They’d been driving for almost two hours when Stratton first began to experience a subtle yet disturbed feeling. Long experience had taught him that, even though it was not a certainty, he was wise never to ignore such feelings. He glanced continually in the rear-view and side mirrors, looking for something, though what he had no idea. He could see nothing but total blackness behind them.
He noticed Hetta looking into her side mirror and wondered if she was experiencing something similar.
‘You feel it too?’ he asked her.
She nodded.
It was enough for him to put the brakes on. He turned off the lights, stopped the vehicle on the soft, gravelly earth, killed the engine and climbed out.
She also stepped out and used her thermal imager to look back into the darkness.
Stratton found a rock and smashed both tail lights. They stood silently, listening, watching. All he could hear was the wind against their backs, which didn’t help.
‘Let’s go,’ he said.
They climbed back into the Hilux and got going, without lights. Hetta handed him the thermal imager. The sense of an encroaching threat never left either of them. They continued to check the mirrors but nothing was ever visible. Stratton would have liked to know how much further it was to the road. He would feel safer once they were on it. Maybe it was the ghosts of the nomads.
Another hour went by and the first hint of daylight began to break over the mountain range behind them. Stratton could see well enough without the imager, which was fortunate since its power was waning. He thought he could make out a scar running across their front a mile away. He hoped it was the road. There would be little or no traffic at that time of the day. He didn’t know the curfew times in Kabul but it wouldn’t be raised before full daylight. Any early morning traffic would be from the villages between Kabul and Bagram.
He negotiated a tight dip that rocked the vehicle violently. As he pulled back onto level ground, Hetta grabbed her carbine and pulled her webbing belt with its attached magazine pouches off the floor. Stratton’s eyes flashed to the rear-view mirror. He saw riders coming down the broad slope towards them.
He hit the accelerator hard. He knew he couldn’t outrun them on the terrain but he had a chance on tarmac, if they could reach it in time. As he flew over a bump he was reminded they couldn’t lose anyone with broken suspension.
He estimated a dozen riders. Armed Afghan cavalry was not to be taken lightly. The Hilux went airborne again over a rise, landing with a heavy jolt, and the road appeared a few hundred metres ahead. The riders would reach them before they made the road. They needed a more immediate solution.
They’d have to debus and take them on. But good cavalry could divide quickly and come at them from all angles.
Hetta pulled off her burkha. ‘Sharp turn left,’ she said as they bumped furiously along.
Stratton wondered what she meant, since he could see no great obstacle in front.
She opened her door and held it open. ‘Turn now!’ she ordered.
He realised her intentions and made the turn in front of a fold in the ground. She leaped out and Stratton kept the new heading to draw the riders. Hopefully they hadn’t seen her debus. He caught a glimpse of her rolling to cover.
After fifty metres he brought the pick-up back round towards the road. He flashed another look in her direction and couldn’t see her. At that same instant a bullet slammed into the side of the Hilux. Several more shots came from the riders, another striking the vehicle’s door. The sound of gunfire increased over the engine and creaking chassis. Two more bullets hit the pick-up, one cracking the windscreen. It was pointless heading for the road. It was time to play his part.
Stratton slammed on the brakes, turning the wheel hard over. The Hilux skidded as it turned and the engine stalled. While the pick-up was still moving, he grabbed his carbine, webbing, opened the door and dropped out to land on his back. The landing wasn’t too bad on the stony sand and he rolled through a patch of low grass.
The pick-up slow-wheeled on for a few metres before coming to a stop with both its doors open. Stratton brought his carbine up on aim as he viewed the battle zone. Hetta was on one knee, her rifle in her shoulder, and firing single shots into the riders.
Stratton watched three of them fall one after the other. He quickly sighted a rider heading towards him, aimed high in the torso and fired. The rider fell sideways off his horse. The group had divided up, some engaging Hetta while the rest bore down on Stratton. He got up on one knee and fired again, hitting one of them in the chest, and the man came down hard. A round struck the ground near Stratton’s foot. He moved to fire again and another rider tumbled off his horse. A bullet went through the side of Stratton’s coat. There were two riders left and they parted to pass either side of him. Instinctively, he knew he couldn’t get both with no reply. He aimed at the one on the left and fired, then dropped, rolled onto his back, and aimed right and fired.
He hit the first but missed the second. The first had fallen from his horse but the second was firing – the bullet struck close to Stratton’s head. He scrabbled and aimed and fired.
Stratton watched the man drop his rifle but he stayed on his horse, galloping past Stratton, who had to roll away to avoid its hoofs. The Taliban commander stayed in the saddle for only a few moments before sliding off to a dusty stop.
Stratton quickly scanned in every direction. There were no more riders, just empty horses. He looked at Hetta, who was doing the same. She lowered her rifle and walked towards the Hilux, without a glance his way. He watched to see if she was injured or suffering any after-effects, not that he expected to find any signs of the latter.
She appeared to be her same mechanical, cold self.
He looked at the men they’d killed, spread around the plain. Several of them lay twisted in awkward positions after their falls. All were unmoving. The bodies would likely begin to rot before anyone found them. There didn’t appear to be any villages nearby and so the stench wouldn’t be offensive to anyone. If a passer-by discovered them and told the police, there might eventually be an investigation. The police might make some effort to identify them, although the cadavers no doubt would have been relieved of any valuables by then. The bodies would end up being tipped into a single grave. Like so many Afghans had been in this conflict.
Stratton went to the vehicle and gave it a quick once-over. The tyres looked OK and there were no holes in the engine compartment that he could see. He climbed inside and started it up. It fired first time and sounded fine.
Hetta climbed in beside him.
‘You OK?’ he asked, if only to get some response.
‘I’m fine,’ she said.
She seemed uncomfortable with his concern and looked away.
When they reached the road, he pointed the vehicle south. The tarmac was in moderately good condition for Afghanistan. There was no shortage of potholes or chunks missing at the sides, but it could have been a lot worse.
Traffic was reasonably quiet, with a vehicle passing the other way every five minutes or so. It wasn’t long before they caught up with other cars. As the morning passed, the road rose gradually and traffic rapidly increased, mostly commercial trucks in both directions, interspersed were locals heading to work.
The sun poked its way into the sky as they reached their first Afghan police checkpoint a kilometre from the outskirts of Kabul. Traffic had come to a standstill. The police waved the cars through one by one while they scrutinised the occupants, relying on instinct and anything suspicious catching their eye. Hetta had pulled the hood of her burkha over her head long before they approached the checkpoint. All that was visible were her piercing, dark eyes.
An officer waved on the car in front of them. He looked at Stratton and Hetta and didn’t hesitate to signal them through, his eyes quickly darting to the car behind. A hundred metres on they drove past stalls lining both sides of the road and joined the early morning traffic into the bustling city. Stratton was tha
nkful they’d arrived early because the normal daytime traffic in Kabul could be much worse than it was now. He didn’t know the city well, though enough to navigate around the outskirts. There were sections of it that looked quite normal and void of any signs of trouble or military occupation. Few of the houses were more than three storeys. Many were well maintained but they were outnumbered by the dilapidated. The roads were in poor condition, the pavements broken. Sewage ran down every gutter, coming from the buildings.
The traffic got heavier as they approached the Kabul gates, which was normal for that time of the morning. The gates were the rendezvous point for the huge fuel and food convoys that crossed the country. They mustered along the sides of the road, meeting up with their armed security escorts prior to journeys out to the dozens of military camps and outposts throughout eastern and southern Afghanistan.
Stratton and Hetta passed a long line of heavy fuel trucks parked nose to tail. Dozens of Hilux pick-ups were parked in-between the trucks or in groups across from them. Every Hilux seemed to be manned by security guards, each carrying an AK-47 and ammunition. Some carried RPG7s. They saw PKM belt-fed machine guns mounted on the beds. The guards were nearly all bearded, and dressed for the low temperatures that would get even colder on the journeys, especially for those headed into the mountains’ military camps. Truck drivers were checking their engines and tyres, filling fuel tanks, sharing tea or coffee. Garbage was everywhere and the smell of fuel and sewage filled the air. Despite the millions of gallons of fuel that surrounded them, practically everyone seemed to be smoking.
Horns blared as they joined the creeping traffic moving past the convoys. Bicycles and motorbikes weaved in and out. Sirens sounded as heavily armed police vehicles used them to force through the bustle. They were largely ignored, despite the shouts and gesticulations from officers standing through the sunroofs and leaning out of the cabs.
When they reached the southern part of the city, a police checkpoint indicated that they were leaving the built-up area and heading out into the country. The officers waved them through, anxious to keep the traffic flowing, and Stratton was able to speed up as the road opened. The city was soon out of sight in the rear-view mirror and he settled in for the next leg of the journey. His thoughts went briefly to the night to come. They wouldn’t reach Kandahar before midday the following day and he wondered where they might catch some rest. It wasn’t a good idea to drive at night. Like most places in the world where internal security was unreliable or non-existent, with darkness came the evil ones. Bandits mostly, and sometimes Taliban. Afghan security forces would be few and far between on the road between Kabul and Kandahar, often too frightened to pass along it. And for good reason. They were targeted day and night. A pair of headlights on the road would attract a lot of attention, none of it good.
By late morning they’d reached Ghazni, a hundred and fifty kilometres from Kabul. The traffic slowed again to a crawl through an Afghan Army checkpoint. Stratton and Hetta watched ahead as they approached it. She was wearing her hood again. The soldier on duty appeared to be halting every vehicle and looking inside it.
Stratton got his passport ready. When it was their turn to stop alongside, the soldier, who was dressed in a new set of khaki fatigues and carrying an AK-47, held out a hand to Stratton. He handed over the document. The soldier glanced through it, looked at the couple and waved them on. Hetta stared ahead. It would be unusual for a woman to be checked if she was with a man.
They drove on through the town and out the other side. When they were clear, Hetta removed her hood and veil which, judging by the way she took it off, she didn’t like wearing. An hour after leaving Ghazni, Stratton found a deserted place to pull over. He needed a stretch and a pee. Hetta went for a walk behind a thicket while he refuelled the pick-up.
They were back on the road quickly. He didn’t want to stop anywhere for too long. Stratton felt hungry and remembered the food they had taken from the nomads. He looked at her. She was looking straight ahead, as usual.
‘I don’t suppose you’d like to play mummy and make me a sandwich,’ he said.
She appeared to take a moment to consider. Then she reached back for the pot that contained the lamb and bread and put it on her lap. She removed the lid, grabbed a handful of meat, unceremoniously dumped it into a sheet of the bread and handed it to him.
‘You were never a short order chef,’ he said, examining the mess. ‘I’m gradually working you out by a process of elimination. You weren’t a nun, peace worker, or a Junior McDonald’s Happy Face.’
She ignored him and helped herself to some of the food.
‘Where’re you from?’ he asked.
She kept looking ahead, as if she hadn’t heard him.
‘You can tell a lot about a person’s military background by the way they soldier,’ he said. ‘Your background isn’t military, is it?’
She started to glance at him but changed her mind.
‘I can tell by the way you changed your rifle magazine. You didn’t eject it directly to the ground. You pulled it out first before you dropped it. That’s a regular military technique to save damaging the magazine. But you’re obviously not regular military because of the way you shoot. You do a lot of instinctive shooting. Regular military don’t do that.’
‘What if you don’t want to leave the magazine behind?’ she said. It was as though she were reluctant to get into a conversation with him but couldn’t resist defending herself.
‘You mean leaving it behind as evidence? OK. Maybe. But what about all your casings? They’re evidence. You can’t go round picking all of those up after a fight.’
She didn’t respond.
‘And your pistol. Why a Magnum?’ he asked.
‘People stay down when hit,’ she said.
‘A pistol isn’t a primary weapon. For a gangster, maybe. But not for a military specialist out in the middle of nowhere. It’s a secondary weapon, in case your primary has a malfunction. You need more than eight rounds, though, which is all you have in that monster.’
‘Fourteen,’ she corrected. ‘I have an extended magazine.’
‘Twenty would be even better. Even in a lower calibre.’
A frown began to crease her brow but she remained looking ahead.
‘Another thing that gives you away is the way you hold it. You look through the sights,’ he said. ‘Special forces operatives should be pistol specialists. And a pistol specialist doesn’t use sights.’
‘That’s rubbish,’ she said.
‘You’re right. Not all special forces operators know what they’re doing with a pistol. In fact few of them do.’
‘The weapon is made with sights,’ she said. ‘The manufacturers can’t all be wrong.’
‘Sights are for target practice, not for combat. A kid’s bicycle comes with stabilisers. If you know how to ride a bike you don’t need them.’
She appeared to be growing irritated. He decided to ease off her.
‘Having said all that, the way you engage your targets while under fire, and at close range,’ he said. ‘You can’t teach that. Very impressive. I was only curious about your background. Sorry if that offends.’
Her expression didn’t change.
Stratton decided to shut up.
Within half an hour they’d caught up with the rear end of a civilian truck convoy, mostly fuel trucks and therefore slow. The last vehicle was a Hilux just like theirs but filled with private Afghan security. For half a mile Stratton contemplated overtaking, but decided against it after seeing the way the rear gunner reacted to any encroachment. It wasn’t worth the risk. The gunners were jittery on this road. If they thought Stratton was any kind of threat, they’d open fire. The convoys were popular targets for the Taliban, and for bandits on occasion, although the criminals rarely took on the larger security companies, preferring the more vulnerable target such as a lone vehicle or one that had broken down.
Stratton settled back a hundred metres behind the convoy and
relaxed. There was no great hurry. The land was still barren but hillier than it had been further north. Clouds had covered the clear skies of earlier and it looked like rain. The sun had been on their left side when they started and during the journey had crossed the skies to settle on their right. The large orange ball began to lower onto the distant Chopan Hills. Darkness would soon be upon them.
It was time to look for somewhere to rest for the night. Stratton didn’t fancy the idea of a large town. Not only would their own security be challenged, the contents of the vehicle would be at risk. They had a couple of choices: the first was to pull off the road and find somewhere secluded where they could sleep in the vehicle. Security would remain an issue. One of them would have to be awake at all times in case they had visitors. The other option was to find someone who’d put them up.
The latter option was more attractive.
The world was quite suddenly plunged into near-complete darkness as the sun disappeared. The land rose up on their left, where it turned into a series of low, overlapping hills. Beyond the second fold Stratton saw a light, like the window of a building, and a track up ahead leaving the main road in that direction. When they arrived at the turn, he took it. The edge of the tarmac ended abruptly and it was a considerable step down onto the dirt track.
‘I thought we could find a hotel for the night,’ he said.
She didn’t respond to his facetiousness and studied the ground ahead instead. The track cut around the side of the first hill and climbed the next one for a couple of hundred metres before it levelled out at the crest. A few mud and stone huts appeared up ahead with smoke issuing from the larger one. They drove past a wooden corral containing a dozen or so goats. A pair of camels sat beneath a tree on the other side of the road.
Stratton pulled the vehicle to a stop a dozen metres from the buildings, more out of caution than anything else. He turned off the lights and the engine, and silence descended.
Country Afghans weren’t unlike country folk the world over, but after decades of misrule by the Russians, the Taliban and now the Western invasion, they’d tempered their natural goodwill with caution. But neither was it unusual for travellers to purchase comfort for the night. As they sat there, the front door of the main building opened and orange light from a kerosene lamp streamed out to divide the darkness.
Assassin (John Stratton) Page 17