soon as you opened your mouth, your hostile attitude would spill out.”
“Hey—”
Sir Jeff interrupted. “She’s right. You have too much of an edge about you to blend into their work, Kyle. Some covers work, some don’t. What else have we got?”
“Zip. Nada,” Kyle said, letting their remarks slide. “No personal identification paper, lack of assets, unfamiliarity with the target area, and no backup.”
“Very well, then. As Sherlock Holmes famously advised, one should never overlook the obvious.”
Beth asked, “What is obvious about this?”
“Are you jump qualified?” Jeff asked her.
“Yes. I got my silver wings at the Army’s Airborne School at Fort Benning.”
“Somehow, that is exactly what I expected from you,” Cornwell said with a chuckle. “Anything beyond that? HALO?”
“No, sir. I wanted to, but my Coast Guard superiors saw no need for me to qualify for high-altitude, low- opening. Heck, they didn’t even want me to go airborne with the basic five jumps, but I took up skydiving as a hobby and learned on my own until I could get my captain’s permission. Don’t worry. I can handle myself in the air.”
“There’s no need for a HALO on this one anyway,” Kyle said. “It’s a well-used air traffic corridor out there, everything from F-16s to cargo birds, even passenger jets. I doubt that anyone even looks up at the sound of a passing plane.”
Jeff tossed his glasses on the papers. “So the two of you jump at night. If you don’t break your legs or backs, or get captured, you should be able to secure a hide before daybreak, then lay up until you can finish the reconnaissance.”
“We jump in at night?” Beth was having difficulty keeping a glow of excitement from her eyes.
“Twenty-four hours maximum,” Kyle agreed. “With minimum gear, not a combat load.”
“Sounds good,” she said.
Jeff rose stiffly to his feet. “By damn, I wish I could go with you. Just to jump out of a sturdy aircraft again would be a perfect tonic for these old bones.”
“Well, you cannot.” Lady Pat hooked her arm around him and kissed his cheek. “You would splatter yourself in some treetop in the middle of Nowhereistan, and I would have to go to all the trouble of getting your body back and burying you. It would ruin almost an entire week.”
“She Who Must Be Obeyed has spoken,” Jeff said in a grumpy
WITH AUTHORITY IN HAND from General Gul of the ISI, Sergeant Hafiz was free to act to impose order on the chief engineer’s chaos.
Everyone was in agreement that Mohammad al-Attas should be allowed to continue his work, but under much stricter control. An experienced ISI psychiatrist arrived at the bridge to assess al-Attas and prescribed a regimen of antipsychotic medication. Al-Attas, recovering from his wounds, participated in the interviews willingly and took the new pills without hesitation. Although his body healed rapidly from the ugly but superficial wounds, his mind was being put on a loose pharmaceutical leash. The psychiatrist promised that the chief engineer would be able to work all day long, without the wild avalanche of ideas that usually accompanied his thoughts. At the evening meal with the doctor and Sergeant Hafiz, he was given what he was told was extra vitamins and a mild narcotic to help him sleep, thanks to this carefully balanced chemical stew. An hour later, the chief engineer would be so tired and woozy that he would be happy to climb into his bed and sleep there like a dead man for the next nine hours. The Djinn had been tamed, but at what cost to the valuable brain of the chief engineer? They would just have to wait and see.
HAFIZ WAS TOPSIDE WHEN the first truckload of his new temporary security team rolled in. Although a regular army platoon was being readied for extended duty at the bridge and would soon be on the way, for now Hafiz had to make do with Taliban irregulars. General Gul had granted only a half a loaf, but it was better than nothing.
A sweat-stained man with a grizzled beard climbed from the passenger’s seat in the cab, wearing the normal soiled and patchwork clothing of a Taliban fighter. He paused to sling an AK-47 over his shoulder, then called out for the men in the back of the truck to get out and line up. Workers shied away from the vehicle, leaving them in the middle of an empty circle. They were a wild-looking crew, all beards and arrogance, wearing long baggy trousers, a hodgepodge of robes and shirts, sloppy turbans, and cartridge belts across their shoulders or around their waists. The men slouched against the truck or sat cross-legged on the ground and started to talk and smoke, ignoring everyone else. Within a few moments, they had established themselves as a nest of snakes, best to be avoided.
The leader approached Hafiz but did not salute or offer to shake hands.
Hafiz gave a curt nod. If the fellow wanted to be rude, that was fine. Keep it all business. It would not matter in a minute anyway. “How many did you bring?”
The man looked back. “We are nineteen in all. Seven in this truck, plus weapons, and the others will be here before nightfall. All have been in successful actions against the infidels.” He removed the automatic rifle from his shoulder and cradled it comfortably in his arms, almost pointing it at Hafiz.
“Are you their leader?”
The man stiffened. How could there be any question of his authority? This sergeant was a stupid man. “Yes. I am Sayyid, and my leaders have ordered me to secure this place. I will now take control. Are you Hafiz… Sergeant Hafiz?”
Hafiz looked down at his boots for a moment, studying the ground, the bowed head indicating subservience. Why couldn’t this have been easy? Why did these people refuse to cooperate?
He looked over at the Taliban fighters. Suddenly, they were paying attention. Hafiz held up his left hand, palm outward, to signal them to remain still, then planted a boot on each side of their fallen commander’s body and methodically emptied the remaining ten shots of the magazine into the corpse. Streaks of crimson glistened on the ground as Sayyid’s body bled out. Turning away from the bullet-riddled corpse, Hafiz walked over to the waiting group, clapping a new clip of ammo into his pistol as he moved, his eyes killer cold.
“
THE RAIN HAD PASSED over during dinner, and Lady Pat and Beth went for a slow turn around the deck so Pat could smoke one of her little cigars. The doctors insisted that Sir Jeff be in smoke-free environments, and the portable oxygen tank that was always near him made it necessary for her to smoke outside. The women had put on sweaters against the chill. The clouds were breaking up, and moonglow found openings to color the moving water as the
“Your brother, Joey, sounds like a dedicated man,” Lady Pat said. “I’m sorry things ended so badly. Your mother must be devastated.”
Beth looked up but could not see any stars. “It was almost his destiny, his karma, as the Buddhists would say. He preferred to help the helpless in some of the world’s worst cesspools instead of making a lot of money and living well anywhere in America. He measured himself against the evil of the world, and that led him into trouble more than once.”
“Still, it is a sad thing.” Pat exhaled a puff of smoke that was surprisingly fragrant, like flowers. “Now you have been pulled into his world. Are you certain that you want to go on this adventure? I would advise you to leave it to the professionals.”
“Pat, I have no choice. Joey saw something in that valley that only I would recognize, and I’m not even sure
