Hume edged up to me. “I’ll take the ladder.”
I gave him a nod. He descended, then gave us the signaclass="underline" All clear for now.
We followed him down to find another tunnel heading straight off then turning sharply to the right.
“Damn, this place is huge,” whispered Hume.
Several small wheelbarrows were lined up near the stacks of opium, and I got an idea. We piled a few stacks into one barrow, and then Brown led the way, pushing the wheelbarrow with Hume and me at his shoulders. We were happy drug smugglers now, and we’d shout that we had orders to move the opium.
We reached the turn and nearly ran straight into a guy heading our way. He started shouting at Brown in Pashto: “What are you guys doing?”
Well, I thought we’d have time to explain. But I just shot him in the head. He fell, and Brown got the wheelbarrow around him while Hume grabbed the guy’s arms and I took the legs. We carried him quickly back to the chamber and left him there. Then we hustled back after Brown and found the tunnel sweeping downward at about a twenty-degree angle. Brown nearly lost control of the wheelbarrow until we finally reached the bottom and began to hear voices. Faint. Pashto.
Maybe it was the adrenaline or the thought that outside our guys would soon be confronted, but I shifted around Brown and ran forward, farther down the tunnel, rushing right into another chamber with about ten sleeping areas arranged on the floor: carpets and heavy blankets all lined up like a barracks.
I took it all in.
A single lantern burned atop a small wooden crate, and two Taliban were sitting up in bed and talking while six or seven others were sleeping.
I shot the first two guys almost immediately, with Hume and Brown rushing in behind me and opening fire, the rounds silenced, the killing point-blank, brutal, and instantaneous.
Killing men while they slept was ugly business, and I tried not to look too closely. They’d return in my nightmares anyway, so I focused my attention on a curious sight near the crate holding the lantern — a pair of military boots, the same ones we wore. I picked them up, placed them near mine to judge the size.
“Warris’s?” Brown whispered to me.
I shrugged. We checked our magazines, then headed on, still pushing the wheelbarrow.
The next tunnel grew much more narrow, and we had to turn sideways to pass through one section. As the rock wall dragged against my shirt, I imagined the tunnel tightening like a fist, the air forced from my collapsing lungs, and I began to panic. A quick look to the right said relief was just ahead.
Brown had to abandon the wheelbarrow, of course, and once we made it onto the other side, the passage grew much wider, as revealed by Brown’s light.
My nose crinkled as a nasty odor began clinging to the air, like a broken sewer pipe, and the others cringed as well. Our shemaghs did nothing to help. I didn’t want to believe that the Taliban had created an “outhouse” inside the cave, but judging from the smell, they might have resorted to that.
I stifled a cough as we shuffled farther, almost reluctantly now. The odor grew worse. We reached a T-shaped intersection, where the real stench came from the right, and I thought my eyes were tearing.
Brown shoved down his shemagh, held his nose, and indicated that he did not want to go down the right tunnel.
And that’s exactly where I signaled for him to go.
He shook his head vigorously.
I widened my eyes. Do it.
And then I began to gag, caught myself, and we pressed on. I held the shemagh tighter to my nose and mouth without much relief.
A voice came from behind us, the words in Pashto: “What’s going on now?”
Hume turned back and Brown raised his light.
It was a young Taliban fighter, his AK hanging from his shoulder as he raised his palms in confusion.
He squinted at us more deeply until Brown directed the light into his eyes.
I couldn’t see, but I think Hume shot him. Thump. Down. The body count was racking up too swiftly for my taste, but the presence of those boots gave me hope.
We left that guy where he fell and forged on toward the terrible stink.
“I can barely breathe,” said Hume.
“Just keep going,” I told him.
The ground grew more damp, and up ahead, about twenty meters, were a pair of broad wooden planks traversing another hole in the ground, the result of yet a second cave-in, I guessed. Just before the hole another tunnel jogged off to the left, with faint light shifting at its far end. At the intersection, I saw that the other tunnel to our right curved upward and the night sky shone beyond — a way out, but on which side of the mountain range? I was disoriented.
And then from the other side of the hole and the planks came two Taliban, rifles lowered but still ready to snap up. They were talking to each other when they spotted me and Brown, and one looked up, shouted something.
I shot the guy who screamed.
Brown fired at the other one… and missed! That bastard took off running and hollering like a maniac.
And from behind us, down in the hole, where the stench of human feces and urine rose to an ungodly level, a muffled cry rose and echoed up across the rock.
TWENTY-SEVEN
I charged after the guy who’d sprinted away, my heart drumming in my ears. The tunnel curved abruptly to the left and then made an abrupt right turn. The guy reached a ladder at the tunnel’s dead end and started up it. I shot him before he made it halfway, and he came down with a heavy thud, shaking and raising his hands in surrender. Under different circumstances, I might have taken him prisoner. Instead, I shot him again, then swung around, saw the lantern lighting the path in one corner and more stacks of opium, along with crates and boxes of ammunition.
Someone shouted a name, then asked, “Where are you?” in Pashto.
I stole a quick breath, glanced up.
There, framed by the hole in the ceiling, was a man leaning down, his bearded face glowing in the lantern. I gritted my teeth and shot him, too, in the face. He came tumbling down and crashed onto the first guy. He was older, gray beard, his body trembling, nerves misfiring.
Still riding the massive wave of adrenaline, I mounted the ladder, which I guessed led into another chamber. I was about to reach the top and turn around when someone rushed into the tunnel below, startling the hell out of me.
“Boss!” Brown whispered.
I came down two rungs, my heart palpitating. Brown was waving at me to come back, his teeth bared.
“What?”
He mouthed the words: We found him!
During my first tour in country, my team captured an Afghan policeman who’d been working secretly as an interrogator for the Taliban. He shared with us the orders from his boss: “I want you to torture them with methods so horrible that their cries of agony will scare even the birds from their nests, and if any one of them survives, he will never again have a night’s sleep.”
This guy described in vivid detail the creative methods he and his comrades employed to slowly and systematically kill their prisoners. The generous use of electricity, insects, water, and clubs would’ve made even the most iron-stomached soldier grimace as he listened to the tales.
Consequently, when we found Warris, my imagination had already run wild…
But I’d forgotten they wanted him in good condition. They still wanted to negotiate, and I’m sure Zahed was heavily influenced by the company he kept, otherwise Warris would have been much closer to death. I took one look past the planks, and in the tiny shaft of light created by Brown, I grimaced tightly.
Warris was sitting naked in a foot-high pool of water, urine, and feces. He’d been gagged, his hands cuffed behind his back, and when he saw us, saw me remove my shemagh, his eyes lit with recognition. He struggled to his feet and began crying. His face was bruised and battered, but otherwise he had all his appendages and could still move.