In the Crosshairs

25

The Lions of the Caliphate, two teenagers in a small, battered pickup truck, raced out of the village and down the road toward the burning building. Mohammed was driving and yipping like a puppy, while Hamid was standing in the bed, behind the mounted .50-caliber machinegun. For the pleasure of feeling the power, Hamid loosed a long burst of fire into the heavens and several gold tracers flew upward toward the stars. The roar made the light truck tremble, but Mohammed kept up the speed. The boys were warriors in their own minds, although the families wouldn’t let them join the Taliban, or ISIS, or anyone else, because they were needed in the poppy fields. The Prince, however, gave them weapons and created the Lions of the Caliphate so they could perhaps see some action after their chores were done.

When they pulled to a stop, they saw that the place was an inferno. Both jumped from the truck with their AK-47s in hand and advanced side by side toward what had once been the gate, trying to see into the flames. That destroyed their night vision. They stepped over the roadside ditch and moved on, heat strong on their faces.

“Let’s walk all the way around,” suggested Hamid. Kyle Swanson rose from the ditch behind them and swatted Hamid hard in the kidneys with the butt of the AK-47, then spun and kicked Mohammed’s feet out from under him. He knocked the guns away, and cracked the rising Mohammed on the nose, sending him back into the gravelly dirt. Swanson duct-taped the boy’s wrists and ankles and across his mouth and eyes, then dragged him over to the ditch and dumped him in.

Young Hamid was still spasming in pain as Kyle stripped him of his long white tunic and baggy pants and took the wool pakol cap. He would be dressed like the locals now, plus he had the truck. He trussed up Hamid and tossed him beside the other boy.

Gibson had sent a couple of kids to keep him busy, but hadn’t come himself. There was no time to waste thinking about that, though, so Swanson started changing clothes.

He didn’t hear the flutter of the silk parachute as a large figure suddenly appeared right behind him, landing erect, and said, “Hey, Kyle. Got any beer?” Ingmar Thompson was peeling out of his straps, grinning like an idiot.

“No, I don’t have any goddamn beer.”

“Want some?” A second parachutist plopped down ten feet away. Bruce Brandt was busy collapsing his chute. “Ingmar, shouldn’t we point a damned gun at him or something?”

“Why? We’re on the same side — as of a few minutes ago, I think. Besides, it’s Kyle.”

“Well, there is that,” Brandt conceded as he unhooked his rifle. “Where are Gibson and Marks? We’ve come to bring you all out of this shithole.”

Swanson was overjoyed to see his old friends and fellow snipers but kept in the moment. “Marks is dead. Gibson is over in the village. I’ll explain it all, guys, but let’s get out of here first. Into the truck. Ingmar, you take the .50 cal in back.”

“Ah, that’s what it was.” Thompson laughed. “Whoever was on that gun almost got us coming down. Tough to hide up there when you’re hanging from a piece of cloth. Tracers went right between us.” He climbed into the bed, checked the belt of ammo, declared the gun filthy but usable.

“Where we going?” asked Brandt, sliding into the passenger seat and adjusting his gear. “You need anything right now? Medical, water, whatever? I gotta tell you, this whole thing is a major pain.”

“No, I’m good. I want to drive down the valley about ten miles, away from the village, toward the Mehtar Gap, as if we’re trying to get a road to Kabul. Hide the vehicle and double-back to get into the high country.”

“Misdirection, got it. But listen up, pal, because things have changed mightily since you and Gibson came in. Ingmar and I were tasked early on, so we’re the first in, but now it seems that the whole damned cavalry is on the way to take that village and knock out an airstrip. Lots of political stuff going on.”

Swanson was making decent speed on the twisting old road but slowed when he saw movement ahead, dark shadows against light shadow. He slammed the brakes as he yelled, “Ambush!” Automatic weapons fire erupted from a roadside barricade. Thompson immediately returned fire with the .50 cal as Brandt and Swanson jumped from the cab and joined the fight. With Thompson providing cover, Swanson ran about fifteen feet and dropped to the ground to provide cover for Brandt, who leapfrogged past him. It sounded as if a pair of automatics were hidden in the rocks, but the ambush was already collapsing under the heavy return fire. Brandt sprinted a final leg and tossed a grenade, and the firing sputtered to a halt.

Swanson ran up and gave each enemy fighter a double tap just to be sure. He used Brandt’s flashlight to examine them. Two more kids. “That damned Gibson,” he said to his teammates. “He knows us. Thinks like us, so he counted on me coming down here and planted these two guys to block me. He probably has a few more stashed away up higher.”

Brandt took the light back and stuffed it away. “He wouldn’t have been expecting Ingmar and me.”

“He expected a rescue party of some sort. He told me that. So stay chill, boys. These are amateurs, but Gibson is the real deal, and he’ll be coming out to play soon.”

Thompson said, “Then he’d better get his ass in gear.”

“Okay, people, listen up,” Marguerite del Coda barked into her headset. “This is real-time action, and lives depend on it, so keep your mind in the game.” She was at the rear of the drone central control room, standing on a pedestal that helped her survey her kingdom. “You ready here, Mr. Winters?”

“Yes, ma’am. Two birds in the air.” Ryan Winters was hunched at a keyboard.

“Major Fox, are you ready?” Jill Fox of the Forty-second Attack Squadron was overseeing the mission out of Creech Air Force Base, not far from Las Vegas, Nevada. She had a pilot and a sensor operator running each of the drones. Her targets were in Afghanistan. Her family home was an hour’s drive away from the base. “We’re ready,” she said.

“Very well, Major. Roll on that airstrip. Dump your full ordnance load on targets of opportunity, then peel out of there to make room for new traffic.”

“Roger that.” Fox nodded to the pilot of the MQ-9 Reaper, and the huge drone broke from circling over Girdiwal into an attack run. The sensor operator calmly worked the data controls, and the Reaper homed in on a dusty area in the surrounding hills, darkened by night but visible enough on the multiple computer-console screens. There was stuff down there, although visibility was poor and so late at night there was little movement

“Do two runs, guys. Put the Hellfires on that boxy building with a flagpole on the first pass. It must be the control tower. Then come around and walk the bombs down the flat area that has to be the runway.”

As everyone watched, the cameras tilted and reacquired, the exterior narrowed in its computer-game reality view, and the picture jerked as the Hellfire missiles tore away on streams of fire in the night. The drone whizzed by at a speed slow enough for everyone to see the rockets destroy the building in a sudden flash that banished the night. Nobody spoke. The pilot took it in a wide curve and brought it back. The sensor operator adjusted and dropped four Enhanced Paveway II smart bombs, each weighing five hundred pounds, and the Pamir Mountains trembled with the shock of the quadruple explosions.

“Bring her home, boys. Good job. Ms. del Coda, the Reaper is exiting. Our MQ-1 will be on station in a few minutes.” The new arrival was an intelligence-reconnaissance bird with enhanced camera capabilities that could see in the dark and read the date on a dime from ten miles up.

“Very well, Major Fox. We’ll link up again, then.” She went to the internal circuit and asked her chief analyst, “What do you think, Ryan?”

“Probably woke everybody up. Damage will be insignificant, because the target was insignificant.”

“And our boys?”

“Brandt, Thompson, and Swanson are all grouped together, moving slowly to the north. We’ll be able to see and talk to them when the MQ-1 arrives. I’m taking a bathroom break.”

Del Coda chewed on a fingernail.

The rocket and the bombs woke Luke Gibson and he stretched out before looking at his clock. Less than an hour since the Lion had knocked on his door. He hadn’t heard any gunshots, but the series of hard explosions left no doubt that things were getting serious.

Since he had been the one to give up the airfield as an international smuggling site, it was logical for it to be attacked in any attempt the CIA made to extract him and Swanson. He got up and went to the bathroom to wash his face, then sat on the side of the bed, thinking, as he had breakfast — an apple, some raisins, thick slices of paneer cheese, some bread going stale, and tea. That done, he pulled on his clothes, laced his boots tight, checked his weapons, and called for another Lion to bring a truck around front.

As he left the inn, the air carried the scent of smoke, and orange fingers of fire reached up beyond the ridge to the north. It had all happened too fast for the attack to be anything other than the Reaper guard drone Marguerite del Coda had put overhead. “Let’s get out to the airport,” he told his driver, and they sped away.

The question, now, was what had happened to Kyle Swanson? He asked the driver if he had heard anything from his friends who had gone out earlier to the burning building. The answer was an indifferent shrug of the shoulders. He had planned to start his hunt at dawn, but that was no longer an option. Swanson had cost him a couple of hours of good sleep by escaping from the house so soon, and was already on the run. But Swanson had no contact with the agency, so the Reaper drone strike was likely a onetime attack to warn the locals that Uncle Sam was watching.

Gibson wanted to make a quick check of the airport, and then make a round of the ambush sites before settling down to the business of the day. Swanson is toast, he thought.

White House Press Secretary Sam Rausch had won the battle with his CIA counterpart, and, for a change, everyone agreed that the press might be of some help in the situation. Now all he had to do was find a qualified journalist in a hurry, someone who knew how to jump out of a plane.

His argument had been simple: the TV talking heads were being brutal with the tip that a congressional hearing was brewing because of CIA drug shenanigans. The 24/7 news boulder was rolling downhill, gathering steam, and the CIA’s official denials were being portrayed as a cover-up. Rausch believed something must be done to stem the tide of bad news.

“So let’s flip it,” he said. “We embed one good media type to go in with the first troops and even help with his communications. No censorship. He can go where he wants, ask what he wants. We have nothing to hide. Our talking points will say that we were all shocked by the unfounded allegations, which endangered ongoing operations and troop movements. Therefore, we moved on Girdiwal in force to close the drug-shipment point and rescue our undercover operatives. We do not believe Congresswoman Keenan’s allegations, but the House of Representatives can proceed any way it wishes on the matter, with our full cooperation.”

He already had a reporter in mind. It wasn’t unusual for a military man to go into the media after his service, bringing his unique knowledge to the dicey job of being a war correspondent. One who had done so was a decorated Delta Force warrior who had gotten banged up by an IED and retired more than two year agos. Since then, John “Tilt” Foster had returned to the war and filed remarkable coverage, first as a freelancer and then as a writer of thoughtful magazine articles, with occasional appearances on TV. Yesterday he was on an evening news segment about the drawdown of American forces at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

Rausch had his secretary call the network’s news editor and describe the offer: If you want to be inside on tomorrow’s biggest story, get Tilt Foster out to Bagram right now. An escort will meet him at the gate. He’ll be the pool reporter on a sensitive and important mission. No, I won’t tell you what it is. Call me in fifteen minutes or I go to my second choice. The call came back in ten. The job was on. Foster was already at Bagram.

Tilt was a lean fellow, almost stringy, who stood five feet ten and weighed about 175 pounds; he kept his brown hair short. A square jaw and an easy smile and a disdain for self-promotion had helped his transition to becoming a writer and reporter, and his Delta links kept him in touch with the military grapevine. He had that strut, that bored been-there attitude, and a reserved personality, but he was nobody’s pushover.

“Where are we going?” he asked the lieutenant from the public-affairs office who showed up in a Humvee to collect him.

“Hell if I know, Tilt. I’m just taking you out to the flight line.” The young officer liked the calm man. While other media types could be pests, Tilt was a laid-back dude, and his stuff was always good. When Foster wrote a piece, it left marks.

Foster was ferried across the base to a giant C-17 cargo plane, where long lines of helmeted men in parachute gear were bumping their way inside. A captain greeted him when he unfolded from the vehicle. “Mr. Foster, I’m Jim Sanchez, Company B, Third Ranger Battalion. Glad you could join us. Heard a lot about you.”

“Rangers, huh? Dropping in somewhere, are we?”

“Yep,” said Sanchez. “You remember how?”

“Sure. I cry like a baby until a jumpmaster throws me out?”

“That’s about it,” the captain replied. “These guys will get you suited up. I’ll brief you once we’re airborne. Still sure you want to go?”

“Always a privilege to be asked to jump with the Rangers. Let’s do it.” Two enlisted men approached, and Foster changed clothes on the runway, exchanging his jeans and T-shirt for a full-camo combat rig. He carried a camera, a notepad, and pens instead of a gun.