The Fourth War (21 page)

Peshawar, Pakistan

It was a hot and muggy night, the air calm and wet and apparently unwilling to give up the heat of the day. The city streets were sludgy from rain and piled garbage, and there was a strong smell of rot and human waste in the air. Most of Peshawar was a slum, as poor as any place on earth, and the only men that seemed to prosper in the city were the smugglers who ran heroin west and the warlords who moved weapons and ammunition between China and the Muslim states. Few of the men in Peshawar worked; jobs were scarce and, once found, hard to hold, for the local economy was as unstable as the winds that blew down from the sandy plateaus that surrounded the small town. It was the perfect environment for envy; a rotting petri dish of poverty, oppression, ignorance, and tradition that sustained an almost acid hatred of the United States.

Like the people in the city, the terrain around Peshawar was hostile and unfriendly; the mountains rose in the east, north, and west, craggy fissures of rock that were capped with snow atop the bony, granite fingers. To the south, the mountains fell away to the Indus Plateau. Somewhere to the west, beyond the dim light of the moon, a thunderstorm crackled with lightning, promising a coming storm.

The men met in the residential part of the city, the most desperate part of the slums, where the tiny houses and ramshackle apartments were hardly more than cardboard shacks. They didn't speak as they walked toward each other, though the smaller man bowed, then gestured toward a brick-and-mud house to his right.

Angra paused outside the door of the house and listened to the sounds of the city; the cry of a baby in the second-floor apartment beside him, a gunshot off to south, the wind lifting a loose piece of tin roof before dropping it down. He sniffed the air, then pushed the door back and strolled purposefully into the house. The Great Master followed, his lanky frame and long arms flowing under his flowing robes. The men inside the main room looked up in stunned silence before a low gasp moved through the crowd.

The Master, the Great One! The Great Leader was here! The men hardly dared look at him, keeping their eyes on the floor.

No one had defied the United States like this man had done. No man had stuck such a dagger into the Great Satan's soul, sending him to stagger, almost bringing him to his knees. No man since the Great Sultan had stood so proud and so tall, standing for Allah and the very Prophet himself. This man was a fable, a legend straight out of old days.

The Great Leader followed Angra, but said nothing as they moved through the crowd. Standing in silence, he moved off to the side. Angra stood in the center, surrounded by a ragtag group of men.

These weren't their best soldiers. Indeed, quite the opposite, it was a group of misfits, but the only men they could spare. A few had some potential but were too young to be trusted; some were old soldiers who had been cast off. Others were mercenaries looking for a quick meal. But all of them were hungry and hoping for a chance to prove themselves.

There were eleven in all, and they stood awkwardly as Angra walked to the front of the room. There were no lights, only candles, and his presence cast a shadow along the front wall. He cleared his throat, bowed to the Great One, then motioned to his men and all of them sat, crossing their legs on the floor. Angra, as always, got straight to the point. “Brothers, blessed be His Name, Gracious God has brought us together tonight. For some, it has been a treacherous journey; but you have been blessed for your effort, for our Great Leader is here.”

Angra paused and looked back and the Great Leader nodded in a gracious gesture to his soldiers. Everyone knew he wouldn't speak, not to such lowly men, but the honor of having him among them was clearly enough.

Angra spit a small wad of tobacco, then continued, “We must disperse before morning, so we don't have much time, but I have been given a task by our Master, and it is important to him.”

The men straightened and leaned forward. A task from the Master! What an honor indeed!

“There is a man,” Angra said. “An American soldier who goes by
Rasul al-Laylat.
He might be CIA, maybe military. I want to know who he is.”

The men stared at their commander, a dull stir in the air.

“Rasul al-Laylat,”
Angra repeated. “Does it mean anything to you?”

A young man—he couldn't have been more than seventeen—raised a thin hand and pushed himself to his feet. “I have heard the name,” he said with such pride it looked like he might burst.

Angra turned to him. “Where?” he demanded.

“The Americans have an outpost along the Afghanistan border, way up north, near the mountains, where the rain falls cold on the rocks of the Badakhshan.”

Angra stared, impatient, then waved his hand.

“They call it Camp Cowboy,” the young soldier went on. “It is a hard target, fully protected, but the soldiers come out for patrols. Some of them ride horses. This one you are looking for, he is one of these horsemen.”

“Are you certain?”

“Oh yes,
Sayid.
Many of us who listen and watch in that part of the country have heard the name before. Apostle of the Night. He is very well known. He has many friends, many traitors he has bought and sold over the past several years. He casts a long shadow, with his gifts and his gold. He could buy a whole army with the money he spends. I know eight, maybe ten, tribal leaders who have worked for him; warlord Lashkar Gah, Gen. Chekar Morejak—God willing, I could name many more.”

Angra's eyes lightened. “What more can you tell me?” he demanded as the young soldier fell silent.

The young man shook his head. “
Sayid,
I don't know any more.”

“Have you ever seen him?”

“No, master, no.”

“Do you know what he looks like?”

“He is large and dark, like a bear. He looks like—well, like we do, at least that's what I have been told. He is dangerous and evil. They say he has killed many men.”

Angra grunted. Of that, he had serious doubts. “You say Warlord Lashkar Gah has met with him?” he prodded.

“I have heard that he has, yes, my
Sayid.
”

Angra glanced back at the Master, who eyed the young soldier. “You would please me,” the Great One muttered, “if you could find this soldier and bring me his head.”

The soldiers grunted in pleasure. A word from the Master. Then a long silence followed. Their mission was cast.

Angra watched them, growing fidgety, his hands turning cold. He listened to the drumming on the tin roof as the rain started to fall. A sour feeling welled inside him. He knew that going after the American was a distraction from the far more important work that was taking place to the north, a hornet's nest of trouble that he would have left alone. But the Great One had insisted and he could not tell him no. General Ghaith's treason had been a slap in the Great Leader's face, a personal insult that could not be ignored, and killing the American who had helped Ghaith was the only salve he could put on his wound.

So he would do as the Master ordered. He would send these men out and see what they brought back.

Kill 31
Over Eastern Afghanistan

The massive black bird was descending. Its engines were at idle and the sound of the wind blowing over the cockpit grew more noticeable as the aircraft descended into the thicker atmosphere that lay below sixty thousand feet. The air was dry and smooth; the night almost perfectly clear behind the dust storms that were still billowing out in the west and the moon was beginning to ride high in the sky. Mountains loomed ahead, unspeakable shadows with talons of stone reaching toward the aircraft, the snow-capped peaks brightly illuminated by the three-quarter moon. Craggy fissures streamed downward like thin veins of black coal against the white snow. Tia couldn't help but stare. Never in her life had she seen mountains such as these. The moonlight made the sight even more majestic, for the snow-capped peaks sparkled against the dark valleys twenty-five thousand feet below. She motioned toward them. “Wow,” was all she could say.

Bradley was also staring through the windscreen. “Takes your breath away,” he answered.

Tia watched a moment more, then turned to her radar display. “I've got a good fix point off the bridge over Harirud. The INS is tight. I mean really tight. The
Lady
is serving us well on this long, lonely night.”

“She's a babe.” Bradley reached up and stroked the side of his cockpit. “Hang in there, girl.”

Tia turned her concentration on the fix point again, the bridge showing clearly on her radar display, a dark mass against the green monochrome screen. She watched as a small truck moved over the bridge. She tightened up the picture. The screen shifted, changed perspective, then tightened on the bridge and the truck came more clearly into view, the radar so clear it was like watching a movie. Though it was over seventeen miles away, Tia could easily make out the details of the vehicle, even seeing the antennae on the front of the fender. She snapped a picture of the southwest corner of the bridge, then fed the coordinates into her navigational computer. The INS compared the coordinates to update its position. “INS drift is less than three meters,” she said.

Colonel Bradley leveled the aircraft at thirty-three thousand feet and pushed up the power. “Take the aircraft,” he said. Tia reached up and took the controls.

Bradley studied the radar. “One hundred eighty miles to the target.”

Tia searched the sky before her. “Where did those Su-27s go?” she said as she shook her head in frustration.

Bradley had asked himself the same question a dozen times. The fighters were out there; two sharks, lying in wait, ready to strike at the first whiff of food, ready to spring at the first target they found. His gut was tight and a trickle of sweat ran down his ribs. He turned the radar to air-to-air mode and commanded a slight increase in power. His sensors got a sudden sniff of Su-27 and the ALD-65 defensive system chirped in his ear, but the signal wasn't strong enough to pin down the direction and range. The enemy fighters had to be low, near the mountains, keeping themselves hidden on the other side of the peaks. Bradley studied his defensive system display, overlaying the readout over his moving map display. A yellow circle was depicted off to his right, indicating the last known position of the enemy forces. He hit
update
on his data panel but the threat ring remained fixed, unable to update without the satellite link.

Bradley glanced at the time. More than five hours since they had lost their SATCOM relay. Five hours was forever; a lifetime on the battlefield. Wars had been won and lost in five hours. Battles had turned, the future of nations decided in five hours or less.

Five hours was far too long to be without communications from the home base. He huffed in frustration. It was like flying blind.

His defensive system chirped again and he moved quickly in his seat, leaning toward the CRT display. Tia glanced at him, sensing his urgency. “Got a whiffer, low, eighty miles, ten o'clock,” Bradley announced.

Intermittent radar target, low level, eighty miles to the left.

“It is out in the valley—at the base of the mountain. But I can't get a strong enough return to nail it down,” he explained.

Tia held the stick loosely as she scanned up north, an instinctive reaction ingrained from years of air-to-air training. “Just one hit?” she asked anxiously.

“Check that…two…now three. NOE. Gotta be dogs.”

Three choppers, flying nap-of-the-earth, barely above the terrain. The B-2 radar saw the helicopters clearly, despite the ground clutter.

“Choppers?” Tia wondered. “Where are the fighters?” she asked.

“They appear to be circling overhead, the dogs.”

“But that doesn't make sense. Unless…” Tia paused. “Unless the fighters are following the choppers, providing air cover.”

“Looks that way, Tia.”

The captain shook her head. “Choppers. Su-27s. Working together.” She wiped her gloved hand across her face as Bradley watched the choppers begin to slow on his radar display.

Tia watched them also. “Look at that,” she moaned. “They're coming to a hover right over the target!”

Bradley shook his head in fear as the two pilots looked at each other. “They've found the warheads. They're going to move them in the choppers!” he said.

“We are too late,” Tia answered in angry dismay.

Bradley's face paled. “No,” he shot back. “There's still time. We're only a few minutes out. If we get the bombs on the target—”

“But we don't know who's down there! It could be friendlies, Pakistani forces.”

“Or al Qaeda,” Bradley shot back. “You're right, we don't know who's down there, which is exactly the point. We don't know who's down there and we can't take the chance. Without further orders, we will continue the mission and take out the target, including the choppers, whoever they are.”

Tia fell silent. “Of course, sir,” she said.

The colonel stared out his window, then glanced at the radar, which showed the choppers hovering over the target, ready to set on the ground.

Who were they?! Who were they?!

He took a deep breath. “We have to strike the target before they move the warheads,” he said. Pushing up the power, he increased their speed. “Start on the bomb checklist,” he commanded as the aircraft sped up, the rush of air over the windscreen increasing in pitch.

“Yes, sir,” Tia answered as she turned to her displays.

“Target zero six five degrees. We'll begin our turn at the IP in just under a minute.” Bradley's voice was intense. “Pre-bomb checklist complete. I've selected weapon stations two and four. Going to air-to-ground mode.”

“Before you do sir, take a last look for those fighters.”

Bradley worked his defensive display. “Nothing now. I've got nothing at all. The Su-27s must be on the other side of the mountain. Going to bomb mode. Target eighty-five miles. Weapons armed and selected.”