Page 7 of Into the Gray Zone

Kamal nodded and Agam said, “Wait here.” Kamal watched him retrace his previous steps, going back to the body of the guard they’d killed. When he returned, he was wearing the top blouse of the guard, the patches on the shoulders making him look official.

Kamal smiled and said, “Good thinking.”

Agam said, “It’s still risky. Don’t leave me in the wind. We don’t know how many are beyond the door.”

Without waiting for an answer, he stepped out into the light and began walking up the stairs. The man in the chair leapt to his feet, saying something Kamal couldn’t hear. Agam said something back, then jogged the rest of the way up the stairs. He reached the top, and without another word, Agam raised his pistol, stuck it in the man’s face, and pulled the trigger.

The sound of the weapon was barely louder than a cough, but the damage was catastrophic. The man’s face split open, and he toppled sideways as if all the control of his muscles quit at once, sliding four feet down the stairwell.

Kamal leapt up, hissing, “Let’s go!” He and Randeep broke from the darkness, sprinting up the stairs into the light, reaching Agam, who was frantically working the old door. He heard them arriving and said, “It’s locked!”

Kamal said, “Move back.”

Agam did, and Kamal raised his pistol, aiming for the ancient bolt going into the wall. He fired once, twice, three times, and the bolt finally gave, bending inward. Kamal leaned back and slammed the door with the ball of his foot, splintering the lock, the door swinging in.

They were immediately met with a fusillade of fire, the unsuppressed weapon inside splitting the night with explosive noise. Kamal dove to the left, Agam and Randeep to the right, the gun inside still firing blindly out of the open doorway. Kamal saw the location of the muzzle flash, rolled up to the edge, and returned fire, silencing the weapon. He sprang to his feet, running into the room in time to see another man fleeing to a hallway deeper in. He sprinted to catch up, the man racing to a cell midway down, with a guard in a chair looking bewildered.

Kamal started firing, chipping the wall around them both, the ricochets louder than the sound coming out of his pistol. One dove into the cell, the other against the opposite wall, firing his pistol blindly back at him. Kamal ducked instinctively and kept pulling the trigger, his magazine locking the chamber open, empty.

The guard stood up from the ground, smiled, and took aim. Kamal charged him, throwing the pistol at his head. The man flinched, shocked that Kamal wasn’t retreating; the weapon hurled at his head caused himto fire into the ceiling, and Kamal dove into his chest, slamming him to the floor.

He grabbed the hair of the man’s head and began bashing his skull into the stone, hearing Agam and Randeep rush past him into the cell. He heard shots from inside the cell, felt the crunch of his target’s skull, snatched the guard’s pistol, and turned into the cell doorway. He saw a shadow hanging and raced inside, the weapon at the ready.

He swung the pistol around, saw two dead guards slumped on the floor, then Agam and Randeep standing still, arms at their sides, staring into the corner of the room. Naked but for his underwear, hanging on a hook from the shackles on his wrists, was Sidak. Kamal said, “Cut him down...” and then paused, seeing the destruction to Sidak’s head. Someone had put a barrel to his skull and pulled the trigger. Sidak was gone.

Agam said, “When we came in, a man was working on him, another was shooting at us. We killed the one shooting, and the man next to Sidak shot him in the head.”

He shuffled, then said, “We killed him too.”

Randeep said, “What now?”

The seriousness of their situation slammed into him. They had failed to save Sidak, but that didn’t alter their fate. The gunfire would have alerted anyone who was on station at the prison. He stuffed the death of his friend into the dark recesses of his mind, something to deal with at another time, and said, “We need to move, right now, back to the boat.”

Agam said, “What about Sidak? His body?”

Kamal took one more look at his friend and said, “It stays.”

Randeep said, “No. No way. He comes with us.”

Kamal snatched Randeep’s shirt, bored into his eyes, letting the anger of the loss of his friend permeate the room, and said, “If you want to succeed in what we have planned, hestays. Let it go.”

Randeep nodded, and Kamal released him, saying, “They’ll be coming, and we can’t fight them all. We need to find another way out. Deeper in.”

They returned to the hallway, hearing men shouting about the man they’d killed guarding the stairwell door. Kamal turned away from the entrance they’d used and began running, Agam and Randeep right behind him. They reached the end just as men began bursting in. Kamal snatched open a door and they were through, Kamal shutting it slowly, then listening.

The men on the other side were shouting orders and screaming obscenities, but nobody was following down the hallway, apparently all focused on the cell. He nodded, holding a finger to his lips, and they began shuffling in the darkened room, looking for an exit. Kamal found one, and they entered a circular staircase, a single bulb illuminating the ground floor below. Kamal peeked over the edge, saw nothing, and began descending the stairs two at a time, his men behind him. They reached the bottom, moved to a door, and Kamal cracked it open, seeing the rain had finally arrived.

The outside promenade was streaked with the torrent of falling water, the wind blowing it sideways, Kamal barely able to see the old cannons along the seawall across from the door. He slid out from the door, feeling the rain strike his face, and glanced up the promenade to the entrance of the fort. He saw a milieu of men at the base of the stairwell they’d used to reach Sidak’s cell, dancing in and out of the shadows of the bare illumination, waving their arms and shouting. Beyond them, he could make out the entrance to the dock.

He said, “We can’t get back to the boat the way we came. They’re in between us and the dock.”

Behind him, becoming agitated, Randeep said, “What are we going to do? We can’t hide here. They’ll find us eventually.”

Agam said, “The seawall. We go over the seawall and swim to the boat.”

Kamal considered it a moment, thinking that the jetty with the boat jutted out into the water for at least seventy-five meters. That might work. He said, “Yes. That’s the best bet.”

Randeep said, “We’ll get crushed on the rocks. We can’t do that in the dark, especially in this weather.”

---