“I got him to talk.”

  The Major appeared from behind the Humvee, and he rushed up. “What was that? Did you say he talked?”

  Eddie explained what he’d said, and McNally’s eyes gleamed. “A cave system three klicks due east? You did well, Private. Secure the prisoner. We’re leaving.”

  “We’re going back?”

  “The hell with going back. We’ll go forward and conduct a reconnaissance, find out what’s going down. Then we report back. We need to do this right.”

  Dan coughed. “Sir, this meeting, if it’s tonight, they’ll have gone by the time we get there. Shouldn’t we radio it in and let them handle it?”

  “Absolutely not. We could send our planes to bomb an empty area, or send more men into an enemy ambush. No, we carry out a recon first, then we call it in. Mount up.”

  They drove on through the dark night, and Major McNally spent time checking and rechecking his calculations on the electronic tactical pad. From time to time, he’d ask questions to confirm his estimates, and each time, Sergeant Dan responded with as few words as possible. Bellows was driving with night vision goggles, like two alien eyes sprouting out of his face, but it meant they could manage without lights that would have alerted the enemy.

  “Something coming up ahead. Looks like buildings.”

  “Just as I thought. Turn off the track and head east.”

  “Major, it’s rough ground, are you sure this is the way?”

  “I’m sure. There’ll be a hill somewhere in front of us. The terrain will start to slope upward. These caves are about two klicks in front of us. I’ve plotted it on the map.”

  Dan interrupted. “Sir, you’re taking us awful close. They may not see us, but they’ll sure hear us, and they’ll have posted guards if this meeting is that important. We could run into heavy enemy fire.”

  “We’ll be fine, Sergeant. Nothing to worry about.”

  “I’m not worried, Major. I’m trying to be sensible.”

  “This won’t take long. Take it easy, all of you.”

  To Eddie, watching for hostiles from the cupula, the Major sounded like a dentist who was about to perform a painful extraction, and reassuring his patient it wouldn’t hurt a bit.

  I trust Dan to know what he’s doing. Unlike Major McNally.

  He swept his gaze through three hundred and sixty degrees, and everything happened at the same time. The three jeeps, the rest of their platoon, they weren’t there.

  “Major, we’re on our own. We left them behind.”

  “Hostiles, hostiles,” Dan shouted at the same instant as a line of tracer fire arced through out of the night and tore past their jeep. “Winston, take evasive action.”

  “I’m on it.” He was already swinging the wheel over, and where they’d been a second before became a mass of converging machine gun fire, tracers flickering like fireflies. Then the eruption of flame and smoke lit up the sky, as a missile hurtled toward them. Bellows drove like a maniac, twisting and turning, finding every natural obstacle he could put between them and the Taliban. They almost made it, but the front wheels slammed into a deep rut, the Humvee stopped dead, and almost vaulted nose over tail. It came to a stop.

  The target was too tempting, and the enemy machine gunners adjusted their aim. The next bursts tore through the vehicle, but they didn’t have it all their own way. Hawkins swiveled the Browning around and took aim at the source of the tracers. He fired a long burst, and one machine gun stopped, and then another. He screwed up his gaze, staring through the Starlight scope, and he saw the missile shooter standing up ready to launch the next rocket. A twitch of the gun and he had it lined up. He fired at the same moment as the shooter, and the Talib fell as it was leaving the launch tube. The missile struck the ground, exploding in a crescendo of smoke and fire, and the screams of the men who’d been close were loud in the night air.

  “Major, we need to get out of here,” Dan shouted, but he didn’t get a reply. McNally was slumped in back, and he put his ear close to his face to listen for his breathing. He was still alive, “Major, you were hit, how bad is it?”

  The voice was weak. “I can handle it. Corporal Taylor, radio in and tell them we’ve found the enemy. They’re to send in an immediate air strike and bomb this place back into the Stone Age. Sergeant Jones, get us out of here. I need a medevac. I don’t feel so good.”

  “I heard that,” Al Taylor grunted, “I’m sending the message now with the coordinates.”

  He started speaking into the headset, having to shout over the noise and the chaos. They’d brought up another machine gun, and bullets were perforating the thin body of the Humvee. At any moment they were going to take more hits. Eddie felt something slam into his armored vest, and a further burst tore into Al Taylor and the radio.

  “Dammit, we’ve lot communication.”

  “Can you fix it?”

  He looked at the Sergeant. “It won’t be easy in the middle of a firefight, but I’ll do my best.”

  “Okay, Winston, we need to get out of here.”

  “You’re not kidding.” He applied power, and the Humvee rocked backward and forward, but the front wheels were stuck, “It’s not happening, Sarge. We won’t get out of were without a tow, and the rest of our guys are back there somewhere.”

  “No chance of digging us out?”

  “It’s rocky ground,” he murmured.

  “Right.” He took a last look around, “We’re screwed.”

  Chapter Five

  Dan ducked as a long burst of machine gun fire tore through the interior and gave the only order possible. “Get out, everybody. Al, bring the radio, and see if you can fix it later. Winston, help me with the Major. Eddie, unhook the machine gun and bring it along.”

  “What about the kid?”

  “Kid?”

  “The Taliban prisoner.”

  “Yeah, we’ll have to take him with us. Do what you can.”

  Eddie unmounted the Browning and staggered under the weight of eighty-eight pounds. He looked at the spare belts of ammunition and knew he wouldn’t make it. Then there was the boy, who looked up at him terrified. Maybe he thought he was about to kill him. Probably because that’s what his people would do. He had an idea, but first things first, and he tucked his laptop into his pack and shouldered it. The boy was watching him, or rather watching what he’d done with the key that opened the door to Call of Duty.

  He looked at him. “What’s your name?”

  A pause. “Ahmad.”

  “Uh, huh, my name’s Eddie. Say, we’re in a lot of trouble here, and we need your help.”

  The eyebrows narrowed with suspicion. “Why should I help you, Eddie?”

  “Why, because if we stay here, we’ll all die, and that includes you as well as this man, the Major, who’s wounded. How about it? Do you have a Mom and Pop waiting for you?”

  “Yes, they are waiting for me to send them money for food.”

  “Help us get out of here, and you’ll see them again. Otherwise, we all die here. All I’m asking is you help me to carry the Browning and the ammunition.”

  “You are my enemy. This would be wrong.”

  “No, we’re not your enemy. The guys you think are your friends are the enemy. Afghanistan was a decent country before the Taliban. It could be decent again. Help us, and help a wounded man live.”

  He paused for several seconds, and Dan was shouting at him over the crackle of incoming fire. “Eddie, get the Lt out. Move out now while we’re still breathing!”

  “On the way.” He looked at Ahmad. “What’s it gonna be?”

  “Can anyone play that game on the computer?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “I will help.”

  Between them they lugged the heavy gun and the ammo belts after Dan and Winston, half carrying the Major, and Taylor with his radio. The ground was littered with places to take cover, provided the enemy didn’t know their position. If they fired another RPG rocket, they didn’t need to have line of sight. An explosion nearby would fry them.

  Al was working frantically on the radio, Winston used his M4 to take potshots every time he saw an enemy turban surface, and Dan was applying a dressing to the Major’s wound. Eddie set up the Browning, leaning the barrel against a low parapet of fallen rocks. He showed Ahmad how to load in a fresh belt of ammunition, and the boy seemed to take his change of sides as a done deal.

  The boy was looking at his pack, and he smiled. He was wondering when it would be all over, and he could do some more gaming. The poor kid should have been home with his parents, his belly full of food, and his clothes at least patched and repaired. Not out here with heavily armed and armored Coalition soldiers on one side, and the vicious, brutal fighters of the insurgency on the other. “Do you see a target?”

  The kid jumped. “Excuse me?”

  “A target, something to shoot at.” He grinned, “Rack up a few points.”

  “Ah, yes, a target. There.” He pointed at a shadowy place up in the rocks, “Up there, a machine gun.”

  “I don’t see anything.”

  “It is there.”

  “Okay.”

  He sighted at the dark patch of rock and squeezed the trigger. The .50 caliber shells hammered out of the muzzle, tore through the darkness, and hammered into the target area. A chorus of screams came from up there, and he assumed he’d done enough. He glanced around, searching through the Starlight scope for more targets, but everything had gone quiet. A bust of static came from the radio, and he assumed Al had repaired the damage. He spoke into the microphone and called over to Dan.

  “They’re in the air, and they’re asking for coordinates for the strike.”

  “You have the coordinates, what’s the problem?”

  “Uh, the problem is they’re our coordinates. We’re that close, Sarge.”

  “Damn.”

  He glanced down at the Major, who raised his head, evidently recovering. “I heard that, Sergeant. We know where they are, so all we have to do is pull back, and they can bomb the crap out of them. Don’t forget, this is a reconnaissance mission. The purpose is to find the enemy, report their location, and pull back to let the airstrike finish them. When we’re clear of the area, we’ll give them the coordinates.”

  “The delay could give them a chance to get away, Sir.”

  “I gave you an order, Sergeant.”

  He gave him a reluctant nod. “If you say so, Major. Okay, everyone, we’re pulling back.”

  Hawkins looked at Ahmad. “We’re moving back to the track. Help me with the gun.”

  “That is a bad idea, Eddie.”

  “Bad why?”

  “Because they are behind us. The Taliban.”

  “How do you know?”

  At first he seemed reluctant to divulge more. But after a hesitation, he explained. “I know because that is the plan to defend this place in case of attack. They positioned a unit of fighters in Balagor, with orders to advance to the track and block any retreat. They were expecting you.”

  “Yeah, I get that. Sarge, you need to hear this.”

  He explained what Ahmad had said, and he took it all in. “It makes sense. This has been a crapshoot from the start. Okay, we’ll have to move south as far as possible, and call in the strike.”

  “What was that?”

  He looked at the Major. “A problem, Sir. Eddie, tell him what the kid told you.”

  He explained it to the Major, who was shaking his head almost before he started talking.

  “You’re saying the Afghan prisoner told you this?”

  “Yessir, that’s correct.”

  “Forget it. It’s all bullshit. Tactical and strategic decisions can only be made on the basis of sound intelligence data, not on the say-so of some prisoner.”

  “He wants to help us, Major. He knows what he was doing was wrong.”

  “I don’t care. Forget what he told you. Sergeant Jones, get us moving.”

  Jones glanced around, clearly uneasy. The incoming fire had eased, and it was almost like they wanted them to move. Eddie glanced around again, and there was nothing. But he trusted what Ahmad had said. It made sense, yet the Major acted like he was deaf.

  Why won’t he listen? He could be taking us into another ambush, and he’s acting like a combat vet, not a desk warrior. Yet he’s the man with the senior officer’s rank, so we don’t have any choice.

  As if to herd them the way they wanted them to go, bullets began to spit out from ahead, where they’d be gathering for that meeting. Trying to shoo them away, and if he had any doubts, they disappeared. He tried one last time. “Sarge, this is all wrong. We’re walking into a trap.”

  He shrugged. “Orders is orders, Eddie. Better keep that Browning handy, I have a feeling we’re gonna need it.”

  They started moving west, toward the track, and they made fifty meters before several shots came from behind them. Someone else laying down fire to push them away, but this guy wasn’t that good. The bullets came close, too close, and Dan shouted, “Get down, everyone. Eddie, hit those sonsofbitches.”

  “Copy that, Sarge, and it’ll be a pleasure.”

  He propped the Browning, and with Ahmad already acting like an experienced loader, the two young men started to talk back to the Talibs behind them who’d done the shooting. They spoke in the only language they’d understand, a Morse code of hot lead. No complicated succession of dot, dot, dot, dash, dash, dash. Nothing fancy for the medieval minds trying to kill them. This was much simpler, a series of staccato bellows from the heavy caliber machine gun. Once again, he couldn’t see them, and he aimed at the gun flashes.

  More screams, so he’d scored some hits, and watching through the Starlight scope, he saw them at last. Leaping up from their hiding places, and they were pissed. In the darkness, they were invisible. Or they should have been. Except through the scope they were laid out like empty beer cans on a fairground shooting range. He fired and worked the muzzle of the Browning along the line of men coming toward them. They realized their mistake, and someone shouted an order. They retreated, ducking back out of sight, and the firing stopped.

  They waited, and it’d gone quiet. Winston said, “Whadda we do, Sarge.”

  “I’m thinking. Major, we…” He stopped and bent down to look at the wounded officer, except he wasn’t wounded, not anymore. “He took a bullet. I think he’s dead. Wait while I see if he’s breathing.”

  A moment later, he straightened up. “The bullet took him in the heart, right in the center. He’s dead.”

  Dan looked around, clearly unsure of his next move. He glanced at Eddie. “You did well hitting those insurgents. They’ve stopped firing. At least for now.”

  “Sarge, the ones who were still alive stopped firing because they’re still trying to push us back to the track. They’re waiting for us.”

  “You’re sure? You still believe that kid?”

  “I do. Sarge, he’s young, and he just wants a life, like you and me. He was telling the truth.”

  He nodded. “That may be so, but there’s another problem. If we stay here, they’re waiting for the coordinates to launch the missiles, and we’re right next to them. They’ll be dropping them on our heads.”

  He stared back at him. “We don’t have a choice. We’re a few meters away from the biggest gathering of cutthroats and murderers in the known world. If we have a chance to get them, we have to take it.” He had an idea, “Call in the location, and we’ll have a few minutes before they get here. Let me talk to him.”

  “Okay. Al, get on the radio, and tell them to start the attack.”

  “Attack where? Which target coordinates do I give them?”

  A pause. “Give them our location, right here. They’re to drop on us.”

  “On us? Are you kidding me?”

  “Do it, Al. Do it now, before it’s too late.”

  He signed and nodded. “It’s your funeral. Matter of fact, it’s all our funerals.”

  He called it in, and already Eddie was explaining it to Ahmad. “They’ll be raining missiles down on this place in the next few minutes, like a cauldron of fire. Ahmad, we need somewhere we can hunker down.”

  “Hunker down?”

  “Hide. Away from the explosions.”

  His eyes registered understanding. “Where your vehicle stopped, there is a deep fissure in the ground.

  “Like a trench?”

  “Yes, like a trench.”

  “Sarge, we got somewhere. Follow me and Ahmad.”

  They ran like crazy, diving into the fissure at the exact moment the first missile exploded barely one hundred meters away. There was more to come, much more. The Air Force had a flight of B-52Gs in the air, loaded for bear, and the bombs came crashing down like thunderbolts from hell, but infinitely deadlier. More bombs and missiles fell all around them, and all they could do was flatten themselves at the bottom of the trench.

  Eddie had seen movies of the First World War in Europe, and he imagined it would have been like this. Men shivering with terror while thousands of tons of artillery dumped over their head, just meters away. Waiting for the end, for the crash of munitions exploding, and there would be oblivion as their lives were snatched from them.

  It didn’t happen. The barrage of bombs and missiles went on for hours, and it ended just before dawn. They poked their heads out of the trench, and the daylight exposed the devastation in its full, brutal destruction. The rolling landscape of low hills was transformed into a flattened wasteland, strewn with debris, broken weapons, bodies, and nearby, a wheel with the shreds of a rubber tire. All that remained of their Humvee.

  “Jesus Christ,” Dan murmured, “I can’t believe we survived.” He looked at Ahmad. “Kid, we owe you. You saved our lives.”

  He grinned self-consciously. “It is better to live than to die.”

  “Too right. So your Taliban days are over?”

  “Yes, I have decided to fight a different war.”

  “A different war? What do you mean?”

  “The game Call of Duty. There is no need for anyone to get killed.”

  He nodded. “Very wise. Eddie, we’ll put in together and buy him what he needs. When we get back, fix it up.”

 

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