“Hello?” he yelled again. Then ran for the hut. No sense waiting now. If they were inside, they were laying a trap for him. If they weren’t, he needed to find
out.
* * *
THEY WEREN’T.
The pickup was there, the firing platform, and the rifle. But Francesca and Alders were gone. Wells bent low, looked for bicycle tracks. He found them near the pickup’s back gate.
Wells pulled out his cell. The reception was fine. But something had gone wrong. Young hadn’t called. Now Francesca and Alders were on their way to ambush him. If he couldn’t find them, stop them, he would have himself to blame for Young’s death.
Not this time. Not after what had happened in Mecca.
Wells sprinted out of the hut, back to the motorcycle. He turned back. To the valley road. He had one chance. Three roads led to Highway 1. He had to figure out which one Francesca and Alders had taken. He couldn’t guess. If he guessed wrong, he would lose an hour or more. He had to be sure
.
How?
27
F
rancesca strained up the hill, cranking the pedals under his leather sandals, staring down at the dust beneath his front wheel. He raised his head, saw Alders pulling away around the next bend.
“Slow down,” Francesca yelled. In English. A tactical breach. He didn’t care. The road was rutted and steep, barely wide enough for two bikes side by side. A small car could scrape through, but it would need a new paint job afterward. In an hour of riding, Francesca had seen only two motorcycles, both coming north, toward
him.
At least the air was cool up here. The folds of the hillside hid the sun. Still, Francesca would never again question the manhood of the riders in the Tour de France. He found Alders waiting at the top of a sharp left turn. “Not too bad from here,” Alders said. Francesca pulled over, waited for his breath. Alders gave him thirty seconds, then rode off. Francesca followed, cursing. But Alders was right. After one final turn, the road flattened out and opened into a narrow saddle. Scattered pine trees and mulberry bushes broke the rocky soil. To east and west, the slopes climbed steeply. It was the best natural pass across the ridge for ten miles in either direction, which was why the road ran through it. Though
road
was a highly generous term.
Francesca looked back the way they’d come, across the Arghandab Valley. The pomegranate groves that bordered the river were maybe ten miles north and fifteen hundred feet lower. Closer in, smoke rose from a grape field. The nearest fire department was at KAF, so the fire would be burning awhile.
Alders pulled out a plastic-coated terrain map. They’d left their GPS back at the hut so they couldn’t be tracked. But Francesca didn’t need the map. He felt comfortable with the terrain up here. He could see where to set
up.
The far side of the ridge, the southern side, sloped gently toward Highway 1, where FOB Jackson was located. The road they were riding turned slightly left as it emerged from the saddle, running south-southeast. About five hundred meters ahead, the road bisected a small village. Maybe forty compounds. Weston had told Francesca that the platoon would set up there, stickering motorcycles and checking out some of the houses. A presence and registration patrol.
The day was clear, the wind low. Assuming Weston did his job and got Young into the open, Francesca expected the shot would be easy. After the kill, he and Alders would head back the way they’d come. The platoon would have little chance to chase them. The Strykers could get only as far as the saddle. On the northern side, the road was too narrow and steep for the big trucks to navigate. On the bikes, Francesca and Alders could easily outrace anyone foolish enough to chase them on foot. The no-fly zone meant that they didn’t have to worry about drones or helicopters. And Francesca planned to ditch the Dragunov. Taking it back to the grape hut and then KAF could only cause trouble. So even if some overzealous Apache pilot violated the no-fly zone and came over the ridge, he’d see nothing but a couple of Afghan farmers on bicycles, miles away from the kill zone. Once they were back at the hut, they would hang out and wait for the Talib IED-planting cell to show.
* * *
WESTON HAD CALLED
just after sunrise. Francesca hadn’t slept at all, but he felt great, thanks to two greenies. Breakfast of champions. He felt the vibrations of every mote of dust in the grape hut. He was in tune with the world. He was
alive
.
“Got the okay from my CO. We’re gonna roll this morning. Little bit sooner than I thought. You cool with that?”
“We’re always cool, Lieutenant. Where we talked about before?”
“Yes. The village is called Mohammed Kalay. We’ll be there at ten-thirty. Eleven at the latest.”
“Roger that. Eleven. And your boy will follow orders long enough to give me a chance to engage?”
“He hasn’t said no to a mission yet. I don’t see him starting
now.”
“And you haven’t heard anything from the other one?” Meaning Wells.
“The one who came and talked?
No.”
“You do, you let me know.”
“Will do. When you’re in position, will you signal?”
Yeah, I’ll signal. Coleman Young getting his throat ripped out. That’s the signal.
Francesca hung up. Alders was still snoring. Francesca squeezed him on the shoulder. Not hard. Guys who spent their lives in nests like this didn’t like being woken too suddenly. Alders sat up, wiped a hand over his mouth.
“Was I lucky enough to get blown to hell while I slept or am I still stuck in this tar
pit?”
“Sad to say you’re still alive.”
“Why did you wake me? I had a good one going.”
“Your favorite nurse again?”
Months before, Alders had told Francesca that he had a nurse fantasy, not the usual candy striper but a chubby, big-breasted East Indian who gave him a rough massage with a barely happy ending.
“I should never have told you that.”
“True. Ready to rock and roll?”
“Our Talib friends?”
“Our other friends.”
“We just got here.”
“I know, but this way’s better. Get it done quick, come back, chill.”
Francesca hadn’t told Alders that he was still thinking about taking out Weston and Rodriguez with Young. He figured he’d see how the trap set up. A game-time decision.
* * *
THEY RODE OFF
a few minutes later in their brown
shalwar kameez
. They had three hours plus before the Strykers arrived. The grape hut was about thirteen or fourteen miles from the saddle. Francesca figured they would have plenty of time. Then they hit the hills. For the last couple miles, he’d wondered whether walking might be faster. The ride had taken so long that they burned through most of their cushion. By Francesca’s watch, they had about forty-five minutes to pick their spot, get settled. Less time than he would have liked.
Francesca pulled the bike off the road, left it behind a rock, grabbed the canvas bag that held the Dragunov’s hard-sided case. He walked east, keeping back from the ridgeline. The saddle turned steeper, blending into the hill above. Loose rocks cut at Francesca’s sandals. He wanted to gain maybe forty or fifty feet of elevation, make the shot easy to take, hard to trace.
Alders ranged ahead and closer to the ridgeline. About a hundred yards east of the road, he waved Francesca over. Above, a dry streambed crosscut the hillside, running southwest. It fell over the ridgeline thirty yards away from where they stood. A tangle of mulberry bushes marked the spot. Francesca and Alders could set up in the streambed between the bushes, which offered great cover. Aside from the last few feet, they wouldn’t even have to crawl or crab-walk to the position. They could walk without fear of being seen from the fields below.
“You
see.”
“Long as it has the right angle.” If a boulder or the folds of the ridge blocked Francesca’s line of sight to the village, the position was useless, no matter how good the cover. He cut over to the streambed. It was dry, six feet wide, a couple feet deep. This part of the Arghandab Valley didn’t get much rain. The runoff that fed the river fell in the mountains to the north. Just shy of the ridgeline, Francesca unzipped the bag and pulled out his binoculars and a thin brown blanket. He unrolled the blanket. He wanted to keep his gown clean. On the ride home, even the most oblivious Afghan police officer might notice a man in a dirt-covered
shalwar kameez
. He squirmed forward on the blanket, ignoring the stones poking at him. At the edge, he propped himself on his elbows, raised his binoculars.
Perfect.
The contours of the hill made him nearly invisible to the villagers below, but no rocks or outcroppings blocked his view. The mud houses and compounds started a quarter mile away. Inside them, villagers did what Francesca had decided Afghans did best: not much. In one compound, three men sat against a wall, drinking tea from a battered brass kettle. Outside another, a bony farmer dragged a rake slowly through the earth, as an equally bony cow grazed nearby. Two empty burqas floated high in the air, ghosts on a clothesline.
In the center of the village was an empty dirt field, a town square of sorts. The Strykers were sure to park there. None of the walls between him and the square were high enough to matter. The fluttering burqas were a lucky break, too. Their movement would make gauging the breeze easy. Francesca hardly even needed Alders.
“Look good?”
“That it does.”
Alders crawled up beside him, holding the rifle and his bag of gear. Francesca edged left and traded the binoculars for the Dragunov. “Too easy,” Alders said.
“There’s no such thing.” Francesca slid the Dragunov’s scope over the rifle’s barrel, which was designed with a metal rail that made attaching the scope a cinch. He flipped a latch to lock it in place. Next he reached for a magazine. He’d brought four, all loaded with ten rounds of 203-grain steel-jacketed 7.62-millimeter ammunition. The bullets could smash Level IV armor plates that stopped regular AK rounds.
At five hundred meters, even a perfectly aimed shot from the Dragunov could go wide of its target by six inches. Instead of a head shot, Francesca planned to aim for Young’s chest and fire a three-shot burst. Unlike most sniper rifles, the Dragunov was semiautomatic. Each squeeze of the trigger fired another round. At worst, the first burst would shatter Young’s vest and knock him down. With ten rounds, Francesca would have plenty of chances for a kill shot.
Francesca locked onto the farmer bent over his rake.
I could kill you and you’d never know where your death came from. Not where or why.
The excitement went beyond words. Death and life were his to give. He dropped the safety and put a finger to the trigger, his mouth open and every breath a rapture. After a long moment, he flicked up the safety, pulled back.
I’ve let you live. Forget Allah. Pray to me tonight, old man.
He draped brown netting over the Dragunov’s muzzle and rested his head on his arms and waited for the Strykers to come. Waited for prey.
28
W
ells stopped at the intersection of the valley road and the easternmost of the three tracks that led over the hills. He jumped off and squatted low, looking for bicycle tracks in the dirt. If Francesca and Alders had come this way this morning, their narrow tires should still be visible. But the treads Wells saw were far too wide to belong to bicycles. He pulled out his binoculars and followed the track into the hills. No bicycles, no men walking.
Fifty yards down, three boys played soccer, kicking a ragged ball with the studied indolence of teenagers everywhere. Wells stepped toward them. “Have you been here all morning?” The boys looked at one another. The ball never stopped moving.
“Have the Americans taken your tongues? Answer
me.”
The tallest boy grinned at Wells, a confident smile that somehow reminded Wells of his own son. “Yes.”
“Have you seen men riding bicycles this
way?”
“One man. My uncle Hamid. He lives down there.” The boy nodded to a low-walled compound about a mile down the road.
Wells hurried back to his motorcycle. He could eliminate this track. Two left. The second intersection was barely ten miles west, but Wells wasn’t sure how long he would need to reach it. Forty miles an hour on the Arghandab road equaled a hundred and twenty on an American highway. Any faster and he would pop a tire.
Wells swung the bike around, headed west. In the last two hours, he’d gotten to know this strip of road: the one-room store that seemed to sell nothing but potatoes and apples, the skinny German shepherd chained to a tree who barked madly when Wells passed. The grape hut that Francesca and Alders were using as a bed-and-breakfast.
Finally, the second ridgeline road. Wells pulled over, looked for bicycle tires.
There.
Two thin tracks, not quite side by side. Wells pulled his binoculars, looked up at the hills. Nothing. And no kids to
ask.
The road passed a handful of compounds on its way to the ridgeline. The bikes could have belonged to local farmers. Even so, Wells decided to go with his gut, chase the tracks. He turned south. The road was so rutted and rocky that he couldn’t get out of second gear. Francesca and Alders must have had an even tougher time. The slowest chase in history. A 250cc Honda knockoff after two bicycles. Wells smiled, but only for a moment. He didn’t understand why Young hadn’t called him, warned him. He might be too late already. Francesca might be taking aim at this moment—
No.
He pushed the thought away. He rolled the throttle and the motorcycle zipped ahead, bouncing beneath him, past grapevines and almond trees. After about fifteen minutes on the track, he passed the last farmhouse and came upon a patch of dried mud that stretched all the way across the track. If he saw the bike tires here, he’d know that Francesca and Alders were ahead. If not, he’d wasted even more time.
Wells bent his head to the mud with the desperate hope of a poker player peeking at his last down card, needing an ace. And saw . . . fresh tracks. He rode on, more confident now, as the road rose in earnest into the hills. Wells wended his way between ruts deep enough to snap his ankle. Wells saw now why the Arghandab Valley was so isolated. Farmers couldn’t use these tracks to ship their produce to Highway 1 and the rest of Zabul. Even a well-built four-wheel-drive SUV would have a tough time with this hill.
Wells took a curve too fast and the front wheel chopped into a rut. The bike tilted precariously left and the back end kicked out. Wells pulled his left foot off the peg and stepped sideways onto the muddy track. His toes jammed into a rock, sending a jolt up his leg. The bike stalled. As he struggled to keep it from going down, his right leg touched the superheated exhaust pipe. He tried to pull away, but the bike moved with him, the pipe searing his gown into his calf. Finally, Wells regained his balance and jerked the bike up. He stood in the track, grunting in pain. A bright red burn the size of a silver dollar rose from his right calf. His left foot throbbed angrily. He wasn’t exactly mortally wounded, but the odds that he’d win a foot chase with Francesca had just plunged.
Wells gritted his teeth and put the motorcycle in gear and rolled on. First gear. No faster. He’d be useless if he broke a leg. Anyway, Francesca and Alders couldn’t be that far ahead. On bikes, they’d be lucky to make five miles an hour.
Minute by minute, turn by turn, he rose up the hill.
* * *
TEN MINUTES LATER,
he reached the saddle. And saw their bikes, sprawled carelessly a few feet from the road. Eureka. Wells stopped, looked left and right. The bikes lay to the left, east, so Francesca and Alders had probably gone that way. But he didn’t see them, or any obvious position.
He could leave the road, ride up the hill. But they’d hear the engine coming their way long before he found them. He couldn’t ride and shoot at the same time. They’d take him out easily. He could ditch the bike and go up the ridge on foot. But if they were close, and they probably were, they would hear the motorcycle cut out. And wonder why it had stopped instead of passing over the saddle. Or . . . if the Strykers hadn’t arrived yet . . . if he had even a few minutes . . .
Wells rode to the southern edge of the saddle and put the bike in neutral and looked out. The village lay a few hundred yards below. No Strykers, but Wells saw a convoy of blocky vehicles maybe five miles away. They’d be at the village in ten minutes, fifteen at most.
He eased back into gear, rode over the ridge and down the hill. As he left the safety of the ridgeline, he was intensely conscious that Francesca had to be above, watching through his scope. He kept his eyes forward. No reason to look anywhere but the village ahead. No reason to be nervous. He was just a farmer out for a ride.
Then he closed on the village, or it closed on him. The compounds splayed out around the road. He came to a muddy open square and what must have been the only shop in town. Four teenagers stood beside its open doorway. Just what Wells had hoped to see. He pulled up beside them, parking beside a wall that hid him from the ridgeline.
“Nice motorcycle,” the biggest of the four said.
“What’s your name?”
“Razi.”
“You know how to ride, Razi?”
Razi squared his shoulders. “Of course.”
“Then you can have
it.”
“What?”
“The bike. You can have it. I’ll give it to
you.”
“You’re not funny. You’re stupid.”
Wells raised a hand. “Allah cut out my tongue if I’m lying. Let me tell you what I need.”
When Wells had explained, Razi shook his head.
“Why do you want this?”
Wells nearly told the kid not to ask, then decided the truth would work better. “There are men hiding in those hills. I want to get to them and this is the best
way.”
“Then what?”
Wells heard the rumble of the Strykers’ diesel engines in the distance. They couldn’t be more than five or six minutes away. “Yes or no, Razi? Yes or
no?”
The kid looked at the others. He didn’t want to seem scared in front of them, Wells thought. Peer pressure worked every time.
“Yes.”
Wells stepped off the bike. He pulled off his bag and the branches that had covered it and tossed the branches on the ground. Razi took his place at the handlebars. Wells slid in behind him and put the bag between them and rested his hands on Razi’s shoulders. Without a word Razi put the bike in gear and turned them around and took them back up the hill. Wells was glad to find that the kid rode smoothly.
As they emerged from the square into the sun, Wells peeked at the eastern slope of the saddle. He saw a big boulder that might have been Francesca’s nest, and a couple of thick shrubs. But he couldn’t look too closely and risk tipping off Francesca. Instead he tucked his head into Razi’s shoulder and visualized what he would do when the bike reached the ridgeline.