“General, if they’ve captured Zach again, we might be firing into him. Maybe we should back off.”
A moment of silence passed.
“Okay, I’ve told the pilots to break contact and asked Van Dreeves to get the Predator over these guys.”
The aircraft suddenly listed to the right and bolted skyward on its hour-long flight back to the air base.
Back in the headquarters they linked up with Van Dreeves. Walking from the flight line to the headquarters, they all let out a few expletives at not being able to find Colonel Garrett, but mostly at having some general eight thousand miles away cancel a mission. The “eight-thousand-mile screwdriver,” as Rampert termed it.
“Looks like you killed a few of them, sir,” he said to General Rampert.
“Good.”
“See this bunch here?” Van Dreeves said, pointing at the large video display. “They are treating wounded and trying to drag bodies.” He punched a button and another screen came up on the display. “These guys here are still moving along the Kunar to the south. Looks like they’re still looking for Colonel Garrett.”
“Still the right call to wave off. There was no way to tell,” Eversoll said. “At least we killed some of them.”
“Roger,” Rampert said. “Matt, let’s think things over for a minute.”
Matt followed Rampert into his office.
“Coffee?”
“No thanks. Got enough adrenaline in the system right now.”
They each sat down in hard wooden chairs. There were no luxuries here in a combat zone.
“What do you think?”
“I think he’s alive, and he’s still on the run.”
“I agree,” Rampert said.
“We’ll find him.”
“If we all still have jobs in the morning.”
“That, too.”
Rampert paused, taking a sip of coffee from a cup that said “KILL THE ENEMY” in big block letters.
“You ever sometimes think all this shit ain’t worth it?”
“Worth what?” Matt countered.
“You know, we’ve got your brother out there running for his life, we’ve had I don’t know how many soldiers killed lately, and all these dumb-ass politicians and appointees just spanking the monkey.”
Matt looked away. He didn’t like to think about the worthiness of what they were doing. There were too many questions, too many decisions that didn’t pass the common sense test.
“I never really think about all that. I’m afraid if I ever stopped to really consider it, I’d be too disgusted.”
“And then who would do this,” Rampert said, waving his hand.
Van Dreeves poked his head in the door. “We’re getting some special intelligence here, sir. Listen to this.”
Van Dreeves played with a small box that looked like a radio but was actually a highly classified signals intelligence platform. He was able to intercept certain types of communications.
“This is the man we call the Scientist. It’s Mullah Rahman, the one who has the flash drive.” The voice was ranting a continuous stream of Arabic, interrupted occasionally by another voice that was distinctly different, yet still in Arabic. Van Dreeves, fluent in the language, was writing furiously. They listened to the diatribe for close to five minutes when the voices stopped.
They gave Van Dreeves a minute to finish writing. He ran his hand through his blond hair and said, “Holy shit.”
“What?” Matt asked.
Van Dreeves looked at Matt and then at Rampert. The calm operator was more excited than usual. He began speaking, using his hands to emphasize certain points.
“The Colonel escaped and killed at least two of their men. They lost him around the Kunar River.”
“That was them.”
“Wait. They just put a five-million-dollar price on Colonel Garrett’s head.” He paused. “Around the world. A Fatwah.”
Matt looked at Rampert. The team fell silent, considering the ramifications. Al Qaeda was a global operation with unlimited funding. Even if they got Zach back alive, they would have to be very circumspect. Maybe even hide him for a while. But first things first.
“We’ve got to find him,” Matt said.
“Roger.”
“Wait, there’s more,” Van Dreeves said, finishing some scribbling. “Something about a suicide mission on military bases. He gave guidance to stand up the network.”
Rampert scratched his chin. “That could be anything, anywhere. We’ve got to make sure we tighten up our gate guard checks and other procedures. We’ve got a hell of a lot of local nationals that work on this base.”
“Well, the first priority is to find Zach, so we’ve got to get our network going also,” Matt emphasized.
“Consider it done,” Rampert said. “VD, get me the team. We’re going to full alert here.”
“What are we hearing from Yemen and Dubai, VD?” Matt asked.
“The message board is active. Almost like a chat. Rahman’s telling Yemen and Dubai that Colonel Garrett escaped. Dubai asked if that compromises anything. Yemen wants to know if he’s seeing anything else with the master plan to withdraw from the border region. Dubai is the one who said that Rahman needs to produce Garrett to get his money. There’s your five-million-dollar Fatwah,” Van Dreeves said.
“General I recommend we do three things. First, we move the 101st Airborne to the border to see if they can find Zach. Second, let’s get Predators over Dubai and Yemen and see what we can find out and destroy those targets. Third, we need to get our asses back into the fight. So either drop my ass from an airplane into the middle of this thing or let’s get another helicopter moving.”
Rampert looked at Matt then at Hobart and Van Dreeves.
“You heard the man, let’s get moving. VD tell CENTCOM we need Predators over the two grids for Yemen and Dubai. Hobart let’s get the Nightstalkers turning now. I’ll call Art Griffin, the commander of the 101st and tell him what we need,” Rampert said. “If we put the Screaming Eagles on the border, all the helicopters flying around will feed into the deception plan that we’re attacking, too.”
Matt stared at Rampert. The time had come for full disclosure.
“Here’s the breaking news. Who said anything about deception?”
The command center went quiet.
“What are you saying?” Rampert asked Matt.
“I’m saying that General Griffin with the 101 already has orders to do a major air assault into Pakistan. The plan on the flash drive was more than an illusion. The best deception feeds into what the enemy already believes. We’ve got this stupid withdraw timeline. We’ve got the closed base from the Korengal. The enemy is seeking nukes. So we wrapped that all together to get them moving toward the border, which we see is happening. Now we are going to put massive boots on the ground in Northwest Frontier Province and Waziristan behind them while we seal the fake mine we sent their fighters into. This is the moment of truth for this war.”
It was Rampert’s turn to stare at Matt.
“You son of a bitch,” Rampert barked. “You frigging used us? JSOC? Your own brother?”
“I didn’t use anyone, General. This is a major opportunity. The president recognizes it. Pull your head out of your myopic ass for a second and think about it. We’ve got the main AQ operative in Pakistan unglued and we know where he is. We’ve got the financier in Dubai and a mystery operator in Yemen. We’ve not had an opportunity like this to disable Al Qaeda since just after 9-11 when Tommy Franks couldn’t find his ass from a hole in the ground and didn’t have the stones to put a hellfire missile on bin Laden. Now we’re wasting time, so let’s get moving.”
Matt had always believed in the dictum, “When in charge, be in charge.” He knew that he didn’t have actual command authority over Rampert or any of the military in Afghanistan, but he had the legitimacy and the extended authorization from the National Command Authority.