The Mullah's Storm (24 page)
Read The Mullah's Storm Online
Authors: Tom Young
“It’s okay,” Parson said. “Just an old triple-A piece.” Some kind of small-bore antiaircraft gun, he guessed. A weapon designed to be towed by a vehicle. Rotted tires topped with a plume of snow. Parson wondered how they ever got it up here. Maybe behind horses.
“Did something like that shoot us down?” Gold asked.
“No, it was a missile that got us. But this thing could ruin your day, too.”
He wondered whose it had been. Maybe Taliban, maybe Northern Alliance, maybe mujahideen back in the 1980s. He saw why they put it here. In clear weather this spot would have commanded a good view of the valley below. A gunner could have made short work of a helicopter or low-flying airplane.
Parson slipped his way downhill and examined the weapon more closely. Rust exfoliated from the steel like dry bark. So this thing had been here a while. He wondered why they’d just left it. But then he imagined a Soviet helicopter popping up from the ridge behind him, catching the gun crew unaware. A two-second burst of fire from a Hind could have made short work of a triple-A emplacement.
“Why do people fight so hard and long over hellholes like this?” Parson asked.
“Free will,” Gold said.
Parson moved around to the front of the weapon. Those mute barrels might point up at the sky for the next thousand years, he guessed. He steadied himself on the incline, then shuffled farther down the slope. Glanced back at Gold to make sure she was close behind.
When Parson stopped to rest a moment, he noticed a patch of dry bracken sticking up through the snow. He placed his fingers around some of it, felt it crumble in his flight glove. Held his hand above his head and watched the tinder drift in the breeze. He noted that the wind had not changed direction in at least two days. That meant no change in the weather anytime soon.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
V
isibility improved a little as Parson and Gold descended the ridge. The mist opened up enough for Parson to discern the mountain spur tapering off toward the north. A white expanse dotted with thornbush and stunted trees. The surface crust reflected what little light there was, giving off a pale glow. Icy snow pelted his face like grit in a sandstorm. They didn’t have much time left before dark, and he fought the urge to rush.
isibility improved a little as Parson and Gold descended the ridge. The mist opened up enough for Parson to discern the mountain spur tapering off toward the north. A white expanse dotted with thornbush and stunted trees. The surface crust reflected what little light there was, giving off a pale glow. Icy snow pelted his face like grit in a sandstorm. They didn’t have much time left before dark, and he fought the urge to rush.
Parson stopped to size up the landscape. He thought he knew how to find the SF team. His current heading would take him toward what looked like a hogback along the next ridge. Easy to imagine a cave among the rock formations there. But he couldn’t see well enough to be sure. Of course, he wouldn’t see Cantrell’s men until they wanted to be seen.
He guessed they were still above nine thousand feet. Below he saw an area that looked like easier walking. Steep but no boulders or brush in the way, just a slope thick with virgin snow. He started to take that route, but something at the back of his mind worried him. Why would there be a swath so smooth in terrain so rugged? Because that’s a damned avalanche chute, he told himself. You’re so tired you’re getting stupid. You better think fast and move slow, or tomorrow won’t be your problem.
Farther below, he made out the narrow channel of the avalanche track, and beneath that, the runout zone filled with what looked like lumpy snow. Probably lumpy because of boulders and debris that had piled up there over the years.
“We want to stay away from there,” Parson said.
“What’s wrong?” Gold asked.
“Anytime now, all that snow up here,” he said, pointing, “is going to wind up down there.”
Parson picked his way parallel to the ridgeline, away from the slab of snowpack poised to blast its way downhill. Something will kill me someday, he thought, but not that. As he walked, the topcoat crunched under his boots like broken glass.
He glanced back at Gold. She held her rifle close as she followed him, one step at a time. At a point when he paused to choose the path for the next several yards, he looked over his shoulder and saw her watching him, waiting for his decision, silent.
The body armor he’d taken from the insurgent weighed on him and he wanted to ditch it, but he still had enough self-discipline to keep it on. Too valuable a piece of gear not to use. He wished Gold would wear it, but she had turned it down every time he offered.
Parson eased his way down among the leafless scrub laden with snow. When he finally reached the saddle between ridges, he found ice fog hugging the ground. Snow to his knees, mist to his waist. From the lay of the land, he suspected a primitive road ran through where he stood, but the snow made it impossible to tell. All roads in this part of Afghanistan were long since impassable because of the blizzard. Normally, Parson would have avoided any line of communication like a road or a river. But now, between the storm and the insurgents, everywhere was dangerous. His situation made him think of the bomb-sniffing dogs he’d seen back at Bagram, never at rest, judging every breath they took for the whiff of a threat. At least he and Gold had the ice fog to cover them. When he kneeled, the mist hid him completely. He pulled out his electronic gear.
Parson took a GPS fix and saw he was only a half mile from the position Cantrell had given him. He turned up the volume on his radio.
“Razor One-Six,” he called. “Flash Two-Four Charlie.”
“Flash Two-Four Charlie, go ahead on Delta.” Crisp as a landline. Parson changed frequencies.
“We’re nearby. May we come on in?”
“Affirmative. I’ll tell my guys weapons tight.”
Parson kept on his GPS and started up the next ridge. He saw no one, but uphill he made out a cornice of rock that seemed to correspond to Cantrell’s location. As he approached, a black-gloved hand waved, motioned for him to continue. He found Cantrell and Najib behind a limestone ledge. Blood on Najib’s parka. Smears on his shotgun. Not his own blood, apparently.
“Didn’t expect to see you again,” Cantrell said. “This must be Sergeant Gold.”
Gold nodded. Took off her gloves, checked her fingers. The bandages showed yellowish stains from the antiseptic and blood. Her hands trembled slightly. Najib watched her, offered the drinking tube from his CamelBak. She drank and passed it to Parson.
Cantrell examined Gold’s hands, then looked at her with something like reverence. He called over his medic. Gold took off her coat and pushed up her sleeve while the medic gave her an injection. The lines around her eyes seemed to soften as the morphine took effect.
“Did you recapture the mullah?” Gold asked.
“No,” Cantrell said. “We killed several of those assholes. They killed two of our men and wounded two.”
Parson saw the bodies of two insurgents slumped among the boulders. Blood on snow. Casings everywhere. A dead black horse down the slope, its coat wet with melted flakes.
“We thought we had them cornered in this cave,” Najib said. “But there must be another exit. The cave is empty now except for our own soldiers.”
Parson looked around and at first recognized nothing as a cave entrance. But he eventually found a jagged hole in the rocks, not nearly as big as he’d imagined. The snow made it hard to tell, but Parson thought the opening was hardened with a row of rough masonry. Icicles hung from the top edge like fangs.
Some of the troops were inside the cave. The medic tended the wounded. An M-4 stuck by its bayonet into the ground served as a pole for an IV bag. Plastic tubing ran from the bag and disappeared under a green blanket covering one of the injured men. Off to the side lay two other troops, ponchos pulled over their faces.
“Any idea where the insurgents went?” Gold asked.
“Unless they have something else below ground, there aren’t many places they could have gone,” Cantrell said. “They can’t keep an old man and their wounded out in this weather for long.” He opened a canvas map case and pulled out a topographical chart. “We’re here.” He pointed with the stub of a pencil that had been sharpened with a knife. “The nearest villages are here and here.” Parson judged from the map’s scale that reaching any of those villages would take more than two days’ walking.
“My men are searching for the other exit,” Najib said. “We will track them down from there.”
“You’re going to follow them again?” Parson asked.
“Task Force says take that mullah at all costs,” Cantrell said. “They’ll send help when they can.”
Cantrell withdrew a black-and-white photograph from his map case. Printing along the bottom read: NATIONAL GEOSPATIAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY. A satellite photo.
“I think the corner of this picture corresponds to where we are,” Cantrell said. “This village is the closest, and it doesn’t look demolished.”
“How old is that photo?” Gold asked.
“About three months.”
Parson could tell little from the photo. Just an image taken from so high that the mountain ridges looked like folds of wrinkled corduroy. But he noted that it must have been shot on a perfectly clear day. On that day, anyone in his situation would have had a chopper ride within hours if not minutes.
He shivered hard, and he couldn’t feel his feet. He stumbled over to the cave entrance, ducked through it, and sat down near the wounded. Inside, it felt only a little warmer. He opened his ruck and found an MRE. Cut open the package and pulled out the heater pouch. Unscrewed a water bottle and dripped water up to the pouch’s fill line, which wet a packet of anhydride powder. When the chemical reaction began, he wrapped the pouch in his handkerchief so it wouldn’t burn him. Then he placed the pouch and handkerchief beside him, untied his flight boots and took them off. Peeled away the filthy socks. His toes were a glossy white. When he pulled off his gloves, he saw that his fingers were, too.
“You’ll lose them if you don’t warm them up,” the medic said. “But don’t heat them too quickly.”
Parson pressed the handkerchief bundle against his bare feet. The more his toes warmed, the more they hurt. It seemed this was a race between the enemy and the elements to see which would get him first.
He looked at the wounded troops. One stared at the cave ceiling, eyes unfocused. The other’s eyes were closed. They both looked a little younger than Parson, maybe thirty. Because of their blankets, he could not tell anything about their wounds, but they were obviously in no shape to move. He guessed Cantrell would have to divide his soldiers, leaving some here with the wounded until a medevac helicopter could reach them.
Parson wondered whether these two guys would make it. He didn’t know a lot about Special Forces, but he did know that each of these troops was fluent in a language, and expert in a particular field such as demolition or communications. Damn shame to lose that kind of talent. He admired the quiet dedication of these snake-eaters. They did a job given all sorts of fancy names by politicians: The Global War on Terrorism, Operation Enduring Freedom, The Long War. But the troops had simpler names for it: My first deployment. Second deployment. Third and fourth.
The sound of voices speaking in Pashto came from farther back in the cave. Parson reached for his Colt, but then saw that no one else reacted. Flashlight beams played against the walls. Three of Najib’s ANA troops emerged from the depths of the cavern and reported to their commander. Dirt covered their uniforms. When Najib spoke back to them, Parson thought he sounded resigned.
“They have found a hidden exit,” Najib said. “The enemy escaped through a passage to the other side of this ridge.”
“I’d like to run after those sons of bitches now,” Cantrell said, “but it would be a goat fuck trying to chase them with night-vision goggles. We’ll start out first thing tomorrow. Reeves and Obaidullah will stay here with Simpson and Jones.”
Tough bastards, thought Parson. They’re going to pursue what might be a larger force after already taking losses. Parson knew he had to decide whether to wait here with the wounded or go with Cantrell. The book answer was to stay and live to fly another day. Do what you’re trained for. But these guys saved my ass, he thought, and I can move and shoot and do what they tell me to do. Gold’s probably going to want to go, too. Guess we’ll just push our luck till we all get killed.
Through the cave entrance, Parson watched the snow fall diagonally. The light receded until he could no longer make out the flakes. He sat with his knees upbent, holding the heater pouch around his toes. Unfolded the handkerchief and placed his fingers inside against the pouch. Like his toes, his fingers ached as they warmed. When any of Parson’s extremities thawed out enough to feel sensations, the first one that came back was pain.
He didn’t really feel like eating, but he knew he had to. He looked through the MRE he’d opened and found a packet of Sloppy Joe filling. Sliced it open and dug at it with the long-handled plastic spoon. No way to warm it now, because he’d used the heater for something more important. It was like eating leftover beef soup right out of a refrigerator.
Gold sat beside him and handed him a steaming canteen cup. He didn’t see any fire, so he guessed she’d figured out some way to warm up water with a ration heater. He was too tired to ask how she’d done it. Parson inhaled the vapor. Tea. He sipped and felt it all the way down. He offered it back to her, but she shook her head. She opened some cheese spread and ate it right out of the packet.
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