by Eric Meyer
She reached out a hand, switched off the engine, gave it more flap, pushed the column all the way forward, and jammed on the brakes. At the last moment, another gust started to move the aircraft to starboard, and she gave it hard left rudder to correct the swing. It partially worked, and she watched the rockface coming toward them. Faster, faster, until they were only meters away. The aircraft was slowing, and she could only grip the column and keep pressure on the rudder pedal to veer it away from the rocks. Centimeter by centimeter, they rolled toward that implacable cliff. When the aircraft came to a stop, they could almost reach out and touch it.
There was only the ticking noise of cooling metal inside the cabin. Otherwise, it was silent. Men who’d committed their souls to the next life came to the realization they weren’t dead after all. She heard Crawford say, “Lady, that was a good landing. They tell me any landing you can walk away from is a good landing, and that was one helluva piece of flying.”
She smiled her thanks, feeling the tension drain out of her body. When she looked down, her right knee was jerking up and down, as if she had St Vitus Dance. Crawford noticed it, too. “It’s not surprising you’re a bit tense. It’s lucky you’re an experienced pilot.”
She didn’t reply, in case she said something she’d regret.
What had it been, one hour at the controls, a few years back? Thanks for the vote of confidence, Mr. Crawford.
She turned as she heard an unfamiliar voice talking to the men back in the cabin. The stranger nodded a greeting. “You must be Lena. My name’s Ivan.”
It came out automatically before she could stop herself, “The Terrible.”
He smiled. “Not always. I’ll show you where you can freshen up, and my boys will get you something to eat.”
She didn’t move. “Have you heard any news from Panjab? Stoner and Blum?”
A pause, then he shook his head. “Nothing.”
* * *
Wild-eyed men still prowled the streets, Islamic patrols, out looking for an excuse to start trouble. All were armed, but so were Stoner and Blum. The Russian carried the heavy Barratt .50 cal, and Stoner the two Desert Eagles slung around his waist; enough for anyone thinking of taking a pop at them to reconsider.
After thirty minutes walking, they reached the store, with the shingle hanging outside that stated, ‘Hamid’s Auto Spares.’ They walked inside, and the bell on the door jingled. The interior was gloomy, dusty shelves lined with dusty auto parts that looked as if they’d been there since the first Model T came into the country. It didn’t need a genius to work out the owner made his money in an entirely different trade.
Assault rifles. Machine guns, the staple diet of a violent nation. They waited for a couple of minutes before a man came out of the back room. He wore a filthy, oil-stained cotton robe that was once white, with a padded jacket over the top, almost as dirty. Under the jacket, a bulge displayed the location of his handgun.
He eyed them up and down. “Yes?”
“Are you Hamed?” Stoner asked.
“No, I am Hamid.”
“I thought he was the guy who died long ago.”
“No, that was another Hamid.”
They were going around in circles, and Stoner stepped nearer to the guy. He noted the twitch as the man’s hand almost went for his gun. “I want to speak to Hamed. Tell him it is business.”
He only hesitated a second and went into the back. A few moments later, another man appeared. He was short, grossly fat, and wore an oil-stained robe like Hamid. Unlike Hamid, this man’s robe was stretched tight over his belly.
“Yes? What do you want?”
“Hamed?”
“I am Hamed.”
“We need to get a message to Ivan.”
The piggy eyes in his face squinted in suspicion. “I know of no Ivan.”
“He knows you. He told us you’d pass on a message. It’s urgent.”
He shrugged. “I’m sorry. I’d help you if I could, but...” He spread his hands palm upward, “I do not know this man.”
It was time for a new tactic. “My name’s Stoner. I’m out of Jbad. You may have heard of me.”
The mention of the name brought a flicker of interest in the other man’s expression. “I may have. What about it?”
“If you know anything about me, you’ll know I have a reputation for keeping my promises.” The Afghan merchant waited, “So here’re a couple of promises for you. Help us out now, and I’ll owe you a big favor. I can put a lot of trade your way, people I know in a similar line of work.”
“Auto spares?”
“Guns. I’ll make sure you make a hefty profit. I know plenty of people who’d pay well for spare parts for obsolete Soviet and American weaponry.”
He looked interested, but he was still wary. “And the other promise?”
“You know what I do. I’ll be back.”
A pause. After a few seconds, he gave him a slow nod. “Very well. Perhaps I do recall that name. What is the message you wish to send?”
“Tell him I need men. Ten should do it.”
His gaze was neutral. “These men, what kind of men? Construction workers, auto mechanics...”
“Shooters.”
“Ah. I will pass it on. What are the arrangements, where do you require these men to go?”
“Uh, I don’t know. One moment.” He looked at Greg. “Any ideas?”
“That strip where Chow put down the Otter. They left, so we should have it to ourselves.”
“Good idea.” He explained the location of the tiny airfield, and the fat man nodded his understanding. “Yes, I know it. The traffickers use it sometimes.”
“Tell him we need them there by the end of the day. Four hours from now, no more. That gives them plenty of time to drive here from Band-e Amir.”
“And, er, how will you settle the account?”
Stoner thought of Lena’s gold. Forget what he’d said, it couldn’t be anyone else. “We already paid.”
They left the store and walked back through the streets. In the distance, a muezzin droned out the call to prayer through a tinny loudhailer from a nearby mosque. For some reason, the guy chosen for the task had a stammer, and the delivery came out jerky, like a record that jumped. ‘Allahu akhbar’ came out as ‘Alla.......hu.hu.hu.hu akh...b.b.b.b.bar.’
“Guy needs elocution lessons,” Greg murmured with a smile.
Stoner grimaced. “Probably not his fault. People in this land live most of their lives in terror, so it’s not surprising they stammer. All it needs is a period of peace and a few good doctors to sort out their problems. Instead, they get Allah. Allah don’t cure nothing, apart from breathing.”
Greg smiled. He stepped out of the way as an SUV almost ran them down. A white Toyota Land Cruiser, with the initials ‘UNHCR’ painted on the side. A man jumped out and ran to them, a familiar face. Max Olin, the friend of Lena Stori they’d saved from a beating when they first arrived at her house. He looked worried.
“I’ve just got back to town. They told me something had happened to Lena, so I was about to go out there to find out when I saw you in the street. Do you have any idea where she is, or if she’s okay?”
Greg explained about the attack on her compound after one of the clerics had pronounced the fatwa. His face fell when he went on to explain about the destruction of her house.
“My God, I have to find her. Do you know if she’s safe?”
“We believe she piloted one of her de Havilland Otters to get away. She may have flown to one of the big international airports to land the aircraft.”
“But, she’s not a pilot!”
“We know that,” Stoner interrupted, “There’s a chance she didn’t make it.”
“You mean she...”
“Crashed? It’s a possibility.”
The aid worker shook his head, finding it hard to believe. “This all happened because of me. Because they thought Lena and me were an item.”
“So you’re not?”
He grima
ced. “It’s not likely. I’m already attached, one of the aid workers back at HQ. We’re planning on getting married when the current tour is over.”
“So this Mazari guy couldn’t have known you were in a permanent relationship with another girl.”
“A girl?” He looked puzzled, “Manfred isn’t a girl. He’s a guy. Oh, you didn’t realize. I’m gay. It was never going to happen with Lena.”
“Did she know?”
He looked down and shuffled his feet. “I guess not. I thought it would get in the way of our friendship. You think I should have told her?”
He sighed. “It may have been an idea. Girls like to know where they stand.”
The Norwegian flushed red. "I just wanted to be friends. I thought, you know, she'd get upset."
Stoner smiled at the idea the Islamists had got it so wrong, thinking Olin was a rival for Lena's hand in marriage.
Stupid bastards.
He had a sudden thought. Even now the hunt could be on for the Hilux they’d abandoned. “Max, we need to get to the old airfield. It’s just outside the city. Thing is, we don’t want Khan’s or Mazari’s people seeing us, can you help out?”
He nodded. “No problem, climb aboard. I know where it is. Why the airfield, I thought only drug and people traffickers used it?”
“What’s this about people trafficking?”
“People trafficking? It’s the old story, too much poverty, and too much desperation. Families have seen people raped and massacred in neighboring villages, and they try to get their children out before it happens to them. Have you witnessed a massacre, Stoner? An entire village, every man, woman, and child slaughtered, with the exception of maybe the odd pretty young girl they kidnap to use as a whore? Have you ever seen something like that?”
He thought back to his time with the SEALs, a small village outside Lashkar Gar.
“I’ve seen it.”
“You never forget it. At UNHCR I’ve been putting together a program to help a bunch of kids that are high risk. Young girls, most of them pretty, living in remote villages vulnerable to attack. It’s a question of helping the families protect their homes. They need money to build walls, fences, hire security guards.”
“You having much success?”
“Some,” Max grunted, “I’ve put together a package, and we’ve made a start, but it’s slow.”
“Right.”
They were approaching the airfield, and he watched carefully for any sign of the hostiles. It looked quiet, and there was just the Otter parked on the strip. Olin braked to a halt outside the building where they’d been ambushed, and Stoner peeked inside, both Desert Eagles in this hands and ready to shoot, but it was empty. The enemy had disappeared, probably into the city to foment more trouble. He turned to the aid worker.
“Max, we’ll take it from here. We’re meeting some friends, so we won’t need a ride. Thanks.”
“Okay, if you’re sure.”
He drove away, and Stoner walked over to the de Havilland Otter. He’d learned to fly a variety of aircraft during his service with the U.S. Navy SEALs, and the single engine cargo plane wouldn’t present a challenge. He went into the cabin and seated himself in the left-hand seat. A quick scan of the gauges after he’d powered up the electrics showed him the tank was virtually full and the battery at full charge. There was no reason why it shouldn’t start up and fly away.
Greg entered the cabin and took the right-hand seat. “All clear outside, how does it look?”
“Ready to go. All we can do now is wait.”
“You still sure about going after Khan? The city is like a tinderbox, people just waiting for someone to set the spark. Going after him could do it, and we’d be caught up in a mass slaughter.”
He didn’t reply. The mention of a mass slaughter brought it all back again, the village, the hacked up bodies. Blood pooled in ruts on the ground, strips of flesh drying in the sun. They’d have taken some of them away, the young girls, new whores for the Islamists. He recalled Max Olin had said he’d witnessed a similar massacre.
Ivan, where are your men? Lena, what happened to you? Did you die in a flaming plane wreck with Crawford, Seb Koch, and Malik? I need answers. I need sleep. I need men. More than anything, I need to kill Khan.
He must have dozed in the seat, and when he opened his eyes, there was no sign of Greg. What had woken him?
An engine. Someone was coming. He glanced out through the window and saw a small convoy of vehicles approaching. SUVs, two of them were the old GAZ jeeps like Greg’s, Soviet era relics. The vehicle in the lead was a Brit Land Rover. Greg raced into the cabin, carrying his Barratt.
“Wake up. It looks like we’ve got trouble. Stoner, you loaded?”
He shook his head to clear it, picked up his M4 A1, and poked the barrel out the tiny window in the cockpit. “Bring ‘em on.”
Greg wedged himself in the portside doorway and propped the Barratt against the wing strut. They were ready, although the incoming vehicles could bring in as many as a dozen men. The SUVs stopped halfway between the warehouse and the aircraft. Robed men tumbled out of the GAZ jeeps. They formed a perimeter around the lead vehicle, the Land Rover, and waited. Stoner eyes their AK-47s, AKMs, a couple of M-16s, and even a French FN FAL Battle Rifle. Whoever they were, they were well armed.
The passenger door of the Rover opened, and he called out to Greg, “That’ll be the guy in charge. Take him down first, and we’ll kill as many of the others before they recover.”
“I got it,” he murmured in reply.
Stoner watched a person emerge from the passenger door, a young woman. An attractive young woman, and she carried the same M-16 Crawford had given her inside the house. He took his finger off the trigger, raced past Greg, and ran out of the aircraft.
“Lena!”
She recognized him and started running toward him. Archer ran with her. Bob Crawford, Seb Koch, and Malik climbed out of the Brit SUV after her, but he didn’t take any notice of them.
“Lena.”
“Stoner.”
He embraced her, astonished by his relief at finding her alive. He kept shaking his head in disbelief. “How? How did you get here, and who are these people?”
Then he saw Bukharin and he understood. “They’re Ivan’s men?”
She nodded. “They are.”
“How did you manage to get out after they rocketed the house?”
“We flew out, and I landed the aircraft on a field at Band-e Amir. Ivan has a small strip there.”
“But you told me you’re not a pilot.”
“I had that one lesson from my father.”
“One lesson, and that was enough?”
She smiled and shrugged. “We’re alive, so evidently it was. Your message got through to Ivan, and he sent these men. Akram’s here, too. He won’t let me out of his sight since you told him to guard me. Ivan confirmed it. He said he’s to protect me with his life, and he’s taking it seriously.”
The Afghan was lurking a couple of meters away, and Stoner got the impression the man would put a bullet in any man who got too close to his charge. Bukharin joined them and shook hands. Now he was all smiles. “We got off on the wrong foot when you arrived at our base, I’m sorry. I suggest we start over. Why do you need so many men?”
“It’s Khan. He goes down before he causes any more trouble. I don’t care what Ivan says. He’s poison.”
Bukharin paused to frame his next words. “It’s not going to happen. We need to take out Mazari.”
“Mazari,” He noticed the way Lena shuddered at the name, “Why Mazari?”
“The men who destroyed Lena’s place, they were his Shias. We got word from one of our informants in the town. They’re Hezbe Wahdat, and they’re bad news. As far as we know, they’re still inside the city, and Mazari could call on them at any time to fan the flames and turn the city into a battlefield.”
“So could Mullah Khan.”
“No. His men refused to go back out to Lena�
��s place. They’ve had enough. They took too many casualties, and they don’t want a repeat. Mazari’s Hezbe Wahdat fighters are all spoiling for trouble. We have to kill Mazari. It’s the only way to stop them. He’s a maniac, Stoner, fixated on just one thing. He wants power and total control of the trafficking business in this region. It would make him a rich man, and he’ll kill anyone who stands in his way in order to win.”
“Isn’t Khan in the same business?
Bukharin gave him a curious glance. “Khan is into drugs, sure. But forget Khan. You go up against Khan, and you’re making us into enemies.”
Reluctantly, Stoner nodded his agreement, for now. “Okay, we’ll take down Mazari first.”
“Not first. You don’t understand. Ivan is being more than generous with his help. However, there’s a quid pro quo. You have to leave Khan alone.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “What does it matter? Stay away from him. That’s all you need to know.”
Stoner took a deep breath. He thought of Madeleine. The idea of giving the guy who ordered her murder a free ride was abhorrent. However, he looked at Bukharin’s men, and it wasn’t the time or the place to argue. A wise man had to choose his battles.
“I understand. Does Ivan know where we can find Mazari?”
“Not yet, no.”
“Not in his mosque?”
“We don’t believe so.”
“Okay, I have an idea. We’ll drive to the mosque, and I’ll get directions from there.”
The Russian looked mystified. “Directions? How? “
“Just get us there. I’ll find a way when we get inside. Is there room for us in the Land Rover?”
Bukharin nodded. “I’ll tell Bob and his men to ride in the GAZ jeeps.”
“Good.” He glanced at Greg. “We’re leaving.”
Blum and Archer climbed into the back of the Rover, and Stoner squeezed into the front, with Lena in the center. Bukharin drove them through Panjab, and in a matter of less than an hour, things had changed. More men had appeared, large bands stalking the dusty streets, glaring at the vehicles as they drove past. Spoiling for a fight.
“They’re Shias, Mazari’s men,” Lena said, her voice low with fear, “He doesn’t have this many fighters in the city, so he’s brought them in from elsewhere.”
