“You’re right,” Kohistani said, his ego bruised over Orzu’s insult. “But we can’t move her tonight without them seeing where we take her. We’ll need to devise a plan first.” Then he added: “Select a man, someone who knows horses well enough to ride at night. I want him to follow that foul-mannered Karimov to make sure of what they’re up to. He was a friend of Massoud, and I think the time has come to remove him. Our people in the north can see to it that he and his clan do not return. Also, announce to the rest of the villagers in the morning that they’re restricted to the village. We don’t need them evacuating before the American attack comes. The more dead Tajiks when the battle is over, the better. They deserve it anyhow.”
“It will be done, Aasif.”
Gil wanted no part of fighting a running battle on foot against mounted cavalry in this territory. There were simply too many ridges for the enemy to pop up from behind and shoot. His only chance was to reach the bottom of the mountain and put as much real estate between himself and Panjshir Valley as possible before having to dig in. Before retreating down the back side of the mountain, he took a last look at the valley through the monocular in infrared, looking for the marker. Seeing nothing, he turned away.
But wait a second.
He had another look and saw that one of the horsemen was blinking.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered, taking a knee. “Is that you, Forogh?” He flipped up the monocular and raised the sniper rifle for a closer look at the rider. Sure as hell, it was Forogh. Gil slid back into his nook between the rocks. “You were supposed to mark the building, not yourself, son. What the hell are you up to?”
He watched through the scope as the column rode down from the stable and turned north up the lane. When he saw the four gunmen come pouring out of the deserted-looking old building, the hairs stood up on the back of his neck. He studied the altercation closely, keeping his focus on Forogh. If he had blinked, he would have missed Forogh toss the strobe onto the roof.
“I’ll be damned. The command post’s a decoy. It ain’t like you fuckers to be so creative.”
He spotted Kohistani and Ramesh coming from the building to the right of the intersection on the north side of the lane. “So it’s you doing the thinking, eh? Well, okay, Mr. Kohistani, I guess I’ll have to priority your ass, too… along with that ugly cocksucker behind you who owes me a fuckin’ finger.”
CHAPTER 46
From his hide dug into the slope overlooking the village, Gil had a good view of the target area eight hundred meters below. It was just after midnight as he lay watching through his night vision. He could see by their movements that the sentries posted around the village were still max attentive to their environment, but he knew their vigilance would flag significantly toward the coming of dawn. He could see Sandra’s building clearly from where he was, the infrared strobe on the roof still flashing away. It was nestled into a small cluster of crumbling structures one hundred meters from the river, nondescript and unobtrusive. Through the nightscope of the sniper rifle he saw clearly the guards lurking inside the darkened doorway beside hers, and he idly wondered whether they realized the darkness afforded them no real concealment in the twenty-first century.
He saw, too, the decoy building that was intended to foil any rescue mission the US might attempt to execute. Positioned in the center of the village, the structure was well lighted with power from a diesel generator. Six men still stood guard on the roof, and there were more posted on the ground outside the main entrance. The building showed every indication that its inhabitants were ready for a fight, and still more men were billeted in other lighted buildings nearby.
A decoy building was a smart ploy. Without Forogh’s involvement, Gil would never have guessed Sandra was being held in the ramshackle cluster of buildings on the slope above the river where she was fairly well isolated from the rest of the village. To keep her near the center of town, surrounded by guards in a well-lighted concrete structure would have been a sensible defense against a modern enemy who generally attacked from above in the dead of night, coming in through the windows and doors in overwhelming numbers when you least expected it.
The first thing Gil would have to do in order to execute the extraction was clear a path to the building on the western side of the village. He would have to do this in complete silence, with zero room for error. If a roving sentry — or even one of the villagers — spotted him or one of his kills, it could easily bring the entire place down on his head.
He spent the next three and a half hours studying the sentries’ movements, focusing primarily on those to the west near the river. He counted twenty-nine of them, nearly half of whom were roving. The three rooftop snipers were a separate issue to be dealt with at a greater distance. It was obvious there were few if any radios among the guards, but Gil was confident there would be at least one radio among Sandra’s personal guards. He was equally confident the men in the decoy building one hundred yards up the lane would be listening for the slightest hint of trouble, ready to respond at a moment’s notice. The main road through the village ran directly past the decoy building down the slope to the dead end where Sandra was being kept.
This setup was obviously intentional, meant to allow for immediate support in the event Sandra’s guards needed assistance.
At 03:30 hours, Gil sent a text message to Sandra’s husband: KICKOFF. This was the signal telling Brux the rescue was about to begin and that it was time to get the Spectre airborne. The gunship had enough fuel to loiter over the target area for an extended period, but once it was in the air, Gil would be up against the clock, working against any number of variables that might serve to blow the timing for the delivery of tactical air support and, ultimately, their extraction from what was almost definitely going to be one hot EZ.
Cradling the Remington MSR, he slipped from the hide with his M4 and rucksack slung across his back. It was time to begin culling the herd.
He made his way down the mountain to the river and crossed to the other side using a path made of large stones he had seen the villagers using earlier in the day. The farm plots were fallow with the coming of winter and would provide no concealment other than the walls, so he kept close to the river, using the sound of the rushing water to cover the sound of his running as he made for cover. A slim crescent moon hung low near the horizon, providing good ambient light for his night optics, but not enough for anyone to detect his movement with the naked eye beyond fifty yards.
He crept along the river to within one hundred yards of the first two sentries he would have to eliminate before penetrating the southern perimeter of Bazarak. He crouched behind a stone wall, unfolding the stock of the MSR and pulling it into his shoulder. The two men stood close together on the far side of the farm plot smoking beneath a coppice of trees, standing out as plain as day in the night vision.
Judging that he could take both targets out with one shot by shifting his angle a few degrees, he hurried to take up a new position halfway down the wall, centering the reticle on the lower back of the man closest to him, and squeezed the trigger. The gun recoiled with a whisper as the subsonic round left the barrel. Both men went down in a heap, their guts blown apart by the hydrostatic shock. He put a second round into each of them to make sure they were dead. It wouldn’t be necessary to hide their bodies because they had chosen such a well-secluded spot to smoke.
Now it was time to engage the rooftop snipers. The first and closest of the three would be the easiest to eliminate. He was perched on a lower building than the other two and out of their immediate line of sight. The second two would be tricky because they could see each other and were only about a hundred yards apart from east to west. Gil judged he could hit the first from where he was, but sniper work could sometimes be like a game of pool. A player wanted to sink each of his shots in such a way as to leave the cue ball in good position for the next. From his present position, he would have to displace rapidly after taking the first sniper, leaving a time lag before placing his shots on the second two, which he preferred to avoid for the sake of efficiency and safety.