Paragon ✓

XIV. Huma

History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake

-James Joyce

Holden slipped on his glasses, gesturing for her to do the same. She did, reluctantly. He smiled. "Welcome to Kabul."

They went straight into a long, windowless building. It, like all the surrounding edifices, seemed to have been built for temporary use. It was surrounded by a few dozen red metal-sheet structures that seemed to be for training purposes. Six enormous hangars were lined up about a mile away. Dozens of military men and a smaller number of women were about, getting into and out of armoured vehicles, smoking cigarettes near the base, laughing in groups. Their pale grey-and-green camouflage outfits were a stark contrast to the mercenaries' cargo khaki's and black t-shirts. A few glanced at Katia curiously, but most were gawking outright at Iris, who, even in her khaki trousers and heavy jacket, was still the most beautiful woman Katia had ever seen. She understood now why no one seemed suspicious that a teenage girl was in their midst; Iris took up too much of their attention for them to notice the straggly blonde girl looking lost.

Inside, more soldiers were tapping away on computers in a large main room. Down a laminate-panelled hall, she saw rooms where more soldiers practiced flight simulations with joysticks. In another, Afghan army recruits practiced English. A closed door indicating a counsellor's office, another for a psychiatrist, another for a doctor. They turned the corner, and men cheered at a football game on the big screen in a common room. They were drinking sodas and throwing popcorn, laughing boisterously.

It was strange how everything in the base seemed legitimate, benign even. Then she remembered that she was at a military base, and that no matter what she felt about war, armies were legitimate. The company that purportedly owned her was not. She was not a part of anything legitimate.

They turned one more corner, and entered a small auditorium, with room enough for all twenty mercenaries, eleven Paragons, the two MI6s, Jackson, and two men in camouflage, and a bearded man in a business suit.

They all took seats on hard plastic chairs and faced the powerpoint screen at the head of the room. One of the camouflaged men, an older man with rimless spectacles and a serious look, took the podium. Holden grabbed Katia's wrist, and whispered under his breath. "Lieutenant colonel John Manning, head of the Camp Huma."

"First, I'd like to thank Commander Jackson, for your company's impressive tracking. In a year of disappointments, we hope this will be a successful mission."

Jackson nodded seriously. If he was pleased with himself, he did not show it. It was the one thing Katia appreciated about Jackson: that he acted as heartless as she perceived him to be; he didn't pretend to have false emotions. At any rate, he had nothing to do with the discovery, so he shouldn't have been pleased with himself.

Jackson stood up. "Mansoor's has been training about a hundred Taliban in what we believe is a terror camp. Essentially, he's planning on a high-level suicide attack, though we don't know the intended target. We hope to detain him before it happens."

Manning and the MI6 agents shifted and murmured.

Jackson continued, "We'll keep our teams here for the three days so they can adapt to the altitude and time change while we brief them comprehensively. Teams One and Two will transfer to Camp Haywood via helicopter. We need you there to prep for the mission. Teams Three through Eight will depart via ground convoy." There was a loud dissent from the mercenaries, but Jackson raised a hand to silence them. He turned and pressed a button on a remote control, and an image of several young men, sitting in a half-circle and looking on reverentially at a bearded man came up on the grainy screen. "From what we've learned, Mansoor is running a terror training camp within the confines of these caves. We've estimated anywhere from one-hundred and fifty to two hundred men are stationed there." He flipped to another image. This time, it was a digital image of a mountain, chiselled through by a network of tunnels and rooms. "Based on our calculations, this is what the blueprint of the layout of their base."