Without Fear

by Col. David Hunt

  Lévesque stood slowly and placed his palms on the table as the group’s attention returned to him. He was a tall and stocky man, with broad shoulders and large hands that were also covered in those orange freckles. “I appreciate the candor, Agent Cruz, but rest assured that our plan, which represents the thinking of the finest multinational military minds, is designed to overwhelm the enemy and force it to yield the weapon.”

  “General, the only thing that is likely to be overwhelmed is the Role Three MMU, from all of the wounded your plan will produce by sending so many troops to so many IED-uncharted grids.”

  More silence, and Monica could see the man’s jaw muscles pulsating for a moment, before he took a deep breath and asked, “So … what would you suggest, Agent Cruz?”

  “Simple,” she said. “Pull everyone out of that mountain … and nuke it.”

  Lévesque blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “The whole mountain, General,” she said, making two fists before extending her fingers. “Megaton range. Poof. Gone. Along with those tunnel rats.”

  “You’re … serious, eh?”

  She shrugged. “It’s the only way to be sure. You either vaporize a bunch of rocks, goats, and goat fuckers, or you risk those very same goat fuckers vaporizing one of our own cities if they manage to smuggle that nuke out of the country.”

  Every head swung back to Lévesque, who simply nodded and sat back down while saying, “Thank you for your opinion, Agent Cruz. It has been most … enlightening. And noted. Rest assured I’ll include it in my report.” Then he motioned for the Afghan colonel to continue with his brief.

  But before the man could say a word, Monica added, “General, you are aware that the Taliban has more tunnels in that mountain range than there are subway tracks on the island of Manhattan, right?”

  “Agent Cruz, you’ve already made your point, and—”

  “We had over nine hundred marines encircling Compound Fifty-Seven, General, and they still got away—through a fucking tunnel! Now you’re telling me that the lessons learned from that snafu is to repeat it again on a grander scale?”

  Lévesque stood again, now visibly angry. Dropping the pitch of his voice, he said, “You are out of your depth, Agent Cruz. You are here out of courtesy to Colonel Duggan and the CIA.” He stretched a finger toward Harwich. “We are the experts when it comes to military strategy against local insurgents.”

  “Yeah, General, and how’s that expertise been working out for you lately?”

  “Please remove yourself from this room, Agent Cruz, or I will have you removed.” He looked toward Darcy and his partner, who glanced at one another and frowned, shifting their pleading stares to Monica, hoping that she’d just leave on her own.

  Monica stood and opened the door, but before stepping out she turned around to face her stunned audience and said, “Based on the number of recent deaths by friendly fire, including the CIA men your airstrike killed and the intelligence lead you blew by storming Compound Fifty-Seven, I’d say you are the one who needs to remove himself from this room, since you’re obviously out of your depth.”

  “Enough!” Lévesque shouted, slapping the table with one of his massive hands, making quite the racket. Most people sitting at the table jerked back. “I want you to get the fuck off my base, eh? And by nightfall!”

  “Gladly,” Monica said. “I don’t want to be a part of your circus, which I will report as a gross military mishandling of a great multiagency intelligence lead.”

  And she closed the door and walked away.

  But she didn’t get far. Harwich caught up to her before she could leave the building, reaching for her forearm.

  Monica paused, staring at him and then at the intruding hand. “Not a good time to put your hands on me, boss.”

  Harwich blinked and let go of her, before saying, “You really had to do it?”

  She shrugged. “Told you I would. The man’s all brawn and no brains.”

  Harwich looked away, hands now on his waist. “That may be the case, but there are ways to go about this.” Pointing to the conference room, he added, “And that wasn’t one.”

  “Well, not my fight anymore. So if you’ll excuse me, I think I need to go pack my things.”

  “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll find you after we’re through in there.”

  “That’s not what the Canuck said in there, eh?”

  “Cruz,” Harwich said, almost breaking a smile, “you’re a piece of work, but just the same, I’m telling you to stay put. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Yeah, boss,” she said, walking away. “Good luck with that.”

  79

  Coping Mechanism

  SULAIMAN MOUNTAINS. SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN.

  Bill Gorman thought he was in shape, given his morning runs and visits to the embassy gym three times a week.

  But after following Maryam up the side of this mountain, hiking endless narrow switchbacks and rocky inclines, it dawned on him that there was a crucial difference between being in shape and being in mountaineering shape.

  The sweat dripping down his face, his inability to suck in enough air, and the cramps torturing his hamstrings and calves—not to mention the heartbeat throbbing in his temples—told him he certainly fell in the former category.

  Christ Almighty, he thought, as Maryam dashed up a wooded hill like a damn goat, her figure in those tight fatigues always shifting, conforming to the bends in the terrain and surrounding shrubs under towering stone pines. At the beginning of the climb Gorman had not minded the view from behind. In the eternal words of the Commodores, the woman was a brick house. But half a day of nonstop climbing had long since washed away every impure thought as he tried like hell to keep up with her catlike agility.

  But at least he wasn’t alone in his misery. Chief Larson had also started to show signs of fatigue, though, in his defense, the giant man looked ten years his senior. And on top of that, he hauled that massive M2 Browning, plus the heavy .50-caliber belt stored in the custom backpack and feeding into the side of the weapon.

  Danny Martin, apparently proficient at tracking insurgents, was right up there with Maryam, making the climb look easy while also making passes at the ISI officer—something Gorman suddenly started to mind.

  Hagen and Ryan followed them closely, while Colonel Stark fell somewhere in the middle, in spite of being the oldest in the team.

  As the group crested yet another hill, Maryam and Martin pointed to the west, where they had apparently picked up their trail. Stark decided to take a short water break, which Gorman fully appreciated, given the nonstop march since exiting that tunnel out of Compound 57.

  He sat in between the colonel and the chief, reaching for his canteen and taking a few sips, swirling them in his mouth before swallowing. Maryam sat some twenty feet above them on a rocky ledge, while Martin hit on her under the amused stare of Ryan and in the face of the indifference of Hagen, who was already smoking—something that amazed Gorman, given the former SEAL’s stamina.

  “Quite the crew, Colonel,” Gorman said, wiping the perspiration from his forehead. “I’m glad Glenn pointed me your way.”

  Stark poured some water over his head, rubbed his face, and nodded while pulling a small GPS tablet from a side pocket of his utility vest. “Been together awhile. Seen some shit.”

  “Yeah,” said Larson in his baritone voice. “But there are still worse ways to make a living.”

  The man reminded Gorman of one of those oversize World Wrestling Federation fighters as he sat cross-legged with the Browning over his thighs while Stark rested his back against a boulder and studied the terrain map on his tablet.

  Gorman heard Maryam laugh and shake her head at something Martin had said, while Ryan smiled and Hagen just smoked.

  “You even have a comedian in the house,” Gorman said.

  “Yeah,” Stark said with a heavy sigh, looking up from the black gadget. “That’s how the man copes.”

  “Copes? With the job?” Gorman aske
d.

  The colonel considered that for a moment, regarding Gorman with his ice-cold blue eyes before leaning closer. “Danny … He was married … had a young son. The kid was … how old, Chief?”

  Larson held up four fingers.

  “Yeah, four. Danny tells the wife to lock the gun safe while he’s rushing out of the house to do a job.”

  “Bogota. Last year,” added Larson. “Danny flew the helo.”

  “That’s right. CIA job,” Stark said. “Anyway, she forgets and the kid ends up shooting himself in the head. Brains all over … a fucking mess.”

  “Oh my God,” said Gorman. “That’s…”

  “Yeah,” Stark said. “And we can’t be reached. Agency rules. So the wife ODs four days later. Sleeping pills. By the time Danny gets home, two weeks later … well…”

  “Danny jokes a lot, Mr. Gorman,” said Larson. “But he never smiles.”

  80

  Compromising Position

  SULAIMAN MOUNTAINS. SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN.

  The climb became tedious, following endless trails, traversing the face of a hill, followed by switchbacks and more trails.

  Vaccaro walked in front of Aaron, who brought up the rear. The Shinwari led the way, with Nasseer and Hassan up in front, following the tracks left behind by the insurgents.

  The line suddenly stopped again, and word got passed down that Nasseer was going to scout ahead once more.

  Aaron sat down, drank from his canteen, and then offered it to Vaccaro, who slowly shook her head. “In a moment. First I need to … go,” she said, pointing to the trees behind him.

  Aaron was about to stand when Vaccaro waved him down. “If you don’t mind,” she said, “I think I can manage.”

  The Mossad operative grinned. “Of course you can, Red … but stay close.”

  “Roger that,” she replied, stepping off the trail and walking a dozen steps over a layer of pine boughs, reaching a nearby tree, and going around it. Her back against its wide trunk, she glanced in both directions before lowering her pants and squatting.

  But as she shifted her weight back and began to urinate, she heard a metallic click under her right heel.

  “Oh, God,” she mumbled, freezing, eyes closed as she waited for the inevitable, but whatever it was that she had stepped on did not explode.

  Slowly, she reached down with her right hand, feeling through the layer of dry boughs and pine needles, fingertips coming in contact with a small round metallic object right under the heel of her boot.

  This isn’t happening.

  She contemplated standing and pulling up her pants before calling for help, but she was worried about shifting her weight and setting it off. Besides, most IEDs and mines would have already detonated, which meant this one could be a dud, or perhaps a type of mine she didn’t know about.

  All the more reason not to move your ass.

  “Aaron!” she hissed, trying not to scream. “Hey! Aaron!”

  The Mossad man was over an instant later, stepping around the tree and staring right down at her pale legs and buttocks in the semidarkness, the smell of urine hovering in the air between them.

  “Red? I thought you said you could manage?”

  “I think I stepped on a mine. Under my right boot.”

  He frowned, looked over toward the trail, whistled twice, and took a knee next to her. “All right,” he said. “I need you to remain perfectly still, okay?”

  “I don’t think that’ll be a problem.”

  As the Shinwari clan gathered at the edge of the trail but remained a safe distance away, Aaron lay flat on his belly, reached between the tree and her right boot, and began to shift the layer of pine needles out of the way.

  “How screwed am I?” she asked, feeling the top of his head slowly nudging against her bare right buttock, his hands by her boot as he parted the boughs.

  “Aaron?”

  “Hold still, Red,” he said, as she stared at the bark of the tree, unable to see what the hell he was doing, her heartbeat rocketing.

  “It’s Russian,” he said a moment later. “And that’s good.”

  “How can that possibly be … good?” she asked, feeling her voice starting to break.

  “An IED would have already gone off. No warning. Plus, these Russian mines have a very small explosive charge compared to IEDs, usually around fifty grams of a TNT–RDX mix meant to just mangle a foot.”

  “How comforting.”

  “Better than blowing off both legs and your tight little … chamor.” He tapped her bare butt.

  She wanted to laugh, but raw fear gripped her gut, and the reaction confused her. How could she feel so scared after thousands of combat hours in her Warthog?

  “Aaron … I’m scared…” she mumbled, before she could stop herself, though she realized that she felt comfort in telling him so.

  “I’m right here, Red.”

  He whistled again and Nasseer approached them.

  “Russian PMN-4,” he told the Shinwari chief, before switching to Pashto.

  Nasseer reached into a small rucksack, produced what looked like one of those Leatherman multi-tools, and handed it to Aaron before backing away slowly. She was able to catch a glimpse of the man’s thin face and did not like the look in his raccoon eyes.

  “They’re keeping their distance,” she said. “Never a good sign.”

  Aaron ignored her while using the tip of a fingernail to pull a screwdriver out from the Leatherman.

  She breathed deeply and asked, “Have you done this before?”

  Aaron laughed. “Tell me about your boyfriend.”

  “What?” she asked, as he fiddled with the mine.

  “Your boyfriend,” he repeated, working the screwdriver against the side of the device. Holding on to her boot with his other hand, he added, “Tell me about him.”

  “Seriously? You literally have your head shoved up my ass and you want me to talk about John? You really need to work on your lines and your timing.”

  “So he has a name. For a while I thought you were just making him up to keep me away.”

  “Captain John Wright. U.S. Marines. Why do you ask?”

  “Just curious about the competition.” He stopped the screwdriver action and switched to a pair of pliers before trying to pull something out from the same side of the mine.

  She closed eyes while suppressing a laugh. “You think he’s your … competition?”

  “You love him, yes?”

  She narrowed her gaze while staring at the forest, considering the question. “Too soon for that,” she finally said. “We just met … during a weekend in Qatar a few months ago.”

  “Sounds romantic.”

  “He’s very sweet, Aaron.”

  “What does that make me?”

  “The man who has his face an inch from a Russian mine to save my foot.”

  Aaron set down the multi-tool and whispered, “Dammit.”

  “What is it?”

  “The striker … won’t come out. It’s stuck.”

  “I was wondering if it was a dud.”

  “Possibly. Once armed, these Russian mines only require a slight downward force on the pressure plate, which overcomes the upward tension of the creep-spring, sliding the metal gate holding back the spring-loaded striker. That all means it should have gone off the instant you stepped on it. But it didn’t. The metal gate and striker are rusty after so many years, and I think your weight is the only thing now keeping the mechanism from releasing the striker.”

  “Meaning it could go off the moment I step off of it?”

  “Or it could stay as it is. No way to tell while you’re putting weight on it.”

  “Great. Is this when you walk away and join your friends while I step off the mine and hope for the best?”

  Aaron whistled again and Nasseer returned. They exchanged some words in Pashto. The Shinwari boss left and then came back with three Kevlar vests.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, only able to get a pa
rtial picture of what was happening.

  Nasseer returned to the trail while Aaron slid back, stood, and walked in front of her.

  “Aaron? What do you think you’re—”

  “Do not move, Red.”

  Slowly, he pressed the sole of his left boot over the instep of her right boot, apparently to make sure she didn’t shift, before reaching under her armpits and helping her stand, while also pulling up her pants to her waist.

  “There,” he said, as he fastened her belt. “Let’s get you some dignity back.”

  “Appreciate that,” she said.

  “Stay like this now,” he said, staring at her before slowly leaning down to reach for one of the vests, wrapping it around her lower right leg and his own left leg all the way to the ground. He then tightened the straps to press their knees firmly against each other.

  “No, Aaron. You can’t do this.”

  He cupped her face and grinned. “And leave you like this, now that I know you are a true redhead? That’s a negative, Red One One.”

  She just stared at him.

  “Now stay still,” he added, as he leaned down again.

  She placed both hands over the top of his head, running her fingers through his hair. His face pressed against her belly while he wrapped the second vest around her left leg and his right leg.

  “You know, Red,” he said as he stood, “I think in some cultures this is considered a marriage.” He tapped the tip of her nose.

  This time she managed a slight smile and showed him her left hand, wiggling her bare ring finger. “No diamond, no marriage, mister.”

  “Ah,” he said. “We will get to that, yes? But first things first.”

  Aaron laid the third vest on the ground, leaning on the side of their legs, so that part of the vest would fall over the mine the moment they jumped off of it.

  “Now,” he said, standing and embracing her, “the acoustic energy will bounce against the tree, so we need to jump to the side to get away from the worst of it. Makes sense?”

  “Aaron,” she insisted. “You don’t need to do this. I’m the one who—”