by JC Ryan
Rex concluded that Digger did indeed understand ordinary speech to some extent. He accepted commands within sentences and differentiated between commands and when the same words were being used in conversation. Rex’s respect for his intelligence grew another notch, and for the first time, he truly believed he and Digger could form a team. As effective as Trevor and Digger had been? Well, that remained to be seen, but he was hopeful. He just needed to take the initiative and make the time to learn Digger’s language and expectations, and Digger might have to adjust a little to his style. It would work out, if they could agree who was the alpha of this pack.
Rex went outside, filled his dinner plate with sand and a few small rocks, and brought it into the house. He cleared some space on the kitchen floor, spread the sand out, and started making a mini model of Usama’s compound, based on what he had learned from his unfortunate hosts the night before and the quick glance he got of the place earlier in the day. He used the small rocks to indicate the gates and other key points. It would have been great if he could have gotten Digger to participate, maybe give an opinion or two.
As it was, Digger sat in the one corner with his head twisted at an odd angle watching. Rex could have sworn that if Digger could speak English it would be with an Aussie accent, and the question would have been, “What on earth are you doing, mate?”
After an hour of this planning, Rex decided there wasn’t much more he could plan until he laid eyes on the place. He gathered the sand and rocks as best he could with his hands, scooped it onto the plate, and threw it out the back door.
He knew the way to the compound. The narrow streets and alleyways had nooks and features that would provide what cover they needed.
He’d leave his appropriated man-jammies here in their hiding place, and in the dark battle fatigues he’d been wearing for more than two days now, the smell of which was blending in just fine with the neighborhood, he’d be as invisible as Digger in the dark. His backpack contained greasepaint that would disguise any exposed skin.
He’d figured out that the best approach to the compound was from the east. They’d wait until an hour after sundown, at least, before making the trek to circle around to that side. The feast at Usama’s compound would undoubtedly be in full swing when they got there, judging from the quantity of meat he’d seen packaged for just four men.
Once they had the compound in sight, Rex would look for a way in. With luck, there’d be a tree near the wall, but he suspected Usama would be a little more security-conscious than the ordinary Afghan citizen. Failing that, he’d have to breach a gate or scale the wall. Either option would require thinking on his feet. But the night was still young.
He and Digger would hide inside the compound wall and observe for a while. He’d eliminate the guards one by one, and then he’d crash the party. It was a tall order, but he’d done it before, he’d do it again, and this time he had Digger to help.
Rex wondered if Digger would kill on his command.
He recalled, Trevor had told him once that he used that command, but very, very seldom. In the right circumstances, Digger would execute it, so to speak.
Rex realized it would probably depend on the circumstances, and that such circumstances could very well arise with that night’s mission.
“Digger, let’s go to work.”
The dog’s hindquarters came off the floor and his smile got wider. Rex led the way out the door. “Stay close, okay?”
As he’d learned that afternoon, the closer he got to Usama’s compound, the sparser the neighboring dwellings were. When he finally found the isolated compound his informants described, Rex was happy to see a way to observe the place from a vantage point high on a nearby hill. He sent Digger ahead to scout for outlying guards and followed him cautiously. Even with his night-vision goggles, Rex found it was hard to spot the dog now that the last light had left the sky, and the moon wasn’t up yet.
But the compound was brightly enough lit that once he and Digger found a good place to hunker down and observe, he had to remove his goggles. The monocular came out, and he watched as two guests arrived. It was later than he expected. He waited for another hour, and with no new arrivals, he was ready to make his move.
The compound had two gates, one on the side facing the hill where Rex and Digger were observing, and one on the wall perpendicular to it and to the right. Four guards were sauntering around the outside of the house, but inside the walls of the compound, the gates were guarded by only one each. Rex couldn’t see anyone outside the compound. That, he believed, was a mistake if he could trust there just weren’t any, rather than he couldn’t see them. If he’d been in charge, there would have been another ten, at least, arranged in a circle well outside the walls.
He talked it over with Digger. “Why aren’t there any guards outside the wall, boy? Is Usama that arrogant? Or am I just not seeing them?”
Digger had no answer.
Rex donned his goggles again and searched the dark space between the compound and his location. To his mind, it was the most vulnerable area, and his caution was rewarded when he spotted one man. The goggles wouldn’t have helped to see the man, but he lit a cigarette. The flash of the match or lighter, Rex couldn’t tell which, was a beacon in his goggles.
“So much for staying in hiding, asshole,” Rex whispered.
He spoke in a low voice to Digger. “Scout, hide, hold.” He’d heard Trevor use that very command less than five days ago at the site of the biggest heroin lab he’d ever destroyed. He pointed down the hill, and Digger accepted the command.
Rex followed the dog’s movements as he threaded his way through rocks and scraggly bushes, half-crouched until he picked up the scent. With an uphill breeze, it didn’t take long. Rex imagined he could almost smell the cigarette smoke himself. Digger crouched even lower and belly-crawled to within a few feet of the man and alerted. The tango never looked back. After ten minutes, Rex hadn’t seen anyone else in the area.
“Attack and hold,” he said into Digger’s earphones. Though he was on his feet and rushing to join them, he watched as Digger sprang from his crouch, hit the man on his back with all four feet and then twisted to land on top of the tango where he fell.
A muffled scream reached Rex’s ears and was cut off suddenly. He could see that Digger’s muzzle was close to the man’s throat, but it wasn’t clear whether the dog had ripped it out or just scared the man into silence. He arrived seconds later to see the dog had effectively quieted the man, but Digger hadn’t killed him. Only scared the shit out of him, literally.
Rex wrinkled his nose. He wouldn’t spend long with this man, but he was his best source of information about outside guards. After questioning him and learning that there were only himself and one other, on the side of the compound opposite the second gate, Rex put him out of his misery with a single swipe of his KA-BAR.
“Good work, Digger,” he said.
What were the odds that he could do what he needed to do before the other outside guard intervened? That was the question. He’d learned the completely inadequate two guards were posted where they were not to observe the compound, but to give early warning of attacks from the two hills that provided a tactical advantage. They didn’t even have any means of communicating with the guards on the inside. No two-way radio, or cellphones, they relied solely on their voices. What a sloppy outfit these drug lords have to protect them.
The other sides of the compound were far enough away from the hills on those sides that early warning wasn’t needed – attackers would be seen coming well in advance via electronic monitors. That was valuable information. Somehow, Rex would have to disable those before he could get the drop on the gate guards.
Rex also learned of a feature of the compound he hadn’t seen from his vantage point. Although there were no trees to take advantage of Digger’s climbing talent, there was a garage built outside the original wall on the opposite side of the compound. Rex hadn’t seen it because its roofline was below his lin
e of sight across the wall. Access from inside was via an underground tunnel. It was Usama’s secret escape route, and it was about half the height of the walls, built partially underground, with an upward sloping driveway to the outside.
Rex’s original plan was in tatters. He couldn’t take out guards without being seen, and he couldn’t get into the house to disable the monitors and the man watching them except through the garage. Now he and Digger had to work their way around the compound to access the garage. The route where they had the greatest chance of going unseen was through the other outside guard, whom he’d have to take out first.
Rex pointed to the second hill, gave the command, and followed Digger as closely as he could, since he now knew it was safe. Between the two of them, they made short work of the second and last outside obstacle. Rex had Digger stay close to him as they made their way around the corner to assess the garage situation.
The first guard hadn’t lied. The garage was almost exactly the height of the walls, which Rex estimated at eight feet. Once again, he marveled at the short-sightedness of whoever had built this compound. It was isolated, and it was surrounded by a wall, sure. But it was by no means impregnable.
A few broken-down vehicles stood near the back and side of the garage, evidently left outside to make room for those in better shape. With lots of help in the form of old vehicles and other rubbish close to the wall, the roof of the garage would be an easy climb for Digger, but Rex wasn’t sure if there’d be a way inside from there.
Over the wall from the roof would be an easy leap for Digger. Rex could do it, too. He’d stand on the roof of the garage and simply hoist himself over, as the wall would be only waist-high for him. An eight-foot drop would be a jolt, but not truly dangerous, unless a camera was pointed at the spot. He wouldn’t know that until he could peek over the wall. With no alternative any more likely to succeed, he decided to go for it.
“Climb,” he ordered Digger.
Digger looked at him, tilted his head and gave an uncertain wag of his tail. He wasn’t smiling.
Shit, that’s not the command. Rex wracked his brain to remember the occasion when Trevor had first showed him Digger’s ability to climb trees. What had he commanded? Oh. “Roof,” he said.
Digger took in the options open to him, jumped to the deck cover of the rusty BMW closest to the wall, scrambled to the top of that and then jumped to the roof of the garage. He disappeared from Rex’s view, then, and Rex assumed he’d be scouting the roof for an opening.
He whispered “Stop” as he scrambled up the same way, hoping to keep Digger from going over the wall without him.
When his head cleared the edge of the roof, he spotted Digger in alert position, hugging the wall between the garage roof and the wall. As he’d suspected, he didn’t see an opening in the roof for access to the inside of the garage.
Too bad, that would have made it easier.
Okay. So, Plan B it was. Rex duck-walked to the wall near Digger and cautiously lifted his upper body until he could see over the wall, his goggles still in place. He searched, sweeping his gaze in a tight grid pattern, for a camera pointed in the direction of the garage. It was with relief that he realized every camera he could see was pointed downward, at the ground inside the compound.
What an idiot. Any fool could see this would be the way in.
Despite his contempt for the man’s security measures, Rex was grateful that Usama was either much less intelligent than his position of power would presume, or too arrogant to consider that someone might eliminate his outside guards. Whatever it was, it worked to his advantage.
“Let’s go,” he said to Digger, and vaulted over the wall, landing silently in a crouch. Digger made even less noise than Rex had, if that were possible. He stood quivering with excitement at Rex’s side, waiting for the command to work again.
From his previous observations, Rex believed the main door to the house was opposite his current position, that was, on the south side. He hadn’t seen anyone go in or out to the east or north. West had been out of his field of vision, so that was the first way he went to update his reconnaissance. He had to get into the house first and eliminate the electronic surveillance. Only then could he eliminate the four circulating guards next, and then the two at the gates. He’d have to cross the bridge of how many were in the house when he came to it. At least he wouldn’t have any at his back if he stumbled into an unexpected situation inside.
And finding the monitors would also maybe give him a chance to see what he was up against inside. He thought quickly. With no way to remotely observe, having Digger scout inside would be of no help. He’d have to leave the dog outside while he went in on his own. Strangely, it felt wrong to him, even though he’d done it that way before he met Digger.
He told Digger to hide. When the dog blended into a shadow, Rex went forward cautiously, looking for a door other than the main door, which would be too exposed.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, 10:15 p.m., June 24
REX FOUND WHAT he was looking for before he’d rounded the corner to the back of the house. The door was not grand, nor did it lead to a part of the courtyard that was interesting or landscaped. In fact, it looked very much like what it turned out to be – a door to the working part of the house. A small anteroom Rex found himself in when he cautiously eased the door open led in one direction to the kitchen, in another to what his nose told him was a laundry, and in the third, to a hallway.
Suspecting that the hallway led to servant’s quarters and the laundry to a dead end, he selected the kitchen as his best option for getting into the main part of the house to locate the surveillance camera monitors. As soon as he entered the kitchen, he wished he’d put the man-jammies in his backpack. With those on he could have blended into the bustle for at least a minute, before someone realized he didn’t belong.
As it was, he was forced to immediately dispatch the first person he saw, the cook, he assumed, from the man’s position in front of a stove, stirring something on it. He did it by swiftly taking the man from behind in a choke-hold and tightening his arm until the sudden weight in his arms convinced him he’d crushed the man’s windpipe. The silent death gave him the time to drag the body into an alcove and strip it. He drew on the clothes he’d just acquired quickly, and went in search of the target room, on the lookout for other servants on his way.
The place was unlike anything he’d seen before anywhere in Afghanistan. Inside, it resembled pictures he’d seen of palatial Middle Eastern homes of royalty. The stark walls were softened by rich textile hangings or what looked like paintings of the Old Masters, in direct defiance of the Muslim proscription against figural depiction. Rex knew that the proscription was often honored in the breach in secular painting, even in the homes of ordinary Muslims, who could be as unfaithful to the central tenets of their religion as hypocritical Christians back home who with pious faces filled the front benches of churches for an hour or so on Sundays but during the week were unrecognizable as Christians in how they lived their real lives. But this display was almost obscenely outspoken in its opulence.
Highly polished woods, an explosion of color from vases, precious Persian rugs, and rococo-style brass, silver, and gold frames for the art and mirrors were jumbled together in more of a celebration of conspicuous consumption than carefully planned décor.
Usama was a very wealthy man, and he had no compunction about showing it.
Rex was too busy doing his best to avoid appearing in any of the mirrors from any angle to express his opinion about the pretentiousness. He managed to get past several openings that would have been better for him had there been closed doors in them without encountering anyone. But before he found the monitor room, he was caught by a servant returning from the main part of the house in the direction of the kitchen.
For a brief moment, Rex didn’t know who was more startled, himself or the servant, but the latter was pinned to the wall in such a way th
at he couldn’t draw a breath to scream before he recognized that the man he’d almost run down was not someone he knew. Rex posed one question, “Where is the room where they watch the feed from the cameras?”
He let up his pressure on the man’s throat just enough for him to wheeze an answer, after telling him the consequences if he cried out. When Rex had a clear picture in his mind of the route to the room he sought, he got rid of the servant and stashed the body behind a big reclining chair in the next room he came to.
When he finally came to the room, he had to deal with the challenge to open the door without the notice of the man inside. The servant who’d told him where the room was had graciously also provided the information that there was only one person in the room, that he thought there were more than ten individual monitors, and that there was an open intercom to allow the man monitoring the feeds to immediately raise the alarm if need be.
Rex’s blood ran cold as he remembered the risk he and Digger had taken at the garage and in going over the wall. But there was no use in worrying about what hadn’t happened.
The trick now would be to get to the observer and take him out without alerting anyone else, inside or outside the house. Rex had killed all the servants in the house, and soon someone would notice. Time was running short.
A quick assessment made him change his mind about the outside guards. There was no time to go out and take them out after he’d eliminated the observer. Digger would have to handle them if they left their posts. If he didn’t do anything that raised their suspicion, even that wouldn’t be necessary. Rex relied on the assumption that they should stay at their posts and have no reason to enter the house unless he’d killed someone inside who should be checking in with them.
For now, he had enough to worry about with the man in the observation room watching the security cameras. There’d been no time to ascertain that the servant wasn’t lying, but he’d said the door operated smoothly on its hinges without noise. Rex was about to find out.
