QAIS KOTAL. SULAIMAN MOUNTAINS. SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN.
“It is the Dubrovka theater all over again, yes?” she whispered, while focusing the ATN DNVM-4 digital night vision monocular he had loaned her.
Stark sighed, realizing the futility of an overt assault.
Kira huddled beside him under a thermal blanket, looking down on the entrance to the winding passage formed by two nearly parallel walls of rock more than fifty feet high, crested by jagged peaks. From the looks of it, the corridor continued for at least three hundred feet before reaching the side of the mountain, where he presumed the entrance to their hideout was located.
Snowflakes trickled from unseen clouds, through a sparse canopy of pine boughs, as temperatures dropped into the twenties on what promised to be a very cold night.
They had deployed their combined teams in pairs. Sergei and Larson were perched high on a rocky outcrop overlooking the entrance, with a clear line of sight into the first line of defenders. Martin and Hagen covered the lower ground, close to the actual snowy path leading into the corridor. The last two members of Kira’s team covered their rear, in case the Taliban decided to send a team from behind. Stark had ordered Ryan and Monica along the bend in the mountain that ran parallel to the towering wall forming one side of the corridor, to find a suitable spot to scale it in the hope of getting above the enemy.
“Just like the hot gates,” he mumbled. The corridor reminded him not only of that damn theater but also of the legendary Spartans defending the mountain pass against the Persian army in the historic Battle of Thermopylae. Problem was that the Taliban represented the Greek force, now armed with machine guns, against his smaller force.
“The hot gates?”
“Ever studied the Greeks fighting the Persians at Thermopylae?”
“I saw the movie,” she said. “Three Hundred?”
“Good enough,” he replied, thinking of a way to level the playing field, just as they had done in Moscow.
Just as the Persians did, he thought, recalling the goat path that led behind the Greek lines and had been revealed to the Persian army. He hoped Ryan and Monica would find such a path, though they had the darkness and a winter storm playing against them.
Stark frowned, staring at Kira’s profile in the dark as she worked the monocular. She had removed her helmet to use it, revealing not just that red hair but also the scar traversing her forehead and right temple. He recalled how she had pushed him out of the way in the final seconds of the assault, as a grenade fell on them from the stairs at the end of that corridor.
“What is it, Janki mishka?” she said, giving him a sideways glance before resuming her scan.
“I … wish you didn’t call me that.”
“You didn’t seem to mind that night, da?” She tapped him sideways with her hip.
Stark felt color coming to his cheeks. No one besides her had been able to warm his very cold heart since Kate had walked out of his life. “In any case, I never thanked you,” he said, a finger shifting her hair out of the way and tracing the fine scar.
Kira grinned but kept her eye on the monocular. “You would have done the same for me, Janki mishka, yes?”
“In a New York minute.”
“I do not know what that means.”
He smiled. “Means da … yes.”
“Good.” She snuggled against him, though he wasn’t sure whether it was more for warmth or for affection.
Stark ran his fingers over her right shoulder, feeling the smooth surface of her battle dress.
“Enjoying yourself, yes?”
“Kevlar?” he asked.
“Woven with titanium fibers and polyethylene plates over vital areas … among other … classified features.”
“Impressive,” he replied.
Kira had already told him how they had tracked the components halfway around the continent, and about their powered HALO jump and the loss of a third of her team before they reached their designated landing site. Unfortunately, her GPS tracker had lost line of sight with the overhead satellites the moment the courier vanished inside that cave, which likely had a back door to another part of the mountain.
“Do you still have that tattoo?” he asked, since the battle dress covered her neck.
She turned to him and smiled before reaching just below her chin for a hidden zipper and tugging it down just enough to expose her neck and left clavicle, both covered in that amazing body art.
“You remember, yes?”
“Time of my life,” he replied, as he pictured it hovering over him.
She winked before zipping her suit back up and returning to her scanning.
He cleared his throat, then asked, “Those components you sold them … they’re the real thing?”
“Da … unfortunately. We tampered with the primer circuit board, so it won’t detonate the conventional explosives. But they can still turn it into a dirty bomb.”
Stark had told her how they had gotten here, thanks to the combined intelligence of the CIA, the ISI, and that red-haired air force pilot who reminded him of this Russian woman he’d never expected to see again. For a moment Stark wondered how Vaccaro was doing. Last he’d heard via Harwich, she had been in surgery at the—
“Do you think there is another way out of that cave?” Kira asked, setting down the monocular, her eyes on him.
“It’s how they operate, which is why I requested those high assets,” he added, referring to the UAVs currently combing every inch of this mountain with their sophisticated arrays of electro-optical/infrared sensors. And to be on the safe side, they were armed with Hellfires, with orders to fire on anything that moved or that resembled a cave entrance.
And while all that sounded great, Stark cringed at the fact that the same NATO command that had nearly incinerated him and his team just a few days ago had its finger on the trigger of those drones circling overhead. He had been careful to detail the precise location of their combined teams, but the seasoned colonel still didn’t trust—
“Sierra Echo One, Delta One,” Ryan said over the operation frequency.
Stark exchanged a glance with Kira, feeling her warm breath on him as the blanket came over their heads, leaving just enough of an opening to use the monocular that rested between them.
“Go ahead, Delta One,” Stark replied.
“Delta One starting our climb.”
“Copy that, Delta One. Report back when you crest that wall.”
“Roger.”
“Now we wait,” he said, turning to face Kira, just as his Casio vibrated on his wrist.
“What is it?” she asked.
He frowned and reset the alarm before reaching for the Ziploc bag.
“What is that?” she asked again.
Tilting his head while removing the pills, then replacing the bag, he said, “They keep me from going crazy.” He popped them in his mouth and swallowed them with a sip from his canteen.
“I see,” she said, understanding. “But I heard they affect your … khuy.”
“Khuy?”
“Penis. And that would be … a shame.” She winked.
“Ah,” he said, his face blushing again. “I wouldn’t know. It’s been … awhile since … well…”
In the darkness and silence that followed, Kira surprised him by pressing a hand against his groin and smiling.
“Well, no problem so far,” she reported, giving him a slow romantic kiss on the cheek and squeezing twice before releasing him. “Just a little something to remember me, Janki mishka.”
Then she turned back to the night vision monocular and resumed her scanning of her side of the woods.
Stark needed a minute, filling his lungs with cold air to regain his composure. Finally exhaling heavily while settling behind the night vision scope on his MP5A1, he resumed his scan.
He quietly savored the moment, even while realizing that they were both professionals operating in the world’s most hostile nation, carrying out what could very well be the most important mission of their lives.
That small kiss and her playful touch was all that Kira could offer at the moment—maybe ever—as neither knew what the future would bring.
And it would have to be enough.