The Eye of Shiva

CHAPTER 53

It was evening in Virginia and day in Afghanistan. The satellite Elizabeth used to observe Afridi came into range. The black and white image was crisp and clear. It wasn't what Elizabeth expected to see.

"What on earth…" she said.

"What happened?" Stephanie asked. "It looks like they're all dead."

Afridi's campground was destroyed. Elizabeth counted thirteen bodies sprawled on the canyon floor. The trucks had been torched, leaving charred hulks. A thin column of black smoke lazed into the sky from one of them.

"People coming," Stephanie said. She pointed to a group of bearded men approaching in a battered pickup. A machine gun was mounted in the back.

"Tribesmen," Elizabeth said. "Probably Shinwari. They must have seen the smoke and decided to take a look."

Stephanie zoomed in on a bearded corpse lying on his back. His mouth was open, his eyes staring at the sky. The front of his light colored shirt was dark with dried blood. A rifle lay on the ground next to him.

"That's Afridi," Stephanie said.

"It wasn't the tribesmen," Elizabeth said. "They're just showing up."

"That leaves Cobra's man."

"Ijay. I guess Cobra decided he didn't want to hear whatever it was Afridi had to say."

"I wish all these people would just kill each other off," Stephanie said. "It would save us a lot of trouble."

"That's a bit bloodthirsty, Steph. Anyway, Afridi isn't a problem anymore."

"I rest my case."

"We've still got Cobra to deal with. I'd better let Nick know about Afridi."

"Look at that mound of rocks," Stephanie said. She pointed at the stones and dirt Afridi's men had moved and piled to the side. "That's some serious labor."

"They were looking for something. We still don't know what."

"If they found anything, Cobra has it now."

On screen, the tribesmen had gotten out of their truck and were fanning out through the site. Elizabeth called Nick.

"Director."

"Afridi's dead," Elizabeth said. "So are all the men he had with him."

"Where do I send the flowers?"

"Very funny, Nick. It looks like Cobra caught Afridi and his men by surprise. There's no one there now, except the locals."

"So we don't need an insertion into Afghanistan or Pakistan after all," Nick said. "I'm not sorry to hear that. I wasn't looking forward to it."

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you were getting soft," Elizabeth said.

"You don't give me the chance."

Elizabeth laughed. "I don't want you to get bored."

"What's next?"

"We still have Cobra to deal with."

"Where is he now?"

Stephanie had been listening to the conversation. She pulled up a map on her monitor. Rao's phone was marked by a blinking red dot.

"I've got a lock on his phone," Stephanie said. "He's not that far from you, on a road that goes to a town southwest of Srinagar called Poonch. It's right on the control line, near the border with Pakistan. Ijay would have needed to use a helicopter to get to Afridi. There's an airstrip in Poonch, the only one in the region. I think Cobra is going to meet him there."

"I don't know what this guy looks like," Nick said.

"I can fix that," Stephanie said. She called up a photo of Rao, hacked from his file on the Research Wing servers. "I'm sending a picture now."

Nick looked at the photo. Cobra was an innocuous looking man for someone who had caused so much trouble. There was something hidden in his eyes. Nick had seen it before, in the eyes of men for whom everything was a means to an end. It was the look of a man with no conscience.

"What do you want us to do?" Nick said.

"Go get him," Elizabeth said. "Find out what Afridi was doing in Afghanistan. Cobra went to a lot of trouble to track him down and kill him."

"I'll let you know if his location changes," Stephanie said.

"Copy that," Nick said.