by C. G. Cooper
The delivery man turned and headed back to his truck, the engines of the pickup trucks revving in preparation for their departure.
“How do you know we will not tell the truth?” asked another guard.
The delivery man shrugged. “If that is your wish, may Allah grant you a swift death.” He handed the PKM to one of his men and climbed into the driver’s seat. “Farewell friends. Enjoy the food. The dates are especially delicious.”
All six guards stood in muted shock and watched the caravan make its way out of the outpost. As soon as the sound of tire on gravel faded down the hill, all six men turned and headed to the prisoner’s cell.
+++
Andy didn’t say a word as the convoy cleared the last building and rumbled onto the dirt road heading down a steep hill. It was the first chance he’d had to see the surrounding area. They were heading into a broad valley, homes dotting the landscape below.
Once they’d made it half a mile from his former prison, the delivery man pulled out an Afghan cigarette and lit it with a cheap lighter. He took a deep pull, held it, then let the gray plume out through the side of his mouth.
Without turning to look at Andy he said, “I’ll tell you what, they sure make Marines uglier than when I went through Parris Island.”
It took Andy a moment to realize the guy had said it in English and that he now recognized the voice. He turned his head as the driver took off the sunglasses and threw him a wink.
“Rich,” Andy breathed, relief flooding his body. The spook was the last person he was expecting to see. He hadn’t seen Isnard since passing through Baghdad, which seemed like ages ago.
Rich Isnard smiled and tossed Andy a set of keys. “Take your handcuffs off and grab the gun under your seat.” He pointed to the road ahead. “We’re going to have company.”
Andy shifted his gaze and saw what Isnard was talking about. There was a much larger convoy of vehicles coming their way. He knew it was the men behind his capture.
“With just a little bit of luck we’ll let them fly by and it might buy us some time before they talk to the boys back there.”
“That’s your plan?” asked Andy, reaching under the seat and feeling the familiar touch of a rifle stock.
“Hey, man, I put this little rescue op together on the fly. Semper Gumby, right?”
Isnard was grinning like a teenager who’d just gotten to third base with the captain of the cheerleading squad. Something about his smile reminded Andy of another Marine who was known for his bold charge into the maw of the enemy: Cal Stokes. With any luck, they’d survive the day and Andy might have a chance to tell his old friend what he’d discovered.
Chapter 8
Helmand Province, Afghanistan
9:17am AFT, August 24th
The smaller convoy of three eased off the road to allow the oncoming vehicles to pass. There were two humvees in the lead, one sporting a .50 caliber mounted machine gun, the second armed with a Mark-19 grenade launcher. Made in America.
Next came the large black SUVs, their windows an impenetrable black. There were ten, then another three humvees bringing up the rear.
Isnard whistled.
“That’s a lot of firepower.”
Andy half expected the opposing force to stop and take them out.
“Figures.”
Isnard turned to look at him. “What do you know? I couldn’t get confirmation on who was holding you. All they told me was that it was someone high up. I pulled every damned string I could just to get that much.”
Andy told him. Isnard’s face hardened.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
Andy nodded. “I recognized his voice.”
Isnard put the truck in drive and pulled out onto the road, his lips tight in concentration.
“There’s a phone in the glove box. Grab it.”
Andy opened the compartment, moved aside extra packs of cigarettes and found a scuffed gray cell phone. He held it out for Isnard. Isnard shook his head.
“If what you’re telling is true, we’ve probably got one call with that thing.”
“It’s not encrypted?”
“I couldn’t get my hands on anything better in time.”
“Wait. Does the Agency know you’re out here?”
Isnard made a face. “Not exactly.”
Andy didn’t understand. He’d assumed that the CIA ordered Isnard to find him. Now that he had a second to think about it, he realized it was strange that the Baghdad station chief was in Afghanistan.
“Tell me what I missed.”
Isnard told him what he knew, which wasn’t much. The most important part being that Major Andrews was now disavowed by the employer who’d sent him into Afghanistan. For some reason Andy wasn’t surprised. He started laughing.
Isnard looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “You want to tell me what’s so funny? Last time I checked we’re in this thing neck deep, Marine.”
Andy threw his hands up. “You know, everyone told me to stay away from the CIA, but I didn’t listen. I should be XO of a battalion right now. Instead, you’re telling me that on my very first operation for the CIA, I get captured, you save me like a knight in shining armor, AND I’ve been disowned? I’m sorry, but all I can think to do is laugh.”
Isnard chuckled. “You’re right. It’s like a really crappy movie, right? The kind you can’t keep watching because you know it’s fake.”
Andy’s laughing died down.
“How are we getting out of here?”
Isnard gave him a thin smile. “I hadn’t quite figured that out yet. Truth be told, I gave my rescue operation a thirty-percent chance of success. On top of that, my boss is pissed with me. I’ve been dodging his calls since I left Baghdad. He’s not stupid. He probably knows what I’ve been up to and for all I know I’ve been disavowed too.”
Both men chuckled at that. It really was too much to think about. There they were, in the middle of enemy territory, and they couldn’t trust their own government to save them.
“So who do we call?” asked Andy, pointing to the cell phone.
Isnard smiled. “We need someone who’s just nuts enough to come get us.”
Andy returned the smile when he realized to whom Isnard was referring. “Cal Stokes.”
+++
Arlington, Virginia
1:53am, August 24th
The buzzing from the cell phone shook Cal from his thoughts. He’d been lying in bed for almost an hour, replaying the last conversation with Travis. Things looked bleak and he could feel Andy’s chances dwindling as the minutes ticked by.
He picked up the phone from the bedside table and looked at the screen. The caller ID displayed UNKNOWN in bold. Cal didn’t get a lot of calls and the unidentified ones were rarer still.
Curious, Cal answered the call.
“Hello?”
“Yeah, I was told that if I wanted a good time I should call this number?”
Cal bolted upright. It was Andy. He was being vague for a reason. Probably a nonsecure phone. He played along.
“Yeah. Depends on what you need.” Cal’s heart pounded as he waited for any hint of where his friend was.
“We kinda got in a little thing with some old friends and we might need a ride home.”
“That can be arranged. Where?”
“I was thinking we could meet at the same place you got cozy with Jiffy John.”
It took Cal a moment to realize what Andy was alluding to. On one of their trips back from overseas deployment, Cal caught a mean case of the runs. He’d spent their entire layover in Kandahar in a port-a-potty. After that, Andy always said he had a thing for Jiffy John, the American brand of portable bathrooms.
“Yeah, I remember.”
“Good. I’m not sure when we’ll be there, but keep your phone on when you get in. Oh, and bring some friends.”
“You got it. Hey, are you okay?”
There was a pause from Andy’s end, then he replied. “I’m a lot better than
I was an hour ago. I’ve even got a mutual friend driving. He said he’d be happy to give you another tour when you get here.”
Cal heard honking in the background.
“I’ll see you soon,” said Cal.
“Right. Gotta go.”
The line went dead and Cal stared at his phone. At least Andy was safe for the moment. He now knew his friend was with Rich Isnard. The comment about the tour referred to when Cal had first met the wily spook. He’d taken Cal on a walking tour of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, not letting on until later that he was friends with Andy.
Getting into Afghanistan wouldn’t be a problem. The hard part would be doing it without anyone knowing. Based on what Travis had told him, the CIA was high on the list of suspects in Andy’s disappearance. Keeping a rescue operation off their radar would be almost impossible. They had assets everywhere.
Cal stood and cracked his neck from side to side. Impossible or not, at least he could do something about it now.
Chapter 9
Helmand Province, Afghanistan
9:26am AFT, August 24th
The goat herder and his charges took their time crossing the road. There had to be hundreds of scrawny goats meandering over the dust and gravel strip. Isnard hardly let off the horn. The sound did little to move the procession. The hunched Afghan didn’t even look up.
After what seemed like ages, the last goats ambled past. The lead pickup truck gunned its engine and started moving. No sooner had it gone fifty yards that the vehicle and the five men inside blew ski high. Unlike the movies, there was no fireball, just twisted metal and body parts flying.
Isnard didn’t let off the gas, the delivery truck thumping along the debris strewn road even as half their security team landed twenty feet away.
“What the hell was that?” asked Andy, trying to look in the side mirror. The mirror had been destroyed long before, so he couldn’t see a thing.
“The convoy’s back,” said Isnard, pointing with his thumb over his shoulder. He swerved their lumbering target left and right, reminding Andy of his basic training and hours of dodging left and right, saying “I’m up, they see me, I’m down,” as his squad maneuvered down the live fire range. But the hulk of a truck they were riding in couldn’t take cover. There was no ducking. Instead the spook jockeyed the wheel erratically, trying to make them a harder target to hit.
There was an explosion three car lengths ahead. They drove straight through the plume of dust. Another two explosions on their left, just where they’d been a split second before.
Andy could hear the rear security team answering with an endless rattle of machine gun fire. It was probably the only thing giving them time.
The PKM Isnard had was too cumbersome to hold and fire out the window, so Andy used the battered rifle instead. He couldn’t see much when he stuck his head out. Any shot he took might hit their own escort in the second pickup truck.
Just as he pulled his head back in the cab, a shadow passed overhead followed by the telltale sound of aircraft engines and propellers. Andy knew the sound instinctively: attack helicopter. He got confirmation a moment later as he watched a Marine Corps AH-1Z Viper, the recent replacement for the AH-1W Super Cobra, bank left and over and head back toward the road.
Loaded with ample 20mm ammunition for its M197 3-barreled Gatling cannons and a full compliment of 70mm APKWS II rockets, Andy knew from experience that their humble two-vehicle convoy was no match should the helicopter engage. There wasn’t a chance in hell he was going to shoot at fellow Marines, so instead he just watched as the helicopter turned and followed the delivery truck’s path.
+++
“You want me to take them out with the gun or the rockets, Skipper?” asked 1st Lt. Adam “Digger” Reeve, USMCR. He had a clear shot of the white delivery truck and the pickup behind it.
“Let’s see if your aim is any better than it was two days ago, Digger. Go with the cannon,” replied Major Donald “Brickhouse” Barricado, USMC.
“Roger that, Skipper,” said Digger, taking his time lining up a perfect shot. It was a little game they played. See how few shots it took to take down a target. Any idiot could do it with a heat-seeker. But the skipper was old school, a mustang who loved to extol the virtues of World War II era Marines flying their Wildcats over the Pacific, engaging the enemy with crude machine guns. One of his favorite things to do was explain how a pilot used to have to “walk” rounds into a target instead of the infinitely easier point and click of the modern age weaponry.
While some of the other squadron gunners groaned at the tales, Digger listened and practiced. He was getting to where it only took the briefest burst from the cannon to destroy lightly armored vehicles. He’d even pierced an engine block a couple weeks earlier, allowing the troops on the ground to capture the Taliban outlaws driving the small sedan.
But their orders were not to disable. This was supposed be a kill shot. Brief and painless. Well, at least for him.
Satisfied that he had a handle on the delivery truck’s movement, Digger reached for the trigger that would send a stream of 20mm rounds downrange, delivering the faceless enemy to hell in a heartbeat.
“Hold one, Digger,” said the skipper.
Digger exhaled in frustration. “Sir?”
“We’re getting an IFF signal from that truck.” The pilot’s voice was incredulous.
“A transponder?” asked Digger. Only aircraft carried the IFF (identification friend or foe) transponder that allowed military aircraft to ID each other. But not just anyone could use them. The U.S. military, NATO and their allies, used an encrypted system that had to be fed secure validations daily in order to be considered legit. “Is it one of ours?”
“Apparently.”
“You think some jihadi got their hands on one of ours?”
“I don’t see how they could. Call it in will you?”
“Yes, sir.”
+++
A moment earlier, Isnard had reached under his seat and fiddled with something. “That should give us a breather.”
The helicopter was still shadowing them, but apparently whatever the spook had done was giving the pilot and his gunner pause.
“What did you do?” asked Andy.
“On the off chance that some flyboy thought we were a juicy target, I brought along my lucky transponder so they’d know we’re not the bad guys.”
“But if the real bad guys are controlling them, what’s to stop them? You know they’ll override anything we do.”
Isnard grinned. “Stick your hand all the way under your seat. I brought something else, just in case.”
+++
“Sir, higher says to engage.”
Maj. Barricado easily kept pace with the two-vehicle convoy. Something didn’t feel right. He’d engaged countless insurgents over multiple tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. It didn’t matter if they were on the run or not, if they could see you, they fired at you, even if you were a speck on the horizon. It was human nature. Try to shoot down the thing in the sky before it blows you to bits.
But this target wasn’t firing at him. And then there was the thing with the transponder. Unless the driver and his pal had paid a king’s ransom for U.S. military equipment earlier that day…
“I’m moving in for a closer look,” he announced, already having pushed his aircraft’s nose forward.
“You sure, Skipper? We’ve got the go-ahead.”
Maj. Barricado ignored his co-pilot. He wanted to see this for himself.
+++
Andy shook his head when he held up what he’d found wedged behind a fire extinguisher under his seat.
“You’re kidding, right?”
Isnard shrugged, a grin playing at the corner of his mouth. “Didn’t you learn the KISS rule at OCS, Major Andrews? Besides, I never leave home without it.”
Despite the situation, Andy chuckled and stuck the object out the window with both hands.
+++
“Are you seeing this?” asked M
aj. Barricado.
“I’ll be damned.”
Now being held up just outside the passenger side door, fluttering from the breeze but unmistakable to the career Marine, was a red flag with yellow fringe, the United States Marine Corps’s Eagle, Globe and Anchor prominently displayed in gold in the center. Next to it was a man’s face. Dirty and gaunt, but recognizable enough to see that the man wasn’t of Arabic descent.
It took a moment for Barricado to speak.
“Tell higher we had an engine malfunction,” he said as he pulled the aircraft violently to the right, as if overcorrecting or dodging something he’d just seen in the air.
“Skipper?”
“Just do it, Digger. Oh, and why don’t you lob a couple rockets between those two convoys.”
It must have finally dawned on his sometimes naive co-pilot what was happening, because a moment later Major “Brickhouse” Barricado watched as four rockets leapt from their positions and screamed to their destination. “Semper Fi, boys.”
Without waiting to see the outcome, trusting Digger’s gunnery skills, Barricado banked right and headed for home.
+++
Andy held his breath as the rockets left the Marine attack helicopter and blazed toward their mark. Two, one…
The projectiles didn’t follow the delivery truck. He heard the explosions behind them and said a quick thanks to whoever the Marine aviators were. Maybe some day he would find them and buy them a beer. Hell, he’d buy them a damn brewery for what they’d done.
“Looks like our friends stopped,” Isnard announced, grabbing another cigarette from his endless supply. The Marine aviators had stopped the pursuing vehicles cold.
“You’re one crazy bastard, you know that?” said Andy. He was smiling, but a sheen of moisture threatened to turn into tears.
“Don’t thank me yet, jarhead. I’m sure that won’t be the last of it.”
As they reached the road that would take them away from the protected village cluster, Andy wondered how many lives he had left, and if he would get to see Cal in Kandahar.