The helicopter landed almost silently. The only hint of its arrival was the small maelstrom of snow and dirt its rotors kicked up as it touched down. This was quickly blown away by the high winds sweeping over the top of the huge mountain. So, too, was the noise of the engines carried away by the gale.
This was Mount Zabul. It was nearly three miles high, covered with snow, and located about twenty-five miles northeast of Obo Field and some forty miles from Khrash.
It was still dark up here, as the mountain was so high and they had landed on the western face, away from the sun. There was a village up here whose inhabitants were not ruled by a subwarlord under the thumb of Kundez Sharif. These people were also known as the Zabul. Mountain dwellers who eked out a living three miles high, eating pinecones and mountain goats, they had a long history of fierce independence.
They’d fought the Russians with as much verve as they’d fought their decades-old civil war with the authorities in Kabul. Their oral history was replete with stories of both great bravery and cold cowardice. Most of the other parties in the area, from government troops, to the Americans, to the forces of the warlord Sharif, pretty much left the Zabul, known as much for their irascibility as for their nationalistic pride, alone.
The two people in the helicopter waited for the engines to wind down and then stepped out into the wind and snow. One was Major Fox of the DSA contingent of the Ghost Team. The other was Ryder.
They were here on Murphy’s advice, hoping to make some friends. That’s why there were virtually unarmed.
Adjusting their night-vision goggles, they moved very carefully toward the snowbound village about one hundred yards away. Fox was carrying a hand-drawn map detailing each stone hut within the settlement. There were no armed men or guards watching over the village this windy night. The Zabul lived so far up in the clouds, sentries just weren’t necessary.
Ryder and Fox found the stone hut specified on the map. It seemed larger than the rest, was circular, not rectangular, maybe 15 feet around. Fox checked its dimensions against the drawing, then handed it to Ryder. He did the same thing and whispered: “This must be the place.”
They went in the back door, which was actually a series of thick leather hides hanging in place. There was a single candle burning within. Once their NVG vision adapted to the very low light, they found a figure sleeping inside, huddled under wool blankets near a stillsmoldering wood stove.
Fox looked at Ryder, who just shrugged in reply.
“Be my guest,” Ryder told him.
Fox moved over to the sleeping figure, unstrapped his .45 automatic, and very slowly put its barrel up against the person’s head. Then Fox shook him awake.
It was a little old man—but when he woke up and saw the pistol barrel he started fighting furiously with Fox. Luckily the DSA officer had managed to put his hand over the man’s mouth, so he could not cry out. But he gave Fox such a battle, Ryder had to come over and help keep the man down.
Then Fox started whispering urgently in the old man’s ear: “Murphy . . . Murphy . . . Murphy. We’re friends of Bobby Murphy. ”
Eventually the old man stopped fighting. Still they let a full minute go by before Fox took his hand from the old man’s mouth. Finally they let him stand up and brushed him off.
He was no more than five feet tall, with a brown, leathery face, a shock of white hair, and a long white beard. He was stooped over but able to stand without a cane. He was covered by a garment that looked more like a house curtain than a robe; his hands and face were dirty. Yet there was something regal about him.
His name was Tarik Aboo. He was the eldest elder of the Zabul tribe. Why did the Ghosts care about him? A couple hundred strong, the Zabul were just as religious as the people who controlled the Qimruz. But the Zabul also believed Sharif and the people in Khrash to be heathens, a disgrace in the eyes of Allah. Because there was a well-known adage in the Islamic world—my enemy’s enemy is my friend—the Ghosts were here looking for help.
After his rude awakening, Tarik agreed to talk, only because they’d spoken the magic words: Bobby Murphy.
They all sat down next to the wood stove. Tarik crossed his legs, pulling his garment tight around him. He lit up a long black cigarette to calm his nerves.
“Bobby Murphy is an old friend of mine,” he began in thick English. “He is also friends to my brother and my cousin and my cousin’s cousin. When we fought the Russians many years ago, I felt Bobby Murphy was here with us, pulling his trigger as I pulled mine. He arranged for us to get weapons. Rockets, missiles, bombs. He got us medicine and food. He helped us throw the Russians out. We owe him many favors. That is the only reason I don’t kill you both right now.”
Fox and Ryder rolled their eyes. The old guy was feisty; they gave him that.
He took another long drag of his cigarette. “So, then,” he began again, “I recognize the emblem on your shoulder. I know you are the infamous Ghosts and what you have done in your fight against the sheikh bin Laden. But why are you here? We are very far away from any battlefields these days.”
“We are after a man named Jabal Ben-Wabi,” Fox explained. “He’s a high-up Al Qaeda operative. We believe he’s living in Khrash.”
Tarik almost went pale. “The Patch? You’re here to capture him?”
Fox just shook his head. “Nope—we’re here to kill him.”
Tarik just stared back at them. These men were talking nonsense. “But, as you say yourselves, the Patch is in Khrash. And Khrash is a fortress, with many weapons and people with guns everywhere. Fifteen thousand of them at least. How do you intend to get him?”
Fox glanced at Ryder, who just shrugged. “We’re still working on that,” he replied.
The old man still didn’t understand. “Are you saying you are the vanguard of some great army? Are there a million more of you just over the hill?”
“No,” Fox replied. “There’s only a few of us.”
Tarik looked like he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He chose to laugh. “So what they say is true,” he cackled. “You Americans are crazy. Catching the Patch with ‘only a few’ of you? Forget it. Didn’t you hear me? There are thousands of armed people in Khrash. And they are all demons who will protect the Patch no matter what. They are loyal—it will be impossible for you to bribe anyone in the city to help you. And if you fly your helicopters in, they’ll point those thousands of weapons up into the sky. Just like the day you tried to snatch Aidid.
“No, the Patch is not only hiding; he’s hiding in the right place. You must know the U.S. military won’t even bomb Khrash. They won’t send troops in because it would only mean a huge fight and they don’t want it spilling over into Iran. The swine behind the walls of that city are in a very powerful position. They hold all the cards, as you say.”
Fox shrugged again. “We are still going to try. And we could use some help from people like you. Just name your price.”
Tarik stopped cackling and turned very serious. “You Westerners are all the same,” he said, shaking his head. “You come here, to this country, and you think you know it. The British. The Russians. Now, you, the Americans. You think you’re so smart, and that you have so many clever ideas. And that money can buy you anything at any time. And what happens? You’re always wrong. The British. The Russians. And now, you. You’re wrong because you don’t know this place. And you will never know it. And you will get tired of trying to know it until eventually you will go away, too, just like everyone else.”
Tarik was working himself into a state.
“Now, as a man of God do you think I approve of what is going on in that city?” he asked them. “I will tell you that I have questioned God’s very existence on the premise that he would never make such an evil place as that. As a priest, it is my duty to try to change things for the better . . . .”
He sniffled a bit, then lowered his head. “But as you Americans say, you’re missing the big picture. Even if I wanted to, I can’t help you—for one big reason.”
“And that is?” Fox asked him.
“Kundez Sharif,” Tarik replied, his lips trembling when speaking the name.
“And who is he?”
“He is the god on Earth here in the Qimruz,” Tarik said. “The warlord. The landlord. This is his territory. His turf. He allows what goes on in Khrash because the people there pay him tribute. And because they pay him tribute, they know that if anyone goes against them, Sharif will exact revenge on the offending party. That’s their deal.
“Sharif is ex-Taliban. He’s also a slave trafficker and an opium baron. Very powerful. Very rich. And the man has absolutely no conscience, no regard for human life. If the Patch is in Khrash, you can be sure Sharif will do everything to protect him.”
Tears were actually rolling down Tarik’s face now. His cigarette had gone out.
“So while I would love to be the dreamers that you are,” he went on, “and while I would heartily desire to rid my homeland of this sin and idolatry, you must understand why I cannot. For if I helped you, whatever it is you decide to do, Sharif would cut me to pieces. Me, my family. My people. He lets us exist up here only for his own amusement, I think. He would be even happier if he had an excuse to finally wipe us out.”
The Americans listened quietly. Tarik was tough, rugged. He’d obviously lived a hard life, filled with bloodshed and murder. And despite his age, it was clear few things frightened him. But this guy, Sharif, did. To the point of tears.
“Where does Sharif live?” Ryder asked Tarik, speaking for the first time. “Inside Khrash itself?”
Tarik shook his head no. “He would not dirty himself like that,” he said. “He has a compound, maybe ten miles from the city. But this place he calls home, it is as formidable as the city is. Heavily fortified. An army of guards on hand at all times. It sits up high while everything else sits down low. His people can shoot at anyone within five miles of the place. It is here he keeps his weapons. His gold. His opium. On Thursdays, he has a bus of women and girls come up from Khrash and he has his way with them, all against their will of course.
“Be sure you understand this: Sharif is the protector of Khrash. But he lets the religious police and the Al Qaeda Arabs run the place from the inside, along with their Taliban cousins. Again, that’s the deal made between devils. That’s why the place is such a pool of sin.”
Fox and Ryder had a short, whispered conversation. Then Fox relit the old man’s cigarette.
“Wait here,” he said to Tarik. “We’ll be back. . . .”
Kundez Sharif’s compound was a palace by another name. It was a collection of two-and three-story whitewashed buildings, rambling by Afghani standards, a half-dozen in all. The buildings were made of simple hand-shorn brick, but there were many ornamental touches on their exteriors. Islamic designs of circles within circles, squares, and triangles along the gutters, fountains and trickling waterfalls around the front door. And palm trees planted everywhere. Add in its white-pebble walkways and high ornamental gates, and this place would have been comfortably at home in the Arizona desert.
It was located on a high hill, which was bordered all round by snow-covered mountains. The vantage point gave a clear view of the surrounding countryside and all of its approaches. And on a clear night, the glow from Khrash could be seen on the southern horizon not a dozen miles away.
The compound even had its own minaret, though it was never used. Like many powerful people in Afghanistan and throughout the Middle East, Sharif used his Muslim religion only as an excuse to maim and frighten and kill. He wasn’t even sure which way Mecca was.
One of the smaller buildings, stuffed in the corner out back, was a barracks for Warlord Sharif’s elite company of bodyguards. Heavily armed with Russian weapons, including AK-47s and RPG launchers, these fighters were the cream of the crop of Afghanistan’s warrior class. They were also among the highest-paid people of their ilk in Afghanistan.
In addition to their assault rifles and grenade launchers, the bodyguards were also armed with 75mm cannons. These ex–Soviet Army weapons had great range and accuracy. There were four of them, one at each corner of the place. The way they were positioned, they could hit just about any target in the valley surrounding the compound’s hill.
The compound was also protected by a quartet of 88mm antiaircraft guns, also of Russian manufacture. These weapons were highly accurate. They could hit a target as far as three miles up if operated properly. On a clear day, any target flying closer than that could be picked off almost at leisure.
For these reasons and because of Warlord Sharif’s mystique, this place had enjoyed a reputation for years as being under the protection of God himself.
Until today. . . .
Sharif’s guards heard them before they saw them, the far-off roar of aircraft engines churning up the cold Afghan air. For any kind of aircraft to go over this part of the country was rare. As the airspace was so mixed up with the border of Iran, few wanted to chance it, especially if the pilots knew the territory below belonged to Kundez Sharif and that he owned antiaircraft weapons.
And usually, when it did happen, the source of any aircraft engine noise could be seen right away, sometimes by the contrails, indicating whatever was going over was flying way up there, where the air was really cold. But now, this morning, the noise wasn’t up around the ice crystals. It was right down here, near the rocks and trees.
About half of Sharif’s five dozen bodyguards were on duty when it happened. It was just before seven in the morning, and their boss was still asleep. He’d been up late the night before, counting the gold in the compound’s very elaborate safe room. This was how Sharif spent many of his evenings, at least the ones when he wasn’t fouling girls from nearby Khrash.
The three helicopters suddenly roared out of the valley, rising up out of the early-morning fog. They went over the compound in a flash, one behind the other, flying impossibly low and impossibly fast. Some of the bodyguards scrambled to man their antiaircraft weapons. A few went running to wake the boss. Others went to wake their off-duty comrades as well. But really there was no time for any of these things. The helicopters had come in so quickly, most of the guards could do little else but watch as one of the aircraft dropped an enormous bomb it had been carrying under its fuselage.
The bomb tumbled down, landing directly on top of the compound’s main building. The explosion was tremendous. Vivid flames of orange and red shot up into the dawn, causing the surrounding mountains to quake in response. Those guards not killed outright by the blast were blown off their feet by the bomb’s shock wave. A tiny mushroom cloud quickly rose into the air, but just as quickly the high mountain winds blew it away. The smoke cleared to find the compound’s main house had simply been vaporized, the result of two thousand pounds of impact-fused high explosives hitting it dead on.
The helicopters went into a noisy 180-degree turn to escape the explosion but were back over the target seconds later, this time three abreast. They opened up with rockets, their fiery tails once again lighting up the misty dawn. One barrage hit the guards’ barracks in back; another slammed into the compound’s drying house where Sharif’s personal stash of opium was stored. A third took out the compound’s generating station. All three buildings went up in balls of fire and ash.
The helicopters turned and came back a third time. All three opened up with their nose cannons, obliterating much of the guards’ weaponry marshaled in each corner of the compound. This time over, men could also be seen in the copters’ cargo bays firing bullets, grenades, and even shotgun blasts at the stunned guards below. They mowed the guards down like grass.
A fourth pass targeted the last buildings attached to the palace, a pump house and a covered swimming pool. Once more, the helicopters were firing their nose cannons with the soldiers crammed in the back firing at anything that moved below.
It was so frightening because it was happening so quickly. In just 45 seconds, nearly three-quarters of the compound had been destroyed and almost all the army of elite bodyguards had been killed.
Still the attack went on. On the next pass, the two lead helicopters raked the grounds again with cannon fire. But the third copter dropped another two-thousand-pound bomb right into the center of the flames coming from the main house. A bomb this size was not only able to penetrate the thick concrete cap put over Sharif’s basement money safe; it was also able to crash through the top of the safe itself. The bomb exploded with tremendous force, destroying Sharif’s fortune of gold and paper money in less than a heartbeat.
Only then did the helicopters go away, exiting to the north, the last huge bomb hit being their exclamation mark on what they’d just done. When the remaining smoke eventually cleared, those who’d witnessed the attack saw that Sharif’s compound hadn’t simply been flattened.
It had been turned to dust.
On top of a mountain about a half-mile away, Fox and Tarik Aboo were standing near one of the recently landed Blackhawk helicopters. They’d watched the attack from here. Ryder had piloted one of the copters during the assault and had landed here shortly afterward. He was now waiting to fly them off.
As intended, the strike on the compound had been quite a show. Tarik’s jaw fell open at the first explosion and had yet to close shut. In fact, he was still having trouble speaking. That’s how shocked and awed he was.
He’d fought the Russians and the Taliban; he’d fought rival tribes. He’d seen war, combat, killing. But he’d never seen anything like this. What the helicopters had done to Sharif’s palace was astonishing simply by the brazenness of it all. It was clear no one in the palace survived—the strange Americans had stamped out Sharif as if they were crushing a bug with their boot. Such boldness went a long way in Afghanistan.
“You have opened up the earth,” Tarik finally managed to say. “And Sharif has fallen down into it. He is gone, but it’s like a dream. A stain, so suddenly removed.”
Fox shrugged. “You had a problem; we made it go away,” he said. “That’s what we do. So, I’ll ask you again: Will you help us?”
Tarik smiled broadly now. These Americans were different. They actually did what they said. By that alone Tarik had gained tremendous respect for them.
“Yes,” he declared finally. “I will help you.”
And he’d come prepared. Tarik reached inside his robes and retrieved a cloth that he opened like a handkerchief. On it were hand-drawn pictures of heavy weapons such as tracked guns, tanks, rocket launchers.
“This being Afghanistan,” he explained, “you can get weapons just about anywhere. You can buy them or you can rent them. You can even rent whole armies. My cousin, next valley over, has two hundred men at your disposal. Another cousin has some artillery. Still another has some tanks. This and more is available.”
Fox asked for more details. Tarik’s first cousin had two Russian-built T-72 tanks; he’d been using them as tractors to plow his poppy fields. Tarik’s second cousin owned a platoon of 125mm guns, fairly long-range artillery. A third cousin ran his own personal army the next mountain over. Again Tarik assured Fox these cousins would do just about anything for their kinsman. Fox asked Tarik to intercede on his behalf and the tribal leader agreed. They shook hands and then kissed cheeks, sealing the deal.
Then Tarik turned back to the ruins again. Nothing over a foot tall had been left standing. Sharif’s compound looked like a small atomic bomb had hit it. “I have one more question,” Tarik said.
“Why are you really doing this?” he asked unexpectedly. “I mean, what is your true reason for going after the Patch? I’ve dealt with the CIA before. I’ve dealt with the American military before. But you people—you are not like them. You are like characters in a book. You are going up against an entire city, just to get one man? What military person would do that? I suspect this might be more of a matter of the heart.”
“The Patch was in on 9/11,” Fox told him. “He killed three-thousand Americans.”
But Tarik was a smart old bird; he shook his head and slowly wagged his finger at Fox. “The American Army came to Afghanistan to avenge that September day and they’re still here. But even your brothers in Kabul are not willing to come to Khrash, simply because it’s not a militarily prudent thing to do. That’s how I know something else is happening here.”
He turned and pointed to Ryder sitting in the cockpit, about ten feet away.
“There was a look in that man’s eyes,” Tarik said. “I saw it when you first visited me this morning. And it’s in your eyes as well. It’s what we call kapak. You call it revenge.”
Fox shifted uneasily. He didn’t want to get into this, but the old guy was persistent. Finally Fox said: “OK—the Patch also killed a good friend of ours recently.”
Tarik’s eyes went wide again. He was obviously fascinated by this. “So, you’re really here because one person died?”
“She was killed,” Fox corrected him coldly. “Murdered, here, by Jabal Ben-Wabi.”
The old man just shook his head. “Sir, the soil of this country is filled with people who have been murdered. They’re buried everywhere. It is our history—and we live with it. But you—you are really doing all this, whatever it is going to be, for a woman?”
Fox just nodded again but remained silent.
Tarik thought about this for a long time, then looked over at Ryder again.
“Your friend,” he said to Fox. “With the revenge really burning in his eyes. I get the feeling all this is about a loved one of his. Is it about his wife, perhaps?”
This time Fox just shook his head.
“Something like that,” was all he said.