“I see. So how did this turn into a big fight?”
“The kidnappers were already here, a band of ten or twelve men. It looked like they were pouring gas around the house, presumably to burn it. Our guess is that they must have left some evidence behind when their first kidnapping attempt went awry.”
“That makes sense, but how did the fighting start if you were just watching them?”
“We established recon positions on the street. The family came home and saw the men in their yard, then left. Just as they pulled away, the kidnappers opened fire on us. We had to return fire just to live.”
“I understand that, Mr. Blackwell, but why didn’t you call me before the fight started? In a case like the one you’re describing, I would have sent policemen.”
“We did call, before the fighting began. At least we called the police station. So you never got the word yourself?”
“No. These types of reports come up through my chain of command, but certainly news of a band of men like you’ve described should have reached my ears. I will have to investigate to see where the communication broke down. For now, I will send officers to the scene.”
“Okay. Do you want me to put on Kamaal so he can give you our exact address?”
“Yes. And Mr. Blackwell, please don’t touch the crime scene. My men will do that. I don’t want the evidence disturbed.”
“Understood,” replied Alton, handing the phone to the interpreter and walking over to join Mallory as she continued to search the bodies of the dead men.
“Poya says he doesn’t want us to disturb the crime scene.”
“Once he collects evidence, how much help can we count on from him in the kidnapping case?” said Mallory. “I think we should keep checking.”
“Agreed. I’ll check out the driveway.”
For the first time, Alton assessed the scene of the battle. The destruction and carnage wrought in the space of a few short minutes boggled the mind. Bullet holes pock-marked the house, fence, and driveway, while grenade blasts had sheared away the front and left side of the dumpster as if by a malevolent giant. The bodies of five thugs lay sprawled about the front yard and driveway, while the obliterated remnants of a sixth lay scattered in the vicinity of Alton’s second grenade.
They had won the battle, yet it had been a costly victory. David and Mallory were injured, and Hanif was dead. Alton remembered Mallory’s entreaty to make use of the battle and hurried to gather evidence before Poya’s policemen arrived.
He moved to the driveway and rifled through the dead man’s pockets, withdrawing an interesting assortment of items from within: a wallet, a ballpoint pen, and, most importantly, a cellphone. He slipped the items into his own pocket.
He rejoined Mallory. “Did you find anything?”
“Yeah, the guy next to the corner of the house had this.” She opened her fist to reveal a few common Afghani coins and, in their midst, a pendent bearing the same pattern they had observed on the victim’s bodies: a pentagram within a circle.
“Let’s hang onto that. You never know, right?” Alton showed her the items he had collected.
“A cellphone? That could be a goldmine.”
“That’s what I was thinking. I’m going to work on this as soon as we return to Kamaal’s house. But first, we need to visit Hanif’s wife. We owe it to her to explain what happened.”
An hour later, Alton and the rest met with Ara, Hanif’s widow. He described the course of events and the sacrifice her husband had made.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Hanif. He told me he quit his job as a policeman to avoid this kind of danger. When we saw the criminals, I directed him a safe assignment, but he saw that Mallory and I were in trouble and came to our aid. I don’t think we’d be alive right now if he hadn’t intervened.”
An initial flash of anger transformed into a look of heartsick resignation. Tears tracked down Ara’s face. “That sounds like my Nur. Being a policeman was the occupation he loved. He took the job with KE for me and our children, not for himself.”
“If I had known things would turn out like this, I never would have asked—”
“Mr. Blackwell,” said Ara, “If Nur did not want to be there, helping you, he wouldn’t have been. I am sad he is gone…so sad. But he has—he had—a strong belief in protecting the innocent from evil. That is why he agreed to help you in your investigation.”
“If there’s anything we can do, please let us know.”
“Alton, we’ll need to call a cab,” said Mallory. “We can’t all fit in Kamaal’s car.” They had left Hanif’s Mercedes parked outside.
“Would you like to use the car until you finish your investigation?” asked Ara. “I will have family with me for the next week or so to help with the…arrangements. I will not need it for a little while.”
“Thank you. That would help us a lot, Mrs. Hanif,” said Alton. “I can see why you and your husband were attracted to each other. You seem a lot alike.”
After a few more words of condolences, they departed, leaving behind a grieving widow and bewildered children. What had Mallory said? Make sure Hanif didn’t die in vain? Alton promised himself that wouldn’t happen.
When the group arrived back at Kamaal’s house, Mallory and Fahima helped David inside, where he eased himself onto a futon.
Kamaal placed a kettle of water on the stove to boil. “Would anyone like some green tea? It’s good for the nerves.”
“Dude, I’ve been shot,” called David. “You got any beer?”
“Technically, it was shrapnel from the grenade,” said Alton, “which reminds me…I’d like to take a look at it, if you don’t mind.”
“Fine,” grumbled his friend.
Alton peeled back the hastily-applied field dressing, then swabbed out the antibiotic gel he had squirted into the wound.
“Overall, it doesn’t look too bad, but I think you have a piece of metal in there. We need to take you to the ER to have it removed and get you stitched up.”
“I don’t really think—”
“David Dunlow,” said Fahima, “your friend gives you smart advice. I know a good hospital. They will take care of you.”
“Plus, we need to get you on an antibiotic so the wound doesn’t get infected,” added Alton. “Otherwise, you might spend a lot longer in Kabul than you planned.”
“Okay, fine. Let’s get this over with.”
“I will use Hanif’s car to take David,” said Fahima.
“Do you mind if I stay here to work on this cellphone we recovered on scene today?” asked Alton. “The clock is still ticking for Mastana.”
“No, is better if you keep working.”
David and Fahima left, and Alton turned his attention to the dead man’s cellphone. Luckily, the phone itself wasn’t locked. He checked for photographs, but the phone contained none. He brought up the list of phone contacts, which, as expected, were written in Pashto.
“Kamaal, can you help me with this?” Alton asked. “I’d like to record the names of the people listed.”
A puzzled look crossed the interpreter’s face as he scanned the list. “This is just gibberish. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“It must be in code, which probably means the phone numbers are encoded, too. Whatever organization this guy was a member of—the Brotherhood, or something else—they took their security seriously. Why else would they have a boatload of Russian rifles and armaments, encrypted contacts, and no photos on their phones?”
“True,” said Kamaal. “So is there anything you can do with this phone?”
“Yes. My next step is something I did back when I was in the Army: decrypting enemy messages. In fact, I’ll fire up my translation and decryption program now,” he said, booting up his laptop.
“Where’d you get the software?” asked Mallory. “You didn’t keep a copy from the Army, did you?”
“Naw. The Army software was good, but we’ve developed a better in-house version at Kruptos.”
Alton con
nected the phone to his computer and downloaded the information from its contacts list. The translation portion of the program converted the original letters to their English equivalents, then the decryption module searched for possible ciphers to the encoded words. As the job ran, Alton dialed the first four phone numbers on the contacts list.
Mallory wandered over, green tea in hand.
“Well, the phone numbers are encrypted, too,” said Alton. “They’re not real.”
“Can you decrypt them?”
“That’s challenging, because the only way I can test a decrypted phone number is to call it. Even if someone answers, it doesn’t prove it’s the right number, the one the dead guy intended to save. It only proves I called a functional number.”
“That sucks. What about the names on the phone?”
“There we might have more success. Let’s see what my program spits out.”
Mallory joined Kamaal in the kitchen to help him prepare a light afternoon meal.
As Alton watched the slow movement of the progress bar in his decryption program, his mind was drawn inexorably back to his role as a cryptologist in the Army.
“Captain Blackwell,” said a voice.
“Lieutenant Anders? Is that you?” Inexplicably, Alton found himself in his Army “mobcom”—mobile communications—van once again, the van in which he had nearly died when an IED had exploded inside it.
“Yes, sir. Can you give me a hand with the new signal scramblers?”
“But I thought you were…” Alton looked around, disconcerted.
“Alton!” said a female voice.
The mobcom van faded, and Kamaal’s kitchen snapped back into focus. Mallory stood over him with a distinctly worried look on her face. “What was that all about?”
Alton sighed. “Can you sit down for a minute?”
She lowered herself into a seat.
“I’ve been having these…flashbacks, I guess you’d call them, ever since we arrived back here in Kabul. One second I’m sitting here working on a phone, the next I’m back in the mobcom van.”
“Oh, Sweetie. Why didn’t you tell me?” She laid her hand on his.
“They only last a few seconds. I didn’t want you to be worried.”
“Anything that affects you like that—even if just for a few seconds—is going to worry me, as it should. What can I do to help?”
“I’m not sure. I wish I knew. One thing I don’t understand, though, is why now? I worked here for six months after the mobcom explosion and never had anything like this happen back then. Plus we’ve worked three dangerous cases together since then.”
Mallory pursed her lips. “I’m no psychologist, but perhaps it’s because once you left Afghanistan and the Army, you put this part of your life behind you. Maybe coming back, being here physically, has triggered those memories in a more profound way.”
“Mm…maybe you’re right. I do remember feeling a little overwhelmed as soon as I got off the plane. One thing I can think of that will help…getting the hell out of this country. But first, we find Mastana.”
“Yet another reason to find her as quickly as possible.”
The laptop beeped.
“Looks like the job finished,” said Alton. “Kamaal, can you come take a look at these results?”
“Sure.”
“The program lists the five most likely decryptions of each word. If none of them looks right, I’ll bring up the next five.”
“But these words are in English,” said Kamaal, peering at the screen.
“True, but they’re simply English renderings of Pashto words. Can you see if any of them look familiar?”
“Yes, I will do that.” He ran his finger down the computer screen as he reviewed each line of the program’s results. “The names on this fourth row are words in Pashto, but they are not the names of people.”
“Could they be nicknames or code names for real people?”
“I suppose, but why?”
“Same reason the phone numbers are encrypted—to protect the true identities of those involved in this organization.”
“I see. In that case, this is probably the correct row. All of the words listed are real.”
“But that still leaves us with a dilemma,” said Alton. “If these aren’t the people’s real names, we’re back to square one in tracking down Mastana’s kidnappers.”
CHAPTER 52
Divband drummed his fingers on the hard surface of his desk.
Ghoyee had reported in a few minutes ago. The man had made a shambles of the operation to destroy the house of his failed kidnapping. Six followers were dead with another critically injured. At least Ghoyee himself had made it through unscathed.
This was the work of the Americans, the ones looking for Mastana. They had proven to be more trouble than he had expected. He would have to look for an opportunity to remove them—permanently.
In the meantime, he had to decide how to proceed to correct Ghoyee’s failed mission. Should Divband assume that responsibility himself, or should he order Ghoyee to make a second attempt? Perhaps the latter option, which would at least give his right-hand man an opportunity to redeem himself.
With that settled, Divband mulled over the question of ridding himself of the Americans. He would have to devise a strategy to eliminate them before they disrupted any more of his plans. He wasn’t yet sure how he was going to pull that off, but he knew he had to do something. The foreigners had turned into a problem he could no longer ignore.
CHAPTER 53
David and Fahima returned from the hospital. Alton couldn’t help but notice that David’s face seemed more relaxed.
“So, did they get you all fixed up?” asked Mallory.
“You know, yeah, they did,” said David. “I’m glad you all talked me into going. The docs took out this one shard that was pretty uncomfortable. It wasn’t that big, but it kept digging into me at the wrong angle. Once they removed it and put in a few stiches, I felt a lot better. And I got some antibiotics.”
“It sounds like you’ve improved quite a bit.”
“Yep. I should probably lay off the marathons for a while, but otherwise I’m pretty good.”
“Cool. I’m glad you’re recovering,” said Alton. “We could use you.” He explained their lack of progress with the cellphone.
“We know we’re not going to throw in the towel,” said Mallory, “so what are our next steps?”
“Fahima, you haven’t had any success asking for information from your friends yet, have you?” asked Alton.
“No. They told me about a few Al-Qaeda attacks, but I am thinking that will not help us now.”
“I agree. What about the Brotherhood of Stones? Have you asked them about that?”
“No. I don’t think they would know anything about the Brotherhood, but I have another idea. I could ask my old friends at Gandamak’s Lodge. When I worked there, I heard a lot of rumors from the customers. Maybe the workers there will know something. Plus, if we go to Gandamak’s, I can also visit the bazaar down the street. If some of the workers I used to know are still there, I can ask them about the Brotherhood, too. They also hear a lot of things.”
“Excellent,” said Alton. “Since you won’t need all of us for that, I’m thinking we should divide and conquer. Why don’t the rest of us visit Jaweed Bina and see if he knows anything.”
“Jaweed Bina?” asked Mallory.
“Yeah. He’s the politician Captain Poya said his boss reports to, the governor of Kabul who ordered the police to focus their efforts on terrorism instead of civil crime. Since he’s so focused on terrorists, perhaps he’s heard of the Brotherhood.”
“Sounds like as good an idea as any,” said Mallory. “Why don’t we eat a quick bite and be on our way.”
“Okay,” said Alton. “And by the way…we all need to be sure to arm ourselves. We don’t want to be caught unprotected.”
Thirty minutes later, David and Fahima left in Hanif’s Mercedes, their somber sil
ence during the drive marking the memories of their fallen comrade.
They pulled into a gravel lot at the rear of Gandamak’s Lodge and stepped out of the car.
“This brings back some memories, doesn’t it?” asked David. “That’s the bush I hid in with Alton and Mallory the night those Al-Qaeda creeps abducted you.”
“And now we are together,” said Fahima, taking his hand. “It is a happy ending.”
“It sure is. Let’s go inside and see what your friends can tell us. Maybe they can help make it a happy ending for Mastana, too.”
They circled around to the front of the building, then entered the dim light of its depths. Not much had changed, except the air conditioning unit looked even more dilapidated than before, a transformation David wouldn’t have thought possible. A scattering of tables led to booths along the rear wall, and lazy ceiling fans rotated overhead.
At this early hour, only three other people occupied the restaurant and bar. Things didn’t start rocking here until late in the evening.
Fahima approached the smoke-stained oak bar. “Rafi!” she said, embracing her former co-worker as a friend would. The two spoke rapid Pashto in hushed tones for several minutes.
In the middle of their conversation, Fahima tensed.
“What is it?” asked David.
“Rafi says an Al-Qaeda man with a pistol tucked into his pants just entered the building, and another one is looking at us from outside.”
David turned as casually as he could and leaned his elbows back on the bar. A man wearing a tightly-wound turban peered through the front window’s dirty glass. He seemed to be staring at David and Fahima.
“How do you know they’re Al-Qaeda?”
“He and the man who entered both wear the black sash of Al-Qaeda,” said Fahima. “This is how they know one another.”
“Why would he care about us unless…maybe Dani gave his terrorists friends a heads up and they’ve been on the lookout for us. Do you think they recognized Hanif’s car out back?”
The Devil's Due (The Blackwell Files Book 5) Page 17