“His mission has become slightly different than mine, but I think we can all work together to make this happen.”
I raised my voice, if only a little. “Simon, do you think by helping these people you’ll really build their trust? We’ll always be foreigners.”
“I need to try. At least for the children.” I took a deep breath. “I have a mission.”
“I understand. But would you be willing to talk to Keating? Maybe just buy us some time?”
“That’s the one thing they’re telling me I don’t have.” “Will you at least try?”
I shrugged, then turned to the door.
“Scott, I respect your opinion, and I’m going to need your help. Let’s do this together.”
I couldn’t answer, and I’m glad I didn’t. “Nice to meet you . . . Scott,” said Anderson. My grin was forced, and she knew it.
I returned to quarters and sat around with the rest of my men, who were cleaning weapons. Hume and Nolan were busy dissecting the Cross-Coms for any more clues and had speculated that high-energy radio frequencies were probably to blame. I told them to keep working on it and shared with everyone what Harruck planned to do. “He’s just painting a bigger target on this town and pissing off the Taliban,” said Brown. “The local govern ment’s corrupt. That’s a given. So these people have come to trust the Taliban, who’ve kept their word. Now we’re supposed to get them to trust us more by giving them more stuff, and we’re supposed to think that once we’ve
bought their trust, they’ll help us capture the Taliban.”
“Exactly,” I said. “But what’s wrong with that pic ture?”
Treehorn started laughing. “The Taliban ain’t going to let that happen.”
“Harruck actually said we might have to work with them.”
“Are you serious?” asked Ramirez, who set down a magazine and turned his frown on me.
“See, Harruck knows that if we build the school and the rest of it, the Taliban will attack, so how do you get them off your back?”
“You take out their leader, disrupt their communica tions, and demoralize them,” said Matt Beasley, who’d been very quiet the past few days. I could now hear the frustration in his tone.
“That might work, Matt, and you can bet we’re going to try. But that’s not Harruck’s plan.”
Ramirez made the money sign with his fingers. “Oh, yeah,” I said. “They’ll try to cut a deal.”
“Well, then, what’re we supposed to do?” asked Ramirez. “Harruck’s offering a handshake while we’re putting guns to their heads.”
“Look, he can’t do that openly,” I said. “Imagine the headline. Bottom line is the taxpayers need an enemy they can believe in—just as much as a hero.”
“All this is making my brain explode,” said Treehorn. “I need a bullet and a target. I’m easy to please. The rest of it is bullshit.”
“Captain, I know Harruck’s your friend,” began Ramirez, “but we weren’t sent here to build a school. If
this is a good old-fashioned militia training op, I can deal with that, too. But we can’t be tiptoeing around and still get our job done.”
“I know. And there’s no reason we should get caught up in all this. I want to go back out there tonight, gather more intel, and proceed on mission.”
“We’ve got the drones but still no way to talk to them,” said Hume. “Waiting on new gear. Could be a few more days.”
I cursed. “Then we’ll do it the old-fashioned way. Radios, binoculars, NVGs, it’s not like we didn’t train that way,” I said.
“You going to tell Harruck?” asked Treehorn.
“No choice. We still need company support. He wanted me to call Keating and delay our mission. I don’t know about you guys, but I’d rather get the job done and get the hell out of here as soon as possible.”
“So just lie to him,” said Treehorn. I thought about that.
And I wondered if maybe I was just being a selfish bastard, but my guys felt the same way, so I lied and told Harruck no go. Our mission remained unchanged. We needed to find and capture Zahed.
“Don’t you understand?” he asked me, raising his voice when I returned to his office later in the day. “This is eight months’ worth of work finally coming together, and you want to screw it up just to nail that fat bastard who’ll be replaced by his second in command! If we don’t reach some kind of an agreement, nothing will happen.”
“They didn’t send me here to debate the politics, Simon. They sent me to get a guy, and you can’t blame me for doing that. I understand your mission here. All I’m asking is that you understand mine. If I can capture Zahed and they get him to talk, he could turn the tide for us.”
“Okay, yeah, I get it now. I understand how you’re going to incite them and create an even more volatile situ ation, as evidenced by today’s attack. And at the same time that I’m trying to earn the locals’ trust, you’re piss ing them off by hunting down one fool who in the grand scheme of things means nothing. He’s a local yokel. You’re making him sound like Bin Laden.”
I balled my hands into fists. “You’re assuming that I can’t demoralize them, that I can’t get the whole leader ship party, that no matter what I do it’s going to be sta tus quo over there.”
“That’s right, because that’s the way it’s been here. If we’re going to change anything, it has to be big and swift, and we need to do it together—if we leave them out, we’re doomed to fail.”
I couldn’t face him any more and looked to the door. “Scott—”
I took a deep breath. “I understand now why you didn’t become a Ghost.”
“Don’t be this way.”
“Sorry, I’m not like you, Simon. I’m a soldier.” “Wow, what the hell was that?”
I faced him and spoke slowly . . . for effect. “What I see here is us building another welfare state, socialism at
its finest, but remember what Margaret Thatcher said: ‘Socialism only works until you run out of other people’s money.’ I’m not ready to negotiate with these bastards.” “Captain,” he snapped. “I’ll be contacting the gen eral. I’ll take this all the way up. There’s just too much at
stake here. Nothing personal.”
“That’s fine. You won’t like the answer you get. We’re doing a recon tonight. I’ll need company support. I’ll expect you to provide it. Check the registry, Captain.”
SIX
Without our Cross-Coms, satellite uplinks and down links, and targeting computers, we were, for all intents and purposes, traditional old-school combatants relying on our scopes and skills. We did, however, have one nice toy well suited for Afghanistan: the XM-25, a laser- designated grenade launcher with smart rounds that did not require a link to our Cross-Coms. Matt Beasley had traded in his rifle for the XM-25, saying he predicted that he’d finally get a chance to field-test the weapon for himself. His prediction would come true, all right . . .
I couldn’t deny the fact that long-range recon from the mountains would gain us only a small portion of the big picture. We needed HUMINT—human intelligence— which could be gathered only by boots on the ground . . . spies walking among the enemy.
The guy I’d captured back in town was worthless. He wouldn’t talk, make a deal, nothing. Harruck handed him off to the CIA and wished him good riddance.
So at that point it was both necessary and logical that I try to recruit the only local guy I knew who was seem ingly on my side.
I won’t say I fully trusted him—because I never did. But I figured the least I could do was ask. Maybe for the right price he’d be willing to walk into the valley of the shadow of death and bring me back Zahed’s location. The Ghosts gave me an allowance for such cases, and I planned on spending it. I had nothing to lose except the taxpayers’ money, and I worked for the government—so that was par for the course.
Ramirez and I got a lift into town, and dressed like locals with the
shemaghs
covering our heads and faces, we had the driver let us off about a block from the house. Ramirez would keep in radio contact with our driver.
I wouldn’t have remembered the house if I didn’t spot the young girl standing near the front door. She took one look at me, gaped, then ran back into the house, slamming the door after her. Ramirez looked at me, and we shifted forward. I didn’t have to knock. The guy who’d helped me capture the Taliban thug emerged. I lowered my
shemagh
, and he didn’t look happy to see me. “Hello again.”
“Hello.”
I proffered my hand. “My name is Scott. And this is Joe.”
He sighed and begrudgingly took the hand. “I am Babrak Shilmani.” He shook hands with Ramirez as well.
“Do you have a moment to talk?”
He glanced around the street, then lifted his chin and gestured that we go into his house.
The table I’d seen earlier was gone, replaced by large colorful cushions spread across newly unfurled carpets. I’d learned during my first tour in the country that Afghans ate on the floor and that the cushions were called
toshak
and that the thin mat in the center was a
disterkahn
.
“We didn’t mean to interrupt your dinner,” I said. “Please sit. You are our guests.” He spoke rapidly in
Pashto, calling out to the rest of his family down the hall.
I knew that hospitality was very important in the Afghan code of honor. They routinely prepared the best possible food for their guests, even if the rest of the fam ily did without.
As his family entered from the hall, heads lowered shyly, Shilmani raised a palm. “This is my wife, Panra; my daughter, Hila; and my son, Hewad.”
They returned nervous grins, and then the mother and daughter hustled off, while the boy came to us and offered to take our
shemaghs
and showed us where to sit on the floor. Then he ran off and returned with a special bowl and jug called a
haftawa-wa-lagan
.
“You don’t have to feed us,” I told Shilmani, realiz ing that the boy had brought the bowl to help us wash our hands and prepare for the meal.
“I insist.”
I glanced over at Ramirez. “Only use your right hand. Remember?”
“Gotcha, boss.”
“You’ve been here before,” said Shilmani. “I mean Afghanistan.”
I nodded. “I love the tea.” “Excellent.”
“Will you tell me now how you learned English?” He sighed. “I used to work for your military as a trans
lator, but it got too dangerous, so I gave it up.”
Ramirez gave me a look. Perhaps we were wasting our time and had received the
no
already . . .
“They taught you?”
“Yes, a special school. I was young and somewhat foolish. And I volunteered. But when Hila was born, I decided to leave.”
“They threatened you?” “You mean the Taliban?” I nodded.
“Of course. If you help the Americans, you suffer the consequences.”
“You’re taking a pretty big risk right now,” I pointed out.
“Not really. Besides, I owe you.”
“For what? You helped me capture that man.”
“And you helped me get him out of my house. I was afraid for my wife and daughter. In most cases it is for bidden for a woman to be in the presence of a man who is not related to her—but I am more liberal than that.”
“Glad to hear it.”
As if on cue, the wife and daughter entered and pro vided all of us with tea. I took a long pull on my cup and relished the flavor, which somehow tasted like pista chios.
“So, Scott, what do you do for the Army?” “I take care of problems.”
“But you cannot do it alone. You want my help.”
“I don’t trust you. I don’t trust anyone here. But my job would be easier, and fewer innocent people would get hurt, if I could get some help.”
“What do you need?” “Not what. Who.”
Shilmani took a deep breath and stroked his thin beard. “You’ve come for Zahed.”
I smiled. “Why not?” “Because that’s impossible.”
“Nothing’s impossible,” said Ramirez.
“He has too many friends, even American friends, and too many connections. He has too many assets for you to ever get close. They always know when you’re coming. And they’re always prepared. They have eyes on your base every hour of every day. You cannot leave without them knowing about it.”
“So they know I’m here.”
“Yes, they do.”
“And I’ve already put you in danger?”
“No, because I work for Mirab Mir Burki, who is the master of water distribution here in Zhari.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Burki knows you Americans want to dig a new well. He wants that well, and he’s already negotiated with Zahed over rights to the water and the profits. We’re just waiting for you to build it. Any contact I have with Americans is part of our water negotiations—so as you might say, I have a good cover.”
“What is it you want?”
“What all men want. Money. Safety for my family. A better life.” Shilmani finished his tea, then topped off our cups and refilled his own.
“You want to see Zahed captured?”
“He’s not a good influence here—despite what others may say. He does not break promises, but when he gives you something, the price is always very steep.”
“Kundi seems to like him.”
“That old man is a fool, and Zahed would put a knife in his back. There is no loyalty there.”
“Would you go over to Sangsar and work for us?”
Shilmani’s gaze turned incredulous. “No. Of course not.”
“But you said you wanted money. I can work out an arrangement that would be very good for you—and your family.”
“I am no good to my family if I’m dead.”
“We can protect you.”
“You’re not a good liar, Scott.”
We finished the tea, and Shilmani’s wife and daughter served rice and an onion-based
quorma
or stew, along with chutneys, pickles, and naan—an unleavened bread baked in a clay oven. The food was delicious, and the wife continued urging us to eat more.
Afterward, while his family retreated to the back of the house, Shilmani wiped his mouth, then stared hard at me. “You have to remember something, Scott. After all of you are gone, we are left to pick up the pieces. We’re just trying to do the best we can for ourselves.”