Tom Young - The Renegades

Parson turned his attention back outside. From this altitude, he had a much better view of the region than during the drive with Gold earlier. Green ribbons of irrigated agricultural land stopped abruptly where terrain rose into knolls and crests, brown and lifeless. Scattered villages and compounds dotted with goats put Parson in mind of the Old Testament. Crumbling ruins also passed underneath, remains from deep antiquity. And still no sign of a Humvee.

Instinctively, Parson checked the navigational radios. Rashid still had his ADF tuned to the Mazar beacon. Now they were far enough from Mazar that the needle had lost the signal. It swung around its compass card, hunting for a beam. No navaid existed close to where Durrani’s wife lived; they’d have to rely on Rashid’s dead reckoning and Parson’s memory of what the village looked like. Old Testament navigation, as far as Parson was concerned. He remembered the place had trees around it. All the villages he’d seen for the last few minutes had been treeless.

The terrain rose higher, became a little greener. Rashid checked his chart and pointed. The copilot banked to the right.

Rashid looked back at Parson, pressed his talk switch. “Is there?” he asked.

Parson bent his knees to see better out the windscreen. A copse of trees sheltered a collection of mud and stone houses. A dirt path led to the village.

It seemed right, but landscape viewed from the air could look entirely different from a ground perspective. The sun was high now, so at least long shadows didn’t get in the way. Parson wanted a closer look.

“If you don’t see any threats, drop down a few hundred feet,” he said.

Rashid gave an order in Pashto, and the Mi-17 descended. And there it was—the back end of a Humvee, visible underneath the trees.

“That’s it,” Parson said. “I see her vehicle. Let’s get on the ground.”

The last time they’d come here, things had turned out all right. Maybe all was well. He’d give Sophia a piece of his mind—not in front of anybody, though. Then he’d decide what to do. He’d try to keep this thing from going any higher up the chain than his own level. No Article Fifteen or anything like that. But he was so angry he was ready to send her home. She’d gone so far off the reservation, there was no coming back. When he gave a lawful order, he damn well expected it to be followed. What bothered him so much wasn’t disrespect; he knew Sophia intended nothing like that. It was what might have happened to her.

The Mi-17 landed in a field just off the road. The field had lain fallow for at least a season, and weeds grew knee-high. The crew shut down the aircraft, and Rashid left his men to guard it.

With Rashid, Parson waded through the weeds toward the village. He stepped around a patch of milk vetch, a shrub with spiny seedpods and red flowers. Parson recognized it from photos on his evasion chart, tucked away in his survival vest. The chart, made of weatherproof Tyvek, included a guide to which plants were edible and which were poisonous. Under the photo of milk vetch, it read DO NOT EAT ANY PART OF THIS PLANT .

Just like before, the village seemed quiet. But this time, everyone in it had to know the military had just arrived. No covering the noise of a chopper landing.

Parson unsnapped his holster, rested his right hand on the grip of his Beretta. He and Rashid were armed only with their handguns, and they were in for a bad day if it came to a firefight.

No sound came from within the village but the clucking of chickens. As they neared the Humvee, they saw it was unoccupied. No blood or signs of struggle. Tire tracks all around.

“Son of a bitch,” Parson said. “She might have left with somebody.”

Rashid raised his eyebrows. Apparently he didn’t like that any more than Parson did.

A Kevlar helmet lay on the Humvee’s right seat. Parson opened the door and picked it up. It was Gold’s; he saw the Emily Dickinson quote. It almost made him shudder. Had she really written it there as a cautionary note? Maybe she had a death wish. Sure seemed like it now. Or had her dedication to this place and its people simply overtaken all other considerations? Parson knew he was Gold’s superior in rank only, and it was a privilege to command someone so talented. But their relationship, and their obligations to each other, had evolved so far beyond the command structure that regulations seemed hardly to apply. He dropped the helmet back onto the seat.

“Rashid,” he said. “Do you want to knock on some doors and ask if she’s here?”

“Where she visit before?”

Parson pointed. “That house right there. Durrani’s wife. I want to know whatever she knows.”

Rashid moved to the door, knocked softly. A woman in a burka cracked the door, did not let him in. Long conversation in Pashto. No raised voices, but the woman seemed emphatic about something. Finally the door closed. Rashid walked to the Humvee and lit a cigarette.

“What did she say?” Parson asked.

“She say Gold go with men. She not know where.”

“Bullshit,” Parson said. “When did they leave?”

“She say she not know.”

“More bullshit.”

“And she say we must go away.”

“Why?”

“She not say. She just say go.”

“Fuck that,” Parson said. “We’re going to wait right here.” Then he thought for a moment. “No, we’re not,” he added. “Let’s get in the air and look for any kind of vehicle.”

Rashid took a long drag on his cigarette, removed it from his lips, and flicked it away. He exhaled the smoke, waved to his flight engineer, made a twirling motion with his right hand. By now, Parson knew that private signal: Start the APU; we’re going flying.

Gold pulled off the blindfold, squinted in the glare. When her eyes adjusted, she saw the Land Rover had stopped in front of a compound much like any other in Afghanistan, though perhaps a little larger. The main building was about the size of a twenty-man Army tent. Thick timbers supported walls of stone.

Rock fences adjoined the house, forming paddocks for sheep and goats. Two other houses connected with the fence lines, a network of stone. Terrain fell away in the distance, yielding to patches of green that looked to be irrigated from canals off a river. She tried to call up a map of Afghanistan in her mind, attempted to place the river. The Khulm, perhaps. Gold couldn’t be sure, and at this point, the geography really didn’t matter.

The younger man got out of the driver’s seat and opened Gold’s door. She stood as the older man came around the vehicle toward her. Still no threatening moves, no pointed weapons. At the door to the compound, two other Afghans stood guard with AKs. The guards were no more than thirty, and they scowled.

“So this is our hostage,” one of them said.

The older man spun on his heel, faced the man who had spoken. “Silence, you fool,” he said.

Gold’s legs grew weak; she felt sick to her stomach. Had the man just revealed something too early? If so, for her, knowing came too late.

The guard who had not spoken knocked at a weather-beaten wooden door. A voice inside called, “Enter.” The guard opened the door, and the older man led the way in.

Inside, a gray-bearded man sat cross-legged, perched on red pillows, at the far end of the room. A rug dyed in intricate patterns covered the floor. A rug not made of jute but of something finer, perhaps cotton or wool. At its center lay a depiction of the Kaaba, the sacred cube-shaped structure in Mecca, purportedly built by Abraham and his son Ishmael.

“I am Mullah Durrani,” the man said in Pashto. “I bid you welcome.” He motioned for her to sit. Gold and the older man who’d escorted her sat on the carpet.