Chapter 4: Meet the Team
And brief the Team
After dropping their gear in their rooms, Al led them down a white hallway to the conference room. Fluorescent lights reflected off the newly painted walls, making the hall almost as bright as the outside.
A door ahead opened, and a man with long brown hair, in olive drab cargo pants, a black T-shirt, and sunglasses perched on his head stepped into the hall.
He was big, Mike noted, gym big and short. If he had to run a hundred meter sprint, Mike guessed all bets were off. But, he was young, thirty’ish so who knew?
“Ah, Bruce.” Al turned back. “Mike, Tom, this is Bruce, the fourth member of the team.”
They all shook hands and traded introductions.
“Bruce used to be a SEAL, Team 4, Right? Mike, Tom, and I all used to be in the same SF Group together.”
“Ah, come on, Al,” Tom said with a smile. “An anchor clanker. What squeal team did you say you were on?”
Bruce lifted his eyes to the heavens. “More Army guys, Al? Come on, man. I keep telling you if you want the mission done right, you got to grab guys off the Teams, not more Army doggies.” Bruce smirked, lifting his hands. “No offense.”
“None taken.” Tom laughed “I remember the time we worked with some of you guys in Kandahar…”
“Maybe,” Al interrupted, “we can save the inter service rivalry nonsense for later and move on down to the conference room.”
“Good idea,” Mike said. Inter service rivalry was usually good natured based on mutual respect, and it typically ended there until someone’s feelings got hurt then things went downhill fast.
At the end of the hall, Al ushered them into a large rectangular room with the same fresh paint smell and harsh lighting. As they sat at the oval conference table facing two white boards two more individuals entered the room and stood next to Al.
The man was an Afghani. He wore his dark hair long and beard closely cut. Instead of typical Afghani garb, he wore jeans, a t-shirt, and a blue Chicago Cubs baseball hat.
Tom glanced at him, a frown on his face, but didn’t say anything.
Next to the Afghani was a woman also wearing olive drab cargo pants and a black t-shirt. Over it she wore an outdoorsy button down long sleeve shirt. Apparently, Bruce and her shopped at the same 511 tactical clothing shop. In her hands were rolled up maps and several thick files.
Al brought the two new team members deeper into the conference room and in front of the whiteboards.
“This is Maheem and Julia. You can guess which is which.”
The woman ignored them as she was introduced and began to tape maps to the whiteboard.
Tom directed an unfriendly smile at Maheem. “Haji, you speak’ee da English?”
Maheem’s eye’s rolled with humorous vigor. “Yeah, I speak’ee pretty good English. I was born and raised in Chicago, so I probably speak it better than some West Virginia hillbilly.”
Tom laughed, and Ahmad chuckled back.
Al dropped his head to the side. “You guys know each other?”
“Yeah.” Tom leaned forward in his chair. “About two years ago, I was doing some contract work in Herat when Maheem, his Ground Branch team, and their Afghani Special Forces guys rolled in. We did a few OP’s together, and then they rolled out.”
“Okay.” Al glanced at Tom, then waved to Maheem.” Give them the down and dirty on who you are.”
“Right. Like I said, I was born and raised in Chicago, but my parents lived in Afghanistan before emigrating to the US just before the Shah fell in 1979. They, my siblings, and I have gone back several times, and relatives have visited us in the States on many occasions. We have family who live in the northeast part of the country. That may or may not help us, but my knowledge of Pashto is excellent, as is the regional dialect for the area we're going to. Also, I was a Marine Platoon Commander and Company Commander during my two tours in Afghanistan. When I got out, I earned a master’s degree in international relations and then joined Ground Branch. Al and I have worked together several times over here.”
Mike looked at Al, his head cocked. “Special Activities Division, Huh? You too?”
“Afraid so buddy.”
“I thought you were some kind of pencil pushing case officer type. Why is this the first time I’m finding out about this?”
Al shrugged.
“I knew something had changed about you.” Mike stared at Al for a long second. “Aren’t you the guy who told me you had a sixth sense about the CIA, even the paramilitary side, Ground Branch? You couldn’t trust them, you said. They were only out for their mission; anyone else involved was secondary. And, you could easily determine when they were lying because their mouths were moving.”
Al smiled. “What can I say? Strange stuff happens and on the scale of somewhat surprised to what the fuck, me being in Ground Branch doesn’t even register.”
“Hmm,” Mike grunted.
Mike faced Bruce. “You’re ground branch, too.”
Bruce nodded but decided to remain quiet. Something was going on with Al and Mike, and he didn’t want to get involved.
“You know, Al, I worked with those guys during clean up after Tal Bez mission. It didn’t go well.”
Al nodded and faced Julia.
The anger that had quelled earlier began to rise. Mike was ready to bust his chops but let it slide.
“Julia is going to brief us up. Are you ready?”
“Good morning, gentlemen,” Julia stood up straight, shoulders back, her hands behind her back. “I’m Special Agent Julia Miles. A little about myself, I grew up in the cave state.” She smiled. “I grew to love the thousands of…”
Blank looks stared back at her.
A formal introduction, give the audience some emotion, and ease into the informal part, almost like it came from a memorized script, but maybe that’s how she talked. Or maybe it was how she was taught to speak to an audience from some kind of seminar. Either way, Mike wasn’t sure he wanted to listen to anymore.
“Missouri, the cave state.” Agitated, she dropped the smile. “Never mind, let’s get started.”
And here it comes. A little self important? Mike sighed and resigned himself this would be a long and tedious brief. He covered the grimace on his face with his hand, elbow on the table. Special Agent Julia came off as a bit arrogant and a know it all, never a good combination.
“I’ll be briefing you on this mission today.” She pulled one hand from behind her back and pointed to the whiteboard with the two maps on it. “This map is the target area, the Tal Baz Valley, and the surrounding area out to about twenty kilometers. The second map is a one over the world. It's called a JOG, and it’s typically used by aviation units to navigate from place to place.”
Tom looked over at Mike and rolled his eyes with a grin. Julia seemed oblivious or ignored them he wasn’t sure which.
On the second whiteboard hung a satellite photo of the Tal Baz Valley and the mountains surrounding the valley. Julia pulled a pen from her pocket, extended it into a pointer, and placed the tip in the valley’s center.
“Our target destination.” The pointer moved to the bottom of the map. “This is one of only two roads in.” She traced the road south out of the valley, through the mountains, and down to a river valley. Once the road passed through the mountains, a large river paralleled it south off the map.
Expressionless, Mike continued to listen and observe, but under the table, his right knee began to bob up and down violently. Did she think he didn’t know this place? The valley where his brother died? How could she not know? Al must have briefed her.
“To the north.” The pointer found the entrance to the valley’s south end and followed the road until it abutted the mountains. “To the north,” she said again. “Is a tunnel leading out of the valley into and around the highest peaks of the Hindu Kush. That road quickly changes direction east into Pakistan.” She brought the pointer down, collapsed it, and put it in her pocket.
She stared at them, Mike felt, for dramatic effect. He heard Tom try to repress a chuckle. It was all he could do to keep his cool. The memory of Paul lying dead at his feet tried to overwhelm him.
“This mission will be what you guys call a sneak and peek.”
Mike sat forward, clasping his hands on the table in front of him. He took a deep breath and looked at Al, eyes drilling into him. Al either didn’t see him or avoided looking back.
”The way I envision this,” she continued, not acknowledging Mike’s attention on Al as she focused on the map. “Our team will fly a CIA aviation helo into the mountains to the east of the valley. She pointed to an area with several dashed lines indicating trails and contour lines so close together they almost merged. The insertion point will be far enough away that anyone in the valley won't detect it. Once on the ground, the team will walk to the valley using one of the existing trails.” She momentarily faced them, then turned her pointer out again, tracing a trail on the map. “I’ve done a time distance analysis of the terrain and estimated it would take two hours to conduct movement, find a good location, and set up an observation post. After that, it is simply a matter of setting up equipment and watching.” She nodded her head at them, her lips betraying the slightest of smiles. “Our job is to locate and identify our target, send back all the information we can gather on him, and wait for the former Afghani Commandos we’ve hired to helo in and kill or capture him. It’s as simple as that.”
As simple as that. It’s never that easy. Mike silently sighed, suppressing his anger. She had no idea what she was talking about. Her enthusiasm was somewhat encouraging, no doubt trying to make a good impression. He couldn’t figure out why she was here in the first place. Tom’s foot tapped his under the table. He lifted his hand but didn’t look at Tom.
“You don’t agree?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Why not?” she sounded offended.
“No.” Mike slowly stood. “I don’t…”
“Folks,” Al said preemptively. “This isn’t a planning session. We can figure out how we will do this after Julia tells us the why of where we’re going.” He turned to Julia. “These guys are the best of the best. Planning and execution are what they do for a living. They will have this thing planned out to perfection when it comes time.”
“Sure, I understand.” Her shoulders sagged, but she immediately composed herself. “As long as they understand, I want the opportunity to offer any advice or input in the planning phase.”
With a broad smile on his face, Al nodded. He turned to Mike. “I’m sure it won’t be a problem, right Mike?”
He felt Tom’s foot tapping his again. “You know, Al, maybe this is a good time for a break, You and I can have a little chit-chat and iron out some things.”
Julia faced Al. “Is there a problem?”
“No, no problem. I haven’t had the opportunity to update Mike on a few important factors. Once I have this, it will go a lot smoother, I guarantee. While I’m ironing it out, maybe the rest of you can go to the break room and have a coffee and a donut.” He looked at Bruce and Ahmad and nodded toward the door.
Julia pursed her lips into a frown, snorted, and walked out, followed by Bruce and Maheem.
Before Mike could speak, Tom stood. “What kind of bush-league op are you running here?” The red of his neck and face made his beard and hair more dark, as if his anger were not only reflected in his skin color but his hair as well.
That was Tom. Most of the time, Mike would let him go. When Tom got irritated at someone or something, he’d blow up. He was quick to anger and just as quick to calm down, but he always had a good point to make, if not a good solution.
“Who was that?” Tom pretended to have a pointer and waved it at the maps. “She did a time distance analysis, and she figured about a two hour movement? Last time we were there, it took the Marines 8 plus hours to move through that same terrain.”
Al’s eyes closed for a second. “I know, I know. You got to trust me on this one. She’s good people. She’s smart, dedicated, she knows every detail of what is going on, and she is more motivated than any of us for this thing to succeed. This is the first time she’s ever had the opportunity to work outside an office, and she’s as enthusiastic as hell to be a part of this. She lacks field time and tradecraft, but I’ve accepted her, so give her a chance.
The crimson abated, but the intensity in Tom’s eyes lingered.
Look.” Al stood and put his hands in his pockets. “There’s a lot here you guys don’t know yet. Julia is an analyst at Langley. She is why we're here right now. She’s the one who found out something is going on in the Tal Baz Valley. We don’t know what. That’s why you’re here.”
Mike stood too. There were a lot of negatives adding up, and Mike wasn’t so sure they could turn into a positive.
“Look, Al. I don’t know these other people, but I do know you, and you’re not giving me that sense of confidence I need to feel. I’m here because of what you offered me. And I’m willing to put up with a lot, but only if. The arraignment we had before I left the States was to find and fix the people who killed Paul. You need us.” Mike pointed at himself and Tom. “You wanted us because of our combined experience in the Tal Bez. Fine, I’m in, I’ll do whatever you need as long as I get what I want. But, you blow us off in Dubai, you blow us off when we landed here, you spring all these other people on me, and then you’re analyst decides to give us some kind of mission brief without getting our input. Come on.”
“ I hear you, brother. Just take a seat for a second and listen.” Al motioned to the seats. “Okay?”
Mike sat. This is the farthest he’d ever come in fulfilling his promise to find the Afghanis responsible for Paul’s death. He’d listen. And if he didn’t like what he heard, he’d make his own decision on what he’d do.
“Mike, of everything you hear today, I want you to keep this in mind. Regardless of everything else, we believe the HVT responsible for Paul’s death is in or going to be in the Tal Baz Valley.”
Mike gritted his teeth and looked at the map, zeroing in on the Tal Bez, the smell of burning bamboo lingering in his nostrils as if it were yesterday.
“Why do you believe,” Tom said, “that some raggedy ass HVT is still going to be in that valley all these years later?”
Al pointed to the files Julia had left on the conference table. “It’s all in there. The Agency has been tracking this guy off and on, mostly off, I’ll admit, for damn near twenty years.”
Mike looked at the files and then stared at Al. There was more. There was always more. He could see it in Al’s face. “No secrets. What else?”
“This is supposed to be, need to know, but you have that need. His name is Ashram Mahmud Hotak.” Al sat on the edge of the conference table. “He is a descendant of the Hotak Empire. His family controlled Afghanistan and parts of Iran and Pakistan, but they were so busy killing each other and mismanaging their empire they only lasted about thirty years.” He crossed his arms and shrugged. “He was born in Kandahar and emigrated to England, where he lived and went to school until 1985. The CIA contacted him after graduation and asked him to go back to Afghanistan to help free its citizens from the Soviet occupation. He became one of their top agents and leaders until some bad stuff happened, and then the Soviets decided to pitch tent and head home. After that, things get a little sketchy. Hotak’s relationship with the CIA went south, and he was involved in a few deaths. We know Hotak was near the top of the Taliban leadership at the beginning of their rise to power, he joined the opium trade, and he’s been implicated in several assassinations, but he’s a slippery one. He moves around a lot, and he builds relationships that keep him out of the limelight but with a considerable amount of power. Whenever we get info on him, it is second, third, or even fourth-hand, but Julia and I believe he is in the Tal Baz Valley.”
Mike and Tom straightened in their chairs.
“Julia and you.” Mike didn’t like how Al had mentioned that little tidbit. He wondered if Al and Julia were linked in another way. It didn’t look like it, the body language from both was all wrong, but it would explain why he was supporting her unless she was on to something. Yeah, maybe.
Al’s teeth and lips pressed together in a tight smile.
Mike let it go, for now, but if the two of them were bedmates, he was out. But… “Who else believes this Hotak is my guy, and he’s going to be in that valley?
“Julie has accumulated a massive amount of data from sources all over the world. She is one hundred percent sure this is our guy, and he is in that valley. I’ve seen the data, and I believe her. Mike, I wouldn’t have got you involved if I didn’t think he would be there.”
“Careful Mike,” Tom said. “His mouth is moving.”
Al ignored Tom’s comment. “She couldn’t completely convince the Director, but he still gave her this task force. Sink or swim, it’s all on you, he told her. That’s got to mean something?”
“Yeah,” Tom sat back, shaking his head. “It means I’m losing my enthusiasm for this mission.” He faced Mike. “The money was too good to pass up, and I wanted to send a few more bad guys to hell if I got the chance. But now it looks like the only way we're going to survive this goat rope is if we don’t go.”
A deep sigh escaped Mike’s outwardly emotionless facade. He looked at Al and put his elbows on the table, his chin in his clasped hands. “What happened to you, man?”
“You guys got to believe me this intel is righteous.”
Tom glanced at Mike. “Are we out?”
Al's voice raised his hands in a half pleading half angry manner. “You got to believe me.” He pushed his open palms at them to prevent them from interrupting. “After our local sources fell through, I sent, on two occasions, Agency owned Russian MI-17 helicopters up there, five-man crews. They’re not just transport birds they are also set up to intercept and monitor electronic and signal communications.” He moved closer to the map. “The first one disappeared somewhere near here, we think.” He pointed to an area well south of the Tal Baz Valley. “We don’t know what happened to it. The second MI-17 we sent intercepted a cell phone conversation here.” He pointed to part of a mountain range several miles south of the valley. “The name Baabaa Afshin was mentioned before we lost contact with them.” He turned back to them, excitement accentuating his words. “This is one of the aliases your boy used when he was a CIA asset and when he was in that valley with you. We lost contact with both birds, but we got that name, and that is how I know you two were the only ones for this job.”
Mike didn’t show any outward sign, but he became more attentive, Baabaa Afshin was one of the names used by the HVT’s from the valley when everything went wrong and Paul died. He wanted that guy. He could almost believe it was the Baabaa Afshin he knew, this Hotak. His jaw continued to rest on his hands. “Lost contact?”
“I don’t know if the birds were taken down by ground fire, anti-aircraft, or if it was simple mechanical failure, but they’re gone. If it were mechanical, the crews would have contacted us as they went down. But I haven’t heard from them, and I can’t get clearance to go there. As soon as we lost contact, on each occasion, we requested a clandestine Search and Rescue mission from the Army and Air Force. Instead, what I got was got a ration of shit from Army brass. Who the hell did we think we were, they said, sending aircraft into a sovereign country without authorization? We don’t have anything to do with the Taliban or Afghanistan anymore, blah, blah, blah. After recriminations galore, Langley gave it the oaky, and they sent out the Search and Rescue Teams into Afghani airspace. They couldn’t find any evidence of a crash site, broken down bird, the crews, or anything else.”
“And the Afghani’s,' Tom said. “Didn’t they have anything to say about us sending a SAR team into their airspace?”
“Who cares?” Al’s finger skimmed across the JOG, covering the distance from Kabul to the Tal Bez. “They don’t have aircraft fast enough to cover the distance and stop us. And, Who are they going to complain to that might give a damn?”
“Didn’t the MI-17s have trackers, transponders, whatever?”
“Of course, but nothing. They didn’t find any trace whatsoever of the two helos.”
“Hmp,” Tom grunted.
“After the second bird went down, some General blew his lid and tried to shut down all Agency missions involving aircraft anywhere near Afghani airspace. I can’t send anything anywhere near the Tal Bez now without direct authorization from the Director. That General may not be in the CIA food chain, but he had some pull, and the Director isn’t prepared to pick that battle yet and allow any more flights. The flight in we’re proposing has been approved by higher ups, to that General’s chagrin.”
Al brought his hands up. “As I said, this is solid intel, and Julia is an asset for us. She knows everything there is to know and has the Director’s confidence. Don’t judge her on first impressions. She will impress you if you give her a chance.” He smiled and put his hands together, shrugging. “I think she’s a little intimidated by you, the mission, being outside of an office, and everything else.” He dropped his hands. “Trust me, she’s good people.”
Mike laid his arms on the table and looked at Tom. “I don’t know the name Hotak, but I do know Baabaa Afshin.” Mike slowly tapped his fingers on the table. “If you think he’s Hotak and he’s there, and you can convince me he’s there, then we go in.”
Tom pressed his lips together and nodded in the affirmative.
“Okay,” Mike faced Al. “I’m relying on your word Al. Your recently less reliable word.”
Al smiled and slapped his hands together. “I knew you’d come around. You’d join the devil himself if it meant getting close to the guy who killed Paul.”
Mike grimaced. “You might be right.”
“Alright,” Al said. “Let’s get everybody back in here.”
In the short time since they’d met, this was the first time Mike had seen Julia look unsure. She walked into the conference room behind Maheem.
He took a seat between Tom and Al. She stood between the whiteboards and the conference table her eyes moving from one man to the next. Her eyes met Mike’s.
Before she could speak, Mike started. “I apologize if I offended you earlier. This valley brings back a lot of memories and stirs up one of the few emotions I possess anger.” Mike grinned crookedly at her. “At least, according to my ex-wife.” It was up to him to smooth things over with her and the rest of them if there was going to be a mission, if he decided to go at all. Which was crap. He was going even if there was only the barest hint the man responsible for Paul’s death would be in that valley.
“Tell us about what you have?”
She stood a little straighter, putting her hands in her pockets. “Thank you. I appreciate that.” She took a breath. “This mission means a lot to me as well.” She nodded at Mike. “I’ve worked on the data in these files for over a year now. I’ve poured my life into this and made a few enemies along the way, but I’m here now. The puzzle is almost complete. All that’s left is to take the information I’ve analyzed ad nauseam and find out what it all means.”
Her enthusiasm returned, damping out any other emotions.
“One of my strengths and why I have risen to the position I have is I am a relentless puzzle solver. When I first understood there was something different happening…”
“Something different?” Tom said.
“To me, every puzzle begins with data, but not all data is related to the puzzle. I’ve analyzed every scrap of intelligence and unsourced information I could find on Afghanistan since the Soviet occupation. Much of it is random and unrelated to anything else, or it is related to something but nothing that impacts the trend I uncovered. What I’ve discovered is a vast number of incidents that seem unrelated, but all have a common thread.” A marker appeared in her hand, and she began to write on one of the whiteboards. “One, the Soviet invasion.”
Mike lifted his hand. “Whoa, how does this have anything to do with our mission?”
“It’s coming,” Julia turned back to the table, then resumed her explanation marker, touching the board. “Two, the United States and the CIA were caught with their pants down and had to scramble to find smart, malleable Afghanis who were capable of receiving the type of training needed and could be relied on to help them take the fight to the Soviets.” She turned her head to the table. “Unfortunately, some of these recruits were more intelligent and less mailable than others.” She turned the marker, drawing the next numeral. “Three, the rise of the Taliban. Four, the Soviet withdrawal. Five, the assassination of Ahnad Shah Massoud. Six, consolidation of the Taliban as the dominant political power. Seven, increase in opium production and distribution in and from Afghanistan. And finally eight, 9/11.” She turned and walked to the table. “These eight things may all seem separate or, maybe, as one consequence leads to another. I believe there is a common thread that links them all. Not geopolitical powers influencing events through their proxies but one organization that somehow has the power to move events as they desire.”
Tom moved to lift his hand to ask a question.
“Wait, let me add a couple of more things.” The marker touched the board. “Osama Bin Ladin, the U.S. invasion, Pakistani political and religious unrest, again the increase in production and distribution of opium, and Afghani warlords seemingly working under one banner in more or less secret or the assassination of warlords not under that banner.” She turned to the table. “As you probably know, every one of these warlords is greedy and selfish, only looking out for his own well-being. But someone, somehow, has united them to work together under the same organization that I became aware of during my research. Unfortunately, no one other than the Director, Al, Bruce, and I believe this organization exists. And unfortunately, the deeper I dug, the more far-fetched it was for people to link seemingly different events to the whole.”
She sat in the last chair at the table. She tried to appear confident and assured of her conclusions, but Mike saw how much her hands shook.
She noticed his eyes on her hands and quickly put them under the table.
“It’s in the small, less seemingly connected events where my belief became stronger while everyone else in my department became less convinced. For example, Green on Blue events,” Her shoulders lifted. “Do you know what that is?”
Mike opened his mouth to answer.
“Of course you do.” She raised her eyebrows. “ I didn’t know at first. You probably know all about some of our Afghani allies shooting Americans. Anyway, they didn’t start immediately after the invasion they came later the most famous was an American Major General assassinated in an apparent Green on Blue attack. The findings determined the Afghani soldier who shot him and wounded fourteen others was unhappy he’d been denied leave, so he took it out on the UN officers who just happened to be on an inspection tour of that particular camp. This assassination piqued my interest because the explanation didn’t jive with the tightened security around the General, his staff, and the other officers. Was the General’s Personal Security Detachment, his PSD, so incompetent that a marginally trained disgruntled Afghani soldier gets off a perfect headshot and then had time to shoot fourteen other people before they could put him down? You guys.” She leaned into the table facing Tom and Mike, “You probably know a lot of these PSD guys. You all come from the same Special Ops background does it sound plausible?” She shrugged and continued the same energy. “Stranger things have happened, right? It could have been exactly as they said it was. But more importantly, it didn’t fit the pattern in Green on Blue incidents or the larger picture of incidents in Afghanistan. So I continued digging.”
Julia pointed at Tom and Mike. “You probably know that while we were there, the CIA and Military monitored cell and sat phone transmissions in Afghanistan. You also probably know they are only partially reliable or helpful. But, I ran all of the data on these transmissions, looking for commonality. Then I looked at all Green on Blue incidents, looking at cell and satellite phone transmissions. And all of a sudden I found one universal trend. In almost every high profile case, a call was made from the location of the shooting to one small inconsequential village.”
Julia paused.
“Well, don’t keep us in suspense,” Tom said.
“After each Green on Blue, a call was made. Every single incoming call came to one of three individual phones in Kandahar. These phones were all located in the same building. The transmissions were short duration, and they spoke in a simple and short code. Shortly after they received a call, someone would then call another phone in the village of Nary.”
“Nary?” Tom sat up straight. He looked at Mike. “No freaking way.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Mike said. “We know it. Our firebase was only a couple of miles away. Nary sits on the border with Pakistan, with only a bridge over the Kunar River connecting the two countries. We’ve been there many times. It is one of the quietest places in Afghanistan. We had a pretty good relationship with the governor and the local police chief there. I wouldn’t say we trusted them a hundred percent, but we never had any issues with the people of Nary.”
“And we had a platoon of our Afghan National Army troops stationed there,” Tom added. “They kept their ears to the ground, listening for any sign of bad guys.”
“You have to believe me, and it might sound weak.” She shook her head in the affirmative. “All the dots connect.”
“Okay,” Mike leaned forward. Her confidence was contagious, and he would listen, but only if it meant he could go back to the Tal Baz and finish his business there. “What else?”
“Never once, that I’m aware of, has there ever been a cell or sat phone transmission into or out of Tal Bez valley. But, about a week before all US forces left Afghanistan, there was a short encrypted call made from that valley to a phone in the United Nations Headquarters in Kabul.” She leaned in farther. “This is when the fledgling idea of a traitor rose up.”
Mike and Tom looked at each other. Tom’s expression showed the same incredulous look he felt.
Julia pressed on, unconcerned by the skepticism she saw. “More dots began to connect. All attempts in the past by special operations and infantry units to go to the Tal Bez Valley or send assets there were always denied. Also, there was a no-fly zone around the perimeter of the Tal Bez Valley, no military aircraft were allowed anywhere near the valley. Someone powerful ensured nothing ever went to the Tal Bez, and it stayed under the radar. I believe politicians and generals in the Afghani forces were involved, but ultimately, someone in the UN had to be making this happen.
Mike shrugged, he wasn’t convinced, but it didn’t matter now.
“Next, over the past twenty-four months, opium distribution has changed in Afghanistan. You may not be aware of it, but most of the opium produced here is shipped overseas by container ship.” She lifted a finger. “But Afghanistan is landlocked, so those containers have to be trucked to ports in Pakistan, Iran, and Turkmenistan to reach their final destination. A year ago, the routes to those countries changed. I estimate about forty percent of those shipping containers are now routed through the Tal Baz Valley, then they are sent on their way to various ports.”
“I’m not a math major,” Tom said, “but that sounds like a lot of containers.”
“The opium trade in Afghanistan reaches worldwide distribution and is a nine billion dollar a year business.
Tom whistled. “Billion, with a B?”
She nodded. “So yes, that is a lot of trucks, and not a single report of a truck hijacked, molested, stolen, or stopped by the police or military, ours when we were there or theirs now, and every single one passes through the border unmolested.”
“You seem awfully sure about this,” Mike said.
“I am. There’s more in these files, a lot more. What I’ve given you only touches the surface.”
Mike stared at her, trying to gauge if she was onto something or if it was all smoke and mirrors. She moved around in her chair uncomfortably, but her eyes remained on him, waiting for any challenge. His eyes stayed on her, looking for any doubt. She stared back with the same determination he cast onto her. He blinked first.
“Okay, let’s make sure I’m clear,” Mike said. “Someone has unified the country’s warlords. It sounds like they’ve consolidated the opium trade, there was a traitor, maybe more than one for all we know, high up in the UN, and all of it is related to one man and what happened to my Team in the Tal Baz Valley.”
Julia shook her head up and down.
Mike looked at Tom.
“I’m game,” Tom said.
“Alright,” Mike said. “We’re ready to listen to everything you’ve got.” He wasn’t sure why the CIA was interested in getting Hotak, but did it really matter?
Julia smiled and reached for the topmost file of the stack. She turned it and opened it in front of them. The file was thick with papers and opened like a book. Exposed, one on each side, were two eight-by-ten pictures. Mike looked at the first.
The hair on his arms raised up.
The Afghani in the black and white photograph was much younger, but he knew the man in the picture was the man he wanted to kill. He shifted his eyes to the second picture and froze. Two Afghans were walking down the center of a dirt street with mud buildings to either side of them. One was his HVT, Hotak. They both carried AK-47s slung over their shoulders. The smaller man smiled at something. If it weren’t for the contrast of the pickup truck next to them, Mike might have thought it was an average sized man walking next to a child. The last time he’d seen the giant Afghani in the picture, he was disappearing into a bamboo grove, firing his machine gun at Mike and his men.
Thank You for Reading!
Wrath’s Pit is a serial story. It is ongoing even as you read. The table of contents, with links to existing portions of the story, can be found at the link below.
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