Zeb Carter

by Ty Patterson

  ‘What will you do with it?’

  ‘Go to Kabul,’ the storekeeper replied. ‘Spend a few weeks and then I will decide. I want to get away from here. I haven’t thought about anything beyond that.’

  ‘I want you to stay on for a couple of weeks, at least,’ Zeb told him. ‘There are some family matters I need to attend to.’

  ‘I can do that. In any case, I can’t leave immediately.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I have deliveries to make. To Mir Darreh and Sori.’

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ‘Mir Darreh and Sori?’ Zeb repeated and clamped his jaws shut when he realized he was gaping.

  ‘Yes. I set up a stall for a day in each of the villages. Every week. You’ll come along with me, so that the villagers will know you. They wouldn’t allow you in if I sold and just disappeared. Especially not in Sori.’

  Bidar kept talking, but Zeb was lost in his thoughts. This was a stroke of luck he hadn’t anticipated.

  I can check out both villages. See them from the inside.

  ‘When?’ he found his voice.

  ‘In two days.’ Bidar frowned. ‘Is there a problem?’

  ‘No. No problem at all.’

  They went to Mir Darreh on a Tuesday. The store in Raghi would be managed by a temporary worker Bidar knew. They set out in a rickety tractor, a trailer behind it filled to the brim.

  They left early and reached the village by ten am. Bidar reversed the vehicle carefully, with the trailer facing the village, and jumped out.

  A few elders greeted him. He raised his hand in acknowledgment, and he and Zeb began unloading the trailer.

  They were helped by several villagers, who rushed forward, and by eleven am were doing brisk business in the square.

  ‘Not everyone can come to Raghi,’ Bidar explained as he showed the records he maintained in a well-used notebook. ‘Some of these people are regular customers. They have credit accounts with me.’

  Zeb nodded, suppressing a smile. An operator had to be prepared for any eventuality, any situation, in an undercover mission. Still, running a grocery store was an outlier.

  He hadn’t brought his weapons. If there are any terrorists in the village, they might search us.

  Ninety minutes later, he excused himself. Told Bidar he wanted to explore the village, get to know it better for the future.

  The storekeeper licked his pencil and nodded absent-mindedly.

  Mir Darreh was smaller than Raghi. Small, narrow lanes. Houses close to each other. Not as many armed men in sight as in the larger village.

  He walked, making a mental map of entries and exits, inconspicuously observing every male.

  No one looked like a terrorist. Most of them were old, grey-bearded, faces lined. He went to the place that was the information clearing house in every such village: the tea house. He lingered over the brew, listening, smiling whenever anyone looked at him.

  The talk was of the weather. Of coalition forces. Of markets. Of the price of milk.

  The Taliban weren’t mentioned, which was very different from Raghi.

  ‘No poppy here,’ Bidar told him when they had finished for the day and were heading back to their village. ‘In Raghi, poppy and terrorists are common. The village benefits from their presence.’

  Zeb cast a sideways look at him. It was the first time anyone had openly acknowledged that fact.

  ‘I thought you had to pay a tax.’

  ‘Yes, and I will introduce you to the collector. He is a Taliban man. He takes from every business in Raghi. From every poppy farmer.’

  ‘What do you get in return?’

  ‘I live,’ Bidar shrugged.

  ‘No one goes to the police? Tells the soldiers?’

  ‘Not if they want to live. Or want their mothers, wives, or sisters, unmolested. You think anything will change here?’

  He waved a hand at the forbidding landscape. Mountains in the distance. Valleys. A picture worthy of a postcard.

  ‘Drug traffickers are everywhere. The Russians came and for a while they disappeared. They came back when the Russians went, and the Taliban came in, too. Now, the Americans, the British, the Germans—everyone is here. The Taliban will vanish into their caves when the bombing starts. The smugglers? They will continue. Nothing stops them. The foreigners cannot stay in our country forever. Things will be the same when they go back. We all know that. That’s why we pay tax.’

  There was no bitterness in his voice. Resigned acceptance.

  ‘It is why I want to leave.’

  The remainder of the ride was in silence.

  Zeb helped him unload the trailer in Raghi, went to the Rahman house and freshened himself.

  The village was quiet when he detoured to his Jeep and came across the men.

  He heard the rustling first and then the quiet murmuring.

  He stopped in the shadow of a tree and whipped out his prosthetics. Attached them to his face. Pulled his shemagh over his face, glad that he was now armed—having retrieved his Glocks from the Raghi house.

  The thicket where his vehicle was concealed was ahead of him. Still not visible … they have found my Jeep. Whoever they are .

  Behind and around him were the woods. The sounds of Raghi had long since faded.

  He remained motionless, scanning his surroundings. No movement. Human sounds coming from the front.

  He moved stealthily, his feet rolling on the ground.

  He stopped when a voice rose and then relaxed. It wasn’t directed at him.

  Twenty yards away, he could make out the glow of torches.

  He crept closer, crouched, and peered through an opening in the bushes.

  Four men. Two of them holding flashlights, while the others tried to open the rear door.

  All speaking Dari. All with AKs and black and white shemaghs on their chests.

  ‘Break it,’ one of the flashlight men said.

  ‘No. The sound will go far in the night,’ another man grunted.

  Zeb circled wide, checking for other hostiles.

  None present.

  They could have called in and reported the Jeep. Others might arrive soon.

  A Glock slipped into his hand.

  The men were still struggling when he returned. He wasn’t surprised. He had changed the locks on all the doors and had installed shatterproof windows when he had taken possession of the vehicle.

  ‘Break it.’

  ‘Think of the sound.’

  ‘Who’s around to hear it?’

  They argued among themselves and wiped sweat from their faces.

  ‘I have got the key,’ Zeb said as he stepped in the clearing.

  Shocked faces turned his way.

  The next instant, they reached for their weapons, their flashlights falling, still illuminating the area.

  Zeb dove to the ground. He wasn’t wearing armor. An AK at that range would be devastating.

  His first round took out one of the door-openers. The remaining men tried to scramble out of the way. An AK shredded leaves above him.

  Zeb didn’t flinch. A beard was in his sights.

  Trigger break.

  The beard’s head exploded.

  Dirt and stone fragments hit Zeb’s face.

  He continued firing, so rapidly that his shots sounded like a roll of thunder.

  A double tap took the third man down.

  The fourth dove behind the Jeep and started pouring lead.

  He fired too soon, however, his rounds disappearing into the woods.

  Zeb saw the man’s shoulder and chest between the wheels. He fired.

  Need him alive .

  The hostile jerked and tried to scramble to safety.

  Zeb fired again at his chest, on the right.

  The man screamed in agony.

  ‘Throw your gun,’ Zeb commanded.

  ‘I am hurt,’ the man groaned.

  ‘Throw it. Or you will die.’

  The man threw it awkwardly, with his
left hand.

  ‘Stand up. Come out. If you’re holding a weapon—’

  ‘I know,’ the man moaned and scrabbled backwards.

  He disappeared out of sight for a moment. Zeb shifted quickly, moving several yards away, and trained his Glock.

  The man came into view snarling, holding a Beretta, firing furiously at the spot where Zeb had been.

  His mouth grew slack on seeing the spot was empty. He lurched wildly, turning and Zeb shot him in the thigh.

  The terrorist howled and fell to the ground. His handgun went spinning into the dirt.

  He screamed louder when Zeb crushed his wrists and dragged him to the center of the clearing.

  Hamzad, the surviving terrorist, didn’t hold back anything. He jabbered answers as quickly as he could.

  He and the others were a patrol from Sori. They were searching for this new buyer who had accosted Mohammed’s men in the market.

  ‘Are you Sher?’ he asked, shivering in the cold night.

  He shrieked when Zeb’s thumb gouged the wound in his chest.

  ‘I ask the questions. How many people are hunting him?’

  ‘Only us.’

  ‘If you found him …?’

  ‘Capture him and take him to Sori. Mohammed wants to know who he is representing.’

  Yes , he groaned when Zeb questioned him further, the Delta operatives were still in Sori. Mohammed, too.

  No, he hadn’t seen the operatives. Only Mohammed and a few terrorists knew which house they were hidden in.

  Yes, there was a heroin factory in the village. It was in the basement of a house. He didn’t know where it was. He and the others were just foot soldiers. They weren’t part of Mohammed’s inner circle.

  Zeb checked Hamzad’s phone. No recent calls.

  He searched the bodies of the other men. No outgoing calls for a few hours. There was one incoming call from a number. Zeb didn’t bother to note it.

  Mohammed will have burner phones.

  He returned to Hamzad, who stared at his Glock.

  ‘Don’t—’

  Zeb shot him.

  He arranged the four bodies together, went to his Jeep and came back with a marker. He began writing on their chests:

  Come looking for me only if you have product to sell. And come yourself.

  He drew an animal’s head. Rough, but recognizable.

  A lion.

  Sher.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Atash Mohammed didn’t rant. He didn’t go crazed with anger.

  He became still, only his eyes flashing. Those who were close to him knew he was deadliest then.

  ‘All four are dead?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘Yes, agha,’ the messenger replied, trying to keep his voice from trembling.

  Just because Mohammed seemed to be calm didn’t mean he would stay that way.

  ‘They made no calls?’

  ‘No, agha. We too didn’t call. Radio silence, as you ordered.’

  ‘You are positive it is Sher?’

  The messenger brought out the shirts ripped from the bodies of the men. He arranged them on the ground, writing oriented towards the warlord.

  Mohammed stood over them and read silently.

  ‘Where were the bodies found?’

  ‘In the forest, in the valley. A farmer found them. He informed our people in Raghi.’

  ‘Where exactly?’

  ‘At the edge of the forest,’ the messenger said, describing the exact location.

  Neither he nor anyone else in that house knew that Zeb had moved the bodies. Had brought them to that location.

  ‘They didn’t know anything?’

  ‘No, agha. They rarely come deep inside the village. And when they do, they come only as far as the square.’

  The leader dismissed him with a flick of his fingers.

  ‘Four killed by Sher. One by Dalir,’ he said savagely, to the two men who remained with him.

  ‘We have men,’ one of them said comfortably. ‘Twenty brave fighters, here. No one can come to Sori without our knowing.’

  Mohammed brooded for several seconds.

  ‘Set up a meeting with Bykov and Tucker.’

  They met in an abandoned village several miles from Keshem.

  Coalition forces had gone from house to house, clearing it of Taliban fighters. Its residents never returned. They relocated to other villages. Some went to Keshem, a few to Faizabad and Kabul.

  ‘You’re having some tough times, aren’t you?’ Tucker gloated as he watched the warlord pace.

  ‘If you provided better intel, none of this would have happened.’

  ‘New dealers in Badakshan. That’s your area. You and your trafficker friends. If this dude, Sher, came from nowhere, it’s your network that’s slipping.’

  Mohammed glared balefully at him, his fists clenched.

  ‘Why did you go searching for him, anyway?’ Bykov asked.

  ‘I wanted to find out which gang he was from.’

  ‘Why does it matter?’ The Russian smoothed his hair and straightened the fall of his jacket. ‘His money is as good as anyone else’s. Anyone who can throw five thousand dollars away should be taken seriously.’

  ‘He’s not DEA?’ the terrorist’s lips curled bitterly.

  ‘Nope,’ Tucker confirmed. ‘They don’t work like that and they would have told me if he was.’

  ‘Arrange a meet,’ Bykov advised. ‘If he wants to buy direct from you, set it up. You have product piled up. We’ll need the funds for our other shipment. If he isn’t a buyer … you know what to do. This other matter, nothing should interfere with that.’

  ‘You are close? You got the labor?’

  ‘Yes. From Raghi and Mir Darreh,’ Bykov confirmed. ‘A week at the most and then we’ll be ready to move. You got a date for the attack?’

  Tucker grimaced. ‘It will be in eleven days. We have moved troops up from Bagram and Helmand.’

  ‘Your men,’ Mohammed sneered, anticipating the American’s question. ‘I’ll hand them over on the day of the shipment.’

  ‘Aren’t you also—’

  ‘Yes,’ the Taliban man cut him off. ‘So what?’

  ‘Make sure you stick to your deal,’ Tucker told him grimly, spun on his heel and left the house.

  ‘Tomorrow we go to Sori,’ Bidar told Zeb when he arrived at the store and helped the young man lay out his groceries.

  ‘I thought Taliban were in that village.’

  The storekeeper looked about him and then lowered his voice. ‘They are.’

  ‘So, we’ll just walk in like that?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  They left before the sun rose the next day, Bidar’s tractor sounding loud in the stillness of the village.

  They headed out of the village to the track and began the long climb towards Sori.

  They were halfway up by the time the day brightened. Zeb sat alert, observing the terrain from his elevated perch on top of the trailer. He picked out the spot where he had come across Abdul and Nazir. His eyes followed the route he would have taken that night. No cover, steep climb.

  The cliff he had been planning to climb was out of sight.

  I hope I get a chance to walk through the village. Explore it. Otherwise …

  He would have to make another night attempt to confirm the presence of the operatives.

  And then the rescue.

  He had a rough plan for that, but a large part of it was dependent on Sori’s layout.

  However, distraction played a major role in his plan.

  I’ll blow up the village.

  Get the operatives down the cliff. The Taliban will not expect that.

  The Jeep will take us to the river.

  Where I’ll make arrangements for a boat.

  Sail to the east, not west. Away from the Tajikistan-Uzbekistan border.

  Head inland into Tajikistan, where he would make contact with Kilmer, who would arrange the exfil.

  There were big
holes and unanswered questions in his plan. The operatives’ condition was one. He hoped they would be able to move on their own power.

  Arranging a boat was another.

  That’s probably the easiest part . He had seen signs for boat rentals when he had driven to the island market.

  Eyes-on. Everything can be worked around that. Once I see the prisoners and assess their condition, I can make arrangements.

  He knew time was running out. Ten days remained for the coalition attack.

  ‘Sori,’ Bidar called out.

  Zeb’s insides tightened as the tractor slowed as they approached a large parking space. The village was visible, a mile away.

  A few turbaned men were already streaming from it, heading their way.

  ‘They’ll help carry our goods,’ Bidar said as he jumped down and started to unlatch the trailer.

  Zeb helped him, his gut tightening.

  By the end of the day he would know if the Delta operatives were in the village.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Unloading and transporting their wares took an hour and a half. Bidar was well known in Sori and his weekly stall was a big event.

  Several villagers cast a curious eye in Zeb’s direction as they helped carry baskets and sacks.

  At the entrance of the village, a street that snaked through the mud houses, three bearded men, faces covered, AKs shining in the sun, searched him thoroughly.

  ‘This is your partner?’ one man asked the grocer.

  ‘Yes. He’s Rahman Minister’s—’

  ‘We know,’ the gunman cut in brusquely. ‘Did you tell him the rules? You know the rules?’ He glared at Zeb.

  Rules? Zeb shook his head, mutely.

  ‘No eye contact with anyone carrying guns,’ the shooter responded, showering spittle in his face. ‘Look down. No questions. Don’t leave the square. Understood?’

  Zeb wiped his face with a sleeve and nodded.

  The gunman glowered at him for a moment longer and then swept away.

  ‘I should have told you,’ Bidar whispered.

  ‘It’s all right. I didn’t know they moved around so openly.’

  They. The Taliban.

  Bidar snorted in reply. Sori was the terrorists’ village. Where else would they be?

  ‘Does he—’

  ‘Don’t say his name!’ Bidar said sharply. ‘No. He doesn’t. I have seen him only once.’

  They passed small houses, holes in their walls for windows. A donkey tried to kick them and trotted away when a villager smacked its butt.