Black Ops Heroes of Afghanistan

  * * *

  Racing around the outside of the square in his Afghan robes, face smeared with dirt and blood, he looked little different from many of the other men rushing to escape the gunfire. He reached the jail and followed the outer wall around to the rear. A single door was the only way in or out, and it appeared to be unguarded. He tried the handle, but unsurprisingly it was locked from the inside. Greg pulled the Stechkin OTs-38, banged on the door, and waited. A tiny spy hole opened, and he could see a bloodshot eye leering out at him. The man shouted something intelligible, and he replied, "Pulis!"

  The Pashtu word for 'police' was all he could think of on the spur of the moment. The man stared at him for a few seconds and then blinked. The spy hole slid shut. Greg cursed for having messed it up. He'd have to use a couple of grenades, and that could only bring trouble. He started to unsling the backpack when the door began to open. An Afghan man, his face lined and old before its time, his mouth almost toothless, grinned at him and beckoned. He burbled something, and all Greg understood was the word for execution.

  The Stechkin was out of sight, held low at his side. He felt his anger surge, raised his gun hand, sighted on the man's head, and pulled the trigger.

  They want to murder my wife!

  The weapon only emitted a low thump that was unrecognizable as a gunshot from more than a couple of meters away. The bullet took off the side of the man's head as he was turning aside, to spatter blood and brains over the wall of the passageway. A long corridor stretched in front of him, lined with cells.

  She has to be in one of them.

  He took a second to move the body out of sight into an empty cell and started to check each cell for Faria. Men stared back at him, wretched, abject creatures, their faces starved, covered in sores and bloody weals. They cowered away from him, in case he represented authority. Authority meant pain, beatings, agony, and death. He kept searching until he looked inside the eighth cell on the left of the passageway; a woman in a blue burqa, her face invisible behind the mesh, curled up on the floor of a tiny cell barely a meter square. Waiting to die.

  "Faria?"

  At first she didn't move. Then something in his voice struck and penetrated her tormented brain. She looked up. "Greg?"

  He put his finger to his lips and whispered, "I've come for you, my darling. Give me a moment to find the keys. Can you walk?"

  "If it means getting out of this place, I can walk on water," she whispered back, "How did you manage to get in here?"

  "Later."

  He raced to the end of the passageway and found a wallboard with a score of keys hung on hooks. A separate, single key was on a hook with a label marked 'armory.' He took the keys to the cells and rushed back to her. She'd ripped the mesh of the enclosing hood of the burqa and pulled it back to free her head. Her face displayed the bruises and cuts of her brutal treatment. With trembling fingers, he tried the keys one by one, and when he found the one that fit, he swung the door open, and she rushed into his arms.

  "Greg! Thank God. They were going to kill me."

  "I know. Keep it quiet. We have to go."

  Another voice intruded. "Please, give me the keys."

  He whipped his head around to look at the cell opposite. The single occupant held a hand through the bars in supplication. The wrist of his other arm was visible, without a hand, only a bloody stump. Greg knew he had to be quick, but something in the man's quiet desperation moved him.

  "Why are you here?"

  "They say I'm a thief. I found a goat on the track outside the town and took it home to feed my family. They were starving. One of the local Imams claimed it belonged to him, and so they brought me here. First, they cut off my hand. Next week they will hang me for the insult to an Imam."

  He scooped up the keys and handed them over. "They're all yours, good luck."

  "Allah's blessings be upon you," he replied automatically.

  Greg glanced back at him and shook his head. "There are no blessings in this place, my friend, especially from Allah. Be quick, they will come soon. If you need to defend yourself, there is a key to the armory on the board. You may find it useful."

  He left the man trying the keys to open his cell and hurried back toward the rear entrance, half-carrying Faria who was very weak. When he got outside the door, the town was in chaos. Mutaween shot at anything that moved, bodies lay on the ground, and panicked men and women ran everywhere trying to escape the slaughter. He helped her around the edges of the square; confident they wouldn't see anything strange in a man helping along his wife in a blue burqa. A ten-man squad of Mutaween rushed past him toward the jail. They almost reached it when the front doors burst open, and a horde of filthy scarecrows emerged. The escaped prisoners had raided the armory and grabbed everything from AK-47s and RPGs to razor sharp bayonets.

  They fell on the Mutaween like savages, shooting them down and hacking them to pieces. The screams were terrible as they vented their rage at the inhuman treatment these men had inflicted on them. He glanced at his wife's face as they ran and could see she felt no pity.

  Why would she? They deserve every bullet, every bayonet slash.

  He carried her the last few hundred meters to the slaughterhouse, and they waited inside. Minutes later, Stoner appeared. For long moments, he and Faria stared at each other.

  "It's been a long time," she said quietly, "Thank you for helping us."

  "No sweat."

  His face was hard, and he looked back at Greg as he fed a new belt into the M-60. "Take the GAZ and go. Get your wife home."

  His voice was cold as ice. The Russian stared back, eyes wide with astonishment.

  "What about you?"

  "I'm not finished. Daud has to be around here somewhere, and Massoud won't be far away. I'm going to kill them."

  Greg shook his head in disbelief. "Shit, we've stirred up a major shitstorm in this place. If we don't get out now, we'll never get out."

  "You go. I have unfinished business."

  Greg turned to his wife, "We don't have much time. We have to get out of here fast." He handed her a package, "I brought some of your clothes for you to change."

  Her face was somber at first, lost in thought. Then she turned her back as she put on the fresh clothes. "Greg," she called over her shoulder.

  "What is it?"

  "We go together or not at all. If Stoner has a chance to kill these men, we should help him."

  He almost choked. "You're not serious?"

  She turned to him. "Yes. Rafe, I need a weapon, something to shoot with. Give me an AK-47."

  "Faria, you should leave this place and go with Greg. These people are still trying to kill you."

  "Then it's time someone killed them. Or do you think we should leave them unpunished?"

  "I do not."

  She picked up one of the AK-47s he'd put on the ground, snapped out the clip, and checked the contents. "Half full, it'll be enough for now. Where are we going?"

  "You shouldn't be doing this, Faria."

  "Where?" Her voice was hard. He knew from experience there was no way she'd change her mind.

  He shrugged. "The mosque, to see if Daud is in there."

  "You're both crazy," Greg mumbled, "Jesus Christ, I don't believe we're doing this."

  He reloaded the Dragunov, and they raced outside to fight through the panicking crowds. Men, women, and children slipped and fell on the thick snow, blindly searching for a way out of the gunfight. Some didn't get back to their feet, trampled by the maddened stampede. Men fired blindly at unseen threats. Their targets shot back. Bullets crisscrossed the town, ricocheting from the stonework, and some found a target, soft flesh. The panic intensified as the piles of bodies lying in the snow tripped the panicking crowds, after the poor visibility made it impossible to see them before it was too late. Even more people fell, and the mob trampled more of them into the snow, already red with the blood of those who'd fallen victim to the terrorized mob.

  Stoner led them, searching fo
r an empty pathway, a narrow lane or alley where they could avoid the worst of the crowd. Always heading for the mosque, which lay two blocks from the main square. They arrived in sight of a building decorated with minarets and Arabic writing. It was in better repair than those around it.

  "Hold it!" Greg shouted as Stoner charged ahead, "I know this place from the old days. I'll check it out first."

  He may as well have spoken to the wind. The American charged inside, with the M-60 leveled ready to fire. He came to the main prayer room, but it was empty. Greg and Faria came up behind him and stopped.

  "Where are they? There're always people in these places, worshippers, Imams. There has to be someone here."

  "They went to watch the execution," Faria said, her voice bitter, "My execution. Even from inside the cell, I could hear them shouting and baying for my blood. I heard some of the men taking bets about who would be the first to knock me unconscious with a heavy rock."

  Greg grimaced. "That motherfucker Daud did this to you?"

  "Yes, although I put the boot into him during the trial, so I suspect he'll be keeping a low profile."

  "He has to be around here somewhere. Massoud and his psycho pal, too. Let's take a look around. There has to be someone who can tell us where they'd be."

  They searched the mosque, every room, every cupboard, until they found one old man hiding in a janitor's cupboard; Stoner opened the door, and he screamed, "No, don't kill me! I don't want to die."

  "Relax, Granddad. All I want is to know is the whereabouts of Habib Daud. Where's his home."

  "Yes, I will tell you."

  He gabbled out directions, and Greg nodded to confirm he knew where it was. They raced out the building, and once again had to fight their way through the surging, panicking crowds. Scores of bodies carpeted the streets, and men and women stamped over them in their haste to escape. Snow started to fall again, and visibility was reduced to only a couple of meters. More people tripped and fell; more were trampled. Before they reached Daud's house, they had to fight off a bunch of cops who mistook them for Mutaween and blamed them for causing the trouble. The hail of lead from the M-60 scythed through the opposition, and the policemen retreated to find easier prey.

  "How much further?" he shouted to Greg.

  "About a block, we're nearly there if we don't run into any more trouble."

  "Stoner!" the girl shouted.

  He whirled and followed her pointing finger. A black Range Rover was driving away at speed. They could see three men inside. Massoud, Daud, and Parks. The American deserter spotted them at the same moment. He lowered the window and gave them an ironic wave. A second later the big, black SUV disappeared out of sight.

  "They've gone," he said, all the bitterness and rage welling out from inside him.

  Because of them, Marina Tanai lies close to death. The men I want to kill have escaped. Greg's problems are unresolved as long as Daud’s at large. They’re free to carry on their rampage of hate and murder. They can even move to another part of the country, bribe the local cops, and continue their killing.

  "What do we do?"

  He stared at Greg. "There's nothing we can do, except head to Jbad and make sure Marina arrived okay. Let's go get the GAZ."