it’s really him. Then you say you can’t do anything about it. What is that?”
“I didn’t say I can’t do anything about it. There’s a way. But it puts you on the line. Because this guy will go after you for sure when we pull his chain. From the minute I go back to Kandahar, you have to figure that you’re at risk every time you go outside the wire. Maybe inside, too.”
“Tell me.”
Wells explained. When he was finished, Young picked up Francesca’s headshot, stared at it as if it might confess. “Boxed me, didn’t you? Know I can’t say no after that speech I made. Why it pays to keep your mouth shut.”
“You can always say no.”
Young ripped the headshot, straight down the middle, tearing Francesca’s face in two. “Let’s get him.”
BACK AT KANDAHAR, Wells picked up the FedEx package that Shafer had sent and then left the KBR compound, walking south along the busy two-lane road to the base’s main gate. Trucks churned by as he dialed a number he’d burned into his brain the year before.
Two rings, then: “Brett Gaffan.”
“You answer that way, it makes you sound like a telemarketer. ‘This is Brett Gaffan, have I got a deal for you.’”
“What have I done to deserve this honor, John?”
Gaffan was a former Delta operator who had recently worked with Wells on a mission that had started messy and ended messier. He had saved Wells’s life on a hill in the Bekaa Valley. Despite that fact, or maybe because of it, they’d hardly spoken since the end of the mission. Just a couple vague promises to get together. Civilians didn’t understand this side of the military. Men risked their lives for one another and then walked away with hardly a backward glance once the fighting was done. Combat was combat and life was life. The two didn’t always have much in common.
“Long time no speak,” Gaffan said.
“Sorry about that.”
“Sure you are. So come on, out with it.”
“Out with what?”
“You’re calling me from a blocked number, not your own phone. And it sounds like you’re at a truck stop somewhere. Lots of diesel engines. And it’s like seven a.m. here. You must be out of the country, probably on a base, probably Middle East.”
“Afghanistan.”
“I know you want something, so let’s avoid the awkwardness and get to it.”
“Am I that obvious?”
“As a matter of fact.”
Wells could hardly deny his ulterior motives. “You still keep close to your old buddies?”
“Some. Why?”
“Anybody in Kandahar you really trust?”
Gaffan hesitated. “One guy, sure. A master sergeant, Russell Stout. We haven’t talked in a month or so, but I’m pretty sure he’s still there. Good guy. By the book. No-nonsense.”
Meaning that he wouldn’t necessarily be buying whatever Wells was selling. “Noted. Can I talk to him, use your name? I’m looking for an op who I think is based here.”
“Want to tell me why?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Isn’t it always? At least give me his name. I might even know him.”
“Daniel Francesca. Sniper.”
“Nope.”
“He got into Delta about when you left. He looks like a bad guy. I just want help getting a look at him.”
“Really. That’s all you want.”
Wells imagined Gaffan holding the phone away from his ear, deciding whether to toss it across the room.
Wells stayed quiet and eventually Gaffan coughed into the phone, an almost embarrassed cough. An I- can’t-believe-I’m-letting-you-use-me-yet-again cough. They both knew he would say yes, defer to Wells’s judgment. Gaffan was a very good operator, but he wasn’t a leader.
“I’ll ask him. But if he’s not comfortable—”
“I get it.”
“I assume you’d rather meet him off base.”
“On KAF should be fine. We’ll find somewhere out of sight. This place is, like, five square miles.”
“You have a funny way of treating your friends, John.”
“Better than my enemies.”
“True that. When you get back, you owe me a beer, and this time I’m collecting.”
“Done.”
FOUR HOURS LATER, Wells sat on the steps of an abandoned trailer at the southwestern edge of the airfield. With the surge done, Kandahar was already shrinking. This part of the base was mostly empty. The dirt fields around Wells were littered with trailers, pipes, barbed wire, earthmoving equipment, and a hundred other bits of slowly rusting steel. The United States military had brought this equipment at unfathomable expense a year or two before. Much of it had never been used. Now it was turning into salvage.
Wells saw headlights approaching and stood and waved. A Jeep pulled up, and he stepped in. The driver was wiry and lean and deeply tanned. He was in his early thirties, but his close-cropped gray hair made him look older. Wells pulled the door shut and they rolled slowly west, toward the wire.
“Sergeant Stout?”
“Call me Russ. You know this is the first time I’ve ever seen this part of KAF?”
“Not much reason to go over here.”
“I guess not. So what’s up?”
No-nonsense, Gaffan had said. Wells decided not to dance around the question. “You know a warrant officer named Daniel Francesca?”
“Sure. Danny. Odd guy. In 71.”
“You don’t mind my asking, what
Stout turned right, north along the perimeter road. He looked at Wells:
“I have reason to believe Francesca’s dirty.”
Stout shook his head.
“That he and a senior CIA officer are working with a Talib commander to export heroin. Funding the insurgency and passing operational information to the commander.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I came a long way to make this up.”
They rode for a while in silence. “What kind of evidence you got?”
“It’s circumstantial, but it’s solid. A couple weeks ago, he was seen on another base with a soldier and officer who we think are the pickup team. We’ve checked and he had no reason to be there.”
“That’s not enough.”
“I agree. I’m not planning to do anything. Just asking questions.”
“We created 71 maybe four years ago.
“So they can pass as local.”
“That’s the idea. Local enough that they can get down Highway 1 and through the villages without getting stopped or jacked anyway. Danny and his spotter, guy named Alders, they’re good.”
