ten minutes to hide the pickup and put the firing platform together, they could have driven for thirty-five minutes, enough time to get as much as twenty miles east of the final location the transmitter had recorded.
Wells headed east, watching both sides of the road. For a few minutes, the valley became more densely populated. Compounds and villages tumbled together, the Arghandab’s version of suburban sprawl, unlikely ground for a sniper’s hole. Then the land opened up again. And Wells came on a good spot for a nest, a damaged grape hut with an unobstructed view of the road. The hut’s narrow windows made for good firing ports, and a dirt track led directly past it. Wells couldn’t risk taking the track. But he knew that in Francesca’s position he would have chosen the hut, or a place just like it.
WELLS RODE until the hut disappeared. He’d take his chances in one-on-one combat with anyone. But snipers were different. He felt as if he’d appeared at dawn for a duel and found himself holding a slingshot instead of a pistol. A half mile was a long way. Ten New York City blocks. Nine football fields. From a half mile, Wells couldn’t even see his enemy’s face without binoculars, good ones. Yet an experienced sniper like Francesca had a good chance of putting a bullet in a target’s chest from the same distance.
Wells pulled the bike over at a primitive gas station, the first he’d seen in fifty miles. Again he called Shafer. “I need a visual, a satellite pass.” Wells gave the coordinates. “It’s a grape hut, a big one. ASAP.”
“Really. You don’t want to wait a few days.”
“I’m not in the mood.”
“This guy’s got you a little bit spooked, doesn’t he?”
Wells didn’t answer.
“All right. You know it’s past midnight here, but I’ll make it happen as fast as I can. Could be anywhere from fifteen minutes to six hours, depending on what we have overhead. I’ll call you when I know.”
Wells propped the motorcycle on its kickstand, reached into his bag for a bottle of water. He drank deeply. A couple kids stared until he waved them on. In these villages, any stranger was conspicuous. He couldn’t stay in one place too long, but he didn’t want to ride farther from the grape hut. Thirty minutes later, Shafer called.
“You must be living right. NRO had a Keyhole passing Kabul. The overnight targeting officer is an easily impressed sort. He ran a quick series.”
“And?”
“I can’t see them firsthand because he won’t send them to my Gmail account. NRO’s funny that way. And the shots aren’t great because they couldn’t get the KH directly over, they had to angle, and the roof is mostly covered. But he swears he can see a pickup truck inside.”
“What about people?”
“He said he didn’t see anyone, but that I shouldn’t read much into that because the imagery is so dirty. No need to thank me, John—”
One of the kids was wandering close again, giving Wells an excuse to hang up.
His first instinct was to leave the valley floor, head south into the hills, find a promontory where he could overwatch the grape hut. But the Arghandab’s geography was trickier than it first seemed. The hills were a smaller version of the Bitterroot Range in Montana, where Wells had grown up. They rose as much as twenty-five hundred feet above the valley floor. Gullies and draws cut deep into their sides. Once he got into them, moving east to west across them would be very difficult. Maybe impossible. The GPS could tell him where he was, but not where he needed to go. He needed a good map for that, and he didn’t have one. He would also have to ditch the motorcycle, which was his only major tactical advantage. Worse, he wouldn’t have cell service once he left the valley floor, so Young would have no way of reaching him. No.
He had two other alternatives. He could sit where he was, wait for Young to call. Or he could take the high- risk option, set up on one of the three north — south tracks that went over the ridge. But if he chose wrong, he would be stuck ten or more miles away from the ambush, with no easy way to get to the right spot. He couldn’t justify taking a one-in-three gamble that could leave him badly out of position. Playing linebacker growing up, he’d never liked the guys who went for the big pick instead of batting the ball away. When they were right, they got the glory, but when they were wrong, they gave up a touchdown and the whole team paid.
Then he realized. He took off his windbreaker and stuffed it in his bag. At the gas station, he filled up and bought two big stacks of wood. He bundled them on the backseat of the bike to hide his bag. He left his pistol and grenades inside the bag. He couldn’t risk Francesca spotting them through the scope.
He mounted up and headed west. Toward the grape hut.
AT THE DIRT TRACK nearest the hut, he swung left, south, bouncing over the ruts. He tried not to think about the fact that Francesca was surely tracking him from inside the hut. This close, the.50 caliber would blow through him and leave an exit wound the size of a softball. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about bleeding out. He’d die instantly.
But he had to trust that Francesca wouldn’t shoot a random farmer on a motorcycle. Francesca had no reason to believe that Wells could have tracked him here. And Wells could pass as local better than anyone.
Halfway to the hut, Wells still couldn’t see the pickup. He wondered whether Shafer or the NRO had made a mistake. Finally, maybe a hundred yards from the hut, he saw a blocky shape inside the narrow windows. The hut was a great position. Even this close, Wells wouldn’t have seen the truck if he hadn’t been looking. At a hundred feet, he saw the first hint of a sniper nest, camouflage netting around one of the slits. He still couldn’t see the muzzle of the rifle.
Just past the hut, Wells pulled over. He was safer here, on the south side, with the hut between him and the rifle. The.50 caliber was big and heavy and hard to maneuver. He put the motorcycle in neutral and dropped the kickstand, but left the engine running. He pushed aside the bundles of sticks so he could reach the bag and the pistol inside.
“Hello,” he yelled in Pashtun. “Uncle?”
No answer. Walking into the hut would be a mistake. If they were sure he’d seen the Toyota and the firing platform, they’d shoot him. But they wouldn’t do that unless they had to. They would think he lived nearby, and they wouldn’t want to get the locals upset. Instead, one of them should come out, challenge Wells, tell him to get lost.
But no one did.
Wells switched off the engine. Waited. Nothing. No whispered voices in English or Pashtun. No movement inside the hut. No scrape of metal on clay as Francesca repositioned the Barrett. Wells unzipped the bag, grabbed his pistol. He stepped over the cut in the wall and into the compound. The hut’s mud walls were pebbled and uneven. Sprigs of weeds were growing in some of its slatted windows as nature began to reclaim its soil. Wells saw fresh tire tracks in the dirt. No doubt the Toyota had come this way. He looked close, saw two more sets of tracks atop the tire treads. They were narrower. Bicycle tires.
“Hello?” he yelled again. Then ran for the hut. No sense waiting now. If they were inside, they were laying a trap for him. If they weren’t, he needed to find out.
THEY WEREN’T.
The pickup was there, the firing platform, and the rifle. But Francesca and Alders were gone. Wells bent low, looked for bicycle tracks. He found them near the pickup’s back gate.
Wells pulled out his cell. The reception was fine. But something had gone wrong. Young hadn’t called. Now Francesca and Alders were on their way to ambush him. If he couldn’t find them, stop them, he would have himself to blame for Young’s death.
Not this time. Not after what had happened in Mecca.
Wells sprinted out of the hut, back to the motorcycle. He turned back. To the valley road. He had one chance. Three roads led to Highway 1. He had to figure out which one Francesca and Alders had taken. He couldn’t guess. If he guessed wrong, he would lose an hour or more. He had to be sure
