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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
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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 blow-
ing across the road. “This place . . . it has a way of drain-
ing 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 uni-
forms 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 Har-
ruck,” said Brown. “Now you want us to help him?”
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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 bas-
tards, 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 hop-
ing we could go inside and talk in private.”
“You’re not the asshole who blew up our bridge, are
you?”
“I can neither confirm nor deny any information you
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have regarding bridges in this region,” I answered curtly,
then gave him my lucky fuck-you smile.
He rolled his eyes. “Come on in, Joe.”
“Scott.”
“No, Joe.”
We went in, and I wasn’t sure how a human being
could live like that. One meager bed, small washbasin, a
table, and two chairs. No power, no running water. He
did have natural gas to cook, but that was about it. A
laptop with satellite link sat improbably on the table, and
he told me had a dozen solar-powered batteries to keep
the thing running—his lifeline to home. He plopped
into a chair.
“I’m surprised they didn’t attach me to your mis-
sion,” he said suddenly.
“And what mission would that be?”
“Cut the crap. You’re an SF guy come here to take
out Zahed. He knew you were coming. We knew you
were coming. No one wants you here. No one needs you
here. So what the hell are you doing here?”
I started laughing and looked around. “I keep asking
myself the same question.”
“Go home, Joe.”
“Aren’t you here with the same agenda?”
He just stared at me. Squinted, really, deep lines
creasing his face. “I can neither confirm nor deny any
information I have regarding the whereabouts or
intended capture of Zahed.”
“All right. You’re me. What do you do?”
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“Are you deaf? Go home, Joe.”
“You don’t think removing Zahed will have any effect
on what’s happening here?”
“Yeah, actually I do. This place will tank even more.”
“You don’t think capturing him will gain us valuable
information regarding the Taliban’s activities in this
region?”
“Nope. We got predators flying around, watching
every move they make. We don’t need one fat man to
spill his guts.”
“So you’re JAFO.”
His was old enough and experienced enough to know
the term: Just Another Fucking Observer.
“What’s happening here is a little too complex for the
average military mind to grasp. I’m sure you saw the
PowerPoint they made. That’s why I’m here. We’re not
JAFOs. We’re specialists. You guys are just overpaid
assassins. And you’re what? Oh for two on night raids
now? I mean, that’s amateur crap. Really.”
“I was hoping we could share some intel, so that the
next time something happens, it’ll be the last.”
“Of course you were.”
“I need to know whether or not your agency will
pose any interference with my mission.”
He threw his head back and cackled at that.
I just stood there.