The Mullah's Storm (31 page)
Read The Mullah's Storm Online
Authors: Tom Young
Nothing. Parson tried to clear the slide, but it wouldn’t move. Jammed.
Marwan began to pick himself up. Parson dropped the pistol and swept his hands across the stone floor, looking for his knife. Felt the blade slice his left thumb through his flight glove. He grabbed the antler handle and hurled himself at his enemy.
Parson drove the knife through Marwan’s throat and slammed him against the wall. The blade penetrated to the hand guard. Air whistled through the severed windpipe. Parson twisted the knife as the two men slid to the floor. He jerked the blade up, left, down. Pain in his wrist again. Warm blood on his face.
Dust floated in a narrow beam of milky light from the stairwell. Marwan’s torso spasmed. Parson felt him exhale through both mouth and wound, and the dying man’s chest did not rise again. One of his hands clenched as if he still had fight left in him, but then the fist just trembled with the stray impulses of muscles shutting down for good. In the dimness, Parson thought he saw Marwan’s eyes fix on him. Parson could not tell the exact moment they ceased to see.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
P
arson’s flight gloves were already ruined with blood, so he used one of them to wipe his blade. Then he put the boot knife in its sheath and pulled the glove back onto his hand. The glove felt sticky and he wanted to take it off, but it was too cold to do without it.
arson’s flight gloves were already ruined with blood, so he used one of them to wipe his blade. Then he put the boot knife in its sheath and pulled the glove back onto his hand. The glove felt sticky and he wanted to take it off, but it was too cold to do without it.
He picked up his pistol, climbed the stairs, and found his rifle where he had left it. Hoisted the M-40 by the sling. Out on the battlements in the daylight, he saw better what was wrong with the .45. An empty casing was caught in the slide. He took cover behind the parapets, racked the slide, and cleared the jam. The offending cartridge casing dropped into the snow, and the next round fed into the firing chamber.
Thinking to clean his gloves, he picked up a handful of snow and rubbed it between his palms. Didn’t seem to help. His war couldn’t get any more primal now. Personal combat with brawn and edged weapons, against an individual enemy despised by name. It would have been good for the snake-eaters to take Marwan for questioning, but there was nothing Parson could do about that now. He doubted they’d get the mullah alive, either.
Especially not with all the shooting. Shots still thumped from other rooms in the fort. A grenade sailed into the courtyard. When it exploded, shrapnel raked the battlements like grapeshot.
Insurgents poured into the courtyard. Bursts of fire from somewhere beneath him cut most of them down. Parson ran along the parapets, hoping to get a better idea of what was happening. He leaped across a hole blasted in the stone walkway, landed hard, banged a knee. Four ANA troops ran through the courtyard.
More shots came from outside, just beyond the walls. He looked over the parapet to see Gold and Cantrell on the ground, shooting at insurgents fleeing the fort.
Parson shouldered his rifle and looked through the scope. One of the insurgents, a tall man, had his arm around a shorter, stooped man, helping him lope through the snow. Perhaps the shorter man was wounded. Then Parson recognized him as the mullah.
Gold ran forward a few yards. She dropped to one knee and pointed the AK, elbow resting on her thigh. Parson watched the mullah and the other insurgent through the crosshairs.
Gold’s rifle popped once. Parson saw a puff of dust between the insurgent’s shoulder blades. The man fell and took the mullah to the ground with him. Hell of a shot at that distance with open sights.
The mullah flailed in the snow and pulled himself from under his downed follower. Snow wadded onto his baggy
shalwar kameez
and dusted his beard. The old man staggered to his feet and pulled at his helper’s rifle. The sling was wrapped around the body. The mullah jerked at the weapon but could not free it. He let go of the rifle and tried to run. He limped, but he moved fast enough for his boots to kick up powder.
shalwar kameez
and dusted his beard. The old man staggered to his feet and pulled at his helper’s rifle. The sling was wrapped around the body. The mullah jerked at the weapon but could not free it. He let go of the rifle and tried to run. He limped, but he moved fast enough for his boots to kick up powder.
Gold and Cantrell gained on him anyway. Then Parson heard rifle fire from somewhere beneath him in the fort. Snow sprayed up from the ground between Gold and Cantrell. Gold dropped to the ground and returned fire. Cantrell also turned and opened up. Then he ejected a magazine, slammed in another, and emptied that one. Parson leaned to see where the shots had come from, almost directly underneath him in the fort. The insurgents remained inside. No target for him there.
About a mile distant, past Gold and Cantrell, beyond the river, he saw men on horseback. The mullah was headed in their direction. The old man stumbled, fell, then got up and ran again.
Parson saw just one option. He watched the mullah through the scope, put the crosshairs on his torso. The old man had caused enough trouble. Parson had always enjoyed the hunt, but this time he’d enjoy the kill. Too bad not to have hollow-point bullets. Expand and fragment on impact and rip that motherfucker’s guts out.
The mullah was damn near a thousand yards away now. Parson looked up from his rifle to check the wind. Still a little breeze, not much snow falling. Then he saw Gold looking up at him. Remembered why they were here in the first place. A mission to transport a prisoner. All right, Sergeant, he thought, you brought me this far. I’ll do it your way.
He put his cheek back on the stock, lowered the reticle to the mullah’s pumping lower legs. Pressed the trigger.
The bullet kicked up snow between the old man’s feet. Parson swore, rebolted. He expelled air from his lungs, steadied the M-40 on a parapet. Aimed again, a little higher this time. The mullah was getting near where the land pitched downslope. Time for one more shot, if that.
Parson squeezed the trigger so slowly that the recoil surprised him. The old man crumpled. Then he sat up and held his right calf with both hands.
Through the scope, Parson watched the riders and horses. Six of them. One with a rocket launcher. Another with a belt of grenades. Out of range. If I just had a Barrett rifle, he thought.
The firing around the fort subsided to sporadic crackles, then stopped altogether. The riders galloped away. Where they were going, he could not tell. Three of them followed the riverbank, and the other three just disappeared. Parson didn’t know how the raid had gone, but every insurgent he saw was dead, wounded, or fleeing.
He watched Cantrell and another SF troop lift the mullah by his arms. They brought him back to the fort a few yards at a time, checking his wound, giving him water. No slaps or punches. When they put him down, Gold spoke to him in Pashto without raising her voice.
Parson found his way through the fort to where he had left Najib. Cantrell’s medic was tending to him. Najib’s face had a gray cast, and his eyes were closed. Tan granules lay scattered around his legs from where the medic had poured QuikClot into his wounds. A pulse oximeter clipped to one of his fingertips glowed red from its LED.
“How is he?” Parson asked.
“I’ve done all I can. If he doesn’t get to a hospital this morning, he’ll die.”
Parson looked up at the sky. A canopy of clouds stretched from peak to peak at the higher elevations, but he guessed the valley’s ceiling at better than three thousand feet. It would be tricky, but that’s why helicopters had radar altimeters.
“Let’s go home,” he said. He took his GPS and 112 from his coat pocket and switched them on. Keyed his radio. “Saxon,” he called, “Flash Two-Four Charlie.”
The answer came immediately: “Flash Two-Four Charlie, Saxon. How are you down there, mate?”
“Better. Weather’s better, too. Can you have the bartender call me a cab?”
“Affirmative. Ready to copy coordinates.”
Parson gave his numbers. After an agonizing wait, the Brits called him back: “Flash Two-Four Charlie, Bagram wants your nine-line.”
Dear God, thought Parson, we’re actually getting out of here. He couldn’t remember all the items in a nine-line medevac request, but he knew enough to get the aircraft to him.
“Saxon,” he said, “I’ll remain at the previous coordinates. One critical patient. A few other wounded. I also have a whole A-team that needs a ride. We’ll mark the pickup site with smoke.”
Parson checked his watch. He wasn’t sure how long it would take the helicopters to reach him, but if the crews were locked and cocked, they could get airborne within minutes. Cantrell tramped around in the snow and decided on a fairly flat LZ not far from the fort. Najib couldn’t be carried much farther.
Cantrell deployed his troops in a perimeter to guard the landing site. Parson selected a knoll high enough to overlook the LZ and much of the fort, and he waited there with rifle and radio. Half an hour went by. No radio call, no sound of aircraft. He keyed his 112.
“Saxon, Flash Two-Four Charlie. Status report, please.”
Before the answer could come over the airwaves, he felt it in his breastbone. The beat and slap of rotors. Cantrell grinned at him and gave a thumbs-up. A new voice came on the radio, vibrating as if speaking through the blades of a fan.
“Flash Two-Four Charlie, Komodo Eight-Six. We’re a flight of two HH-60s inbound your position. Please advise.”
Parson already had his compass out. He turned it around backward, pointed it toward the noise, read the reciprocal. He was so tired he did not trust himself, so he checked it twice.
“Komodo,” he called, “Flash Two-Four Charlie hears your aircraft. Fly heading two-four-zero.”
“Copy that. Two-four-zero.”
A moment later, the helicopter called back: “Flash Two-Four Charlie, when did you kill your first elk?”
Parson thought for a second. He had reviewed his authentication statements just before takeoff, days ago.
“When I was twelve.”
“That checks.”
The rotor noise got louder and Parson calculated the direction it came from more precisely. “Komodo,” he said, “adjust heading two-one-zero.”
“Two-one-zero. Any bad guys down there?”
“The ones who aren’t dead have scattered.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
When the Pave Hawks broke through the cloud deck, Parson thought they were the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Spinning rotors. Refueling probes extending from their noses. Miniguns jutting from the sides. Two lethal wasps against a pewter sky.
Cantrell held out an MK-13 smoke flare and removed the orange cap. He pulled up the ring attached to a lanyard. Twisted the ring to break the seal. Yanked hard.
There was a loud crack, then reddish smoke boiled from the end of the flare. Cantrell held it aloft like an Olympic torch. The smoke spread into the valley and hung low.
“Flash Two-Four Charlie, Komodo has you in sight.”
“Copy that. Be advised we also have wounded to pick up at another site.”
A hot shower. That’s the first thing Parson looked forward to. He’d eat everything in the chow hall at Bagram and sleep for two days. Then he’d make sure command knew what Gold, Najib, and Cantrell had done. He wanted them to receive the highest decorations they could get.
The first Pave Hawk began its approach to the LZ. It did not hover; instead it made a gliding approach, keeping forward momentum to stay ahead of the snow cloud kicked up by its rotor wash.
Cantrell snuffed out the flare in the snow. To signal the chopper, he held his arms over his head, then swept them downward and crossed in front of his body: Land here. As the helicopter descended, tendrils of red smoke left from the flare curled over it. The Pave Hawk slowed as it neared touchdown, and the snow cloud behind it caught up to it and enveloped the tail boom. The aircraft rocked slightly as it settled onto the ground, and the billowing snow obscured it completely. Then its rotors changed pitch and slowed, and the snow cloud dissipated. Two pararescuemen hopped out carrying a litter. Interphone jacks dangled from their helmets as they ran toward the wounded.
Parson surveyed his surroundings, tried to remain aware of every detail. He lay on his chest, propped on his elbows in the snow, just fifty yards or so from the fort. The SF troops were settled into overwatch positions around and behind him. Some he could see, and others were too well hidden. Cantrell kneeled by the helicopter that had already landed, rifle up to guard the aircraft, which sat with engines at idle. Parson noted that the aircraft was well within range of his rifle, no more than a hundred meters to his right. That meant he and Cantrell commanded an interlocking field of fire on anything coming from the fort that threatened the Pave Hawk. The snake-eaters on the perimeter could handle bad guys from outside.
The second helicopter descended to about five hundred feet, then began orbiting the area. A helmeted flight engineer manned the minigun that jutted from the cabin window. A black visor covered the engineer’s face. With gloved hands, the crewman pointed his weapon down at the fort.
Parson saw no insurgents. He got up on one knee. This would all be over soon.
Two troops hoisted the mullah through the side door of the helicopter on the ground. The pararescuemen lifted Najib onto the litter and loaded him aboard. The Afghan troops put two other wounded men inside. Gold walked behind them. She turned and looked at Parson as she climbed aboard. The second chopper descended and began its approach. When the helicopter entered ground effect, a snow cloud formed in the vortex of tortured air and began following the Pave Hawk.
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