They were now standing five meters from the mouth of the cave and the last four hours had been some of the hardest of her life. There was no question that Deuce was younger and stronger, but normally her experience still allowed a slight edge. The addition of his Merge, though, had put an end to that. He’d negotiated the loose, off-camber slopes like it was broad daylight, leaving her to stumble around trying to follow his footsteps in the dim starlight. Thank God the climb from the top of the ridge down to the cave had been easy — a track wide and flat enough for the Taliban to get their carts down. Otherwise, she’d have had to swallow her pride and hold on to him. Or more likely, refused and ended up a lump of broken flesh on the valley floor.
“What’s the plan?” Deuce whispered, pulling his rifle in front of his chest.
“I don’t see a lot of ways to get fancy. We’re just going to have to poke our head in—”
“And see if it gets shot off,” he said, finishing her sentence.
“I’ll go first,” Randi volunteered, removing her pack and fishing out a small flashlight.
“What the hell is that?” Deuce said. It was too dark to read his expression, but she could see the exasperated shaking of his head.
“It’s a flashlight. Night vision isn’t going to work inside — there’s not enough light to amplify.”
“Heat?”
“Not going to help keep you from falling in a hole,” she said, unwilling to admit that while it wouldn’t pick out natural obstacles, thermal imaging would be extremely effective at picking out anyone lying in wait for them. But she wasn’t sending him in first. Billy was already down on her watch and if anyone else took a hit in this particular wild goose chase, it was going to be her.
He brought up a shadowy hand and tapped a small box on the side of his helmet. It wasn’t as seamlessly integrated as the other systems, suggesting that it was a new addition. “Active infrared. Invisible to the naked eye — meaning your eye, not mine — and good to about ten meters.”
“Look, I don’t care about all your electronics, Deuce. I’m going first.”
He let out an audible breath. “Bullshit, Randi. But this is the last time I’m wet-nursing you. When we get back to base, you need to hop a transport to Kabul and get Merged up.”
She swore quietly under her breath as he started toward the cave. They both knew he was right. Not only would her flashlight be obvious to anyone inside, it would be a dinner bell to the local Taliban.
If she had her way, wars would still be fought with swords — a weapon of skill that forced you to look in the eye of the people you killed. But the world didn’t go backward and now her distrust of overly complex combat technology was endangering not only her, but also the people who counted on her.
Randi pulled her sidearm and inched up behind Deuce, stopping when he held a hand out. She assumed he was running a countdown on his fingers, but she couldn’t see them well enough to be sure.
He jerked his head into the cave for a split second and then stood staring into the darkness. She was about to ask him what the hell he was doing, but then realized that he’d taken a heavily enhanced photo and was now examining it in the empty air.
“I think we’re good,” he said before easing into the cave with her holding on to his shoulder.
“How deep is it?” she said, now completely blind.
“Dunno. Can’t see the back. The ground’s pretty flat, though. Just stay with me.”
It turned out to be larger than she expected and they took multiple turns as they inched along. At first, there was nothing but their quiet footfalls for her senses to key in on, but then she caught of whiff of rotting flesh.
“You getting that?” she said.
“What?”
“You mean that thing doesn’t smell for you?”
“Oh, wait. Yeah. Now I’m getting it.”
Another two sharp bends and he came to a stop sudden enough to cause her to run into the back of him.
“What?” she whispered in his ear.
“I’m picking up something on heat. Range is twelve meters.”
“Human?” she said, gripping her pistol a bit tighter.
“No. It’s barely above background temp. Can’t really get a shape.”
The stench was fairly strong now, suggesting a possibility. “Bacteria create a little heat when they’re breaking down flesh. Any chance it’s our pile of heads?”
She felt him shrug and then start creeping forward. After a few seconds, he stopped again. “That’s them. We’ve found your goddamn heads.”
Randi slipped the flashlight from her pocket and held it up, knowing he’d be able to see it. “If I use this, is it going to screw up your vision?”
“Pull yourself into the—”
“Twenty-first century. I know, I know,” Randi said, switching it on.
She was no expert on head piles, but to her calibrated eyeball it looked like all seventy or so adult male inhabitants of Sarabat. The skin of the visible ones had been dried into leather by the mountain air. She knelt, looking into the empty eye sockets of a heavily bearded face staring up at her. The smell and heat must have been coming from deeper in the pile where moisture still existed.
“Come on, Randi. Let’s get out of here. It’s just a bunch of heads.”
She grabbed one by its long hair and shone the flashlight on it. Why were they here? And who paid those mercs to wipe out Kot’eh?
She set the head back down but then saw a strange glint in the hair. When she leaned in for a closer look, her breath caught in her chest.
“Randi, seriously,” Deuce said. “I’m leaving before I throw up. If you’re this desperate for a souvenir, why don’t you just take one?”
She slipped off her pack and opened the top to dump her non-essential gear.
“Jesus,” Deuce whined as she shoved the decaying head inside. “I wasn’t serious…”
28
Jon Smith crept along the dirt road, eyes moving smoothly from side to side. Ancient-looking mud-brick buildings rose up on either side, most showing signs of years of fighting: arcing bullet holes, gaping RPG hits, and hastily stacked debris from collapses. The people in the street seemed uninterested in the destruction, preferring to focus their suspicious gazes and muttered Dari comments on him and his men.
About ten meters ahead, a horse-drawn cart piled with scrap metal had broken a wheel and was stopped diagonally in his path. Two men in traditional Afghan garb were squatting next to it, examining the damage with a stream of animated commentary.
Smith’s Merge failed to recognize the face of either man, but was able to determine that they were Middle Eastern males between sixteen and forty-five years old and therefore gave them the reddish aura of potential threats. A woman standing next to them was also unidentified — not surprising based on the fact that virtually nothing of her was visible behind her burqa — but was given more of a neutral threat rating due to her gender.
The members of his team ahead glowed dark green despite their desert camo and a local coming toward them rated a much paler green — one of the rare locals who had been identified by the Merge’s sophisticated facial recognition software and was deemed friendly.
The man spoke as he passed by but Smith didn’t hear him in the literal sense of the word. He was wearing earplugs and all sound was being transmitted directly to his auditory cortex via five separate microphones attached to his uniform.
“My horse greets a goat for your life,” the mechanical voice said and Smith allowed himself a thin smile. One day the system would accurately translate real-time but for now its interpretation of Dari was for entertainment value only.