His laugh hasn’t changed. It shakes his entire body. Like he’s just heard the ten funniest jokes in the world all at the same time.
“How did you choose the name Guillermo?” he asks when I sit down. “It never suited you.”
“My handler picked it for me. Twenty years ago. I always hated it. Why not something short? Like Raz or even Pedro?” The first sip of the bitter brew calms my nerves. It tastes like shit, but it’s a tiny bit of home in this godawful place. “What happened after I left, Shapur? How did you get…here?”
His bone-deep sigh takes me by surprise. “I mourned you, my friend. Musa’s men died most painfully.”
“How many did you have killed?”
Black brows knit together, he stares at me in disbelief. “All of them.”
“Wh-what?” The coffee burns as it sticks in my throat. “You didn’t…”
“Did you think I would not avenge you?” The man turns to face me. “I loved you like a brother…Nomar. I destroyed his entire organization—or what was left of it after you killed him.”
Fuck. I thought he was just using me. Paying me to do what he couldn’t. To be the bad guy. I didn’t see the loneliness. How isolated he was. How I quickly became the only one in his inner circle. But looking back, it’s all I remember.
“Shapur, I’m sorry. I wasn’t supposed to leave…like that. My assignment was to help you for six months. Get you to agree to a meet. Gather intel on the other warlords. The CIA promised methey’dtake out Musa. That once he was dead, I could come home. But month after month after month…they kept me there with no exfil plan. I couldn’t wait any longer.”
“And your woman—Lisette?—she was waiting for you?”
“No. Maybe. Not waiting. Hoping. But after all the shit I did for you, I couldn’t face her. You traffic women, Shapur. And she was Faruk’swife. The bastard kidnapped her from France thirteen years ago, brought her to Afghanistan, and forced her to marry him.”
His eyes widen. “That is why Raziq took her son.Faruk’sson.”
“Fucking shitstain thinks it’s hisresponsibilityto raise Mateen the way Faruk would have wanted.” The rage that has been simmering inside me all week threatens to boil over. “He’s convinced Lisette has committed some sort of crime and she needs to be punished.”
The look on his face doesn’t reassure me. “She stole a male child from his father and took him to another country. Presumably she is not raising him as a Muslim?”
I shake my head. “She’s not.”
“Then it does not matter that Faruk is gone. She is still guilty of kidnapping—”
“Mateen would have died if they hadn’t escaped. She was a prisoner for ten years. He beat her, raped her, and when the child he forced her to have needed medical care, he kidnapped an American doctor rather than take the kid to a hospital.” I’m done with this conversation. I was wrong. Shapur is still an asshole. Even if he did…mournme.
He dismisses my rage with a wave of his hand. “Faruk was the worst of us. But he was a moderate compared to his brother.”
“Not helping.”
Another sigh, and he leans back against the wall. “For several years, I had hope for this country. Our women were working. Going to school. Even teaching. But now…none of that is possible.” After a sniff of the coffee, he tries a sip. “How do you drink this shit?”
“Give me that. I’m not letting it to go waste. Not when we’re probably breaching Raziq’s fortress in broad fucking daylight.”
Shapur shakes his head and pulls the cup close to his chest. “As you did not see fit to bring even a single tea bag, I am drinking all of this, despite the taste.”
“Whatever, man. I need some air.”
“Did you know,” he asks before I can get up, “that it took almost a year for me to believe you were alive? That you had stolen my files and decrypted them? I was assured the security was almost unbreakable.”
“If it makes you feel any better, the woman who hacked them said it was a challenge. And she’s one of the best in the world.” I let the coffee smooth the raw edges of my anger. “What finally tipped you off?”
“My Hajira convinced me.” A little smile tugs at his lips. “She is brilliant, Nomar. Smarter than me. With the kindest heart. ‘Shapur,’ she said to me, ‘the Viper has stopped every auction in the country for six months. He clearly knows you. Are you certain Guillermo is truly dead?’”
“She was what? Nineteen at the time?” I marvel. “And she figured it out.”
“She did. And because of her, I stopped trafficking in women completely.”
Holy shit.
