I was in my quarters, reviewing all the data Army intel-
ligence had gathered from the aforementioned Predator
drones, when Harruck arrived. He stood in the doorway
with the XO at his shoulder.
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105
“Next time you head into town, I’ll need you with a
more heavily armed escort,” he said tersely.
“Next time I’ll ride my bike. Then again, they might
try to blow that up, too.”
“Well, there it is, Scott. Before you got here, my patrols
were attacked two, maybe three times at the most. Now
it’s begun.”
“You know, I actually considered what you said—
putting the word out to Zahed. But I can’t even find a
way to do that.”
“You can’t stop trying.”
“I want to meet with Kundi and the provincial
governor—what the hell’s his name again?”
“You mean the district governor. Naimut Gul,” he
said. “And they call the meeting a shura. And there’s no
reason for you to meet with either of them. I’m taking
care of all that, and within the next week I’ll have a
document signed by all twelve elders.”
“You going to get Zahed to sign it, too?”
He just glared at me. “I assume you spoke to Bronco?”
“You think I wouldn’t?”
Harruck grinned weakly. “He’s no help. I’ve already
tried. His buddies in Kandahar handle our prisoners,
and that’s about the extent of it. I think they’re working
on something with the opium trade that goes way over
Zahed’s head.”
“Have you tried tailing him?”
“Who? Bronco? I don’t have the resources.”
“I do. Maybe I’m not your biggest problem here,
Simon. Maybe he is . . .”
106 GH OS T RE CON
“The agency’s got its own agenda, no doubt. I even
heard a rumor about the NSA having field agents out
here, but I think my mission is too damned simple to be
on their radar.”
“You never know . . .”
I spent about a week laying low and examining imagery
from the drones, trying to pick out Zahed among the
thousands of people living in his village. Twice, I’d thought
I’d seen him in the bazaar, but I couldn’t be sure. A half
dozen Army intelligence analysts back home were doing
the same thing, but I always thought a guy behind a desk
somewhere in Virginia might not notice the same things as
a grunt in the sand.
My Ghosts continued to pose as regular Army and help
with defenses along the defile leading down into Senjaray.
Harruck’s patrols were harassed by gunfire a few more
times, but no one was hurt, and the attackers, after firing a
few rounds, fled before they could be caught. I contended
that teenagers sympathetic to the Taliban were to blame.
Anderson, along with the Army Corps of Engineers
and a half dozen other aid groups, began moving in
building materials and breaking ground for the school
and the police station, which would be constructed
directly north of the defile so that locals could best
defend them from attack.
Our replacement Cross-Coms arrived, but I was hesi-
tant to have the guys use them until we pinpointed the
source of the disruption.
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I assigned Ramirez and Beasley to maintain surveil-
lance on Bronco, who’d been spending a lot of time with
landowner Kundi, water man Burki, and a few more of
the elders from Senjaray and the other towns in the dis-
trict.
Bronco hadn’t gone over to Sangsar, as I suspected he
would. Ramirez told me that the engineers had assessed
the damage we’d caused to the bridge and estimated it
would take four to six months to complete repairs. We
wouldn’t be in country long enough to see that happen,
I assured him.
One night I took a four-man team into the mountains
to run some long-range surveillance via Cypher drone
and make another attempt to lure out the Taliban and
their disruption devices. Nolan flew the drone in low
enough for them to have heard and seen it, but there was
no response.
“Ghost Lead, this is Jenkins. Suggest we move in past
the wall, over.”
The guys were trying to goad me into a close recon of
the village, but they always did that. They’d grown rest-
less and longed for the sound of gunfire. They didn’t
need good intel or just cause—just a clear night and full
magazines. I was supposed to think responsibly.
“Negative. Hold position.”
“You’re not listening to Harruck, are you?” Ramirez
whispered to me from his position at my elbow.
“No reason to swat the hornets yet,” I said.
108 GH OS T RE CON
“I don’t know, boss. Something’s gotta give.”
I glanced over at him; he was right.
The next morning, Marcus Brown woke me from a sound
sleep. There was trouble out in the old poppy field where
the Army engineers had proposed to drill the next well.
Kundi was there, causing a big ruckus, as were Har-
ruck, Anderson, and a half dozen other engineers and
construction supervisors.
Brown and I drove out there, and Harruck pulled me
aside and told me I “wasn’t involved.”
“That’s fine. So I’ll just watch. And listen,” I told
him, my tone making it clear that I wasn’t going any-
where.
“So what’s the bottom line?” one of the Army engi-
neers asked Kundi.
“That’s it,” said Kundi, who was waving his hand
over the broad area within which the drilling would
occur. About fifty yards to the south lay the base of the
foothills—a mottled brown moonscape of pockmarks
and stones rising up toward orange-colored peaks. “You
cannot put the well here. Over there, on the other side
of the field, yes.”
“But we’ll have to drill a lot deeper over there,” said
the engineer.
Kundi shook his head.
“Why not? Is this some kind of sacred ground?”
Kundi frowned and looked over to Burki, who in turn
cast a quizzical glance at Shilmani, whom they’d obviously
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109
brought along to translate. He did, and Kundi nodded
vigorously. “Yes, yes. God is here!”
I turned to Brown. “You know what God wants? He
wants ground-penetrating radar and metal detectors all
over this area.”
Brown nodded. “Hallelujah.”
A couple of days later, Harruck caught up with me in the
mess hall and wanted an explanation for my request to
have a team go out into the field with radar units and
metal detectors. I’d had to put in those requests through
regular Army channels, Gordon had told me, so Har-
ruck’s interference came as little surprise.
“Kundi’s hiding something out there,” I said.
“So what if he is?” Harruck asked. “If we instigate
him, the agreement goes south.”
“We need to have a look.”
“We’re telling him we don’t trust him if we got guys
sweeping the ground out there.”