THE VAGABOND
MOONLIGHT CHECKERED THE RESTLESS sea with rolling shadows as passing waves rose and fell, and the big vessel slid through the water. Beth Ledford was at the bow, staring out at the blackness, and the cold spray that flew up every time the bow cracked open another wave made her shiver, and she eventually decided to find a more sheltered spot. She walked down the starboard side, got out of the buffeting wind, and found some deck chairs that were lashed to the bulkhead. She unfolded one and moved it close enough to the railing that she could put up her feet. No stars out tonight. Her whole world seemed black and bleak, and her future even worse.
Kyle Swanson had watched from the deck above. He had awakened an hour ago, tangled in his sheets after another taunting dream visit from the Boatman, his own personal inner fiend, but things had been squared away between them. The Boatman did not have a lot to say that night and laughingly paddled off in his rickety boat to cross the final abyss with another load of Kyle-killed souls. Swanson was once again told to go back to work. That was their deal: Kyle kept the supply coming, and the skeletal Boatman hauled away the corpses, along with Kyle’s shame and the guilt.
He put on a gray sweatshirt and black sweatpants and went outside, barefoot on the damp deck, blending into the evening mist and standing invisible in the cool air in the shadow of an overhang. The action was done, the extraction was done, the debrief was done, and even the inevitable reckoning with the Boatman was done. He felt good. So why was his spider sense tingling, as if something had lightly touched his protective web? He stretched and scanned a three-sixty, checking off everything as normal, and then saw Beth, alone in a deck chair, in the dark.
No one knew any better than he what Beth was going through. He went down to the armory, checked out a large gun case of polished aluminum, and returned to the deck softly, barely stirring the air.
Swanson was good at waiting. He stood about ten feet behind her, balanced with the slight roll of the yacht, looking out at whatever she was seeing in the blank space beyond the stern. Then he spoke. “Beth, the common wisdom is, give these things time and you’ll get over it. I call bullshit on that, because it’s advice that is usually given by people who have no idea what it’s like. Truth is, you’re not going to get over it. The best you can do is to learn to accept it.”
She didn’t turn around. “How long have you been there?”
“A while. Just finished adjusting my own attitude. You ain’t the only one who killed people back there.”
That made her turn and look over her shoulder. “I can’t believe that it bothers you.”
“I’m a professional, and I still have to process it. Otherwise, it stacks up to be so much baggage that it can crush you.” He moved forward, put the gun case down, and leaned against the rail to face her. “Tell you a secret. My nickname in the Corps is ‘Shaky’ because someone—General Middleton, actually—one day found me shaking after a firefight. I never lived that down. The older jarheads still call me Shake. I hate it.”
Beth chuckled. “Hard to believe, Kyle. Can I call you Shaky?”
“No.” Swanson took a moment to make sure they were alone. “Don’t look at the lives you took as being innocent victims. Every one of them would have killed you first if they had the chance. We had to stay focused and committed to our mission, and they were in the way. Bad juju for them. There is always going to be another mission, and another one after that.”
“But—”
“No. Listen to me first. I’m playing schoolteacher right now, giving you all of the information you need to process where you are. I was very reluctant to take you along on the mission, because another professional scout-sniper would have been a more experienced and reliable partner. You won me over, probably saved my life. I had a long talk with Sybelle Summers before we left Kandahar to come out here, and she agreed to recommend you for a Silver Star. Problem is that you can never talk about it because this was a secret mission.”
“Kyle, I don’t deserve that decoration. You did most of the work.”
“Oh, I’ll probably get another medal to throw in my footlocker, but it’s unimportant. Let me finish. We are offering you an opportunity to earn your way into Task Force Trident. Only two other candidates, both men, are in the pipeline at present because we’re so selective, and there is no favoritism. You would be officially slide off of the Coast Guard books to become a special liaison within the Pentagon, and your records all go into General Middleton’s private safe. We operate at the pleasure of the president and answer to no one else. As for rank, that disappears, too; you will be whatever you need to be, a Navy commander or an Army sergeant or a civilian, like a retail clerk, depending on the mission.
“It will take approximately two years to finish the training, and you can be tapped for missions throughout that time. You will attend a wide spread of schools, many of them not on the books. The teaching ratio is usually one-on-one. Among other things, you would shoot at the Ghost House with Seal Team Six, learn IEDs from demolition experts, study forensics with the FBI, and learn to fly a helo. All kinds of other stuff, because the training never stops. Your expense account will be virtually unlimited, and the pay will be substantial, out of a black budget.”
“And in return?”
“Outwardly, you will look and act the same, but inside, it will be the end of cute and demure Beth Ledford, the ever-popular Little Sure Shot. Personal relationships will be hard, if not impossible. Without putting too fine a point on it, you will be a highly skilled killer who will do whatever is necessary, including sacrificing your own life, to protect your country.”
“Be like you?”
“God, let’s hope not. This is not a decision for you to make immediately. We want you to take some time off. When we finish in Washington, you go home and kick back for a while and think it through. Long as it takes.”
He shoved off from the rail and went to the gun case, which lay flat and gleaming. “Come here,” he said, and Beth followed him over. “You’re a farm type, so what’s the best thing to do when you fall off a horse?”
“Get right back on?”
“Exactly. Conquer your own fear, and also let the sumbitch horse know who’s boss. That’s where you are now, Beth. You need to shoot again, just to let your body and your brain know that you can and will pull the trigger.” He unfastened the snaps and lifted the lid. A lone rifle with a big scope lay in a nest of foam. “Behold.”
“Good God, Kyle. It’s beautiful.”
“It’s the Excalibur 3GX—third generation, experimental. We’ve been working on it for more than a year, and I’m taking this one back to 29 Palms for field tests. Pick it up.”
She did, and the weight felt good. She pointed it out to sea and peered through the scope, which came alive with color and numbers and surprising clarity from its enhanced abilities. “Can I fire it?”
“That’s why it’s here.” He opened a box of bullets that rested in one corner of the case. “Here’s the biggest part of the experiment. What do you estimate would be the range for this weapon?”
She guessed: .50 caliber, all the bells and whistles. “Up to sixteen hundred meters, a mile?”
Swanson laughed. She was talking about their skilled craft again, and already the worries about the death she had wrought were fading. “Nope. More than two miles, plus, with accuracy.”
Beth looked up at him. “You’re kidding. That’s impossible.”
He handed her one of the long bullets. “Here’s the secret. Instead of the normal round, this weapon fires a rocket-assisted projectile, a miniature artillery shell. Titanium tip for individuals, depleted uranium for vehicles.”
“A RAP bullet?”
“Yes,” he said, holding up a heavy brass cartridge and rolling it between his fingers.
“Gimme. Gimme.” She was smiling as Kyle handed her the RAP round. No more tears. He knew they had her.
29
CONGOLESE CONTRACT WORKERS BONTE Ibara and Guychel Mouko coo
ked up a hot and spicy stew and ate it hungrily while strips of goat meat sizzled over a small fire. After emerging from their hiding place belowground and seeing the carnage of the battle, they decided to leave. The wide eyes in worried faces of other workers indicated they would not be the only ones abandoning this sinking ship of stone.
While everyone else was still out on the bridge, the two Africans moved fast. First, they slipped into the administrative office, where Guychel ransacked the desks until he found the combination for a small safe. He removed their passports and several hundred euros and American dollars.
Meanwhile, Bonte pecked out a letter on the computer and printed it out on the embossed letterhead of the company that had hired them. It stated that his contract had been fulfilled and he had permission to return home. He signed with a ballpoint pen in the unreadable flourish of a busy, self-important bureaucrat and carefully folded it into an envelope, then did an identical letter for Guychel.
Next, they raided the mess tent and found the pantry stocked with everything they needed. Extra potatoes, a few loaves of bread, some cheese, rice, and even a bottle of wine each went into their sacks. The two men did not return to the workers’ barracks but retreated to a single room attached to the garage where the heavy equipment was serviced. It was a good temporary shelter, and they rested there with full bellies, waiting for the hours to pass.
At two o’clock in the morning, they ventured out, each carrying a canvas bag slung across a shoulder. It was silent all along the bridge, one of those rare moments when all construction had been shut down. They hoisted the gear into the bed of a battered white Toyota truck that Guychel Mouko had hidden among the earthmovers. “I want to put as many kilometers behind us as possible before daylight,” he said, starting the engine.
Ibara climbed into the passenger seat and laid his AK-47 across his lap. “There is no choice. Fucking New Muslim Order!” He spat from the window. “They were probably going to kill all of us workers to keep the secrets of this bridge. The Paki army is going to be arriving tomorrow morning, and all exits will be closed. Then escape will be impossible. On top of that, the Americans will probably be back. They will never let this place exist.”
The truck lurched into motion and left the big garage, passed through a big puddle of light, and crossed the bridge, slowing as it approached the checkpoint at the west end. The guard hut was empty. “We are not the only ones leaving,” Bonte commented.
“Then they are wise, too. Only dead men will be here tomorrow night.” Guychel nodded toward the edge of the road. “These rocks will be slick with blood.”
“Not ours.” The two friends settled into silence and drove away.
* * *
LIEUTENANT KHALID ATHAR FAROOQ of the Pakistani Army stood in the gun turret of a Humvee, leading a small convoy of Mercedes-Benz Unimog 1300/L trucks packed with a full platoon of soldiers, with another armored Humvee bringing up the rear. Farooq was tired of sitting down and could get a better view and some fresh air by standing behind the mounted machine gun.
His unit had moved out of its encampment a hundred miles away when orders had come to help with a security problem at the mysterious bridge that was nothing more to him than a location on his map. No urgency had been attached to the instructions. A plan was drawn up as Farooq began the complex task of readying his men for the move; there were a thousand items to check before the wheels could roll. As the hours had passed, newer reports came in about a major battle at the bridge; then all contact was lost. A flyover by a Pakistani air force plane at first light showed that the place seemed abandoned.
Twenty-five-year-old Lieutenant Farooq was an experienced officer, a combat veteran of the lawless tribal areas, and as his convoy neared its destination, he felt a familiar prebattle prickling of the hair on his neck. When his Humvee led the trucks around still another hairpin curve in the mountain road, the entire bridge complex came into view about three kilometers ahead. It was huge, precisely carved from layers of stone at the back of a broad valley, and seemed ghostly still. Farooq brought the convoy to a halt, unwilling to take his platoon farther before some reconnaissance. They could use a brief break to prepare for whatever lay ahead, and the lieutenant climbed out and walked forward a hundred meters, accompanied by his platoon sergeant.
“Nothing is moving down there, sir,” said the sergeant, scanning his binoculars over the entire area.
“Put together a small patrol, Sergeant, and send a Humvee down for a quick look,” the lieutenant replied. “Let the rest of the men get out of the tracks to stretch, then make them ready, weapons locked and loaded. I don’t like this place.”
“Yes, sir.” The sergeant turned away but stopped when the lieutenant, with his binoculars still at his eyes, grabbed him by the arm.
“Hold on, Sergeant. Look at the far end of the valley to the south, just above the hills.”
The sergeant no longer needed the big glasses. Two fast-moving F-18 fighter-bombers were streaking in low, and large canisters were tumbling free beneath them, glinting in the early sunlight. Both soldiers spun away and broke into a run back toward the trucks, screaming at their troops, “Take cover! Incoming!”
The pair of U.S. Air Force F-18s from Kandahar peeled out of their run, the thundering engines roaring off the cliffs and mountains. Another strike set was coming in right behind them, already toggling their switches when the first large napalm containers slammed into the valley and exploded, splashing out tidal waves of the incendiary fuel-gel mixture.
The first bombs struck near the old fallen bridge, and each of the others marched just a little farther up the valley, cooking it with immense heat and roaring flames that rolled forward in swaths of orange, red, yellow, and black. The mission was to turn the valley into a wasteland by saturating the hillsides with the hellish brew that would burn out the motion sensors and cameras and anything else that the deadly fingers of napalm could touch.
After the second set of F-18s banked out of their bomb runs and screeched away, Lieutenant Farooq peered from his hiding place in a ditch and saw that the valley had been turned into a charred and burning wilderness that stank of jet fuel. Then he looked at the bridge, which seemed untouched, still dominating the area. His men, emerging from their cover, were also staring at the balls of fire still lashing the valley. “Hold up on that patrol, Sergeant, and set up defensive positions here until we can figure out what’s going on,” Farooq said. “I’ve got to report this.” He took his time getting to the radio, trying to keep his hands from shaking, thankful to still be alive. The mighty crush of the napalm had fallen almost two miles away, and he still had felt the flash of its heat, as if it had landed right on top of him.
Three B-52H Stratofortress bombers that had been around longer than the men who flew them had taken off hours before from the isolated secret base on the island of Diego Garcia, a thousand miles from the coast of southern India. Eight engines hung below swept-back wings with a span of 185 feet carried the large planes at a very high altitude with ease, unseen by anyone below.
In what was no more than a routine milk run for the biggest bombers in the U.S. arsenal, the triangle of three aircraft reached a plotted GPS location only thirty seconds after the F-18 napalm strike. The large doors on the bottom of the planes opened with the hiss of hydraulics, and every B-52 spilled out fifty-one Mk-82 general purpose bombs, each weighing five hundred pounds.
Lieutenant Farooq was recovering from the shock of the napalm attack, and leaning against his Humvee, smoking a cigarette, while his superiors processed his new information. He looked around to satisfy himself that everyone was in position and the road was blocked. Nobody would leave or enter the area at his end until they could assess what was going on. The fires were out in the valley, but smoke still rose like thick mist from the earth.
He heard a high-pitched whine in the heavens, no louder than wind whistling through trees, and for the second time that morning, his world erupted.
The B-52 bombs hammere
d down just far enough away to give Farooq a chance to actually see the explosions blossom in towering spouts of earth and dirt before the sound reached his ears and the concussions slammed him. He staggered and fell, and his men again dove for protection. The vehicles rocked on their suspensions and the 153 bombs strolled along, punching the ground and gouging out craters in ragged, side-by-side lines that stretched more than a mile. A dust cloud rose like a curtain and drifted toward the soldiers. Farooq’s ears were ringing, his jaw was sore from gritting his teeth, and he pulled a scarf across his nose and mouth so he could breathe.
He had never experienced anything like this. What was it? He had never even seen the planes that dropped the bombs, and looking up now, he still could not find them. Rising to a knee, he pulled his binoculars to his eyes and was finally able to spy the flight of three bombers disappearing on a steady northward course. Turning back to the damage, the young officer realized the target had once again been the valley, which was now twisted and pulverized. After being scoured by napalm and crunched by bombs, it was a no-man’s-land. The bridge was still untouched, but he doubted that would be the case very long. He reached again for his radio to alert his superiors, knowing that they still would not believe that the Americans were actually attacking in Pakistan with a full military strike, not with unmanned drones or a team of special operations soldiers, but in force, with the heavy, frontline weapons that had been in use since the Cold War. If they didn’t believe him, he would invite them to come and see for themselves, for he knew this party was just starting.
Even as the shaky lieutenant was updating his report, he heard the throaty sound of a multiengine airplane approaching and saw an AC-130 coming up the valley, low and slow and ominous. “Now a Spectre gunship is coming in,” he yelled. “It’s going after the bridge.”
The lumbering plane climbed for some altitude and banked to the right as the sensors precisely computed the target and the side-firing gunners opened up, raining 40 mm and booming 105 mm cannon fire. As the aircraft flew past the bridge, left to right, the shells started at one end and walked all the way across, tearing up the surface and destroying almost every vehicle and piece of equipment on it. It made three passes before departing, leaving the surface in smoking ruin.
Running the Maze s-5 Page 24
