“We've just had the word from SOCOM — they want us to pull our fingers out. There has been some movement at the facility. Intel is suggesting an imminent move.”
“What's the schedule?” I asked as we pushed through a door and into the sleet. I wondered how Butler had managed to keep the tips of his hair so perfectly blond.
“This way, sir,” said Butler. The two SAS men made for a nearby Land Rover. I recognized the driver — Lance Corporal Wignall. When we arrived at the vehicle, Butler said, “The schedule is that we go tomorrow night.”
“Tomorrow night?” A little fear escaped along with my words.
“Yep.”
Tomorrow night? Jesus! While I'd long since passed the point of no return, it still felt like I was in a car heading down a hill with the brake lines ripped out. Dortmund took my gear and threw it in the back.
“You first, Agent Cooper,” Butler said, as he opened the door for me. I climbed in and he followed. Dortmund took the seat beside Wignall. The Land Rover coughed into life and moved off slowly through the ice rink the parking lot had become. “We're ready,” Butler said, continuing where he'd left off. “We've got a good setup back at the safe house. We've got a scale model of the facility, we have the blueprints of the place, the transport squadron has given us the thumbs-up. The weather's not playing by the rules, and the report for tomorrow night looks iffy, but we knew that would always be the case at this time of the year, right?”
“ Uh-huh,” I said. The vehicle stank of diesel oil and sweat.
“We've been doing quite a bit of work with the Ski-Doos — got ‘em modified the way we want ‘em — and we've managed to pack in quite a few practice jumps with them. How about you, guv? If you don't mind me asking, when was the last time you jumped? I mean, you might have been Special Forces once, but you're a copper these days, right?”
The vehicle's windows fogged. I didn't wipe it away. There wasn't much to see — the snow shower had turned into a serious dump, and, besides, seen one parking lot crammed with U.S. Army light infantry vehicles, seen ‘em all.
“Yeah, as a matter of fact, I do.”
“Do what?”
“Mind you asking,” I said. “But, since you've asked, don't worry about me.” Yeah, ‘cause I'm doing enough of that for both of us. “I jumped up and down with excitement for days when this job came up.”
Butler smiled. “Have we got issues, Special Agent? You and me?”
“That depends on whether you killed Ruben Wright,” I said.
Butler shook his head. “I wondered whether those bollocks would come up … No, actually, I was sure they would. I told you already — I didn't kill Sergeant Wright. Got anything else on your mind, guv?”
“Nothing that can't wait. Where are we going?”
“Safe house,” said Butler, sitting back, wiping away at his window. Apparently, a sudden desire to do some sightseeing had overcome him.
I kept my eyes on the windshield framed between Wignall's and Dortmund's ears. The snowfall had ended. Snow in Kandahar was unusual. The city was in the southern part of the country, away from the high mountains. It sat in the middle of the farming belt, where the weather was a little less malevolent. Today, the more usual browns and tans of Kandahar were hidden beneath a layer of soft whiteness. The place reminded me of a Christmas card. The image was reinforced when we turned down a narrow street and Dortmund slowed to give three Afghan men leading donkeys a little room. I wondered if they were on their way to visit a newborn king. If so, they were late: Christmas was over. Maybe they were on their way home. None of the men looked at us, though one of the animals snorted, raised its tail, and dropped a couple of pounds of crap onto the ground. Or maybe it was myrrh. The men leading the donkeys were hunched over as they kicked through the freshly fallen snow, their bodies wrapped in tan capes and their heads wound up in light-colored turbans — protection from the elements.
Wignall accelerated through an open square. Across the far side was another Humvee. I could see American Army engineers building a snowman with a bunch of local kids. One of them pitched a snowball at an engineer. It exploded against his Kevlar. The guy returned fire. The battle escalated. Based on this evidence, I was prepared to believe we were winning at least a few hearts and minds, though the Afghans were a wily bunch, as they'd proved to every uninvited visitor since the days when an iron sword was state-of-the-art in military high-tech.
I received a thumbnail history of this country the last time I was here. It went something like this: Over the past couple of thousand years, after having a crack at it themselves, assorted kings, emperors, and generals usually put the job of subduing the Pashtun Afghans on the things-to-do list for their successors, just to give their next-in-line a lesson in humility. I'd witnessed the lesson myself on my last tour, and the fact that we were still here, years later, fighting the same people we were fighting back then, didn't bode well. And this time, the enemy had learned lessons from their buddies fighting the insurgency in Iraq. No way were they going to come and slug it out toe-to-toe with us like they did at Tora Bora. Not when it was so much fun to kill us slow. It's said the Pashtuns are only happy when they're at war. If this was true, they'd had something to keep them chuckling pretty much continuously since the time of Alexander the Great.
I wasn't too familiar with Kandahar. I'd been here before, but only in transit on the way to someplace else. The town was an important transport hub in support of our effort here, and so a lot of attention had been paid to making the place as secure as possible. Occasionally, though, shoot-and-scoot squads still sent rockets or mortar rounds in from the surrounding countryside, or an improvised explosive device blew the lid off a light armored vehicle, or charbroiled a Humvee, just to keep us on our toes.
Wignall slowed again to pass men herding a few donkeys and camels across the street and into a wide square that stank of unwashed animal and dung fires.
A few homes and business were lit by electric lights but most burned oil or kerosene or wax for light. The temperature was hovering around the freezing point and there weren't a lot of people out. I figured most were indoors, hugging their stoves.
Wignall took a sudden left turn. We dived through a small dark lane and into a largish courtyard. A tent was pitched in the corner of the open space, taking up one third of it. “Be it ever so ‘umble,” said Dortmund with a smile after the vehicle squealed to a stop.
“Billy, grab the Special Agent's kit,” ordered Butler as he got out. I did likewise.
Damian Mortensen appeared from behind the Land Rover. He gave me a nod by way of hello.
“I'll show you around,” Butler told me. “Norris is the only one of our lads not here. He's inside. The other people wandering around are CIA and NSA. They're here to make sure we've got intel hot off the sats.”
I looked for and found security cameras watching all entry points and common walls. I noted a number of claymore mines hung up high on the walls with command detonation wires taped together and snaking off toward one of the buildings. Maybe they were expecting a visit from unfriendlies — maybe from the GAO.
Knowing the CIA's paranoia, there were probably also motion sensors buried inside and out, as well as other external cameras. The devices were small, and hidden or disguised. But our enemies weren't fools. Hidden cameras or not, we'd just driven into this place in a Land Rover. We might as well have been preceded by elephants on their hind legs playing trumpets. “Safe house?” I inquired.
Butler cleared his throat and spat onto the snow. “The neighbors are all on our payroll.”