Murdock nodded, and put him back on guard outside. Then Murdock watched Kat. She knew exactly what to take apart, what to leave intact, and where to slide in the charges. They were prepackaged and in with her tools.
Murdock looked at his watch. Kat saw him. “I know, I know. I’m slow working this way.” She sagged, and Murdock caught her.
“I will not pass out, damnit. I will not faint dead away like some Southern belle. I fucking will not!” She looked at Murdock and grinned. “Talked myself through that one. Why does my damned shoulder hurt so much? Just a scratch, nothing to put a fucking SEAL down.”
Murdock chuckled. “Hey, when you start talking dirty I know you’re feeling better. No big rush. You’ve got the con on this one. We move when you tell us to move.”
“Good. It’s always nice to have control, as long as one does not throw up when one is bossing people around.” She laughed. “Hey, I don’t talk that way. Move me around a little more to face this devil. Another five minutes. These charges won’t bring down the cave. It’s solid rock in here, not sandstone or clay.
“Suggest we set charges to seal the front of the cave. We can set the timers on these for ten minutes, then set the timers for the front of the cave for twenty and drive off a ways and see what happens.”
Murdock called to Franklin, and told him to position charges on the mouth of the cave.
“Leave the timer detonators off them until we get done in here. Another five minutes.” Franklin jogged out to the front of the cave where they had left the TNAZ explosives. They had been sewn into their clothes in quarter-inch sheets six by four inches, and had come through the inspections in good shape.
Murdock went back to check on Holt. He sat up and sipped at one of the canteens.
“Hell, Skipper, I’m okay. Just have a little bit of trouble breathing is all. Just a couple of damn scratches. Be back in the pink in a day or two.”
“Yeah, sure you will.” Murdock looked at Dobler. “His shoulder is patched up and looks good. That puncture wound in his chest is bothering him a lot. He’s got to get to a doctor.”
“We’ll see what kind of help Jeru can be on that score. Which means another day in her house. Hope the neighbors don’t turn her in and the cops come. We don’t need another shoot-out on this one.”
By the time Murdock walked back into the cave, Kat leaned back, wiped her brow, and nodded.
“That should do it, Boss. No timers set yet. You give the word and I’ll set them as you suggest.”
“Let me check the guys at the mouth, and the transport.” He ran out of the cave into the blackness of the night. It took him some time to get his eyes accustomed to the darkness. Then he saw the military sedan parked beside the other two cars twenty feet from the cave. The Ziv must not be in the best shape.
“Transport ready, Skipper,” Bradford said. “We’ve put Holt in the Army sedan’s back seat. The other cars are ready. We should have plenty of gas to get back to Kabul.”
Murdock waved at Bradford, and looked at the charges set at the front of the cave. The sides and overhead here looked to be a softer stone than what was inside. He went back to Kat.
“Set them for ten minutes,” he said. She watched him a moment, then pushed over and set the detonators and started the timers.
“I better give you a lift out of here,” Murdock said. He picked her up in his arms and held her in front of him as he carried her out of the cave.
“Set your timers for fifteen minutes,” he told Franklin. Murdock carried Kat to the second car, and put her in the backseat.
Franklin came running up. “Mouth charges set and activated on fifteen minutes,” he said.
“Let’s load up and move out of here,” Murdock said. The men crawled into the cars, and they drove off five hundred yards and stopped.
Kat checked her countdown watch with her flash.
“A little over a minute left for the inside charges,” she said. It was thirty seconds later that they heard the TNAZ go off inside the tunnel. A spume of dust billowed out of the cave’s mouth.
“Good-bye, warhead,” Jaybird said.
They waited.
“Thirty seconds,” Franklin said on the radio. Almost before he finished the words, a cracking roar billowed across the desertlike country and a brilliant flash blossomed at the first tunnel. The slap of the shock wave from the blast pushed Murdock back a step where he stood beside the car.
He ducked inside the front seat. “First car will go take a look,” he said. “The rest of you stay put.”
They drove to the site through the thinning cloud of dust. What had been a cave mouth before now showed as a large rock pile with a small indentation near the top. It would take hundreds of hours of work with heavy equipment to open the cave.
“Let’s get out of Dodge,” Murdock said, and Bradford wheeled the sedan around and drove back to the others.
“All right, so far, so good,” Murdock said on the net. “Now all we have to do is get home. We’ll drive back, but not in a convoy. Keep the car in front of you in sight, but with a few cars between if possible. We’ll close up more the closer we get to the big city. We go back to Jeru’s place and park the cars a few blocks away. Most of us haven’t been there yet. It should still be dark when we get there, but go in by ones and twos so we don’t upset the neighbors.
“Our first job is to find a doctor for our wounded. Then we schedule our flights out of here two by two again. We’ll leave all weapons and explosives here, except the twenty Bull Pup, which we’ll break down the same way and put parts in ten suitcases.
“Better catch some sleep while you can. You may need it. The Afghans are going to be all over this one as soon as they find out. With any luck we’ll be on planes and out of here before they discover that their baby has been blown into shrapnel.”
They drove. They did not stop at the safe house in Khowst, but kept right on the road for the capital. They saw no unusual traffic and no military units racing toward the caves. That was good.
Murdock looked at Kat, who sat stiffly upright in the backseat beside him. “How’s the shoulder?”
“Hurts,” she said.
“You need a little help.” He opened his first-aid kit on his belt, and took out an ampoule of morphine and injected it.
“Yes, thanks.”
He put his arm around her, pulled her good shoulder against him, and eased her head down on his shoulder. Her eyes closed slowly.
“Now, relax, tough guy, and get some sleep. We’ll get a sawbones to take a look at you as soon as we can.”
They arrived back at Jeru’s apartment with no problem. No additional military traffic was seen. They drove up, and Kat insisted on walking into the place. Then she collapsed on a cot. Holt walked slowly with a man on each side of him. He went down on another cot, and looked exhausted.
“We need a doctor,” Murdock said.
Jeru frowned. “That’s a problem. We had one man we could rely on, but he vanished and we think he simply left the country, fed up with the constant upheaval and chaos. Who else?”
She walked around the room, checked Kat’s shoulder, and brought some supplies and rebandaged the wound there. Then Jeru brightened. “Yes, I have it. We’ll call her ‘Martha,’ because that isn’t her name. She’s a medical doctor who went to school in Pakistan because they have better medical schools than we do. When she came back, the government wouldn’t recognize her as a qualified M.D. and no women can work outside their home here anyway. She’s a friend who helped me once before.”
“Can you phone her?” Burdock asked.
“Oh, no. Her phone is tapped and constantly monitored. I’ll drive over there and bring her back. I just hope she’s home. What time is it?”
“A little after 0330. That’s three-thirty A.M.”