by J A Heaton
Daniel nodded dumbly, knowing General Jones spoke the truth. “Thanks, sir.”
Daniel sat down at a chair that seemed to be out of the way, and soon another man in uniform entered to give the explosion report to the general.
There were no known service personnel casualties, but a lot of civilians. It was a car bomb, possibly made from Soviet mines, artillery shells, and anything else they could get their hands on. Since it was not near the base, they guessed that the bomb might have been an accident. Perhaps it was intended for later use. Or it was intended for rivals.
“I have a hard time believing it would be used amongst rivals,” General Jones said. “You would think they’d be able to keep the peace between themselves, unified against a US base in the same city. Maybe it was an accident. I hope it killed the bomb maker.”
“Not that any of us ever wanted to go shopping there again anyway,” the reporting officer joked.
“Shopping?” Daniel asked.
“The bomb went off some distance from here, at the bazaar,” the man replied.
Daniel thought for a few seconds.
“That bazaar hosted a meetup point with Rex’s Taliban source,” Daniel said. “That’s why the bomb went off there. It was no accident. It was intended for our source. But she waved off our meeting this morning and left.”
“But if you had met up with the source this morning,” General Jones said, “then that bomb would’ve killed you and the source.”
Daniel cursed and shut his eyes, then shook his head in disbelief. He had already dodged death three times since he had arrived in Mazar-i-Sharif less than two days ago.
“Not even I knew the meetup location was at the bazaar,” Jones said. “Unless it was a coincidence, how did the Taliban know?”
“I don’t know, but there is some good news,” Daniel said. “Rex said there was video surveillance of the area because it was a meetup spot with a source. If the video survived the bomb blast, hopefully we can see who parked the car bomb at the bazaar.”
Daniel followed General Jones into the communications tent.
“The doc is telling me that the place the car bomb went off was near a CIA meetup spot,” Jones said to a man sitting behind a monitor. “We need access to the footage, if it survived, from before the car bomb was detonated.”
The officer peered through his glasses at Jones and asked, “So the doc is cleared for this?”
“The doc is cleared all the way from the top and could launch a thermonuclear weapon if he wanted to,” General Jones joked, deadpan. “Never mind that I didn’t know about this meetup spot until a minute ago. So, let’s get on it, Radar. See if you can get the footage.”
The communications officer began tapping away at his computer. It was a few minutes before he paused to explain.
“Because the CIA is so anal, we do keep digital recordings for extended amounts of time that are backed up, in addition to what is actually stored on the camera itself,” Radar began to explain.
“Is there footage or not?” the general asked tersely.
“Here it is this morning,” Radar said, motioning for the others to come around to look at his screen.
Daniel stooped slightly and looked over his shoulder. He could not see the hotel that he and Rex were watching from, but he did see the front of the butcher shop and the same cars that were parked on the road along which people were trying to sell food or trinkets.
“Let’s move ahead so we can find out exactly which car it was,” Radar said.
After clicking through the footage for several seconds, they saw the screen go white for a moment from the explosion.
“That was some bomb,” General Jones commented under his breath.
After backtracking to just before the explosion, Radar identified a small, white car that had been the car bomb.
“There are tons of those cars on the street,” Jones said. “It’s not as though we can trace that car to anybody or anything specific.”
Daniel knew General Jones was right. He had seen countless cars exactly like that during his time in Central Asia. And yet, the car did have a few distinguishing marks about it. The angle did not allow for a good view of the license plate, but Daniel noticed that the windows were tinted. Or, more accurately, they had been tinted and needed to be re-tinted. Although most Afghans would love to have their car windows tinted due to the strong sun, it was often not economically viable.
But that still did not narrow it down much for Daniel.
“I’m guessing there are no accurate records maintained for motor vehicles. Like, who owned that car, or when it entered Mazar-i-Sharif?” Daniel asked.
“If you think the DMV in America is a pain…” Radar started.
“There are no accurate records like that,” Jones said. “The chaos of the Taliban taking over and getting kicked out rendered even the mighty vehicular bureaucracy ineffective.” Jones said it with sarcasm that Daniel was starting to like.
“The DMV is horrible even in the best of circumstances,” Radar said.
“Does the footage go back far enough to show who parked the car there?” Daniel asked.
Radar scrolled back through the footage, but when he reached the beginning, the white car was still there.
“The car was parked there more than twenty-four hours ago, so we don’t have footage of it being parked, sadly,” Radar reported.
“Still,” Daniel said, “I have an idea. Can we find who was on duty at the checkpoint when we took Aziz into custody?”
“What are you thinking?” General Jones asked.
“Well—” Daniel started.
“You think Qaqramon is responsible for this car bomb, and it was driven in when we captured Aziz?”
“Exactly,” Daniel said.
“I think you might be right,” General Jones said solemnly. “That car bomb was no firework put together by an amateur. Somebody like Qaqramon with professional resources was responsible for that.”
11
“Yeah?” the soldier said. Daniel guessed he was unhappy to be interrupted while he was not on duty. His arms were crossed in front of his chest. His performance wrap-around sunglasses rested on top of his head.
“What happened after you arrested the man?” Daniel asked. He and General Jones were questioning one of the men who were on duty when Aziz was arrested while dressed as a woman in the backseat of a car.
“There were more cars than usual, I felt,” the man said. “But it was nothing we couldn’t handle. I can’t explain why I suspected there was a bad guy in the backseat. I had a hunch, I guess.” The man paused and looked about suspiciously. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I did it all by the book.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong at all,” Daniel reassured him. “You were doing your job, and catching a terrorist is never a bad thing. But I need you to think hard about the other cars around that time.”
“Like I said, there were a bunch of cars backed up, and a lot of the drivers were honking their horns, leaning out of the cars and yelling at us. You would think they would respect the guys with guns.”
“You would think, wouldn’t you?” Jones joked, putting the soldier at ease.
“Did you notice anything weird about any of the cars?” Daniel asked.
“You mean, other than how they all look like pieces of junk, and you wonder how they still run?” the man joked. “If something were off, I would have done something about it. So, no, I don’t really remember anything weird. There was another small van thing that was packed to the gills with what I would call junk, but we had to check it all thoroughly. That small van wasn’t the car bomb, was it?”
The soldier took his sunglasses off from resting on his head and began fidgeting with them.
“No, it wasn’t a van,” General Jones said.
Daniel pulled out a photograph from the bazaar scene before the car bomb went off and showed it to the guard.
“Do you recognize any of the vehicles in this picture?” Daniel ask
ed.
“Honestly, I could have seen all of those cars,” the man said. “But tinted windows? I think I would’ve recognized that car because if there are tinted windows, I got to tell them to roll down the windows so I can get a look at the driver and passengers. But I don’t remember telling anybody to roll down their windows.”
“Is it possible he already had his windows rolled down?” Daniel asked.
“It’s the wrong time of year for that,” Jones observed.
“Now that you mention it,” the man continued, “I do remember one thing. One of the cars, maybe it’s that white one, but I can’t be totally sure, the passenger pulled out a pack of cigarettes and motioned to offer me one. I don’t smoke, but I know a few guys who would take a free smoke. I motioned no, I wasn’t interested. There is no way I’m taking anything away from the people here. Hell, it could’ve been a bomb to blow my face off, or even if it was a gift, poor guys here need as much as they can get to survive.”
“You didn’t happen to notice the brand of cigarettes, did you?” Daniel asked hopefully.
“Yeah, I did,” the soldier said. “He had a pack of Camel cigarettes. ‘Where the hell did he get a pack of Camel cigarettes?’ I remember wondering myself. So yeah, I guess I do remember a white car, which might be this white car in the picture with its tinted windows rolled down. But I remember it because the driver offered me an American Camel cigarette. Now, that’s messed up. It was pretty soon after we arrested the man dressed as a woman.”
“At the murder scene in Berlin, they found Camel cigarette butts,” Daniel said. “Maybe Qaqramon loves Camels.”
“You think that just because someone had a Camel cigarette, he must be Qaqramon?” Jones asked.
“It’s only part of the evidence,” Daniel explained. “See, Rex and I thought Aziz was going through Mazar-i-Sharif because he had to get to the mountains south of the city. But he might have had an additional reason. We know Aziz got broken out by an inside job. Maybe Aziz got arrested on purpose to gauge our military activity level, to see if we were on to his brother. I don’t know, I’m guessing. Or maybe, Aziz’s arrest was a distraction to get the car bomb into the city. I hate to say it, but it’s possible the car bomb was not far behind Aziz’s car. It’s human nature that the guards would take it easier on the next few backed up vehicles right after they spent so much time on Aziz. Especially if they knew they were going to have to search any vehicles like the van he described.”
The man they had been questioning shifted in his seat. His fingers tightened around the sunglasses he was fidgeting with in his lap.
Daniel continued. “The worst part is that Qaqramon intended the car bomb to kill our source. Rex said the source comes within a certain window of time and usually sticks around for a while. As it worked out, the source called off the meeting, and by the time the car bomb went off, the source was long gone.”
“And both you and Rex evaded death,” General Jones said. “I’d say you owe your source one. But that also means that Qaqramon is not only devious and violent, he also knows about the traitor in his midst, and he’s going to root him out.”
“Her,” Daniel said, correcting General Jones. “We need to find the source. She’s our only link to Qaqramon, and she’s in danger.”
“I’ll know more in the morning,” the doctor informed Daniel in the medical tent. “So far, so good. The ricochet knocked him in the upper arm. He had previously been injured there, which I think was part of the problem. I kept looking for other issues, but he’s in a lot better shape than I feared.”
“Anything I can do?” Daniel asked the doctor desperately, already knowing the answer.
“Pray and wait,” the doctor said before leaving. “But I expect him to recover fully.”
Daniel sat in the chair next to Rex and watched his slow breathing as he slept. The rhythmic movement matched to the beeping of the medical equipment lulled Daniel to sleep.
The doctor woke him early the next morning.
“I’m not surprised that both of you need the rest,” the doctor said. “The good news is that Rex held well through the night. A promising sign, and I think he’s going to be okay.”
Daniel stumbled out of the chair and rose to his feet.
“I’m sorry, I should have reported by now,” Daniel murmured as he headed to the communications tent. He didn’t look forward to the harsh words from Officer Carter for not checking in with her promptly.
He wasn’t disappointed, though he was glad to hear Jenny’s voice.
Daniel began to tell Jenny and Officer Carter about the ambush, but Officer Carter cut in.
“You haven’t located the nuke yet, or this man named Qaqramon? Peters only gave you until four days from now.”
“But—”
“And it sounds like you’re out of leads.”
“Not completely,” Daniel said. “But I’m afraid our lone source might already be dead. Or, I might get killed trying to meet with the source.”
“I understand that it’s dangerous there, but we need some results,” Officer Carter said. Daniel couldn’t see Jenny’s expression, but he imagined that her eyes were wide open as she listened to the rebuke from Officer Carter.
“I’m working on getting results,” Daniel said. “But it’s more like the Wild West out here, and that nuke is somewhere out there surrounded by a whole bunch of bad guys, whom we don’t even know who they are, who have guns. The guys who aren’t bad guys, well, they’re so scared of the bad guys that they’re not willing to help us. Please tell me that you guys learned something that will help.”
“If you recorded your conversation with the village chief yesterday,” Jenny offered, “then I can start analyzing it. Maybe he has the same linguistic thumbprint as Qaqramon. You never know.”
“Yeah, I can send you what I recorded,” Daniel said. He had forgotten he had recorded it, but he wasn’t too hopeful that it would reveal anything. “I have no idea how to meet the source since she waved off yesterday’s meeting.”
“Don’t you spies always have, like, backup meetings if something goes wrong?” Jenny blurted out. “Or is that just something in the movies?”
“You’re a genius,” Daniel said. “But only Rex would know. I need to see—”
Daniel ended the communication as General Jones entered.
“You in a hurry for something?” Jones asked. “The doctor has some good news. Rex is coming around.”
Daniel rushed by Jones and hurried to the medical tent where Rex laid with a grin on his face.
“Thank God there’s a real doctor here, not just you,” Rex managed to say.
“Did you have a backup meeting planned with the source?” Daniel asked.
“Of course. But what time is it now?” Rex replied.
“Hey!” the patrol driver yelled at Daniel as he hurried, dressed in the local clothing, towards the Humvee. “This isn’t the love boat, so hurry the hell up.”
Daniel threw himself into the back of the vehicle and muttered an apology. His chest heaved. He straightened the cloth hat on his head and adjusted his long top that went past his waist beneath a cotton-stuffed vest.
“General Jones said I’m supposed to drop you off on the way to the main mosque in town,” the driver said. “Let’s hope there isn’t an ambush.”
“I’ll have to hop out while you’re still moving and duck into an alley. If anybody’s watching, they can’t see that I got out.”
“Whoa. Cloak and Dagger. You’ll be on your own. Really cool, but I’ll keep my machine guns and grenade launchers,” the driver said deadpan.
About thirty minutes later, after entering the city through the checkpoint and uneventful patrolling, the driver finally said, “Up ahead is the mosque. I’ll give you a warning when it’s about time for you to hop out. Then, you’re going to want to work your way down the alley to the next main street. Then that street will be the one that goes directly in front of the mosque. From there you’ll need to figure out the a
lley you need to get into.”
Not making it easy, Daniel thought to himself. He would have to find the place immediately. Daniel knew that if he faced any delays, he would be late for the nine am backup meeting time. After the bombing, he didn’t expect the source to wait around if Daniel didn’t arrive on time. Of course, that assumed the source was willing and able to be at the backup meeting.
Daniel arranged his pickup with a future patrol to return to the base, and then the driver said, “You’re on in five, four, three, two, one.”
Daniel flung open the door and fell to the road as gracefully as he could. After a quick roll, Daniel rose to his feet. He looked up and down the street in both directions.
It was deserted.
He checked his watch. He only had a few minutes remaining. The source was risking her life every second she loitered around the backup meeting spot.
Daniel followed the driver’s instructions, and the roads were mostly empty. Daniel glanced at his watch again as he pressed on.
He was about a minute late.
Daniel paused to look about. He had to cross the street, go towards the large mosque, and then turn down the fourth alley from where he was.
He looked both ways down the empty road and crossed. He hurried onward as quickly as he dared.
He passed the first and second alleyways, both of which were empty.
As he approached the third, he knew he would only have one more alley until he would find the meeting place.
But then Daniel heard noises he recognized. He couldn’t understand the hushed voices, but he recognized the distinct clatter of men handling guns.