job done right.”
I nodded. “Assholes or allies. Hard to tell the differ-
ence sometimes . . .”
“That it is.”
“How come you’re willing to play nice all of a sudden?”
“Because now it benefits me. What else you need to
know?”
“Just where my guy is and where I can find Zahed . . .”
“I’ll get back to you on those . . .” He winked and
hobbled back toward his car. Only then did I notice his
limp and the deep scar running across his ankle. What I
didn’t notice, though, were all the lies he’d just told me.
He could’ve won an Oscar for that performance.
I dropped off Ramirez back at the base, then headed over
to Harruck’s office. I was about to open the door to enter
the Quonset hut when I noticed a car parked outside and
an old man, a local from Senjaray I figured, unloading
luggage from the trunk. I opened the door, stepped inside,
and just as the door was closing behind me—
A thundering explosion rattled the walls followed by
the pinging of debris.
CO MB AT O P S
183
Ahead was Harruck, seated at his desk, talking to a
dignified-looking man with gray beard and expensive-
looking Afghan clothes. I assumed he was a government
official of some sort, and I was correct.
As Harruck and the other man shouted behind me, I
took a deep breath, then slipped back outside.
The car had exploded, the man removing the luggage
lying in pieces across the dirt, the flames still pouring up
from the shattered windows. I raised an arm against the
intense heat as Harruck’s security people were scream-
ing and rushing to get fire extinguishers.
Harruck came out behind me and screamed orders to
his people, while the older man hollered in Pashto, then
covered his eyes and began speaking so rapidly that I
barely understood a word.
We watched as Harruck’s teams began putting out
the fire, and the black smoke sent signals to the Taliban
in the mountains and everyone in Senjaray—indeed,
something had happened on the American base.
Harruck ushered the old man back into his office,
and I entered behind them. The old man collapsed into
his chair and tried to catch his breath. His eyes brimmed
with tears.
Harruck glowered at me and said, “Well, Scott, this
is obviously not the time for you and I to talk.”
“I understand.” In Pashto, I said to the old man,
“I’m very sorry about this.”
He answered in English. “They must’ve rigged my
car on a timer. And I guess it went off too late. They are
amateurs, the men who are trying to kill me.”
184 GH OS T RE CON
“Who are they?” I asked.
“The same people you are trying to help.”
I looked at Harruck, who rolled his eyes. “Scott, this
is Naimut Gul, the district governor.”
“Sir, I wish we could have met under different cir-
cumstances.”
“My driver was a very good man. Highly trusted.”
He shuddered and rubbed the corners of his eyes.
“Governor, if you’ll just give me a moment to speak
with him?” Harruck asked.
Gul nodded. “And now, Captain, I think you fully
understand what I’m talking about.”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
Harruck motioned me back outside, where we walked
around to the pathway between huts. The officers’ bar-
racks lay to our right, and one of the guys had designed
a little putting green in the middle of the desert, an
oasis of sorts that Harruck pointed to and said, “See
that? Crazy right here in the desert, right? Well, that’s
what I got right now, with that fool inside my office.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“Everybody in the district hates the guy. He’s former
Taliban, and he’s been extorting these people for years.
He’s a crime lord with ties to the opium trade, but he’s
still in tight with the government, and higher now tells
me it’s my job to protect him. He’s moving his office onto
our base. And you know what? Everybody wants this guy
dead: the Taliban, the people here, even some guys in the
government because they know what a scumbag he is.”
“So you’re not having a good day. Join the club.”
CO MB AT O P S
185
“Scott, I might need your help here.”
I almost laughed. “What?”
“If this guy sets up shop here, we’ll be painting an
even bigger target on our backs.”
“But you got orders to protect him—just like I got
orders to capture or kill Zahed. By the way, I ran into
Bronco. His contacts confirm that the Taliban have War-
ris. I’ll be taking that up to higher in a few minutes.”
“That’s what I thought. And now I’m thinking about
a trade—not one that higher ever knows about.”
“What?”
Harruck lowered his voice even more. “The Taliban
would love to get their hands on Gul. What if we trade
him for Warris? We just make it look like the governor
got kidnapped.”
“Are you serious?”
Harruck spun around, cursed, then whirled back. “I
don’t know what I am anymore, Scott. I really don’t.
What the hell am I supposed to do with this guy?”
“Just do your job.”
“No one makes that easy—especially you. I read your
report.”
“Then you know if we can’t get air support, I’ll be
organizing my team to head back into the mountains
and blow up that tunnel complex. We need to destroy
that in order to better protect the school.”
“Are we really on the same page?”
“I don’t even know if our pages are in the same book,
but those tunnels need to go. And if you got a problem
with that, you’d better let me know right now.”
186 GH OS T RE CON
“That man sitting in my office is my bigger problem.
Blow up the tunnels, Scott. Screw it. Blow ’em all up . . .”
I stood outside the communications hut, just watching
Harruck’s guys deal with the burning car and begin
cleaning up the mess. That the captain’s people had not
done a bomb search of the car before it had passed
through the main gate was odd. I walked over to the
gate and questioned the guys, who told me they had
orders from Harruck to waive the search and not delay
the governor’s arrival—a mistake made by the young
captain. That car should’ve been left on our perimeter,
and the governor should’ve been transferred into a
Hummer and transported to Harruck’s office. Oh, but
that was so inconvenient. I’m sure security would
tighten now that Harruck had his 20/20 hindsight.
After leaving the gate, I found it harder to drag myself
back to the comm hut. I couldn’t get the images of
Ramirez killing the kid out of my mind. And I kept
shuddering as the shots rang out and the kid fell back.
I kept seeing that blank stare on Ramirez’s face.
And I kept wondering what I looked like. What
expression had he seen on my face? I couldn’t remember
how I’d reacted.
And then I began playing over his rationale, hearing
him tell me again and again that he’d killed for me and
that he’d saved our careers. The more I thought about