his buddy, no silencer, just me and the AK dishing out
lead loud and clear. Both went down, but the first guy
had started firing—
And Hila let out a scream.
As both men fell, I clambered up, shouldered my
rifle, and rushed to Hila, who’d fallen onto her back and
was clutching her side. I immediately pulled away her
shirt and saw that a round had pierced the right side of
her abdomen, no exit wound.
I chanced another look out the window. The wrought-
iron gate was open. The three men were fighting over
something, their voices raised as they rushed to get in
the car while two others hurried to load the luggage.
“This hurts,” said Hila. “Please. Can you help?”
“It’s not that bad. You’ll be okay.”
She clutched my hand. “Please. I need help.”
“But I need to go,” I told her. “He’s outside. He’s
going to get away . . .”
She grabbed my hand even tighter as tears welled in
her eyes.
T WENTY-NINE
I’d thought Hila would beg me to stay with her, but she
narrowed her gaze and said, “Okay. Get him. Then come
back to help me.”
“I will.”
“Okay.”
I understood now. She had wanted to die, but ironi-
cally the gunshot now gave her the will to live. I dragged
her behind the bed, out of view from the doorway, and
then I grabbed the pistol I’d given her, tucked it into my
waistband, and bolted to my feet. I seized a pillow from
the four-poster bed, then braced the pillow in front of
my face. With a running start, I launched into the air and
let out a string of curses as I crashed through the win-
dow and landed in a shower of glass on the dirt below.
CO MB AT O P S
307
The three figures ran toward the car now, a black
Mercedes, probably fitted with bulletproof glass. I came
rolling up with the pistol in my hand and shot the two
guys loading luggage.
The driver opened his door and raised a pistol. I shot
him, and then, as I sprinted toward the gate, I got my
first clear look at the men:
Bronco.
His Asian buddy “Mike.”
And the fat man himself, decked out in silk robes and
clean turban and with a beard that splayed across his
chest. He wore big gold and diamond rings, and when
he faced me, he frowned for a second as both Bronco
and Mike reached down to draw weapons.
“Unh-uh,” I said, tugging down my shemagh.
“Aw, Joe, I can’t believe you’re this stupid,” said Bronco,
slowly raising his palms now. “Didn’t you get your new
OPORDER? We got you pulled off this job. Finally . . .”
“You’re bluffing. I got nothing.”
Zahed eyes narrowed in fury, and he turned to
Bronco and began screaming. I didn’t catch very much,
but he’d said something about Bronco being the fool.
All three of them backed toward the car.
“Don’t move,” I warned them.
“We have to leave,” said Mike. “You have no idea
how important this is or the extent of this operation.”
I craned my head at the sound of multiple helicopter
engines echoing off the mountains. We couldn’t see them
yet, but they were coming . . . and more gunfire echoed
from the hills. Harruck had committed some forces all
308 GH OS T RE CON
right, and I wondered if the Predator controller had
finally been granted permission to unleash his bombs.
“Tell Zahed I’m taking him into custody,” I told
Bronco.
The old spook shook his head. “Joe, you’re wasting
your time. If you take him in, I’ll get him released—all
because your people haven’t even contacted you yet.
What a joke.”
I raised my pistol even higher and began to lose my
breath. Bronco was right. It wasall just a game. I could
bring in Zahed, and yes, they probably would get him
released. Nothing would change.
The satellite phone tucked into my back pocket began
to ring.
“So I guess you know the rest,” I tell Blaisdell, as she
scrutinizes me with those lawyer eyes flashing above the
rim of her glasses.
She glances down at my report. “Yes, it’s all here.” She
sighs. “I don’t want you to have any unreasonable hope.
You admitted what you did right here. In addition to the
obvious charge, they’re going for dereliction of duty . . .
failure to keep yourself fully apprised of a fluid tactical
situation . . . conduct unbecoming an officer.”
“What was I supposed to do? Lie? I’ve done enough
of that already. And there were witnesses.”
“Let me ask you. Do you think what you did solved
anything?”
CO MB AT O P S
309
I take a deep breath and look away. “I don’t know. I
just don’t know.”
“The report tells me what you did. It doesn’t say how
you feel about it.”
“How do you think I feel? Ready for a party? Why
does that even matter?”
“Because I’m trying to see what kind of an emotional
appeal I can make. Unless somebody decides to take a huge
risk, to go out on a limb for you, then like I said, I don’t
want you to have any unreasonable hope at this point.”
“Unreasonable hope? Jesus Christ, what do you peo-
ple expect from me?”
“Captain. Calm down. I’m still recording, and I’d
like you to go back and finish the story. If there’s any-
thing you might’ve left out of the report, anything else
you can remember that you think might help, you have
to tell me right now . . .”
I served with a guy named Foyte, a good captain who
wound up getting killed in the Philippines. I was his
team sergeant, and he used to give me all kinds of advice
about leadership. He was a really smart guy, best-read
guy I’d ever met. He could rattle off quotes he’d memo-
rized about war and politics. He always had something
good to say. When he talked, we listened. One thing he
told me stuck: If you live by your decisions, then you
have decided to really live.
So as I stood there, staring into the smug faces of the
310 GH OS T RE CON
two Central Intelligence Assholes, and looking at Mul-
lah Mohammed Zahed, a bloated bastard who figured
that in a few seconds I’d surrender to the futility of war,
I thought of Beasley and Nolan; of my father’s funeral;
and of all the little girls we’d just freed in the tunnel. I
thought of Hila, lying there, bleeding, waiting for me,
the only person she had left in the world. And I imagined
all the other people who would be infected by Zahed’s
touch, by the poison he would continue to spread through-
out the country, even as one of our own agencies sup-
ported him because they couldn’t see that the cure was
worse than the poison.
How did I feelabout that?
I desperately loved my country and my job. If I just
turned my back on the situation because I was “little
people,” then I was no better than them.
Lights from the first helicopter panned across the vil-