Authors: Jack - Seals 01 Terral
As soon as the helicopter wheels hit the ground, the motor was cut and the crew chief slid the fuselage door open. Aburrani, carrying his briefcase, stepped down to the ground, where he was met by Ahmet Kharani, the warlord's chief officer.
"Asalaam aleikum," Kharani said in greeting.
"God be with you," Aburrani replied.
"Warlord Durtami awaits you, Brother Aburrani," Kharani said eagerly. "I shall take you to him without delay." "Shukhria," Aburrani said, thanking him.
The two men hurried through the throng of gaping, grinning adults and the yelling children, toward the gate. It took only another half minute to reach the warlord's residence.
Aburrani went through a realistic greeting ceremony with the warlord when he entered his presence. This included some brief inquiries into each other's health and well-being, then the inevitable drinking of tea. Some samosas--pastry filled with potatoes and chickpeas--were also offered. All in all, three-quarters of an hour passed before they were able to get down to the real reason behind the visit.
"And what may I do for you, Brother Aburrani?" Durtami asked, as if he had absolitely no idea as to why the other man would endure a helicopter flight all the way from Kabul to call on him.
"I wish to discuss the hostages," Aburrani answered. "Are they well?"
"Of course," Durtami said. "They were most polite and cooperative when they were brought to me. I have rewarded their good manners with excellent accommodations."
"I am pleased by your kindness and merciful goodness," Aburrani said, knowing that the unfortunate men were undoubtedly locked up in a storage container and probably getting no more than one scanty, miserable meal a day. "We, of course, are anxious to have them back among us. May I ask what tribute you seek for their safe return?"
"One million American dollars," Durtami said. "They appear to be most valuable assets to the government's causes." Aburrani shrugged. "They are low-ranking officials." "But they must be important if they are sent all the way here to visit the farm village in my fiefdom."
"They visit many villages, Amir, all over Afghanistan," Aburrani said.
"Seven hundred thousand American dollars."
Aburrani seemed thoughtful before he said, "Twenty-five thousand dollars."
"I cannot let them go for fifty thousand dollars." Aburrani shook his head. "That is twenty-five thousand dollars for both."
"One hundred thousand dollars for both!" Durtami said. He waved his hand in a gesture of finality. "That is it. I have bargained down as far as I can possibly go."
"I will have to take your offer back to Kabul."
Durtami frowned. That could mean several weeks more of feeding the hostages. Then he smiled confidently for appearance' sake. "I am sure your superiors will see the logic and fairness of my offer. Please inform them that I have good use for the money. My fiefdom has been invaded by infidels. I estimate there are a thousand of them. Maybe many more. A good number of my men have been treacherously slain, and some innocent youths out tending a herd of goats on yon mountain were hideously tortured and slaughtered."
"I shudder at such wanton cruelty:' Aburrani said.
"Then you see my predicament."
"Perhaps the unconditional release of the hostages would convince the government to do something about this invasion," Aburrani suggested.
"I have purchased some weapons from my brother-in-law Hassan Khamami," Durtami said. "They are new French mortars. I will need no outside help to deal with the infidels."
Aburrani knew that Khamami was a powerful warlord with four to five times the men Durtami had in his band. He had always thought that the day would come when the brother-in-law would add this fiefdom to his own. The envoy took a thoughtful sip of tea, then said, "Now I shall turn to another item of discussion. The opium poppy crops. How do they go?"
"The resin will be ready for shipment soon," the warlord said. "We have a good yield on this last crop of the year."
"That will please the cartel," Aburrani said.
Aburrani was deeply imbedded in the opium trade out of Afghanistan. He talked the talk with outsiders about eradicating poppy production, but walked the walk with the dealers. There was more than greed in his motive for being a part of this local illicit industry. It raised the standard of living of the farmers, for whom he had a great sympathy and understanding. These people needed every advantage they could obtain in order to ease their physical and spiritual misery. By raising the poppies and processing them, a farm family was able to purchase a good wood-burning stove, some furniture or even a motorbike. Communities could chip in and buy a communal truck, tractor or minibus to make their lives easier.
The Americans and Europeans provided the market for the crops, and if they didn't approve of heroin addiction, they should turn inwardly, into their own society, to get rid of it. Zaid Aburrani and scores of other Afghanistan leaders and officials were not going to sacrifice their people to assuage the hypocrisy of Western civilization. As long as there was a market, a product would be produced for it. Was that not the basic philosophy of the infidels and their capitalism?
"I must return to Kabul," Aburrani said, standing up. "I fear they will not meet your ransom demands."
"Tell them I need the money to put back in my treasury after purchasing the mortars," Durtami said. "It is the leaders like me that will guarantee Afghanistan for Afghans."
"I will tell them, Amir," Aburrani said with a slight bow. "De khudey pea man."
"Pa makha de kha."
Chapter 7
SOLS
THE PENTAGON, WASHINGTON, D. C.
15 AUGUST
0900 HOURS LOCAL
THE Special Operations Liaison Staff had an office in a little used area of the Pentagon. This small team had been organized to ease the efforts of coordination and communication between the various special operations branches of the nation's armed forces. Access to this small administrative group was severely limited. Only a select few military and political echelons knew of its existence.
The concept behind SOLS was not unlike the U. S. government's intention of placing intelligence matters into a more compact administrative body to expedite functions and exchange of information. The main purpose was to create a convenient method for the nation's sneakiest and hardest hitting components to communicate. Basically, they had to make sure the left hand knew what the right hand was doing among all special operations all over the world.
The officers assigned to SOLS performed duties that sounded much easier and simpler than what the jobs actually demanded. The hard part was to prevent misunderstandings and wrongful conclusions based on the available information. The officers chosen for this staff were all SOF veterans who had been injured in the line of duty. Rather than accept physical disability separations from the service, they chose to serve in administrative capacities while remaining on active duty.
The chief of this staff was Colonel John Turnbull, U. S. Army. This Delta Force veteran had broken his ankle on a parachute jump, and the fracture was deteriorating to the point that it eventually would have to be fused. That would leave him with less pain, but more crippled. The affected leg would be much shorter than the other.
Commander Timothy Jones, U. S. Navy, was a former SEAL with a hernia. Lieutenant Colonel Steve Lee, U. S. Air Force, had injured his back in a helicopter crash, while Major Scott Marchand, U. S. Marine Corps, had touched a live power line with his foot when coming in to make a PLF during a parachute jump at Tank Park DZ, Camp Pendleton, California. His right leg had been amputated just below the knee.
Their workdays went from very early in the morning to very late in the evening; and on one particularly screwed-up project that involved not only the military but politicians and diplomats, they worked for a straight thirty-six hours without a break, making sure that no inadvertent interference occurred during a multi-agency kidnapping and assassination in the same OA.
These four officers were ably served by only two administrative assistants, who were wise beyond their years. Both these young women were E-4s but in different branches of the service. Specialist Mary Kincaid was U. S. Army while Senior Airman Lucille Zinkowski was U. S. Air Force.
The day before, when an appointment was made for them to be visited by Carl Joplin of the State Department, the two young ladies cringed, knowing it was going to put their bosses in a bad mood. The undersecretary was well respected, but he generally didn't show up on their doorstep unless a situation seemed to be totally and irretrievably fucked up.
DR. Carl Joplin was escorted by a Marine from the Pentagon's east entrance through the building to an elevator that would take them to the bailiwick of SOLS. He was left at the door and he tapped on it, then stepped into the outer officer, where Kincaid and Zinkowski kept their desks. The young ladies--the former was twenty and the latter nineteen years of age--were collating the latest SPECOPS missions by date and location when Joplin made his appearance.
"Hello, young ladies," he said. "It's so nice to see you again."
"How are you, Dr. Joplin?" Zinkowski inquired as she slipped a training mission in Bosnia between a couple of Iraq agent insertions.
"I'm fine:' Joplin replied. "You look busy this morning."
"We're busy every morning, Dr. Joplin," Kincaid remarked. She got up and went to the inner door, opening it to speak to someone on the other side. "Dr. Joplin is here, sir." A muffled voice sounded from within, and she turned. "Colonel Turnbull and Commander Jones are waiting to see you."
Joplin went into what was a small central meeting chamber, with Zinkowski following. The four doors inside opened up on the private offices of the staff members. Turnbull and Jones were seated at a table in the center of the room. A standalone computer sat on the table, and Zinkowski took the chair in front of it. One of the jobs she and Kincaid were tasked with was the downloading of classified disks onto the staff 's CPU. This was done while the armed couriers who brought the data to the SOLS office waited. When the job was done, the couriers took the disks back to the vault, where they were stored under both electronic and human security measures.
Joplin reacted to an invitation to make himself at home by slipping into a chair. Both Turnbull and Jones were in their shirtsleeves with ties undone. They had the looks of men who had plenty to do that day and were impatient to get back to the tasks that awaited them.
"What can we do for you, Carl?" Turnbull asked.
"I've been approached by Zaid Aburrani," Joplin replied, knowing they had left some important work to take the time for this meeting. "I believe you're familiar with him."
"I don't know him personally, but his name has passed through here now and then," Turnbull conceded.
"Afghan, isn't he?" Jones asked.
"Yes," Joplin said. "He's got a sensitive situation in his home country involving one of the warlords. The man's name is Ayyub Durtami and he's holding a couple of their voter registration agents hostage. It would be to our advantage if the prisoners were rescued."
Turnbull wondered about the importance of rescuing such hostages, but he knew if it wasn't vital then Carl Joplin, PhD, would not be involved. "Would this warlord's name be the keyword in our search-and-find mode, Carl?"
"I'm not sure, John. But it would be a start." He looked over at Zinkowski, thinking that back in the old country she would be Zinkowska. "Try Afghanistan plus Durtami. The last one is spelled D-U-R-T-A-M-I."
Zinkowski's fingers flew over the keyboard, then she pressed ENTER. "It's come up," she announced.
"Print it out, please," Commander Jones said.
Seconds later the Lexmark Optra E312 printer buzzed on a table in the corner of the room, then began printing ten pages of data. When it finished, Zinkowski went over and got the document, carrying it to Colonel Turnbull. He read it, then passed it over to Commander Jones.
Jones took the pages. "Ah! A SEAL operation. A platoon is in the area to pick up a defector." He flipped over to the last page. "They're also expected to be ready for any additional missions assigned them. They're still in-country." He shoved the report over to Joplin.
The State Department undersecretary settled back and read the official cold, almost indifferent words that described a dangerous mission to pick up an indigenous defector. He knew the operative name Ishaq from other Middle Eastern missions. Joplin was intrigued by the contingency that the mission could be expanded because of the unstable situation in the OA. He took out his pen and wrote a few lines across the top of page one, then put his signature under it and on all the other pages. He nodded to Turnbull and Jones.