The Way Home oj-2

by Cindy Gerard

  “Put it on the table.” He didn't want to touch it and compromise the evidence, if there was, in fact, evidence.

  “What’s in this for you?” he asked, because he was not only cautious but also curious.

  “We wish only for Jeffery to return home.”

  He stared at her, trying again to get a read. She seemed sincere enough, but there were a million sincere faces in Afghanistan. Some of them had led U.S. troops into ambushes.

  “We also wish to make the exchange in such a way that there is no possibility of my father and myself being linked to him. As I said, the Taliban are searching for him. If they find out we harbored him for these several months, we will be killed.”

  He stared at her long and hard, compelled to believe her yet wary. “OK. Once more. Start from the beginning, and don’t leave anything out.”

  THE AMERICAN LIEUTENANT was a tall, lean man with blue eyes and an air of wariness that made Rabia realize he could, if he chose, decide to hold her as a possible enemy combatant.

  She told herself to remain calm, that she spoke the truth, and because it was the truth, he would believe her.

  “We’re pulling out in the morning,” the lieutenant told her after offering her a seat on a camp chair. “When we get back to our forward operating base tomorrow, I’ll pass your story and the material you brought with you to the camp commander. He’ll have everything run through our computers. If it checks out, it’ll go immediately up the chain of command. Once they give the word, we’ll be back to get him.”

  Rabia struggled with both relief and regret. “Then you believe me.”

  He hesitated a moment. “I believe that if we have a soldier out there in danger, we need to get him home.”

  “You will promise to do what you said? To check thoroughly?”

  “We’ll investigate. I can promise that.”

  While his response gave her a measure of relief, she was not convinced. “How long will this investigation take?”

  “It depends on a lot of things. But it will be done as rapidly as possible.”

  She nodded. “When will you be back in Emarat?”

  “You’ll understand that’s not information I can share.”

  Clearly, he still did not trust her. And she did understand, as she was still deciding if she could trust this man to do what he said he would do. “It is my understanding your patrol arrives here every five days. We, too, have our ways of gathering information, Lieutenant Court,” she added when he gave her a look. “Just as the Taliban will also know of your coming and going, since you are clearly not conducting a secretive mission.”

  He nodded, conceding the point to her.

  “Would it be correct to assume I could make contact five days from now?”

  “Possibly sooner if your story checks out.”

  “There is more Jeffery has done to assure you that he is alive.”

  “More?”

  “Do you have a map of the area?”

  He nodded.

  “May I see it?”

  After a moment’s hesitation, he dug a map out of a satchel.

  “Here is my village.” She pointed it out for him when he spread it out on a small folding table. “It is a three-hour drive by car from here. Jeffery assures me there are surveillance drones in constant flight over the area. Direct them here, to my village. Jeffery left a message on the roof of my father’s house to prove he is alive and there.”

  When he looked up from the map, he was frowning. “What kind of message?”

  “This I do not know. He said the American military would understand and recognize it.”

  The lieutenant, while still skeptical, was clearly interested. “Let’s say the blood and hair follicles confirm they’re recent samples belonging to Sergeant Albert. How do you propose we extract him without implicating you and your father?”

  “Jeffery is now in hiding in a safe place away from my village. When you return here after confirming that I am telling the truth, I will provide directions to where you can find him.”

  “This could all be an elaborate trap,” he said thoughtfully.

  “The proof I provided will confirm that Jeffery is alive. He needs medical care, Lieutenant. He needs to return home. I urge you to bear that in mind. I urge you to hurry. We cannot keep his presence a secret much longer. I am also fearful that in an effort to protect my father and me, he will attempt to find his way to you on his own. In his physical condition, he will be captured. And then he will be dead.”

  RABIA WAITED FIVE days. Each evening, she dressed in black and carefully made her way through the streets to the edge of the village. Heart pounding, she would search the flat, barren landscape for signs of the U.S. patrol.

  Lieutenant Court and his men did not return.

  She expanded her search of the perimeter of the village then, scouring the entire area every night, thinking they might have set up camp somewhere else. One night, she encountered a Taliban patrol. Thank Allah, she heard them before they saw her.

  She dropped to the ground, lay as still as the earth, and listened as they passed within twenty yards of where she hid in the open with only the dark as cover.

  As frightened as she had been, she still came back every night for five more nights.

  The Americans did not return.

  She did not know how that could be. The blood and hair—they had to find a match. Jeffery’s letter. The message he had left on the roof.

  Finally, her father made her accept the truth. They had not believed her. They were not coming back.

  JEFF LAY ON the roof, his refuge, and attempted to deal with the disappointment and despair. Beside him, Rabia lay in troubled silence. It had been more than a week since she’d returned from Emarat, tears in her eyes because she feared she’d failed him.

  He stared at the night sky. She didn’t understand. He was the one who had failed. He’d let her risk her life for him, and because of his guilt, he’d died a thousand times alone in that cave, waiting, certain something had happened to her. Certain she lay dying or dead somewhere with a Taliban bullet in her head.

  He’d been half out of his mind with fear for her when she finally came back to him. That’s when he made up his mind. No matter what happened, she had to leave here—or he did.

  “You need to go,” he said again, as he’d said every day since she’d returned. “How can I convince you? You and your father need to go to Kabul. You have relatives there who will take you in. You have a life there as a teacher. You have rights there that you’ll never have if you stay here with me.”

  “And what of you. Jeffery? If I go, what happens to you?”

  How did he tell her that he no longer cared what happened to him? How did he tell her that the patrol had been his last chance?

  “They’ll come for me,” he said, not believing it but wanting to convince her that he did. “They’ll put it all together, and they’ll come. And they’ll come here. That’s why you have to leave.”

  He still couldn’t figure out what had happened. Had the lieutenant simply written off her story as fantasy? Had he thought she was trying to lead them into a trap?

  In the end, it didn’t matter. They hadn’t come. They weren’t going to come.

  And he was done. Done putting her at risk. Done hiding out like a coward.

  The Taliban would not give up searching for him, and because of that, Rabia would always be in danger—unless he could persuade her to leave.

  “Let us not talk of this tonight,” she whispered, and snuggled closer. “Let us be together. The world and war do not exist in these moments when we are together this way.”

  When she bared herself to him like this—heart, body, soul—it was so easy to let himself be lulled by her soft words, her soft lips, her giving flesh. But when it was over and she slept, exhausted and sweet beside him, the guilt beat at him like a fist.

  One more week. If he couldn’t persuade her to leave, he vowed on everything he had once been that he would sn
eak away and put as much distance between himself and Rabia as he could.

  Let the Taliban do what they would to him.

  He would not put her in danger any longer.

  And he would no longer be less than a man.

  Chapter 22

  Langley, Virginia, late October

  THE INTERNATIONAL THREAT ANALYSIS AND Prevention unit at Langley was Mike Brown’s baby. ITAP officially fell under the Department of Defense table of organization as contracted labor. Unofficially, the ITAP unit was a front for a covert rapid-response tactical team that DOD did not want on anyone’s radar, nationally or abroad.

  Mike and his boys operated dark and lean—the way they all liked it. They also operated with complete impunity. That was the pro. The con was that with impunity came deniability. If they screwed up and an operation went south, DOD would not come storming in, showing U.S. military muscle and getting them out of their fix. They swam or sank on their own.

  So when Brown got the call from DOD that morning and was told to set up the ITAP briefing room at thirteen hundred hours and to expect company, he’d known something big was about to go down.

  “Listen up, gentlemen.” Brown addressed his team from behind the podium at the front of the small room. Behind him, a map of Kandahar Province bordering Pakistan was projected on the wall from a laptop. The map had been requested by DOD. “Best behavior, OK? We’ve got big-leaguers on the way.”

  “How big?” Peter Davis, ITAP’s operations manager, had arrived in his wheelchair, a tablet in his lap and a puzzled look on his face.

  “You’ll know when I know,” Brown said, glancing at his go-to guys, Jamie Cooper and Bobbie Taggart. Both looked alert and curious, as did the team’s new recruits, Brett Carlyle, Enrique Santos, and Josh Waldrop, all former independent private securities specialists who had recently been brought into the fold.

  “When’s this little powwow supposed to start?” Cooper asked, crossing an ankle over a knee, his foot going a hundred miles an hour, relaying that he was both excited and impatient.

  Before Brown could respond, the door opened, and six members of DOD’s other “off the books” team walked in.

  “Holy crap,” Taggart muttered when he saw them. “Did the red phone ring in the White House?”

  Now that Nate Black and his team had shown up, Brown wondered the same thing. Calling together DOD’s two top covert and highly specialized tactical teams suggested a major development.

  Nate Black, former U.S. Marine captain, former CEO of his independent contract firm Black Ops Inc., and now the Black team’s CO, was the ranking operator in the room. Nate shook Mike’s hand, then joined him at the podium.

  “Not sure intros are necessary,” Mike said, “but let’s dot the Is and cross the Ts, shall we?”

  “Oh, by all means, let’s.” Johnny Reed grinned as he sat and gave the room in general a nod. “Top dog here, in case you didn’t remember. You can call me TD.”

  “Just this one time, dial it down, OK, Reed?” Black nodded to the front row, and the rest of the team introduced themselves. In addition to Reed, Gabe Jones, Rafe Mendoza, Luke Coulter, and Joe Green nodded hellos.

  “I’m going to cut right to the chase,” Black said, and passed out hard copies of an operations order—called an OPORD—to the members of both teams. “Everyone got a copy? Good. Read along with me, boys. Please hold your questions until I’m finished.”

  Mike flipped open the document and followed the report while Black started reading aloud.

  “Operation Aces High—Background Summary OPORD: In October this year, while conducting a routine patrol in Sperwan Ghundey, Panjwai, Kandahar, Afghanistan, an Air Force patrol operating out of recently established FOB (forward operating base) Shaker was approached by a female Afghan (Pashtun) subject on the outskirts of Emarat. Subject claimed that an American Special Forces sergeant had taken shelter with her family following his escape from enemy forces after being held hostage approximately three years. The subject provided correspondence stating it was written by the SF soldier, as well as physical evidence for verification.”

  Black stopped and took a sip of water when Mike handed him a glass.

  “Operational constraints precluded immediate authentication of said missing SF sergeant’s existence. Subsequent analysis of physical evidence, however, confirmed it did, in fact, belong to an American military service member believed to be KIA (killed in action) in February 2011, following hostile action near Chamkani, Paktia Providence, Afghanistan, on the Pakistan side of the border. His body was never recovered.

  “Despite repeated attempts to subsequently contact the female Afghan subject at a prearranged meeting place, contact failed. Two weeks ago, however, overflights of the area by drone assets revealed the letters ‘DOL’ and ‘JA’ formed on the roof of a dwelling in the village of Salawat as the woman had promised they would be. It could be surmised that ‘JA’ represents the initials of the missing team member, and ‘DOL’ could represent ‘De Oppresso Liber,” Army Special Forces credo. Note: one week later, the letters had been removed.”

  “Holy crap,” Taggart muttered under his breath.

  Black continued. “Findings: Probability of said SF sergeant’s existence: 85 percent.

  “Recommendations: Current political climate in Afghanistan during the draw-down coupled with increased Taliban activity in the area necessitates extreme care in handling this situation. Sanctioned military involvement is not advised. It is therefore recommended to deploy black ops and ITAP teams to conduct a surveillance mission, gather further intel on the existence of KIA/MIA service member and the Afghan subject who contacted the patrol and then report back to DOD for further orders, should an extraction of the SF sergeant, if he actually exists, becomes necessary.”

  Black downed another sip of water. “Enemy Forces: Taliban, both foreign and local, are expected to inhabit the area and number fewer than fifty. They have conventional commbloc (Soviet) weapons including RPG-7s, RPDs (machine guns), AK-47s. No evidence of heavy weapons, including DShK 12.7mm heavy machine guns or mortars. Communication with their command staff is limited to radio and cell phones. They utilize a wide variety of vehicles, including small to large pickup-type trucks, passenger vans, small buses, and cars. Their mobility is limited by road conditions, and they are often able to travel only by foot or using animals.

  “Assets Available for Mission,” Black continued. “Troop assets will be available for a rescue of the SF sergeant, should he be found; however, there will be complete deniability and no participation by U.S. military sources to rescue black teams if it is not also in conjunction with the rescue of the reported KIA. Intelligence assets will be available as required, including drone, satellite, and Elint (electronics intelligence) to monitor enemy radio traffic. Air assets include aerial vehicles ranging from drones to fighter/bomber air strikes, B-52s, B-1s, and AC-130s. Further information on required air assets will be determined at a later date—by us,” he added pointedly.

  “One Russian-made Mi-17 helicopter with Afghan military markings will be utilized for team insertion and extraction. Utilization of this particular aircraft has two advantages: it adds further deniability that no U.S. forces were directly involved, and the Mi-17 can transport required personnel and equipment to carry out the mission and provide its own air support with conventionally mounted weapons.”

  Black paused again, and seeing that the men were all engrossed in the OPORD, continued: “A staging area will be provided at the Kandahar airport. Appropriate arms, ammunition, fuel, and other material assets will be made available to the team as specified. Assault and contingency plans will also be developed—again, by us.

  “Finally, the subject of the search is Medical Sergeant Jeffery Robert Albert, U.S. Army Special Forces Group (Airborne), C Company, 8th Battalion, 1st Special Forces Regiment, formerly believed KIA, February 2011.”

  Black looked up from the report. “I’ll take questions now.”

  Mike couldn’
t have asked a question if he had a rifle pointed straight at his heart.

  Medical Sergeant Jeffery Robert Albert.

  It couldn’t be. It could not be J. R. Albert, the husband of the woman his brother, Ty, had fallen in love with and intended to marry.

  But he knew Jess’s story. Her husband, J.R., Jeff, had been KIA by an IED in Afghanistan three and a half years ago. This could not be a coincidence.

  Jeff Albert might be alive. In all probability, he was alive. And while Mike was happy as hell about the prospect of bringing a hero home, he knew what this would do to his brother. It was going to kill him.

  He had to talk to Black. In private. He had to get more information.

  “Has the family been notified of the possibility that Albert may be alive?” he asked abruptly.

  “Negative,” Black responded. “That’s on hold until we either get eyes on him or confirm that this is a hoax.”

  “But you don’t think it is. You think this guy somehow survived.”

  “I do,” Black said simply.

  Before Mike could ask more, the team started firing questions at Black like bullets.

  “Where, exactly, are we inserting, sir?” Reed wanted to know.

  Black grabbed a laser pointer from a shelf in the podium and made a circle on the wall map in the general area. There were so many small villages scattered throughout the Afghan countryside that many of them weren’t even marked on the map.

  “Beg your pardon, sir,” Bobbie Taggart, former Special Forces himself, spoke up. “But isn’t it a bit—how should I put this without mentioning the words chicken shit—let’s say, unusual that Special Forces isn’t all the hell over this, draw-down or not? If that was our guy out there, there’d be so many of us jumping out of planes to find him, the sky’d be white with parachutes.”

  “Unusual is the key word, Taggart,” Black agreed. “Everything about this situation is unusual, starting with the fact that Sergeant Albert was listed as KIA and ending with the circumstances that brought his existence to DOD’s attention.”