The action would begin when the smugglers reached a point directly in front of the Alphas. That was when the Skipper and Petty Officer Connie Concord would take their vehicles into a direct attack on the enemy. The action would be the signal for the Bravos and Charlies to launch their own assaults. Because of the rugged high country to the south, the smugglers would have no choice but to go directly toward one of the SEAL sections if they decided to fight back. That would leave the other two the leeway to play the game in the best way possible, depending on how the battle developed.
But at that particular moment, there was nothing to do. The Skipper sat on the hood of Alpha One sipping a cup of MRE instant coffee. He glanced around at his men in the vicinity. Mike Assad and Dave Leibowitz were playing a brand of pinochle they called Cutthroat ; Malachenko was using a notebook and pen to explain the pronunciation of the Cyrillic alphabet to Connie Concord; and Guy Devereaux lay on his poncho, reading a paperback adventure novel.
Hurry up and wait.
Chapter 21
THE OPIUM TRAIL
21 MAY
0745 HOURS
THE Iranian Army trucks that hauled the opium powder during the trip to Turkey were now empty of the narcotic cargo. The mujahideen who had endured the first leg of the voyage on top of the bundles could now stretch out comfortably in the backs, enjoying intermittent naps interrupted from time to time as the convoy bounced and rolled across the desert on its way back to the rendezvous site.
Two of the vehicles were filled with food and comfort items that were destined for delivery to the people at the stronghold. These would be packed into containers and placed on the backs of the donkeys that the smugglers thought were waiting patiently back at the rendezvous site.
Some new items were among the goods, such as Oreo cookies, butterscotch candy, and small packages of cheese and crackers. These would make welcome supplements to the usual load of potato chips and Pepsi. Bolts of cotton and woolen cloth, sewing kits, kitchen butcher knives, and miscellaneous items of clothing were also among the things purchased by Husay Bangash from the itinerate Turkish peddlers who had accompanied the buyers of the poppy powders.
These sellers' collective profits soared near 1000 percent, but the isolated Pashtuns, without access to legal markets, had no choice but to meet the outrageous prices. The Turkish merchants had a monopoly that afforded them the advantageous position of not having to bargain with their bucolic customers.
The crews on the Toyota pickups could relax their vigilance a bit during the return journey since their valuable cargo was sold and no cash had been given them. The tremendous amount of money paid for the narcotics delivery was still in Swiss banks, but would soon be transferred through international financial institutions until arriving in Tehran. From there, the profit would go to military disbursement centers to meet the expenses of the Jihad Abadi, the scheme that American intelligence had dubbed Operation Persian Empire. Part of the payout would go to the coffers of Warlord Yama Orakzai for his personal profit and expenses. Orakzai Messer would have been angered if he knew what a small percentage of the overall profits he actually received.
Arsalaan Sikes Pasha was in the cab of the same pickup truck he had ridden from the rendezvous site. But his garb was decidedly different for the trip back. The English turncoat was clothed in the proper battle dress of an Iranian combat arms officer. The epaulets bore the subdued black on olive drab insignia of an eight-pointed star that designated his rank of sargord in the Iranian Army. He had also put away his puhtee Afghan cap and replaced it with his old keffiyeh and its aka. Sikes thought the headdress in combination with a Western-style army uniform made him better fit the proper image of a true pasha.
He also decided that those of his Arabs waiting for him back at the stronghold would also return to wearing their own keffiyehs. He had noticed that several of his men had adapted the puhtee as he did, since it served better than the Arab head coverings in the cooler climate of the Afghan mountains.
Sikes, during the hours of riding in the truck, had turned his daydreaming from fantasies of martial glory to the more practical matters of what he was going to do with his twenty-man force that was the remnant of the former armored car company. The Iranian Special Forces showed every intention of allowing them to remain under his personal intimate command, and Sikes wanted to take advantage of the situation. He had every intention of using them as the cadre of an elite strike force.
The first thing to do, of course, was to make it obvious they belonged to him. The outfit needed an impressive name, and Sikes now knew enough Arabic to come up with something. At first he considered Rafir-min- Sharaf (Guard of Honor), but that seemed too plain and commonplace. Any bunch of soldiers marching at the head of a parade as a color party could be referred to as an honor guard. He needed something that would translate into the English language in a most impressive way; after all, his twenty men would eventually be increased in size to at least a brigade-size unit. That meant it would be reported about in tones of awe by television commentators all over the world for decades to come.
Sikes was completely lost in thought as the Toyota bounced across the desert. After nearly an hour of staring blankly and unseeing out the windshield while his creative mind whirled with ideas, he finally came up with the name he was looking for; and it was simple, direct and impressive: al-Askerin-Zaubi the Storm Troopers. He was ignorant of the fact that Adolf Hitler used that name for his Nazi street thugs during his rise to power in pre'World War II Germany.
Sikes' countenance assumed a smug grin as his imagination once more created the sound of a frightened BBC news commentator beginning the evening news that would be heard all over the UK. The upper-class, cultured voice began dancing through his mind as he sat in the passenger seat: The fanatical and elite al-Askerin-Zaubi, the Storm Troopers of Field Marshal Arsalaan Sikes Pasha, struck today at...
There was naught but glory and fame ahead for Archie Sikes of Manchester, England.
.
NORTHERN OA
0815 HOURS
PETTY Officer Second Class Garth Redhawk leaned across the boulder with his binoculars up tight against his eyes. The field glasses were in perfect focus, providing a clear image of the desert out to the front of his position. The young Kiowa-Comanche from Oklahoma was doing what sailors did better than anyone else, keeping watch on an assigned area of responsibility. For Redhawk, this would be the expanse of terrain across which the returning smuggling convoy would travel on their way to their rendezvous site. He grinned to himself, wondering what they would think or do if they knew their destination was a pile of smashed mud structures filled with the battered corpses of their buddies.
Pech Pecheur, sitting down beside Redhawk, leaned against the boulder. He yawned and stretched. Cain't you see nothing yet, Garth?
Just a few dust devils spinning and hopping around.
Pecheur spit. I hate this place. Man! I come from the swamps where things is wet. Hell's fire! Even the air you breathe is wet. And it's hot, y'know what I mean? Like folks has got boiling pots all around.
Well, it ain't like Oklahoma either, Redhawk said. It gets right warm back home, but if that prairie wind is blowing hot and dry on a summer's day, you feel like you're in a furnace.
In the summer in Louisiana, folks say that it ain't the temperature, it's the humidity that's uncomfortable, Pecheur commented.
In the wintertime back home, they say it ain't the temperature that makes it cold as hell, it's the wind, Redhawk pointed out. He pulled the binoculars from his eyes just long enough to blink a couple of times to get some tears flowing for moisture. Anyhow, I don't like mountains no matter what the weather is like. You can't see far 'cause the terrain gets in the way. Out on the prairie, you have almost an unlimited view all the way to the natural horizon.
Gutsy Olson, trying to snatch a morning's nap nearby, angrily sat up. Will you two guys shut the fuck up? It's bad enough sitting out here in the middle of nothing without having to listen to a couple of dickheads carrying on a boring conversation. I wish to hell you'd-
Target in sight! Redhawk interrupted.
Both Olson and Pecheur jumped up and pulled out their own binoculars. They peered out over the desert as
