Without Fear

by Col. David Hunt

  Definitely a bomb.

  He ran his hand over the Cyrillic script adjacent to a red star on the adjoining ring, which was almost three inches wide and a quarter inch thick.

  And definitely Russian.

  Given the position of the fins relative to the desert floor, the bomb seemed to have stabbed the sand at a fairly steep angle, disappearing into the foot of the barchan.

  Akhtar stood, ignoring a cramp twisting in his gut while the scar tissue on his chest and neck began to ache and itch. He needed to opiate soon.

  But not yet, he thought, inspecting the wall of sand projecting up at a dangerous angle. An excavation could alter its delicate balance, the tension between the sand at the base and the sand rising up to the crest.

  Kneeling down again, he inspected the solid fin section, fingers following the welding marks integrating the fins and ring into the steel body of the weapon.

  “Put the shovels away and bring me the ropes,” he whispered, continuing using his hands only to dig around the tail of the weapon and expose the other fins.

  As his men headed back to the Goats, Faiz joined him, and the boy and mumbled, “What do you have in mind?”

  “We can’t excavate it out. Too dangerous,” he whispered, eyes on the dune soaring over them, as he felt a shiver bouncing up and down his body from the growing chemical imbalance.

  “Then?” Faiz asked.

  But Akhtar didn’t answer, inhaling deeply and mustering the strength to spend another fifteen minutes scooping sand out of the way while demanding silence as his men stood by with climbing ropes coiled over their shoulders.

  He needed everyone to be absolutely quiet so he could listen to the crescent-shaped dune for any booming or burping sounds.

  The desert, like everything else in nature, had a language, a set of sounds that foretold upcoming changes, and one of those was the whistling or barking that preceded sand avalanches. The pitch or frequency of the sound was controlled by the shear rate between layers of sand. As friction between grains and the compression of air between them increased, the sound would change from a light whistle to the low-pitch rumble of a major displacement.

  The moment they exposed the tail section, Akhtar looped three sets of 11mm workhorse single ropes, standard for mountain climbing, around the base of the weapon. Akhtar and many of his men had received training years ago from Swiss contractors—training that had come in handy during this long war, to drop on an unsuspecting enemy as well as vanish down precipices following surprise attacks. Each rope was rated for seventeen UIAA falls, meaning they could withstand the impact of a 174-pound climber falling for the length of the rope, which was 120 feet, for at least seventeen falls, according to the Union Internationale des Associations d’Alpinisme.

  Ignoring the slight trembling in his hands, he threaded each rope through the rings and secured them with figure-eight knots, the strongest for a loop at the end of a rope. Then he had his men back each Goat side by side, close enough to run each standing end to the rear bumpers, fastening them with a second set of figure-eight knots while applying an even tension to each rope.

  Akhtar ordered Faiz and the other two drivers into position while getting everyone else a couple hundred feet in front of the trio of Goats. He then walked back and forth between the bomb and the rear bumpers to make sure all was indeed in order.

  Now for the tricky part.

  Satisfied, he approached each driver and provided very clear instructions about when to shift into first gear and how to release the clutch, not too fast but not too slow. Too quickly and they risked snapping the ropes. Too slow and the probable avalanche triggered by the shifting mass seeking a new angle of repose would come down on the bomb—and even the Goats—before they could get the weapon and themselves out of the way. And on top of that, the drivers had to do it in perfect synchronization to even out the stress on the three ropes.

  Standing in front of the Goats, in a way reminiscent of those American drag races he had seen on television as a boy, Akhtar did his best to ignore his nausea and spasms and held up his right hand, making a fist.

  The men started the Goats and put them in gear.

  In a single fluid motion, he lowered his hand.

  Tires spun and engines groaned, spraying sand as the ropes whistled and vibrated, whipping into full tension. Their sound blended with the grumble emerging out of the barchan as the weapon shifted in the sand, shaking the dune’s foundation.

  The 4 × 4s spun in place, shifting sideways for a few seconds before suddenly leaping forward, plucking the bomb out tail first and dragging it away from the base.

  But just as Akhtar caught a glimpse of the long weapon sliding out of the ground, the wall caved in with a thundering roar as a large mass sheared off the dune and slid to the base.

  The Goats accelerated in a roar, tires whirling, towing the device for fifty-some feet. For an instant, the weapon, at least eight feet long, reflected the moonlight as it raced ahead of the avalanche. But the tip of the shifting sand caught up to it just before the dune reached a new angle of repose, burying it along with a dozen feet of rope.

  Already broken into a sweat from opium withdrawal symptoms, Akhtar took a deep breath, working through the cramps and his aching skin while signaling the drivers to stop. Using a sleeve to wipe the perspiration off his brow, he breathed deeply again and again, swallowing a lump in his throat.

  The Kozliks idled their engines as the mullah staggered behind them, inspecting each rope still secured to each bumper, before reaching the edge of the barchan, where the ropes disappeared into the sand.

  His trembling hand gripped each rope and gave it a firm tug, verifying that they were still attached to the bomb, before finding the strength to walk back to the front and instruct the drivers to move forward, slowly, in first gear.

  The Goats once more groaned with effort as the drivers released the clutches and all tires spun, spewing sand behind them but slowly inching forward. The ropes vibrated from the stress, resonating across the desert floor like a rumbling bass, but they held as the tail of the bomb reemerged.

  Running four fingers across his neck, Akhtar signaled the drivers to cut off their engines.

  And it was then, as he inspected the device and ran his quivering fingers over the severed mounting brackets that had once secured it to the belly of a Soviet jet, that Akhtar began to believe it could be the one from that night.

  He remembered the American who had trained Akaa. He recalled the concern and the frustration painted on the infidel’s face when they had left empty-handed after several nights digging through the wreckage. The Soviets had also failed to find it, using entire divisions of men and heavy equipment. And he especially remembered the American pointing to the broken mounts on the bottom of the Sukhoi jet, meaning the bomb and the jet had separated midflight.

  The bomb had to be very important to get all of that attention.

  And the bomb is ours, Akaa—ours!

  As his men dragged the heavy weapon toward the utility 4 × 4s, Akhtar managed to drag himself into the rear of his Goat.

  His fingers momentarily fumbled with the knapsack’s zipper before grabbing the old Chinese-style wooden pipe and a butane torch lighter. The pipe was already stuffed with smoking opium. Also called chandu, it was processed from raw opium and enhanced with unadulterated opium ash, which contained the traces of morphine that had made those months following the UAV strike tolerable.

  Akhtar glanced out the Goat’s rear windshield to verify that his men were all still busy with the bomb. Satisfied, he held the end of the pipe over the lighter’s bluish flame for thirty seconds, monitoring the drug as it vaporized.

  Drawing deeply, he swirled the smoke inside his mouth for a moment before inhaling. The effect was almost instantaneous as his body reacted to the good-quality chandu, processed especially for him, feeling its power as it propagated to his fingertips.

  He exhaled out the side window as the pure chemical energized him physically
and mentally, unlike the low-quality opium sold by drug cartels. The latter, contaminated with cocaine or heroin to boost profits, caused users to lie around in the traditional opium-induced stupor, whereas Akhtar felt revitalized.

  As his men hoisted the weapon into the cargo area of a utility Goat and used the same climbing ropes to secure it, Akhtar decided that he needed someone with the right technical expertise to inspect the bomb and assess its functionality, especially after it had been buried in the sand for so many years.

  And that meant he had to get word out to bin Laden.

  But given the importance of this discovery, it could not be done via standard channels. The Americans were always listening, and although Akhtar’s messages were encrypted, he could not risk any dispatch that could tip the enemy to this discovery.

  Placing a hand on his chest and holding the Soviet class ring as he took a final draw with his eyes closed, Akhtar’s mind reached a state of unparalleled sharpness, of immense clarity.

  And he suddenly realized how he could get a message out safely.

  A message only Akaa would understand.

  3

  Al-Amir

  HARIPUR. FIFTEEN MILES NORTHEAST OF ISLAMABAD. PAKISTAN.

  He let them get close.

  Very close.

  It was a benefit of monopolizing the very top of America’s Most Wanted list: the Saudi-born Sunni Muslim and founder of al Qaeda didn’t need to go looking for trouble.

  Trouble always found him.

  Always.

  And this evening it came in the form of a half dozen shadows materializing in his Russian “red star” night vision binoculars, crisscrossing the poppy fields skirting Darband Road, near his temporary headquarters on the outskirts of town.

  One of his informants, a downtown rug merchant, had spotted the group earlier that afternoon driving up from Islamabad in a pair of white Toyota RAV4 SUVs. He had spent the following hour tracking their textbook movements through an assortment of local assets, all loyal to his organization—and all willing to die in his service for a chance to reach paradise.

  The last message arrived via a burner phone text from a roadside vendor selling bundles of grayish-green stems topped with hairless round poppy capsules, harvested from the far end of the same field used by the approaching termination team.

  Osama bin Laden calmly shifted the binoculars to scan the front of his headquarters, where his decoy had stepped onto the street for a night stroll a moment ago, followed by two of his own bodyguards for maximum effect.

  He grinned. The resemblance was indeed amazing, down to the turban and prominent nose. And the ruse seemed to have worked. The instant his look-alike walked out, the shadows emerged from the rear of the field, silently cruising through the waist-high foliage like ghosts.

  Professionals.

  But it would not matter.

  Not tonight, and certainly not in Pakistan, where the Americans couldn’t use their Predators like they did in Afghanistan.

  He set the binoculars down on the stone ledge of his rooftop vantage point and reached for his old SVD Dragunov sniper rifle lying next to him—the same one he had taken from that dead Russian boy sniper a lifetime ago.

  Fingers worked the familiar weapon automatically, inserting a curved box magazine containing ten double-stacked 7.62 × 54mm cartridges, 151-grain steel-jacketed projectiles powered by the new 7N14 load developed specifically for the SVD.

  He pressed the butt of the skeletonized wooden stock against his right shoulder, resting the side of his face against the stock’s comb. Inhaling deeply, he positioned his right eye six inches from the end of the PSO-1 scope, cleverly mounted on the side of the SVD so as to not interfere with the weapon’s iron sight line.

  Shifting his head slightly to the left, then the right, the picture materialized in the PSO-1’s reticle, illuminated by a small battery-powered light.

  The scope’s bullet drop compensation elevation turret, sloping down from a marking of 2 at the top to 10 at the bottom, along the left side of the reticle, placed his target—the group’s point man—under the 6 marking, meaning six hundred yards. Measuring his breathing, he adjusted the BDC knob according to the chevrons running down the middle of the range finder. The reticle enabled him to observe the target in low-light conditions as it continued zigzagging through the waist-high vegetation. But Osama didn’t follow the man’s snaky pattern. Rather, he positioned the center of the scope steadily in the middle of the target’s back-and-forth motion, letting the silhouette come to him.

  Reaching for the radio next to his binoculars, he clicked the mike twice without breaking eye contact. A light breeze swept across the poppy field, swaying the lavender flowers toward the west, enough for him to make a slight compensation using the stadiametric marks in the PSO-1 windage turret.

  Three sets of double-clicks on the radio signaled that three of his four snipers, already perched on surrounding rooftops, had acquired their respective targets behind the point man. His fourth shooter, Pasha, lay ten feet away facing the same poppy field—though his nephew favored the Remington M24 bolt-action rifle with a Leupold scope.

  “Good here too, Akaa,” Pasha whispered, without taking his eyes off his mark.

  Five snipers against six targets meant a follow-up shot on the trailing figure carrying a backpack—easily done with the semiautomatic SVD. Unlike Pasha’s bolt-action Remington, the SDV used the combustion gas of the discharging cartridge to eject the spent casing while chambering a fresh round. Plus the PSO-1’s reticle offered a wide enough angle to easily shift targets.

  But there was no talking Pasha into an SVD. His nephew had used the damn Remington to represent Afghanistan at the 2000 Summer Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia, winning a bronze medal in the men’s fifty-meter rifle three positions. It was his baby.

  Osama sighed while observing the team, letting them get even closer, watching the lead figure grow to touch the 4 marking on the BDC elevation turret.

  Four hundred yards.

  Making a final check of the crosswind, he tapped the radio once.

  Shoot in five seconds.

  Focusing on the lead figure, Osama let his mark return to the center chevron in the reticle.

  Three.

  Two.

  He exhaled and squeezed the trigger.

  4

  Tradecraft

  HARIPUR. FIFTEEN MILES NORTHEAST OF ISLAMABAD. PAKISTAN.

  Multiple reports broke the silence across the poppy field, like whips cracking in the darkness.

  In a most surreal sight, the head of each member of his team running ahead of him snapped. Exit wounds sprayed dark clouds behind them in unison and almost in slow motion, before their limp silhouettes sank below the layer of flowers.

  CIA officer Bill Gorman reacted swiftly, hitting the ground as a near-miss buzzed his left ear a couple of seconds after the well-orchestrated volley of sniper rounds had practically decapitated his team.

  What the hell?

  But his mind already had the answer.

  Ambush.

  They were waiting for us.

  Gorman had had a bad feeling about this op—the termination of one of bin Laden’s generals—from the moment his boss, Islamabad Station Chief Les Finkle, had brought it up. And Gorman had argued against it, insisting on cross-checking the intel with his own assets inside the ISI, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, as well as with Army Intelligence. He’d even requested UAV surveillance before and during the strike.

  But Finkle, freshly resting in peace some fifty feet ahead of him, wasn’t having any of that, reminding Gorman of the many ops that the military had excluded the Agency from in the past year alone. And besides, Finkle had claimed, the intel from his asset was golden, plus this location had been on his radar for a month. In addition, rumor had it that this compound was even occasionally visited by “Elvis,” the nickname given to Osama bin Laden because of all the field sightings that turned out to be nothing more than wishful thinking.
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br />   The real reason, however, as Gorman knew quite well, was that Finkle saw the elimination of a bin Laden general as his chance to get promoted out of the shithole that was Islamabad. He wanted full bragging rights—which meant declining to ask Bagram Air Base for any assistance—as his ticket to head back to Langley.

  As the new member of the team out of the Islamabad station, Gorman’s recommendations had gone unheard. He had been outranked, outnumbered, and also assigned to the rear of the assault team, with the added shit job of hauling forty pounds of explosives and detonators. It really had not mattered that Gorman had been with Army Intelligence for three years and had done three tours, two in Iraq and another in Afghanistan, before the CIA recruited him. It also didn’t matter that he had spent the following two years working his way through the ranks at the Baghdad and New Delhi stations before his assignment here. And it sure as hell had not mattered that during his one year in Islamabad, Gorman alone was responsible for recruiting and handling four agents. He’d even made initial contact with a promising asset inside the ISI, the one whom Gorman had not been allowed to contact to cross-check Finkle’s intelligence.

  In the eyes of his boss, Gorman was still the fucking new guy, an FNG.

  And it certainly hadn’t helped that Pete Shaw, Finkle’s second-in-command—also RIP, behind his boss—had reported a visual sighting of Osama bin Laden himself a minute ago, seen through a high-power night vision scope.

  “Elvis … holy crap, it’s Elvis! He just … left the building!”

  “Seriously, Pete?”

  “He really just stepped out, Les! I’m staring at the bastard. I’m telling you, it’s him!”

  “All right, One through Six … single file … go, go, go!”

  Gorman shook his head before whispering into his throat mike, “Six here. Anybody?”

  But as feared, he got no response in his earpiece.

  “Guys? One through Five? Anyone?”