move. Perfect. That kid had a lot of courage, all right.
I gave myself a once-over and tightened the shemagh
around my face. I was about to step forward and mount
the staircase when I thought better of it and shifted back
to my spot. I was panting. What the hell had just hap-
pened? Had I just chickened out? I wasn’t sure. I dug
into my pocket, ripped down the shemaghagain, then
donned the Cross-Com and gave the verbal command
to activate the device.
The monocle flickered, came to life, but the HUD
showed no satellite signal. I was still too deep. I removed
and pocketed the unit, then took several long breaths. I
checked my magazine, my second pistol with silencer,
was ready to rip open my shirt to expose the web gear
beneath and the half dozen grenades I carried.
Once more, the door above opened, and three more
Taliban fighters came running down and dashed across
the basement, on their way toward the tunnel.
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I kept telling myself that if I waited any longer, the fat
man would be gone. Either he was up there right now
packing his bags, or maybe it was all for naught. Maybe
he’d already left.
Well, there was only one way to find out.
My arm was stinging again as I hustled up the stairs—
a reminder that getting killed was going to hurt. Oh,
yeah. I shivered and passed through the door.
A long hallway stretched out in both directions. A liv-
ing room lay to the left, with tables, chairs, even a very
Western-looking leather sofa and flat-screen TV mounted
to the wall, all very posh despite the mud-brick walls.
Candles burning from wall sconces lit the pathway to my
right, where a large kitchen with bar and stools, again
very Western, was set up beside another eating area.
Someone shouted behind me. I turned to him, a guy
about my age with a salt-and-pepper beard.
He asked me something, then asked me again.
I shook my head. He shoved me out of the way and
jogged down the hall. I ran after him. “Wait!” I cried in
Pashto. “I need to see Zahed!”
But he kept running. I slowed, reached the edge of
the kitchen as something or someone moved behind me.
I whirled.
Hila stood there, pistol in one hand.
“I told you to stay down there!” I cried through a
whisper.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go see Zahed! I know
where!”
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She grabbed my wrist and tugged me toward the hall-
way ahead.
I grabbed her by the mouth, pulled her into the
kitchen, then ducked down beneath the bar and stools. I
rolled her over, my hand still wrapped around her mouth,
and said, “If they see you, they’ll kill you.”
She didn’t move.
I slowly removed my hand.
“You have to go back,” I told her, pointing down
toward the basement.
She shook her head.
I gestured to my eyes. “If they see you, they will kill
you.”
“I know what you said. I don’t care. I am dead already.
To my family. To everyone who knows me. Let me help
you. Let me get revenge against Zahed.”
The decision pained me. If I dragged her along, the
second we were spotted we’d be accosted, maybe even
shot. I could concoct some story, but I didn’t like that. I
didn’t want her around. I couldn’t bear to see her get
killed, not after what had already happened to her.
I told myself that if I could save her, maybe it all
meant something. Maybe I wasn’t just a puppet whose
strings were being pulled by asinine politicians.
But she could save me time, get me to Zahed more
quickly. I would have to comb through the entire house.
She seemed to know exactly where he’d be.
She made the decision for me. I released my grip on
her at the sound of approaching men, and she bolted
around the bar before I could grab her.
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The men passed, heading toward the basement door,
and she ran out into the hall, waving to me.
So it was the middle of the night in a small town deep in
the desert of southern Afghanistan, and I was chasing a
teenaged girl carrying a pistol through a terrorist’s
house. If I started a conversation like that, would you
believe me? I wouldn’t believe me.
Hila ran all the way down the hall, made an abrupt
right-hand turn, and when I followed, I found her stopped
dead, raising her pistol at another man coming toward us.
She shot him right in the heart. As he fell, she ran past
him, down another hall with doors lining both sides. I
was indeed crazy. I’d turned the girl into a cold-blooded
killer; then again, maybe Zahed was responsible for that.
As we ran I couldn’t help but realize this wasn’t a
house but a mansion, perhaps the biggest place in the
entire town, although you wouldn’t know it when look-
ing on Sangsar from above. The buildings were so closely
situated that it was hard to tell where one ended and the
other began. The doors here were ornate as well, heavy
oak, deeply carved. The fat man had spared no expense.
Hila reached a door at the end, pushed through it,
and ran inside.
I called after her, reached the doorway, turned into
the room, and found her at the far end, running toward
a window, a real window, which was rare to find.
We were in a massive bedroom with a four-poster
bed, heavy furniture, and yet another flat-screen TV.
304 GH OS T RE CON
It was like a room in a five-star hotel that had been built
in a neighborhood of utter squalor. Very surreal. I’m sure
parts of the village didn’t have electricity, but Zahed
sure did; either that or he ran his TV off a generator.
I rushed to the window to find Hila pointing. “There!”
she cried. “There!”
Across a long, tree-lined courtyard, past fig trees and
a wall covered in rose bushes, were the silhouettes of
three men standing near a wrought-iron gate.
One of them had to be the fat man. He was tall, six feet
five at least, and huge, more than four hundred pounds, I
guessed.
Stacks of luggage were lined on the walkway beside
them. They were waiting to be picked up.
Damn it. I tried the window. Locked. I couldn’t find
a way to open it! I turned back—
And when I did, a man was standing in the door with
his AK pointed at us. “What’re you doing?” he asked in
Pashto.
I shifted in front of Hila but didn’t raise my rifle.
“The infidels come from the basement,” I tried to say.
The man took a step forward and frowned. Aw, no. I
must’ve made a mistake. Maybe I’d told him his mother
was a whore, I wasn’t sure.
Before I could react, another man jogged up beside
the first and began screaming and tugging at his buddy.
I stole a look out the window.
A car had rolled up outside.
The first guy shouted at me again. I threw myself to
one side, raised my rifle, and fired a salvo into him and
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