Mercer finally had to ask, “What was that?”
“IED,” Sneeze told him. He was a slender man with dark hair and a beard who could easily pass as a native. “Sounds about two miles away and fairly large. More likely a truck bomb than a suicide vest.”
Seconds later the sound of sirens penetrated the warehouse’s thick brick walls.
“The Taliban is letting the government know that they’re coming soon,” Sneeze went on. “And once they take over, the opposition will swing into action with the exact same tactics. No one can rule this country, because the lines drawn on their hundred-year-old colonial maps don’t mean squat. The idea that there really is a nation of Afghanistan is as much a myth as saying there are such places as Shangri-la or Atlantis.”
A boy of about twelve dressed in traditional clothes came in from another room. He was pushing a trolley cart that looked like it had been stolen from a hotel. On it were stainless serving dishes, a stack of cheap china plates, and cutlery.
“Ah, good,” Book said. “On that happy note, dinner is served. Mercer, this is Hamid’s son, Farzam. Farzam is our batman when he’s not in school, and his mother is our cook. The best in Kabul, right, Farzam?”
“I am that, Mr. Book,” the boy said in what was obviously a routine they did often.
“I was talking about your momma.”
“Her as well.” The boy grinned and settled the cart next to the bar.
There wasn’t much conversation with the meal. The men lined up cafeteria style, served themselves from the rice and goat bowls, and then sat to shovel food into their mouths the way railroad workers used to feed coal into locomotives. Afterward they drifted to their individual rooms, basically cubicles made of plywood with hinged doors that maintained a level of privacy.
“You good, sleepwise, for tomorrow?” Booker asked Mercer when his men had gone.
“Good enough for the trip there and back, but I pity the poor SOB sitting next to me on my flights the next day — unless he’s deaf or otherwise immune to snoring.”
“Fine. I’ll wake you at zero-five-thirty for breakfast and kit up. We head for the chopper at six and hope to be in the air no later than six thirty.” Booker reached behind his back and removed a sleek black pistol. He popped the magazine from the butt and racked the slide to eject the round already jacked into the chamber. He thumbed the brass shell back into the mag and rammed it into place once again before handing it over to Mercer, grip first and the barrel angled away. “We never let principals carry weapons on protection detail because ten times out of ten they’re civilians here doing charity work or part of some rebuilding effort and don’t know a Beretta from a hole in the ground.” He heaved himself off the couch. “You, on the other hand…Just don’t shoot any of my boys.”
13
The sun was not yet up when they left the compound. They drove in a large SUV that sloshed on its suspension whenever they went around a curve, telling Mercer the Suburban was heavily armored. Hamid was behind the wheel with Book in the passenger seat. The three other shooters, Mercer, and all their gear were jammed into the back.
“We would have picked you up from the airport in this beast,” Booker explained, “but another team was using it to ferry a couple of Silicon Valley types who are here trying to persuade people who’ve just stopped living in caves that they now need 4G Wi-Fi.”
“How’d they do?” Mercer asked as they raced through the predawn darkness, their headlamps the only light visible except for the setting moon.
“They’re still alive,” Book said. “That’s all I care about.”
It sounded like a flippant comment, but Sykes was speaking from the heart. The successful completion of the mission was all that interested him.
It was dark out, and cold — two factors that sapped the spirits and eroded will, and yet as they rocketed through the deserted streets, Mercer felt confidence surging through him. The truck smelled of the inevitable spices from their headquarters, and of gun oil from their assault rifles, but there was another scent in the vehicle. It was the musk or the pheromone that bonded parties of hunters since humanity’s days on the plains of ancient Africa. It was what gave them the courage to face enemies armed with tooth and claw and speed and stealth. Prey that was larger than them, better able to defend itself. Prey that was not prey at all, and yet those proto-humans with their sticks and rudimentary language not only eked out their existence on the grassy plains but thrived to eventually inhabit every corner of the globe.
At the most basic level the men in the truck were no different from the primitive hunters. Their weapons were better, their language more refined, but they were imbued with that same antediluvian courage that left them buoyed of spirit and eager to face whatever challenge may come.
The chopper was hangared at the far end of the international airport, well away from the commercial airliners and the meager aircraft of the fledgling Afghan Air Force that used the airport. The Mi-2 had been rolled free of the building and into the brightening sky. It was so utilitarian and boxy it reminded Mercer of a panel van with a tail stalk and rotor blades, and a huge forehead bulge that was its two turbine engines.
The pilot was already in the front seat busy with preflight checks, while another Afghan waited by the open cargo door to help the passengers load their gear. Booker’s men didn’t bother with hard cases for their weapons but carried them in the open. Mercer had no idea what bureaucratic nightmare had to be negotiated for this to happen, but there were a couple of soldiers nearby and Sykes approached them with a handful of the Marlboro cigarette packs Mercer had brought into the country. He suspected that this was just simple wheel greasing and not the true bribery that let Gen-D Systems operate as its own army. The soldiers immediately lit up their cigarettes, standing under a bright No Smoking sign written in Pashtu as well as English and in symbols so basic a child could understand them.
Sykes introduced Mercer to the pilot, Ahmad, and then the two talked about the latest weather report for their intended route. Rain was a possibility, which neither pilot nor team leader liked, but it would only hamper their operation, not force its cancellation. They discussed the fuel situation, and Ahmad reassured Book that he had a reserve supply waiting in the city of Khost.
“All right,” Sykes said and his voice boomed. “Let’s mount up.”
The men wore a patchwork of Western gear hidden under Afghan clothing that was surprisingly comfortable and warm. Mercer carried about thirty pounds of equipment. Some was for technical mountaineering: Mammut Duodess climbing ropes, rock bolts, and a sling of carabiners and belay clamps. The rest was extra ammunition magazines for the team’s M-4A1 assault rifles and some geology tools he had pilfered from Gen-D’s motor pool workshop. The claw part of the hammer would work as a pick, but he had doubts about the tensile strength of a two-foot pry bar he’d borrowed. The Beretta 92 9mm pistol Book had loaned him was strapped to his thigh in a low holster that made him feel a little like a gunslinger out of an old Western.
They settled into the chopper as the old turbines wailed into life, one after the other. The engines bogged down when Ahmad engaged the transmission to start the big rotors turning overhead. Yet in minutes the entire chopper was bucking and shaking like a washing machine about to tear itself apart. The sensation wasn’t unknown to Mercer. This was an older helicopter, after all, but it seemed to take forever before the blades were beating the air with sufficient speed to haul the ungainly machine into the air.