Elizabeth Ledford Castillo took an easy aim and shot a second time, the bullet going into the drug dealer’s butt and up the torso. One shot, one kill — and one more just for the hell of it. No arrest, no trial, no Judge Judy to arbitrate — no mercy for the little worm.
“Enough, señora. We must leave now,” said the former Mexican marine who had been her spotter for the job.
She wanted to rush the other way, across the clearing and to the body, where she could dip her fingers in the blood of Delgado and scrawl THIS IS FOR MICKEY on the truck. Instead, she nodded and began to slide backward out of the hide. “Yes.”
While the marine stood a cautious overwatch nearby, Coastie peeled out of the Ghillie rig and changed into a modest faded blue top, old jeans and boots, then pulled her blond hair back into a ponytail. She washed her face and hands and came back to the real world. It would not do for the grieving Señora Castillo to be seen as some sort of alien creature. She felt good, even a bit bouncy, as she cranked up the four-wheel-drive vehicle and headed off. Not bad for the first time out, she thought. A bit ragged, but not bad at all. The marine stayed behind to clean up the site.
The demise of Mahfouz al-Rashidi, warlord of the Wakham Corridor, not only left a sizable hole in the ground but also threatened to disrupt the tattered nation’s largest industry: opium. Under normal circumstances, the eldest son would have stepped into the breach and kept the chain intact. With all four of the old man’s heirs also killed in the attack, things in the Wakham Corridor were in disarray.
The entire area was not the common desert color of brown. At this time of year, it was a shiny bright poppy pink. The fragile ecosystem and the semi-arid climate had created a landscape that was almost perfect for the cultivation of the drug, and far enough away from the war zones that farmers could till their crops in relative safety. The righteous al-Rashidi had turned a blind eye to the trade, for the growers had paid tribute to the warlord who kept them safe. He, in turn, shared the tax upwards with the current reigning power in the region, whether that was the United States, the Taliban, ISIS, the Chinese, the Pakistanis, or the government in faraway Kabul. Over the years, the policy had been mutually beneficial, as the opium trade soared in importance and outstripped the next most successful crops by a three-to-one ratio. Millions of dollars were made by the time the product reached the addicts on foreign streets. Farmers could not only survive; they could get rich.
Now it was springtime, the cold of winter warming to a gorgeous temperature, and as the snow melted in the mountains to spill into the rivers and feed the poppies, al-Rashidi was no longer at the rudder to steady his peculiar ship. Nature did not abhor a vacuum any more than did the flourishing opiate economy of Afghanistan, which furnished ninety percent of the entire world supply.
Qari Abdul Razaq shook his head in worry as he read the reports of a small unit of Taliban fighters that had investigated the attack in the Wakham. There was no doubt that the entire circle of adult males in the family had been wiped out, and the villagers of Girdiwal were already disorganized. Some farmers eyed the situation as an opportunity to settle old scores or grab new land for cultivation, or both. Opium money propped up the Taliban, and couldn’t be ignored.
“We have to make a new alliance,” Razaq said as he spread the two-page document on his desk. He wore clean robes, but his beard was long and ragged, in accordance with Taliban rules that forbade shaving. Razak was hundreds of miles away from the Wakham Corridor, seated in his neat and spacious office in Doha, Qatar, the tiny Gulf State oil boomtown that provided the Taliban with a diplomatic window to the world. Razaq was much closer to the Al Udeid Air Base than he was to the battlefields of his home country, where the U.S. military was still at war with the Taliban, and the ISIS usurpers. The American troops were run by the U.S. Central Command headquartered out at the Al Udeid base, not far from his front door. Qari Abdul Razaq had gone full circle. He had been part of the mujahideen delegation that visited President Ronald Reagan at the White House in 1983 to show solidarity against the Soviet invaders of Afghanistan. Then in 1989, when the Russians left, he chose to work in the Taliban rebellion, which did stupid things in the name of religious law. The 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers was carried out by Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, although the Taliban had granted them safe haven in the Afghan wilds. So the Americans came charging in, only to quickly spin away to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein, then allow ISIS to grow in his place. In Afghanistan today, the U.S. and the Taliban were bitter enemies; in Doha, they were neighbors. It was an international house of mirrors.
“I agree,” responded the civilian-clothed army colonel who represented the Pakistani intelligence service. “And the sooner the better.”
They were speaking English for the convenience of the third man in the meeting, who asked, “And if we put a lid on it nothing changes?”
“Exactly,” answered Qari Abdul Razaq. “We will figure out the loyalties later, but right now we need to put a successor in there so as not to lose the whole crop. We will support him for a year and see how it goes.”
“Avoid a flash point,” said the colonel. His English had a clipped flavor to it, like that of many Pakistani military officers, a unique accent left over from the days of the British Raj and training at Sandhurst.
“Do you have somebody in mind, Qari?” the third man asked.
“Yes. He is a middle-aged mullah of the same village, and his eldest son is a rather shy fellow who would much prefer the safety of the Wakham Corridor with his family than continuing to fight a war in which he is certain to be killed. With our combined backing, they can pick up right where al-Rashidi left off.”
“That should settle things for a while. Let the poppies grow in peace for another season,” said the Pakistani.
“Yeah. All right.” The third man rose and straightened his blue suit. “Do it, and I’ll inform the Prince.”
The Taliban minister threw a verbal jab along with a polite smile. “We would not have this problem at all if your people had not killed al-Rashidi and his boys in the first place.”
“Fat chance. We’re not going to allow a new Osama bin Laden to rise. They shouldn’t have been mucking about with ideas of taking out the Houston oil complex and Hollywood with biochemical weapons.”
“Yes. We had our eyes on him from the start,” said the Taliban negotiator. “We also were not going to allow him or the boys to actually carry out a strike, but had to let them play at a doomsday catastrophe to keep them happy. After all, who gave you the human intelligence on the plan?”
“You did, my friend, indeed you did. In your debt on that.” He started toward the door. “And one last thing: I was never at this meeting.”
“Of course not,” Qari told his American friend from the Central Intelligence Agency. “Please give my humble regards to the Prince.”
6
Luke Gibson arrived at the Alexanderplatz Radisson Blu Hotel only to discover that Kyle Swanson had checked out and departed last night. No note had been left. There was no forwarding address. After wrapping up the grueling GSG 9 debriefing, they had agreed to meet for breakfast at nine o’clock, then hire a private car to take them out to the Berlin Tegel Airport for their Lufthansa flight to Washington. “Well,” Luke muttered to himself, standing in the lobby and staring blankly at the giant aquarium. “This sucks.”