Afghan Storm (Nick Woods Book 3) (22 page)

“Well,”
Marcus said, sounding surprised. “She’s, I believe around thirty-five,
approximately 5’ 6”, brunette and…”

“And big
brown eyes? And an ample…” Nick stopped short to swallow, “bosom?”

“Officially?
Yes. But unofficially: Yowza.” Marcus replied, blinking a bit, but with a
steady, straight face.

Nick
groaned and dropped his head into his hands.

“You want
to explain why that’s relevant, or should I go ask her?” Marcus teased, a
knowing smile on his face.

“Shit,”
Nick groaned, looking up and scratching his head nervously. “Yeah, let’s just
say we’ve met. And we kind of got to a bad start.”

“Oh
yeah?” Marcus inquired, happy as a schoolgirl. “She get a bit of that Nick
Woods charm, did she? Damn, that poor girl.”

Nick
shoved Marcus into the wall. Marcus just laughed.

“Come on,
Marcus, it’s not funny. This woman apparently works for me now,” Nick said, his
voice returning to its previous seriousness.

Suddenly,
Truck stepped through the weapons room doorway and looked down the hall at them
“Everything okay out here, guys? I heard something slam into the wall.”

Nick gave
Marcus a warning look.

Marcus
returned it with a surrendering look and looked back, saying, “Yeah,
everything’s good, Truck.”

Nick
moved back toward the weapons room, and Marcus followed.

“Okay,
now something else we have to talk about, gentlemen,” Nick said. “I don’t want
either of you razzing Red anymore about this chair thing for a while, okay.”

“Aw,”
Truck started to argue.

“Last I
remember,” Nick said looking at Truck, “You about got your ass shot off when
you went galloping through that same hut, my friend. Luckily for you, I was
there to check your corners.”

Marcus
attempted to hide his chuckle as Nick turned to him. “And you,” Nick said,
“well I seem to remember you learning a vehicular safety lesson regarding
large, unsecured packs in a truck bed when they come crashing downward at, say,
a seventy degree angle.”

“Heh,
heh,” Truck laughed, “That was funny as hell.” He jumped to his feet and started
miming the incident. “Oh! Ahhh!” he yelped like a frightened girl, re-enacting
the scene as Marcus had fallen ass over teakettle in the back of the truck.

Marcus
backhanded Truck in the stomach unexpectedly. Pretty hard.

“My point
being, gentlemen,” Nick said sharply to regain their attention. “We all have
our moments, and while the chair thing is, honestly pretty damn funny,” Nick
smiled in spite of himself, but shook it off quickly, “we still have a mission
to do, and I want us all focused and feeling confident. And that goes
especially for our point man. So have fun and joke around all you want, but
let’s just try to avoid pointing out one another’s stupidity for a while.
Understood?”

Marcus
and Truck both nodded. Then after a moment of silence with all three of them
looking at either their feet or the floor, Truck looked up and said with a
grin, “At least we’ll still have the Goat Man.”

Nick
laughed, remembering the enthusiastic goat herder they’d seen on their way into
Pakistan. Nick didn’t want to admit it, but sometimes he would find himself
humming the tune of the Goat Man’s song softly to himself. Meant for the goats
or not, thought Nick, that damned tune was catchy.

“Alright,
you two,” Nick said, command back in his voice, “get your weapons cleaned. And
whoever finishes last cleans Red’s gun and takes his stuff back to his room.”

“Hey,
that ain’t fair,” cried Marcus “I was out here getting interrogated by you.
Truck’s probably already finished cleaning his gun.”

“Leadership
sucks, Marcus,” Nick said. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you that?”

Chapter 61

With the
fear of the captured intel on their minds, as well as the hit on their most
recent supply convoy, Rasool Deraz and Mushahid Zubaida proceeded with phase
one of their pushed-forward operation to topple the Afghan government.

First, one
of their lieutenants bribed a disgruntled Afghan army major to support the
Taliban cause. The army major was stationed at a fire support base and was the
second-highest ranking man in their communications element.

The man
proved difficult to bribe, but $5,000 is a substantial amount of money in a
country where the average family subsists on $426 per year. Besides, the
Taliban lieutenant informed the major that soon the Afghan government would be
no more and that if he defected now, Deraz would overlook the fact he’d fought
against the Taliban all these years.

“And where
will I go after I do this?” the major had asked.

“We will
transport you and your family to Pakistan, or some other province in
Afghanistan, where we’ll hide you in a safe house until we topple the
government.”

The
lieutenant handed the man $2,500 up front, and that sealed the deal. Holding
that much money would convince nearly any Afghan; the country, after all, was a
place where loyalty often shifted.

With the
army major’s allegiance in place, the Taliban scheduled their attack for that
night. At the Afghan fire support base, the major entered the communications
room at 2 a.m. The sergeant and private manning the radios jumped to their feet
when he entered.

“Gentlemen,
I’m relieving you of your post. Our commander has informed me he’s expecting an
attack on one of our patrols tonight and has asked me to personally handle the
supporting fires.”

“Yes, sir,”
said the sergeant.

“You two get
plenty of rest,” the major said. “You’ll probably have to pull someone else’s
radio watch tomorrow.”

The men
saluted and gratefully left for some extra sleep. The major took a seat and
watched the clock nervously until 2:30 came around. The Taliban attacked right
on schedule at 3 a.m. Reports came in at a furious pace from a unit of thirty
Afghan soldiers who had set up a defensive position in a temporary operating
base, which was a simple mud hut surrounded by a simple wall. The hut was large
and featured thick, mud walls, which provided excellent protection.

The Taliban
ravaged the compound with multiple RPG strikes and more than fifty fighters
assaulting the building with massive fire, including heavy machine guns.

The major
initially passed along the calls of distress, immediately requesting American
air support to assist the beleaguered troops. Since the attack occurred under
the cover of darkness, both sides struggled to identify their targets.

And just as
the Afghan troops feared being overrun, the American air support arrived on
station. Two Apaches showed up and saw the battle in their infrared sensors.
And it was here that the major earned his $5,000.

Instead of
relaying that the Afghan troops were under assault inside the compound, he
instead informed the Apaches that the friendlies were trying to assault the
target.

The Apaches
could see the troops attacking, as well as the impressive defensive fires from
the compound. They confirmed the target again with the major, requested
permission to fire from higher ups, then loosed two hellfire missiles into the
compound. After the explosions, they hosed down survivors with their 30 mm
cannons, using their thermal sights to detect those who were still alive.

And while
the Apaches picked off remaining targets inside the compound, the major turned
off the radio and slipped off the base.

Chapter 62

The
staggering effectiveness of phase one of Deraz’s plan to topple the Afghan
government soon became clear to S3. The following day, Nick and Marcus were
summoned to link up for a confidential conference call with higher
headquarters.

“Do you want
the bad news or the even worse news?” asked Mr. Smith mere moments after they
linked up by satellite.

Nick looked
at Marcus and shrugged. They were sitting at a folding table with an encrypted
conference phone in between.

“You know I
hate games,” Nick said. “Just tell us.”

“I hate to
agree with Nick,” Marcus said, “but we’d rather just hear the news. We’re sure
it was bad. You don’t have two Apaches loosed on you without bad results.”

“It’s all
anyone is talking about,” Nick said. “Tell me that’s just because we’re stuck
on a shitty base in Afghanistan? That back in America, this isn’t all over the
news.”

“Very
sorry,” Mr. Smith said. “Sometimes I forget that you all are over there, living
on some desolate base.”

There was a
pause, then he continued.

“The bad
news,” Mr. Smith said, “is that the friendly fire incident is all over the
media. And the Afghan president has already responded to public pressure,
ordering all American troops to cease all combat operations. And that even
includes air support of any kind.”

“Unbelievable,”
Nick said. “Is this some kind of show? Just a way to score political points with
his supporters here in Afghanistan?”

“We wish,”
Mr. Smith said, “but it’s no game. In fact, it’s much worse. The even worse
news I mentioned earlier is the Afghan president has personally called our
President and asked him to remove all American troops within the next three
weeks.”

“So, cease
all combat operations,” Marcus asked, “and pack up and leave in the next three
weeks?”

“Yes, that’s
correct,” Mr. Smith said. “And the timing couldn’t be worse. We’re compiling a
better picture of what was on Ahmud al-Habshi’s computer, and now it’s clear
that the final assault on the capital will take place soon. The Taliban has
been avoiding many of their typical, minor skirmishes and engagements as they
consolidate their forces and prepare for their final battle.”

“So,” Nick
said, “the Afghan president feels safe because attacks from the Taliban are
down. And he’s pissed at the Americans, so he’s ordering our combat troops out.
And meanwhile, he has no idea that he’s about to get crushed and chased out of
town.”

“That’s
correct,” Mr. Smith said. “In his defense, not only does he think attacks are
down, but he also believes removing all American troops will hurt the
recruiting efforts of the Taliban. Hard to get Afghans to kill fellow Afghans.”

“If he wants
to cut down on the recruiting efforts of the Taliban, he could cut down on the
corruption,” Nick said. “Hard to support a president as corrupt as him, and the
people know what all he’s doing.”

“On the
bright side,” Mr. Smith said, “he’s not ordering S3 out. That’s one of the nice
things your cover provides. Some real flexibility for our government. So the
race is on to figure out when this attack is going down and what we can do to
stop it.”

“You mean
what four squads of six men can do to stop it?” Marcus asked.

“With no air
support?” Nick added.

“Precisely,”
Mr. Smith said. “But you forgot to mention your snipers, and we’ll keep working
to fix things politically.”

“No
pressure,” Nick said, shaking his head with disbelief. “Anyway, we’ll do our
best to find a way to either delay the attack or stop it. Just get with your
State Department buddies and resolve these silly orders from the Afghan
president. Some air cover and American troops backing us up would be nice.”

“We’re
already on that,” Mr. Smith said. “The State Department is pulling together a
billion-dollar stimulus package for their government, contingent on him
dropping the orders.”

“I’m sure
it’ll be deposited in the national ban managed by his brother?” Nick suggested.

“Correct.”

“The same
one that’s had millions of dollars go missing,” Marcus scoffed.

“It’s how
things work around here,” Mr. Smith said.

“Just work
it fast,” Nick said. “We’ll need those reinforcements sooner than we care to
admit. Marcus and I will head down to meet with our analysts and see if we can
pull together the picture of this upcoming attack.”

“Good luck,”
Mr. Smith said, before hanging up.

Chapter 63

Rasool Deraz
and Mushahid Zubaida were delighted at the success of the operation causing the
friendly-fire incident. They had left the safety of Pakistan and traveled back
into Afghanistan to oversee the final battle. Now they hid in a humble-looking
compound just miles from the capital. It was a safe house in one of their
friendly villages.

The damage
by the Apache attack helicopters was greater than expected, and the reaction by
the Afghan president had exceeded what they had hoped.

“We must
strike while the American forces are forbidden from acting,” Rasool said, as
the two sat looking over a map of Afghanistan. The map was spread out on a
small table, a lantern and candle burning to illuminate it.

“Agreed,”
Mushahid said. “Plus, we must act now because they will continue discovering
key intelligence from Ahmud’s computer. We can’t allow them to have any more
successful strikes against us while we are mobilizing our final assault.”

Rasool
nodded, some pain filling his eyes. “That ambush hurt us.”

Rasool had
lost one of his best lieutenants. A protege that he’d grown close to over the
past ten years. He pushed the memory of the man down and said with
determination, “Let’s begin phase two. May Allah be with us.”

Phase two
involved a trap to draw part of the Afghan forces away from the capital. The
Afghan government protected their most important city with three army
battalions, not counting the lightly-armed police forces that mostly manned
checkpoints. But when serious threats emerged, it was the three army battalions
that responded.

Rasool and
Mushahid had analyzed the capital’s defenses and determined that their plan to
sack the capital could never work with all three Afghan army battalions inside
the city. It was simply too many troops and too much firepower for the Taliban
to deal with. The two of them had calculated that they would need to draw at
least two of the army battalions outside the city. This was hardly an easy
task, as the Afghan government tried its best to avoid deploying them outside
city limits for obvious reasons.

Thus, phase
two of their operation to take the capital city was tricking the administration
to overreacting and making the fatal mistake of committing its primary security
forces outside Kabul. To draw out the Afghan National Army, the Taliban picked
one of the most defendable, steepest hilltops in Afghanistan. It lay just a few
miles outside the capital city of Kabul itself and had seen hundreds of battles
fought on its primary slope in the past couple of decades. The rugged, nearly
vertical hill was one of the most strategic pieces of high ground near the
capital, and remnants of previous battles rusted and rotted along its ground.

On the
bright side, the preparatory part of phase two proved far easier than expected.
Typically, the Afghan government had kept a small force on the hill to prevent
it being seized. Consequently, Rasool and Mushahid had planned for an attack to
take the hill, followed by an all-out effort to hastily prepare fighting
positions and bring up the unprecedented amount of ammunition that would be
needed to hold off the army’s reinforcements.

The limited
time they would have had in such a situation to prepare defenses had always
concerned the two Taliban leaders, but with no government forces on the hill,
Mushahid had been blessed with plenty of time to oversee his men’s meticulous
and deliberate creation of an elaborate defense. Besides setting up the defense
of the hill, Mushahid would stay and lead the operations from the hill himself.

There were
two primary reasons for this. First, his presence would inspire his men to
fight harder. Secondly, the first moves of phase three -- the infiltration of
fighters into the capital -- hardly needed any oversight. In fact, it had
already begun.