The Renegades Read online

  With the engines on speed and the rotors turning, Rashid spread a VFR chart across his knees. He looked up at Parson and asked on interphone, “Do you think she go back to village?”

  “That’s the only spot I know to look,” Parson said.

  “Mullah Durrani may live other place,” Rashid said.

  “Maybe so,” Parson said, “but we gotta start somewhere.”

  Rashid called for his takeoff clearance, lifted off from the airfield. The walnut-brown expanse of Balkh Province’s plain stretched beneath the aircraft, at the foot of the mountains where seasonal streams drained toward Mazar. As the Mi-17 circled over the field, Parson scanned below for a lone Humvee. Nothing there. Rashid leveled on a heading for Samangan.

  Cool wind whipped past the door gun and throughout the cabin. Parson closed his eyes and felt the air, tried to settle his mind. Then he adjusted the stems of his sunglasses under the ear seals of his headset. The seals were filled with gel, and if he found the right spot, the headset could clamp his shades into place. That way he could scan outside on a bright day like this without having the wind rip away the glasses. He stood in the rushing air, found a place where he could see over the crew chief sitting at the door gun.

  Down below, two dirt roads twisted into the hills. No traffic moved on either of them.

  “Rashid,” Parson asked, “which of those roads goes into Samangan?”

  Rashid checked his chart, conferred in Pashto with the copilot. “The one to left,” he said. “It lead to village where Marines go with you and Sergeant Major.”

  “Let’s just follow it. Maybe she’s still on it somewhere up ahead.” The village was less than an hour’s flying time away, but Parson wanted to be there now.

  Rashid nudged the cyclic to the left, banked slightly. He spoke again in his language and transferred control to the copilot. With his hands free now, he took off his gloves and held his right palm in front of the fan mounted on the top of his panel. Sweating hands, Parson noted, nervous pilot. Maybe he didn’t like what this could turn into. If they found Gold, who else would they find?

  Parson turned his attention back outside. From this altitude, he had a much better view of the region than during the drive with Gold earlier. Green ribbons of irrigated agricultural land stopped abruptly where terrain rose into knolls and crests, brown and lifeless. Scattered villages and compounds dotted with goats put Parson in mind of the Old Testament. Crumbling ruins also passed underneath, remains from deep antiquity. And still no sign of a Humvee.

  Instinctively, Parson checked the navigational radios. Rashid still had his ADF tuned to the Mazar beacon. Now they were far enough from Mazar that the needle had lost the signal. It swung around its compass card, hunting for a beam. No navaid existed close to where Durrani’s wife lived; they’d have to rely on Rashid’s dead reckoning and Parson’s memory of what the village looked like. Old Testament navigation, as far as Parson was concerned. He remembered the place had trees around it. All the villages he’d seen for the last few minutes had been treeless.

  The terrain rose higher, became a little greener. Rashid checked his chart and pointed. The copilot banked to the right.

  Rashid looked back at Parson, pressed his talk switch. “Is there?” he asked.

  Parson bent his knees to see better out the windscreen. A copse of trees sheltered a collection of mud and stone houses. A dirt path led to the village.

  It seemed right, but landscape viewed from the air could look entirely different from a ground perspective. The sun was high now, so at least long shadows didn’t get in the way. Parson wanted a closer look.

  “If you don’t see any threats, drop down a few hundred feet,” he said.

  Rashid gave an order in Pashto, and the Mi-17 descended. And there it was—the back end of a Humvee, visible underneath the trees.

  “That’s it,” Parson said. “I see her vehicle. Let’s get on the ground.”

  The last time they’d come here, things had turned out all right. Maybe all was well. He’d give Sophia a piece of his mind—not in front of anybody, though. Then he’d decide what to do. He’d try to keep this thing from going any higher up the chain than his own level. No Article Fifteen or anything like that. But he was so angry he was ready to send her home. She’d gone so far off the reservation, there was no coming back. When he gave a lawful order, he damn well expected it to be followed. What bothered him so much wasn’t disrespect; he knew Sophia intended nothing like that. It was what might have happened to her.

  The Mi-17 landed in a field just off the road. The field had lain fallow for at least a season, and weeds grew knee-high. The crew shut down the aircraft, and Rashid left his men to guard it.

  With Rashid, Parson waded through the weeds toward the village. He stepped around a patch of milk vetch, a shrub with spiny seedpods and red flowers. Parson recognized it from photos on his evasion chart, tucked away in his survival vest. The chart, made of weatherproof Tyvek, included a guide to which plants were edible and which were poisonous. Under the photo of milk vetch, it read DO NOT EAT ANY PART OF THIS PLANT.

  Just like before, the village seemed quiet. But this time, everyone in it had to know the military had just arrived. No covering the noise of a chopper landing.

  Parson unsnapped his holster, rested his right hand on the grip of his Beretta. He and Rashid were armed only with their handguns, and they were in for a bad day if it came to a firefight.

  No sound came from within the village but the clucking of chickens. As they neared the Humvee, they saw it was unoccupied. No blood or signs of struggle. Tire tracks all around.

  “Son of a bitch,” Parson said. “She might have left with somebody.”

  Rashid raised his eyebrows. Apparently he didn’t like that any more than Parson did.

  A Kevlar helmet lay on the Humvee’s right seat. Parson opened the door and picked it up. It was Gold’s; he saw the Emily Dickinson quote. It almost made him shudder. Had she really written it there as a cautionary note? Maybe she had a death wish. Sure seemed like it now. Or had her dedication to this place and its people simply overtaken all other considerations? Parson knew he was Gold’s superior in rank only, and it was a privilege to command someone so talented. But their relationship, and their obligations to each other, had evolved so far beyond the command structure that regulations seemed hardly to apply. He dropped the helmet back onto the seat.

  “Rashid,” he said. “Do you want to knock on some doors and ask if she’s here?”

  “Where she visit before?”

  Parson pointed. “That house right there. Durrani’s wife. I want to know whatever she knows.”

  Rashid moved to the door, knocked softly. A woman in a burka cracked the door, did not let him in. Long conversation in Pashto. No raised voices, but the woman seemed emphatic about something. Finally the door closed. Rashid walked to the Humvee and lit a cigarette.

  “What did she say?” Parson asked.

  “She say Gold go with men. She not know where.”

  “Bullshit,” Parson said. “When did they leave?”

  “She say she not know.”

  “More bullshit.”

  “And she say we must go away.”

  “Why?”

  “She not say. She just say go.”

  “Fuck that,” Parson said. “We’re going to wait right here.” Then he thought for a moment. “No, we’re not,” he added. “Let’s get in the air and look for any kind of vehicle.”

  Rashid took a long drag on his cigarette, removed it from his lips, and flicked it away. He exhaled the smoke, waved to his flight engineer, made a twirling motion with his right hand. By now, Parson knew that private signal: Start the APU; we’re going flying.

  20

  Gold pulled off the blindfold, squinted in the glare. When her eyes adjusted, she saw the Land Rover had stopped in front of a compound much like any other in Afghanistan, though perhaps a little larger. The main building was about the size of a twenty-man Army tent. Thi
ck timbers supported walls of stone.

  Rock fences adjoined the house, forming paddocks for sheep and goats. Two other houses connected with the fence lines, a network of stone. Terrain fell away in the distance, yielding to patches of green that looked to be irrigated from canals off a river. She tried to call up a map of Afghanistan in her mind, attempted to place the river. The Khulm, perhaps. Gold couldn’t be sure, and at this point, the geography really didn’t matter.

  The younger man got out of the driver’s seat and opened Gold’s door. She stood as the older man came around the vehicle toward her. Still no threatening moves, no pointed weapons. At the door to the compound, two other Afghans stood guard with AKs. The guards were no more than thirty, and they scowled.

  “So this is our hostage,” one of them said.

  The older man spun on his heel, faced the man who had spoken. “Silence, you fool,” he said.

  Gold’s legs grew weak; she felt sick to her stomach. Had the man just revealed something too early? If so, for her, knowing came too late.

  The guard who had not spoken knocked at a weather-beaten wooden door. A voice inside called, “Enter.” The guard opened the door, and the older man led the way in.

  Inside, a gray-bearded man sat cross-legged, perched on red pillows, at the far end of the room. A rug dyed in intricate patterns covered the floor. A rug not made of jute but of something finer, perhaps cotton or wool. At its center lay a depiction of the Kaaba, the sacred cube-shaped structure in Mecca, purportedly built by Abraham and his son Ishmael.

  “I am Mullah Durrani,” the man said in Pashto. “I bid you welcome.” He motioned for her to sit. Gold and the older man who’d escorted her sat on the carpet.

  On the wall behind Durrani hung a jezail, an antique muzzle-loading rifle, its stock inlaid with ivory. Gold knew the symbolism of the jezail. According to mujahideen legend, Afghans had defeated the Soviets with such primitive weapons, guided by the hand of Allah. But in reality the Afghan rebels had done their best work with Russian AK-47s and American Stinger missiles.

  “I thank you for your time, sir,” Gold said. “This meeting is out of the ordinary.”

  “Truly,” Durrani said. “You have taken a great risk. In some ways, so have I. Some in my circle advised that we take you captive. And I considered it.”

  That admission did not surprise Gold, but it still frightened her. She thought for a moment, chose her words carefully. “But you opted for a different approach?”

  “I did, for many reasons. For one, I did not wish to make my eldest wife a target for you Americans. For another, I must say I admire your courage, though you serve an infidel government. But most importantly, you wish to protect Afghanistan’s young ones. So do I.”

  Gold wanted to move on to matters of hard intelligence and then get out. But she knew she had to avoid even a hint of impatience or rudeness.

  “You honor me with your words, sir,” she said.

  Durrani adjusted the blanket he wore across his shoulders. Perhaps the woolen patou warmed his joints and made old injuries less uncomfortable. The seams across his forehead deepened as he considered his next point.

  “As my associate has told you,” Durrani said, “we bear you no goodwill. Do not make more of this meeting than it is. But this Black Crescent has gone too far. Jihad is for grown men.”

  “We agree that young ones should be protected,” Gold said.

  “Sergeant Major,” Durrani said, “do you know my ancestry?”

  Gold did not. Durrani was not an unusual name. That tribal tree had many branches.

  “I know your name has a long history.”

  “It is that history to which I refer. I am a direct descendant of Ahmad Shah Durrani.”

  Gold knew that name. Many considered him the founder of Afghanistan as a nation. After the murder of the Persian emperor Nadir Shah in 1747, Durrani united tribal leaders and brought together the lands that became Afghanistan. He ruled for nearly thirty years and was laid to rest in an ornate tomb in Kandahar.

  “That is a proud heritage,” Gold said.

  “Indeed. My ancestor was the father of this country. Now I must think as a father.”

  “When leaders consider the next generation, that is when they become statesmen,” Gold said.

  All right, she thought, maybe it’s a bit much to call a former Taliban leader a statesman. But better to butter him up than antagonize him.

  “And you wish to know what I can tell you of Black Crescent,” Durrani said.

  Now’s the time to be simple and direct, Gold thought.

  “Yes, sir,” she said.

  “I presume you know its leader, Bakht Sahar, from his videos. He goes by a ridiculous nom de guerre.”

  “Chaaku,” Gold said.

  “That is correct. He is an upstart who has begun working at cross-purposes to us. Villagers who lose their children will turn to anyone for help, even you Americans. And they may not see the distinction between Black Crescent and Taliban.”

  “So you feel Chaaku is giving you a bad name?”

  “Exactly. You should understand something, American. Sooner or later you will leave our country. When you do, we will return to power. Your departure may happen in five years or fifty. But if the actions of Black Crescent drive the people into your arms, you will stay longer.”

  Gold could see the logic. This guy was brilliant in a twisted way. He thought far enough ahead to do something no other Talib could get away with. It amounted to his own innovation in military doctrine: counter-counterinsurgency.

  And to achieve a short-term goal, however necessary, Gold was cooperating with someone fighting the longer-term goals of the United States. Well, war was messy in so many ways. She had studied the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, who wrote of “the immoral elements of all historical success.” Maybe this was what he meant.

  “So we both seek the defeat of Black Crescent,” Gold said.

  “Yes. It is not so strange. With the mujahideen, I accepted aid from Americans to defeat what I then considered a worse enemy. That aid did not make us brothers and sisters.”

  Again Gold paused to consider her next phrase. What Durrani just said was probably the best opening she’d ever get. “If we knew where to strike,” she said, “we could achieve this short-term mutual goal.”

  “Black Crescent does not telephone me with their plans. What do you know of them?”

  Gold told him about the kidnapping of Aamir’s son, Aamir’s attempt to commandeer the helicopter and deliver Parson to terrorists.

  “I heard of that incident. In all honesty, I wish the plan had succeeded. One less senior officer for the Americans would have been a blow for Allah.”

  Gold bristled at that remark, but she kept her feelings to herself. This was the enemy. Of course he wished the abduction attempt had succeeded.

  “But what of Lieutenant Aamir’s son?” she asked.

  “Yes, that troubles me, as I have told you.”

  “Aamir tried to fly to a location along the Kuh-e Qara Batur mountain spur. Do you know of any stronghold there Black Crescent may be using?”

  Durrani stroked his beard, seemed to consider the question. Gold wondered if he was searching his memory or just deciding whether to tell the truth. Then the expression on the old mujahideen commander seemed to soften.

  “There is a fort, actually more of a ruin, near the southeast end of Kuh-e Qara Batur,” Durrani said. “Beneath the fort is a small set of caves. In the 1980s, the soldiers of God dug out the caves farther, strengthened them with masonry. We worked long and hard in that place. We even brought in a generator and wired for electricity. There, doctors treated our glorious wounded, commanders held councils of war. The ruins obscure the cave mouth, which is why the Russians never found it. It would be difficult to spot if you did not know exactly where to look.”

  “So Black Crescent tried to make Aamir bring an American officer straight to their headquarters,” Gold said.

  “Possibly,” Durr
ani answered. “That location would serve handsomely. But it would have been very sloppy tactics to bring an aircraft directly there, under any circumstances.”

  “Certainly,” Gold said. She hoped a brief acknowledgment might prod Durrani to keep talking.

  “Such mistakes are born of inexperience and arrogance. This Chaaku is cursed with both.”

  Gold waited to see if the mullah would say more. He sat silently for nearly a full minute. Eventually he said, “You must look for ruins that lie on a wide outcropping beneath a higher knoll. I know nothing else of tactical value to you.”

  “I thank you for this, sir.”

  “I believe I have told you what you need. Do not expect another meeting. Do not contact my wife again.”

  “As you wish, sir.”

  “Then leave me.”

  The older man who had escorted Gold rose to his feet and went to the door. Gold stood, nodded to the mullah, and stepped through the door held open by her escort.

  Outside, the two guards glared at her, said nothing. The younger man who had driven the Land Rover sat in the driver’s seat. Gold remembered the blindfold in her pocket. She took it out and handed it to the older man. He directed her to sit in the vehicle, and then he tied on the blindfold. The man pulled a little harder, tied a little rougher than the woman had, though Gold supposed he thought he was being careful.

  She felt the door slam, the rush of air. A minute later, the Land Rover started and began to roll. They drove the route back to the village in silence. The day was warmer now, midafternoon, and Gold felt the temperature rising in the vehicle. No air conditioner, apparently. Maybe this would be the last warm day before fall deepened and led to the brutal Afghan winter. She lost track of time, but it seemed the better part of an hour passed as the vehicle bounced along.

  She startled when a hand grabbed the blindfold. The Land Rover skidded to a stop. Someone yanked her head forward, tore the blindfold from her eyes.