Retribution

Qatar Air Flight 346

Parker had made a point of getting a window seat on this final flight. It was dark, but the cloud cover had an opening just below the aircraft. His seat was intentionally on the pilot’s side of the jumbo jet, which would have allowed him to look to the north. It was a small gamble, as the final leg in to Peshawar didn’t necessarily have to be directly out of the west. On this night, it was. Parker was lucky.

The clouds to the north are solid.

He could see the mountain range extend to the north and the thick clouds north of Peshawar. The snowcapped mountains were mystifying in their enormity. They grew larger and higher as he looked to the north. Eventually, their tops disappeared into the clouds. Even at the altitude the airplane was traveling, Parker could tell that the mountain peaks went well above them.

It has to be to the north.

Their gamble had always been that Yousef’s encampment was to the north of Peshawar. It was a rational, logical assumption. In the past, what little they knew of the man had him being somewhere north of Peshawar and under the protection of a local Taliban chief called Zulfiqar.

They have to be getting close.

Parker knew that Moncrief and Furlong’s team would need to be on the ground, in position, well before Sadik Zabara was to meet Yousef. In his mind, he computed the time forward from when they should have left England.

It has to be about now.

Parker imagined the military cargo aircraft, radioing in to Afghanistan that it was having an engine problem. The Pakistani Air Force would be listening in and the engine’s failure would account for why the American’s C-17 was much lower, dangerously lower, to the twenty-thousand-foot peaks. It would also allow the Globemaster to swing out, across the border to the east, before it turned back into Afghanistan to land at Jalalabad Airfield.

It’ll be a rough ride.

Parker’s experience as a pilot put him in that pilot’s seat. The updrafts and downdrafts would shake every bolt, rivet, and weld. The pilot would be slammed into his seat and then pulled up into the straps. It would be one wild roller-coaster ride.

Parker looked down, however, at the ground below.

The only lights on the ground came from a twisting convoy of cars and trucks. Unlike the United States or Great Britain or much of the world, this world was stark, empty, seemingly lifeless and dark.

He looked down for a certain twisting path of lights.

There it is. It has to be.

A path of truck lights turned and twisted in the dark through what must have been tortuous hairpin turns and perilous, high-altitude switchbacks.

The Khyber Pass.

The sword cut through the mountains.

Parker watched the traffic even though it was nearly three in the morning. The Americans’ demand for goods caused the trucks to continue to roll through the night. The Khyber was the only route this far north.

It was Fontane who spoke of the slaughter of the British Army in 1842 when he wrote: “With thirteen thousand their trail began. Only one man returned from Afghanistan.” Parker remembered Butler’s painting of the sole survivor, a Dr. Brydon, barely alive, drapped over his horse, as it wandered through the pass.

For several thousand years, the Khyber had been the only route in or out.

Every stone soaked in blood.

There may not have been another place on earth where more men had breathed their last breath.

Alexander the Great had traveled this path. And countless others through time immemorial, many of them coming to grief.

Now it was Parker’s turn.

The wheels of the jumbo jet screeched once, and then the airplane floated for a second. As the weight of the aircraft settled down, the wheels screeched again.

“Oh, my friend, we are here.” Liaquat Anis awoke from his sleep in the tight seat next to him.

The aircraft suddenly shook again, violently, as it slowed down.

Parker glanced at his seatmate.

“Don’t worry.” Liaquat smiled. “That’s the railroad.”

“Railroad?” Parker spoke the word in broken Pashto. The conversation was now in the language of Peshawar, the city where they’d just landed. The words came easily to Parker’s mind, but he feigned a struggle with the language so that Liaquat wouldn’t find his Bosnian companion too fluent.

“Oh, you speak a little Pashto? Good, yes, very good.”

“Yes, the Khyber railroad track cuts across the airstrip. It may be the only place in the world where an airplane has to stop for a train.” Liaquat laughed. “I’m just kidding, my friend. The railroad stopped many years ago, but its track does cross the runway.”

“I understand.” Although he spoke and understood, Sadik would not being saying much. He didn’t want to press the issue.

“Where are you staying?”

“The Rose Hotel. It’s near the Khyber bazaar.”

“No. You will stay with me tonight. I am also near the market.”

“You are kind, but others are expecting me at the Rose Hotel.”

“No, my friend, they are not. They are expecting to see you at my house.”

Parker smiled an uncomfortable smile, imagining how the real Zabara would react to this preplanned manipulation. He shrugged and nodded. When Liaquat, satisfied, looked away, Parker reached into his pocket and felt the PDA and sealed packet of chewing gum.

Soon the cell phone needs to be gone.

He would send one last message. If anything happened, if he suddenly disappeared, if he left no other trace, it would at least give them a lead.

Contact made: seatmate.

After that, it would be too dangerous to send more.