A tense silence hung over the room. Carter sat there, a bunch of questions cycling through his mind. Like symbols on a slot machine reel. He settled on the most obvious one. ‘Why me?’
‘Three reasons.’ Mullins counted them off on his fingers. ‘One, as I said, we don’t have the contacts on the ground for this kind of operation. Most of our key assets flaked out once they realised the Taliban were going to overrun Kabul.’
‘You must have a few guys left behind,’ Carter said. ‘Afghan Special Forces veterans and the like. You’re the CIA, for fuck’s sake.’
Ortega sucked the air between his teeth. ‘It’s not as easy as that, my friend,’ he cut in. ‘The remaining assets have gone cold on us. We think there are trust issues.’
Carter gave a mirthless laugh. ‘That’s hardly a big fucking surprise, is it? Your president made the poor bastards a load of big promises, then decided to cut his losses and run the moment it got a bit hairy. What did you expect them to do?’
‘Yeah, well, it is as it is. But it means we’re basically operating blind in Afghanistan right now.’
‘What’s the second reason?’ asked Carter.
Ortega said, ‘Deniability. We can’t get officially involved in an operation we’re not supposed to be running in the first place. If we start sending in American citizens to hunt for Vann, pretty soon someone will connect the dots and realise we’re bankrolling the rebels.’
‘There would be congressional hearings,’ Mullins said. ‘People would be asking questions. It could get uncomfortable. You see what I’m saying, chief?’
Proudlock shifted and said, ‘I think the point our American friends are making, Jamie, is that their hands are tied. Politically speaking. Ours aren’t.’
‘Exactly,’ Ortega said.
Mullins counted off another finger. ‘Plus, you’ve got deep operational expertise. You were an embed. That means you know the terrain, the tribes.’
Carter nodded thoughtfully. Although Delta and DEVGRU had in many ways overtaken 22 SAS in terms of equipment and training in recent years, the Regiment still had an edge over the US SF community when it came to winning hearts and minds. If you wanted a door smashed in, the Americans were the best guys for the job. But if you needed someone to broker a relationship with a tribal headman, the Regiment had a better track record.
Carter didn’t know why. A question of arrogance, perhaps. If you believed you came from the greatest country in the world, everyone else looked inferior.
He said, ‘You don’t need me to go in and find Vann. You say he’s been using a satphone to file his sitreps with Langley?’
Mullins nodded. ‘That’s right.’
‘So why not just trace the signal? You could pinpoint his location, stick a drone over the area and get eyes on his position, or get him out on a chopper. Problem solved.’
Mullins hesitated. He glanced quickly at Ortega. The two warriors exchanged a look Carter didn’t like.
‘The satphone is a dead end,’ Ortega said after a pause. ‘Vann deactivated it six weeks ago.’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘We don’t know.’
‘Are you sure he deliberately switched it off? The satphone might have been damaged in a contact. Or the circuitry could have malfunctioned. It’s the oldest rule in the book. Murphy’s Law. I’ve lost count of the number of ops I’ve gone on where the kit has broken down for one reason or another.’
Mullins said, ‘We considered that possibility. But that doesn’t appear to be the case here.’
‘Why not?’
‘Two weeks ago, we picked up another signal. From Vann’s satphone.’
Carter felt a stab of unease in his guts. ‘Hang on. Dave reactivated the phone?’
Ortega nodded. ‘We tracked the signal to Kabul and sent in one of our last assets to investigate.’
‘And?’
‘He found a nineteen-year-old kid wandering around a flea market in the city, trying to hawk a military-grade satphone.’
The cold feeling slithered down Carter’s spine.
‘How the fuck did he get hold of Dave’s phone?’ he asked.
‘The kid said he was from a village north of Panjshir. A speck-on-a-map kind of place. He claimed that a few days earlier a big white guy approached him, gave him the satphone and a fistful of gold coins and told him to drive to Kabul and switch the unit on.’
‘Did you send someone to the village?’
‘Of course. We’re not amateurs.’
‘And?’
‘And, zilch. Nothing. Nada. The place is home to a handful of farmers. Nothing more. No one knew anything about Vann, and if they did, they weren’t prepared to say anything.’
Carter asked the obvious question. ‘Why would Dave pawn off his satphone to some random kid?’
‘If we knew that, bud, we wouldn’t be sitting here now.’
‘You must have some idea, surely?’
Proudlock crossed his legs and said, anxiously, ‘We’re keeping an open mind. Perhaps Vann feared that he had been compromised and decided to throw his pursuers off the scent.’
‘You think he’s on the run?’
‘It’s the most likely explanation,’ said Mullins. ‘The Taliban have been pushing hard to crush the last pockets of rebel resistance in the country. Full-court press. Sustained pressure, day and fucking night. The guys in the National Alliance have been getting their asses kicked and the military commanders are too busy squabbling among themselves to get their shit together. Hence why we sent in your guy Vann.’
‘Hakimi has got a lot of qualities,’ Ortega said. ‘But he’s got his hands full dealing with infighting among the Alliance commanders, and he has no experience of coordinating a prolonged guerrilla war. That’s why we turned to Vann. We were looking for a way to even things up.’
‘A force multiplier,’ Carter said.
Mullins nodded in agreement and said, ‘This isn’t 2001 anymore. We’re not up against a rabble of bearded mullahs with rusty AK-47s. The Taliban are better equipped now. We’re talking about Black Hawk helicopters, plus drones from China, and external support from Russia and Pakistan.’
Carter’s eyes almost popped out. ‘The Taliban have got Black Hawks?’
‘A whole fleet of them, chief. Spoils of war. Piloted by Pakistani air force crews on secondment to the Taliban.’
The evacuation from Kabul, thought Carter. He’d seen the reports on TV. In the frantic dash to escape the chaos around the airport the Americans had left behind a staggering amount of equipment. Weapons, night-vision goggles, vehicles. Some of it had been destroyed, they claimed, but a lot more must have been left intact. Against those odds, the lads in the National Alliance wouldn’t stand a chance. Not unless they had some outside help.
Carter bristled with anger. He thought about the burning frustration of wasted effort and lives. Twenty years of conflict. Thousands of dead. Brother warriors maimed for life.
All the shit we had to wade through, and when the last Hercules C-17 took to the skies, the country found itself right back where it started.
Mullins said, ‘The point is, if the rebels have been attacked, Vann would likely have gone to ground. It would be the logical option. He’d have the Taliban hunting for him, and maybe ISIS-K. He’d want to keep his head down until things went quiet.’
‘What about the rebels?’ Carter asked. ‘You must have a line of communication to Hakimi. Can’t you reach out to him instead?’
‘Vann was our primary point of contact,’ Proudlock said. ‘Everything went through him. Requests for extra supplies or funds, information, the lot.’
‘Your mob has always got a back channel. Can’t you use that?’
‘We’ve tried already,’ Proudlock said in exasperation. ‘As far as we can tell, Jabar Hakimi and his closest advisers have also gone silent.’
‘But you don’t have a clue where they might be hiding?’
‘No.’
Mullins said, ‘Jabar’s forces are constantly on the move from one camp to another. Standard procedure. Just because they’re out of contact doesn’t mean a thing. But equally it could also be that they’ve taken a beating and have scattered to the wind.’
Carter shook his head and said, ‘How the fuck do you expect me to find Vann, though? He could be anywhere. For all you lot know, he might be en route to the embassy in Pakistan.’
‘Possible,’ Mullins said. ‘But unlikely. Our people have been looking for him. He would have been picked up by now.’
‘Just in case, we’ve alerted the embassies in every neighbouring country,’ Proudlock said. ‘In the event Vann does show up, they’ll let us know immediately. But I have to say I agree with Mike. If Vann had left Afghanistan, we would almost certainly have heard from him by now. All the evidence suggests he’s holed up somewhere in the mountains.’
‘How do you know the Taliban haven’t captured him? Or ISIS-K, for that matter?’ asked Carter.
‘If they had,’ said Proudlock, ‘chances are we’d know about it by now. The Taliban’s social media team would be blowing up. We believe Vann is still at large.’
‘Even if that’s true, it’ll be fucking hard to locate him,’ Carter said. ‘I can’t just stroll around the place, knocking on doors and asking the local goatherds if they’ve seen a big white bloke lately.’
‘There’s a plan,’ Mullins replied tersely.
‘There’d better be. Dave’s a good mate, but if you send me in there flying solo, I’ll last about five minutes. Christ, how can you be sure he’s even still alive?’
‘We’re confident that’s the case.’
‘Maybe you need to reconsider,’ Carter said. ‘Your int on the kid with the satphone is two weeks old. The picture might have changed by now. I might be going on a wild goose chase.’
‘You won’t, chief. Trust me.’ Mullins grinned.
Carter looked at him questioningly.
‘Vann is alive,’ Mullins added.
‘How do you know?’
‘Because someone saw him.’