Without Fear

by Col. David Hunt

  “Delta One has visual on six DFPs … staggered,” Ryan whispered into his MBITR, referring to the Taliban defensive fighting positions at each turn. “Heavy gate into compound, but clear line of sight to the sky.”

  “Delta One, Echo One. Paint it,” Stark said.

  “Roger that,” Ryan replied while staring at Monica, who slowly nodded, signaling understanding.

  Slowly, Ryan reached inside the rucksack and retrieved a gadget shaped like a carton of cigarettes with a lens at one end. Monica recognized it as a Northrop-Grumman ground laser target designator. A small tripod unfolded from the bottom, and she helped him set it up on the ridge while Ryan looked through the side scope to aim the crosshairs at the middle of the door.

  Flipping a switch on the side and entering an activation code powered up the athermal diode-pumped laser system, which lacked an active cooling system and was therefore silent.

  “Delta One painting,” Ryan replied.

  “Call it in, Chief,” Stark said.

  “And that would be our cue,” Ryan said to Monica.

  They slid off the top of the ridge and hung side by side from the rope, just low enough to get out of the blast zone.

  112

  Eye in the Sky

  KANDAHAR AIRFIELD. SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN.

  The General Atomics MQ-1 Predator flew at a cruising speed of ninety knots, just south of Takht-i-Sulaiman, its flight surfaces slaved to the remotely piloted aircraft operators manning the Royal Canadian Air Force ground control station inside a trailer just outside NATO headquarters.

  Glenn Harwich, John Wright, and Maryam stood next to Colonel Duggan, behind the RPA pilot, who slowly tilted the control column, entering a holding pattern just a thousand feet over the northern portion of Qais Kotal. Remotely piloted aircraft was the trade name for what was known to the general public as a UAV, or to use its more mundane name, a drone.

  “Pretty tight for the MTS, sir,” observed the sensor operator sitting next to the pilot, tasked with management of the AN/AAS-52 multi-spectral targeting system, which included a thermographic camera for low light or night ops. His eyes focused on the flat screen painted with flight telemetry and images of the ground.

  “Can you take the shot, son?” asked Duggan.

  “Now I can,” he said, the instant a window popped on his screen marking the spot painted by the ground laser target designator.

  “What type of warhead is on that missile?”

  “Thermobaric, sir.”

  “Good. Send it,” Duggan ordered.

  “Roger that, sir,” the operator replied, entering the activation code.

  A moment later, the solid-fuel rocket of the AGM-114N Hellfire ignited beneath the right wingtip of the Predator, its semiactive laser homing guidance system locking on to the target painted by the GLTD.

  Accelerating to Mach 1.3 in seconds, the 104-pound missile arced toward the ground in a blaze, shooting through the forty-foot break in the mountain pass and slamming the target. The eighteen-pound metal augmented charge generated a high-temperature explosion and an ensuing blast wave that whited out the flat screen.

  Harwich could only hope that Stark and his team had sought proper cover.

  113

  Thermobaric Reaction

  QAIS KOTAL. SULAIMAN MOUNTAINS. SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN.

  The 100 percent fuel warhead sucked up all of the available oxygen within its blast radius and melted through the heavy metal gate with nuclear force, turning it into white-hot shrapnel that shelled the interior of the cave along with superheated air. Outside, the ensuing shock wave twisted its way through the corridor at nearly the speed of sound, taking the shape of a glowing serpent while incinerating men and equipment, before shooting its scorching venom into the pass.

  Monica hugged Ryan tight as the blast erupted over the walls, orange flames licking the sky, the sonic boom shaking the bedrock like an earthquake.

  She felt the heat above them, scorching, suffocating, like the breath of the devil.

  But it ended as fast as it had started; smoke replacing flames, the ringing in her ears superseding the sound of the blast.

  “Hey,” he whispered.

  “Hey,” she replied.

  “Ever done it on a rope, Miss Cruz?”

  “Really? Something’s seriously wrong with—”

  “Delta One SitRep.”

  “Delta One still here,” reported Ryan, winking at her.

  “Cover us, Delta One. We’re going in.”

  “Roger that,” replied Ryan, climbing while whispering, “Maybe another time, Miss Cruz.”

  They crawled back onto the ledge, momentarily enjoying the heat absorbed by the granite as it hissed in the cold air. This time they stood on the ridge, but they soon realized that there was really nothing for them to cover—nothing but charred hardware and bodies tossed about in the winding path. And if that was what the blast did outside, where it could actually expand, Monica couldn’t imagine the type of havoc it wreaked in the enclosed space of a cave. The acoustic energy alone would have crushed its occupants with the force of a thousand flashbangers.

  Never mind the flames and shrapnel, she thought, inspecting the smoldering carnage while Ryan provided Stark with an update.

  114

  The Hot Gates

  QAIS KOTAL. SULAIMAN MOUNTAINS. SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN.

  Hagen and Martin led the stack, wearing their night vision goggles while rushing into the corridor. Stark watched their greenish figures running ahead of Kira and him while Larson and Sergei brought up the rear. Ryan and Monica kept overwatch while the last two Russians in Kira’s team remained covering the pass.

  The smell of burned flesh overpowered all other smells. Luckily both teams were all too familiar with it. It hung in the hazy air as they jumped over carbonized figures at every turn, amid twisted and charred hardware. The heat absorbed by the walls during the seconds following the blast now radiated from shimmering surfaces. Invisible waves of warmer air bent the surrounding colder air, distorting the picture in front of them like a mirage in the desert.

  “Definitely the hot gates now,” Kira said, earning a sideways glance from Stark as they negotiated the corridor, cruising through the scorched violence of a Hellfire missile.

  They were inside in another minute, scanning the large, hazy interior with overlapping arcs of fire, searching for anything that moved, but the place was largely empty, just burned furniture and a handful of seared bodies thrown about by the explosion.

  The entrance room connected to three corridors. Stark looked at Hagen and Martin before stretching two fingers toward the hallway to their right, ordering Larson and Sergei to the left passageway while he and Kira took the center one.

  Even with the blast, there was still a reasonable chance that someone might have survived it, perhaps locked inside some interior vault-like enclosure. So caution called for tossing concussion grenades at every turn. The echoing blasts pounded their eardrums as the combined teams cleared each chamber.

  It didn’t take long for Stark and Kira to realize that something was seriously wrong. Aside from the three bodies in the main hall, each space they checked was devoid of people. Kitchen, bedrooms, everything. And the other two teams reported similar results.

  “What is happening, Hunter? Where is the bomb? Where is everybody?” Kira asked, walking inside the last chamber, a lab of sorts, with tables and walls packed with tools. Blood stained the floor next to a small pile of bandages and other medical supplies.

  Stark stared at everything in disbelief as Kira’s slim figure, cloaked in black, suppressed AK-9 in hand, inspected the closets and under each table. She poked at everything, opening cabinet doors and desk drawers, rummaging through the hardware on each lab table, but in the end there was nothing even remotely close to resembling a nuclear bomb. Just general electronics equipment of the Radio Shack variety and assorted tools.

  Nothing, he thought. We have nothing.

  “Did they trick us?�
� Kira asked as they walked back into the hallway.

  “I don’t see how,” he replied. “You said that your tracking device pointed to this hideout.”

  “It did. But it has gone silent.”

  Stark looked down the long and hazy hallway, trying to get inside the heads of an enemy that was as crafty as it was deadly. He could not conceive of any scenario in which the Taliban would have not left itself a back door to escape, and that meant that his team just had not been able to find it.

  It has to be here. Somewhere.

  “What do we do now, Janki mishka?”

  “The only thing we can do. We check it again. Top to bottom.”

  She looked up. “What top?”

  Before he could reply, Larson came on the ops frequency.

  “Colonel … the place is cleared, and no one—and I mean no one—is fucking home.”

  115

  Back Door

  KANDAHAR AIRFIELD. SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN.

  “Wait for it,” Maryam Gadai said, pointing at the right side of the flat screen depicting the infrared imagery captured by a Reaper drone circling above the northern face of the mountain just as the Hellfire struck. The left side of the split screen showed the actual missile strike on the southern wall. The operator sitting behind the controls had synchronized the two feeds.

  Wright and Harwich flanked her as the operator slowed the video to frame-by-frame speed, showing the missile’s progressive advance to the target before the left screen whited out. Corporal Darcy stood to the side, maintaining a respectful distance from the trio.

  “There,” she said, stretching a finger toward the right side of the screen, where a brief speck of heat—depicted as yellow on the otherwise dark purple image—glowed through the woods layering the side of the mountain, about a second after the blast.

  “What’s that?” Harwich asked.

  “That would be the cave’s arse, Glenn … the bloody back door.”

  Harwich frowned. “But where? Stark combed the place and there is no rear exit.”

  “This heat signature contradicts that,” she said. “But it is not at the same level.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Wright.

  She tapped the operator on the shoulder and he worked the keyboard to pull up a view of the mountain superimposed with blue contour lines marking relative height north to south. A red dot marked the location of the Hellfire target, and a green dot marked the spot of light on the northern face.

  “According to the terrain map, the rear is almost two hundred feet lower than the front. So I’m guessing a hidden staircase or angled passageway? Something similar to the one behind Compound Fifty-Seven? Except this one is going down while the one in Compound Fifty-Seven went up.”

  Harwich and Wright exchanged a glance.

  “How in the world did you figure this out?” Harwich asked.

  Maryam shrugged. “What else am I supposed to do, Glenn? I’m confined to this bloody room when I’m not calling on Bill, who’s out for a while from some bloody IV cocktail.” Pointing at Darcy, she added, “And my cheeky babysitter is such a bore. Chap is mute.”

  “Throat … sore, eh?” Darcy mumbled in a very raspy voice, pointing at his bruised neck.

  “See,” Maryam said, as Harwich and Wright headed for the door to go update Duggan. “A bloody bore.”

  116

  You’re It

  KANDAHAR AIRFIELD. SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN.

  They found Colonel Duggan in the long line near the entrance to the DFAC adjacent to his headquarters, chatting amiably with a few marines who were also waiting their turn, and who seemed fresh out of basic.

  Perhaps from the group that arrived the other night, Wright thought, deciding this was another reason he liked the colonel. Most senior officers didn’t mingle with the men, much less wait in line with them, typically dispatching an aide to fetch them food. Duggan was a rare breed in any uniform.

  Stopping a prudent distance from the crowd, Wright signaled him.

  Duggan turned his heavyset face to them, reading glasses hanging from his neck. He sighed and walked over.

  “Just lost my spot, guys,” he said, pointing his Roman nose at the end of the line wrapped around the building. “And Lévesque made me skip lunch, so please make it worth my while.”

  They took turns briefing him, taking a couple of minutes to explain, while also giving Maryam credit for the finding.

  “Glad we kept her,” he said, crossing his arms, dropping his gaze for a moment, before directing it at Wright. “All right, this is what we’re going to do. I need you to pull together the best damn rifle platoon in the company. No rookies. At least two rotations. I don’t care if you need to steal them from other teams. You get the pick of the litter. Then I’m taking Mr. CIA here with me to brief Lévesque and get some helos to drop those marines right up the Taliban’s ass on the north face of that mountain and take the damn bomb back.”

  “Am I leading them, sir?”

  Duggan looked at Wright as if he had two heads. “What kind of dumb-ass question is that, soldier?”

  “Well, sir, you said I was now in intelligence with Mr. Harwich, so I figured—”

  “Like you figured to hop on that Chinook to rescue the pretty captain?”

  Wright had wondered when that was going to come up. “Sir, I—”

  “Does your head still hurt from the other day?”

  “No, sir. All good up here.”

  “And the leg?”

  “Leg’s fine, sir.”

  “Then that makes you an active asset of United States Marines, son.” Leaning closer, Duggan added, “And if you ask me, the best damn captain in the Corps. So, yes, you’re it.”

  117

  Smoke

  QAIS KOTAL. SULAIMAN MOUNTAINS. SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN.

  Stark just had to come out for air. He was standing by the entrance to the cave, eyes closed, feeling the cold draft blowing in from the pass, whistling in his ears as it tunneled through the entryway.

  They had spent the past two hours checking the stuffy and mildewed place inch by inch, searching every crevice, every wall, and every chamber. Hagen had even used his lighter to get some of the oil lamps going to preserve the batteries in their night goggles.

  And still they had failed to locate anything remotely resembling the back door that the Taliban had used to escape—and which Harwich claimed had to exist, based on UAV imagery of the missile strike.

  Stark watched as Kira stepped away with Larson and Martin to find a clearing large enough to get line of sight for her satellite phone so she could update Moscow. He had already briefed Harwich, who was hopefully working his way up the chain of command to update President Bush. Kira had told him that Bush had contacted President Putin a week ago to find a way to work together. Unfortunately, Putin, true to form, had blown him off.

  Idiot, Stark thought, hoping that the partnership he had struck with Kira would force Putin’s hand. But even if it did, there was little Putin could do to assist, given that President Bush already had KAF focused on this effort.

  Stark forced world leaders out of his mind as he watched Kira walk away, while Martin hit on her and Larson laughed.

  The rest of her team was somewhere up on the hill, covering them. Hagen was out of sight, probably smoking somewhere, and he had no idea where Ryan and Monica were—and maybe he didn’t want to know, given the way those two kept looking at each other.

  Though he couldn’t really throw stones at them, given his own glass house situation with Kira, who glanced over her right shoulder and gave him a slow female wink.

  Martin, who had already figured out the “Janki mishka” nickname, said to her, loudly enough for Stark to hear, “Hey, Kira can I be your Yankee cub?”

  “What is cub?” Kira replied.

  “It’s like a little horny bear,” Larson explained.

  Stark shook his head at Kira’s laughter echoing in the corridor, while he focused on his current dilemma: the vanishing
insurgents.

  “What am I missing?” he mumbled, staring at the soaring walls of granite. Kira’s team had seen the courier run this way, and there was no other option, once someone entered the winding passageway, but to go inside the cave. And to rub salt into the wound, Kira’s receiver no longer picked up the signal from the transmitter embedded in the replacement components, which could mean that the Taliban had discovered it, or perhaps that they were out of range.

  So no sign of the hags and no way to track them.

  Every second they spent here with their thumbs up their asses was a second the enemy used to get away—an enemy now armed with the components and know-how to get that nuke operational.

  “Why is it always so fucking hard?” he said out loud, frustration making him tighten his grip on the MP5A1.

  “That’s what she just said, Colonel,” Ryan blurted, walking outside with Monica, who gave him the bird.

  Hagen stepped out next, using his lips to pull a Sobranie Classic from his pack. He cupped it while working the lighter, next to Ryan and Monica. Monica’s TAC-338 was slung behind her back, her arms crossed in apparent frustration.

  “So, does he actually speak?” Monica asked Ryan, tilting her head at the former Navy SEAL as he took a long drag and exhaled through his nostrils.

  Stark sighed and looked away.

  “Once,” Ryan said. “In Venezuela.”

  “Colombia,” Stark corrected.

  “Same thing. Anyway, we’re deep in the jungle, late at night. Third day on some Agency job,” Ryan continued, while Hagen shook his head and kept smoking. “So Mickey here has watch while the rest of us are getting some shut-eye. But somewhere in the middle of the night he needs to go. You know?”

  Monica dropped her brows at him. “Take a piss?”

  “No. Number two. So he takes a bag, some TP, and walks out a hundred yards to get some privacy. Next thing you know, we’re woken up by what sounds like a woman screaming at the top of her lungs. But it’s Mickey here. Apparently a tiger came out of the bush and caught him, pants down, dick swinging, and—”