by Tal Bauer
“Go! Go!” The fighters slammed on the roof of the truck. “We have him!”
Engines wailing, the two trucks roared past the base gate, rear guns firing on the soldiers who tried to pursue, to chase. David watched the base’s main gate pass overhead in a blur, the hazy blue sky smear into gray, and a jihadi stare down into his face before darkness poured in and his entire world went black.
Everything was too slow, like Kris was stuck in a dream.
Flames shivered in slow motion, enough that he could see every curve and arch of the fire. Someone screamed in his face. He could make out every rounded shape of their words, their letters. See each of the fillings in their teeth. A dull roar had replaced all sound, the inside of a bell that had been rung once and had taken over the world.
He couldn’t draw a single breath. His lips moved, gasping for air. The world snapped, racing from too slow to too fast, a dose of adrenaline coursing through his body, his mind, with hyper clarity and a rush of reality.
Finally, he dragged in a breath and shot up. Hands pushed him back down to the gravel. “Do not move! Do not move, sir! You’ve been injured! We’re getting you medically evac’d now!”
“David—” He pushed at the man, a soldier, a Special Forces medic trying to check him over. He rolled to the side, trying to escape. Looked across the gravel.
Twelve bodies lay motionless on the ground, some mangled so badly they looked like they’d been through a meat grinder or had dropped from an airplane without a parachute. Medics worked on two people, motionless and drenched in ruby blood. Kris watched one shake his head and sit back, wiping at his forehead.
The gravel yard, where they had paced and waited for Hamid and David to arrive, sharing jokes to cut the tension, was gone. Blasted earth, flames, and blood-soaked gravel were all that remained. Bullet casings, a thousand of them. Shards of glass and nails that rose like spikes.
“No,” Kris breathed. “No, no, no…” He struggled against the medic’s hold again, trying to sit up. “David! Where is David? Where the fuck is David?”
The medic fought him, grabbing his hands and arms and forcing him back to the ground. “Do not move, sir!” he bellowed. “You have a serious internal injury! Do not move!”
“How many are dead?” Kris screamed. “How many?”
“Everyone but you, sir.”
“No!” Kris bellowed. “No!”
“And one was taken. Al-Qaeda penetrated the base and took a hostage.”
The medic strapped him to a board and loaded him into a helicopter forty-five seconds later. As they rose over the base, Kris saw another two choppers taking off from the airfield and circling the base, searching the perimeter, the roads. Have to find the hostage, Kris thought. Have to find him. Who? Who did they take? David—
His thoughts were interrupted by the slip of meds into his veins, the medic pumping his IV bag full of sedatives. The last thing he saw was a helicopter sprinting away from the base, following the dirt road past the fallow farmland and rising over the village.
He woke briefly in the US Army hospital at Camp Seville as the surgeon was calling out orders to the surgical team. “The patient has a nicked artery and a collapsed lung, along with broken ribs. We stabilize the bleeding, treat the lung, package the ribs. Secondary team, you work on removing shrapnel embedded in the dermis. Any human body parts, bones, teeth, skin, that you pull out as shrapnel, save for identification and packaging for the mortuary team. I can see he’s got someone’s shattered bone splinters embedded in his thigh. All right, let’s begin.”
A tear slid from his eye as the nurse pumped his IV bag full of sedatives again. David, where are you? Are you alive? Please, be alive. Please, please, be alive.
Washington DC
One Hour After the Blast
Director Edwards looked up as a tentative knock sounded on his doorjamb.
No one in the CIA knocked like that unless it was bad fucking news.
George hovered in the doorway, looking like he was five years old and his puppy had just died. His hands wrung together. “Director,” he started. He looked away. Swallowed. “Director, there’s been an incident. He licked his lips. “At Camp Carson.”
“The Hamid op? Caldera?”
George nodded. “Sir, thirteen officers are dead. And al-Qaeda stormed the base. They took a hostage.”
“Fuck.” Rage bloomed within Edwards, a nuclear reaction of despair and fury. “Find out everything. I have to call the president.”
Camp Seville
Afghanistan-Pakistan Border
Afghanistan
Eight Hours After the Blast
Kris woke to a steady beeping.
Bandages covered his chest, tight enough that he could barely breathe. He felt a pull in his abdomen, constriction in his chest. He pushed at the bandages and saw a line of stitches running from his belly button to his sternum. More bandages wrapped around his thigh, his arms. One arm was in a sling. An IV line stuck into the back of his hand.
Where the fuck was he?
Where the fuck was David?
Please, be alive. Please, please be alive.
He tore at the IV line and flung the needle over the side of his bed. Ripped the EKG monitors from his chest. The machine’s steady beeping stopped, input not detected. He forced himself to the side of the bed, his arms and legs shaking.
Step by slow step, he pushed himself to the end of the line of beds, filled with silent, unmoving bodies wrapped in bandages and casts. Most were missing limbs, legs or arms or both. The ward could have been a morgue. He clutched his belly, his ribs, and kept walking.
An Army nurse spotted him and ran to his side. “Sir, you cannot be out of bed.”
“How long have I been here?” he asked the man, a young kid probably no older than nineteen.
“You have to get back to bed, sir. You’ve been in surgery for four hours, recovering for only another four. You need to rest.”
“Fuck you,” Kris spat at the young soldier. “I need to get back to Camp Carson.” Eight hours since the attack. Eight hours since the blast.
“Sir, you were seriously injured and you need to let your body heal.” The soldier tried to push Kris back toward his bed, as if he were an invalid.
“Fuck you!” Kris shouted. His lungs seized, burned. Tears stung his eyes. “I am checking out and I am going back to Camp Carson! I am the base commander, and I will not sit here while one of our own has been kidnapped! Get me the fuck out of here, now!”
He pulled rank and threw his weight around. He was the base commander. He wasn’t going to be forced back into a hospital bed.
Finally, he was released, and one of the base ambulance helos ferried him back over the village to Camp Carson.
“Carson is on lockdown,” the pilot shouted at him over the rotors. “Only one helo is cleared for landing. From Kabul.”
Fucking Ryan. “I don’t care what you have to do, you get me on that base.”
The pilot spent twenty minutes talking to Carson’s landing officer, but finally, he touched down on the airfield. As they came in for landing, Kris saw the devastation, the destruction, the crater in the ground filled with blood-soaked gravel, the bullet-shredded command center. The flipped and burned car David had driven back to base.
David, my God, where are you?
Would he find David in the morgue? Or on the internet, a paraded captive of al-Qaeda? Which was worse? David, David, my love.
He forced the pain, the anguish away, and stumbled as fast as he could to the command center. CIA officers huddled outside, numb shock on their frozen faces. Others walked the destruction, taking photos, writing notes.
The investigation had already begun.
Kris badged into the command center. He threw open the door, grimacing—
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Ryan blocked his path. “Get the fuck out of here, Caldera.”
“No.” He gritted his teeth. “I am the base commander here—”
; “Not anymore you’re not!”
“We have a man out there! And I am not leaving until we get him back!”
“Do you even know who it is?”
Kris shook his head. Tears built, white-hot, in his eyes.
“It’s Haddad. The jihadis searched for him, specifically took him.”
He gasped, fell forward. Dizziness turned his world upside down, and he clung to a chairback to stay upright. Tears cascaded down his cheeks, Niagara Falls erupting from his eyes. “What do we know?” he whispered.
“You are not a part of this investigation—”
“Don’t you dare try and shut me out of this—”
“You failed to properly secure the Hamid operation, you failed to properly vet the source, and you failed to protect the lives of people under your command—”
“Don’t you dare pin this all on me! You signed off on the operation!”
“You are through on this base, and in the CIA!”
“I’m fucking going to get David back!” Kris shrieked. “Do not push me out of this! That is my husband out there! My husband, kidnapped! We don’t have time for this! We have to get him back, before they—” His voice stopped, unable to say the words. His brain skittered forward though, finishing the thought. Before they murder him.
Ryan’s chest heaved. He glared at Kris, pure fury burning Kris from the inside out. Fine, hate him. Blame him. Kris didn’t care.
A hundred pairs of eyes in the command center stared him down, all the men and women who had been inside when the blast happened, when the bullets flew. Did they all blame him too? Broken monitors lay in a heap in the corner, full of bullet holes. Lights hung from their mounts on the ceiling, swaying and dark. He’d allowed the base to be attacked, to be breached. He’d let everyone’s lives to be put at risk.
But he only cared about one life. David’s.
“What is the status of the search?” He spoke through clenched teeth, his body trembling.
Silence.
“What is the status of the search?” he repeated.
Ryan looked like he was chewing glass, like he’d rather murder Kris than speak to him. “We lost the vehicles that penetrated the base. We think they did a car swap under concealment in the village and then drove Haddad away in a secondary vehicle.”
The village around Camp Carson was a warren of mud huts, alleys, and bazaars, perfect to get lost in.
“Have you tracked all cars entering and exiting the village since the attack?”
“Drone pilots were unable to follow all vehicles in the immediate aftermath.” Ryan’s jaw clenched. “The chaos here was overwhelming, and in an absence of leadership, the base’s operations faltered.”
Kris felt the rebuke like a slap against his soul. “What leads do you have?”
“Nothing.”
Panic clawed at Kris’s heart. “Have you sent out the drones? Are you scouring the border crossings? What’s coming through over intercepts, over traffic? Any celebrations, any coded transmissions? What do you mean you have nothing?”
“Caldera, get out of here. You’re not helping. You’re through. Leave, now.”
“Don’t you dare try—”
“Sir.” One of the intercept analysts, three rows of computer monitors away, stood. “Sir, something has been posted to the internet.”
“Put it up on the monitors,” Kris and Ryan said in unison. Ryan glowered at him.
“Start a trace of the upload link. Where is this coming from?” Kris continued.
On the center monitor, a video appeared. Al-Qaeda’s new operations specialist, who had taken over for Suleyman, a man named Al Jabal, sat next to a bound and bloodied David.
“My fellow Muslims, rejoice!” Al Jabal began in Arabic. “We have launched a great strike against the Imperialists, against the Great Satan! The infidels, they believed they could turn one of our brothers against us. But we tell you, a true brother will never turn against his fellow Muslims. Our brother’s conscience would not allow him to fall prey to the Great Satan’s promises. He would not spy on his brothers for the infidels!”
Kris’s heart, what was left of it, sank. David, you were right. He watched David sway on the video, tried to will his downturned head to look up. David, look into the camera. Show me you’re all right. Show me you’re alive, that you’re fighting. Come on, my love.
“The American devils strike with their missiles and destroy lives in Pakistan, in Afghanistan!” Al Jabal cried. “But now, we have struck you in the heart of your CIA spy nests, your home in Afghanistan. Now, you will taste the blood of your family as your home is destroyed.”
He went on, praising Hamid for being a martyr and a true fighter of the faith, promising eternal glory to him and his family.
Kris wanted to puke. Bile rose in his throat, burning the back of his tongue.
“Now, we will try this kufir, this false Muslim, this apostate who works for the Great Satan,” Al Jabal said, grabbing David’s hair. He wrenched David’s head back, and Kris saw, finally, his bruised and bloody face. He gasped, his hands flying up, covering his mouth.
David had been beaten to within an inch of his life. He was practically unrecognizable.
But Kris would always know, always, David’s soul.
“We will try this apostate for his crimes against the ummah, against Allah, and when his sentence is passed, we will carry out his execution for the ummah to witness. By Allah, the ummah will taste the blood of the apostate!”
“No!” Kris screamed. He turned away from the video, turned his back on it, tried to block out the sound. From the corner of his eye, he saw Ryan give the kill signal to the analyst.
“Any information on the upload?” Ryan growled. “Where did that video come from?”
“Still searching, sir,” the analyst called. She and a dozen others were working furiously at the network, trawling trunk lines and diving into ISPs, hunting for the source of the upload.
“Sir, I think I found something. An internet café outside Alizai.” The analyst pulled up satellite footage of the village, a settlement of homes and bazaars and weapons markets just across the border, through the mountains.
Ryan’s jaw worked, muscles bulging out in time to his furious clenches. “We cannot let a CIA officer be slaughtered by al-Qaeda. We have to get him back.” He started barking orders as Kris clung to the chair back, desperate to stay standing. “I want two teams ready to go at the airfield in five minutes. Give me everything you have on Alizai. Satellite footage. Drone coverage. Intercepts. Who operates out of there? Who had been identified as working there? What safe houses are in the village? Get me drones overhead covering all angles of the village. Let’s move!”
The command center burst into action all around Kris. He sank into the chair, clutching his ribs, head in his hands, as the image of David’s beaten face burned itself into the backs of his eyelids.
“ETA to Alizai, eight minutes.”
Ryan passed Kris a headset. On-screen, the Special Forces quick reaction force was locked and loaded in the belly of their chopper and heading for the border. Kris felt the roar and rumble of the helos pass directly over the command center. A thousand bullet holes in the steel walls made the whoosh and grumble of the rotors echo, as if the helo were inside his bones or carving him up as he stood before it.
Alizai wasn’t far over the border. North by north east, near Parachinar, the lawless city of the northwest frontier, and the White Mountains, the infamous Tora Bora. Once, he’d worried David would die in Tora Bora. But David had lived, at least in 2001. Was he destined to die there still? Was fate a cruel, cruel mistress?
Or was this, all of this, from the very first moment, all Kris’s fault?
Ryan kept up a steady conversation with the QRF team as Kris struggled to stand. Every breath felt like fire ripping through him. His legs shook. His hands were clammy, cold, and sliding off the back of the metal folding chair he clung to. He could feel each heartbeat, each thundering boom, from the back o
f his eyes to the soles of his feet.
“Alizai in sight. ETA to DZ, two minutes.”
“We need the identity of the uploader or the delivery man, whoever brought that video message to the café.” Ryan crossed his arms and glared at the screen. Live video feed from the soldiers streamed back via satellite, grainy and glitching out in places. “Make this fast, gentlemen. We have exactly no time, and we have no cover for this op.”
They saw the helo move into a hover over a squat building with a bright-colored sign hanging from its roof. Ropes being tossed over the side, and soldiers looking over the edge, calling out good to go.
The soldiers slid down the ropes quickly, hitting the dusty ground in the center of a wind tunnel on all sides of the internet café and setting up a perimeter in two seconds.
Civilians scattered, racing away from the chopper and the soldiers, clad all in black and swooping out of the sky. In moments, the street was deserted.
“Breaching now.” The team leader’s video feed showed him and his soldiers stacking beside the front door. Two deep breaths, and then they burst in.
“Down, down, down! Everybody down!”
“Hands in the air! Hands in the air!”
“Do not move!”
Shouts, screams. The guttural bellow of the soldiers, the high-pitched, frantic cry of civilians. There were young men in the shop, a handful of teenagers.
“Where is the owner? Where is the owner?”
Meekly, one man raised his timid hand. He was middle-aged and slender. He wore a dark blue turban and had a long beard. The beard made Kris curse. Was he possibly Taliban? Or al-Qaeda? The Americans didn’t have many sympathizers in the tribal territories on either side of the border. Would he help them at all?