I covered the room while Segundo lifted the Mujahideen leader roughly to his feet, patted him down, and then placed him in flex cuffs. Elam protested in bursts of Pashto as Segundo dragged him from the room.
“This will all get sorted out,” Zarbat said calmly, refilling his tea cup. “You will see.”
I looked at Parker, who besides being our cultural affairs officer was also our interpreter. “Ask him,” I said.
Parker turned to the young man seated to Zarbat’s right—his second in command—and posed the question in Pashto: “Are you ready to lead?”
Despite his small build, the young man had the bearing of a prince. His penetrating brown eyes moved from Parker to me. “Yes,” he said in accented English.
“What’s this?” Zarbat said, alarm entering his voice for the first time. “You’re replacing me?”
“Uncle Sam thanks you for your service,” I said.
My M4 coughed twice. The shots slammed Zarbat against the wall, the tea he’d just poured splashing across his lap. My superiors hadn’t considered him an intelligence asset. The Mujahideen leader would prove more valuable in that department.
I lowered the rifle as Zarbat’s body slumped to a rest and motioned the young man, Mehtar, over.
He stood, adjusted his turban, and stepped toward us. While the three seated men—local officials—wrung their hands and murmured worriedly, Mehtar remained stoic. Though he had no ties to the U.S., he was a natural leader and, from my estimation of having worked with him, someone we could trust.
I angled my mouth toward Parker. “Tell him that the declaration will be that Zarbat was killed by a Mujahideen leader, who is now in custody. He will use the tragedy to rally support around himself. The U.S. will provide him with whatever resources he needs. A security detail is arriving as we speak, and an advisor will be along shortly. Top officials will meet with him in the capital this weekend.”
When Parker completed the translation, Mehtar took my hand. For an uncomfortable moment, I thought he was going to kiss it. Instead, he bowed low and said, “This is great honor for me.” He then turned to the seated men and spoke rapidly.
“He’s having them prepare Zarbat’s body for a procession tomorrow,” Parker explained.
I nodded—we’d promoted the right man—and checked my watch. Sixteen minutes since touch down. Not bad. I spoke into my headset: “Mission complete. Prepare to roll out.”
As we filed from the house and into the courtyard, Parker hustled up beside me.
“I still think the burqa was unnecessary, sir,” he shouted above the noise of the generator. “But I am going to miss you.”
I snorted out a laugh, then stopped as the reality of his words sunk in. I had just completed my fifty-second and final Special Ops mission. After sixteen years of service, the last four consisting of solid deployments, I was going home. I would be with Daniela.
For the first time that night, my heart began to speed up.
3
Colonel Don Stanick received my report before we touched down at the main operating base two hours later. Following a short ride to the special operations compound, I found him reading it on his laptop as I stepped into his office. “That traitorous son of a bitch,” he muttered, his hard eyes moving across the screen. “Good riddance.”
“There should be no surprises under Mehtar, sir.” I said. “Besides being a capable leader, he’s solidly in our camp.”
“Plus he saw what happens to those who turn against us.”
I had talked with Mehtar through Parker enough to pick up his admiration for all things American: from superhero movies to our judicial system, for which he showed an impressive understanding. We would never need to demonstrate hard power with someone who was already in the thrall of our soft power. But it wasn’t my place to disagree with a superior officer’s assessment.
“Intelligence will handle him from here,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
Stanick raised his eyes from his screen and straightened. At almost sixty, he was tall and sturdy with iron-gray hair and a face of severe lines. Though he was three links up the chain from me, he was a soldier’s colonel, preferring to hear from the captains themselves about conditions in the field. “I’ve spoken with Central Command. Your transfer orders should come in the next couple of days. I’m sorry as hell to lose you, Wolfe. You’re the best captain I’ve ever worked with, and I’ve been doing this a long time. But the consolation is knowing you’ll be training the next generation of soldiers.” He was referring to the commandment position being set up for me at the training battalion near my hometown in Texas.
“It’s been an honor serving you,” I said sincerely. Colonel Stanick wore several hats, and he was in the U.S. for meetings as much as he was in country, but he always took care of us.
“If there’s ever anything you need, you let me know,” he said. “I mean that.”
“I appreciate that, sir.”
“Now go and get some rest. You’ve earned it.”
We stood and shook hands. I left, making my way from his office to our barracks. When I stepped inside, I found half the guys sacked out and the other half reclined on their cots, laptops propped on bellies and knees while they gamed, watched videos, or in Parker’s case, brushed up on his Pashto.
“Good work tonight,” I said.
Segundo looked up from his glowing screen. “No keg and dancing girls, sir?”
“They were shipped to Pakistan by mistake. If you want them, you’ll have to go over and sign for ’em.”
“Or we could send Parker in his dress.”
The other team members who were awake broke into laughter. Parker threw his pillow at Segundo. “Hey, that dress is a big part of what got us through tonight’s mission casualty free.”
“See there?” I said to him. “I knew you’d come around.”
As others joined in the ribbing, I thought about how much I was going to miss these guys. I’d spent two years with the now-senior sergeants and at least a year with the juniors. Long enough to know they put the “special” in special ops. Segundo still needed to rein in his bulldog instincts a bit, but he was going to make a solid captain one day. I envied him in a lot of ways, but I had a life to get back to. Or more accurately, a life to start.
I checked my watch.
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” I said and strode to my room.
I sealed the door behind me, took a seat at my desk, and logged on to my laptop. One of the perks of being team captain was having a private room, even if it was cramped and made of cheap plywood.
I accessed the secure video-conferencing app and clicked the topmost name in my directory. As the line rang, I centered the camera on myself, running a hand over my sun-bleached brown hair, then the dark two-day growth that covered my jaw. My eyes, which Daniela called “arctic blue,” peered back from a face browned and toughened by the country’s harsh climate.
I had stripped down to my tan shirt and was conscious now of how dingy it looked on the screen. Few and far between, these video conferences were special occasions. I peeled off the shirt, and was reaching back into my closet for a clean one when the line connected.
“Hey, baby!” came my fiancé’s voice. “Ooh, are you trying to make me crazy?”
I turned back to my laptop, Daniela’s face now filling the screen. I paused to take her in: the smiling lips, the soft cheeks, the brown eyes that always seemed to gleam with some inner joy. An occupational therapist who worked with special-needs kids, she was a saint, and I was damned lucky. We’d met two years before, in a bar of all places. I was on leave and in need of some booze and a dark corner after learning about the combat death of a good friend. Daniela had needed the same after being told one of her patients, a five-year-old girl with spina bifida, had died during an operation. She saw my grief before I saw hers and asked to join me. We talked from one thirty that Saturday afternoon until three the next morning.
“Sorry for the show,” I said, my c
hest and abdominal muscles flexing as I pulled on the clean shirt. “Hey, did you do something to your hair?”
“This?” She tucked a loose honey-blond strand behind an ear. “Yeah, I tied it in a sloppy bun so it wouldn’t drop into the pasta sauce.”
I imagined the smell of her homemade sauce filling the kitchen, imagined myself coming up behind her, slipping my hands around her waist, stooping to kiss the soft, clean nape of her neck. I couldn’t believe that would all be happening as early as the following week.
“Well, you look amazing,” I said.
Blushing, she stuck her tongue out at me, then turned serious. “How’s everything going?”
I gave her my pat answer. “Right as Waristani rain.”
“No, really, Jason. You’re staying safe? I heard about that chopper that went down.”
“That wasn’t our guys. Listen, hon, you’ve got nothing to worry about. With the conflict winding down, the missions lately have been pretty routine.”
Dani gave me her admonishing look. “Would you tell me if they weren’t?”
She had me there and she knew it. When I hesitated, her frown steepened.
“Well, hold on,” I said with a chuckle. “There’s more.”
She raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“You didn’t hear this from me, but…” I lowered my voice and looked around even though I’d been cleared to share the news. “…there’s a good chance someone’s getting his transfer orders this week.”
Daniela let out a squeal that froze the screen on her wide eyes and open mouth. I quickly hit the screen capture. She’d kill me, but that was going into the scrapbook she’d made for us.
“Are you serious?” she asked when the feed resumed.
“One hundred percent.”
“And you’ll be done?”
“Finished. No more deployments.”
“I can’t believe…” Her lips trembled as tears spilled from the corners of her eyes.
Daniela was the most empathetic person I’d ever known, but she also had a rock-solid core. Though my deployments were tough on her, I could have counted the number of times I’d seen her cry on one hand. I wanted so badly to be able to reach forward and thumb her tears away, to pull her into my arms. Instead, I said, “So how does a summer wedding sound?”
She released a wet burst of laughter. “That sounds perfect, baby.” Reaching off screen, she returned with a napkin and pressed it to her eyes. “I’m sorry, I just can’t believe it’s really happening.”
“Me neither.”
“I’ve been looking at houses,” she said, pausing to sniffle. “There’s a ton of vacancies on the market. Anyway, I found this beautiful five-bedroom near my parents’ place. It will need a little work, but…”
“Whoa, there,” I said, showing my hands. “Five bedrooms? How many kids are you planning on having?”
“Didn’t we agree to four?”
“I’m pretty sure I said three. Which is a lot of little monsters as it is.”
“What?” Dani teased, her lips pursing out. “The big, tough soldier can’t handle one more little monster?”
I smiled. “We’ll talk about it when I get there.”
“Good.” She bit her lower lip. “That’ll give me time to come up with all sorts of naughty ways to convince you.”
The overhead light crackled and browned while the laptop screen flickered. Damn. I’d never replaced the laptop’s dead battery. “I’m on electrical power, Dani, and it looks like we’re about to lose juice again. Listen, I’ll be in touch as soon as I have some exact dates.”
“Please do,” she said, turning serious again.
“And there’s no more missions, so don’t worry. I’ll see you very, very soon.”
“Be extra safe, Jason. I love you so much.” She kissed her left palm, right below the engagement ring, and was reaching to place it against her camera when the lights and laptop died.
“Love you too, Dani.”
4
The message to see Colonel Stanick arrived while I was eating in the chow hall the next morning. I worked a piece of hash brown out of my teeth as I crossed the base, wondering if my transfer orders had come through. If so, Daniela was going to be over the moon.
I thought of the captured image of her face from the night before. When the power had been restored, I’d printed it off and tacked it on the wall next to the head of my bed. It made me smile when I was getting dressed this morning, thinking about how I’d be seeing that face in the Houston airport shortly. But the moment I crossed the threshold into Stanick’s office, I could tell by his sober demeanor that this was not about my transfer.
“Have a seat, Captain.” He gestured to one of two folding metal chairs that faced his desk. Files and reports were arrayed in front of him, one of them having to do with efforts to curtail the country’s illegal poppy-growing trade.
“Thank you, sir,” I said, sitting down. “What’s going on?”
“There’s been an important development.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“China isn’t thrilled with our influence on the incoming government here, but they’re anxious to stop the influx of refugees across their border. Their aid camps topped one million Waristanis last month. As a result, China has agreed to grant us temporary use of the Wari Corridor as a supply route to help stabilize the eastern part of the country.”
“China cooperating? That is a development.”
“Central Command wants a team to check out the valley on the Waristani side, specifically a pinch point inhabited by a little-known tribe. We’ve received intelligence suggesting they might be sympathetic to the Mujahideen, which would put any supply route in danger.”
I nodded, knowing where this was headed.
“Either way, CENTCOM wants to establish cooperation with them, which will mean finding out what they want: tools, building materials, humanitarian aid. Whatever’s needed to drive a wedge between them and the Mujahideen. Look, Jason, I explained that your team had just come off a level-one mission, that you needed your forty-eight hours, but with the meeting of the grand council coming up, the remaining teams are all committed. And CENTCOM insists this is urgent. They’re concerned the Chinese will get cold feet and yank their offer. They want to get materials moving along the route as soon as humanly possible.”
My heart pitched a little for Daniela, but until I was officially transferred this was my job. “I understand, sir. Give me the mission specs, and I’ll have the men prepped and ready.”
“There’s something else,” he said. “The pinch point is in Wakhjir Province, which is Centurion’s jurisdiction. Meaning they have oversight on this. They want to send a man along with you.”
Though my face remained stoic, I dropped an inner F-bomb. Following the financial crash, and with the U.S. economy still in the gutter, budgets at the major departments had been slashed. Defense was no exception, despite that we were in the middle of what some were calling “The Never-Ending War,” pursuing the Mujahideen and terrorist factions from one Central Asian country to the next. That meant contracting out half the war to Centurion United, the U.S.’s largest private military corporation. And that bothered the hell out of me.
The soldiers who fought for Centurion weren’t here to sacrifice for country. They were mercenaries, here to profit. Plus, they knew nothing about unconventional warfare, which was our game.
“We’ll have operational control, though, right?” I asked.
Stanick nodded. “Centurion is mostly interested in seeing if there are any terrorist targets in the area.”
Of course, I thought bitterly. Centurion earned a commission for every high-value target they eliminated—and there were several among the scattered Mujahideen.
“Just as long as their agenda doesn’t intrude on the mission,” I said.
“I’m sorry this is being flicked on you, Wolfe, but it should be a quick in and out. Nothing Team 5 can’t handle. A pair of Pave Lows will arrive at 1800 to tra
nsport you to a Centurion base further north. From there, Black Hawks will fly you under cover of darkness to the target zone. The Centurion rep will meet you at the base. His name is Baine Maddox.”
Baine. I already didn’t like him. But as long as we had operational control…
“We’ll be ready, sir.”
Back in our barracks, Segundo, Parker, and I huddled over the map I’d spread across our planning table.
“This is where we’re being dropped,” I said, tapping a point on a dry riverbed about two miles south and east of our target. “That little box is an old Soviet outpost that we’ll use as a base of operation.” I traced a finger up the twisting riverbed to the valley CENTCOM intended as a supply route. The satellite map showed terracing, which indicated farming, and a complex of buildings. “That’s where the Kabadi tribe is located. It’s small, only a few hundred people or so, but it’s in a prime location to create problems along the supply route.”
“What do we know about them?” Segundo asked, his vein-lined muscles rearranging themselves over his stocky torso as he sat back and crossed his arms. We all lifted weights, but Segundo was obsessive. He wore his shirts two sizes too small to showcase the fruits of his efforts.
“So far, only that they might be sympathetic to the Mujahideen.”
“I was actually able to get a little research in,” Parker said, adjusting his glasses. “I’ll spare you the ethnography of the region, which is pretty fascinating, but the Kabadi are extremely isolated. They’ve been in that valley since the time of Alexander the Great, if not before. We’re talking thousands of years. It’s a harsh region, the summers scorching, the winters brutal. How they’ve persisted for so long is beyond me, but they’re mostly self sufficient, primarily through farming and sheep herding. They—”
“What can we expect?” I cut in. Parker was one of the smartest people I knew, but he still needed to learn how to trim information down to the essentials.
“Well, given the isolation, their customs and beliefs are likely to seem strange. Their religion is a form of shamanism, and the men dye their beards blue. They speak a dialect of Wakhi, which is actually what I was using last night to communicate with Mehtar. He speaks Pashto, but he’s originally from Wakhjir Province, and there are certain tonal nuances that—”
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