The Saffron Falcon (Transition Magic)

by Hopkins, J. E.

  “We can just jump into the ditch at the side of the road if we hear a car coming,” Ali said. He sounded tired, even though it was a couple of hours after sunrise and they’d slept without disturbance.

  He never complains, but he doesn’t sleep well under the stars.

  “How do we get someone to stop if we’re in a—”

  The sound of a whining engine washed over them from behind. Tareef whipped his head around.

  Just a guy in a truck.

  He started breathing again and noticed that Ali was frozen in place next to the road, like a rabbit hoping a dog wouldn’t see it.

  The truck slowed until the open driver’s window was even with them. “Want a ride?”

  They driver looked a few years older than Tareef and had the blue eyes of the Kalash, like Tareef’s before he started Transition. Tareef looked at the truck and smiled. Patches of dulled paint were holding together panels of rust.

  No police would ride in such a truck. We’re safe.

  “Sure!” Tareef said.

  The driver pulled over to the side of the road and waited as Tareef and Ali walked up to his window. “I did a supply run for my father in Chakdara and I’m headed home. We have a farm just past Ayun.”

  “I’m Abdul,” Tareef said. “This is my friend, Basir.” He and Ali had argued for an hour about fake names.

  “I’m A.C.” The driver smiled at the look of surprise on Ali’s face. “You think that’s bad, my brother’s name is D.C. I’m from one of those crazy Kalash families who names their kids after modern gadgets and stuff.”

  A.C. got out, walked back, reached into the bed of the truck, and withdrew a cloth duffel bag. “It’s getting cold.” He was wearing Nike athletic shoes, shorts, and shirt. He stripped off the shorts, yanked a pair of worn Nike pants with holes in the knees out of the duffel, and slid them on.

  As he slipped on an Adidas nylon jacket, A.C. looked at the curls of Tareef’s brown hair. “Abdul doesn’t sound Kalash, unless your dad converted maybe, but your hair sure doesn’t look Pakistani.”

  Tareef squirmed. He’d been away from home for months and A.C.’s mention of Ayun had been a sharp reminder of what he’d missed. “I use Abdul when I’m away from home. I’m Kalash. My name is Tareef.”

  “I knew it!” A.C. said. He hugged Tareef, let him go, looked at Ali, and grinned. “But I’m guessing Basir isn’t Kalash.”

  “No,” Tareef said, “but he’s as much my brother as if he’d been born to my parents.”

  “Good enough,” A.C. said. He glanced at his truck. “Sorry, but you’re going to have to ride in the back. I have the cab so stuffed that there’s barely room for me.”

  Tareef and Ali climbed into the bed and made room for themselves among three crates of chickens, bags of chicken feed, and two wooden boxes filled with canned food.

  “Stay away from the chickens,” A.C. said. “I think they can shit sideways. I bought them as a surprise for my dad. Falcons pretty much wiped out our flock. Never seen so many of those flying demons. Everyone in Ayun is talking about them.”

  Tareef smiled to himself. He’d seen falcons soaring in the sunset sky every night they’d been on the road.

  A.C. climbed back into the cab and pulled back onto the road.

  • • • • •

  Tareef banged on the back window of the truck cab and yelled at A.C. “You can let us off here!”

  They’d been in the truck for five hours, stopping for bathroom breaks and once to replace a flat tire. The road followed the twisted course of the Chitral River along the base of the mountains, and they’d just crossed the bridge over the Binatolonda Gol. Ayun was just a few kilometers further north. The sun was brushing the western peaks, throwing a shimmering copper glow across the rushing water. Darkness arrived early and fast in the valleys of the Kalash.

  The Birir Valley Road that led higher into the mountains and to Tareef’s home was on the opposite side of the river. The Chitral narrowed here and was too fast to ford. But it widened a half kilometer north and split around a huge sandbar. He and Ali could cross just below the sandbar. They’d camp overnight and finish their journey early in the morning.

  A.C. pulled over to the side of the road and stopped. He hopped out and ran into the bushes. “Back in a minute. Gotta pee.”

  “Good idea,” Ali said and clambered out of the truck bed and ran after him.

  Tareef climbed from the back of the truck, stretched, and sucked the cold twilight air into his lungs. He’d expected to be relieved when he got this close to home, but a sense of dread had grown all day.

  A.C. and Ali came back to the truck, zipping as they walked.

  A.C. stared at Tareef for several seconds, as if he was trying to decide something. “Someone after you? That why you want out now? You need to avoid town?”

  Tareef avoided looking at Ali and didn’t answer.

  A.C. pulled a blue down jacket from the front of the cab and slipped it on. “Because—”

  “My home is up there.” Tareef pointed across the river and up into the valley. “That’s why.”

  “As long as you didn’t kill someone—” A.C. stopped when he saw the look on Tareef’s face. “You didn’t kill anyone, did you?”

  “No!”

  “His father was killed by the guys who are after us,” Ali said.

  A.C. nodded. “So someone is after you. Look, I don’t have to go through town to get to our farm. I can go around. It’s a little slower and the road is mostly a sheep trail, but it’s not too bad. Eat with us and sleep in a warm room. I’ll help you get going first thing tomorrow.”

  Tareef gazed across the river. “It’s too dangerous. It’s better you never met us.”

  “Who’s gonna know? Some military man? They don’t know shit about the Kalash, and they sure don’t know me or my dad and mom. Come on, let’s go. I’m freezing my balls off out here.”

  Tareef looked a question at Ali.

  “I’ll do whatever you say, but I like the idea of being inside for the night.”

  Tareef considered for a few seconds more, then sighed. “I can’t get home tonight anyway. We’ll do it, as long as you’re sure we can avoid town.”

  “You won’t even know a town is there,” A.C. said. “Pile in.”

  “Just so the town doesn’t know I’m here.”

  They climbed back into the truck, rode another kilometer, and crossed the bridge over the Chitral River. A half kilometer on the other side of the bridge, A.C. pulled off the highway onto a dirt road.

  As they bounced along, the sense of threat that had been stalking Tareef spiked.

  I’ve seen a falcon every night at sunset, pointing the way home. Not tonight.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Ayun

  Islamic Republic of Pakistan

  General Ahmed Pasha activated the channel to the sergeant in the vehicle a half mile behind him. “Bridge coming up on our left. Cross and close ranks.”

  Pasha’s lead SUV was trailed by six three-quarter-ton Chevy Suburbans carrying two dozen paramilitary soldiers from the ISI’s Covert Action Division. Three of the extended-length vehicles would have provided more than enough seats for the assault team, but they had to also transport everything they needed for the operation, including a secure comms system and enough fuel to get them back to civilization.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Pasha had studied the army’s maps of the area and tossed them in the trash. Google had much better information. And while the Chitral District Police had been mostly useless, Pasha did learn that the tribal elder’s home was near a footbridge at the Grambet Gol in the Birir Valley.

  The Birir was one of three valleys that descended from the higher mountains to the village of Ayun, where a few hundred people lived on the banks of the Chitral River. The town served as an unofficial gathering point for the Kalash.

  Ayun lay on the west side of the Chitral. The highway into the region was on the east, and the only bridge large enough to
handle an SUV’s weight was two kilometers beyond the town. Pasha’s driver slowed and pulled onto the narrow steel structure. The bridge protested with a loud moan and a shiver as they crawled six meters above the swirling water. Pasha keyed his headset. “One at a time on this damned bridge, unless someone wants to go swimming.”

  The only acknowledgement to his warning was a short laugh from one of the men, followed by a sharp rebuke from the sergeant.

  Pasha’s SUV bounced off the bridge and onto a dirt road that led back down the river to the village. The road looked and felt like it had been shelled and was probably as good as it got. If Google was right, the roads into the mountains were goat paths.

  A field of half-grown wheat spread to his right, covering the half-kilometer distance from the road to the oak-covered mountains that bounded the valley. Pasha glanced at his driver. “Pull over and wait for the others.”

  He got out of the SUV, stretched, and reached back inside the cab for his binoculars. A breeze stirred the grain and bathed him in a peppery aroma of grass and moist earth. Pasha strode into the field and surveyed the surrounding area, looking for buildings—none—and at the thin white lines of the twisting trails that led up from the valley. The sides of the mountain were cloaked in purple from the setting sun.

  Another half hour, and it’ll be as dark as the inside of a black velvet bag.

  In the two days since his meeting with the director-general, Pasha had struggled to keep his focus on finding Tareef. The distractions had been substantial.

  Rahman had escaped and killed himself after making a call that the ISI techs couldn’t trace. Then came confirmation that the female American DTS agent had eluded the ambush in Iran and disappeared. His only consolation was that her partner had been killed. The U.S. had remained silent, which felt more ominous than if they’d screamed bloody murder.

  Both episodes were troubling, but as Pasha kept reminding himself, his priority was to capture the boy. And the events in a tourist town north of Islamabad convinced Pasha that he and his ISI team were about to eliminate the problem of the missing tribal elder’s son.

  In the early-morning hours after Tareef fled from Rahman’s home, the Muree police had spotted and pursued a yellow cab with two people inside, one of them much shorter than the other. The idiot police had lost the trail, but the taxi was found several hours later, abandoned in an old petrol station. The license tag and university math books on the front seat had led investigators back to Islamabad, where they confirmed a car and driver had gone missing from the taxi company.

  Tareef was headed north, back to his home valley. So Pasha had put his backup linguist to work on the codex, used the DG’s power to activate an ISI covert unit, and raced to get into position to welcome him home.

  He walked to the front of the Suburban and leaned against the ticking hood to wait for the rest of the command. The sergeant and his team had been selected for their proven ability to follow orders, no matter how repugnant, and their willingness to keep their mouths shut about their work. The mission brief had been short, with no questions asked—capture the boy and torch his home valley.

  The other SUVs rolled into the field ten minutes later. Sergeant Hassan opened his door, slid from the high seat to the ground, strode over to Pasha, and saluted.

  Pasha returned the salute. “Set up our base here. This road is the only way in or out, unless you walk over the mountains, and the Afghans on the other side aren’t known for their friendship.”

  Hassan nodded. “You want to start the operation tonight?”

  “Yeah. Drag out the night-vision gear and flashlights. I want you to drop a surveillance blanket over the town. No one in or out without us catching them.”

  “No town generator?” Hassan asked.

  Pasha laughed. “Not according to the district police. A couple of people might have generators, but this place is more like living in the early 1900s. It’s all kerosene lanterns and early to bed. Tell your people to look for a boy with lavender eyes. Anyone they find, they bring to the camp for me to question.”

  “And tomorrow?”

  “Your call on how you get it done,” Pasha said, “but I want to scare the shit out of the locals. Scare them so bad they’d turn in their own mother. Spread the boy’s picture around. Promise twenty-thousand rupees to anyone who leads us to him. Make it clear we’re not going away until we have him.”

  “Easy enough,” Hassan said.

  “And send patrols to check the outlying farms,” Pasha said. “People are spread out up and down this river.”

  Hassan nodded and looked across the field at the wheat shivering in the dying light. “Some farmer’s gonna show up and bitch about us camping on his crop.”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem to buy him off.”

  “How about we kill him and hang the body in the middle of town? That way these pagan assholes will know we’re serious.”

  Pasha smiled. “Do it.”

  “What happens if someone gives up the kid? We still move into the Birir Valley?”

  “Oh, yeah. When we’re done, I don’t want anything bigger than an outhouse left standing in that valley.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Panjgur Desert Research Station

  Islamic Republic of Pakistan

  “The Birir Valley,” Colonel Liberty said, “runs up into the mountains from this small village, Ayun, which sits on the east side of the Chitral River.” He, John, and Stony were standing around a high-res projection of a U.S. satellite map on a six-foot monitor mounted to a conference room wall.

  Liberty traced the course of the river with a blue laser pointer. “This is the only road into that part of Pakistan. It’s a decent highway, two lane asphalt. It follows along the river to Chitral, the district capital.” He slid the pointer about fifty miles and hovered. Then he moved the blue speck back down the river and stopped just outside Ayun. “There’s a bridge here, a mile or so north of the village.” He circled the bridge and drew a line from it back to the town.

  “If there’s any ISI presence in that part of the country,” Stony said, “they’ll use that road and that bridge. Not a good way in for us.”

  “Agreed,” Liberty said. “And we can’t use back roads. The few that exist are dirt paths just wide enough for a couple of goats.”

  “Helicopter mission?” Stony asked.

  “Huh-uh. This is the only U.S. base in Pakistan, and we’re hundreds of miles from Ayun. Plus we’re monitored 24/7 by our reluctant hosts.”

  “So we use the back door,” John said.

  “By that, you mean Afghanistan?” Liberty laughed. “Of course you mean Afghanistan.”

  The U.S. had tried to pull out of Afghanistan more than two years earlier, but the Taliban had flooded back into power, and, with them, Al Qaeda. The U.S. presence in Kabul and other key cities had been strengthened, and it was anyone’s guess when they’d be able to leave for good.

  “I’m a step ahead of you,” Liberty said. He punched a button on the control module for the display, and the view widened to show half the neighboring country. He drew the pointer along the border. “It’s no big deal to get you to Kabul using the Gulfstream. It’s about an eight hundred mile flight and one I make all the time. Pakistani air traffic control won’t even blink an eye.”

  “And from Kabul?” Stony asked.

  “It’s about 270 miles from Kabul to the Birir Valley,” Liberty said, “so the valley is in range for a chopper infil. But—”

  “Had to be a ‘but,’“ Stony said.

  “The Birir Valley runs seven miles from near Ayun into the Himalayan foothills.” The blue light of his pointer danced along the valley. “There are maybe four hundred homes scattered along its length. We can’t possibly check them all before we’re discovered by the Pakistani military.”

  “So,” John said, “you’re asking where we go when we leave Kabul.”

  “Yeah.”

  John thought a moment. “I think I have a way to an
swer that, but go on. What are the other problems?”

  “A little one and big one,” Liberty said.

  “Little one first,” Stony said.

  Liberty nodded. “The mountains in this area max out at about nine thousand feet. I think that’s doable, but we need to get a chopper pilot to vet our plan.”

  “And the big one?” Stony asked.

  “Avoiding detection. Since we snuck in and killed Bin Laden in 2011, the Pakistanis have improved their border surveillance. They now have much better radar and their own monitoring satellite.”

  “Uhh,” Stony said, “I can’t remember the word, but does the bird stay in one place or orbit the earth?”

  “Geo-stationary is what you’re trying to remember,” Liberty said. “And it’s not—it orbits. Which means, if we get in undetected, we’ll have about ninety minutes before the satellite comes around and picks us out of the trees.”

  “Longer,” John said. “I don’t give a shit if they detect us, because I don’t care if they know who we are. We just need time to get away before they can respond. And the remoteness of the valley helps us.”

  “Alrighty, then.” Liberty’s sarcasm was undermined by a broad smile. “We’re going to violate the sovereignty of an ally, and we don’t care if they know it.”

  “Nominal ally,” Stony said. “One that set off a bomb in Georgetown and killed our boss.”

  John stepped forward and tapped the display on the narrow green stripe of the Birir Valley. “Cutting to the chase, our big problem is that we don’t know where Tareef lives along the length of a seven-mile valley. Is that right?”

  Liberty nodded.

  “Lets take a break for an hour, and I’ll see if I can’t solve that.”

  • • • • •

  John spent fifteen minutes working the Internet from a secure terminal. His research netted him three phone numbers, which he scribbled on a small scrap of paper. He got one of Liberty’s language experts to teach him how to say “someone who speaks English, please” in Urdu. When he could pronounce it without making the woman laugh, he took the numbers and the satellite phone Wylie provided and moved outside to one of the rocking chairs on the front porch of the building. The porch was covered, but the slanted metal roof only enhanced his impression that he was sitting in a vast tandoor oven.