Jalalabad never slept. Like Bagram to the west and Kandahar to the south, “Jbad” played a huge role in supplying the war effort. Cargo aircraft were constantly ferrying in mission-essential equipment, personnel, and supplies, and as a result the base was always in motion. During the invasion, the small airfield had been at the epicenter of the covert war that was unfolding across eastern Afghanistan. When al-Qaeda and their Taliban benefactors retreated into Tora Bora, the base became a vital staging point for operations in the area. Its proximity to Pakistan attracted the majority of Special Operations soldiers and clandestine operatives, and unmarked aircraft became a common sight.
Kevin drove cautiously through the Hesco barriers that formed a protective wall around the Special Operations side of the base. Throwing the truck in park in front of a low plywood building, he told Bones and Tyler, “Stay put,” before jumping out.
Renee walked up to the heavy steel door and punched her access code into the keypad. The lock clicked open and they walked into the tactical operations center, or TOC, where they were met with a flurry of activity.
Typically, only a skeleton crew manned the TOC during the day, since most missions took place at night. Obviously something big was going on and the large, open room was packed. Soldiers frantically pecked at computers lining the massive square table that sat in the middle of the room. The three large monitors hanging from the ceiling were alive with maps and lists of coordinates as information was posted for all to see.
The plywood floor was covered in a layer of fine grit called “moon dust,” which hadn’t been swept away, and the trash cans were overflowing with Styrofoam coffee cups and tobacco-filled spitters.
General Swift was standing below a monitor, with a phone in each ear, and a huge dip in his lower lip. The usually unflappable officer was stressed out, and seeing Renee walk in added to the already deep scowl on his face.
The video playing on the screen was in black and white and had a large targeting reticle in the center of the feed. Numbers designating altitude, airspeed, and heading told her that she was looking at the heads-up display of a drone.
“General Swift,” she said from her boss’s side.
The general held up a finger as he listened to whoever was on the other line. “Right now, all we know is that there was an attack on American forces near Kamdesh,” he said in his gravelly tone.
His right fist held the phone so tight that his knuckles had turned white. Turning his head, he spat a brown glob of tobacco into an overflowing trash can.
“I understand that, sir, but we had no idea they were operating in the area. Kamdesh is not an operational FOB.”
The way the general said the word “sir” made her smile. She’d learned long ago that a person’s inflection when saying the word was one of the oldest yet safest ways of showing displeasure when talking to a ranking officer. He might have been saying “sir,” but he sure didn’t mean it.
“Roger that, I’ll keep you updated.” He slammed the phone down as Kevin approached with the coffee. “Thanks, son,” he said, grabbing Renee’s cup and taking a sip despite the dip in his mouth.
Kevin shrugged and headed back to the coffeepot to retrieve another cup.
“Some CIA dipshits have been running an illegal detention site at Kamdesh. They were using a Special Forces team as security and last night the FOB got hit. We have a Reaper en route now and about ten minutes ago, we got this.” He pointed over to a staff sergeant staring at a laptop.
“General, I need to ask you something,” Renee began.
“I’m a little busy right now.”
“It’s about Colonel Barnes,” she spat.
General Swift’s wide shoulders went rigid, and he turned slowly toward Renee. “What did you say?”
“I know about the Anvil Program, sir.”
“General, I have the video up,” the staff sergeant said from his place in front of the laptop.
Swift’s eyes narrowed as he studied Renee. He was about to say something but decided against it.
“Renee, check this out,” Kevin said from the table.
Renee knew she’d lost her chance and grudgingly moved to the laptop as the general picked up a phone and began dialing. “What do you have?”
“It’s an unencrypted video that came in from the FOB,” he said, hitting play.
The video was from a mounted helmet camera and was from the point of view of whoever was wearing it. The quality was clear but jumpy. She could hear the man’s muffled breathing and it sounded like he was wearing some kind of mask.
The camera panned to a group of men wearing level-three chemical breathing masks. Their position overlooked a typical Afghan village, and the video perfectly captured a sixty-millimeter mortar that had been set up next to him.
“Hang it,” he commanded as another soldier held a mortar round at the top of the tube.
“Fire.”
The gunner dropped the mortar round into the tube, and they heard the metallic sound of the round sliding down before the mortar bucked as the firing pin hit the primer on the bottom of the round. A cloud of dust shot up as the round arced out of the tube with a boom.
“Hang it,” the man said again.
Another round was held above the tube and on the “fire” command the sequence was repeated.
“What the hell is this?” Renee asked the sergeant.
“Some really fucked-up shit, ma’am.”
The camera was turned to the village and someone off-camera said, “Splash,” followed a second later by the round air-bursting over the target. She could barely make out the white cloud that was forming when the second round exploded near the first one.
The picture held tight on the cloud that was slowly spreading and drifting down onto the dirt-brown compounds. The villagers looked like tiny caricatures of people grouped together in clumps as they pointed up at the cloud.
After a few seconds, the helmet-mounted camera looked down at the black case, and Renee recognized it immediately as a military-issued Pelican case similar to the one she had under her bed. Inside the box two more mortar rounds sat, nestled in gray egg foam. The bright orange biohazard symbol painted on the body of the rounds stood out clearly.
“Oh no,” she whispered.
She could feel her stomach knotting up as a sick feeling washed over her.
This was what Decklin was doing in California. Suddenly the pieces began to fit. She thought she might puke and got up to find a trash can but instead bumped into the general’s drone control station, made up of a makeshift cockpit being helmed by two air force pilots. The terminals resembled a training simulator that pilots used before actually getting into an airplane.
The “pilot” sat on the left, in front of a bank of controls and screens, which allowed him to fly the drone. Next to him, the sensor officer had a similar setup, but instead of flying, her job was to operate the onboard targeting systems and cameras that made the Reaper so deadly.
The feed from the drone’s heads-up display was linked to the giant screen that hung on the far wall, and Renee watched as the pilot banked the drone hard to the west.
Over his headset, he was talking with one of the air force’s AWACs, the sophisticated aircrafts that provided command and control for coalition pilots in the area.
“Whiplash 14, this is Sentinel 3, readvise heading and altitude,” a voice said from the speaker attached to the station.
“Sentinel 3, this is Whiplash 14, stand by.” The pilot checked his heading before turning to the sensor operator. “Sensor, confirm heading, I think there’s a problem with the compass.”