The Americans’ unmanned aerial vehicles would be committed to the north. They were deadly, but Umarov had timed this well. A movement of his fellow soldiers to the north, above the Khyber Pass, would attract the Americans and their UAVs. Even the Americans had a limit to their assets.
Yousef had picked out the target after his return from Riyadh. The trip was important, Yousef had told Umarov. But Umarov doubted it. And Yousef had seen the doubt in his face.
Umarov didn’t like the idea that his leader would go home when summoned. But he had kept his counsel, not daring to question Yousef aloud.
Even so, Yousef had decided to explain. “Never forget: there are more princes than the secretary. We will need the House of Saud to be divided when we move. We need voices that will approve of our new state. They must know we are serious.”
The explanation had satisfied Umarov. Yousef ’s vision was clear. He knew his path. He knew that when word passed in Riyadh that Yousef had been home and had met with the secretary, others would return his e-mails and send money. Just the meeting would cause a stir.
But Umarov didn’t like the trips this close to the operation. Chicago wasn’t needed. He knew the target. Fortunately, he convinced Yousef to stay far away from the cell and Canada.
Secrecy didn’t matter. Not for this operation. He would rot in Guantanamo for a decade before they got anything out of him. And by then, this would all be over.
“Is it time?” The boy stayed low, below the rocks, touching Umarov’s boot from behind to get his attention.
“No. Go back.” The Chechen didn’t respect the boy. He was no more than fourteen and was here for the money. The kid would fire his rifle and run. Umarov knew that the boy would be killed, but more important, he might get Umarov killed as well. He wasn’t a Chechen, not a true warrior.
“There he is.” Umarov saw the truck sitting next to the house on the far end of Spin Boldak. It was a white Nissan with oversized tires and a roll bar behind the cab. It was too new to be owned by just anyone from Spin Boldak. It had been paid for with drug money. It was owned by the son of Abaidullah.
The trucks that left Afghanistan, after dropping off their cargo, brought back another cargo on their return. And Abaidullah ensured that they were safe on their trip when they passed through Spin Boldak and crossed the lawless land back into Pakistan. But Abaidullah had become too brave. He enjoyed a new pastime. He enjoyed killing the soldiers of the Taliban. After one horrific firefight, Abaidullah had the bodies piled up in a dump truck and taken to the border. There, just into Pakistan, the bodies were dumped in a pile, just like gravel or even worse, garbage, on the side of the two-lane highway. The stench had dogged drivers for days.
“Boy.” Umarov slowly signaled with his hand below the rocks.
The boy looked up at the Chechen. The fourteen-year-old had an odd face, tanned and dark, but with clover-colored green eyes. He wore his brown fleece pakol pulled down around his ears. A powderlike dust caked his face and the pakol. His hands looked like hands of an old man, nails caked with dirt, used for any task and never cleaned.
“Yes, Chaac neen?” It took some time for them to learn to say the word. It didn’t sound right.
“Come here.”
The boy slid up in the hillside of the ravine they were hiding in, slowly moving his head up to its edge.
“There will be dogs. You hear them?”
The sun was beginning to set, and as it did, barking dogs began to howl in the distance. The sweltering heat had kept them hiding in ditches and ravines and in boxes discarded on the side of the highway, anything that provided some protection from the brutal sun.
“Yes.”
Umarov was close to the boy. Even in the lowering light, he could see the boy’s eyes were glassy. Heroin abuse was commonplace now. They would inject it just before the fight. It made them bulletproof. It also made them foolish.
“Take the dead dog. The one we brought. Move slow. Put it in that ravine to the side there.” Umarov pointed to a cut, short of the rocks, to the far right of their position. The boy would cut the dog’s belly so that the last of its blood would gush out onto the dry earth, attracting the other dogs. The arsenic would kill off the scavenging pack in minutes and the valley would become quiet.
Umarov watched as the boy moved from rock to rock, dragging the carcass by its leg. In daylight, the boy would have revealed their position. He would have been killed by either Umarov or the French. But the light was low and Umarov could hear the clanking of pots from the French compound. The sound of music accompanied the laughter as well. He knew the French. They were good fighters, tough, cold, but they loved to eat. The Americans would eat their combat meals packaged in plastic, but the French would prepare meals with bread and wine.
The dogs saw the boy cutting across the ravines and began to follow. Umarov then saw the boy slip back up the ravine. Fortunately, by then, the pack had picked up the smell of the blood and followed the trail to the carcass. Soon they would be dead.
Umarov checked the blade he carried on the side of his calf. He had lost count of the men who felt the razor steel pull across their throats. Several were boys, Russian boys, some younger than the boy with the dog.
“Let’s go.” He signaled to the five men down below him in the ravine. They all had the same glassy eyes. Umarov noticed two needles lying on a rock next to the men.
The Chechen didn’t say much on these missions. He wouldn’t, but more important, he didn’t need to. He had trained them over the last several months. They would move slowly, in coordination, aware of where the others were at all times. They worked their way down the ravine, past piles of sagebrush, slowly moving down to the house with the white truck. They weren’t there just to kill the man.
Two of the fighters moved to the side of the white truck, looking in, seeing the keys, and signaling back to Umarov. It was what he had hoped for. No one in the village would dare steal the truck of the son of the chief of the Afghan Guard. It made the plan possible.
Umarov was here to do the killing. The others would ensure that no one came up the alleyway or to the other side.
Umarov pulled the door open to the house behind the truck, hearing the music of Ali Omar on the radio. In the past, music had been banned.
The son of Abaidullah lay asleep on the couch.
“Don’t say a word.” Umarov pulled the boy’s head up by his hair as he slid the blade underneath his chin. Umarov could feel the boy’s body jerk as he awoke from his sleep to feel the steel cutting into the flesh of his neck.
“Come with me.” He dragged the boy, struggling to keep up with the blade holding his head in place under Umarov’s arm. Outside, one of the other fighters taped the boy’s hands behind him. He was dragged into the bed of his truck as another of the killers taped the boy’s feet and then his mouth and eyes.
Umarov slipped in behind the steering wheel and quietly started up the engine. He pulled the truck out from in between the houses, into the alleyway, and turned down the road. The other men jumped into the bed of the truck. He drove it in the dark, without the lights, going between the buildings, while the others in the back held down their victim. Even if someone saw the truck, they would recognize it and let it pass. The white Nissan of the son of the commander would never be stopped.