Gravedigger (4 page)

Two more men appeared. By
Derek’s count, there were still two unaccounted for. These men carried powerful flashlights and were shouting. The flashlights caused problems with his NVGs, green light flaring in his vision until the dampening technology adjusted. As soon as they found their dead comrades, they started firing at anything that moved.

Derek hit the top of the ridge and flung himself to the ground. He tossed aside the AK he’d been using, unsure of how much ammo it had left. He grabbed the other, scanning below him for the two remaining
muj
.

They had cut their lights and disappeared.

He surveyed the area, coming up blank. Where had they gone?

He saw the bodies littering the ground. Carefully Derek counted them. Five. The two from the ridge he’d killed. The three that had rushed blindly into an ambush. He was too far away to see the two who had been guarding the terrace, his first victims.

He settled his gaze on the cluster of boulders he had been using as a blind. Were they there?

Quietly, he checked the magazine of the AK he had tossed aside. It was a good call. He had a single round left. And probably five or six in the one he was using. Plus his Beretta. Plenty of ammunition for the Beretta, but he had no desire to get into a firefight with a handgun against a couple assault rifles.

He settled in to wait. If they were out there, he could outwait them.

Derek was right. They weren’t pros and they were frightened and impatient.

But they weren’t stupid.

Without any kind of warning the two mujahideen exploded from both sides of the tumble of boulders. They fired simultaneously toward the ridgeline. Derek fired once at the man on his right, simultaneously rolling to his left.

He missed. The man continued to run, spraying gunfire everywhere. But in a second he was out of bullets. The
muj
slid to the ground, fumbling for a spare magazine.

With a clear field of fire, Derek shot him. He rolled back to his right.

He turned his attention to the other man. This
muj
had found cover behind a scraggly tree. The NVGs were good, but not so good that he could pick out enough of the man behind the tree to take a shot. At least not with only a handful of bullets for the rifle.

So he waited.

The snow came down harder, mixed with sleet. The wind whipped it into whirls and eddies, hard, sharp pellets that bit at exposed skin. Derek began to shiver and wondered if that was the
muj’s
plan. But surely he was cold and wet, too. Maybe he didn’t know that he was sole survivor. Maybe he was expecting backup. Or maybe he was willing to wait until his boss and his second-in-command came back—

The
muj
sprinted for the ridge, spraying bullets everywhere.

Derek felt a searing pain along one shoulder. He took a deep breath.

The
muj
dropped the magazine and slammed in a spare, continued to fire.

Derek let it out. Squeezed the trigger.

The
muj
crumpled to the ground.

Derek waited. No movement. Two flashlights glowed from the ground. One pointed at the sky, illuminating the blowing snow and rain. The other glowed off at an angle.

Scanning around, he saw no one. Carefully, he crept down off the ridge and approached the mujahideen. Studying him, he saw a boy. Maybe fifteen or sixteen years old. Too young to even grow a beard. Derek’s bullet had torn out his throat.

Setting back on his haunches, Derek stared around him. He picked up the flashlight and clicked it off, pocketing it. His own words to General Johnston reverberated in his head:
thought it might be nice to stop killing people for a while.

Two men unaccounted for.

A quick search turned up a spare magazine for the AK47. He took it. Cautiously he crept toward the other corpse and shut off the flashlight. Two full magazines.

Good. He reversed his steps, staying low. After a good half an hour he was back in the corn, looking at the encampment.

It was empty. Even Johnston and Noa were gone.

He scuttled toward the camp, stopping regularly to scan around him, listening. It was hard to hear anything with the wind and rain mixed with snow. All he heard was the wind and the nicker of a horse.

Finally he made it to the camp. The fire was still lit. The heat coming off it felt like heaven. Still no signs of life.

He stepped further into the cave.

The bodies of the two men who had been guarding Johnston and Noa lay on the ground. They were both dead. Studying the corpses, Derek realized one apparently had a slashed throat. The other looked like he had been stabbed in the chest.

Pieces of rope lay on the ground.

A sound behind him made him spin, rifle up. Johnston and Noa stood at the mouth of the cave. Johnston’s nose looked broken, blood was embedded in his beard, and his eyes looked blackened. Noa’s mouth was set in a grimace. One whole side of her head was bruised, her left eye almost swollen shut. Both carried AK47s.

Johnston said, “Everyone accounted for?”

Derek nodded. “There’s a story here. I wouldn’t mind some dry clothes, even though I’m going back out in this mess.”

One eyebrow raised, Noa said, “What do you have to do?”

“I think there actually is a mass grave down there. So I need to do some gravedigging to see if I can figure out what killed the people. Proof of biological or chemical warfare, if that’s what caused it.”
That’s my mission,
he thought.
I don’t know what the fuck yours is.

He felt testy as the adrenaline wore off.

Walking over to a backpack that had probably belonged to one of the
muj
, Johnston crouched down and rummaged through it. He tossed it at Derek. “There are clothes in here. A little smelly, but dry. But we can’t stay around here long in case Khan decides to come back.”

Stripping out of his wet clothing, Derek crouched naked in front of the fire. Noa said, “You’re not shy.”

“If you see something you haven’t seen before, shoot it. Meanwhile, I’m freezing my ass off. So tell me. What happened?”

“You’ve been shot,” she said, pointing to his shoulder.

“Yeah. It hurts. I’ve got a first aid kit in the ruck. You mind taking care of it? Now what happened?”

Both Johnston and
Noa had been picked up by
muj
down in the village. Four of them, apparently, hearing the truck, had followed them into the village. They took Johnston first, threatening to kill him if he made a sound. Then they bound his hands and went and found Noa. She tried to talk to them, but they weren’t in a chatting mood.

Once up at the encampment, the leader of the group had asked them what they were doing there. He was a burly bearded man, probably in his fifties. His name was Nadir Khan.

Noa had spoken up, saying, “He is an American aid worker. I am—”

He had struck her. “Do not speak unless spoken to.”

Johnston, not understanding, had said, “I don’t speak Pashto. No Pashto. No Farsi. No Arabic. She is my translator.”

Squirming awkwardly to a sitting position, Noa said, “I am his translator.”

Nadir Khan glared at her. “Why are you here?” He turned to look at Johnston.

Noa turned and said, “He wants to know why we’re here.”

Not sure if the man actually spoke any English, Johnston said, “Tell him I am Jim Johnston, from the United States. America.” He briefly unreeled their cover story.

Noa translated. Khan’s dark eyes bore through her. When she was done, he said, “Why did you come to this village?”

She hesitated, looking at Johnston. She understood he was being careful. They didn’t know exactly how dangerous these men were, although they suspected they were very dangerous. And Derek was still out and about. They didn’t want Khan and his people to know about him. If things got worse, maybe Stillwater could bail them out. She had read his file and knew he was a capable soldier, but his CIA record indicated questionable judgment. On the other hand, he had crossed the Straits of Florida from Cuba to the United States in a kayak during a storm and survived. The man had survival skills, if nothing else.

Johnston explained that they had been at another village and been told rumors about many mysterious deaths here. They decided to investigate.

Leaning over her, Khan had said, “How many of you are there?”

“Just the two of us.”

He hit her. Johnston tried to put himself between them, and received a kick in the ribs for his efforts.

“My men tell me there are three. Who is the third person?”

Johnston shook his head. “There are only two of us.”

Khan glared at them. He walked away, looking at the crates stocked at the back of the cave, which was more of a shallow depression in the cliff than a real cavern. He turned and studied the Range Rover, then looked at the horses.

Khan waved over one of his men, presumably a lieutenant or deputy. “Load as much of the shipment onto the truck as we can. You and I will take it to Shing Dun tonight.”

The mujahideen leader walked back toward Johnston and Noa. He said, “Did you contact anyone? Tell them you were coming here? I see you have a satellite phone.”

Johnston said, “Yes. I told my people at headquarters we were coming here and why.”

Khan punched Johnston in the side of the head. He went down hard in the dirt. Khan spit on him and walked away.

“Ouch,” Derek said,
flinching.

“Don’t be such a wimp,” Noa said. “I’ve put a couple stitches in there. And take some antibiotics. Might as well if we’re going to be digging in a mass grave.”

Derek, crouching nude close to the fire, shook his head. “Not ‘we.’ Just ‘me.’ You and Jim have something else to do. Right?”

Johnston had looked through the remaining couple crates. “I’m afraid so. Besides, we’re at least fifty miles from the nearest village.”

“We need to go to Shing Dun,” Noa said, bandaging Derek’s shoulder.

Derek stood up and donned the dry clothing. He took an antibiotic from the first aid kit and swallowed it with a gulp of water. “So,” he said. “The other shoe is about to drop.”

“These are Russian RPGs,” Johnston said. “And it seems that Khan and his people have been scrounging them and selling them to some people in Shing Dun.”

“And we need to go there and, what? Stop this? Prove this?” Now dressed like a mujahideen, Derek crouched back by the fire, staring into the flames.

“We don’t want them to get into the wrong hands,” Noa said. “And we’re not sure that the crates only held RPGs. There may have been nerve agents or other things.”

Derek sighed. He glanced sideways at Johnston. “Part of your mission, too?”

He shrugged.

“Tell me what else happened. Then I’ve got to go dig up some bodies.”

After Khan and
his lieutenant left, for the most part the
muj
had gone about their business. Several of the men had been told to go back to their guard duties. They had grumbled and complained – the weather was terrible. But they went. Four remained in the encampment. Two of them kept watch over Johnston and Noa. Johnston and Noa moved so they were sitting next to each other, their backs to the cavern wall.