The Shadow Patrol

range, distances no more than a football field. As a result, when an ambush began, soldiers instinctively assumed the enemy was close by. They needed several seconds to realize that they were under sniper attack. When they realized they didn’t have any way to counterattack, they typically dove and froze, trying to present as small a target as possible. But during a sniper attack, going to the ground was suicide. Francesca could put a round in a stationary target from a mile away. Unless perfect cover was available, the best solution was to scatter and regroup. Run. But by the time the Talibs figured that out, they’d be dead.

Alders handed him a bottle of water and Francesca took a long slug.

“How’s it look?”

“Real good. Whyn’t you sack out? I’ll take first watch.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I’ll call it in, let them know we’re here.” Their sat phones worked everywhere in Afghanistan — everywhere in the world, in fact — and they were supposed to report when they arrived and every eight to twelve hours afterward. Francesca tried to stick to the schedule, mainly because the Delta commanders got nervous otherwise. When they got nervous, they were apt to do stupid things, like put up a rescue bird. He reached for the sat, made the call.

He’d just hung up when his other phone vibrated. Afghan cellies. Amazing. He didn’t even know where the tower was. Probably somewhere on the ridge behind them. The caller identification showed a local phone. Had to be Weston.

“You in position?” Yep. Weston.

“We’re where we need to be.” Francesca didn’t appreciate this kid’s attitude. He’d considered taking Weston and Rodriguez out along with Young. In fact, he was still considering it.

“Okay, I still haven’t heard whether it will be today or tomorrow. Should know soon.”

“Call me when you do.” Francesca hung up. Put his eye to the rifle’s infrared scope. Listened to Alders snore gently on the ground below. And smiled as he watched the empty night.

26

The transmitter was two inches long, no wider around than a dime. Half the size of the eraserless pencils that miniature golfers used to count putts. Shafer had told Wells that the geeks called it an intermittent locator. As long as whatever it was attached to was moving, it reported its position every forty-five minutes to the military’s Iridium satellite network. Each transmission lasted only five milliseconds. Otherwise the bug stayed silent, offering no electronic evidence of its existence.

If the transmitter stopped moving for more than forty-five minutes, it offered one final update on its location. Then it shut down. It broadcast so infrequently that it was basically undetectable. Plus it transmitted on a nonlinear cycle. Even Shafer couldn’t explain what that meant. But he promised Wells it would enable the bug to beat every electronic countermeasure in existence.

Shafer had sent Wells three transmitters in three different colors. One gray, one brown, one black. They had no on/off switches or lights. They looked like plastic junk. He’d also included a handheld GPS that would track the transmitter. And a note. Be nice to them. You’d be surprised what they cost. Wells never remembered Shafer worrying about budgets before. Either the transmitters were seriously expensive or the man was getting strange about money in his old age.

DESPITE HIS ANGER, Stout had shown Wells where Francesca kept his pickup, a muddy parking lot near Kandahar’s giant PX. Aside from a razor-wire fence, the lot looked ordinary, full of pickups, SUVs, and Humvees. A small sign beside the front gate said “Reserved/TF86 Vehicles.”

“TF86 doesn’t exist,” Stout said. “This lot is SF only. Everybody keeps trucks in here. The Canadians and Brits, too. It’s unlocked during the day, but there are always a couple of guards. They work for Sandton. That’s a private contractor that JSOC uses a lot. They look like they’re just hanging out, fiddling with a truck, but they’ll challenge you at the gate. At night, it’s locked down and alarmed. You need a key and a code to get in. And if you look at the gate, you’ll see the surveillance cams.”

Wells looked. Two cameras, both watching the gate. He liked the setup. Hidden in plain sight. Though it didn’t help him any.

Stout pointed to a beat-up Toyota pickup near the back of the lot, one of the rattier vehicles. “That’s Francesca’s. You can’t see it from here, but underneath there’s a compartment where they hide their rifles and unis.”

“That’s definitely theirs? They never swap with the other squads?”

“No. So that’s it. All I can tell you.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re not welcome. And don’t ask me to get you inside the lot. In fact, don’t ask me about anything else, or for anything else.”

They didn’t speak again until Stout dropped Wells back at the KBR trailer where he was holed up. Wells sat on his bunk and closed his eyes. He owed Shafer a call and he ought to be figuring his next move. But he was stuck on what Stout had said to him as they were driving. Which faith? Islam or America? He seemed to be failing both. His mind turned to the man in the hills outside Muslim Bagh. They’d prayed together. Then Wells had killed him. How could God view his words as anything but a mockery?

Islam had helped Wells survive all those years in the North-West Frontier. But now he no longer could explain what he believed, or why. Was he clinging to his faith strictly to separate himself from the other Americans who were fighting this war? To prove to the men he killed that religion played no part in his quarrel with them? They certainly didn’t agree.

Eventually Wells tired of asking himself questions without answers. He knelt and lowered his head to the floor and recited the first surah over and over. The prayer itself was a tonic. The Arabic soothed his lips, even if he no longer trusted himself to understand what it meant.

IN THE MORNING he put on a regulation Army uniform complete with a colonel’s eagle on the chest. In the trailer’s mirror, he found he didn’t look like a colonel. Even in the Special Forces, colonels didn’t have beards like his. He pulled off the insignia. He slipped on his Red Sox cap and his Ray-Bans. A smile twitched his lips as he remembered the morning Anne had given him the sunglasses.

He drove back to the lot Stout had shown him. Sure enough, two guys tinkered under the hood of a Ford Expedition near the front gate. One flagged Wells down. “Morning.”

Wells stopped, lowered his window. “Morning.”

“Haven’t seen you before. You certain you found the right lot?” The guy sounded South African to Wells. Lots of security contractors were.

“Pretty much. Guys at Bengal sent me here to park. Problem?”

The guy looked at Wells, his beard and shades and killer’s hands. “No problem. Welcome to KAF.”

Wells parked three spots down from Francesca’s Toyota, positioning the Land Rover between the pickup and the guards. He looked around, didn’t see anyone else in the lot. He stepped over to the Toyota. Its bed was filled with metal rods and sheets that Wells guessed could be assembled into a firing platform. He pulled out the transmitters. The brown one more or less matched the Toyota’s paint. He peeled off the backing on two of its six sides, exposing an epoxy superglue. He pressed it in the corner of the bed behind the passenger seat. Once it stuck on, it was practically invisible. He would have put it on the undercarriage, but it needed a direct line of sight to the atmosphere.

He slid back into the Land Rover and headed out. He didn’t want Francesca wondering why an unfamiliar vehicle was parked near the Toyota. As he passed the Expedition, he lowered his window. “Change of plans,” he said. “See you soon.”

“Happy hunting,” the guard said.

Wells saluted him casually, one pro to another.