The Prince of Bagram Prison by Alex Carr Read Free Book Online

here, since he'd first left the Agency and gone to work for Janson and Morrow. Four years of odd hours and midnight departures, and always that same jester's grin to greet him. As if the presence of a beefy blond American selling funeral supplies out of a Brick Street hovel was the most natural thing in the world.
    Hello , Mr. Kurtz. Welcome back, Mr. Kurtz . Business again, Mr. Kurtz ? That's the way it is with the dead: there are more of them every day.
    “Thank you, Hamidur.” Kurtz nodded, then started up the impossibly narrow stairs to his room.
    The funerary salesman was an old cliché from the Farm, a guaranteed conversation stopper for use in waiting rooms or on long flights, anywhere questions were best kept to a minimum. By the time Kurtz joined the Agency it was more joke than anything, a good laugh for the new recruits, but Kurtz hadn't forgotten about it, and before leaving for his first posting he'd ordered an Edison Funeral Supply catalog to take with him.
    He'd used it immediately, on his flight from Dulles to Amsterdam, leafing through the pages of cavity fluid and Eterna-Cribs, until the nervously talkative Dutch woman beside him fled to an empty seat.
    What the creaky old OSS retiree at the Farm had failed to tell them, and most likely had not known, was that the farther east one traveled the less effective the ruse became. Once you breached the boundaries and safety of the Western world, death became less remarkable, and the accoutrements of death nothing more than a curiosity. This was something Kurtz had discovered on his own, though by the time he did, he'd been playing his part too long to give it up.
    Kurtz slipped off his shoes and set them just outside the door, then undid the lock and let himself into his room. There was a smell to the space that he found immediately comforting. Dust and cheap disinfectant, the slivers of sandalwood-scented soap the maid left each week. And the sharp odor of cooking that lingered in the linens and drapes. Old grease and heavy spices from the kitchen two floors below.
    On the desk was the newest version of the Edison catalog and Kurtz's black sample case. On the luggage stand sat a single small suitcase, neatly packed. Four years in this room, and this was all Kurtz had brought of himself. Even his Dopp kit was zippered and stowed.
    He sat down on the bed and picked up the phone, glancing at his watch as he did so, noting the time back in the States before dialing Janson's number.
    “Yes?” Janson answered on the second ring.
    “You wanted me to call?” Kurtz asked.
    “Yes. I need you to take a trip.”
    “You've found our Iranian friend?”
    “No. It's the boy. He's gone.”
    Kurtz thought for a moment, letting the implications of the boy's disappearance sink in. “I thought we had a team in Madrid.”
    Janson didn't answer.
    “Gone on his own or taken?” Kurtz asked finally.
    “On his own, I presume.”
    “Any guesses where he's heading?”
    “My money's on Casablanca. It's where he came from.”
    “And where he ran from once already,” Kurtz reminded the man.
    “Still,” Janson countered. “It's home.”
    “Where do you want me first?” Kurtz asked.
    “There's an overnight train that will get you to Madrid in the morning.”
    “And from there?”
    Janson cleared his throat—a sign, Kurtz had learned long before, that the news to come was something he would doubtless prefer not to hear. “There's someone from army intel meeting you there.”
    Kurtz was silent.
    “Special circumstances,” Janson said, sensing Kurtz's unease. “It's the interrogator from Bagram. She's the one who turned the boy in the end. They were quite close, as I understand it. It will help to have someone he trusts.”
    She, Kurtz thought, Kat, but he didn't say anything.
    “Any reason this is going to be a problem?” Janson asked.
    He already knows how this is going to end, Kurtz thought, hearing the hesitation in the other man's voice, the gravity of the