“Five-Five Kilo, this is Two-One Alpha, over.”
The high frequency radio crackles from where Ballard left it on the floor of the house. We drag ourselves inside, and Ballard grabs the handset.
“Leave it,” I tell him.
“They want to know our status,” Ballard says. “Fifteen minutes ago, we were about to be overrun.”
I don’t know how I feel about General Anthony. The man I knew would have sent air support. Risked the loss of an aircraft. Today, he left us hanging out to dry. I haven’t had time to process the events of the morning. Until I do, the general is on his own.
“The general can wait.”
First the general pisses me off, then Najibullah and Robyn. Goddamn, the army has had its share of deserters go over to the Talis. One guy travelled all the way from California to get religion. Another guy walked off post one night and joined the enemy. Thousands of civilians from western Europe travelled to Syria and Iraq to join IS.
Robyn Trainor is acting too much like one of those fruitcakes.
And yet—she is the mission.
24
The Swim & The Hunt
Kagur Village
Wednesday, 0730
I order Ballard and Lopez to check their weapons. Together, we take empty magazines and reload them from stripper clips in our packs. Ensure our chest rigs are loaded out. We’ve been good with ammunition. Only Ballard and Lopez spent time on full auto, and then for brief periods.
When we have finished packing our gear, we break out cold MREs and wolf down what passes for breakfast. Twice more, Two-One Alpha comes on the air. Twice more, I shrug him off.
“Breed.” It’s Robyn, standing at the door.
“Is Zarek finished with you?” I hate the petulance in my tone.
“Yes, he is,” Robyn says. “Come for a walk?”
She’s holding out a peace offering, but she’s controlling the situation. I don’t like it.
I get to my feet, sling my rifle across my chest. “Why not.”
Robyn steps outside. I turn to Ballard. “No contact until tonight,” I tell him. “If anything urgent develops, hit me on the squad radio.”
We walk out of the house. “Where’s Zarek?” I ask.
“In the house,” Robyn replies. “He has his men pray in rotation.”
“How devout.”
“He is, actually.” Robyn exchanges words in Pashto with the big, black-bearded Mooj. “That’s Ghazan. He’s a good guy. I told him we were walking to the riverbank.”
“A good guy?”
“Yes. He was one of Zarek’s first followers, when he was but a child. They fought the Soviets together.”
Together, we walk to the bridge. The Mujahedeen look at me with as much suspicion as I regard them.
I stop at the bridge and stare at the girl. “Robyn, you look way too comfortable with this bunch.”
“What do you expect, Breed. I lived with them for a year and a half.”
“That’s the point. You were a hostage, a POW. You guys treat each other with familiarity. There’s such a thing as consorting with the enemy.”
Robyn leans against the railing of the bridge. “They aren’t the enemy, Breed. The United States is going to do a peace deal with Zarek Najibullah. Abdul-Ali Shahzad wanted the deal. When his negotiations collapsed, he sought to screw Zarek by kidnapping me and Grissom.”
“How did he find out? The back-door negotiations were secret. Grissom was supposed to be negotiating your release, not peace in Afghanistan.”
“I don’t know. Shahzad could have killed me and Grissom. That would have ended the peace deal. But he wanted Zarek. They’ve hated each other for thirty years. Instead of killing us, Shahzad took us prisoner and used us as bait. Stuck us in that house over there, took his main body a mile north, and set an ambush.”
“No coincidences, then. Grissom saw Najibullah’s caravan yesterday. Crawled out onto the promontory to signal him. That’s when he fell.”
“Grissom must have suspected it was Zarek, but I doubt he was sure. The caravan was a long way off. I couldn’t tell, looking through your glasses.”
Robyn’s lying again.
“In any case,” she says, “everything has worked out well for Zarek and the United States. He’ll escort us to Nangalam and be on his way.”
I shake my head. “There is no peace deal, Robyn. Until everything is agreed, Zarek remains the enemy.”
“You can look at him that way, Breed. But—I promise you, he is on our side. He wants this deal as much as we do.”
“What is the deal?”
Robyn looks at the Mujahedeen watering their horses. “I suppose it won’t hurt to tell you the broad strokes. The United States leaves Afghanistan. The Afghan National Government leaves Zarek’s Mujahedeen to keep peace in the provinces. Together, they push Shahzad out of the country. Keep Al Qaeda from using Afghanistan as a staging area.”
“What else is in it for Zarek?”
“The Afghan government is weak. The ANA won’t fight for the leadership.”
“Zarek thinks they’ll fight for him?”
“He knows they will. Zarek will run the country—and the opium trade.”
An audacious proposition. In Afghanistan, opium is a sixty-billion-dollar-a-year industry. A peace deal with America will be followed by a civil war to bring it under the control of one man.
“Of course,” I say. “The opium trade.”
“Yes. You can trust Zarek as far as Nangalam, Breed.”
“Don’t you have a problem trading drugs for peace?”
Robyn shrugs. “Grissom did the trade, with the authority of the United States government. Grissom and I are messengers. No, I don’t have a problem with it. Opium’s been traded out of Afghanistan for thirty-five-hundred years. They smoked it in the Arabian Nights.”
I suppose I don’t have much of a problem with it either. The United States has spent too much blood and treasure on this war. Afghan opium supplies junkies in Russia and Europe. Let them sort it out.
“How did you and Zarek get to be so close?”
“Zarek proved escape was hopeless. I made the best of the situation, lived with him and Wajia. Zarek took me hiking and hunting while we waited for the back-channel to develop. It took a long time before
