Rock Her(53)

Kip knew Jacky would be in the nearest whorehouse. And, of course, I know where it is.

It took him a few minutes to get his bearings, after all, it had been several years since his last jaunt around the base.

Soon he forgot he had ever left. He knew the danger here was twice that of most other marines, since he was alone. He had no back up. If something went wrong, he had no one to rely on to cover him. But the adrenaline he felt overwhelmed the fear and he continued on.

Within the hour he was standing at the double wooden doors of a plain building on the corner of a nearly deserted street. The Afghans, hypocrites that they were, denounced prostitution, and stoned women accused of it when it suited their needs, but ignored the whorehouses just like every other society on the face of the earth.

Kip lowered his rifle and back into the door. Inside he found squalor and walls plastered with magazine tear outs of Hustler and Penthouse, even Playboy pages. One the far wall was a window into another room with an old bearded man sitting at a desk, watching porn from a beta VCR. The video was something from the nineteen eighties. Kip approached the man and slapped a photograph on his desk. The man took his time to draw his attention from the small television screen, but when he did, he quickly scanned the picture of Jack and looked up at Kip slowly.

Kip spoke in Pashto, the official Afghan tongue. “Have you seen him?”

The bearded man nodded.

“Is he still here?” Kip asked him, again in Pashto.

The man shook his head. “Taken,” he said in accented English.

“Where to?” Kip asked him. This time in English.

The old man shook his head and turned his attention back to the television.

Kip reached into his cargo pocket and pulled out about fifty one hundred Afghanis, the Afghanistan currency. This equaled about one hundred dollars US. If Kip knew anything about the Afghani people, it was that money talked to them.

The old man slowly looked at the money on the desktop and then looked up at Kip. He shook his head and ran his thumb across his neck, mimicking the act of beheading.

Kip knew that if he had put more money down on the table, the man would have spilled everything he knew. But he had no more. This is all he could scrounge out of Corporal Dale.

Last resort then. Kip unslung his rifle and pointed it at the man’s head. The old Afghan man recoiled, sliding back in his chair, which was apparently absent one wheel, the way it wobbled.

“Tell me!” Kip demanded.

“Serena Hotel,” The man said in English, heavy with dialect.

Kip backed away. “Thank you. No one will know you told me.” Kip scooped up the fifty one hundred Afghanis and Jack’s publicity picture, as he backed out of the door, rifle aimed at the old man’s head, he nodded.



Kip knew where the Serena hotel was. He had been there before, several times clearing it from Taliban and other radicals. It was only three blocks over.

Kip used combat ready tactics as he travelled alone through the city streets. The city was busy, but, as per usual, no one seemed to pay any attention to him. To the locals, the presence of US forces had become a normal part of the surroundings. It was a testament to the general population that, even though terrorist and Taliban forces had carried out numerous attacks per day, the people seemed to go on with their everyday lives. Ignoring the dangerous, and embracing the abnormal.

Kip scanned the rooftops as he went, looking for lookouts and snipers. He ducked down into alleys and crossed streets quickly, taking cover behind ruined cars and shattered corners.

Soon, he was standing across the street from the Selena Hotel. He used his rifle, even though it had no scope, to scan the rooftop. He saw movement in several locations, mostly guarding the side and back entrances. He decided to go through the front, waltz through the lobby and use the same measures to find out where Jacky was being held. So he did.

Kip crossed the street in a flash and crashed through the front doors. He rolled into a sitting position and aimed his rifle where he knew the check in desk was to be. Another bearded old man stared at him quietly from behind the desk. He held a rubber stamp in his hand.

“You need a room, soldier?” he asked in near perfect English.

“No,” Jack said scanning the room for snipers and standing. “I need a man.”

“No.No.No.No. We don’t do that here.” The old clerk said. “You get out. Get out now!” The old man started to come out from behind his desk. Kip pointed his rifle at him and the man stopped holding up his arms.

“It’s not that!” Kip said. “It’s not what you think! I am looking for someone. Kip held up his picture. “Have you seen him?”

The old man scratched his beard while he craned his neck forward and looked at Jack’s picture. Then his eyes flew wide. “I don’t want any trouble here soldier!” he yelled.