Bleary eyed, Mike lifted his head and watched the runway flash by. He was disappointed no one met them in Dubai. They received an email instead. He got it, stuff happens, but still, he wasn’t sure he cared for the way Al was running the operation.

If nothing else, the three and half hour flight had been a good opportunity to get some sleep. And sleep was one thing a soldier or ex-soldier never wasted the chance to get. After splashing water on his face from the little bathroom on the small jet, he felt a little more awake. The water still dripping from Tom’s wheat straw colored beard produced a similar effect, awake, but barely.

The door to the pilot’s compartment opened, and one of the pilots leaned out.

“Hey, fellas. This is your final destination. Once we stop, they’ll roll up a stairway, and you can depart. A bus is on its way to pick you up and take you wherever you’re going.”

“Okay, Thanks,” Tom said and stood to collect his gear.

“No worries. Good luck doing whatever you’re getting ready to do.”

“Do you know what we’re doing?” It would have been nice to have some idea, Mike thought.

The pilot laughed. “No clue. We’re a flying bus service. We fly guys like you where they tell us to go, and then we refuel and pick up some other guys and fly them somewhere else. They don’t tell us anything else, and we don’t ask.”

“Everybody’s happy.”

“Exactly. We get paid, fly around the world, and have a lot of downtime. It’s a great job if you don’t want to know stuff. And we don’t.”

The plane halted, and the man they’d been speaking to entered the cabin, worked the door mechanism, and opened it.

“Here comes the stairway, and there’s the bus.” He turned back into the cabin. “Maybe we’ll see you on the return trip.”

“You never know.” Mike grabbed his gear and followed Tom out the hatch and down the stairs.

In the distance, heat waves rose off the tarmac. Sweat trickled down his chest before his foot left the last step. Once on the ground, the two men who held the stairway unlocked the wheels and rolled it away. The plane’s hatch shut behind them.

Putting his hand over his eyes, Mike tried to see into the approaching bus. It looked like the only person in it was the driver, which meant, where was Al?

“It kind of feels like we’ve been left high and dry.”

“I’m sure Al will be along soon enough.” Tom struggled out of the sweatshirt he’d worn on the plane. “I can tell you this though. In wherever we are in Tajikistan, in the summer, it’s hot as a bastard.”

“You got that right.” Mike followed Tom’s example and put his sweatshirt in his bag.

As he did, an old green school bus rolled to a stop, the door opened, and the driver motioned them inside.

Tajikistan. Mike had never been to the former Soviet satellite country before. He knew people who had. The US made friends after 911 because it bordered Afghanistan’s northern border. Guys he was familiar with used it as a secure place to conduct non combat operations and stage out of prior to deployment in theater. Its close proximity made it easy to get in and out of Afghanistan. Maybe the rest of the country was nice, but if this small section of the airbase was any indication, he’d never be back.

Everything from the airstrip to and including the compound they were bused to was old and drab. Weeds grew from cracked asphalt roads. The red and white barrier pole that allowed the bus into the fenced compound was covered in dust and rust left by flaked off paint chips. Mike noted the dust covered plants between the sidewalks and road hadn’t seen water since who knows when. But, the yellowing vegetation struggled on and grew in the hard, parched patches of earth.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Whenever he’d visited former communist states, there were always old utilitarian buildings, most of them gone now. They stood out because they were rare and familiar with their old unimaginative Soviet architectural guidelines intact. Here on this little airbase, it was like the plane took them back in time. Every building they passed was under three stories, rectangular, old, grey, and of block house concrete construction. The airbase was like a 50 year old Cold War spy movie set any James Bond character would have been familiar with.

They stopped at a small compound surrounded by a chainlink fence and green cloth to prevent anyone from peeking in. Mike’s opinion of the architecture didn’t improve. From the bus, he was able to see over the fence. Inside was a building made of shipping containers two stories tall, five boxes wide, and three deep. All the boxes were different colors, some green, some red, black, and white, and most had graffiti in languages Mike didn’t understand.

Seeing the look on Mike’s face, Tom said, “Look on the bright side. It’s probably the newest building on the whole airbase.”

“Oh yeah, and Al wasn’t at the plane, and now he’s not here to meet us. Not a great start.”

Outside the bus, it felt almost cool. The temperature inside the bus had to have been at least twenty degrees hotter than outside. Mike would have asked the bus driver what was next but apparently, the only language he spoke was thumb gesturing onto the bus and finger pointing off.

The sense of coolness didn’t last, and they were dripping again. The sun was bright in the sky, shining down with a sauna like intensity. The air was clear and fresh, and a breeze blew behind him. The breeze didn’t prevent a long drip of sweat from running down the back inside of his t-shirt.

“Well,” Tom said. “At least it’s not 30 below, and we’re wearing parkas.”

“Having second thoughts?”

Ha. A big grin stretched across his face. “Are you kidding me? I love this shit.”

“Yeah, you do,” Mike chuckled. “How long do you figure we’ll stare at that camera over the gate until someone comes and gets us?”

“Oh, about as long as it takes to get this soaking wet shirt off, dig around in my bag for a dry one, and then get it soaking wet too.”

“No doubt. If I ever thought this mission, which I still don’t know what it is, was going to go off issue free, I’ve been dissuaded of that fantasy.”

“You’re funny. What mission in history has gone start to finish as planned?”

“And what the hell?” Mike wiped his forehead with his hand. “Al’s a no show in Dubai, we get an email, go here, get on this plane, it will take you where you need to go, everything’s all good, don’t worry about anything.”

Tom made a half hearted search of the top of his bag, looking for something dry. “Were here no muss, no fuss, so that’s good.”

“Okay, Mr. Positive. If I want to complain, I will, so stop trying to cheer me up.”

They laughed together. The old camaraderie. It almost made Mike happy. But he wasn’t there yet. When this was over, who knew? For now, the hate was tamped down, but it was so near the surface he could feel it trying to break out.

“Ah, a t-shirt.” He yanked out a piece of clothing from his ruck, closed the bag, and set it on top.

“Of course, it’s black.”

“The perfect color for this type of heat.”

“You’re not going to put it on?”

Tom looked up at the camera. “There’s no way they don’t see us. They’re messing with us, just waiting for me to put this t-shirt on.” He smiled up at the camera and gave it the finger.

The gate buzzed and popped open a couple of inches.

“Nice work. That was the secret signal to open up.”

“Now we know.”

Tom stuffed the shirt back into his ruck.

“So.” Mike pulled the door open. “I guess we grab our gear, walk in, and figure out where we’re supposed to go?”

“I guess,” Tom said, picking up his ruck and carry-on bag.

“I guess.” Mike picked his up and moved to the door.

“Hey!’

Bald and about six feet tall, Al sauntered up behind them. A big grin pushed through his bushy salt and pepper mustache his bent nose from being broken too many times was as crooked as ever.

“What’s up, losers?”

“Well, surprise, surprise, Mr, no show.” Mike could barely suppress a grin. They’d been friends a long time. “You finally decided to make an appearance.”

“Mikey Mike,” Al said. He reached in, shook hands, and bro hugged. “Sorry about that, I had to handle some stuff.”

“Stuff that affects the mission?”

“Kind of. We’ll talk about it inside, but everything is still a go.”

“Big Tom.”

“Big Al. Good to see you.” With big smiles, they shook and hugged.

“Alright. Let’s get you inside and situated, and then you can meet the rest of the crew.”

“Rest of the crew?” Mike said.

“Us three and three others inside.”

“Hmm. Why am I just finding out about this now, and whatever it is, is it related to what happened to Paul?’

Al nodded “That’s the plan, but this isn’t the place to discuss it. Lots of people around trying to gather any kind of info they can sell. Let’s get inside.”

Nobody around them seemed to be loitering, but a constant stream of men in and out of uniform had passed by on foot and in vehicles.

With one last look around, Mike picked up his gear and followed. Something about this whole thing didn’t sit right with him. Whatever it was, he could feel the anger begin to bubble up.