Kitabı oku: «The Book of Dragons», sayfa 4

“Humans are scolding us for affecting the environment?” said Sri Bujang.

“Not just scolding,” said Sri Kemboja. “Suing.” She flipped the page and pointed to a row of figures.

The numbers were more familiar than the words. Sri Bujang digested them in a horrified glance. “They’re asking for how much?”

“For the damage caused by your landslides and floods,” said Sri Kemboja. “If it wasn’t for the fact that Ayahanda and Bonda have to suffer, I’d say they should be claiming more. You’re lucky they’re not trying to send you to jail. If there was any justice in the world, you’d be facing criminal charges.”

As always, by going too far, her anger ameliorated their mother’s.

“Adinda, that’s too much,” said Sri Gumum.

“No, Bonda, it’s time we stopped coddling Kakanda,” said Sri Kemboja. “Maybe if we had spoken up before, we could have prevented all this.”

To Sri Bujang, turning the pages of the letter with increasing dismay, this attitude seemed less than helpful. It was like his sister to fly off the handle when what they needed was a level-headed discussion of next steps.

“I don’t think anyone could blame you for not speaking up enough,” he said tartly. “There’s no need to be so emotional. It’s not like anyone’s died.”

Sri Kemboja stared at him. “A woman was critically injured in the storm yesterday—the storm you raised. The newspapers are all talking about it.”

“Newspapers?” said Sri Gumum. “You’ve been reading human newspapers?”

Sri Kemboja hadn’t taken her eyes off Sri Bujang.

“What are you looking so shocked for?” she said. “You must have known your floods and your landslides were destroying roads and buildings, turning people out of their homes. It was only a matter of time before you hurt somebody.”

“Adinda, have you been playing human again?” said Sri Gumum, raising her voice. “Going around calling yourself Yasmin and wearing shoes and all that kind of thing?”

“So what if I am?” snapped Sri Kemboja. “Why can’t I have an outlet, if the raja muda gets to play sage whenever he feels like it? At least I’m not laying waste to cities and killing innocent humans!”

“Aduhai!” Sri Gumum wrung her paws. “What will Ayahanda say? What is his sin that he has been punished with two such wayward children?”

Sri Bujang had learned several new things about his sister in the past couple of minutes, which at any other time would have been of enormous interest. But there were more important things to worry about now.

“Who got hurt?” he said. His voice cut through the din.

Sri Kemboja said, “Her name is Yap May Lynn.” Her eyes filled with tears—the jeweled naga’s tears that were once so highly prized among humans that they were traded between rajas as gifts. “She was driving home to her mother. One of the trees by the side of the road, the branch broke because of the storm, and it fell on her car. She’s in the hospital now. She may never wake up. I may never see her again. And it’s because of you.”

“Didn’t Bonda already tell you? Don’t make friends with humans,” said Sri Gumum. “They die after a short time and then you feel bad. That’s what humans are like. Anyway, how do you know Kakanda caused the rain?”

“He did,” said Sri Kemboja. “He went back to his mountain again, even after everything we told him. Didn’t you? It was your storm, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Sri Bujang, heartsick. “It was my storm.”

A man trailing a thunderstorm paused in the hospital car park, watching a car from under his umbrella. A woman got out, struggling with a large plastic container.

Sri Bujang knew Sri Kemboja at once, and she recognized him, though neither was wearing their usual face. They gazed at each other in mutual embarrassment.

“What are you doing here?” said Sri Kemboja.

“Do you want to keep that dry?” said Sri Bujang, at the same time. “I can cover it with my umbrella.” He pointed at the plastic container, noticing its contents for the first time. “Is that human food?” he asked, intrigued.

“It’s for a friend,” said Sri Kemboja. Then she flung back her head. “Actually, it’s for Mrs. Yap, May Lynn’s mother. You can tell Ayahanda and Bonda if you like. I assume that’s why you’re here.”

Sri Bujang gave her an odd look. “I think Ayahanda and Bonda could probably tell me more about your human career than I could tell them. Anyway, you can’t see Mrs. Yap.”

Sri Kemboja bridled. “What makes you think you can come here and tell me what to do? Just because you’re older and the raja muda—”

“Mrs. Yap is with May Lynn,” Sri Bujang continued. “They should be discharging May Lynn in a few days’ time, but they want to keep her under observation for a while.”

“What?” said Sri Kemboja.

“May Lynn’s made a miraculous recovery,” said Sri Bujang. Something had been niggling at him, an unanswered question Sri Kemboja’s appearance had brought to mind. “Eh, how do you go around without bringing rain with you?”

“What do you mean, a miraculous recovery?”

“I mean me,” said Sri Bujang. “I wrought a miracle. Now she’s recovered.”

Sri Bujang had almost forgotten what his sister looked like when she was not angry. Without the usual expression of impatience, her face was rather nice. She said, “How?”

A flash of lightning briefly blinded them. The sky crackled in its wake, and the rain intensified.

“I’ll tell you,” said Sri Bujang, “but do you want to go wait somewhere till she’s done with her mother? I should move before I cause a flood.”

Sri Kemboja ordered at the coffeeshop with the confidence of an old hand:

“Limau ais kurang manis,” she told the waiter.

“You’ve been human for a while, haven’t you?” said Sri Bujang.

Sri Kemboja gave him a suspicious look, though he’d only meant to express admiration. “You were going to tell me about May Lynn.”

“There’s not much to tell,” said Sri Bujang. “I gave her my next life. She should be okay now.” There was a point that had been making Sri Bujang a little uncomfortable. Sri Kemboja’s unblinking gaze made him bring it up.

“She might live for longer than usual,” he added. “That’s okay, right? Humans are—were—always asking me how to live longer.”

Sri Kemboja came back to life.

“What do you mean?” she said. “How long?”

“Not too long,” said Sri Bujang, anxious to reassure. “She’s still human. Her body couldn’t take too much longevity. She’s not likely to live more than three hundred years or so, unless she’s very careful with her lifestyle.”

“Kakanda!”

“I know,” said Sri Bujang. “It’s not natural for humans to live so long. But it was either that or let her die. I know you all think I’m selfish, but the whole point of going to the mountain was not to do harm.”

“I thought the point of going to the mountain was to seek liberation,” said Sri Kemboja. “How are you going to become an awakened one in your next life if you’ve given it away?”

Sri Bujang was proud of himself for not wincing. “I’ll have to start over from scratch in the next life, that’s all. I’ve lost all the merit I built up before.”

He tried not to think about the work his next incarnation would have to do to recover his progress toward liberation—supposing the next incarnation even knew enough to desire enlightenment.

“Hopefully, I’ll at least be reborn as a human and not one of the other animals,” he said. Even if he’d avoided ending any human lives, he’d probably racked up too much moral debt with all the natural disasters to be reborn as a naga. “Humans are supposed to be able to attain liberation also.”

Sri Kemboja folded her hands with the ease of much use—Sri Bujang would have had to practice to reproduce the maneuver.

“I trained myself to suppress the rain-bringing instinct,” she said. “It wasn’t easy. It took a lot of work, and I don’t know if the technique can be reproduced. But I can teach you. If you learn how to do it, you can keep your mountain.”

Sri Bujang was touched. “That’s really kind, Adinda, but—”

“I’m not offering to be kind,” said Sri Kemboja brusquely. “You saved her. That’s what I can do for you. So I’ll do it.”

Sri Bujang paused. Sages did not have hurt feelings. Just because he was not going to be a sage anymore didn’t mean he couldn’t act like one.

“I was going to say, I’m not keeping my mountain,” he said.

He’d already made up his mind, but saying it out loud gave him an acute pang. They’d laid flowers outside his cave, not just the humans but the spirits too; they knew it was good luck to have a naga on the mountain. He had gone for months at a time deep in meditation, joyfully forgetful of self.

He pushed the memories to the back of his mind. They would have to stay there, sunken treasure in a dark sea.

“I’m selling it,” he said.

His sister’s head whipped around. “What?”

“To pay for the lawsuit,” Sri Bujang explained. “It’s quite a valuable mountain—central location, good soil. The proceeds should be enough to cover legal expenses and compensation.”

“But you can’t do that,” said Sri Kemboja.

“I can, actually,” said Sri Bujang. “I own the mountain under the humans’ laws. There are some humans who’ve lived nearby for millennia—very decent people—but because they did not have the right papers, the other humans have been stealing their land to grow pineapples and build housing developments on. They advised me to make sure my papers were in order, so I did. My lawyer says there should be no problem with passing title.”

“You have a lawyer?”

“The neighboring humans suggested it.” Sri Bujang sighed. “I only went back that last time to say good-bye. I lived there for centuries. I was friendly with the humans, the hantu, the animals … I couldn’t leave them all hanging. If I knew how to turn off the rain, I would’ve done it. But I didn’t. I never planned on going back and forth.”

Sri Kemboja was silent for a moment, staring down at her limau ais. “You never planned on coming home at all.”

This was too close to the truth, and a mortal wound.

“Never mind,” said Sri Bujang. It would hurt less presently, but he did not want to talk about the life he’d carved out for himself, or the dream that had sustained it. “I thought I could balance the two—the mountain and the sea—but this was a lesson. Like you said, I have to commit. So I’m committing. Ayahanda and Bonda won’t have to worry about the lawsuit anymore. Or me.”

“They don’t have to worry about the lawsuit anyway,” said Sri Kemboja. She was looking angry again. Sri Bujang’s heart fell. What had he said wrong now?

Sri Kemboja went on, “I told them I’d handle it. There’s plenty to challenge. They named the wrong defendant to start with, and then there are the jurisdictional issues. That’s not even getting into the substantive case.”

“Is this a human thing?” said Sri Bujang cautiously. “Is that why I don’t understand anything you’re saying?”

“Oh,” said Sri Kemboja, “I’m a lawyer. That’s why I started living secretly as a human, because Ayahanda and Bonda said princesses can’t practice law. You know I always loved the law.”

This was even more surprising than it had been to find out that Sri Kemboja moonlighted as a human. “You did?”

“Okay, I assumed too much,” said Sri Kemboja. “I forgot who I was talking to. I fought with Ayahanda and Bonda about it all the time, but you wouldn’t have noticed. The point is, there’s no need to sell your mountain. You’ll have money once you’re crowned—you can use that to help the people who suffered from your natural disasters.”

Sri Bujang felt adrift, his sacrifices taken from him.

“If you could help all along,” he said, “with the rain and the court case, why didn’t you say so?”

Sri Kemboja looked a little ashamed. “You can only learn to stop the rain if you can see beyond self. How was I to know?”

“I spent centuries training to pierce the veil of self!”

“You didn’t know I wanted to be a lawyer,” Sri Kemboja pointed out. “Ayahanda had me detained in my room for a month for doing work experience! Do you even remember that?”

Sri Bujang did, now that she mentioned it. “Oh, is that why you spent that month in your room studying the classics?” At Sri Kemboja’s look, he said, “Okay, I take your point. But that doesn’t apply to the court case.”

“I was mad at you, Kakanda,” said Sri Kemboja. “You got away with everything. You wanted to be a sage, so you went off to this mountain and sat in your cave refusing visitors. I’ve been the one living with Ayahanda and Bonda, listening to them tell me what they wanted to tell you. But they never sent a messenger to your mountain or asked you to visit them. They always gave you face, because you were the raja muda.”

Sri Bujang couldn’t think of anything to say except, “I came back.”

“Yes,” said Sri Kemboja. “Anyway, even if we have a good case, that doesn’t mean it’s fun to deal with a lawsuit against my sick father. I’m busy at work, I have my own life. I’ve got enough things to handle as it is.”

“Is one of those things May Lynn?” said Sri Bujang. He had been wondering.

Sri Kemboja choked on her drink. The human face she was wearing went bright red.

“No! Shut up! Who gave you that idea? We just work together!” she sputtered. “Wait, did May Lynn tell you that? What did she say about me?”

“Oh, nothing,” said Sri Bujang. He gazed dreamily at the menu on the opposite wall. “I couldn’t betray any confidences, of course. We sages get told things because we are trusted.”

“Kakanda!” said Sri Kemboja.

But Sri Bujang could tell she wasn’t mad at him anymore.

YULI

Daniel Abraham

Daniel Abraham (danielabraham.com) is the author of the Long Price Quartet, the Dragon and the Coin series, and, as M. L. N. Hanover, the Black Sun’s Daughter series. As James S. A. Corey, he is co-author of the Expanse series with Ty Franck. His short fiction has been collected in Leviathan Wept and Other Stories. He has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards, and won the International Horror Guild Award. He lives in New Mexico.

Forty-nine is too young to be raising a teenage grandson, but here he is. The boy spends most of his time downstairs—Yuli won’t call it the basement, because the shitty little house they’re in was built on a hill, so there’s a window down there. Basements don’t have windows. But the boy stays downstairs most of the time, either with his little friends or alone. Yuli sits in the kitchen, smoking his cigarettes and watching TV with the sound off, and he can hear them down there, like mice.

They’ve started playing pretend games, rolling strange-shaped dice and making up stories. Yuli preferred it when they were playing video games. Especially the battle ones where everyone fights against everyone, and the only point is you’re the one alive at the end. He’s never played those games, but at least he understands them. Every man for himself and God against all is a world he recognizes. There aren’t so many things Yuli recognizes these days.

He is living in the United States, which he never thought he would do. He was born in Stavropol, in the North Caucasus, but he doesn’t remember it. He was younger than the boys downstairs when he left his family to go fight. He spent more of his childhood in Afghanistan than at home, and that was before he started working private contracts. Since then he’s seen the world, if mostly the shit parts of it. But still, the world.

The house he lives in is narrow. The walls were the pale color that Wrona called “Realtor white” when he took the place seven years ago. The smoke from his cigarettes and the grease from his grilled meat have stained them. The kitchen floor is linoleum tile that’s curling up a little by the sink where it gets wet. The front room has a sofa that Yuli keeps covered in plastic so that it won’t get cigarette stink in the cloth. The backyard he paved over with concrete so he wouldn’t have to mow it all the goddamn time, and long fingers of grass still push up wherever there is a crack. His bed is good, though. King-sized, it is so broad that it hardly leaves space enough to walk around his bedroom. He’d had dreams about filling that bed with American girls and fucking his way to contentment, back when he’d first come here, and he’d had a couple girlfriends in the beginning.

Then, two years ago, he’d discovered that he had a son, and that his son had a son. The two had come to visit, and only one had left.

On the silent television news, a black woman and a white man shout over each other, square-mouthed with rage, until the image cuts to a bombed-out city. North Africa, to judge from the architecture. Not Egypt, though. Sudan, maybe. Yuli fought for a time in Sudan.

The boy’s friends laugh at something, and Yuli shifts his attention to them. To the boy and what he’s saying. It’s like listening to a radio with the volume turned down almost past the point of audibility. Almost, but not quite.

“The king presents you with his wise man, and this guy has to be older than dirt. Seriously, he looks like he was born before rocks were invented. He tells you that the first dragons weren’t just big, fire-breathing lizards. The first ones were the souls of great warriors who never died. They just became less and less human as they grew in power, until they became dragons. And the gold they guard is the treasure they amassed through their campaigns of violence and terror.”

“Fuck,” one of his little friends says. “You’re telling us Aufganir is one of the first dragons?”

There’s pride in the boy’s voice when he speaks. “Aufganir is the first dragon.”

Yuli chuckles and lights a fresh cigarette from the butt of the old one. Dragons and magic swords and the crystals with elf girls’ souls in them or some shit. Baby stuff. Yuli was just a year or two older than his grandson is now when he killed his first mujahideen. Shot the man in his mouth. He can still picture it. Can count the moles on the dead man’s cheek, that’s how clear the memory is.

It was another life. Now he is just a man living a quiet life in a quiet place, letting his days smear together until it’s hard to remember what part of the week it is unless the boy has to go to school. But still, it’s funny hearing the children down there, talking breathlessly about going out to find imaginary treasures. A hoard of gold.

If they knew what was buried down there, right below their cheap little card table, they’d shit themselves white.

Okay, we set up camp at the edge of the trees. Not all the way out in the meadow where anyone could see us, and not in the forest, but like right at the edge.

All right.

And I’m going to set up a perimeter. Like trip wires all the way around.

Roll your traps skill.

Made it by two.

Okay, what else do you do? Start a fire? Cook dinner?

I’ll start a little fire, but I’m digging a hole for it so that the light doesn’t show. I don’t want anything in the woods getting attracted to us.

Nothing assaults you while you eat. There’s the usual forest noises, but nothing to raise an alarm. The moon comes up, with just a few thin clouds. The meadow is quiet and empty. Everything seems peaceful.

This is too easy. It’s making me nervous. We set up a watch.

Who goes first?

I do.

Okay, roll perception.

I knew it. I knew it was too fucking easy. All right. Perception? I made it by three.

As you sit there in the darkness, you notice a crow on one of the tree branches. I mean, it’s just a crow. There’s nothing particularly weird about it, except that it doesn’t change places. It’s always right in the same spot.

Can it see me?

Well, you can see it, so yeah.

My amulet has passive detect magic. I’m just going to reach in my shirt like I’m scratching an itch. Really casually. And I’m touching the amulet.

Yeah, that crow is not a crow. It’s some kind of shapeshifter. One of the dragon’s spies. And you don’t know how long it’s been watching you.

Can I reach my bow?

Roll for it.

Okay … ah … well, that sucked.

It’s not that bad. I’ll give you a bonus because you were on watch. I’m going to say that your bow is just out of reach, and your quiver is past it. You can get to them, but you’ll have to move.

I want to jump over, grab my bow and an arrow, and shoot at the shapeshifter. I still have one heroic action point left.

Spend it and roll dexterity.

Made it by two.

You would have hit, but the shapeshifter made its dodge. Before you can get another arrow, it’s gone. You see the dark wings disappearing into the forest.

Well, shit. Aufganir’s going to know we’re coming.

Yuli has been losing weight. He hasn’t changed his diet or started exercising, but in the last six months twenty pounds have melted away. When someone asks, he makes it a joke and says it’s because God loves him, but he thinks it’s probably cancer. Or maybe his thyroid. He knew a woman once with thyroid problems, and she lost a lot of weight. He knows he should go see a doctor, and he will. He just wants to drop a few more pounds first.

There are problems that come with his fat going away. There was a winter he was working private in Chechnya when there was snow on the ground for three months. When it thawed, the courtyard was full of bottles and cans and dogshit. All the things that didn’t get cleaned up when it was cold that had waited and been revealed. It turned out bodies were like that too. The acid he’d dropped and the weed he’d smoked, maybe some of the heroin he’d used for the pain when he hurt his back outside Kabul, it wound up stored with his fat. Now, with that going, the drugs are getting dumped back into his bloodstream. Dogshit blood.

Most of the time, it’s nothing. A little unexpected mellowness, a shift of mood that doesn’t relate to anything. Sometimes, though, there’s a little synesthesia. His fingertips tingle first, and then noise starts having colors to it. One time, when his hands were like that, he brushed against a wall, and the texture was a deep note, played on a viol. He didn’t like it. Another time, he scratched an itch on his elbow just where it got dry and scaly, and for a moment, he was certain that there was a new, different skin underneath. He’d scratched himself bloody trying to peel himself like a snake. At times like that, he tries not to drive, or if he does, he’s careful.

When he first came to the United States, he had a sports car. A Porsche. It was a sexy little car, but it leaked oil and there wasn’t any room for groceries. He sold it and got a hatchback. It isn’t as sexy, but it does what he wants better.

Maybe it’s a sign he’s getting old. It isn’t the money. He has all the money he wants, if he decides to dig it up and spend it, but he doesn’t. He keeps his where it stays safe. He’s been poor. Living in a shitty house and driving a housewife’s car isn’t so bad when you know you don’t have to do it. And there are reasons not to be so showy.

In the morning, he drives the boy to school. They talk a little, but not about anything. Then Yuli does whatever. Groceries sometimes. Laundry sometimes. He takes himself to a movie if something good is on. He likes action films because they’re easier to follow, or at least if he doesn’t catch everything, it doesn’t matter as much. Lunch is back home if he doesn’t want to see people, or Café Gurman if he does.

Today, he does.

Café Gurman is in a strip mall between a musical instrument shop that sells violins to pretentious white parents on one side and a payday loan on the other. The windows have a thin film on them that no amount of cleaning will ever make clear. The booths are red leather, cracked some places and mended with red tape. The walls have pictures of famous people, as if they have eaten there. Maybe they have. It is the home of the expatriate community. Or one particular expatriate community, anyway.

His.

Doria is at the register, doing something on her cell phone. She is the owner’s daughter. She doesn’t make eye contact with anyone, even as she takes their money and talks to them in Russian. She’s a good kid. She’ll go away soon, hopefully to college, and then he won’t see her again. He orders his usual shawarma, nods to the familiar faces in the other booths. As soon as Wrona comes in, he knows something is wrong.

Yuli has known Wrona longer than anyone else in the United States. They were on the same detail the first time Yuli worked private. He’s a tall man with long hands and a face as craggy as tree bark. When he sees Yuli, he lifts his chin in greeting, steps over, and sits in the booth across from him. Yuli frowns. This isn’t how they are to each other. Not normally.

“You’re looking good,” Wrona says, and it is as close to an apology as Yuli will get. A little acknowledgment that Wrona has crossed a boundary, and that he’s about to cross others. “You’ve been going to the gym?”

“No. I don’t like those places.”

“Me neither,” Wrona says, scratching his neck with his long fingers. When he speaks next, it is in Polish. “There was something I needed to ask you. That thing. You know the one?”

Yuli’s frown deepens to a scowl. If there was any doubt what Wrona meant, his discomfort clears it away. There is only one subject that would make him this nervous, and it’s one that he shouldn’t bring up. Not even vaguely and in Polish.

“I know,” Yuli says.

“Do you still have it?”

“I know where it is.”

Wrona nods but won’t meet Yuli’s eyes. “Yes, I thought. I mean, I assumed. But I heard something about people coming into town who shouldn’t be here. People from Zehak.” Now he turns his eyes to Yuli. “You know what I’m saying.”

Yuli’s mouth is dry, but he doesn’t let anything show in his face. He takes a last bite of his shawarma, lifts a hand to get Doria’s attention, and signals her for coffee. They’re quiet until she brings it. He likes it black, roasted dark enough to hide evidence. That’s the joke.

“All right,” he says.

“If you have that much money,” Wrona says quietly, “someone’s going to be looking for it.”

“I know.”

“If you need a gun …” Wrona spreads his hands.

“No, it’s all right,” Yuli says. “I have guns.”

After a long journey, you reach the township of Tannis Low. It’s not a big place, but it’s seriously defended. A stone wall that goes up thirty feet and then bends backward into the town so that people can hide in the overhang. The gates are bronze, but they’ve been charred badly over the years so that they look almost totally black. The valley around it is all stone and dirt. There are no trees. Almost no plants.

You know what’s weird?

What?

Why does a dragon even have gold? I mean, I know why we want it. Pay off the assassin’s guild. But what does Aufganir want with it? It’s not like he’s heading off to market every weekend to buy lunch meat.

It’d be like a whole cow. Cheaper to just fly out and roast one yourself.

That’s my point, right? I mean why have a shit-ton of gold just to sit on?

Hemorrhoids. Definitely hemorrhoids.

Don’t be gross.

You laughed.

For serious, though. Is there some kind of magic about gold? Or does he eat it or something? Whatever he wants it for, it’s not the same as what we want it for, right?

People, people! Can we focus up here?

Sorry. It’s just something I was thinking about.

Okay. So like I said, after a long journey, you reach the township …

It had been back when Yuli was working private in western Afghanistan, his fifteen years for Mother Russia behind him. Mercenary work suited him, and the pay was good. He’d had more hair back then. And cheekbones. The contract had been all about suppressing the poppy trade. Opium, heroin. Burning out the farms, breaking the trucks, disrupting the flow of drugs and money whatever way they could. Probably the client had been a rival producer. That was fine. Yuli didn’t judge. One rule was very clear. The operation stopped at the border. They weren’t to cross over into Iran.

They had crossed over into Iran.

There were four of them. Yuli, Wrona, another Pole called Nowak, and a man of no particular nation who everyone called Pintador though it wasn’t his name. Yuli was driving. It was a Humvee with customized light armor. He liked it. It felt strong. It was dark, and he had night-vision goggles on that made the hills green and black. The target was a little compound in Sistan and Baluchestan Province that an upcoming warlord named Hakim Ali was using as a base. The target was soft, because the enemy knew that Yuli wasn’t permitted to cross the border. Being in Iran kept it safe.

Yuli parked just before the top of a rise, and they all got out, moving quickly and quietly. Pintador whistled under his breath as he took position with a sniper rifle. Yuli surveyed the site through binoculars. Everything matched the briefing except that there was an extra car. A black sedan. Someone had chosen the wrong night to visit.

They moved forward carefully,Yuli and Wrona and Nowak. They each carried a 9A-91 assault rifle with a suppressor. Pintador’s soft whistling in his earpiece meant the sniper hadn’t seen anything to raise an alarm. The compound was two small houses and a shed, chain-link fence. An American pickup truck that had been white once, an ancient Jeep with a Barrett 82A1 mounted on its frame, and now the sedan. Yuli didn’t see a guard, but two dogs were sleeping beside the shed. Yuli shot them first, then Nowak cut the chain on the fence, and they were in.