“Come on, baby.” He didn’t need a broken leg or torn-up knee. Moncrief pulled hard on both toggles, bending his legs, feeling the wing of the parachute as it started to break.
“Come on, come on.”
He was lucky. The impact was on soft dirt and sand, perhaps the bottom of some creek bed. His boots hit, and as they did, he felt the rush of blood in his feet. Just as suddenly, the gunny felt his weight as he stood up. The parachute lost its wind and collapsed behind him.
“Hell, another one!” Kevin Moncrief counted every successful jump as another one.
Furlong was standing beside him, already out of the jumpsuit and dressed in the brown kurta and pakol. He had baggy, thick brown linen pants. The only part of the garb that stood out was his sandy-brown pair of Danner boots and an M4 rifle with a silencer on its barrel. It was wrapped with a brown camouflage tape to break up its black metallic outline.
The captain grabbed Moncrief’s parachute and helped gather it up in a tight ball as the gunny pulled off his suit and quickly changed into similar clothes. Moncrief quietly chambered a round in his .45-caliber pistol after tightening the silencer on its end. He carried it in a shoulder holster, which he covered with a cotton jacket, also brown, that he wore over his kurta. The gunny then went through the same process, chambering a round in the silenced M4.
“The FireFly is just beyond that outcrop of rocks.” Furlong pointed farther up the valley. As he spoke, the remaining members of the team passed by, silently checking in and then spreading out in a 360-degree pattern. They now spoke only in the hand signals, their private language, silent as they moved, like actors in a well-rehearsed play, each knowing his role.
“We will put your man’s tent there, just above the first rocks.” Furlong pointed to the base of the ridgeline due south of their position. “And then we will move well back up the ridgeline and into the mountains.”
The mention of the tent and “your man” brought Kevin Moncrief’s thoughts back to the reason why they were there. The FireFly had more than ammo and solar panels. It also had carried in a small, specially modified Hilleberg Atlas tent. Like a chameleon, the high-tech tent would match the surrounding shades of sand and rock, becoming effectively invisible. The FireFly also carried a cooler that Frix had iced down with several plasma bags loaded with antibiotics. The tent was also armed, per Will Parker’s instructions, with a Windrunner and an automatic pistol.
“If he makes it to the entrance of the valley, he should easily see the flash of the light.”
The tent would be next to a large rock. The rock would serve as a reference point.
“Did you see them coming in?” Furlong was whispering in Moncrief’s ear.
“No.”
Furlong pointed to the other side of the ridgeline. “Three trucks, parked up the other valley, near some mud huts.”
“So we guessed right?”
“I hope.”
CHAPTER 58
“Did you hear that?”
Malik Mahmud looked to the top of the ridgeline above the cave.
“What did you hear?” Mohagher Iqbal asked. They were speaking in English, as Mahmud’s Bahasa Indonesian and Iqbal’s Filipino Tagalog didn’t mesh well.
Iqbal pointed his AK-47 to the north and threw his cigarette to the ground beside the Toyota pickup truck. The three trucks were parked pointed down the valley between the separate mud huts. The walls of the huts hid the vehicles well, except from someone looking above.
They both looked into the dark.
Mahmud put his finger to his lips, signaling for his fellow guard to be silent.
The mountains were silent. The cloud cover blocked any shape of the higher mountains to the west.
Finally, after several minutes of silence, Mahmud spoke.
“These bastards always have us on guard duty.”
“Your complaining only pisses him off.” Iqbal had had enough of Mahmud, as had the others.
“What time is it?”
“I thought you wanted us to be quiet.”
“It was nothing.” Mahmud hesitated. “Maybe it was a wild goat?”
“That would be meat!” Iqbal’s hunger could be heard in his words. “I miss meat. I don’t think they would know what to do with meat.”
The rations had been short since they had moved to the cave.
“Do you think we should see if we can hunt it?”
“If you want your throat cut by Yousef. Fool!”
Mahmud hung his head.
Suddenly Iqbal noticed Yousef standing next to them.
“Oh, Yousef!” Mahmud turned around.
“Are you on guard, brothers?”
“Yes, of course. It will be dawn soon.” Mahmud looked to the east. The first color of dawn was beginning to turn the clouds to a pink tint.
“Our brother should be in Peshawar picking up our guest. It is important that we be like Bu Zaid and treat our guest with hospitality. It is our supreme duty.”
Iqbar nodded enthusiastically. In his mind he couldn’t help but imagine a plateful of roast goat. He sneaked a glance at Mahmud, who clearly had the same thought.
CHAPTER 59
Robert Tranthan had hoped that Pope would be of more help with the photo. So far, he had heard nothing. The picture still lay on the desk in front of him.
Maggie.
The locket around her neck had turned out to be a dead end. After he noticed it in the picture, it had been checked and rechecked.
The books could have been another clue. They looked typical for an agency’s embassy office. Jane’s books on ships and weapons of war were the bibles of the observers. Nothing unusual there. Another seeming dead end.
But she made too much effort to save this photo for any other reason.
A thought suddenly occurred to him. He took out a ruler from his drawer and held it over the photograph. His eyes ran across the line of the ruler, looking at every detail.
Read it backward.
The old editorial trick caused one to see things in a different light. Misspelled words stood out if you read a paragraph backward. But nothing in the picture called attention to itself.
He sighed and took out a magnifying glass. One last try. He pored over the magnified photo, looking at the details. Hmmm. Maggie’s books were disorganized, much as her desk had always been. Volumes were out of order. But that was all.
Again, nothing.
The cigarette burned through to the filter.
“Damn it!” Tranthan stubbed it out and leaned back in the chair, his mind wandering to Billie Cook.
I hope she likes Guam.
Cook had only three years to retirement. It would be a miserable three years. But she would keep her mouth shut.
She’s not stupid.
If necessary, it would have also been easy to frame her with some drug-abuse charge. She would be accused of having access to the cart that was missing morphine, or Percs, or Oxy. Her drug test would come back positive. At the very least her retirement would be screwed up so long that she would be cold before the first check could be cashed.
Tranthan pulled open the drawer and put the photograph in it, then picked up the telephone.
“I need the car.”
It was late. The house would be dark, and his wife would be in bed. She had stopped sleeping with him years ago. Her bedroom was on the other end of the house.
Tranthan pulled on his overcoat.
This has been a long, cold winter.
He turned off the lamp and cut across the room in the dark. The hallway was well lit. Tranthan knew that once he reached the door and opened it there would be plenty of light.