Fighting Illini to what? 'Join the army? Have you lost your mind?' his mother had said.
His father had screamed at the top of his lungs, 'I was the first man in my family to earn a college degree! A graduate degree! We're creating a new legacy for our family, for our people! In a few years I'll be running for mayor of this city! You have a great future ahead of you in public service — and now you want to go backward!'
But Brown had just wanted so much more out of life than a business or a law degree could offer. He never saw himself sitting in meetings with city council members, discussing community issues. His methods of effecting change were much more aggressive.
Consequently, the guard who'd come out of the mud-brick house for a smoke never stood a chance.
Brown put a silenced round in the man's forehead and caught him before he hit the snow and made too much noise. After lowering him to the ground, Brown sheathed his knife and dug under the guy's arms to drag him round the side of the building, out of sight. That done, Brown crouched low near the corner to catch his breath, relief flooding through him like a warm cup of coffee. He issued his report to Captain Mitchell.
As confident as Brown was, there were more than a million ways you could screw up any mission, and he liked to joke that he had already discovered at least seventy-two of them.
Mitchell lifted his chin at Ramirez, who nodded and tucked away his tool kit. The door was open.
'Diaz, what do you see?'
'All clear now, Captain.'
After taking one more look through the eyes of the drone and reconfirming the positions of every combatant, Mitchell waited as Brown returned and got into position.
Ramirez would take left, Brown right, and Mitchell would come in low, on his belly — an unconventional choice to be sure, but that's the way he rolled. Ramirez and Brown would draw first attention should the guys in the front room awaken, and that would give Mitchell his chance to fire from his elbows.
It would all happen in gasps and whispers, fingers of mist pulling triggers and hearts stopping. They would float in and float out with their package, leaving cold, still death in their wake.
That dog in the valley howled again.
Mitchell braced himself. 'Ghost Team, attack!'
ELEVEN
Picking the lock was one thing. Getting the door to swing open quietly was another, and Mitchell flinched as Brown placed his gloved hand on the icy wood and drove the door forward.
Ramirez wore a smirk of confidence, thoroughly convinced that their entry would be smooth and soundless. After picking the lock, he had sprayed the corners of the door with his own custom blend of lubricants that he insisted would seep down, get into the metal, and eliminate what he called those 'Haunted-house-Michael- Jackson-'Thriller'-type door squeaks.'
The hinges, of course, were located on the inside of the door, so Mitchell remained dubious about the amount of lubricant that had actually reached them from the outside. But lo and behold, the door glided open. However, the cold wind rushed in, a wind they had no control over. The two men lying in small wooden beds on either side of the fireplace stirred, and one lifted his head.
Before Mitchell could fire, Ramirez and Brown put their pistols to work, sending both men back to eternal rest, blood pooling on their pillows.
Mitchell bolted to his feet and moved inside, closing the door behind them.
A voice came from the other room: a guy complaining in Pashto about the door being open.
Mitchell shifted around the partitioning wall toward the voice and took in the scene at once: another two beds, two guys, hostages in the corner. One guy rolling over.
Mitchell directed his own silenced pistol at the first guy and cut loose a round, hammering him in the chest.
Continuing in one fluid motion, he turned to his right and targeted the second guy, who was reaching for the rifle propped beside him. The guy's head twisted as Mitchell shot him.
But now the first guy was moving again. Mitchell rushed up to the bed and finished him with two more rounds. One would have been enough, but his frustration got the best of him. 'Clear,' he grunted into the radio.
'Who are you?' someone called.
Mitchell stepped around a beat-up dresser, piles of wool blankets, and a half dozen or so crates of ammo to reach the man who had called out to him.
Agent Thomas Saenz, code name Mongoose, was a longtime field operative for the CIA who had spent the past eight years in Afghanistan. With a ruddy complexion, long beard, and matted, shoulder-length hair, Mitchell could barely distinguish him from his Taliban captors. His hands were bound behind his back with a pair of heavy police cuffs.
Beside him sat Agent Erik Vick, code name Viking, a broad-shouldered, stocky man with a shock of chestnut brown hair and a wiry beard. He, too, could easily be mistaken for an insurgent and had spent the past three years working the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and the tri-border area to the west.
And the third man, well — Mitchell could barely breathe, and a dull ache came into his eyes. It was Rutang, all right, his old friend who had gotten back on the horse, deployed to Afghanistan, and been making a new name for himself for the past couple of years as a top-notch Special Forces medic. The last time Mitchell had seen him was at his promotion party.
Rutang's face was mostly purple, his left eye swollen, and they'd obviously drugged all of the men to keep them docile. Mitchell's penlight revealed dilated pupils.
'Diaz, here, sir. Got another guy coming outside the center house. Better hurry.'
'Roger that. Ramirez, keep covering the door. Brown? Get in here, now.' Mitchell glanced over his shoulder as the gunner entered. 'They're cuffed. I need keys.'
'I'm on it.'
'Tang, can you hear me?'
'Who are you?' asked Saenz.
Mitchell regarded the man with a weak grin. 'We're the guys getting you out of here.' He faced Rutang once more. 'Come on, bro, you with me?'
'Scott, is that you?'
'Yeah.' Mitchell swallowed and steeled himself as Rutang began to cry. 'You're all right, Tang. Stop.' They had beaten him so thoroughly that Mitchell feared picking him up.
'Keys,' said Brown, after wrenching them from the nearest insurgent's pocket. He crossed around the bed and began opening Saenz's cuffs. Then he worked on Vick's.
'Captain,' called Diaz. 'The guy outside is moving around the back. He'll spot the bodies. I have a shot.'
'Take it!'
Rutang cleared his throat. 'Scott, I let everybody down again.'
'No. The cache was blown. You stayed alive.'
Three days ago Rutang's ODA team had been tasked with entering Waziristan based upon intel provided by Saenz and Vick. A pair of arms dealers with Chinese connections had arrived with a massive shipment of Chinese- made small arms, and the team's mission had been to kill the dealers and destroy the cache before it was delivered to the Taliban insurgents. Those small arms would undoubtedly be smuggled across the border into Afghanistan and could even reach Iran and Iraq. Those arms would no doubt be used against American and coalition forces in the region.
Part of a split team operation, Rutang and the rest of his six-man group, along with the two CIA agents, had served as the outer cordon, providing security and overwatch while the other six moved into the small village to take out the dealers and blow the cache.
