by Young, Tom
“All right,” Cantrell said. “They have my attention. Captain Najib, I suggest we try to flank them from the north.”
Najib watched the snowflakes, seemed to study the wind. “This will take longer now,” he said.
“We’ll just have to be careful,” Cantrell said. “But if these assholes want to dance, we’ll dance.”
Parson wondered why the move to the north, but he didn’t want to ask stupid questions of soldiers in combat. Eventually, as he followed Najib’s slow stalk across the valley, the answer dawned on him. The wind had picked up to around twenty knots now, right out of the north, and walking into it brought tears to his eyes and numbed his face. And when we turn to try to engage those bastards again, Parson realized, we’ll be coming out of the north ourselves. Any sniper trying to pick us off will have to watch and aim directly into that bitter wind. Nobody could stare into this shit long without his eyes blinking and watering.
When they reached the outcrop, the troops fanned out to look for bodies or blood trails. Parson found a single set of footprints leading to and from the firing position. Empty casings. Shards of wood, bark, and chipped rock left by the team’s hailstorm of bullets. Not one drop of blood.
“I thought we had him there for a minute,” Cantrell said.
“Marwan has expert training,” Najib said, “and the mullah has long experience. They are not soft targets.”
“And they think heaven is on their side,” Gold said.
The team angled away from the outcrop, continuing almost due north now. The troops moved about three steps at a time. At each pause, they scanned into what looked like a wall of white and gray: snowy landscape and low clouds, steady patter of flakes. When they saw no threat, they moved up a little and looked again.
The painstaking advance left Parson shivering. He wasn’t walking fast enough to generate much body heat, but he suspected he shivered as much from dread as from cold. Any moment could bring the crack of another high-velocity, boat-tail bullet. And if Marwan recognizes me, Parson thought, he’ll nail me first just on principle. I’ll just have to see him before he sees me.
Parson recalled what Marwan’s men had done to Nunez, what they’d nearly done to him and Gold. The just-missed chance for payback. He wanted to shout, stab, shoot. Now he could only watch and wait. And take another three steps. He wished he had some sort of emotional circuit protection, like the breakers in the airplane that tripped when the load got too high. But he had no such thing, and the wiring of his mind could only burn.
Najib guided the team along an escarpment that paralleled their course. But where the ridge made an odd cut toward the south, he had no choice but to cross it into the next valley. The troops followed Najib at an angle through a cove that opened onto a steep incline pelted by snow granules. It occurred to Parson that the soldiers had done in slow motion what his own crew would have done in the airplane: fly low through a valley for terrain masking, and then cross a ridge at a low spot on a forty-five-degree angle.
The gritty snow must have been falling on this slope for some time. Sleet and ice pellets lay scattered over the snowpack like shattered crystal. It seemed to Parson that every fold in these mountains had slightly different weather, usually worse than the ridgeline before it. He couldn’t see all the way to the foot of the massif; darkness was coming on, and blackness seemed to have pooled in the valley below. Night didn’t fall in the Hindu Kush. It started on the low ground and worked its way up.
Cantrell called a halt and gathered the team around him. “I didn’t want a firefight with these assholes at night,” he said, “but since they’ve slowed us down, every minute counts. I don’t know if they have NVGs, but just in case, take off any glint tape you’re wearing.”
Parson had a square of tape Velcroed to his shoulder. He peeled it off and slipped it into a pocket. No need to worry about identification by friendlies now. Gold and the men around him were the only allies for miles.
Najib gave orders in Pashto. Gold raised her eyebrows as if she was impressed. Two of the ANA soldiers stepped forward. They detached the ACOG sights from their M-4s and installed some other kind of scope. Thermal sights, Parson guessed. That’s good luck or damn fine planning. The night belongs to whoever has the best gear and the biggest balls.
Cantrell and Najib consulted their maps and photos, and Parson turned on his GPS long enough to get a current position. Wordlessly, he offered it to them with coordinates displayed. Najib pointed to a spot on a satellite photo and nodded.
“Sergeant Gold tells me you are proficient with that M-40,” Najib said. “If you see a target, do not hesitate to use it.”
“I won’t,” Parson said. He doubted he’d get that chance tonight, since his weapon’s scope was a daylight optic. But this was becoming a running skirmish that could go on day and night until the storm lifted enough for an air strike. Here, motherfuckers, have some napalm. All right, no air strike, he thought, since we can’t fry the mullah. So this is man-to-man, bullet by bullet. We can do that, too.
Parson’s nose ran because of the constant cold, and now the wind made it worse. He sniffled, tasted the salt on the back of his throat. Dabbed his nose with the back of his glove. The wind didn’t seem to be dying down with twilight, either. That just made things a little more miserable. But at least the snake-eaters seemed to know how to turn misery into advantage. You had to give them that.
“Let’s not keep our friends waiting,” Cantrell said. “Pick your targets carefully. Remember, we want the preacher alive.”
Not an easy task at night, Parson realized. You can’t recognize a face at any distance with NVGs or thermal optics. They’ll have to pay attention to which one moves like an old man. Just like with flying, he considered, everything’s more complicated after dark.
The team followed the crest toward the east, moving in a column formation. Najib led the way, with each man covering a sector of fire to the right or left. These special ops guys are leaving nothing to chance, Parson thought. Just because we’re hunting the bad guys doesn’t mean the bad guys aren’t hunting us.
When it got so dark his scope was useless, Parson slung his rifle over his shoulder. He drew his pistol and carried it in his right hand. Placed his NVGs around his neck. The Colt’s weight reignited the flickering pain in his wrist. He shifted the .45 to his left hand. If he fired now, he’d be shooting blindly in an attacker’s general direction, which he could do with either hand. And if he had to do that, things had really gone to hell.
Parson walked with his goggles switched on, and he raised them and looked through them every few steps. The soldiers had monocular night optics mounted on head straps, and they could scan with their hands free, weapons ready. Eventually, Najib and Cantrell halted. They kneeled and pulled a poncho over themselves to check the map by flashlight. No light visible to the naked eye leaked from their poncho, but when Parson watched them with NVGs, the rip-stop nylon glowed like a giant, misshapen firefly. Snowflakes falling onto it shimmered like green glitter. Then the light flicked off and the two men emerged.
“Time to turn south, fellas,” Cantrell whispered. “Take it easy; look for them with IR. You know the drill.” Najib spoke in Pashto. Repeating the order, Parson supposed.
Parson had little experience with infrared equipment, but he knew thermal scopes could penetrate snowfall and fog better than NVGs. They didn’t amplify trace light; they sensed heat. Marwan and his goons might know how to use concealment and stealth, but anything at 98.6 degrees would contrast sharply in this god-awful cold. He hoped he’d soon see some of them brought to ambient temperature.
The team crept to the ridge crest. The soldiers watched the region below for several minutes. Then Najib nodded at Cantrell, raised his arm, and swept it forward. At that signal, the troops spread out and began descending the slope, pausing often to observe with their night optics.
It felt good to have the wind at his back for a change. Grainy snow spattered against the back of his coat with every g
ust, and Parson was glad he didn’t have to take those ice nettles in his face and eyes. His NVGs revealed nothing except sparse trees, stunted branches bending with accumulated snow.
The troops reconnoitered for hours, and Parson was beginning to wonder if the insurgents had changed direction. But when Najib stopped and raised his fist, the team froze. Parson still saw nothing. He clenched his jaw to stop his teeth from chattering. No one moved or spoke for at least two full minutes.
Cantrell and Najib gave a series of hand signals that Parson could not follow. One of the American soldiers moved up, whispered with Cantrell. Parson watched the man remove the wrapping from a chemical lightstick. The commando hiked some distance from the team and kneeled by a thornbush. He tied a length of parachute cord to the lightstick, then wrapped the stick in a bandanna. He bent the lightstick enough to crack the glass vial inside, and two chemicals mixed to form a red luminescence. The soldier adjusted the bandanna to better hide the glow, then left the concealed lightstick hanging in the bush. He unrolled cord as he returned to his teammates and crouched beside Cantrell.
The troops began moving into positions behind trees, into low swales, taking whatever cover the landscape provided. Cantrell motioned for Parson and Gold to get down in a draw defiladed by a stone ledge. Parson still saw no enemy through his NVGs, but when Cantrell loaned him a thermal scope he saw two men a couple hundred yards away, each holding a Kalashnikov. Their infrared figures looked like a photo negative come alive, human shapes limned in white, surrounded by darkness. Their Pakul hats were dipped into the wind to help shield their faces. So they were on guard, but not really guarding. Chilled into complacency.
Parson handed the scope back to Cantrell. He caught a glimpse of the snake-eater’s face in the backglow of the eyepiece. Cantrell wore a faint smile, as if he liked the odds he had created for himself.
Cantrell took a final look through the IR scope, gave it to Parson again. Then he raised his rifle and spoke softly into his MBITR.
Two quick shots ripped the night. The two guards fell. The soldier holding the parachute cord jerked it. The lightstick tumbled out of the bandanna, and the enemy opened up on it.
A storm of bullets slammed into the mountainside around the chem light. One round struck the stick itself. Glowing liquid sprayed like a splash of Saint Elmo’s fire.
Gun blasts sputtered in the darkness. The SF team popped off one or two rounds at a time on semiauto. Aiming, Parson supposed. The other side tore through full magazines.
Parson looked through the thermal scope again. One of the sentries lay still. The other raised himself up and leaned against a tree. He held his rifle as if it were too heavy to bring up and fire. Then he dropped it. He placed his hand to his chest, stumbled, held on to the tree with that same hand. Seen through the IR lens, his hand left a glowing smear on the bark. The insurgent fell facedown into the snow. His handprint remained on the tree, but as Parson watched, it cooled and faded until no sign of the guerrilla’s touch remained.
The firing died to sporadic crackles, then stopped altogether. Parson hoped someone had hit Marwan this time, but he doubted the terrorist leader was one of the two men he’d seen shot. Marwan would not have been standing watch like a private, certainly not like an inattentive private.
Cantrell murmured into his radio again. Some of the soldiers stood up and stalked forward. Others remained in place to cover them. Then the ones who had moved up crouched with weapons ready to guard the advance of their comrades.
In leapfrog fashion, the team crept ahead without any opposition now. Just a cold wind that lifted the powder from branches and mixed it with the flakes still falling, so that the trees themselves seemed to generate snow. The thermal scope didn’t show the effect, but when Parson switched to his night-vision goggles, the larches appeared to send forth billows of emerald dust.
Najib checked the two bodies. No ID, no money or wallets, just their weapons and old Soviet-style ammo vests with pouches for AK-47 magazines. He handed a full mag to Gold, who placed it in a pocket of her field jacket. One of Najib’s ANA troops reported to him in Pashto, and Najib shook his head.
“We get any others?” Cantrell asked.
“Negative,” Najib said. “I saw no drag marks, either.”
“Well, we thinned ’em out a little,” Cantrell said. “Let’s just keep the pressure on them until we can get some help.”
But help isn’t coming until the weather lifts, Parson told himself. The combination of low barometric pressure, temperature/ dew point spread, and moisture content means we’re fighting this part of the war by ourselves.
He looked straight up with his NVGs, hoping to gauge the cloud height. That gave him nothing but vertigo. It appeared the whole universe consisted of chartreuse fog and snow, not falling but floating into a world dissolving into mist. Dizzy, Parson stumbled and went down on both knees, nearly banged the scope of his M-40 against a rock. Shit, let’s not do that again, he thought. I’m disoriented enough as it is.
Gold helped him to his feet. He thought he saw her smile slightly, as if she was amused that his equipment and his inner ear could not apprehend all of Creation.
The team followed the insurgents’ tracks through most of the night. The footprints continued east unswervingly, and Parson decided Gold was probably right about where the bad guys were headed. They want to tag home base, he figured, where it’s relatively safe.
Cantrell and Najib showed no intention of stopping for rest. Looks like we’ll just eat on the move and sleep when this is over, Parson thought. He’d heard of special ops troops training in scenarios that kept them awake until they began to hallucinate from sleep deprivation. So this was why they did that. With all that’s riding on this mission, he realized, exhaustion is just another field condition. One more thing to overcome in the protection of civilians sleeping soundly, warm, well fed, and oblivious.
Parson scanned the terrain with his NVGs to get his bearings again. Noted where Gold was. Checked for Najib and Cantrell up ahead. Tightened his boot laces, placed his rifle across his arm, and pressed on.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
It was still dark when Najib and Cantrell stopped to check their map again. Parson joined them under the poncho that shielded their flashlights. He turned on his GPS to offer help, but he could tell that Najib was so proficient at old-school land navigation that he needed no assistance. About thirty years of living in these mountains didn’t hurt, either, Parson thought.
“We should turn north and flank them again,” Najib said as he closed his compass.
“Might as well,” Cantrell said. “The wind hasn’t changed.”
“Is it a good idea to hit them again from the same direction?” Parson asked.
“If they do not expect us to do that,” Najib said, “then it is exactly what we wish to do.”
That made sense to Parson. It also meant another approach with the wind and snow at their backs and in the enemy’s face. But not before the team faced into it themselves for a while. When they began moving again, Parson turned his head against the whipping snow, tried to shield his cheek with the hood of his parka. That helped a little, but Parson still felt the stings of white pellets turned by the wind into projectiles. He wondered how his face could be so numb yet still sense the prick of every grain of snow and ice. He tried wrapping a handkerchief around his nose and mouth. The moisture of his breath made it freeze into the shape of his face.
The lead weight of fatigue began to form behind his brow. He wanted nothing more than to slump into a drift and sleep, but he realized that the team could not stop now. Even if they did, he knew that if he slept without taking the time to build a proper snow cave, he would never wake up.
The sky to the east began turning from deep black to ice gray. Parson hoped dawn would perk him up some, but, if anything, it made his eyes more heavy-lidded. His wearied mind began to wander. He wondered if the families of his crewmates had been notified by now. Probably not. He doubted that would hap
pen until the bodies were recovered. What could I have done differently? he asked himself. He went over the events of the last few days, especially the day of the shootdown. Then he forced himself to stop. Better focus on the here and now, he thought, or you’ll get yourself or somebody else killed.
He saw Gold watching him again. Parson stopped to remove his rucksack and put away his NVGs. Then he shouldered the pack and kept walking.
A glance upward told him vertical visibility still amounted to nothing. Overcast loomed just above like a sodden tarpaulin. The team was passing through treeless country now, a valley that looked like a moonscape blanketed by snow. Boulders littered the terrain, stones the color of burned metal on the sides not covered in white.
The troops watched their sectors of fire, each trigger finger extended across each trigger guard. Parson saw nothing to suggest an enemy close by, but he didn’t trust his instincts when he was so tired. He felt he was moving into some stage of fatigue he’d never experienced before, with strange effects like a poison. He had a metallic taste in his mouth, as if he held a dime on his tongue. Despite the cold, his flesh became sensitive, as if his flight suit were made of sandpaper. Gold and the Special Forces troops looked like they were holding up all right, but the skin sagged under their eyes.
When the team turned to the south, Parson tried to make himself alert, to will himself away from exhaustion. Heading south meant a move to intercept the jihadists again. A firefight could happen at any time. He felt the wind against the back of his head.
Najib stopped and seemed to look at something for a long time. The soldiers froze. Parson crouched and shouldered his rifle so he could look through the scope. Eventually he found what Najib saw.
In the distance, a spot of red highlighted the snow. When the team moved closer and Parson looked through his scope again, he saw some kind of bloody mess. It had to have been recent or else new snow would have covered it. Something solid in the middle of the red slush. Parson supposed the wolves had killed an animal. Maybe they’d fed on an ibex or some farmer’s goat.