Sniper Elite (21 page)

Crosswhite was on his feet again within a few minutes, but he was still fogged, so Alpha retained temporary command. They had
to assume they were exposed now, so the mission took on a sense of urgency as they moved out to link up with Trigg and the other SEAL. When they found them, Trigg was standing beside a quintet of hobbled donkeys. The opium cargo was bundled and stacked off to the side of the trail.

“Whattaya got?” Alpha said.

Trigg motioned for him to follow. “I almost walked right into it,” he said quietly. He stopped Alpha about forty feet up the trail where it began to narrow and used a handheld laser trip-wire illuminator to illuminate a series of monofilament lines zigzagging across the trail at knee height. The wires showed up white in their night-vision goggles. “Ever seen that before?”

Alpha shook his head in the darkness. “No. Is this how they were covering their approach or what? What's this lead to?”

Trigg turned to face back the way they'd come. “Those two claymores set in the trees there.”

Alpha turned to see a pair of M18A1 claymore antipersonnel mines mounted head-high in the trees, one to either side of the trail. It was immediately obvious that anyone who came marching down that trail in the middle of night would have gotten himself and anyone following within fifty feet blown away.

“Drugs are a dirty business,” Alpha muttered. “We have to be extra careful now . . . and we're behind schedule.”

They disarmed the booby trap, packing the claymores away for safekeeping. The donkeys were set free, and the team formed up to move out with Trigg on point, using the trip-wire illuminator whenever he felt unsure of the trail.

Crosswhite recovered within the hour to resume command. They were racing the sun now, so he kept them moving almost at the double, never stopping to rest, checking the GPS on the move as they ascended ever higher into the mountains. It was a grueling climb,
and they sucked their CamelBaks dry. Anyone who fell out to take a piss had to run extra hard to catch up. There would be very little time now to reconnoiter the village and get set up before first light.

Three hours into their ascent, the lead element rounded a bend in the trail and ran head-on into a Pashtun patrol of seven men working their way down the mountain to link up with the opium smugglers.

The Pashtun men had their AK-47s slung over their shoulders, and they were talking casually among themselves when five American commandos came barreling around the bend. Trigg and Crosswhite ran smack into the two lead men of the Pashtun patrol, and all four of them went sprawling, their feet and weapons tangled together in a jumbled mess.

There was a lot of shouting and yelling from the startled Pashtun as they tried to sort out what the hell was going on. Forogh added his own haranguing voice to the fracas, trying to sow extra confusion among the Afghanis, but someone snapped on a flashlight, and the situation went immediately critical. The rest of the American column rounded the bend, and the Pashtun AK-47s were unslung. Within half a second shit was flying everywhere. Men were fighting hand-to-hand with rifle butts and knives, kicking and shoving as everyone fought for space.

Crosswhite bit down hard on the hand of the fellow he had collided with, tasting blood as he fought to straddle the flailing man who beat at his face with his free hand. He finally managed to drive his thumbs deep into the Pashtun's eye sockets and jumped to his feet, only to be knocked over again as Forogh was knocked off balance by a SEAL just joining the fight. The SEAL went flying past them to deliver a vicious butt-stroke to a Pashtun blindly firing his AK-47 in a sweeping horizontal arch. Miraculously, the SEAL was able to cave in the Pashtun's face before he could complete the sweep, saving at least two American lives besides his own. Had Trigg and
Crosswhite been on their feet during the first half of that sweep, both of them would have been cut down.

The last four SEALs to round the bend had a very clear picture of the battle. They could see the last three men in the Pashtun column gripping their AK-47s in terror. Without night vision, they were unable to see what the hell was going on, and therefore had no idea which of the shadowy forms slugging it out on the trail before them were the enemy. The Pashtun broke and ran, and were cut down before they had gone more than a few yards.

The melee ended a few moments later, and Crosswhite grabbed up his M4 calling for everyone to sound off. Everyone was alive, but two SEALs had broken their night-vision goggles in the fight, and another named Fischer had a bullet hole through his left shoulder blade.

“I can make it,” Fischer insisted a short time later as the corpsman strapped his upper arm to his side. “Just leave my forearm free so I can reload.”

Crosswhite was still spitting Pashtun blood. His face was covered with lacerations, and the bridge of his nose was gashed open and bleeding. “You left-handed, son?”

Fischer shook his head. “No, Captain.”

“Small mercies,” Crosswhite muttered, selecting three SEALs at random and ordering each of them to trade Fischer all but one of their pistol mags for his M4 ammo. “Okay, listen up,” he announced in a low but peremptory voice. “This mission is fast becoming a goat fuck, and there's no telling how many motherfuckers up the trail know we're coming now. So we're gonna take a vote on whether or not to continue. There's ten of us, but if anyone wants to call
no joy
, we'll call the game now without anyone giving you any shit. I'll take full responsibility for the mission and lie my ass off when I get back about who really knew what.”

“Nobody votes to go back because of me!” Fischer blurted. “I can make it.”

No one else immediately spoke up.

Finally, Alpha cleared his throat, and Crosswhite turned to look at him through his night-vision goggles. “What's on your mind?”

“Is that how they do things over at Delta, Captain? Turn back at the first sign of trouble?”

Crosswhite chuckled. “Let's move it out. We're behind schedule.”

Halting their descent through the mountain darkness, Sandra and her Hezbi captors listened to the Pashtun AK-47s chattering on the far side of the valley. When the firing subsided after a couple of minutes, a pair of scouts was dispatched to investigate. The column settled in to wait, and Kohistani drew his fighting men close, briefing them to expect an American attack from any quarter. He did not believe in coincidence, and he was not naïve about American UAV capabilities. If the Yankee murderers knew or even suspected that the woman pilot was being held in Waigal Village, one of their drones could be scanning the valley with its infrared cameras at that very moment.

Sandra was coherent enough to discern the change of mood in her captors. Before the rattling of the AK-47s, they were moving
smartly down the mountain with a minimum of apparent caution. Now they were stopped and pulled into a tight defensive perimeter encircling her stretcher, whispering back and forth like a pit of agitated vipers, ready to strike in any direction. With only Badira paying her any attention, Sandra began to work at the knotted ropes securing her to the stretcher, readying herself to move if an American rescue team were to appear suddenly. She promised herself that she would summon the strength to get up and run when the time came, despite the opium doping her reflexes and the pain ravaging her leg.

The time dragged on, however, and as the minutes stretched into an hour, her faint adrenaline surge faded to nothing and her determination flagged. Her mind fogged, and the pain began to take over once again. After an hour and a half, she squeezed Badira's arm in the darkness, signaling that she needed another hit from the opium pipe.

Badira ignored her request, knowing that Kohistani would not allow her to strike a match under the circumstances.

As the pain increased, Sandra began to think more clearly. She summoned all of her strength and drew a deep breath: “I'm here!” she screamed in desperation. “I'm here! Come and—!”

A fist slammed into the side of her head, knocking her senseless. Another fighter jumped up and knelt heavily on her diaphragm to prevent her from drawing enough air for another scream in the event she came to.

The scouts returned ten minutes later, reporting to Kohistani that they had found seven dead Pashtun on the trail across the valley. One of the scouts dropped a fistful of spent 5.56 mm shell casings into his hand.

“The Americans killed them all and kept moving up the mountain toward the village,” the scout said. “They won't arrive before first light. By the time they discover she's no longer there, we'll have reached the truck.”

Kohistani smiled in the darkness. “Allah be praised,” he said with great satisfaction, having believed until that moment that the woman's screams had doomed them all. “It is no accident that we are at this place in time, brothers. Allah does not deal in coincidence.”

He stepped over to the stretcher, using his own flashlight to check on their prisoner whose left eye was now swollen almost shut from the blow that had silenced her screams. He shined the light in Badira's eyes, telling her, “You should have thought to hold a hand over her mouth.”

“Perhaps you should have thought to tell me,” Badira retorted.

He rapped her in the face with the butt of the flashlight, splitting her upper lip. “Do not mistake me for a simple village head man,” he said, his voice almost friendly. “Now gag the American, and make sure she remains gagged until we reach the truck. If she calls out again,
you
will be held responsible.”

Shortly before first light, Crosswhite and the SEALs from SEAL Team Six arrived on the southern perimeter of Waigal Village. They were exhausted and out of water, but they were only twenty minutes behind schedule. Crosswhite ordered the corpsman to dole out two time-released Benzedrine capsules to each of the men, then gave orders for Trigg and Alpha to recon the east and west perimeters of the village. The northern periphery of the village was built into the mountain itself, which extended upward another thousand feet.

From their vantage point below the village, Waigal resembled a giant house built from playing cards, each hut looking as though it was built upon the other. Though in reality, each dwelling was built into the steep, rocky slope of the mountain. The village was above the tree line, so tree cover was very sparse. The SEALs would need to
move into the village as soon as possible in order to take advantage of their night vision.

Crosswhite crouched behind a boulder, looking up at the village through his NVGs. “That's an imposing sight,” he said to Forogh.

“It is,” Forogh agreed. “They speak mostly Kalasha here. I don't speak Kalasha.”

Crosswhite turned to look at him. “You might have mentioned that before we left the fucking house!”

Forogh shrugged. “It wouldn't have mattered. No one speaks Kalasha except these people.” He patted Crosswhite on the shoulder. “Don't worry. Many of them will speak Pashto as well. I doubt very much the Taliban who are holding your pilot are of the Kalasha tribe. It's not their way. You should mention that to your men.”

Crosswhite grunted. “We won't kill anyone we don't have to.”

He got on the radio: “Bank Heist Two, this is Bank Heist One. Do you read? Over.”

The Night Stalkers were quick to respond: “We read you five-by-five, Bank Heist. Over.”

“Bank Heist, be advised we are in position and preparing to move on the target.”

“Bank Heist Two standing by . . .”

Crosswhite glanced over at Fischer, who crouched behind another boulder gripping a suppressed MK 23 pistol in his free hand. “Good to go?”

Fischer nodded.

Alpha was the first to call in: “Captain, I can't see into the village from over here. The mountain's too steep. All I can see are the fronts of the huts. I've got no movement whatsoever.”

“All right,” Crosswhite answered. “Work your way back here. Trigg, what do you got?”

“Still maneuvering,” Trigg replied. “But so far nothing at all.”

“Okay, get back here.”

When the team was reassembled, Crosswhite gave them his assessment. “This shit hole is too big to search it hut by hut. We're going to have to take over one of those lone huts near the bottom of the village and get somebody inside to talk. Anybody got a better idea? The clock is running.”

Trigg pointed up the mountain. “I vote we take that lone hut just below the village on the ridge. It's isolated enough from the others that we should be able to interrogate the family without disturbing the other huts.”

The hut was about half the size of a small one-car garage.

Crosswhite took a last look around and gave the order to move out, leading the way toward the lone hut some ninety yards up the slope. They covered the distance with the night wind blowing cold against them, picking their way over the rough and jagged terrain to arrive outside the hut in less than five minutes. Crosswhite signaled that he would enter first, followed by Alpha and then Forogh. The other seven SEALs would cover the village with their suppressed M4s.

The battered wooden door was not locked. Crosswhite lifted the wooden catch and slipped inside quiet as a ghost, followed closely by Alpha and Forogh. In the greenish-black field of vision, it was immediately obvious there was only one room to the hut. A lone inhabitant lay sleeping on a bunk against the wall on the far side, wrapped in multiple blankets. The room smelt faintly of what Crosswhite could only think to describe as
old people
 . . . and an odor similar to rot.

“Shit, I think this one's dead,” he muttered.

“I don't think so,” Forogh said warily.

Alpha prodded the figure, and Forogh said “wake up” in stern Pashto. The person stirred and coughed beneath the blankets.