Paul McKellips - Jericho 3

Camp walked away from Miriam’s bed and over to the desk phone in the room. He looked up at the phone numbers on a sheet of paper taped to the plywood wall. Pressing the speaker button, dial tone filled the room before Camp punched in the numbers.

“Task Force Duke, this is Sergeant Melendez,” said the voice on the other end.

“Melendez, you’ve got Khost in your area of operations, do you not?”

“Affirmative, sir.”

“Great. Operation Baby Bird is now green. Send your team over right now. Dead or alive, doesn’t matter to me,” Camp said as he pulled the handset up and disengaged the speaker phone.

“No!” Miriam pleaded as urgently as possible through the pain.

“Sir, what the hell are you talking about? You’ve reached the medical clinic at TF Duke in Khost,” Sergeant Melendez shot back into Camp’s handset and ear.

“Excellent. Let me know as soon as the mission is completed.”

Camp hung up the phone and walked closer to Miriam who was starting to twitch uncomfortably as Finn pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes and held back the laughter.

“I’ll tell you.”

“Too late, Miriam, you’re nothing but a suicide bomber with a dead kid. You certainly didn’t care whose sons you were going to kill yesterday. Why should you care if your son is killed today?”

“Datta Khel, Miran Shah District, in the northern tribal regions.”

“Pakistan?” Finn asked now fully engaged.

“He is called Khyber Abbasin.”

“Is he Talibani?” Camp asked.

Miriam did not answer.

“Haqqani? He deals in the Haqqani network, doesn’t he Miriam?” Finn prodded.

“ISI… Inter-Services Intelligence,” Miriam said as Finn bolted out of the room.

“Okay, Miriam, I’ll trust you on this one… we’ll call off the mission for your son.”

“No… please rescue him… bring me my son.”

Camp reached down and touched her left hand by the IV drip, the only part of her upper torso that wasn’t burned.

“Inshallah.”

Kabul, Afghanistan

Camp and Finn exited the Blackhawks on the LZ at Camp Phoenix and made their way to the Rhinos for the six-mile ride through the streets of Kabul and over to ISAF where General Ferguson was waiting for them. The Rhino was an up-armored “Winnebago on steroids”, virtually indestructible in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and served as a civilian and military personnel carrier. It was presumed to be indestructible until the Taliban sent a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device into one a few months earlier. The VBIED car bomber knocked the Rhino over and left a morass of twisted steel scattered among 14 dead and 11 wounded civilians and military personnel from three different NATO nations.

Ferguson and two coffee-pouring majors were seated and waiting for Camp and Finn when they arrived.

“Camp! Billy Finn! Great to see you, boys,” Ferguson said as he got up to shake their hands then stopped abruptly as he saw the bandages wrapped around Camp’s hands.

“Good God, Camp… your AAR said nothing about being wounded.”

“I must’ve forgotten to write it down, sir.”

Ferguson leaned over to one of his majors. “Make a note and file the paperwork.”

“Sir, really it’s nothing.”

“That’s another Purple Heart, captain… your nation is paying you jack shit for dollars. The least we can do is to give you a damn medal when it’s earned.”

“Why don’t you just send me a bottle of cabernet, and we can break General Order Number One together and call it good.”

Ferguson smiled and lit a cigar. No one was about to tell him he couldn’t smoke in his own office in the middle of a war.

“What do we have, Billy?”

“Well, Miriam the Terp straps on three plastic water bottles, loads them with what I’m guessing was acetone peroxide — kitchen table TATP, the woman always smelled like bleach to me — and then coupled a homemade fuse out of some cotton shoelaces and lit the candle.”

“What about the Afghan doctor?” Ferguson asked.

“That one puzzles me a bit. The guy sports a brand new pair of Air Jordans, not a speck of dirt on them, had to cost him a month of salary, even in the black market. But he was standing in the middle of the kill zone when Miriam lights up the room.”

“Finn’s right. Clearly Miriam didn’t mind killing Mahmoud, so it’s hard to know if they were in bed together, figuratively speaking of course,” Camp added.

“Base commander at Thunder?”

“Well, that’s an interesting study in itself. He refuses to send any Afghan army troops after the ambulance claiming he’s out of fuel but calls for a full investigation of his checkpoint and medical crew.”

“That’s good,” Ferguson reasoned.

“It would be, except he’s still thinking about who he wants to appoint to that committee. As far as he knows, Miriam blew herself up and killed an undisclosed number of Afghan soldiers, Afghan civilians and American military.”

“That was the point of the ruse, right?”

“That’s correct, general, but wouldn’t you think he’d like to reclaim and identify some bodies or notify next of kin? Nothing. Not a peep about the casualties. But he’s on all of the Afghan radio and TV stations promising retribution to those who committed the cowardly act on his base,” Finn said.

“Me thinks he doth protest too much,” Camp quipped.

“Responsibility?”

“Less than 30 minutes after the news broke the Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility and threatened more actions.”

“Pretty standard, Billy. The Taliban will claim responsibility for a car accident, goat flatulence or runny scrambled eggs in the DFAC.”

“But this was different, general. The Taliban referred to the bomber as being a woman, an interpreter who had been hidden within Coalition Forces for four years. Sir, we never described the bomber,” Camp added.

“So, they had no doubt that it was Miriam. Have you gotten anything out of her? Can she talk?” Ferguson asked.

“I spent some time with her yesterday morning, sir, and was able to, ah, persuade her to cooperate with us,” Camp said.

“Does she know anything about Banks?”

“Sir, it looks to us like her husband may be the common denominator in all of this. Miriam says that if she didn’t fulfill her role, her husband would kill their son. She apparently lives for the kid,” Camp said.

“She’s from Khost. Khost and Paktya are all Haqqani turf. They’ve got shadow governors in place wherever you look. As far as I’m concerned, I’d bet you the commander at Thunder is Haqqani, too.”

“You don’t know that Billy.”

“No, but this much we do know,” Camp added, “Miriam said her husband is ISI.”

“Pakistani intelligence? Now what the heck am I supposed to do with that?” Ferguson grunted as he got up and paced the room. “Major Spann… play the video.”

Camp and Finn looked at each other.

“Video, sir?”

“Major Banks is a reservist out of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Board certified gynecologist for a women’s health practice. He’s got a son, Chad, and a daughter, Brittany. Two days ago Chad gets a video posted to his Facebook wall from one of his new ‘friends’, a friend he thought was part of a Philadelphia Phillies Baseball Fan Club.”

Major Mitchell dimmed the lights then started the two-minute video clip as Camp and Finn watched intently. Spann brought the lights back up. The room was silent.

“Well?” Ferguson asked trying to stimulate discussion.

“Well, at least they didn’t chop his head off in the video,” Finn said with some degree of honest relief.

“Camp?”