Afghan Storm (Nick Woods Book 3) (7 page)

Chapter 20

Mushahid
Zubaida and Rasool Deraz worked their way up the steep hill. The two hundred
fighters in their elite guard had spread out in a wide line of men, pushing up
the mountain range on different angles.

They
targeted rock outcroppings or depressions where possible fighters might hide.
Mushahid carried an AK-74 and wore web gear loaded to capacity with magazines
and grenades. He was Rasool’s final line of defense, and no one would get
through him.

Rasool
himself carried a walking stick and string of worn prayer beads. A small
satchel hung across his chest by a singular strap. In it, he kept his Quran, a
couple of religious texts, his prayer mat, some paper, and a pen.

Far before they reached
the site of the fallen villagers, Rasool and Mushahid could make out the sound
of women wailing. Their anguished cries echoed up and down the mountains,
sending chills up Rasool’s spine. He didn’t want to imagine the horror they
were about to walk upon.

“Mushahid,”
he said, “a moment please.”

Mushahid,
the bravest warrior Rasool had ever known, was several feet ahead, searching
intently for snipers or any other signs of danger. Mushahid bowed slightly and
stopped.

Rasool
lowered his head, closed his eyes, and asked for the right words to say and the
wisdom to know what actions to take.

He tried to
calm himself. This was always the worst part, but his people needed him. So he
finished his prayer quickly and with calm resolution, he moved up the hill.

They crested the hill and
looked down to find an eruption of frantic activity. Mushahid winced and
quickly turned his head away to look at his mentor and friend.

Rasool was a
thin, frail man with a scraggly, gray beard. His turban and loose white shirt
were tattered and frayed. His loose, black pants were ragged as the leather
sandals he wore, whose soles were worn almost through in places.

Mushahid and
others had insisted Rasool wear the newer, more suitable clothing they had
bought him, but Rasool always insisted the clothes be given to younger
fighters.

“The nights
get cold in the mountains of Afghanistan,” he had once said. “There are still
nights I can’t forget in my dreams. The cold cut me so deep when we were
fighting the Russians.” Rasool had smiled that warm, elder-like, all-knowing
smile and placed his hand on Mushahid’s shoulder. “Our men on the front lines
deserve what resources we can spare. Not old men such as me living under the
protection of a roof.”

Mushahid
didn’t doubt that Rasool had suffered some cold nights. The Soviet invasion was
before Mushahid’s time, but stories abounded of Rasool’s devotion and courage.

Mushahid and
Rasool stood atop the high ground from which the villagers had begun their
attack. Bodies were piled below them both down the slope and up the next one.
The two experienced warfighters gazed upon the battlefield and examined what
the villagers must have seen across from them.

“Let’s go on
down now,” Rasool said. “I am ready.”

They
traversed down the slope toward the first wounded and dead fighters. Rasool
moved slowly, using his walking stick and slipping on gravel as his shaky legs
tried to keep him vertical.

Mushahid,
tall and strong, marched down the slope sure-footed and alert, his weapon ready
and his fierce, beady eyes scanning odd-looking shapes and rock piles well
within sniper range.
He
kept no more than three steps from Rasool, close enough to catch the older man
if he fell, but far enough to allow the man to feel independent.

It took the
two of them several minutes to descend down the draw, but they could now
clearly see -- even with Rasool’s poor eyesight -- that it was worse than they
could have ever imagined.

Bodies lay
busted and broken all along the slope.
All around, people worked frantically to save the
wounded, while others clung to one another sobbing or prostrating over lifeless
forms while screaming with savage grief. Rasool noted that all of the people
were women or elderly men. A few older children were employed as gophers,
running back and forth, fetching bandages and water, but there was not a single
man of fighting age among them.

Rasool
walked toward the nearest body, who lay unattended. He dug his walking stick
firmly into the ground and leaned hard on it for support as he slowly kneeled.
The man was dead, his face marked by an entry wound just left of his nose.
Blood and yellow brain matter had trickled down the hill from behind the man’s
head, and ants had already discovered the feast and were carrying off pieces in
a heavily trafficked path.

Rasool put
his fingers over the man’s open eyes and pulled down the eyelids. Mushahid
watched Rasool from where he stood. How many times had he seen Rasool pull a
fighter's eyes shut with his frail, veiny hands? How many men had he seen
Rasool pray over a final time?

Mushahid
turned from him and kept alert. His men were still moving all about, scouting
on this finger, the next one, and the one after that. The elite guard of the
Taliban leadership moved quickly without the burden of packs or heavy weapons.
In addition, they had legs accustomed to steep terrain and lungs acclimatized
to thin air.

Rasool Deraz
and Mushahid Zubaida spent more than two hours on the side of the hill. For
Rasool, it was the same process over and over. The wounds changed, but never
the solution.

If the
fighter was dead, he simply closed their eyes and prayed a final prayer for
them. If they were wounded, he calmed their fears and tried to stop the
bleeding. Then, Rasool would wave down any of his available guards to carry the
man back to a home to be cared for. Many would die despite the effort, but a
surprising number would make it.

Rasool knew
the best thing to give to a wounded man was the same thing he tried to give the
movement: hope. Calm down the men going into shock, or already in shock, and
get them breathing normally again. Inform them that you’d seen worse wounds on
men who had survived, even if it wasn’t true. Maybe tell them a joke about when
you had fought the Soviets back in the ’80s.

Give each
man hope, just as you gave the movement hope. Even when territory was lost to
the enemy, even when buildings had been flattened and brave leaders had been
killed, give the survivors hope. In all things, give hope.

Over the course of the
gruesome ordeal, Rasool had managed to piece together some of the story. Years
of battlefield experience along with what little he could learn from the few
coherent survivors had told him that they were looking at a small number of
highly skilled shooters. According to his estimations, the charging villagers
had been taken down swiftly and efficiently, and probably in less than two
minutes time.

However, the accomplished
veteran was surprised when he noticed that a few of the fallen men’s clothing
had been neatly cut and used to bandage wounds, an act that considering the
state of these men would have been almost impossible for them to have managed
themselves. He had also learned from the people first on the scene that a
couple of the least wounded had been lightly bound with paracord.

It was strange to think
but given the evidence, Rasool could only conclude that the shooters themselves
had attempted to aid their targets while at the same time ensuring that no one
was capable of leaving the site. This conclusion stirred up a tangle of
thoughts and emotions that Rasool decided was best to tuck away for now and
think over later if he had the chance.

As more and more information
was collected, Rasool’s earlier suspicions were no longer simply holding true.
No, his suspicions had grown arms and legs. Rasool closed his eyes as he let
the truth wash over him. Americans had entered into the country of Pakistan.

“Only four
shooters?” Mushahid asked.

“It is
shocking at first thought,” Rasool said. “But as you think about it, it starts
to make sense. Any larger group would be more difficult to hide.”

“Agreed,”
Mushahid muttered.

The duo was now making
their way up to the spot discovered by their scouts. One of the first things
their scouts reported was that they had estimated the number of shooters to be
no more than four.
That number was then confirmed
over and over by several of the wounded villagers.

“What do you
think these men are doing on this side of the border?” Mushahid asked.

“Probably
reconnaissance and intelligence gathering. Too small a force for anything
else.”

Rasool had not yet shared
his conclusions with Mushahid. The younger man might very well be the next in
line to lead the Taliban; he needed to learn to make his own conclusions. And hopefully,
Rasool would have enough time to teach his friend the importance of making
well-informed decisions versus rash and dangerous ones. He worried about
Mushahid and what the fierce warrior might become after Rasool was gone.

They arrived
at the top of the hill where the four shooters had made their stand. Rasool
leaned hard on his walking stick and struggled to catch his breath as they took
in the scene.

Brass laid
in piles and the position provided a perfect view of the hill below. Rasool saw
more boot prints and the clear ground markings in the dust where four gunmen
had lain.

“Mushahid,
who do you think did this?” Rasool asked between wheezing breaths.

“I don’t
think any of our Muslim brothers could have pulled off such a stand,” the
Taliban’s most competent fighter said. He pointed toward the ground upon which
they stood, and the dirt showed where four bodies had lain. “It really was only
four men who caused such carnage. None of our men,” he shook his head with
disgust, then spoke angrily, “none of our men could have pulled off such fire
discipline and accuracy.”

Rasool
simply nodded.

“Americans?”
Mushahid guessed. “Or maybe Pakistani elite soldiers trained by Americans.”

Rasool
considered Mushahid’s alternate answer but dismissed it. He scanned the hills around
them. Whoever they were, they were on foot. And they had either headed deeper
into Pakistan after the battle or turned to run for the border. He assumed it
was the latter. Surely, they’d run for their lives after losing the element of
surprise.

Excellent shooters they
may be, but Rasool doubted there were many men who were capable of pushing on
considering not only the elements but the fervent and viscously territorial
nature of the people surrounding them in every direction.

“Select some
of our best men from the elite guard as a rapid-reaction force,” Rasool
instructed. “And have two or three trucks ready to respond. Whoever did this
will show up soon, and we shall seek vengeance for our brothers who died on
this hill.”

“As you
wish,” Mushahid said, clearly pleased with the order.

“Now, leave
me for a moment,” Rasool said, reaching in his satchel for his prayer mat. “I
need to pray for our brave men and that Allah’s justice falls swiftly upon
these intruders.”

Chapter 21

Six hours later, Nick Wood’s team hid along a rock outcropping in the
waning hours of sunlight. After the terrible turn of luck earlier that day,
they had somehow managed to arrive at their destination unnoticed.

Below them, far down the mountain range, they could see the bottom of
the valley. Straight across, an almost identical range faced them -- the same
one they had used as an alternate route earlier in the mission to avoid the Pakistani
army for a day.

All four men made use of the daylight to notice every bit of key terrain
that could be seen. Soon, their lives would depend on how well they had
memorized the land around them.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t see into every corner of their target
compound fifteen hundred yards below them. Its walls were simply too high. That
concerned them a little, but intel consistently revealed that there were
between five to ten men in there. No women. No children.

The good news was that from what they could make out, the people within
the compound were behaving as if they were completely unaware of any firefight.
But considering that this particular compound served as a center of
communication for the Taliban, it was safer to assume otherwise. It might be
possible that they just didn’t see themselves or the compound as a real target
of interest. Ultimately Nick couldn’t be sure from what he was seeing, so he
would just have to do what he did best: plan for the worst.

The movement outside the compound all along the valley was very similar.
The people seemed to be moving along at an everyday kind of pace, wrapping up
chores or carrying things up the meandering trails. No one acted as if they had
a clue about the firefight just four miles away. And why should they know?
Despite their close proximity to a communication hub, there were very few means
for the people to get information. There were no news stations around here. No
newspapers. Just radios and word of mouth.

Whatever the case may be, the S3 team hoped the situation remained as
calm as it appeared for just a little longer. In just a few hours, the first
hurdle of this strenuous mission would be cleared, and they’d be racing back
toward the border and safety.

But before any of them could anticipate a victory, there were gut checks
to be done. It was part of the warrior process, a mental preparation so
necessary that they treated it as if it were religion.
And
although there was never any stated rule, there appeared to be a universal
belief that this ritual was best done in whatever light was available.

There was no voodoo or superstition about it; it was simply easier to
face your realities when you can physically see your target or the people
around you. Even the bravest of men could tell you that bolstering your courage
is a much greater challenge in the dark. There’s just something about the
pitch-black that invades all your senses and gives strength to your doubts.

So as the sun descended toward dusk, the S3 team set in for a full,
four-man watch in
unified
silence.

This was it.
This was what they’d
sacrificed
for, crossing endless steep fingers and sleeping in
the dirt each night. This was why they had been forced to slaughter a group of
overly confident villagers. None of the men would ever be proud of that
firefight.

But the past
was in the past, and tonight they’d climb over a wall and more men would die.
Maybe some of their own wouldn’t make it, as the men in the compound would be
experienced Taliban fighters.

That was the gut check.
Shutting out echoes of the past. Hunting your doubts and fears, slaying them
into silence. Seeing the realities and the odds then committing yourself to
stand in spite of them. With the situation fully understood, the only thing
left was to prepare the fighter.

Like a boxer
in their pre-fight routine. Quiet locker room. No distractions. See yourself in
the ring. Moving. Slipping. Hands working. Punches going out. Connecting. See
the fight the way you want it to go. Ignore your fears. Forget past defeats.

Only
victory
could reside in your head now. Only confidence, the belief that the hard
training will pay off. And maybe just a little hope that a lucky break or two
was coming your way.

Darkness creeped into the hills of Pakistan, and the men of S3 shifted
into a mental rehearsal of the mission, playing through the physical actions
and imagining every possible contingency.

They had
talked and walked through it all dozens of times. It was all there. In their
heads. Mapped out and memorized until they could do it in their sleep.

The hit was
simple, and they had etched in their minds the compound and its layout from
staring at hundreds of satellite images and high-resolution photos provided
from drones.

The compound
featured only one opening, and it was at the front. The gated entrance faced
down the hill, which made sense as the complex was far up the hill. In fact, it
was by far the highest on either mountain range, and its occupants certainly
didn’t want any visitors.

Inside the
compound, three mud huts stood. All big enough to have maybe two or three
rooms.

Besides the
three huts, there was a huge satellite dish, which was powered by a generator.
And the compound usually had one or two four-wheel-drive trucks. That was
likely a necessity, given how steep the path was up to the compound.

The compound in itself
wasn’t too intimidating. Not being able to confirm the number of possible
Taliban troops currently present, however, made the simple-looking compound all
the more dangerous. A simple compound made for an enclosed space with little
cover, and a number of clear sightlines for bullets to find you in a
multi-directional capacity.

But that was what they had
to work with, and the time to back out or come up with a new plan had come and
gone. The time to be scared and imagine bad things happening was back when you
were planning and deciding what you needed to pack. There was no going back.
Only moving forward remained. And the men of S3 were ready. Ready to charge
forward and unleash unholy hell.