by Dalton Fury
Finally Jamal said, “No. There is nothing.”
“Good. Let’s go!” Kolt instructed. He grabbed the Kalashnikov from the dead Taliban leader, and the two men ran up the dry creek bed toward the trees and hills to the north. Kolt had gone no more than ten yards when he felt pain in his feet. He stopped, looked down, and realized his feet were bare.
He’d forgotten that he’d lost his sandals in the river the night before. He tiptoed over to the closest dead Talib and removed his sandals. They were a tad too small, but they were better than racing barefoot through the woods.
THIRTY-ONE
Bob Kopelman stared blankly out a window covered with clay dust, out past the front gate of the warehouse compound, out past the busy Grand Trunk Road, and toward the mountains to the south. The sun was setting off to his right, his men were hours overdue, and his dozen calls to Jamal’s phone had gone unanswered.
He’d been in contact with Pete Grauer over the border in Afghanistan and asked for a UAV overflight of the route he expected Racer and Jamal to take, but Grauer had demurred until evening, wanting to bring less attention to his drone activities at the base and over the border.
So Kopelman sat there, staring out the window, worrying about his men, worrying about encountering bandits on the road himself if he had to go back to Peshawar after dark, worrying about thieves hitting this warehouse, since he’d sent the security detail home hours earlier so that they would not see the American spy.
Worry came with his line of work, but the importance of this operation and the thin resources allotted to him caused him to agonize on this afternoon more than on almost any other job in his long career.
A big colorful bus slowed on the road in front of his gate, pulled to a stop on the gravel right in front of it. Gold and silver mirrored baubles adorned the bus like Christmas ornaments, and they caught the setting sun and sent it like laser beams into Kopelman’s eyes. He turned away from the grimy window for a moment, and when he turned back, the bus was pulling back out onto the road.
Jamal and Racer stood at the gate.
“It’s about time!” Bob exclaimed as he reached for the keys on the desk and shot outside into the swirling clay dust.
Once back inside the warehouse office, Bob greeted Jamal with a traditional Pashtun greeting consisting of a squeezing of the arm by the shoulder, with the other hand placed on the chest.
While still holding on to Jamal’s arm, Bob regarded Raynor. The ex-Delta man looked like hell. His clothing was torn and streaked with blood, and the exposed skin on his filthy body was covered with cuts, bruises, and scratches. “You need a doctor?” Bob asked.
Raynor just shook his head.
“No? Well, you just might when I finish kicking your ass.”
Kolt cocked his head like he did not understand. Kopelman turned away, reached over to a single-eye electric burner, and hefted a metal pot. He poured hot green tea into a cup for Jamal. He sugared it heavily and poured in a long stream of hot milk from a shallow pan, and stirred it some more. Jamal thanked him and sipped greedily. The American ex–CIA man then reached into a little fridge and tossed a bottle of water to Raynor.
Kolt guzzled the cool water, poured a little on his long matted hair, and let it run down his back, where more cuts and bruises from the river adventure and the shoot-out in the dry creek bed were hidden under his kameez.
Jamal began speaking as soon as he’d had a few sips of tea. He told Bob about rushing in the tractor to rescue the American, about discovering him half conscious under the cedar tree, about the run-in with the Taliban and the fight that ensued, or at least what he saw of it, which was nothing but the end result. Four dead, the last one by execution.
Then he spoke of the forced run for much of an hour, all the while with the American prodding him onward. Then hours of walking, with no rest, no water, no tea. Then the arrival at the bus stop, the stress and fear of Mister Racer doing or saying something to reveal himself, and finally the connection to the bus that brought them there.
Kolt didn’t understand half of it, but he got the gist of the message Jamal was trying to impart to Bob Kopelman.
Mister Bob, working with Mister Racer sucks!
Kopelman took it all in. He sipped sweet green milk tea himself while the story unfolded. Finally he turned and looked at Racer. Just stared at him for a long time like an incredibly annoyed father. “Pete told me I’d have my work cut out for me with you. Would it have been too much for you to just accomplish the mission we agreed on?”
Raynor was defiant. “I did a lot more in a lot less time.”
Kopelman snapped back. “By risking everything! It’s not just your life to piss away, kiddo. Jamal could have been picked up at any point on that retrieval, and Jamal can be connected back to me! I have other associates who would have then been rounded up. Don’t try to sell me that ‘I’m a one-man army’ bullshit, because I’ve heard it all before, and everyone who ever said it either is dead, or else suddenly learned to sing the praises of teamwork when it came down to getting a team of operators together to extract him from whatever shitty situation he’d managed to fall into all by his lonesome! You had a simple, manageable mission to accomplish—”
“That wasn’t going to get us eyes on the men!”
Bob started to shout again, but instead he just slammed his hand against the metal table. The sound exploded like a bomb in the tiny room. Jamal stayed out of any argument, looked off into space, and sipped his tea, holding his hot cup with his thin fingertips. His hands still jittered from the events of the day.
Raynor may not have expected a ticker-tape parade once he’d made it back out of the valley, but he also had not expected this washed-up CIA geezer’s vitriol.
He said nothing, just sipped water and brooded.
After a moment Kopelman seemed to regain some composure. “Nevertheless. You are here now.… Did you find the American prisoners?”
Raynor nodded.
“At least you accomplished that.”
At least?
“Are you okay?” he asked in Pashto.
Kolt nodded. “Yeah, just some scrapes. I got banged up when—”
“I am talking to Jamal.”
“I am okay, Mister Bob.”
Kopelman addressed Racer. “We’ll stay here tonight. It’s not safe on the road after dark. I’m going to let you contact our associates over the border. I am sure Pete will be interested in talking to you.”
* * *
Kolt drank an ice-cold Coca-Cola, his feet propped up on a couch in Kopelman’s small but secure one-room office. Bob had gone up the street to another World Benefactor warehouse to retrieve a large aid truck. Once back in the building, he’d clear out the contents of one of the large packing crates in the cargo hold. He would use this to hide Racer during tomorrow morning’s return to Peshawar.
Jamal had walked up the street to grab a dinner of rice and vegetables for all three men.
Raynor was instructed to lie low, to not answer the door, to not do anything but sit there in the room with the shades drawn and rest.
And call his boss.
“Hey, Pete,” he said when the connection was finally made through Kopelman’s satellite phone.
“Racer, it’s good to know you made it out.”
“Thanks to Bob and his local contact. And, I assume, thanks to Pam Archer and her Predator.”
“Affirmative. We had the UAV over you for much of your … mission.”
Kolt sighed. Shit. “How much did you see?”
“I think the UAV caught just about all of the most exciting parts last night.”
“Right. Okay.”
“Quite a thriller, watching all that in real time. None of us here, however, saw you doing much of anything that we talked about you doing.”
“Yes, sir. Had to make some game-time changes to the op.”
“Game-time changes? It was almost like you were playing an entirely different sport.”
Kolt did n
ot respond.
For a moment neither did Grauer. Finally he said, “Pam checked on Zar’s compound. There is no sign of any changes to the force structure. Killing the two men seems to have worked. They don’t seem to be aware their compound was infiltrated.”
“That’s good news.”
Grauer cleared his throat. “You found them, didn’t you?”
“Pete … I shook T.J.’s hand.”
“My God.”
“All four guys on the team and one of the helo pilots survived the crash. All five of them are still alive. Skip Knighton, the Agency Mi-17 pilot, is sick, but the rest are okay.”
“Proof of life?”
Kolt paused. Sighed. “I filmed part of my conversation with T.J.”
“Good work. Upload your file to—”
“I lost it in the river.”
A short delay from Grauer. “Shit, Kolt. That’s why you went in.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Grauer sighed. He was not pleased, but he recovered and moved on. “Did you find out which building they were in?”
“Yes, sir. But it’s complicated.”
“Explain.”
Raynor told Grauer about the hidden Kord machine guns, and the fact that Zar kept one of the prisoners sequestered from the others as an insurance policy. He then told him the odd story of the counterfeit Rangers, the German, the phony gear, and the power struggle between the Taliban and the foreign al Qaeda contingent that T.J. had mentioned.
“What in the name of God are they up to?” was all Grauer had to say. He had Kolt on the speaker in the Operations Center. Immediately analysts began speculating about what this new information meant. The conclusions were the same as those Kopelman, T.J., and Raynor had suspected. Al Qaeda was planning some sort of infiltration-type attack in Afghanistan, and with good equipment, it was highly likely they would be successful.
Finally Grauer said, “Okay, son. You’re going to need to sit tight on that side of the border for a bit. Bob will look after you. I’m going to go to my contacts at the Agency, as well as Colonel Webber. Our job was to find the men, and as far as I’m concerned, we’ve done our job. But with everything you just told me, I don’t think anyone is going to be too interested in hitting that compound. We’ll just wait to hear back from them and take it from there.”
“Yes, sir. I thought maybe Bob could check with some of his contacts in the area, see if anyone knows anything about this German guy.”
Grauer answered back immediately: “I was thinking the same thing.”
THIRTY-TWO
At first light the next morning Jamal left the World Benefactors warehouse on foot. He walked along the road to the west until a passing bus stopped and picked him up. He’d been told by Bob to go back home and await further instructions. He was also to contact Zar’s camp and tell them his truck had broken down, so he would not be able to make his delivery that day.
Again Kolt Raynor had to cram his body into a tiny space. A crate that had shipped milk powder had been emptied, and that was to be his accommodations for the short ride back to Peshawar. Raynor was stiff and sore from the past four days in the field, so even though the crate was a little larger than the stash compartment in the Hilux, it took Kolt longer to fold himself inside. Kopelman actually hammered the wooden lid back on, a bit too tightly for Kolt’s liking, and soon the ex–Delta officer heard the truck’s rear door slide down and lock into place.
The truck’s engine coughed and then roared to life, and soon they were on their way.
Bob had told Raynor that it was a thousand-to-one chance that the contents of the World Benefactor vehicle would be inspected at the border crossing from the FATA into Peshawar, but Bob had also said there was no reason to roll that thousand-sided die. Kolt would hide out and deal with his cramping muscles, and he would shut the hell up about it.
And Kolt Raynor did what he was told.
They arrived in Peshawar just after 9 a.m. The truck stopped and the rolling lift door opened and finally the lid of the milk powder crate was pried off and Raynor struggled to stand back up, to step out of the crate, and to stagger out of the truck. He found himself in a garage. Bob had already disappeared through a doorway, and Kolt followed him through, climbed some stone steps, and entered a small urban home, nondescript and utterly devoid of anything that looked American or even Western.
Bob stood in the tiny kitchen, already putting on a tea kettle, and this time he placed two cups on the table and pulled milk from his fridge.
They sat in silence for a few minutes while the water boiled, a few minutes more while the tea brewed. Kolt had regained sensation in his extremities after the tight confines of his uncomfortable morning ride, and he was ready to begin the hunt for this mysterious German somewhere around Peshawar. Sitting quietly over a pot of steeping tea seemed like an absurd waste of time, and he started to mention this to Bob, but the burly bearded man just held his hand up before he could speak.
Bob seemed to get pleasure in this local custom, and he did not want to be disturbed.
Tea was poured, sugar was spooned, milk was added, and the concoction was stirred, all by Bob Kopelman. Raynor thought the man looked and acted nothing like an American here, in this house, performing this foreign ritual.
Finally, Kolt took his cup and brought it to his mouth. Bob sipped his own, and then spoke, as if the two men had just stepped into the room from opposite ends of the house to find one another.
“Big day today for me. Not so much for you to do. I’ll work the phones, maybe run out and have tea with a couple of my local contacts, try to find this Kraut working for al Qaeda.”
“I can help you—”
“You can help me by finishing your tea, heading into my spare room, and plopping your ass on the bed. I put a first aid kit in there for your boo-boos, and I’ve got a shitty battery-operated AM radio on the desk you can entertain yourself with, but other than that, I don’t want you to do jack squat.”
“Bob, at least let me—”
“You can take a shower, but the water won’t be hot. The electrical grid around here is overtaxed—there are brownouts throughout the day, and always at this time of the morning. The Taliban bomb the power stations and transformers pretty regularly, and the locals don’t really fight back anymore, so don’t expect much electricity during your stay.”
Raynor knew when he was beat. This guy would get his way. He’d sit tight, and his blood would boil while doing so, but Bob was running this show.
Raynor spent the day in the guest room of Kopelman’s house. He’d eaten well, rehydrated his body, coated the worst of his cuts with antiseptic and bandaged them, and gotten a little sleep. He spent the rest of the time waiting for the call from Grauer, the call that would let him know what to do next.
Kopelman spent his morning on his phones. He had at least five different mobiles, not including the satellite, and he sat in his office, across the main living space of the house, and mumbled into one phone after the next. Raynor heard English, but he could not understand much of it because the old CIA man whispered and spoke in short, terse sentences. Then he made a call and conversed in Dari. Raynor barely knew a word of it, but he recognized the tenor and tone of the language. Then there were a half-dozen conversations in Pashto. Raynor understood that Bob was trying to track down the German man, but he had no idea whom he was calling or where he was focusing his search geographically.
Then Bob made a call and spoke Dutch. Raynor gave up trying to figure out the big man’s game plan; instead, he rolled back on the bed and tried to go back to sleep.
His full stomach churned with the worry and the guilt.
Kolt had just dozed off when Bob leaned into the spare bedroom. “Racer, I’m meeting a guy at the Pearl Continental Hotel. He may have a lead on the German.”
Raynor sat up quickly. “I’ll come with you.”
“No, it’s going to be just me and a contact sipping scotch. I don’t need a Delta shooter on this run.
”
Racer did not want to sit here, but he did what he was told. “Okay.”
Kopelman leaned a Kalashnikov rifle against the wall inside the door of the guest room. Sternly he said, “You won’t need this.” Then he shrugged as he turned away. “Unless you do.”
Kolt heard Bob leave the house about 3 p.m., but he did not hear a car start or the garage door open.
Raynor lost track of time. He felt better physically, lying there in the quiet house, with only distant but persistent street noises to keep him company. But this downtime after his operation into the Tirah Valley was tough on his mental state. He worried and brooded, wondered if something he had done might just lead to the failure of the operation to rescue the prisoners. He wondered if these five men, men who had finally been located to a fixed area so that a plan could be concocted to go in and get them out, might already be gone. Might already be on the road, chained together, hidden for the winter season, only to reappear next with the spring offensive, once again to serve as human shields for the Taliban and al Qaeda.
Raynor lay there on the bed, his mind full of worry about his decision to enter Zar’s compound. Zar was no fool. He’d made it this long in power in the valley. It would just take a hint of danger for the warlord to have his captives moved or, God forbid, to get rid of them permanently.
Shit, Kolt thought. What if his actions got the men killed? What if by him coming here he’d actually done more harm than good?
Kolt heard a key in the front door. He leaped to the Kalashnikov, hoisted it to his shoulder, flipped down the safety, and began moving up the hallway toward the main room.
Bob Kopelman locked his front door behind him, and turned to Raynor. Kolt lowered the rifle as he noted an expression of utter glee on the face of the other American. “A grand total of one German fitting T.J.’s description in Peshawar, and I found his ass!”
Thank God. A lead, an objective, something to shoot for. “Who is he?” Kolt asked.
