The Greatest Game

by J A Heaton

  “That could help us cut off our man’s money in the long term,” Daniel said to Rex. “Better yet, it will give us a lead to get us closer to the man.”

  “There is a chance he could be smuggling the weapon out,” Rex said.

  “If he already has it, we can’t risk that,” Daniel agreed. Daniel asked the prisoner, “We’re supposed to find a tree with two rocks next to it somewhere in the wasteland north of Kholm?” Daniel waited for the translator to finish before continuing, “It is not as though we can just sit there all week and wait for them.”

  “The next run should be tonight. Every Sunday and Friday at midnight. Sunday to start the week, and Friday, the night after Friday prayers.” The prisoner spoke quietly. “Midnight. Tonight, at the Gate. It is not the season to smuggle heroin, but he smuggles young women out. You can verify the information, and then we can talk more and get me my green card.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Daniel asked, narrowing his eyes. Daniel feared that perhaps they were going to be lured into an ambush. “How did you know we were interested in information?”

  “I know the man you already talked to,” the prisoner said. “And this is my chance to get back at him and his brother. And I have no other way. I already told you that I have no family. When I had a family, we had nothing. I refused to grow poppies for others to sell. But I couldn’t grow enough food for us. One day, a man came and said that he could sneak my daughter out of the country so that she could go to Dubai, or India, and earn money to send back to us. At the very least, my daughter would not starve. So my daughter went with him and his brother, but I never heard from my daughter again. I waited for months. It could have been slow and taken a while, but she should have been able to get word back to us. When I pressed, trying to find out what really happened to my daughter, they promised to help me. Something horrible must have happened. They offered to help me if I would help them a little bit, and before long, they made me do bad things I didn’t fully understand. A package I delivered. I now know it was heroin, but I did not know it then. Once they got me to do one small illegal thing, they blackmailed me and made me do more. After my wife died, it was only me, and I was helping them, telling myself that I would take the first chance to get out of this country and find a way to get my daughter.”

  “And so, you are hoping that we are your chance for you to get out of this country?” Daniel said.

  The prisoner nodded.

  Daniel wondered if that was the only soft spot left in the man’s heart, forcibly hardened by a life of smuggling heroin and women. Daniel sensed that he was not setting a trap, but he was instead a man who had been trapped in Afghanistan.

  “Tonight then,” Daniel told the man. “Today is Sunday, so we’ll find the Gate before midnight. If we find smugglers, we’ll move you to a better prison. Perhaps at the US base where the food is better, and you are safer.”

  “The man you hunt is named Qaqramon,” the prisoner said. “Everybody will know who that is.”

  Roughly translated, Qaqramon means courageous hero, Daniel thought to himself.

  As Daniel and Rex rode back to the base, Daniel radioed General Jones to inform him they would need aerial reconnaissance done on the area north of Kholm plus assistance from Northern Alliance troops.

  “And let’s leave Aziz alone, sweating things out for a while,” Rex said.

  Daniel felt that this was a long shot to get any contact with Qaqramon, who may or may not have the nuke, but it was the only lead he had until meeting with Rex’s source the next day. Daniel hoped that would soon change.

  “If this man, Qaqramon is at the Gate tonight,” General Jones told Daniel and Rex at the base, “then you take him out.”

  Both Daniel and Rex nodded with understanding.

  “We can’t have ANA soldiers at the Gate,” Daniel said. “The smugglers won’t show up if they sense anything fishy.”

  “And I only want Daniel visible,” Jones continued. “Rex, you will hide behind the boulder or in the tree.”

  “Daniel doesn’t exactly strike me as street-smart,” Rex argued, insisting he should stand with Daniel instead of hiding in reserve.

  “If they pull up and see a tough guy like you who is obviously trained to kill people like them, they aren’t going to talk,” Jones pointed out. “They would either abort the meeting or shoot at you.”

  “But an egghead like Daniel isn’t threatening enough for them to call the job off?” Rex asked with some humor.

  “Something like that,” Jones replied. “Also, if Qaqramon is not there, your only job is to confirm the informant’s information.”

  Daniel and Rex nodded again, but General Jones stared them down to make sure they understood.

  “Make sure Daniel has a gun,” Jones said, and then he dismissed them.

  After a few hours of rest to fight off jet lag, Daniel and Rex were waiting at the Gate at ten p.m. Aerial reconnaissance had located it earlier in the day. Rex hid in the tree as Daniel waited in plain sight, ready to do the talking. Rex held his rifle and night vision equipment, and Daniel had a pistol from the armory stuffed in the back of his waistband. Just in case. Both had earpieces connected to radios back to General Jones.

  “This tree is not very big, it’s uncomfortable, and so I hope to God these dirty drug runners show up at 12 o’clock sharp tonight,” Rex said over the radio.

  “Me too,” Daniel said as he peered south into the cold night.

  “Any word on air support?” Rex asked General Jones over the radio. “And the ANA backup?”

  “Come midnight, there will be a bomber out of K2 flying overhead that will be able to acquire and eliminate the target,” was Jones’ simple reply. “The ANA have one jeep with four soldiers and a machine gun waiting about one kilometer west of you if you need them.”

  “Let’s hope to God it doesn’t come to that,” Daniel said.

  “But damn, I hate waiting, doc,” Rex said. “It’s the worst part of war.”

  “Since we’ve got about two hours to wait,” Daniel joked over the radio, “then let me remind you that I am not a doctor yet.”

  “I know. The general told me.”

  Daniel was surprised General Jones had dug so much into his background. The next two hours were filled with Daniel and Rex exchanging their life stories on a surface level. Daniel quickly sensed Rex wasn’t interested in talking about his previous experiences in Afghanistan.

  After the two hours dragged by, General Jones came on over the radio. “The ANA soldiers report two approaching vehicles from the south.”

  “I see them,” Daniel said, peering through his binoculars. “Two vehicles definitely approaching. One is coming from the south, and the other from the southeast. Both headed our way.”

  Daniel checked with Jones about the air support.

  “Bomber is in position awaiting orders,” Jones replied. “I’ll put them through to your radio.”

  “At least the prisoner’s story checks out,” Rex said. “Now let’s see if Qaqramon is with them, carrying some special cargo.”

  The cars did not have their headlights on, and they slowed as they pulled up beside each other and approached the Gate.

  “If I see Qaqramon, I’m blowing him away,” Rex said over the radio. Daniel knew Rex had his weapon trained on the cars as they pulled up. Daniel recognized the cars immediately. They were Daewoo Nexias, simple, four-door sedans, probably from the factory in Uzbekistan. The reliable car smugglers could count on.

  Daniel took a deep breath and rehearsed what he was going to say.

  When the cars stopped, each driver threw his door open and pointed a pistol at Daniel as they took cover behind their open door. A passenger from the car on the left did the same.

  The driver on the right yelled at Daniel, and he best translated his yell as, “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Daniel held his hands at his side with palms facing the armed men to show he wasn’t a threat.

  “Peace be upon
you,” Daniel said, the universal greeting of the region.

  “Are you American?” the same driver yelled.

  “Yes, but I want your help to find somebody,” Daniel replied calmly. “I don’t want to bother you.” He took a deep breath. The driver said something to a man in his backseat who got out and began unloading the trunk of his car. Daniel couldn’t tell what the men looked like.

  Rex was the next to speak over the radio. He whispered, “My night vision is telling me Qaqramon is not here. One man is moving small packages to the other car. Probably drugs. I repeat: Qaqramon is not here.”

  “Why should I help you?” the driver demanded.

  “It would be so profitable, you would never need to smuggle again,” Daniel promised.

  “Killing Americans is profitable, too,” the driver said with a grin.

  “My presence is the only thing preventing the American airplane in the sky from destroying you,” Daniel warned with a glance upward. “We can help each other.”

  “What do you want?” the driver demanded.

  “Tell me where I can find the man named Qaqramon,” Daniel said.

  The driver paused, and Daniel noticed the other driver’s head turn slightly towards the first driver.

  “There are many such men.”

  “You know the one I’m talking about,” Daniel said.

  “Then you know there is no way I could tell you where he is,” the driver responded. “Even if I wanted to. He’s too smart. And you don’t know what he does to traitors.”

  “Like I said, it would be very profitable for you,” Daniel said.

  “I think not,” the driver responded. He turned to the man loading the packages into the other car and asked, “Ready?”

  The man held up one finger.

  “Qaqramon’s not with them, and he’s not giving us more intel,” Rex whispered over the radio. “We need to cut him loose and bomb him once he’s away.”

  Daniel was about to agree when he saw something that made him sick.

  The man was done moving packages, and he was now moving two young girls out of the car. Daniel guessed they were, at the oldest, ten years old.

  “Give the girls to me, and it will be worth it to you,” Daniel yelled.

  “The reason I’m so good at my business,” the driver responded, “is that I deliver the cargo, keep my word, and I don’t complicate things for men like Qaqramon.”

  One of the girls gave Daniel a final, pleading look before she was shoved into the back seat. The second girl was soon to follow, and she sensed something was wrong. She fought back until a blow to her head stopped her resistance.

  “I want to kill him, but we have to let them go,” Rex warned over the radio.

  Daniel clenched his jaw.

  “If we blow this now, we’ll risk spooking Qaqramon,” Rex warned. “The informant’s information is confirmed, and Qaqramon is not here.”

  Daniel expected an order from General Jones over the radio, but none came.

  All Daniel could think was that these girls looked like what Nigora must have looked like when she was their age. Daniel couldn’t let it happen.

  “I’ll take out the one on the right, you take the left,” Daniel said quietly over the radio.

  Before Rex could respond, Daniel pulled the pistol and fired at the driver on the right.

  He missed, and the driver took cover behind the car.

  Rex’s shot found its mark, dropping the other driver to the ground. The other man on the left got back into his car.

  The man who had moved the packages also took cover and returned fire as Daniel ran behind the large tree.

  The man in the car on the left got behind the wheel and threw the car into gear. He turned the car wildly and began to drive away.

  Daniel reached around the tree and fired, careful not to fire near the remaining girl.

  Rex needed only one more shot to kill the driver on the right. He fell to the ground.

  Daniel peeked around the tree to see the man who had moved the packages grab the lone girl and use her as a shield.

  “I’ll kill her!” the man yelled at Daniel.

  The man fired wildly into the tree, hoping to hit Rex.

  His misses were costly.

  Rex didn’t hesitate. He squeezed off another round that went through the man’s head, only splattering a little blood on the young girl. The man crumpled to the ground behind the girl.

  The girl stood, yelling with the dead man at her feet.

  “My sister! My sister!” she yelled at the car driving away. It had turned north.

  Daniel ran to the first car to go after the smuggler. He turned the key, which was still in the ignition, but the car wouldn’t start.

  Daniel slammed his hands on the steering wheel.

  “I shot the damn car, and it won’t start,” Daniel yelled to Rex as Rex hopped down out of the tree.

  “Give a sitrep,” General Jones demanded over the radio. “Bomber is in position to eliminate the car heading north.”

  “We’re fine,” Daniel said over the radio. “Wave off the bomber. There’s a civilian with the smuggler. A young girl. We’ll be bringing in her sister. Hopefully, we can find her parents.”

  “I wonder if her parents already gave her up once,” Rex said to Daniel. “She’s a war orphan. One of the thousands, I fear.”

  “Bomber is waived off,” General Jones said.

  “At least we know we can trust our prisoner informant,” Daniel said as he looked hopefully to Rex.

  Rex didn’t say anything at first. He exhaled deeply as he watched the young girl stand frozen in shock. “This is the worst part of war. Don’t hate me for saying this,” Rex said, “but I wonder if it would be better for the girl in that car if she were killed by a bomb right now instead of being sold into years of sexual slavery. She wouldn’t have felt a thing.”

  Daniel was too numb to respond.

  “The ANA soldiers will pick you up, and you can spend the night with them in Kholm,” Jones said over the radio. “But I do have some bad news.”

  Daniel braced himself for a scolding. Daniel had not followed the plan.

  “What is it?” Daniel asked.

  “The prison in Mazar-i-Sharif came under attack,” Jones said over the radio. “They busted Qaqramon’s brother, Aziz, out of prison and got away. And they killed the informant.”

  “Anybody else?” Daniel asked.

  “They only killed the informant, and they broke out Aziz,” General Jones said, repeating the information.

  Daniel and Rex sat silently with the shocked girl in darkness until the ANA soldiers picked them up.

  They rode silently back to Kholm where they were supposed to sleep.

  9

  Rex slept soundly in his bunk at Kholm with the ANA soldiers snoring in their bunks nearby. Daniel hardly slept, and then he was wide-awake at five in the morning. The memory of the young girl abandoned at the Gate haunted him. She was terrified, separated from her parents and then her sister. She didn’t comprehend what her sister had in her future, and that she was better off staying in Afghanistan. As an only child, Daniel couldn’t imagine such a thing happening within his own family.

  As the sun rose, Daniel realized he didn’t care so much about the nuke anymore. The nuke was a theoretical threat. The girl had been real. And crying. Daniel wanted Qaqramon, and he wanted to stop what he was doing to people like the young girl at the Gate. And if it was true that Qaqramon had married Nigora and was abusing her… He tried not to think about it.

  When Rex and the ANA men rose from their sleep, they started the two-hour drive back to the base at Mazar-i-Sharif.

  “We’ve got that meeting later today with my source,” Rex reminded Daniel on the way back.

  Daniel grunted a response, still discouraged by what had happened the night before.

  The rest of the journey passed in silence.

  General Jones stood outside his tent, waiting for Daniel and Rex to return.r />
  When Daniel and Rex got out of the jeep transporting them, Daniel couldn’t read anything from Jones’ icy glare.

  Daniel was about to apologize when Jones motioned for them to go with him to their tent and said, “Coffee’s hot.”

  Daniel and Rex followed General Jones into the tent, and he began debriefing them as he handed coffee to the two weary men.

  “Like I told you guys last night,” Jones said, “there was an attack on the ANA prison, and they broke out Aziz and killed our informant. The really bad news is that it appears to be an inside job. Two of the prison guards didn’t report for duty today. One of them was the translator you used with the informant.”

  Daniel cursed.

  “It’s not unusual,” Rex said to Daniel.

  “And about what happened last night at the Gate,” Jones began.

  “I know, I shouldn’t have initiated a gunfight,” Daniel cut in. “But the little girl in the car looked at me. I couldn’t do nothing. I’ll accept whatever discipline you think is right.”

  General Jones paused before continuing.

  “You were outmanned—do I have to remind you that you’re an analyst? —and you didn’t stick to the plan. Qaqramon wasn’t there. You had confirmed the informant’s information. You should have left without incident.”

  Daniel avoided eye contact with General Jones as he received the censure.

  “But my report to Officer Carter will indicate that the driver shot first,” Jones said. “You managed to save one of the girls.”

  Daniel gave Jones a puzzled look.

  “I have a daughter back home,” Jones continued. “I would have wanted you to fight like hell if that had been my girl. After all, we don’t know for sure if there is a nuke out there.”

  Daniel looked at General Jones and saw a professional soldier who wasn’t willing to give up his humanity to a war. All Daniel could do was nod in agreement.

  “In war, I’ve stared into the pit of hell,” General Jones continued. “We have to live with the choices we make in war. Or, don’t make. Despite not following the plan, you will be able to live with the choice you made last night. The time may come, though, when you will have to make a choice, and you won’t be able to live with it, no matter what you choose.”