by Tom Clancy
After September 11, 2001, the Pakistan Army entered the area with a mission to secure the border against Northern Alliance soldiers pushing eastward from Afghanistan. While there could have (and in Samad’s opinion, should have) been a confrontation, the local tribes welcomed them, and check posts were established. In the years to follow, the tribal leaders would regret that mistake, as many near and dear to them were killed by American drones and daisy cutter bombs because the Americans suspected there were terrorists in the area. The Americans would offer an apology and pathetic reparations, even as they murdered civilians in the name of justice.
In recent months, however, the tribesmen had come to their senses and had been refusing requests from both the Americans and the Pakistani government. There had been, for a few years, a tribal lashkar formed, and it was this group’s mission to arrest all fugitives and resistance fighters within the Shawal area. Only a few days prior, the chief had received word from Islamabad that officials were not pleased with the lashkar’s performance and that the Army might need to return in great numbers to the area to weed out the fugitives. Samad and his people, along with their leader, Mullah Omar Rahmani, who was presently in the Afghan area, had struck a deal: If the Army returned, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda forces would equip and reinforce the tribesmen against any attacks. Moreover, Rahmani had assured the chief that he would be paid handsomely for his assistance. Rahmani had no shortage of funds so long as the poppies continued to grow and the opium bricks continued shipping overseas. Their most recent deal with the Juárez Cartel of Mexico would make them the major provider of opium into that country if the cartel was able to crush its enemies. While Mexico had never been one of the major buyers of Afghan-produced opium, Rahmani planned to change that and have his product better compete with South America’s cocaine and crystal-meth industries, which provided massive quantities of those drugs to the cartels, who in turn got them into the hands of Americans.
Samad lowered his binoculars. “They’ll come for us this evening,” he told his lieutenants.
“How do you know?” asked Talwar.
“Mark my words. The scouts are always a few hours ahead. That’s all. Never more. Rahmani will call to warn us.”
“What should we do? Can we get all the others out in time? Can we run?” Niazi asked.
Samad shook his head and lifted an index finger to the sky. “They’re watching us, as always.” He stroked his long beard in thought, and within a minute, a plan congealed. He gestured that they move back and away, keeping closely to the fruit trees and using the ridge to shield themselves from the spies.
On the other side of the hill lay a small house and large fenced-in pens for goats, sheep, and a half-dozen cows. The farmer who lived there had repeatedly cast an evil eye at Samad when he brought his troops into the valley nearby for target practice. This was a Taliban training ground, and the farmer was well aware of that. He’d been ordered by the tribal chief to assist Samad in any way he could; he had reluctantly agreed. Samad had never spoken to the man, but Rahmani had and had warned Samad that this farmer could not be trusted.
In times of war, men must be sacrificed. Samad’s father, a mujahideen fighter who had battled the Russians, told him that on the last night he’d seen the man alive. His father had gone off to war carrying an AK-47 rifle and a small, tattered backpack. His sandals were falling apart. He’d looked back at Samad and smiled. There was a gleam in his eye. Samad was an only child. And soon only he and his mother were left in the world.
Men must be sacrificed. Samad still carried a photo of his father protected by a yellowing plastic film, and when the nights grew most lonely, he’d stare at the picture and talk to the man, asking if his father was proud of all Samad had accomplished.
With the help of several world-aid organizations, Samad had managed to finish school in Afghanistan, and he’d been handpicked by yet another aid group so he could enroll at Middlesex University in the UK on a full scholarship. He’d attended their Dubai regional campus, where he’d earned an undergraduate degree in Information Technology and further honed his political interests. It was there at Middlesex that he’d met young members of the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and Hezbollah. These rebellious spirits helped ignite his naive soul.
After graduating, he’d traveled with a few friends to Zahedan, a city in southeastern Iran and strategically located in the tri-border region of Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan. With finances from the drug trade and the audacious hiring of demolitions experts from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, they created a bomb-making facility. Samad had been placed in charge of building and servicing the facility’s computer network system. They manufactured bombs within cinder bricks, and the bombs were smuggled across the borders into Afghanistan and Pakistan, with all of the deliveries timed, marked, and tracked electronically by the software Samad had created. That was Samad’s first foray into the world of terrorism.
Jihad was a central duty of all Muslims, but the definition of that word was widely misunderstood, and even Samad had been unsure about it until he’d been taught its true meaning while working at the bomb factory. Some theologians referred to jihad as the struggle within the soul or the defending of the faith from critics, or even migrating to non-Muslim lands for the purpose of spreading Islam. You were striving in the way of Allah. But was there really any form other than violent jihad? The infidels must be purged from the holy lands. They must be destroyed. They were the leaders of injustice and oppression. They were the rejecters of truth, even after it had been made clear to them. They were already destroying themselves and would bring down the rest of the world if they were not stopped.
A verse from the Qur’an was forever on the tip of Samad’s tongue: Muster against them all the men and cavalry at your disposal so that you can strike terror into the enemies of Allah …
And no group of people more accurately represented the enemies of Allah than Americans, those spoiled, spineless, godless consumers of garbage. Land of the fornicators and home of the obese. They were a threat to all people of the world.
Samad led his men closer to the farmhouse, then called to the farmer to come outside. The man, who lived alone after his wife had died and his two sons had moved to Islamabad, finally wobbled past his front door, balancing himself on a cane and squinting at Samad.
“I don’t want you here,” he said.
“I know,” Samad answered, moving up to the man. He nodded once more and thrust a long, curved blade directly into the man’s heart. As the farmer fell back, Samad caught him, even as Talwar and Niazi helped seize and carry him into the house. They lay him on the dirt floor, and he just stared at them as he continued bleeding to death.
“After he dies, we need to hide his body,” said Niazi.
“Of course,” Samad answered.
“He’ll be missed,” Talwar pointed out.
“We’ll say he left to visit his sons in the city. But that’s only if the tribesmen ask. If the Americans or the Army come, then this is our farm. Do you understand? Fleeing now will only draw more suspicion.”
They nodded.
Out near one of the goat pens they found a hole the farmer had been using to pile up the dung. They threw him in there and buried him with more dung. Samad grinned. No soldier would want to go digging through dung to find the body of some worthless farmer. Samad donned some of the old man’s clothes; then they sat back in some squeaky chairs, prepared some tea, and waited for nightfall.
Moore and his young recruit Rana had observed three men near a stand of trees on the hilltop, but these men were too low and too far away to see their faces, even with binoculars. Rana assumed that they were Taliban fighters, sentries on the perimeter, and Moore agreed. He and Rana hiked back across the foothills, down into a ravine, then up to high ground, from where Moore made a call with his Iridium satellite phone. The mountainous terrain interfered with reception if he got too deep into the cuts and ravines, but he usually picked up a clean signal from the mountaintops, where, of cou
rse, he was more vulnerable to detection. He reached the detachment commander of an ODA (Operational Detachment Alpha) team, one of the Army’s elite Special Forces groups. As a SEAL, Moore had worked alongside these boys in Afghanistan, and he had a deep respect for them, even though barbs were traded regarding which group had the most effective and deadly warriors. The rivalry was both healthy and amusing.
“Ozzy, this is Blackbeard,” said Moore, using his CIA call sign. “What’s up, brother?”
The voice on the other end belonged to Captain Dale Osbourne, a painfully young but exceedingly bright operator who’d worked with Moore on several night raids that had yielded two High-Value Targets in Afghanistan.
“Going for the hat trick tonight.”
Ozzy snorted. “You got actionable intel or just the usual bullshit?”
“Usual bullshit.”
“So you didn’t see them.”
“They’re here. We got three already.”
“Why do you assholes always do this to me?”
Moore chuckled. “’Cause you suckers like to play in the dirt. I’ve uploaded the names and pics. I want these guys.”
“What else is new?”
“Look, if it helps, we’ve picked up shell casings all over the place. Definitely a recent training ground here. Sloppy bastards didn’t clean up their mess. I need you in here tonight for the surprise party.”
“You sure Obi-Wan’s not lying his ass off?”
“I’d bet my life on it.”
“Well, holy shit, then, you got a deal. Look for us at zero dark thirty, baby. See you then.”
“Roger that. And don’t forget your gloves. You don’t want to ruin your manicure.”
“Yeah, right.”
Moore grinned and thumbed off the phone.
“What happens now?” asked Rana.
“We find a little cave, set up camp, then you’ll hear a helicopter coming.”
“Won’t that scare them off?”
Moore shook his head. “They know we’ve got satellites and Predators up there. They’ll just dig in. You watch.”
“I’m a little frightened,” Rana confessed.
“Are you kidding me? Relax. We’ll be fine.”
Moore gestured to the AK-47 slung over his shoulder and patted the old Soviet-made Makarov holstered at his side. Rana was also carrying a Makarov, and Moore had taught him how to fire and reload the sidearm.
They found a shallow cave along one of the hillsides and half buried the entrance with some larger rocks and shrubs. They remained there as night fell, and Moore began to slowly doze off. He caught himself twice falling asleep and asked Rana to remain awake and keep watch. The kid was tense anyway, and was happy to keep an eye out.
The energy bar he’d eaten earlier wasn’t agreeing with him, and it brought on some vivid dreams. He was floating on an ink-black sea, crucified against an endless expanse of darkness, and suddenly he reached out a hand and screamed, “DON’T LEAVE ME! DON’T LEAVE ME!”
He shuddered awake as something pushed over his mouth. Where the hell was he? He didn’t feel wet. He was panting, couldn’t catch his breath, realized that was because his mouth was in fact being covered by a hand.
Through the grainy darkness came Rana’s wide eyes, and he stage-whispered, “Why are you yelling? I’m not going anywhere. I’m not leaving. But you can’t yell.”
Moore nodded vigorously, and Rana slowly removed his hand. Moore bit his lip and tried to recover his breathing. “Whoa, sorry, bad dreams.”
“You thought I was going to leave.”
“I don’t know. Wait. What time is it?”
“It’s after midnight. Almost zero dark thirty.”
Moore sat up and switched on his satellite phone. A voice mail was waiting: “Hey, Blackbeard, you worthless sack of flesh. We’re mounting up. ETA your backyard, twenty minutes.”
He switched off the phone. “Listen. You hear that?”
Samad was awakened by a hand on his shoulder, and for a second or two he lost his bearings; then he remembered they were inside the farmer’s house. He sat up on the small wooden bed. “There’s a helicopter coming,” said Talwar.
“Go back to sleep.”
“Are you certain?”
“Go back to sleep. When they come, we’ll be annoyed that they woke us up.”
Samad went over to a small table and tied a rag across his face, suggesting that he’d lost an eye—not an uncommon sight in this war-torn part of the country. It was a simple disguise, and he’d learned during his days as a bomb-maker that the more simple the bomb, the idea, the plan, the greater the chance for success it had. He’d proven that theory to himself time and again. A rag. A war wound. A bitter farmer pulled from his sleep by foolish Americans. That’s all he was.
Allahu Akbar!
God was great!
The twelve-man ODA team fast-roped down from the hovering chopper as a translator addressed a few of the tribesmen who’d stumbled half-asleep from their houses to stare up and shield their eyes from the rotor wash. The translator spoke loudly via the Black Hawk’s booming public address system: “We’re here to find two men, and that is all. No one will be harmed. No shots will be fired. Please help us to find two men.” The translator repeated the message at least three times as Ozzy’s team hit the deck, one after another, then fanned out in pairs, rifles at the ready.
The drop zone was a clearing near a row of homes about two hundred meters away from the walls of the chief’s fortress, and Moore met the young Special Forces captain and his chief warrant officer in an alley between houses. They waited a few seconds until the Black Hawk banked hard and thumped away into the darkness, navigation lights flashing as its pilot steered back for the secure landing zone a few kilometers away, where they’d wait for Ozzy’s call to extract them. Landing the chopper in the village and having it remain there while the team went to work was simply too dangerous.
“You remember my sidekick, Robin?” Moore asked, directing his penlight at Rana.
Ozzy grinned. “How you doing, buddy?”
Rana frowned. “My name’s Rana, not Robin.”
“It’s a joke,” said Moore. He faced the chief warrant officer, a guy named Bobby Olsen, aka Bob-O, who took one look at Moore and pretended to scowl. “Are you the CIA puke?”
Bob-O wore the same look and asked the same question every time they got together. For some reason he took evil delight in ribbing Moore every chance he got. Moore raised his index finger and jabbed it into Bob-O’s face, about to launch his retort.
“Okay, you knuckleheads, we can stow that,” said Ozzy. He raised his brows at Moore. “It’s your party, Blackbeard. I hope you’re right.”
Ozzy’s team had been well trained in the art and science of negotiating with the tribesmen, and their fieldwork had allowed them to put classroom theory and mock scenarios into practice. They’d learned the language, had studied the customs, and even had small all-weather cheat sheets folded and stored in their breast pockets in case they were caught off guard in a social situation. They were, in their humble opinion, ambassadors of democracy, and while some might consider that notion silly or cheesy, they were the only contact with the Western world many of the tribesmen would ever have.
Moore, Rana, Ozzy, and Bob-O were about to cross a rutted dirt road lying parallel to the mud-brick homes when two salvos of automatic-weapons fire echoed off the mountains. The gunfire struck Moore breathless. Bob-O cursed.
“Raceman, who fired those shots?” Ozzy barked into the boom mike at his lips as Moore and Rana crouched beside the house.
Bob-O was on his radio at the same time, yapping at the other teams, demanding information.
More gunfire resounded, the cadence and pitch notably different. Yes, that fire belonged to Ozzy’s people, their Special Forces Combat Assault Rifles (SCARs) sending 5.56- or 7.63-millimeter responses to the enemy’s ambush. Two more volleys followed. Then a third. Then five, six, maybe seven, AK-47s answered, the gun battle
about a half-dozen houses away.
Moore pricked up his ears. To fire an AK-47 you loaded your magazine, moved the selector lever off the safety, pulled back and released the charging handle, took aim, and fired—quite a few moves to fire a single shot. But if you moved the selector to the middle position, you had full auto and could lean on the trigger until you emptied the magazine. Basic gun operation, but the point was this: During any gun battle, Moore first listened for the enemy’s location and then tried to determine if the enemy was trying to conserve ammo. He heard it every time—either full auto, which often meant that each combatant had multiple magazines at his disposal, or single shot, which suggested that the enemy was trying to make every round count. Sure, this wasn’t a foolproof assessment, but more times than not his assumptions had been correct.
When a group of Taliban unleashed full automatic-weapons fire, you’d best assume the worst: They were well stocked with ammo.
Moore faced Rana and said, “Don’t do anything. Just hold tight here.”
Rana’s eyes lit up the alley. “Oh, don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Neo and Big Dan, you get up into the hills on the south side. Raceman’s got fire over there,” Ozzy was saying as he peered around the corner, then gestured for Moore and Rana to follow him. Moore edged up beside the captain. “How’s it looking?”
“We got about eight, maybe ten, Tangos so far. I’m calling in for an Apache to give these suckers some pause.”