Alex Berenson - The Shadow Patrol

Finally, the second ridgeline road. Wells pulled over, looked for bicycle tires.

There. Two thin tracks, not quite side by side. Wells pulled his binoculars, looked up at the hills. Nothing. And no kids to ask.

The road passed a handful of compounds on its way to the ridgeline. The bikes could have belonged to local farmers. Even so, Wells decided to go with his gut, chase the tracks. He turned south. The road was so rutted and rocky that he couldn’t get out of second gear. Francesca and Alders must have had an even tougher time. The slowest chase in history. A 250cc Honda knockoff after two bicycles. Wells smiled, but only for a moment. He didn’t understand why Young hadn’t called him, warned him. He might be too late already. Francesca might be taking aim at this moment—

No. He pushed the thought away. He rolled the throttle and the motorcycle zipped ahead, bouncing beneath him, past grapevines and almond trees. After about fifteen minutes on the track, he passed the last farmhouse and came upon a patch of dried mud that stretched all the way across the track. If he saw the bike tires here, he’d know that Francesca and Alders were ahead. If not, he’d wasted even more time.

Wells bent his head to the mud with the desperate hope of a poker player peeking at his last down card, needing an ace. And saw… fresh tracks. He rode on, more confident now, as the road rose in earnest into the hills. Wells wended his way between ruts deep enough to snap his ankle. Wells saw now why the Arghandab Valley was so isolated. Farmers couldn’t use these tracks to ship their produce to Highway 1 and the rest of Zabul. Even a well-built four-wheel-drive SUV would have a tough time with this hill.

Wells took a curve too fast and the front wheel chopped into a rut. The bike tilted precariously left and the back end kicked out. Wells pulled his left foot off the peg and stepped sideways onto the muddy track. His toes jammed into a rock, sending a jolt up his leg. The bike stalled. As he struggled to keep it from going down, his right leg touched the superheated exhaust pipe. He tried to pull away, but the bike moved with him, the pipe searing his gown into his calf. Finally, Wells regained his balance and jerked the bike up. He stood in the track, grunting in pain. A bright red burn the size of a silver dollar rose from his right calf. His left foot throbbed angrily. He wasn’t exactly mortally wounded, but the odds that he’d win a foot chase with Francesca had just plunged.

Wells gritted his teeth and put the motorcycle in gear and rolled on. First gear. No faster. He’d be useless if he broke a leg. Anyway, Francesca and Alders couldn’t be that far ahead. On bikes, they’d be lucky to make five miles an hour.

Minute by minute, turn by turn, he rose up the hill.

TEN MINUTES LATER, he reached the saddle. And saw their bikes, sprawled carelessly a few feet from the road. Eureka. Wells stopped, looked left and right. The bikes lay to the left, east, so Francesca and Alders had probably gone that way. But he didn’t see them, or any obvious position.

He could leave the road, ride up the hill. But they’d hear the engine coming their way long before he found them. He couldn’t ride and shoot at the same time. They’d take him out easily. He could ditch the bike and go up the ridge on foot. But if they were close, and they probably were, they would hear the motorcycle cut out. And wonder why it had stopped instead of passing over the saddle. Or… if the Strykers hadn’t arrived yet… if he had even a few minutes…

Wells rode to the southern edge of the saddle and put the bike in neutral and looked out. The village lay a few hundred yards below. No Strykers, but Wells saw a convoy of blocky vehicles maybe five miles away. They’d be at the village in ten minutes, fifteen at most.

He eased back into gear, rode over the ridge and down the hill. As he left the safety of the ridgeline, he was intensely conscious that Francesca had to be above, watching through his scope. He kept his eyes forward. No reason to look anywhere but the village ahead. No reason to be nervous. He was just a farmer out for a ride.

Then he closed on the village, or it closed on him. The compounds splayed out around the road. He came to a muddy open square and what must have been the only shop in town. Four teenagers stood beside its open doorway. Just what Wells had hoped to see. He pulled up beside them, parking beside a wall that hid him from the ridgeline.

“Nice motorcycle,” the biggest of the four said.

“What’s your name?”

“Razi.”

“You know how to ride, Razi?”

Razi squared his shoulders. “Of course.”

“Then you can have it.”

“What?”

“The bike. You can have it. I’ll give it to you.”

“You’re not funny. You’re stupid.”

Wells raised a hand. “Allah cut out my tongue if I’m lying. Let me tell you what I need.”

When Wells had explained, Razi shook his head.

“Why do you want this?”

Wells nearly told the kid not to ask, then decided the truth would work better. “There are men hiding in those hills. I want to get to them and this is the best way.”

“Then what?”

Wells heard the rumble of the Strykers’ diesel engines in the distance. They couldn’t be more than five or six minutes away. “Yes or no, Razi? Yes or no?”

The kid looked at the others. He didn’t want to seem scared in front of them, Wells thought. Peer pressure worked every time.

“Yes.”

Wells stepped off the bike. He pulled off his bag and the branches that had covered it and tossed the branches on the ground. Razi took his place at the handlebars. Wells slid in behind him and put the bag between them and rested his hands on Razi’s shoulders. Without a word Razi put the bike in gear and turned them around and took them back up the hill. Wells was glad to find that the kid rode smoothly.

As they emerged from the square into the sun, Wells peeked at the eastern slope of the saddle. He saw a big boulder that might have been Francesca’s nest, and a couple of thick shrubs. But he couldn’t look too closely and risk tipping off Francesca. Instead he tucked his head into Razi’s shoulder and visualized what he would do when the bike reached the ridgeline.

Francesca watched the Strykers come up the road through the open fields. They dwarfed the crummy mud houses and everything else they passed. They were a ways off, but they would reach the village soon enough. They were moving twenty-plus miles an hour, faster than Francesca had expected, especially since the lead Stryker had to push its mine roller up the hill.

Still, they were running a few minutes late. On a routine mission like this, somebody always fell behind schedule. Not that the schedule mattered. The village was tiny. The platoon wouldn’t run across many motorcycles. The guys would hang out for a couple hours, knock on some doors, get back to FOB Jackson in plenty of time for dinner. Another mission complete. Another day closer to home.

Then Francesca heard the whine of a motorcycle engine. It was close by, coming up the hill behind them, the same road they’d ridden up. The bike sounded small, a couple hundred cubic centimeters. The engine was revving high, like the rider was in first gear. It made the last turn, reached the saddle, stopped. Alders started to get up, but Francesca put a hand on him to keep him down. A few seconds later, the bike moved on, to the edge of the ridgeline. It idled even more briefly, like the rider was looking over the ridge down at the village. Then it moved south.

“What was that?” Alders said.

Francesca raised a finger to his lips and scooted forward as the bike came into view. It looked to be a Honda knockoff with a 250cc engine, just like the two they’d passed on the way up. A bunch of branches hung off the back, like the bike had a wooden Afro. The motorcyclist was a big guy with a big beard and a brown shalwar kameez .