SULAIMAN MOUNTAINS. SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN.
Akhtar stared at the starry heaven as his mind grew dizzy, cloudy. He had seen the woman dressed in black take the gold ring and scream words he did not understand … except for one: father.
She had waved the ring while shouting the word over and over.
Father! Father!
Or did he imagine that? Was his mind simply losing focus as he bled out alone on that hillside?
But a moment later, after the infidels left him to die of his wounds on this sacred mountain, as his vision blurred and it became impossible to breathe, Mullah Akhtar Baqer thought he heard a choir of angels humming in the night, welcoming him to paradise.
However, it was just the distant sound of jet engines on full afterburners echoing across the Sulaimans.