The Afghan

by Frederick Forsyth

  ‘Yes, sir. Two rooms are shattered, but we have three sealed off. The central heating is down but we are piling logs on the fire.’

  ‘Right. When the rescue party reaches you, lock everything down, smash all covert comms equipment, bring all codes with you and come out with the injured.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What about the Afghan?’

  ‘Leave him to me.’

  Marek Gumienny thought of the original letter John Negroponte had given him at the start of Operation Crowbar. Powers plenipotentiary. No limits. Time the army earned its tax dollars. He rang the Pentagon.

  Thanks to years in the Company and the new spirit of information-sharing, he had close contacts with the Defense Intelligence Agency, and they in turn were best buddies with Special Forces. Twenty minutes later he learned he might have had his first break of a very bad day.

  No more than four miles from McChord Air Force Base is the army’s Fort Lewis. Though a huge army camp, there is a corner off-limits to non-authorized personnel and this is the home of the First Special Forces Group, known to its few friends as Operational Detachment Group (OD) Alpha 143. The terminal ‘3’ means a mountain company, or ‘A’ team. Its Ops Commander was Senior Captain Michael Linnett.

  When the unit adjutant took the call from the Pentagon he could not be very helpful, even though he was speaking to a two-star general.

  ‘Right now, sir, they are not on base. They are involved in a tactical exercise on the slopes of Mount Rainer.’

  The Washington-based general had never heard of this bleak pinnacle way down south of Tacoma in Pierce County.

  ‘Can you get them back to base by helicopter, Lieutenant?’

  ‘Yessir, I believe so. The cloud base is just high enough.’

  ‘Can you airlift them to a place called Mazama, close to Hart’s Pass on the edge of the Wilderness?’

  ‘I’ll have to check that, sir.’

  He was back on the line in three minutes. The general held on.

  ‘No, sir. The cloud up there is right on the treetops and snow pending. To get up there means going by truck.’

  ‘Well, get them there by the fastest possible route. You say they are on manoeuvre?’

  ‘Yessir.’

  ‘Do they have with them all they need to operate in the Pasayten Wilderness?’

  ‘Everything for sub-zero rough-terrain operating, General.’

  ‘Live ammunition?’

  ‘Yessir. This was for a simulated terrorist hunt in Rainer National Park.’

  ‘Well, it ain’t simulated any more, Lieutenant. Get the whole unit to Mazama sheriff’s office. Check with a CIA spook called Olsen. Stay in contact with Alpha at all times and report to me on progress.’

  To save time Captain Linnett, apprised of some kind of emergency while he was descending Mount Rainer, asked for exfiltration by air. Fort Lewis had its own Chinook troop-carrier helicopter, which picked up the Alpha team from the empty visitor car park at the foot of the mountain thirty minutes later.

  The Chinook took the team as far north as the snow clouds would allow and set them down on a small airfield west of Burlington. The truck had been heading there for an hour and they arrived almost at the same time.

  From Burlington the Interstate 20 wound its bleak path along the Skagit River and into the Cascades. It is closed in winter to all but official and specially equipped traffic; the SF truck was equipped for every kind of terrain and a few not yet invented. But progress was slow. It took four hours until the exhausted driver crunched into the townlet of Mazama.

  The CIA team was also exhausted, but at least their injured colleagues, doped with morphine, were in real ambulances heading south for a helicopter pick-up and a final transfer to Tacoma Memorial Hospital.

  Olsen told Captain Linnett what he thought was enough. Linnett snapped that he was security cleared and insisted on more.

  ‘This fugitive, has he got arctic clothing and footwear?’

  ‘No. Hiking boots, warm trousers, a light quilted jacket.’

  ‘No skis, snowshoes? Is he armed?’

  ‘No, nothing like that.’

  ‘It’s dark already. Does he have night-vision goggles? Anything to help him move?’

  ‘No, certainly not. He was a prisoner in close confinement.’

  ‘He’s toast,’ said Linnett. ‘In these temperatures, ploughing through a metre of snow with no compass, going round in circles. We’ll get him.’

  ‘There is just one thing. He’s a mountain man. Born and raised in them.’

  ‘Round here?’

  ‘No. In the Tora Bora. He’s an Afghan.’

  Linnett stared in dumb amazement. He had fought in the Tora Bora. He had been in the first Afghan invasion when Coalition Special Forces, American and British, ranged through the Spin Ghar looking for a runaway party of Saudi Arabs, one of them six feet four inches tall. And he had been back to take part in Operation Anaconda. That had not gone well either. Some good men had been lost on Anaconda. Linnett had a score to settle with Pashtun from the Tora Bora.

  ‘Saddle up,’ he shouted and the ODA climbed back in their truck. It would take them up the remainder of the track to Hart’s Pass. After that their transportation would go back three thousand years to the ski and the snowshoe.

  As they left, the sheriff’s radio brought the news that both airmen had been found and brought out, very cold but alive. Both were in hospital in Seattle. The news was good but a bit too late for a man called Lemuel Wilson.

  The Anglo-American investigators of merchant marine who had taken over Operation Crowbar were still concentrating on threat one, the idea that Al-Qaeda might be planning to close down a vital world highway in the form of a narrow strait.

  In that contingency the size of the vessel was paramount. The cargo was immaterial, save only that venting oil would make the job of demolition divers almost impossible. Enquiries were flying across the world to identify every vessel on the seas of huge tonnage.

  Clearly the bigger the ship, the fewer there would be of them, and most would belong to respectable and gigantic companies. The principal five hundred ultra-large and very large crude carriers, the ULCCs and VLCCs, known to the public as supertankers, were checked and found to be unattacked. Then the tonnages were lowered in modules of ten thousand tonnes fully loaded. When all vessels of fifty thousand tonnes and up were accounted for, the ‘strait blockage’ panic began to subside.

  Lloyd’s Register is probably still the world’s most comprehensive archive and the Edzell team set up a direct line to Lloyd’s, which was constantly in use. On Lloyd’s advice, they concentrated on vessels flying flags of convenience and those registered in ‘dodgy’ ports or owned by suspect proprietors. Both Lloyd’s, and the Secret Intelligence Service’s Anti-Terrorist (Marine) desk joined with the American CIA and Coastguard in slapping a ‘no approach to coast’ label on over two hundred vessels without their captains or owners being aware of it. But still nothing showed up to set the storm cones flying in the breeze.

  Captain Linnett knew his mountains and was aware that a man with no specialist footwear, trying to progress through snow over ground riddled with unseen trees, roots, cracks, ditches, gullies and streams, would be lucky to make a heartbreaking half a mile per hour across country.

  Such a man would probably stumble through the snow crust into a trickling rivulet and, with wet feet, start to lose body core temperature at an alarming rate, leading to hypothermia and frostbite in the frozen toes.

  Olsen’s message from Langley had left no room for doubt; under no circumstances must the fugitive reach Canada, nor must he reach a functioning telephone. Just in case.

  Linnett had few doubts. His target would wander in circles without a compass. He would stumble and fall at every second step. He could not see in the blackness under the trees where even the moon, had it not been hidden by twenty thousand feet of freezing cloud, could not penetrate.

  True, the man
had a five-hour head start; but even in a straight line, that would give him under three miles of ground covered. Special Forces men on skis could treble that, and if rocks and tree trunks forced the use of snowshoes, he could still double the speed of the fugitive.

  He was right about the skis. From the drop-off point of the truck at the end of the track, he reached the wrecked CIA Cabin in under an hour. He and his men examined it briefly to see if the fugitive had come back to rifle it for better equipment. There was no sign of that. The two bodies, rigid in the cold, were laid out, hands crossed on chests in the now freezing refectory, safe from roaming animals. They would have to wait for the cloud to lift and a helicopter to land.

  There are twelve men in an ‘A’ team; Linnett was the only officer and his Number Two was a chief warrant officer. The other ten were all senior enlisted men, the lowest rank being a staff sergeant. They broke down into two engineers (for demolition), two radio operators, two ‘medics’, a team sergeant (not one but two specialities), an intelligence sergeant and two snipers. While Linnett was inside the wrecked Cabin his team sergeant, who was an expert tracker, scouted the ground outside.

  The threatening snow had not fallen; the area around the helipad and the front door, where the rescue team from Mazama had arrived, was a mush of snowshoe marks. But from the shattered compound wall a single trail of footprints led away due north.

  Coincidental? thought Linnett. It was the one direction the fugitive must not take. It led to Canada, twenty-two miles away. But, for the Afghan, forty-four hours of hiking. He would never make it, even if he could keep in a straight line. Anyway, the Alpha team would get him halfway there.

  It took another hour to cover the next mile, on snowshoes. That was when they found the other cabin. No one had mentioned the other two or three cabins that were permitted in the Pasayten Wilderness because they pre-dated the building prohibition. And this one had been broken into. The shattered triple-glazing and the rock beside the gaping hole left no doubt.

  Captain Linnett went in first, carbine forward, safety catch off. Round the edges of the shattered glass two men gave cover. It took them less than a minute to ensure there was no one present, either in the cabin, the adjacent log store or the empty garage. But the signs were everywhere. Linnett tried the light switch, but the power clearly came from a generator when the owner was in residence, and that was closed down behind the garage. They relied on their flashlights.

  Beside the deep fireplace in the main sitting area was a box of matches and several long tapers, clearly for lighting the logs in the grate; also a bundle of candles in case the generator failed. The intruder had used both to find his way around. Captain Linnett turned to one of his comms sergeants.

  ‘Raise the county sheriff and find out who owns this place,’ he said. He began to explore. Nothing seemed to be smashed, but everything had been rifled.

  ‘It’s a surgeon from Seattle,’ reported the sergeant. ‘Vacations up here in the summer, closes it all down in the fall.’

  ‘Name and phone number. He must have left them with the sheriff’s office.’ When the sergeant had them he was told to contact Fort Lewis, have them call the surgeon at his Seattle home and put him on a direct patch-through. A surgeon was a lucky break; surgeons have pagers in case of an emergency. This situation definitely rated.

  The ghost ship never went near Surabaya. There was no consignment of expensive oriental silks to be taken aboard, and the six apparent sea containers on the Countess of Richmond’s foredeck were in place anyway.

  She took the route south of Java, passed Christmas Island and headed out into the Indian Ocean. For Mike Martin the onboard routines became a ritual.

  The psychopath Ibrahim remained mainly in his cabin and the good news was that most of the time he was violently ill. Of the remaining seven men, the engineer tended his engines, set at maximum speed regardless of fuel use. Where the Countess was going she would need no fuel for a return journey.

  For Martin the twin enigmas remained unanswered. Where was she going, and what explosive power lay beneath her decks? No one seemed to know, with the possible exception of the chemical engineer. But he never spoke and the subject was never raised.

  The radio expert kept a listening watch and must have learned of a sea search taking place right across the Pacific and at the entrances to the Strait of Hormuz and the Suez Canal. He may have reported this to Ibrahim but made no mention of it to the rest.

  The other five men took turns in the galley to turn out plate after plate of cold tinned food, and also took turns at the wheel. The navigator set the heading – always west, then south of due west to the Cape of Good Hope.

  For the rest, they prayed five times a day according to scripture, read the Koran yet again and stared at the sea.

  Martin considered attempting to take over the ship. He had no weapon other than the chance to steal a kitchen knife, and he would have to kill seven men, one of whom, Ibrahim, he had to presume had one or more firearms. And they were scattered from the engine room to the radio shack to the forecastle at the bow. If and when they came close to a clear target on shore he knew he would have to do it. But across the Indian Ocean he bided his time.

  He did not know whether his message in the divebag had ever been found or was tossed into some attic unread; and he did not know he had triggered a global ship-hunt.

  ‘This is Dr Berenson, whom am I talking with?’

  Michael Linnett took the speaker from the set on the sergeant’s back and lied.

  ‘I am with the sheriff’s office at Mazama,’ he said. ‘Right now I am in your cabin in the Wilderness. I’m sorry to have to tell you there has been a break-in.’

  ‘Hell, no. Dammit, is there damage done?’ the tinny voice speaking from Seattle asked.

  ‘He broke in by smashing the main front window with a rock, doctor. That seems to be the only structural damage. I just want to check on theft. Did you have any firearms here?’

  ‘Absolutely not. I keep two hunting rifles and a scatter gun, but I bring them out with me in the fall.’

  ‘OK, now, clothing. Do you have a closet with heavy winter clothing?’

  ‘Sure. It’s a walk-in right beside the bedroom door.’

  Captain Linnett nodded to his team sergeant who led the way by flashlight. The closet was spacious, full of winter kit.

  ‘There should be my pair of arctic snow boots, quilted pants and a parka with zippered hood.’

  All gone.

  ‘Any skis or snowshoes, doctor?’

  ‘Sure, both. In the same cupboard.’

  Also gone.

  ‘Any weapons at all? Compass?’

  The big Bowie knife in its sheath should have been hanging inside the closet door and the compass and flashlight should have been in the drawers of the desk. They were all taken. That apart, the fugitive had ransacked the kitchen, but there had been no fresh food left there to rot. A newly opened, and emptied, tin of baked beans and the can opener lay on the worktop with two empty cans of soda. There was also an empty pickle jar that had been full of quarters but no one knew that.

  ‘Thanks, doc. I’d get up here when the weather clears with a team for a new window, and file a loss claim.’

  The Alpha leader cut the connection and looked round at his unit.

  ‘Let’s go,’ was all he said. He knew the cabin and what the Afghan had taken shortened the odds and they could even now be against him. He put the fugitive, who must have spent over an hour in the cabin to Linnett’s thirty minutes, at two to three hours ahead, but now moving much faster.

  Swallowing his pride he decided to bring up some cavalry. He called a pause and spoke to Fort Lewis again.

  ‘Tell McChord I want a Spectre and I want it now. Engage all the authority you need; Pentagon if you have to. I want it over the Cascades and talking to me direct.’

  While waiting for their new ally to show up, the twelve men of Alpha 143 pressed on hard, pushing the pace. The sergeant-tracker was at poi
nt, his flashlight picking up the marks of the snowshoes of the fugitive in the frozen snow. They were pushing the pace, but they were carrying much more equipment than the man ahead of them. Linnett estimated they had to be keeping up, but were they gaining? Then the snow started. It was a blessing and a curse. As the deceptively gentle flakes drifted down from the conifers around them, they covered the rocks and stumps, permitting another quick pause to switch from shoes to the faster skis. They also wiped out the trail.

  Linnett needed a guiding hand from heaven and it came just after midnight in the form of a Lockheed Martin AC-130 Hercules gunship, circling at twenty thousand feet, above the cloud layer but looking straight through it.

  Among the many toys that Special Forces are given to play with the Spectre gunship is, from the viewpoint of the enemy on the ground, about as nasty as it gets.

  The original Hercules transport plane has been gutted and her innards replaced with a cockpit-to-tail array of technology designed to locate, target and kill an opponent on the ground. It is seventy-two million dollars’ worth of pure bad news.

  In its first ‘locate’ role it does not depend on daylight or dark, wind or rain, snow or hail. Mr Raytheon has been kind enough to provide a synthetic-aperture radar and infra-red thermal imager which can pick out any figure in a landscape that emits body heat. Nor is the image a vague blur; it is clear enough to differentiate between a four-legged beast and a two-legged one. But it still could not work out the weirdness of Mr Lemuel Wilson.

  He too had a cabin, just outside the Pasayten Wilderness on the lower slopes of Mount Robinson. Unlike the Seattle surgeon, he prided himself on his capacity to over-winter up there, for he had no alternative metropolitan home.

  So he survived without electricity, using a roaring log fire for heat and kerosene lamps for lighting. Each summer he hunted game and air-dried the meat strips for winter. He cut his own logs and gathered in forage for his tough mountain pony. But he had another hobby.