Rapp took the warlord’s reaction as a sign that he wasn’t the only one who had offered such advice. This was not a welcome development. If whoever else was whispering in the HIG commander’s ear managed to sway the man, it would not be to the captured Ranger’s benefit.
In this part of the world, liabilities were dealt with decisively.
Still, Rapp ran the risk of tipping his hand if he acted too interested in the captive. He was a financier from an Iraqi terrorist organization who was in Afghanistan to meet an Iranian intelligence officer. A man of Rapp’s stature didn’t concern himself with trivial matters like captured Americans.
Usually.
“Why?” Rapp said.
“Because,” CYCLONE said, a portion of his Cheshire cat grin reappearing, “the captive isn’t just any American. We have one of their Special Forces soldiers.”
“You’re a fool,” Rapp said with a shake of his head. “You might be able to ransom a civilian, but the American military will not pay a dime for a captured soldier. And you’ve further compounded your mistake by your choice in captives. Do you know the lengths the Americans will go to recover one of their special operations warriors? If I were you, I’d kill him and be done with it.”
“That would be extremely shortsighted,” CYCLONE said. “But if that is how you truly feel, farewell. I remain in your debt. Go in peace.”
Rapp made a show of considering the cell phone CYCLONE had loaned him as he furiously thought. It was clear the warlord knew that taking the Ranger hostage was the equivalent of poking a hornet’s nest, but for some reason CYCLONE believed the risk was worth the reward.
As much as Rapp hated to admit it, the warrior hadn’t lived this long by being stupid. CYCLONE had excused himself to make a series of calls after he and Rapp had arrived at the compound. At the time, Rapp had assumed that the wily old fighter was calling subordinates to head off the inevitable battle for succession that would have been waged by those postured to take his place had CYCLONE remained captured.
But perhaps Rapp had misjudged the calls’ purpose.
Maybe CYCLONE had been working the phone to determine the market value of his new captive. Rapp thought the warlord likely shared the religious zeal common to his comrades in arms, but a fighter who’d switched allegiances as many times as CYCLONE also had a practical bent. According to the pre-mission brief Rapp had received from the J-Bad chief of base, the series of compounds CYCLONE was known to frequent were well constructed and somewhat luxurious by the region’s standards. Rapp was willing to bet the generators, the fleet of Hilux trucks, and the contingent of guards to protect them hadn’t been purchased on a HIG commander’s salary. Perhaps Rapp had a chance to resolve this entire situation with something the Central Intelligence Agency had in an almost unlimited supply—cold, hard American cash.
Rapp activated the phone and was preparing to dial when CYCLONE spoke. “You’re free to call whoever you will, but if you dial, my offer to show you the American expires.”
“Why?” Rapp said, his finger frozen above the cell’s number pad.
“Operational security,” CYCLONE said. “I’m sure you understand.”
Rapp did understand, but he’d been hoping the HIG warlord would not. Those hopes appeared to be in vain. CYCLONE apparently knew enough about the National Security Agency’s digital exploitation capabilities to keep anyone interested in the captured American isolated from their cell phone. As Stan Hurley loved to say, in a war that had stretched for almost a decade, the dumb jihadis had died a long time ago. Rapp had certainly found occasion to dispute his mentor’s assessment, but as was often the case, Stan was right more often than wrong.
Today was no exception.
Rapp gazed at the phone in silence for a beat.
Then he grunted his frustration and handed the device back to CYCLONE.
“Take me to the American.”
An hour later, Rapp found himself in the bowels of the earth, fighting the urge to lay waste to everyone surrounding him.
Well, almost everyone.
In the hurricane of violence that was brewing in Rapp’s soul, the American wearing a bloodied MultiCam uniform would form the eye of the storm.
Everyone else was fair game.
Especially the two shitheads of dubious origin attempting to outbid him.
“Come, now,” CYCLONE said, “that’s a very reasonable offer from our Saudi friends. Surely you can do better.”
Rapp could do better, but when it came to bidding against someone with the backing of the House of Saud, even the CIA’s supply of cash started to look stingy. But it wasn’t the Saudis who had Rapp most concerned. That honor went to the quiet man standing in the rear of the cave wearing a nondescript desert camouflage uniform.
The man who spoke Arabic with a Persian accent.
Rapp turned his attention from the mystery Iranian to CYCLONE. If the HIG commander felt any lingering sense of gratitude toward Rapp, he was hiding it well.
After voicing his intent to see the American, Rapp had been ushered out of the compound and into yet another Hilux truck. Though this time Rapp rode in the pickup’s cab alongside CYCLONE rather than beneath burlap sacks in the truck bed, he still couldn’t tell where they were taking him. This was because the HIG warlord had handed Rapp a blindfold as soon as he’d settled into his seat. Rather than protest, Rapp had dutifully tied the fabric across his eyes and focused on his other senses. Judging by the sound of the pickup’s straining engine and the road’s steep upward gradient, Rapp guessed that they were leaving the foothills for the Spin Ghar mountains proper.
After a jostling forty-five minutes, the truck came to a stop and Rapp’s blindfold was removed, but it was sound rather than sight that first captured his attention. The sound of rushing water. A lot of it. Blinking against the sudden brightness, Rapp saw a waterfall several stories tall thundering down a rock face into a rushing river. To the right of the waterfall loomed the mouth of a cave complex reminiscent of the ones in which Al Qaeda elements had made their last stand during the initial invasion of Afghanistan.
That complex had been dubbed Tora Bora, Pashtu for Black Cave.
For all he knew, Rapp might have been looking at those exact same tunnels.
Resisting the urge to glance up at the hopefully still-loitering UAV, Rapp had followed Fence Post, Ferret Face, and CYCLONE into the subterranean lair. To his surprise, the accommodations were on par with the compound he’d just left. Lightbulbs ran the length of the ceiling in bundled strands to ward off the perpetual gloom, and thick rugs softened the rock floor. Strategically placed fans did an adequate job of circulating the air, and the smell of roasting meat and baking bread teased Rapp’s nose. The tunnel complex had the vibe of a 1950s survivalist’s bunker, which in Afghanistan was the equivalent of the Ritz-Carlton.
This luxury did not extend to the battered Ranger’s accommodations.
The American was chained to the floor of a dank-looking depression about six feet below the ledge on which Rapp and the others were gathered. Rapp assumed that the cavern had been eroded by a now-dried-up underground stream, but regardless of how the depression had been formed, its purpose before it had been converted to a cell was easy to deduce.
An eye-watering stench wafted up from its dark confines.
A rock chimney climbing up the depression’s far wall was probably intended to vent some of the noxious fumes aboveground, but the natural ventilation wasn’t working nearly well enough for Rapp’s taste. He knew that outfitting the cave with indoor plumbing was probably a bridge too far, but Rapp would have hoped the Afghans had the sense not to shit were they lived.
“I hate this country,” Rapp said.
“Afghanistan isn’t for everyone,” CYCLONE said with a shrug.
