Brad Thor Page 11

  CHAPTER 17

  NORTHEASTERN AFGHANISTAN

  Atrip to Nangarhar Hospital in Jalalabad confirmed what Elam Badar already suspected—his son’s jaw was broken. Though it was difficult for the boy to speak, Elam Badar had coaxed from Asadoulah what had happened. When the boy explained that Mullah Massoud’s retarded brother, Zwak, had attacked him without provocation, the father was incensed.

  He had always thought it ridiculous that the elders of Massoud’s village allowed Zwak, the halfwit, to run around with a rifle, even if the barrel was taped at the end. The man should have been kept indoors. Allowing him to roam the streets of his village accusing visitors of being spies or having come to poison the village well was asking for trouble. And now trouble had come.

  Asadoulah told his father how he had made the hour trek to the neighboring village to visit friends. While there, the boys told him about the American that Massoud’s men had taken hostage. Like many Afghan boys, Asadoulah had never seen an American woman before. His friends offered to show her to him.

  Asadoulah told his father that Zwak must have been on the other side of the hut they were using to hold the woman because no sooner had he begun peering through a crack in the wooden door than the retarded man appeared, called Asadoulah a spy, and clubbed the boy in the jaw with the butt of his rifle.

  Elam Badar knew that Zwak had a difficult time remembering the faces of those from even neighboring villages. He himself had been called a spy many times by Massoud’s brother and had been prevented from even walking past their well on more than one occasion. Zwak took his mock duties seriously, but in this case he had gone entirely too far. And so had his brother.

  If the Taliban commander was holding an American woman hostage, that was bad enough, but to put Zwak in charge of guarding her seemed downright foolish. The halfwit was incapable of responding appropriately. The fact that he had countered a bunch of boys peering through a crack in a door with violence proved what a danger he was. His attack on Asadoulah couldn’t be ignored. Zwak and his antics had been tolerated for far too long. Now a boy’s jaw had been broken. Enough was enough.

  Elam Badar parked his truck on the edge of the village and walked toward its center. He was not a particularly big man, nor was he particularly brave, and he did not relish the idea of having to deal with a Taliban commander like Mullah Massoud. But this was about honor, and the Pashtun code was very clear about how such things must be handled, specifically when it came to an assault on a family member.

  In the center of the village, built into a small copse of trees, was an elevated wooden structure with a wide veranda. It was here that the council of village elders, or shura, conducted all of the affairs for the village. Elam Badar mounted the structure’s stairs and removed his shoes before stepping inside.

  One of the villagers sitting on the floor inside recognized him and stood to greet him. They touched hearts and embraced. “It is good to see you, brother,” said the villager.

  “And you,” replied Elam Badar, who, though anxious to speak with the village elders, quieted the anger in his heart and chatted with the man for several minutes before requesting to be seen.

  “What has happened?” asked the man.

  Elam Badar forced a smile. He knew all too well how quickly gossip spread, and he didn’t want Mullah Massoud or his halfwit brother to have time to concoct a story to explain away the attack. He wanted to take them completely by surprise, and so said, “Nothing of great importance. I have a small matter that concerns both of our villages that I need to discuss.”

  He was shown to a small room off to the side where the village elders had just finished a meeting with a handful of men on another subject. After the greetings, the village elders ushered the other men out and invited Elam Badar to take tea with them.

  As he had done with the villager at the door, Elam Badar kept his anger in check and adhered to Pashtun etiquette. They talked about several different subjects of mutual interest before arriving at the true reason Elam Badar had come.

  “I understand you have an American visitor,” he said. “A woman.”

  Of the four elders in the room, it was customary for only one to speak. The man who did was in his sixties with an ash-colored beard and a stern disposition. He had a thick scar that began at the bridge of his nose and traveled downward across the left side of his face to just beneath his ear. Elam Badar knew that the scar was a souvenir from one of the many battles the elder had fought against the Soviets. His name was Baseer.

  “Our village is often blessed with visitors,” replied the chief elder with a motion of his hand that indicated he considered Elam Badar’s visit a blessing.

  Elam Badar nodded politely and kept going. “She must be very important if she is being kept guarded.”

  An uncomfortable silence descended upon the small room. Elam Badar allowed it to linger for several seconds before continuing. “Are you aware that while he was guarding her, Zwak assaulted my son?”

  It was obvious from the look on Baseer’s face that this piece of information took him by surprise. Elam Badar allowed his eyes to shift to the faces of the other three elders and he saw that they were equally shocked. Feeling the wind at his back, he removed from his pocket the paperwork that the young doctor at the hospital in Jalalabad had given him. Carefully unfolding them, he handed the pages to the elder. “With the butt of his rifle,” Elam Badar, asserted, “Zwak broke my son’s jaw.”

  The elder studied the paperwork and then handed it to his colleagues to read. “You have four boys, correct?”

  “Yes,” replied Elam Badar.

  “Which one are we talking about?”

  “My oldest. Asadoulah.”

  “I am sorry for his jaw being broken and for your family’s trouble in this matter,” said Baseer.

  “Thank you,” Elam Badar responded.

  The elder stroked his beard as his mind processed what he had heard. “Zwak is a simple man, we all know this, but he has never before been violent.”

  Elam Badar’s eyes widened. “He accuses everyone who enters your village of being a spy and prevents those he doesn’t recognize or cannot remember from walking anywhere near your well.”

  Baseer shrugged and raised his palms. “Yet still, he has never harmed anyone. Let me ask you. Your son can speak?”

  Elam Badar nodded.

  “What did he tell you happened?”

  “He said that he had come to your village to visit friends. They told him about the American woman and asked if he wanted to see her. He agreed and they took him to where she was being held. While he was trying to see her through a crack in the door, Zwak came from the other side of the building and struck him in the jaw with the butt of his rifle.”

  Once again the elder was silent. Elam Badar watched him as he stroked his beard and wondered if they truly grasped the seriousness of the situation. The Pashtun code was on his side in such a matter. No longer able to contain his anger over this situation having even been allowed to develop in the first place, Elam Badar opened his mouth and his ill-chosen words burst forth. “I know the American woman is not a guest in your village. She is a hostage, and you know it too. Have you any idea how dangerous this is for us? It’s not just your village that will suffer repercussions for this. If word gets out, we’ll all suffer because of what Mullah Massoud has done.”

  Baseer held up his hand. This man was getting away from himself very quickly. The other village was nearly five kilometers away. Whatever Mullah Massoud had done, it wouldn’t affect them.

  That said, Baseer was not happy that word had spread about the American woman. He had warned Massoud against bringing her back to the village. He had suggested they find someplace else to keep her, but Massoud had insisted. No doubt his decision came in part at the behest of the Russian, the one they called Bakht Rawan.

  The Russians had never had the Afghans’ best interests at heart, and the elder doubted that much had changed since their “departure” from Afghan
istan. The elder had seen far too many of them in recent years to believe they had given up wanting a stake in his country.

  But as much as the elder didn’t trust Bakht Rawan and the rest of his countrymen, the matter before him had to do with Mullah Massoud.

  It sounded as if the Taliban commander had placed too much confidence in his brother and though the elder had not yet heard Zwak’s side of the story, so far it was a very unpleasant situation that had the potential to get much worse. Elam Badar’s son had had more than his pride wounded. Something needed to be done. Villages had gone to war against each other over less, and while Massoud could summon hundreds of battle-hardened soldiers, Elam Badar’s village possessed guns and experienced mujahideen as well.

  “We will speak with Mullah Massoud,” said Baseer.

  “But he was not there to see what happened to my son,” protested Elam Badar.

  The elder held his hand up again. “We will also speak with Zwak,” he added.

  Once more, Elam Badar’s passion flared. “There can be no excuse for what happened to my son.”

  Smiling, Baseer signaled that the meeting was over. As Elam Badar embraced him, the elder held on for a little longer than normal. “We will make this right. I promise you. Your family and your village are important to us.”

  Elam Badar felt indignant, but he tried to push the emotion back down into the pit of his stomach where it had begun. “Thank you,” he replied.

  The other elders embraced Elam Badar and summoned the villager he was friendly with to walk with him back to his truck.

  When they stepped outside, the sun was already slipping behind the mountain peaks that surrounded the village and the temperature had begun to drop.

  Baseer watched Elam Badar descend the wooden stairs and disappear from sight beyond the copse of trees. Beneath his breath, he silently cursed Mullah Massoud. He and all of his Taliban brothers were going to be the death of Afghanistan.

  CHAPTER 18

  KABUL

  When Mei began sending out buckets of beer and enormous plates of food from the kitchen, Gallagher turned off the TV and rang the dinner bell.

  As people selected seats around the table, Mei ditched her husband and grabbed the chair next to Harvath. Flirtatiously, she tucked her arm through his and glancing heavenward said, “Finally, a real man. My prayers have been answered.”

  “Mine too,” replied Hoyt as he grabbed a large bowl of fried rice and scooped a portion onto his plate. “I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in months.”

  Everyone laughed. In addition to Harvath, Mei, Hoyt, and Gallagher, there were three of Mei’s Chinese girlfriends and two of ISS’s other employees seated at the table for dinner. Mark Midland was a twenty-six-year-old American communications expert who functioned as Tom Hoyt’s right-hand man and helped run the ISS ops center. He was tall and thin, with strawberry blond hair, pale skin, and a face full of freckles.

  Across from him was a thirty-four-year-old Canadian, Daniel Fontaine. He was a former member of Canada’s storied counterterrorism unit, Joint Task Force 2. While he claimed he had left JTF2 to get into the private security world in order to make enough money to pay for a ranch he had his eye on back home, Harvath had never believed him. There were plenty of other outfits that paid a lot more than Hoyt and Gallagher.

  The Canadians were a smart bunch when it came to gathering their intel. Harvath’s guess was that Fontaine worked for the Canadian Intelligence Security Service and was in Afghanistan to gather intel for the Canadian military operating within the country under NATO command. His ISS job was just a cover.

  Fontaine was a handsome, six-foot-one man with dark hair who was used to commanding most of the attention from Mei’s girlfriends, as well as any other female visitors who came to the ISS compound.

  If Fontaine wasn’t working protection on one of the ISS security contracts, he spent most of his evenings out partying with the Western ex-pat community. And what Gallagher and Hoyt referred to as “partying,” Harvath saw as most likely developing relationships with non-Canadian nationals and gathering intel.

  But no matter what Fontaine’s true marching orders were, both Gallagher and Hoyt praised him as being an exceptionally talented operator. He was also an immediately likable guy, and though he and Harvath had only met once before, they had gotten along very well.

  The sticky part for Harvath was whether Fontaine could be brought into what Hoyt comically referred to as their “circle of trust.” Both Gallagher and Hoyt not only knew that Harvath was in Afghanistan to spring Khan, they were being paid to help him do it.

  While Fontaine might be a good guy to involve in their operation, if he was what Harvath suspected him to be, he’d feed all of their plans straight back to Canada. So, as much as Harvath liked him, he decided to keep him out of the loop on Khan. As far as Fontaine was concerned, Harvath was in-country to drum up leads and help consult on the Gallo kidnapping.

  As the meal continued, everyone was drinking except for Harvath. His jet lag weighed on him and he decided to stick with caffeine. They also had yet to hear from Rashid, and Harvath wanted to keep a clear head until they had a better angle on what was going on. That went for Gallagher too.

  When Harvath saw him reaching for his third bottle of beer, he shot him a look. Baba G was Harvath’s right arm while he was in-country, and he needed to stay sharp. He was getting paid a lot of money to be on call twenty-four hours. He wouldn’t be good to anyone drunk.

  After Rashid had missed the two-hour call window by an hour, Harvath gave up looking at his watch. TIA, he reminded himself. He was on Afghan time now, and a promise from an Afghan to get back to someone in two hours didn’t necessarily mean he would get back to you in two hours. You have watches, but we have time, the Afghans were fond of saying.

  When the cell phone in his pocket did begin to vibrate, it took Harvath by surprise. He fished it out, only to realize it wasn’t his Afghan phone ringing, but his U.S. BlackBerry.

  Standing up from the table, he excused himself and stepped outside into the cold night air. A fire was going in the courtyard’s fire pit and Harvath walked toward it as he activated the call and held the device up to his ear. “This is Harvath.”

  “Scot, it’s Oz,” replied his pal back at CIA.

  Harvath was glad to hear from him. He hoped the man had good news. “Were you able to speak with anyone from the Afghan desk?”

  “I talked to two of them as well as an agent who’d been senior on the Soviet desk when the Russians pulled out.”

  “And?”

  “You were right about one thing,” said Ozbek. “The agency did have operatives there taking advantage of the troop withdrawal in 1988, as well as the collapse of Afghanistan’s Kremlin-backed government in 1992 when the Russians shuttered their embassy.”

  “How about the hard intel I need?”

  “According to these guys, not much was left behind. And what the Russians did leave was pretty well sanitized.”

  “So no drawings, no blueprints, nothing about the old Soviet base?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Harvath filled his lungs and exhaled, watching his breath float upward. “All right,” he said. “Thanks for trying.”

  Disconnecting the call, he slid the BlackBerry back into his pocket and stood for a moment warming his hands over the fire. From inside the dining room, he heard more laughter. In the ever-worsening hell that was Afghanistan, it was good that they could relax long enough to laugh.

  That made him wonder what Julia Gallo was experiencing at the moment. She was undoubtedly cold, hungry, and very scared. She also probably had no idea whether she was going to live or die. Kidnapping was one of the cruelest tortures a person could be forced to endure. Every time the jailer’s key turned inside the lock, every bump or shuffle outside your cell door made you wonder, Is this it? Are they finally coming for me? Is this the moment I die?

  He picked up a piece of brittle scrap wood and dropped it into the fire. S
omewhere behind him, he heard the door to the dining room open.

  Turning, he saw Baba G with his jacket on and his cell phone in his hand. “Rashid just called,” he said. “He’s got something for us and wants to meet.”

  Harvath wasn’t surprised that the man had reached out to Gallagher. They were the ones with the relationship. He was a stranger. He just hoped that trusting Rashid wouldn’t turn out to be a mistake.

  CHAPTER 19

  Within five minutes, they had gathered their gear and were ready to roll. Flower, who had returned from eating dinner with his family, was outside waiting for them behind the wheel of Gallagher’s Land Cruiser.

  Baba G got in front to ride shotgun while Harvath hopped in back. As Flower put the truck in gear and pulled away from the curb, Harvath pulled a Red Bull from the backpack at his feet and prayed that their meeting would be a short one. While being forced to stay awake was one way to get acclimated to local time, doing so while rolling through Kabul after dark had a considerable downside.

  Traffic was light as most Afghans huddled at home, trying to keep warm. The people who were out were Westerners, patronizing the many restaurants and clubs that catered to them across the city.

  As they exited a traffic circle onto a smaller side street, Harvath took a mental snapshot to help him keep track of their route, just in case the unthinkable happened and he had to make his way home alone.

  Following Gallagher’s instructions, Flower performed a series of surveillance detection routes, or SDRs, and when the trio was satisfied they weren’t being followed, they headed toward their rendezvous.

  Inspector Rashid had provided Gallagher with a specific route, which Flower now followed.

  He threaded the Land Cruiser through quiet streets and neighborhoods, some of which Baba G had never been through himself.

  They had just turned out of a narrow side street when Harvath noticed Gallagher’s posture change. “What’s up?” he asked from the backseat.