by Tom Young
Because I could not stop for Death—
He kindly stopped for me—
Gold caught him looking. “Emily Dickinson,” she said as she put the helmet back on and snapped the chin strap into place. “It reminds me not to get careless.”
She’s too smart to get careless, Parson considered. But he liked the way she could find, in all the stuff she’d read, thoughts that cut to the heart of issues they faced. Parson’s own reading seldom ventured beyond flight manuals, newspapers, and Field & Stream.
He wondered what experience had inspired that poem. In his own life, he’d come to understand the truth of those lines. Death sure as hell didn’t care what plans you’d made. Parson just hoped Gold’s musing on the subject didn’t mean she’d taken some dark turn in her thinking. She’d seemed different on this deployment, with an undercurrent of sadness. You could hardly blame her, given all the things she’d witnessed. He just wished she’d stop owning all the problems in Southwest Asia. Too big a mission for anybody.
For now, though, she appeared okay. Gold and these Marine Corps women seemed to have hit it off pretty well, too.
Blount turned in his seat to face Parson. “Sir,” he said, “we’re taking mostly a different route than what we used coming and going last time. But it’ll be the same for the last couple miles. There’s only one road into that village.”
“I’m sure you know what you’re doing,” Parson said. He appreciated being kept informed, but the update didn’t make him feel more secure.
Parson decided to focus on things he could control. If this op produced some actionable intelligence, what would he do with it? Well, if it led to a fix on where this Chaaku jackass hung out, maybe he could arrange for a little visit. Ideally, Parson thought, from the Spectre gunship that had rained down so much fire two days ago. Parson could not order such a strike himself, but with decent intel he could make a strong case for it up the chain of command.
The Spectre’s terrible majesty reminded him of a bird of prey. Thinking of it now, he remembered seeing a red-tailed hawk make a strike—and perform what to Parson was amazing flying. He’d been sitting in a deer stand last fall. His rifle in the crook of his arm, the air spiced with the smell of autumn woods, he saw the hawk plunge through the trees. At maybe a fifty-degree dive angle and at God only knew what airspeed, the bird snatched a squirrel from a fallen log and zoomed up in an escape maneuver. But a hickory tree blocked the egress route. The hawk’s tiny brain made an instant calculation worthy of the newest avionics: The bank angle required to miss the tree causes too high a load factor at my current weight. If I jettison my payload, I can make it. The hawk dropped the squirrel, made a hard right turn, missed the hickory, and disappeared. When Parson climbed down from his stand, he examined the squirrel. Though the hawk’s talons had clutched it for no more than a second, the rodent was stone cold dead.
That image gave Parson an oblique comfort. He looked forward to taking this fight back into the air one way or another. Find out where Black Crescent hid, then get a Special Tactics Team in there and call down some fire and steel.
The Cougar lurched through a gully. Parson braced himself against the vehicle’s pitch and roll, thought of roadside bombs. But no boom came; it was just a lousy road. He’d heard somewhere that Chechen and Uzbek jihadists were especially skilled at building IEDs. No doubt some of them were plying their trade in Afghanistan right now. Gold and the Marines showed no reaction to the Cougar’s bouncing. Unfortunately, he thought, they knew the difference between hitting a rut and hitting a bomb.
He looked outside through the louvered window. Morning mist clung to a hillside, but above the hill the sky was clear. Two specks appeared on the horizon. As they grew larger, Parson recognized them as a formation of C-17 Globemasters. They flew low, but not on a course for landing at Mazar. An airdrop run, then.
Their heading took them on a path diagonal to the road, drawing nearer. Now Parson could make out their cargo ramps coming open. From inside both aircraft, pilot chutes blossomed, and then an object slid out of each jet. Twin pairs of main chutes unfurled above the objects. Probably some kind of heavy equipment airdrop. Not the way you’d usually drop relief supplies. By airlift standards, food didn’t weigh much. This drop was artillery pieces or ammunition, maybe. Crews with a different mission, different problems. Parson turned away from the window before the loads hit the ground. He had his own mission to consider.
The MRAP vehicles rolled past barren rock, terraced fields, stony hills. Gold and the Marines rode quietly, perhaps considering what might await them. From the start, Parson had wondered if they were driving into an ambush. But he trusted Gold’s instincts; she knew about these Afghan villagers. And even if you were a villager who hated Americans, Parson thought, you probably wouldn’t set up an ambush if the Americans knew where you lived. He clung to that hope as the vehicles stopped about half a mile from the village.
Blount opened his door, scanned the compound with binoculars. The Cougar’s ramp clanged open, and Gold climbed down to look toward the village. She shaded her eyes with her hand. Blount gave her the binoculars. Gold looked through them for a minute, handed them back.
“What do you think, Sergeant Major?” Blount asked. “I don’t see any muj.”
“Looks just like it did a couple days ago,” Gold said. Then she looked at Parson. “Sir?”
Parson borrowed Blount’s binoculars, looked for himself. The homes resembled every other mud-brick and stone compound in Afghanistan. He saw no movement, no telltale glints of metal, nothing to suggest hidden jihadists. That didn’t mean they weren’t there, but Gold seemed satisfied. She was just deferring to his rank.
“Let’s go visit the neighbors,” Parson said.
17
The Cougars moved into position so their guns could cover the village. Gold knew those weapons wouldn’t do her and the Lionesses much good if this meeting went badly. But her gut told her not to worry about that.
She stepped down the vehicle’s ramp. As before, Ann and Lyndsey held back. Gold wanted to see what kind of reception she got before bringing anyone else inside.
The same white Taliban flag hung from the home of Durrani’s wife. Last time, the flag had fluttered in the high wind, but now it swayed gently in a lighter breeze. None of the villagers appeared outside. A goat tied to a pistachio tree eyed Gold as she walked toward the door. In the distance, a rooster crowed.
Her confidence grew with every step. If men with RPGs and rifles lurked inside the homes, she’d be dead already. In the mathematics of military doctrine, threat equaled capability plus intent. Durrani and his associates certainly had the capability of setting up an ambush. So it appeared, at least for now, they did not have the intent.
Gold knocked at the door. The smell of cooking wafted from inside; she took that as another good omen.
“Good morning, my sisters,” she said in Pashto. “It is Sergeant Major Gold.”
Women’s voices muttered in Pashto, crockery rattled, and the door swung open. Durrani’s wife stood at the threshold in her blue burka. Gold recognized the crow’s-feet around her eyes.
“Salaam, American,” the woman said.
Gold wondered if the woman had ever put those two words in the same sentence. “Assalamu alaikum,” she said. She waved to the MRAPs, motioned for Ann and Lyndsey to join her. Parson watched from the open ramp, Beretta in hand. So he was in full protective mode now. The attack dog side of him. I know what I’m doing, Michael, she thought. Trust me—and don’t point that gun at the house.
The Lionesses joined Gold at the doorway, sunglasses off, rifles left behind. They nodded greetings to the Durrani matron. Gold liked the way they worked. Certainly the United States had done some dumb things in Afghanistan, but creating these female engagement teams was brilliant. She remembered the original memo on the Lioness project. Under the heading of UNCLASSIFIED/FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY, the memo outlined the concept and its execution. The best-qualified women volunteers wo
uld get briefings on counterinsurgency and Afghan culture. By law, they could not be assigned to combat units. So they weren’t assigned; they were attached. In war, you did what you had to do.
“Come inside,” the matron said. “My daughters and I hope you will join us later for our midday meal.”
“That is very kind of you,” Gold said. “We shall.” Though Gold had not expected the worst, this kind of hospitality surprised her. Apparently she still had things to learn about Muslim attitudes toward strangers and travelers. And if this woman thought of her as a traveler instead of an enemy, that represented progress. The war had brought so many setbacks, so many disappointments. If now it presented an opportunity, Gold didn’t want to waste it.
She entered the home with Ann and Lyndsey, sat with the woman on her jute rugs. The two daughters tended cooking at the hearth. One of them bent to a low table and began cutting potatoes. She dropped the potato slices by the handful into an iron pot suspended over the fire.
Whatever the women used to season the food—peppers, maybe—gave the room a pleasant smell, but the fire made the house uncomfortably warm. Gold removed her helmet and gloves. From a cargo pocket on her trousers she took a brown desert scarf. She folded the Army-issued cloth into a hijab and tied it over her hair. Sweat still beaded on her face, but the scarf felt a little cooler than the Kevlar helmet.
“You came for an answer,” the wife said. “My husband will see you.”
Gold smiled, took a deep whiff of the potatoes and peppers. She had begun to wonder if this whole thing was diwana. Crazy.
“I am more grateful than I can express,” Gold said. Then she added, in English to Ann and Lyndsey, “Yes.” The younger women said thank you in Pashto. They didn’t know enough of the language to say much else.
“He requires that you visit him alone,” the matron said. “You must bring no soldiers, no weapons.”
Gold’s smile faded. Of course there was a catch. This was Afghanistan, where nothing came easily. The Army, the Air Force, Parson, the whole chain of command would never let her go alone to a meeting with a Taliban cleric. Suicide, they’d say. So getting her hopes up really had been diwana.
She tried to mask her disappointment. At least she could share a meal with this woman, make a village contact.
“Your help is most gracious,” Gold said, “but I must be honest. My superiors will not likely allow me to attend this meeting alone.”
“I thought as much,” the woman said. “But this condition is not negotiable.”
And why would it be? If I were a former Taliban leader, Gold thought, I wouldn’t invite a platoon of Americans to see me, either. From his point of view, that would amount to a one-way ticket to Guantánamo. It was astounding that Durrani would agree to a meeting under any conditions.
“I understand your husband’s concerns,” Gold said. “I wish things were different, but this is the world in which we live.”
“This is what we have made of the world,” the matron said. She met Gold’s eyes. Then she turned to her daughters and asked for tea.
Gold considered the woman’s last statement, savored the wisdom of it. No talk of inshallah, how it’s the will of God and we can’t help it. No blame, either, though the woman probably had strong opinions about that. What other silenced wisdom existed among the women of Afghanistan? Maybe in this case it wasn’t so silent. Durrani apparently let his wives—or this one, anyway—talk to him about important matters.
Though Gold had no sympathy for the Taliban, she had learned not all Talibs thought alike. Maybe a few could be reasoned with. Gold hoped so. The only other way to win the war was to kill them all.
“How long have you been married to Mullah Durrani?” Gold asked.
The woman looked at her for several seconds, and Gold feared she’d asked too personal a question.
“Thirty years,” the matron said finally. “He had just completed his studies when we wed.”
Well, there was a good bit of information. At least Durrani had studied somewhere. Many Taliban imams had little in the way of credentials, could barely read. His schooling alone set him apart.
“Are you married?” the woman asked. She took a cup of tea from one of her daughters, motioned for the three Americans to be served.
“I am not,” Gold said as she took her tea. The matron nodded as if she’d expected that answer. Gold asked where she was from. Kandahar. They spoke of their homes; Gold told her of Vermont’s Green Mountains. Eventually the wife said, “Our meal is ready.”
The daughters ladled stew from the kettle and poured it into bowls. When they set Gold’s dish before her, she noted with surprise that the stew contained meat as well as potatoes and peppers. Murgh, as the locals called it. Chicken.
Steam rose from the first spoonful. She blew on it for cooling, but it burned her tongue a little anyway. Hot from the peppers, as well, but not too much. She could have used ice water, but she made do with the green tea.
“This is excellent,” Gold said. “We thank you for this meal.”
The women ate in silence. Gold contemplated what she had arrived at here. A brief moment of intersecting interests, perhaps. A patch of common ground never anticipated, not charted on any map. She’d visited scores of villages, talked with hundreds of tribesmen and -women. But she’d never gone this deep, sharing a meal with the wife and daughters of the enemy. Or maybe the former enemy. To get this far and not use it…
Gold placed her spoon in the bowl and looked over at the matron. “Madam,” she asked, “in the unlikely event I am allowed to meet with your husband, how may I find him?”
“There is a telephone number you must dial. The mujahid who picks up this telephone will answer such questions.”
The woman reached into a pocket inside her clothing, produced a folded scrap of paper. She handed it to one of her daughters, who passed it to Gold.
“We have lived so long in Darul Harb, the house of war,” the matron said. “I for one wish to enter Darul Amn, the house of peace.”
When the meal ended, clouds hung low outside like a sheet of steel. A slanting rain swept the shoulder of the mountain that overlooked the village. Gold said her good-byes and led Ann and Lyndsey back to the vehicles. As the rain began to fall on the village itself, the first drops struck earth so dry, their impacts left puffs of dust.
* * *
Sophia was coming unglued. Now Parson felt sure of it. She’d done a hell of a job following up on the tip that led her to a mullah’s wife. Good on her for that—it was why the taxpayers had spent so much teaching her the language. But to take seriously the thought of meeting alone with a former Taliban official? Of all people, Gold should know what happened to Americans in Taliban hands. She should know it right down to her fingertips. So on the ride back to Mazar in an MRAP lumbering through hard rain, Parson gave his answer: “Fuck no.”
Gold did not argue. She said only, “I understand, sir.”
“If Emily Dickinson reminds you not to get careless, what would she say about this?” Parson asked. Gold shrugged. For her, a rare gesture.
“Sounds like they want a high-value hostage,” Blount said from up front.
“I really didn’t get that feeling,” Gold said, “but I can see the security concerns.”
The dumbest private in the Army could see the security concerns, Parson thought. Then he said, “They tried to get me as a high-value hostage.”
“Due respect, sir,” Ann said. “That was Black Crescent. Mullah Durrani has nothing to do with them as far as we know. In fact, it sounds as if he doesn’t like them.”
Sophia Gold Junior, Parson thought. These Marine women would probably grow up to give good advice to some jarhead commander. But Parson had made up his mind. He’d rescued Sophia from terrorists once. He wasn’t going to have to do it again. Fuck this whole stupid idea.
During the rest of the drive, Parson turned his thoughts to other responsibilities. Maybe he could get another Mi-17 and crew sent up from Shindand
so Rashid could keep flying. All available aircraft were needed to help move the relief supplies still piled up at the Mazar Airport. He’d seen pallets of lumber, too, for rebuilding villages. A good thing, if the aircraft could get the lumber distributed. Move people back into their homes before the cold weather. Parson wasn’t a public health expert, but he’d been around this kind of work enough to know you didn’t keep people in refugee camps any longer than necessary. The close quarters of those camps invited disease.
As the Cougars rolled up to the airport, Parson had his head down, going over notes in his pocket calendar: Call Shindand. Weight of lumber? NOTAM for runway repair? Flying time waivers.
He looked up when he heard Blount say, “Oh, shit.” The Cougar lurched to a stop.
Black smoke boiled up from within the airfield perimeter. Sirens screamed. The flashing lights of fire trucks and ambulances strobed across the base.
American security policemen blocked the main gate. A sign at the guardhouse read FPCON DELTA. Force protection level Delta. Attack imminent or in progress. The SPs held their weapons ready, not quite pointed at the vehicle’s windshield, but close enough to open up immediately. The sentries would assume nothing about anyone trying to get into the base. Terrorists loved to detonate secondary bombs and wipe out rescue workers.
“I need to see everyone’s ID,” one of the SPs said. He looked about nineteen and scared. Parson pulled out his wallet, withdrew his card, passed it forward. Gold and the Marines did the same.
The security policeman checked both sides of all the ID cards. Another SP checked underneath the vehicle. Finally, the first SP said, “Proceed.”
Parson took back his ID and asked, “What happened?”
“Suicide bombing. We don’t know how or when he got in.”
Shouting and wailing came from the refugee tents on the airfield. Gold leaned forward to look. “How many are hurt?” she asked.