The Ghost War

being jammed into an AK-47 echoed down the tunnel.

At the end of the tunnel, the flashlight clicked on. This time the Russians wouldn’t fire blindly. They started shooting in short bursts. A rock fragment cut Wells’s cheek, under his eye, and blood flowed warm down his face.

But now Wells could aim too. He squeezed off two shots from the Makarov. He heard a yelp in Russian and the flashlight dropped to the ground. Now they might be desperate enough to send a grenade at him. Before they could, he tumbled the flash-bangs down the tunnel. As the grenades rolled away, he buried his head in his hands, closed his eyes, and counted to himself like a kid playing touch football at recess: “One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Missi—”

THE NAME FLASH-BANG DIDN’T begin to do justice to these grenades. Through his squeezed-tight eyelids, Wells saw a pure white light. The noise from the explosions was louder than anything he had ever heard, something more than sound. A shock wave pummeled his ears. He knew he wasn’t moving, couldn’t be inside the narrow tunnel, yet he seemed to be spinning in two directions at once. The men howled in Russian, their voices barely audible over the noise in Wells’s head.

Wells opened his eyes and breathed in deeply. The heavy thermite smell of the grenades brought him back to reality. He needed to move fast, before the Russians regained their bearings. On hands and knees, Wells crawled forward in the dark. The tunnel spun around him. He concentrated on the blood flowing down his cheek and didn’t stop moving. His stomach tightened and a surge of nausea overcame him. Before he could hold back, Gatorade and soda crackers burned his throat and poured out of his mouth. He ate lightly before missions and this was why.

Wells grabbed the side of the tunnel. Somehow he kept moving, pumping his legs forward. Hours passed, or seconds, and then the walls opened up around him. He lost his balance and fell, landing on one of the Russians. The man was twisting sideways, moaning, hands wrapped around his ears. The grenades had blown out his eardrums, Wells thought. The man grabbed feebly at him, but Wells jammed the Makarov into his mouth and pulled the trigger. The Russian’s arm trembled and fell, a last hopeless flutter.

Wells rolled off the corpse and waited, listening in the dark. He was guessing that the man he’d killed had taken the worst of the flash-bangs. The second one might be able to move, or at least to crawl. He waited, listened, and—

There.

IN THE BLACKNESS, Wells heard the Russian’s breath, as close and quiet as a seashell in his ear, no more than ten feet away. Where? Wells couldn’t turn on his flashlight without giving away his own position. The Russian must have the same dilemma. Wells crab-scuttled left, silently, silently, his back to the wall of the cave, holding the Makarov in his right hand.

Step. Step.

Then a burst of AK fire.

But Wells was untouched. The Russian was hitting only the corpse of his partner. Wells threw himself off the cavern wall. The Russian spun toward him, but Wells knocked the barrel of his rifle up and away. With a low arcing kick, he swept the other man’s legs out. The Russian fell back, landing hard. Wells jumped him, and with a knee astride his chest landed a clean left to his chin and another to his nose. The fight went out of the Russian fast. As Wells punched him a third and fourth and fifth time, he hardly resisted. Wells didn’t know if he was disoriented or just resigned to his fate.

Wells flipped the Russian onto his stomach and looped flexcuffs — the temporary plastic handcuffs that police sometimes used in place of regular metal cuffs — tight around the man’s wrists and ankles. Then he snapped open a yellow glowstick.

The cavern was small, no more than eight feet high and twenty-five feet around. On one wall, a guerrilla had spray-painted the Arabic phrase “Allahu akbar”—God is great — in black on the grayish-green stone. Small stalactites hung from the ceiling. The walls and floor bulged as if the mountain were laced with tumors.

Three rusty oil drums sat near the far wall, next to a child-sized BMX bicycle. Bizarre. Maybe the guerrillas had been practicing a circus act in their downtime. Aside from those odd relics, the cavern seemed empty. Beside the oil drums two passages led deeper into the mountain. They were just three feet high, narrower than the tunnel that connected the cave with the surface. Wells understood why the Russians had hesitated to take them. If they dead-ended, they’d be little more than traps.

Wells tossed the glowstick aside. “Speak English?” he said to the Russian.

“Sure.”

“Is anyone else here?”

The man spat on the ground. “See anyone?”

“If I do, I’ll kill you first. Understand?”

“I understand. No, we are alone.”

Wells drew his knife. The Russian’s eyes widened. He rolled onto his back and tried to squirm away. “I just want to be sure you’re not hiding anything,” Wells said. He put a knee on the Russian’s chest and slashed at the man’s sweater and T-shirt, pulling them off. Then he hacked away the man’s camouflage pants until the Russian was naked except for ill-fitting cotton briefs. But the guy didn’t seem to have any extra weapons. A surprise. Every decent commando carried an extra knife, just in case.

“Now the boots.” Wells sliced at the man’s boots. The Russian kicked wildly.

“Boots? Nyet. My feet.”

“Nyet?” Wells turned the Russian onto his stomach, grabbed the man’s little fingers, and pulled them sideways until he could feel the tendons about to snap. “Nyet nyet, Vladimir. If I didn’t need you, I’d leave you down here for the spiders. Got it?”

“Okay, okay.”

Wells wondered if he’d meant his threat. He’d killed many men, but never an unarmed prisoner. In New York, he’d spared the life of a Saudi terrorist he’d captured. Treating captives with decency was one way the United States separated itself from its enemies. At least it had been once. Now America seemed to have lost its moorings. Wells wondered if he had too.

Wells flipped the Russian on his back and sliced into the black leather of his boots. He tore them off. The stench of the Russian’s feet filled the cavern. “Time for a bath, Vladimir.”

“I told you leave them on.”

Wells peeled down the man’s socks. As he did, a sharp metal point, warm with body heat, pricked his left palm. A knife was taped to the back of the man’s right leg.

Wells stepped on the Russian’s chest, leaned in with his steel-toed boots until he felt the man’s sternum compress. A slow groan escaped the prisoner’s lips. Wells lifted the Russian’s leg and ripped off the knife. The tape tore, taking a chunk of skin with it. “Now you’re ready for beach season, Vlad.”

“Name is Sergei.”

“Congratulations.” Wells tossed the knife into the darkness. He ran his flashlight over the Russian, looking for other hidden knives or guns, but saw nothing.

“Any other surprises?”

The Russian said nothing.

“I’ll take that as a no.” Wells cut open the flexcuffs binding the Russian’s feet but left his hands tight. “Now. You’re going in there.” Wells pointed to the tunnel that led to the surface. “When you’re in, I’ll cut your hands free so you can drag your ass out of this cave. Understand?”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be right behind you. Please be smart. I’m guessing getting shot in the colon is an unpleasant way to die.”

“Colon? I don’t understand.”

Wells grabbed the Russian’s arms and dragged him toward the entrance to the tunnel. Allowing the prisoner to lead was dangerous, Wells knew. If he had to kill the man in the narrowest part of the tunnel, he might end up stuck behind the corpse. But if he led, he risked the Russian’s jumping him from behind. This way he could