“I don’t think they’ll go for it.”
“Doesn’t matter. All we need is doubt. Just make them think everyone is lying. Now, with the bridge out, you’ll have a little more freedom to begin construction, because the Taliban will use the shallowest part of the river to cross, and they’ll have to move through the east side and approach through the valley and our choke point, so you guys can better defend against them now. I’ll help your men set up some overwatch positions and some gun emplacements.”
“So you knew that blowing that bridge would actually help my construction project?”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t know, Simon. You pissed me off the last time we talked, all right?”
He flumped into his chair. “I still can’t have you going into Sangsar and raising hell. And now that you’ve blown the bridge, they’ll attack us again.”
“Let them. They have to fight on our terms now. Zahed’s army will get smaller and demoralized, and then we’ll swoop in.”
“I can’t see this ending well, Scott.”
“It’s hard to see right now.” I found myself quoting Keating and hating myself for that. “Our situation is complicated.” I started for the door.
“So we have an agreement?”
I turned back. “What?”
“We call the chopper pickup a miscommunication, and from here on out, I won’t interfere with your mission.”
“You’re damned right you won’t.”
“But can you do me a favor?”
I almost chuckled, and there was no hiding my sarcasm. “Sure, we’re still bestest buddies.”
“Try contacting Zahed.”
“Excuse me?”
“Try to make direct contact with him. Maybe we can call a truce. If we can get him talking, maybe your mission can change.”
“He’s a terrorist.”
“That hasn’t been proven.”
“I plucked a little girl out of there — and she told me he’s a scumbag terrorist. That’s definitive.”
In truth, she hadn’t uttered a word about Zahed himself, but her eyes had told me enough.
Harruck went on with his speculation. “Maybe he doesn’t have full control of his men. He’s a politician, too. He wouldn’t condone that.”
“So it’s okay that I talk to the leader of an insurgency who rapes children in the name of saving these other children over here.”
“Scott, we can debate this all night.”
“No, we can’t. And we won’t. The fat man will be captured or killed before I leave. And if he’s not, then I’ll be the one leaving in a body bag.”
I hurried out into the cooler air as two Hummers came rolling by. Harruck had put the entire base on alert, and all the engines and shouting made me wince. I couldn’t wait to collapse into my rack. Maybe I’d wake up back in North Carolina. I could tell Auntie Em that I’d had a terrible dream about a sandstorm that had carried me away to a land where camels had wings and no one told the truth.
NINE
The next morning while I was in the mess hall, I ran into Dr. Anderson, the woman from ARO, who’d been given temporary quarters on the base to begin coordinating with the engineers for the construction projects.
She remembered my name. I called her Dr. Anderson. I didn’t want to get too chummy with her.
“Eating alone?” she asked.
My team had already chowed down, allowing me to sleep in. They’d understood the night I’d had.
“Yes, I am.”
“Want some company?” she asked.
I glimpsed her blond hair, now flowing easily over her shoulders. No veil required here. She was probably in her late twenties, early thirties. Just stunning. An oasis. “Oh, I wouldn’t be good company right now.”
“Don’t underestimate yourself,” she said, following me to my table and sitting across from me.
“Aggressive,” I muttered.
“I eat my dead.”
“Not bad—”
“For a bleeding-heart liberal, right?”
“I didn’t say that.”
She smiled. “Your expression did.”
“I told you, I’m not good company.”
“I don’t need your permission.”
“Then why’d you ask? What is this?”
“This is me taking on a challenge.”
“Oh, yeah, what’s that?”
“I don’t know what it is you do here, but I guess you have some pull with Captain Harruck, and he’s a great guy, doing everything he can to help these people. So I’m wondering why you don’t support him.”
“So the challenge is to get me talking so you can find out who your enemies might be on the base?”
“That’s how we recon. Same as you, actually. Keep your enemies close, too.”
“I’m not your enemy. Just a skeptic.”
She took a bite of her toast, sipped her black coffee. “And why is that?”
“I could tell you…”
“But then you’d have to…”
“No, not kill you… just start an argument, and it’s not worth it. I’m just here to get a job done, and when I’m finished, I go on to the next problem.”
“Me, too.” She stared out the window at the dust blowing across the road. “This place… it has a way of draining all your energy. Some days I just feel like sleeping.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.”
“So you think I’m wasting my time, don’t you? You think we’re all just spinning our wheels.”
I didn’t look up, just ate my toast and found great interest in the black pool of my coffee.
“Scott, maybe in the end we can do more good by showing kindness,” she added.
“We’re a fighting force, trained for battle, not police work. These people need a police force and a better army to protect them, and then people like you can come and offer aid. We’re doing it all for them right now, and when we pull out, you watch… it’ll all crumble.”
The guys decided that they hated Harruck. I couldn’t blame them. I shared what Keating had told me. They snorted, cursed, wished we had beer.
At the same time, they were getting cabin fever, so I told them we’d bend orders and don regular Army uniforms and pose as grunts to assist with arranging and constructing defensive positions along the choke point near the river.
“We just finished telling you how much we hate Harruck,” said Brown. “Now you want us to help him?”
I smiled. “That’s right. Don’t you love this place?”
They threw up their hands.
I put Ramirez in charge and sent my boys out there to help a few sergeants, who were glad to have more hands on shovels in the one-hundred-plus-degree heat.
Meanwhile, I paid a long overdue visit to our friendly neighborhood CIA agent, a guy who called himself “Bronco.” I wasn’t keen on working with those bastards, but I figured the least I could do was feel him out. I’d thought his agency wanted Zahed as much as I did, so we had a common goal.
Bronco didn’t live on the base but paid rent for a one-room shack on the west side of the village. He’d been working the district for the past two years and had, according to Harruck, earned the respect of Kundi and the rest of the elders.
I found him sitting outside his shack, reading a book and smoking a filterless cigarette. His gray beard, sun-weathered skin, and turban made it hard to discern him as an American. I’d taken a private with me for security and had donned regular Army gear myself.
Bronco took a long pull on his cigarette, flicked it away, then exhaled loudly and spoke in Pashto. “Good morning, gentlemen. What do you want?”
I answered in English. “My name’s Scott. I was hoping we could go inside and talk in private.”