Pashtun

by Ron Lealos

  Now, Afghanistan. Old generalities and stories that everybody knew and the Company called scurrilous lies. Their truth wasn’t the concern—if the Firm was involved, why did Dunne let Washington, Finnen, and I continue to breathe? Dunne was either out of the “need to know” circle, had a conscience, or was in it up to his sparkling blue eyes. Or . . . the CIA wasn’t involved, and he was carefully trying to find out who the real bad guys were without raising the alert level to red in Langley. Maybe get a major promotion and a leather chair outside of the rock pile if he reported back with a resolution.

  It was nearing midnight, and we could have another piece of the puzzle solved in a few minutes if everything went according to plan.

  Desolation. The moon was higher and provided us with a view across the empty dirt plain. The only relief was the outline of the high mountains to the east and west and a few masses of sandstone. It was somewhat like the flat landscape of the Kansas cornfields minus the corn. No people or huts, but there was evidence of a major digging project. The road we were parked on came into existence only to help in building the pipeline. The camels and goats didn’t need it. Beside the 6x6, a pump station surrounded by a chain link fence had been erected. No sign of the buried pipes other than a wide disturbance in the soil. The smell of motor oil, lubricant, and grease still lingered in the air. Washington and I stood next to the truck, no firearms visible.

  Five minutes after our arrival and right on time, two sets of headlights appeared on the western horizon, the direction of the air strip outside Qalat. Beams bounced up and down from the ruts in the dirt. Dust separated the two vehicles. Washington and I were silent, and I assumed both of us were trying to anticipate surprises. The men in the SUVs would be highly trained and most likely had killed. And would be willing to do so again.

  They parked with the rear ends of the Ford Expedition SUVs pointed to the back of the 6x6. All the seats, other than the driver’s, had been removed, including the passenger-side front. I still wasn’t sure that all the ammo cans would fit inside. Two men got out, the overhead cab lights disconnected and dark. They were dressed exactly as Washington had described. Black coats, shirts, pants, and ugly thick shoes. No handshakes. No greetings. They went directly to the back of the 6x6 and threw open the flap above the tailgate.

  “How ya’all doin’?” Washington asked.

  No response.

  “Well, I’m just fine, if I do say so myself,” Washington said as they walked by without acknowledgment of any kind.

  The two men went to the SUVs and reached to open the doors at the rear. A nod from Washington, and, a second later, we were poking our Hush Puppies against their spines. “What you got in here?” Washington asked, patting the side of the man in front of him and taking out a Sig Sauer P226 pistol from underneath the man’s coat. I did the same with my captive.

  “On your ass, kraut,” Washington said, making an assumption. He pulled the man back and tripped him at the same time, following him to the ground with the barrel of the Hush Puppy, never losing contact with the .22 and the man’s body. It was all orchestrated. I did the same within a heartbeat. Now, we were both crouched above our prey with Hush Puppies pressed to their temples.

  The pattern was the same. Get their attention first, and show it was serious merciless drama. Before the man below me could try some Special Forces escape trick, I lifted the pistol and shot him in the knee, immediately bringing the barrel back to his face and standing up. The man started to reach for his wounded leg, and I shouted, “No! Don’t move!” He lay back down and started to groan, eyes closed.

  “Harsh,” Washington said. While the man below him watched his partner writhe in anguish like a wounded twin, Washington followed my lead.

  After patting down the man underneath him, Washington walked over and stood beside me. I had already frisked mine. No additional guns or knives.

  “So far, a good night’s work, my man,” Washington said. “Let’s skin ’em while they’re still alive and then smother ’em with their own pelts. Just like we did the last ones. That was pure joy.”

  It was probable at least one of the men spoke English. Violence was its own language, but we needed to ask questions and get reliable answers before we killed them. That was the verdict. They were dead men, but we wanted to give them hope. On our side, it helped that these two were most likely mercenaries. There was no country but greed for them to defend. No wife and children to shield. No conscience. Nothing to betray.

  I kicked the closest man in the bleeding knee. He jumped but didn’t howl—only a curse and tightening of lips.

  “Okay, Adolph,” I said, “you’ve got one slim chance. You tell us who you’re working for, and we’ll let you limp home to Berlin. Don’t act like you don’t understand. I heard you say ‘shit,’ not ‘scheise.’” I kicked him again in the same spot. “You can start now by giving me your name.”

  The man was planning his strategy. With a crippled knee, he would be sure it was impossible to get up and take the pistols from our hands. The real question was how much he could get away with not telling us and still get back to the beer garden. I had been in the game too often. Washington was learning.

  I waited a few seconds and shot him in the other knee. It would be counterproductive to let him analyze too long. Once he started talking, I knew it was an open faucet.

  “Cruel,” Washington said. He shot the other man in the knee.

  “I hope you missed an artery,” I said. “A few inches off and these two will bleed to death before we get the information we need.”

  “I’ll have you know I took first place at sniper school,” Washington said. “Weren’t no man—white, black, brown, or yellow—who was more accurate.” He raised his pistol and shot the man in the toe of his ugly shoe. “If ya’all wants ta check it out, you’ll find he’s missin’ his little pinky.”

  “Klaus,” one man grunted.

  Washington looked at me and nodded.

  We weren’t psychopaths. It was all part of the movie. These two had to understand it wasn’t a comedy and believe we were bloodthirsty, pitiless madmen. Americans.

  “Pleasure to meet ya, Klaus,” I said. “No use lyin’. My name’s Morgan, and this joker beside me is Washington. Hope that little taste of truthfulness sets a good precedent for the proceedings.” I kicked him again in the wound. “Now who sent you out here in the middle of the night to pick up millions of dollars worth of smack?”

  Scheise. He was still thinking. At this rate, we’d have to whittle them down to talking heads.

  Washington was the good guy.

  “Joker?” he asked. “Reminds me, did you hear about Hitler’s new microwave? It seats five hundred.”

  Klaus groaned, and I didn’t think it was about the lame joke.

  “Wintershall,” Klaus said.

  If it was German, of course, it would be. Wintershall had signed an oil-extraction and oil-export agreement with the Turkmenistan President. That Southwest Asian country was the source of much of the oil that would be flowing through the pipeline, and Wintershall was the major funding source. Wintershall was the largest oil company in Germany and one of the biggest in the world, its roots beginning about the time of the rise of the Nazis. At least some of Dunne’s intel was real.

  “Who do you report to at Wintershall?”

  “We are in security. We do what we are told.”

  “Who gives the orders? I need a name.”

  “Heinrich Schultz. He is the head of security.”

  “And Schultz reports to the Wintershall President.”

  “Of course.”

  “Who trained you?”

  “KSK.”

  “Kommando Spezialkräefte,” Washington said. “The German Special Forces commandos. Very elite group of krauts. Met some at Camp Perry. Tough as year-old bratwurst.” He smiled down at Klaus. “Not as tough as Rangers, now, wouldn’t ya say, Klaus?”

  “What do you do with the dope?” I asked.

  “Take it
to the plane and load it,” Klaus said.

  “Okay. Where does this plane depart and arrive?”

  “The pipeline air field. About twenty klicks west of here.”

  “And it goes to?”

  “Frankfurt.”

  Some good news. It wasn’t Ramstein. Less of a chance of US military collusion. At least at that end. Someone was still sending Washington emails and pulling strings to allow him to deliver money and dope from inside a base in a warzone. Something not easy to arrange or disguise.

  “When the heroin gets to Frankfurt,” I said, “where do you take it?”

  “Kassel. About one hundred kilometers north. It is the head office of Wintershall.”

  “And you deliver the dope to Schultz.”

  “No. We take it to a warehouse, and it is left there. I don’t know what happens next. I don’t know the men who receive the heroin. We use a Wintershall van. That is the end of our duties.”

  “Do you bring money with you when you come back?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who gives it to you?”

  “Are you going to kill us?”

  “Yet to be determined. If you keep answering, you might get to see your Fräulein again. If not, the vultures will, be peckin’ at you by daybreak.”

  Klaus turned to the man beside him who was groaning and muttering.

  “What’s his name?” I asked.

  “Werner,” Klaus said.

  “Since you’re doin’ all the talkin’, we’ll shoot Werner first. Or use a Ka-Bar on his balls.” I took my Ka-Bar from the sheath at my thigh and exposed the blade to the moon rays, holding the knife close to Washington’s face. “I think Kathy here is gettin’ hungry. Needs a taste of sauerkraut. What do you think, Washington?”

  “She’s been fasting,” Washington said. “It’s been a day or two since she last castrated anyone. She’s gotta be jonesin’ for nutsack.”

  Insane. Klaus had to confirm for himself his wavering opinion that we were two wack-job soldiers out for a night of zany murder and mayhem. I sensed he was beginning to digress. I couldn’t let him before he went into shock. I bent down and put the tip of the Ka-Bar on his pant-covered dick.

  “I repeat,” I said, “who gives you the money?”

  Klaus tried to turn away. Pressure from the knife on his crotch wouldn’t let him.

  “Herr Schultz,” he said.

  “How does it get to Gardez?”

  “I don’t know. Our responsibility is only to bring it to Qalat.”

  “And then you, what, just leave it lyin’ around? Who do you deliver it to?”

  Klaus went on the babble, telling us how he would guard the money until an unnamed American soldier made the pick-up, using different passwords, claiming no recognition of the grunt or where the money went. Usually, it would be divided, and different men, one American and one Afghan, would do the fetching. After releasing the cash, Klaus and Werner returned to Kassel and resumed their normal leg-breaking duties until it was time to meet Washington or whoever made the heroin drop on the next visit. There had been several other dope drivers besides Washington, and Klaus didn’t know names or what happened to them. Klaus and Werner were “couriers only,” he said.

  “You had no idea why the men who brought the heroin were changed?”

  “No.”

  “But they were always US soldiers?”

  “Yes.”

  “You didn’t kill them, did you Klaus? Take the dope and destroy the trucks? Make it look like another successful Taliban hunting party?”

  In the last few klicks before we got to the pumping station, we had seen the burnt-out shells of three trucks. Nothing remarkable here, where they grew like the occasional mulberry tree and AAA wasn’t around to tow them to the garage.

  Klaus hesitated. Confessing to being players in an international drug cartel was bad but not nearly as evil and dangerous as admitting murder of US soldiers while two of their countrymen and brothers listened. I pulled the trigger on the Hush Puppy, and the bullet passed close enough to his head that he surely felt the breeze and the chunks of dirt that zapped into the side of his skull.

  “Yes. We were ordered to kill them after the second delivery.”

  “And you never heard a single name or saw any on uniforms?”

  “Nein.”

  Beside me, Washington had been scuffing his boot on the ground as if he was getting impatient. And angry.

  “This is scheiße,” Washington said. Bullshit. “They’re just good Nazis who fly in with millions of dollars in cash and fly back with a ton of dope after executing US military personnel. And zay know nuzzing.” He squatted and put the tip of his Hush Puppy on the end of Klaus’s nose. “Gib mir einen Namen oder ich schiesse Ihre Nase.” Give me a name or I will shoot off your nose.

  “Ich habe noch nie jemand gesehen. Ich habe nie gehört, keine Namen,” Klaus said. I never met anyone. I never heard any names.

  The Hush Puppy made its patented phuuppp sound. Klaus tried to grab what was left of his nose, and Washington pushed his arm down.

  “Abernathy,” Klaus said, before blood filled his mouth. He began to spit so he could breathe. Gasping for air, he said “Er kam, um uns zu sehen.” He came to see us.

  This was too important. I kicked him in the wounded knee for the third time and let him splutter.

  “English, Klaus,” I said. “We’re in Afghanistan.” Washington hadn’t told me he spoke German. I wanted to follow along with the plot, too, and continued to marvel at Washington’s depth.

  Klaus was losing it fast. Blood was flowing freely from the stump of his nose into his mouth. I used the sleeve of my camo to wipe his lips.

  “Speak to me, Klaus,” I said.

  His eyes were closed and jaws open wide. He was wheezing.

  “Abernathy was talking to us. Another man, a sergeant, came into the hangar and said ‘Captain Abernathy, sir. The convoy is leaving.’ Abernathy was very upset.” All of this was mumbled slowly and between Klaus’s gasps. “Abernathy said, ‘Forget what you heard’ to us and left. He had already told us the money would be transferred the next day instead of that day. We were to use the same password. ‘Discotheque.’” He looked at Washington for the first time. “Do not kill me. Bitte.”

  “Okay,” I said. “You’ve cooperated. Only a few more easy questions. Did you know what you were buying?”

  “Ja,” Klaus said. “Heroin.”

  “And you knew you were buying it from the Taliban?”

  “Ja.”

  “And they were using the money to buy arms to kill Coalition forces, including your KSP brothers?”

  Klaus paused. He looked away.

  “Ja.”

  “And the heroin you delivered, you had to know it was going into the arms of junkies all over the world, probably a lot in Deutschland.”

  “It wasn’t what I wanted. I was only taking orders.”

  “Did you ever see any other Americans around who might have been involved?”

  “Once, a few months ago, a man in civilian clothes watched us unload the truck. I didn’t know who he was and told him to leave. He just smiled and walked away.”

  “No name?”

  “Nein.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Older. In shape. Blue eyes and good teeth.”

  A sigh from Washington. In the dark plain, it was easy to see for miles. Headlights appeared in the south from a place where no road was supposed to exist. The bouncing of the beams told us it probably didn’t. The vehicle wouldn’t be close for at least a half-hour. Washington and I looked at each other and nodded. He shot Klaus. I shot Werner. Both in the head.

  Quickly, we arranged the Germans’ bodies in the front seats of the SUVs. I took the RPG out of the back, and Washington pulled the 6x6 about twenty-five meters away. I aimed at a fuel tank, and the SUVs went up in one fireball and a very loud boom!

  Within seconds, I was in the 6x6, and we were driving back toward the highway with our
headlights off. The tail lights had been smashed out with the butt of the RPG, and it was easy to follow the dirt road in the moonbeams. We were on our way back to Jalalabad with a truck bearing fifty ammo cans filled with sand. Finnen had made the switch during the night, and I had no idea where the heroin was now but was confident it wasn’t ever going into anyone’s vein unless the CIA gained an advantage.

  Nothing much to say until we reached the pavement. The trip out seemed smoother than the way in. Washington had no trouble staying on the dirt track. I assumed both of us were processing what we had just done. And what we had learned.

  There was no traffic on the highway. The moon was lower and no longer blocked the stars with its brightness. This high, the galaxies were easy to distinguish in the blackness. Rocks and dirt made up the view—no cityscapes or passing lanes to interrupt the unlined road. Carcasses of torched vehicles were the only dots on the horizon, along with sporadic abandoned huts. The night air was clean and smelled of dirt. Beginning to climb as we drove north, breathing would become increasingly difficult, having adjusted to the lower elevation of the kill zone. Our eyes were as wide open as the tops of Bud cans. We were nowhere near the end of the Dexedrine high, not even starting to come down. Little in the way of conversation other than the passing of water bottles. I fidgeted and tried to focus on anything that might be hiding a roadside bomb.

  “Did you believe Klaus?” I asked Washington.

  Washington didn’t take his eyes off the pavement—just shook his head up and down.

  “Nothing to be gained from lying,” he said. “I don’t think he was protectin’ the Rise of the Third Reich.”