by RD Gupta
*
“Got a minute?”
Sergei Dobrinin looked up from his computer screen. “Da.”
“My office.”
Sergei walked next door, where Gwen had already taken a chair.
“What is up?” he inquired.
“We all know what William can be like,” Jarrod began.
Everyone nodded in reply.
“He can be short-tempered, irascible, goading, and God knows what else. But there is always a method to his madness. That is to say, I’ve always seen through his behavior for the act it was. It’s just a management style to keep a bunch of bright, oversized egos focused on the goal line.”
More nods.
“Well, I’m not sure what happened, but I’m thinking maybe William has had a stroke.”
“A stroke?” echoed Gwen.
Jarrod nodded, then recounted the scene in the boardroom where William had blown a gasket. “Seeing as it was the best financial performance for any month in the firm’s history, everyone was taken aback. And what’s worse, the whole room was looking to me for some kind of explanation, and I had none. In fact, I’m at a loss as to what to do. Something like this can make a small firm like this come apart at the seams.”
Sergei leaned back, trying to calm his younger boss. “Well, let us not to conclusions jump. We can speculate into infinity. Perhaps this a solitary episode. Perhaps some health matter. We need better information. Gwen, see what find out you can from your secretary network.”
She nodded. “Will do.”
He then turned to Jarrod. “Why don’t you go to Bridgemount this evening? Buy drinks. William’s buddies there. Maybe they tell you someting.”
“Good idea. What are you going to do while I’m gone?”
“You no want to know,” replied the Russian.
CHAPTER THREE
Northwest Frontier Province, Pakistan
Six Weeks Prior
The chamber was dark, illuminated only by muted red lights designed to preserve their night vision, while the dull throb of the C-130 cargo plane’s four engines sent a continual vibration through the fuselage.
“Final check!” barked the jumpmaster.
Major Chance Redigo came to his feet and again wondered how he could ever actually fight in all the gear they loaded onto a paratrooper.
He went through the protocols robotically, knowing there were so many things that could cock up a night parachute jump that no checklist could ever cover them all. Then he saw Sergeant Torres come down the steps from the cockpit and waddle toward him under the weight of his gear.
“It’s a go, sir!” said the sergeant. “Convoy just left. Target is in the uncovered truck, as we discussed.”
The major nodded. “Then let’s do this thing. Captain?”
A Redwood tree wearing a helmet turned. “Yes, sir?”
“This is your show, Captain. The, ah, ‘observer’ and I will be up on the mesa just to scout and call in air if need be. Our ‘allies’ should be in place along the road as planned. The operative word is ‘should,’ so watch your back. You’re only there to advise.”
“My advice is dispensed in .227-caliber increments sir.”
“As well it should be. Just bring your crew back alive.”
“Coming up on drop zone!” yelled the jumpmaster. “Masks on!” Everyone pulled on their oxygen masks, opened their air valves, and gave a thumbs-up. Then he threw the lever, causing the massive ramp door to yawn open as frigid air blasted into the cargo hold.
Major Chance Redigo, intel officer of the US Army’s Delta Force, kept his tether line fast as the six men walked to the lip of the cargo ramp and looked down on a blanket of clouds. Because of those clouds, he was here instead of a Predator drone, which made him think ruefully that at least some jobs couldn’t be replaced by machines.
“Check your GPS,” he said into his microphone to the men, and they dutifully did so, looking through their goggles at the digital displays on their wrists.
“Everyone pop on my mark at twelve thousand above the clouds. Ceiling is supposed to be about eight thousand. That only gives you about two thousand to nail your landing, so we’re flying on instruments tonight. And remember—we were never here.”
A chorus of “Rogers” came in response, and he nodded to the jumpmaster, who gave him the go sign.
Then he turned to the “Observer,” who was securing her own oxygen mask.
“All right, Ms. Jones. This is where it gets real. Sure you want to go through with this?”
Sarah Kashvilli pulled her mask harness tighter and said, “You have your orders from the Delta commander, Major. I am to accompany you as an observer.”
“You people from Langley can be so subtle. I was told you were HALO qualified. Guess we’ll find out. See you downstairs.” Then with a movement lacking in elegance, he unhooked the tether and belly flopped into the thin night air of 25,000 feet.
Without hesitation, Sarah followed, as did the six other Delta Force troopers.
The icy wind knifed through the thermal layers of Sarah’s jumpsuit as she reached the free-fall terminal velocity of 120 miles per hour. Moonbeams reflected off the clouds with a ghostly light, and in a different context, she would have admired the natural beauty of it. But now her concentration was total as the white blanket rushed up at them. Watching her wrist altimeter, she pulled hard on the ripcord at twelve thousand feet and braced her neck muscles. On cue, the parasail billowed open to yank her like a marionette. Around her, she heard the staccato of muffled whumps as the rest of the team popped their canopies. Then in a stairstep sequence, they disappeared into the clouds.
Redigo looked around in the fog and wondered what was wrong with this picture. He wasn’t coming down in North Korea, but he might as well have been. He was about to touch down in the Northwest Frontier Province tribal area of Pakistan—a place where Osama bin Laden felt safe until the Seal Team Six dropped in unannounced for tea.
But the reason bin Laden had felt safe was that “Pakistan government” was a joke—which was to say, who the hell was in charge was an open question. However, one thing the various factions did agree on was that they did not allow American troops on their “sovereign” soil. So Redigo and his team weren’t really there. But having a shot at a very high value target coming down the pike made bending the rules of engagement worth it.
A rising al-Qaeda star named Ahmed Bannihammad—a citizen of the United Arab Emirates—had clawed his way up the org chart to arguably become Osama’s crown prince in waiting. Educated in Germany on al-Qaeda’s nickel, he’d helped bin Laden navigate the Tora Bora minefield, then acted as ambassador to the Pashtun tribes and the displaced Taliban, helping orchestrate an alliance and the Taliban’s resurgence. His al-Qaeda credentials were impeccable, for his brother Fayez Bannihammad had been one of the five hijackers on United Flight 175 that had slammed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center.
But with Osama out of the picture and ISIS capturing recent headlines, al-Qaeda’s stock was rather low—and tonight it was about to lose even more of its value. Through a long, frustrating, expensive, and maddening intelligence effort, Delta Force had finally gotten a diamond piece of intel. Redigo didn’t know where the intel had come from, but he guessed the Observer was somehow involved. They learned that Bannihammad was moving tonight between two Pashtun villages in a convoy of four trucks. The idea was to capture him alive if possible, but at the minimum, he was not to leave the kill zone alive. At least it would take al-Qaeda down another peg, perhaps delaying the next “Big One” on American soil.
Much of the plan hinged on their Pashtun “allies”—a fickle term if there ever was one—securing the kill zone. He hoped the captain and his men wouldn’t have to fight their way out.
Redigo wondered about the Observer. Somebody very high up had clearly shoved that idea of the Observer down the Old Man’s throat. Redigo had direct orders to extend her “every facility,” whatever the hell that meant. Escorting a
woman into the Valley of Death was not exactly how he viewed his job description. Whoever this “Ms. Jones” was, she was a looker. Even in combat fatigues. But she had a steel wall up and wasn’t interested in chitchat. So it was on to business.
Redigo popped out of the clouds none too soon. He only had about a thousand feet to eyeball his landing zone. His GPS readout pinged him right above where he needed to be, so he pulled on his lanyards and put himself into a wide spiral, bringing him down on the flat tableau of a mesa-like mountain. He looked to his left and saw the six chutes of the kill team disappear behind the edge—all according to plan.
Then Redigo heard the Observer land beside him and go into a roll, but he did not offer help, knowing it would have been refused. Instead, he hit the release on his parasail harness and set to work stripping off his mask and gear. He weighed the parasail down with some rocks, then locked and loaded his M-16. He headed for the edge of the mesa to scout out the best observation post, leaving the Observer to bring the radios. Neither spoke. They had rehearsed it before.
Redigo stood at the lip of the mesa, which rose eight hundred feet off the plain below. The opposite end of the geologic formation merged into a desolate, craggy spine of mountains in the Malakand region of the Northwest Frontier Province.
He scanned the terrain with his night vision binoculars. Being from Texas, he thought he knew something about wide-open vistas, but this territory was staggering in its desolation. He found it hard to get his brain around how vast it was and thought the dark side of the moon must be something like this. He didn’t see a natural beauty in the mountains but felt they had an “in your face” arrogance to them.
He peered down and saw the captain’s kill team linking up with the Pashtun delegation. He wondered whose side they were on. The Americans’ spent chutes were now concealed, and the riflemen took positions behind various boulders—some as big as trucks—that dotted the roadway.
And “roadway” was a charitable term, for it was a cratered path with boulders that were only slightly smaller than the giants on the roadside. It would be extremely slow going here. All the better for an ambush.
Redigo travelled along the lip of the mesa to where it came to a widow’s peak overlooking the plain. Through the greenish hue of the night vision binoculars, he saw the ribbon of roadway coming out of the plain to a point just below the widow’s peak. Then one path went east around the perimeter of the mesa toward a pass, while the other fork hugged the western face that led into the kill zone before it snaked up to another pass.
The muffled footsteps of the Observer came up behind him as she labored under the weight of the radios. She came close and offered him the handset.
Redigo took it and pushed the transmit button. “Torch Road Leader, this is Vaquero One, do you copy, over?”
“Roger, Vaquero One. We read you. Everyone’s in position.”
“Does your Pashtun cohort understand your Pashto with a Texas twang?”
“Roger that. He’s from the southern part of the province.” Redigo allowed himself a rare smile and pushed the transmit button. “OK, remember our mark is supposed to be in the open truck, but nobody walks away from this one.”
“Roger. Understood.”
“We’ve got a long view from up here, so we’ll give you plenty of warning. Just hang loose until I give you the word.”
“Roger, Vaquero One. Will comply.”
As Redigo handed the mike back to Sarah, she asked, “Where does the call sign Vaquero One come from?”
Redigo was surprised to see the Observer actually talk to him. “I’m from South Texas. Grew up on a ranch. How about you?”
“Boston. By way of Georgia.”
“Whereabouts? Atlanta?”
“The Black Sea kind of Georgia. Second generation American for my family.”
“Really? Then how about we call sign you as the Georgia Peach?”
She didn’t respond, but only surveyed the distant vista with her night vision binoculars.
Redigo grunted. “OK, maybe not.” Then he pulled out something akin to a brick with a breadstick attached. He punched in a text message that read “Argyle,” meaning the team was down, safe, and in place. Then he hit the send button on the satellite phone that bounced the signal off a network of orbiters before it came down at Bagram air base in Afghan country. He waited a few moments and received “###” in reply, meaning message received.
The major holstered the phone and said, “Now we wait. Got an hour before dawn. Did you bring a deck of cards?”
“Left ’em on the plane.”
“Well, damn. Guess we have the sat phone. Maybe we could send out for a pizza.”
No response.
More than a little frustrated, the major said, “Listen, I’m sensitive to that ‘need to know’ bullshit and all that, but it’s just you and me up here right now, and I confess I’m more than a little curious. Just who the hell are you? What are you doing here? What is going on off camera that would make the CO of Delta cave in and let a woman on a joyride like this?”
Not taking her eyes off the binoculars, she said evenly, “You have your orders, Major. I suggest you follow them.”
Redigo grunted again. “Thanks for the enlightenment.” And he sat down on a boulder.
She couldn’t—or wouldn’t—tell him the reason they knew Bannihammad was coming down this road. The fact was for the last four months she’d been the illicit mistress of Bannihammad’s driver and lackey, a pathetic fellow named Benshabi. On the rare trips he’d made to Lahore, she would skillfully seduce him, making him believe she couldn’t exist without him. And with an adroitness Mata Hari would have admired, she wrung the truth out of Benshabi while suppressing her own revulsion, finally getting the chapter and verse on Bannihammad’s itinerary.
Then with that information, she requested (more like extorted) permission to be an observer on the kill. Given the distasteful nature of her efforts to obtain the information, the request (demand) went all the way up to the seventh floor of Langley, then over to the Pentagon four-star suite, then down to Delta in Afghanistan.
And here she was.
Two and a half hours later, Redigo got a cuff on the shoulder that brought him out of a light doze. Instantly he was awake and brought the binoculars up to his eyes. Barely discernible in the distance were the four trucks headed toward them in the first rays of dawn. There was no dust plume because they were traveling agonizingly slow due to the washboard road.
Silently, Redigo held out his hand, and Sarah placed the mike into it. He keyed the switch and said, “Torch Leader, this is Vaquero One. We’ve got ’em in sight about five clicks out but movin’ real slow. Pass the word. You ready?”
“Roger, Vaquero One. We’ve laid enough det cord to blow ’em to the moon.”
“Some payback on the IEDs they’ve been springing on us. Vaquero One out.”
What followed was excruciating. All he could do was watch the slow convoy lumber along at a snail’s pace. The image got better, and he could see the open truck was third in line, so he passed the word to the kill team.
The satellite phone buzzed. Sarah started to reach for it, but the major said, “Piss on it. Just some HQ desk puke wanting to experience virtual reality.” To Redigo, rear area paper pushers had all the redeeming social value of a barnacle.
“As you say, Major,” replied Sarah.
The major kept his eye glued to the binoculars as the convoy approached the fork in the road. The first one turned left toward the kill zone, then the second made the turn. But not the third.
“What the…?”
Sarah squinted through her binoculars. “He’s going the other way! That little shit!”
The fourth truck turned left toward the kill zone, while the open truck with Bannihammad lumbered along the other track, alone.
Redigo looked up at the low cloud cover and hissed, “Where are those damned Predators when you need ’em? That son of a bitch is getting away!”
&n
bsp; With a sense of dread and frustration, Sarah ran through the options. None of them were good…unless…
“Come with me!” she ordered as she jumped to her feet and ran to the far side of the mesa. She looked down and saw the road hugged the cliff face. Then she hustled back to where she’d left her chute and started yanking off the rocks that were weighing it down.
Redigo raced over. “And exactly what did you have in mind?”
She shoved the small drogue chute into the major’s hands while she stepped into the harness and cryptically ordered her escort, “Hold this while I take out the slack! On my mark, run toward the edge with me, and try and keep the lines from snagging!”
Dumfounded, he said, “You can’t be serious!”
She snapped the harness closed and said, “I didn’t come all this way to let this scumbag off the hook!” She felt to make sure the grenades were on her belt. “If this works, get the air in here for evac. Otherwise, get the kill team out.”
“Now wait a minute, you’re an observer here and…”
The ferocity of her response was unlike anything he’d encountered. “I’ve been screwing a slimeball in Lahore for four months to get this bastard in the kill zone! Now do what I tell you, or I’ll do it alone!”
Redigo rolled his eyes and said, “It’s your funeral.” Then with the chute and suspension lines held taut, they advanced to the edge and peered over. The truck was almost underneath them. Sarah gauged the speed (slow), drop (high), and her resolve (waning). She waited for the truck to pass by a little so she could make her descent from the rear. Then she walked back in an arc as Redigo stood firm at the edge, holding the drogue chute in place. Sarah pulled off the two grenades from her belt and held them in her palms, then hooked her thumbs into the guidelines so she could steer. Then she nodded at Redigo, ran toward the edge, and leaped into space.
The weight yanked the drogue out of Redigo’s hands as he watched, horrified and terrified, as the canopy fluttered for a moment before taking a big gulp of air to deploy in full.