The time dragged on, however, and as the minutes stretched into an hour, her faint adrenaline surge faded to nothing and her determination flagged. Her mind fogged, and the pain began to take over once again. After an hour and a half, she squeezed Badira’s arm in the darkness, signaling that she needed another hit from the opium pipe.
Badira ignored her request, knowing that Kohistani would not allow her to strike a match under the circumstances.
As the pain increased, Sandra began to think more clearly. She summoned all of her strength and drew a deep breath: “I’m here!” she screamed in desperation. “I’m here! Come and—!”
A fist slammed into the side of her head, knocking her senseless. Another fighter jumped up and knelt heavily on her diaphragm to prevent her from drawing enough air for another scream in the event she came to.
The scouts returned ten minutes later, reporting to Kohistani that they had found seven dead Pashtun on the trail across the valley. One of the scouts dropped a fistful of spent 5.56 mm shell casings into his hand.
“The Americans killed them all and kept moving up the mountain toward the village,” the scout said. “They won’t arrive before first light. By the time they discover she’s no longer there, we’ll have reached the truck.”
Kohistani smiled in the darkness. “Allah be praised,” he said with great satisfaction, having believed until that moment that the woman’s screams had doomed them all. “It is no accident that we are at this place in time, brothers. Allah does not deal in coincidence.”
He stepped over to the stretcher, using his own flashlight to check on their prisoner whose left eye was now swollen almost shut from the blow that had silenced her screams. He shined the light in Badira’s eyes, telling her, “You should have thought to hold a hand over her mouth.”
“Perhaps you should have thought to tell me,” Badira retorted.
He rapped her in the face with the butt of the flashlight, splitting her upper lip. “Do not mistake me for a simple village head man,” he said, his voice almost friendly. “Now gag the American, and make sure she remains gagged until we reach the truck. If she calls out again, you will be held responsible.”
CHAPTER 30
Shortly before first light, Crosswhite and the SEALs from SEAL Team Six arrived on the southern perimeter of Waigal Village. They were exhausted and out of water, but they were only twenty minutes behind schedule. Crosswhite ordered the corpsman to dole out two time-released Benzedrine capsules to each of the men, then gave orders for Trigg and Alpha to recon the east and west perimeters of the village. The northern periphery of the village was built into the mountain itself, which extended upward another thousand feet.
From their vantage point below the village, Waigal resembled a giant house built from playing cards, each hut looking as though it was built upon the other. Though in reality, each dwelling was built into the steep, rocky slope of the mountain. The village was above the tree line, so tree cover was very sparse. The SEALs would need to move into the village as soon as possible in order to take advantage of their night vision.
Crosswhite crouched behind a boulder, looking up at the village through his NVGs. “That’s an imposing sight,” he said to Forogh.
“It is,” Forogh agreed. “They speak mostly Kalasha here. I don’t speak Kalasha.”
Crosswhite turned to look at him. “You might have mentioned that before we left the fucking house!”
Forogh shrugged. “It wouldn’t have mattered. No one speaks Kalasha except these people.” He patted Crosswhite on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. Many of them will speak Pashto as well. I doubt very much the Taliban who are holding your pilot are of the Kalasha tribe. It’s not their way. You should mention that to your men.”
Crosswhite grunted. “We won’t kill anyone we don’t have to.”
He got on the radio: “Bank Heist Two, this is Bank Heist One. Do you read? Over.”
The Night Stalkers were quick to respond: “We read you five-by-five, Bank Heist. Over.”
“Bank Heist, be advised we are in position and preparing to move on the target.”
“Bank Heist Two standing by…”
Crosswhite glanced over at Fischer, who crouched behind another boulder gripping a suppressed MK 23 pistol in his free hand. “Good to go?”
Fischer nodded.
Alpha was the first to call in: “Captain, I can’t see into the village from over here. The mountain’s too steep. All I can see are the fronts of the huts. I’ve got no movement whatsoever.”
“All right,” Crosswhite answered. “Work your way back here. Trigg, what do you got?”
“Still maneuvering,” Trigg replied. “But so far nothing at all.”
“Okay, get back here.”
When the team was reassembled, Crosswhite gave them his assessment. “This shit hole is too big to search it hut by hut. We’re going to have to take over one of those lone huts near the bottom of the village and get somebody inside to talk. Anybody got a better idea? The clock is running.”
Trigg pointed up the mountain. “I vote we take that lone hut just below the village on the ridge. It’s isolated enough from the others that we should be able to interrogate the family without disturbing the other huts.”
The hut was about half the size of a small one-car garage.
Crosswhite took a last look around and gave the order to move out, leading the way toward the lone hut some ninety yards up the slope. They covered the distance with the night wind blowing cold against them, picking their way over the rough and jagged terrain to arrive outside the hut in less than five minutes. Crosswhite signaled that he would enter first, followed by Alpha and then Forogh. The other seven SEALs would cover the village with their suppressed M4s.
The battered wooden door was not locked. Crosswhite lifted the wooden catch and slipped inside quiet as a ghost, followed closely by Alpha and Forogh. In the greenish-black field of vision, it was immediately obvious there was only one room to the hut. A lone inhabitant lay sleeping on a bunk against the wall on the far side, wrapped in multiple blankets. The room smelt faintly of what Crosswhite could only think to describe as old people… and an odor similar to rot.
“Shit, I think this one’s dead,” he muttered.
“I don’t think so,” Forogh said warily.
Alpha prodded the figure, and Forogh said “wake up” in stern Pashto. The person stirred and coughed beneath the blankets.
“Wake up!” Forogh repeated.
The figure stirred again, making a wet, phlegmy hacking sound beneath the blankets as it began to sit up.
Crosswhite reached out with his gloved hand to pull the blanket away from the face, revealing the severely distorted visage of an old woman, a face that seemed to be caving in on itself. She opened her eyes, and they rolled immediately white with no visible retinas or pupils. She mumbled something in sleepy confusion, her words unintelligible even to Forogh, and wiped at her face with a grotesquely deformed hand, nothing but worn stubs where her thumb and fingers had once been.
Crosswhite looked at Forogh and covered his face with his shemagh. “Is that what I think it is?”