Chapter 12: Two Teams

Twice the Trouble

“What do you think?” Tom said.

The last rays of sunlight reached over the mountain tops to the west. The few clouds in the distance reflected red light into the valley. On the mountain face, shadows dominated from the ground to the heliport ledge.

“Like I said, it’s doable, but it will be slow going.” From his perch on the closest hill next to the mountain, Al looked closer at the camouflaged hangar doors. “I don’t see any cameras or guards up there.”

“It would surprise me if there were. The locals know better than to be here, and no one in their right mind would think to climb up there at night.”

“True that.”

“Let’s give it another half hour before we move. It should be fully dark by then, and the moon won’t be out for another two hours or so.”

“When we get up there?”

Tom sighed. “We’ll play it by ear. It’s a recon, but who knows.”

“Flying by the seat of our pants again.” Al handed the binos over and lowered himself from the highest point of the hill where they had observed the heliport.

Tom slid down on his butt next to Al. “You know, I really wish Julia had granted me that last wish from a dying man.”

“You’re a frigg’in dog.”

An amused hiss issued from between Tom’s tongue and teeth. “And that, my friend, is why I have four exes.”

They both chuckled.

---

“This looks like it’s going to be a bust.” Mike pushed downward, sliding on his belly, staying below the crest of the small berm they hid behind. There were a lot of shadows, but it was still light enough to get caught if they weren’t careful.

Julia followed him down. “Why’s that?”

Mike crouched and moved back in the direction they’d come from, keeping low, whispering while he walked. “We can’t get any closer than where we are. Any half awake guard will see us coming. The distance between the berm and the tunnel mouth is too far.”

Julia didn’t say anything. She accepted the information and followed him.

They silently moved into a small ravine between two hills until they were behind one, out of sight of the guard post. Mike motioned up a hill and climbed. The one he chose to go up would give the best view of the tunnel entrance.

At the top, he took a peek at the guards below. “We’ll stay here for a while.” The waning rays of the sun set behind the mountains. “We probably got about another twenty minutes of light.”

“Then what?” Julia sat next to him, her voice low.

“As I said, this is a recon. We’ll watch the guard post and the tunnel. I thought the guards on the north side would shut down and head inside when the sun went down. By the looks of things, they’re staying put.” A pine tree close to the top of the hill served as a good brace for his feet so as not to slide down the hill. “They’ll be movement tonight. We’ll watch for that. The guards will be relieved at some point. Maybe someone will bring dinner out to them.”

“You think we’ll be here most of the night then?”

“Probably. Unless something interesting happens.”

“Define interesting.”

“All hell breaks, or a boulder falls off the mountain and lands on the guard post, and we can sneak in undetected.”

Julia settled on her back. “So we’re here for the night.”

“Probably.”

---

“This is a lot harder than it looked.” Under a ledge, a quarter of the way up, Al stopped, pulled his sleeve across his face, then slung his rifle across his back, trying to keep the charging lever from digging into his spine.

“Yep,” Tom whispered back. “We should have known better.” He grinned. “It’s not like we’re newbies at this.” Tom adjusted his AK to a more comfortable position, knowing that as soon as he started climbing again, the rifle would shift back to the same annoying spot and continue to be a nuisance as he moved upward.

Without the moon out, it was nearly pitch black. But they could see—a little. Light from the two guard shacks near the tunnel entrance beamed out their doors and windows. It was enough to see barely. Every foot placed was gingerly set down and tested before they put weight on it. Each handhold wasn’t trusted until they brushed pebbles from the flat rock and validated rock from shadow before pulling up.

Near the halfway point of the climb, the moon began to rise, illuminating the rocky incline. It helped. And hurt. More shadows played with their vision. Off-putting shadows caused them to stop and listen, just in case. The mind plays tricks in the dark. Shadows become armed soldiers until you’re sure they’re only funny shaped rock.

The unnatural straight line of the heliport ledge was Al’s guidepost as he led the climb. It was the only way to tell they were moving in the right direction.

The higher they climbed, the steeper the face of the mountain became. It would never get vertical from their earlier inspection through the binoculars, but it did get more complicated, requiring them to keep three points of contact at all times for safety’s sake.

Something about the ledge twenty meters away didn’t seem right. It wasn't natural. Rock or vegetation, Al couldn’t be sure it didn’t look like either. He squinted, moving his head from side to side to get a better perspective.

Al grunted with recognition and looked down. “It’s the body they threw off the heliport. It’s hanging half on, half off.” He looked again. The body’s head, arm, and shoulder were wedged in a crack near the vertical face. The rest of the body hung over the small shelf.

Tom looked up and right. “I see it. Shitty way to go.”

“Aren't they all?” Al pulled himself up, making his way up higher.

A low whistle caused Al to turn toward Tom. His hand pointed down into the Valley.

A bright light came from inside the tunnel. Two patrols of Afghanis moved out of the tunnel in two single files. One went to the east, and one to the west. The two groups disappeared into the trees and hills.

“Well, that’s a fine how do you do.” Tom looked up at Al.

“Should we keep going?”

Tom looked down into the valley. “Mike will have seen the same thing we did he’ll know what to do.” Tom calculated the remaining distance to the heliport and how long it would take to get back down. “It will take us too long to get back down and help. I say we keep going and finish our recon. Mike will be fine.”

Al shifted his eyes up and down, making the same time distance calculation. “Roger that, let’s keep going.”

---

Behind a tree, on her belly, Julia kept watch on the valley. She looked up at a group of clouds as they drifted past the moon. The clouds and moonlight gave the valley an eerie horror movie look. The shadows among the silent trees surrounding them didn’t help. The guards on the north side made periodic trips from the guard post to the tunnel entrance, adding to the surreal feel.

She had tried to spot Tom and Al on the mountain but gave up. It was too dark, and she had no way of knowing how high they had climbed by now.

Besides the trucks at the valley’s south end, there had been nothing to see in the last two hours. She watched for any movement in the valley below, hoping an animal might come out looking for food. All of it helped her identify one undeniable fact. Guard duty at night, laying on the side of a steep hill, sucked. It was one of the most mind-numbing things she’d ever done. No wonder someone would put a knife point under their jaw.

The guards who moved from one post to another provided brief moments of a break from the monotony. She looked down at Mike. Propped on a tree, his feet prevented him from sliding down the hill. He was asleep. The only reason she hadn’t fallen asleep was gravity. She had to keep pulling herself up to the crest after sliding down through the dirt and sticks. If she had let herself lose focus and closed her eyes, she would have woken up at the bottom of the hill.

The door to the guard next to the tunnel entrance opened. Light poured out. It illuminated the guard as he faced the tunnel entrance.

Men walked out of the tunnel. She counted twenty. They milled around for a minute or two until one took charge. He got them back into two single files. They split, one line walked east, the other west. The group to the east, her side of the valley, moved past the mound Mike and her had occupied earlier. She watched them disappear into the trees. The other group of men moved west into the hills on the other side of the valley.

She took one last look in the valley and slid down to Mike. He didn’t move, so she tapped him on the shoulder.

He jerked up immediately, lifting his AK off his chest and pointing it downhill.

Julia pulled back, not expecting such an immediate reaction.

“What’s up?” He whispered, scanning downhill.

“A bunch of guys came out of the tunnel a bit ago. They stood around for a while, split up, and walked off.”

“Come again?” He cleared his throat quietly.

He seemed upset. She wasn’t sure if it was her or the situation. “Come up, and I’ll show you.” If he was annoyed with her, it was his damn fault. It’s not like he gave her the best instructions when he went to sleep. Wake me up if anything unusual happens, were his exact words. How the hell was she supposed to know what was or wasn’t unusual?

“See the guard post. About twenty guys came out of the tunnel and met there. One guy got them organized, and they split up into two groups. One went across the valley, the other went there.” She pointed to some trees butting up against the mountain, separating them from Al and Tom.

Mike looked where her finger was pointing, then back at her. He breathed in through his nose and then let it out slowly. “You’re right. I didn’t give you a perfect brief on what to do on guard. Next time, wake me up immediately.” He winked at her. “If you’d have read my mind, you would have known that.” He nodded his head sideways and smiled. “Okay, did they have night vision devices?”

She thought back. “Uh… Now that you mention it. The first guy in line kept putting something to his face as he moved. It could have been.”

“That’s good enough, they do.” He looked to the north. “I don’t know if this is a regular security patrol they do every night or if it’s something else.”

“What should we do?”

He turned to the north, then south. “We're going to go get the machine gun, find a nice spot to hide, and wait it out.”

She shrugged. It didn’t sound like much of a plan, but she supposed there wasn’t anything else they could do.

“Right.” He started to lift up to go but sat back down. “Anything else?”

“About forty-five minutes ago, I saw maybe four vehicles stop at the entrance to the valley. All I could see from here were their headlights. I didn’t know what they were doing. I would have told you if they came up the valley, but they didn’t. I thought it was a guard change like you said could happen.” She watched his face grimace as if he had bit into a particularly sour lime. He didn’t say or do anything for a moment, then his eyes opened, and his face relaxed.

He patted the air above her leg and withdrew his hand. “Okay, four vehicles. This changes things. I don’t like to assume, but I like coincidences even less. That patrol you saw makes me think it wasn’t normal.”

“Sorry, I should have woke you up.”

“No worries. I should have given you better guidance.” He rose onto his knees and looked south through the trees. “If they are searching for us, which I think they are, there will be groups down south on the east and west side. Two options. The south groups are moving and will meet the patrols you saw in the middle. Option two, one group will set up an ambush while the other herds us that way.”

“Maybe they won’t start looking until the sun’s up?”

“We can’t rely on maybe. This spot’s no good. The trail that got us here will bring them here.”

“Why don’t we get off the trails and find a spot?”

“It’s a possibility, but the terrain is steep, rocky, and hazardous. When Tom and I were here last, after the ambush, we patrolled all through this area. Going overland would be slow, noisy, and a broken bone waiting to happen. There are only a few trails we can move on. If they’re searching for us, they’ll be on the same ones.”

“What’s that leave us?”

“We’ll get on the trail and start moving south to the machine gun. The problem is we may run into someone moving north to intercept us.”

“You think they’re looking for us then?”

His face took on a hard, scary look.

“I do. I don’t know how Hotak's people knew we were here, but we’ll work under that assumption.”

She had come to the same conclusion, but she didn’t want to believe it. Hunted again. Great. She whipped her head to the south.

A rock bounced and rolled downhill. It didn’t sound far away.

Mike crouched and made a wave motion with his hand. Get over the crest. She lifted and crawled over the top of the steep hill using a pine tree as a handrail. Mike followed, then stopped on the other side. Only his eyes exposed, he watched the direction the noise had come from.

Four men appeared out of the shadows, the path taking them within easy sight of their position. The front man moved his head left, right, and forward. They were searching for them for sure.

Julia's heart pumped a million miles an hour as the four men silently walked by. All four glanced up as they passed. They only saw trees, rocks, and dirt. If they hadn’t kicked that rock, Mike and she would have been caught. And then what?

The last man rounded the hill out of sight. Mike looked over and gave her a thumbs-up.

She responded with the same but didn’t feel all that good about the situation. She watched him stare at the path where the men had disappeared. He looked and listened to see if they were, in fact gone. She couldn’t hear a thing, but he kept at it.

She pulled her head down and looked at her hand. It was shaking. He continued to watch the path with more focus than she’d thought possible. Finally, he lifted his finger in an upside-down U. Over the crest. The finger became two walking downhill, onto the path, and away from this area.

He lifted his eyebrows at her.

She swallowed and nodded yes.

Mike grabbed a sapling and pulled himself up to the top, turning and helping her over. Trying to make as little noise as possible, they reached the path and started south.

---

A quick peek over the rim of the helipad, and Al ducked back down. He hadn’t seen anything that wasn't supposed to be there and readied himself to lift his eyes over the top for a more extended look. The landing pad and the hangar doors embedded into the face of the mountain were all he saw.

Tom climbed up next to him and waited.

Al nodded, directing his eyes up to the lip of the pad. Tom lifted his head over the top and saw the flat open area designed for a helicopter to land and take off. The large hangar doors were expertly crafted. He’d have sworn they were a part of the mountain if he hadn’t seen them open and close.

“What do you think?” Al said.

Tom dropped his head below the edge and leaned against a crag jutting out from the rock face. “I think that was a pain in the ass climb, especially in this stupid ass man dress, and all without much payoff.”

“Agreed.” Al lifted his upper body and scanned again. “I don’t see any cameras, antennas, or any kind of surveillance gear anywhere.”

“My guess is they don’t get a lot of visitors up here.”

Al blew out his nose. “Probably not so much.” He sighed and used his sleeve to dry his face. With his hat, he wiped his scalp dry. Sweat beads formed on his head as soon as he rubbed it. He’d been sweating bullets for the better part of an hour.

Tom was just as sweaty. It had been a long climb in the dark.

“Let’s sit here for a sec, catch our breath. Then we can move up and see what we can see.” Tom laid his AK across his knees and leaned against the rock face.

“Sounds good.”

Al closed his eyes and relaxed, letting a breeze wash over him.

Crack. Crack. Two quick gunshots from below to the south. Al gripped his AK tighter, knowing the shots weren’t directed at them but ready. The shots were too far away and down in the hills below them for them to be the target.

Two more gunshots.

An AK went on full auto, silenced by three more shots.

The hair on Al's arms rose. A berserker yell echoed through the valley. He glanced over at Tom.

Another rifle went on full auto, lasting for half a magazine, if not more. Another long burst followed—two more cracks, then silence.

Neither man moved. They strained to hear, waiting for more. But, whatever had happened was over.

Tom brought his head back and leaned it against the wall. “Sound like Mike yelling?”

“Yeah, I think so. Gave me goosebumps.”

“Me too.” Tom shook his arms and shoulders, trying to shake off the tenseness.

“Maybe…”

A light filled the night above them. Tom got one quick eye over and drew his head back down. An Afghan walked out a personnel door onto the Heliport. The door on the far side of the hangar doors closed, bringing darkness again.

Al felt a tap on his arm. Tom motioned with his hand, one guy walking to their right.

The door opened again. They heard at least two more men follow the first man. The door shut behind them.

Pressed into the rock, Al tried to get small. The first man leaned out to get a look below into the valley. He wanted his rifle barrel pointed toward the three Afghanis but stayed still. They’d let the Afghanis make the first move.

Two of them held a conversation until one of them told them to be quiet. A man leaned out and spoke into a handheld radio. The man on the other end answered in a breathless voice. Another man interrupted, the one in charge gave an order, and the radio man spoke again.

The words meant nothing to them, but they knew a running man when they heard it. Whoever it was was either chasing someone or being chased.

Al hoped Mike was good because he wasn’t likely doing the chasing.

---