Devil's Guard- The Complete Series Box Set

by Eric Meyer

  “We’ll be watching every step of the way,” he’d tried to reassure the Lieutenant. Don’t worry, my friend, we’ll take good care of you.”

  The Afghan officer was expressionless as he replied. “From inside your armored vehicles, that’s easy to say. The insurgents are not fools. They are quite aware of the strength of your new Strykers. That means they’ll attack the unarmored vehicles. Do you see my men manning the trucks? There are twenty of us, two for each vehicle, yes.”

  Rains nodded. “I see them.”

  “Last year this was a company of more than two hundred men. Most were wiped out in a succession of attacks and ambushes. This is all I have left.”

  He’d walked away without replying. What was there to say to him? Christ, ninety percent of his outfit, killed! Poor bastards. But he’d do his best to make sure they were protected this time out.

  Rains peered out through the periscope. There was no sign of any problem, but that could mean nothing. He leaned across to his weapons specialist, Corporal Delgado.

  “Any sign of the enemy?”

  They all noticed the nervous edge to his voice.

  “Nothing, LT.” Delgado’s voice was flat, expressionless. But they all knew what he was thinking about the rookie officer. And they all wondered how he’d cope when the shit did hit the fan.

  “Ok, keep your eyes skinned, Corporal. I don’t want those trucks to get hit if we can avoid it.”

  Sergeant Vince Mason interrupted. “Ruben Delgado is one of the best, Lieutenant. If there’s anything on the screen, he’ll see it. Believe me. There’s no need to worry about him.”

  Was that a criticism? Rains was acutely conscious that Mason was a veteran of countless firefights. He was also conscious that if any action started, Mason would be the one the men looked for to lead them.

  “Aircraft, five miles, they’re coming in low.” Delgado’s voice was still flat and unemotional.

  “Are they ours, Corporal?”

  “Sir, LT, the Taliban ain’t got any air force, last I heard.”

  The Lieutenant ignored the quiet sniggers. It wasn’t what he’d meant, he was new here, ok, and everyone had to start somewhere. He just wanted information, not constant jibes. He called up the Afghan Lieutenant on the radio. “All ok back there?”

  “We’re alive, yes. So far.”

  He decided to keep quiet. Listen and learn. That’s what they’d told him at West Point. He just wished they’d told him how to deal with sullen, dispirited native troops and sardonic comments from hard-edged veterans. And he hadn’t even tasted combat yet.

  Chapter Four

  The US will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed the attacks and those who harbor them.

  George W Bush

  They waited and watched while the man they had come to hear seemed lost in contemplation. He sat on the rug, cross-legged, his back straight and black-turbaned head held erect. His eye was open, staring into some distant place to which they were not privy. The other eye socket was empty; the eye lost to a Russian shell splinter when the last infidel invaders had dared to set foot on the God-gifted land of Afghanistan. His name was Mullah Mohammed Omar, and he was the highest authority in the Taliban organization. Just the name, Mullah Omar, was enough to inspire respect amongst the legions of fighters who owed him allegiance. And inspire fear and fury amongst the enemies of the faithful who fought to free their country, in the name of the Prophet. Blessed be his name. His gaze focused on the two men who faced him.

  “I have word from Kabul, from a friend in the traitor Barzai’s government. The Americans have a new plan.”

  They looked at him intently, waiting to hear the details. Omar continued to pause for a few seconds and then continued. “You have all heard of their Phoenix program in Vietnam?”

  Abdul Qadir, the local commander, looked puzzled. “I know nothing of this.”

  Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar glanced at him. “It is the name of the tactic the Americans used when they sent assassination teams to murder the leaders of the people’s revolution.”

  Abdul Qadir nodded. “I see. Are they planning to try something similar here? They lost the Vietnam War, so I doubt it will be any more successful in our country.”

  Mullah Omar looked at him intently. “Do not confuse their tactics with the outcome of the war? They are not fools, and you should remember that in military terms they were successful. As was the Phoenix program. It did a great deal of damage to the North Vietnamese leadership, and they lost a great number of valuable people. And yes, it seems they are planning a similar operation here.”

  Qadir sneered. “In that case, we will do as we have always done, and slaughter them as soon as they try to attack us.”

  Baradar glared at him. “You underestimate them, Commander Qadir. These men will be highly skilled, and trained to attack undetected and melt away afterwards. All you will see is the bodies of their victims the next morning. Perhaps one of them will be yours.”

  Qadir stared back. His hard gaze meeting the Mullah’s. Neither man looked away. “I am not afraid to die, if that’s what you think.”

  “Like a woman, in your bed during the night?” Mullah Omar snapped at him. “Is that the way for a fighter to die?”

  Qadir looked down, embarrassed. He shook his head. “It is no way to die. You are right. What do we do to stop them?”

  “We use their tactics against them. We shall double our watchers and try to catch them before they are able to mount their attacks. If we are careful, we should be able to stop them. Even better, we can turn the tables and kill these infidel assassins before they get a chance to strike. That is the way we will beat them, to watch and wait and strike them down as soon as they come near our bases.”

  The other two men nodded. “It shall be as you say, Mullah Omar,” Qadir intoned.

  “They will regret the day they thought of this unholy plan,” Baradar added.

  Omar inclined his head. “Make sure it is done. We watch and we wait. They will come to us, and we will kill them. That will teach them a lesson that their war here is a waste of time and lives. The sooner they leave our country the better.”

  He went silent again and slipped into contemplation. The others took it as a sign that the meeting was over, and they got up and left. They walked away side by side.

  “Perhaps we could use something similar,” Baradar muttered to Qadir. “If we sent assassination teams to kill them in their beds, it would send a tidal wave of fear through their hearts. They would soon learn to leave us alone.”

  Qadir stopped and turned to look at him. “You just said it was an unholy tactic, Mullah. Have you changed your mind so quickly?”

  Baradar flushed red with anger. “We do God’s work here. How can anything that is the will of Allah be unholy?”

  The other man turned away to make his way back to his men, who waited a few hundred yards away. It was what they always said, God’s work. But didn’t the Americans say the same thing? How could they all be right?

  * * *

  The Double Eagle Security hangar was more spacious and luxurious than we’d been used to. Doubtless funded by the American taxpayer, and no expense had been spared. The building was constructed of reinforced concrete, with huge doors that would allow most transport aircraft to taxi straight in for maintenance, or for loading and unloading operations; at least those operations where it was best not to let the locals know what you were doing. We’d stopped the Twin Otter outside on a concrete stand. I hadn’t needed to instruct anyone to refuel. The bowser was already drawn up, and the connecting hose was pumping the tanks full of aviation fuel. The last of the wooden crates was unloaded and stowed inside the hangar, and soon we were left alone. We watched the bowser finish the refueling and stow the long hose. Then it drove away and there was only silence. I checked my watch. It was three in the afternoon, and I was starving hungry. Rachel read my mind.

  “We need to get a cab into the city and find a restaurant. I guess
we’ll need a hotel. God only knows how long we’ll be here.”

  “Let’s find a bar first, somewhere that has a dinner menu. We can eat and drink at the same time, and ask the barkeeper where we can find a decent hotel. If there is such a thing in Kabul.”

  “As long as it has a room with a double bed for me and my fiancé, that’s fine by me,” she grinned.

  So it was like that; it seemed I had a regular girlfriend, but I wasn’t complaining. She was an attractive girl and a great lover. But I wished I hadn’t started the fiancé thing while we were in Vietnam. Women could get the wrong idea, so very easily. Rachel was using her cellphone to call a cab, and we didn’t have to wait more than five minutes before a Mercedes Sedan purred across the tarmac and stopped right by us. It was an International airport, so of course there would be taxis waiting to ply their trade. We got in and instructed the driver to take us into the city center.

  Halfway there, he asked for an address.

  “We’re looking for a bar, can you suggest something? Plenty of good food, a few friendly faces, something like that.”

  “American bar?”

  Rachel nodded eagerly. “That would be good, yeah. I could do with hearing some real American voices again.”

  “Thanks, Rachel,” I murmured drily. She grimaced. “Damn, you know I didn’t mean you, Max. It’s just that I get a little homesick now and again.”

  I let it go. I didn’t have that problem. I was a bastard child of mixed ancestry, part French, part German, and part American. My name was German, and my grandfather was German, yet I didn’t think of myself as anything other than Thai, where I was born. It was the cause of a few strange looks; there weren’t many Thai nationals of pure European ancestry. Many saw me as almost a stateless person. I carried a Thai passport, yet didn’t fit in, and the French refused on principle to issue any documents to someone related to Jurgen Hoffman. As for the Germans, they were still trying to ignore the fact that people like my grandfather, Waffen-SS Sturmbannführer Jurgen Hoffman, ever existed. I was told he’d been a severe embarrassment to them during the Indochina colonial war. Yet I wasn’t Thai, not in looks or parentage. In short, I’d learned to be a kind of chameleon, able to fit in wherever I went. And I spoke English, though with a skewed accent, part French, and part German.

  “It’s ok, an American bar is fine with me.”

  We drove through the outskirts of Kabul. The city was depressing. It still bore the scars of the Soviet war, and the constant conflict since had done nothing to improve things. And there was the dust; it was as if the whole of the country was one gigantic dustbowl. We passed building after building that was totally or part destroyed. Guards were everywhere, and most carrying assault rifles; a few carried rocket launchers.

  “Jesus Christ, those are Soviet RPGs. I thought only the Taliban carried them!” Rachel exclaimed.

  The driver looked over his shoulder and grinned. “They’re very common and very cheap in this city. Some of the security men carry them instead of a rifle. They can kill a whole group of fighters in one shot. Bang!” he shouted gleefully. “Very good.”

  “Great,” Rachel muttered.

  The first surprise was the bar we stopped outside. It was in a long street that seemed to have more than its fair share of bars, brothels and hourly rate hotels. It was called Abe’s. That was it, not ‘Abe’s bar’, just Abe’s. Like it could have been a Mom and Pop store, or a shop selling auto parts. The exterior was pre-Soviet occupation, the kind of Afghan style that had a faded grandeur all of its own. We paid the driver and went in. The bar was small inside, maybe twenty tables, and only five were occupied, so we were able to find a quiet table at the rear. I’d been brought up on tales of street bombings, and if the glass started flying, I wanted us to be as far away from it as possible. The front windows were covered in crossed tape stuck to them, to prevent broken glass flying everywhere if a bomb went off. There were no locals in the bar. Outwardly, the Muslim government had a dual approach to booze. It was ok for foreigners, but off limits to the natives; except in their own private homes, where anything went. But the native booze was often cheap, Uzbek vodka or phony Scotch that tasted like gasoline. In fact, it probably was, at least in part. But Abe’s was anything but native, so we were reasonably safe. An old guy came out from behind the bar and brought over a menu. I looked at it and discovered the limited choice, steak and French Fries with salad, ice cream for seconds.

  “We’ll take the steak and French Fries,” I said to the guy. He looked American, and when he spoke it was obvious that he was a long way from home.

  “A good choice, buddy. It’ll take about fifteen minutes, you in any hurry?”

  “That’ll be fine. Could we have a couple of beers?”

  “Sure. This is your first time here, so welcome to Abe’s. I’m the owner, Abe Woltz.”

  He held out his hand and I shook it. “Max Hoffman, this is my colleague, Rachel Beckett.”

  He studied me for a few moments.

  “Where’re you from?”

  “We’re based in Kandahar, occasionally Peshawar.”

  “No, I mean originally. I knew a guy called Hoffman, a long time ago. In Vietnam.” As if that explained everything. And in a way it did.

  “My grandfather, Jurgen Hoffman, was in Vietnam.”

  He nodded. “Jurgen Hoffman, yeah, that was him. Jesus Christ, if that don’t beat everything, at least, if it’s the same guy, I fought with him back in ‘Nam.”

  I was puzzled at his comment. “I think you must have the wrong man. My grandfather fought in the French Foreign Legion when Vietnam was Indochina, in the late forties and early fifties. He was a pilot when the Americans were there, in the sixties. He ran an airline. In fact, the same airline that we’re trying to keep afloat right now, Helene Air.”

  He grinned. “We’re talking about the same guy. Yeah, I guess he did run that crazy airline. But it’s not the whole picture. So you’re German?”

  I shook my head. “Not really. My passport says I’m Thai. But I’m part German, part French, even part American, I guess.”

  His stare was intense, and I felt uncomfortable. When he spoke, I was astonished.

  “Your mother must have been Sophie, Jurgen and Helene’s daughter.”

  My eyes must have telegraphed my surprise that this stranger knew so much about my mother. “That’s right,” I replied. “So how did you know her, and my grandparents?”

  “I was with Jurgen in Vietnam, as well as running an airline he helped bring a Special Forces team out of the north, a rescue mission. I was the unit sniper. He was a great soldier, knew the Vietnamese jungles better than any man alive. He was shot down in seventy five, if I recall, a North Vietnamese Mig?”

  I nodded. “Yes, that’s right.”

  “I saw your mother when she was just a child in Thailand,” he continued. “Before your grandmother died. Helene was a great lady. What about your mother, Sophie? Where did she wind up?”

  “Paris.”

  He understood the terse reply. “You don’t talk to her much, eh?”

  “No. She wanted me to leave South East Asia, and I wanted to stay. So we don’t see eye to eye on that.”

  “No, I guess not. Let me get you your food. Would you mind if I join you later? I have to know how things went with Helene and Sophie after I lost touch with them.”

  “Sure, and I’d like to know more about my grandfather, if that’s ok with you.”

  “It sure is, Max. He was quite a guy.”

  When the steaks arrived, they were perfect. We sat in silence, devouring the delicious food and swilling down an endless stream of beers that seemed to keep coming over to our table. Afterwards, Abe joined us. He had with him a woman who looked a little older than me, I guessed about forty. I afterwards found out she was in her fifties. There was also a young man, a Eurasian in his early twenties. They were his wife and son, Cam Woltz and Luk. Cam was Afghan, the daughter of the Afghan ambassador to Thailand, which is where she an
d Abe had met when he was on furlough after the withdrawal from Vietnam.

  “You’re not based here in Kabul?” Luk asked. Despite his Asian appearance, he had the typical American way of asking a direct question. I didn’t mind at all, sometimes the Asian way was a pain. This was the twenty-first century, after all.

  “No, we operate out of Kandahar, with a small presence in Peshawar,” I replied.

  Rachel leaned forward. “We came here with a cargo from Pakistan, a group of security men and some supplies, bound for Double Eagle Security,” she continued on my behalf.

  He looked at her, then me. “You’re CIA?”

  I shook my head emphatically. “No way. I own a small airline, and it ran into trouble. These guys at Double Eagle bailed me out so that we could release the aircraft and work off the debt flying contracts here in Afghanistan.”

  “You know that Double Eagle is a CIA funded company?” Abe put in. “But I guess you had no choice. Who’s your contact?”

  “Ed Walker.”

  There was a silence for a few moments.

  “What’s up?” Rachel asked.