“A lot of reasons. Close to the Pakistani border if we want to buy anything to take back. The house is cheap and all the military cares about is if we’re warehousing the correct number of prisoners. No one has checked on us at either location in the months that we’ve been here. It’s kinda like our setup in Marlboro if you hadn’t screwed it up.”

“And it doesn’t bother you that a bloody man was just dragged through the room?” I didn’t want to let him know how disturbed I was by it. There was nothing right about this whole setup.

Allmand remained placid. “We have a very simple job. We take combatants delivered to us by the military. We hold those combatants until a determination about their fate is made. That determination is made by the US government. We do not capture anyone, we do not interview anyone. We just hold combatants. I am not responsible for how they behave. Our job is to keep them locked up. Looks like a lesson was just delivered.”

Allmand’s matter-of-fact tone and demeanor were unsettling to me.

I said, “So you guys have a pretty sweet setup here. And you were pissed at me. I still don’t see why you went to all the trouble to lure me to Afghanistan. I don’t believe a personal bet between you and Jackson justifies the effort.”

He nodded his head slowly. “Very sound reasoning on your part. We have something we need to ship back to the US. One thing that’s not searched is coffins. We get you on a military flight back to the US and we enter the country with something we can all retire on.”

I pointed at a box of statues and cups similar to the one I saw at the last holding facility. “You’re raping the country of its heritage and shipping these little statues and shit home with me.”

Allmand reached over and picked up one of the statues. A female character in robes. She had big, colorless eyes. Then he slammed it against the edge of my cage and shattered it. “Most of this stuff is worth less than a dollar apiece. Just trinkets the guys like to give out or ship home. No, Mr. Mitchum, we have other plans for you.”

That, in no way, made me feel better about my situation.

Chapter 41

Chapter 41

Twenty minutes later, I watched as David Allmand walked down the hallway to the bedroom where the sick man was supposedly scaring other prisoners. I knew that if there was a sick man in a cage next to me, he would be the least of my worries. Now I had to get serious about getting out of here.