The Ides of Matt 2016

by M. L. Buchman

  Now she could only hope.

  10

  Chris scrolled back ten minutes and then zoomed the recording of the drone’s data feed on their little house.

  Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. At five minutes he knew he’d missed her. He’d spent too long in indecision.

  He rolled backwards faster and faster.

  At seventeen minutes back, he found her.

  He began scrolling forward at two times speed.

  She had rushed out the door. In accelerated mode she practically flew.

  He lost her several times with the joystick because when she turned the corner of the street and was out of sight of the house, she’d run as if the very devil was after her.

  Chris finally had to slow down the feed while he was still fourteen minutes behind her because she’d reached the edge of the market. Finally he had to go back to real time and growl in frustration at being stuck fourteen minutes behind her actual actions.

  Had it not been for her head scarf, he’d never have been able to track her at all. But the summer green stood out in a sea of blues, grays, and blacks. There were a few scarves that were sunshine yellow and others were ornately decorated, but none like hers.

  Besides, now that he was again watching her at normal speed, he’d know it was her anywhere. He’d watched her in the market before when she didn’t know he’d spotted her. She walked with her head up and a confidence in her stride that she kept carefully hidden at the house, but was still completely her. All he had to do was watch for a woman who walked like she was the embodiment of summer.

  She disappeared beneath an awning and he was momentarily stumped. Then he zoomed back just enough for the edges of the awning to show to all sides of the computer screen.

  There!

  Crossing the gap between the first stall and the next to the north.

  She was moving in no pattern he could detect. It was hard to tell, even at maximum resolution, but her basket appeared to still be empty.

  Then she was under one broad awning for so long he was afraid he’d missed her. Just as he was about to scroll back, she stepped once more across a gap. This time she had something in her basket and she was accompanied by another scarf-clad woman. It was the first time he’d ever seen her with another person since—

  “Think she’s selling us out?”

  “Shit!” Chris jumped at finding Conway leaning in over his shoulder to stare at the screen. He’d hit the joystick hard and swung the view several streets to the side. “Damn it, Con Man! No, I don’t.”

  “Jumpy, Deuce. You so hot for the old biddy?”

  Chris looked up at him. The man hadn’t even looked closely enough to see the beautiful woman hiding in their midst.

  Hiding.

  What if Conway was right and he was wrong? What if—

  “Shut up! Go away!”

  Conway shrugged, “Nothing better to do. Jaffe and Maxwell are back. Didn’t find shit. So I put them on guard. Better find her again.”

  Chris kept his snarl to himself. He didn’t even know where he’d lost her because he’d been following stall to stall, not going down the street. By the time he located her again, he was over nineteen minutes behind.

  He again found where she picked up the companion—older companion by how she moved.

  Soon they were both heavily burdened and had exited the market…to the north.

  “That’s sure not the way back to us,” Conway had sat down close beside him.

  It wasn’t and he was worrying at it when he saw Azadah pause.

  She paused…and turned her face to the sky.

  It was the moment that had captivated him three long months ago.

  But they can see us? She’d asked as she looked for a drone that a very smart woman had known was above them.

  Her face then had been so clear. Lit by the sun, her skin had a luminosity that made a man want to kneel before it. That was the moment he would always count as their first meeting. Not when he’d tricked her into speaking Dari, but when he’d seen her face kissed by the sun.

  Even though the camera resolution wasn’t high enough, his memory was able to easily paint her expression upon the screen.

  Do you see me, Two C.? Look, Two C., I’m right here.

  He followed the two women up the street. Now that they’d left the covering of the market, it was easy to regain some of the lost minutes on her.

  At the next turn, she looked once more to the sky. She looked directly at the drone, her face square into the camera, even though she couldn’t possibly know exactly where it was.

  He could almost hear her begging him to follow.

  “Call everyone in. This is our shot.”

  Conway didn’t move from his side, but was now watching him rather than the small computer screen.

  “Trust me. Go.”

  11

  She helped you carry groceries?” The guard hadn’t pointed his AK-47 right at her, but it was loose in his hands.

  “Yes. A very nice girl. Now pay her fifty Afghanis and she’ll be on her way.”

  The guard reached out a big hand and yanked back the scarf that Azadah had pulled forward as they’d approached.

  “Kurdish,” he cursed studying her face. “A long way from home, girl.” He kept his hand clamped in her hair forcing her to raise her chin. “You spy for Americans or Iranians?”

  Geti squinted up at her face and Azadah could see the suspicion forming in the old woman’s eyes. Azadah knew it would be a mistake to protest her innocence, but she couldn’t think of what else to do. She had to get away, but there was no way to do so without raising more suspicions. So, she’d make up something else.

  “For fifty more Afghanis, I will help you cook, mother,” she addressed the woman, though the guard still had her head wrenched back. A hundred was a full day’s wages. “For even twenty. My basket was as empty as my belly.”

  “I think she’d do better waiting with me,” the guard shifted his grip to clamping onto her neck in a suggestive way.

  “You!” She slapped at his chest. “You unhand this innocent woman. I am for the man who marries me, not someone like you.” And when she imagined this man touching her rather than Two C., who had never touched her at all, she couldn’t stand it. Acid surged in her belly and she pulled back and spat in the man’s face.

  His hand struck her so fast that she never saw it coming.

  She was sprawled in the dirt and all she could think through the slashing pain was that the vegetables and meat she had carried were going to spoil in the hot sand.

  She tried to gather them up even though she could barely see through the pain and flashes of light.

  12

  God damn it!” Chris watched the slap send Azadah flying.

  He bolted up off his chair and would have knocked the laptop to the floor if Conway hadn’t grabbed it.

  Chris yanked out his sidearm and looked around, but there was no one to shoot. She wasn’t here. That goddamn bastard guard—who was going to die slowly, painfully, and begging for mercy from a god he’d never see because he’d roast in hell even if Chris had to escort him there personally—wasn’t here either.

  “Look.”

  He did. And all he saw were four dirty walls, too much gear, and no Azadah.

  “Look,” Conway repeated and tapped the screen.

  Chris knew he was being a fool. He slammed his sidearm back in its holster and was now looking over Conway’s shoulder.

  Slowly, painfully, Azadah was gathering up the shopping items that had been spilled out of her basket. There was a lot of food there. The second woman was facing off the guard who was actually the one backing away, and her basket wasn’t empty either. Then the older woman began helping Azadah refill her basket, climb to her feet, and then led her through the gate.

  The moment befor
e she stepped inside the house, Azadah didn’t take one last look at the guard. She took one last look at the sky.

  And then was gone from the screen.

  13

  Azadah wished she had made different choices.

  Wished she hadn’t paid the bribe to get the job of cooking and cleaning for the Americans. Wished she hadn’t helped them. Wished she hadn’t befriended Geti in the market. And wished she hadn’t spit in the guard’s face. Already her left eye was swelling shut as Geti tut-tutted about the kitchen and then smeared on a cool salve against the rising heat.

  “Nice to see a girl with character. Not very common anymore. Women bareheaded in public. I don’t like it. The western music they play. I like that not at all.”

  Azadah reached up and felt her own bare head, then slid her hand down to her neck where the brute of a guard had grabbed her. No scarf. Her mother’s scarf, the last she had of her family’s possessions was gone. It was—

  “Here you are,” Geti’s hands were gentle as she lifted the green scarf and wrapped it carefully about Azadah’s head.

  Even the lightest touch of cloth had her hissing in pain, but she didn’t pull away.

  “I could use the help and I don’t think Mahmood is going to like it if you try to leave.”

  Once again she had been trapped. Successive cages had driven her south, except beyond Lashkar Gah there had been nowhere else to go. To the south lay only Dasht-e-Margow, the “Desert of Death.”

  So Azadah did what she must do; as she had so many times before.

  She must survive.

  She went to her basket and began sorting through the goods and dusting off the sand.

  14

  It’s a goddamn fortress,” Conway leaned against the hood of their white Corolla. They had driven by it once which let them view three sides and were now parked a kilometer away where field became hard desert and there was no one to overhear them. In the heat of the day there wasn’t even anyone to see them.

  Baxter and Burton had passed by the back the compound in a small delivery truck and nodded in agreement.

  “We only saw the one guard earlier.”

  “Now there are ten.”

  “And that’s only outside the wall.”

  “What about air support?”

  Chris shook his head. “No one available helicopters. No additional teams either. They’ve got a big push going against a Taliban training camp and ammunition supply chain up by Khost. All they can offer us is a C-130.”

  “A Spooky?” Conway sounded excited. A “Spooky” was one of the most awe-inspiring gunships in the American arsenal. It could level the compound in minutes with pinpoint accuracy from thousands of feet up, or it could cut a hole in the wall and not touch the building.

  “Nope. Cargo. On the ground in Kabul so they need two hours notice to get here.”

  “So it’s just the six of us, one cargo plane, and a pile of bad guys.”

  “Don’t forget the drone.” The BB team put in. “Four Hellfires aboard.” “Punch an awesome hole.” “Delivered and done.”

  Chris sagged against the hood, and then jolted upright because the metal had become scorching hot under the sun.

  “There’s a civilian in there.”

  “Sure, cooks, servants, probably a couple of wives or whores,” Conway shrugged. “This is a major goddamn meeting. This is paydirt. We got to take them out.”

  Chris groaned and scowled at the ground. It’s exactly what Washington was pushing him to do. They hadn’t spotted Syed yet. Because Chris didn’t trust what Washington would tell him, he had Jaffe and Maxwell back at the house watching the camera feed.

  No one doubted Syed would come. It looked as if he was coming to anoint the already-gathering next tier of Taliban leadership to replace those his team had spent the last three months removing. There hadn’t been a target like this since the al-Shabaab training camp in Somalia when a hundred and fifty fighters had been taken down in a single raid.

  Washington pushing? Hell! They were going to order an airstrike the minute they confirmed Syed’s arrival.

  “I repeat, there’s a civilian in there.” Chris pictured Azadah’s last pleading look to the sky as if begging him to come find her.

  “What? Our maid?” Conway turned on him. “You’re fucking worried about a nobody maid when we’ve got Syed in our sights?” Then he got a look in his eye. “I knew the bitch was putting out for you. Stingy bastard, Deuce, not sharin—”

  Chris had never struck a fellow soldier before, but he didn’t even think. Conway was four inches taller and several inches broader than he was and Chris laid him out in the dirt.

  BB grabbed either of his arms, but he wasn’t on the attack. This wasn’t some battle.

  Conway shook his head trying to clear it and then glared up at him from the dirt.

  Chris shrugged and Baxter and Burton let him go but stayed close enough to grab him again if needed.

  “Go ahead,” Conway turned and spat some blood into the dust. “Deny it. You want to blow off a major kill for bit of stuff.”

  Chris ignored him and looked to the sky. Just as Azadah had, seeking the drone. Seeking an answer. Seeking help.

  “That ‘bit of stuff’—who I never touched by the way, asshole—gave us Abdullah. She gave us Majeed, Patris, Wais, and Temur. And now she’s given us Syed.” Then he looked back down at his teammates. “And if we don’t have a better plan ready to go on a moment’s notice, Washington is going to pay her back with a one-way ticket to hell.”

  “She did? The maid was your contact?” Conway stared up at him in shock. “You always had the best leads and none of us ever knew how.”

  It was more like he was her contact. It was her need to cleanse the land and he had become her instrument of destruction.

  “So, we need a plan and we need it fast.” He offered a hand to Conway and dragged him up off the dirt. By the strength of their shared handclasp, he knew they were square.

  This time it was Conway who looked to the sky, “How long can you hold off Washington?”

  “Not very.”

  “Then,” Conway looked down at him and offered the cheerfully evil smile that had made him Chris’ right-hand man for so many tours. “How do you feel about car bombs?”

  Chris thought about it for a moment, “Do I have to be driving it when it goes off?”

  Conway slapped him on the shoulder and they headed back toward their camp.

  15

  By the time everything was in place, night had fallen. The temperature was down into the breathable eighties and Chris was sweating more than he did standing out in the midday sun. Dry lightning crackled over the city as it so often did—bright flashes, sharp cracks, and no promise of rain.

  He sat at the wheel of the Corolla four blocks and one turn from the terrorists’ compound and wished there was a different solution.

  But then, as he waited, he could feel the operation-mode take over. There was no past or future within the heart of an operation—only the moment.

  For the third time in the last hour his radio crackled to life. “White SUV inbound.”

  The last two had driven by and continued on into the heart of the city. The compound lay at the end of Lashkargah 2 Road at the north edge of the city.

  Like most Afghan cities, Lashkar Gah didn’t peter out. There were houses crowded together, only distinguishable by their differing styles of protective walls and the color of the door, and then the city ended. The compound was an anomaly, almost as assuredly as bin Laden’s massive compound had been. They’d had twenty SEALs, a half dozen helos, and no friendlies inside. He had half a dozen Delta Force operators and—

  “Chain of SUVs. Counting five,” the drone’s pilot reported. With only the six of them, Chris had needed every asset on the ground. He hated depending on some fool with his butt park
ed in a Nevada bunker, but didn’t have a choice.

  “Arriving at compound. Unloading. Count twenty-two additional on the ground.”

  He could practically hear Conway swearing somewhere in the distance. Six Delta and now over forty armed bad guys.

  “Syed Harim Akhram confirmed. I repeat. Syed Harim Akhram confirmed.”

  Past thinking, Chris dropped into gear and put his foot down on the gas.

  He heard Conway’s radio call of “Friendlies in the compound” that would delay Washington long enough for it to be true. Hopefully. If not, he and the Hellfire missiles should arrive at about the same time.

  Four blocks. The engine groaned and the suspension wallowed, but the tough little car began accelerating.

  First gear, then he finally nursed the overloaded Corolla into second.

  Turning the corner, he had three straight blocks with the compound’s gate in full view. Perhaps he’d have another block before the guards heard the straining engine.

  Maxwell had cut the power to the local neighborhood at sunset, carefully leaving the compound lit. That way there would be no lights shining on him, but no suspicions raised prematurely.

  If he was lucky, maybe they wouldn’t see him for two of the three remaining blocks.

  He wasn’t paying enough attention and hit a pothole. For a second he was afraid he’d broken the frame and their plans would die right here. But it held and the car continued accelerating despite the extra thousand pounds of cargo.

  He cursed that cruise controls wouldn’t engage until a car was going thirty miles an hour. He was less than half a block from the gates when he hit the thirty-minimum speed.

  The first spray of bullets from the gate guard shattered the windshield.

  Chris hit the headlights on high-beam and saw the guards raise arms to shield their eyes. It gave him a moment to latch the hook over the steering wheel to hold it on course.

  Jaffe had pre-rigged the driver’s door so that when Chris pulled the handle, it didn’t open—it fell off completely.