try again tomorrow night.'
'What if more than one guy shows up?' Jim Cruiser asked.
'Don't make contact in that case,' Brannigan said. 'We'll try again. If there're two of 'em, the next time we'll take a chance. But not now.'
'Gotcha, sir,' Cruiser said. He checked his watch. 'Hell! We've got time for a two-hour nap.'
.
VILLAGE RUINS
9 AUGUST
0100 HOURS LOCAL
BAS HAR Abzai led his group of ten mujahideen into the rubble to set up for another period of waiting and watching. During the hike to the site, which started late because he had so much trouble rounding up the men, he had begun to wonder if this was some useless situation that wasn't going to amount to much. They really didn't have a lot of solid information to go on except a confession tortured out of a frightened man. Abzai wasn't so sure about that method of interrogation. He'd seen it a lot in the past, and most prisoners would end up saying anything, if only to get the awful pain to stop. But just the same, he had brought along an old Russian flare pistol and a half dozen star shells in case there was some validity to the situation.
After he placed everybody into proper firing positions, he settled down in one of the higher piles of rubble so he could keep an eye on everything. As he sat there, Abzai began to think about his promotion to sergeant. That was the first time he had ever heard rank mentioned in the warlord's band. Most people were called by whatever their jobs happened to be at a particular time. There were patrol leaders, senior guards, snipers, bombers and all that. Warlord Durtami had made him a sergeant. Abzai wondered if that meant a raise in his share of the money that was divided among the mujahideen when they sold the poppy gum, or ransomed hostages.
He looked out over the terrain to their front. He couldn't see a blessed thing. The darkness was as deep and black as the inside of one of the caves up in the mountains. They would have to rely on sounds if they were to catch anybody. He suddenly remembered the flare pistol, and loaded it. At the first disturbance, he would fire it off so he and his men could at least see what was going on for fifteen seconds or so.
A sudden snort, followed by snoring, broke the silence of the night. Abzai angrily got to his feet and stumbled toward the sound. He found one of the men leaning back against an old hearth, sleeping.
'Wake up!' Abzai exclaimed angrily, kicking him hard. 'Ow!' the mujahideen said. He got to his feet. 'I shall cut your throat for that!'
'And the warlord will cut yours!' Abzai sneered. 'Are you forgetting I am a sergeant by his personal command?'
The fellow rubbed his sore leg. 'I do not even know what a sergeant is.'
'It is a rank of authority,' Abzai said, 'like in the army, understand, bumpkin? And if you fall asleep again, I shall turn you over to Hamid the Jailer. Is that what you want? He can give you pain that is a thousand times worse than what you feel now. Shall we go see Hamid when we get back in the morning?'
'Na,' the man said, shaking his head. 'I will not fall asleep again.'
'See that you don't,' Abzai said.
He went back up to his own position to continue the night's waiting.
.
SEAL CP
0155 HOURS LOCAL
LIEUTENANT Jim Cruiser led Chief Gunnarson and Puglisi over to where the skipper and Senior Chief Dawkins sat in the rocks. 'We're ready to move out, sir.'
'You're going to have to play it by ear,' Brannigan cautioned him. 'That defector may be one of those nervous nellies who'll shoot first and ask questions later.'
'Unless he has a night vision capability, we'll have a distinct advantage over him,' Cruiser pointed out. 'See you later. If nothing happens, we should be back here by oh-five-thirty.'
The three-man contact team moved through the defensive perimeter and down toward the valley.
.
VILLAGE RUINS
0230 HOURS LOCAL
AS soon as the bombed-out village was spotted via the night vision goggles, Cruiser ordered Chief Gunnarson and Puglisi to hit the ground. 'Have you got anything in that M-203?' the lieutenant asked.
'HE, sir.'
'Good,' Cruiser said. 'You two stay here. I'm going to move a little closer. If I receive fire, cut loose with that HE grenade. I'll pull back while the bad guys duck their heads.'
'Aye, sir.'
'Then we'll make a firing withdrawal for only a few seconds,' Cruiser said. 'When we stop shooting, we'll move directly down the valley to the south. They won't be able to see which way we've gone. Everybody understand?'
'Affirmative,' Chief Gunnarson replied.
Cruiser moved slowly toward the village, glad he didn't have to worry about being a silhouette because of the mountain behind him. A movement in the shadows off to one side caught his eye. He waited. Then it moved again. He eased toward it for another ten meters before kneeling down. Suddenly the sounds of somebody urinating could be heard. It stopped, then the figure moved from right to left.
'Pinze!' Cruiser said loudly, uttering the number five in Pashto as per the challenge.
Instead of a password in reply, the area to the front exploded with gun flashes. Bullets split the air around the SEAL and he went all the way down to the ground. The belch of Puglisi's grenade launcher broke into the din, and within seconds a detonation and a scream were heard.
The lieutenant had his CAR-15 set for automatic bursts of three rounds, and he stayed low as he scrambled backward. He didn't want to fire, knowing that the muzzle flashes would betray his position. When he reached Gunnarson and Puglisi, they all leaped up and turned to rush southward to break contact.
Then the star shell suddenly detonated overhead, its flare floating down under a parachute.
The SEALs went to the ground, turning to face the enemy in the stark glare. The mujahideen were more warriors than soldiers. They shouted Islamic slogans, leaping from the ruins, running at the SEALs. Puglisi had reloaded his M-203, and he lobbed another HE grenade at the enemy. He then joined in the fusillades from Cruiser and Chief Gunnarson that were ripping into the charging Pashtuns. A half dozen of them jerked under the impact of the bullets before collapsing to the ground. The flare burned out and the gun flashes died off.
Cruiser led his two men down the valley rather than straight back west toward the mountains, the way the mujahideen expected them to go. The sounds of bullets zipping and crunching the ground to the north showed that the ruse was working.
Another flare opened up and the Pashtuns caught sight of the SEALs once again. They resumed their wild assault, blasting out inaccurate volleys while running at the Americans. The bullets of two CAR-15s and an M-16 whipped back and forth into the last four mujahideen, knocking them sprawling to the dirt.
The latest flare went out and the sudden silence was overwhelming.
'I think that was all of them,' Gunnarson said.
Cruiser had started to reply when a third flare went off above them. But this time there was no more firing. The lieutenant looked toward the village. 'Goddamn it! There's some son of a bitch up there with a flare pistol?'
'I'll take care of him,' Puglisi said. He turned back to his trusty M-203 and fired a trio of HE rounds up into the rubble. Three widely spaced explosions quickly followed the last one just as the flare went out.
The SEALs waited for another illumination device, but twenty minutes went by with nothing lighting up the darkness. Cruiser signaled for the others to follow as he moved off toward East Ridge and the rest of the platoon.
Up in the village, a very frightened Bashar Abzai cowered in the rubble, determined not to fire the flare pistol again.
.
0315 HOURS LOCAL
