16
Khost Province
Central Afghanistan
TRACKING THE MOVEMENTS of both men through the starlight scope was impossible and Randi was forced to jump back and forth between them as Zahid fired uncontrolled bursts in their general direction.
She flattened herself a little more against the ground, ignoring the sharp rocks cutting into her and nursing a grudging respect for the ruthless efficiency of the two remaining mercenaries. They hadn’t even bothered to see if the man she’d hit was dead, instead immediately widening their pattern and angling up the steep slope. Both moved with impressive speed and stealth, going from boulder to boulder in carefully coordinated bursts.
She’d counted on them slowing from fatigue as they progressed, but it didn’t seem to be happening. Scoring another hit was unlikely and letting this come down to close-quarters fighting was probably not going to go her way. Whoever they were, they were worth whatever they were getting paid.
Zahid rose over the low wall again and fired another poorly aimed volley. This time the men were ready for it and both leapt from cover with weapons shouldered. Her finger started to move on the trigger of the sniper rifle but then at the last moment, she abandoned it and dragged the Afghan from the path of the bullets spraying through the opening he’d been standing in.
Zahid fought her as the rounds slapped the rock at the back of the small edifice, ricocheting unpredictably. He seemed less concerned that she was using him as a human shield than that she had forced him to retreat instead of facing certain death head-on.
Knowing that the men below would use the opportunity to advance their position, Randi rolled back to her rifle and sighted through the scope again. She fired at the closest target, but the angle wasn’t there. The bullet did knock off an impressive chunk of rock half a meter from the Ukrainian’s head, though, and that proved enough to get both men to dive for cover.
“Zahid,” she whispered. “Are you hit?”
“Not badly.”
It was too dark to see much more than the outline of him, but she watched as he teetered and sagged against the cave wall.
“Tell me what happened in Sarabat,” she said.
The fact that they had distinctly different definitions of a successful conclusion to this evening was making an already disastrous situation even worse. She wanted to get the information she’d come for and beat a quiet retreat with all her body parts still intact. He, on the other hand, wanted a nice helping of revenge followed by his quota of celestial virgins.
“We were paid,” he said as she began scanning the slope through her scope again. “I don’t know who it was and I don’t think the elders did either. They gave us new AK-47s and information on where men who guarded Sarabat were. They told us to attack in the middle of the day and that there would be no resistance.”
He finally managed to get hold of her assault rifle and fired another burst, unconcerned that there was no visible target.
“Stop doing that!” she whispered harshly. “You’re not even getting close and you’re going to run us out of ammunition. Why the middle of the day?”
“I don’t know,” he said, sliding down the rock wall into an awkward seated position. His voice was already starting to lose strength. “I was skeptical, but the money was very good. And it was an opportunity to finally defeat Sarabat after so many years of insults.”
She squeezed off a quick shot, kicking up some dust near the boulder the easternmost man was hiding behind. A reminder that they hadn’t been forgotten.
As she chambered another round, he burst into view and traversed five meters farther east while his companion sprayed the wall she was lying at the edge of.
They were going to keep spreading out until they could safely pass their position and get the high ground. If that happened, things were going to get really ugly really fast.
“And was what they told you true? Was there no resistance?”
“It was true,” he said at a volume that was hard to hear. She wasn’t sure if it was his injury or the memory of what had happened in Sarabat.
“The men wouldn’t fight. The children and women did. But the men just stood there and died like sheep.”
The merc to the east moved again when a gust swirled up enough dust to obscure him. She fired into the cloud, but blew the shot and sent the round spinning off into the darkness.
And that was it. He’d made it far enough that she wouldn’t be able to get a bead on him without exposing herself to his teammate. It would probably take him another two minutes to satisfy himself that this was the case and then not much more than another one or two to get above them. She glanced behind her at the blackness of the crack passing through the cliff. There wasn’t much more time.
“Why didn’t they fight, Zahid?”
“I don’t know. It was as if their souls had been taken. I aimed my gun at one of them and he had a good rifle on his back. But he just fell to his knees and looked up at the sky.” The Afghan paused, losing himself for a moment. “I praised Allah and he said to me that there was no God.”
His voice shook audibly and again she wasn’t sure if it was his injury or the weight of the memory. The deaths of Sarabat’s innocent women and children would mean little to him. But the abandonment of God—even by an enemy—would be even more disturbing than their bizarre surrender. The only thing etched more deeply into the Afghan identity than combat was faith.
“Why did you take their heads?” she said, trying to catch a glimpse of the man to the west through her scope. He hadn’t budged, but it wasn’t him she was worried about. At best speed, his partner would nearly be above them.
“We were told to take them by the men who paid us.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. They told us that they were never to be found. So we put them in a cave.”
“A cave? Where?”
“Ten kilometers to the southeast. In a mountain we call Muhammad’s Gate.”
She was familiar with that particular geographic feature—three marines had been killed there a few years ago. “There are probably a hundred caves there. Which one?”
“There is only one you can get to from above. The heads were—”
A spray of rounds filled the tiny space and Randi shoved herself away from the wall, rolling awkwardly toward the gap behind her. Adrenaline had her breathing hard by the time she made it inside and she took a quick inventory of her body. Nothing that wouldn’t heal.
Even after everything she’d seen, she’d underestimated the speed at which that son of a bitch could take the high ground. Curiosity killed the cat and one day it was going to do the same to her.
The gunfire stopped but this time the deep silence she’d become accustomed to didn’t ensue. Instead, she could hear the footfalls of the man approaching from below and the sound of rocks being knocked down as his partner came at them from above.
“Zahid,” she whispered. No answer. He had tipped to the side and his head was resting at an unnatural angle on the butt of her M4 carbine. The sniper rifle was still set up at the edge of the wall and that’s where it was going to stay. The approaching men would have identified that they’d been attacked with two weapons and if either was missing, they’d know someone else had been there.
Randi reached out and snatched her pack, sliding it back and forth across the marks made by her boots and body in the dust. The sound brought another volley, this time from both directions, forcing her to retreat into the gap. It would have to be enough.
She twisted sideways and dragged her pack along behind her, listening to the footfalls of the two men as they were amplified and distorted by the passageway’s acoustics. For a moment it sounded like they were pursuing her but she quickly realized that it was just an illusion. Still, it prompted her to increase her speed, pushing the very edge of what she could do silently. There was a drop-off farther up and she knew her life depended on getting to it before the men reached Zahid’s body. The problem was that she couldn’t remember the distance.
Ukrainian voices echoed toward her and she used the noise to mask a brief increase in her pace. She couldn’t understand the words, but it was likely that they were coordinating the final phase of their assault on the alcove and speculating as to the chances that its occupant was still breathing.
There was a shout and another burst of automatic gunfire and she incorporated them into her running mental video of the two mercs’ actions—not difficult because they were almost certainly the exact same ones she’d have taken in their situation.
The man who had staked out the high ground would spray the area as his teammate came in from the east…
The ceiling rose and she stood to the degree she could, breaking into a crouched sprint through the blackness as she continued to mentally play out the scene unfolding behind her.
The approaching man would have good visibility with night-vision goggles, but the position of Zahid’s body would initially hide it, making it impossible to make a decent risk assessment. That would slow him down a bit. But only a bit.
The final echoes of gunfire faded and Randi was forced to slow to a pace that allowed her to be completely silent. The Ukrainian would be inching forward now, back against the cliff, listening for movement. He’d come up to the edge of the crack she was moving through and stop. Zahid’s foot would come into his field of vision and he’d watch it for a few moments, confirming the strangely unmistakable stillness of death.
Once he was satisfied that the Afghan no longer posed a threat, the merc would turn his attention to the gap. Probably also not a threat, but these were thorough professionals. He wouldn’t just stroll past it. No, he’d update his teammate as to the situation and then…
Almost precisely on cue, the shout she was dreading rang out. Randi broke into a full run again as the man stuck his assault rifle into the crack and opened up on full automatic. One bullet passed close enough that she could feel the hot wind from it, another ricocheted off the stone to her right with a deafening ring. And then the ground went out from beneath her.
The landing was less graceful than she’d planned and she pitched forward, slamming headfirst into the ground as more rounds passed over her head.
She remained still, dazed enough that she didn’t trust herself to rise in the silence that was once again closing in. Instead, she went back to trying to picture what was happening in the alcove she’d just escaped from. The man would have leapt across the gap and be inching forward again, still keeping his back against the rock wall. A few more seconds…
There was another shout, followed by the rattle of falling rock as the man’s teammate started down to him. Zahid had been confirmed dead and, for the moment, they sounded as though they were satisfied that the threat had been neutralized.
Randi pulled herself from the shallow hole and listened for any hint of pursuit as she continued on. The mercenaries had chased and cornered one man and now he was dead. There was no reason for them to think anyone else had been involved—a mistake she herself probably would have made in their position.
Ahead, the darkness took on a hint of gray, but she didn’t let it cause her to quicken her pace. It was another interminable five minutes of wondering if they’d empty another clip into the gap before Randi exited onto a steep, moonlight-washed slope.
She immediately started up, wanting to make sure that this time she had the superior position if the men decided to come after her.
After fifteen minutes of lying quietly in the rocks with her silenced Glock on her chest, though, there was still no sign of pursuit.
Finally, she relaxed and redirected her gaze to the sky as she took another inventory of her condition. There was a little blood trickling down her face and she was going to have a nice bruise across her forehead. No big deal. Her right ankle had taken a bit of a beating—nothing that would keep her out of heels, but less than ideal for a five-hour hike that included climbing down a steep, loose mountain in the dark. Particularly with her two Ukrainian friends still out there.
She dug into her pack for her sat phone and began dialing.
“Randi?” Klein said when he came on. “Are you all right? It’s my understanding that you’re still not back at base.”
“I’ll live. The last resident of Kot’eh just got taken out by mercs—Ukrainian, I think. Before he died he told me that they were given equipment and intel and paid to go after Sarabat. They were also paid to take their heads and hide them in a cave southeast of here.”
“Anything else unusual?”
“He said that the men didn’t fight back. The women and children did, but it sounds like the men just stood there.”
There was a short pause. “All right. I think this is getting a little beyond the scope of what I have authorization to look into. Let me work on this from my end. Can you get back on your own?”
She looked down the dark slope. “I always do.”