Paul McKellips - Jericho 3

“We’re working on that part,” Daniels said begrudgingly.

“And ground zero for all of this? The target? Let me go way out on a limb… Israel?”

FOB Lightning

Paktya Province, Afghanistan

Captain Henry walked into the Level One clinic carrying a handful of letters from the post office. He made his way through the Ambien slug-line at the counter, and set the mail down on the exam bed before walking down the 40-foot corridor toward Miriam’s room. A young specialist was finishing his shift guarding her door.

“Anything new?” Henry asked.

“Sir, she’s taking her walks up and down the hallway as you requested. She seems to have a good appetite and slept most of the night.”

“Thank you, specialist. Hit your rack and get some sleep. We’ve got her until the night duty guard comes in.”

Henry opened the door and entered the room. Miriam was sitting in a chair and reading the same four-month-old newspaper from Kabul that she had read a hundred times before.

“Good morning, Miriam. I understand you slept well and are getting some exercise.”

Miriam said nothing. She was both a patient and a prisoner, something the US Army was having difficulty defining with an official designation.

“Well, I have some news for you.”

Miriam looked up from her newspaper.

“We’re moving you to Kabul.”

“I don’t want to go to Kabul,” Miriam snapped. “I’m from Khost.”

“You’re dead, Miriam, and don’t forget that… it was in all the papers and on Radio Television Afghanistan. If you go back to Khost, you won’t live five minutes, especially after you provided some intel to the infidels. I’m guessing the Haqqani network would not be pleased with that.”

“What about my son?”

“Captain Campbell is working on that as we speak. As soon as we know something — you’ll know something.”

“I’m not going to Kabul without my son.”

Henry reached down and pulled the sleeve on her hospital gown up so that he could examine the dressings from the escharotomy.

“You’re healing up nicely, Miriam… no infection. That’s nothing short of a miracle. Infection kills most burn victims. Fortunately, Captain Campbell put you out before you could melt like the wicked witch of the west, or wherever the hell we are.”

Miriam spat on the floor and returned to her old newspaper.

“Miriam, the gratitude and humility leaves me speechless. We are so going to miss your cheery smile and happy heart around this clinic,” Henry said with a full dose of sarcasm not lost on Miriam. “You’ll be on a bird in the morning at 0730 hours whether you like it or not. Kabul can figure out what to do with you next.”

Miriam threw her paper down, stood up and walked to the door and opened it.

“Going somewhere?”

“My doctor told me to exercise, so I walk up and down this hallway a hundred times a day. Every step I take I curse the day when I first met an American.”

Miriam disappeared down the hallway.

“Seriously, lady, you are welcome. It was our sincere pleasure saving a suicide bomber from herself. Hope you have a great life!”

Miriam paced up and down the hallway as Captain Henry retreated to his back office. The Ambien candies were all dispensed, and the line was gone. The on-duty medic was behind the counter resupplying the cabinets with bandages, dressings and pills. Miriam ventured a bit further out into the open bay before doing her 180 and heading back to the other end of the hallway near Henry’s office. She turned again and walked completely into the exam bay the next time where she noticed the day’s mail scattered on an exam bench. One envelope caught her attention. It was addressed to Captain Seabury Campbell, Jr. with a return address of only a first name, Eileen, then Lightner Farms, Baltimore Pike, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. She did her turn and headed down the hallway again. She looked into Henry’s office and saw him on his computer as she turned again. The medic still had her head buried in the medicine cabinet as Miriam brushed past the exam bed, picked up Camp’s letter and tucked it into her hospital gown as she headed back down the hallway. She walked into her room and placed the envelope inside her Koran.

Hindu Kush

North Waziristan, Pakistan

The 14 soldiers from the Special Forces Operation Detachment Alpha Team, along with Finn, Camp and Omid, made their way across an unmarked border from Afghanistan into Pakistan. The footpath had been narrow and snow-covered all the way from their ingress 42 hours and 17 miles earlier.

The expanded Alpha Team was dressed in snow camo they had borrowed from a German NATO unit stationed with them in Kandahar. The white masks at least kept parts of their cheeks from freezing as goggles prevented wind-whipped tears from icing over.

Captain “Sonny” Sanchez led Team One and kept a quarter-mile pace ahead of the CW2 and Team Two. Two scouts with M4A1s took point in the front of the formation, spread eight feet apart and separated from the middle core by thirty feet. Manson and his best sniper pulled up the rear with Manson’s M203 grenade launcher on his 9-inch barrel ever at the ready. Camp walked ahead of Veggie, the medic carrying the MEDEVAC 4 combat tactical stretcher, and behind Omid who was closest behind the scouts since he knew the mountains and the footpaths.

Brick’s Team Two stayed a quarter-mile back down the trail as they moved up, over, and through the Hindu Kush and into Pakistan. The spread formation in snow camo was the best way to mitigate any possible ambush, though Billy Finn was eager to peel off a few rounds if the situation warranted.

Operation Detachment Alpha was hoping the Taliban fighters would be sleeping in their warm little caves at 0300 hours and, for at least another three hours, until Alpha took their only sleep break before the final push into Datta Khel Village.

Omid’s ears were only a few feet from Camp’s mouth.

“Iran is too unpredictable right now.”

“Not Iran, the Hojjatieh and the Twelvers,” Omid said.

“You keep yakking about both. Who are they?”

“You’re American so I suppose you want the 30-second drive-thru window version?” Omid said sarcastically.

“We’ve got three hours until rest and first light so how about just the Cliff Notes?”

Omid smiled and fell back next to Camp, so they could talk and walk softly as their boots crunched on the snow covered trail. Clouds were gathering in the sky as stars reflected off the snow and the rock outcroppings of the Hindu Kush. The wind was still and death seemed to lurk around every cutback on the footpath.

"The Hojjatieh Society was a clandestine group of traditional Shia followers that began in 1953. They felt the Bahá’í Faith that was growing in Persia was a heresy and the only immediate threat to Islam. With the permission of the Ayatollah, a mullah from Tehran named Halabi created the Hojjatieh. In the beginning, Halabi and his 12,000 followers in the Hojjatieh Society were loyal to the Shah of Iran since they both hated the Communists. But Halabi thought the Shah was too friendly and open with the Bahá’í so they supported Khomeini during the overthrow and the subsequent Iranian Revolution in 1979. Khomeini forced the Hojjatieh to dissolve in 1983. He wanted to consolidate all Islamic power. Halabi took his movement underground where it grew until his death in 1998.”

“Was Halabi martyred?”

“Quite the opposite. He lived to be 98 years old. In our culture the older you are the wiser you are. Every word that mullah Halabi spoke was like a word directly from the prophets. He opposed Sunnism. He opposed Khomeini’s form of velayat-e faqih , or Islamic government by Sharia Law. In fact, he wanted no form of official government at all. Some say the Hojjatieh was nothing more than an underground messianic sect; that they wanted to quicken the apocalypse so they could hurry the return of the Mahdi, the prophesized future redeemer of Islam. But others claim that Halabi was content to wait for the Mahdi’s return in peace.”