by JC Ryan
Despite Digger’s reconnaissance and assurance that all was clear, Rex also carefully searched the area for hidden traps of any kind.
Rex’s relief nearly wrung a shout of triumph from him when he felt damp ground and plants but saw no evidence of a tunnel or cave opening.
Disappointingly, it wasn’t a stream or spring, either, but apparently a remnant of a late-melting patch of snow. In the high valley where Kabul sprawled, the temperatures had lately reached the seventies and eighties in the daytime. But Rex and Digger had climbed much higher to nearly 10,000 feet of altitude, and the nights were still cold enough to harbor patches of snow in sheltered areas.
No matter, the dirt and underlying limestone beneath the area would have soaked up most of the snowmelt, and his survival skills included how to access it to slake their thirst, if the soil was deep enough. Digging into the soft limestone might pose a more difficult problem, with no tools. However, he began digging a hole in the damp earth, fending off Digger’s efforts to help. He needed the hole to be steep-sided, not the slope the dog’s efforts would create.
The soil was soft, full of natural mulch, and easy to dig. Before he’d finished digging it to the dimensions he wanted, a foot and a half to two feet deep, and about half as wide, the bottom became soupy mud. That made the task even easier, and he finally sat back to consider his handiwork. In less than three minutes, the hole filled with muddy water.
Digger didn’t seem to care whether his water was sparkling clear. When Rex didn’t put his hands back in the hole, Digger took it as an invitation to drink. He lapped at it eagerly, until he had his fill and stepped back.
Rex waited for a few minutes for it to refill and a few more to let the dirt particles settle out as much as they would. His drink was less muddy, but still not ideal. Nevertheless, he scooped the water out with both hands and slurped it down. Mud and all, this was the best drink Rex had since his grueling CRC training days in the Arizona desert.
With nothing to store water in, Rex figured they’d better stay right there for an impromptu picnic of the two energy bars he had in his backpack. He dug them out, unwrapped one, and held it out to Digger. The dog sniffed it once, then snatched it out of Rex’s hand quickly enough to make Rex jerk the hand back reflexively. Digger bit it in two, gulped down the half in his mouth and caught the other before it hit the ground.
Rex suppressed a chuckle as he unwrapped his own. “This is the polite way to eat an energy bar, Digger.” He took a bite, chewed it thoroughly, swallowed, and took another bite. Digger was looking at the rest of Rex’s energy bar as if it were the finest steak. He flicked his eyes toward Rex, licked his chops, and stared again at the food. He looked so woebegone that Rex felt like a criminal, or maybe like a king who feasted while the starving serfs watched.
Digger’s expectant expression was so moving that Rex broke the remainder of his energy bar in half, offering one piece to Digger with one hand, while he quickly shoved the other into his mouth whole. This time Digger didn’t need two bites. He swallowed the piece he had and looked at Rex’s hands for more.
Rex chuckled softly, still mindful that the woods could be full of Taliban for all he knew. He spread his hands apart, turned them palm up and spread his fingers. “That’s it, buddy. Nothing left.”
Digger looked at Rex’s backpack. He seemed to be saying, “I know you have something else in there. Stop holding back!” Rex wondered if he could still smell the energy bars in the backpack, even though they’d been wrapped. He smiled and opened the backpack wide to show Digger the emptiness inside.
“You find any more in there, buddy, it’s yours.”
Digger pushed his nose in, backed out and sat down, staring at Rex.
“Okay, boy. Let’s get some more water to wash this down, and then we’ll see about those tangos, okay?”
After another drink for each of them, they climbed higher. They were now behind the house from where they’d been when they first spotted it, and they settled in to wait. They had a long day ahead, during which they could do nothing but observe, try to determine the number of people in the house and who they were if possible.
Another concern was dogs. Rex knew the common misconception was that Muslims didn’t keep dogs. To some extent it was true – some didn’t, believing dogs were unclean and not to be allowed indoors. However, the ancient breed of dog known as Afghan hound was an exception in the wealthy classes. These beautiful dogs had once been used in Afghanistan for hunting and as guardians. It wasn’t out of the question to believe that a high-ranking Taliban official or a drug lord, either being wealthy by the local standard, might keep one or more in his mountain stronghold.
Once they’d gained a perch in their new hiding spot, Rex could see a road that wound up the mountainside to the little stone farmhouse, as well as a small building, which he would bet dollars to donuts was a heroin lab.
Chapter Twenty
Koh-e Shir Darwaza, Kabul, Afghanistan June 23, 8:30 p.m.
THE SUN LINGERED late on the high mountainside, long after sundown for the city far below. During the day, Rex and Digger had rested, watched the house, and once made their way cautiously to the mini-well Rex had dug earlier for more water. It kept Rex’s stomach from growling, though, now that he was not as thirsty as earlier, the muddy taste left him less satisfied than the first time. He didn’t even rate this drink against the best he’d had in his life.
He had time to reflect that when he got back to civilization, he was going to acquire one of those carbon-filter so-called water straws that looked more like a kaleidoscope than something to drink from. At least he’d have clean water the next time he was in a similar situation. He wasn’t sure, clever as he was, if Digger could be taught to drink from that contraption , although Rex wouldn’t bet against it.
They’d seen no cars approach or leave, and he was sure there were no dogs. They’d only seen a couple of men come out of the house, and both had gone back in after a walk around the outside. The heroin lab building appeared unoccupied. Maybe they were waiting for a new shipment of raw morphine, or maybe someone would drive up at any moment. Rex had to make a decision about approaching the house, and he couldn’t wait much longer to make it. Lack of food would catch up and render him less than fully effective eventually.
Rex wished he and Digger could have a real conversation. Digger had led him here, so he had to assume the people inside were the tangos he was looking for. Only the slight chance they weren’t and the need for information about the next tier kept him from simply storming the house as soon as it was dark. He could do that, take them out in an overwhelming surprise attack, but then he’d have lost the opportunity for interrogation.
Despite his growing impatience, he quelled his emotions and applied pure logic. The best time to approach was after they’d gone to sleep. The remoteness and isolation of this place would mean they felt safe. If no one else arrived before the lights in the house – apparently candlelight – went out, then he and Digger would go in by stealth rather than force.
Under the cover of darkness, they could get closer, maybe close enough to hear something. Rex kept Digger close to him as he crept forward. He didn’t dare speak any commands above a whisper this near the house, and he didn’t know if Trevor’s mic had been damaged in the blast, so he wanted the dog where he could whisper a command. Digger seemed to understand, and he alternated between snuffling at the ground and lifting his nose for scent as he moved a few yards out and then returned or waited for Rex to catch up.
When Digger was almost in what would have been a yard, had there been one, Rex whispered, “Stop. Hide.” He watched as Digger sunk out of sight. If he hadn’t seen where the dog went, he wouldn’t have been able to pick the spot out. Darkness was now their friend. Rex took full advantage of it as he crawled to where Digger remained hidden and praised the dog. “Good boy.”
Digger nosed his hand, wagged his tail, and sighed. Once again, he wondered at what it meant to the dog. A human’s sigh
sometimes meant disappointment, but hadn’t Trevor once told him that when a dog sighed, it meant contentment? How could Digger be content in this situation? Rex had no idea. For Rex, the adrenaline was pumping, he was tensed up, ready for action. Contented? Definitely not.
In another hour, the light from the house suddenly went out. Rex assumed the candles or lamps had been put out. The people inside must not be night owls, or maybe they expected to see action later. Perhaps a morphine delivery? Tense with the knowledge that his time to make his move could be running out, Rex still waited an hour for sleep to take his targets, before he slipped into the house with his four-legged sidekick, or leader, depending from whose viewpoint one looked at the situation.
He made the gesture that meant ‘take down and guard’, then pointed to the first of the tangos, asleep in a bed alongside one wall of the one-room house. At the same instant, he pulled his KA-BAR and dropped on the neck of the other with his other arm. He stuck the knife a fraction of a centimeter into his guy’s neck and shouted in Arabic, “Be still, or you’re dead.”
His man’s eyes had popped open as soon as he felt the prick of the knifepoint. They opened even wider when his companion began shouting about a demon on top of him, and the demon in question started snarling.
Within minutes, Rex had trussed both into chairs with their own ropes, which he found conveniently hanging neatly coiled on hooks beside the front door. He hadn’t noticed them as they came in a back window, but now he had the candles lit again and could see the entire interior of the mean little farmhouse. The ropes were a bonus. Now he could interrogate, and Digger could threaten both men at once, so that when he suspected one wasn’t telling the truth, the other would be intimidated into refuting the lie.
The first question he asked was about who might drop in on them that night. To his relief, no one was expected. It gave him plenty of time to extract all the information he could before he snuffed out these killers as easily as he’d snuff out the candles if he didn’t want to set fire to the house. Of course, he fully intended to, so it was just a thought that flitted through his mind while he fired questions at them.
Rex didn’t even bother to ask them if they were the ones who helped set up the explosions at the house the night before. Digger following their trail to this house was enough evidence. They were guilty as charged. Only the sentencing and execution thereof remained.
So, rather than waste time on giving them opportunity to lie, he told them they were the explosive experts, that this demon had their buddy for dinner. But that it was last night, and he was hungry again.
He also told them that he already knew the man who gave the order to blow up the house was Usama, the Lion. So, first of all he wanted to know where to find this chicken shit, Usama. Then, he also wanted to know whose heroin lab was it that they were running at the side of the house.
Between the tears and terrified babbling, Rex got the answers he was looking for, but it wasn’t easy. The men were too afraid of their leader to easily give up the information.
Nevertheless, Rex was impressed again at Digger’s ability to make men piss on command or on growl, and even more so at the sheer volume of fluid these men apparently had on tap. They must have been drinking gallons of the ubiquitous tea or coffee, but by the smell, Rex soon concluded they’d been drinking some kind of illegal alcoholic beverage. Probably a concoction they brewed onsite, maybe in their lab. If he’d known that, he could have entered the place sooner. Nor should he have been surprised. The use and manufacture of opium-derived product was also illegal. But in Afghanistan the term ‘illegal’ had a different meaning than in western countries. Although, with his experience over the past few years, dealing with corrupt people all over the world and seeing what they could get away with, Rex had come to think that the west was just as corrupt as any other place. They were just more sophisticated about it.
Gradually, fear, exhaustion, and Rex’s persistence broke the hajis’ resistance. By midnight, he reckoned he had everything they knew, and he knew he had the most important thing. The address of that low life, Usama, as well as the names and addresses of his associates. When there was nothing more to be learned, he cut the ropes with his knife.
“Get up. We’re going to have a health inspection of your lab. People inject this shit into their veins and I need to ensure that your facility complies with all the necessary sanitary regulations.”
One man had just enough defiance in him to try to deny there was a lab, but a vicious growl from Digger made him stop in the middle of his sentence. He hung his head and walked docilely out of the house, his companion following. Rex let them get inside before he shot them each in the back of the head with a double-tap from Trevor’s pistol. It was his tribute to his fallen friend, revenge taken with his own weapon.
Rex still had some tasks to perform, and then they had a long walk ahead of them. “No rest for the weary, eh, Digger?”
At the question, Digger looked up at him and tilted his head. Rex laughed, freely this time, not bothering to conceal the noise. “It’s a rhetorical question, buddy. Ready for some chow?”
At that, Digger’s smile broke out for the first time in hours. That was another word in Diggers English vocabulary which Rex also knew. He was ready for chow, all right. Rex was, too. He led the way back to the farmhouse and ransacked it for what he’d need next.
Fortunately, he found a change of clothes – the man-jammies the locals preferred – that weren’t too odorous. If he’d had to use the ones his recent victims had worn, it would have been very unpleasant. He didn’t worry much that the clothes were ill-fitting, just a little too short. The loose fit ensured that short or not, the man-jammies were pretty much one size fits all. He stuffed them into his backpack for later use. His black camouflage would be fine for the rest of the night.
Digger had been nosing about the room, looking for the promised food, Rex assumed. He’d found a joint of what Rex could only assume was goat, but it was hanging too high for him to reach. He was sitting directly beneath it, his nose lifted, and his eyes fixed on it lest it disappear before he got any. Rex took note of it, figured he’d cook it up with some rice if he could find any, and that would do for dinner.
Inside a rickety piece of furniture that passed for a cupboard, he found the sack of rice, and on top of it he found a jug of water. In another chest, he found the pot to cook it in. The bukhari, a drum-shaped stove made of thin metal, was already full of wood, Rex supposed for the convenience of a quick breakfast in the chilly morning. He found an incongruous box of strike-on-box matches in the chest with the pot. It was short work to start the fire in the stove and set the pot of water to boil for the rice while he pawed through the rest of the supplies for anything useful.
Rex also found a Turkish coffee pot and coffee. He couldn’t believe his luck. He had been telling himself for more than twenty-four hours, “I’m ready to kill for a mug of coffee.” He just had.
While he got the coffee pot going on the fire, he scrounged around more and for his trouble he was rewarded with the discovery of a wheel of goat cheese, some flatbread, and a large quantity of dried meat known as lahndi. He’d eaten the latter in the winter in various dishes, but he was a little surprised there was any left this late in the year. He offered a piece to Digger, who wolfed it down without caring that it might have been a little past its prime. Digger looked up at Rex and silently begged for more, which Rex was happy to be able to provide. After the second treat, he said, “Why don’t you wait for the goat, buddy? It will be even better.”
Digger apparently agreed, as he resumed his watch of the hanging joint until Rex had stowed his finds in his backpack and was ready to cut some of the goat meat and put it into the boiling water with the rice and a bit of onion he found, also. When it was done, the stew tasted like the best thing he’d ever eaten. Not surprising, since it had been about thirty-six hours since his last meal, unless he counted the energy bar he’d shared with Digger.
Digger a
pparently approved of Rex’s culinary skills, as well. He got close enough to the pot on the wood burning stove to yelp at the heat but was polite enough to wait for Rex to provide a second helping on the plate he was eating from. Rex found a small tin container and tipped the rest of the stew into it for later.
Their hunger satisfied, Rex took the pack of cigarettes on one of the shelves. With those and the matches, he would set the house and the lab both on fire in a way that would give them plenty of time to get far from the area before the fire started. Neither building would appear to be in danger before Rex and Digger were well away.
He did it by propping up a lit cigarette at an angle, using whatever he could find to hold it there. He tied three matches close to the filter end to each of a number of cigarettes with pieces of string. He placed several of these around the house surrounding each of them with pieces of paper which would catch fire once the cigarettes had burned off enough to light up the matches. He stoked the wood burning stove and left the candles burning for good measure. The ammonium nitrate in the heroin lab would take care of it and render the bodies inside to ashes when the resulting fires triggered the inevitable explosion in the lab.
Inside the house, it wouldn’t be quite as spectacular, but there were plenty of flammable fuels, including bedding, paper, the wood furniture, and clothing, to gut the place. The stone walls would remain standing, but the roof would be destroyed. When he was done, Rex was satisfied that this wouldn’t soon harbor other terrorists or drug traffickers or chemists.
He went around, lit all the cigarettes, hefted his backpack, and said to Digger, “Come on buddy. Let’s go get us a Taliban drug lord whose head is begging to be separated from his body.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Koh-e Shir Darwaza, Kabul, Afghanistan June 24, 3:30 a.m.