by Ted Bell
“Ah, I see. So, I will heighten my security and use extra caution. I am capable of surprises of my own. I deeply appreciate this warning, my brother. Peace be with you.”
“And also with you.”
FIFTY-SIX
THE RAT PATROL RODE OUT at dawn; the desert air was frigid but bracing. Hawke rode a chestnut stallion standing fifteen hands at the head of his ragtag army. His weapon was in a leather scabbard mounted on the right side of his saddle. For some reason, during the night, Patoo had braided a scarlet pom-pom into the coarse hair at his animal’s forehead, giving his steed a more warlike appearance. Hawke had named the stallion “Copenhagen” after the magnificent chestnut warhorse that carried Wellington to victory at Waterloo.
Hawke was followed by his now deeply trusted aide-de-camp, Abdul “Absolutely!” Dakkon, followed by Sahira. Behind her rode Stokely Jones on a huge white horse he had now taken to calling “Snowball,” even though the horse’s proclivity for biting humans and other horses made this innocuous name ill-fitting.
The previous night Hawke had ordered Sahira to keep her mount between his and Stokely’s at all times as they crossed a desert valley. This high desert valley was still considered one of the most dangerous places on earth. But U.S. drones had made it a deadly place for Taliban or al Qaeda enemy fighters as well.
One hoped.
One thing, religious fervor aside, kept the insurgents fighting. Vengeance. Nearly all Taliban were ethnic Pashtuns who subscribed to an age-old code of conduct called Pashtunwali. One of its strictest rules was eye-for-an-eye revenge. Most Taliban had had many kinsmen killed in the war. Or imprisoned, or humiliated by Coalition searches of their family compounds. Most sought payback against those who had inflicted pain and dishonor upon their relatives.
“I want to die in the jihad,” a fighter once told Hawke in Iraq, “not as a sick old man under a blanket at home.”
Behind Stokely rode the bulk of the thirty leather-tough militia fighters under the command of Patoo. Next were the numerous camels and pack mules heavily laden with great leather satchels containing weapons, bottles of water, ammunition, comms gear, food, and other necessary provisions.
Bringing up the rear was Harry Brock, riding with five of the most seasoned desert fighters he’d handpicked from the whole crew. All of them had radios with orders from Hawke to immediately report anything even remotely suspicious. Harry was behaving himself, thank God. Stoke said, “Just you wait, boss. Sooner or later, he’ll cop an attitude. Extreme pissed-off-ness or extreme bored-ness, one or the other.” But so far, Brock had been a model citizen, if not a model soldier.
Hawke had assigned Harry and his five-man squad to act as skirmishers. It would be their responsibility to ride out and repel any attack by a small contingent of Taliban or al Qaeda warriors, keeping them away from the main body of the expedition. “Outriders” Harry had dubbed them.
Hawke was well aware that there were many warring factions under the command of various warlords in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region. They constantly switched sides whenever their team appeared to be losing. But the skirmishes in these valleys were usually internecine, battles between the Taliban leaders themselves—or when the enemy was occupied countering attacks by the Pakistani army or the ferocious anti-Taliban militia armies.
The deliberately ragtag group he was leading would not normally generate much excitement among Taliban forces. Hawke’s men and sole woman were all dressed like Bedouins over their flak vests. He hoped that was the image they presented, at any rate. Thanks to the commanding officer at the U.S. base at Shamsi, the assault team was blessed with enormous firepower in the event of an attack. Each and every one of Hawke’s men was equipped with an M4A1 assault rifle within easy reach from the scabbards attached to their saddles.
These state-of-the-art weapons had a rate of fire of 700–950 rounds per minute. Accessories included an M203 grenade launcher, a laser system, reflex sight, and night-vision optics. Since sand penetrates everything, they had even been provided with baby wipes to clean their bullets with, making sure they were free from grit that could cause a rifle to jam.
About an hour into the journey, soon after the long caravan forded a wide and swollen river without incident, Patoo treated everyone to a bit of spontaneous poetry, using his radio to transmit it. For such a small man, he had a big, deep, sonorous voice.
“Cannon to the right of them, cannon to the left of them, cannon in front of them, volley’d and thundered. Stormed at with shot and shell, boldly they rode and well, into the jaws of Death, into the mouth of Hell…rode the six hundred,” Patoo intoned.
There was a long moment of silence on the radio.
“Thanks, Patoo, ‘jaws of death,’ yeah, that was motivating, very inspirational,” Brock finally said over the radio, his voice dripping sarcasm.
“You scared, Harry?” Stoke asked right back.
“Just cranky. Give me a chance to kill some Talib assholes who seriously deserve it and I’ll be all better.”
“So, scared or semi-scared?”
“Lemme tell you something, pal. Right now you couldn’t shove a hot buttered pin up my sphincter.”
“Yeah, you’re scared. Heebie-jeebies, that’s what—”
“From now on,” Hawke interrupted, “everybody shuts the hell up. Radio silence unless there’s a threat or a hostile I need to know about. You’d think that was understood.”
They rode on in silence, duly chastened.
THE FIRST DAY’S JOURNEY WAS relatively uneventful. They rode past many ruins, mud huts, and deserted villages. At one point, traversing through a small copse of fig trees, they disturbed a pair of antelopes who bounded away and were soon lost to sight. But, later, they did encounter one rather troubling demonstration of the truly bizarre quality of desert warfare.
Around five o’clock that afternoon, they came upon a small, bullet-riddled British fort, early nineteenth century by the looks of it, the forlorn outpost looming up just off to the column’s right. The fort was star shaped, crumbling, but certainly still standing. Curiously enough, there was a thin wisp of grey smoke rising from a crack in the dome-shaped roof.
Hawke raised a hand, signaling a halt, and grabbed his radio.
“Stoke, you, Brock, and Patoo. Dismount. Let’s go have a look inside. Abdul, you stay with the lady. Shoot anyone who threatens either of you.”
The first thing they saw was a battered white Toyota Land Cruiser parked at a crazy angle on the far side of the building. There was a nice line of bullet holes stitched above the truck’s rear wheel. It was the kind of vehicle the Taliban used in the desert. It didn’t mean they necessarily were Talibs inside, but it didn’t mean they weren’t, either.
“Heads up,” Hawke said quietly. “We stack up at the entrance. On me. Stoke, ready a flash-bang. Go.”
Weapons at the ready, they silently moved around to the entrance.
There was no door, just an arched opening. They entered with caution, prepared for anything. Except what they found.
In the center of the main chamber of the centuries-old building, the smoldering embers of a cook fire sent smoke curling up to the ceiling. A charred joint of meat was on the spit, still dripping fat.
In each corner was a crumpled man, all of them breathing, but dead to the world. Each had an AK either cradled in his arms or splayed across his lap. The pungent smell of hashish and burned mutton lingered. And there was an empty liter of Johnnie Walker on the stone floor next to a half-eaten leg of roast mutton and a jug of water.
“Sure look like unholy warriors to me, boss,” Stoke said, carefully removing their weapons without waking them.
Hawke said, “Wake that big one up, Patoo. Use the water jug.”
Patoo picked up the jug and emptied it directly into the face of the largest of the four men. He sputtered, fluttered his eyelids, and stared up in some amazement at the man standing over him with an empty jug in his hand. When he reached for his missing AK, Patoo snatched
his own 9mm pistol from the web holster on his thigh and pressed the muzzle against the man’s forehead.
“Relax,” he said to the man, first in Urdu, then in Punjabi.
“Ask him what he’s doing here,” Hawke told Patoo.
Patoo asked and the man spat something back.
“He is telling me to go have sex with myself, sir,” Patoo told Hawke, his face apologetic for the obscenity.
“What the hell is this?” Stoke asked, picking up a blood-encrusted military shirt from a pile of similar clothing scattered on a stone stairwell. “Looks like British Army uniforms. Three or four of them. And British weapons.”
Hawke took the shirt from him and examined the insignia on the sleeve. Then he saw bullet holes below the breast pocket.
“British Royal Marines, 3rd Commando Brigade,” Hawke said. “Operating in Helmand Province across the Afghan border. That means these guys are militants who killed and stripped four of our troops of their uniforms and weapons. Bastards.”
“Martyrs who fled across the Pakistani border to plan a suicide attack on a British outpost in Afghanistan, I’d say,” Brock said, holding a suicide bomb vest aloft. “Hara-kiri. I got me a satchel full of fake British Army IDs over here, boss. Not to mention four more bomb-packed suicide vests. These four assholes were about to go back to Afghanistan on a mission, just a guess. Decided to get wasted before heading back across the border to blow themselves up and kill Brits.”
“Make all their dreams come true, Harry,” Hawke said, a look of abject disgust for the drunken look of hatred on the big Talib’s face as Hawke headed for the door.
“What do you mean?”
“You said they wanted to get wasted, Harry. So waste them.”
“Cool,” Harry Brock said, as Hawke walked out of the fort, headed for his horse.
Four short bursts of automatic weapon fire reverberated inside the fort. Then Brock, Jones, and Patoo, grim-faced, emerged from the old fort and mounted up.
“Done,” Brock said to Hawke before swinging up into his saddle. Hawke kept his eyes straight ahead, gazing into the distance. Shooting unarmed men was not something he approved of. But neither was blowing up unsuspecting British soldiers. It was war. Tough shit.
“Good,” Hawke said.
And then they rode on, into the darkness. Into the jaws of death.
THE RAT PATROL SLEPT UNDER THE STARS that night. The three-part military sleeping bags, good to minus forty degrees, kept them all from freezing to death. At least they were bedded down in the lee of a massive curving sand dune. The towering dune provided protection from the howling wind and stinging sand that would have made getting any sleep at all impossible. And protected the horses, camels, and mules as well.
Hawke had assigned Brock and Patoo’s skirmishers to form a perimeter around the makeshift camp. The seven men had dug shallow rifle pits in the sand and mounted their automatic weapons on tripods. Once this was done, Hawke walked the perimeter twice before attempting sleep. He checked to see that all the horses, camels, and mules were tethered and secure in one spot. The whole damn thing was far from perfect, but it was the best he could do under the circumstances.
ALEX HAWKE LAY ON HIS BACK, hands clasped behind his head, gazing up at the crystal clear constellations, thinking about what lay in front of them and subconsciously calculating their chances of survival. C’s words of warning about the danger he faced kept reverberating in his brain no matter how hard he tried to sublimate them. The presence of a civilian woman, especially one he cared for, didn’t help matters. He’d faced dangerous situations before, but, somehow, this one felt—A figure swaddled in blankets was approaching him through the darkness.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Sahira.”
“I want to be with you tonight, Alex. Do you mind?”
“Climb in this bag with me right now or I’m going to sleep without you.”
“I was hoping you would say that.”
Hawke pulled down the nylon slider that secured the bag and made room for her. She crawled inside and he resecured the bag against the chill.
“Cozy,” she said, embracing him, holding him against her body.
“Very.”
“Are you mad at me for doing this?”
“Are you insane?”
“It’s very unprofessional of me.”
“So kiss me and I won’t tell Lord Malmsey.”
“Oh, Alex, I have missed you so since—”
“Ssh. More kissing, less talking.”
He held her very close. She liked the pressure of his hand, urging her even closer. She cupped his cheeks with her palms, kissing him at last, but in a taunting way that made him want to kiss her brutally, take her now. Some women liked to be taken that way, roughly, and he suspected she was one of them. Lips, open a little in hunger, fed upon each other. His hands were two thieves: one holding her fast while the other made a desperate search; a hurried, clumsy thief pulling at buttons, tearing at openings.
“Do you think we can do this inside this thing?” she whispered.
“You’re about to find out.”
“You seem very determined.”
“You’ve no idea.”
Fingers under her clothes, “Yes…oh, yes.”
“Be still a moment,” he said, and she complied.
“We’re going to make it through this alive, aren’t we, Alex?”
“Of course we are,” he whispered into her ear as his body slowly slipped deep inside hers. “Of course we are.”
FOUR HOURS LATER, ALEX HAWKE was awakened by Harry Brock. The man was kneeling beside him, squeezing his shoulder. Hawke opened his eyes, blinded by the light of the rising desert sun.
“Harry? What’s going on?”
“Bad news, chief. We got a bunch of horsemen headed our way. Full gallop.”
“How the hell do you know that?”
“Patoo. Little guy puts his ear to the ground every sixty seconds or so. Been doing it all frigging night. This time he picked up riders. Lots of them. Damn it. Some shepherd or goatherd must have spotted us and told the bad guys we were coming.”
“Number of bad guys?”
“A very large group, he says. Very, very large.”
“How far out?”
“Thirty minutes. Maybe twenty. Do you think we can outrun them?”
“Only if we left all the camels, mules, ammunition, and supplies behind. Which we clearly can’t do.”
“Yeah, right. So we can’t run and we can’t hide. Shit. Now what?”
Hawke said, “Look, I’ve got an idea. Get Stoke and Patoo. Meet me at the base of the dune where all the livestock and horses are penned. Two minutes. Have Patoo get all the militia fighters up and ready and scared silly. Order them to use their pack shovels and start building a five-foot-high berm. Circular. Radius of thirty feet. And tell them to build it far enough away from this dune that we can’t take fire from above. And make sure all the horses are tethered safely on the other side of that dune. We’re not going anywhere without them.”
“Done.”
“Got it all? Hurry.”
Harry was gone.
Sahira peeked out from under the zipped-up bag. “What can I do, Alex?”
“How are you doing with your M4 rifle?”
“I’d say, comfortable.”
“Ever killed a man?”
“Of course not.”
“Get ready, then, darling. Every bullet helps.”
FIFTY-SEVEN
HAWKE, ABDUL DAKKON, AND A NUMBER of solemn-faced Pakistani militia fighters led some of the livestock, the maximum number of mules and camels they thought they could spare, around the circular berm now being constructed by their brethren, who were digging madly. Hawke had never seen men move with such ferocious alacrity in his life. Like a scared sailor with a bucket on a sinking ship. The thing was about three feet high and thirty feet across. And it was almost complete.
Patoo was prone in the center of the ring, his ear
to the ground.
“Patoo,” Hawke said, “how long?”
“Another twenty minutes if we’re lucky, sir.”
“Well, then I guess we have to be lucky,” Hawke said, with a reassuring smile.
Hawke then ordered the men to tether the big animals nose to tail in a large circle all around the exterior circumference of the makeshift redoubt, putting a space of about two feet between each camel or mule. When this was done, he pulled his pistol and told the others to do the same.
“Now comes the hard part,” Hawke said, walking over to the nearest camel. First, he removed the leather saddlebags from the animal and threw them to the ground. Then he put his pistol to the side of the beast’s head and pulled the trigger. The camel shuddered and dropped right on top of the berm. Hawke then cinched the saddlebags to the camel’s carcass facing outward. All those leather packs and saddles full of water and canned goods would afford a little more protection.
He turned and beckoned Patoo toward him.
“Patoo, I want you to go make sure absolutely every one of your men is armed to the teeth, has plenty of ammunition, and is positioned shoulder to shoulder inside this circle in five minutes. Run!”
“Yes, sir!”
“This is how you do it,” he said to his men, moving on to the next mule, raising his pistol to the animal’s head and repeating the process. In five minutes he, Brock, Stoke, and a couple of others had killed all the animals, creating a makeshift breastworks around the diameter that now stood about five feet in height. High enough to provide protection, low enough to fire over. It was hardly an ideal fortification, Hawke thought, surveying it, but it would simply have to do under the circumstances.