stone columns, holding their Heckler & Koch G3 rifles. The vehicles sped past them and up the long private driveway. Durrani did not wait for his detail to take up their positions. This was his compound, after all, and there had to be at least one place in his life where he could feel free to move about on his own. He headed for the main house, where his butler was waiting at the door.
"Good evening, General," a small man in a white tunic and black pants greeted him. "Is there anything I can get you?"
Durrani walked past his butler without making eye contact and then stopped in the middle of the large marble foyer. "Is Vazir here?"
"Yes, General. He is in the Shahi house."
Durrani gave a quick nod and proceeded down the hallway to the elevator. When the doors opened, he stepped inside and pressed the button for the basement. Durrani was extremely paranoid, and his job only amplified his distrustfulness, so when he was having the house built he'd had the contractor, a very good friend and business partner, put in tunnels that linked all the structures on the property. As much as possible he did not want the Americans to know what he was doing. The tunnels allowed him to stay away from the prying eyes of their satellites. Durrani had even gone so far as to have an analyst give him the known overpass times of American satellites so he could be extra cautious. The problem was that Americans could move those satellites, and even worse, through the use of stealth drones they were finding more and more ways to spy on him.
Durrani punched in the code and opened the steel door. The corridors were nothing special, just poured eight-foot concrete walls and ceilings with caged industrial lights every twenty feet. The tunnel from the main house to the first guesthouse was 180 feet long. At the next door he took a right turn and continued down a much shorter tunnel. He punched in another code, entered the stark basement, and started up the steps. By the time he reached the main floor his breathing was labored. Durrani placed one hand on the railing and patted his chest with the other.
A voice called out from the next room, "Is that you, General?"
When he spoke, Durrani was still out of breath. "Yes." He reached for his cigarettes and lit one, before pushing off the railing and walking into the sunken living room. The theme for this particular house was clean and contemporary with lots of white. In the middle of the sunken living room were two white leather couches and two modern white leather chairs with chrome frames. The furniture rested on a large white shag rug and a white marble floor with subtle shades of gray.
Durrani did not approach the man in the dark suit. He was sitting with his legs crossed on one of the white couches, a magazine in one hand, a cigarette in the other, and a bulky black pistol next to him. Vazir Kassar was one of his most trusted officers. He was also an insolent son of a bitch at times. He knew that Durrani was dying to know how things had turned out, but he was going to make him ask.
"Well?" Durrani's eyes were wide with anticipation.
"Well, what, General?"
Durrani was suddenly irritated by the gun sitting on the couch. "Put that away. You are a guest in my house."
"I thought I was your employee," the dark, thin man answered in a voice that conveyed ambivalence.
"Don't play your games with me. How did it go?"
The man remained serious. "It wasn't easy."
"But he's alive?"
"Yes." Kassar jerked his head toward the hallway. "He's in the bedroom at the end of the hall."
Durrani clapped his hands together and stifled a scream of joy. "You will have to tell me all the details later, but first I must see him." Durrani hurried down the hallway, his black dress shoes clicking on the stone floor. He would have run if his lungs could have taken it. When he reached the door at the end of the hall he didn't bother knocking.
He threw open the door and froze in disbelief. The blackout shades were not pulled, and the bright afternoon light streamed through the gauzy, white linen curtains. There, in the middle of the king-size bed, filled with white pillows, white sheets, and a fluffy white feather comforter, lay a mass of purple and red flesh. The