"Damn right we would, Sir. They’re not getting away with what happened back there.”

  He sobered quickly as he thought about what they’d said. If that meeting went ahead, it’d be a disaster in the making, a major disaster for the Coalition effort, and a personal disaster for his career.

  I should have planned better, allowed for contingencies, and I failed. These men, the veteran sergeant and the young private soldier, is their suggestion a workable plan, or another step into disaster?

  He took no more than a minute to see the merits of what they said. Failure meant they’d kill a few more Talibs, and die themselves, most probably. At least it’d be a hero’s death. Success would put everything right, for him, and for every American soldier inside Afghanistan.

  “Okay, we’ll do it.”

  “We, Sir?”

  “I said we. I’m going with you, Sergeant. Get your platoon ready, gas up the Humvees, and we’ll teach those bastards not to play games with us. Thirty minutes, no more. I’ll see you in the vehicle park.”

  “It’s gonna be hairy out there, Major,” Dan warned him, “They won’t be throwing paper clips at us.”

  He grimaced. “That’s what you think of us intel guys, is it?”

  Dan reddened. “Well, uh, no, Sir.”

  “It’s okay, maybe we deserve it. Thirty minutes.”

  Chapter Three

  He stared down at the bodies strewn over the village, an older man with wisps of gray hair sticking out from underneath his brown turban. He wore the traditional robes of a Mullah, and he was the spiritual leader of the various Taliban units scattered around this region.

  “What were they after, and what were they doing here? I don’t understand. Some of them are dressed in Afghan robes, why would they do that?”

  The other man, the commander of the local insurgent group centered on Balagor, shrugged. “I’ve no idea, I don’t get it. Did they plan to infiltrate one of our groups?”

  Mullah Akbari scoffed.

  “In this way? Coming in here with Coalition vehicles, jeeps with mounted machine guns, and soldiers in uniform? No, that isn’t the answer. There must be something else.”

  At that moment, a young fighter rushed up, and he was holding a thin sheet of plywood. He held it up for them to see. “Look, someone’s put up a sign on the village, but they’ve made a mistake. It says Balagor, but our village is ten kilometers from here.”

  The two older men studied the board with interest. Sure enough, it was roughly painted and in two languages, Pashto and English. “Are you sure the Americans put up the sign?”

  He looked bewildered. “Mullah Akbari, who else could it have been? The last time we were here, there was no sign. Yet after the Americans came, the sign was here. It’s almost like they wanted to pretend this was Balagor.”

  “An easy mistake to make,” Commander Aziz murmured, his cruel face looking puzzled. His cheek bore the scar of a bullet wound that had sliced across his face from side to side, gouging a furrow in his nose, so it looked like a separate appendage. “Why else would they put up the sign? There’s no reason for it.”

  Mullah Hamza Akbari shook his head, and the dawning of realization was in his cold, dark eyes, his brow furrowed in thought. “I believe there is a reason. They wanted to pretend this village was Balagor. It is because of the meeting we have planned. They found out about it, and they intend to attack.”

  The Commander stared at him. “Meeting? Which meeting?”

  He waved away as if it was of no consequence. “You were to be told in good time, but until then the object was to keep it a secret. Somehow, they’ve found out.”

  He went on to explain the importance of it, and how they were bringing Islamist leaders in from different parts of Asia and from the Middle East.

  “We plan to join forces and launch a mass attack on the Coalition. We will drive them from this Islamic Paradise, and this time we’ll hit them so hard, they’ll keep running until they’ve crossed the borders, and they never come back.”

  The other men’s eyes glowed with fanatical interest. “This is really true? We can drive the infidels from our country?”

  “We can drive them from every Islamic nation where they have dared to interfere. Believe me, their days are numbered. But first, we need to warn our people.”

  “We’ll have to find a new meeting place,” the Commander nodded.

  “Negative, it’s not possible. We’ve made all the arrangements for security, and we have hundreds of fighters coming in from all over the country to protect this meeting.”

  “But, they have aircraft, how can we stop them?”

  A look of cunning came into his eyes. “What they don’t know is the meeting is not planned to take place inside the village, but in a cave complex three kilometers to the east. We will put enough fighters in place to make them think they have scored a victory, but it will be a very costly victory. When they attack, we will hit them from all sides. Of course, they have aircraft as you say, and ultimately we can’t beat them. But we will kill scores the soldiers, perhaps hundreds. A huge victory, and meanwhile, our leaders can conduct their meeting safe in the knowledge their location is unknown to the enemy.”

  The Commander grinned. “We cannot fail, Mullah. This will be a tremendous victory, the beginning of the end for the Americans.”

  He nodded. “You’re correct, this will be the beginning of the end. Now, we have to start making arrangements for the ambush. I believe the Americans call it ‘bushwhack’, and that’s exactly what we’ll do. We’ll bushwhack the soldiers when they come in, and most will never leave.” His expression formed a gloating smile, “Except in body bags.”

  * * *

  They were driving in a convoy of four vehicles, with Sergeant Jones’ Humvee leading. Major McNally was riding in back along with Corporal Al Taylor, their communications man. Up in the cupola, Eddie was thinking, and he was thinking hard. He remembered driving into that village, and amidst the confusion, the gun flashes and bullets sitting all around them, he recalled seeing the sign they’d erected to try to make the exercise more realistic. The name in Pashto and English stated the name of the village was Balagor. Of course, it wasn’t Balagor. That was the target they plan to hit after a successful trial run on the dummy village. Except they left in a hurry, and the Taliban were in control. Were they stupid? Definitely not. In the guise of the Mujahideen, they’d kicked out the Soviets, and when many of the diehard Islamists morphed into the Taliban, they’d taken control of Afghanistan and formed a government.

  He didn’t need to ask himself whether they’d work it out.

  They’ll work it out, no question, but somehow, Major McNally hasn’t got his head around it. Damn, he wouldn’t get very far playing Call of Duty, if he can’t spot a simple trap like that without falling into it.

  He leaned down so they could hear him. “Major, Sir, I wondered about that sign in the village.”

  “Sign? Which sign?”

  He explained about the sign he’d seen, stating the name of the place was Balagor. “The thing is, they’ll know exactly what we’re planning. That we know the name of the location of their meeting, and that this was just a dummy run. All I’m saying, Sir, is they’ll waiting for us.”

  He stared back at Hawkins, and he looked unsure. “Let me think about this for a few moments. Sergeant Jones, how far are we from the dummy village?”

  “We’ll be there in around ten minutes, Major. Say around three kilometers.”

  He acknowledged but didn’t say anything. Winston Bellows drove carefully, not making too much noise, and showing no lights. He didn’t want to drive them off a cliff or into a ravine. The journey took longer than Jones had estimated, but eventually Bellows slowed.

  “About one klick and we’ll be driving into the village. What do you want me to do?”

  “I’m trying to work it out.” He tossed Bellows an irritated glance and then seemed to come to a conclusion, “My assessment is they won’t have worked it out. These are primitive peasants, and I doubt most of them can read.”

  Hawkins was listening in the cupola, and he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  If they can’t read, why would they bother to put signs outside their villages?

  “That’s just guesswork, Major. It only takes one man who can read, and they could work it all out.”

  McNally gave him a superior gaze. “That’s most of what we do in intelligence, guesswork. It’s the way we work, fragments of information, and balance of probabilities to form our assessments. I don’t think we have anything to worry about. We should go in there, and they’re sure to have left at least a couple of their people to keep an eye out, in case we come back. But they’ll be expecting us to come back in force, not just a platoon. So we’ll carry on as planned, and sneak in through the back door. Do our best to capture an insurgent, and pump him for information.”

  Jones didn’t reply, but Bellows heard the order, and he drove forward, slowly, as if he was waiting for someone to countermand. In the end, Hawkins couldn’t help himself. “Major, you’re gambling everything on them not being able to read. What if they can read? We’ll be screwed.”

  “You give them too much credit, Private Hawkins. Just do your job, and watch out for hostiles. We’re going in.”

  Al Taylor relayed the order to the other three jeeps. They increased speed, and minutes later they were in the center of the village. Everything was quiet, no one moving through the darkness, and even the bodies had disappeared. McNally was look around, staring at each stone cottage in turn, as if he could see through solid stone and work out if anyone was inside. Eventually, he gave up.

  “The place is empty. We’ll stop here and search the cottages. We may find something that will help us find out if they’ve worked out what we’re planning.”

  Hawkins shook his head in despair.

  Major they’ve worked it out, and they’re getting ready to give us a hot welcome.

  He stayed behind the Browning as men searched each cottage in turn, and they found nothing. He began to relax, and his eyes roamed around the gloom, looking for anything. Anything out of the ordinary, a threat to the men he was supposed to protect, and he found nothing. Almost nothing. Something moved a fraction about two hundred meters away.

  An animal, a bird, or a human being?

  He sighted along the barrel, using the AN/PVS-20 Starlight scope, and gradually it became clear. What he’d seen wasn’t movement, but a reflection as the beam of a flashlight hit metal.

  The faintest glow, almost none, but he could make out the shape of a man. A man holding a weapon, and now it moved, a long barrel eased out from behind the stone wall of a well. It was an ambush. They’d left at least one man in place just in case they came back. Just like he’d have done if he knew what the Talibs must now know. The question was, how many of them were there? He pressed the transmit button and spoke quietly.

  “This is Hawkins in the lead jeep. I see a hostile behind the well, two hundred meters north of my position. Suspect has a machine gun, type unknown.”

  Jones acknowledged. “Is it just one man?”

  “Could me more, Sarge. Watch him while I look around some more.”

  “Copy that.”

  He rotated the cupola, inch by inch, quartering every inch of ground, and he spotted them. He was certain he had them all, four men. Each armed with a machine gun, and they were waiting for the moment when they could slice them into thin pastrami. He sang out their positions and returned to the first man he’d seen.

  “This is Hawkins. I have the man behind the well covered.”

  “Copy that. I’ll take the man behind the wrecked truck to the west.”

  Weller, the gunner from the rearmost vehicle, added, “I have the gomer to the south.”

  “I have the guy up on the roof.”

  “Copy that. Wait for me to start shooting, and give ‘em hell. Thirty seconds.”

  Several double clicks on the radio acknowledged, and they waited for it to start. And waited.

  Chapter Four

  Major Elliot McNally, veteran of innumerable meetings and policy planning sessions, wasn’t happy. “I don’t like this, Sergeant. We don’t know who we’re shooting at.”

  “The enemy, Sir.”

  “That’s as maybe, but we came here for a prisoner. We can’t take a prisoner if they’re all dead. Hold your fire when we go in. I need to evaluate so we can get this right.”

  Like last time.

  Hawkins groaned to himself. The guy could get them all killed, and he wasn’t having any of it. To hell with the orders. A moment later he squeezed the trigger.

  The long burst of .50 caliber machine gun fire tore through the wall surrounding the well, and the bullets ripped into the guy hiding behind the well. A moment later, the rest of the jeeps opened fire, and the night was torn apart by heavy fire. Inside of the first minute, they’d hit all four targets, and slowly, the gunfire petered out. There was just the noise of Intelligence Major Elliot McNally shouting at them to cease fire, which they did because there was nothing left to shoot.

  “Dammit, I told you to hold your fire. They’re all dead.”

  And we’re alive. Best not say it aloud. McNally might take it the wrong way.

  Eddie glanced through the Starlight scope and worked it around the village. Looking for something, anything, a Talib they might have missed.

  Dammit, there’s a guy, hiding in the shadows.

  “Sergeant Dan, there’s a live one. Five o’clock, he’s crouched in a doorway.”

  “Is he aiming a weapon?”

  “Uh, no, I don’t think so.”

  “Gimme that scope,” McNally shouted. Hawkins squeezed out of the cupola and let him go ahead, “Yeah, I see him. Men, good news, we may have a prisoner. Sergeant Jones, get out there and secure him.”

  “Yessir.”

  Dan spoke quietly on the radio, and another Humvee backed away to circle around the dwelling. Minutes later, he got the message he was waiting for. “We’re in position.”

  “Copy that. If he tries to run, grab him. Eddie, I’m going out there with Bellows. Cover us.”

  “Copy that.”

  He waited and watched. Dan and Winston strolled along in the center of the track that ran through the middle of the houses, as if they were going for a Sunday afternoon stroll. At the last moment, as they were passing the target, they split up and ran at him, one either side. Seconds later they dragged him back. They had a prisoner, and Hawkins climbed out to look at him. Jones tossed him the guy’s AK-47. He played his flashlight over the mechanism and looked inside the barrel. It was coated with rust, and if it fired, it’d likely do more damage to the shooter than his intended target.

  He switched his gaze to the prisoner. He was young, little more than fourteen-years-of-age. He looked thin, to the point of emaciation, and his clothes were little better than rags. Whatever else they were doing, they weren’t living high on the hog. He wondered what he’d been up to with a rifle that’d only be useful if he reversed it and used it like a club.

  “I’ll handle this,” McNally said, pushing them aside. He faced the kid and smiled.

  “Do you speak English?”

  He didn’t reply, and the Major looked disappointed. “That’s it. We don’t have an interpreter. We’ll have to take him back with us.”

  They looked at each other, and Dan told him how it worked in these parts. “Sir, they always say they don’t speak English. Let me try.”

  He waved a hand. “Go ahead. I’m gonna take a look around, see if there’s anything useful we can use.”

  He disappeared into the nearest hut, and Dan tried a few questions, without any response. He shrugged. “I guess he really doesn’t speak any English. We have to know if they’ve worked out our real target is Balagor, or have they moved the meeting elsewhere. By the time we get back, and the Afghans get the truth out of him, it could be too late.”

  Eddie regarded the kid, and he didn’t look much different to the way he’d looked four years before, when he was fourteen; fresh-faced, a bit naïve, but with his life in front of him. If the Afghans got their hands on him, they’d tear him apart.

  “Sarge, I have an idea. Let me try.”

  A shrug. “Knock yourself out, Eddie.”

  Hawkins took the laptop out of its protective case, the Dell with the Intel i7 quadcore chip, SSD hard drive, and sixteen-gig memory. Most important was the software, Call of Duty. He booted the machine, loaded the game, and walked out to the kid, who was sitting on the ground, covered by Winston’s M4A1.

  He showed him the screen, and the dark eyes looked at it with interest.

  “You ever seen anything like this? It’s a game, Call of Duty. A combat game, and it beats the hell out of the real thing.”

  The boy was mesmerized. “It does?”

  Eddie suppressed a smile.

  So he does speak English.

  “Oh, yeah, watch this.”

  He spent five minutes playing a level he’d become expert at, and the kid’s eyes were like saucers as he watched. “Your guys in Balagor would be better off playing this than sitting out there with loaded assault rifles, waiting for Coalition aircraft to bomb the crap out of them.”

  He was caught up in the game as Eddie manipulated the trackpad and buttons like the expert he was. So caught up, he spoke without thinking. “They’re not in Balagor. It won’t be a problem.”

  He kept on playing. “How come it won’t be a problem?” The kid didn’t answer, and he made a fancy move, destroying a platoon of enemy armor, “I mean, when those missiles hit, they’ll be toast.”

  “No, they’re outside Balagor. Inside a cave system, three kilometers due east, so they’ll be safe.”

  “Uh, huh, that’s good. You want to try this?”

  “Yes.”

  He grabbed the laptop like it was food for a starving man, and Eddie showed him how it all worked. He couldn’t take his eyes off the screen, so Hawkins left him guarded by Bellows, and went to find Dan.

 

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