The two fighters looked at each other. They were true soldiers and followed orders. Someday, God willing, they would figure out how they had gone so quickly from being battlefield specialists to having to dress and act like infidel tourists. All they knew was that they were kept alive after the fiasco initiated by Fariq, that son of a whore dog. They would do the bidding of the Wise Ones without question, although it was something too complex for them to fathom.
“You brought great honor to our cause by participating in the death mission of the American. It was a daring and courageous act that struck fear into the infidels, Allah be praised. All true Muslims cheer you.” He skipped over any mention of the kidnap and Fariq.
“Thank you. But what do you want?”
“We need your services again.”
That brought a sense of swift ease to the pair of soldiers. The short man asked, “Where will we do this favor? Will we go back into Afghanistan again?”
“No,” Selim answered. “This time it will be right here in Pakistan. You will be housed in an apartment in the best part of Islamabad until you are required to act.”
“We need to train our bodies and our spirits, sir,” said Makhdoom Ragiq. “We will need details. Many details, to make our plans.”
“There is little time. You can exercise in the privacy of the apartment suite. I am personally handling the planning. Once you are in Islamabad, I shall give you the details. Tell me at that time whatever other information you need and it will be provided.”
The tall man spoke again. “And when do you want this, this operation done?”
“Very soon. Perhaps just a few days. Everything is being arranged. Rest here until I call for you with a car. We will make the trip down to Islamabad together.” Selim smiled a final time and left the room as quietly as he had entered.
9
BAGRAM AIR BASE
AFGHANISTAN
TUESDAY
THE CITATION SETTLED OUT of the predawn sky, blacked out even on the landing approach into Bagram Air Base. The mottled black-and-gray paint scheme blended seamlessly with the surrounding darkness. Cockpit avionics did most of the heavy work as the control tower cleared a path through all of the air and ground traffic. The plane whispered down onto a concrete runway that was almost ten thousand feet long, rolled to a stop, and scooted in behind a little tractor that guided the humming aircraft plane over to the Special Operations ramp, and then into a secure hangar. All interior lights had been turned off. Big doors rumbled closed, the lights came back on, and the engines shut down.
The ground crews jumped to work, preparing the bird for a quick turnaround. It was not the kind of plane that kept a strict schedule, and this was not a normal airport. This particular Citation was to be ready to go at a moment’s notice, with never an official flight plan on record. Everybody who needed to know about it would be advised at the proper time, given what they needed, and no more. Cargo manifests and passenger lists did not exist.
Two crewmen popped the hatch from the inside. They sauntered down the small staircase and walked a short distance from the plane, where they stopped and looked around while stretching their arms, twisting and bending to loosen the muscles that had cramped during the long trip. There were no salutes. The flight line workers gave the air crew no attention: just another couple of pilots.
A man in a dark suit appeared at the top of the stairs, and he reeked of authority. He stood motionless and looked around the vast hangar, but the angular face registered no emotion. It was only a moment of passing interest for the technicians, who did not pause in their jobs of servicing the plane. He was just another of the many VIPs who had passed through this special hangar over the years. Maybe a congressman or somebody. Who cared? A clean SUV cruised to the tip of the wing and stopped.
It was after he came down the stairs that things came to a momentary jarring halt, for a slender, beautiful blond woman lugging a small bag appeared in the doorway. Now here was a rare and agreeable sight for the grease monkeys, a real live white-skinned leggy American beauty wearing a dark blue pantsuit that emphasized her figure. The noise level fell perceptibly around the hangar. Every workman who had a chance to see her suddenly realized that he had been in Afghanistan too damned long. A dropped crescent wrench clanged against the concrete floor and brought them all back to life again.
An Army officer who had gotten out of the passenger side of the waiting vehicle came to attention and saluted the man, struggling to keep his eyes away from the blonde, wondering if she was also a VIP or just arm candy for the guy in the dark suit. “Welcome to Bagram, sir… ma’am,” he said. “This vehicle and its driver are yours for the duration of your stay.”
“Excellent, Captain,” the man growled. He immediately climbed into the backseat of the big black Ford Expedition SUV. He said nothing to the driver, who was expected to already have instructions.
Lauren Carson smiled politely at the captain. She refused his offer of help with her bag, and at the vehicle she bent over slightly, snapped shut the handle and the little wheels, and used both hands to heave the bag into the backseat. The man pulled it in. She climbed in, and the captain closed the door, the darkened windows shutting off the view of her golden hair. The driver turned on the big 5.4L Triton V8 engine and dropped the automatic transmission into gear, and the SUV drove out through a smaller door in the hangar.
While Lauren had diverted attention, the two fliers who had been the first off the plane split up. One headed for a pilots’ lounge at the end of the building. The taller man pulled at the rumpled seat of his olive green flight suit, put on a blue Air Force campaign cap bearing the silver eagle of a full colonel, and casually walked out into the breaking dawn. It was getting cold, and the temperature stung his cheeks. An old brown Army Humvee was waiting, and he got inside and shut the cloth door.
The driver looked at him with open contempt. “You’re no more an Air Force bird colonel than I’m the Little Mermaid,” he said. “In fact, I think you’re a goddam spook.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” the new passenger replied. “That’s a pretty smart mouth for a shit-eating Marine to use when talking to his betters.” Jim Hall’s face split into a grin. “Hello, Kyle. Good to see you again.” He reached out a hand.
Kyle Swanson shook hands with his friend, then cranked the Humvee. “Hello, Jimmy. We going to cause some trouble?”
“Oh, yeah, my boy. Bet the farm on that. Now drive.”
LAUREN CARSON HAD MADE several trips with her boss to Iraq, but this was her first time in Afghanistan. The huge mountain range that reached into the brightening sky in the east like a huge wall took her breath away. Then she compared that ageless wonder with the military base. Remarkable. It was also huge, a place that was becoming a strange, small city with a first-class airport. The SUV driver had turned the heater on low to fight the chilly morning air. Bagram was five thousand feet above sea level, and snow would soon layer those huge Hindu Kush mountains overlooking the base. The arid peaks would be impassable within a couple of months.
The senior commander at Bagram was a U.S. Army two-star, the top slot of a chain of command that looked like a spider’s web more than an efficient flow chart. Other branches of the American armed services were there, and U.S. Air Force planes of all sizes were the predominant feature. Fleets of construction vehicles were busy beneath the racks of bright lights, biting and shaping more land so Bagram could continue to expand. The American war that had started in Afghanistan after 9/11, then shifted to Iraq, then heated up again in Afghanistan was undergoing a new phase as tensions grew in Pakistan. The strategic location of Bagram made it essential to any and all of those efforts.