by L. J. Martin
"Roger that," Pax says.
"Let’s load up," Scroder snaps. "We got some hours aloft to brief you."
"You’ve got my wish list—."
"Already on board." He says and gives me a fatherly pat on the shoulder.
"I’m saying goodbye," Sophia says, and extends her hand.
Screw that, I reach over and throw an arm around her and give her a smooch on the cheek. "You’re a team player. You can put your feet by our fire anytime."
"10-4," Skip adds.
Pax wastes no time, and I overhear as they walk away, "Miss McAmber, I don’t imagine you’d like to go to Malta and see the sights."
"I hate to fly single engine over the water," she says. Then adds, "See you on the flip side."
And I get a real guffaw.
"Load up," the commander snaps, and Skip and I head that way.
I yell at the others and point to the AN-10, we enter up the loading ramp in the back. I have to smile as the two DPV’s are parked inside, fully armed, waiting patiently for someone foolish enough to drop into Afghanistan in their hard seats. In moments the AN-10’s four engines begin to whine.
One of the crew, a cargo chief, makes sure we are all seated and plays flight attendant...unfortunately he looks more like a bulldog than a Babs, who we enjoyed on the flight here.
The bad news: one doesn’t have the most secure feeling when boarding any Russian built aircraft as Aeroflot, the Russian commercial carrier, has the worst safety record of any international airline. That said I quickly establish that we have a pair of ex-U.S. Air Force jockeys at the controls. The good news: the AN-10 is an aircraft that any of the Stans are used to seeing flying in and out. This one may be a little unusual as it is painted dull black and has few markings, certainly not those of the Russian military nor a Russian or Stan commercial carrier.
As soon as we settle in, I realize we haven't dented the load this big beast is capable of carrying, and yell at the commander. "We don't seem to be stressing this monster much."
He nods. "She's good for sixty tons, so don't worry about weighing her down."
As soon as we level out somewhere over twenty five thousand feet and the engines smooth out to a low whine, Scroder calls us to a table in the front of the cargo area. I’m amazed at the model on the tabletop, perfect scale of what I presume is our target.
"You’re a hell of a model maker," TooBad says, and guffaws.
"And that," Skip adds, "is a hell of a big compound for six guys."
The commander ignores Skip and returns TooBad’s smile, then offers, "Courtesy of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. Shit, we got an agency for about anything you want." In addition to the model, he spreads a large map out on the table. "For those of you dumb crackers who think this might be Texas, it ain't. It's Afghanistan, and a few of them rag head assholes have a couple of our people and we want them back. And we're not flying all the way to Tashkent, we're landing in Oarshi, only one hundred fifty clicks from the border."
"You sure your people are still kickin'?" Killer asks.
"We got proof of life day before yesterday. Pictures of them holding up a Mazar newspaper of that date, sent to us from an Internet café in Mazar. They want many millions ransom, and we don't think we'll get our people even if we pay up." He opens an envelope and withdraws a pair of photographs. "This is Khaled Zazai, one of the world's biggest opium dealers, and the cousin of the president of this shithole. And this is a guy who goes by Mokhmad...a Chechen buddy of Khaled's who we think brought a very bad bomb, nuclear, to Zazai and is either splitting the proceeds of its sale with him, or splitting the take—millions from Al Qaeda and ISIS—if it's detonated in either the U.S., England, or Israel, and we think it’s the latter and they plan to deliver the goods themselves. If our intel is right, it’s a hundred mil to the first guys to light up a western city with a nuke. We don't know for sure, all we know is we want it and them taken out. Our target is high class, for Afghanistan, a complex between the border and Mazar-I-Sharif, the fourth largest city, if you can call these shitholes in Afghanistan cities. That’s the model you see in front of you. Nine buildings including the main house with a minaret and almost ten thousand square feet."
Skip gives him a tight smile. "Glad we’re not picking on some big dogs."
Hank jumps in, "Why the hell isn't the U.S. making a sheet of glass out of where these pricks live?"
"No one in the administration or even DOD believes what we've brought them. With a Muslim heading the CIA and many of our top security people and groups infiltrated, thanks to our illustrious Pres, we don't know what the motivation for procrastination truly is, but we don't like it. The fact is it’s probably because we’re contractors, not military, and if we get hung by the balls and used for target practice, it doesn’t lose the political pricks votes like it would if our two guys were fair-haired blond Army brats from Indiana."
I have to interrupt, "But you don't have concrete proof of this bomb?"
"Everything but. We have a sat-phone conversation with an operative we'd trust with our lives and he was, supposedly, on his way with proof...but he never showed and his body turned up in Tashkent out on the front steps of our embassy, the day he was supposed to fly out to Italy."
"So, no proof?"
"Enough for us, just not enough for the acronyms."
"Commander, if it's enough for you, it's enough for me."
"Even if you don't find the package, get our people out and you'll make a ton of green."
I eyeball each man in turn. "We good to go?"
They all give me a 10-4 or a Roger at the same time.
"Hoorah," Scroder says, "then let's get down to the bloody details." And he digs in the envelope for more maps and aerial photos, and a list. "Okay," the commander continues, "Let’s make sure you guys are solid with our bag of tricks. You've got six M5 carbines, plus six spares for your weapons cache, all with Aimpoint CompM4 laser dot sights. A few over six thousand rounds, in thirty cartridge clips, a thousand for each man. The webbing we have, one set to wear, one to stow, will accommodate twelve clips. A Barrett .416 sniper rifle."
I jump in, "That makes two as I brought mine."
Scroder continues, "...the latest. Two hundred rounds ammo for it. Six disposable RPG's...three for each DPV. Four M18 claymores, antipersonnel mines, two for each vehicle. Each man will have a shock grenade and five frag grenades on his battle rattle, plus two smoke. There’s also a mag light and a mace canister on the belt…loaded with some new stuff that will knock any one you engage out cold and they’ll wake up blind for several hours. Your vests are Kevlar plus the metal plate...which I'm sure you'll discard. Every standard helmet has night vision and the Barrett's both have night vision scopes, the Aimpoints have low settings for night vision compatibility with your goggles. We've got you an RQ-11 Raven drone—"
I jump in, "I've got my own quadcopter, which I like much better."
"Yeah, I know, the guys in the field really don’t think much of the Raven..but she's there if you need her. There are five .40 cal Glocks in the gear with drop-leg thigh holsters…I presume you’re all right handed?"
"Fuck no, I’m right brained," TooBad snaps. "But I shoot ambidextrous."
Scroder chuckles. "Good, you might need to shoot with a Glock in both hands. You’ve got two extra clips on the securing straps. And five more each for your cache. Each man has a radio and wireless ear-bud, in addition to a sat phone. The DPV's each have their own sat phone in a clip on the dash, which will act as spares for you clumsy fucks as I know you’ll lose everything but attitude. There are two RG-6 Russian grenade launchers...our people love them...with a six round capacity. There are twenty four extra loads for each. They fire frag, of course, but we also have tear gas, pr, and smoke in the package. Oh, yeah, there are two Franchi SPAS twelve gauge combat shotguns with fifty rounds of double ought plus ten slug for each…not bad for breaching doors. And we've got every man a GPS preloaded with local topo and some waypoints. He tu
rns to me. "If all that don't make you feel at home, jarhead, I don't know what else to do. Oh, and you’ve got twenty five pounds of C4 and a couple of dozen timer detonators, as well as fifty feet of det cord."
"You forgot the eight mules to carry it."
"You’ll have to settle for the DPV’s. And one more critical item, we have a hand-held device for the detection of SNM, Special Nuclear Material, including plutonium. You don’t need training to use it, just turn it on and if it detects the suitcase it’ll go off like an air-raid siren. Not the best system if you're trying to run silent, but it’s all we have and we’re lucky to have it. It’s a brand new toy."
"How big?" I ask.
"It’s the size of a five hundred round box of .223. Very manageable and very expensive…try and bring it home with you."
"It, and the suitcase," I say, wondering what our chances are of doing so.
It's twenty eight hundred miles from Rome to Qarshi, so we have several hours. And Scroder is a detail guy, and we go over everything multiple times, and then the Commander quizzes each of us in turn. I'm glad he does so I don't have to.
An hour before we're due to touchdown, Scroder puts us to packing the DPV's, with all the extra gear, which we plan to stow in a hidden cache somewhere a few clicks from our target, we look a little like one of those Pakistani buses with baggage and folks hanging everywhere, except our vehicles are not painted with flowers like a San Francisco Volkswagen hippie bus, but rather in desert camo. The rigs have human size baskets on each side, all fully packed. The tarps we use to cover the whole mess are patterned likewise.
I can feel the pilots ease off on the engines and begin their descent.
We're set up to unload our personal gear and get the DPV's loaded under the choppers.
Forty five minutes after the choppers lift off, they'll be setting us down in Afghanistan.
Hoorah.
5
BeBe has been mostly silent ever since he tied up with us in Atlanta. The rest of them have been mostly silent and they are mostly asleep. BeBe and I talk a little as the plane descends. And as it descends, heats up in the closed interior. It's June, and the temperature will likely be well over a hundred degrees, maybe as hot as one fifteen.
"You had a tour in Afghanistan?" I ask.
"Two. And I’ve been in Mazar."
"The hell you say. You come to visit the Blue Mosque, or what?" I say, and he knows by my tight grin I know that was not his mission.
"You know that Mazar-I-Sharif means the grave of Sharif…many Afghani’s believe the Blue Mosque to be the site of the grave of Hazrat Ali, Muhammad’s son-in-law. It’s extra holy to them."
I admit, "I’m not much of a student of Afghan history."
He gives me a tight grin in return. "I like to know all I can about people I’m expected to kill."
"What’s Mazar like?"
"You might be surprised at how modern some of the city is, particularly the airport. Right after I left they began the construction of a railroad to Uzbekistan. The first railroad to operate in the country since the middle 1800’s. And I hear they have it finished. Afghanistan is a treasure trove of natural wealth…iron and copper, and all of the industrial countries want a piece of the fat pie. We kept seeing Chinese in the country, even back then as dangerous as it was. Prospectors I think, and financiers who want a railroad built to their country and if you can believe the trash on the web have signed an agreement to do so. Of course it goes right through the middle of the thickest swarm of Taliban, and may never be built."
"I want you to command the second DPV, chief. That okay with you?"
"Shit happens."
"You’re Dirt Dog, I’m Sand Hog."
He laughs. "Good name, Reardon. The haji’s won’t get close to anything pork."
"Hadn’t thought of it. You want your rig to be Porky Pig?"
"Nope, Dirt Dog it is."
"We’ll be set down ten clicks inside Afghanistan and will take the highway for twenty clicks, then we’re gonna boonie bounce in a roundabout way the other twenty clicks to the target. Thanks to the chopper ride we’ll miss two possible road blocks, one of them being the border crossing at Hairatan…that’s on the Afghan side of the river, the town is Termez on the Uzbek side. We’ll have most of the rigs stripped down, particularly the 50s, and tarped, until we’re off the highway and out of sight. There’s a mile wide wadi that we’ll be on for the last few clicks, sometimes it’s wet, mostly not. But unless there’s a desert deluge, which only happens about twice a century, we’ll be good to go."
BeBe's been nodding as I talk. Then speaks up. "I've been in Hairatan, and across most of the country between Mazar and the high Hindu Kush. The river dumps out of the mountains and there's some beautiful country up there...but dangerous." He shrugs. "At one time there were mines along the border, on both sides of the Amu Darya but we should be way inside that threat."
"The river, the Amu Darya…I just hope it’s wide and very shallow below the wadi, and that intel is right for once as we may have to make our exit that way. We’ll keep a couple of hundred yards of separation. I don’t want one sweep of fire to take us both out."
BeBe laughs. "You won’t have any trouble from the goat fuckers until you get within a couple of clicks of the target. The river is wide and should be shallow as hell this time of year."
Our travel time has been almost thirty hours. The boys have slept some, but it will be mid-morning by the time the choppers drop us off. It’s my plan to drive straight through until we get close enough to set up recon in the hills within a half mile of the Zazai compound, to study the comings and goings, then rest up thru the night. Tomorrow we’ll make some probes and get the feel of the terrain and the defenses, then tomorrow night we’ll see if we can penetrate the target.
The big beast touches down and taxis to a far end of the runway, turning off on the last taxiway, then rather than turn back toward the terminal and hangers, turns away and goes to the far end of the taxiway, and the engines wind down.
The instant the whine stops, the cargo chief is dropping the rear ramp and yells at us to go after the tie downs on the DPV's.
I yell at the boys, "TooBad, you and Killer are with BeBe in the second rig. He's team leader. Dirt Dog is your team call sign. Skip and Hank are with me, we're Sand Hog. "
"What the fuck," TooBad grouses, "he's a fuckin' squib." He does a 'yark, yark," and slaps his hands together like a circus seal. "So why a fuckin' SEAL? I was a master sergeant in—"
Bebe speaks up, with authority, "And I was a master chief and I've been all over this country. Where the fuck have you been? Suckin' mud in the Euphrates? Iraq don't count with these Pushtu motherfuckers."
"Belay all that," I snap. "We're picking up a local and there'll be four on your rig."
"Fuck," he mumbles, and BeBe is still looking at him like he'd like to rip his head off and piss down his swallow hole.
There's no time like the present to cure them of suckin' eggs. "Heave to, both of you. I run this gig and this shit heap we came in is going home and you can still catch a ride." Both of them nod sheepishly, but I can see sparks flying between them. I hope they get over it in a hurry.
As we shove the DPV's to the back ramp and down, I see the choppers for the first time. The MH-53, known in the Navy as the Sea Dragon, is a heavy lift vehicle and if we had the proper lifting gear could carry all of us, all our gear, and both DPV's...and not break a sweat. They have twin rotors and are over eighty feet long. And these unarmed civilian versions, sans all that armament and protection weight, can likely lift far more than the military flavor. In seconds their loadmasters have the DPV's hooked up, have checked the loads, and have ushered us aboard. As they're doing so, the commander moves from man to man and shakes hands with each of us, ending with me.
"Bring our people home, Mike, and get that friggin' bomb so these assholes don't start world war three."
"Yes, sir."
Then he's off the chopper and back aboard th
e black monster and the cargo gate is lifting while the engines begin to whine, and blow flotsam and jetsam all over the two choppers. As we lift off, they're taxying back to the runway.
By the time I'm belted in with Hank, the only one of our team with me, I'm beginning to realize how suffocating the heat is. I hope we have enough water in our gear, as each man has only his own canteen and each vehicle has a five-gallon Jerry can. It's not much for this kind of debilitating hell fire. I can feel the rivulets of sweat down the back of my neck, and taste the salt as I run my tongue over the beads of perspiration on my upper lip.
As we gain altitude, I realize my sat phone is vibrating and have to use its wired ear-bud to answer and hear over the wop wop of the rotors and whine of the turbo jets.
"Yeah," I yell.
"You don't have to fucking yell. I can hear you."
It's Pax.
"What the fuck, over?" I ask.
"I'm into a couple of the computers at this Mullah Zazai's compound, including his personal one and that of some Chinaman. You ever try and interpret a Chinese email? It seems there's a contingency of Chinese...some trade group...staying with them. You're going to have to be very careful not to light up the place and cause an international incident."
"Yeah, I hear you...but the fact is we've got a job to do and I just hope they'll keep their heads down. How many of them?"
"Four, I think. They're trying to gain Mullah Zazai's support for some right of ways to some copper deposit they're interested in and have made a deal for in Kabul...it seems Mullah Z is highly regarded in the Taliban and the Chinese want him and his people to lead them up into the Kush to meet with some big dogs."
"Well, shit happens. I wish the big dogs from the Taliban were coming to his place to meet them. That way we might get lucky and be able to arrange for them to meet up with their seventy two virgins. We'll settle for the human targets we've been sent to find, however."
"Good. Keep your heads down and get home clean and safe."
"Safe anyway, and my pores are getting cleaned out."