Tormentor Mine

1 5 Years Earlier, North Caucasus Mountains Peter “Papa!” The high-pitched squeal is followed by a patter of little feet as my son propels himself through the doorway, his dark waves bouncing around his glowing face. Laughing, I catch his small, sturdy body as he launches himself at me. “Miss me, pupsik?" “Yeah!” His short arms fold around my neck, and I inhale deeply, breathing in his sweet child scent. Though Pasha is almost three, he still smells like milk—like healthy baby and innocence. I hold him tight and feel the iciness inside me melting as soft, bright warmth floods my chest. It’s painful, like being submerged in hot water after freezing, but it’s a good kind of pain. It makes me feel alive, fills the empty cracks inside me until I can almost believe I’m whole and deserving of my son’s love. “He did miss you,” Tamila says, entering the hallway. As always, she moves quietly, almost soundlessly, her eyes downcast. She doesn’t look at me directly. From childhood, she’s been trained to avoid eye contact with men, so all I see are her long black lashes as she gazes at the floor. She’s wearing a traditional headscarf that hides her long dark hair, and her gray dress is long and shapeless. However, she still looks beautiful—as beautiful as she did three and a half years ago, when she snuck into my bed to escape marriage to a village elder. “And I’ve missed you both,” I say as my son pushes at my shoulders, demanding to be free. Grinning, I lower him to the floor, and he immediately grabs my hand and tugs on it. “Papa, do you want to see my truck? Do you, Papa?” “I do,” I say, my grin widening as he pulls me toward the living room. “What kind of truck is it?” “A big one!” “All right, let’s see it.” Tamila trails behind us, and I realize I haven’t spoken to her at all yet. Stopping, I turn around and look at my wife. “How are you?” She peeks up at me through those eyelashes. “I’m good. I’m glad to see you.” “And I’m glad to see you.” I want to kiss her, but she’ll be embarrassed if I do it in front of Pasha, so I abstain. Instead, I gently touch her cheek, and then I let my son tow me to his truck, which I recognize as the one I sent him from Moscow three weeks ago. He proudly demonstrates all the features of the toy as I crouch next to him, watching his animated face. He has Tamila’s dark, exotic beauty, right down to the eyelashes, but there’s something of me in him too, though I can’t quite define what. “He has your fearlessness,” Tamila says quietly, kneeling next to me. “And I think he’s going to be as tall as you, though it’s probably too early to tell.” I glance at her. She often does this, observing me so closely it’s almost as if she’s reading my mind. Then again, it’s not a stretch to guess what I’m thinking. I did have Pasha’s paternity tested before he was born. “Papa. Papa.” My son tugs at my hand again. “Play with me.” I laugh and turn my attention back to him. For the next hour, we play with the truck and a dozen other toys, all of which happen to be some type of car. Pasha is obsessed with toy vehicles, everything from ambulances to race cars. No matter how many other toys I get him, he only plays with those that have wheels. After playtime, we eat dinner, and Tamila bathes Pasha before bed. I notice that the bathtub is cracked and make a mental note to order a new one. The tiny village of Daryevo is high in the Caucasus Mountains and difficult to get to, so it can’t be a regular delivery from a store, but I have ways of getting things here. When I mention the idea to Tamila, her eyelashes sweep up, and she gives me a rare direct look, accompanied by a bright smile. “That would be very nice, thank you. I’ve had to mop up the floor almost every evening.” I smile back at her, and she finishes bathing Pasha. After she dries him and dresses him in his pajamas, I carry him off to bed and read him a story from his favorite book. He falls asleep almost immediately, and I kiss his smooth forehead, my heart squeezing with a powerful emotion. It’s love. I recognize it, even though I’ve never felt it before—even though a man like me has no right to feel it. None of the things I’ve done matter here, in this little village in Dagestan. When I’m with my son, the blood on my hands doesn’t burn my soul. Careful not to wake Pasha, I get up and quietly exit the tiny room that serves as his bedroom. Tamila is already waiting for me in our bedroom, so I strip off my clothes and join her in bed, making love to her as tenderly as I can. Tomorrow, I have to face the ugliness of my world, but tonight, I’m happy. Tonight, I can love and be loved. “Don’t leave, Papa.” Pasha’s chin quivers as he struggles not to cry. Tamila told him a few weeks ago that big boys don’t cry, and he’s been trying his hardest to be a big boy. “Please, Papa. Can’t you stay a little longer?” “I’ll be back in a couple of weeks,” I promise, crouching to be at his eye level. “I have to go to work, you see.” “You always have to go to work.” His chin quivers harder, and his big brown eyes overflow with tears. “Why can’t I come with you to work?” Images of the terrorist I tortured last week invade my mind, and it’s all I can do to keep my voice even as I say, “I’m sorry, Pashen’ka. My work is no place for children.” Or for adults, for that matter, but I don’t say that. Tamila knows some of what I do as part of a special unit of Spetsnaz, the Russian Special Forces, but even she is ignorant of the dark realities of my world. “But I would be good.” He’s full-on crying now. “I promise, Papa. I would be good.” “I know you would be.” I pull him against me and hug him tight, feeling his small body shaking with sobs. “You’re my good boy, and you have to be good for Mama while I’m gone, okay? You have to take care of her, like the big boy you are.” Those appear to be the magic words, because he sniffles and pulls away. “I will.” His nose is running and his cheeks are wet, but his little chin is firm as he meets my gaze. “I will take care of Mama, I promise.” “He’s so smart,” Tamila says, kneeling next to me to pull Pasha into her embrace. “It’s like he’s five, not almost three.” “I know.” My chest swells with pride. “He’s amazing.” She smiles and meets my gaze again, her big brown eyes so much like Pasha’s. “Be safe, and come back to us soon, okay?” “I will.” I lean in and kiss her forehead, then ruffle Pasha’s silky hair. “I’ll be back before you know it.” I’m in Grozny, Chechnya, chasing down a lead on a new radical insurgency group, when I get the news. It’s Ivan Polonsky, my superior in Moscow, who calls me. “Peter.” His voice is unusually grave as I pick up the phone. “There’s been an incident in Daryevo.” My insides turn to ice. “What kind of incident?” “There was an operation we weren’t notified about. NATO was involved. There were… casualties.” The ice inside me expands, shredding me with its jagged edges, and it’s all I can do to force the words through my closing throat. “Tamila and Pasha?” “I’m sorry, Peter. Some villagers were killed in the crossfire, and”—he swallows audibly—“the preliminary reports are that Tamila was among them.” My fingers nearly crush the phone. “What about Pasha?” “We don’t know yet. There were several explosions, and—” “I’m on my way.” “Peter, wait—” I hang up and rush out the door. Please, please, please, let him be alive. Please let him be alive. Please, I’ll do anything, just let him be alive. I’ve never been religious, but as the military helicopter makes its way through the mountains, I find myself praying, pleading and bargaining with whatever is up there for one small miracle, one small mercy. A child’s life is meaningless in the big scheme of things, but it means everything to me. My son is my life, my reason for existing. The roar of the helicopter blades is deafening, but it’s nothing compared to the clamor inside my head. I can’t breathe, can’t think through the rage and fear choking me from within. I don’t know how Tamila died, but I’ve seen enough corpses to picture her body in my mind, to imagine with stark precision how her beautiful eyes appear blank and unseeing, her mouth slack and crusted with blood. And Pasha— No. I can’t think about it now. Not until I know for sure. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Daryevo is nowhere near the known hotspots in Dagestan. It’s a small, peaceful settlement with no ties to any insurgent groups. They were supposed to be safe there, far away from my violent world. Please let him be alive. Please let him be alive. The ride seems to take forever, but finally, we break through the cloud cover, and I see the village. My throat closes up, cutting off my breath. Smoke is rising from several buildings in the center, and armed soldiers are milling around. I jump out of the helicopter the second it touches the ground. “Peter, wait. You need clearance,” the pilot shouts, but I’m already running, shoving people aside. A young soldier tries to block my path, but I rip his M16 out of his hands and point it at him. “Take me to the bodies. Now.” I don’t know if it’s the weapon or the lethal edge in my voice, but the soldier obeys, hurrying toward a shed on the far end of the street. I follow him, the adrenaline like toxic sludge in my veins. Please let him be alive. Please let him be alive. I see the bodies behind the shed, some neatly laid out, others piled together on snow-speckled grass. There’s nobody around them; the soldiers must be keeping the villagers away for now. I recognize some of the dead right away—the village elder Tamila was engaged to, the baker’s wife, the man I once bought goat milk from—but others I can’t identify, both because of the extent of their wounds and because I haven’t spent much time in the village. I’ve barely spent any time here, and now my wife is dead. Steeling myself, I kneel next to a slender female body, lay the M16 on the grass, and move her headscarf off her face. A chunk of her head has been blown off by a bullet, but I can make out enough of her features to know it’s not Tamila. I move on to the next woman’s body, this one with several bullet wounds through her chest. It’s Tamila’s aunt, a shy woman in her fifties who’d spoken less than five words to me in the last three years. To her and the rest of Tamila’s family, I’ve always been a foreigner, a frightening stranger from a different world. They didn’t understand Tamila’s decision to marry me, condemned it even, but Tamila didn’t care. She’d always been independent like that. Another female body draws my attention. The woman is lying on her side, but the gentle curve of her shoulder is achingly familiar. My hand shakes as I turn her over, and white-hot pain pierces me as I see her face. Tamila’s mouth is just as slack as I imagined, but her eyes aren’t vacant. They’re closed, her long eyelashes singed and her eyelids glued together with blood. More blood covers her chest and arms, turning her gray dress nearly black. My wife, the beautiful young woman who had the courage to choose her own fate, is dead. She died without ever leaving her village, without seeing Moscow like she dreamed. Her life was snuffed out before she had a chance to live, and it’s all my fault. I should’ve been here, should’ve protected her and Pasha. Hell, I should’ve known about this f*****g operation; nobody should’ve been here without informing my team. Rage rises inside me, mixing with agonizing grief and guilt, but I shove it aside and force myself to keep looking. There are only adult bodies laid out in the rows, but there’s still that pile. Please let him be alive. I’ll do anything as long as he’s alive. My legs feel like burned matches as I approach the pile. There are detached limbs there, and bodies damaged beyond recognition. These must’ve been the victims of the explosions. I move each body part aside, sorting through them. The smell of stale blood and charred flesh is thick in the air. A normal man would’ve thrown up by now, but I’ve never been normal. Please let him be alive. “Peter, wait. There’s a special task force on the way, and they don’t want us touching the bodies.” It’s the pilot, Anton Rezov, approaching from behind the shed. We’ve worked together for years and he’s a close friend, but if he tries to stop me, I will kill him. Without replying, I continue my gruesome task, methodically looking over each limb and burned torso before laying it aside. Most of the body parts seem to belong to adults, though I come across some child-sized ones too. They’re too big to be Pasha’s, though, and I’m selfish enough to feel relief over that. Then I see it. “Peter, did you hear me? You can’t do this yet.” Anton reaches for my arm, but before he can touch me, I spin around, my hand curling automatically. My fist crashes into his jaw, and he reels back from the blow, his eyes rolling back in his head. I don’t watch him fall; I’m already moving, tearing through the remaining pile of bodies to reach the little hand I saw earlier. A little hand that’s curled around a broken toy car. Please, please, please. Please let there be a mistake. Please let him be alive. Please let him be alive. I work like a man possessed, all my being focused on one goal: to get to that hand. Some of the bodies on top of the pile are nearly whole, but I don’t feel their weight as I throw them aside. I don’t feel the burn of exertion in my muscles or smell the sickening stench of violent death. I just bend and lift and throw until body parts are strewn all around me, and I’m drenched in blood. I don’t stop until the small body is uncovered in its entirety, and there’s no longer any doubt. Trembling, I sink to my knees, my legs unable to hold me. By some miracle, the right half of Pasha’s face is undamaged, his smooth baby skin unmarred by so much as a scratch. One of his eyes is closed, his little mouth parted, and if he were lying on his side like Tamila was, he could’ve been mistaken for a sleeping child. But he’s not lying on his side, and I see the gaping hole where the explosion ripped away half of his skull. His left arm is missing too, as is his left leg below the knee. His right arm, however, is unscathed, its fingers curled convulsively around the toy car. In the distance, I hear a howl, a mad, broken sound of inhuman rage. It’s only when I find myself clutching the little body to my chest that I realize the sound is coming from me. I fall silent then, but I can’t stop rocking back and forth. I can’t stop hugging him. I don’t know how long I stay like that, holding my son’s remains, but it’s dark by the time the task force soldiers come. I don’t fight them. There’s no point. My son is gone, his bright light extinguished before it had a chance to shine. “I’m sorry,” I whisper as they drag me away. With each meter of distance between us, the cold inside me grows, the remnants of my humanity bleeding out of my soul. There’s no more pleading, no more bargaining with anyone or anything. I’m empty of hope, devoid of warmth and love. I can’t turn back the clock and hold my son longer, can’t stay behind like he asked me to. Can’t take Tamila to Moscow next year, like I promised her I would. There’s only one thing I can do for my wife and son, and that’s the reason I’ll keep on living. I will make their killers pay. Each and every single one of them. They will answer for this m******e with their lives.