“Now can I call Langley?”
“Sure. And tell them that whichever of them is transmitting is beginning to move.”
Swanson stashed his gear near the courtyard gate and hurried over to the humming generator. Two five-gallon jerry cans of gasoline stood near it, and he lugged them to the house. After he’d closed the door to the kitchen, it took only a few minutes to saturate the rest of the place with one can, sloshing it over the rugs, the weapons cache, and in the corners. Luke Gibson had probably left behind a booby trap; Kyle intended to return the favor. The strong vapor irritated his nostrils and made his eyes water, and he placed the second full can in the front room, amid all the debris. The tricky part — not blowing himself up while arming the device — came next.
In the kitchen, keeping the door closed, he dumped the remaining stew from the pot on the stove and dropped in a handful of rounds that he had taken from the AK-47’s magazine. Then he carefully lit the propane burner and set the heat on low. Taking a deep breath, Swanson threw open the kitchen door and ran for his life, grabbing his gear as he passed through the courtyard and dashing through the front gate.
He covered about a quarter of a mile, roughly four football fields, before the fire roasting the bullets in the metal pot ignited them and gunfire rapped through the night air. An instant later, the fire and hot shrapnel and burning gunpowder ignited the heavy cloud of trapped gas fumes. The nightmarish whoosh of the gasoline was followed by the explosions of the propane tank in the kitchen and the jug of gasoline in the front room. A booming detonation shook the area, and Swanson felt the heat against his back but didn’t waste time looking behind him. Legs pumping, he headed for his chosen ground.
The detonation rolled across the valley and shook the town of Girdiwal, and many residents rushed outside to see the roaring fire and the rising smoke. Luke Gibson slept through it, but one of his young followers, a fifteen-year-old boy, was soon pounding on his door at the little inn.
“What is it?” he called out in Arabic.
“Sir, your home has just blown up,” the boy said, almost beside himself with excitement. “It is on fire!”
Gibson rolled over and checked his cell phone: 0300. Damn, Kyle, that was pretty quick. Leave that guy alone for an hour and all hell breaks loose. He laughed aloud. His personal hunt would start at dawn, but, in the meantime, he should keep Swanson guessing.
The boy was startled by the laughter. He had expected Gibson to burst forth fully rigged for battle, but instead there was only the sound of amusement.
“Okay, you Lions go get him,” came the order. “Be careful. This American is a prime enemy of the caliphate and there’s a reward for his head. May Allah guide your quest.”
The boy turned and hurried downstairs to get his partner, another fiery teenager. Upstairs, Gibson rolled over and went back to sleep. Cannon fodder.
They could wait no longer. Throughout the day, the pressure had been building on several fronts, and they had reached the point where the White House had to be brought into the loop. By six o’clock that afternoon, President Christopher Thompson was at the head of the long table in the Situation Room, flanked by almost every heavy hitter in Washington. He had been through many crises since assuming the job six years ago, and could smell the possibilities of this one. He had handled the others competently enough, and he would get through this, too. To ease the tensions, he slipped into his blue windbreaker with the presidential patch on the left breast and encouraged the others to shed their coats and ties and high heels and get comfortable. His paternal smile imbued his team with confidence. “Let’s get through this in time for dinner, huh, folks? Bring me up to speed.” Ignoring the images on the flat-screen monitors on the walls, the president thumbed through a two-page summary as his national-security adviser, retired marine Lieutenant General Bradley Middleton, went through an even shorter version.
“Three CIA operators are missing — or maybe not — around the Afghan village called Girdiwal. One or more tried to kill the others at different points. Two more operators are on their way in. You’ve seen TV reports about a possible congressional investigation into accusations that the CIA is running drugs again — through an airstrip in the same place, Girdiwal.”
“Deal with the operators first, General Middleton. Politics can come later.”
“Yes, sir.”
Middleton, CIA director Rick Burns, and Martin Atkins, the director of intelligence, took turns explaining the background, and the president peppered them with questions. “It all started with a tragic bombing in Mexico, but it goes deeper than that,” said the general. “We have stories and accusations, and little proof of which is correct.”
The president rubbed his fingers together, as if he had glue on them. “I cannot believe Kyle Swanson has gone rogue. Impossible.”
“Mr. President, until recently, I would have said the same about the other two guys, Luke Gibson and Nicky Marks. Solid, reliable pros. Now I’ve ordered a re-examination of everything concerning them.”
“What’s the best guess right now?”
The Situation Room watch officer took her cue from Middleton and put up the screen. A blue circle was immobile on the background. “That is an overhead satellite view, sir. We believe this transmitter belongs to Swanson, although both he and Gibson had other signals gear, but on different frequencies, when they went in. All of that was lost.”
“The bright area nearby?”
“Looks like a hot spot. Maybe a fire, sir. We’ll know for sure when the camera drone arrives, in about thirty minutes. All we have on station right now is a gunship and this satellite, which is going out of range.”
Thompson paused in thought. “Bad stuff. Get to the politics now. Briefly, please.”
Rick Burns, coat off and sleeves rolled up, took over. “A congresswoman from Nebraska has made the charge against the CIA. By the way, sir, we’re not running drugs — emphasize ‘not.’ One of her few pieces of evidence shows a CIA plane on the ground there at Girdiwal.” He put down his notes and took off his glasses. “That’s a lie.”
President Thomson lifted a thick eyebrow. “A lie?”
“That specific plane actually did belong to the agency at one time, and was utilized as a drug ferry now and then, under our predecessors in another day. We wrote it off after a crash and sent it to the junkyard, or so we thought. Someone bought and rehabilitated it and sold it back into service. That aircraft is now the property of a Russian Mafia outfit. Girdiwal seems to be a high-traffic zone for moving heroin. We have indeed used it ourselves to get supplies to our allies fighting the Taliban in that region.”
“So this congresswoman is fanning the fires of an already bad situation with false information.” The president leaned forward, elbows on the table. He drummed his fingertips on the wood.
“The bipartisan leaders of the House are already planning a come-to-Jesus meeting with her later tonight, sir. The last thing they want is a highly publicized hearing based on bad information. She’s being used. By whom we don’t know, but our friends in the FBI are going to find out.”
“Most likely it’s going to lead right back to Girdiwal.” General Middleton’s voice was more of a growl.
“What assets do we have in the area, General?”
“Everything. It’s Afghanistan, sir. We’ve been there for quite a while.”
Thompson put a palm on the briefing sheet and slid it aside. “Okay. Girdiwal is the source of the problem, somehow, and our missing operatives are there. Can we get that drone gunship over to the airstrip and work it over?”