Chapter 8: The Paper's Gone
Buried Guns and MI-17s
Sweat dripped off Mike’s face onto the sand covered hole in the ground. Salty drops slid into his mouth with each gulp of air. Wet sand covered his hands like new gloves and tried to permeate the knees of his pants. No wiping or brushing could get the wet sand off his hands and knees. Tom was no better off. Sandy, dirty, wet, white salt stains on their clothes, they were miserable, but they were alive and with more guns than they knew what to do with. Better to have the extra guns buried in the ground than used against them later.
Almost ready to go, the machine gun, RPGs, and six AK-47s lay in the shallow grave. It was a better funeral than what the two men would have received. No words were spoken. Tom’s thoughts were the same as his. A shallow grave would have been the least of their problems if they’d been captured.
They didn’t need the guns, and there wasn’t enough ammo to make carrying them worthwhile. Marked by random appearing stones, the cache allowed them to return and recover the weapons. The reality was he wasn’t fooling anyone. They were too small a group to fight anyone with these weapons or any others. They’d got lucky, lucky in the ambush and lucky in the wadi. Sometimes, all it took was luck. They say you make your luck through rigorous training and execution. Either way, he’d take all the luck he could get.
The Afghanis lay where they fell. It wasn’t a hard choice. They deserved nothing better.
The cache behind them, their boots, added two more sets of tracks in the sand. Instead of confident step by step, their boots dragged plowing sand to either side of their tired feet. Mike felt a little better with half the ammo split between them and carrying an extra AK each. His only hope was Al and Julia would be waiting for them next to a couple of trucks.
Dog-tired Mike glanced over at Tom. The big man’s eyes tracked the ground a few feet before him as if looking for a sign. There wasn’t anything to see down there. Now that the intensity had dropped, so had their energy level. The curve in his hunched-over back from the weight of their new weapons threatened to make him trip with one misstep. If they were fresh, the AKs slung on their shoulders would have been nothing, but now it felt like they carried the world’s weight.
Too tired to speak, several things ran through Mike’s mind as they walked, the foremost being, who was behind that ambush? The actual shooters were easy to figure out, hired thugs out to make some spare money by killing. Business as usual. But the who and the why were a mystery. In weary silence, he felt sure Tom was having the same thoughts.
The boulder he’d stood on what felt like a week ago appeared as if out of nowhere. It made for a good exit out of the wadi.
“Stay low. We’ll stay near the edge and take a look in case we have to jump back in.”
Tom nodded.
Mike slowly lifted his head above the wadi and looked over the road. The two burnt out trucks smoldered on the road. Nothing else stood out from the sand, dirt, rocks, and distant mountains.
“Alright.” Mike lifted into a cautious crouch and moved toward the two wrecks. Tom gained the road and ran behind him.
In the back of the first truck, it was a burnt-out mess. All their supplies were destroyed. Nothing was salvageable.
“Over there.” Tom pointed.
The sun reflected off of something. It gave away the ambusher’s location, and if their trucks had arrived now, they would have seen the reflection a mile out.
Without looking back, Mike took the lead. He crouched and crept forward. They cautiously approached the berm where the ambushers had been hiding. At the top, they exchanged a quick look, and both smiled through dirty and chapped lips.
Their legs moved with renewed energy and enthusiasm, their steps almost airy. It was easy to smile at the sight before them. Things had gone their way.
“Not too bad. Three dusty, used, beautiful pickup trucks parked in a row and no bad guys anywhere.”
“Yeah,” Mike grunted. “Except for all the other shit that happened today.”
“I see this as a sign.”
“A sign?” Mike climbed the hood of the center truck, grunting as he stood on the cab’s roof. The metal compressed into a large dent.
“Exactly.” Tom leaned against the truck Mike stood on. “We’ve both got multiple deployments here to include this little soiree. Afghanistan doesn’t want to kill us. It’s making us stronger, testing our fortitude.”
Mike looked down. He couldn’t help himself. He chuckled. “Come again.”
Tom looked up. “We’ve been through some serious stuff here, shit that would have killed normal men, but we survived. Add that to all the other times we shouldn’t have made it, and I’m guessing we’re being tested, hardened for what’s coming next.”
Mike looked down and rolled his eyes at Tom. “Tell that stuff to some newbie privates back at Fort Bragg.”
“Scoff if you want, but a rock caused your front tire to blow out, which caused the ambush to kick off early.”
Hands over his eyes, Mike slowly rotated around on the roof. The road north and south, the wadi, and the rock field on the other side all were empty of life, any life. Pedestrians on this hot, lonely stretch of road would have been unheard of. He kept his eyes open for two specific ones.
“That’s quite a theory.” Mike rotated again.
“I’m quite a man.”
They both laughed.
“See anything?” Tom searched the truck Mike stood on, then moved on to the other two.
“Nothing, yet.” Mike looked over at Tom’s truck. The only thing left of it was a blackened frame. There was no sign of Greg or Ahmad’s bodies. “I never saw Ahmad.”
“He was in the back crashed out.”
"We're going to have to look for Greg's body."
Tom shook his head up and down. “Yeah, I know."
Mike nodded, his hands moving with his head. “Killed a man by choking the life out of him and another by stabbing him to death. One thing I learned.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a lot easier just to shoot them.”
Tom gave a half snort. “No doubt.”
Heat waves rose from the rock field to the north and south. There was nothing else moving out there that Mike could see.
“Anything,” Tom said.
“No sign of vehicles or Al.” He rubbed his eyes with his fingers rubbing his face. Hands shading his forehead, Mike concentrated his search to the west and northwest, where he felt the two should be coming from.
“What do you want to do with those?” Tom jerked his thumb back at two wrecks.
Mike looked over at the two blackened frames. “Nothing.” Turning, he continued to search. “The third truck, we don’t need it. I’d like to burn it, but no sense in sending any more smoke signals.” He glanced down at Tom. “But, the asshole in me says I don’t want to give it back to whoever sent those guys. So, let’s give them a little of this.” He pointed his finger toward the wadi and twisted it. “Drive one of them into the wadi, try and flip it on its roof.”
Tom chuckled. “I like your style.”
Mike’s lips curved up. “Fuck those guys.” He thought about the men in the river bed bloating in the sun. The pools of blood already dried and clotted in the sand and dirt. It could have gone the wrong way easily. It probably should have. The dead men they had left behind had many advantages. What they didn’t have was years of training and experience. They’d probably executed a few ambushes against NATO troops. But, when it came to fire and maneuver, command and control, they were lacking. Whoever they worked for, Mike was sure combat wasn’t their actual job. They were hired to intimidate civilians, kidnap Western aid workers, and the occasional assassination. They didn't understand how to conduct combat operations against soldiers. Well, he grunted, ex-Special Forces soldiers.
Tom picked up one of the three sets of keys, drove the dirty red truck to the wadi, went to the back of the truck, and pushed. The truck started to move. He heaved into it, and it rolled and tumbled into the wadi, landing upside down.
Mike jumped into the truck bed and then to the ground, meeting Tom at the front.
“Nice work.”
Tom smiled. “I aim to please.”
“Let’s see what we got from those guys.”
On the hood of the green truck, they spread out the cell phones, I-Com SAT Phone, and folded up pieces of paper. The phones all had phone numbers in their memories. The I-Com had been shot through and through. It would never function again as anything but a paperweight. The slips of paper he unfolded revealed Arabic-looking writing, none of which meant a thing to him.
The last piece of paper appeared to be legal-sized folded with something inside. The paper had been yellow now, it was brown with dirt and a little blood. Mike gently unfolded it, trying not to rip it along the folds.
The paper opened, and a photo fluttered out. Tom grunted as he leaned down to pick it up. It was a 4x6 inch black and white picture.
Like a statue, Tom stood frozen, his eyes locked on the picture. The longer he looked at it, the more emotions crossed his face. Surprised shock led to dismay and finally to confused anger.
Tom looked Mike in the eyes and handed the picture over. “We’re in trouble, brother.”
Mike felt the hairs on his arms rise. Tom wasn’t a shrinking lily. He looked spooked. Mike took the picture and turned it over. The photo was taken from somewhere near the outside of the compound where they’d met Al. In profile, two men faced each other the third man, in the center, faced the camera’s direction. Tom was on one side, Al on the other, and he was between them smiling.
He blew a long breath through his nose, too tired to get mad.
“What have we gotten into?”
“Good question.” Mike put the photo under one of the phones to prevent it from blowing away. He flattened and laid the paper on the hood. On it was a crudely drawn map of the road. There were black marker squiggles to the left and right with words describing what was there. Mike looked up and followed the road from the north down to their position. The line on the map curved where the road curved through the rocks. He saw elevations drawn on the map where there were hills as part of the terrain. At the next curve up to the north on the map was a spot circled on the road.
Mike put his finger on the spot and looked up. “I’ll bet whoever drew this map wanted the ambush to be at that curve up there.” He pointed north. “But for whatever reason, the group leader placed the ambush here.”
“Eyes on the ground.” Tom looked to the north. “I sure didn’t see them laid in waiting for us.” He glanced back at the map, slowly shaking his head. “They knew we were coming, they knew to ambush us on this road, and they knew it was us, you, me, and Al.”
Mike shrugged. “Yep.”
“This is some fucked up shit.”
“It makes you think someone’s got it in for us.”
“It makes me think there is more going on here than we know.”
“You got that right.” Mike folded the picture into the paper and tossed it inside the truck. “So now…”
One of the phones started ringing. The ringtone was an obnoxious sounding Pakistani sounding song. The caller’s number blinked as the ringtone played until the caller hung up. In English, he read two missed calls.
“I wonder why it’s written in English?”
Mike put the phone down. “It’s not like they can read.”
A half grin formed on Tom’s face. “Can’t argue with that.”
“It would have been great to answer it. I would love to have told them all their guys were dead, but we’re better off them wondering what happened. Eventually, they’ll send someone to discover what happened to their boys.”
“And we’ll be waiting for them?”
“Exactly.” Mike took a deep breath. “I hate to say it, but let’s go back and get those RPGs and the machine gun.”
“And I hate to do it. I’m tired, hot, and pissed off, but it will make me feel good to be on the other side of an ambush.” He looked east. “What about Al?”
“We’ll leave a note telling them to remain out of sight until we return.” Mike looked up at the sun and then glanced at his watch. “We got plenty of daylight to get there and back and hopefully find Al and Julia. Let’s get to walking.”
“You’d think those guys would have planned better, like bringing water in their trucks. Some sun-baked hot water sure would have hit the spot right now.”
“Hm,” Tom said. “I’d rather have a cold beer.”
“Paper’s gone.” Tom casually put the butt of his AK into his shoulder.
Everything was as they’d left it, except the note was no longer wedged between the wiper and the windshield.
How the ambushers could have had possession of the map, let alone the photo, was a mystery Mike couldn’t fathom. The discussion to and from the cache had been heated at times, but one mostly of confusion.
On the cab of the same truck as before, his feet settled into the same dent he made previously. Mike scanned the area, rifle in one hand, the other shaded his eyes. Nothing, but he kept at it. They had to be nearby.
“Hey.” Tom’s arm reached out.
Al and Julia rose from behind a mound three hundred meters to the north.
AK, cradled in his arms, Mike climbed down. “Now that I know they’re safe, I’m looking forward to hearing what Al’s going to say.”
“Like, not everything is as it seems.” Tom placed the extra guns in the cab of the truck.
“Mm-hmm.”
Back in Tajikistan, Mike knew parts of the brief were left out for whatever reason, and he didn’t care. All Mike knew was he was getting closer to his goal, and if Al and Julia wanted to keep some of the information for themselves, so be it. They didn’t have to tell him shit, except where Hotak was. But, now they were compromised, and worse, the bad guys apparently knew who they were, and they were coming, which was going to seriously screw with his mission. That wasn’t going to happen.
Al was all smiles as they approached their Haji clothes wadded up in their hands. The expressions on Tom’s and his faces should have given it away, but no, they kept coming. Julia had lost her shell-shocked look. When they split up, she looked like she was on the edge; now, she appeared no worse for wear. A puzzle for another time, if she recovered that quickly, though Mike’s estimation of her went up a few notches. She was over the initial shock. Maybe she thought that was the worst it was going to get. If she did, she had a hard lesson coming. Either way, he suspected whatever was coming was just a preamble. She said something to Al as they walked, he replied, causing her to laugh out loud. They looked as tired as Tom, and he felt.
Al waved as he got closer, relieved the two men were safe. Their smiles dropped when they recognized the looks on Mike and Tom’s faces.
“Rough one, huh?”
“You could say that.” Mike pushed off the truck, an undercurrent of anger in his voice.
Al took a step back. “What’s up?” He and Julia exchanged looks, all hints of relief gone.
“One chance and one chance only,” Mike growled, crossing his arms. “Did you two hide anything from us? Did you withhold any information or keep us out of the loop for some bullshit need-to-know reason?”
Julia froze her mouth open.
Mike looked at her, caught in a lie or surprised at the question. He couldn’t tell.
Al stepped back another step, his hands up palms toward Mike and Tom. “Whoa, what’s going on?”
Neither man answered.
“No,” Al said forcefully. “No, absolutely not. You know everything we know.”
“He’s right,” Julia said. “We didn’t and wouldn’t have withheld anything from you guys.”
Mike and Tom glanced at each other. Mike pulled the map and photo out of a pocket. “Can you explain this?”
Al took the photo. His eyes widened when he saw himself and the other two men. “Uh oh.”
“Yeah, uh oh,” Mike said.
“What?” Julia took the picture. She frowned. “I don’t understand?”
“We took this and a map off one of the bodies." He pointed at the map and photo. "They knew we, specifically us three,” he pointed at Al, Tom, and himself, “were coming down this road. And they had orders from someone to kill us.”
“But,…”
Al handed the picture back. “It isn’t that great a surprise, I guess, not ideal, but maybe I should have expected it. Someone who works at the base, one of our Afghani Commandos, hopefully not an American, is taking pictures of people coming off arriving planes or,” he took another look, “entering our compound and passing them on to the enemy.”
Mike took the picture. “That doesn’t explain how this picture got here or how they knew we were coming down this road.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“You can see.” Tom reached out and took the map. “Where we might have been a bit suspicious, the thought occurred we hadn’t been fully briefed.”
“I get that.” Al looked at Julia and then back at the two men. “We gave you everything we know. That’s a guarantee.”
Julia shook her head up and down and said, “The only other thing, and I hesitate to mention it.”
“Please mention it,” Tom said.
Al stepped up. “It’s kind of ridiculous.”
“I.” Julia took a breath and started over. “Hotak built an, I don’t know, let’s call it, an operations center for his drug business in the Tal Bez. That’s one way I was able to track him. Anyway, some of the equipment he smuggled into to build his center was unusual. It’s unusual to me, anyway. My forte isn’t drug labs. But much of the equipment was very technical, expensive, and curious. The gist is that Hotak built a very high-tech lab for whatever reason, for whatever his plans are for his drug business.”
“And,” Al added. “He built it in the middle of nowhere.”
“Why he built it, we can only guess, but he does have a large portion of his opium transported through the Tal Bez Valley.” Julia shrugged. “The Director had some of the anti-drug teams take a look at what Hotak was doing. They didn’t have any good answers either.”
“We don’t know who received the picture and set the ambush up. We can focus on Hotak, but we don’t know if he set this thing up.”
“Come on, Al,” Mike said. “Who else could it have been?”
“Was it him, maybe, probably, I don’t know. The Tal Bez is where we’re going, but I don’t know.”
“Something’s not right,” Tom said.
“Clearly.” Mike watched for any signs of deceit from Al or Julia but couldn’t find any. “Something’s not right. I just don’t know if it’s you two, Hotak, or the both of you.”
“No bull, you know what we know. We Haven’t left anything out.” Al paused, his eyes on them. “Are we good?”
Mike and Tom traded nods. “We’re good. For now.”
Julia sighed. “What do we do now?”
“Good question,” Tom said. “You’re the one who’s supposed to be in charge.”
“Hey.”
Al stepped forward. “That’s a low blow.”
“Low blow? Look at this, we’ve barely been on the ground a couple of hours, and the mission’s fucked. We’re fucked.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Yeah,” Mike said. “We do. They know who we are, the route we’d take, and they almost certainly know where we’re going, the Tal Bez.” He picked up a phone. “And someone has called this phone four times now, no doubt trying to get a report of what happened. It’s been a little bit since the last call. By now, they've concluded that no one is going to answer, and the ambush didn’t work.”
“So,” Julia stared pointedly at Tom, steel in her voice. “I ask again, what do we do now?”
It took a lot to stare down a man as big as Tom, and he was always ready with a usually tactless comeback, but this time he stayed quiet. Mike’s opinion of Julia went up another couple of notches.
“Tell them.”
“We suspect whoever called is,” Tom relaxed and pointed north up the road, “is going to send someone to check up on things, and we’re going to blast them when they do.”
“That will solve our most immediate problem, not dying on this road. Our gear is gone, we can’t call for extraction, the locals will turn us in for whatever reward is now being offered, the bad guys want us dead, and any direction we go, we’re screwed.”
“Not any direction,” Tom said.
“I’d like,” Mike said, ignoring Tom, “to take a prisoner, but we don’t speak the lingo, so…”
“We could take a prisoner to Cpt. Amadulah,” Tom said. “He’s only a couple of hours drive from here.”
Mike cocked his head annoyed. “I don’t want to.”
“Maybe it’s worth going.”
“It’s been a long time. Who knows what he’s up to now? He could have been turned.” Mike’s eyebrows lifted as he spoke. “I don’t know if we can trust him anymore.”
“Come on, Mike, you know better than that,” Tom smirked. “You know Amadulah would never turn to the dark side. He’s one of the good guys.”
“What?” Julia looked at the two men.
Mike's grimace offset Tom’s smile. Al shrugged. He had no idea. “Okay, we’ve heard the name Cpt. Amadulah mentioned several times now, what gives?”
“Go ahead, troublemaker.” Mike waved his hand at Julia and Al.
Tom laughed at Mike’s discomfort, pushing their predicament into the background.
“Go ahead, tell them.”
Tom rubbed his palms together. “This is a sorted tale of woe about a poor down on his, luck Afghani boy…”
Mike’s voice rose over Tom’s. “Can we skip the theatrics and keep it fact based?”
Tom chuckled. “Spoilsport.” He faced Julia. “Anyway, Cpt. Amadulah was an actual Captain in the Afghani Army. He was in the U.S. training at Ft. Benning when the Russians invaded. When he completed his officer and infantry schooling, some nice men from the CIA came down and asked him if he wanted a job. The Army he had been a part of was disbanded or had joined the Soviet cause. He was a criminal to the Afghan government. As it turned out, Captain Amadulah did want a job. He went back and joined the Mudj and fought with honor and distinction. Fast forward to ten years ago." He slapped Mike’s shoulder. “We’re on patrol one day, and these three pickups flying Afghan flags drive up to our trucks, and out pops Captain Amadulah. He speaks perfect English, tells us about his past exploits, and then invites us to his compound. Mike ends up building a relationship with him. They had a special bond, you could say.” Tom grinned.
Before Mike could interrupt. “Amadulah provided us with great intel, and we helped him out of a couple of sticky situations with some of the local warlords and the local government.”
“I did do that.” Mike shrugged, his head dropping to the right. “He was a pretty good guy.”
“So Amadulah finds out we aren’t staying until the war ends. That’s not how the U. S. Gov. operates. He does everything he can to get us to stay. One day, he invites us to his compound for dinner and says he has great news. We think it’s the location of some of our HTV’s.” Tom sniffed an amused smile on his face. “We’re climbing out of our trucks, and Amadulah walks out of the main house, followed by a pretty girl.”
“Wait,” Julia said. “How do you know she’s pretty? I thought all the women wore burkas.”
“Good catch,” Mike said. “Women wear burkas. Girls don’t.” Mike pursed his lips. “They don't have a period, so they’re not ready to be women, so they don’t have to cover their faces.”
“Don’t steal my thunder,” Tom said in mock anger. “The girl walks up to Mike, hugs him, leans back, and says, “One, two, four.” She smiles a big toothy smile and runs back into the house.” A big grin spread across Tom’s lips. “Evidently, Amadulah had her learning English. If only I had had a camera. The look on Mike’s face when she hugged him was priceless.”
Al and Julia both smirked at Mike.
“That night at dinner, Amadulah told us the real reason we were there. He was marrying off his daughter to a fine man who would be a great addition to the family.”
Al started to laugh. “Oh, shit.”
“You guessed it. Amadulah thought Mike was the best thing since sliced cheese, so he wanted to keep him around. How better but to marry off his daughter? Mike had it all, a fine wife, farmland full of hearty crops, and a quaint little home on the banks of a muddy river.”
“Right, she was way too young then, and she’s way too young now. That farmland of hearty crops was acres of marijuana and opium. That quaint little home was a dirty mud house a hundred meters from the river and constantly threatened to be flooded every spring. And no, so don’t ask, I didn’t marry that girl.”
“Cpt. Amadulah was pretty disappointed and a little peeved,” Tom said sadly. “He said the next time we returned, he would ensure the girl was still available and ready for Mike. He wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
A broad smile spread across Julia’s face. “So what happened?”
“Tal Bez happened a few weeks later,” Mike said. “Which Amadulah didn’t warn us about, and his info was always solid. It’s always nagged at me. After Tal Bez, we put up with a bunch of static from higher, and then we rotated back to the States. We never went back to talk to Amadulah.”
“It was all very frustrating for me.” Tom’s face turned serious.
“How’s that?” Julia said.
“I’ve never been a best man before. Mike spoiled it for me.”
“Haha, very funny,” Mike growled. “If we’re all done skipping down memory lane, we got an ambush to set up.”
“Whoever made this map had some idea on how to set up an ambush.” Al held the paper up and compared it to the terrain of the original ambush site situated on the diagram.
Mike looked north into the distance. “There’s no place to park their trucks within an easy walk of here. Luckily, whoever gave them the sketch couldn’t account for the ambush team’s laziness. They wanted their trucks nearby, and now they’re dead.” Mike turned south. “Otherwise, flat tire or not, we’d have been screwed.”
The two trucks remained parked behind. They didn’t need them, and the walk to the intended ambush site was short. The road went north for about seven hundred meters until it twisted west. After that, it meandered to the north again. The diagram hadn’t been wrong. It was perfect. The road narrowed along this stretch. To the east, rocky high ground ran against the side of the road and followed it north. On the west side, the rock field edged up to the dirt road. There was no maneuvering room for the trucks. If the Afghanis bailed and ran up into the high ground, they would have had no cover and run into weapons fire. The rock field was a broken ankle as soon as they tried to enter. Most of the rocks were no more than two feet high.
“This is going to be pretty standard stuff.” Mike looked at his watch. “We got a good four hours before the sun goes down. I’m going to send you two,” he pointed to Tom and Al, “with the RPG’s up into the high ground.” He pointed to the series of hilltops to the left. While you’re up there, look for a good covered and concealed spot we can RON tonight. If this doesn’t go off by sundown, we’ll bug out, hit the RON, and figure out what we will do from there.”
Both men tilted their heads in acknowledgment.
“We’ll work through the best case L ambush first, then work up a few contingencies…”
Julia raised her hand.
The three men faced her.
Their questioning look made her hesitate as if she should know what they were talking about.
“RON?”
Mike frowned. “Rest Over Night.”
“Ah.” She cleared her throat. “Gentlemen,” she interlaced her fingers and brought her hands to her chin. “Let’s suppose…” she separated her hands' palms. "I’ve worked in an office my entire adult life. And aside from the only ambush I almost died in, I have no idea about anything. All this, L ambushes, your contingencies, a RON, or whatever you're talking about. They didn't teach that in the university I attended.”
Tom and Al chuckled. Mike looked chagrined.
“A fair point.” Mike lowered his head to her, his hand out, palm up. “I’ll go over everything in detail once you and I are in position. We don’t want to stand out on this road all day.”
“Okay,” she nodded. “Sounds good.”
“Alright,” All traces of humor were absent from his voice. “Julia and I will initiate the ambush with the machine gun. We’ve only got about fifty rounds left. I’ll take out the first vehicle. Once I do, you two hit the second with an RPG. If there is a third truck, shoot it with an RPG as well. You can decide to use the last two RPG rounds depending on resistance after we start. After, we should be able to mop up whoever might still be alive. If there are more than three trucks, we’ll initiate the same as before. After you’ve knocked out the second and third trucks, it will be your call to continue to engage. Otherwise, head back to the trucks.” Mike shifted his head toward Julia, “We’ll cover you, then meet you back at the trucks, and we’ll get the hell out of Dodge.”
After a quick question and answer session to make sure everyone was on the same page, Tom and Al took their AKs and RPGs and made their way around to the backside of the high ground. Mike figured they would be ready in about half an hour. This would leave him and Julia responsible for watching the road; he wasn’t too worried they would see trucks and their dust clouds coming a long way off. Julia would be ready by then. And if Tom and Al aren’t quite set up and the ambush went down, so be it. It wouldn’t be the first time a plan went to hell because the enemy didn’t cooperate.
Settled between large rocks on the side of the road, Mike looked back. Around the bend, he could just make out the ambusher’s trucks. It was a good spot. Their position gave them good cover and an unhindered view up the road.
Julia leaned close against the small boulder to her side, trying to hide in the shadow it produced. She wasn’t entirely shielded from the sun, but it worked well enough not to have to readjust. “That wasn’t nearly as detailed a plan as I thought you might have come up with.”
Mike formed a makeshift tent over his torso, head, and part of the machine gun from some sticks he’d found in one of the trucks and Al’s man dress. The sun was relentless, and putting the shirt up was well worth it. His legs grew hot and uncomfortable. There wasn’t much he could do about that except suck it up. On his stomach, Mike watched the sweat fall from his chin and nose onto the wooden butt stock of the machine gun. The black barrel of the gun pointed straight down the road.
“The three of us have done this type of thing before, a lot. As I said, it’s pretty standard.” He smiled, looking for a response from her. She rolled her eyes. “We all know the opportunities and the limitations in front of us. We said what we had to say, and that was it.”
“What were the limitations?”
“We don’t have the ammo for any kind of sustained fight. The gun,” he patted it, “and the RPGs will be out after the first minute. Two, no matter how many trucks they send, we will be severely outmanned.”
“In that case, why bother? Why not just load up and drive away?”
“If we could, we would, but we're not going back south. There’s nothing there for us, so we go north and run into them along the road. They will have the advantage on us there for the reasons I mentioned, but we won't have the element of surprise.”
“What if they don’t come?”
“The phone hasn’t rung since the fourth attempt.” He looked down the road. “They’re coming.”
They lapsed into silence.
Julia rolled over to look around the rock she was behind. Fully exposed to the sun, she rolled back into the shade. She tried to make her own tent, but her attempts failed to turn out in the fashion she wanted, and she gave up. Next, she pulled the Afghan clothing up, holding it above her body using her rifle as a tent pole.
She exhaled loudly. “Forty-five minutes, we’ve been here forty-five minutes. This sucks. Is it always like this? The waiting?”
Mike chuckled. “Yeah, pretty much. The waiting is hard, but at least we can talk and try to keep each other awake. I’m not too worried about anyone hearing us. We’ll see them coming; if someone comes up from the south, we’ll hear them.”
“Do people fall asleep doing this?”
He turned his body to face her. “You’re not supposed to, of course. I never have. But when you sit in the same position, not moving or talking, and,” he pointed up, “the sun beating down on you, it’s tough. I knew a guy once who would put his knife butt on the ground point up he'd rest the tip under his chin. If he started to nod off, the knife gave him a little jolt.”
Julia scrunched her face. “That’s crazy.”
“You do what you have to do because everyone is relying on you to do your part. If you don’t, the whole thing could fail, and instead of you killing the enemy, you get killed and all your buddies with you.”
“Hmm, I guess that makes sense, but…”
“Shh.” Mike twisted and looked south.
Julia looked at him and turned her head.
A distant mechanical noise approached.
“What do…”
“Hold on.” He continued to listen intently. “There." He pointed south down the road.
Julia followed his finger and saw them. Two helicopters were flying north using the road as a guide. “What kind are they?”
“MI-17”s.”
“MI-17’s?”
He glanced at her.
She shrugged.
“Russian. The Afghanis use them as transport helos, but if you look next to the fuel pods, they have rockets and guns attached.”
Their eyes followed the helicopter’s flight north.
“What do you think they’re doing?”
“Routine patrol? I don’t know.”
“What should we do?”
“Stay hidden. They’re unlikely to see us if we don’t move.”
The MI-17’s slowed. One broke west over the wadi while the other circled the wreckage of their two burnt trucks. The first one flew a twisting route down the wadi, flying a hundred meters off the deck. The other MI-17 flew up, providing cover.
“What’re they doing?”
Mike grunted, shaking his head.
The first MI-17 flew out of the Wadi system and took a high, wide turn, hovering over the burnt out trucks. The second helicopter followed the Wadi system to the end.
“I’m guessing they found the bodies and are following the river bed looking for anyone else. Funny,” he said, “it’s almost as if they knew to look.”
She looked at him as he pressed his lips together, tilting his head.
“You think they might be looking for us?”
“Right now, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were.” Mike pulled the machine gun under his body, getting closer to the side of a boulder. Stay hidden.”
“What about Tom and Al?”
“They’re watching, they’ll know the deal.”
The two helicopters met and flew a slow circle around the wreckage as if deciding what to do. They flew to the south and then banked around north. One followed the other as they flew up the road.
“Stay still as they pa…” Mike didn’t get to finish.
The first MI-17 opened up with his gun on the two pickup trucks the ambushers had left parked, ready to drive away. The 20mm Gatling gun sounded like a long, loud burp. The next sound was the intense noise of the impact on the soft-skinned trucks. Several rounds hit rocks, ricocheting off. Most found their mark destroying the two vehicles.
The first MI-17 continued and flew over their heads north. The second MI-17 gunship zeroed in on his target and fired. Not because he had to, or even for good measure, but because he wanted to shoot one of his eight-inch rockets into the mess.
The trucks exploded, sending fire, smoke, and shrapnel everywhere. He continued north after his wingman.
Mike watched the two helicopters fly off. Once they were out of sight, he stood up. He leaned over and helped Julia to stand.
“Why’d they blow up the trucks?”
“More to the point,” Mike said. “Why were they here in the first place?”
“You did say they could be on routine patrol.”
He sighed, picked up the gun, and rested it on a rock. “The more I thought about it, the more it didn’t make sense.”
“How so?” She slung her AK over her shoulder.
One of the reasons we picked this road to land on was it’s in the middle of nowhere. There are no people, it’s a freaking wasteland.”
“I get that someone sent the trucks and men, that’s one thing, but Afghani Air Force helicopters? I don’t know?”
Mike sat down on a flat-ish rock. “Does it make sense that they would waste time and fuel flying here on some random patrol? No, they were looking for us.”
The sound of a small landslide of rocks and dirt made him turn his head. Tom and Al had just reached the road and walked over. They were covered in sweat and dirt.
“You get the impression,” Al said, joining them, “those birds were checking up on the dead guys and looking for us?”
“That’s exactly what I’m thinking."
“Great.” Tom sat on another rock, a long whoosh exiting his nose. “Now what? It’s a long walk to wherever we’re going.”
Al sat, too. “Wherever we decide to go, we’re going to run out of light in a couple of hours. Food and water are going to be an issue sooner than later.”
Julia remained standing, looking down at the men. “You guys aren’t painting the rosiest of pictures.”
Mike snorted weakly. “She’s right about that. Let’s get back to it. First thing, we’ll check on that truck Tom pushed into the wadi. We'll see if we can get it working and drive it out and back to the road.”
Julia cocked her head at Tom. “Why did you push it in there in the first place?”
In an accusatory voice and sly grin, he pointed at Mike. “He told me too.”
Mike shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“After that?” Al said.
“After that, tonight we drive, or if we have to, we walk to Cpt. Amadulah’s compound.” Mike lifted off the rock. “If we have to walk, it’s going to suck.”
Al stood. “You got that right.”
Tom pushed off his rock. “I hate this fucking country.”
Thank You for Reading!
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