Without Fear

by Col. David Hunt

  Zahra.

  He clenched his jaw at the thought of being saved by someone who defied the very essence of his beliefs.

  “Now!” she pressed, as the last two surviving warriors, huddled behind a large rock by the edge of the canyon, returned fire.

  Pasha jumped off the boulder and scrambled off the ridge, running into the forest, landing on his knees next to her while she kept watch over the final moments of the bloody fight, which ended when the last two warriors jumped into the abyss rather than let themselves get captured alive.

  But the enemy managed to surround one who was alive, shot in the shoulder. They kicked his Kalashnikov away, holding him down.

  Pasha lined up his Dragunov on the man’s chest, but Zahra stopped him. “Are you insane?” she hissed. “That will give us away!”

  “But he knows where we’re going.”

  “Then let’s hope he doesn’t talk. But shooting him will guarantee we won’t make it off this hill.” Then she shot up the incline with surprising elasticity and stealth.

  “Fine,” he replied, scurrying after her silently, avoiding twigs and fallen branches—anything that could give them away—clambering away for a couple hundred feet undetected.

  But they didn’t get far.

  Two men armed with Kalashnikovs came running toward them from their right like shadows in the night. It was the backup team, left behind to make sure no one escaped the carnage by the bluff.

  As Zahra brought the suppressed Ruger around, the first man fell, some forty feet from them, before she could fire. His associate also tumbled, crashing headfirst, succumbing to silent rounds fired from an unseen vantage point.

  “Who the hell was that?” asked Pasha.

  “I don’t know,” she replied, peering into the darkness through the sights of her pistol but seeing nothing. Not a damn thing. “But what I do know is that we need to get the hell away from this place right now.”

  74

  Pillars

  WEST OF COMPOUND 57. SULAIMAN MOUNTAINS. SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN.

  “Nicely done,” Sergei Popov mumbled from the branch next to the GRU Spetsnaz team leader, lying flat, halfway up the stone pine where they had observed the attack on the courier’s team, waiting for the right opportunity to intervene. “And without a real sniper rifle.”

  Her shooting eye pressed against the night vision scope of her suppressed AK-9 assault rifle, Kira Tupolev watched the courier—the same woman who had accompanied Prince Mani to Moscow—pause and scan the woods with her weapon, obviously confused.

  Tracking her had been relatively easy, thanks to the transponder signal overlaid on the GPS display on her tactical helmet, and Kira had been tempted to simply capture Zahra and force her to yield her destination. But Kira knew how easily plans change, and for all she knew the courier’s original destination may have already changed, given the men following her and the attack on that old Soviet compound.

  No, she thought. Initiative and ingenuity had gotten them this far. Now patience was the key pillar. And Kira had plenty of that, having waited seventeen years for the opportunity to redeem her family’s name and avenge the brutality inflicted on her father by these monsters.

  She would follow and wait, and if required, apply some initiative and ingenuity, as she had by intervening from a distance to keep the courier’s mission—and therefore her own mission—alive. Nothing else mattered but locating the weapon and destroying it.

  Nothing.

  Sergei had suggested terminating the team that had ambushed the courier, but she had resisted the temptation to get directly involved. Right now she had the upper hand. Her Spetsnaz team was invisible, operating in complete anonymity, and she did not wish to relinquish that edge by acting overtly.

  Initiative, ingenuity, and lots and lots of patience, she thought, as the courier and her companion overcame their surprise and took off into the darkness.

  “Run away, little courier,” Kira mumbled, following them with the scope. “Run away and show me the way to my bomb.”

  75

  Dirty Business

  WEST OF COMPOUND 57. SULAIMAN MOUNTAINS. SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN.

  It ended as fast as it had begun, with the contingent of Taliban either dead or dying, and those who had not perished in Nasseer’s effective assault had chosen to jump off the cliff rather than be captured alive.

  All except for one: the insurgent Vaccaro had shot in the shoulder.

  With the man gagged and secured, Nasseer was forcing a terrain map in front of him as Hassan forced a pair of single bow sheep shears to the genitals.

  She stepped away from the brutality of the moment, as corpses littered the ridge, as the insurgent cried out.

  Aaron stood by the other side of the ridge, where large boulders spanned the forest from the gorge. She joined him.

  “Sorry you have to see that,” Aaron said, tilting his head toward the screams. “Dirty business.”

  “I last saw the woman heading this way,” she said, checking the Colt’s magazine and counting two rounds left. She replaced it with a fresh one from her vest, cycled the slide to chamber a round, and thumbed the safety before securing it in its holster.

  “Yes, and another one joined her … a man.” He pointed at the deep tracks of desert sandals running from the boulders to the forest, before running his fingers over the disturbed leaves and dirt by the tree line. “And he knelt here, next to her, before heading in that direction.”

  Vaccaro leaned down to take a look.

  “And thanks,” he said, his rugged face, filmed with sweat, widening as he smiled, unveiling that gap in his front teeth.

  “Thanks for what?”

  “You can tackle me anytime.” The grin broadened.

  She shook her head and said, “Only if you tell me where the hell you’re from. You’re definitely not from around—”

  “I’m Mossad … if you must know.”

  “And I’m Laura,” she said. “If you must know.”

  “And I prefer ‘Red,’” he replied with a wink. “It suits you.”

  She tugged at the ends of her hair with two fingers and frowned. “Not for long, I’m afraid.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s slowly turning brown. Used to be much redder when I was young.”

  Aaron tilted his head. “Fiery enough for me.”

  Nasseer walked up to them, the map in one hand and his Kalashnikov machine gun in the other, the ammunition belt thrown over his shoulders. Hassan was behind him, wiping the blood from the shears.

  “I know where they’re going,” the Shinwari chief said.

  “How do you know he didn’t lie?”

  Nasseer dropped his gaze to the bloody instrument in his brother’s hands and said, “There is a level of pain after which a man sticking to his story means he’s telling the truth.”

  Vaccaro blinked at that.

  “We reached that point a minute ago,” the Shinwari added.

  “In that case,” Aaron said, getting up, “I’m betting it’s that way.”

  Nasseer stared at the direction the Mossad operative pointed, then back at the map, and slowly nodded.

  76

  Not This Time

  WEST OF COMPOUND 57. SULAIMAN MOUNTAINS. SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN.

  “Where is your “hijab?” Pasha asked in the darkness, as he caught up to her halfway up the incline.

  Zahra sighed, already regretting the decision to rescue him. But in spite of her hatred for what this man represented, she had a mission to complete.

  That, however, didn’t mean she had to put up with the asshole.

  “Really, Pasha? I just saved your miserable life and that’s all you have for me?”

  “I am grateful, Zahra, but it is still the law,” he said.

  “Yeah, well … good luck with that.”

  Before he could reply, she whispered, “And clamp the chatter, would ya? They’re right behind us.” Then she once more bounded up a steep incline.
<
br />   He caught up to her again, and they continued in silence for another thirty minutes, scaling on all fours, using roots and outcrops to hoist themselves, finally reaching a ledge roughly a thousand feet above the ambush.

  “They know we’re up here,” she said, thoroughly soaked in perspiration in spite of the cold temperatures, peering over the edge. She couldn’t see anyone but she could hear distant rustling noises. “They’re tracking us.”

  “I’m counting on it,” he said.

  She turned, glaring at him in the moonlight. He could be attractive if it weren’t for his dumb-ass beliefs, which made him look as grotesque as her uncles. “What are you talking about? We may hold the higher ground, but we’re outnumbered, with limited ammunition.”

  “Not for long,” he replied, reaching for his radio

  She placed a hand over his. “No radios. That’s how they found your jihadist ass in the first place.”

  “Not this time, Zahra,” he said, pulling away. “Not this time.”

  77

  A Means to an End

  WEST OF COMPOUND 57. SULAIMAN MOUNTAINS. SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN.

  Aaron and Vaccaro remained at the back of the line, walking side by side while Nasseer, who knew these mountains and apparently was also a master tracker, led the way. Hassan followed close behind, and then the others. The pace fell somewhere between relaxed and neck breaking—so, manageable, especially given the cold breeze, which she inhaled.

  The line suddenly stopped, and a moment later Nasseer walked up to them. “Wait here,” he said. “I’m going to scout the area ahead to make sure they are not leading us to a trap.”

  “I thought you said he didn’t lie,” Aaron said.

  “Just because the bastard Hassan castrated told the truth, doesn’t mean there could not be more of them along the way.”

  And he was gone.

  The Shinwari warriors quickly sat down to relax, and so did Aaron and Vaccaro, finding a small rocky ledge that provided them with a spectacular view of the Sulaimans and the desert under a blanket of stars.

  “So, is there a boyfriend, Red?” asked Aaron. He was drinking from a canteen, his features somewhat obscured in the moon shadow cast by the pines towering over them.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Girlfriend, then?”

  “Oh, boy,” she whispered, staring at this very nosy man. “Is that one of the lines the Mossad teaches you to pick up women?”

  “Among others. So, boyfriend? Yes?” He handed the canteen over.

  She took a swig while closing her eyes, swirling the water in her mouth before swallowing. The image of John Wright in his jogging shorts and Semper fi T-shirt loomed somewhere in her mind. Handing the canteen back, she said, “Sort of.”

  “Sort of? That’s not an answer. You either have a boyfriend or you don’t.”

  “Yes. Fine. A boyfriend. What about you, Aaron? Got a pretty wife and kids back home?”

  “I did, actually,” he said, drinking again before screwing the top back on. “Long ago.”

  “Divorced, then?” she probed, aware that intelligence types usually had bad marriages, with all the time away from home.

  “Widow,” he replied matter-of-factly while leaning back, resting his head against a smooth rock, hands behind his neck. As he did so, the next button of his shirt became undone, revealing more of his hairy chest. It was freezing and this man walked around with half his chest exposed like he was on some Caribbean beach.

  “Ela was twenty-nine,” he said, his green eyes staring into the distance. “David was three and Sarah five. Palestinian militia attacked our kibbutz on the West Bank, raping the women and killing the children while the men—myself included—were out working the fields. Cowards.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, sitting cross-legged while facing him, placing a hand on his shoulder. He was very warm to the touch, like a furnace, and she liked that, giving him a soft squeeze. Although large, the man was also solid, and for a moment Vaccaro felt something stir inside her.

  “So was I, Red. It happened a long time ago. But I know I will see them again … just not yet.” He stared at the stars, his eyes glistening as he narrowed them. “Just not yet.”

  “Aaron, I—”

  “Do not worry about it,” he said, winking. “That is life on the West Bank. A day later our army razed a neighboring Arab village whose inhabitants probably had nothing to do with the attack on our kibbutz. But that’s been our way of life since our nation was forged. They hit us and we hit them, and the blood cycle continues. I joined the army six months later and was eventually recruited by the Mossad, where I became a Kidon.”

  “Kidon?”

  “Assassin.”

  “I see. And who is it that you are trying to assassinate up in this lovely corner of the world?”

  “Osama bin Laden.”

  She cocked her head at him. “But … I thought you were tracking this nuclear bomb?”

  “A means to an end.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “If al Qaeda, working with the local Taliban, has kidnapped a nuclear scientist, presumably to get this weapon operational, then it is a pretty good bet that bin Laden is involved … somehow.”

  “So follow the bomb to find your mark?”

  “I knew there was a brain inside that very pretty head attached to that very pretty body.”

  “You really need to work on your lines.”

  “They seem to be working just fine,” he said, grinning at her hand still massaging his shoulder.

  She blinked, just realizing she had kept doing that, and pulled it away.

  “Don’t stop on my account, Red,” he said, grinning, revealing that space between his front teeth.

  Vaccaro slowly shook her head. For the first time in her life she was not sure how to handle a man. After a moment of awkward silence, she said, “So, you’ve killed a lot of people?”

  “Some,” he said. “Though probably not as many as you at the controls of that A-10.”

  She had to think about that for a moment. “And your motive for becoming an assassin for the Mossad? Revenge?”

  He shrugged and rubbed his short dark beard. “I prefer ‘righteousness,’ or perhaps the survival of Israel … but I will take ‘revenge.’”

  She thought of Lieutenant James Vaccaro and said, “I actually understand.”

  He slowly turned to face her. “Do you?”

  “Dad flew A-4s in Vietnam. He was KIA when I was six. I guess we are the product of our pasts.”

  He just stared at her with those penetrating eyes, and for a moment she felt he could see right through her as he said, “We are indeed, Red. We are indeed.”

  78

  Circus

  KANDAHAR AIRFIELD. SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN.

  Just fucking shoot me now.

  Monica Cruz felt her head was about to explode as she watched the shitstorm created by the images displayed on the projection screen at one end of the conference table.

  She sat next to Harwich on folding chairs against the back wall of the same room they had crashed the day before. However, this time their intelligence finding, plus the fact that Colonel Duggan was tied up briefing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in Washington, had gotten them seats at the table in his place.

  Well, almost at the table, she thought, observing the two dozen men occupying the high-back leather chairs, discussing options, now that they had been given the undeniable evidence that the Taliban was in possession of an RN-40 tactical nuclear bomb.

  And at the head of the group sat Major General Lévesque, hands behind his neck while listening to opinions on how to handle fanatics armed with a bomb two times more powerful than the one that leveled Hiroshima.

  Off to the general’s right stood Corporal Darcy and his partner, who had tried to stop Monica yesterday. Their bulky figures guarded the entrance while Darcy worked hard to avoid her gaze.

  But Monica couldn’t care less about those two clowns. She was gro
wing steadily frustrated at the freckle-faced NATO commander for allowing the endless presentations on how to handle the situation, prepared by the heads of the British, the Canadian, the French, and even the damn Afghan forces. Most of the battle plans presented on the large projection screens on both side walls were of the vanilla variety, a combination of bombing raids and missile strikes in support of massive troop deployments to seal off the mountain while even more troops made an unheard-of wide-area sweep to track down the relevant threat.

  “This is beyond FUBAR,” Monica mumbled under her breath, while an Afghan colonel stood by the screen on the wall opposite her. The comment earned her a sideways glance from Harwich, who slowly shook his head, pressing a finger against his lips.

  “Fine, boss, but it’s still beyond FUBAR,” she hissed, shifting her weight on the plastic seat and crossing her arms while letting out a heavy sigh—loud enough to turn several heads, including Lévesque’s.

  “Agent Cruz?” the NATO commander said, smoothing his thick orange mustache with an index finger while looking over the heads of the men sitting in front of her. “The FBI wishes to comment on our battle plans, eh?”

  And just like that, the spotlight focused on her.

  “Don’t do it,” Harwich whispered in her ear.

  “I do, General,” she replied, standing, while Harwich pressed the thumb and index finger of his right hand against his closed eyes.

  “Then by all means,” Lévesque said. “We’re all ears.”

  “Very well. It is my opinion that all you’re going to accomplish is wasting money and lives.”

  “And how’s that, Agent Cruz?” he asked, as heads turned toward him before shifting back to Monica.

  She pointed at the screen next to the Afghan colonel, who had remained standing, holding a laser pointer. The screen depicted a terrain map of a section of the mountain with an overlay of thick red and blue arrows representing various troop movements.

  “One word, General: tunnels,” she finally said. “The thinking in this room isn’t tridimensional, but the enemy’s is. The Taliban is just going to march right under your bombs and your thousands of soldiers.”