Miles To Go Part 3

"Then, quite suddenly but not unexpectedly, he kidnapped an American tourist, Reuters' reporter Hannah Marcus, who had just settled in Tajikistan on a.s.signment and found herself in the wrong place at the wrong time hiking with some colleagues."

A photo of Hannah Marcus flashed on the screen. Rennie remembered the photo, both from the newspapers and from FBI reports. It showed a slight woman with distinctive features and short dark hair standing in front of an unidentified building.

"Armin demanded that the United States accept responsibility for his brother's death. The U.S. declared that Ahmad had murdered him himself and demanded he release the hostage.

A week pa.s.sed, then two. Armin then released this photo of Marcus."

In it, Hannah Marcus sat in a folding chair looking bewildered.

Her hands were bound behind her. Next to her stood an armed soldier wearing a large pair of dark gla.s.ses whose face was otherwise shrouded in a keffiyeh scarf.

"Other than this photo, we have received no other communication since February twenty-fourth, seventeen months ago. She is presumed dead."

"Wasn't she Jewish?" Rennie asked.

"Right, thanks Vogel, I was just getting to that," Walker said with a nod.

"Was she targeted as a Jew?" Rennie asked.

"We don't think so. We think it was just a bad coincidence.

But it gave Armin a platform to stir up his followers by making a lot of noise about the U.S. and their support for Israel. Here's the rub. We believe that Armin has been trying to purchase materials to make a dirty bomb. We don't think he's made a connection yet, but he has a huge bankroll and he has the science to make the thing. It is only a matter of time until he finds someone unscrupulous enough to sell him the material."

Walker paused, making eye contact with each member of the team.

"Your a.s.signment is to shut Armin down. His band of merry men, which we think number nearly a hundred, will fall apart when we take him out."

Rennie swallowed hard and glanced at Brad who looked deadly serious.

Walker changed the image to an aerial photograph. "This is a two hundred square mile image of the area." He placed his finger on a large cl.u.s.ter of buildings. "This is the village of Shuroabad."

He moved his hand to the left corner of the screen. "You will be dropped by plane here." He indicated a field south and east of the village. The field bordered a forest on the east.

"You will be disguised as hikers, so stop going to the barber."

The team looked at each other in surprise. They had trained for undercover work but hadn't expected it to come so soon.

"It is one hundred and fifty miles through the forest to Armin's camp here." Walker zoomed in on the image and what looked like a few shacks at the eastern border of the woods were revealed to be several large barracks, a barn and several other large structures.

"The anniversary of Na.s.ser's martyrdom," he said ironically, "occurs on August eighteenth. That's four weeks and three days from today. The festivities for the day have been in the works for weeks and we've been fortunate enough to come across a very specific piece of intelligence that puts Armin right at this spot."

Walker zoomed into the photograph even closer and pointed his cursor to what looked like a small stage. "At twenty-one hundred thirty hours on August eighteenth.

"Now, we haven't had any men on the ground, but the topography suggests you'll have a clear shot from the safety of the woods. If not..." He smiled wryly. "You'll have to go in and do your d.a.m.nedest not to start a small war."

Walker looked around the table at the stunned expressions.

"Nothing like trial by fire, right, gentlemen?" Then Walker looked at Rennie. He hadn't forgotten her at all. "And lady."

Walker suddenly snapped his laptop shut and the screen went blank.

"You have four weeks. For the last two, in addition to your physical training, you will attend a few briefings on the history of the region, the people, the culture, but most of that material plus a detailed profile on Armin is in the folder in front of you. Read it. Memorize it. Take it into your very soul. But primarily, your preparation will involve running through your missionagain and again and again."

"So, what about the first two weeks?" Goode asked.

Walked smiled. "I thought you'd never ask. I'm sure you are all familiar with HALO." Walker looked around the table for reaction and seemed to enjoy the wide-eyed faces looking back at him.

"That's right. Instead of flying first cla.s.s into Dushanbe Airport, you'll be doing a High-Alt.i.tude, Low-Opening jump from twenty-five thousand feet. A free fall. This is deadly serious, people. You are flying out tonight to Fort Bragg for two days in the Vertical Wind Tunnel and then on to Yuma Proving Grounds for a crash course." Walker paused, running his hand across his flattop. "Or perhaps I should say, an intensive course, in HALO jumping. The course is usually five weeks. You have two. Good luck."

Rennie had hardly been able to take in all that she had heard.

She knew that life as an operator would be worlds apart from her life as a special agent, but the scope of this mission seemed wildly inappropriate for a newly formed team. She thought about her conversation with Smythe before the briefing. Looking over at him, she found him nodding slowly at her.

CHAPTER THREE.

Armin Training Camp Khatlon Province, Tajikistan A village.

The thought of it made Hamid Abad tremble with antic.i.p.ation as he walked along the dusty path to the barracks. How long had it been since he'd eaten a real meal? Or had a conversation about mundane things? Maybe he could even go to a mosque. And pray for guidance.

Six months before, when Fareed Reza had approached him as he was coming out of his own beloved mosque, the tall man had spoken of this journey as a holy mission, one Hamid was obligated to commit to, to serve Allah rightly. But now, whenever his superiors spoke of Allah or their pious obligations, it all seemed hollow.

The story of Na.s.ser Armin had touched everyone in Hamid's own village, just outside of Tehran. His mother, his precious mother, had particularly been affected. She had listened to Ahmad Armin's hushed tone and taken his tortured face deep into her heart. Eventually his expression had become angry and his voice rose. He spoke of holy war, of vengeance.

Ahmad Armin had successfully turned Na.s.ser, his quiet scholarly brother, into a kind of cult figure in certain parts of Iran. Ahmad was a natural orator, ma.s.saging and manipulating a crowd to a peak of frenzied excitement. After his brother's death he had traveled to mosques in and around Tehran, denouncing the Americans as murderers, a characterization easy to sell to those who remembered the past. Ahmad Armin painted Na.s.ser as a great nationalist who had used his intellectual gifts to put Iran on an equal footing in the world. All people find comfort in a hero and they accepted Na.s.ser as their own.

Hamid was too young and too devoted to his mother to have taken in the newfound admiration for everything American discovered by the younger generation. Hamid's mother had a picture of Na.s.ser tacked to the wall in their cramped living room. She would say, covering her face, "The Americans again, it's always the Americans. They will not stop until they destroy us."Fareed, Ahmad Armin's right hand-man, had told Hamid to tell no one about his offer to join in a war for the new millennium.

But Hamid always told his mother everything.

"There are many evils in the world," she had said to him, holding his face between her hands. "Many misguided people killing innocent souls in the name of Allah. But this is different.

Here is maybe a small chance to set right a horrible injustice."

She had tears in her eyes. "It is good and right that Na.s.ser be avenged." His mother had spoken in a measured voice, convinced that her young son could save the world.

So, Hamid left his home with nothing but the clothes on his back. To meet Fareed and climb aboard a plane. When they landed, G.o.d knows where, he was blindfolded and driven in a Jeep to this camp in the middle of nowhere, to learn all sorts of evil things. Evil things for a holy cause. This was how the world balanced out.

In the middle of nowhere.

That was what he was told that day in February, that the camp was isolated by miles and miles of wilderness. When he slipped the blindfold off his eyes, his face caked with dust, and saw it for the first time there were huge bulldozers clearing the ridge and hordes of young men completing construction on the barracks, the armory and the tiny dwellings that housed Armin and his top men. Hamid joined in the building that day, learning to use a hammer without smashing his hands and running errands for the more experienced.

Hamid learned, too, that the ridge had once been the site of a small ancient farm, a perfect spot for a long gone hermetic farmer who had wanted to escape the world. The only structure that survived the ravages of time was a small st.u.r.dily built barn with stalls running along each side of a central open pa.s.sageway.

This building was always under guard and it was said that if you tried to run away or turned out to be a traitor or a spy, you would be sent to the stable and horrible things would happen there.

It had occurred to Hamid to run away. He was ashamed to think of it, but sometimes life at the camp felt as if he had been sent to prison. He was sick with longing for home, for his mother's rough hand upon the nape of his neck. And for her cooking. He wondered if his mother had known what the camp actually was, would she have encouraged him to go?

In the middle of nowhere.

Fareed Reza had said as he rubbed Hamid's head with his hand, "Don't be a fool and try to run away. You will die of thirst and hunger and you will be eaten by tigers and bears." He took Hamid's chin in his hand. "There is nothing for a thousand miles in any direction. And if you are caught trying to run, you will be punished."

But Hamid was a good boy. Always a good boy. That was why he had been chosen out of all the new boys to go with Rashed Parto on a mission. His first mission. He was excited. Especially since it didn't involve killing anyone. Or himself.

0.

Now Hamid pushed open the flimsy door to the barracks and was greeted by the ever-present stifling heat and a faint tinkling of music.

"Rashed?" he called out.

A burly young man with thick curly black hair popped his head up from between two iron beds. "Close the door! Do you want to get my ca.s.sette player confiscated?"

Rashed had spent a year at a university in the United States before being recruited into Na.s.ser's Army. To Hamid's confusion, he was thoroughly trusted by Armin. He was smart and spoke English fluently, but Hamid suspected that his true use to them was that he was without fear. And willing to do anything. But he couldn't give up his pop music. He had somehow smuggled in a tape player and a ca.s.sette with ten Iranian pop songs. And one evil American song"Like a Virgin". A song of such filth that whenever Hamid had the misfortune to hear it, filtered through his own imperfect understanding of the English language, he knew he was doing the right thing. To smite the Americans. To avenge Na.s.ser. It all made sense.

It was Rashed who had been charged with telling Hamid he'd been chosen for the mission. He had also told him the thing that made Hamid smile secretly to himself whenever he thought of it. That they weren't in the middle of nowhere. That there was a village a little over a hundred miles to the west.

He learned that the camp was nestled on a narrow ridge against a rock cliff that climbed a hundred and fifty meters into the sky. A road south led to an isolated airstrip. A half mile north was the river. And the woods that bounded the camp on the west, dropping sharply down a steep slope, he now knew led to the village.

"So, are you ready for our field trip, little Hamid?" Rashed said loudly as he stowed the ca.s.sette player under his bed.

Hamid just nodded, looking at his boots. He never knew what to say to Rashed who spoke that strange stew, a westernized Farsi that was becoming more popular with young people. It made Hamid afraid.

"Come on, brother, show a little excitement," he said, hopping up and cuffing Hamid roughly on the shoulder. Rashed's violence, deeply a part of him, always seemed to be hovering, an enraged doppelganger ready to pummel the younger boy into submission at the most minor error.

"I look forward to our journey." Hamid's anxiety always made him speak his native tongue in a halting formality.

"Ilookforwardtoourjourney," Rashed mocked, moving in a jerky robotic half step, and then bursting into laughter. "Aw, come on, lighten up, we're going to have a great time, if you don't mind walking yourself to death."

Their mission was to trek the one hundred and fifty miles west through the woods to the village and deliver a package to a man in a boarding house. They were to be gone two whole weeks. They would miss the festivities being held for Na.s.ser's martyrdom, but Hamid didn't mind. To him the trip sounded almost like a vacation, a concept he had no clear notion of. The plan was to walk about twenty miles a day and arrive in the village on the seventh day. Meet the man, deliver the package, and head back to camp. Hamid knew this was a test, a test of his loyalty and steadiness.

But something was gnawing at Hamid. Rashed had told him that they could cover much more ground than twenty miles a day. He had made the trip many times and knew they could travel at least thirty miles a day. That way, they would arrive in the village a day or two early and have time to explore and eat some decent food. Hamid wondered if this was part of the test. Was he supposed to say, No, we must stick to our orders? He meant to say it, even though he was afraid of Rashed's wrath. But he couldn't.

Spending the last six months learning about guns and explosives, learning to act like a westernized Muslim, trying to forget who he was and where he came from, had convinced Hamid he needed this time in the village. He didn't know what to expect and he knew it wouldn't be like home, but anything was better than the camp.

CHAPTER FOUR.

Shuroabad, Tajikistan Rennie Vogel stood at the open door of the plane. This was how she always wanted life to beevery nerve alive with sensation, thrumming along at three hundred miles an hour. She looked for this in every corner of her life. She didn't always find it, but she did today. And she could hardly wait to jump into the abyss.

Goode raised a thickly gloved finger indicating the one-minute warning.

The team stood hip to hip. Lincoln Goode, Brad Baldwin, Jonah Levin, Rennie Vogel and John Smythe. Their thick helmets blocked out the deafening noise of the plane cutting through the atmosphere. Rennie could feel Levin next to her quivering slightlyfrom the intense cold as well as from the deep distress of a mind confronted with the idea of jumping into thin air at 25,000 feet. She gave him a thumbs-up. She knew he would get it together when he needed to. He always did.

Goode raised his hand again. Ten seconds. Rennie looked at Brad Baldwin who stood at her leftshe could see his eyes but couldn't read his expression through his helmet. Goode gave the final signal and they stepped off the ledge. The cold hit her like a brick. This was something you never got used to. It was like a transformation, as if her skin and muscles were being forged into something stronger and harder. And it was a relief to be airborne after shouldering the weight of her equipment. Each of them was three hundred and sixty pounds of flesh and bone and gear, the maximum allowed for a jump at this height. Rennie, as the only woman and lighter than the rest of the team by at least seventy-five pounds, carried the most.

They plummeted through the frigid air at one hundred and twenty-six miles per hour, but to Rennie it always felt infinitely faster. At this rate, it took only two minutes to drop over twenty thousand feet to reach the mark where they pulled their rip cords.

And that two minutes felt like a lifetime. This was when she got to enjoy herself, glancing at her altimeter periodically to make sure she didn't drown in the sensation. Her body always responded to this kind of intensity, like diving deep into a first kiss.

Rennie was thoroughly familiar with the area she was jumping into, having studied aerial photographs and terrain maps until she could have reproduced them by hand. Of course the land always took on a different hue when all of the elemental forces in the universe seemed to be bringing it to you at an unG.o.dly rate.

Beneath her were a hundred acres of farmlandfields of cotton and potato and large tracts of pasture. To the northwest was a small Tajik village. To the east, an expanse of trees. But this, too, Rennie knew only from memory. This jump, like so many others she and her team had made back home in the past month, was a night jump. It was so dark she might as well have been flying through s.p.a.ce. It was an uncanny experience, like a dream, falling into an endless void. But it wasn't endless. Not tonight.

Rennie looked at the glowing altimeter strapped around her arm over her jump suit. 10,000 feet.

No one on the team except Levin had any significant prior jumping experience. He had been with the paratrooper division of the Rangers before applying for CT3. The rest of them had done the standard jumps at two or three thousand feetmostly static-line jumps where their canopies would automatically open.

But this mission, their first important a.s.signment, required a high-alt.i.tude free-fall jump and the other four members of the team had had to learn fast. That first time she had stood at the lip of a plane almost five miles above the earth, she had been almost entirely at peace and when she stepped from the edge she became something you should never become when you are plummeting toward the earthcontemplative. On that first drop, she had thought, what could come closer than this to transcending one's heavy, plodding, earth-bound humanity? Careening toward the ground she had believed, for an instant, that she didn't need to pull the cord. As in dreams, she imagined she would fly in a magnificent arc down, down, skimming the surface of the world until arcing upward again. Fortunately, that first jump had been a tandem jump and her partner had jolted her to her senses.

Rennie looked at her altimeter again4500 feet. She began her countdown and pulled the rip cord. Her gloved fingers were still stiff from the sub-zero temperatures of the higher alt.i.tudes but she could already feel herself thawing. She tensed her body and waited for the bone-jarring jerk as the unfurling canopy snapped into place. Thunk! She thought she could hear her brain thud against her skull. A moment later she quick-released the rucksack that was lashed to her thighs and it dropped like a rock, still attached to her by a lanyard, a standard practice, ensuring that the bulk of the bag on the legs wouldn't interfere with the landing. The lights from the village allowed Rennie's eyes to adjust to the darkness and she was aware of her team around her, shadowy figures drifting slowly to the field below through the clear night sky.

She slammed into the uneven ground, dropped and rolled.

In seconds, she was out of her rig and collapsing her canopy back into it. She pulled off her helmet and oxygen maskher helmet now frosted badlyand breathed in the fresh night air.

She never appreciated the real thing as much as after breathing pure oxygen for an hour.

Rennie quickly scanned her surroundings and accounted for all of her team within fifty yards, doing the same thing she was, dropping their packs and peeling off their jumpsuits. She knew the temperature was about seventy-five degreessteaming, relative to what they had just come out ofand the air for a moment felt like stepping into a hot bath. Underneath her jumpsuit, she wore layerscargo pants, shorts, jacket, long-sleeve shirt, tank top and hiking boots. She stripped off the extra layers until she felt comfortable and stowed them in her pack.

Baldwin came up to her, dragging his rucksack.

"You all right, Vogel?" He reached out his hand and they touched fists.

"Just glad to be earthbound again," Rennie said, then laughed as she got a good look at him. His hair, grown over his ears, was sticking straight up and there were red marks all over his face in the pattern of his oxygen mask.

"Hey, don't be thinking you look any better."

Rennie had become close with Brad Baldwin over the course of their training. He had come to the trials, like so many of them, right out of a field officePhiladelphia in his case, his hometown.

He was a big, rangy guy with a goofy gait and an ever-present grinhe was about the least likely operator one could imagine.

He had taken to Rennie immediately, h.e.l.l-bent on breaking down the reserve she kept so firmly in place. She had resisted at first, but his good nature had finally broken through and now she counted him as her one true friend on the team. And best of all, he was utterly unthreatened by her.

Levin and Goode straggled up to them.