He stood there a moment, under the flickering yellow light of ancient oil lamps. Akhtar always thought it was ironic that one of those invaders—the feared Tamerlane—had rebuilt most of Afghanistan sometime during the fourteenth century, after his Mongolian predecessors had destroyed it. And that had included revamping this primeval cave, excavating additional chambers, and adding a tunnel to the northern face of the mountain, with a path down to a dry riverbed that led through the Koh-i-Baba mountains into the lush plains of Bamyan in central Afghanistan. After the Mongolian retreat in the fifteenth century, the Pashtuns took it over, using it as a secret artery to transport troops and weapons across the mountains, a tradition that had continued throughout the Soviet invasion and to this day.
“My father … he told me stories about this place,” Dr. Khan said as he stood next to Akhtar, trying to take it all in. “But I thought it was just…”
“A legend?”
“Something like that, yes,” he said.
“Well, professor,” Akhtar said, when he spotted Akaa emerging from one of the caves, followed by a tall man wearing Western clothes and lacking the obligatory Sharia law beard. “Prepare yourself to meet a real-life legend.”
101
Mushroom
KANDAHAR AIRFIELD. SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN.
John Wright stood in the back of the room while Harwich and Duggan spread the map over the table. He was just too physically and emotionally drained to care about it while Vaccaro was being tended to at the Role 3 MMU.
He would rather have remained by her side, especially since she was unconscious, but Duggan had summoned him here. Plus, the doctor had told him that her wounds were minor but still needed attention to prevent infections. So he had made a pit stop to check on Gorman, who had survived his surgery but was still in critical condition. While he was there, he had a doctor check his leg, which earned him two staples and a shot of antibiotics, but otherwise he was good to go. Finally, he had headed to Duggan’s office.
His reading glasses balanced on the tip of his nose, the marine colonel discussed the location of the coordinates relative to the current location of Stark, who had already been provided with the coordinates of the target.
“They’re close, sir,” Harwich said. “They have been tracking the men that escaped Compound Fifty-Seven, and the trail is leading them in the right direction.”
“Looks like … what? Six clicks?” Duggan asked.
“Just about,” Harwich said.
“Any chance we can get him some help?”
Harwich frowned, and Wright knew why, of course. The last time the marines had tried to “assist” Stark they had simply allowed the Taliban to escape with the weapon. “What do you have in mind?”
“Relax, Mr. Harwich,” Duggan said. “I may be on a NATO base, but I’m not NATO.”
“What about the general?”
“Mushroom treatment.”
“So you’re not telling him?”
Duggan angled his big head slightly and said, “I’ll bring him into this at the right time. But first I wanted to see about getting a rifle platoon up there,” he said. “And maybe SEALs, if they’re available,” he added. “I know some of the guys from SEAL Team Two.”
Harwich rubbed his bearded chin. “The problem is accessibility. The southern face of that mountain is a bit high for helicopters, and the pass is too narrow for our planes. Plus, the ledges bordering the pass, carved straight out of the gorge, are too small a target for even the best HALO operator. Maybe we can drop them off here, near the entrance to the pass, but that will put them about a day and a half behind Stark. The other option is to bring them up the northern face of the mountain, where the terrain is more accessible by helicopter. But it would take a team at least four days to cross over to the south—assuming they can find a way to do so on the surface. Remember, we’ve never been up there.”
“Shit,” he said. “Neither option is—”
The door to his office burst open and Major General Lévesque marched in, followed by his typical entourage of foreign officers.
Rugged and tall, Lévesque reminded Wright of those tough Canadian loggers. Smoothing his orange mustache, Lévesque said, “Colonel I got word from—”
“Ever heard of knocking, General?” Duggan snapped.
Lévesque stopped and regarded the marine colonel, who was no lightweight; he resembled a pit bull, down to his strong jaw and chin. On top of that, Duggan just happened to be in charge of one of the largest forces assembled at KAF, and he was incredibly well connected and respected at the Pentagon and at the White House.
The general lowered his voice a decibel or two but did not back down. “Fine. Apologies for that, eh? Now, did one of your pilots deliver a map to your marines that may contain pertinent intelligence on the whereabouts of the bomb?”
“You mean this?” Duggan pointed at the map. “I’m assessing its value now to see if it merits your attention.”
“I’d like very much to believe that,” he replied.
“Believe what you wish, General, but know this: if I were to pass on to you everything that comes through my desk, you’d be neck deep in shit.”
“Very well, Colonel,” Lévesque said, glancing at his watch. “You’ve had two hours since the helicopter arrived from the field. What’s your assessment?”
Wright checked his watch, wondering if Vaccaro was up.
He listened to the discussion for the first few minutes, while slowly backing away to blend with the entourage standing by the door, before slipping out and heading to the hospital.
102
Whatever It Takes
KANDAHAR AIRFIELD. SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN.
The light stung her eyes.
Slowly, Vaccaro opened them, revealing a blurry world that slowly resolved into a white ceiling and overhead fluorescents, then a plastic bag hanging from a pole. She followed the clear tube connecting it to her right forearm.
“Hey, Captain.”
She heard him but could not see him, turning her head slightly to the left as Wright pulled up a chair, a hand taking hers.
“Hey … Captain,” she replied, as his face came into focus. She was feeling groggy, her eyes returning to the IV. “What … the hell … you people have me on?”
“Oh, you know, just your usual lifesaving cocktail after nearly getting killed by the Taliban.”
“Ha-ha,” she said, smiling without humor while bringing a hand to her face, feeling the narrow bandage over the right side of her forehead and temple.
“Took them a little while to clean that up,” he said. “Nasty cut. But superficial. Just character building—plus, it’s earned you at least a Purple Heart, not to mention the other awards coming your way for risking your life to save my marines.”
Vaccaro inhaled deeply. “How … long?”
“Just a couple of hours,” he replied. “And you got lucky on that shoulder wound. The bullet went through clean and was a small caliber—three eighty automatic. I took it from the bastard who shot you. Here, take a look.”
He produced a small shiny black pistol. “Russian,” he added. “Used to belong to a Colonel M. Tupolev, according to the inscription.” He tapped the side of the muzzle.
Vaccaro signaled him to sit her up, and he reached for a small hand controller tethered to the bed through a white cord. He pressed a button and the back of the bed slowly rose, allowing her to get a view of her surroundings.
She breathed deeply, feeling reenergized after sleeping for a couple of hours, plus the cocktail they had pumped in her.
“Water,” she said, while flexing her shoulder. It hurt some but nothing she could not manage.
Wright produced a water bottle with a straw already in it.
She sipped it, closing her eyes as the cool water refreshed her. “Where am I?”
“Role Three MMU, where you’ve been getting your beauty sleep.”
She lay somewhere in the middle of a long and narrow room with beds lining both
walls. Most patients were out of it—and most were missing a body part. The soldier across the aisle from her had no legs below the knees; likewise, the guy next to him. The bed to her right housed a kid probably still in his teens, who was missing his entire right arm and even part of his shoulder as well as both legs above the knees.
“That’s Corporal Franklin,” Wright said. “Nineteen. Ran right into a cluster of IEDs the same day you got shot down.”
“Sorry, John.”
“Actually, you were directly responsible for preventing any more of my men from getting hurt. As it turned out, because you stayed in the fight, I only lost one man, my gunnery sergeant. That makes you one helluva hero in my book, Laura.”
She looked away, thinking of Aaron, of the Shinwari clan, of the crew of that ill-fated Chinook—the real heroes in her survival story.
Her eyes landed on a woman sitting by a bed to her left. Her skin color and features suggested she was local, though she was dressed in U.S. Army fatigues. She kept watch over a man lying unconscious, with bandages on his abdomen. An IV fed each of his arms.
“Bill Gorman,” Wright said. “CIA guy. Shot in the gut. Heavy caliber. He’s still in critical condition.”
The wound also made her think of Aaron, who might have survived if there had been a way to …
Stop that, she thought, before asking. “Who’s the woman?”
“One of Gorman’s assets, according to Harwich.”
“Harwich?”
“My civilian counterpart. I’m working intelligence for Colonel Duggan now. Guess you got your wish. Got me a desk job.”
“Harwich is Agency, too?”
“Yeah. And they’re a secretive bunch. You should have seen his face when I showed him this Makarov and he read the inscription. The man looked like he’d seen a ghost.”
“Why?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
“Yeah,” she said, remembering how guarded Aaron had been at first. “They can be mysterious.”
He smiled. “Well, technically I’ve crossed to the dark side. We’re collaborating in tracking the whereabouts of the missing Russian nuke. And you, my dear, provided us with a central piece of intelligence.”
“The map?”
“Yep. Harwich and I briefed Colonel Duggan, and we passed the coordinates to Colonel Stark, who was already in the vicinity.
Vaccaro nodded, remembering him.
Wright made a face.
“What is it, John?”
“Well … Duggan was planning to bolster Stark’s force with SEALs, and also a contingent of marines, but keeping it from NATO for the time being, given its recent track record.”
“But?”
“The medics … they were Canadians, so it leaked to Lévesque that you gave me a map that marked the location of the bomb. When Lévesque confronted Duggan, the colonel had no choice.”
“Dammit,” she said, repeating Aaron’s words. “To NATO everything looks like a nail. I bet they’re preparing to launch a big airstrike.”
He frowned and checked his watch. “When I left them a few hours ago, they were just starting to talk options. But the problem is one of accessibility to the target from the air. The coordinates are smack in the middle of this very winding and narrow pass—too narrow for our jets and a bit high for our helicopters, plus no place to land or drop troops. The closest ground asset is Stark and his team, and they’re headed there now. Meanwhile, I’m sure that Lévesque and staff will review high asset imagery to figure out how to best hit it from above. But in addition to it being narrow, the mountain walls angle in over the target, preventing us from getting a clear view of what we’re dealing with; thus the team on the ground. We’re still looking into getting SEALs and marines up there, but the closest we can drop them in still puts them at least a day behind Stark.”
She stared at her IV and unceremoniously pulled it out of her arm.
“Hey … what do you think you’re—”
“I need a clear head, John.”
“But the pain.”
“The pain I can take,” she replied, before checking her arm again. The shoulder was sore but functional. “What I can’t take is another FUBAR directive from NATO. Now, get me some clothes, would you?”
“What do you think you’re going to do?”
“Whatever it takes to keep that bomb from leaving that mountain, John,” she replied, while thinking of Nasseer and Hassan—while thinking of Aaron. “Whatever it fucking takes.”
103
Motion
QAIS KOTAL. SULAIMAN MOUNTAINS. SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN.
Kira peered at the gray clouds partially blocking the last of the late afternoon sun filtering through the snowy woods, which hulked over the west side of the narrow mountain pass snaking south to north at almost twelve thousand feet.
Shivering, she took the opportunity to breathe deeply, forcing what little oxygen she could into her aching lungs. Even someone as fit as her and her team were having a difficult time keeping up with the nimble courier, who continued trekking the pass at a fast clip, seemingly impervious to the cold or the altitude.
Until a moment ago, when she had stopped for a quick water break and to check what looked like a GPS on her wrist.
But something else had captured Kira’s attention. The movement had been subtle, a shape vanishing in the trees off to her far right, almost imperceptible, but not to her.
Someone was up on that hill—someone besides the courier. But for the life of her, she could not pinpoint the exact location of the motion.
Sergei Popov crawled up next to Kira as the sun finally sank beyond the western rim rock.
“What is it?” he whispered.
Kira didn’t reply right away. Her eyes were fixed on the probable source of the disturbance, farther up on the same incline they were traversing while following the courier’s advance on the snowy footpath.
The branches on stone pines near the top of the hill, about three hundred feet above them, had shifted ever so slightly in the wrong direction—opposite the prevailing wind—revealing a figure for just an instant.
But it’s gone now, she thought, following the slow, lazy motion of the branches as the wind swept down from the jagged peaks of the Takht-i-Sulaiman.
The Throne of Solomon.
She compressed her lips, shifting her gaze between the offending tree and the telemetry painted on her helmet’s display, wondering for a moment if the lack of oxygen was starting to muddle her senses.
“Someone might be out there,” she finally said.
“Where?”
“To our right, up by those trees.”
Sergei just nodded, knowing better than to risk a look.
“What do you want us to do?”
“Them? Nothing,” she said, pointing at the other two Spetsnaz operators. “Tell them to keep after her. But you stay with me,” she said, as the courier started up the trail again.
“What do you have in mind?”
“We’ll see,” she said, resuming her stride while her eyes searched for the right spot along the trail to make her move.
104
Bird in Hand
QAIS KOTAL. SULAIMAN MOUNTAINS. SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN.
“We’re too close,” Monica whispered, huddled next to Ryan on the lower branches of a pine.
“The colonel wants eyes on that courier at all times.” Ryan replied.
“Still worried the intel is shit?” Monica asked.
They were observing the contingent of four operatives who were wearing some sort of advanced battle dress and were following a woman heading straight for the coordinates passed to Stark’s team via Harwich. Unfortunately, maintaining visual contact with the courier required Monica and Ryan to get a bit closer to the operatives also on the courier’s tail than their training prescribed. Judging from their advanced assault weapons—suppressed AK-9s—the team appeared to be Russian, and their sophisticated battle dress suggested GRU Spetsnaz.
He tilted his
head and gave her that smile that reminded her of Scottsdale. “Something like that. You know … bird in hand?”
“Yeah,” she said, “and our little bird is getting away.”
Ryan tapped his MBITR to update Stark and the team a couple hundred feet behind them, as Monica slowly crawled down the tree. “Target’s on the move again.”
She followed Ryan, managing the contour of the bluff in the twilight of dusk, careful not to kick rocks or debris down the snowy hill to the team tracking the courier.
The cold and very dry air this high up chapped her lips. Monica wetted them with the tip of her tongue, uncomfortable with her current predicament. They were not only too close to their mark but also moving faster than she would have preferred.
She scanned the hillside beyond Ryan’s slim silhouette, leaning in to the steep terrain while shifting between boulders and trees, keeping an eye on the group of four—
What the hell?
Monica squinted at the trail below while pausing by a mass of boulders that formed a short wall skirting her path. Settling behind it, she rested the TAC-338’s muzzle between two rocks, using the powerful Leupold scope to scan the bottom of the hill, confirming her observation. There were now only two figures tracking the courier.
“What’s going on?” Ryan asked. He had doubled back, holding his TAC-50 rifle, the .50-caliber big brother of her TAC-338. He fell in beside her.
“We’re missing a couple of operatives down there.”
“What?”
“Yeah. Look,” she said.
He settled behind the scope of his own rifle to survey the base of the steep incline while mumbling, “Where the hell did they go?”
“Right behind you, yes?” came a heavily accented female voice behind them.
Ryan and Monica spun to face the wrong end of a suppressed AK-9 in the hands of an operator dressed in futuristic battle dress, standing on a ledge over them. She wore some sort of space-age helmet. Monica tried to bring her weapon around, but the woman released a single silenced round.
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