by Eric Meyer
“We’re here,” the sergeant said. “If you’d like to step out of the vehicle, we’ll see you inside.”
I bet you just would, I thought. We walked through the double doors, flanked by the MPs. Inside, stood a group of soldiers. They looked as if they were waiting for us. Then I nearly collapsed with shock. They clapped and cheered. One soldier stepped forward, and his cap had four stars on it.
“I’m General Mann. Congratulations on what you did for my men. You saved a lot of lives. My thanks to you, Sir.”
“That’s ok, General. They’d have done the same for us.”
“Yes. Come on inside my office, Son. I want to hear all about it. Someone bring us a tray of coffee.”
We sat down in his office, and I looked around. It was austere and functional, maps pinned to the walls, filing cabinets, and a huge desk. Apart from the folding chairs, there was little more furniture on display. I had to go through the account of our encounter with Lieutenant Rains and the MSF medics, the fight with the insurgents at the foot of the Khyber Pass, and their rescue by Art Schramm’s men. Then our subsequent flight through the tunnel and the take-off and flight to Peshawar.
“So that’s about it, General. Here we are.”
“You did well, Hoffman. Damn well. I gather your grandfather was something of a military hero?”
So I had to explain again about his beginnings in Russia, then the Foreign Legion, and finally his fledgling airline. I got the impression that he took in every single detail. This wasn’t a man who’d got where he was by missing any part of a conversation. When I’d finished telling him about Jurgen Hoffman, he had more questions.
“What about the CIA? I gather you’re working for them.”
I nodded. “No disrespect, General, but I’ll be finishing this contract, and then I’m out. It’s not my kind of employment.”
“Too violent?”
I chuckled. “It’s a violent world, Sir. No, it’s not the violence that concerns me. It’s more a matter of who you trust.”
“Yeah, they do have a certain reputation. And then, when you move on?”
“If possible, I’ll carry on hauling cargo over South East Asia.”
“Right, we always have cargos looking for aircraft to move them. I’ll keep you in…”
“General, you’re needed urgently on the phone.”
“Can’t it wait?”
“It’s the White House, Sir.”
I got up to leave, but he waved me back to stay. “This’ll only take a moment. Sit yourself down.”
He picked up the phone. “Mr. President. How are you, Sir?”
I only heard one side of the conversation, but it didn’t take a genius to fill in the gaps.
“Things are going well, Sir. Very well. We’ve blunted their attacks, and we’re hitting them back strongly.”
He winced as the other party said something that hit hard.
“That’s true, Sir, but until our intelligence comes up with any…”
He listened again. His eyes closed as a torrent of words slammed into him from several thousand miles away.
“Yes, Sir, I understand. Yes, they’ll keep coming back at us until we cut off the head, but until we find the head…”
He grinned at me, but it was an effort, I could see that.
“You can’t be serious! If we pull out prematurely, it’ll mean another Vietnam for us. That’s unacceptable, Sir…”
“Yes, Sir. How long?”
He looked grave. “I understand, Sir. I’ll do my best.”
He put the phone down and looked at the silent instrument for a few moments. Then he looked up.
“You got the gist of that?”
“I did, yes. He’s not happy.”
“Damn it, Hoffman, I’m not a miracle worker. He’s saying that we’ve got to take out the leadership, and that means Mullah Omar. And that’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. The Man says that we need to catch up with him, like we did Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, and Noriega in Panama. It puts an end to things. If we’d taken Giap or Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, history may have been different. He feels that it’s a simple equation. Catch up with the bastard or lose.” He looked troubled. Very troubled. “You know what really upsets me, Max? It’s the women in this damn country. You remember the Taliban using that football ground for executions, women being beheaded in front of masses of people? And for many of them, a quick death is preferable to what they have to put up with here.”
I thought of what Luk had told me, in the village where the women had been severely punished for not covering their hair properly. Whipped, beaten tortured. I thought of Rachel. What if someone did that to her? I came to a decision.
“So you need to locate Mullah Omar.”
He stared at me. “In a nutshell, yes. That’s what we need, and that’s what we can’t do.”
He slumped, and put his head in his hands. I felt sorry for the guy. There was no doubt he was a successful career soldier in an impossible situation. But more than that, I felt sorry for the women of Afghanistan; the women who would suffer the torments of hell if a Taliban dictatorship returned. That was what prompted me to speak.
“I know where he is.”
He nodded absently. Then he looked up and stared at me. “Who?”
“Mullah Omar.”
“You’re kidding, right? No one knows where that guy is.”
“I do.”
His gaze intensified. “What’s the punch line, or the catch? Maybe the price, there has to be something.”
I’d given it a lot of thought; how it could play out if I told the Americans where he could be located. I returned the General’s gaze. “He’s in a village, close to Jalalabad. There’s no price, but there is a problem.”
“First off, why haven’t you said anything before?”
“I only found out on the flight here back from Peshawar.”
“Ok. Go on.”
“He’s in a small, very peaceful village. I’m concerned that if your troops go in heavy handed, or you send over a swarm of drones to rain down a hail of missiles on the place, the village will suffer badly. They could even be wiped out.”
“Yeah, collateral damage. It’s regrettable, but it’s part of modern warfare.”
“I’m sure that’s true, General, but I can’t allow that to happen here.”
“You know these people, these villagers?”
“I’ve met them, yes.”
“Ok, I understand. So what are you proposing, what’s the price?”
“Price? I’m not a bounty hunter. I’m just trying to do the right thing.”
“I see. Spell it out, Son. I don’t understand, what exactly do you want?”
I’d worked out the idea in the short time since Luk had told us of Mullah Omar’s whereabouts. Maybe it was crazy, but no, there was no maybe at all. It was crazy. But I wasn’t going to stand by while an innocent community was flattened in an awesome display of military power. I couldn’t be a party to that kind of indiscriminate bloodletting.
“I want to lead a small party in to arrest him and bring him back. There’s no other way to do it without endangering the lives of the innocent civilians around him.”
His jaw dropped open. “You? Do you know about this guy? It won’t be easy. He’s very slippery and very clever. Do you have military experience?”
“Some. A bit.”
I winced inside. My military experience had been gained at the expense of a man’s life, at the expense of creating a widow, and fatherless children. It was a load I would have to carry all my life, and one I’d need to put aside for the duration of what had to be done to help bring this war to an end.
“A bit! How could you lead a team in on an operation like this? It’s crazy!”
“Crazy or not, that’s the deal. Lieutenant Rains didn’t ask about my military experience before I helped him out.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, that’s true.”
He hadn’t asked me the sixty-four do
llar question yet. He was too smart to push me that far, and he knew that I wouldn’t part with the location until I was satisfied.
“Tell you what, Max. Why don’t I call in some of my staff for a meeting, and we’ll toss your ideas around, see if we can’t come to some agreement? We need to act fast, before this character changes location.”
“There is another problem. I have a cargo on board that the CIA chief, Joe Ashford, wants delivered right away.”
“Cancel it. I’ll square it with Ashford. Any problems, tell him to talk to me. I’ll arrange for the cargo to be unloaded and stored in one of our military warehouses inside Kabul International. He can arrange for someone else to collect it when he’s ready.”
“That sounds fine to me. I’ll want my co-pilot, Rachel, to join us for this meeting. She is here with me.”
“Good. A bit of glamour never did anyone any harm.”
* * *
Master Sergeant Carol Wendelski watched her screen carefully. She’d already had a fruitless day. Her Reaper drone wandering the skies of Afghanistan, loaded with the most advanced weaponry known to man, yet found nothing to aim it at. It’s ordnance stores of AGM-114 Hellfire II air-to-ground missiles and the GBU-12 Paveway II laser-guided bomb, were still safe on the hardpoints, awaiting a successful enemy sighting. It was so frustrating, to be master of such a sophisticated weapon, to know that the bad guys were down there, yet she couldn’t locate them. Her headset cracked into life.
“Creech, this is ISAF control Kabul, the Reaper pilot operating north of the Khyber Pass. We have a target for you.”
Her blood raced, and she felt the adrenaline high as her nervous system began pumping the blood around her body at an increased rate, readying itself for action.
“This is Creech, MQ-9 operator Wendelski, Master Sergeant. What have you got?”
A minute later, she moved the joystick a fraction, and her bird swung onto a new course. In less than a minute, she was over the new target, or at least, she was at the correct coordinates. Where were they? She banked the Reaper and sent it lower, the unmanned aircraft obediently moved onto a long, curving trajectory that would take it closer to the ground.
* * *
Ismael Raqim never knew why he looked up at that moment. He’d heard nothing, seen no movement or even a shadow. They were the advance party, a small band of fighters to secure the route for the larger warband of a hundred men that followed a mile behind. Their mission was to reach Yaluk village and escort their leader to a new safe house over the border in Pakistan. The venerable Mullah was old and frail. He’d be a sitting target without a fit, tough escort that could help him across the high mountains. They’d carry him if necessary. In fact, they’d probably have to. One of his men carried a folded gurney on his back in case it was needed. He held up his hand, and the twenty men behind him stopped instantly. At first he saw nothing, but it must have banked, for he saw a reflection from the wings. At once, he shouted a warning.
“Drone! Get under cover!”
His men scrambled off the narrow track they were on and dived behind the loose rocks at the side. He squinted up at the sky, had he acted quickly enough to prevent their discovery?
* * *
There! The human eye often finds it difficult to detect irregular shapes in a scattered and broken landscape. It was the principle on which camouflage was designed. But movement is something else. She saw the movement several thousand feet away and automatically adjusted her controls to bring the drone closer. It was a Taliban warband, there was no question, and they were scattering for cover in the rocks. ‘Too late, you assholes’, she muttered to herself. She brought up the weapon selector and chose the Hellfire. The aiming system aligned itself to the location of the hidden fighters and flashed a ‘ready’ warning. She checked across the board, it was all green, no ISAF forces in the area. Nope these were bad guys for sure. Not for much longer! She hit the button and watched the missile fly off the rail and roar straight down to the track. It was uncanny watching it impact, the explosion of smoke and flame, chips of rock, bodies, earth and foliage all flew into the air. Yet it was silent. That was so weird. She took the Reaper down even lower and made several passes over the area. She could see at least three of them still moving. That was no problem, and she selected a second Hellfire, checked the aiming point and fired. The drone was almost on top of them now. The missile launched and within a few seconds had impacted. She moved the controls to climb higher, then circled to inspect the impact site. There was no movement. She’d done her work well. If she’d searched an area half a mile to the north, she may have found what she was looking for. Instead, she spent the time making certain of her kill.
“ISAF control Kabul, this is Creech. Your fire mission successful, repeat successful.”
“That’s good to know, Master Sergeant. Score one for the good guys.”
“Yeah. Let me know if anymore business comes my way.”
“That’s affirmative, Creech. Good work. We’ll keep in touch.”
Carol Wendelski continued on patrol. She’d struck a blow against the enemy, and at last she was blooded. And it felt real good; now for the next one.
* * *
The agony was terrible, more than he would have realized was possible. Ismael Raqim lay on his back. He knew he was dying, as were his men, either dead or dying. He turned his head and saw the pool of blood in which he lay, his blood. He’d failed, failed to provide the protection that his leader so sorely needed. He thought of his wife, waiting for him at home. She’d become very bitter of late. They had three daughters, and she always blamed him for not giving her a son. She said that the lot of women in Afghanistan was so terrible it would have been better if they were not born. He’d wanted to talk to Mullah Omar about her strange ideas, he didn’t understand it. Women in this country were treated entirely according to the laws that were handed down to them. Surely his wife knew that? It should be sufficient. A hot agonizing spasm ripped through his body. He tried to move his head to look for any survivors, but nothing moved. Nothing would save him now, and he could feel a darkness creeping over his body. Perhaps Western medicine, nothing less than their hospitals and drugs would save his life, and that probably wouldn’t be enough. A pity they’d bombed that new hospital in Jalalabad, but there was no choice. His leaders had reported the staff were not obeying the correct Islamic rules, so it had to be destroyed. He closed his eyes for the last time, still not understanding the irony that he had personally destroyed the very institution that may have saved the lives of those men that had survived the Hellfire missiles and lay wounded amongst the rocks. Instead, they would die, like him, as much victims of their own stubborn ignorance as the missiles that exploded amongst them. Now it was up to the men who followed behind.
* * *
Abdul Qadir watched impassively as his advance force was destroyed. It was as well he’d sent them ahead, so that any drone that sighted them could waste their energy wiping them out, and his main force survived. He looked back at his warband; a hundred men crouched in the shadow of a shallow ravine. They would wait for an hour, to give the cowardly drone enough time to vector to a different location, and then they would move off again. He searched for the man he needed.
“Rashid Osman, take ten men. You will form the new advance party. Move off in half an hour, and watch for any movement in the sky.”
His man nodded. “You think the enemy drone will be gone by then, Commander?”
“It should be, yes. If it has not, you will be attacked. Better a few men than our entire force. This mission is holy, and it cannot be allowed to fail.”
“As the Prophet wills it, we are certain to succeed,” Osman replied. It was the correct response to his leader’s order. But he looked up and scanned the sky, trying to hide his inner qualms. All of them had seen the explosions, and the debris hurled into the sky. They all knew that some of that debris was all that remained of their friends. Some men had brothers who’d been slaughtered in the drone atta
ck. It was not the way of the fighter for Islam, for their bodies to be ripped apart and tossed in the air like so much rubbish. Yet there was nothing he could do. It was the sensible way to send an advance party. It was just a pity that it hadn’t been someone else to lead it.
Chapter Twelve
We are certain that NATO member states will take more effective steps to accelerate the readiness of the Afghan National Army and police. This is the only way that Afghanistan's wish for the soldiers of our friends to return to their countries soon can come true, and for the Afghans themselves to take full responsibility of their security… We hope that the Afghan forces will lead the task of security and stability throughout the country in the coming five years.
Hamid Karzai
“Secure the room, Colonel. I don’t want any of this getting out.”
The room had cleared after the meeting. Marine General Daniel Westwood waited until his intelligence officer came back and reported that they had total privacy. Only then would he continue. Without Max Hoffman. He glanced at his infantry commander, Lieutenant Colonel Vance Everard.
“What’s your state of readiness, Vance?”
“One hundred percent, Sir. We’re ready to go out and hit the enemy hard wherever they are. This defensive posture is getting on all our nerves. The men are raring to go. All we need is a target.”