Now, on a pleasant morning, the junior lieutenant and his vehicles entered the fighting zone, and everyone looked eagerly upward to see if they could catch sight of the Pashtuns. Usually, a silly, grinning face could be spotted peeking over a boulder, or a flash of sunlight would sparkle for an instant off someone's weapon.
However, after ten minutes of travel, there was no sign of ambushers. Khalili sighed, gazing at the lead vehicle ahead, the dust from the road whipping up into the air from its tires. The young lieutenant spoke to his driver. It appears we will have a boring trip this time. Nothing is going to happen. Hech!
The soldier laughed. Perhaps the Pashtuns were garm for their women, eh? They didn't want to climb out of their fleabitten blankets.
Khalili laughed too. So they stayed in their flea-bitten blankets with their flea-bitten wives. Khanda dar!
Another five minutes passed; then suddenly, the vehicle ahead rocked and the engine came to a stop. Steam and smoke came from under the hood. The sound of firing from above could be heard as the two men bailed out of their now-burning car. They had gone only a half-dozen running steps toward Khalil's vehicle when they buckled and stumbled, falling to the ground in bloody heaps.
Cold fear gripped Khalili. This wasn't the way it was supposed to be. Speed up! Zut shodan! Get us through this area!
The driver hit the accelerator and the Volkswagen leaped forward. They went only fifteen meters when they began receiving fire, not from above, but from the front. Several mujahideen were alongside the road, using boulders for cover. They had sealed in the front of the ambush site. The last thing Khalili and his driver saw was the windshield smash as dozens of slugs ripped into the interior of the small truck.
The sergeant in the last vehicle saw that the other three were now shot to pieces. He tried to maintain his calm in spite of the terror that gripped him. Bar gashtan! he said loudly. Turn around! Let's get out of here!
His driver had already started the escape maneuver even before the sergeant ordered it. The little vehicle whipped into the opposite direction of travel, but they met the same fate as the junior lieutenant. The rear was sealed in too. A trio of mujahideen stood brazenly in the middle of the road, blasting the doomed car with rapid bursts of full-automatic fire. The driver and sergeant died instantly as their shot-up Volkswagen went off the road and crashed into a stand of large rocks. It rolled over instantly, bursting into flames.
Arsalaan Sikes made his way from the firing site down into the kill zone on the road. Naser Khadid and Khusahal Shinwari followed closely. Shinwari looked in wonder at the killing and destruction that had taken only seconds to be executed. Khadid was also impressed. Well done, Sikes Bey.
Sikes looked at them and grinned. Now that, mate, he said, is wot is called a bluddy ambush.
Chapter 14
TALIBAN VILLAGE
GHARAWDARA HIGHLANDS
29 APRIL
0330 HOURS
ARSALAAN Sikes damned the lack of modern equipment as he huddled on the hillside looking down at the village nestled across the valley. He could barely make out the shadowy forms of the stone houses where a population of some 150 people lived. It was estimated that no more than thirty to forty of the Taliban males were of warrior age in the community; perhaps even fewer. At the moment, the desperate villagers were in hiding from the Afghan Army and had only established the primitive hamlet a couple of months earlier.
From his position, Sikes would have to go some twenty-five meters down a steep slope, cross an open space a hundred meters across, then head up another incline to reach the dwellings. Captain Naser Khadid, the Iranian SF officer, was beside him, leaning his elbows on a waist-high boulder while using a pair of French night-vision binoculars to study the target area. After a couple of minutes, he handed the field glasses to Sikes. You will see better with these, Sikes Bey.
Thanks, Cap'n Khadid, the Englishman said. He took the devices and sighted through them, the green and black images of the village buildings now easy to discern through the lenses. That ain't too bad a place to defend if you're in a small-arms fight. But anybody with proper mortars or RPGs could knock the bluddy walls down about their ears.
Too bad Orakzai Mesher wouldn't lend you any of his, Khadid said.
He wants to give me a bit of a test, hey? So he says to himself, 'Let's see what this here Inglizi bloke can do. I'll send him out to a fortified village without no heavy weapons and let him have a go at it.'
Except he probably referred to you as an Angrez, Khadid pointed out. That is the Pashtun word for Englishman.
Bloody shit! Sikes complained, taking the binoculars from his eyes. Another fucking language I got to start fretting over.
I noticed the ten Arabs you sent across the valley all have hand grenades attached to their field-belt suspenders, the Iranian captain remarked. I hope none of them fall off and detonate. That would betray our presence here in a most emphatic manner.
Not to worry, Sikes said. Them grenades is French F-Ones. The pins don't come out with a straight jerk. They got to be twisted, then given a good tug. A bit of a safety feature.
Are they fragmentation-type? the Iranian inquired.
Right, Sikes said. The F-Ones is plastic with the perforated frags on the inside of the case. And you can count on a good bit of concussion from the bleeders, yeah? He checked his watch. I'll give the lads until the sun just starts peeping over that mountain to the east. The minute the first bit o' light gives us a good view, I'll start me plan going, hey?
He had deployed the remaining ten Arabs with five on each side of where he was now situated. There were also fifty Pashtuns from Orakzai's band spread out along the same area that looked across at the village. The other Arabs, under the command of the ever-faithful Warrant Officer Shafaqat Hashiri, were now making their way across the valley a hundred meters to the east as they headed to their assigned fighting position.
I am most curious as to how you plan to run this battle, Sikes Bey, Khadid said. Especially since we are not a group who has fought together before.
I don't tip me hand to nobody till everything's over and done with, Sikes said. By the by, Cap'n, the noise discipline o' them bleeding Pashtos is fucking horrible. Wot the hell can I do to fix that and a few other things that need correcting?
One must remember they are not soldiers, Khadid said. The Pashtuns are warriors. Giving advice and explaining things very politely will help you get your way much better than trying to administer brutal discipline.
Sikes chuckled. So putting me boot up a few bums won't get me shit, hey?
Listen to me, Sikes Bey, Khadid said seriously. Never never never strike one of them whatever you do. That would be something that their culture demands be avenged immediately with the greatest prejudice possible.
It sounds like they'd kill over getting a punch-up.
Indeed, Khadid said.
A clack of rocks behind them attracted their attention, and they turned to see Khusahal Shinwari walking up. The field commander of the Pashtun fighters joined them, squatting down. All my Peshto brothers are in position.
Thanks, Shinwari Effendi, Sikes said politely. You made a bit o' noise coming up here, yeah? We should be careful about that. But I don't think nobody in the village heard you.
I shall inform my men to take great care in that regard, Shinwari said. It is an excellent suggestion on your part.
Well, now, Sikes said, I appreciate that.
Shinwari asked, Are your Arabs in place now?
Half are, Sikes replied. The ones going to other side of the valley will need another half hour at the most. When they get there, they'll be up on that ridge just above the houses.
Shinwari gazed through the gloom. Wabakhsha, but how can they fire effectively from up there?
.
0551 HOURS
THE sun showed red over to the east even though the fiery orb was still below the mountains. The daylight
