Since Moore was carrying an AK-47, if he did fire, then the third Taliban might assume that his buddy was responsible for those rounds. But then came an even better diversion: The Apache Longbow and its thundering rotors swooped down, banked hard right, then began to wheel over them. The wind and roar stole the Taliban fighter’s attention, as did the powerful spotlight that panned across the alley.
Moore raised his rifle, got off three rounds, punching the guy in the back, blood spraying. Then he whirled and took off along the wall of the next house, within which stood the last guy. Moore got down on his hands and knees and crawled beneath the side window, then came around the front of the house. Bob-O and Ozzy ceased fire, and Moore was able to position himself beneath the open window through which the last guy was firing.
At this point, yes, they could lob a grenade and finish the guy, but Moore was already an arm’s length away from the insurgent. He rolled onto his side and strained his neck to peer upward until there it was, the guy’s rifle barrel hanging above the windowsill, within reach. Moore grabbed the rifle by the upper hand guard and used it to haul himself onto his knees, just as the guy, screaming in shock, let go of the weapon and reached for his holstered pistol.
By the time he freed his weapon, Moore had thrown down the AK and leveled his Makarov. Three rounds sent the thug crashing onto the floor. Moore had used his own pistol because one of the oldest of old-school combat rules said that only as a last resort should you put your life in the hands of an enemy’s weapon.
The Apache was already leaving, called off by Ozzy.
Only the fading whomp of rotors broke across the Mana Valley. Finally, a dog barked, and then someone hollered in the distance. English.
Moore jogged back across the street and down to the end of the alley, where he met up with Ozzy and Bob-O. The stench of gunpowder was everywhere, and Moore found himself shaking with adrenaline as he crouched down.
“Nice job, Puke,” said Bob-O.
“Yeah,” breathed Moore. “Took one alive up on the roof. I get to interrogate him.”
“We killed four more, but the rest fell back into the mountains,” said Ozzy, cupping one hand over his ear to listen to the reports from his men. “We lost them.”
“I want to talk to Old Man Shah, let him lie to my face about this,” snapped Moore, referring to the chief of the village.
“Me, too,” said Ozzy, showing his teeth.
Moore drifted over to Rana, who was still sitting in the alley, knees pulled in to his chest. “Hey. You okay?”
“No.”
“It’s over now.” Moore proffered his hand, and the young man took it.
While Ozzy’s team policed the bodies of the Taliban who’d been killed (and fetched the prisoner Moore had bound up on the roof), Moore, Ozzy, Bob-O, and Rana reached the mud-brick fort. The rectangular buildings were surrounded by brick walls rising about two meters and a large wooden gate before which now stood a half-dozen guards. Ozzy told one of the guards that the chief of the Shawal tribes needed to speak with them immediately. The guard went back to the house, while Moore and the others waited.
Chief Habib Shah and one of his most trusted clerics, Aiman Salahuddin, stormed out of the gate. Shah was an imposing man of six-foot-five or so, with a large black turban and a beard that seemed more like a bundle of black wires than hair. His green eyes flashed in Ozzy’s light. The cleric was much older, perhaps seventy, with an ivory-white beard, hunched back, and barely five feet tall. He kept shaking his head at Moore and the others, as though he could will them away.
“Let me do the talking,” Moore told Ozzy.
“Yeah, because I’m about to tell him off.”
“Hello, Chief,” said Moore.
“What are you doing here?” the chief demanded.
Moore tried to temper his anger. He tried, all right. And failed. “Before we were attacked by the Taliban, we came in peace, looking for these two men.” Moore shoved the pictures into the chief’s hand.
The man gave the photos a perfunctory glance and shrugged. “I’ve never seen them before. If anyone in this village is helping the Taliban, he will suffer my wrath.”
Ozzy snorted. “Chief, did you know the Taliban were here?”
“Of course not. How many times have I told you this, Captain?”
“I think this might be the fourth. You keep telling me you don’t help terrorists, and we keep finding them here. I just can’t understand that. Do they accidentally drop down out of the sky?” Ozzy had clearly damned to hell the “art and science” of negotiation.
“Chief, we’d like to continue our search with your help,” said Moore. “Just a few men.”
“I’m sorry, but my men are very busy protecting this village.”
“Let’s go,” said Ozzy, turning away and marching off with Bob-O behind him.
The cleric stepped up to Moore and spoke in English: “Go home with your friends.”
“You’re helping the wrong people,” Rana suddenly blurted out.
Moore glared at the young man and put a finger to his lips.
The cleric narrowed his eyes at Rana. “Young man, it’s you who are very much mistaken.”
It took another two hours for Ozzy’s Special Forces team to comb through the village and surrounding farmhouses, ever wary of another attack.
In the meantime, Moore questioned the man they had captured. “I’ll say it again, what’s your name?”
“Kill me.”
“What’s your name? Where are you from? Have you seen these guys?” He shoved the pictures into the man’s face.
“Kill me.”
And it went on like that, over and over, until Moore got so frustrated that he gave up before he said something he shouldn’t have. Moore’s CIA colleagues would take over the questioning anyway. Might take a week or more to crack this guy.
When Ozzy’s team finally returned to the helicopter, Moore debriefed them before they took off.
“This farmhouse right here,” Moore said, pointing to the home on a satellite photograph. “It’s pretty far back. Anyone get it?”
“We did,” said Bob-O. “Old farmer with one eye there. Couple of sons. Not happy to see us. They didn’t fit the description of your guys.”
“So there it is,” said Ozzy.
Moore shook his head. “My guys are here. They’re probably watching us right now.”
“And what’re we going to do about it?” asked Ozzy, throwing up his hands. “We’re between a rock and, well, another rock. And some mountains. And some pissed-off tribesmen. And some dead Taliban. Better tell your boys back home to ship these folks some Walmart gift cards for their trouble.”
The surprise visit wasn’t a total loss. Moore’s bosses had been unsure which way the chief’s loyalty was swinging these days, and now they knew. To believe that not a single person in this part of Shawal had seen Moore’s targets was ridiculous. They’d seen them, talked to them, perhaps trained and eaten with them. Moore had experienced this time and again, and for now there was nothing else he could do but leave behind the photographs and ask for the chief’s assistance.
“Was the mission a failure?” asked Rana.
“Not a failure,” answered Moore. “We’ve just been delayed by some unforeseen weather.”
“Weather?”
Moore snorted. “Yeah. A big shit storm of silence.”
Rana shook his head. “I don’t know why they choose to help the Taliban.”
“You should know that. They get more from the Taliban than anyone else,” Moore told the young man. “They’re opportunists. They have to be. Look where they live.”
“You think we’ll ever catch those guys?”
“We will. It just takes time. And that’s my problem, isn’t it?”