Strike Force Delta

by Mack Maloney

  Fox shrugged again. “We are still going to try. And we could use some help from people like you. Just name your price.”

  Tarik stopped cackling and turned very serious. “You Westerners are all the same,” he said, shaking his head. “You come here, to this country, and you think you know it. The British. The Russians. Now, you, the Americans. You think you’re so smart, and that you have so many clever ideas. And that money can buy you anything at any time. And what happens? You’re always wrong. The British. The Russians. And now, you. You’re wrong because you don’t know this place. And you will never know it. And you will get tired of trying to know it until eventually you will go away, too, just like everyone else.”

  Tarik was working himself into a state.

  “Now, as a man of God do you think I approve of what is going on in that city?” he asked them. “I will tell you that I have questioned God’s very existence on the premise that he would never make such an evil place as that. As a priest, it is my duty to try to change things for the better . . . .”

  He sniffled a bit, then lowered his head. “But as you Americans say, you’re missing the big picture. Even if I wanted to, I can’t help you—for one big reason.”

  “And that is?” Fox asked him.

  “Kundez Sharif,” Tarik replied, his lips trembling when speaking the name.

  “And who is he?”

  “He is the god on Earth here in the Qimruz,” Tarik said. “The warlord. The landlord. This is his territory. His turf. He allows what goes on in Khrash because the people there pay him tribute. And because they pay him tribute, they know that if anyone goes against them, Sharif will exact revenge on the offending party. That’s their deal.

  “Sharif is ex-Taliban. He’s also a slave trafficker and an opium baron. Very powerful. Very rich. And the man has absolutely no conscience, no regard for human life. If the Patch is in Khrash, you can be sure Sharif will do everything to protect him.”

  Tears were actually rolling down Tarik’s face now. His cigarette had gone out.

  “So while I would love to be the dreamers that you are,” he went on, “and while I would heartily desire to rid my homeland of this sin and idolatry, you must understand why I cannot. For if I helped you, whatever it is you decide to do, Sharif would cut me to pieces. Me, my family. My people. He lets us exist up here only for his own amusement, I think. He would be even happier if he had an excuse to finally wipe us out.”

  The Americans listened quietly. Tarik was tough, rugged. He’d obviously lived a hard life, filled with bloodshed and murder. And despite his age, it was clear few things frightened him. But this guy, Sharif, did. To the point of tears.

  “Where does Sharif live?” Ryder asked Tarik, speaking for the first time. “Inside Khrash itself?”

  Tarik shook his head no. “He would not dirty himself like that,” he said. “He has a compound, maybe ten miles from the city. But this place he calls home, it is as formidable as the city is. Heavily fortified. An army of guards on hand at all times. It sits up high while everything else sits down low. His people can shoot at anyone within five miles of the place. It is here he keeps his weapons. His gold. His opium. On Thursdays, he has a bus of women and girls come up from Khrash and he has his way with them, all against their will of course.

  “Be sure you understand this: Sharif is the protector of Khrash. But he lets the religious police and the Al Qaeda Arabs run the place from the inside, along with their Taliban cousins. Again, that’s the deal made between devils. That’s why the place is such a pool of sin.”

  Fox and Ryder had a short, whispered conversation. Then Fox relit the old man’s cigarette.

  “Wait here,” he said to Tarik. “We’ll be back. . . .”

  Kundez Sharif’s compound was a palace by another name. It was a collection of two-and three-story whitewashed buildings, rambling by Afghani standards, a half-dozen in all. The buildings were made of simple hand-shorn brick, but there were many ornamental touches on their exteriors. Islamic designs of circles within circles, squares, and triangles along the gutters, fountains and trickling waterfalls around the front door. And palm trees planted everywhere. Add in its white-pebble walkways and high ornamental gates, and this place would have been comfortably at home in the Arizona desert.

  It was located on a high hill, which was bordered all round by snow-covered mountains. The vantage point gave a clear view of the surrounding countryside and all of its approaches. And on a clear night, the glow from Khrash could be seen on the southern horizon not a dozen miles away.

  The compound even had its own minaret, though it was never used. Like many powerful people in Afghanistan and throughout the Middle East, Sharif used his Muslim religion only as an excuse to maim and frighten and kill. He wasn’t even sure which way Mecca was.

  One of the smaller buildings, stuffed in the corner out back, was a barracks for Warlord Sharif’s elite company of bodyguards. Heavily armed with Russian weapons, including AK-47s and RPG launchers, these fighters were the cream of the crop of Afghanistan’s warrior class. They were also among the highest-paid people of their ilk in Afghanistan.

  In addition to their assault rifles and grenade launchers, the bodyguards were also armed with 75mm cannons. These ex–Soviet Army weapons had great range and accuracy. There were four of them, one at each corner of the place. The way they were positioned, they could hit just about any target in the valley surrounding the compound’s hill.

  The compound was also protected by a quartet of 88mm antiaircraft guns, also of Russian manufacture. These weapons were highly accurate. They could hit a target as far as three miles up if operated properly. On a clear day, any target flying closer than that could be picked off almost at leisure.

  For these reasons and because of Warlord Sharif’s mystique, this place had enjoyed a reputation for years as being under the protection of God himself.

  Until today. . . .

  Sharif’s guards heard them before they saw them, the far-off roar of aircraft engines churning up the cold Afghan air. For any kind of aircraft to go over this part of the country was rare. As the airspace was so mixed up with the border of Iran, few wanted to chance it, especially if the pilots knew the territory below belonged to Kundez Sharif and that he owned antiaircraft weapons.

  And usually, when it did happen, the source of any aircraft engine noise could be seen right away, sometimes by the contrails, indicating whatever was going over was flying way up there, where the air was really cold. But now, this morning, the noise wasn’t up around the ice crystals. It was right down here, near the rocks and trees.

  About half of Sharif’s five dozen bodyguards were on duty when it happened. It was just before seven in the morning, and their boss was still asleep. He’d been up late the night before, counting the gold in the compound’s very elaborate safe room. This was how Sharif spent many of his evenings, at least the ones when he wasn’t fouling girls from nearby Khrash.

  The three helicopters suddenly roared out of the valley, rising up out of the early-morning fog. They went over the compound in a flash, one behind the other, flying impossibly low and impossibly fast. Some of the bodyguards scrambled to man their antiaircraft weapons. A few went running to wake the boss. Others went to wake their off-duty comrades as well. But really there was no time for any of these things. The helicopters had come in so quickly, most of the guards could do little else but watch as one of the aircraft dropped an enormous bomb it had been carrying under its fuselage.

  The bomb tumbled down, landing directly on top of the compound’s main building. The explosion was tremendous. Vivid flames of orange and red shot up into the dawn, causing the surrounding mountains to quake in response. Those guards not killed outright by the blast were blown off their feet by the bomb’s shock wave. A tiny mushroom cloud quickly rose into the air, but just as quickly the high mountain winds blew it away. The smoke cleared to find the compound’s main house had simply been vaporized, the result of two thousand pounds of i
mpact-fused high explosives hitting it dead on.

  The helicopters went into a noisy 180-degree turn to escape the explosion but were back over the target seconds later, this time three abreast. They opened up with rockets, their fiery tails once again lighting up the misty dawn. One barrage hit the guards’ barracks in back; another slammed into the compound’s drying house where Sharif’s personal stash of opium was stored. A third took out the compound’s generating station. All three buildings went up in balls of fire and ash.

  The helicopters turned and came back a third time. All three opened up with their nose cannons, obliterating much of the guards’ weaponry marshaled in each corner of the compound. This time over, men could also be seen in the copters’ cargo bays firing bullets, grenades, and even shotgun blasts at the stunned guards below. They mowed the guards down like grass.

  A fourth pass targeted the last buildings attached to the palace, a pump house and a covered swimming pool. Once more, the helicopters were firing their nose cannons with the soldiers crammed in the back firing at anything that moved below.

  It was so frightening because it was happening so quickly. In just 45 seconds, nearly three-quarters of the compound had been destroyed and almost all the army of elite bodyguards had been killed.

  Still the attack went on. On the next pass, the two lead helicopters raked the grounds again with cannon fire. But the third copter dropped another two-thousand-pound bomb right into the center of the flames coming from the main house. A bomb this size was not only able to penetrate the thick concrete cap put over Sharif’s basement money safe; it was also able to crash through the top of the safe itself. The bomb exploded with tremendous force, destroying Sharif’s fortune of gold and paper money in less than a heartbeat.

  Only then did the helicopters go away, exiting to the north, the last huge bomb hit being their exclamation mark on what they’d just done. When the remaining smoke eventually cleared, those who’d witnessed the attack saw that Sharif’s compound hadn’t simply been flattened.

  It had been turned to dust.

  10 minutes later

  On top of a mountain about a half-mile away, Fox and Tarik Aboo were standing near one of the recently landed Blackhawk helicopters. They’d watched the attack from here. Ryder had piloted one of the copters during the assault and had landed here shortly afterward. He was now waiting to fly them off.

  As intended, the strike on the compound had been quite a show. Tarik’s jaw fell open at the first explosion and had yet to close shut. In fact, he was still having trouble speaking. That’s how shocked and awed he was.

  He’d fought the Russians and the Taliban; he’d fought rival tribes. He’d seen war, combat, killing. But he’d never seen anything like this. What the helicopters had done to Sharif’s palace was astonishing simply by the brazenness of it all. It was clear no one in the palace survived—the strange Americans had stamped out Sharif as if they were crushing a bug with their boot. Such boldness went a long way in Afghanistan.

  “You have opened up the earth,” Tarik finally managed to say. “And Sharif has fallen down into it. He is gone, but it’s like a dream. A stain, so suddenly removed.”

  Fox shrugged. “You had a problem; we made it go away,” he said. “That’s what we do. So, I’ll ask you again: Will you help us?”

  Tarik smiled broadly now. These Americans were different. They actually did what they said. By that alone Tarik had gained tremendous respect for them.

  “Yes,” he declared finally. “I will help you.”

  And he’d come prepared. Tarik reached inside his robes and retrieved a cloth that he opened like a handkerchief. On it were hand-drawn pictures of heavy weapons such as tracked guns, tanks, rocket launchers.

  “This being Afghanistan,” he explained, “you can get weapons just about anywhere. You can buy them or you can rent them. You can even rent whole armies. My cousin, next valley over, has two hundred men at your disposal. Another cousin has some artillery. Still another has some tanks. This and more is available.”

  Fox asked for more details. Tarik’s first cousin had two Russian-built T-72 tanks; he’d been using them as tractors to plow his poppy fields. Tarik’s second cousin owned a platoon of 125mm guns, fairly long-range artillery. A third cousin ran his own personal army the next mountain over. Again Tarik assured Fox these cousins would do just about anything for their kinsman. Fox asked Tarik to intercede on his behalf and the tribal leader agreed. They shook hands and then kissed cheeks, sealing the deal.

  Then Tarik turned back to the ruins again. Nothing over a foot tall had been left standing. Sharif’s compound looked like a small atomic bomb had hit it. “I have one more question,” Tarik said.

  Fox replied: “Go ahead.”

  “Why are you really doing this?” he asked unexpectedly. “I mean, what is your true reason for going after the Patch? I’ve dealt with the CIA before. I’ve dealt with the American military before. But you people—you are not like them. You are like characters in a book. You are going up against an entire city, just to get one man? What military person would do that? I suspect this might be more of a matter of the heart.”

  “The Patch was in on 9/11,” Fox told him. “He killed three-thousand Americans.”

  But Tarik was a smart old bird; he shook his head and slowly wagged his finger at Fox. “The American Army came to Afghanistan to avenge that September day and they’re still here. But even your brothers in Kabul are not willing to come to Khrash, simply because it’s not a militarily prudent thing to do. That’s how I know something else is happening here.”

  He turned and pointed to Ryder sitting in the cockpit, about ten feet away.

  “There was a look in that man’s eyes,” Tarik said. “I saw it when you first visited me this morning. And it’s in your eyes as well. It’s what we call kapak. You call it revenge.”

  Fox shifted uneasily. He didn’t want to get into this, but the old guy was persistent. Finally Fox said: “OK—the Patch also killed a good friend of ours recently.”

  Tarik’s eyes went wide again. He was obviously fascinated by this. “So, you’re really here because one person died?”

  “She was killed,” Fox corrected him coldly. “Murdered, here, by Jabal Ben-Wabi.”

  The old man just shook his head. “Sir, the soil of this country is filled with people who have been murdered. They’re buried everywhere. It is our history—and we live with it. But you—you are really doing all this, whatever it is going to be, for a woman?”

  Fox just nodded again but remained silent.

  Tarik thought about this for a long time, then looked over at Ryder again.

  “Your friend,” he said to Fox. “With the revenge really burning in his eyes. I get the feeling all this is about a loved one of his. Is it about his wife, perhaps?”

  This time Fox just shook his head.

  “Something like that,” was all he said.

  Chapter 14

  The studios of Al-Qazzaza TV were located in Umm al Qaywayn, United Arab Emirates, built right on the sparkling waters of the lower Persian Gulf.

  The upstart of all-Arab TV, indeed the Muslim world’s first superstation, Al-Qazzaza had moved into its new digs just a few months before. The building was impressive. Very modern in appearance, it looked like a flying saucer, with the station’s large transmitting antenna soaring high above resembling the mast of some futuristic man-of-war. Dozens of bright blue satellite dishes surrounded the saucer, with hundreds of smaller, more conventional radio antennae surrounding them.

  Al-Qazzaza was he go-to place for Islamic terrorists these days—that is, if they wanted to get free airtime for their videos of beheadings, roadside bombings, and other mayhem being committed in the name of Allah. Like rock musicians trying to get their latest song played on MTV, the terrorists clamored to get on Al-Qazzaza as often as possible. Their couriers could be seen entering and leaving the studios on a regular basis.

  No surprise, then, the place was under const
ant surveillance by many intelligence services, including, today, the Mossad, Israel’s premier spy service. Three of its agents were ensconced in a hotel room across the street from the seaside studios, cameras and eavesdropping equipment in hand. But these men weren’t simply voyeurs. They were also assassins. They had a computer-generated list of terror suspects who, should they appear at the studio, were to be taken out.

  This mission was typical duty for the Mossad, as several of their number-one marks were known to be in the area. So far it had been a dry hole, though. The team had been in place for three days and there had been neither hide nor hair of any potential victims.

  This all changed early this morning. Just before 7:00 A.M., a well-known Islamic bagman named Ishtar Abdula was spotted climbing out of an unmarked white van in the studio’s parking lot. It was only a fleeting glimpse—but that was OK with the Israeli agents. They were videotaping everything.

  Ishtar was on their hit list as he’d been observed previously moving tapes and other communications between Israel’s most hated enemy—Hezbollah—and the various Arab TV outlets. But while he was ducking through the back door of the studios, the Mossad agents noticed something unusual about the man. Because he was a courier for several different Islamic terror groups—Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah—he would have been expected to arrive at the studio with a suitcase full of videotapes. Yet this morning he was not carrying anything with him, not even a coat.

  What’s more, Ishtar was only inside the Al-Qazzaza building for a few minutes before he reemerged carrying a white canvas bag. By this time, two of the Mossad agents were down in the street, huddled inside their disguised taxicab. Ishtar climbed back into the same van that had dropped him off. When it sped away, the Mossad agents followed in silent pursuit.

  They weren’t surprised when the van turned back toward the nearby harbor. This fit Ishtar’s pattern. No matter who his clients were, the terrorist delivery boy always moved in and out of Iran, as this was the easiest country in the area for someone like him to transit through. Indeed Iran was the only country willing to give him a passport.