Phyllis Anne Duncan (P. A. Duncan)'s Blog, page 43

NaNoWriMo – Day 18

The end is in sight, perhaps just a chapter or two away, seeing as I wrote three chapters today for a count of 7,175 words. And even though the inner editor is supposed to be quiet, she shrieked at me all day until I did some chapter rearranging. I couldn’t go forward until I did that, so I let Inner Editor have her way, just this once.

So, yesterday’s Chapter 29, Another Undisclosed Location, is now Chapter 30; the “new” Chapter 29 is entitled The Woman Who Fights; Chapter 31 is Ghosts and Efreets; and Chapter 32 is At the Top of the World. Oh, the total word count is now 88,159.

Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 32:

She heard a footfall she’d come to recognize—Brian O’Keefe. He settled close enough to her she could feel the heat his body generated from climbing to her position. She shifted closer to take as much of it as she could.

“What did your recce find?” she asked him.

“The good news is we cross that valley below us and we’re with the main group of the U.S. Forces, the CIA forces, and the Northern Alliance,” he said.

“And the bad news?”

She saw his teeth flash in the darkness. “No one puts anything over on you, do they?”

“Not for a long time,” she said. And the only one who could do that was, apparently, her own husband.

“The bad news is, there’s a group of about thirty Taliban in the valley. Abdullah says if we go south around them, we encounter too many Taliban and al Qaeda. We go north, we’ll be two days behind the American’s big push,” he said.

“Do the Talibs in the valley know we’re here?”

“Unlikely. They’re sleeping. Resting up for the battle, Abdullah says. He and I have different ideas about how to handle it.”

Meaning she would have to decide, but that was her job, wasn’t it. “All right,” she said, “let’s have a team meeting.”

She led the way from the outcrop, and they gathered in the small cave they’d found to shelter in, a single, small flashlight for illumination. Mai stayed as close as she could to the entrance, to block the light and so she wouldn’t be too far inside.

“All right, Abdullah, what is your plan?” she asked.

“There are thirty of them, eight of us, but we have stealth and darkness on our side. We each take three or four. Use knives. Quietly,” he said.

Mai translated for O’Keefe and her team.

“Brian?” she said.

“We take an hour to study their position in depth, see who’s sleeping, who’s on guard. I take Hat, Adams, Salim, and Coop, and we take out the guards. The rest of you stay up here with silenced guns to pick off anyone who tries to run,” O’Keefe said.

Kolya had translated for Abdullah, who then said to Mai, “That risks someone using a radio or getting away in the dark. My way takes care of them all.”

“What did he say?” O’Keefe asked, and Mai explained.

“And my way keeps half us in reserve in case something goes wrong,” O’Keefe said.

Thirty men between her and Alexei. Thirty men who wouldn’t hesitate to kill her, after they did unspeakable things to her. She looked at Kolya and spoke in Russian.

“What do you think?” she asked him.

“Abdullah is right,” he said. “Can you, so soon after…” She held up a hand to cut him off.

So what does Mai decide to do? Hmm, I guess you’ll eventually have to read the whole book.

(c)2013 by Phyllis Anne Duncan

NaNoWriMo – Day 17

Today was Silent Auction day at my Unitarian Universalist fellowship. I scored a lot of great social events with my friends from there, and a cute little antique table. Oh, and the minister won the silent auction items I offered–copies of my three books. Uh oh. Do the Unitarians excommunicate you?

This afternoon I passed the 80,000-word mark on the word count–woo hoo–by writing 2,882 words. Not the best word count this month, but the stack of dirty laundry has demanded to be put through the washer, the clean dishes insisted upon being put away, and the toilets have indicated that if they don’t get cleaned soon, there will be a revolting revolt.

I started and finished a new chapter today, Chapter 29, Another Undisclosed Location, and here’s an excerpt:

Delbert Stodden dozed in the rear seat of the black Suburban as it sped along the country lane. He liked being shuttled from safe house to safe house. First, it meant, in the scheme of things, he was far more important than the dunce of a President he’d helped to elect. Second, it meant he didn’t have to spend evenings with his wife. Her docile, compliant act while they dated had suckered him in—that and she could suck the chrome off a car bumper. They’d married when she was a sophomore, and she presented him with his first disappointment in her: She had finished her degree, then gone for a masters and a PhD. As a result nannies had raised their two daughters, both born within the first two years of their marriage and after which he and his wife had moved into separate bedrooms. 

The nannies were probably why the younger girl was queer. He loathed the fact he had to pretend to accept the way she lived, to pretend to enjoy the presence of the dyke she lived with at family events. If his wife had been out of the picture, he’d have sent the little faggot to a church that would have beat the queer out of her.

When he’d contacted Security Solutions for an “aide” to augment his Secret Service detail—Kennedy and Reagan had both been shot on their watch, after all—he’d been pleased with Dan Burkholder. Burkholder was a man’s man, someone who would kill without asking a lot of questions or having qualms, and Stodden had regretted dispatching him so soon after engaging him. He was pleased, however, that Security Solutions had quickly supplied a replacement just as good or better than Burkholder. The new guy, Dominick Gross, had reviewed the Secret Service’s plans for Stodden and found weaknesses, which he bolstered. The Secret Service resented that, but Stodden had called the head of the service and suggested he tell his men to shut up and deal—and do exactly what Gross told them to do.

Gross looked like a professional body builder, but his eyes showed he had no soul. That suited Stodden just fine. Gross made him feel in control.

“Excuse me, sir,” Gross said. “We’ll be arriving in two minutes. I just got the pictures of the team in the safe house. Don’t leave the car until I confirm them, please, sir.”

“Of course, Dom,” Stodden replied. “Have you heard from Dan about that issue I told you about?”

“The CIA woman? Dan is very thorough, sir. He’ll take care of it and do what he needs to do to make certain he gets free and clear. I suspect I’ll hear from him in a day or two.”

“How do you think he’ll do it?” Stodden asked.

“Dan is quite innovative, sir. Given where they are, he’ll probably make it look like the Taliban punished her for being a sinful woman.”

Stodden liked that thought. “You know, the Muslims have the right idea about women.”

(c)2013 by Phyllis Anne Duncan

NaNoWriMo – Day 16

One of the most fun aspects of National Novel Writing Month is you don’t do it alone. The instigators of NaNoWriMo encourage writers to meet during the month of November and write together in libraries and coffee shops and book stores, both to have the camaraderie and to showcase the fact you’re writers, writing.

The country is divided into regions, and my region, Shenandoah Valley Wrimos, is quite active. We’ve had some great on-line write-ins, but the best was today’s face-to-face meet-up at Panera in Harrisonburg, VA. Fellow Shenandoah Valley Wrimos Allison Garcia, Rebekah Postupak, Susan Warren Utley, Margaret Locke, and myself did word sprints (there were prizes), had some great food, and talked writing, writing, and more writing. I only got around 700 words done, but the company made the event.

Back home, I added around 2,900 more words for today’s total of 3,630 and one more chapter written and finished–Chapter 28, The Bad Guy. Here’s an excerpt–and a warning here, for it refers to someone planning a rape and murder.

Burkholder threaded his way amid the makeshift tent city, his boots quiet in the sand. When he reached the tent he wanted, he saw the light still on inside. He took up a spot where he could watch without being seen or challenged by any patrol. Even if he were, his ID and passes were in order. He was one of the construction workers, and he couldn’t sleep, just going for a walk. 

Burkholder had been a sniper first in Delta Force, then discovered he liked close quarter killing better. There was something incredibly powerful about being able to look someone in the eye when you took his or her life. The eyes reflected such a panoply of emotions at that moment—denial, fear, bargaining, anger, acceptance, almost as if in those scant nanoseconds the victims went through all the stages of grief for the life Burkholder would end. Unlike some of his colleagues in Delta and now in Security Solutions, he had no qualms about the killing of women. Women were the best, the way they struggled, the way they seemed to offer him their bodies in exchange for their lives. He would take their lives and their bodies, too, sometimes as they were dying, sometimes after.

With Fisher, he wanted her alive when he had her, wanted her to feel her failure intensely as she died, his hands around her throat, his penis in her. He wished he had the time to tie and gag her, to make the rape last a while, but he’d have to be satisfied with a brief intensity, which could be just as satisfying in its own way. Too bad, too, he couldn’t have the light on to see her eyes, to see her realize she’d been conquered. For him, that was a powerful aphrodisiac, better than Viagra.

Her silhouette showed him she sat on her cot, writing—her report, no doubt on Dostun’s prisoners—but he could have infinite patience. He wouldn’t smoke, so there’d be no evidence with his DNA on it. His boots were like thousands of others in the immediate area, and he was careful not to touch anything. He saw the light go out and still he waited, for her to sleep deeply and soundly.

Some five hours after his satellite phone conversation with the Vice President, Burkholder tugged on a pair of leather gloves. Most of official Washington, DC, would be finding its way home through rush hour, but just after midnight here in Kabul, he looked forward to a different kind of rush.

(c)2013 by Phyllis Anne Duncan

NaNoWriMo – Midway Point

Believe it or not, NaNoWriMo is half over. For me it’s been a long two weeks and a day, with some marathon writing sessions I never thought I’d accomplish. I’ve got to get back on some sort of normal schedule, though–I’m running out of clean clothes!

A nice, round number for today–4,440 words, and I even made a pot of homemade soup and a loaf of homemade bread. (Yes, just call me an over-achiever.) The total word count is an unbelievable 74,472, and I have about eighty percent of the manuscript done. I added a scene to Chapter 26 to complete it, and made a good start on Chapter 27, Dostun’s Prisoners. It’s a pretty harrowing chapter, based on a real event, as you’ll see from the excerpt below:

O’Keefe drove the borrowed Humvee, and Mai took shotgun. Two soldiers accompanied them; one manned the fifty cal machine gun, and the other sat with the rest of her team and exchanged war stories and jokes. He wasn’t happy when she asked him not to smoke.

The authorization Frank had procured got them past the airport checkpoint, and they prowled the far end of the runway, around the old Aeroflot hangars, slowly and mindful of land mines. The cargo containers were right where Salim’s brother-in-law indicated, and even before they exited the Humvee, she smelled what they would find. For a second, it took her back to the Balkans, back to mass graves she’d found and catalogued for later exploration.

She had heard the rumor. Dostun had marched into Kabul with hundreds of prisoners the Americans allowed him to ransom back to their families. By the next day, all the prisoners were gone, and many people didn’t think it was back to their families.

O’Keefe used a crow bar on the closest container then stepped back when the rusty door swung open.

Then, they looked into Hell.

Dozens of putrifying bodies, caught in their final throes before suffocation, hands formed into claws, mouths agape. They were piled on top of each other at the doors, fused together so they didn’t spill out onto the ground.

“Holy Christ!” one of the soldiers muttered. The other turned away and puked.

Mai saw Yuri cross himself, and Salim began a prayer.

“Open them all,” Mai said, “and take pictures.”

Mai turned her back on the scene, walked a few feet away, and took out her satellite phone. Frank picked up almost at once.

“Yeah, what did you find?” he said.

“We found Dostun’s prisoners,” Mai replied.

 (c)2013 by Phyllis Anne Duncan

NaNoWriMo – Day 14

I watched the grandchildren today, and they were energetic as usual. With the weather flip-flopping from warm to cold to warm to frigid and back again, my sinuses have decided to make me suffer for it. Top that off with a nearly three year old who will go down the steepest slide on the playground 500 times in a row, and my teeth ache from the sinus pressure.

Still, I managed 3,366 words after the kids went home, and I’m now over the 70,000-word milestone. I finished Chapter 25, Kabul Redux, and began Chapter 26, Helpful Circumstances. Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 26:

Kabul seemed looser than when Mai had been here a few weeks before. The burqas were still in abundance, but knots of women walked the streets together without male escorts, headed for the newly opened stores and the open-air markets, and there was progress in that. The Russians, allies again, had arrived and set up an enormous pre-fab field hospital, and Mai and her team passed a long line of old men, women, and children waiting for antibiotics and vitamins.

The humanitarian arm of the U.N. had set up a relief office in an old warehouse, along with the Red Cross and the Red Crescent. Another line, longer than for the hospital, snaked around several city blocks, and they saw people leaving with boxes of food. Yet, there was optimism in people’s faces. They no longer slunk around, eyes on the ground, but walked or ran about with ebullience. Mai thought it too soon, but it was Salim who voiced it.

“They think because the Taliban have left Kabul, the war is over,” he said.

“True,” Mai replied, “only battles have been won, and there are others to fight. Some are too stupid to realize it.” She looked at O’Keefe. “Might want to include that in your first report.”

“Definitely,” he said, smiling.

“We are not far from my sister’s,” Salim said. “She will have tea and some food.”

“I’m sure she has little to spare,” Mai said.

“When we returned to Kabul, I made certain she got re-provisioned,” Salim said. “She is my oldest sister, from my father’s first wife, who died. She and her husband are both lawyers, but the Talibs wouldn’t let her work. Her husband didn’t want to practice the Taliban form of law. She would be honored to give us refreshments.”

“Then, we won’t disappoint her,” Mai said. “Lead the way.”

“And, enshallah, perhaps woman to woman, she can succeed where I have failed in getting you to understand how to cover your hair,” Salim said, his eyes brightening with his joke.

No matter how well she started out with the keffiyeh covering her hair, it took only minutes for it to slip and show more than she should. Keeping it covered would help her credibility when they dealt with sector elders.

“I’ll never be a good Muslim woman, Salim. Surely you know that by now,” she said.

“Oh, but you are a legend,” he said. “The woman who fights like a man, the wife of Saradi.”

“A legend in my own mind, maybe,” she replied. She didn’t know which she was more uncomfortable with—being a woman who fought like a man, or Saradi’s wife. “Why don’t you mind taking orders from a woman?” she asked Salim.

“Well, you have never met my mother—she is far worse than any drill sergeant I ever had. She has all my brothers and brothers-in-law hopping. And, of course, Mohammed, may he be blessed, had a favorite wife who led armies for Islam. That is the history the Taliban are too afraid to accept. Women are the other half of the world. Where would we be without them?”

“I’d be on a boat on the intercoastal or on a Harley in the Rockies if it weren’t for mine,” Hatfield said.

“If she would let you,” Salim said, and they shared a laugh. “Here is my sister’s home. I’ll go in and tell her I bring friends.”

Mai looked the structure over. Like most houses in Kabul, it had a surrounding wall which would lead to an inner courtyard then the entrance to the house proper. She watched him enter the gate, then the rest of them formed a semi-circle, facing out, watching for danger. From doorways and street corners, people watched mostly with curiosity or at least masked any hostility.

“This ain’t a trap or nothing, is it?” Hatfield muttered.

“Of course not,” O’Keefe said. “Salim’s part of the team.”

“Is that our team or the Allah team?” Hatfield said.

“I see,” Mai said, “you’d rather he be part of the Jesus team.”

“Yeah, well, that would make me sleep with both eyes closed,” Hatfield said.

“Dude,” O’Keefe said, “put a lid on it.”

“And you still need to keep one eye open,” Mai said. “I’m an atheist.”

(c)2013 by Phyllis Anne Duncan

NaNoWriMo – Day 13

Lots of errands today, starting with a doctor’s appointment and followed by a run to Costco. It’s important I have my Sobe Life Water and Alaskan Krill Omega tablets. I had a short night’s sleep–I hate going to the doctor–so I grabbed a nap and didn’t sit down to write until about 1500. However, I did manage 2,415 words in a little over two hours. The first total word count came to 66,667, but, of course, I had to go in and delete one word so the total would be a diabolical 66,666. Bwahahaha!

I finished Chapter 23, Recalled, and added Chapter 24, Partial Reunion. Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 23:

“I need for you to understand something,” she began.

“I understand all I need to know,” he said.

“No, you don’t. Alexei and I didn’t marry each other for love. Well, I may have had a serious crush, but to him I was just another agent he was training, albeit one he was sleeping with, among several others, but there was no real love between us.”

“You were pregnant. He did the right thing by you,” Kolya said.

“Yes, he was rather old-fashioned in that aspect.”

“No, he was a man, living up to his responsibilities,” Kolya said.

Whatever, she thought. “I’m not going to debate that part of my history with you because I didn’t even know you existed then. Listen to me, please, without interrupting. I was Alexei’s partner, yes, and that came before being his wife; but he wasn’t beyond manipulating me, using me however he could to complete a mission. I wasn’t particularly happy about that then, but as I grew in operational experience, I understood it. He used me to cover up the fact he gave that map to Dostun, and he knew he could succeed because I was at the stage of our relationship where I’d do just about anything he wanted to keep his attention,” she said. “You seem to think he and I had this fairy-tale romance, but we didn’t. I loved him, then I didn’t. He didn’t love me, then he did. He broke my trust more times than I want to think about, but I never once betrayed his trust.”

Kolya gave her a skeptical eyebrow.

“Terrell doesn’t count because that was once and a long time ago,” she said. “Professionally, on a mission, I never once betrayed his trust. Then, I discovered he used me to back him up on that fucking map, and you know and Nelson knew, and Nelson let him do it. So, I’m not particularly happy with Alexei Bukharin right now, but what else is new? Regardless, I have a duty to him, and I’ll fulfill that duty.”

“And that’s all it is? Duty?” he asked.

“At this moment, right now, yes. He’ll get a chance to explain himself, if he doesn’t get himself killed before we find him,” she said.

“That would make it easier for you, wouldn’t it?” Kolya asked.

She wanted to hit him but didn’t have the strength. She settled for pushing him hard enough he almost slipped off the rock where he perched. “Be a shit, Kolya. I don’t want him to die,” she said.

“Why?” When she didn’t respond, he said, “You can’t even say it. Why is it so hard for you to admit you love him?”

“Because,” she began, feeling her throat tighten. She cleared her throat and tried again, “Because every time I do, something happens to damage my trust, and most of those times, he’s the one responsible for that. If I say it, I’ll jinx it, but you need to understand if I lose him, it will kill me. It will, quite literally, kill me.”

NaNoWriMo – Day 12

We had a threat of snow today, but I may have seen one flake. The sky was pretty gray and gloomy, but it was a bright writing day inside the house–5,216 words. I broke the 60,000-word milestone, with a grand total of 64,251 words.

I finished two chapters today, Chapter 22, Ground Zero, and Chapter 23, Recalled. Here’s an excerpt from Ground Zero:

Harzat Ali was alone in his tent when his lieutenant told him a messenger had arrived for Abdullah Ignatsiev.

“Send him in,” he said.

The young man, a boy really, came in, shoulders hunched, his fingers twisting the pakhool he had removed in deference.

“Come in, come in,” Ali said. “What is your name?”

“Rishaad, sir.”

“And you are related to Abdullah or his wife?” Ali asked.

“I am the youngest son of the youngest wife of Tarife Ignatsiev’s uncle, Najibullah,” he replied.

“And everything is all right at the Ignatsiev household?” Alexei asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Then, why does Abdullah’s wife bother him at a time like this?” Ali asked.

“I do not know, sir. I do not know what is in the letters,” Rishaad replied.

Ali saw his manner made the boy even more afraid, but he didn’t soften his gaze. “Give me the letters,” he ordered.

Rishaad debated briefly between his duty to his family and angering a warlord of Ali’s reputation. He reached inside the layers of clothing and produced the two letters. Ali took them and lay them aside.

“Were you told to wait for a reply?” he asked Rishaad.

“No, sir. I was to return at once,” Rishaad said.

“Very well. My lieutenant will pay you and give you some food. Did you come by mule or vehicle?” Ali asked.

“Vehicle, sir.”

“My lieutenant will give you some petrol as well. Thank you for being diligent in carrying messages for your family,” Ali said and waved a hand in dismissal.

When he was alone, Ali opened first the message addressed to Abdullah Ignatsiev. A short, simple message: “You and Saradi must come here at once.”

When he was a young Mujahideen, Ali had been sent to infiltrate a Russian unit by serving as a translator. He read and spoke Russian quite well and easily recognized the language on the second letter. That one was longer, and he pondered it after he finished reading it.

Saradi’s wife, whose death drove him to revenge, still lived and was, in fact, too close for Ali’s comfort. If Saradi were to learn this news, he would leave to go to her bed, leaving a gap in his army. Ali, who could understand the lure of a woman, better understood the needs of war.

He took both letters to the brazier and burned them.

(c)2013 by Phyllis Anne Duncan

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