The God of War is a fickle son of a bitch, his father had always been fond of saying. Don’t ever trust his ass.
Gil folded the body into a corner and piled it over with saddles before slipping back outside. He backtracked his route for a short distance south, then turned west for the river. Having memorized the sentries’ sectors during his long vigil from on high, he felt confident that he’d cleared the southwestern corner of the village. There were no guarantees, of course, but his instincts told him that he was safe for the moment. After moving north along the river for fifty yards, he turned east again toward the back side of the building where he had dumped the sentry into the donkey cart. As the infrared strobe continued to illuminate the night sky with its intermittent flashes, Gil found it eerie to flip up the infrared monocular and see only darkness over the rooftop where he knew there was light. He glanced farther up at the stars, wondering if the strobe had been picked up by an Air Force UAV yet, guessing that somebody somewhere was probably having themselves a shit hemorrhage by now. He also wondered idly whether the MPs had been sent to his quarters to look for him.
He stood on a rain barrel and crawled onto the roof of the building, setting the .45 beside him. If any innocent Tajiks came snooping around this close to Sandra’s quarters, he’d have to shoot them dead without a thought. From this height, he could just see the windows and doorways to Sandra’s cluster of buildings over the rooftops between there and where he was. He brought up the sniper rifle and sighted on the open doorway next to Sandra’s. Four men with blankets over their shoulders sat at a table playing teka—an Afghan card game — by candlelight. Either they had only recently lit the candle, or the light of the flame had been too dim for his optics to detect from high on the slope.
The door to Sandra’s place suddenly swung open, and Ramesh stepped out. Gil immediately recognized him as the brute who had cut off her finger. In the moments before the door closed again, Gil saw her, and a sense of urgency swept through his veins. She was lying on the bed, doubled up beneath heavy blankets with a man and a woman sitting beside her in the warm glow of an oil lamp. They seemed to be caring for her.
Gil held Ramesh in his sights as he walked eastward toward the decoy building. Forty yards up the slope, he stopped and knocked at a door on the north side of the lane. The door opened and Aasif Kohistani stepped out, pulling his winter coat closed as he led Ramesh at a brisk pace back toward Sandra’s quarters.
Kohistani and Ramesh went into the building. They were inside for perhaps five minutes before coming back out. Ramesh turned west and stepped inside where the sentries were playing cards. Kohistani went east back to his house. As Gil shimmied carefully back from the edge of the roof, he wondered if the Hezbi cleric could feel the shadow of death moving with him up the lane.
The God of War is a fickle son of a bitch, Mr. Kohistani.
CHAPTER 49
General Couture stood staring at the screen with his arms crossed over his chest, watching intently as Gil shimmied slowly back from the edge of the roof. Captain Metcalf was beside him. The unexpected sighting of Aasif Kohistani minutes before had caused a stir in the room, leaving everyone convinced that Sandra Brux was definitely being held inside the building marked by the strobe.
Couture leaned closer to Metcalf. “If you have someone you can call in to assist your man,” he muttered, “now would be the time to do that.”
Metcalf looked at him in confusion. The president had just ordered them to stand down.
“You’re telling me you don’t have anyone you can call?” the general asked.
Metcalf scratched his head. “Well, the truth is, General, we’ve already sent for them… and the MPs can’t seem to find them.”
Couture gave a curt nod, glancing at the screen. “What about back in Langley… inside of SOG?”
“General, what about the president’s—?”
“Look, Glen. I’d like to kick Shannon’s ass for pulling this fucking stunt, but Sandra’s in that goddamn building. So if you’ve got some kind of SOG voodoo you can work here, nobody in this room is going to say anything.”
The Navy captain drew a breath, pausing before making his reply. “General, if I may speak frankly…?”
Couture made a “come on” gesture with his hand.
“Master Chief Shannon doesn’t think he’s a ninja, sir. He knows he’s not infiltrating that village and stealing Sandra away from those people without help. It’s my guess that whatever voodoo he’s going to need has already been laid on.”
“Which, I presume, is why the MPs can’t find Steelyard and Crosswhite.”
“I don’t know, sir, but whatever those two lunatics are up to… you can bet they’re not hiding under the bed someplace waiting for the all-clear.”
“Fine,” Couture said. “Then neither are we.” He snapped his fingers to get the attention of his communications officer. “Lieutenant, get Colonel Morrow on the horn.”
“Yes, sir.”
Metcalf and Couture stared at the screen as Gil made his way north along the river.
“Where the hell is he going now?” Couture wondered aloud.
Metcalf sucked his teeth. “I believe he may have it in his head to kill Kohistani.”
“Just grab the girl and go,” Couture quietly urged. “She’s right there, for Christ’s sake!”
“We can’t see everything that he sees, sir. He may be seeing something we can’t.”
Couture gave him a glance. “You’re worse than my wife, Captain. Let me watch the damn game, will ya?”
Metcalf chuckled. “Yes, sir.”
“Cynthia, widen the angle a bit, please.”
Gil began to shrink as the shot pulled back, revealing a section of the village about as long and wide as a soccer field.
“Shit, who the hell are those guys?” Couture pointed to the top of the screen. “Cynthia, tighten it up.”
The shot zoomed directly in on half a dozen armed men marching along the river toward the village from the north. They were all heavily armed with RPGs and belt-fed Russian PK light machine guns. Only one of them marched with his weapon at the ready, but they were on a direct collision course with Gil.
“Those are mountain fighters,” Metcalf said, rubbing the back of his neck where he was beginning to tense up. “They’re coming down from the Hindu Kush to answer Kohistani’s call for jihad. Probably marched all night to get there.”
Gil froze when the mountain men closed to within seventy-five yards, going immediately to ground with the Remington extending out in front of him.
“Shoot!” Couture muttered. “Shoot!”
Breathe, Metcalf thought to himself. Breathe.
A few seconds later, the fighter marching with his PK at the ready, jerked as if he’d been stung by a wasp. Less than a second later, the man beside him dropped dead to the earth.
With the sudden realization that they were taking fire, the other four gunners raced to unsling their machine guns. The next man in line dropped dead, and then another. There were three left alive. The first fighter hit was down on his knee, hammering at the receiver of his machine gun with the heel of his fist.
“Shannon shot his weapon in the receiver,” Metcalf said.
By the time Metcalf had completed his remark, the man with the disabled weapon was the only one left alive. He flung the broken machine gun aside and jumped up to run but didn’t travel a full step before his head exploded and he went down.
“My god!” someone said. “How long did that take?”