Phyllis Anne Duncan (P. A. Duncan)'s Blog, page 44

NaNoWriMo – Day 11

First of all, I wish all veterans out there a wonderful Veterans Day. It’s great to see the flags and the good wishes for our vets, but I’m one of those people who think every day should be veterans day.

I wrote an additional 3,576 words today for a grand total of 59,035, so tomorrow’s goal will be to pass the 60,000-word mark. I finished Chapter 19, Fuel for Hell; started and completed Chapter 20, One Standard of Courage; and started Chapter 21, Hopes and Dreams.

Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 20, One Standard of Courage, and because it is Veterans Day, there’s a veiled political message in it:

Winston Everette had long since grown tired of the routine where he busted his ass to show up at the exact time the Vice President requested him, only to have to wait for Stodden to arrive, always cranky and occasionally inebriated. Today was one of those days.

How did you get this job, he asked himself.

Oh, yes, Daddy—big Republican fundraiser that he was. He’d asked for nothing for himself when the Arbust-Stodden ticket won, but everything for T. Winston Everette, Jr., his only son and heir.

The T stood for Thaddeus, which Everette would croak before using, formally or informally, and the Winston was after the cigarette company his grandfather had worked for and made a fortune from; Everette had dropped the junior in the faint hope everyone else would stop calling him that.

The CIA had recruited him in college as a chemical weapons analyst but he’d been more interested in the operations side. Whereas his father had grumbled at his becoming a “faceless bureaucrat who gets paid shit,” he’d been impressed it was the CIA. Daddy, of course, had managed to get out of service in Vietnam, along with many of his friends, like Stodden, to an extent Arbust, and many of the high-ranking Republicans now agitating for expanding the current war into Iraq. His grandfather had paid a physician to declare Winston Sr. 4F because of flat feet. Now Sr. was the biggest blowhard, gung-ho, and hawkish uber-patriot around. Sometimes listening to his father and his cigar-smoking, skirt-chasing friends made Everette want to puke.

But, then, Daddy’s contributions to the winning team had gotten him the job here in the White House, when he could be going native in Afghanistan and getting his ass shot at, though days like today made him question if it were worth it. He missed his days in the bullpen, working on some problem, developing a strategy, outlining a mission, though one he never got to carry out. His group had been tight, but since he’d made the move to the White House, he didn’t hear from any of them.

(c)2013 by Phyllis Anne Duncan

NaNoWriMo – Day 10

Yes, I’m still writing because even though I have exceeded 50,000 words, the rough draft isn’t finished. Working with some of my writer friends in Shenandoah Valley Wrimos on word sprints, I managed to add 4,630 words for a total of 55, 459 words. I also won one of the sprints, and my prize was a picture of Viggo Mortensen. Sigh.

I worked on two new chapters today, Chapter 18, Heavy Handed Inducement, and Chapter 19, Fuel for Hell. Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 18:

“I hear she roughed up a CIA guy in Qala e Jangi,” Dan said.

“Yeah, he fucking deserved it. If she hadn’t kicked his ass I would have. The guy abandoned his partner in the middle of that prison riot and saved his own ass. She could have killed him, but she didn’t. Ask the SpecOps who were there. They’ll tell you the same thing.”

Dan grinned, though it was so detached from his eyes his face looked as if it were halves from two different people. “How many of you are fucking her?”

“I won’t even dignify that with an answer.”

“Then that must mean you are.”

“As far as I know, she’s not fucking anyone, including her husband because she’s here and he’s not. Look, she’s a helluva commander. I don’t know what someone’s been telling you, but our team has scored more kills with fewer casualties than any other team. There are a couple of CIA guys who don’t like that, and I suspect that’s where the sour grapes are coming from. Do I think she should be in combat? I don’t think any woman should be, but reality is different from my perfect world. I have no problems with her.”

“Where is she now?”

“On a mission for the CIA Director,” O’Keefe said.

“What kind of mission?”

“I’m not need to know. Again, talk to Frank about that.”

“No need to get defensive, Mr. O’Keefe. So, here’s what we want you to do. When she resumes leadership of your team, you keep an eye on her and make note of anything suspicious she says or does, any political opinions she might express about the President, the Vice President, or the Administration’s policy. Am I clear?”

“What is this? 1984? The Stasi?”

“I need an answer from you, Mr. O’Keefe. Am I clear?”

“Oh, you’re perfectly clear, and here’s my answer. Fuck off.”

Dan reached down to his side then put a cloth briefcase on the table. “Open it,” he said.

His eyes narrowed at Dan, O’Keefe unzipped the briefcase and removed a box and a small envelope.

“Open the box first,” Dan said.

O’Keefe did and saw a solar-power chargeable satellite mobile phone.

“If Fisher sees you with that, tell her SpecOps gave it to you to field test,” Dan said. “Open the envelope.”

O’Keefe took out a penknife and slit the envelope open. From it he took a stack of four by six photos. When he turned them over and began to look through them, his hands trembled.

“What the fuck is this?” he demanded.

“Your daughter, going to and from school, to and from soccer practice, having dinner with her mother. The mother’s quite a looker, by the way. It would be a shame for something to happen to them. You know, a break-in, rape…”

 (c)2013 by Phyllis Anne Duncan

NaNoWriMo – Day 9

No one is more surprised than I am that I crossed 50,000 words today, 50,829, to be exact. For the most part of the last nine days, I’ve done nothing except write, which the pile of dirty laundry, the dishes in the sink, and the unmade bed all attest to, and the rough draft isn’t finished.

I finished Chapters 14, Believers; 15, Widow Maker; and 16, Undisclosed Location, and started Chapter 17, Words of Truth. Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 15, Widow Maker:

“Quiet, woman!” the man said and took a step toward her. Abdullah jabbed the butt of his rifle into the man’s back. He went to his knees and stayed there when Abdullah put the rifle’s muzzle against his head.

Alexei turned to the woman, struggling to keep the anger off his face. He squatted so he wouldn’t tower over her.

“I need to know where the Sheik is headed next,” he said, his voice soft, some pleading in it. Abdullah translated in the same tone.

“I do not know the route, but his intent is to go up into the mountains in Tora Bora,” she said. “From there, he can use caves and tunnels to elude the American forces.” She caught his expression and continued, “The men think we understand nothing we hear. We were in the kitchen, but some of us were close enough to hear bits and pieces of the dinner conversation.”

“What did you overhear?” he asked.

“The Sheik and this Saudi mullah talked about the American buildings, the ones the planes flew into. The Sheik laughed. He said most of the martyrs didn’t know they were going to die, that they thought it was just a hijacking.”

Her husband again told her to shut up, that was apparent no matter what language you spoke. Abdullah jabbed him again with the rifle to silence him.

“Then, he talked about how he knew the buildings would fall because he knew about construction. He laughed again when he talked about the death of infidels. With the mullah, he talked about his plans to leave Afghanistan through Tora Bora and to go to Pakistan. The Taliban are to escort him there and form a barrier between him and the Americans. My husband videotaped it all. There, in the cabinet, is the camera.”

Alexei nodded to one of his men, who went to the cabinet and retrieved the camera. He took the camera himself and placed it in a bag slung over his shoulder. Then, he lay his hand over his heart. “Mother,” he said, “what can I give you in return for this knowledge?”

She narrowed her eyes at him, but her decision was swift. “Harzat Ali is my cousin,” she said. Ali was an Eastern Alliance commander, now in a loose coalition with the Americans and the Northern Alliance and moving against the last of the Taliban. “He and I were raised like brother and sister. He will take me into his household. These two, I don’t care what happens to them.”

She removed her arms from the embrace and leaned forward, her eyes inches from Alexei’s so he could see the conviction in them.

“Make me a widow,” she said.

(c)2013 by Phyllis Anne Duncan

NaNoWriMo – Day 8

I feel as if I’ve run a marathon since I wrote 9,600 words today. My shoulders ache, my wrists ache, and I’ve had a return case of numb butt. The good news is, I should hit the 50,000-word mark no later than Sunday. Of course, the rough draft won’t be finished, though it will be about two-thirds finished.

I wrote three chapters today: Chapter 11, Aftermath; Chapter 12, Enshallah; and Chapter 13, The Map. Chapter 13 is a flashback, from 2001 to 1982, so I’ll include an excerpt from that chapter below.

In death, Sergei looked in better shape than his living brother. Alexei hadn’t shaved in days, and his eyes were ringed in exhaustion. Bloodshot and bleary, they moved to rest on her and registered nothing. Still filthy, Alexei reeked of sweat and dried blood.

Sergei’s body on the cold, metal table formed a barrier between them. She looked at Sergei’s face again. Death had wiped every care from his face, made him look as if he were a teenager. He hadn’t yet been embalmed. Beside his body on the table was a Makarov.

A scene, she decided, from a very bad movie.

“Captain Burke,” she said, “what are you doing here?” Not taking his eyes from her, he took a long drink from the bottle. “And I’m doing fine, thank you, other than a bloody great cast on my broken ankle.”

“This isn’t about you,” Alexei said.

“What is it about, then?” she asked.

His eyes shifted away from her, and he looked at Sergei. “When he was a boy,” Alexei murmured, “he was afraid of the dark.”

That moved her, and she wanted to touch Alexei, to hold him, but she stayed still. “Alexei, Soviet sappers destroyed that cave network today,” she said. He drank again and shrugged. “How did they know about it?”

“It wouldn’t have taken much for them to figure it out,” he replied.

“Not the whole network, Alexei. Where’s the map Terrell gave you?” she asked.

“I burned it.”

“When?”

“At one of our rest intervals. I had the watch while you and Sergei slept. I memorized it then I burned it.”

“Then, how did the Soviets know about the caves, Alexei?”

“I’ve answered that question,” he said. “If you’re accusing me of something, at least be straightforward about it.”

 (c)2013 by Phyllis Anne Duncan

Keep Calm and Be A Friday Fictioneer

Another short post for Friday Fictioneers. You can probably see from my earlier post that I’m rocking National Novel Writing Month this year–I’ve already passed the 30,000-word mark after one week. (Insert shit-eating grin here.)

I did manage a little extra creative juice for a 100-word story entitled “Sentinel.” If you don’t see the link on the title in the line about, scroll to the top of the page, click on the Friday Fictioneers tab, and select the story from the drop-down list.

And tune in later today for another excerpt from my NaNoWriMo project.

NaNoWriMo – Day 7

Thursdays are the days I babysit my grandchildren while their mother is in school studying to be a respiratory therapist, so those are usually writing dearths, until after they leave. Sometimes, they wear me out, and I vegetate before the television. Today, they were very good and sweet, which they are most of the time, so I was pretty energized after they left with Mommy. (BTW, that’s the best part of being a grandparent–giving them back.)

No new chapters today; just additional scenes for Chapter 9, Last Stand. Let me set up this excerpt: Mai Fisher is interrogating Taliban prisoners at a makeshift prison in a fortress named Qala e Jangi. Her technique is to offer them medical attention in exchange for answers to her questions, and she is tending to a young Egyptian man sent to fight with the Taliban because his father, a prominent lawyer in Cairo, decided one of his sons needed to fight in a holy war. Another CIA operative has blurted to the prisoner that he could lose his wounded leg.

Mai knelt again by the Egyptian. “Sorry for the interruption,” she said.

“Is he right about my leg?” he asked her.

“I don’t know. I’m not a doctor, just a passable medic. I’ll finish cleaning it, dress it, and give you a super dose of antibiotics.” She waited.

“Ah, yes, the fee for services part of the deal,” the boy said.

“Perceptive lad. Let me make it easier for you. I could give you to them,” she said, jabbing a thumb toward the knot of American soldiers. “They’ll take their time getting you to one of their mobile medical units, and once you arrive any wounded Americans or allies will have precedence over you. It could be a day or two or more before anyone pays any attention to that leg. Talk to me, and I tell them you know nothing. That way I can refer you to Medicines sans Frontieres, and treatment for you leg begins right away.”

“And the fee?” he asked.

“Your name, your father’s name, the name of the Muslim charity he used to funnel money to bin Laden, where you went to training camp, the names of others who were there with you. The more the merrier.”

“Isn’t that the same thing the American Army wants to know?”

“Oh, what you tell me will go into a report for the intell community, but your leg will already have had proper treatment,” Mai said, “which could start today.”

He closed his eyes and pursed his lips in thought. “He is my father,” he said.

“That’s your leg,” Mai replied. “It takes two of them to be an airline pilot. Tell me what I want to know or take your chances with a U.S. Army surgeon days from now.”

She watched the inner debate still rage. All right, then, she thought, time for the clincher.

“Besides, it was your father who put you here,” she said.

He talked for ten straight minutes without interruption, Salim scribbling frantically as he talked. Mai barely tuned him in; all she’d really been interested in was his information about Mir Saradi.

NaNoWriMo – Day 6

A whirlwind trip to DC today to help a friend. She was a “Donut Dolly” in Vietnam and is arranging a reunion over Veterans Day weekend in DC. I drove her up to work out some last-minute details. I got back in time to write for a couple of hours. Just 2,324 words today, for a 29,860 total. So, tomorrow I’ll break the 30,000-word mark. Woo-hoo!

I added a short chapter today, Chapter 8, and started a longer one, Chapter 9, so today will be another two-fer.

Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 8, Dead Man:

Once the meal was done and cleared away, Tarife and Abdullah went behind their curtain. This time, Alexei didn’t go outside. He went instead behind Sulimah’s curtain. In the light from her lamp, he saw no trepidation when he entered. She sat up and faced him, smiling, her eyes expectant until they fell on the large duffel bag he carried.

He knelt beside her pallet. “I want you to safe-keep something for me,” he whispered. He unzipped the bag so she could peer inside.

“Merciful God! How much money is that?” she asked.

“A great deal.”

“I cannot be responsible for that much money,” she protested, holding a coverlet up to her chin.

“Yes, you can. I need you to do this for me,” Alexei said.

“Why me?”

“I trust you,” he replied.

“How do you know you can trust me?” she asked.

“I’ve trusted my instincts for a long time,” he said.

“And they tell you I can be trusted—or used?” she asked, chin thrust out in defiance.

“I trust you,” he repeated.

She looked away then looked back at him. “What am I to do with this money?” she asked.

“In the bag is a list of my men, your father included. Beside each name is the amount we negotiated for their service to me. The money is in dollars. Can you deal with that?”

“Yes, but what is it you want…”

“When these men or the family member they have indicated on the list come to you and ask for payment, you pay them the specified sum,” Alexei said.

“Why would they come to me and not you for this payment?” she asked.

“Because the Taliban and al Qaeda will have been defeated, and the war will be over,” he said.

“You didn’t answer me. Why wouldn’t they come to you?”

“I won’t be coming back,” he said.

Sulimah shook her head. “You are Saradi. You have killed many. Why wouldn’t you come back?”

“I told you this before. To make certain the man who killed my wife dies, I will die with him. There will be money left over. It’s yours,” he said.

Anger flashed at him. “Do you think a bribe will make me do this?”

“I ask you as a friend to do this for me,” he said. He saw tears travel down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Sulimah, forgive me. This was too much of a burden to place on you.”

Her fingers swiped the tears away, and she let the coverlet drop to her lap. “Make love to me, and I’ll do this for you.”

Yeah, pretty evil to leave that open. Will he or won’t he? And from Chapter 9, Last Stand:

The battle for Mazar e Sharif ended with a whimper rather than a bang. It took very little fighting to convince the Taliban there to surrender, and they did. Afghanistan was back in the hands of the Northern Alliance.

One hundred fifty years old, Qala e Jangi fortress was distinctly medieval. More than a quarter-mile long with sixty-foot walls, its northern half held comfortable (for Afghani standards) living quarters, a military operations center, and a staging area. Its southern half was now a prison holding several hundred Taliban fighters who had surrendered at Mazar and Konduz. Their arms lashed together at the elbows, they walked about the open courtyard or sat in desultory groups. Those who weren’t being examined by the Red Cross were being questioned by the CIA.

That same end of the fortress also held a well-stocked armory, well-guarded by the fortress’ commander and self-proclaimed leader of Afghanistan, General Dostun.

Mai thought the prisoners would fare better under American supervision, but the U.S. was currying favor with Dostun and had promised him he could ransom the prisoners back to their families. They had no plans to put him in charge of the country and had to offer him something in return.

The CIA was there to glean intelligence, such as it was, from the detainees, identify any potential al Qaeda, who would be transferred to U.S. bases, then determine if Iraq had had anything to do with 9/11.

Mai knew where those instructions had originated.

In addition to the native Afghanis were Saudis, Yemenis, Chechens, Bosnians, and other Muslims from around the world who had heeded al Qaeda’s call to fight for Allah. The captured Taliban received, as customary, the opportunity to switch sides. Many of them had relatives in the Northern Alliance, and the battle had seen frequent truces to allow safe passage of the Afghani “pony express”—riders on mules who brought letters to and from the combatants. Family was a significant part of Afghani life, and even the binds of distant relations were tight. Those family ties, more so than the obvious American might, had induced Taliban by the hundreds to remove their turbans and adopt the pakool, the rolled-brim beret favored by the beloved NA commander Massoud. Those who hadn’t heeded their relatives’ pleas had died in battle or been taken prisoner.

(c) 2013 by Phyllis Anne Duncan.

NaNoWriMo – Day 5

This has been the most productive day I’ve ever had in NaNoWriMo–8,700 words, and I surpassed the halfway mark in word count and reached 27,536 words. I’ve done nothing except write for as many hours as I possibly could in the past five days, and, frankly, I’m exhausted. Tomorrow is a break because I’m driving a friend to DC for the day. I think that’s needed because I don’t think I can keep this pace going.

Here’s today’s excerpt, from Chapter Seven, Tools of the Trade:

“What else did they tell you about Mir Saradi?” she asked.

“He is a legend already, and many tribes have joined with him to fight the Taliban and al Qaeda. He is a Russian who came to fight for Allah, may we bless his name,” said Hawat.

Hawat told the soldiers’ stories of Mir Saradi, all heroic. Saradi rode into battle on a magnificent white horse, though she found that hard to believe, knowing Alexei’s distrust of horses. 

Saradi prayed before battle, he quoted from the Quran to inspire his men, he turned the truth of the Quran against those who perverted it. He carried his Quran, in Russian, as a battle shield. He gave alms.

“They say he hunts bin Laden to avenge his murdered family,” Hawat said, “but he carries the blood vengeance for many with him.”

That Mai did believe. As in the Balkans, Afghani tribesmen would understand blood vengeance. Hawat’s effusions added to what the Talib had told her painted an interesting picture, a portrait of a man she wasn’t sure she knew, a holy warrior.

“The soldiers say they do not fear his blue eyes,” Hawat said, “because they shine with the holy light of Allah, the merciful, the compassionate…”

“Fine and good,” Mai interrupted. “Did they say where he is now?”

“He and Abdullah Ignatsiev went to Abdullah’s house here in Kabul.”

Mai went back over the condition of Atef’s body. He’d been killed less than a day before.

“Hawat, would your uncle know where this Abdullah Ignatsiev lives?” she asked.

“Of course,” Hawat boasted. “He knows everyone in Kabul.”

(c)2013 by Phyllis Anne Duncan

NaNoWriMo – Day 4

Quite the productive day today–a morning session of about 3,200 words then an afternoon/evening session of 4,600+ words, which brings me to 18,836 after four days. (The NaNoWriMo calculator on the stats page indicates I’ll be finished on November 11. LOL.)

I also wrote two long chapters today, so you’ll get a double excerpt. Here’s one from Chapter Five, Off Limits:

How a Quonset hut ended up in the middle of a small village in an even smaller valley in Parvan Province was something Mai pondered only briefly. When she saw the Army cots in the area set aside for her and her team, she want to give the captain a sloppy, tearful kiss. She demurred; she had a reputation to uphold, after all. She did, however, give a laugh at the hand-lettered sign pinned to the blankets someone had already hung from the ceiling beams to surround her cot.

“Warning! Female is OFF-LIMITS!!! Hoo-ah!”

Someone had drawn a decent caricature of her in her shalwar and keffiyeh, funny yet flattering.

“Wait’ll y’all see what they did for the latrine,” Hatfield said.

She’d already seen that. It was quite a bit less funny and not flattering, but she wouldn’t make an issue of it. There would come a time when she’d have to pick a battle with one of these guys, and a drawing of her ass hanging out of her pants wasn’t it. She felt good, however, to peel out of the shalwar, stiff with sweat, and take off her boots.  Alex Terrell had explained a local widow did their laundry for a small fee, acceptable work for a widow, and showed her where to put her clothes outside for the woman to pick up in the morning. 

Her uncovered but French-braided hair and the fact the shalwar no longer hid her figure in the BDU pants and desert tan tee-shirt made a few of the men stop talking as she crossed the Quonset to put her dirty clothes in the box outside the door. She did manage to get the door open, drop the clothes, and close it before any villager could see her in such an immodest state. Before she went back behind her curtains she tossed the soldiers, “Old enough to be your mother, remember.” They looked away and went back to their conversations.

And here’s another excerpt from chapter six, Welcome to Kabul:

The last time Mai had been in Kabul, she’d ridden in on a Soviet armored personnel carrier. People had been on the streets then, too, but their hatred of the Soviets she could easily read on their faces. Today, she was atop an old Soviet tank, captured by the Mujahideen toward the end of that former war, well-maintained, and painted with symbols of the Northern Alliance. She could see no anger or hatred, just joy. People cheered and waved, and children ran beside the tank, reaching up to touch the hands of the victors.

Mai’s eyes searched the crowds, hoping against hope for a certain face, even as unlikely as that was. Absent Alexei’s face, she’d hoped to see the faces of women, but mostly men and boys filled the streets. The women she did see, still huddled beneath their burqas. Women, after all, were practical creatures. Just five years before, the Northern Alliance ran Kabul, then overnight, the Taliban chased them out. Now the Northern Alliance was back, but it was too soon to put the burqa in the trash heap. That, and the fact some warlords in the Northern Alliance considered rape a spoil of war.

O’Keefe and the team were somber. They’d lost Gonzalez in a fierce firefight, and the SpecOps guys had made certain his body got shipped home. Mai had tried to stop the blood from leaving his body with her own hands, urged Gonzalez to breathe while the medics worked on him, and she’d been holding his hand when he asked her to make sure his mother knew he thought of her at the end.

She’d lost people on missions before, but this was her team. And, yes, she’d taken it personally. For the first time she really understood how Alexei could enjoy killing.

NaNoWriMo – Day 3

Combine going to bed at the ungodly hour of 2000, a time change, and an early wake-up, and you get another 3,542 words–and all before starting another jam-packed day of choir rehearsal, choir, and a birthday party for the two best five year olds in the world. That brings a three-day total to 10,440 words. And I’m glad for the cushion because I know there are days ahead where I’ll be lucky to get 1,000 words.

Here’s today’s excerpt from Chapter 3, Power Play:

Boyd Wahler stood before the painting, which had hung in every office he’d ever occupied—when he was a Congressman, a Senator, White House Chief of Staff, National Security Advisor, now Director of the CIA. He had painted it himself, based on a picture someone had snapped of him during his first tour in Vietnam. He stood alone in a field of high grass, a Huey in the background, and stared at something in the distance. Improvised camouflage adorned his helmet, and his rifle pointed at the ground. For the life of him, though, he could not remember what it was that caught his attention, what he stared at so intently. The photo, which he’d carried in his wallet, had long since disintegrated, and he’d done the painting from memory.

It reminded him that, at all times, no matter how many people worked for him or supported him, he always stood alone. When he needed someone to rely on, he could only count on himself. A carry-over from the previous administration, he knew the ground he now stood on was as mine-filled as the fields he trod in Vietnam. He knew, as well, the leverage he had over this Administration would take him only so far. Still, it hadn’t been a difficult call when one of his agents, Winston Everette, had requested Wahler’s presence at Everette’s cubicle in the Executive Office Building.

“Tell Agent Everette I’ll be glad to see him in my office at his earliest convenience,” he’d told his secretary. Her admiring smile had bolstered him for the rest of the day.

 (c)2013 by Phyllis Anne Duncan