Combat Ops

NINE

The next morning while I was in the mess hall, I ran into Dr. Anderson, the woman from ARO, who’d been given temporary quarters on the base to begin coordinating with the engineers for the construction projects.

She remembered my name. I called her Dr. Anderson. I didn’t want to get too chummy with her.

“Eating alone?” she asked.

My team had already chowed down, allowing me to sleep in. They’d understood the night I’d had.

“Yes, I am.”

“Want some company?” she asked.

I glimpsed her blond hair, now flowing easily over her shoulders. No veil required here. She was probably in her late twenties, early thirties. Just stunning. An oasis. “Oh, I wouldn’t be good company right now.”

“Don’t underestimate yourself,” she said, following me to my table and sitting across from me.

“Aggressive,” I muttered.

“I eat my dead.”

“Not bad—”

“For a bleeding-heart liberal, right?”

“I didn’t say that.”

She smiled. “Your expression did.”

“I told you, I’m not good company.”

“I don’t need your permission.”

“Then why’d you ask? What is this?”

“This is me taking on a challenge.”

“Oh, yeah, what’s that?”

“I don’t know what it is you do here, but I guess you have some pull with Captain Harruck, and he’s a great guy, doing everything he can to help these people. So I’m wondering why you don’t support him.”

“So the challenge is to get me talking so you can find out who your enemies might be on the base?”

“That’s how we recon. Same as you, actually. Keep your enemies close, too.”

“I’m not your enemy. Just a skeptic.”

She took a bite of her toast, sipped her black coffee. “And why is that?”

“I could tell you…”

“But then you’d have to…”

“No, not kill you… just start an argument, and it’s not worth it. I’m just here to get a job done, and when I’m finished, I go on to the next problem.”

“Me, too.” She stared out the window at the dust blowing across the road. “This place… it has a way of draining all your energy. Some days I just feel like sleeping.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.”

“So you think I’m wasting my time, don’t you? You think we’re all just spinning our wheels.”

I didn’t look up, just ate my toast and found great interest in the black pool of my coffee.

“Scott, maybe in the end we can do more good by showing kindness,” she added.

“We’re a fighting force, trained for battle, not police work. These people need a police force and a better army to protect them, and then people like you can come and offer aid. We’re doing it all for them right now, and when we pull out, you watch… it’ll all crumble.”

The guys decided that they hated Harruck. I couldn’t blame them. I shared what Keating had told me. They snorted, cursed, wished we had beer.

At the same time, they were getting cabin fever, so I told them we’d bend orders and don regular Army uniforms and pose as grunts to assist with arranging and constructing defensive positions along the choke point near the river.

“We just finished telling you how much we hate Harruck,” said Brown. “Now you want us to help him?”

I smiled. “That’s right. Don’t you love this place?”

They threw up their hands.

I put Ramirez in charge and sent my boys out there to help a few sergeants, who were glad to have more hands on shovels in the one-hundred-plus-degree heat.

Meanwhile, I paid a long overdue visit to our friendly neighborhood CIA agent, a guy who called himself “Bronco.” I wasn’t keen on working with those bastards, but I figured the least I could do was feel him out. I’d thought his agency wanted Zahed as much as I did, so we had a common goal.

Bronco didn’t live on the base but paid rent for a one-room shack on the west side of the village. He’d been working the district for the past two years and had, according to Harruck, earned the respect of Kundi and the rest of the elders.

I found him sitting outside his shack, reading a book and smoking a filterless cigarette. His gray beard, sun-weathered skin, and turban made it hard to discern him as an American. I’d taken a private with me for security and had donned regular Army gear myself.

Bronco took a long pull on his cigarette, flicked it away, then exhaled loudly and spoke in Pashto. “Good morning, gentlemen. What do you want?”

I answered in English. “My name’s Scott. I was hoping we could go inside and talk in private.”

“You’re not the asshole who blew up our bridge, are you?”

“I can neither confirm nor deny any information you have regarding bridges in this region,” I answered curtly, then gave him my lucky fuck-you smile.

He rolled his eyes. “Come on in, Joe.”

“Scott.”

“No, Joe.”

We went in, and I wasn’t sure how a human being could live like that. One meager bed, small washbasin, a table, and two chairs. No power, no running water. He did have natural gas to cook, but that was about it. A laptop with satellite link sat improbably on the table, and he told me had a dozen solar-powered batteries to keep the thing running — his lifeline to home. He plopped into a chair.

“I’m surprised they didn’t attach me to your mission,” he said suddenly.

“And what mission would that be?”

“Cut the crap. You’re an SF guy come here to take out Zahed. He knew you were coming. We knew you were coming. No one wants you here. No one needs you here. So what the hell are you doing here?”

I started laughing and looked around. “I keep asking myself the same question.”

“Go home, Joe.”

“Aren’t you here with the same agenda?”

He just stared at me. Squinted, really, deep lines creasing his face. “I can neither confirm nor deny any information I have regarding the whereabouts or intended capture of Zahed.”

“All right. You’re me. What do you do?”

“Are you deaf? Go home, Joe.”

“You don’t think removing Zahed will have any effect on what’s happening here?”

“Yeah, actually I do. This place will tank even more.”

“You don’t think capturing him will gain us valuable information regarding the Taliban’s activities in this region?”

“Nope. We got predators flying around, watching every move they make. We don’t need one fat man to spill his guts.”

“So you’re JAFO.”

His was old enough and experienced enough to know the term: Just Another Fucking Observer.

“What’s happening here is a little too complex for the average military mind to grasp. I’m sure you saw the PowerPoint they made. That’s why I’m here. We’re not JAFOs. We’re specialists. You guys are just overpaid assassins. And you’re what? Oh for two on night raids now? I mean, that’s amateur crap. Really.”

“I was hoping we could share some intel, so that the next time something happens, it’ll be the last.”

“Of course you were.”

“I need to know whether or not your agency will pose any interference with my mission.”

He threw his head back and cackled at that.

I just stood there.

Finally, his smile evaporated. “Joe, my agency interferes with everything. That’s what we do.”

I envisioned myself crossing to the table, grabbing the bastard by the neck, shoving him against the wall, and saying, If you get in my way, you’ll be on my target list.

“No help from you, then.”

He shrugged. “Have you met the provincial governor?”

I shook my head.

“You should. The people here want him dead more than Zahed. You want to be a hero, kill him.”

“Are you nuts?”

“Look at me, Joe. I could be sitting in a hotel room in Laughlin, going downstairs every night to gamble my ass off, drink my ass off, and have sex with a different hooker every night. But no, I’m here. Of course, I’m nuts.”

“You doing this for America?”

He gave me a sarcastic salute and said, “Apple pie, baby.”

“If I told you that I wanted to talk to Zahed, would you be able to get word back to him?”

“That might depend on what you want to discuss.” Bronco withdrew another cigarette from his breast pocket and was about to light it up when I answered:

“I want to discuss the terms of his surrender.”

He dropped his Zippo and looked up. “Dude, you are a comedian. I’m so glad you came.”

“Do you know anything about EMP disruption being used by the Taliban?”

“You’re talking Star Trek to me. What?”

“Weapons that disrupt electronic devices. Have you seen or heard anything about Zahed’s people using weapons like that?”

He lit his cigarette and took a long drag. “Go home, Joe.”

I grinned crookedly. “I was kinda hoping we could be friends.”

He hoisted a brow. “Well, I do enjoy your humor and sarcasm, but to be honest, you’re pretty much screwed here…”

I caught up with Shilmani out near the town’s old well, which would soon run dry. He was loading water jugs onto a flatbed, and the old man behind the wheel of the idling pickup got out when he spotted me.

Mirab Mir Burki wore cream-colored robes with a long white sash draped over his shoulders. His turban sat very low on his head and drooped at the same angles as his eyes. Bushy gray brows furrowed as he cut off my approach. “If you’re going to ask all the same questions, then don’t bother,” he snapped in Pashto.

“I’m not here to interview you,” I said in English.

He looked to Shilmani, who set down his jug and translated quickly.

“What do you want?” asked Burki.

“They’re going to build you a new well,” I said.

Burki answered quickly in broken English. “They talk and talk. But no well.”

“They will dig it soon.”

“You are Captain Harruck’s friend?”

I gave a slow if somewhat tentative nod, then said, “I’m very worried about what will happen to the new well, though. We must protect it from the Taliban.”

Shilmani translated, and Burki suddenly threw up his hands and climbed back in the car.

I looked at Shilmani. “What did I say?”

Shilmani took a deep breath. “He doesn’t want you to protect the well from the Taliban, remember?”

“Yeah,” I groaned. “Now I do. I’m in a difficult situation right now. If I can just remove Zahed, then maybe your boss can negotiate for water rights with the next guy.”

“He’s very upset about the bridge. We have to drive fifteen kilometers to cross at the next one.”

“Why do you need to cross?”

“To make our deliveries in Sangsar.”

“To the Taliban.”

He glanced away. “Scott, I did not contact any of your men. Why are you here?”

“I need you to help me find Zahed.”

“It’s too dangerous for me right now — especially with the bridge destroyed.”

Burki started hollering for Shilmani to finish up. I raised a palm. “It’s okay. For now. When you’re ready.”

His eyes grew glassy before he looked away and finished loading his last jug.

My boots dragged through the sand as I crossed back to the Hummer.

I thought about that little girl who’d been raped and kept pinning that on Zahed so he could remain the “bad guy” in my head. But then I heard Harruck saying that maybe she’d been raped without Zahed’s knowledge. Maybe he wasn’t linked to a lot of the crime going on. Maybe he would, in the end, do much more for the people than the government could.

After biting my lips and swearing once more, I hopped into the Hummer, and the private took the wheel. “Where to now, sir?”

“They got a bar around here?”

He laughed. “Uh, no, sir.”

I smelled something. Gasoline. Burning. I looked at the private. “Get out!”