The Mullah's Storm (27 page)

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Authors: Tom Young

BOOK: The Mullah's Storm
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Najib checked the two bodies. No ID, no money or wallets, just their weapons and old Soviet-style ammo vests with pouches for AK-47 magazines. He handed a full mag to Gold, who placed it in a pocket of her field jacket. One of Najib’s ANA troops reported to him in Pashto, and Najib shook his head.
“We get any others?” Cantrell asked.
“Negative,” Najib said. “I saw no drag marks, either.”
“Well, we thinned ’em out a little,” Cantrell said. “Let’s just keep the pressure on them until we can get some help.”
But help isn’t coming until the weather lifts, Parson told himself. The combination of low barometric pressure, temperature/ dew point spread, and moisture content means we’re fighting this part of the war by ourselves.
He looked straight up with his NVGs, hoping to gauge the cloud height. That gave him nothing but vertigo. It appeared the whole universe consisted of chartreuse fog and snow, not falling but floating into a world dissolving into mist. Dizzy, Parson stumbled and went down on both knees, nearly banged the scope of his M-40 against a rock. Shit, let’s not do that again, he thought. I’m disoriented enough as it is.
Gold helped him to his feet. He thought he saw her smile slightly, as if she was amused that his equipment and his inner ear could not apprehend all of Creation.
The team followed the insurgents’ tracks through most of the night. The footprints continued east unswervingly, and Parson decided Gold was probably right about where the bad guys were headed. They want to tag home base, he figured, where it’s relatively safe.
Cantrell and Najib showed no intention of stopping for rest. Looks like we’ll just eat on the move and sleep when this is over, Parson thought. He’d heard of special ops troops training in scenarios that kept them awake until they began to hallucinate from sleep deprivation. So this was why they did that. With all that’s riding on this mission, he realized, exhaustion is just another field condition. One more thing to overcome in the protection of civilians sleeping soundly, warm, well fed, and oblivious.
Parson scanned the terrain with his NVGs to get his bearings again. Noted where Gold was. Checked for Najib and Cantrell up ahead. Tightened his boot laces, placed his rifle across his arm, and pressed on.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
 
I
t was still dark when Najib and Cantrell stopped to check their map again. Parson joined them under the poncho that shielded their flashlights. He turned on his GPS to offer help, but he could tell that Najib was so proficient at old-school land navigation that he needed no assistance. About thirty years of living in these mountains didn’t hurt, either, Parson thought.
“We should turn north and flank them again,” Najib said as he closed his compass.
“Might as well,” Cantrell said. “The wind hasn’t changed.”
“Is it a good idea to hit them again from the same direction?” Parson asked.
“If they do not expect us to do that,” Najib said, “then it is exactly what we wish to do.”
That made sense to Parson. It also meant another approach with the wind and snow at their backs and in the enemy’s face. But not before the team faced into it themselves for a while. When they began moving again, Parson turned his head against the whipping snow, tried to shield his cheek with the hood of his parka. That helped a little, but Parson still felt the stings of white pellets turned by the wind into projectiles. He wondered how his face could be so numb yet still sense the prick of every grain of snow and ice. He tried wrapping a handkerchief around his nose and mouth. The moisture of his breath made it freeze into the shape of his face.
The lead weight of fatigue began to form behind his brow. He wanted nothing more than to slump into a drift and sleep, but he realized that the team could not stop now. Even if they did, he knew that if he slept without taking the time to build a proper snow cave, he would never wake up.
The sky to the east began turning from deep black to ice gray. Parson hoped dawn would perk him up some, but, if anything, it made his eyes more heavy-lidded. His wearied mind began to wander. He wondered if the families of his crewmates had been notified by now. Probably not. He doubted that would happen until the bodies were recovered. What could I have done differently? he asked himself. He went over the events of the last few days, especially the day of the shootdown. Then he forced himself to stop. Better focus on the here and now, he thought, or you’ll get yourself or somebody else killed.
He saw Gold watching him again. Parson stopped to remove his rucksack and put away his NVGs. Then he shouldered the pack and kept walking.
A glance upward told him vertical visibility still amounted to nothing. Overcast loomed just above like a sodden tarpaulin. The team was passing through treeless country now, a valley that looked like a moonscape blanketed by snow. Boulders littered the terrain, stones the color of burned metal on the sides not covered in white.
The troops watched their sectors of fire, each trigger finger extended across each trigger guard. Parson saw nothing to suggest an enemy close by, but he didn’t trust his instincts when he was so tired. He felt he was moving into some stage of fatigue he’d never experienced before, with strange effects like a poison. He had a metallic taste in his mouth, as if he held a dime on his tongue. Despite the cold, his flesh became sensitive, as if his flight suit were made of sandpaper. Gold and the Special Forces troops looked like they were holding up all right, but the skin sagged under their eyes.
When the team turned to the south, Parson tried to make himself alert, to will himself away from exhaustion. Heading south meant a move to intercept the jihadists again. A firefight could happen at any time. He felt the wind against the back of his head.
Najib stopped and seemed to look at something for a long time. The soldiers froze. Parson crouched and shouldered his rifle so he could look through the scope. Eventually he found what Najib saw.
In the distance, a spot of red highlighted the snow. When the team moved closer and Parson looked through his scope again, he saw some kind of bloody mess. It had to have been recent or else new snow would have covered it. Something solid in the middle of the red slush. Parson supposed the wolves had killed an animal. Maybe they’d fed on an ibex or some farmer’s goat.
Cantrell and Najib whispered to each other and moved up a few steps. Gold borrowed the binoculars, then handed them back to Parson. When he glassed the scene from a closer vantage point, he saw that the dead thing was a man.
The troops spoke to each other through their MBITRs, took positions, set up a perimeter. Now Parson was confused. He’d heard no shots. But then, that body didn’t appear to have been killed in a firefight. Even from a few hundred yards it looked like something slaughtered. It seemed every day Afghanistan showed him some new horror.
Najib moved up with his shotgun poised to fire. Parson zoomed in with the binoculars and watched him crouch near the body. Najib turned to his side and placed his fist over his mouth, closed his eyes. Looked again and shook his head. He spoke into his radio, and Cantrell joined him.
As Parson neared the other two officers, he heard Cantrell say, “That is so fucked up.”
Then he saw why. The body had been disemboweled and beheaded. Parson heaved, but didn’t have enough in his stomach to vomit.
Entrails spilled from the belly like purple ropes. The corpse’s hands were tied behind it with a long, black cloth. The head sat in the snow upright, eyes closed, mouth gaping. Flakes were starting to gather in the hair and on the eyebrows. Blood had melted snow into a puddle of red slush.
“He was Taliban,” Gold said.
“How can you tell?” Parson asked.
She pointed to the bound hands. “That was his turban.”
Cantrell began walking around the scene, examining tracks, looking at the surroundings. Najib huddled with his men, speaking in Pashto.
“So who besides us is after these guys?” Parson asked. He thought some militia, maybe the Northern Alliance or whatever they called themselves now, had caught a straggler from Marwan’s gang.
“Nobody,” Cantrell said, hands on his hips, eyes on the ground. “There’s no other set of footprints. No shell casings, nothing.”
“They did this to one of their own?” Parson said. “Why?”
“Dissent in the ranks, perhaps,” Gold said.
“So somebody got made into an example,” Cantrell said.
“This is why Marwan needs the mullah,” Gold said.
“What are you talking about?” Parson asked.
“Even some Talibs oppose what he wants to do,” she said. “The mullah can give him theological backing.”
“Theological backing for using a nuke?” Parson asked.
No one answered. But that was answer enough.
“We believe the mullah was about to issue a
fatwa
approving a nuclear strike on a U.S. city, but he was captured first,” Najib said.
Now Parson was starting to make some sense of why the Taliban might not all support Marwan. The Taliban had Afghanistan as their own little medieval paradise until 9/11, and then al Qaeda blew it for them. Guess they’re afraid if we get hit hard again, he thought, we’ll turn this place into the fifty-first state and never leave.
Parson looked at the mutilated corpse. It reminded him so much of Nunez. The sight of his crewmate, beheaded, came rushing back, a waking nightmare. But maybe Nunez and the others hadn’t lost their lives for nothing. They had given him time to get away with the prisoner.
The mullah had been just cargo to Parson. Part of a job he did with his crew. Fisher was right all along, he thought. This mission is more important than any of us.
Cantrell gave hand signals to the troops out on the perimeter. The men prepared to move again. “Stay alert, people,” he said. “If this is what they do to their friends, think what they’ll do to you.”
The team looped to the north once more and hiked in that direction for more than an hour. Parson thought he and his rifle could be more useful now in the daylight. He just hoped he could stay awake enough to think quickly and make good decisions. It was getting hard just to read his compass, something that should come as naturally as breathing. Yeah, he reminded himself, north is still three-six-zero, dumbass.
The enemy had to be close, but Parson could not see where. Snow fell harder, with mist rolling over the ridges. He guessed any transmissometer reading would have shown visibility at less than a quarter mile.
The valley opened into a bowl-like plateau walled by mountains, with a gentle rise bulging across the otherwise flat plain. Beyond the rise, Parson saw the top of a gnarled sapling less than a hundred yards away. It grew from the hill’s opposite slope, and the rolling ground hid most of its trunk. A goshawk flapped out of the tree and circled over the troops. Parson wondered why the bird would fly around like that in such sorry weather. Because something disturbed it. Parson froze.
Najib looked at the raptor gliding above. He held up his fist. Everyone stopped. The hawk screeched, and its cry echoed across the plain like the screams of the damned. Moving only his eyes, Parson checked for the nearest cover. Not much to choose from. A rock no bigger than a C-130’s tire. Scrub brush. Those bastards are probably just on the other side of that rise, Parson thought. Najib motioned for the team to take cover.
Parson dropped behind the rock and tried to make himself as flat as possible, part of the ground. He dug the butt of the M-40 into the snow, with the barrel along the side of the rock. With his left hand, he held the sling near the forward swivel and pointed the rifle toward the hill. Scanned through the scope. His eyes were so tired that the reticle went fuzzy. He blinked and forced himself to bring it into focus. Thought he saw movement behind the hill.
He placed his finger on the trigger. The brittle handkerchief across his face was getting uncomfortable, but he welcomed the extra camo it provided. No clear target for him now, just that bare tree and the stinging snow. He felt pressure on his chest from this extreme prone position. Bent his right knee and slid his leg up a bit, and that helped some.
In his peripheral vision, he saw a couple of the snake-eaters in similar positions. He wondered what to do next. Well, Najib had said to use the M-40. A snowdrift near the sapling appeared to move. No, just a trick of the fog. A pair of stones at the base of the drift. Nothing to get excited about.
But Parson didn’t like those two rocks. Couldn’t make his tired mind reason why. Because they’re windward, he thought. They should be drifted over. Something, maybe a fallen branch, between them. No, they’re gloved fists. Holding a rifle. White parka, white shemagh. And that’s where the chest should be, Parson estimated with his crosshairs.
He fired. Felt the recoil, heard the crack of high velocity. Spurt of blood. The gloved hands released the AK and the body slumped forward. Parson saw that he’d hit the man somewhere in the upper torso. A fatal or at least incapacitating wound, apparently, because the body did not move.
He expected the insurgents to open up, but no shots came. Maybe they were waiting for someone to stand up and give them a target. Marwan must have schooled them on how to fight a little smarter. Parson remained flat to the ground.

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