Warris’s capture as an excuse. It’ll take them a couple of weeks to work out the logistics, so we need to drag our boots on Freddy’s rescue…”
“Hey,” Treehorn began, throwing up his hands. “I got no problem with that, since that punk wants to burn us all.”
“All right. Let’s go over the maps, plan the detonation points, and be ready to roll for tonight.”
The call came in while I was finishing up dinner in the mess hall. I remember stepping out there, looking at the mountains haloed by the setting sun, and thinking,
That was a very long walk to the comm center.
I was feeling numb by the time they guided me over to the cubicle, and my brother’s voice sounded strangely absent.
“Hello, Scott, this is your brother Nicholas.”
He was always so formal, so well educated and scholarly. He always talked about being articulate. I didn’t want him articulate at that moment. I wanted him sobbing.
“Hey, Nick.” My voice was already cracking.
“Dad passed away about an hour ago.”
“Okay.”
“Can you come home? We can delay the funeral for you, but I’ll need to know as soon as possible.”
Before I could answer him, a commotion behind me caught my attention. I told him to hang on.
A group of officers and NCOs was gathered around a flat screen, where a videotape was being played on the Al Jazeera network.
There was Fred Warris, dressed like a Taliban and sitting cross-legged with a group of Taliban fighters standing behind him. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but that didn’t matter.
I told Nick I’d call him back. I drifted outside like a zombie and just stood near the door. I closed my eyes and thought of my father’s workshop, filled with the heavenly scent of sawdust. And I pictured his handmade coffin propped up on those sawhorses. I was also certain he’d left detailed instructions about his funeral.
I could take the emergency leave. Just bail out on all the bullshit. Maybe not even come back. Maybe just go AWOL and let them arrest me. I was entertaining every crazy thought I could, thinking of ways to self-destruct to hold back the tears.
My father had taught me how to be a man. I owed him everything. He was gone.
I don’t know how long I was standing there when Harruck and the XO rushed up and Harruck just looked at me. “Have you heard? They put Warris on TV!”
The terms for Warris’s release, presented by the man himself in the video, were quite simple: Stop all construction in Senjaray. Pull the U.S. Army company out. Pay the equivalent of five hundred thousand American dollars. Release nearly a dozen captured Taliban fighters and leaders.
I was sitting in the comm center on a conference video call with General Keating, Lieutenant Colonel Gordon, and Harruck’s battalion commander.
“We’re not going to negotiate with these bastards,” said Keating. “And I’m going to make sure we step up our timetable. I want a full-scale raid to happen within the next seven days. I want to make that happen. I don’t care what it takes.”
Gordon just shrugged.
Harruck’s boss was a yes man.
I shook my head in disgust.
“Mitchell, you got a problem with all this?”
“Sir, you told me I wouldn’t have any air support for this mission, and unless that’s changed, we’ll be moving in much too slowly with a large force. Zahed’s got spies planted all over this district. He’ll see our ground forces coming in, and he’ll be out of there long before they arrive. You won’t get him, and I doubt you’ll get Warris. We need to be dropped by chopper. Shock and awe. That’s the only way it’ll work.”
“I’d have to agree with Mitchell,” said Harruck. “We can’t afford to blow this. We can’t afford any counterattacks down here. We’re making great progress so far.”
I sat there, debating whether I should tell them about Burki and my plan to have a face-to-face meeting with Zahed. Part of me considered the idea that if I managed to bring in the guy alive, I’d be a hero and they could call off the whole offensive and save the taxpayers a lot of money. The other part of me, the realist, said, no, that probably wouldn’t happen; the offensive would go on because Keating was very upset now, and the old man would have his blood. So nabbing Zahed wouldn’t affect that outcome.
But I was intrigued by the idea of talking to Zahed. Perhaps I was suicidal, but the fat man had caused so much trouble in the area, created so many headaches, that I just wouldn’t be satisfied until I met him in the flesh.
And if I presented that cup of soup to “the committee,” they’d all want to pee in it, thinking it’d taste better. A crude but accurate metaphor.
Perhaps, I quipped to myself, we should change our name to Rogue Recon.
Then I realized once again that if I didn’t tell them what I had in mind, we’d be digging ourselves deeper graves. So I just took a breath and spilled the beans:
“Gentlemen, I’m in the process of setting up a meeting with Zahed.”
“Are you serious, Mitchell?” asked Keating.
“Yes, General, I am. One of my contacts in the village works for the water man, who wants me to kill Zahed. My contact has a cousin who works for the fat man himself. Let me go in there and talk to them.”
“No, not you, Mitchell,” snapped Harruck. “We’ll send in a professional negotiator.”
I started laughing. “I’ve got the translator, and they’re setting me up as an opium smuggler, so once I get in there, we’ll spring the trap on Zahed. There won’t be any negotiations.”
“Now that sounds like a plan,” said Keating. “We don’t sit around and chat while they’re about to chop the head off an American soldier. What do you need, Mitchell?”
I faced Harruck and the others on their screens. “I just need to be left alone so I can do my job, sir. And I need evac when the fireworks begin.”
Harruck was shaking his head. “General, with all due respect, sir, don’t you think an ambush operation like this can do more harm than good? If Mitchell fails, they’ll behead Warris on TV, and they’ll all be gone before we can launch our offensive. It’s a lose-lose, if you ask me.”
“We didn’t ask you, Captain. And Mitchell will not fail.”
Keating looked at me.
I gave him a curt nod. “My team is heading up into the mountains tonight. There’s a small cave network they’ll try to use to get down into the valley and attack the school and police station. We’re going to blow it up.”
“Maybe we should delay that operation until you meet with Zahed,” said Gordon.
“Colonel, I’d prefer to take care of that first.” I gave Gordon an emphatic look.
“All right, Captain, understood.”
I wanted to blow the caves first in case I didn’t make it back. Maybe I was growing a soft heart, but I kept imagining Anderson standing out there with those construction workers and those school kids and all of them dying under a hail of bullets. The cave network, like the bridge we’d blown, was an avenue of approach that needed to be eliminated.
After the meeting, Harruck pulled me aside and said, “I’ll have a Bradley and rifle squad ready for you.”
I softened my tone. “Thanks.”
“I’m sorry, Scott, but this is, as far as I’m concerned, the beginning of the end for you.”
“Why’s that?”
“If you do get that meeting with Zahed, I don’t think you’ll come back. I think you’re making a huge mistake. I don’t know what this is about… your ego… you trying to prove something to higher. You should’ve been relieved.”
“And that’s the difference between you and me.”
