A Dangerous Scotsman in Tajikistan

By Mike Ward

An American soldier called Robert Hamilton is kidnapped in Afghanistan, and taken over the border into Tajikistan. He manages to kill his captors, and get a short message out, which is picked up by an American military satellite. By the time an American team arrives there is no trace of the soldier, and the transmitter has been smashed.

Without help the soldier will die, but nobody knows where he is, and satellite searches fail to turn up anything useful. The soldier’s uncle, Frank Hamilton is a retired three star general, and in papers left by his grandfather there is the name of a man who may be able to help. The tales told about this man almost defy belief. All Frank Hamilton has is a telephone number, and the name of a man who was once referred to as “A Dangerous Scotsman”.

This man’s name is Duncan McNeill, and there is something that enemies coming up against him could never anticipate - Duncan McNeill knows magic. Also working with McNeill is something that looks like a woman, but is actually a magic spell, and she is extremely dangerous.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike Ward
• Release date: Jun 10, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370415458

Mike Ward

Mike Ward was born in Glasgow, Scotland and currently lives in Florida, United States with his wife and two children. He is the author of two novels, two non-fiction books and six series of novellas:Parallel Realities seriesThe House on Mars seriesJacksonville Jack seriesStephen Haggerty Assassin seriesLisa Molin Assassin seriesDangerous Scotsman seriesHe is also the author of 60 short stories and novellas

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A Dangerous Scotsman in Tajikistan

by Mike Ward

(Author of The House on Mars)

Copyright 2017 Mike Ward

Published by Mike Ward at Smashwords

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Table of Contents

A Dangerous Scotsman in Tajikistan

Excerpt from A Cyclist Thrown into Another World by a Female Magician

About Mike Ward

Other Books by Mike Ward

Connect with Mike Ward

Excerpt from The Banker With a Face Full of Evil

A Dangerous Scotsman in Tajikistan

Duncan McNeill watched the Scottish sun sinking slowly over the water. It was eleven at night and it was still daylight. This was his favorite room in the house on the Isle of Skye. From here he could see the Isle of Raasay across the water. His house was bounded by Loch Sligachan on the front and by large mountains on the back. Sometimes he took a boat out on the loch; other times he walked out of his back door, across the fields and up into the mountains. His dog, Jack, lay by the fireplace but the day was warm so McNeill had not lit a fire.

There was a ferry to Raasay that left from Sconser which was the village he lived in. Sometimes he and Jack took the ferry to Raasay for there was good hiking there. McNeill was reading a book about a Scotsman who had hiked across Afghanistan and he was finding it fascinating. He was a little tired and the book lay in his lap. This was his reading room and books lined the walls. Some of those books were very old. An old ornate desk stood in one corner of the room. That desk was over three hundred years old and it had been made by a carpenter in the Khorasan Mountains in what had then been called Persia. There was a book on the table and that book was not in English, it was in Persian. The book was not as old as the table but it dated from the early 1920s. McNeill had bought it himself in a bookstore in Isfahan which was Iran’s third largest city. That book had replaced an older version of itself that McNeill had bought even earlier than that. He still had the really old version of the book and it was in a glass case in the hallway. McNeill had bought that one in the late 1840s, he couldn’t remember the exact year.

The book was The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Duncan McNeill was fluent in Persian and had studied magic in a monastery in the Khorasan Mountains many centuries ago. McNeill always told anyone who asked that the monastery had been destroyed and that was correct. What he did not tell them was that the monastery had been moved and that it still existed. The monks had once welcomed all who knocked on their doors but after their monastery was destroyed they had become more reclusive and now the monastery was very hard to find. In fact, you could walk right past it and not see it; you had to know where to look. It could only be seen by those who knew how to put their eyes slightly out of focus and see through the mists to other places that were not visible from the real world.

McNeill had an English copy of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám too. That one had been translated by an Indian yogi called Paramhansa Yogananda. McNeill’s mind automatically translated the Hindi word – Yogananda meant yoga bliss in Hindi. The phone rang and that startled McNeill out of his reverie. He was firstly surprised and then he was shocked. His tiredness gone, he was on his feet in an instant. There were two phones in the room and the one that had rung sat on the old Persian desk. Not many people had that phone number and the phone number was very old. The people who knew that number were scattered all over the world. McNeill picked the phone up. The voice on the other end was American.

I was given this number a long time ago by my grandfather, the American said. I’m looking for a man called McNeill.

That would be me. What can I do for you?

The man on the other end of the line let out a sharp intake of breath. He was plainly surprised. My grandfather told me some very strange stories. Quite frankly I thought he had made them all up.

I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage, McNeill said.

Oh I do apologize, the American said. My name is Frank Hamilton.

I know you wouldn’t be calling this number unless there was a real problem, McNeill said.

My grandfather was very clear on that Mr. McNeill, Hamilton said. My grandfather said that you were an expert on Iran and Afghanistan. Let me tell you what the problem is. I have a nephew in the military in Afghanistan. He’s been missing for three weeks. Two days ago he got a brief signal out. They wouldn’t tell me at first but I’m retired military and I pulled some strings. The signal was picked up by a satellite. It lasted for ten seconds before it was cut off. There was a problem though.

What was the problem, McNeill said.

The signal didn’t come from Afghanistan. It came from Tajikistan.

Ah, McNeill said. Totally out of American jurisdiction.

That’s right. Before I retired I was a three star general. If we get caught in Tajikistan it’s really going to piss the Russians off. They regard Tajikistan as their near abroad".

McNeill knew the phrase. He knew it in Russian as well as in English. Russian did not translate very well into English and a phrase translated into English from Russian and then translated back into Russian often lost half its meaning. A long time ago an English general had given McNeill an example of that, only translated the other way round. The phrase translated into Russian had been out of sight, out of mind. It came back from the Russian as invisible idiot.

The people in Tajikistan were mostly of Persian ethnic origin. In fact, the name for the country came from a medieval Turkish word Tajik, which meant Iranian speaking peoples. He realized that Hamilton was waiting for him to say something. I can speak the language they use in Tajikistan, he said.

I know, Hamilton replied. My grandfather left a diary. It has wondrous things in it. Many of them are about you.

For a second McNeill’s voice was sharp. Your grandfather was supposed to tell members of his family not to ask too many questions.

You’re right, Frank Hamilton said. I apologize if I overstepped the mark.

Apology accepted, McNeill said. Just tell me what you need and I’ll tell you if I can do it. I hope I can help. Your grandfather was a good man.

There were questions on the tip of Frank Hamilton’s tongue but military discipline reined them in. There was a lot about Duncan McNeill in his grandfather’s diary and one of the entries in the diary it said that if you asked McNeill too many questions he had a habit of disappearing on you.

Whereabouts in Tajikistan did the signal come from? McNeill asked.

From Gorno-Badakhshan province, Hamilton said.

That made sense. Gorno-Badakhshan province was a part of Tajikistan that shared a border with Afghanistan. McNeill’s mind translated the words from the Persian. Gorno-Badakhshan meant Mountainous Badakhshan. This was going to be tough; it was terrible country with only two roads in and out. Gorno-Badakhshan had declared independence from Tajikistan after the fall of the Soviet Union although it was now an autonomous region within the country.

The only way I can travel in Gorno-Badakhshan will be disguised as a Tajik, McNeill said. "What are they