Raid on Afghanistan, page 13
“Good!” she murmured quietly. “I hated that place. Because I am white, they treated me like a slave, every single one of them. The only product they ever manufactured was death.”
“It sure came back to them in spades,” Talley grinned. “We’ve no way of knowing if those reinforcements had arrived when it went up, but I’m betting they had. There’s no way we can go down and do a body count because of the radiation.”
She nodded. “I wouldn’t advise it. The uranium was an unknown quantity. It could have a lengthy half life.”
“How long? I thought that a nuclear explosion would devastate a wide area, at least downwind.”
“Lieutenant, you have confused this with a nuclear detonation, which it most certainly is not. Radioactive materials escape from an atomic bomb when it explodes, and they are basically the broken particles of the uranium atoms. They have become new radioactive materials, called fission products, which are created by the splitting of uranium atoms. There are hundreds of them with different chemical and biological properties. You see, most of them did not exist in nature before the advent of nuclear technology, and their effects can be very bad, terrible. That is what the Taliban wanted me to produce for them, a fission weapon. This, however, is not a result of nuclear fission. I guess it is what is known more as a ‘dirty bomb’. It is a radiological weapon that combines radioactive material with conventional explosives. The purpose of such weapons is to contaminate the area around the explosion with radioactive material, hence the attribute ‘dirty’. Although that was not your intent, that effect is exactly what happened. The ground will be sewn with particles of uranium that will dissipate over quite a short period of time. Several months would be my best guess. It depends on a number of factors, rainfall, winds, and suchlike.”
He nodded. “Okay, I’ll make contact with our people and advise them of all that. I would guess they could probably use the existing telemetry on the drones to monitor the radiation. In the meantime, Adasabad will be a no go area for our people.”
“There’s no sign of Chief Nolan,” Will Bryce interrupted, getting to his feet. He held binoculars in his hand and put them back to his eyes, scouring the ground in front of them. “I hope to Christ he didn’t get caught in that lot.”
* * *
He realized that he’d lost it again. The old man was looking at him, his face expressionless, but the eyes said it all. The elderly Afghan had noticed that he’d blacked out at the time of maximum danger.
What was in his eyes? Was it pity, sympathy, or something else. Contempt?
He’d just have to ride it out. Nolan stood up, shaking off the dust and earth that had covered him, some of it scattered by the explosion. The dust seemed threatening, evil and poisonous, as if it was some kind of deadly bacteria that had spread in the wind. Which in a way he guessed it was. It could sure do just as much damage as deadly bacteria if it had combined with the uranium dust. There was no way of knowing, not until they managed to get some Geiger counter readings, or whatever they used these days. He helped Abraham to his feet, and the old man looked across at what used to be his hometown.
“What caused such terrible damage?” he asked, his voice trembling with awe and emotion.
Nolan explained to him the vast quantity of plastique stored in the basement was the direct cause of the damage, but the uranium dust was the long-term worry. He didn’t understand; the Chief could see that. All he saw was another example of the awesome power of modern military technology to intrude in and ultimately destroy the primitive lives of the local people.
“It would have been better if you’d never come,” he growled. “Since the Russians arrived, and then the Taliban, after them the Americans, we have had nothing but death and destruction. Now this.”
“It wasn’t the Americans that caused this,” Nolan countered. “It was Afghans. The Taliban and al Qaeda. They are the people who kidnapped your granddaughter.”
“Yes, you are right. When we find them, American, I want to kill every one of them we find.”
“I can’t see anyone arguing with that sentiment,” he replied with a grin. “Let’s go back and rejoin the platoon. They’ll be wondering if we’re glowing green.”
“Glowing green?”
“It’s nothing, just an old joke. Radiation can turn some things green.”
Abraham nodded, but it was clear he still didn’t understand. Nolan helped him up. The old man was even more tired, that much was obvious. They started to walk to the cave, and minutes later they rejoined the platoon.
They rested for an hour and watched and waited to see if any enemy fighters had survived the explosion, but nothing moved in the vicinity of the town. Talley called ISAF headquarters to give them an update, and his first point of contact was Colonel Eugene Waverley III.
“Tell me the status of your mission, Lieutenant,” were his first words. “I’m under a lot of pressure here to report positive results.”
Talley explained what they’d achieve so far. If he expected any appreciation for their efforts, he was to be disappointed.
“So you haven’t got very far, Talley. This Rahimi character, he’s on the run together with his fighters. You haven’t killed the bombmaker, and your Afghan liaison officer has been seriously wounded.”
“Tortured, Colonel, not wounded.”
“Whatever. And you’ve destroyed an Afghan town in the process. They won’t be happy in Kabul. Not happy at all. It sounds to me as if you’re not really up to the job. Not what we’d expect from the Navy Seals, is it, Lieutenant?”
Talley was silent. Right that moment, he’d given anything to get his hands around the Colonel’s neck and squeeze it tight.
“I think you need someone to advise you in the field. At the moment, the search for Gemal Rahimi is most important. We have to know that he’s dead. You’d better finish that bombmaker and follow Rahimi. Find out where he went and finish him off.”
“No, Colonel. I’m not giving the order to kill the bombmaker. She’s a…”
“Lieutenant, that’s direct order.”
“I can’t do that, Sir. I don’t believe that order is legitimate. If you wish to carry out an illegal order, you’ll need to do it yourself, Sir.”
“Lieutenant, you listen to me, you’ll,,,”
“The answer is no. If you wish to insist, you’ll need to put it in writing, and I’ll consider it.”
Now it was the Colonel’s turn to be silent. Talley waited for a response. It came a couple of minutes later.
“I believe Rahimi will be in the Hindu Kush. It’s the traditional hideout of both Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and we have intelligence that may point us in his direction. Move north east along the road to Asmar and halt two miles south west of the town. We’re sending out an advisor to assist you with the ongoing operation, and we’ll evacuate Major Siddiqi as the same time. Make sure you’re at the new coordinates inside of two hours. Out.”
Talley explained their situation.
“So what’s the deal, are they replacing you?” Nolan asked, incredulous. “They ought to pin a medal on you. We’ve knocked out a massive threat to ISAF security and got the ragheads on the run. Dammit, the body count alone must be in excess of a hundred insurgents, maybe double that. And we’ve almost destroyed their nuclear ambitions.”
Talley shook his head. “It doesn’t mean a thing to that damn fool Colonel. All he can think of is the mission objective. The stupid, blind bastard can’t see how everything has changed. We didn’t kill Rahimi, instead we let him escape, and we haven’t murdered the bombmaker.”
Agnetha looked up, startled. “That colonel wants me dead? I was forced to help them, do they not understand?”
Talley swallowed hard, he’d shouted out in his frustration something that would have been best left unsaid. “This guy only understands the original mission objectives. He can’t see how it had to change when we found you in Adasabad and learned of the nuclear program.”
“In that case your officer is a very dangerous man. You should remember they still have my father, which means that they have the potential to make a bomb. If they can persuade him, of course.”
Talley stared at her. “I thought you said he’d refuse to help them.”
“That is true. But now that I am free, think how much pressure they’ll put on him. They’ll torture him, and they’ll certainly make sure he never finds out I’ve escaped, so they can threaten to do the most terrible things to me as well. I’m not sure now he’ll be able to resist. He’s an old man, and everyone has their limits.”
Talley knew that for a fact. It was a well-known aspect of interrogation and torture that a man could only hold out for so long. Everyone gave in eventually, no exceptions. He looked around at the platoon. They were tired, exhausted even. But there was still much to do, they were Navy Seals.
“Men, we need to saddle up and move out to meet up with this new guy they’re sending out. We’ll have to do our best to persuade him that this nuclear threat was real, and it still isn’t over.”
“Lieutenant!” Nolan called out, as they were getting ready to move out. “I know I speak for all of us. You’ve done a damn good job leading this mission, damn good, and we’ll make sure they know it when we get back.”
Talley smiled. “That’s appreciated, Chief. The support of a Seal platoon is worth a hundred of these chair polishers. Let’s move out.”
Four of the men took a corner each of Siddiqi’s gurney. Talley placed Agnetha alongside it so that she could keep an eye on the sick man.
“A woman’s touch, Ma’am. It’s worth a deal of conventional drugs.”
She gave him a tired smile. “I will do my best for him.”
Nolan brought up the rear and was joined by Vince Merano. They walked along chatting quietly. “That was a nice job you did back there, taking out those hostiles. It was good shooting, Vince. Saved us a lot of grief.”
Merano grunted. “It was easy stuff, Kyle. The fucking politics are the hard part. What do you reckon they’re saving up for us next?”
“As the Colonel said, we’ll be chasing down this Rahimi character. As it happens, I believe it’s a good call. We can tie up the whole set up, kill Rahimi, and hopefully release Professor Bergmann. As long as they have him, there’ll always be the danger of them restarting their attempts to make a nuke.”
“Kyle, I must speak to you!”
They looked around to see that Dur had come alongside them. “My granddaughter, she will be wherever these men are. If we find them, we can release her.”
Abraham Dur had deliberately fallen back to speak to them. “I can help you again. I am sure I can lead you to where this Rahimi has taken my Najela. To their base.”
Nolan smiled at the old man. In truth, he felt exhausted. The ill effects of his weeks of too much booze and too little exercise had taken their toll, and the blackouts weighed on his mind every waking moment. There was no way he’d admit it to anyone, even though he knew the platoon were worried, some of them angry. The old Afghan had recovered from his early exhaustion and was keeping up the fast pace as if he was a fit twenty year old. Maybe he should share some of his enthusiasm, even though he doubted the value of what he was suggesting.
How the hell could he know?
“We’d appreciate that help, my friend. I haven’t forgotten the promise to do our best to recover her.”
“You may not have, American, but I think the others do not remember the promises they made. I will never give her up, no matter what happens to me. Never!”
“I’m sorry, Abraham. The mission is not an easy one, and we’ve hit more than our share of problems. As well as that, the mission brief changed when we came across that nuclear project.”
“I have problems too. But when you need me, I will be here. You know the price for my help.”
Dur quickened his pace and caught up with the rest of the platoon, and for a moment, Merano and Nolan thought he was going to tackle Talley about the failure to free his daughter, but he just came alongside the litter and said a few words to Siddiqi. The Major was awake, but his words were slow and tortured. Literally. Finally, they reached the coordinates for the rendezvous and fanned out to form a defensive perimeter. All they had to do then was wait. The road from Adasabad to Asmar was a narrow, beaten track, barely wide enough to allow passage for a single truck. But where they’d arrived, south of the town, the road widened into a narrow circular plain, roughly five hundred yards in diameter, the ground covered in small boulders and shale. It was desolate and deserted. There was no noise, no birds sang, no vehicles moved along the road, and no goats or sheep moved around the sparse plain, for they would have been noticed by the sound of the bells they wore around their necks. In the distance, to the south east, the looming mountain range of the Hindu Kush provided an awe-inspiring backdrop to the plain. To the west lay a low series of rolling hills, and to the other side of them lay the cities of Jalalabad and Kabul.
Abraham Dur was the first to hear the incoming aircraft. He stood and looked up at the sky.
“A helicopter comes from the south. It is strange, not a sound I am familiar with.”
They looked up, and less than half a minute later, his assessment was confirmed, a strange aircraft flying south from the direction of Kabul. Vince Merano was surveying the sky with his riflescope, and he identified the newcomer. It was no helicopter.
“It’s an Osprey. Jesus H Christ, I haven’t seen one of those in action before now.”
The two rotor aircraft finally came into plain view, and while they watched, its wings rotated, bringing the huge twin propellers up above the machine so that they could convert the fixed wing aircraft into a helicopter. The Osprey hovered over them, and the downwash from the rotors was like being in the teeth of a full-blown hurricane. They took shelter from the hail of stones and dust that the aircraft kicked up, until it finally descended gently to the ground. Nolan noticed the rear ramp was open, and inside a gunner sat behind an M240 machine gun, traversing from side to side as he searched for possible threats. The M240 was a belt-fed, gas-operated medium machine gun firing the 7.62 NATO standard cartridge. The M240 had proved itself to be a reliable and hard-hitting weapon, used in vehicles and as a door gun in rotorcraft. The Osprey, the Bell Boeing V22, was fascinating, a tilt-rotor aircraft with both a vertical takeoff and landing and short takeoff and landing capability. It was designed to combine the functionality of a conventional helicopter with the long-range, high-speed cruise performance of a turboprop aircraft. At least that was the theory. The aircraft was large and impressive, looking almost futuristic. It had a longer range, much longer, than helicopters, and was much faster too. It could carry around thirty troops, getting them in and out of trouble faster than anything else in the air. Yet they all knew of its safety record. Too many of the new aircraft had suffered failures and crashed, and the loss of life was becoming apocryphal in the legends of the US military.
The engines shut down, and the powerful downdraft ceased. A squad of four medics rushed down the ramp, and Talley pointed them towards where Siddiqi lay on the gurney. Behind them an officer ambled down the ramp and walked up to where Talley and his men were standing. He was short, unusual for a marine on active service. His uniform was the standard American camouflage, MARPAT, a digital camouflage pattern in used by the USMC. It replaced the Camouflage Utility Uniform, and the pattern was formed by a number of small rectangular pixels of color. In theory, it was a far more effective camouflage than standard uniform patterns because it mimicked the dappled textures and rough boundaries found in natural settings. Not all of the marines on active duty were enthused about the new design, but this officer was clearly not one of them. His uniform was beautifully cut, the polished boots looked handmade, and on his belt he wore a regulation holster. But the gun was anything but regulation. A Desert Eagle .50 caliber, sometimes used for special purposes by Special Forces, but this marine officer was not Special Forces. He wore the tabs of a full colonel on his collar, and before he opened his mouth, they knew exactly who he was, and that he had come to take over the mission. He took his camo hat off to wipe the sweat from his face, and they noticed he was almost bald. He had just a small half circle of blonde hair around the back of his head. Pale skinned, with freckles and a blonde mustache to distinguish his face; he could only be one man. He opened his mouth to speak.
“I am Colonel Eugene Waverley. I have been assigned to get this mission back on course.”
He surveyed the platoon with a sour face. “I know you’ve had a hard time of it, but I expect to receive some respect when…”
He was cut off before he finished as the Osprey began the start up procedure. There was a loud backfire from one engine, and black smoke partly engulfed the Colonel. The noise from the second engine was deafening, enough to prevent him speaking, and the downdraft from the swirl of the rotors covered him from head to toe in fine dust. He scowled as he waited for the aircraft to take off. Finally, the Osprey winged its way into the sky, and the plain went silent again. He continued.
“When a senior officer is present, I expect to see some respect accorded to my rank.”
He stared at the platoon, and they stared back. If he expected Lieutenant Talley to order the men to salute or stand to attention, he would be disappointed. They worked hard not to grin, but they’d been here before. Abe Talley had been a marine sergeant before he attended OCS, the Officer Candidate School, located at Naval Station Newport, Rhode Island. He’d graduated with honors in every subject, and his career in the Navy Seals had been a foregone conclusion. But he’d seen both sides of the coin, so to speak. From the perspective of a ranker and an officer, and he hadn’t always liked what he’d seen.
“Colonel, what the hell are you doing here?”
Waverley stared at him, unbelieving. “Lieutenant, you don’t seem to understand the way military command works.”
