Hafiz stepped into a white square painted on the floor outside the control room and pushed a button to activate the entrance sequence. A shimmering bright white halo appeared overhead and slowly descended all the way to the floor, taking biometric and facial recognition data, running it through the computer, confirming the findings, and changing to green before snapping off. The door unlocked automatically, and Hafiz pulled it open.
Al-Masri was astonished when he stepped inside, and absently reached out and touched one of the many racks of equipment. His team members came in behind him and gaped like children. The room had the look of an empty financial brokerage, with large screens on the walls, desktop computers, indirect overhead lighting, and several chairs in low cubicles filled with electronic displays. One bigger chair was perched on risers near the back, with a pair of screens right in front of it, a joystick on each arm, and a keyboard beside a panel of switches and knobs. The air-conditioning hummed in its ongoing fight to control the heat churned out by the electronics within the enclosed space.
“What does it do?” he finally asked.
“Everything,” replied Hafiz. “I don’t understand even half of it, but from that big chair, the chief engineer had everything at his fingertips. Watching him work it was like seeing a conjurer doing the impossible. Despite the wonder, these are not toys for children but a real war-fighting center. Cameras and sensors everywhere, map overlays, holographic projections, and automatic weapons adjustments. Just imagine; one man holding off anything the enemy could throw at him, and doing it in air-conditioned comfort. A bomb hit up top might not even be felt down here. Giant springs beneath the floor would soak up the impact.”
“Then why is it not filled with technicians right now?”
“Well, the truth is that the chief engineer did not think about other people running his system. He must be replaced before it can be truly functioning. Islamabad is putting together a qualified team; no one man could do what he did. They will be transferred in to take final control within a week.”
Al-Masri walked around, looking, and was drawn toward the one flat screen that showed some activity and was giving off a steady beep. The flare of a campfire showed clearly, and several shadowy figures moved around it. “What is this?”
Hafiz glanced over. “Some of my security people. Just a routine patrol down in the valley by the old bridge,” he said. “Taliban. They may be good fighters, but not very disciplined. We are bringing in regular troops to take over as soon as possible, a whole platoon.”
“A lazy patrol does not inspire confidence,” said al-Masri.
“Nothing ever goes totally smooth in bringing a huge project such as this online, transitioning from construction to operational,” said Hafiz, trying to sound casual. “A lot of pieces are yet to finally be in place, including a final security protocol. When everything is up and running, it will be a wonder. The Commander will be quite safe here.”
“That is for me to determine,” said Ayman al-Masri.
Hafiz laughed. “Wait until you see the guns. Now, let’s take a break and have some tea.” He led them away and relocked the door. Inwardly, Hafiz was embarrassed that the latest patrol had been seen taking their ease down by the old bridge. The poor quality of the Taliban was reflecting on him personally, and he would not tolerate that. When they reached the dining hall, he took a minute to radio orders to move out the reserve unit immediately. The sergeant planned to kick some sense into that first group when it returned.
19
THE VALLEY
“
N
OW WHAT
?”
B
ETH
L
EDFORD
whispered, staring out beyond the campsite.
“We keep going,” Swanson replied, unfolding a map he had found on the man who had been standing up. Taking a compass reading and shielding his flashlight with his hand, Kyle studied it for a moment and determined the landmarks of the old and new bridges.
Bingo. Good intel.
It was a detailed rendering of the sector.
“Things are changing fast, Coastie, but that always happens after the first shot is fired, and our plans have to change to meet the new circumstances. This is just the start of the game, and we have to do a lot more. Get one of the blankets.” Among the contour lines on the map was a scattering of bold blue dots, including one about ten meters from the campsite. He pointed and said, “Walk slowly directly west and see if one of those camera pipes comes up. About a dozen steps.”
She shook out a sweat-stained blanket and held it before her like a shield. After only three steps, she said, “There it is. Already coming up and pointing at the camp.” She tossed the heavy cloth, and it settled like a tent around a center pole, blinding the camera.
“OK. I think every camera in this sector is marked with the same symbol, which is good for us. I’ll take point. Follow me up this trail.”
Ledford brought her rifle to a ready position and stepped out behind him, changing magazines as she walked. She had reloaded without being told.
So far, Kyle had been satisfied with her work. Started out a little nervous but adjusted well. She had not freaked out in their ambush and was able to pull the trigger, but he anticipated that stronger opposition lay ahead, and the hardest part of the three tiers of reaction was to keep calm when someone is shooting back. She would face that test soon enough.
“We have to believe we have been compromised, but it’s too early to leave, because things don’t make sense yet. Whatever the secret may be lies up at that big bridge, so we have to move closer. Keep your head on a swivel. And don’t worry if you feel scared. You’re supposed to be scared. It helps you pay attention.”
“In that case, Gunny, I’m paying a lot of attention.”
Darkness closed around them again as they left the campsite on the well-traveled trail that ran along the west bank of the river. A treeline started at the top of the ridge. Below, Beth could hear the forceful rumble of water working around smooth boulders, uprooted trees, and the debris caught around the submerged eastern end of the old span. She wasn’t really scared, and reminded herself that the Coast Guard preached that you have to go out, but nobody ever said a damn thing about having to come back. Same thing, different place.
The radio Swanson had taken from the patrol leader squawked. Somebody angry, speaking fast Arabic. He caught the drift, that the dead man was being chewed out for not making a scheduled radio check. Swanson turned down the volume but listened carefully. A relief patrol was being sent out. He did not try to reply. The call puzzled him, for it sounded like the headquarters dude was unaware that they were around. Perhaps they had not been badly compromised after all.
THE BRIDGE
S
PIKES OF NOISE
ECHOED
through the corridors, and Sergeant Hafiz had to find a quiet place before trying raise the second patrol by radio. He pushed open a steel door painted light green and stepped inside a low bunker where an Iranian SPG-9 antitank gun squatted on its automatic mount. The room smelled of oil. Hafiz pushed a control switch on the wall, and the cover of the firing slit hummed open, allowing direct line-of-sight radio transmission into the valley. Beyond the hearing of the al Qaeda inspectors, he now unloaded his pent-up frustration into his radio. The patrol had not checked in, and he had even
seen
them on the control room monitor, loafing and asleep at the old bridge. There was still no response. Hafiz closed the firing lid and stormed out of the gun pit, his face dark with anger.
The barracks was up one flight of steel steps, which he took two at a time, then marched quickly past some startled workers until he was in the troops’ sleeping area. “Everybody get up!” he shouted, grabbing the closest man and pulling him hard from the bunk. Taliban fighters understood force a lot better than words, and all of them scrambled to their feet, barefoot, bearded, and dazed. Partially eaten food was scattered by the bunks, along with dirty clothes and empty plastic water bottles. Dirty, worthless scum. “Get ready to move in ten minutes! Your patrol leader will come get you and take you out the valley. Your friends went to sleep on sentry duty and are out of radio contact! Inexcusable! You go to sleep out there and I will crucify you and let the birds have your worthless bodies.” He spun around and stalked away in a fury, out of patience with these people.
He went back the same way he had come up, down the steel circular staircases and once again into the gun bunker, closing the outer door and opening the firing slit. He put his face up to the cool outside air and sucked in a lungful, exhaled, then took another deep breath. Hafiz had retreated to the solitude of the pit to regain his composure and reassemble his outward image of total confidence and competence. Everything on the inspection tour was going well so far, except for that outside security detail. Ayman al-Masri had not seemed disturbed by the condition of the chief engineer in the infirmary, but Hafiz had seen displeasure momentarily cross his face when he had also noticed the idle patrol. That lapse was damaging and required a tough response, but Hafiz still needed those morons for guard duty until the regular troops could arrive.
All he could do at present was to continue the tour and let the mighty bridge fortress sell itself, without him having to say much at all. Answer any questions that he could immediately. Admit no weakness. The message was to be
All is well here; it is safe.
THE VALLEY
S
WANSON STOPPED
,
REACHED DOWN
,
and brushed the dirt beside the trail until he found a patch of smooth ground right where the map indicated. “Another blanket,” he whispered over his shoulder, and Ledford unfurled another cloth. “These are little paths that have been tramped down by maintenance workers who serviced the cameras,” he said. “The map shows a whole network of them coming off the trail at various points. Go up about twenty meters, find it, and cover it.”
Ledford shook out the blanket. Now that she had done it once, her confidence had soared, and when the camera stalk came rising out of the ground, there was no surprise. It wasn’t some mighty alien erupting from the flood-scarred mud. Just a dumb machine. She flipped the cloth over the lens. Through her night goggles, she also now could recognize the slightly flattened area around the device where service crews had been working, pulling weeds, clearing obstructions, and keeping the magic eye functioning. Then she saw a longer strip of discolored earth, running straight as an arrow. She dug her fingers into the muck, pried away a few rocks, and touched plastic. Some things are so basic. Beth returned to Swanson on the main trail. “Done,” she said. “The cameras are hardwired by landlines running through PVC pipes. We can just disable them with our knives.”
“We don’t have time to do them all, Coastie. It’s enough for now that we know where the cameras are so we can dodge. We’ve got bits and pieces of information, but we still don’t know what’s behind it all. I want to get to that bridge. We only have about an hour of darkness left, and weather’s moving in.”
“I can’t figure it out, Gunny. Why all this security to protect a danged bridge?” she asked as he got up. Above them, the sky had filled with troubled clouds, knotting and shifting, blotting out the stars and entirely hiding the moon.
“Nothing out here makes much sense, Coastie. It’s a quacks-like-a-duck thing. There is a reason, but we just haven’t found it yet. My opinion, worst case, since this is Pakistan, they might have stuck a nuke in there. Let’s go. Stay quiet.”
A single raindrop touched Beth’s hand, and a quick wind swirled through the valley to drop the temperature a few degrees. It was followed by a powerful peal of thunder, and lightning sparkled in jagged sharpness overhead, rendering the nightmare landscape even more misshapen. Then the hard rain slashed down, and the first drops changed to torrents. She hunched up her shoulders and moved on.
The mission had never been considered to be a long-duration job, and they had packed no rain gear other than the special blankets in the survival kits, which they would not use as raincoats. Their uniforms were formulated to retain body head and not encumber movement, and the goggles still worked, although they had to wipe them. Rain would have gotten into their exposed eyes just as easily, so wearing the NVGs continued the advantage of being able to see in the dark.
Kyle already felt the dirt beginning to mud up beneath his boots, because the area had been so drenched by the recent floods that it still had not deep-dried, and the water saturated the land and rushed down toward the river. On the plus side, the deluge added concealment and deflected noise. The storm and lightning would help protect them from the nosy cameras and motion detectors, so he considered it an even trade.
Kyle heard them coming. The members of the third Taliban patrol were bitching and complaining loudly over the sound of the falling rain about how that dog of a Pakistani sergeant had forced them out of the dry and comfortable barracks and into the foul weather, and now their clothes were weighed down by water, sticking to their skin, and they were growing colder with each step. They cursed the first patrol that had gotten carelessly ambushed, and the second for failing to do its job and making it necessary to be relieved early. There was nothing tactical about their approach; they were just rambling down the trail with a mob mentality, disinterested, angry, ignoring their leader, and wanting to get to the fallen bridge where they could put up some shelter. Each man had an AK-47 over a shoulder or slung across his chest.