‘Sahib?’
Pasha turned when Faroukh approached him.
‘Some of the men are asking if we are going to have fun with the women.’
The terrorist leader looked in the direction of the village chief and his family, whose hands and feet were bound and mouths gagged. They stood trembling a distance away, in the courtyard.
‘Are the rest of the villagers secure?’
‘Yes, sahib. This is a very small village. Just over a hundred of them. Our men have gathered them in the school building.’
‘How many are guarding them?’
‘Two, sahib … they are enough,’ he hurriedly explained at Pasha’s look. ‘We have sealed the doors and windows. One man at the front, and one at the back. We have four men on the roofs at the corners of the village. They will warn us when the Americans come. Four more men outside.’ He nodded at the door. ‘The rest are here with us. We are safe, sahib. The Americans cannot get here without us knowing.’
‘As soon as our guards alert us, everyone should hide,’ Pasha warned. ‘Let them come here. Then, we’ll surround them.’
‘Yes, sahib. What about some fun?’
‘Yes.’ The terrorist leader smiled coldly as he eyed Hamraz’s wife’s curves. His loins stirred. ‘Once the Americans get here. We’ll make them watch and play with their women, too.’
‘The peace deal, sahib?’
‘That’s for Ahmadzai to handle.’
Meghan ran behind Beth and unsnapped her backpack with practiced hands without losing speed. She brought out the drone’s components and fitted them together expertly. She powered it in the air and launched it. Dug out the control screen, gave it to her sister and moved back to her position in the loose line they had formed as they ran to the village.
We didn’t need the drone till now, Zeb observed as he skirted a clump of poppy plants. Pasha’s phone was enough for us to track him.
His lips tightened as he thought of Gulriz and Nahida and the rest of the villagers. Will we get there in time?
He glanced at his watch as he calculated rapidly. They were half an hour out from the village, their going slowed by the uneven terrain. We can go faster, he thought, looking at the grim, determined looks on his friends’ faces, but we can’t risk any of us injuring ourselves here.
‘Call Hamraz,’ he told Meghan. ‘Tell him we’re a couple of hours away.’
‘Take it,’ Pasha growled when the chief’s phone trilled.
He nodded at a guard, who picked up the device, ripped the gag off Hamraz’s mouth and held the phone to his ear.
‘Yes? Sahib, where are you?’
The terrorist leader watched him with hawk-like eyes as the man bobbed his head and indicated that the call was over.
‘Two hours, he said.’ Hamraz licked his lips.
‘Tell our men to be alert,’ Pasha ordered Faroukh and signaled for the guard to secure Hamraz again. He motioned for the captives to be taken inside the house and followed them with the rest of his men.
‘That woman who attacked me in the Wakhan Corridor. I’ll have her, first.’
‘Four men on rooftops,’ Beth said in a clipped voice. ‘We’re coming up from the back of the village. Those shooters … two are on top of houses at the front of the village. They have a good view of the approach road. There’s nothing at the back. The sentries on top are looking at the fields.’
‘Can they see us?’ Zeb slowed.
‘Yeah, they could if they were using binos and were alert. They aren’t. But we’ll have to go slower as we get closer. Blend in with the terrain.’
He squinted at the distant outline of the village. ‘What’s that large building? Its back is to us.’
‘It could be a school. Get this.’ Her voice sharpened. ‘There’s a guard behind it. Facing us. There’s another, in front of it. There are several heat signatures inside it.’
‘Hostages,’ Roger said tightly. ‘Pasha has the villagers there.’
‘Not all the residents. There are more thermals in a house in the middle of the village. Four men outside it.’
‘That should be Hamraz’s.’
‘Makes sense,’ Broker panted. ‘He and most of his men are there; the rest of them have locked up the villagers.’
They dropped to a fast crawl when they got closer, using gullies, irrigation ditches and the rows of poppy plants as cover.
‘Meg,’ Zeb whispered as he bino-ed the village when they were two hundred yards away. ‘You and I’ll take out that sentry on the roof. On the left. Bwana, Roger, you deal with that guard facing us, and the one on the right roof.’
‘We’ll have to time it,’ the Texan warned. ‘Those four shooters, they can see one another.’
‘Yeah,’ Zeb agreed. ‘We’ll coordinate and go up once you deal with the fighter on the ground.’
‘And once we’re on the roofs,’ Meghan added, ‘we can use our Barretts on the two at the front.’
That still leaves five soldiers. Zeb wiped sweat from his forehead as he studied the village. One at the front and four outside Hamraz’s house.
‘I’ve got a shawl with me,’ Chloe said, reading his thoughts. ‘I can go round the school, to its front. That should attract the soldier’s attention. Bear can—’
‘I’ll take him out,’ her partner confirmed.
‘What about the men outside Hamraz’s house?’ Broker queried.
‘We’ll have to flank those street fighters from either side,’ Zeb said, ‘and eliminate them.’
‘That will alert Pasha and Faroukh,’ Bear objected.
‘Can’t be helped.’
‘We can’t rush inside that house,’ Beth warned. ‘Hamraz’s house has a surrounding wall. An open entrance with no door, there. There’s a big courtyard inside, however. We’ll be exposed as we go across it. We’ll have to draw them out in some way, without harming the hostages.’
‘He will threaten to kill them,’ the eldest operative pointed out.
‘What about rear exits?’ Zeb asked.
‘None of these houses seem to have one,’ Beth said, updating them. ‘The chief’s house has an animal pen to the right, attached to the main building. There are cattle in it. It has a door at the end that opens into a side street.’
‘Which we can cover,’ Bwana commented.
‘That still leaves Pasha, Faroukh and eight fighters with Hamraz and his family.’
‘We’ll draw them out.’ Zeb put away his binos and started crawling again.
‘How?’ Broker asked.
‘I have a plan.’