Alton turned to his companions. “That sounds a hell of a lot like the kidnappers we’re facing now, doesn’t it?”
“Absolutely,” said Mallory. “The Brotherhood must be some modern incarnation of this ancient cult.”
“I can see the appeal two thousand years ago,” said Alton, turning back to the professor, “but how would anyone buy into that crap today?”
Professor Aziz looked thoughtful. “When Islam began to spread throughout this region in the seventh century, many elements of pre-Islamic beliefs integrated with the new religion, creating a unique belief system in Afghanistan. This belief system has perpetuated until this day. In many ways, the native Afghani manifestation of Islam is closer to the beliefs of the Cult of Stones than it is to the imported Islam of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Many of my countrymen resent the unnatural Islamic beliefs of these terrorist groups and would welcome a return to the traditional ways.”
“I get that, but resurrecting the practice of human sacrifice seems pretty extreme,” said Alton.
“Yes, but after years of oppression and helplessness, I think some people, perhaps many people, would accept that as the price of reinstating our core beliefs.”
Alton pulled from his pocket a pendant depicting a pentagram inside a circle, the one he had acquired from a dead assailant the previous morning. He handed it to Professor Aziz. “Is this symbol associated with the Cult of Stones?”
“Yes, exactly. And several other groups that came after them, too.”
“One thing I don’t understand,” said Mallory. “Modern satanic groups around the world use this symbol today. How is it that this group used the same symbol so long ago?”
“Remember,” said the professor, “this part of the world is the cradle for three of civilization’s major religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It is also the birthplace of a number of other belief systems, including the worship of Iblis, or Satan. This symbol, the pentagram inside a circle, originated with Satan worship in these parts over two millennia ago and has been used ever since.”
“I see,” said Alton. “Is there anything else can you tell us about this cult?”
Aziz studied the ceiling, deep in thought. “Most cult members were assigned a nickname as part of their transition into the organization. This served as a way of separating the member from their old life and establishing a new identity within the cult.”
David snorted. “Sounds like boot camp.”
“By any chance,” said Alton, “could this be one of those nicknames?” He used his cellphone to show Aziz a photo of a symbol: ثور.
“Why, yes. This is ‘Ghoyee,’ meaning ‘bull’ in Pashto. Was this assigned to a large man?”
“You have no idea. This was Sergeant Majid’s nickname. That guy was huge.”
“It makes sense,” asked Fahima, “but how do you know this is Majid?”
“Remember how I took the phone off the guy who died outside the girl’s house yesterday morning? Well, I saw this symbol in its contacts list. Then, when I saw the personal-effects photos of Majid’s stuff online, I noticed he had the same symbol etched onto his cellphone case.” Alton turned to Aziz. “Professor, you said people stopped excavating the ancient Bagram site in the sixties. So no one is there now?”
“I don’t think so. I haven’t heard of any excavation work there for years.”
“And Professor Aziz would know,” added Kamaal.
“I think we should check out that site,” said Alton. “Maybe it’s been reoccupied recently.” The others nodded. “Care to come with us, Professor?”
“You make me wish I were young again. It sounds exciting, but I’m too old and fragile for that kind of adventure. My bad back could not withstand the roads leading over the foothills. And I don’t know the front end of a gun from the back.”
“We’ll miss your expertise, but I certainly understand. Since you can’t accompany us, do you have any maps of the area?”
“Yes, I do—maps of the roads leading there and of the ancient city itself.” Aziz scurried to a grey, metal filing cabinet and withdrew a folder overflowing with yellowed papers. Laying the folder on his desk, he flipped through its contents, eventually picking out two pages. “This is a map of the road leading to the ancient city. The modern Bagram is here on the right, the ancient city is on the left. This next sheet shows the organization of the compound itself. This outer perimeter is composed of a series of guard posts—small, stone buildings. Inside the guard posts lies the inner perimeter, really nothing more than a dirt path encircling the edge of the temple complex.”
Alton studied the documents. “Is this large room where they would meet for their ceremonies?” he asked, pointing to a spacious chamber pictured in the compound’s centermost building.
“Yes—and perform sacrifices.”
“Does the compound contains prison cells?”
“Yes. That was a standard feature of temples at that time. The cells are located here, on the southeastern side,” said the professor, pointing to a rectangular structure on the map. “The entrance is aboveground, but the cell block itself lies partially underground.”
Alton committed the building’s location to memory. If Mastana were being held at the compound, chances were she occupied one of those cells. “Thanks, Professor Aziz. I can’t tell you how helpful your expertise has been…and these maps, too.”
“I can make copies, if you like.”
“That would be perfect,” said Alton. “Next stop, the temple of ancient Bagram.”
CHAPTER 61
Mastana’s eyes opened only with difficulty. Was that distant noise real or a product of her recurrent nightmares?
Any unnecessary movement now required too great an expenditure of precious energy, so she remained motionless on the floor. The sparse rations provided during her first round of captivity had tapered off to almost nothing, rendering her weak in the extreme from lack of nourishment.
She longed to speak with Sita, yet every attempt to reestablish contact with her neighbor had failed. Had Sita been taken away while Mastana slept? She prayed this was not the case.
When was the last time she had heard a friendly voice, or taken a sip of water or had a bite to eat? Hours? Days? If they needed her for some grand purpose, why did they allow her to decline so? What purpose could she serve if she perished?
CHAPTER 62
Alton and the others returned to their quarters at the inn to regroup.
“Our first order of business should be acquiring new vehicles,” said Alton. “Al-Qaeda probably tracked down David and Fahima yesterday by spotting Hanif’s Merc, and it’s a pretty safe bet the police are looking for our cars, too. Plus, Professor Aziz said the roads over the foothills around Bagram are pretty rough. Jeeps or SUVs would be more suitable for that kind of terrain.”
“So what’s the best way to get some off-road vehicles?” asked Mallory.
“There is a place near the airport,” said Kamaal. “But I am a little worried. Even if I pay in cash, I will still have to give my name. If the police have my identity, they will know what types of rental cars to look for.”
“Why don’t I ask my friend Rafi to rent the cars for us?” said Fahima. “The police aren’t looking for him.”
“That would be better,” said Mallory. “Can you call him up now?”
“Yes.”
“While Fahima is taking care of that,” said Alton, “I have another question. Kamaal mentioned that the police are looking for us, but only because they’re suspicious of the circumstances surrounding Majid’s death. I think they’d still want to bust the kidnapping ring if they had sufficient evidence. So here’s my question: should we tell Captain Poya what we’ve discovered? That the Brotherhood of Stones is very likely operating in the ancient Bagram site?”
Mallory tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Part of me wants to say yes, for the reasons you just described. But on the other hand, once Poya knows, what if he tells the wrong person?”
“Possibly, or someone else who turns out to be a cult follower.”
Alton nodded. “I agree. Right now, we don’t know who to trust, so we keep this to ourselves. Plus, once the police know the location of the Brotherhood of Stones, any hope of us mounting our own rescue operation would be out the window. The police would wait for us at Bagram.”
“Speaking of a rescue operation,” said Mallory, “we need to make sure we’re ready, starting with the route to the site.”
“Yeah, good idea.” Alton pulled out the maps Professor Aziz had provided. He also downloaded contour maps of modern Bagram and the surrounding countryside. The group set about studying the assembled materials.
After fifteen minutes, Alton sat back and tried to stretch some of the discomfort from his damaged leg. “Man, Professor Aziz wasn’t kidding about the terrain. It’s rugged, all right.”
“Fahima, what kind of vehicles was Rafi able to line up?” asked David.
“Two Jeep Grand Cherokees.”
“Good—plenty of room. And better for the kinds of roads we’ll be on. Do we need to go pick them up?”
“No. He and his sister will bring them here.”
“Okay, good.” David turned to Alton and Mallory. “Let’s put the local jackets back on. They may not make much difference, but we might as well try to blend in as much as possible.”
An hour later, the friends busied themselves packing their cache of weapons and other combat gear into the cargo spaces of the rugged Jeeps. Once complete, they covered the ordinance with green, canvas tarps to render it less alarming to outside observers. To appear as inconspicuous as possible, the two Afghanis, Kamaal and Fahima, drove the vehicles.
They swung by a market to stock up on food supplies, then turned onto the A76 highway leading north out of Kabul. As the traffic thinned, they sped up the winding mountainous road to Bagram, praying they would arrive in time to save their young friend.
CHAPTER 63
At the thirty kilometer mark, Alton could see the traffic ahead beginning to slow. In seconds, all vehicles came to a stop, and the Jeeps became part of a line of cars snaking along the highway.
From the rear vehicle, David called Alton’s cellphone. “What’s up?”
“It looks like a police roadblock,” replied Alton, who occupied the rear seat of the lead vehicle. “Everyone except Kamaal and Fahima should take cover underneath the tarps. If this stoppage has anything to do with us, we don’t want to give them a reason to become suspicious.”
Kamaal called Fahima on his cellphone. “In case the policemen ask me any questions, it would be good for you to listen to my conversation when I go through the roadblock. I will leave my microphone on. Turn on your headset and leave it in your ear until I am through the roadblock.”
Alton and Mallory folded down the rear seat, squirmed their way into the little remaining space in the cargo area, and then pulled the seat back to its upright position. They were forced to assume awkward angles just to fit into the cramped space. Once positioned, they smoothed the tarp over their heads as flat as possible.
“I liked the bungalow in Bora Bora better,” said Mallory.
“Oh, I don’t know,” replied Alton. “You can’t beat this for intimacy.”
“Quiet,” hissed Kamaal. “We are almost at the checkpoint. Do not talk again until I tell you.”
“Have your Beretta ready,” Alton whispered to Mallory. “If they look under here and see us with a bunch of weapons, they might fire first and ask questions later.”
As Mallory pulled the handgun to her side, Alton stilled himself in the darkness under the tarp.
Without warning, Alton’s world mutated into another cramped space at a different time. He was inside the component-access crawlspace of his Army mobcom van, just after the IED had detonated. His left leg felt numb. “Sergeant Dawson! Report! Are you all right?”
Pressure on his forearm brought Alton back to the present. Mallory squeezed his limb, the full saucers of her eyes acting as mute enjoinders for him to remain silent.
He gave her an “I’m back” nod, and she caressed his cheek, leaving her hand there. Did she suspect the physical sensation would keep Alton grounded in the present? If so, her supposition seemed pretty close to the truth.
Kamaal pulled the Jeep several feet forward and came to a stop. A guttural voice asked a series of rapid-fire questions, which Kamaal answered in a placid voice. Alton had to hand it to Kamaal. For a man whose day job involved translating conversations and the written word, he seemed to handle himself in dangerous situations with aplomb. The interpreter’s inflection gave every indication of a traveler annoyed with the delay.
The conversation stopped. Had something gone wrong? Had some oversight on their part raised the policeman’s suspicions? Alton scarcely breathed.
The Jeep moved forward with a lurch, and Alton dared to fill his lungs to capacity. His eyes met Mallory’s and found the same relief there.
They drove for a few more seconds, picking up speed, before Kamaal spoke. “Wait another minute or two, then you can come out.”
The couple did as instructed. After emerging from the cargo space and helping Mallory do the same, Alton looked behind their vehicle and saw Fahima’s Jeep just discernable in the distance. Mercifully, it too had passed the roadblock.
Alton leaned forward to Kamaal. “Everything go okay back there?”
“Yes. The policeman asked me if I had seen any vehicles carrying Americans. He also asked if I had noticed an older, grey Mercedes Benz, one just like Hanif’s, on the road today. Of course, I told him no. Fahima just radioed me. They asked her the same questions.”
Alton turned to his wife. “I guess the roadblock was Bina’s doing.”
“Or Poya’s.”
“Maybe, but I doubt it. Presumably, the police have these checkpoints on all roads leading out of Kabul. I have a hard time imagining Poya committing the kind of resources needed to do that for just for one dead man, even a dead cop—not after everything he’s told us about how limited his resources are for non-terrorist crimes.”
“True.”
“We know one thing. It couldn’t have been Al-Qaeda.”
“Unless they disguised themselves as policemen. They’ve been known to do that before as an infiltration tactic.”
“Well, whoever was behind the checkpoint, we slipped through. I’m glad we ditched the cars, or it might not have gone so well.”
The pair of Jeeps sped straight up the highway toward the ancient city of Bagram. After another ten minutes, they turned left onto a narrow, two-lane road. The road’s surface changed to dirt just as it led to the base of a foothill covered with stone pine and larch, along with a scattering of olive trees. Constant mountain winds blew tendrils of dust across the road. If any vehicles had traveled this way, their tracks would have been obscured within minutes.
As they plowed up the incline, the road’s initial potholes widened into great chasms spanning much of its width. Kamaal did his best to maneuver around the holes, but Alton nonetheless felt like the subject of an insidious physics experiment run amuck as his skeleton rattled within his body. They crested the foothill and began a winding trek down the other side.
“Okay, we should be getting close to Bagram,” said Alton, leaning closer to Kamaal while shading his eyes from the late-day sun. “Take it slow. If the site is occupied, we’ll need to stop far enough away so the sound of our vehicles doesn’t reveal our presence.”
They reached the halfway point down the slope. Kamaal pulled under a dense grove of pine trees, and Fahima pulled up next to him. A clump of wild gooseberry bushes underneath the conifers provided a measure of concealment for the Jeeps. To enhance the camouflage, Alton and the rest of the team used the tarps to cover the Bagram-facing front of the vehicles.
Alton, David, and Mallory pulled out binoculars. Walking around the bushes to the unobstructed road, they scanned the compound. A scattering of
cars and SUVs joined a couple of ramshackle buses in a dusty field on the eastern side of the temple.
“It looks pretty active for a site that’s supposedly been deserted the last fifty years,” said Mallory.
“Yeah, no kidding,” said Alton. “Something tells me Mastana is down there somewhere.”
“I agree,” said David. “We need to talk with the others about our next steps, especially who goes down there and who waits up here.”
“Yep. Let’s finish the recon first,” said Alton, panning his binoculars from left to right. “There are major guard shacks at the twelve, three, six, and nine o’clock positions, and I see smaller huts between them. I can see guards in two of the huts, so presumably they’re all manned. Getting in there won’t be easy.”
“What’s that in the window of the one at six o’clock?” asked Mallory.
Alton studied the hut through his field glasses. “It looks like a machine-gun barrel. Great, so the site may be ancient, but the defenses aren’t. Let’s hope they don’t have motion detectors or Claymore mines, or we’ll be up the creek.”
The three former soldiers returned to the others.
“I think it’s safe to assume that the folks down there are members of the Brotherhood of Stones, right?” asked Alton.
“Yes, I think so,” said Mallory as several others nodded.
“Okay, that means there’s a pretty good chance Mastana’s down there, if they haven’t already…you know.” Alton couldn’t bring himself to say the words, not after coming this far to save her.
“We need to devise a rescue strategy,” he continued. “We don’t know exactly how many Brotherhood members are down there, but based on the number of vehicles, I’d guess at least ninety or a hundred—maybe double that if they carpooled. So, we can’t make a direct, frontal attack. That would be a suicide mission. We’ll have to try to infiltrate the compound with stealth. Agreed?”
The Devil's Due (The Blackwell Files Book 5) Page 20