by Dalton Fury
After six hours of driving, the majority of it off-road, T.J., his three men, and the CIA pilot were all led out of the trucks in chains and pushed into a dark warehouse. They were lined up against a wall by their guards, and then their chains were strapped together by lengths of thick hemp and fastened to an iron pipe in the wall.
Here they sat for two hours. Any time one of them tried to speak to another, he was threatened with a rifle butt to his head by the pair of Chechens guarding them.
A light hung from the ceiling and shone directly on Eagle 01, so they could not see more than twenty feet of empty cement warehouse flooring in front of them. But Josh could hear a tremendous bustle outside. Trucks coming and going, the shouting of men, and the clanging of metal. Activity on the far side of the warehouse, out of his view. Shouts in Chechen and Arabic and Pashto. Engines starting up and then stopping.
Finally a Chechen in a salwar kameez ordered the men to their feet, then stepped up to Timble and unlocked his chains. He did not do this to the rest of the men in line.
Across the bare cement floor of the warehouse came the echo of a door opening and then closing again. Timble saw men arrive through the darkness in front of him a few seconds later. Five, then seven figures, all dressed as 75th Ranger Regiment soldiers. They wore their carbines across their chests and Kevlar helmets on their heads, their thick goggles stowed high upon them.
They weren’t Rangers, Josh knew. They were just more men in costume. But he also knew they looked close enough to fool most anyone they came across for as long as they would need to wreak havoc.
One of the Rangers stepped forward. He wore a major’s insignia, he was clean-shaven, of course, and he was young, perhaps thirty. In the low light and with the change of clothing and the lack of facial hair, it took T.J. several seconds to realize whom he was looking at.
It was Daoud al-Amriki. David the American. He smirked at T.J. “My first shave in six years. How do I look?”
T.J. tried to mask his surprise. Gruffly he responded, “Like a damn fool.”
David just smiled as if he had expected the retort. T.J. looked him up and down, saw the mistakes he’d made in wearing his gear. His pants were not tucked into his boots, his goggles on his helmet were stowed upside down, and his kneepads were upside down as well. Still, this was an American, dressed as an American, and Josh knew this only made the al Qaeda operation more deadly.
A man with a wooden pushcart appeared from the darkness of the far side of the warehouse. On the cart were several more sets of uniforms; boots, rifles, helmets; backpacks. All the same high-quality forgeries.
“Captain Timble. What do you think?” Daoud lifted a tunic from the top of the stack. He unfolded it and held it high. TIMBLE was written on the name tape over the right breast. A captain’s bars were on the helmet lying next to it.
T.J. just stared.
“Put it on. There is gear here for you and all your men. They can dress in whatever fits—their name tapes are not accurate.”
T.J. made no move toward the clothing. He found himself almost paralyzed with shock. He’d had no idea that the AQ operatives expected him to physically take part in whatever they had planned.
“No fucking way. I’m not wearing that. I don’t know what you—”
Daoud cut him off with a shrug. “I expected this, of course.” He said something in Arabic that T.J. didn’t pick up, but quickly two of the Chechens rushed from behind Daoud al-Amriki and grabbed the last man in the line of prisoners. It was Skip Knighton, the surviving CIA helo pilot. The two big Chechens pushed him to the ground, onto his knees. His bindings were attached to the three Delta sergeants, so the entire row, minus T.J., stumbled. One of the Delta prisoners recovered and went after the Chechens, but quickly a large unit of phony Rangers appeared from the darkness, easily two dozen men now, and they raised weapons high and shouted at the Americans in their own mother tongue. No one in Eagle 01 spoke Chechen, but the words could nevertheless be construed as nothing other than threats.
T.J. and his men backed off.
Through it all Daoud al-Amriki stood by, haughty and confident. When the noise died down, when two men stood over the American helicopter pilot with rifles to his head, when two dozen more stood in a line to the left and right and just behind David the American, when T.J. and his men were standing back against the wall, Daoud al-Amriki said, “For the purposes of today’s operation, I need only you, Captain Timble. As you can see, I have plenty of other soldiers who can play the part of an American force. These other four men of yours are absolutely expendable.”
Daoud stepped over to Skip Knighton, stood in front of and over him, though his eyes and those of Josh Timble remained locked together. Josh did not speak.
“Expendable, Captain,” Daoud repeated, and he quickly drew the replica Beretta pistol in the drop leg holster on his hip. “I am happy to prove that to you now.” He raised the weapon and placed it to the helicopter pilot’s forehead.
“No!” shouted T.J., just as the pistol cracked and Knighton’s head snapped back, a splatter of blood erupted behind him, and he dropped dead on the cold concrete.
All the Delta men began shouting and pulling at their bindings. They tried to drop to the floor to tend to their fellow prisoner, but they were pushed away by the rifle butts of the two Chechens who’d stood alongside Knighton as he was killed.
“You son of a—”
“Save it, Timble. Save your curses. You will need them after I shoot the next infidel in the row.”
The two Chechens pushed Tony Marquez down on his knees now, two feet from the crumpled body of the CIA pilot. “Screw these pricks, boss!” Tony shouted, and Daoud pointed his pistol at the fresh forehead in front of him.
“No!” shouted Josh again. And then, “I’ll do it! I’ll put on the damn uniform! We all will!”
Daoud al-Amriki seemed pleased with himself. He lowered the pistol, found the safety and engaged it, then reholstered it awkwardly. It was obvious that he was accustomed to neither this weapon nor the holster low on his hip. He had to concentrate on his actions. He then looked back up to Josh, and declared, “As I said, I really don’t need these other men. Any delay, any tricks, and I will shoot them all through the head. Are we clear, Captain?”
T.J. just looked down at Skip’s dead body. He’d spent three years suffering with the man, and now he was gone. T.J. reached for the uniform. As he did so he barked an order to the remaining prisoners: “Kit up!”
* * *
Raynor woke up slowly. His body felt stiff and sore, and his left forearm wound burned with a savage heat. He’d slept for two hours on the mats on the floor of one of the bedrooms of the CIA safe house, and as the events of the previous day came back to him, one at a time, he recognized with a start that there was an important piece of this puzzle that had been eluding him.
Before nodding off he had borrowed Hammond’s satellite phone to call Pete Grauer in Jalalabad to let him know what was going on. Hammond had been all for any help Radiance could provide, unofficially, of course. Hammond had made his own appeal to his own masters for a rescue mission to the black site, but the red tape involved with getting that mission approved made it seem damned unlikely that it would happen in time.
Grauer had immediately agreed to have Pam Archer’s Predator available to linger over Landi Kotal, and to relay intel to Langley in real time from the Radiance Operations Center. What Langley would do with that information was anyone’s guess.
But Kolt had only just now considered another facet of the enemy operation. It was funny how, in his cluttered and weary mind, this one thing somehow became so clear to him.
Raynor sat up now. A couple hours’ sleep was not much, not nearly enough, but it would have to do. He was hungry and thirsty. In addition to the injury to his arm from the metal roof, his elbow and knees throbbed from the fight with the Afghani Taliban in the dry creek bed three days ago.
He shook off the aches and pains, and stepped into the sittin
g room. Hammond and his men were there.
“We leave in twenty,” Hammond said. He loaded his carbine and placed it on body armor he had laid out on the cold cement floor. The other paramilitary operations operators were rechecking their own gear.
Raynor said, “I’ve been thinking. They know we got to the German, so they must assume we know about the choppers.”
Hammond nodded. “Probably.”
“Which means they know they can’t fool us by landing a couple of Black Hawks at the Sandcastle.”
Hammond shrugged this time. “So?”
“So, what if they have another plan?”
“Such as?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been trying to figure that out. Maybe some other component to the attack on the black site. They have to assume we will be ready with RPGs or shoulder-fired missiles or something to knock down the choppers.”
“Yeah, we are ready. But maybe they think we won’t hit the choppers because the missing Delta guys will be on board.”
Raynor shook his head. “No. In the past, if they had the boys, they would use them, show them off. But they aren’t showing them off now. They may have them on the choppers, but it’s not to use them as human shields. There is some other reason the boys are part of this op.”
“Well, either way, we are ready for the Black Hawks. I hate to think those poor D-boys will be on board, but we aren’t letting those choppers land in the Sandcastle. We’ll shoot them down.”
Kolt understood, and he knew that T.J. would understand as well. But there was something else. “You are ready for the choppers. Focused on the choppers. But what if they attack from the ground?”
“Do you have reason to believe the attack will come from the ground?”
“No … except, when I met with T.J. he said Pakistani Taliban were working with AQ. And in Zar’s compound, there were AQ and Taliban there. And again, when Bob and I were hit in Darra Adam Khel, we were most definitely hit by AQ and Taliban forces, coordinating with one another.”
Hammond understood. A distant look glazed over his eyes. “So where are the Pakistani Taliban now? Why aren’t they involved in the actual op against the Sandcastle?”
“Maybe they are.”
The CIA man agreed. “Maybe they are. The fort is well protected from the road, though. Once we take out the Black Hawks we can concentrate on any ground forces.”
Kolt said, “It might help if you had some forewarning.”
Hammond nodded forcefully now. “Agreed. If you are so certain the Sandcastle is going to get hit from the ground as well, why don’t you go to the one place any ground force will have to pass on its way there?”
“Where is that?”
“Just three klicks east of the Sandcastle, the only two roads out of Peshawar meet. The Khyber Agency Road dead-ends into the Torkham Road, which then passes right by our black site on the way to the Afghani border. If you are right, if the Pakistani Taliban are involved, they will pass through that junction. I’ll hook you up with a radio and you can let us know if you spot trouble.”
“Roger that.”
Kolt took a radio offered by one of Hammond’s men. Then he headed for the stairs down to the garage.
“Wait a second, Racer. We have a few minutes before we need to—”
“I’m not waiting for you guys. I’m taking that gun, that bike, and that bag.”
“You can follow us.”
But Kolt Raynor was already in the cement-block stairway, heading down toward the garage. He called out as he descended, “I know where I’m going. See you when I see you, Hammond.”
FORTY-TWO
Dick Nelson stood on the square roof of the central stockade building at the Sandcastle and looked toward the east. Out over the fortress wall, out past the rocky hills. It was not yet dawn, but he’d been up all night, communicating with Langley and the CIA stations in Islamabad and Kabul, bolstering security here at the fort, meeting with the leadership of the Khyber Rifles in charge of perimeter security.
It had been a long night.
Below him, in the offices run by his seven-man CIA staff, men burned documents in a metal can, erased the hard drives of their laptops, and loaded extra magazines with ammunition.
Nelson and his team of operations officers had been stationed here for months, but they knew today would be their last day at the Sandcastle. Either they would be pulled out before the impending attack came, they would be pulled out after repelling the attack, or their bodies would be pulled out of the rubble after the attack.
Whichever way things worked out, they weren’t going to need their files or their computers much longer, so the shredding, the burning, and the erasing went on below him at a fever pitch.
Glenn climbed the ladder up from the ground floor of the stockade, lifted himself out of the hole in the roof, and stepped up behind his boss. “Dick?”
Nelson looked away from the eastern sky, toward his security officer. “What’s the latest?”
“I’ve got one of my guys in each tower. Each is armed with a Stinger. Also in each tower are two Khyber Rifles grenadiers with RPGs, and a guy with an RPK. If the choppers come, we’ll take them out at distance. You have my personal guarantee.”
Nelson nodded. “I just got a call from Hammond. He and his team are on their way from Pesh. He has reason to believe there might be a ground attack heading for us too. He’s in radio contact with an asset positioned at the Torkham–Khyber Agency junction, ready to alert us to any approaching troops.”
Glenn said, “We have good cover, we have the high ground, we have eight of us and thirty Khyber Rifles. And we have fair warning. I have to like our chances all around on this one, Dick.”
“Don’t get cocky.”
“Never.”
Now Chuck, the SAD communications officer, climbed onto the flat roof. It was a cold morning, but he’d been down in a small sandbagged room surrounded by all his warm electronics. Consequently he wore only a T-shirt. An HK MP5 hung from his chest.
Nelson snapped at him before he could speak. “I want you in body armor, damn it!”
“Yes, sir.”
“You heard from Langley?”
“Affirmative. No pullout as of yet, but they want us to be ready to go in case the call comes. They are trying to get authorization from the White House to call in Delta Force, either to help us with security or to help us pull up stakes and get the fuck out of here. Either way, we can expect that decision to take a couple of hours, and the execution of that decision to take a couple more, depending on how ready Delta is to move. In the meantime, we are on our own.”
Nelson looked back to the east. “We’ve been on our own here for a long time, gents. I always knew this day would come. Now it’s about to get real.”
* * *
Delta Force Lieutenant Colonel Joshua Timble stood in his ill-fitting uniform with insignia proclaiming him to be a captain in the 75th Ranger Regiment. The boots were several sizes too big and they looked and smelled like rubber from a salvaged truck tire. His body armor was fake, thick quilted padding that wouldn’t stop a projectile from a pellet gun. His helmet was plastic, again too large, and it slid down over his eyes when he looked down to cinch his belt.
He checked his empty rifle. It was a replica, but a damned fine one. Still, even if he scavenged some ammo, this gun wouldn’t do him much good. The firing pin was missing.
Despite what he could see through close scrutiny, Josh knew that he, his three men, David the American, and the thirty or so Chechens he now counted around him all looked just like a platoon of Rangers. He imagined they could all walk together across Fort Benning at night and, from a short distance, not reveal themselves to be anything other than a unit geared up like they were ready to deploy.
Al-Amriki began leading the Chechens through the warehouse, and the Delta men fell in with them. Another group of five Chechens in salwar kameezes walked along behind. These troops held AKs on the captives so they would not try to escape or att
ack.
Halfway across the floor, T.J. found himself walking right next to the American al Qaeda agent.
“I demand that Skip’s body be delivered to U.S. forces.”
Al-Amriki did not break stride. “You demand?” He laughed. “Is that some Geneva Convention bullshit? Sorry, I didn’t sign it. I’ll have a couple of guys dig a hole in the dirt deep enough to keep the dogs from pulling him up, but that’s as far as I go, Captain Timble.”
T.J. fought to keep his fury in check. He changed the subject. “How do you know my name?”
David smiled as he walked. He fumbled with the ammo pouches on his chest rig, fought with the Velcro straps to keep his rifle sling from getting stuck between them. He said, “After you were captured you were photographed by the Pakistani Taliban for proof of life. These pictures were sent to your government. They also sent these pictures to some of my associates in the West who had access to Defense Department databases. They looked at tens of thousands of photos of American soldiers. You and your men are not listed as missing or dead. I suppose your being lost over the border is an embarrassment to your government. Anyway, my associates had to just keep going through pictures to find out who, exactly, the Taliban had in their custody. Looking at pictures of one infidel after another. They found your military photograph, and matched it to your proof-of-life picture. But once you were identified, once my organization realized you were an officer from an elite unit, we realized that a plan that we already had in the works would be helped nicely by your participation.”
T.J. still had no idea where they were going. He could not imagine them piling into trucks and driving into Afghanistan, but he could less imagine any other destination. He said, “You really think we all can just waltz over the border and right up to a coalition base?”
Al-Amriki led T.J. out the back door of the warehouse, into the predawn glow of the morning. The Delta officer’s eyes were on his captor as he was waiting for an answer. When none came, he turned his head, followed al-Amriki’s gaze into the walled parking lot at the back of the warehouse.