Sniper Elite (20 page)

Crosswhite nodded. “Tell him they are a gift to him, but he is not to touch them until morning.”

Forogh made sure the old man understood. “He asks one more thing. He asks if you go up the valley to bring back the American woman.”

Every hair on Crosswhite's body stood on end. “Ask him what he knows.”

“He says you need to hurry. The HIK has moved into the village.”

Sandra was deep in an opium haze when Naeem and Aasif Kohistani stepped into the room and stood over the bed. Naeem held out a kerosene lantern so they could get a good look at her, sweating with fever, her leg badly infected. She opened her bleary eyes just long enough to mumble “fuck you” before closing them again and drifting off.

“It is a good thing Brother Nuristani sent for me,” Kohistani said. “Soon the leg will rot, and the poison will spread. She'll be dead soon . . . without proper care.”

Naeem was still seething over the Americans' failure to pay the ransom as promised. He knew nothing of Jackal's death or of the arrests that had been made, only that the intermediary had not delivered the money to his contact in Kabul as planned. It was possible
the intermediary had kept the money for himself, but he doubted it. The man in Karzai's office was reported as very reliable, and there would have been plenty of money to go around without the need for a double cross.

When Kohistani had arrived earlier in the day, Naeem had at first grown even more incensed, vowing to hang Sabil Nuristani over the fire by his heels, but after Badira reported that the woman would die long before another ransom attempt could be made, he had silently thanked Allah for his fortune. Perhaps he could work some kind of a deal with the Hezbi man to avert a total loss.

“Our nurse is not very good,” he mumbled, disgusted with Badira's lack of medical skill.

“It is not the nurse, brother,” Kohistani said gently. “It is the lack of medicine. And the raw opium she is smoking is suppressing her immune system.”

Naeem scarcely understood how an immune system even functioned. “How much is she worth to you in this condition?” he asked gruffly.

Kohistani placed a friendly hand on his shoulder and smiled. “You should never have tried to ransom my prisoner.”

“You left her with me,” Naeem said. “I thought you'd finished with her after the interrogation. I was going to split the profits with you.”

“I am not interested in profits,” Kohistani said, glancing at his bodyguard Ramesh to make sure he was ready to kill Naeem if it became necessary. “I have much bigger plans for this woman than something as trivial as money.”

“Money is not trivial,” Naeem said, his gaze narrowing. “Perhaps if the Hezbi wasn't so secretive about its plans . . .”

“We are secretive for good reason,” Kohistani said easily. “I will send you some rifles and medicine for your men.”

“No,” Naeem said, backing away. “That is not enough. She is
worth very much more to you than that. You have contacts with Al Jazeera. You will put her on the television and bring yourself much glory. I deserve a better reward for capturing her. So far you have given nothing.”

Kohistani stepped forward again, putting his arm around the younger man's shoulder to guide him gently to the next room, where they sat down at the table in the light of the lantern. “We do not seek glory, you and I. We are servants of Allah. We are fighting a jihad . . . and anything we gain from this woman should be used for the glory of Allah alone.” He watched Naeem's eyes, expecting an argument. “Do you wish to know why the ransom was not paid? I will tell you why—it was Allah's will that it not be paid. He, too, has greater plans for this woman.” He paused again, long enough to accept the hot cup of tea one of his other men had just brought into the hut. “Now, my brother . . . I want you to turn her over to me in exchange for the rifles and the medicine that I offer—along with the video that you made.”

Naeem saw his only chance for glory slipping quickly from his grasp. His uneducated mind raced for a solution to the problem. Defying Kohistani outright could definitely cause long-term problems, but he had to salvage something from the ransom debacle.

“Very well,” he said decisively. “The woman is yours, for the rifles and the medicine—but the video is mine. It will take time, but I will sell it to Al Jazeera myself and use the money to help the village.”

Kohistani smiled kindly, much preferring to kill Naeem, but the Taliban were still useful to the HIK, so it was worth treating them with patience. He realized that Naeem was an extremely ambitious young man, a Wahhabi fundamentalist with delusions of grandeur. If left to his own devices, he could all too easily become a de facto warlord in the region, and the last thing Kohistani needed was a powerful ignoramus operating inside his sphere of influence. Uneducated zealots were unpredictable, as much a danger to everyone
else as to themselves. To make matters worse, Naeem was pride filled and greedy, a borderline psychotic. Kohistani believed he understood very well why this unruly fellow had been sent north by his Taliban mentors in the south—they had wanted to be rid of him and to make him the problem of the HIK.

“Very well, brother,” he decided. “I will give you one of the big Canadian sniper rifles and fifty rounds of ammunition in exchange for the video . . . to be delivered with the other rifles and the medicine.” Kohistani was talking about a captured .50 caliber McMillan Tac-50.

Naeem's eyes lit up. He would never get another chance to possess such a weapon. “I want one hundred rounds of ammunition.”

Kohistani shrugged. “Fifty is all we have, brother, but the ammunition is far easier to come by than the weapon itself. You should accept the offer.”

“Very well,” Naeem grumbled, already feeling the weapon in his hands. With a rifle such as that, he would be equal to the Americans. He would make their bodies explode the way his cousin Muhammad's body exploded when he'd been shot two years earlier, delivered to his uncle's home in the back of a pickup truck, practically blown in half by a single shot. He ordered one of his men to go and fetch the video. “What will you do with it?”

“I will give it to men who know to use such a prize for the glory of Allah,” Kohistani replied, relieved that the young fool sitting before him could be bought so easily with a toy. Now he had what he needed to draw the Americans into his kill zone. Soon, US citizens would be clamoring even louder for their troops to be called home where they belonged. “Now, brother, I must be leaving. We will take the American with us. I trust you don't mind us taking her nurse along to tend to her?”

Naeem shook his head. “They're both yours. The nurse is a widow. She belongs to no one. You will take the American east to Bazarak?”

Kohistani hesitated just a fraction of a second before answering. “No, north to Parun.”

“I see,” Naeem replied, thinking to himself,
So it's east to Bazarak like I expected.
He knew the HIK had already moved into the Panjshir Valley in force.

They spoke of the jihad as Kohistani patiently finished his tea, treating the young upstart with far more deference than he merited. Within the hour, Sandra was wrapped in blankets and strapped to a battered Russian army stretcher left over from the previous war. Badira was then shaken from a sound sleep in her hut and told she would be leaving with the HIK men who were taking the American pilot north to Parun. She was given time to dress and hurried out the door.

She walked down the narrow trail to the village gate, where she saw four men standing in the darkness bearing Sandra's stretcher.

Naeem exited a nearby hut, preceding Kohistani and holding a lantern head high. “Badira, you will go with them to keep the woman alive.”

“There's nothing I can do for her,” she said with contempt. “There's no more medicine to give her. Only the opium, and anyone can give her that.”

“Then you will give her that whenever she needs it!” Naeem snapped. “Brother Kohistani's men can't be troubled with women's work. They're a war party! Now shut your mouth.”

To Badira's immense relief, Sabil Nuristani came hurrying up the trail carrying a lantern of his own. “Wait, Naeem! You cannot send our only nurse away from the village in the middle of the night.”

Kohistani stepped forward, speaking to Nuristani in Kalasha. “I will send her back very soon. Have no fear. You have done us a very great service keeping the woman alive. When Badira returns, I will send her with medicine for the village.”

“Medicine that he will steal.” Sabil stabbed a finger at Naeem.

“I will send enough for all,” Kohistani assured him, willing to promise anything that might avert a confrontation between the two antagonists long enough for him and his men to get clear of the village.

“No,” Sabil said. “We have sick people here! I am the head man, and I say our nurse does not go!”

Naeem grabbed a stick from one of his men and stepped forward, delivering a vicious strike to the side of Sabil's head. Sabil dropped like a stone, the lantern crashing to the ground next him.

“I should have done that days ago.”

Badira ran forward and knelt beside Sabil. “He's dead!” she shouted. “You're a murderer!”

Naeem kicked her away from the body, striking her across the back with the stick. “Obey, woman! Go—and never come back! This is no longer your home!”

Crosswhite made sure the team was set, then moved out up the trail with Forogh to recon the smugglers' position. They expected to make contact within fifty or sixty yards, but hadn't gone more than fifty feet before they heard a Pashtun voice speak to them from behind a large tree. Both men froze, bringing their weapons to bear but holding fire, scanning the forest through their NVGs to see the trees coming alive with men picking their way carefully through the darkness.

Forogh stepped forward, answering the Pashtun in a casual voice.

Crosswhite fell back a pace to give him room. The men moving through the trees couldn't see them, but they were obviously maneuvering to outflank the sounds of the voices. He could tell from the harsh tone that the man behind the tree was giving Forogh a hard time, demanding to know who they were and what was going on
back at the clearing, keeping his voice loud enough for his men to hone in on his position.

Crouching low, Crosswhite keyed his radio three times without speaking, waited three seconds, and then keyed the radio three times more. This was the signal for Alpha to bring the rest of the team forward expecting a fight. He could see from Forogh's posture that he was prepared to engage the man behind the tree, but the interpreter's voice remained casual. He would have heard the radio signal as well and would know it was his job to buy time for the SEALs to get into position.

Of course, the man behind the tree was doing the same thing for his own people, stalling for as much time as possible. Crosswhite doubted the fellow realized there were any Americans in the area. More likely, he suspected they were tribal bandits looking to steal his cargo. The tree was too big for Crosswhite to get an angle on him, so he would have to trust Forogh to handle the fellow on his own. He quickly sized up the ten men working their way blindly among the rocks and the trees, divided evenly on either side of the trail, assessing that he and Forogh would be surrounded in less than a minute's time.

Alpha and his SEALs drew within visual range, and Crosswhite listened as Alpha assigned them targets from left to right.

The talking between Forogh and the Pashtun stopped abruptly, and the forest was thrown into an eerie silence, both men having run out of bullshit.

Alpha quietly gave the command: “Fire.”

The SEALs' suppressed M4s hissed in the darkness, and Crosswhite saw eight Pashtun fighters drop dead across his field of vision. A pair of AK-47s let loose down the slope to his extreme right, but the gunners were taken out an instant later.

A grenade popped on the other side of the tree, and Crosswhite heard it clatter among the rocks behind him as the man took off. Forogh
dove behind a rock and Crosswhite threw himself flat against the earth, instinctively aware that he was well within the grenade's kill zone. The force of the explosion lifted him from the ground and threw him against a boulder, knocking the wind from his lungs. He could hear nothing but a high-pitched whine as he struggled to move and then blacked out.

He came to with a white light being shined into his eyes.

“Captain, can you hear me?”

His thoughts were slow to clear. When he could move again, the first thing he did was grab for his groin.

“It's all there, Captain. You're fine. You got your shit rattled—that's all.”

“Get me on my feet.” He groped clumsily in the dark.

The corpsman kept a firm hand against his chest, holding him down. “No, your brains are scrambled. Keep still.”

“What about the guy behind the tree?”

“He's down,” Alpha said.

“Forogh?”

“He's fine, Captain. We're intact and the perimeter's secure. Just keep still until you got your shit together.”

Alpha stood up and took Forogh aside. “Did that guy say whether there's anyone else nearby—anyone who might have heard the grenade blast?”

“I got the impression they were surprised to find anyone else in the area,” Forogh said. “That
should
mean we're okay, but you never know . . . we're in the Hindu Kush.”

One of the two SEALs who had been sent forward to locate the pack animals came over the radio: “Alpha, its Trigg. We've got five donkeys about seventy-five yards up the trail. There's nobody else here, but we've got something you should see.”