Veiled Freedom (23 page)

Steve had gone cold inside at Amy's challenge, then hot with fury. This was why he and other PSCs preferred to stay with their own kind and away from civilians. Especially the bleeding, do-gooder types like Ms. Amy Mallory with their stupid misconceptions formulated from a TV screen instead of hard reality under their boots. Even the appalled look in her eyes that made it clear she hadn't meant to denigrate every uniform with the courage to come here failed to mollify him.

Flashing ID at the Gurkha guard, Steve waited impatiently for the red and white checkpoint boom to start its rise before gunning the Suburban savagely down the street. He hadn't planned to linger once it was clear the DynCorp manager wasn't coming back. But something about Amy had drawn Steve. Some nagging reflection of his own youthful naiveté and passion?

Steve remembered only too well when he'd believed in his country, in his mission. Even in these people, the men beside whom he'd fought and for whom he'd been as willing to die as for his own countrymen. He'd been confident that this time would be different from the Taliban and the muj and the Russians and all the other invaders responsible for Afghanistan's woes. That the hand of friendship could accomplish what the despotic tread of conquerors had not.

Then had come the gradual, terrible recognition that this was not so. That the failing came not from without but from something deep and ugly within. Steve remembered because his night dreams never let him fully forget, just when naive and youthful passion had hardened to disillusion.

To betrayal.

It wasn't just the lying and corruption at every level. The village leaders demanding compensation for a hundred flattened houses where only twenty had stood. The bogus toll ropes slung across freshly liberated roads to bleed passing transport. The newly formed police force demanding bribes instead of justice. Their greed Steve could understand, if not condone. Desperation for survival turned men hard. But if he'd learned to dismiss Khalid's land grab and its like as an inevitability of war, his disenchantment was back tenfold before the fighting wound down as muj commanders and local leaders scrambled not just for a slice of the aid pie but their own pet coalition official into whose ear they could whisper their version of local affairs.

Steve's ODA had been the one to call in an air strike against a Taliban unit on the word of a trusted Northern Alliance commander. Only to discover the “insurgents” were a delegation of tribal leaders on their way to offer allegiance to the new president. And, coincidentally, the strongest opponents to that particular commander's local power grip.

The very next week had seen Phil's patrol wiped out when their local guide walked them into an ambush. Al-Qaeda? Taliban? Or locals taking a potshot at the latest occupiers? No one would ever know since said guide had conveniently slipped away just before things blew.

Steve had come to feel completely paralyzed in doing his job because he couldn't know who was lying. Who really were the good guys and the bad. He'd almost envied the fresh young troop arrivals with their ignorance of the language and faith in their mission and local liaisons. By the time his unit shifted to the Iraq theater, Steve was more than ready to put Afghanistan behind him. All he'd taken from this place was vastly improved Dari and Pashto and a deep disenchantment, if not with his profession, certainly with the viability of his current mission.

Steve pulled up to the MOI security checkpoint, raising his ID even as he flipped open his cell phone. No, he was right in giving Amy Mallory the heads-up she should have had before ever coming here. If Steve had his way, such a lecture would be required for every expat heading this way. Let them walk into this mess with their eyes open at least.

As his call had arranged, DynCorp country manager Jason Hamilton was walking toward Steve by the time the Suburban pulled through the vehicle entrance. Though MOI offices were long shut for the day, the compound was an uproar of people.

Mac, evening shift leader for Khalid's detail, met them inside the main building. “Principal's secure. I've called in the next shift for backup just as a precaution.”

“So where is it?” Steve demanded as the two CS contractors followed Jason down the hall. In contrast to outdoors, this at least was empty. “And how in blazes did it get past security?”

Jason led the way upstairs. “How the perp made it inside, we're still trying to shake out. As you're undoubtedly aware, the minister of interior—your principal—had the K-9 unit over here showing off for those visiting police chiefs. The demonstration zone was the bottom floor of the MOI headquarters. The exercise involved both C-4 and narcotics, so no one thought anything of it when the dogs started going ape. Except they kept going ape even outside the containment area. So they turned the dogs loose on the whole building.”

The three men emerged on the top floor where the minister of interior had his offices.

Jason didn't head toward Khalid's suite but up the final stairwell to the roof. “That's when I got called away from the party. They should have evacuated the entire compound, but Khalid insisted it would be an insult to send all those police chiefs packing. Not as big an insult as getting someone blown up. Still, even I wrote it off as a false alarm. Then the K-9s stumbled over this baby. That's when I figured you'd appreciate a heads-up.”

Portable floodlights had been set up to blaze into every corner of the building's flat roof. Dead center lay the dynamite sticks, duct tape, and wiring of a suicide vest.

“It's been disarmed,” Jason assured quickly. “We wouldn't have let Khalid up here otherwise. Or at all if I'd my way. But this is his turf, and he insisted.”

Unlike the sealed-off corridors below, the rooftop swarmed with activity. Steve had already noted with disapproval that Khalid was among a huddle gathered around that ugly, dark blotch. At least the minister's CS detail was tight around him, Rick and Ian among them.

As Jason joined the huddle, Steve swung around on Mac. “So why didn't
you
call?”

The huge Texan didn't back down an inch. “Because there was nothing you could have done that wasn't being handled. Believe me, when there's something worth dragging you away from R & R, you'll hear about it.”

“Fair enough. But since I'm here, let's take a look.” Steve pointed to an Afghan news crew holding a caterpillar mike over Khalid's hunkered-down position as he talked into a camera, his animated gestures indicating the explosives at his side. “Great, now who let them up here?”

Mac grinned. “That's a local TV station here to film tonight's demo. Khalid insisted on bringing them. Don't worry. We patted them down good.”

“And so you see how the enemies of our country persist in their attacks on my person and this ministry. But they will not intimidate us—” Khalid stopped as Steve approached, straightening up so that the news crew had to take a hasty step back. As always on MOI business, the former muj commander was wearing a Western suit, making his squatting inspection as awkward as his rising. His deputy, Ismail, hurried forward to offer a supporting arm.

“Do you see how they are trying to kill me?” Khalid sounded more triumphant than aggrieved. “Did I not say the sugar factory bomb was intended for me? Now they will have to listen.”

“We don't know yet what the intended target was here,” Jason cautioned.

Khalid waved that away. “Who else would be a target?”

Steve knelt beside the vest. The duct-taped explosives looked no less deadly up close.

Rick glanced up. “We're thinking the bomber was going for the chopper. Security was just too tight to get anywhere near Khalid and his guests downstairs. But Khalid and his team flew over tonight.”

An unnecessary ostentation designed only to impress the police chiefs with their new boss, neither contractor commented aloud.

“If the bomber was targeting the chopper, he'd figure it would be back to pick up its passengers. All he had to do was wait here.” Rick poked cautiously at the vest, using a handkerchief to glove his finger. “This is what sent the dogs ape. That's not just dynamite. There's C-4 in there. Which means we don't have an ordinary suicide bomber.”

“Except that so much has been pilfered from our bases the bazaars are awash with it,” Mac countered skeptically. “And all over the Internet there're schematics to build this thing. Anyone with basic mechanics could put it together.”

“What I'd like to know is how he got up here wired like a Christmas tree,” Steve demanded. “Or left again afterward.”

“I double-checked everything myself,” Mac put in defensively. “Every person coming in or out went through a metal detector wand and pat-down. There's no way they missed something like this. And there was no serious danger to Khalid because we swept the roof before the chopper touched down and would have swept it again before it came back.”

“I think we may have part of an answer.” The voice belonged to Jason, who was leaning over the parapet that overlooked the alley and neighboring apartment building.

The brightness of searchlights outlined what had drawn their attention. Two sandbags removed from the nearest observation post had been heaved side by side onto the concertina wire, flattening the sharp barbs enough for an agile person to climb over them. Below, the third-story balcony would be an easy drop, Steve judged with an experienced eye. Ditto from there to the second-story balcony, then the alley. Or from the end of the balcony into the compound itself.

“He might have gone down this way. Climbing up's another matter.” Mac shook his head. “Besides, those dogs were going crazy long before they got up to the roof. I'd swear the bomber was inside the building.”

“What interests me,” Steve mused, “is why the perp didn't carry out his mission. Did he get tired of waiting for the chopper? Or did something spook him? Maybe the dogs raising the alarm? And why leave the vest here? Why even let us know he's been here? Some kind of warning?”

“Or taunting,” Mac suggested. “Like he's saying, ‘I can hit you anytime. I just chose not to tonight.'”

“Well, if that's what he's thinking, he's out of his skull,” Steve said calmly. “Forewarned is forearmed. Jason, we've got some coordinating to do. We'll need to scramble a search of the entire compound, just to make sure there isn't a repeat of this somewhere else. Oh, and the chopper's out for tonight. We don't know if the bomber had backup, maybe even an RPG. Call up Bones and tell him to get a convoy over here. Meanwhile, get Khalid off this roof before someone decides to take a potshot.”

Khalid was already heading for the stairwell with the camera crew and his security detail scrambling to take up position ahead and behind.

Steve hooked a thumb toward the dark blotch spotlighted on the concrete. “Jason, any chance you can have your trainees process the vest and do some dusting for fingerprints? And send a few over to that apartment building to interview the residents. Maybe someone just happened to be looking out a window.”

He was looking out a window, though it no longer held glass panes or even wooden framing. From it, he could still see the foreign mercenaries, thanks to those bright lights and the binoculars he'd been provided. This war-blasted, abandoned apartment building had been the drop site on his instructions, the ruined cubicle in which he now huddled so high and difficult to access even the most desperate of squatters had not seized on it.

He'd found the equipment where indicated, concealed under the rubble. He'd followed every instruction. Made himself ready. Steeled mind and body to finality.

So why was he still here, breathing acrid dust, shivering under the chill fingers of a wind that whistled across the shattered walls?

He waited until the floodlights blinked off and the searchers went away. His body, hunkered down and unmoving, had gone numb before he heard a stealthy tread on the broken stairs. He stilled his breathing to the same frozen wariness as his limbs.

“It is I.”

He relaxed as he recognized the voice, the shape, taller and heavier than his own, though it was too dark to make out more than a silhouette against a glimmer of city lights filtering through the broken openings.

“Why did you not let me carry out the mission? I was ready. I was in position. And why leave evidence of my passing? I was not detained in my leaving, and now it must be prepared again.”

“It was necessary, and this was not the right time.”

“What do you mean, the right time?”

“You must be patient. There was purpose in tonight.” The voice in the darkness hardened. “If only to prove you can follow orders. And we have now probed the efficiency of the infidel mercenaries. Many things must be in place to assure this is a strike worth making. Trust me.”

Trust! There was no trust in these debris-choked ruins, only expediency. “It is just that I had thought it would be over tonight.”