Free The Prince of Bagram Prison by Alex Carr Page A

claim a portion of her self-assurance.
    “I'll bet she likes older men,” Pope mused.
    Kurtz was suddenly defensive. “Don't be an asshole,” he snapped.
    “Y OUR KEY , SIR ,” the front-desk clerk said, patronizing Kurtz one final time with her impeccable English before sliding his key card across the narrow counter. She was attractive in a decidedly Iberian way, with a long neck and a slim nose, dark eyes set beneath carefully arched brows.
    Kurtz turned gratefully from her gaze and made his way across the glass-and-steel lobby, toward the hallway that the woman had indicated led to his room. Spare and soulless, the hotel Janson had chosen was an homage to European modernity, part of a movement of designer bullying that Kurtz found especially unfortunate.
    It was a style not unlike the architecture of the Gulf States, though there, against the sparse backdrop of sea and sand, such masculine simplicity, perfectly and richly executed, made a kind of sense, while here on the Continent it seemed merely gratuitous. A reaction, Kurtz thought, to centuries of culture.
    Kurtz found his door off the first-floor hallway and let himself inside, surveying the space as he turned the lock behind him. There was a shabbiness to the room that sheer force of size had camouflaged in the hotel's common areas. The white walls were scuffed, the cheap veneer on the bed and dresser curling away at the edges. Time, Kurtz thought, had already been unkind to the establishment.
    Setting his sample case on the bed, Kurtz opened the leather flap and emptied the contents. Tiny bottles of orifice guard. Miniature sample urns and autopsy gloves. A stack of prayer cards addressing the various gods. Deterrent for even the most ambitious customs officer.
    Any reason this is going to be a problem? he could hear Jan-son say as he lifted the false bottom from the case. And for the briefest of moments, looking down at the Beretta nestled there, he wasn't sure.
    Almost as if to reassure himself, he picked up the gun and set it against his palm, slipped the spare clip into the stock.

 
    Mother and child, Harry Comfort thought as he settled into his deck chair and scanned the horizon, contemplating the unobscured terror of the universe. The moon was not yet up, the sky as clear as Harry had seen it for some time. In the distance, Mauna Kea's humped back rose from the dark plain of ranch land. Above her, Cetus the whale slipped westward through the krill swirl of stars like a calf surfacing for air.
    Harry took a sip of his vodka, then balanced the tumbler on his stomach and scanned the sky, letting his eyes come to rest on the green planet cradled just below Aquarius. Harry had been tracking Uranus for several weeks now, sketching the planet's slow progress with the diligence of a schoolboy, using his old Leica binoculars while he waited for his Celestron to arrive.
    It wasn't glamorous work, but it was the kind of repetitive task Harry needed. His first months on the island, the night sky had been so overwhelming to him that he'd been unable to look at it for more than a few moments at a time, and Uranus had given him something to which he could tether his mind. He'd always had a soft spot for the crater-pocked planet, the sort of sentimental attachment one might feel for an old boxer who had once been great but had hung on too long and taken one too many beatings at the end.
    Down in the pasture that abutted the Tamarack Pines, one of the steers lowed a mournful protest and the rest of the herd shifted gracelessly in reply, their hooves scuffling the soft earth.
    Hawaii, is it? Heinz, the new European DO had remarked as they'd cleared up the last of Harry's paperwork. Lots of retired Agency men there. I'll have Karen get you a list . Can't hurt to have some contacts. Show you around the island, treat you to a game of golf.
    Harry had agreed, smiling his usual accommodating smile. But in truth he hadn't been able to imagine anything worse. For a moment he'd