My attention is focused on the trail. The terrain is treacherous, one careless moment can be your last. Every few hundred yards, I raise my eyes and sweep the valley. I scan the brooding face of Shafkat and traverse north. Clench my teeth.
There, in the distance, a column of horsemen is making its way south. At least forty riders, in a file that stretches along the bank of the river. There are as many pack mules as horses in the caravan. Sure-footed animals burdened with cargo.
Shahzad’s Taliban, or Najibullah’s Mujahedeen. Impossible to tell.
I key my mike. “Five-Five Kilo, this is Sierra.”
Ballard’s voice crackles. “Go ahead, Sierra.”
“Interrogative. Do you see a caravan, your five?”
“Affirmative, Sierra. Doubt they’ve seen us.”
“They are between us and Parkat. This could get sticky.”
“Your call, Sierra.”
“Keep an eye on them, let’s play it by ear. Sierra out.”
Trainor is staring at the caravan with sharp eyes.
“Najibullah’s or Shahzad’s?” I ask.
Trainor shakes her head. I turn away and continue on the trail.
“Colonel!”
At Lopez’s shout, I jerk my head.
Grissom has left the trail and is crawling out onto a huge outcrop, a promontory of black stone. From where we stand, the stone table onto which the colonel has crawled looks straight down four hundred feet onto the tops of pine trees, themselves a hundred feet tall.
What the fuck is the colonel doing?
Lopez follows the colonel onto the promontory, careful to pick his way among the rocks. One mistake will plunge either man five hundred feet down the west face.
At the edge of the promontory, Grissom stands, stares at the caravan.
Lopez reaches the colonel and grabs him by the shoulder straps of his plate carrier. Grissom turns, tries to push the sergeant away.
The two men struggle. Trainor steps off the trail to follow the two men onto the outcrop. I scramble along the track, step in front of her. Hands on her shoulders, I hold her back. Feel my boots slipping on loose shale.
Trainor stares over my shoulder, struggles. “Breed, let me go.”
I clutch the girl tight. “No, you’ll make things worse.”
Can’t see what’s happening. If I lose my balance, Trainor and I could both fall.
A man screams—Trainor cries out. “No!”
I look over my shoulder in time to see Grissom disappear over the edge.
Lopez stares after the colonel. He takes a breath, turns, and picks his way back to the trail. Together, he and Ballard join me and Trainor.
“The colonel’s dead,” Lopez says.
Trainor breaks free of my grip, launches herself at the medic. “You son of a bitch.”
I grab the girl, struggle to restrain her. Viewed from the narrow trail, the five-hundred-foot drop is dizzying.
“He fell,” Lopez says. “He crawled out over those rocks when he saw the caravan.”
“Bullshit,” Trainor snaps. “You could have held him.”
“He lost his head.” Defensive, Lopez steps back. “He jerked away from me, then he was gone. I saw him hit a tree, fall further.”
At the image, Trainor cringes.
I turn to Ballard. The comms man was sixty feet behind Lopez and Grissom.
“It happened fast, Breed. That is how it looked.”
Trainor’s fuming. She turns on Ballard. “Are you blind?”
Ballard looks stunned.
Lopez throws up his hands. “Fuck you, Trainor.”
“Cease fire, all of you.” I’m watching the team fall apart. “Trainor, it was an accident. Now, we need to know. Are those Najibullah’s men, or Shahzad’s?”
The girl looks around our little group. Glares at Lopez.
“I can’t tell from this distance,” she says.
“They can cut off our move to Lanat,” I tell her. “We have to know.”
Trainor jerks away from me. “I can’t help you.”
Fuck. I need this girl to be a soldier, not a petulant child.
I fish the Leitz binoculars from a pouch on my plate carrier. Squint at the sky. The sun is well past its peak and shining on our slope. To keep reflections from giving our position away, I snap honeycomb shades onto the lenses. Scan the column.
The usual Taliban and Mujahedeen garb. Turbans, waistcoats, chest-rigs, and high boots. They ride tall in the saddle, assault rifles slung over their shoulders. The pack mules must be carrying weapons and explosives. Further along the riverbank, a long column of infantry follows the caravan. No indication they’ve seen us.
I hand the binoculars to Trainor. “Try. Who are they?”
Trainor raises the glasses to her eyes and scans the caravan. Hands them back to me. “I can’t say.”
She barely looked. I can’t tell if she’s hiding something, or plain pissed. I want to shake some sense into her.
We have Shahzad behind us, and a mounted force in the valley. If the caravan belongs to Shahzad, our route to Lanat has been closed. We can try to slip through, but it will be risky.
What if the caravan belongs to Najibullah. I’m not sure he’ll be any better than Shahzad. Sure, he’s negotiated a peace deal. The envoy he negotiated with took a five-hundred-foot dive onto the rocks. How will he react to that. He might decide to take us all captive. He might kill us, keep the girl, and start over.
What did Grissom say.
If anything happens to me, Trainor is the deal.
I turn on the girl. “Grissom knew he was in a bad way. He said if anything happened to him, you were the deal. What did he mean?”
Trainor looks miserable. Shrugs. “I know all the details.”
“Were you present at the negotiations?”
“Not all of them. Grissom told me after.”
“You know the details, but not the nuance. It’ll be difficult for a new negotiator to step in. Trust is crucial. Najibullah won’t be familiar with someone new.”
“That’s right.” Trainor bares her teeth. Her voice is a snarl. “Trust is crucial. No, Najibullah won’t trust a new guy.”
“Cough it up, Trainor. What did Grissom mean when he said you were the deal?”
“Fuck off, Breed.”
“We have a right to know.”
Trainor’s hostility dissolves. She looks pensive. “I have the details. And releasing me is part of the deal.”
“Trainor.” Ballard’s voice is gentle. “If you know something, tell us. We could all die
