The Shadow Patrol

“Good day.”

“I understand you have something for me.”

“Not here.” Amadullah nodded at the convoy parked a few hundred meters away.

“I know a place three or four kilos away. Protected. Safe.”

Amadullah nodded. The man went back to his Toyota. For the second time, Amadullah was opening himself to capture. But then, if the Americans had wanted to take him, they could have already.

A kilometer down, the American turned off Highway 1 and onto a dirt road bordered on both sides by mud walls covered with grapevines. Amadullah and Jaji followed. After ten minutes, they reached an abandoned cluster of farmhouses, a minivillage that had seen heavy fighting. Bomb craters pocked the earth. Bullet holes scarred the walls. The American parked in the shadow of a two-story farmhouse. Amadullah pulled alongside. The American stepped out and nodded for Amadullah to follow. Amadullah didn’t. He reached under the passenger seat for the pistol hidden there.

The American walked over to his window. “Where is it?”

“What’s your name?”

“Shadow,” the man said.

Enough American arrogance. “Your true name.”

The man’s eyes shifted to the Makarov in the passenger seat. “Frank.”

Amadullah still thought he was lying, but Frank would have to do. He led Frank to the pickup, shoved aside the sacks of bricks. Jaji found a pry bar and popped open the Dragunov’s crate to reveal a hard-sided plastic case.

Inside, a sniper’s tool kit: the rifle, four ten-round magazines, an eight-power scope, a cleaning rod in three pieces, a cleaning kit, and pouches to hold it all. Plus a bayonet and a knife for close-in work. Unlike some of his nephews, Amadullah wasn’t a fanatic about weapons. As far as he was concerned, AKs worked fine. Still, the Dragunov was impressive. The center of its stock was cut out to save weight, and it had a long, low profile, with a skinny muzzle. It looked light and lethal.

Frank popped open the Dragunov’s bolt, pulled a tiny penlight from his pocket, and shone it down the barrel. The grooves etched inside nearly glowed.

“Chrome,” Frank said. “Very cool.” He closed the bolt, snapped on the scope, hefted the rifle to his shoulder, cocked his head, put his eye to the sight. “Nice and easy. Not a beast like the.50.” Frank was more relaxed now that he had the Dragunov in his hands, Amadullah saw. The Taliban had men like this, too, men who loved weapons. Usually they didn’t care much for people.

“Have you fired one before?”

“Once or twice. So you’re Amadullah Thuwani.”

“You know my name.”

“Of course. There’s a bounty on your head. Fifty thousand dollars.” Frank put down the Dragunov, snapped off the scope, as if to say, Don’t worry. I won’t try to collect.

“Only fifty thousand.”

“If you want a higher price, you need to do more than nail a patrol or two.”

“Now that your friend Stan has given me the missiles, perhaps I will.”

“The missiles?”

So you don’t know, Amadullah thought. He shouldn’t have spoken. Stan had kept the secret from his own side. Now Amadullah wondered whether he could turn the mistake to his advantage by telling Frank more. He might have found a cheap way to stir up trouble. Yes. “I give you a Dragunov, he gives me SA-24s. A good trade, I think.”

“SA-24s. Russian SAMs.”

Amadullah nodded.

“What’s your target?”

Amadullah decided he’d said enough. He couldn’t be sure what Frank would do if he found out that the other American wanted to kill the head of the CIA. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but do you know the man called Omar al- Douzani?”

“The leader of the Douzani tribe.”

“He lives in Pakistan. South Waziristan. And travels in convoys, armored trucks. Sometimes with Pakistani military escorts. Your friend Stan told me that with these missiles I could destroy him from five kilometers away. Ten. And then our business can expand.”

“Stan gave you the missiles to use against Douzani?”

Sometimes the Americans needed everything said straight out. “Yes.”

“And where does the heroin come in?”

“The powder opened the connection, gave us trust in each other. When Douzani is gone, his family will break. He has no sons anymore, only cousins and nephews.”

“They’ll all fight to control his tribe.”

“Yes. When that happens, some will come to me for help. I’ll choose which one to support, or maybe I’ll sit back and let them fight. Either way, I’ll feast on them. By the time the Douzanis are done with their war, you’ll need a truck for all the powder I can sell you.”

As Amadullah spoke, he found himself believing his own story, the surest sign that Frank would believe him, too. It wasn’t even a lie, just a version of the truth that Allah hadn’t yet called into being. Frank stepped back and folded his arms. The Americans couldn’t hide their emotions. Amadullah could almost see what Frank was thinking: Stan should have told me. He trusts this Pashtun, this Talib, more than me. Good. Let Stan and Frank try to untangle their own lies. While they wrestled, Amadullah would decide what to do with the missiles.

Amadullah leaned his bulky body over, picked up the Dragunov. “You still haven’t told me why you need it.”

“I may have to clean up a mess.” Frank smiled, and Amadullah saw the anger in him, the real and true cruelty.

“This makes a good broom.”

FRANCESCA WATCHED the Afghans drive off and stowed the crate in the secret compartment welded to the bottom of his pickup. At Highway 1 he turned left, southeast toward Kandahar. Calibrate and recalibrate, snipers learned. Check and double-check before you pull that trigger. You have every advantage until you shoot, so take your time. Now Francesca laid his hands on the wheel and tried to calibrate what Amadullah had told him.

On the surface, everything made sense. Stan wanted to use Amadullah to assassinate other Talib leaders, ones the CIA couldn’t find. The drug trafficking had been a way to reach Amadullah and convince him that he could trust Stan. But the more he considered the story, the less Francesca believed it.

If Stan had planned to turn Amadullah all along, why go to such great lengths to hide the trafficking from his own bosses and everyone else at Kabul station? Why not just get someone senior at Langley to sign a finding for the project and use the Ground Branch, the agency’s paramilitary arm, to handle the pickups?

The SA-24s also bothered Francesca. The Russians knew they couldn’t build helicopters that could match American designs, so they’d spent a lot of time developing surface-to-air missiles as a cheap countermeasure. The SA-24 was their top-of-the-line rocket, as good as or better than anything the United States had. By all accounts, it could make mincemeat of Chinooks. Probably Black Hawks and Apaches, too. In all his years fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, Francesca had never seen one. Yet Stan had somehow delivered two to Amadullah. Using them to attack a ground convoy, even one with armored vehicles, seemed a major waste. An RPG or basic antitank missile would be much more effective at much lower cost.

Of course, Stan might have other reasons for going to the trouble of delivering the SA-24s. He might have imagined that the SA-24s would impress Amadullah.

Or… Amadullah could be lying. The missiles — assuming they existed at all — could be meant for another target. One that flew on helicopters or jets that were vulnerable only to the most sophisticated missiles. An American target.

Francesca wondered whether to call Stan, confront him, demand an answer. Then he thought of the