The Ghost War

Wells wondered how much smaller it would get.

He leaned back against the wall and tried to orient himself. When he looked back the way he’d come, he could see a pinprick of light — or more accurately, a slightly paler shade of black. The outside world was at most a hundred yards off, but it seemed much farther away. Wells’s pulse quickened. Twice in college he’d gone spelunking. But those had been afternoon trips into the White Mountains with a half-dozen friends and a guide, not excursions into the heart of darkness.

Don’t be dramatic, Wells told himself. If he needed light, he had his headlamp, and a flashlight too, a tiny Maglite hooked to his belt. He closed his eyes and thought back to his days playing linebacker in college, watching the quarterback’s eyes, knowing where the ball was going even before the receivers did, stepping in front of the errant pass and in a few seconds turning the game inside out, the big men on the other team trying to reverse course, all that momentum heading the wrong way as Wells cruised down the sideline to the end zone. Six times in four years he’d returned interceptions for touchdowns. Wells opened his eyes and found that his heart had slowed to its usual pace, forty-eight beats a minute. His fear was gone and he knew he’d be calm for as long as he needed.

The good news was this cave ought to be easy to navigate. The men who used it wanted shelter, not excitement. Its most dangerous passages should be walled off. And knowing that he might have to fight underground, Wells had come prepared with two special pens. One marked rocks with a fluorescence visible in the dark from hundreds of feet. The other gave off a glow visible under a special ultraviolet light he carried. If the tunnel got complicated, Wells would use the pens to mark his return path.

Besides the pens, Wells carried glowsticks and two high-intensity flash-bang grenades, concussive bombs designed to stun rather than kill. The flash-bangs, a more powerful version of the ones that police carried, had two big advantages over standard high-explosive grenades. They kicked up less shrapnel, and they wouldn’t collapse the roof of the tunnel and trap Wells inside the mountain.

Wells also carried an expandable rubber-coated titanium baton, the caver’s equivalent of a blind man’s cane. But he hadn’t bothered with more traditional spelunking equipment, like climbing gear or rope. He had already decided he would turn back if he reached a passage he couldn’t navigate with his hands.

The air in the cave was cool, almost clammy, but surprisingly fresh. The tear gas was gone. Ventilation shafts must connect the cave to the surface, Wells thought. In the distance, water trickled faintly, an underground spring. Air, water… if they had food down here, guerrillas could hide in these tunnels indefinitely. As long as they didn’t go crazy.

Then, somewhere in the distance, Wells heard a hacking cough that started and stopped like a sputtering engine. The sound of a man who was torn between the need for silence and the even more powerful instinct to force out every molecule of tear gas inside him. The coughing went on a few seconds more, then stopped for good. But Wells had heard enough to know he was on the right track.

Baton in hand, Wells edged forward, deeper into the darkness. Rushing would only hurt him now. Either this passage led to a much larger network of tunnels, in which case he couldn’t possibly catch the man ahead of him, or it dead-ended and his enemy was waiting. In that case, silence, not speed, was his most important ally.

Meanwhile, Wells would keep his headlamp dark and hope to sense changes in the layout of the tunnel without seeing them. He would trust his balance, try to handle the curves of the tunnel the same way he felt 1-95 under his bike at 125 miles an hour. Of course, he might wind up crawling into a crevasse. But if the man ahead of him was preparing a trap, silence and darkness would be Wells’s best hope.

The passage twisted right. Wells touched the baton against its walls and ceiling to be sure it hadn’t forked somehow, then edged forward again. A few yards farther on, the tunnel tightened and dropped steeply. Wells tucked his knife sideways into his mouth, his teeth clenched around the rubber handle, and crawled forward inch by inch. He was glad he’d chosen the thin bulletproof vest. A flak jacket would have been uncomfortably tight. The passage here was four feet wide, not quite as high, just big enough to give him space to turn around and crawl back out if he needed to. But if it became much tighter, he would no longer have that option. Had he missed a fork somehow? Was he lost already?

Wells reached for his headlamp — and again pulled his hand away. The ceiling and walls here were still smooth, proof they’d been bored out over the years. He had to trust he was on course. He began to crawl again. He’d never been anywhere so dark. Unmoored from light, his eyes made their own world. White flashes and red streaks darted through the blackness like fish. Wells took a chance and lit up his watch, cupping his hand over the glowing dial. 2130. He’d been in here barely twenty minutes. He would have guessed hours.

Already the T-shirt under his bulletproof vest was damp with sweat. A maddening rivulet of sweat trickled down his nose. He wiped it off twice and then gave up. The burn in his right shoulder worsened steadily. Wells wondered whether the injury would betray him in close combat.

Every couple of minutes, Wells stopped to listen. But he heard only a distant trickle of water. Then he lost even that comfort. Silence and darkness entombed him.

Crawl. Wait. Listen. Nothing.

Crawl. Wait. Listen. Nothing.

Crawl. Wait. Listen. Something.

A scraping in the distance, the sound of a man moving. After a few moments, the noise stopped. Wells crawled on, faster now, but doubly careful to move in silence. At last the tunnel flattened. When Wells stopped again, he felt that the air had changed, freshened somehow. Which meant that ahead of him this tunnel opened up into some kind of cave. And there he’d find his quarry.

Wells moved forward, confident now. His adrenaline surged, a natural high stronger than any drug, strengthening and focusing him. The burn in his shoulder faded. Far better to be the hunter than the hunted.

Yard by yard, the tunnel widened out. Again Wells heard scraping. He unholstered his Makarov.

Then he saw the light — a hundred yards ahead, maybe less. Wells raised a hand to shield his eyes, which had grown used to the darkness. A flashlight, shining down the tunnel toward him, though the beam didn’t reach him directly because of the curve of the tunnel. Wells flattened himself against the rocks and waited. If he’d been seen, the shooting would start soon enough.

But instead of shots, he heard a voice. No, voices. Two men, speaking a language Wells didn’t immediately recognize. Not Arabic or Pashto. Certainly not English. The words were muffled, but the men seemed to be arguing. The light snapped off, on again, off again. Then a word rang clearly through the darkness. “Pogibshiy.” Russian for “lost.”

Wells realized he’d caught an incredible break. These men weren’t Taliban guerrillas. They were Russian, hard as that was to believe. And they were confused. They’d reached a junction, and they didn’t know which path to take. One probably wanted to give up, crawl out and take his chances with the Special Forces. The other wanted to push on and risk getting lost forever. Or maybe just sit tight, wait, and come out in a day or two. But the first man feared that the SF would dynamite the cave entrance and again they’d be stuck.

Because they couldn’t agree, they’d given away their position with their fighting. A stupid mistake, born of fear.

Now that he knew that he faced two men, prudence — that word again — dictated that Wells turn around, crawl out, and wait. In a space as confined as this, they could easily overpower him even if he surprised them. But what if they didn’t come out? What if they went deeper into the cave? They would either find another path out or die in here. Either way, Wells would lose the chance to interrogate them.

And Wells wasn’t willing to lose that chance. He needed to know who’d sent them. The Talibs, brutal as they were, were fighting for their God and their country. These Russians were nothing more than mercenaries, killing American soldiers for money.

Forget prudence.

WELLS CRAWLED FORWARD, Makarov in his hand, flash-bang grenades on his hip. He’d left the baton behind. It was useless to him. He moved fast now, as fast as he could. Which wasn’t all that fast. The tightness of the tunnel restricted him to a crablike scuttle. But he figured he’d reach the end of the passage in less than a minute, and then—

Then he tripped.