Assassin (John Stratton) (20 page)

Stratton stepped closer as the nomads moved apart. They must have been highly confused. It would have come as a big surprise for anyone to walk into their camp in the middle of the night. Alone would have been unheard of. A foreigner, impossible. But a foreign woman alone. That would be beyond their comprehension.

Stratton wondered what she was saying. Maybe she was simply asking for the box. He didn’t think she had a chance of convincing them to hand it over – but surely she knew that? He wondered why she was taking the risk of even speaking to them. Standing alone and facing them with a gun in her hand was akin to holding a red cape in front of a bull. Knowing her even as little as he did, he doubted she was being at all polite and humble.

Whatever she was saying, she finally succeeded in getting a rise out of them. One of the older men, probably the tribal elder, seemed to have had enough of the intrusion and let out a wail as he raised his weapon. That was as far as he got and where his life came to an abrupt end. Stratton watched as she fired a controlled burst at him and he went flying back, his arms outstretched, the weapon released into the air.

Before he hit the dirt the others had gone into action, and before any could return fire two of them suffered a similar fate to the elder. The nomads quickly spread, several towards the nearest cover, which was the truck.

Hetta crouched and fired before quickly getting up and
changing position. She moved deliberately, without great haste, not staying in the same spot for more than a second. She hit another, judging by the way he doubled over while dropping his rifle. Two of them were coming towards Stratton. It was time for him to join the fray. He fired two single shots into both, enough to drop them for good.

Two others headed away from both shooters. Neither got far. Stratton dropped both of them. When he looked for any other targets, Hetta had stopped shooting. For a second he thought she’d been hit, but it was only because there was nothing more to shoot at. Every nomad was down. He couldn’t help being impressed with her. She had not fired her weapon on fully automatic, which was the Hollywood version of a gunfight with an assault rifle. Like him, she’d fired single shots in rapid succession. It saved ammunition, retained accuracy and reduced the need to change a magazine, during which time the shooter was most vulnerable, especially out in the open. But shooting at a crowd was the ideal time to use fully automatic firepower. To select single shot when so outnumbered had been audacious. It displayed serious confidence in her own ability. That or she’d selected the wrong setting. Somehow he didn’t think that was the case.

Stratton remained where he was, content to wait. If you don’t need to move among the victims then don’t, was one of his many mottoes. There was always the chance one of them would be wounded. No point in risking a bullet or a grenade. As he looked at the men lying motionless in the dirt, he couldn’t help feeling a tinge of regret. They
would have been brought up with guns all of their lives, to shoot and hunt like natural. And they were fearless. But they’d obviously never come up against someone like her before. If they’d had time to think before they died, it would have been devoted to utter stupefaction.

Hetta evidently didn’t have the same philosophy as he did about moving among a recently fallen enemy. She marched towards the fire. One of the nomads moved and she took care of that immediately and fired once into his head. She stopped among the bodies and Stratton watched her. She shot another nomad, who’d apparently shown a sign of life. She was clearly aware of the dangers and had a simple solution to it. She continued to the box.

Stratton moved forward, past the men he’d felled. They were dead. He kept an eye on the tents in case anyone inside felt like coming out to have a go, and joined her to look inside the box. It looked like the same device to him – cable still attached to the battery, inspection plate screwed shut and a faint glow of LED light visible through several pin holes in it.

She closed the box lid and glanced at him. He couldn’t say he saw approval in her eyes, but the look of disapproval she’d worn since they’d met seemed to have mellowed a little.

‘Bring the pick-up over here,’ she said.

The adulation was over.

He suppressed his irritation and walked over to the pick-up, wondering what she was going to do.

It was a Toyota Hilux. He wasn’t surprised since it was
the most popular vehicle in Afghanistan for both the Taliban and Afghan civilian security forces. The key was in the ignition, so he put his weapon inside, climbed in and started the engine, which fired first time and sounded in good condition.

He put it into gear, steered it around towards the fire, and reversed up to the box. Then he went round to the back, where she was unlatching the tailgate and dropping it open. She took hold of the handle on one side of the box and waited for him to take the other.

They lifted it together. It felt like a couple of hundred kilos and they had to put all their effort into it. She managed her end, though only just. After a massive effort they got a corner of the box onto the bed and Stratton quickly repositioned himself to take some of the weight off her end and together they heaved it into the back.

They took a moment to catch their breaths.

‘Am I allowed to ask a question?’ he said.

She looked at him in a way that appeared to indicate permission.

‘What’s the plan now?’

She looked at him as if weighing him up.

He thought about pushing her a little, telling her he had a right to know what was going on. If he had been a real spook, by now he would have insisted on knowing who she worked for and by what authority she was in charge. But he didn’t want to give her cause to dig any deeper about him.

And he doubted somehow it would get him anywhere.

He decided to go for a nudge regardless. ‘Look, we know you’ve got a big gun that you like to shove against people’s heads if they say something you don’t approve of, but technically this device is my responsibility,’ he said. ‘I don’t know who you work for or what your job is, but considering all that’s gone on, I’d appreciate a little more respect.’

‘You talk a lot,’ she said.

‘Actually, not normally. But you don’t talk enough.’

‘I told you my job. It’s this device and nothing else.’

‘Except if anything gets in your way.’

‘That’s right.’ She said it as if to remind him. ‘Nothing gets in the way of that directive.’

There she went with the directive thing again.

A noise that sounded like crying came from one of the tents and Hetta called out something in Dari. Stratton got the gist of it and the crying instantly stopped.

‘Do you know why Wheeland wasn’t taking the warhead into Bagram base?’ she asked.

He hoped he wasn’t expected to know the answer to that. She’d probably have her Magnum out again. But considering the spooks’ move along the Kabul road, Wheeland clearly had no intention of taking the bomb to the base by another route. If he was taking it to the US ultimately, which was only to be expected, Kabul would have been the next obvious choice. But why he hadn’t taken it to Bagram, Stratton had no idea. Unless there was something about Bagram that wasn’t like anywhere else.

And then the answer struck him. It was something Bullfrog had said. There were radiation detection systems operating at Bagram. And Bagram was under the control of the Radiation Detection Agency, not the CIA or NSA. If any of those systems picked up radiation traces, the balloons would go up. This was a nuclear device and part of a highly secret operation. Wheeland didn’t want anyone in Bagram to know about the bomb.

‘The detection systems,’ he said. ‘Bagram would have discovered we had a nuclear bomb.’

‘That’s right. They don’t have radiation detection equipment in Kabul, and Wheeland and his vehicles could get the device through the security inspections without question and onto a cargo flight back to the US.’

Stratton knew Kabul airport well enough. It was pretty much completely in the hands of the Afghan authorities and they liked nothing better than to make life difficult for the invaders, despite all that was going on. Wheeland clearly had the clout to overcome those obstacles. Most likely that meant money, and in the right hands.

‘So, we’re headed to Kabul?’ Stratton asked.

‘Can you get the box through?’ she said.

That single question told him a lot. She didn’t know the airport, so asking him must have been tough. It also suggested she didn’t know Afghanistan well. And it meant she didn’t have the same kind of authority Wheeland had to get the box through. He sensed an opportunity to wrest some control and also give himself some value. He didn’t know exactly why, but he wanted to stay in this game. He
was intrigued. She was dangerous and, strangely, that intrigued him too. He wasn’t sure if it was the challenge. She certainly was.

Yet there was something decidedly odd about her concept of operations. He felt he had some latitude to dig deeper. ‘Why don’t you just call in some help?’ he asked.

‘Because everyone involved in the operation was in that convoy,’ she said. ‘There’s only you and me left. There is no one in Afghanistan I can trust. Not right now. I could hold up for a few days until assistance arrives, but my orders are to get this back Stateside as quickly as possible.’

He thought that was interesting. It confirmed a few points.

‘If you can’t be of help, I’ll find a way,’ she said, picking up her carbine and walking to the front of the vehicle. She climbed into the cab, shut the door and started the engine.

For a second he thought she was going to drive off and leave him, but she looked out the window at him. ‘You seem to know this country,’ she said.

He thought it odd she could speak Dari yet know so little about the place. But then, military language courses were often like that. Intensive without ever going to the country of origin. She’d probably only ever been to bases or camps. Like most of the coalition forces – only a relatively small percentage of them knew the ground in any great detail. And only special forces knew a wide variety of bases and operational arenas, things like the roads and country in many of the provinces.

‘Pretty well,’ he said.

‘Can you get the box into Kabul airport and onto a flight?’

By now he’d thought about it. ‘I don’t have any contacts in Kabul right now. It would be high risk to try without the right assistance. Do you have any money?’

She shook her head. ‘Not enough.’

‘Can you bring in a spook flight if we could find an airfield somewhere else?’ he asked.

‘I want to do it with as little assistance as possible.’

He assumed that was because of the need for secrecy. ‘Then you need an air base with a Western civilian administration to fly this box back to the US.’

‘That would be best.’

Stratton considered the options. A boat would obviously require crossing borders, which would be fraught with problems. Too long on the road in any direction meant too much exposure to the authorities and numerous bad guys. Air was the best way.

It came to him without much further thought.

‘Kandahar,’ he said. ‘It’s a large coalition base but also with a number of civilian contractors and commercial flights.’ He wondered if she knew how to get there and what to do when she arrived. Probably not. He could see she was uncomfortable about something. He thought he could guess what it was. ‘You ever been to Kandahar?’ he asked.

She shook her head again.

He guessed this was the tough part for her. If she accepted the suggestion, she would have to let him manage it. That
would mean handing him the controls. She wouldn’t like that one bit.

‘I want you to come with me,’ she said.

‘We can’t take the Humvee,’ he said, not making a meal of it, though he knew how hard it had been for her to say it. ‘The Hilux will be perfect. We’ll need to get into local clothes, and I’ll drive. Outside the cities, you’ll only attract attention if you’re driving.’

She didn’t waste any time deliberating his advice and turned off the engine. Everything fell silent except for the cold wind blowing across the open plain and the tents flapping louder than before. The wind was picking up. She climbed out, leaving her M4 in the cab, and walked over to the largest of the three tents and pulled back the entrance.

He heard a woman beg for mercy in a loud wail. Hetta shouted back at her, telling her to shut up, and the hysterical voice went silent. Minutes later Hetta emerged carrying a pile of clothing, all of it black cloth and lace, and walked back to the Hilux, where she began to remove her webbing.

Stratton went to the truck and looked inside the back. There were several crates and a couple of old suitcases. He climbed inside and set about searching for clothes. When he returned to the Hilux he was wearing a pair of light cotton trousers over his fatigues, a linen shirt over his T-shirt, and a large three-quarter-length goatskin jacket.

Hetta had simply pulled a full-length burkha over the top of her fatigues, the hood thrown onto her back for when she needed it.

Stratton was holding a small cloth bag. ‘I found this bag of Afghan passports,’ he said, taking a bundle from the bag. ‘The nomads were obviously in the false document business. I might need one if we get stopped by the police. Could you choose one for me?’

He held them out to her – since she could speak the lingo, he expected she could read it too. She took the bundle and quickly went through them, flicking to the identity pages, comparing the photographs to Stratton.

‘This will do,’ she said, handing him one. ‘Your name is Mustafa Dinorani.’ She put the rest in the bag and gave it back to him.

‘Mustafa Dinorani,’ he said, making an effort to remember. Then he tossed the bag on the fire.

‘We should pack the vehicle with household items,’ he said. ‘And fuel.’

They collected baskets, cooking pots and rope and piled them into the back, covering the large plastic box with a rug. By the time Stratton had returned from the truck with several cans of fuel, she was busy lashing down the contents of the flatbed with line.