Meeting someone from back home in this place-- and at this particular time-- was like walking into the Museum of Ancient Antiquities and finding the mummy of Tutankhamun wearing my L.A. Kings Hockey jersey!

I wanted to laugh with relief, but I wasn't sure that what I saw was real. The gun seemed real enough, though...

Unbreakable Camels
part two, A Smuggler and A Gentleman

MacGyver and Dingo both looked at the man. The man looked between Mac and the camel, waiting.

"Hi," Mac said, raising one hand in welcome. The man with the gun flinched a little, and then relaxed when he saw that Mac was not holding a weapon. Mac wiggled his fingers slightly. "Don't shoot before I get a chance to thank you."

"Thank me?" The man seemed as startled to hear Mac speak, as Mac had been to hear him. "English?" he asked hesitantly. He lowered the gun and raised the lantern. "American?" he added, his voice sounding hopeful.

"And proud of it." Mac stated. "You're from Chicago, right?"

"South side." He spun the gun around his finger like a gunslinger. "And you?"

"Minnesota."

The gun slid smoothly into a holster that the man wore strapped to his hip, western-style. "I would have placed you a little further north. You've got more than a touch of Canuk in your accent."

"I got lost a couple of times on Boy Scout hikes and wound up in Manitoba." Mac nodded toward his hairy companion. "This is Dingo. He doesn't bite... well, yes he does, but only when he has a good reason... most of the time." He slapped the beast affectionately on the flank. "My name's MacGyver."

"Anthony Sullivan," the man said, prodding himself in the chest with his thumb.

Mac extended his hand, "Thanks, Anthony."

Sullivan smiled and took Mac's hand eagerly. "You don't know how good it is to meet someone with manners in this godforsaken country!" He pumped Mac's hand heartily. "Everyone calls me 'Tony'. And what are you thanking me for?"

Overhead, there came the muffled sound of hooves pounding across the sand. Rough voices barked orders in a strange language, angry, confused, and frustrated. They sounded as if they were right on top of them.

Mac pointed up. "I'm pretty sure you just saved my life."

Tony looked up, listening. "Life's pretty cheap around here, MacGyver. Don't thank me yet."

Mac frowned. "Why not?"

"Because those might be my buyers. Didn't I say?" Tony smiled and gestured for Mac to precede him through the door. "I'm a smuggler."

xxxxxxxxxx

Mac regarded his new friend with some trepidation. "...And what is it that you're selling, Tony?"

Tony laughed at Mac's worried tone. "Not my fellow Americans... so you can relax. Come on," he said, walking ahead of Mac through the doorway. "Leave your pet camel here for a while. He'll be fine... but we'll have to move him before long... I'm expecting a drop-off."

Mac followed him slowly. The way was dark; Tony had taken the lantern with him. The door led to a tunnel that turned at a sharp angle within a few feet, then opened into a hallway. The walls were made of metal. Light filtered from ahead, silhouetting Tony as he proceeded Mac.

The hallway led out onto the floor of a large room, about half the size of a hockey rink and nearly two stories high. It was well lit, and stacked with many crates of all sized and shapes. There were racks along two of the walls stacked with different kinds of weapons, from guns as small as 22 caliber pistols to fully automatic machine guns. Boxes labeled 'ammunition', 'grenades', 'tear gas', and 'smoke', were piled around neatly. In the middle of the room stood a 50 caliber mountable machine gun, gleaming new as if it had been made yesterday.

Along another wall there was a shelf of books. Mac selected one and looked at the cover. It was a maintenance manual for a '66 Corvette Stingray.

"Boys' toys, I guess you could say," Tony said, belatedly answering Mac's question. He took the book from Mac's fingers. "They're almost as popular as the girly magazines. You'd be surprised how much money one of these will fetch."

"The manual… or the car?" Mac looked around at all the instruments of destruction displayed around him and suppressed as sigh.

Tony laughed out loud. "If I could get a Corvette over here, I could sell it for enough money to become a sheik myself and retire!" He turned off the lantern and set it on a table. "Don't look so depressed, MacGyver! You're safe down here. Unless they know exactly what they're looking for, they'll never find the missile silo or this bunker; it is so well camouflaged that even the government can't remember where they built it! It's owned by-- my employer-- and besides him, only me and the pilot that makes the pick-ups and deliveries knows exactly where the entrance is."

"That's not what worries me, Tony," Mac said. He gestured wearily around him. "All these weapons... it's like pouring gasoline on a fire! How can you sell them to terrorists?"

"Not everyone in Afghanistan is a terrorist, Mac. Some are just folks trying to live their lives without being pressed into someone's army or enlisted for the next weekly jihad. It's them mostly that we run the guns to... oh, there's more money in selling them to the baddies," Tony grinned at Mac, "and I'll probably catch all kinds of hell when I get home about that-- but hey!-- they sent me here to sell the guns... so I'll sell 'em to whoever I want to!"

"Who are you selling them for, Tony," Mac asked distantly. The room seemed to be getting darker and his arms and legs felt like they were made of lead.

"You don't want to know," Tony answered evasively. "Hey... how 'bout a drink?" He opened a drawer under the table and brought out a brown, flat bottle.

"No, thanks, I don't really drink very much. But if you've got some water--" Mac began to say. Tony noticed that he was leaning rather heavily on the table.

"You're about beat, aren't you? Here... sit down before you fall down! I'll bring you some water and then scare up some food."

Mac sank into a wooden chair and managed to stay awake long enough to drink some of the water that Tony brought him. It tasted wonderful. "Thanks again, Tony," Mac said, his head rolling to rest on the back of the chair.

"Hey, don't conk out yet!" Tony said. "There's a cot over there under the stairs. Let's settle you there. Upsy-daisy!" He pulled one of Mac's arms over his shoulders and helped him walk to the cot.

"'m gonna get sand all over your sheets," Mac mumbled as he laid down. The canvas-covered frame and thin blanket felt like a down-filled mattress to Mac as he sank down gratefully.

"I'm used to it," Tony assured him. "Take it easy for a while. I'll take care of your camel."

"Be careful..." Mac warned groggily, already half-asleep, "... he bites."

Tony let the burlap curtain fall and then pushed a rack of gas masks in front of the curtain, concealing Mac's hiding place.

"Don't we all?"