Shit.
During Desert Storm, a bunch of these fucking things apparently went missing from various vaults, banks, and palaces. Soldiers—ours and theirs—raiding around the country when the regime went down. Shit it was apparently open season on taking what wasn’t nailed down back then.
So yeah, I’ve heard of the Saddam bricks, but I never thought I’d actually see one. But here in front of me is fucking thousands of them. It’s a goddamn fortune, and I know what I’m doing instantly.
I’m splitting them with every man in my squad.
There’s enough here to make us all stupid rich. Yeah, I know it’s not ours. But it’s not the government’s either. I call this in, and these end up in a warehouse for the next three decades while our government and the Iraqis bullshit each other about who they belong to me.
But to me? To the men I call brothers? This is a future—for us, and for our families. This is me being able to give Juliana the life she deserves. So, I make the decision, and I make the call, come what may. Two hours later, my buddy Carlos is pulling up with a truck, and we’re loading it up, shaking our heads in disbelief. We can’t bring it to base, I know that. But I’ve got somewhere else—someplace safe, where no one would think to look.
Samir, a local guy I know who lives in a smaller village up the mountains, agrees without question when I call. Four months ago, I saved both of his boys from a suicide bomber at a military checkpoint. Took some shrapnel in the shoulder for it too. He doesn’t owe me shit, and that’s not why I call him, but I can’t think of a better place. And he’s all too willing to help. So, that’s where it goes.
And then everything goes to shit.
The next day, Carlos takes a sniper bullet in the leg and ships home. A day after that, this newer addition to our squad, Darren, starts asking weird questions about “what I found out there.” He’s getting aggressive too, and demanding, until finally I piece it together that he knows. Darren was on radio duty the day I called Carlos to come out and give me a hand, so I’m betting he listened in.
I tell him to chill out. I tell him “not now,” and that he’ll be getting his take like every other man there, if we can just wait it out for a while. But Darren doesn’t listen, he just gets angry, and paranoid—accusing me of trying to take it all for myself. I tell him to fuck off and leave it at that.
Twelve hours later, our little front-line outpost of a base gets hit. Hard. Mortar fire and AK bullets shred the place to pieces before we can even jump out of bed, and when the dust settles, I’m the only survivor.
Well, me and one other.
Darren.
I fade in and out, but when I come to, tied to a chair, Darren’s looming at me demanding to know where the gold is. He’s flanked by Taliban fighters, and instantly, I know what this is. This is him selling us out. The guy sold out his brothers—his country—to get his hands on the gold. And for that alone, I’d rather die than tell him where to find it.
I tell him that exactly, and he sneers.
“Yeah? Well if you die over here, tough guy, what’s gonna happen to that pretty wife of yours I keep seeing these pictures of? Huh?”
He grins.
“Who’s gonna take care of her?”
He thrusts his hips lewdly as he says it, and I roar, lunging against the ropes binding me. Darren chuckles, and so do the Taliban fighters standing next to him. The piece of shit signed a deal with the devil.
“Last chance, asshole,” Darren spits. “Tell me where you hid it, or you go into a hole in the ground forever.”
“You killed them,” I say quietly.
“It’s a brutal world, Russ.”
“You killed your own men.”
He shrugs. “More for us.” He grins. “Well, more for me anyways.”
“You piece of—” I snarl, lunging again before a fist slams across my jaw.
“Last fucking chance, Russ,” he mutters.
“Go to hell.”
Darren sighs, shaking his head before he looks up and grins at me.
“Nah, that’s where you’re going. Oh, and Russ?” The motherfucker winks at me.
“Don’t worry about Juliana.”
My heart stops.
“She’ll be in real good hands.”
…I’m still roaring when they throw me in the hole that I’ll call home for the next five fucking years.
4
Julian
We storm out of the church, my mind whirling as he carries me right over to his bike. I gasp as he sits me down on it, climbs on, and before my thoughts can even catch up with me, he’s started the engine, and we’re off. My arms fly around his waist, clinging to him and pulling close as the bike thunders beneath me.