STATION BRAVO, BAHRAIN
SATELLITE PHOTO ANALYSIS
0945 HOURS
THE operator, a young Army specialist, set the photograph on the scanner, then settled down at the computer. He grabbed the mouse, sliding the arrow to the correct icon. A couple of clicks opened up the program and the image appeared. He took another look at the photograph that had been sent over from the USS Combs. The circle drawn over the area of interest was almost in the exact center, and the specialist was able to quickly locate it on the screen. Now, after a few right clicks on the mouse, it had been enlarged ten times.
Ma'am! he called out.
The captain in command of the section walked over and took a look at the screen. What are we supposed to see?
According to the request, they want that dark strip analyzed.
Take it up four times more and print it out, she said.
The specialist followed the instructions and sent it to the Hewlett-Packard color printer on the other side of the office; then, he walked over to wait for the result. It took a full five minutes for the picture paper to come out. He picked it up and took it back to the captain. What do you think it is, ma'am? he asked.
She gave it a full five-second study. It's a road.
That's what I think.
What area is this? she asked.
It's the salt marshes in southeast Iran, the specialist said. They border Afghanistan, sort of spilling over into it.
Well, hell, the captain said, it doesn't mean shit to me. Package everything up and put it into distribution for the Two-Shop.
I wonder why somebody would put a road through a salty swamp, the specialist mused to himself.
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PASHTUN STRONGHOLD
GHARAWDARA HIGHLANDS
1300 HOURS
YAMA Orakzai, commander in chief of the Pashtun Rebel Army, lounged on the sofa in the roomy cave he used as a combination headquarters and living area. His deputy commander, Khusahal Shinwari, was equally relaxed in a nearby recliner.
Orakzai was dressed in a manner he had used for more than a quarter of a century. He wore a puhtee cap, an olive-drab slipover woolen military sweater, and green baggy bakesey pants. A pair of American Army boots liberally covered with waterproof dubbing completed his ensemble. His pipe bowl was filled with his favorite khartumi tobacco that the opium smugglers always brought him after making a run across Iran and into Turkey. He puffed absentmindedly as he gazed out the small opening of the cave.
Shinwari was a hundred-percent native in his bakesey shirt and trousers. They were in the gray color that the Pashtuns considered the best camouflage when operating in their native mountains. A leather belt with pouches for cartridges was worn across his right shoulder. His feet were shod in chapati sandals with strips of blanket wrapped from ankle up to mid-calf as leggings. All in all, a stranger would not be able to tell these highest rankers of the PPB from their most subordinate mujahideen.
Neither had spoken for the best part of a half hour before Shinwari stretched languidly, saying, The Iranians have been strangely standoffish lately, na?
Mmm, Orakzai said. They need time to complete their preparations.
They are almost Western, Shinwari complained. They do things in careful phases, moving like donkeys picking their way through mud.
We need not worry about how many months or years they take, Orakzai said. You must keep in mind that we are no longer harassed by their soldiers when we carry the prepared opium powder through the north.
That is an advantage, I admit, wror, Shinwari agreed, addressing him as brother. But it takes the excitement out of the journey. There is no chance to kill anybody, and the young men now come back bleary-eyed from boredom. He grinned over at his chief and best friend. I am surprised by your calmness. You have always thirsted for action.
Orakzai put another match to his tobacco. I admit some impatience with this waiting around.
YAMA Orakzai was sixteen years old in 1980 when the Soviet Union invaded his native Afghanistan. He had been a schoolboy in Kandahar after being plucked from his native village during a campaign to bring Pashtun youths into the cities for education. The idea was to return them to their people as intellectual superiors who would lead their people to modern civilized ways. Ironically, this was part of a Communist program, and the courses of instruction were heavy with political indoctrination.
The trouble started when the Soviet Union became furious when their handpicked leader of Afghanistan, Mohammed Daoud, began easing out of their sphere of influence toward neutrality. The local Khalq Communist Party was also seriously concerned. They sought Soviet aid and support to organize a coup. The Khalq won the short, vicious rebellion and executed Daoud. The new leader, Nur Mohammad Taraki, took the country back into a Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist way of life. However, because of the now-strong presence of the Soviets in all levels of government, the population, particularly the Pashtuns, became convinced the regime was being run by foreign infidels.
Armed revolt broke out in several provinces, and the Afghan Army responded. However, because of the unpopularity of the government, mass desertions soon plagued the officer cadre as the holy war expanded, making their effectiveness fade at a rapid rate. Within a short time, what the Soviets feared the most began to happen. A Communist government was going down the tubes. They began moving troops into Afghanistan to put a halt to the revolution. From that point on, the situation escalated into an all-out, deadly guerrilla war.
Orakzai, like many of the schoolboys scattered throughout the national education system, ran away and headed for his home village to melt into the craggy mountains. He joined a mujahideen group that was typical of the resistance. Young boys and men from adolescents to graybeards started out with privately owned weapons, gradually building up more state-of-the-art arsenals by looting the dead Soviets who fell victim to their style of fighting. These mujahideen gave battle only when they had the advantage, and withdrew when they were outgunned and outnumbered. The American CIA came on the scene and began giving more weapons, ammunition, clothing, medical supplies, rations, and anything else the mujahideen needed to carry on their insurgency. The CIA also saw to it that these separate groups quickly began affiliating in spite of political and religious differences. The mujahideen united under the single mission to push the Soviet Army out of Afghanistan.
Orakzai proved to be an able fighter and valuable to his commanding officer because of his education. He could do math, work out distances and routes on maps, and thanks to his schooling, he had a working knowledge of the Russian and English languages that gave him the ability to read captured Soviet technical manuals. Within a short time, he went from fighter to small-unit leader, planning and leading raids and ambushes. By 1985, he was twenty-one years old and a senior officer with over two hundred fighters under his direct command. When the UN mediated an agreement that was signed on 14 April 1988, the twenty-four-year-old Yama Orakzai was the overall commander of his mujahideen group.
After the Soviet Army pulled out, fighting between moderates and the fundamental Islamics of the Taliban broke out. Orakzai was a moderate in this civil war, and when the Tal-iban won control over ninety percent of the country in 1998, he took his band and all his people up into the Gharawdara Highlands.
Orakzai and his people did not stagnate in this self-imposed isolation. They easily got into the opium trade as smugglers, taking the illegal cargo to the markets in rural Turkey for sale to European crime organizations. The money was excellent, providing items of survival, comfort, and war. When the Taliban was beaten down, Orakzai saw it as an opportunity to take over the western part of Afghanistan for the Pashtuns. But the events of 9/11 caused his plans to hit a difficult snag. Armed forces of an international coalition were roaming the country, tracking down Islamic terrorist groups. Their various operations and missions made it difficult for him to organize any sort of revolution. After a couple of years, it began to look impossible.
Then he came into contact with hard-ass Special Forces soldiers of the Iranian Army.
Chapter 11
