world called 'Bacha Bazi'-boy toys. They use underage boys for sex. It was supposed to have been wiped out, but that's wishful thinking."
"What did Matt do?" Kay could almost see the scene, feel a good man's pain at watching a little boy being brutalized.
"Broke the sick fuck's jaw is what he did. He freed the little boy, helped him clean up, then the little boy led him to a basement where," Nick swallowed heavily again, "there were twenty-two little boys, ages six to ten, more or less, chained. They were too cowed even to cry. Some had scars from being beaten with sticks. Matt freed them, loaded them onto the Humvees, then went back into the warlord's office and kicked him in the balls."
Kay was theoretically against violence, had heard the slogan violence is never the answer a thousand times, but she was fast coming to understand that sometimes violence was indeed the answer.
"Good for him," she said.
"It doesn't end there and it doesn't end well." Nick's mouth pursed into a thin line. "Back at the FOB, he was busy arranging for placing the little boys in the care of an international aid agency when the CIA prick came storming in with Matt's commanding officer, screaming at Matt that he'd fucked with our son of a bitch and that Matt had to hand back the warlord's property."
Shock chased the air from her lungs. "Property?"
"Yeah." Nick nodded grimly. "Property. Little boys as property. At which point, Matt pointed out that this country fought a fucking war a hundred and fifty years ago so that the US government never again thought of human beings as property."
"I hate that CIA guy already."
"According to the CIA fucker-who had the audacity to introduce himself as John Smith-there was a deep game being played and Matt had stuck himself right in the middle and messed it up. So not only was Matt supposed to deliver those poor terrified and abused boys back to the monster who was torturing them, he was expected to apologize to the warlord, too."
Oh God. "Was that a direct order? From his commanding officer?" Kay knew enough about the military to know that disobeying a direct order was the worst crime a soldier could commit, besides treason.