It was a bomb, an incendiary bomb, pointing downward, resembling a huge cylinder with a long fuse on its nose and stabilizing fins on the aft end. The pilot was not swerving to get away from the soldier with the SA-14 missile — he was swerving to toss the bomb toward Turabi’s patrol while he turned away to get as far from the blast as he could. And, as he watched, the bomb fell away from the helicopter directly at his encampment.
“Take cover!” Turabi shouted, waving his arms downward. “Take cover! Incoming!”
“Get down!” he heard a voice shout. It was his first sergeant, Abdul Dendara. Turabi turned just in time to see the man plow into him at full force, pushing him into the trench Turabi used as a temporary command post. Dendara then leaped in right after him, covering Turabi’s body with his own.
Turabi looked up and was about to order his first sergeant to get the hell off of him — just as a bright flash of light instantly turned the dawn into high noon in summertime. Seconds later he heard several loud pops, followed by an ear-shattering explosion. Turabi saw Dendara pulled backward as if caught in a powerful vacuum, seemingly sucked right back out of the trench.
And then Dendara’s body was instantly turned to a cloud of ash as the sky — no, the very air — was transformed into a wall of white-hot fire.
Turabi rolled over onto his belly and buried his face in the sand as the ocean of fire raged barely two meters above him. He felt his clothing and skin turning to flame, and he covered the back of his head with his bare hands and screamed and pleaded for God to take him before he could feel himself burn to death. The searing heat crept up his legs, and he could do nothing else but slap and kick the fire out and try not to expose any more of his body to it. What a nightmarish way to die, he thought. At least poor Abdul got the privilege of dying instantly, not bit by bit like this….
It was the powerful explosion itself that saved him. The furious blast and overpressure swept hundred of kilos of sand down into the trench, extinguishing the spontaneous flames that burst out all over Turabi’s body and threatened to broil him to death, creating a thin but effective layer of insulation over him.
He had no idea how long it was before he awoke. At first he thought he’d been buried alive, but he found he could easily move aside the sand and create enough space to take a deep breath. The sand felt very warm, almost hot, but it didn’t seem to be burning him. He experimented with his limbs and neck, trying each body part carefully, and found himself in pain but able to move, with no apparent serious injuries. Turabi reached above himself and found that his hand had popped out of the sand. He struggled to his knees and then to all fours, brushing sand from his face, marveling that he was still alive and dreading what he might find above.
The first thing he found, praise be to Allah, was a squad of his fellow Taliban soldiers searching the area. They had managed to chase away the Russian attackers, Turabi thought happily. He looked over and saw Aman Orazov himself, standing on an armored vehicle, listening to a verbal report from one of the men. Yes, Orazov was an ass, but right now he was surely a welcome sight. Turabi thought it appeared to be about midmorning — he might have been unconscious for three or four hours. He brushed more sand out of his ears as he hunted for a foothold on the edge of the trench.
As he did, he heard Orazov say, “Excellent. Looks like our attack worked perfectly.”
Turabi let go and immediately dropped back down into the trench. What in hell did he mean, “our” attack?
“Negative, sir,” he heard another soldier say — another Turkmen turncoat, like Orazov. “There’s no sign of any living thing here. One hundred percent casualties. Everything that was aboveground was incinerated. The fuel-air explosive worked exactly as planned.”
It wasn’t a Russian attack? It was Orazov? Their own men had attacked them? Impossible…!
No, not impossible. For Orazov it was very possible. It clearly meant that Wakil Zarazi was dead also. Orazov had obviously betrayed Zarazi and then undertook his first mission: to kill Turabi and the rest of his patrol. He probably intended to win favor back from his former Turkmen officers or the Russian army, once they’d completed their reoccupation.
Jalaluddin Turabi knew that his mission had now changed. Instead of capturing booty for his tribe back in Afghanistan, Turabi’s new mission was simple: avenge Wakil Zarazi’s death. He was sworn to do it. Orazov had to die, and by Turabi’s own hand. Nothing else in life mattered. Zarazi might have been misguided, blinded by some invisible, mystical calling — but he was still the leader, and Turabi’s new duty was to avenge him. Then he could lead the loyal survivors back home, tell the elders what had happened, and prepare to take command of the tribe — or face the wrath of the elders.
But he couldn’t confront Orazov now. That would be suicidal. He had no choice but to play dead and hope they would go away.
Turabi slinked back into the sand, slowly, carefully nudging it aside, intent on burrowing back down and burying himself. Standard procedures would be to search the trenches for survivors or bodies — he hoped Orazov was lazy or stupid enough to merely look around, decide there were no survivors, and go back to Mary. Maybe, maybe, if he did so, Turabi could escape, make his way back to their stronghold in Chärjew, then assemble a fighting force, sneak back to Mary, and carry out his new mission — kill Orazov.
Turabi was about three-quarters of the way back under the sand when he heard the first dog bark. Shit, he thought, maybe that Turkmen pigfucker Orazov wasn’t so stupid after all — he’d remembered to bring guard dogs with him. Turabi fairly dove into the sand, but it was too late. Seconds later two scrawny whelps jumped into the trench. One clamped his jaws onto Turabi’s left hand, and the other took a bite on the back of his neck and right ear before grabbing his right sleeve. Soon men were leaping into the partially sand-filled trench, and Turabi was dragged over to Orazov’s vehicle and thrown onto the blackened desert floor.
“Well, well, the colonel is still alive,” Orazov said, jumping down from his armored vehicle. “What a pleasant surprise. We should search all the trenches for survivors.”
Turabi was held suspended by his arms between two Turkmen soldiers. Several surviving Taliban soldiers from his detail saw Turabi and rushed over to him but were pushed aside by more Turkmen soldiers. “Brilliant idea, Orazov,” Turabi muttered.
“Is that any way to talk to your rescuer?” Orazov asked.
At a nod from him, one of the Turkmen soldiers punched Turabi in the side of his head. The Taliban soldiers surrounding them shouted a warning and tried to rush to Turabi’s aid but were again roughly shoved back. Orazov didn’t seem to notice — he was too intent on seeing Turabi suffer some more.
He stepped closer to Turabi and pulled his head up by his hair. “You’ll wish you had died in that fuel-air blast, Turabi, I guarantee it.”
Turabi tried to spit in his face, but he no longer had any moisture in his mouth at all. “What has happened to Zarazi?” he asked.
“The same that will happen to you, Turabi: I’ll put a bullet through your stupid head, watch your brains splatter on the wall behind you, and then I’ll wrap you up in a carpet and have you buried in the desert,” Orazov said.
“You’ll die for that,” Turabi croaked through dry, cracked lips. “I’ll slice out your heart myself.”
“You didn’t believe in the old man’s holy mission any more than I did, Turabi. You’re just too blinded by that idiotic clan-loyalty nonsense to realize it,” Orazov said. “Forget about your ridiculous blood oaths and feudal allegiances, Turabi. Spend your last moments on earth thinking about this entire useless mission of yours in Turkmenistan and how badly you wasted the last few weeks of your life, waging a war with an idiot like Zarazi who thought he was fighting for the greater glory of God. Spend the next moments looking at the faces of your loyal men — because they’ll join you in hell in a few minutes, too.” He jabbed a thumb in the direction of a giant trench dug in the desert, where men and vehicles were dumping the remains of dozens of horribly burned and mangled men. “Good-bye, Colonel. Give my regards to General Zarazi — in hell.”