“I’m going. I’m going.” Diligently, Boris surveyed the tunnel again. “Why couldn’t they have made this big enough for a grown man?”
“Because it’s supposed to be hidden.”
Footsteps scraped the stone floor behind Lourds. He turned swiftly and shined his flashlight toward the center of the cave.
Six men dressed in dark desert clothing that looked black in the shadows stood behind them. The men looked hard and worn. They carried packs over their shoulders and rifles in their hands. Three of them carried small oil lanterns, and Lourds realized that he hadn’t seen their light because he’d been blinded by his own.
“You see, Ghairat, I told you I heard someone inside the caves.”
One of the men dropped his pack, and all the other men did too. “Get your hands up.” He gestured with the AK-47 he held. “Get your hands up or I will shoot you.” He spoke in broken Russian.
“Boris…” Lourds elevated his hands.
Awkwardly, Boris clambered back out of the tunnel.
“Are you spying on us, Russian dogs?” Ghairat strode forward with more confidence.
Lourds cleared his throat. “No.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“We are archeologists.”
One of the men snorted derisively. “More of the dirt diggers. I say we kill them now and be done with it.” He spoke in the Turkmen language, which Lourds knew well enough to understand.
“Young fool.” Another man cuffed the speaker on the head. “If we kill them, the other dirt diggers will start looking for who killed them.”
“If we don’t kill them, they will tell others they have seen us. They will come into the cave and find the opium we have stored here.”
The leader, Ghairat, turned to the young man. “Close your mouth.”
The young man bowed his head in obedience.
“It is a simple solution.” Ghairat grinned. “We will kill them here, then stuff them in that convenient hole in the wall they found.” He raised his rifle.
Lourds grunted at Boris under his breath, “The tunnel. Now!”
Boris didn’t hesitate. He threw himself into the tunnel like a mouse returning to its home ahead of the cat. Lourds dropped as well, expecting to feel a bullet between his shoulder blades at any second.
Ghairat opened fire, but the bullets slapped against the wall Lourds had stood in front of, then tracked down. For a moment, the camel hump-shaped stalagmites offered protection from the bullets, but Lourds knew that was fleeting at best. The men were already jockeying for new firing positions.
One of the ricochets caught a man and knocked him down.
“Brothers! Help me! I am shot!”
Ghairat stopped firing and screamed in frustration. “Get them!”
Lourds dropped behind Boris and hurled himself through the small passageway. Another thing the men hadn’t thought of was that the small arms fire would carry out of the caves and alert the camp. He didn’t know if they were using drugs or were truly just dim-witted, but hanging around to find out wasn’t an option at the moment.
Even a fool’s bullets could kill him. And he was certain the men wouldn’t be without the long, curved herdmen’s knives so many carried out in the wilderness.
Heart pounding, Dmitry stood in the passageway leading to the cave where he’d followed the men. He hadn’t known the men had reached Glukov and Lourds until he heard one of them speaking to the pair. Then there had been exchanges in a language that Dmitry couldn’t understand, but none of it sounded good.
Quietly, he stole up to the cave entrance. He took a fresh grip on his pistol. During his time with the SVR, he had killed sixteen men. Most of those had been shot while trying to kill him or his partners. He had mortally wounded his first man when he was twenty-three.
One of the men inside the cave cried out in pain. Since it was in the language that he didn’t understand, Dmitry was certain that neither Glukov nor Lourds had been shot.
However, that didn’t mean they weren’t about to be.
Dmitry drew in his breath and let it out, then he flicked on his flashlight in his left hand, placed it under his pistol in his right, and swiveled so he faced the opening in profile.
The flashlight beam caught the black-garbed men flatfooted. One of them lay on the floor, and two others administered to him. They looked at the opening, holding up hands against the brightness of the light, and tried to see.
One of the men in front raised his rifle to fire.
Dmitry focused on that man first, firing three bullets into the man’s body and noting with professional satisfaction the way the target staggered back. Then he fired several shots into the knot of men trying to boil into action.
He went through the door at a steady run, committing himself to his action. Targeting the men who were still moving, Dmitry kept walking toward them and shot them in the head, one after the other.
Heart still beating rapidly, Dmitry kept the pistol at the ready in both hands. He still had twelve rounds of the eighteen in the magazine in his weapon. Looking around, he saw that no one else was in the cave.
“Put the weapon down! Do it now!”
Even with his ears ringing from the thunderous noise trapped inside the cave, Dmitry recognized the threatening timbre of a professional soldier’s voice. Quietly, he bent and placed the pistol on the ground.
6
Anger filled Layla’s body as she surveyed the scene of the executions. That was how she thought of what she saw before her. Even though the men lying on the ground had had weapons in their possession, they hadn’t stood a chance against the man before her.
“Do not move!” Captain Jamshid Fitrat stepped into the cave himself.
In his early forties, the Afghanistan National Policeman was a professional fighting man blooded in many battles. He was short and squat, powerfully built, and always watchful. He never asked questions until he had first spent time figuring out a situation for himself.
Layla liked the captain for his professionalism, attention to detail, and because he had gone to college in the West. He had ultimately disappointed his wealthy parents because he’d chosen to become a soldier instead of the medical doctor they’d wanted him to be. He had served in the army before college and had returned to it a few years later.
During his time in the West, Fitrat had also learned to treat women as equals. Layla had met the captain’s wife and children on occasion. The woman and the two boys seemed very affectionate. Very Western.
Later, after she’d gotten to know him and learned that she would be appointed liaison and director over the dig site, Layla had asked that he be assigned to the security post.
Fitrat himself had never said whether he preferred the assignment one way or the other. He was totally professional.
The captain kept his pistol pointed at the man standing before them. “Put your hands behind your head. Do it now.”
“Of course.” The man spoke with a Russian accent. “I will do everything you say.”
Fitrat kicked the pistol away. “Down on your knees.”
Without a word, the man knelt. He remained calm and kept his eyes forward.
Layla couldn’t believe the man could be so matter-of-fact. He wasn’t even trying to defend himself.
“Don’t hurt him. That’s Major Dolgov.” Chizkov tried to get into the cave.
Two of the men Fitrat had brought with him grabbed the young man by the arms, lifted him bodily, and hoisted him across the outside passageway.
One of the Afghan soldiers pointed at Chizkov. “Do not move.”