Alex Berenson - The Shadow Patrol

Then he realized. He took off his windbreaker and stuffed it in his bag. At the gas station, he filled up and bought two big stacks of wood. He bundled them on the backseat of the bike to hide his bag. He left his pistol and grenades inside the bag. He couldn’t risk Francesca spotting them through the scope.

He mounted up and headed west. Toward the grape hut.

AT THE DIRT TRACK nearest the hut, he swung left, south, bouncing over the ruts. He tried not to think about the fact that Francesca was surely tracking him from inside the hut. This close, the.50 caliber would blow through him and leave an exit wound the size of a softball. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about bleeding out. He’d die instantly.

But he had to trust that Francesca wouldn’t shoot a random farmer on a motorcycle. Francesca had no reason to believe that Wells could have tracked him here. And Wells could pass as local better than anyone.

Halfway to the hut, Wells still couldn’t see the pickup. He wondered whether Shafer or the NRO had made a mistake. Finally, maybe a hundred yards from the hut, he saw a blocky shape inside the narrow windows. The hut was a great position. Even this close, Wells wouldn’t have seen the truck if he hadn’t been looking. At a hundred feet, he saw the first hint of a sniper nest, camouflage netting around one of the slits. He still couldn’t see the muzzle of the rifle.

Just past the hut, Wells pulled over. He was safer here, on the south side, with the hut between him and the rifle. The.50 caliber was big and heavy and hard to maneuver. He put the motorcycle in neutral and dropped the kickstand, but left the engine running. He pushed aside the bundles of sticks so he could reach the bag and the pistol inside.

“Hello,” he yelled in Pashtun. “Uncle?”

No answer. Walking into the hut would be a mistake. If they were sure he’d seen the Toyota and the firing platform, they’d shoot him. But they wouldn’t do that unless they had to. They would think he lived nearby, and they wouldn’t want to get the locals upset. Instead, one of them should come out, challenge Wells, tell him to get lost.

But no one did.

Wells switched off the engine. Waited. Nothing. No whispered voices in English or Pashtun. No movement inside the hut. No scrape of metal on clay as Francesca repositioned the Barrett. Wells unzipped the bag, grabbed his pistol. He stepped over the cut in the wall and into the compound. The hut’s mud walls were pebbled and uneven. Sprigs of weeds were growing in some of its slatted windows as nature began to reclaim its soil. Wells saw fresh tire tracks in the dirt. No doubt the Toyota had come this way. He looked close, saw two more sets of tracks atop the tire treads. They were narrower. Bicycle tires.

“Hello?” he yelled again. Then ran for the hut. No sense waiting now. If they were inside, they were laying a trap for him. If they weren’t, he needed to find out.

THEY WEREN’T.

The pickup was there, the firing platform, and the rifle. But Francesca and Alders were gone. Wells bent low, looked for bicycle tracks. He found them near the pickup’s back gate.

Wells pulled out his cell. The reception was fine. But something had gone wrong. Young hadn’t called. Now Francesca and Alders were on their way to ambush him. If he couldn’t find them, stop them, he would have himself to blame for Young’s death.

Not this time. Not after what had happened in Mecca.

Wells sprinted out of the hut, back to the motorcycle. He turned back. To the valley road. He had one chance. Three roads led to Highway 1. He had to figure out which one Francesca and Alders had taken. He couldn’t guess. If he guessed wrong, he would lose an hour or more. He had to be sure . How?

Francesca strained up the hill, cranking the pedals under his leather sandals, staring down at the dust beneath his front wheel. He raised his head, saw Alders pulling away around the next bend.

“Slow down,” Francesca yelled. In English. A tactical breach. He didn’t care. The road was rutted and steep, barely wide enough for two bikes side by side. A small car could scrape through, but it would need a new paint job afterward. In an hour of riding, Francesca had seen only two motorcycles, both coming north, toward him.

At least the air was cool up here. The folds of the hillside hid the sun. Still, Francesca would never again question the manhood of the riders in the Tour de France. He found Alders waiting at the top of a sharp left turn. “Not too bad from here,” Alders said. Francesca pulled over, waited for his breath. Alders gave him thirty seconds, then rode off. Francesca followed, cursing. But Alders was right. After one final turn, the road flattened out and opened into a narrow saddle. Scattered pine trees and mulberry bushes broke the rocky soil. To east and west, the slopes climbed steeply. It was the best natural pass across the ridge for ten miles in either direction, which was why the road ran through it. Though road was a highly generous term.

Francesca looked back the way they’d come, across the Arghandab Valley. The pomegranate groves that bordered the river were maybe ten miles north and fifteen hundred feet lower. Closer in, smoke rose from a grape field. The nearest fire department was at KAF, so the fire would be burning awhile.

Alders pulled out a plastic-coated terrain map. They’d left their GPS back at the hut so they couldn’t be tracked. But Francesca didn’t need the map. He felt comfortable with the terrain up here. He could see where to set up.

The far side of the ridge, the southern side, sloped gently toward Highway 1, where FOB Jackson was located. The road they were riding turned slightly left as it emerged from the saddle, running south-southeast. About five hundred meters ahead, the road bisected a small village. Maybe forty compounds. Weston had told Francesca that the platoon would set up there, stickering motorcycles and checking out some of the houses. A presence and registration patrol.

The day was clear, the wind low. Assuming Weston did his job and got Young into the open, Francesca expected the shot would be easy. After the kill, he and Alders would head back the way they’d come. The platoon would have little chance to chase them. The Strykers could get only as far as the saddle. On the northern side, the road was too narrow and steep for the big trucks to navigate. On the bikes, Francesca and Alders could easily outrace anyone foolish enough to chase them on foot. The no-fly zone meant that they didn’t have to worry about drones or helicopters. And Francesca planned to ditch the Dragunov. Taking it back to the grape hut and then KAF could only cause trouble. So even if some overzealous Apache pilot violated the no-fly zone and came over the ridge, he’d see nothing but a couple of Afghan farmers on bicycles, miles away from the kill zone. Once they were back at the hut, they would hang out and wait for the Talib IED-planting cell to show.

WESTON HAD CALLED just after sunrise. Francesca hadn’t slept at all, but he felt great, thanks to two greenies. Breakfast of champions. He felt the vibrations of every mote of dust in the grape hut. He was in tune with the world. He was alive .

“Got the okay from my CO. We’re gonna roll this morning. Little bit sooner than I thought. You cool with that?”

“We’re always cool, Lieutenant. Where we talked about before?”

“Yes. The village is called Mohammed Kalay. We’ll be there at ten-thirty. Eleven at the latest.”

“Roger that. Eleven. And your boy will follow orders long enough to give me a chance to engage?”

“He hasn’t said no to a mission yet. I don’t see him starting now.”

“And you haven’t heard anything from the other one?” Meaning Wells.