Blue Warrior (14 page)

Pearce looked down at the name stenciled on his shirt. “He and I are about the same size, looks like.”

“Looks like,” she repeated, not taking the bait.

“I miss anything?” Pearce asked.

“It stopped snowing. The sun is up. And there’s a pot of tea steeping. Pour us some, will you, while I finish these notes?”

“Sure.” Pearce padded over to the sink area. A pot sat on a hot plate, steam curling up from the spout. Two thick ceramic cups with Italian navy logos were next to the pot. He poured.

“How’s Daud?”

“His IV will finish in about thirty minutes, then he gets another one. I want to give him four more after that.”

“That’s a lot of fluid.” Pearce set a cup in front of Cella.

“But the latest protocols for sepsis call for it.” She picked it up and blew on it. Pearce tried to ignore the shape of her mouth when she did it.

“You must be exhausted. I know how to hang an IV bag. Go get some rack time,” Pearce offered.

“I’m fine for now. Maybe later. I must make my rounds in a few minutes. The others will wake up soon.”

“How many patients do you have now?” Pearce asked.

“Two women and two girls, next door. One late-term pregnancy, one anemia, and two bladder infections. On this side, Tariq is the old man over there, Ghaazi is the boy you met earlier, and you know Daud.”

“Where are they all from?” Pearce took a sip of tea.

“Some are from across the border, some from this side. All different villages. Tariq was the chief of his village years ago, wiped out by the Russians. He is the last survivor of his clan.”

“And the boy?”

“Ghaazi’s father is a
talib
who fled to the Tribal Areas.”

“You know Italy is at war with the Taliban, right?”

“My war is in here. The only enemy I fight is death and disease. What you idiots do out there is your business.”

“But you’re helping the enemy of your country.”

“I’m taking care of his child, who lost a foot to a mine planted by the Afghan army. I suppose you think it is my patriotic duty to let the boy die for the sins of his father?” Cella took another sip of tea.

“No. But the boy will probably grow up and become a killer like his father. Doesn’t that bother you?”

“I can’t know for sure if he will grow up to be a killer. He probably
will. There is killing all around him. What else does he know? Right now, I know he needs my help. I also know that the mine that took his foot was probably American. A lot of American mines have killed a lot of innocent people around here. Doesn’t that bother you?”

“I hate it. But that’s war. The sooner it ends, the better.”

“And your job is to help end it, yes?”

“Yes.”

“And you enjoy this work? Killing the enemy?” Her blue eyes bored into his.

“No, but it’s necessary.”

“Necessary. Yes, of course. Then perhaps it is necessary for you to finish the job the mine began. Where is your gun? Or would you prefer to simply strangle the child while he sleeps?” A devilish smile creased her mouth. She took another sip of tea.

“I wish I had your moral clarity. It’s a luxury I can’t afford right now.”

“I think you are a good man, despite what you do.”

“You don’t know what I’ve done.”

“Stay here with me for a month. You will be surprised how clear things become when you start saving lives instead of taking them.”

Her words were fingers pulling on a string deep within him. He felt light-headed. Needed to change the subject. He pointed at the name stenciled on his chest. “This guy. Brother? Or husband?”

“Neither.” Her face soured. “Bodyguard. My father insisted.”

“Who just happened to have your same last name?”

“A legal fiction. It would be too scandalous for an unmarried man and woman to be living under the same roof here in this place. So Vittorio came as my fake husband. Passport, clothes, everything.”

“Where is he now?”

“Dead, a month ago.”

“How?”

“A local army commander named Marwat. Runs drugs and guns. They ambushed Vittorio. Thought he was Interpol.”

“Then you’re in danger, too.”

“No. I have lots of friends around here, remember? They kill me, they have a civil war on their hands.”

“That won’t save you.”

“It has so far.”

“And does your father know that Vittorio is dead?”

“No.”

“Because if you told him, he’d just send another, right?”

“Yes.”

Pearce rummaged around in his memory for a moment. “Paolini. Aerospace manufacturing. Helicopters, right?”

She sighed. “And other things.”

Pearce glanced around the clinic again. Very well stocked. “And he’s your ‘donor base.’”

“He makes money killing people, so it is only right that his money should save them, too.” She pulled off her glasses. “How would you like some food?”

“Very much, thank you. I’m starving.”

“Then make us something. There are some fresh eggs and bread in that refrigerator, and a pan in the bottom drawer. I must go next door and check on the women.”

Pearce’s mouth watered at the thought of fried eggs. “Sounds like a plan.” He headed for the refrigerator and pulled out a bowl of eggs. Started to relax.

Until the explosion.

21

Afghanistan–Pakistan border

7 January

P
earce grabbed his M4 and a parka before diving into the UAZ. The distant explosion he’d heard was in the direction of Daud’s village. Distant jet engines split the air like rolling thunder, and black smoke smudged the crystalline blue sky above the mountain.

Pearce had given Daud’s radio to Hamid and told him to keep it close. “Hamid! Hamid! What is happening?” Pearce yelled in Pashto.

No response.

The snowstorm had passed, but the clear sky had only dropped the temperature. Pearce shivered in the cab, waiting for the motor heat to kick in. He slammed the gearshift through its paces, clutching as fast as he could to get up to speed. The ancient Russian jeep slipped and yawed in the snow as he gunned the throttle, but its four-wheel drive kept him moving generally forward.

Pearce called on the radio again, over and over. Nothing.

He wound his way back up the hill toward the village. Somewhere along the way he’d crossed back over the border from Pakistan. It was hardly a road, more like a clearing between trees. He followed Cella’s tire tracks from last night, hoping they were, in fact, hers. But he remembered a hairpin turn that he now took that brought him to a steep incline. Daud’s village would be about three kilometers up the
road. He slammed the brakes and listened. Over the idling motor he could make out the heavy
whump-whump-whump
of rotor blades beating the air.

The road leveled out for a short stretch. As best he could remember this little patch was about three hundred meters from the village. He pulled off the road and hid the vehicle in the trees, killed the motor, and grabbed his rifle. The helicopter engine thundered overhead and voices shouted at the top of the hill.

Pearce checked his only mag, then squeezed the release latch, pulled back the T handle, and charged a round into the receiver. He wished like hell now he hadn’t left his fighting pack at Daud’s house. The only gear he had with him was his rifle, combat knife, and boots. He didn’t have time to pull on his body armor.

Pearce picked his way up the hill through the trees, keeping cover, careful to stay as far away from the road as possible. His face burned in the cold air that carried the smell of burnt wood and flesh. He crested the hill and dropped into the snow, which was covered in fine dust and ash.

He used his rifle scope to scan the smoldering village, a hundred meters to his right, across the road. His heart sank. Houses were flattened, and craters smoldered. Broken bodies, or pieces of them, were scattered on the ground. He counted twenty Taliban fighters laughing and joking as they picked through the smoldering ruins, nudging the corpses of Daud’s men. A few carried AKs, but most carried HK G3s, just like he’d heard last night. In the distance, a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter circled on over watch.

Pearce swung the scope around again. There. Khalid himself. The black-bearded
muj
was sharing a smoke with a U.S. Army captain wearing an Airborne unit patch.

Pearce tried to put the puzzle pieces together. Why would the Air Force level this village with JDAMs? That Army captain must have called it in. But why? Maybe Khalid told that captain that this was an AQ village. Shit. But Daud and his village were registered with the CIA as allies, and Pearce’s command knew he was hunting Khalid for running
drugs and guns across the border. Hell, his command had authorized the mission. So who FUBAR’d?

He’d figure that out later. Pearce centered the target reticle on Khalid’s upper lip just below the nose, aiming for the “apricot,” the medulla oblongata. He slowed his breathing, preparing to pull between heartbeats.

He hesitated. Shooting Khalid now would be suicide. It wouldn’t bring Hamid or Daud’s father and mother back to life. Wouldn’t fix anything. If he wasn’t lucky, he might accidentally shoot the captain. It was a really bad idea.

Pearce’s rifle barked. Khalid’s face erupted in a cloud of pink mist and broken teeth.

That’s for you, Daud.

Pearce rolled to his left, then stood and ran in a half-crouch back down the hill through the trees. Angry voices shouted behind him. Rifles cracked. Bullets
zoop
ed in the air just above his head, snipping branches and spitting snow in front of him. Pearce’s lungs burned as he gulped down the frozen air, his legs pumping high through the thick cotton candy of loose snow until he reached the UAZ.

He yanked open the door, fired up the engine, and spun the jeep back out onto the road. He shoved the stick into first gear and leaped out, hoping the Black Hawk would take the bait and chase the UAZ while he dove through the trees down the perilous slope back to Cella’s compound. If the helicopter didn’t kill him, the run down the side of the mountain probably would.

22

Medicia Oltre Frontiere Compound
Afghanistan–Pakistan border

7 January

T
wo hours later, Pearce stumbled out of the steep tree line, back on the Pakistani side of the border. Bathed in sweat, thighs burning, breathless, he scanned the snowy path just beyond the clinic entrance.

Not good.

The blue steel gate was battered and twisted on the lock side, rammed open by something heavy and hostile.

Pearce dropped to the deck in a puff of snow just as a Pakistani soldier stepped into the open gate area. He wore heavy-weather camouflage gear and carried a G3 rifle.

Just like the rifles that Khalid’s men carried.

That was enough confirmation for Pearce. The Pakistanis, or at least some of them, were helping the Taliban. With allies like that, how could we possibly fail to win this war? he thought.

Assholes.

The soldier scanned the road carelessly, then stepped back inside the gate, out of view. Pearce dashed across the road, as far away from the sight line of the gate entrance as he could get. A stand of pine trees marched up to the high stone walls of the compound. Pearce used them as cover. When he reached the wall, he listened. He counted
three voices in the little courtyard, but heard more voices shouting from inside the clinic.

Pearce slung his rifle over his back, pulled himself up silently onto a low-hanging branch, then climbed to another just above. He could barely feel his hands. His gloves were still in the clinic. Up in the second branch he had a view just clearing the wall. He saw three men directly below him, sheltering themselves against the chilling breeze behind a heavy-duty truck parked near the wall, shivering and smoking cigarettes.

Pearce considered his tactical disadvantages. He was outnumbered and outgunned here in the courtyard, an unknown number of bogeys were in the clinic, and Cella was nowhere in sight. No grenades, no flash bangs. Could he evade detection and make his way into the clinic without endangering Cella’s life, or Daud’s? He tried to formulate a plan, but his mind was numb with fatigue and clouded by an agonizing headache brought on by the frozen air and lack of food.

A gunshot burst inside the clinic. Cella screamed.

Pearce pulled his knife and leaped over the wall.

So much for planning.

—

T
he Pakistani officer held a fistful of Cella’s hair in his powerful grip and pointed a pistol in her face, inches from his.

“CIA! WHERE IS CIA?!” he screamed in broken English.

“I . . . don’t . . . know!” Cella cried.

“Here,” Pearce said.

The officer whirled around, still clutching Cella by the hair, the other hand pointing the gun toward Pearce. He fired.

Too late, by a breath. Pearce had fired first, kneeling.

The pistol round cracked on the doorframe just above Pearce’s head as the Pakistani’s throat blossomed in petals of blood and meat. His hands went limp as his spinal cord severed from the base of his skull, freeing Cella, dropping the gun, dead before he crashed to the floor.

Cella stood frozen in a half crouch, trembling.

Pearce ran to her and threw an arm around her. She wrapped both arms around his neck, clinging to him like a life raft.

“The others?” he whispered.

She raised her face. It was smeared in tears and snot. Her left eye was blue and swollen shut. She pointed at the women’s clinic. “Five of them.” She noticed that Pearce was bathed in wet blood.

She gasped. “Where are you hit?”

He shook his head: I’m not.

He shoved her against the far wall, trying to get her out of sight of the doorway, just in case. “Wait here,” he whispered.

“Stay with me. They will be waiting for you.”

He shook his head again. “They think their buddy just shot you.”

Pearce ducked back out the door in a low crouch as Cella raced over to Daud’s bed. The Afghani’s brains were spattered against the far wall and he was bled out all over his pillow. Too late, she knew. But something in her had hoped.

She suddenly realized she was sticky with blood, too. The blood that was on Pearce.

Panicked shouts rang out on the other side of the wall.

So did five muffled gunshots. Cella flinched.

Seconds later, Pearce raced back through the doorway.

“The women were all dead. I’m sorry,” Pearce said.

Cella buried her swollen face in her hands and sobbed.

Pearce glanced at Daud’s bed, then the other two. The boy and the old man were shot through the head as well.

“Was that the asshole that killed Vittorio? Marwat?” He nodded at the corpse on the floor lying in the spreading pool of blood.

All Cella could do was nod.

“We need to scoot.”

“Where will we go?”

“The only place we can.”