by Eric Meyer
“I know.”
He moved away and disappeared into the darkness. Ivan waited with his men gathered around him. They made no sound, no conversation, nothing. They were silent, men who’d seen every type of combat, and this was just another job. When it was over, they’d collect their pay and go home, until the next job came up. Every man was an expert, and Ivan had confidence in his trained killers. If they weren’t good, either they wouldn't work for him, or they wouldn’t last long enough to collect their next paycheck.
Akram returned, and his face was grim. “They have sentries, too many for me to take out.”
“How many?”
He drew a breath, knowing the news wouldn’t go down well. “I counted at least fifteen, and there could be more. Maybe twenty in all.”
“You’re shitting me. Are you sure about those numbers, twenty men?”
“It’s about right. Ivan, there’s a battle going on up on that mountain, and my guess is Stoner is at back of it. When you send men into a fight, you don’t leave your rear unguarded. This Tarzi is being careful, that’s all.”
He cursed. “Twenty, Jesus Christ. We could take them, no sweat. Only thing is it would bring out every other fighter in the area like flies to a turd. This is supposed to be a covert operation, not a cavalry charge. There must be another way through. We can’t sneak past twenty men.”
“There isn’t another way,” he said, shaking his head, “This place is mountainous, peaks and valleys, the tracks and paths known by the locals over the centuries. If there were a way, they’d have found it. It can’t be done.”
“It has to be done!” Ivan snapped, “Go find something. Try around the sides, and get me a way through.”
He stopped, thinking. “On second thoughts, I’ll come with you. Lead the way. Whatever happens, we have to get through.”
Akram was certain he muttered, “My retirement fund depends on it,” but he chose to ignore it. He headed away from the insurgent position, away from the caves, taking a wide loop to the southwest. The path became narrower and then petered out altogether. Akram put out a hand to bar him from going any further.
Ivan looked around warily. “What’s going on? Hostiles?”
“No. The path ends here.”
“Christ, I can almost see the caves about a klick to the east. There must be a way.”
Akram sighed. “Yes, there is a way, if you were a circus performer. Look at it. If we were monkeys, we could get across. Problem is, we’re not monkeys.”
He stood aside, and the CIA man looked over the precipice, while Akram held his arm to stop him falling. In the moonlight, he could see a narrow ledge, very narrow, about twenty-five centimeters, less than a foot. The surface was rough, littered with stones and debris tumbled down from the mountain over the centuries.
“I see what you mean. There’s no other way?”
“None.”
“Then we’ll go this way. Go back and fetch the men. Tell them to bring lines from the vehicles. We’ll go across one at a time.”
“You’re not serious?”
“I’m serious. Move it.”
“It’s your funeral, boss.”
“It better not be. I warned you what would happen. You’d best keep me alive.”
“Sure, sure.”
He hurried away and left Ivan to stare out over the narrow ledge. If a man fell, the drop was around fifty meters to a series of jagged rocks that lay below. He wondered if he was crazy even contemplating it, but the alternatives were not good. Everything he’d worked for was about to go down the tubes, and the punishment for being responsible for the demise of the Chief of Staff’s daughter didn’t bear thinking about. Akram returned a half hour later at the head of the men, and they looked out at the ledge. None made a comment, but he could imagine what they were thinking. Nothing good.
He tried making light of it and murmured, “It’s a cinch, guys. I’ll be with you. If I thought there was a problem I wouldn’t do it, now would I?”
“Who goes first?”
He grinned at Akram. “I thought you’d have that honor. After all, you found the way through.”
He considered for a few seconds. “I want double. For all of us.”
“Double? No way, it’s just a path along a ledge.”
“If it’s so easy, you go first.”
He haggled, muttering and whispering, appealing to their sense of loyalty, which went nowhere. These men had one loyalty, to the crisp dollar notes he paid them for each job. He finally agreed to pay them double and began working out how he could swing it through his CIA funded expenses. They shouldered their rifles. Akram tied a line around his waist and stepped out. The journey was hard and dangerous. Twice he stumbled, but managed to cling to the rock. He reached the other side, tied off the line, and the next man stepped out. It was going to be a lengthy task to get them across. Would they make it? Ivan looked up at the moonlit sky nervously, as if expecting to see the shadowy shapes of heavy eight-engined bombers approaching Tora Bora. He saw their bomb bays whine down on the servomotors, and the big iron bombs hanging inside the fuselage, ready to drop.
The man reached the other side, and the next man was already stepping out onto the ledge, holding the rope. He urged them on. “Hurry it up. You have to go faster. Make it snappy.”
Time was running out, and he checked his watch again, calculated, and recalculated. Wished he hadn’t. The next man was ready, and he snarled at him to haul ass.
* * *
Major Gibbons knocked on the door of General Gus Steiner.
“Enter.”
He came to attention and saluted. “Reporting as ordered, Sir.”
Steiner nodded. “At ease, Major. I called you here because Washington has confirmed the raid is a definite go. You can tell your crews.”
“Yes, General. Good news.”
“Right. Apparently, the problem wasn’t just the Afghans, although God knows they’re a real pain in the ass. They had a report of a VIP in the area, some relation of yours. Any idea who it could be?”
Gibbons went cold. A single name floated into his head, just one member of the family who would be crazy enough to enter the Afghan badlands. “Sara Carver, my sister, it has to be. Well, stepsister.” He felt a knot of tension in his guts, “You’re sure she’s okay?”
“The Agency got a positive confirmation; she’s in a safe zone. I heard she was a former U.S. Infantry second lieutenant.”
“That’s correct, Sir.”
“I see. My understanding is CIA headhunted her when she left the military. I mean, with her knowledge and experience of the region.”
“CIA? That’s not right, General. She started a new career as a freelance journalist. She’s nothing to do with CIA.”
Steiner chuckled. “Freelance journalist, yeah, that’s a good one. I can’t count how many freelance journalists I’ve met who used the job as a cover. Are you telling me you didn’t know?”
“No, Sir, I didn’t.”
“We learn something new every day. All that matters is she’s safe. That’s all, Major. You take off at dawn, and I wish you the very best of luck.”
“Thank you, Sir. You’re sure about Sara?”
He chuckled. “One hundred percent, she’s nowhere near Tora Bora. That’s all, Major.”
They exchanged salutes, and he left. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. Acting on an impulse, he called her cellphone. It went straight to voicemail, and he tried to work out how to reach her. Except he was thousands of miles away, and she was somewhere in the boonies of Afghanistan. He walked back to the hangar, and his crews were all there, waiting for him. He raised his hands for silence.
“The mission is still on for tomorrow. The target is Tora Bora.”
He waited for the whoops of excitement to die down. “We’re gonna carry out a pinpoint precision raid. Plaster the area with high-explosive, and bring the mountain down over the caves. A nice fat, juicy target for us to get our teeth into, and
there are no friendlies in the area we need to worry about. An in and out job, and we’ll leave that place a smoking heap of rubble. They’ll have to find themselves another cave system.
He left them and went back to his room, partially undressed, and tried to get some sack time. Wake up call was at 04.00, but when the orderly banged on his door, he was still awake.
“Time to get moving, Major. They’re all up and moving. Breakfast is being served in the mess, and the ground crews are making their final checks.”
“Thank you, Corporal.”
He swung out of bed, threw cold water on his face, and had a quick shave. Fully dressed he joined his crews for breakfast. They were like kids about to go on holiday, and they tried to include him in the fun. He didn’t feel like fun, couldn’t even do justice to his breakfast. The hard knot in his stomach left him feeling sick even at the thought of eating food. When they’d finished, they left to board their giant aircraft. He was the last to leave, walking slowly, as if in a dream, or a nightmare.
Where are you, Sara? Tell me you’re nowhere near Tora Bora. How can I warn you?
He climbed into the bus to take them out to the apron, and his crewmen regarded him with puzzlement. Why wasn’t he as jubilant as the rest of them? Something was wrong with Major Gibbons, and they left him to it to work it out. He seated himself in the cockpit and began working through the preflight checks. But still couldn’t get it straight in his mind.
Is she safe, or is she down there somewhere? Sara, where are you?
As if she could hear him. He smiled at the idiocy of even thinking such a thing, snapped his mind back to the job in hand, and began the endless ritual to ensure everything functioned as it should, the precautions to put the massive eight-engine aircraft into the air.
“Autopilot servos cutout switches off.”
“Check.”
“Anti-skid switch on, guard closed.”
“Check.”
“Mach indicator switch on.”
“Check.”
“Hydraulic standby pump switches off.”
“Check.”
“Rudder elevator hydraulic switches off.”
“Check.”
“Clock checked and set.”
“Check.”
“Anti-icing switches off.”
“Yaw SAS switch disengage.”
“Check.”
“Airbrake lever off.”
“Check.”
And so it went on, the familiar ritual, until the final command that brought everything to life. “Start engines.”
The Pratt & Whitney TF33 turbofans roared into life one by one, and the entire aircraft vibrated and shook as they increased power. Warming up the mighty engines, powering up the generators and aircraft electrical systems, and then they throttled back to wait. Gibbons pressed the transmit button and called the tower.
“Major Gibbons requesting clearance to taxi.”
The answer was immediate. They were as keyed up as the aircrews. “You have clearance, Major. Taxi out to the runway and hold for final clearance.”
He advanced the throttles, released the brakes, and the huge aircraft lumbered along the concrete. At the end of the taxiway they swung around to face into wind, and they applied the brakes once again. Through the side window, he watched the other aircraft rolling out after him. The noise of almost a hundred massive turbofan engines was like a tsunami, threatening to break into its full fury. A moment later, it did.
“You are clear to take off, Major. Godspeed and good luck.”
He clicked twice to acknowledge, and his co-pilot rammed the throttle levers all the way to the stops. The big bird accelerated slowly and picked up speed. Until they were hurtling along the tarmac while Myron Reid called the numbers from the right-hand seat.
“Sixty knots, seventy, eighty, V1.”
“V1, check.”
“V2, rotate.”
He hauled back on the column, and the aircraft briefly shuddered as the wing angle of attack changed, and the vibration eased.
“Landing gear up.”
“Gear up, check.”
The rumble deep down in the fuselage announced the landing gear retracting into its nacelles. He relaxed a little, just a fraction. They were airborne.
“Maintain flaps at 180 degrees.”
“Flaps 180, check.”
“Hold her at a gentle climb, no need to burn more fuel that we need. It’s gonna be a long, long trip, Myron.”
“That it is, Major.”
“Take her while I recheck the course to target. We’ll cruise at 14000 meters, 400 knots, that’ll give us the best fuel figures. No need to upset the environmentalists any more than we have to.”
Reid grinned. “I doubt that’d be possible, Major. They hate us enough as it is. There’s nothing they’d like better than to turn our birds into cooking utensils.”
“Maybe we should make a few low passes over their houses one day. Show ‘em what we can do.”
“Ouch. I wouldn’t recommend it. When we land, they’ll be waiting to throw organic vegetables and bowls of muesli at us.”
He smiled. “Perish the thought. I’d sooner be shot at.”
He didn’t even need to check they were all airborne. Gibbons would have heard over the radio if there’d been any aborts. He thought of the devastation they’d unleash when they arrived over the target. And thought again about his sister.
Sara, where are you? They said you were clear of the area, so it has to be true, doesn’t it? Because we’re gonna rain hell. Armageddon is coming to Tora Bora.
Chapter Nine
The mortar continued its relentless fusillade, and yet the shells still fell wide. He knew it couldn’t last. The gunner couldn’t be totally blind. Sooner or later he’d find the range, or a lucky shot would put a shell right next to where they sheltered. Metal fragments would flay them, ricocheting around the tiny cave and turning them into bloody pulp. He’d no idea why Wayne had decided to halt and wait for the inevitable rather than keep climbing. It was a lousy decision, one he should never have made. They’d halted, and he decided it was time to hit back, and not sit waiting for the end. He caught Wayne’s attention.
“I’m going down there to locate the mortar crew and put them out of action. You know what’ll happen if we stay here and do nothing. Sooner or later, they’ll drop a shell right on our heads.”
He grimaced. “Bad move, Stoner. If we sit it out, with luck they’ll assume we got away, and they’ll give up.”
He still didn’t understand Wayne’s attitude, and he ignored his advice. “I don’t agree. I’m going out there to take them out.”
His friend shrugged. “I still say it’s stupid, but if that’s what you want, fair enough. I’ll come out with you and cover your ass with the rifle.”
They slid out of the cave and belly crawled back down the path. He made the first few meters, and another shell landed. It was still nowhere near.
We should be thankful. A half decent weapon and a gunner who’d remembered to bring along his spectacles would have killed us long ago.
The going was slow, picking his way over rocks and debris littering the path. He came across the first hostile, crouched low over his rifle about one hundred meters away. He estimated he could reach him without being spotted. The mortar crew was further away. He selected the next part of the route and continued crawling. And stopped. Something hard jammed into his back. He flinched as the pain from his wounds seared through him.
Wayne spoke softly. “Sorry, buddy, but I want you to put down the rifle. Then stand up real slow, so they can see you. And when you do stand, you’d better make sure those hands are empty. Those guys are pretty pissed after the runaround you gave them.”
He struggled to come to terms with his disbelief and turned around, slowly. “What is this, Wayne? You’re one of us, the good guys.”
Evers’ eyes were glazed, as if he’d retreated to some distant place. He’d seen the look before, in the eyes of fanati
cs, often suicide bombers.
He chuckled, but when he spoke, his voice was flat, almost robotic. “I am one of the good guys. You, my friend, you’re the enemy of God.”
“What’s going on, Wayne?”
“What’s going on is I finally discovered God’s word, and what is important.”
“Who told you all this?” He already knew the answer. A man who could influence damaged minds, a man who claimed to communicate with God.
“After we got back the last time, I missed this place a lot,” Evers droned on, “It always had a significance for me, and it took me a while to work out how I felt. Then I came back, and I met a man who made it all clear.”
He paused, and his eyes retreated even further away. “You ever been thirsting for a drink so bad, and then you come across a cool stream? That’s what it was like.”
“Tarzi,” Stoner gritted. His mind had been racing to work it out since the moment the rifle barrel prodded into his back. Who else could have such a Svengali-like influence over Wayne the solitary mountain man? Who other than the person who’d made this place the center of his new jihad, the man pretending to have the ear of God. The man who could convince naïve and lonely men his words were true. No matter their bloody and inherent cruelty.
“Sheikh Mohammed Tarzi,” Evers agreed, “He made everything clear to me. This is Allah’s blessed place; unique in this country that is his Paradise on Earth. There is but one God, my friend, and his name is Allah. His prophet is Mohammed.”
“But, Wayne, you’ve been helping us hold them off, shooting at them. Why?”
He shook his head, as if to pull him from sleep. “I…I don’t know. At first it seemed the right thing to do.” His face creased into a faint smile, “Old habits die hard, I guess. But I was wrong, you are the enemy, and now you must pay the price.”
“Wayne, no!”