Assassin (John Stratton) (21 page)

He topped up the Hilux’s tank and fitted as many spare cans as he could into the back. Kandahar was several hundred kilometres south of Kabul but they had enough to get there. Then his eyes fell on a water container, which reminded him to look for some sustenance. The more self-sufficient they could be the better. He felt suddenly hungry.

He spotted some pots around the fire and a lamb stew of some kind, with unleavened bread. He made a quick
sandwich and filled one of the smaller pots with bits of everything and brought it back to the vehicle. While he ate, he took another scan around in case there was anything else he’d forgotten. He realised she was looking at him with her usual blank expression.

He wondered what she was thinking. Perhaps she was unhappy that he’d taken over, to a degree. Stratton didn’t doubt that when the opportunity came for her to take charge again she would. He held the pot out to her.

‘You want some lamb?’ he said. ‘It’s pretty good.’

‘Let’s go,’ she said, walking around to the passenger side of the pick-up.

He wondered how deep he’d have to dig to find a human side to her. He wasn’t particularly interested in making much of an effort. He climbed into the driver’s seat, placed his weapon muzzle to the floor with the butt on the seat beside his leg for easy access and covered it with a scarf. She climbed in beside him on the bench seat, sorted out her flowing burkha, placed her carbine beside her like he had and covered it in a cloth.

‘All right, dear?’ he said, starting the engine.

She sat looking coldly ahead.

He turned on the headlights, put the engine into gear and eased the vehicle along the hard ground, using the compass on his watch to provide a rough direction. Due west would cut the Bagram–Kabul road that ran north–south. He had little idea how far away it was – thirty, forty, fifty kilometres maybe. He looked ahead for any steep hills that would be better avoided sooner rather than later, but
all he could see was blackness, with the far mountain range beyond. It would be nice to reach the road by sunrise.

With his partner being such a bundle of fun, it was going to be a long drive.

Twenty-five minutes after the Hilux left the camp a dozen Taliban horsemen rode into the clearing. They were outriders, tasked with keeping the smaller, more remote villages in constant touch with the fanatical organisation. They achieved this by running hot and cold in temperament and understanding. They could be magnanimous one day and ruthlessly punishing the next, depending on what a particular village had been up to. If, for instance, a coalition military unit had passed through an area and the Taliban learned that the tribal elders had been tolerant of it, the Taliban would mete out punishment. And usually disproportionately to the crime. There would usually be executions, since they were the most effective instructional tool. These would include a draft from the families – men, women and children – and the method of execution would depend on the mood and taste of the Taliban leader.

The commander of this particular squadron was Alba Tushani, an Iranian-born Pashtun. He liked to tear his victims apart using horses. He would use two, three or sometimes four of the animals, tethered to the limbs of his victim. It was a visually horrifying MO that Tushani found
most persuasive when it came to convincing Afghans where to focus their loyalties.

Tushani rode around the camp inspecting the place, in particular the dead nomads around the fire. One of his men called out and he rode over to inspect the still slightly burning Hilux with the bodies on it. His men confirmed it was one of theirs and they identified the men who weren’t too disfigured.

Tushani had been waiting for his men to return from their ambush on the Bagram road. They should have been at the rendezvous by the time one of his men reported the distant fire. He was able to form a general idea of what had happened, but only up until the nomads were killed. He was well aware that nomads would take what they wanted from passing travellers regardless of whether they were Taliban or not. They had clearly made an effort to burn the evidence.

Tushani wasn’t an excitable man. Everything had its course to take as far as he was concerned. A distant fire wasn’t something to get overly excited about, even if he had suspicions that all was not well. As soon as he’d finished his evening meal, he ordered his men to mount up and they went for a late ride to take a look.

Another shout came from one of his men, who’d found the women and children huddled inside a tent. Tushani rode over and questioned the nomad leader’s wife.

She told him what had happened, to the best of her knowledge, although she lied about her men killing the Taliban. She believed the people who’d killed her men,
and Tushani’s, were Americans. All Westerners – especially military – were considered Americans by these people.

Tushani asked her what had happened to the other Hilux. She explained that her men were helping the Taliban fix a flat tyre when the Americans attacked. Two of the Americans had left in the Hilux and headed west. Tushani asked how many Americans there were altogether. The woman stumbled on the answer, mainly because she couldn’t tell him just two had done all of that killing, and especially that one of them had been a woman. So she told the Taliban commander she had no idea how many Americans there were altogether. She’d been hiding throughout and heard the fighting from within the tent.

Tushani knew she was lying about something, but he didn’t have time to cross-examine her further or use more persuasive methods to exact the truth. The important facts were that Americans had attacked and they weren’t all that far away. His men found the tyre tracks, which went some way to proving what the old woman had said about the pick-up being stolen.

Tushani loved to fight. Or rather, to kill. He particularly loved to capture Americans and torture them before executing them. That gave him immense pleasure. But revenge was even more important to him. They’d stolen his property. Killed his men. He knew exactly how far the Kabul road was. He knew how long it would take the Americans to reach it in the Hilux. If he was swift, he could reach them by the time they arrived at the Kabul road.

He cried out to his men and they rode their horses along the tyre tracks made by the pick-up.

The Hilux bumped along, its headlights seeing far into the darkness. Stratton steered it over and around a seemingly endless field of dips and bumps. The terrain was sometimes stony, sometimes dirt, with frequent patches of hardy plants.

Stratton was able to maintain a westerly direction for most of the route, but some of the ground was so undulating or steep that he had to divert north or south to navigate around. At times the vehicle bounced from side to side so violently the pair of them had to hold on tightly to prevent bumping heads.

They’d been driving for almost two hours when Stratton first began to experience a subtle yet disturbed feeling. Long experience had taught him that, even though it was not a certainty, he was wise never to ignore such feelings. He glanced continually in the rear-view and side mirrors, looking for something, though what he had no idea. He could see nothing but total blackness behind them.

He noticed Hetta looking into her side mirror and wondered if she was experiencing something similar.

‘You feel it too?’ he asked her.

She nodded.

It was enough for him to put the brakes on. He turned off the lights, stopped the vehicle on the soft, gravelly earth, killed the engine and climbed out.

She also stepped out and used her thermal imager to look back into the darkness.

Stratton found a rock and smashed both tail lights. They stood silently, listening, watching. All he could hear was the wind against their backs, which didn’t help.

‘Let’s go,’ he said.

They climbed back into the Hilux and got going, without lights. Hetta handed him the thermal imager. The sense of an encroaching threat never left either of them. They continued to check the mirrors but nothing was ever visible. Stratton would have liked to know how much further it was to the road. He would feel safer once they were on it. Maybe it was the ghosts of the nomads.

Another hour went by and the first hint of daylight began to break over the mountain range behind them. Stratton could see well enough without the imager, which was fortunate since its power was waning. He thought he could make out a scar running across their front a mile away. He hoped it was the road. There would be little or no traffic at that time of the day. He didn’t know the curfew times in Kabul but it wouldn’t be raised before full daylight. Any early morning traffic would be from the villages between Kabul and Bagram.

He negotiated a tight dip that rocked the vehicle violently. As he pulled back onto level ground, Hetta grabbed her carbine and pulled her webbing belt with its attached magazine pouches off the floor. Stratton’s eyes flashed to the rear-view mirror. He saw riders coming down the broad slope towards them.

He hit the accelerator hard. He knew he couldn’t outrun them on the terrain but he had a chance on tarmac, if
they could reach it in time. As he flew over a bump he was reminded they couldn’t lose anyone with broken suspension.

He estimated a dozen riders. Armed Afghan cavalry was not to be taken lightly. The Hilux went airborne again over a rise, landing with a heavy jolt, and the road appeared a few hundred metres ahead. The riders would reach them before they made the road. They needed a more immediate solution.

They’d have to debus and take them on. But good cavalry could divide quickly and come at them from all angles.

Hetta pulled off her burkha. ‘Sharp turn left,’ she said as they bumped furiously along.

Stratton wondered what she meant, since he could see no great obstacle in front.

She opened her door and held it open. ‘Turn now!’ she ordered.

He realised her intentions and made the turn in front of a fold in the ground. She leaped out and Stratton kept the new heading to draw the riders. Hopefully they hadn’t seen her debus. He caught a glimpse of her rolling to cover.

After fifty metres he brought the pick-up back round towards the road. He flashed another look in her direction and couldn’t see her. At that same instant a bullet slammed into the side of the Hilux. Several more shots came from the riders, another striking the vehicle’s door. The sound of gunfire increased over the engine and creaking chassis. Two more bullets hit the pick-up, one cracking the
windscreen. It was pointless heading for the road. It was time to play his part.

Stratton slammed on the brakes, turning the wheel hard over. The Hilux skidded as it turned and the engine stalled. While the pick-up was still moving, he grabbed his carbine, webbing, opened the door and dropped out to land on his back. The landing wasn’t too bad on the stony sand and he rolled through a patch of low grass.

The pick-up slow-wheeled on for a few metres before coming to a stop with both its doors open. Stratton brought his carbine up on aim as he viewed the battle zone. Hetta was on one knee, her rifle in her shoulder, and firing single shots into the riders.

Stratton watched three of them fall one after the other. He quickly sighted a rider heading towards him, aimed high in the torso and fired. The rider fell sideways off his horse. The group had divided up, some engaging Hetta while the rest bore down on Stratton. He got up on one knee and fired again, hitting one of them in the chest, and the man came down hard. A round struck the ground near Stratton’s foot. He moved to fire again and another rider tumbled off his horse. A bullet went through the side of Stratton’s coat. There were two riders left and they parted to pass either side of him. Instinctively, he knew he couldn’t get both with no reply. He aimed at the one on the left and fired, then dropped, rolled onto his back, and aimed right and fired.

He hit the first but missed the second. The first had fallen from his horse but the second was firing – the bullet
struck close to Stratton’s head. He scrabbled and aimed and fired.

Stratton watched the man drop his rifle but he stayed on his horse, galloping past Stratton, who had to roll away to avoid its hoofs. The Taliban commander stayed in the saddle for only a few moments before sliding off to a dusty stop.

Stratton quickly scanned in every direction. There were no more riders, just empty horses. He looked at Hetta, who was doing the same. She lowered her rifle and walked towards the Hilux, without a glance his way. He watched to see if she was injured or suffering any after-effects, not that he expected to find any signs of the latter.

She appeared to be her same mechanical, cold self.

He looked at the men they’d killed, spread around the plain. Several of them lay twisted in awkward positions after their falls. All were unmoving. The bodies would likely begin to rot before anyone found them. There didn’t appear to be any villages nearby and so the stench wouldn’t be offensive to anyone. If a passer-by discovered them and told the police, there might eventually be an investigation. The police might make some effort to identify them, although the cadavers no doubt would have been relieved of any valuables by then. The bodies would end up being tipped into a single grave. Like so many Afghans had been in this conflict.

Stratton went to the vehicle and gave it a quick once-over. The tyres looked OK and there were no holes in the engine compartment that he could see. He climbed inside and started it up. It fired first time and sounded fine.

Hetta climbed in beside him.

‘You OK?’ he asked, if only to get some response.

‘I’m fine,’ she said.

She seemed uncomfortable with his concern and looked away.

When they reached the road, he pointed the vehicle south. The tarmac was in moderately good condition for Afghanistan. There was no shortage of potholes or chunks missing at the sides, but it could have been a lot worse.

Traffic was reasonably quiet, with a vehicle passing the other way every five minutes or so. It wasn’t long before they caught up with other cars. As the morning passed, the road rose gradually and traffic rapidly increased, mostly commercial trucks in both directions, interspersed were locals heading to work.