him. I’m sure you’ll hear from them soon.”
I glanced over at Ramirez, who just shook his head and sighed.
Though I hate to admit it now, when Bronco said he had news concerning “our buddy,” I’d hoped that Warris had been killed. That’s a terrible thing to wish on the man, but that was how I felt.
And I just knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Keating would want me to rescue Warris, the very man who would burn me at the stake when we got back.
“All right, thanks for the info,” I told Bronco. “Always nice doing business with the friendly neighborhood spook. And now, what is it you want from us, because I know you want something.”
He smiled — an unfortunate grin that revealed his aversion to modern dentistry. “I want HERF guns. You came back with two of them, didn’t you?”
“Classified,” I said.
“I need one.”
“Too late. Already turned them over to Army intel.”
He looked away. “Damn it.”
“So that’s why you’re here?”
“Among other things. We’ve got some Chinese agents in Sangsar. They’re supplying the HERF guns.”
“You got proof?”
“I got it. But hard evidence is always better. It allows me to more definitively make a move. It allows me to have my three-letter agency call your agency and get the job done right.”
I nodded. “Assholes or allies. Hard to tell the difference sometimes…”
“That it is.”
“How come you’re willing to play nice all of a sudden?”
“Because now it benefits me. What else you need to know?”
“Just where my guy is and where I can find Zahed…”
“I’ll get back to you on those…” He winked and hobbled back toward his car. Only then did I notice his limp and the deep scar running across his ankle. What I didn’t notice, though, were all the lies he’d just told me. He could’ve won an Oscar for that performance.
I dropped off Ramirez back at the base, then headed over to Harruck’s office. I was about to open the door to enter the Quonset hut when I noticed a car parked outside and an old man, a local from Senjaray I figured, unloading luggage from the trunk. I opened the door, stepped inside, and just as the door was closing behind me —
A thundering explosion rattled the walls followed by the pinging of debris.
Ahead was Harruck, seated at his desk, talking to a dignified-looking man with gray beard and expensive- looking Afghan clothes. I assumed he was a government official of some sort, and I was correct.
As Harruck and the other man shouted behind me, I took a deep breath, then slipped back outside.
The car had exploded, the man removing the luggage lying in pieces across the dirt, the flames still pouring up from the shattered windows. I raised an arm against the intense heat as Harruck’s security people were screaming and rushing to get fire extinguishers.
Harruck came out behind me and screamed orders to his people, while the older man hollered in Pashto, then covered his eyes and began speaking so rapidly that I barely understood a word.
We watched as Harruck’s teams began putting out the fire, and the black smoke sent signals to the Taliban in the mountains and everyone in Senjaray — indeed, something had happened on the American base.
Harruck ushered the old man back into his office, and I entered behind them. The old man collapsed into his chair and tried to catch his breath. His eyes brimmed with tears.
Harruck glowered at me and said, “Well, Scott, this is obviously not the time for you and I to talk.”
“I understand.” In Pashto, I said to the old man, “I’m very sorry about this.”
He answered in English. “They must’ve rigged my car on a timer. And I guess it went off too late. They are amateurs, the men who are trying to kill me.”
“Who are they?” I asked.
“The same people you are trying to help.”
I looked at Harruck, who rolled his eyes. “Scott, this is Naimut Gul, the district governor.”
“Sir, I wish we could have met under different circumstances.”
“My driver was a very good man. Highly trusted.” He shuddered and rubbed the corners of his eyes.
“Governor, if you’ll just give me a moment to speak with him?” Harruck asked.
Gul nodded. “And now, Captain, I think you fully understand what I’m talking about.”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
Harruck motioned me back outside, where we walked around to the pathway between huts. The officers’ barracks lay to our right, and one of the guys had designed a little putting green in the middle of the desert, an oasis of sorts that Harruck pointed to and said, “See that? Crazy right here in the desert, right? Well, that’s what I got right now, with that fool inside my office.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“Everybody in the district hates the guy. He’s former Taliban, and he’s been extorting these people for years. He’s a crime lord with ties to the opium trade, but he’s still in tight with the government, and higher now tells me it’s my job to protect him. He’s moving his office onto our base. And you know what? Everybody wants this guy dead: the Taliban, the people here, even some guys in the government because they know what a scumbag he is.”
“So you’re not having a good day. Join the club.”
“Scott, I might need your help here.”
I almost laughed. “What?”
“If this guy sets up shop here, we’ll be painting an even bigger target on our backs.”
“But you got orders to protect him — just like I got orders to capture or kill Zahed. By the way, I ran into Bronco. His contacts confirm that the Taliban have Warris. I’ll be taking that up to higher in a few minutes.”
“That’s what I thought. And now I’m thinking about a trade — not one that higher ever knows about.”
“What?”
Harruck lowered his voice even more. “The Taliban would love to get their hands on Gul. What if we trade him for Warris? We just make it look like the governor got kidnapped.”
“Are you serious?”
Harruck spun around, cursed, then whirled back. “I don’t know what I am anymore, Scott. I really don’t. What the hell am I supposed to do with this guy?”
“Just do your job.”
“No one makes that easy — especially you. I read your report.”
“Then you know if we can’t get air support, I’ll be organizing my team to head back into the mountains and blow up that tunnel complex. We need to destroy that in order to better protect the school.”
“Are we really on the same page?”
“I don’t even know if our pages are in the same book, but those tunnels need to go. And if you got a problem with that, you’d better let me know right now.”
“That man sitting in my office is my bigger problem. Blow up the tunnels, Scott. Screw it. Blow ’em all up…”
I stood outside the communications hut, just watching Harruck’s guys deal with the burning car and begin cleaning up the mess. That the captain’s people had not done a bomb search of the car before it had passed through the main gate was odd. I walked over to the gate and questioned the guys, who told me they had orders from Harruck to waive the search and not delay the governor’s arrival — a mistake made by the young captain. That car should’ve been left on our perimeter, and the governor should’ve been transferred into a Hummer and transported to Harruck’s office. Oh, but that was so inconvenient. I’m sure security would tighten now that Harruck had his 20/20 hindsight.
After leaving the gate, I found it harder to drag myself back to the comm hut. I couldn’t get the images of Ramirez killing the kid out of my mind. And I kept shuddering as the shots rang out and the kid fell back.
