Page 38 of Over the Edge

So this is what a rag doll feels like. This sucks. Can’t even stand, for God’s sake. Need food. Hell, need water.

Funny how nothing else matters when I’m this parched.

Took so much for granted.

Addicted to my cell phone. Video games. Air conditioning and central heating. Microwave ovens. Clean clothes. Comfortable beds. Warm blankets.

To laughter. Hugs from friends. Sex. Man, I miss the scent of a woman.

Conversation with other human beings. I miss that. The local cockroaches are decent listeners, but the little bastards don’t even speak English.

Where am I? These mountains look different. Wrong color. Border region is lighter gray. Like moon rock. More granite, less limestone, here. Has Haddad moved me out of the Tribal Territories? Why would he leave his home turf? Rival warlord giving him trouble, maybe?

As if that matters. I’m gonna die soon, anyway. Bastards aren’t even giving me the most basic care any more. But hey, this box is better than a hole.

Hmm. Those are trees on the hillsides. Stunted, twisted things. Piñon pines, maybe. Am I further north than before? Stars will come out soon. Maybe I can pull a position fix? The truck ride to get here—wherever here is—took around six hours. Maybe far enough to shift the position of the constellations. Hopefully enough to tell what direction we traveled.

Hope.

Fucking hope—keeps me hanging on when it would be so much easier to just die.

Just let the whole hope thing go, dude.

Ought to just stop eating and drinking altogether and hang it up.

So much easier.

Don’t want to die, though. Chickenshit coward. Can’t bring myself to check out.

Gonna go the hard way. Starved to death. Or beaten to death. Or something else to death.

Over there. Those are women in the shadows. Swathed in black. BMO’s. Black Moving Objects.

Where there are women, there are kids. Possibly curious kids who want to see the foreign monster.

If I let them poke at me, I wonder if they would talk to me. Tell me where I am. Too bad I can’t leave some sort of trail of breadcrumbs with them—

--Well, hell. There went a spark of fucking optimism again.

Breadcrumbs…breadcrumbs…hmm…just maybe...

A message...

No, not a message. Something a kid would remember. Something a kid would repeat.

A song.

A nursery rhyme.

A nursery rhyme with a message in it for anyone who comes looking for me…

Trevor hadseveral days of cover while the wedding festivities unfolded to get everything in place for his trek across the border into Pakistan, and he had a lot to do—gear to buy, a driver to hire, local intel to collect.

A trunk arrived for Anna the next morning, delivered by a guy who spoke American English. Trevor carried it upstairs and delivered it to Anna’s room. The thing was surprisingly heavy.

He set it down with a thud, commenting, “What’s in here? Cannonballs?”

She rolled her eyes. “Dresses. I arranged for someone at the American embassy to buy traditional clothing for me and send it here. I didn’t have time to shop before we left. Plus, it’s not like there are many Zagari clothing stores back home.”

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