Once regrouped, they set out again for Azro, moving quickly but warily, taking care not to bunch up or string out too far. No one spoke. From time to time Skelly glanced over his shoulder, expecting the worst, but he saw only the same brown tableau that had been there all day. It almost seemed that the ambush had been a mirage, a daydream. His stomach, surprisingly, had met the challenge, sealing every sluice gate, and for the moment his fever seemed in retreat. The antibiotics must have finally slammed into effect, or maybe his nerves had shut down all systems in a biological state of emergency.
They rounded the next bend to find five horses gathered skittishly. Skelly spotted the telephone strapped to one. It looked unscathed. Amazing. And somehow reassuring, even though filing a story was the last thing on his mind. Two more horses loomed just ahead, bobbing their heads and prancing, nervously keeping their distance.
But as the caravan approached the head of the next bend a half hour later, the renegade horses returned at a gallop, whinnying and snorting. Everyone stopped to watch.
“Something spooked them,” Najeeb said.
“Bashir,” Skelly said. “He’s sealing off our retreat.”
“That would be my guess.”
They looked at each other, neither needing to say a word this time. Always trust the advice of the local on his home turf, Skelly thought. But too late now. What is to happen will happen, just like Najeeb said.
Razaq must have reached the same conclusion about what was lurking around the bend, because he ordered everyone on horseback to dismount, and the column slowed its pace. They then halted, and he sent two scouts ahead while everyone waited. A few men chambered rounds in their Kalashnikovs while others changed clips, a sudden jamming and clicking that started Skelly’s pulse hammering anew.
“Jesus,” he muttered. “I don’t know if I can take another one.”
The next five minutes passed in silence. Then they heard footsteps crunching toward them, everyone lowering to a crouch only to see the two scouts emerge around the bend. One shrugged, which Skelly took to mean they’d seen nothing. They conferred with Razaq, who gave the order to advance in a low voice, barely audible.
The caravan cleared the bend without incident, and five minutes later Skelly was beginning to think they’d overreacted to the horses. Perhaps Bashir had decided to wait in Azro. Anything would be preferable to another ambush along this remote road, hemmed in by the hills. In another mile or so they’d be out of the gorge altogether. Twenty minutes tops.
A gunshot ended those calculations, and Skelly’s stomach leapt back toward his throat. Two more shots followed, bursting with flashes from both slopes, and everyone dropped to the ground, scrambling behind rocks and pulling their animals down. A horse shrieked, a whistling cry of pain through flaring nostrils, and Skelly heard a man gasp and curse from the rocks just ahead.
Razaq shouted, trying to rally his men, but the gunfire was too intense. The only way back to Azro would be by fighting their way there. Skelly bent lower to the ground as the shots pocked and pinged around him. He felt the sun hot on his back just as his fever returned, blooming high in his torso. Somewhere among the rocks a shot found its target, and a man screamed, high-pitched and sudden, oddly like that of a joyous child at play. Skelly squeezed his eyes shut, sweat beading on his forehead, and a memory from long ago swam before him unbidden—another hot afternoon with the sun at his back, beneath leafy trees on a suburban sidewalk in Illinois. He was with his daughter Carol, years ago. She was six and setting off on a bicycle, her small round shoulders in his hands as he ran alongside to hold her steady, then let go, watching her wobble, all that heat on his back as he slowed his pace, Carol heading down the walkway toward the corner, ponytail swaying as she pedaled, indecisive as the corner approached, Skelly running hard to reach her but too late, watching her clatter to the pavement with an anguished cry. He leaned low, reaching to brush away the tears.
“Skelly!” It was Najeeb, who had crawled alongside him, placing a hand on his sweaty back, bending closer now. “Are you hit? Are you all right?”
“Fine. I’m fine.”
It was the fever, he told himself, the fever and the madness of the fighting. All that metal flying barely overhead, whizzing into stone and flesh. He had never realized that the air he breathed could be so alive with menace, as if he were trapped in some test chamber in a lab, an artificial universe dense with subatomic particles, every one of them tracing vectors toward his skull.
“Stay down,” Najeeb urged, easing away.
Skelly checked his watch. It was around two o’clock, leaving four hours of full daylight, plus an hour of dusk. If they could hold out that long they might be able to slip away through the rocks. But of course the attackers would be able to move undetected as well.
The firing turned scattershot as everyone sat tight, and after a while Skelly’s nerves began to calm. So this was how one grew accustomed to battle, he supposed. No wonder it induced nightmares—all that fear to be stored away and buried, time after time.
The fighting settled into an uneasy stalemate. Whenever anyone above or below showed a head or tried to move, someone on the other side fired, usually prompting an answering shot. A few of these tit-for-tats escalated into longer exchanges, frantic bursts followed by the eerie trickle of spent casings against stone.
Skelly wondered how much ammunition Razaq’s men had. He heard clips being exchanged and rammed into position from time to time. Perhaps there was a shortage on both sides, which would explain the virtual silence that fell on the scene an hour later, when at least twenty minutes passed without a shot.
But as it turned out, Bashir’s men were only waiting for the first group of attackers to close in from behind Razaq’s caravan. This group announced its return to the action with a long burst from the far bend, in the direction back toward Heserak. Skelly pulled tighter up into the rocks, feeling suddenly exposed now that there was shooting from both front and rear.
By now it was four o’clock. The day was moving much too slowly. Skelly reached into his satchel for his pills and water bottle, swallowing another Cipro. No matter how much water he drank, his mouth seemed to immediately go dry. He pulled out his notebook and tried to take a few notes, but everything seemed like nonsense. At this point he couldn’t even say who had been shot, or in what order. Everything blended into a continuous blur of noise and hazard.
One of the men just ahead had rescued some bread from one of the horses and was passing it through the rocks. Skelly tore off a piece and handed the rest to Najeeb. It was dry but tasted wonderful, anything to soak up the pool of bile at the base of his stomach. He heard someone sidling up behind a rock just above, and he reached for a stone, clenching one in his right hand and raising it to strike. But when a face emerged, it was Razaq, who shoved forward Skelly’s phone.
“Mine was destroyed in the fighting,” he said without preamble. “This one is our only hope for getting a message out. You said you are a friend of Sam Hartley?”
“I suppose he’d agree with that.”
“Do you have his number?”
Skelly nodded. All the phone numbers were in his satchel.
“But last time I tried him he’d checked out of the Pearl. If he’s out here somewhere his cell will be useless. Even if I get him, I’m not sure what he can do for us.”
“It is his connections we need. To the U.S. Army. Helicopters, missiles. Whatever he can manage.”
“And you think Sam Hartley can call in an air strike? I don’t think you really know the way America works.”
“And I am quite sure that you do not know the way Afghanistan works. So if you will try and reach him, please.”
What could it hurt? If anything, Hartley could also call Skelly’s editors, his family, let them know what was up. Skelly could do that himself, of course, now that he had the phone, and for a moment he toyed with the idea of filing a story, some exotic dateline like “Under Fire near Heserak,” but the urge passed. The idea of filing seemed well down on his list of priorities right now, and without the generator handy the phone’s batteries might have only enough power for half an hour.
The phone was roughly the size and weight of a laptop computer, with the antenna built into the top cover, which Skelly unfolded, pushing the Start button on the side. He had tried it out once on the rooftop of the Pearl, with perfect results. He eased back from the nearest boulder to allow for a clearer path to the sky, taking care to keep his head down. He noticed Najeeb watching from a crouch. There was another burst of gunfire, but the shots pinged off some rocks well above them. The phone was showing a strong signal, and Skelly punched in the numbers, deciding to try Hartley’s cell phone first. It took only a few seconds for the connection to go through.
“It’s ringing,” he said, handing the receiver to Razaq.
Razaq shook his head. “It is best if you speak with him first.”
“Me?”
Skelly was about to protest, then it dawned on him what the man was up to. Of course. Let Hartley know that not only was Razaq in a jam but the press was here to record it. Let me go down, Razaq was saying, and the whole world will know it. But that was assuming there was anything Hartley could do to help, which Skelly doubted.
“Hello? Hello?”
It was Hartley, faint but unmistakable, and to Skelly the connection seemed no less miraculous than the one between Alexander Graham Bell and Watson.
There was a fresh burst of gunfire just as Skelly answered, so he shouted.
“Sam? It’s Skelly. Can you hear me?”
“Barely. Lot of noise. Where the hell are you?”
“Afghanistan. With Razaq. His column is under attack. In some gorge just north of Azro.”
There was a pause. Had Hartley sighed, or was it just static?
“Unwise, Skelly. I tried to tell you not to do that.”
So where had the old chumminess gone? The backslapping compadre with a job offer in one hand and a cold beer in the other?
“Actually your advice was that he’d never take me. But someone else did. A guy named Bashir, who had your business card. Yours and Arlen Pierce’s.”
Silence again. Was the connection dead?
“Hello?”
“I’m here. Just trying to add everything up. Bashir from Katchagarhi?”
“You know him?”
“Know
of
him. And don’t you go saying otherwise.”
“Can we worry about that later? We’re just trying to get out of here alive.”
There was another burst of gunfire, this time closer to the mark, as if someone was zeroing in on his voice.
“One word of advice, Skelly. If you do get out of there in one piece, first chance you get, bolt.”
“Bolt where?”
“Anywhere. Just bolt. Too many black turbans headed your way, from what I’ve heard. Plus assorted others you don’t want to run into. So get the hell out of there, for your sake and mine. Now where’s Razaq?”
“Right here. I’ll hand you over.”
“Wait. First give me your GPS coordinates.”
“My what?”
“From the phone. They’ll be on the display.”
Skelly scanned the screen. There were the numbers, just as Hartley had said. Skelly slowly read them aloud.
“Great. Now pass me to the old man.”
He rolled awkwardly onto his back to hand the receiver to Razaq, taking care not to jostle the phone and throw off the signal. Let the warlord handle the matter now. These two were clearly out of his league.
Razaq also had to shout, but he turned his head away as if not wanting to be overheard. Some of the conversation was in English, but later it turned to Pashto. Skelly supposed he shouldn’t be surprised to learn that Hartley spoke a little of the native tongue. Or had Hartley, too, handed the phone to someone else? Whatever the case, the conversation lasted only a few minutes more, and when Razaq handed back the receiver the connection was dead. Skelly had wanted to ask Hartley to phone his family and his editor, but now it was too late.
“What’s going to happen?” Skelly asked Razaq.
“He will do what he can.”
“Which is what?”
“We will find out,
inshallah.
”
Skelly thought about that for a moment, but by the time he thought of a reply Razaq was crawling back toward the front of the column.
“Do you think it will do any good?” Najeeb asked.
“Like he said. I guess we’ll find out.”
“Inshallah.”
“Yeah.
Inshallah.
”
“I suppose the ISI heard all that. I wonder what they will make of it.”
“More than I could, I hope. The more people who heard us, the better. Christ, what a mess.”
His last words were drowned out in another burst of gunfire. Maybe it was the sound of English that enraged them. He resolved to keep quiet for a while.
BY DUSK they were still in the same fix, with no sign of any sort of help. The sun had long ago disappeared over the ridge behind the opposite side of the road, replaced by a deepening blue that grew dimmer by the minute. As the temperature dropped, so did the appetite for fighting. Gunfire was sporadic and halfhearted.
Maybe Bashir really was waiting them out. Skelly hoped so. But having eagerly anticipated nightfall throughout the afternoon, he now found himself dreading it, figuring it would only bring matters to a head. The idea of a sudden assault and a groping firefight in the darkness was terrifying.
Then there was a new noise, coming up from the south—a throbbing, as if the rocks themselves had begun to pulse. Skelly realized with elation that it was a helicopter, moving closer every second, the sound of its blades like the bugle shout of a cavalry charge. So Hartley had done it, then. He or Pierce or whoever else must have called in their coordinates and rallied the troops. Amazing.
A minute later the noise of the chopper filled the sky, and Skelly heard incredulous shouts from the slope just above, a rapid chatter going back and forth in a tone that he hoped was panic.
The chopper came in low from the direction of Heserak, straight up the pipeline of the ravine and no more than a hundred feet off the ground. It shrieked past overhead, the dust curling up toward it in great swirls, as if vacuumed. A desert zephyr, right out of legend. Then it climbed steeply and rounded back on them, as if scouting the dimness of the scene below. Without warning something came whistling and whooshing from guns mounted on the chopper’s sides. A pair of rockets spiraled slightly before slamming into the hillside well above them in a thunderous roar, followed by a brimstone rain of slag and dust. Skelly squeezed his eyes shut but got a mouthful of grit, then reopened his eyes just in time to see the chopper rearing up again, now circling near the top of the ravine. Then came a second
whoosh,
this one from down on the ground, and Skelly saw the bright trail of some shell tracing toward the aircraft, accompanied by the glowing streaks of automatic-weapons fire. Bashir’s men were striking back, but missing badly. The shell, most likely an RPG round, exploded against the far wall of the ravine. This token resistance nonetheless had an effect, and the chopper swung outward in a wider arc, heading farther down the ravine. Then, with another burst of speed, it rose and tore across the ridgeline, vanishing from sight.