If Mom wasn’t home, she was probably next-door babysitting Benson’s three little girls, her usual schedule since Mr. Benson died of a heart attack during last fall’s Virginia deer hunt. Mom was compassionate. She actually thought of others, unlike Trish, who only ever thought of herself. Tripp flat didn’t have time for his sister’s tantrum this morning, not in the middle of the sensitive Afghan prisoner transfer he was handling.
Abdul Ikram, an Afghan youngster of fifteen years, had killed eleven civilians in yesterday’s bombing at a mosque in downtown Kabul. Out of sheer dumb luck, Tripp and his six-man squad had been patrolling a block away when the explosion rocked the city. They’d intercepted Ikram within minutes of the attack, thankfully, before he’d detonated the suicide vest intended to kill any first responders who would’ve gotten to him first.
First on-site, Tripp had simply manhandled the kid to the ground and defused the vest. It turned out to be an oddly sophisticated item for a poor kid dressed in rags. From there, the US Army took the scrawny teenager into custody. Ikram spent the night inside Camp Eggers detention facility. There, he was allowed to shower and eat, then dress in clean clothes, an orange jumpsuit with EGGERS stenciled on its back.
After Tripp watched the kid snarf the simple meal of canned turkey hash over brown rice, with a side of green beans, he knew damned well the kid had been starving. That detail and the vest told Tripp plenty. Ikram wasn’t the mastermind behind the attack, but hungry kids did the damnedest things to survive. Tripp had no authority to question or interrogate the boy, so he kept his interaction friendly, hoping to get him to talk, to tell him who’d set him up. No go. For the entire night, Ikram was wide-eyed, frightened, but mute. After Tripp’s efforts failed, the kid curled onto the narrow cot in his solitary cell, faced the wall, pulled the OD green blanket over his head, and effectively shut the US Army out.
But USA rules of engagement prevailed. Any and all Afghan prisoners had to be turned over to Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) as quickly as possible after apprehension. Since Tripp and his guys did the catching, their CO, Staff Sergeant Wolsey, assigned them the ‘privilege’ of escorting Ikram to the rendezvous point. And since Major General Jalandar Ali of the Afghan National Army Commando Corps wanted to meet the man who’d taken Ikram down—without getting himself blown up—the meeting should’ve taken place at the Morehead Commando Training Center, six miles south of Kabul, at zero-five-thirty this morning.
Should have. Didn’t. Still might if Major General Ali ever showed. He was two hours late, and Tripp was tired of waiting. He rolled his shoulder as the first orange-pink fingers of a beautiful sunrise stretched across the eastern horizon and promised another hot-as-hell day.
By now, Tripp was antsy as hell, glancing over his shoulder, and tired of the delay. His squad was just as wired. Ikram stood in the middle of them, still wearing orange, with his hands cuffed in front of him, and still not talking. Tripp didn’t blame him. He didn’t want the attention this meeting with one of Afghanistan’s top dogs would garner, either. Nothing good ever came from the dubious distinction of tackling an armed but skinny-as-hell teenager, who had no sense in his empty head, to the ground. It was luck that Tripp hadn’t killed the kid. Tripp almost had. Might’ve been a righteous hit, considering the body count in that mosque, but hurting children was out of Tripp’s comfort zone.
The tackle itself was automatic, a jock skill left over from high school. As the middle linebacker for the Letha Leopards, he knew damned well how to intercept, tackle, and hang on tight to a pigskin. That ability alone was the reason he and his team were alive today. That and the fact that Ikram was small for his age. Tackling the dumbass had felt more like tackling a bag of sticks than an offensive lineman. But that was Afghanistan. Nothing and no one was what or who they seemed.
At last! Major General Ali’s military jet touched down on Morehead’s private runway. It was now zero-seven-thirty. Guess he thought he was more important than the US Army, which he’d kept waiting. The ass.
Tripp’s cell phone rang again. Without checking caller ID, he reached into his vest pocket and thumbed the power off. Not now, Trish.
Major General Ali’s military entourage cleared the jet’s stairway. To look at the pomp and fuss over this guy’s arrival, you’d think the medal-bedecked, tan-uniformed, asshat strutting toward Tripp was divine instead of mortal. There had to be twenty armed ANSF commandos accompanying him, not to mention the stone-faced civilians in light tan suits who’d met him on the tarmac, or the soldiers in the convoy of camouflaged military vehicles driving alongside his royal highness. For hell’s sake, US presidents didn’t travel with this much security.
Was that the Afghan equivalent of Secret Service? Tripp didn’t know and didn’t care. He wasn’t anyone special and had just done what any other American soldier would’ve done—his job. This shitshow needed to be over. He had work to do.
Because it was a shitshow. Every last one of those commandos marching with Ali could’ve passed for an American GI. They wore damned near the same style of US Army uniforms, from their camouflage patrol caps down to their tan combat boots. Hell, even their weapons were probably paid for by the red, white, and blue, only via the black market. These guys looked like USA wannabes, trying to look tough. Tripp was damned sick and tired of being Big Brother. The USA needed to wrap this country up in a shitty brown bow, give it back to the warlords, and bring America’s men and women home.
As the sun cleared the wall of mountains to the east, the morning turned into another scorcher. The tall, slender Afghan soldier walking alongside
