“Long enough.”
After Stan Hurley and Irene Kennedy, Scott Coleman was the person Rapp trusted most in the world. The SEAL had been his right-hand man for operations too numerous to count, but Rapp still didn’t get the frogman’s sense of humor.
“How many shooters did you bring?” Rapp said.
“Three.”
Rapp was hoping for more, but he’d make it work. “Get them in here. We need to do a mission brief.”
“Will do,” Coleman said.
The blond SEAL left without another word.
“What mission?” Steve said.
Ignoring the CIA officer, Rapp turned to Mark. “Do you have any Afghan shooters?”
“I don’t,” Mark said, shaking his head, “but there’s an ODA team on J-Bad that has a company-plus of Afghan Army National Commandos. The team sergeant’s name is Doug Peluso. I’ve worked with him before. He’s good shit.”
“Get him in here too,” Rapp said. “Pronto. We’re on the clock.”
“On it,” Mark said, heading for the door.
“Mitch,” Steve said, grabbing Rapp’s arm. “Have you heard a word I’ve said?”
“Every single one, unfortunately,” Rapp said. “Now it’s your turn to listen. Get Bill on the phone in Kabul. Tell him the shit’s about to get real. I’m gonna put together a list of assets and taskings. His job is to provide them, no questions asked. If he has a problem with that, tell him that the next time his phone rings it will be Irene calling to explain that his career in the Central Intelligence Agency is over. Got it?”
“Mitch, you have to believe me,” Steve said, his tone pleading, “you will never be able to sneak into that valley. Never.”
“I don’t plan to sneak in,” Rapp said.
“What do you mean?” Steve said.
“I plan to get invited.”
CHAPTER 22
SIXTY minutes later, Rapp was bouncing along a pothole-ridden road with his hands manacled.
He knew the restraints were necessary, but he still wasn’t happy.
While he couldn’t see through the black hood covering his face, Rapp could hear rushing water over the sound of a rumbling V-8 turbo-diesel engine. The spring rains had been exceptionally heavy this year, and the Kabul River was still at flood stage.
The Russian-made Ural-4320 cargo truck Rapp was riding in was the equivalent of the veritable M939 five-ton, which had hauled equipment and troops for the American military for more than thirty years. Like its US counterpart, the Russian version had a large tarp-covered cargo area located behind a small cab. The truck boasted all-wheel drive for its six tires, but even the most surefooted of vehicles were at risk on these roads.
As was the case with most infrastructure projects in Afghanistan, billions of dollars had been allocated toward improving the roads that wound through the mountainous nation. Also par for the course, very little of that money had been used to pave and level roads. If things were progressing according to plan, Rapp’s truck was currently heading southwest out of J-Bad in a circuitous route meant to circumvent a few newly erected barriers restricting access to the more direct Jalalabad–Kabul highway. The detour followed the serpentine twists and turns of a tributary of the Kabul River, and the drop-off to the churning water was both steep and barrier-free.
As a former Ironman, Rapp was an excellent swimmer, but it was difficult to swim when your hands were manacled to a chain bolted to the truck’s metal frame. And this was assuming Rapp would be in any condition to swim after the truck plunged down the sheer twenty-foot cliff. Three Marines had tragically drowned in this same tributary after their up-armored Humvee had misjudged a turn and toppled down the embankment. Even so, the water’s icy clutches weren’t Rapp’s most pressing concern.
That honor belonged to his fellow passengers.
“Who are you?”
The question was asked in Pashtu by the smelly human being seated on the troop bench to Rapp’s left. While Rapp was no stranger to living in the bush, the stench emanating from the prisoner was a doozy even by Taliban standards. The fighter smelled like he’d either rolled in excrement, or a portion of his body was rotting.
Or both.
Although the olfactory experience was less than pleasant, Rapp felt his hope stir at the man’s question. He’d arranged to be seated next to the prisoner for this exact reason. Now Rapp needed to take advantage of the opportunity presented to him.
Even if that meant breathing through his mouth for the foreseeable future.
Rapp paused as if weighing how much to reveal.
This was not an unreasonable reaction. The dozen or so fighters sharing the truck bed with Rapp were all manacled and hooded as per standard prisoner transport procedures even though there was nothing standard about this convoy.
But the smelly HIG fighter didn’t need to know that.
“Speak Arabic?” Rapp replied in labored and heavily accented Pashtu.
“Aywa,” the man said.
Of course he did.
Though the fighter dressed and smelled like a run-of-the-mill foot soldier who’d spent far too much time in the company of goats, his appearance was deceiving. Rapp’s seatmate was actually the high-value target from the ill-fated raid. Since the HIG commander went by many names, the CIA analysts who’d developed his target package had christened him with the code name CYCLONE.
“I’m a brother from Iraq,” Rapp said in Arabic.
“I could tell by your accent,” CYCLONE said. “I will call you Abu al-Iraqi, then.
