by L. J. Martin
As we move back to the door, a guy across the room coughs, and sits up, but merely readjusts his covering and drops back down. We stay dead still a moment, then when it seems he’s deep breathing again, move back through the munitions room and to the stairway. And in seconds we’re back beside the Blackthorn boys and I’m working the locks on their ankles with the oversize key.
"Can you guys move?" I ask as they both sit up.
"Fucking A," they both say in unison, as if they’ve rehearsed it. Max is on his feet and leading me to the back of the room. First we free the Marine, a tall kid who must have pneumonia as his breathing is raspy, but he’s game and without a question he’s on his feet. He’s got a typical Muslim beard, down to the center of his chest, and I wonder if he’s gone over to the dark side. But the thankful look in his eyes convinces me otherwise. I hope we can keep him from coughing. I notice one of his ears has been sawed away and am no longer embarrassed about killing the little key-carrying fuckhead in the next room.
Max leads me to the kid and I work the chains on him. He’s wide eyed, but receptive, and he too is on his feet.
"Anybody speak the kid’s language?" I ask in a whisper.
And Max rattles off some Pushtu in very low tones.
"Tell him he has to keep absolutely quiet." And Max does, then turns to me.
"How about the rest of them?"
"We’ve got our load." One of the men is watching us closely, having awakened as we were releasing the teenager. So I turn to Max. "Tell him I’m leaving them the key but they are on their own. Tell them do not follow us as we’re leaving booby traps everywhere." He snatches the key out of my hand, rattles a few sentences to the man, and we head for the stairway. Then I remember Emir.
"Is he alive?" I ask Max.
"Yeah. Barely, but he’s alive or he was when I went to sleep."
"Then he’s coming with us," I say and Skip moves over as I drag a stool over and Skip holds him as I cut him down. He moans, but is still out as I do a fireman’s carry and head up the stairs.
I stop in the munitions room and move very close to Skip. "C4, in that box of mortar shells. Full five minutes." And he moves over and puts a pound of the white claylike explosive in the box.
There’s no way we’re going to move five guys through the room of sleeping fighters without being discovered, it’s time to get it on, so I double click the radio again and TooBad comes back, then I whisper. "Take the guards out in exactly one minute. Acknowledge."
"10-4," he says, and repeats. "By the watch, now, one minute."
And moving quickly, as quietly as I can, I move into the room of sleeping men and stride across, carrying Emir, and am out the doorway into the hall. The kid, the Marine, and the Blackthorn guys are close behind, and Skip follows, walking backward, panning the room with the M5. Men are stirring and I hear one of them speak, a question I can tell by the tone, but no idea what he’s saying.
Skip stops in the doorway and I manage to get close enough to BeBe who’s still warming the chair just outside, masquerading as a guard. "Shit hits the fan in about 30 seconds, then we light up their world in a couple of more minutes."
He’s quickly inside the hallway and we’re moving toward the stairway down to the tunnel. I pop a frag grenade off my belt and hand it to Skip as I pass, and pull my Glock and hand it to the young Marine. His wide smile reveals he’s missing his front teeth.
The men in the room are talking to each other as Skip removes another grenade from his belt, and just as a handheld light comes on in the sleeping room, he lobs the grenades one to each side of the room and slams the door. "Frag out," he yells, and we reach the head of the stairway as the grenades rock the walls and blow the door open.
Hank is in position as I expected him to be, and yells, "What the fuck, over."
"Half the fucking Taliban army, that’s what the fuck," I manage as he leads the way down.
As we’re descending the stairway, even with my ears ringing from the reports of the frag grenades, I swear I can hear the faint popping of the Barrett as TooBad goes to work on the remaining three guards.
We hit the bottom of the stairway and are running as the C4 and a ton of RPG loads, mortars, and a variety of munitions light up the night—I’m sure but can't see much other than dank blackness—and the huge rumble rocks the walls on either side of us. It’s a little over a hundred feet of tunnel to the ladder leading up to the alley, and we make it to the end. Skip goes up first, followed by the kid, then the Blackthorn guys, and finally the young Marine with the Glock stuffed in his belt. BeBe moves up the ladder and I hand him Emir and he pulls him up through the opening. There’s so much dust in the air behind us we couldn’t see even if we had million candlepower lights.
I yell at BeBe as I hit the bottom again. "I’m going after the suitcase," and he slides down the ladder like a fireman on a pole, and we turn to run back down the tunnel, as rocks and timbers in front of us begin to fall from the ceiling.
"Out of here," BeBe yells, and I think it’s sound advice. We reverse course. As we’re running for the ladder, we’re being chased by a blast of wind and dust and debris as the tunnel collapses behind us. I have a fleeting thought of the other prisoners in the dungeon, and hope they’re not being buried in a collapsing pile of rock…but we’ve done all we can.
BeBe and I make it up the ladder and see Skip escaping down the alley, Emir now over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. The two Blackthorn guys, the Marine, and the kid are close behind.
Khan is nowhere in sight. As we exit the alley, we see the taillights of his Land Rover disappearing down the street. The hajis are consistent if nothing else.
How the fuck are we going to get nine of us in the Toyota. I yell at Skip, "You and the kid up on the luggage rack. Stuff Emir in the back." Hank and the two Blackthorn guys stuff the backseat and I drive while Bebe takes the passenger seat. Amal is standing looking a little lost, so I compound his problem.
"Amal, you walk. Find one of Khan’s boys and get a ride. Good luck." He can handle the streets of Mazar far better than any of the rest of us.
We make it to the fire escape on the four story building where TooBad is waiting, the Barrett in one hand and the RPG in the other. As I slide to a stop I see him drop the Barrett and shoulder the RPG. I turn back to see the main gates of the palace opening.
I’ve been carrying the Nuclear device detector, uncomfortably hung from my belt, and we’re all shocked as the alarm goes off so loudly I fear for my eardrums.
As the gates come full open, the black limo fills the space just as TooBad fires…and shortly following the swoosh of the rocket, the limo does an impressive end’o and explodes in a ball of flame.
I’m waiting for the end of all of our worlds as I’m sure the suitcase, a tactical nuclear bomb, is in the limo. To my great relief, even with the siren still screaming, there’s no end-of-world flash.
I can’t stand the frigging siren, so I unsnap it from my belt and throw the device out onto the street. I grab BeBe’s M5 and throw the bolt, and make the black box detector dance all the way across the road. The siren stops and I’m pretty sure no one will be able to reverse engineer the damn thing. It’s hamburger.
I have a fleeting thought as I’m watching the limo burn…if we’ve freed the radiation I know that suitcase must hold, the center of Mazar, and the Blue Mosque, may be a very unwelcome place for the next fifty years. And we may be exposed.
TooBad grabs up the heavy Barrett and BeBe flings the door open. Rather than try to take a seat, TooBad climbs onto the doorjamb with the door flapping and yells, "Hit it."
Two and a half blocks later Skip is behind the steering wheel of the truck with TooBad beside him, accompanied by the Blackthorn guys, the Marine, and the kid in the back. We’ve dropped the seats and made a flat spot for Emir in the back of the Toyota. I hope we can keep him alive until we get some medical help.
Speaking of that, I call Pax as we’re heading back to the warehouse. "Are the bird
s flying?"
"Better than that, they’re parked on top of a hill ten miles from town. They said there’s a hell of a fire down there."
"Don’t know how that could have happened?"
"Right. And I’ve got some ocean front property there in shit-bag-land I want to sell you."
"Okay, we got the goods, at least most of them, and have a strong belief the luggage is lost in a bad explosion, at least my nuclear detection device said it was close at hand…RPG down the gullet of that limo I asked you to find."
"Sounds like you found it first. Shag ass," he says and I’m back to paying attention to my driving. But still wondering if we’re not all going to spend the next few weeks withering away with radiation poisoning.
22
Khan, his three sons, and Ruba are sipping tea when we arrive back at Khan’s warehouse. We open the big doors and nose the truck inside. Both DPVs are backed into the truck bed so they're aimed at the doors, just in case we have to make a quick get-away.
As soon as we have the doors closed I join the haji bunch in the office, and immediately ask, "Where’s Amal?"
Ruba was smiling when I walked in, but it fades quickly. "He is not with you?"
"He was afoot, going to find one of these three," I point at Khan’s sons, "and catch a ride home. I guess they had more important business."
Khan speaks to one of his boys and the young man gets up and leaves. I look questionably at Ruba, and she snaps, "He goes to stand guard. In case you were followed."
"We weren’t followed," I say.
Ruba turns to Khan and rattles off some rather vindictive comments, if the expression on her face and tone mean anything. She listens to him reply, then turns back to me. "None of them saw Amal. They say they waited ten minutes then when no one showed up, returned here."
"As I recall," I growl, "the plan was to wait forty five minutes."
Again she spits words at them, but they merely shrug. Then she asks me, "You have your people, correct?"
"I do. And I have a man, Emir, an Afghani, who needs medical attention. I also have a young Uzbek man who needs attention as well. I will pay you an extra thousand, but you’re to take care of them."
Ruba nods, then continues, "So you were successful. Emal knows these streets like his own palm and will be okay. We have payment coming."
"I should negotiate again, as Khan left like a coyote and his boys did likewise. Their service was not as promised."
Ruba, too, shrugs. "We have no coyotes in Afghanistan…only wolves. Khan and his boys…that is between you and Khan. Please pay me so I can go find my brother-in-law."
I’m not happy, but I walk to the door and yell to BeBe to bring me six packs of two grand each.
As I return to the table, Ruba hands me a cup of tea.
I’m counting out money on the table, when Khan’s son crashes back into the room, yelling.
"The police!" Ruba screams, "five cars and a truck," and grabs her money, then runs for the door she’d pointed to leading to the outside and the privy. I yell after her, "Take care of Emir and the kid, on your honor," and she waves over her shoulder as she disappears.
I spin on my heel and haul ass for the truck, and jump up and slap the single light bulb in the office to smithereens, plunging the place into darkness, then yelling as I go at Hank and TooBad who are leaning against the back of the truck. "You two get ready to drag the doors on my order. The rest of you, mount up, the cops are here!"
I swing up into the back of the truck and BeBe yells at me. "Emir?"
"Leave him and the kid. They’re on their own."
We’ve got to get out of here with the Blackthorn guys, the young Marine, Hank, TooBad, BeBe, Skip and myself, so we’ll have the DPVs fully manned plus each with an extra passenger.
Skip takes the wheel of Sand Hog, which will be the first off the truck, and BeBe takes Dirt Dog. I yell at him, "Pick up the guys on the doors on your way out," and get a nod in return. "I’ll keep the cops jumping until you’re clear."
I take the .50 cal on Sand Hog, the young Marine is riding shotgun with my M5 in hand. He may be too weak to be of much help, but so far he’s full of piss and vinegar and seems ready to rumble.
"Let’s go!" I yell at TooBad and Hank, and they begin dragging the doors away. I’m hoping we have the advantage of black darkness inside the warehouse, then moonlight floods the place. And it’s light enough that I see a truck filling the space where the gates have been opened, something over two hundred feet from the warehouse. Almost immediately muzzle flashes light the night from a half dozen automatic weapons.
"Hit it, then stop after the other rig gets clear…give me four car lengths," I yell.
The powerful Porsche engine screams and Skip pops the clutch. As the front of the DPV is on the rise, trying to do a wheelie, it leaps off the truck bed and shoots forward, snapping my neck just as a powerful spotlight on top of the police truck blinds me.
Both the kid and I open up at the same time as Skip slides to a stop, and the light is blown away. I see some muzzle flashes, then activate one of the LAWs, the Light Anti-Armor Weapons, mounted on the DPV’s roll-bar and, pre-aimed directly in front of the DPV it swooshes away and strikes the radiator of the truck and the big vehicle humps like a bucking bull, blowing steam and fire.
"Break right," I yell at Skip, and he throws rocks at Dirt Dog behind us and we accelerate across the dirt yard, knowing there’s a six foot high plank fence in our path. Skip is still accelerating as we send the fence boards flying in every direction. As I’m in the catbird seat, one of the planks or part of one whacks me across the right shoulder and side of my head as it goes by, and I see stars and almost tumble out. Which would not be good as Dirt Dog is right on our heels and sure as hell would run over me. The only route out is to our left and around in front of Khan’s yard and warehouse, where cop cars and trucks have to be passed.
But you gotta do what you gotta do.
Skip slides the DPV around to the right and there are a half dozen vehicles blocking the road. It’s no time for discretion, so I light up the night with the .50 cal, adding to the light coming from the now burning police truck—but I worry as I don’t want to take out my own guys and my eyes are filling with blood.
I’m really not eager to kill a bunch of civilian Afghani cops, so as best I can judge I only stitch one burst across the cars then aim a little high, hoping they’re all trying to find a hole as a string of tracers from both our .50 and whoever’s manning Dirt Dog’s are streaks of fire that any soldier knows are interspersed with even more M2HB death.
As Skip takes the soft shoulder cutting brodies as we pass, I can’t engage as Dirt Dog is now between me and the enemy, and I don’t trust my vision.
"We can’t go back through town," I yell at Skip. "Head east on the other highway then we’ll go cross country and either pick up A62 or the wadi somewhere north of here."
"How about the airport."
"Things are way too hot," I yell, and particularly since I don’t know for sure if transportation awaits. I’m trying to compress a gash in my forehead with a palm, but the blood still flows.
Thank God it’s almost three AM and there is no traffic. After a mile of traveling at close to a hundred MPH on a road full of potholes, flying part time with air under all four wheels with every dip, we come to A72 and head east. Far behind us, at least a half-mile, I see headlights, so at least a couple of the police cars are in pursuit.
As soon as we turn onto the highway, I notice that Skip is holding his side.
"You hit?" I ask, and he glances over at me.
"Yeah, I took something in the side. Bleeding pretty good. Hell, you’re a friggin’ mess…you look like Dracula’s banquet. We gotta get somewhere and break out the WoundSeal. We could put a tourniquet on your neck." He finds great humor in that. We’ve got WoundSeal and tactical tourniquets in our bag of tricks, but stowed in the back.
"Just a bleeder head wound," I try and reassure him. "Wait until we s
tart cross-country and they can’t follow. Can you make it?"
"Fuckin’ a," he says, but he’s driving really fast and with only one hand on the wheel.
The young Marine yells, "I can drive."
"What’s your name, kid," I ask.
"Frank, buddies call me Fang. PFC Frank Pucherelli."
"You’re okay, Fang. We may let you drive, but let’s get where we can patch up."
"Roger that," he says. Then I can see, but just barely, that he’s looking up at something.
"What?" I ask.
"Chopper. These scumbags have choppers?" Fang asks.
23
"Choppers?" I answer with a bit of a smile. "Yeah, one less since we got here, but we left them a couple of billion worth so they could transport their heroin."
"There’s a two track on a berm up ahead," Skip yells.
"Take it," I say, and get on the radio. "Dirt Dog, we’re taking to the bush."
"10-4" comes right back.
"I don’t want the bad guys following and we’ve got bogies in the air. Use an RPG if the cops follow."
"10-4," the voice says, and I recognize BeBe.
"You guys whole?" I ask.
"TooBad is bleeding from a neck wound, but just a crease. I have an upset tummy…those guys were trying to hurt us." He guffaws.
"Be glad you don’t have lead poisoning," I give it right back to him.
Skip almost throws me out of the gunner’s seat as he breaks left and does a brodie onto the raised berm, and I see there’s a canal with some water to my right between berms.
We make it a half-mile down the two-track when I realize Dirt Dog has stopped. The police must be trying to follow. I see the explosion of the RPG as it takes out the lead police car, then tracers from their M2HB as they accelerate again. I turn back just in time to see an ANA chopper make a low pass in front of us.
Fuck. That’s all we need.
I don’t know if we can be as lucky this time. I grab up my sat phone and the instant the call goes through, Pax picks up. "We’re five clicks east of town, heading north just off the highway, now on a canal bank. We’ve got an ANA chopper on our ass. Where’s that Little Bird?"