Gravedigger

by Mark Terry

  It turned out that Mohammad Anwari’s group had been involved in an ongoing series of skirmishes with another local warlord, Abdul Karim Azimi. In his head, Derek dubbed this new player AKA. At least part of the battle involved who controlled the valley they had recently cut through, because it was good grazing land, which was hard to come by in Afghanistan. Mohammad Anwari’s group’s village, Zin, was just on the other side of the mountain. AKA’s group was just over another mountain pass on the far side of the valley. These three were scouting the pass, making sure that none of AKA’s people were planning on coming over the mountain in the middle of the night and attacking Zin.

  Derek sat and listened carefully. What they were describing wasn’t exactly a civil war, but the kind of clusterfuck he’d spent time advising on for Special Forces prior to Operation Desert Storm. He’d hit all the garden spots of the world – Zimbabwe, Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, and Zaire, just to name a few.

  The thing he had learned during these advising jobs for the U.S. government and military was that alliances were unstable and you had to watch your back. The idea was to find the most rational and influential warlord and back him with training, money, and weapons, not necessarily in that order. The joke of it was that “rational” was rarely the best word to describe these mad dogs of the third world. In Derek’s experience, the best words to describe them were “ruthless” and “psychopathic.” At this moment his greatest wish was to return to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia and kick the shit out of Richard McGee, his boss at the Agency, who had sent him here.

  Johnston was having Noa tell the men that he very much wanted to meet their boss, Mohammad Anwari. The exchange between the men and Noa went on for some time. Finally she said, “I was hoping they would escort us there tonight, but they say they can’t, they have to complete their reconnaissance. But they will escort us there at daybreak.”

  With that agreed upon, the muj thanked them and rode their horses off into the rain and darkness.

  Johnston looked at Derek. “What are you scowling about?”

  “I think I’ve ridden this train before and I wasn’t too happy about where it ended up.”

  “What are you talking about?” Noa said. It was her turn to clean up after the meal. Usually Johnston cooked and she and Derek took turns cleaning and repacking. She was scrubbing at one of the stolen cook pans with a cloth and a bit of sand.

  “Derek’s getting pissy,” Johnston said.

  Derek stood up. “You know what I’m talking about, Jim.”

  “I have a job to do. We all do.”

  Derek stared at him. “Oh fuck it.” He walked away from the campsite into the darkness, the rain cold on his face. Behind him he heard Noa say, “What’s his problem?” and Johnston reply, “Derek’s an idealist at heart.”

  Then he didn’t hear anything else because he walked further up the trail and out of earshot. He let his eyes adjust to the poor light. It was dark, still raining, no stars or moonlight. Behind him he could see the flickering firelight.

  He hiked around in the dark for a while, trying to calm down. The constant rain drove him back toward the camp. Pausing on a craggy overlook, he could see their campsite below him, Johnston and Noa sitting next to the fire talking. Scanning his surroundings, he got a dim sense of the valley spread out below them.

  A flash of light lit up. Another. Then another.

  He started running toward the campsite. As he ran, the distant sound of gunfire followed the flashes of muzzle fire.

  “Don’t shoot me,” he shouted as he raced into the camp. Both his partners were on their feet, AK47s at the ready. “Our buddies down there must have run into somebody. Let’s go.”

  “Derek—” Johnston said.

  And then more sounds came to them. More gunfire. Much more than was likely to be made by a handful of people shooting at each other. Noa was scanning the horizon with the binoculars, but Derek and Johnston were scrambling to throw their gear into packs and running toward the horses. She kicked sand over the fire, caught up her rifle and bag and rushed after them.

  It took only a couple minutes to saddle the horses and get them packed. Flinging themselves onto their horses, they headed up the trail, away from the fight. The fight was growing closer and louder. And in addition to gunfire came the rumbling sound of horses – dozens of them, at least.

  The trail upward was not good for a night ride. Derek wore his night vision goggles and wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. Their horses seemed comfortable with the narrow and twisting route, although they refused to move at more than a canter. With a steep drop on one side, that was just as well.

  They hoped to stay ahead of the hostiles, but Derek wasn’t convinced that was going to be possible.

  Behind them came the sound of a horse moving very fast. Derek spun off his horse, knelt and aimed the assault rifle. Breathe in. Breathe out. Focus.

  Out of the gloom came the oldest man. Over the horse lay the boy. His eyes grew wide when he saw them.

  Noa spoke with him for a moment. “He says Omar and his horse are both dead. That they’re coming.”

  They knew that. They could hear the thunder of hooves.

  Derek looked around them. Pointing, he said, “You take the horses and go. Jim and I will box them.” He was hauling two RPGs from the back of one of the horses as he spoke, tossing it to Johnston. To the general, he said, “I’ve got the NVGs. I’ll strafe forward. You strafe the rear. Then we’ll unleash the grenades.”

  Johnston nodded and ran toward the sides of the canyon, climbing quickly in the dark. Noa disappeared quickly from view with the horses. It was a mad scramble, but Derek got a high spot and settled in with the AK, the RPG, and several clips.

  He had just gotten settled when the first of the horsemen appeared in his night vision goggles. He knew that the first of the horsemen had just passed Jim’s location. Wadding the finger of a glove in each ear, he counted silently, then unleashed a burst of gunfire. The horses reared and the mujahideen shouted, firing blindly.

  Dropping the AK, Derek picked up the RPG, slammed home a rocket and waited.

  From Johnston’s position diagonally across the canyon, a chatter of gunfire. The muj were stuck in a crossfire. If they had any brains they’d turn and get the hell out of there.

  They didn’t. They tried to push ahead.

  Derek fired the RPG. Even with the cloth jammed in his ears, it was deafening.

  The RPG destroyed at least one horse and rider. Shrapnel and fire tore through others. The air filled with the screams of horses and men.

  From the other side of the canyon Johnston fired another RPG into the heart of the group of remaining men.

  Two horses and riders remained. They wheeled their mounts and headed back the way they had come.

  Derek watched through the NVGs for several minutes, before slowly climbing down from his perch. Johnston joined him a moment later.

  He counted ten dead men and an equal number of horses. Two of the horses were still alive, but struggling from wounds. Derek took out his handgun and ended their lives, shaking his head. This wasn’t why he had joined the CIA or come to Afghanistan.

  Turning, he saw that Johnston was kneeling by one of the muj. When Derek joined him, he saw that this one was alive, though barely. Neither of them spoke Pashto, Arabic or Farsi. Johnston was talking to the man, but in English, in too low a voice to hear. Maybe comfort in his final moments. Derek didn’t know. He walked around and checked the other men, but they were all dead.

  He scavenged a couple spare clips and said, “Ready to go?”

  Johnston looked up and tapped his ears. “I can’t hear crap,” the general said.

  Derek nodded. Firing an RPG next to your head could permanently damage your hearing. His own ears rang, but he thought he’d be fine eventually. He waved his arm, indicating they should start hiking. Johnston nodded.

  Side by side, the two men began to follow the trail Noa had taken.

  13


  IT WAS TWO HOURS BEFORE they crested the mountain. By that time Johnston’s hearing had partially returned. They still had not caught up with Noa. When they came over the top of the ridge, they could see the village far below them. It was maybe large enough for several hundred people, had dozens of stone and mud houses, with a wall surrounding it. They were still an hour or more away, but the village of Zin had signs of life, even what looked possibly like electric lights.

  Twenty minutes later they hiked around a bend in the trail to be met by three muj carrying rifles. Derek and Johnston raised their hands over their heads. The RPGs were slung over their shoulders, the AK47s in their hands.

  One of the muj said in English, “Are you Derek Stillwater and Jim Johnston?” It was heavily accented, but clear enough.

  They admitted they were.

  “Very good. Your friend told us you were coming. What happened to the people chasing them?”

  “Most of them are dead,” Derek said. “Two of them got away.”

  “Good. Follow us.”

  They turned and walked away, seemingly trusting Derek and Johnston at their backs. Derek shot Johnston a look and he shrugged. As they walked, Derek slid the NVGs over his face and glanced around. Then he realized that the three muj were just the welcoming committee. On the ridges around them were another half-a-dozen men.

  “We’re pretty well covered,” he said to Johnston in a low voice, gesturing with his hand.

  “I think we’re where we need to be,” Johnston said.

  Derek glanced at him but let it go. They were led down into the village. Noa met them. Cocking her head, she said, “How did it go?”

  “We’re alive,” Derek said. “How’s the kid?”

  Her face clouded. “It’s pretty serious. They’ve got a couple people who know some medicine, but this may be too much for them.”

  “I’ll go take a look at him. Will I need an interpreter?”

  “One of them is a midwife. Her English is decent.”

  Noa and Johnston left to speak with Mohammad Anwari. Two muj led Derek through the village to a small building made of mud brick. He could hear the rumble of several generators, which undoubtedly accounted for the electric lights in some of the buildings.

  Inside, similar to the first village they had visited, he found a rudimentary clinic. A woman in one corner, face stretched in pain, was clearly in labor. Two elderly people were asleep on cots. The boy lay on a cot. A man and a woman knelt over him. His guide spoke to them in Pashto.

  The woman turned to him. “You are a doctor?”

  “Not exactly. But I’ve had medical training. Maybe I can help. I’ve also got a fairly extensive first aid kit.”

  The woman’s name was Boosah. Not entirely surprisingly, the man’s name was Abdul.

  Squatting next to the cot, Derek took a look at the kid’s wounds. He’d been shot three times. One in the left thigh. One in the left shoulder, which he didn’t like much at all. And one in the lower right abdomen. He said, “Do you have any blood or even saline?”

  They shook their heads. They had compressed the wounds, but they were still bleeding. The thigh wound appeared to go through. The same seemed to apply to the abdominal wound. The shoulder wound, however, looked like the bullet was still in there.

  He pulled on a pair of rubber gloves from the first aid kit, tore open an alcohol swab and swabbed down the gloves. From the kit he took a bag of QuikClot, sprinkling it into all three wounds. He spread antibiotic cream over the leg wound and placed a trauma dressing over it.

  The stomach wound was next. It was way beyond his expertise. Despite the QuikClot, it was still oozing blood. “What’s your opinion about this?” he asked. “Is there a lot of internal damage?”

  “If we can get him stabilized, we might be able to move him to Kabul, to a hospital,” Boosah said. “But the shoulder wound—”

  “Yeah. We’ll get to that. Okay. I’m thinking we clean the abdominal wound as best we can, pack it, tape it, and then worry about the shoulder wound.”

  They agreed, although Derek wasn’t convinced they would have disagreed with him if he’d suggested making a voodoo doll out of a candle and singing Beatles songs over the kid. He pulled a small plastic bottle of saline from the first aid kit. Way too small for their needs. “Boiled water?”

  “We’ve got that,” Abdul said.

  “We’re going to need it.” He irrigated the abdominal wound as best he could. They brought him water, and he continued cleaning the wound with it. It started bleeding again. He sprinkled more QuikClot, more antibiotic cream, and said a little private prayer that he wasn’t fucking things up.

  He tore open a tampon that he had stashed in the first aid kit. One of his military trainers had referred to this as ghetto first aid, although the politically correct name was “field-expedient field medicine.” The tampon promptly soaked up the blood and expanded. He didn’t have an endless supply of good field dressings, so he grabbed a roll of duct tape, used his combat knife to cut off several pieces, and taped the tampon in place.

  Sitting back on his heels, he looked at Boosah and Abdul. “You understand that I’m not a doctor, right? I’m trying to save his life. I’m hoping to do as little damage and stabilize him so you can transport him to a real doctor. You understand this, right?”

  They both nodded. “If either of you think you can do this better than I can, say so.”

  Boosah said, “I think you’re doing fine.”

  “Has he had any kind of pain medication?”

  They shook their heads. Derek was really uneasy about the idea of giving him morphine. He pressed his fingers to the boy’s neck. The heartbeat was slow but steady. He sighed. Should he go in after the bullet or just seal up the shoulder wound and hope they could get the kid to real medical help?

  They were waiting expectantly. He said, “How will you get him to a hospital?”

  Abdul said, “We have a couple trucks. We can drive him to Kabul or to the WHO refugee center.”

  “How long will that take?”

  Abdul shrugged. “We can’t take the path you came in on, over the mountains. The road goes around over the next pass. So, in rain … we are hearing about flooding … ten hours, maybe.”

  Derek bit his lip. He listened to his heart beat in his chest and breathed in and out, trying to get past the tiny bit of panic he felt. “What about that Russian helicopter we saw?”

  Abdul and Boosah passed a concerned look between each other. Abdul, carefully, said, “He works for whoever can pay him. He is not a friend of Zin.”

  “Where does he work out of?”

  Again they looked at each other. There was some sort of internal debate going on between them. Finally Abdul said, “Shing Dun. Sort of. He has a house about two kilometers this side of Shing Dun. That’s where he parks the helicopter. He is a mad man.”

  “How far from here to Shing Dun?”

  Again they looked at each other. Abdul said, “Shing Dun is our enemy.”

  “I understand. If I needed to go to Shing Dun to bring the helicopter here, how long would it take us to get there?”

  “By horse, probably two hours. By truck, maybe an hour. But you won’t get there without being stopped by the Mullah’s people. They would stop you and probably kill you, because you are a Westerner.”

  Picking up the bandages, he closed off the shoulder wound and said, “Keep an eye on him. I need to talk to your boss and my people.”

  HE FOUND NOA and Johnston in a house with Mohammad Anwari. Anwari was a big man, not just for an Afghani, but for anyone. Probably six-foot-five and three hundred pounds. His eyes were dark, his beard thick and long and shot with gray. The three of them sat on pillows on the floor drinking tea and eating dates, nuts, and dried fruit. When Derek walked in, Anwari jumped to his feet and hugged him fiercely and shook his hand. In English with an accent somewhere between Pakistan, London, and unintelligible, he said, “So how is Ibrahim? You fix him up?”

  “He’s in
rough shape,” Derek said cautiously. “He really needs to get to a hospital. But I’m not sure if he’d survive a ten-hour drive in your truck.”

  Anwari frowned, tugging at his beard. “There is nothing you can do?”

  “His wounds are beyond my skills and medical supplies. I have … a suggestion.”

  Anwari waved him toward a pillow around a low table. “Come. Have some tea. Some food. What is your suggestion?”

  Derek washed his hands in a bowl supplied for the purpose and sipped the tea. It was hot and sweet and he desperately needed it. “I understand there is a Russian with a helicopter in Shing Dun.”

  Anwari’s reaction wasn’t completely unexpected. He sat bolt upright and glared at Derek. “He is a Russian! And a mercenary. He helps the Sheik and the Mullah anyone else who can pay him.”

  “He could fly Ibrahim to Kabul in under an hour,” Derek said. “Get him to a hospital or the WHO refugee center. Get him to a surgeon. Save his life.”

  “You can help you! You are a doctor!”

  Shaking his head, Derek said, “I’m not that kind of a doctor. I’m a professor. Like a teacher? A scientist, not a medical doctor.”

  “This Russian, he is no friend.”

  “We need him,” Derek said, “if we’re going to save Ibrahim’s life.”

  “We don’t have the money to hire him. If we did, I would use him to fight my enemies.”

  “I think I can convince him to help me. If you can get me close to his house without being seen by the Sheik’s people, I can get to him without being seen and convince him to help us.”

  “How will you convince him?” Anwari demanded.

  Derek smiled and held up his hand like a gun. “I can be very convincing.”

  14

  NOA WAS GOING WITH HIM because she spoke some Russian. He studied her gaze. “How many languages do you speak?”

  “Eight fluently.”

  “Okay. We’re not going to get distracted on this particular trip, are we?”