Sons of Valor Read online

  “I pay the border guard a bribe to sign off on a thirty-day travel visa for you.”

  “And what if that doesn’t work?”

  “It will.”

  “But what if it doesn’t? I can’t afford to wind up in some Pakistani jail. I just got my British citizenship two months ago. I didn’t tell them I was going to Pakistan because I was planning on using my Afghan passport for the trip over . . . What?”

  “You’re a British citizen?” Eshan asked, eyeing him sideways.

  “Yes.”

  “But you’ve only been working in country for three years. It takes five years in residence employed and another twelve months after that to get your application approved,” Eshan said. “I know this because I looked into it myself. How did you pull it off?”

  “The Home Office has all kinds of deals they cut with the big companies,” Qasim said through a heavy sigh. “While I was at university, British Aero recruited me for a permanent internship. Provided I went to work there upon graduation and remained employed for three years, my school visa time counted as residence time employed.”

  “Why would the company do that?”

  “Because it is a cost-effective way for them to import cheap talent. You’d probably think that a company as important and powerful as British Aero pays premium wages.”

  “I would.”

  “Then you’d be wrong. The truth is they pay below market, and the best and brightest programmers invariably get recruited into fintech or IT consulting. I make twenty thousand pounds less than I could working at ASOS or Accenture. But I’m an Afghan immigrant with no legal prospects of making the kind of money I’m making at British Aero in Afghanistan. The company knows this. If you’re from India, Pakistan, Malaysia, and so on, they dangle a path to citizenship and lock you into at least three years of employment at below-market wages.”

  “Very imperial of them, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, but shaving three years off my wait for citizenship has a monetary value. I imagine many people would pay twenty thousand pounds a year for that benefit. In fact, probably more.”

  “Count me as one of those people,” Eshan said. “So did you bring your British passport with you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then we don’t have a problem, and this whole conversation is academic,” Eshan said.

  “Why is that?”

  “Because at the same time Pakistan suspended on-arrival visas for Afghans, they implemented them for Americans, Brits, and other invaders of our country.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Qasim said, his cheeks going hot. “So Pashtuns can’t travel freely in our own land, but rich Westerners can?”

  “Welcome to the new Middle East, my friend. Even Pakistan is trying to open its doors to tourism.”

  The conversation ebbed and flowed over the next two hours, with a familiarity that Qasim had missed. Eshan was describing the dinner menu for the upcoming wedding feast when they hit the kilometer-long queue of cars waiting to cross the border.

  “Is it always like this?” Qasim asked.

  “No,” Eshan said with a sideways grin. “Sometimes it’s longer.”

  They crept forward, making steady progress while Eshan talked about his honeymoon plans. As they approached the checkpoint, Qasim noticed a squad of heavily armed and distinctly Western soldiers in camo fatigues, inspecting both inbound and outbound traffic.

  “I didn’t realize the Americans maintained a permanent contingent at Torkham crossing,” Qasim said.

  “To my knowledge, they don’t,” Eshan said.

  “Then what are they doing here?”

  “I think it’s obvious . . . They’re looking for someone.”

  Qasim nodded. Torkham was one of the busiest, if not the busiest, crossing between Pakistan and Afghanistan. And while illegal border crossings were still the preferred way for the Taliban and smugglers to move illicit goods and wanted personnel across the border, the N-5 was a well-maintained paved highway. Convenience was sometimes worth the risk.

  “Don’t forget to talk with that English accent of yours when they question us, and leave your Afghan passport in your bag.”

  A pair of American soldiers approached the SUV, machine guns slung across their chests in a way that seemed relaxed, but the weapons themselves were ominous. Qasim fished out his British passport as Eshan rolled down the driver’s side window.

  “Do you speak English?” the lead soldier said, glancing at Eshan, then scanning their hands and the interior of the vehicle.

  “Yes, we both do,” Eshan said, adopting a pronounced and convincing British accent.

  “Passports, please.”

  In his peripheral vision, Qasim could see the other soldier circling around the back of the SUV. He handed his passport to Eshan, who passed both to the American.

  “What is the purpose of your visit to Pakistan?” the soldier asked, handing their passports off to a third American who was dressed in a black polo shirt and gray slacks.

  “We’re attending a wedding.” Eshan answered.

  “Whose wedding?”

  “Mine, if you must know.”

  “Congratulations,” the soldier said, while the plainclothes American took a picture of each of their passports with a mobile phone, before handing them back to the soldier.

  “And the purpose of your travel?” the soldier asked, meeting Qasim’s eyes.

  Qasim’s stomach fluttered.

  Why am I nervous? I’m not a terrorist. I didn’t do anything wrong.

  “I am attending the wedding as well,” he managed, his accent somehow sounding less convincing than Eshan’s, which was preposterous because he was the one living in Britain.

  “You’re a British citizen?”

  “Yes.”

  The plainclothes American stepped up beside the soldier and said, “Look at the camera for a picture,” and snapped a quick headshot of each of them before Qasim could protest.

  “Why is he taking our picture?” Qasim asked Eshan, before repeating the question to the man who’d just photographed him. “Why are you taking our pictures?”

  “Routine security check,” the plainclothes American said with disinterest and turned to walk away.

  “Congratulations on your wedding,” the soldier said. “Safe travels.”

  “Thank you,” Eshan said with a broad smile. “Have a pleasant day.”

  Qasim waited until Eshan had rolled the window back up. “What the bloody hell was that all about?”

  “I told you,” Eshan said, handing Qasim’s passport back to him. “They’re looking for someone.”

  “Who?”

  “Hell if I know,” Eshan said, his familiar Afghan accent returning. “But it’s not us, so it doesn’t matter.”

  Qasim’s gaze ticked to Eshan’s passport as his friend returned it to the breast pocket of his shirt. It seemed to be a darker shade of blue than his own Afghan passport . . . but with his tucked away in his bag, it was impossible to compare.

  Is he using a fake passport?

  Qasim debated asking, but decided it would come across as paranoid. Besides, Eshan hadn’t seemed nervous about the border crossing or being confronted by the soldiers. Yes, he’d altered his accent, but that was just gamesmanship to smooth the way . . . wasn’t it? Qasim studied the profile of his best friend of twenty years.

  “What?” Eshan said with a glance, while gently pressing the accelerator.

  “How do you do it?” Qasim asked.

  “Do what?”

  “You’re like a chameleon. You completely had that soldier fooled.”

  Eshan shrugged.

  “I wish I had your courage and confidence. You have something I’ll never possess.”

  “Showmanship, nothing more. I’d trade my bravado for your technical genius in a heartbeat. You haven’t even scratched the surface of what you’re capable of. You’re destined for great things, my brother. You just don’t know it yet.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “Oh yes,” Eshan said, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. “I’d bet my life on it.”

  CHAPTER 5

  the desert

  grid location scorpio

  0140 local time

  Chunk expertly worked his parachute risers, reining in the left slightly more than the right, swiveling an instant before stepping out of the air and onto the steep, rocky mountainside. Finding his footing, he quickly pulled in the lines and collapsed his chute, rolling it into a ball with practiced efficiency. He snapped open the Koch fittings on his straps and stepped out of the harness. A heartbeat later, he was sighting over his rifle from a tactical knee, scanning the green-gray desert terrain below through his NVGs. His eight SEAL teammates who’d just dropped from the heavens followed his lead and formed a semicircle behind him. He waited until movement stilled, then he keyed his mike.

  “Mother, Popeye One—Popeye is Daytona.”

  Chunk rolled his eyes as he spoke the call sign the Head Shed had assigned them. Popeye—as in Popeye the sailor man—had struck a nerve and annoyed them more than most. Check that . . . it annoyed Riker the most. At least the checkpoints were beach destinations. They’d done a maritime assault recently where the checkpoints had been wine varieties, and when he’d called “Merlot,” Riker had threatened to quit.

  Ah, the little things . . .

  “Roger, Popeye One—report Sandbridge,” came the reply from the TOC, instructing them to call the next checkpoint atop the ridge.

  “Check.”

  Chunk angled left, then st
arted the trek up the steep rise with Riker, Trip, George Ash, and Donnie Morales. Ash, the youngest member of Green Team, had been dubbed “Georgie,” which chapped the kid’s ass to no end. Morales, a quiet and competent 18 Delta combat medic from SEAL Team Five, was called “Hollywood” because of his dazzling smile and perfectly manicured jet-black hair. Morales was particularly valuable to the team because prior to attending BUD/S, he’d logged two years of medical training and been an EOD. Not only did Chunk like and respect the hell out of the guy, but to have an operator with two special-mission skill sets was perfect in the Tier One, where a small footprint meant the need for lots of cross-training.

  The amplified crunch of boots on rock echoed in Chunk’s Peltor headset as Lieutenant Chad Spence, the OIC of Gold Squadron first platoon, led Saw and two other SEALs on a divergent trek to a position 150 meters down the ridgeline. Upon reaching that checkpoint, Spence would call “Pensacola,” and Saw would set up as overwatch while the lieutenant and his other two SEALs—Anthony “Antman” Williams and Jamey Edwards—would prep to rope down the north face. The plan was for Chunk’s element to lead the assault, while Spence’s squad capitalized on the confusion and attacked from the rear. While the SEALs executed their two-pronged ground assault, Saw would pick off the resistance and any squirters. Calling “Destin” would signal mission success—that they’d taken the enemy compound and liberated the hostages held within. Then it was up the east slope, over the ridge, and a helicopter exfil in a pair of MH-60s from the 160th SOAR.

  Classic covert SEAL Team hit.

  What could possibly go wrong?

  He led his team silently up the grueling mountainside, keeping radio silence and moving with stealth. Twenty minutes later they made the top of the eastern ridge and spread out in a line. Taking a knee, he pushed his NVGs up on his helmet and raised an IR spotter scope to his eye to survey the target compound, which was located to the west, inside a bowl-shaped depression at the top of the mountain. The topography reminded him of a crater or, better yet, the crown of a dormant volcano. Inside the depression, three metal buildings were arranged in a U and had a chain-link fence perimeter. The fence was pointless because the compound was wedged tightly into the narrow bowl with east and west rises so steep, they were barely traversable. And the north approach was even worse—a vertical rock wall that even a professional rock climber would balk at. Vehicle access was limited to a narrow, rocky trail on the south side, navigable only by ATV.

  “Mother, Popeye One is Sandbridge—you have eyes for me?” Chunk said into his boom mike.

  After a long pause, the reply came, “Negative, Popeye. Satellite coverage interrupted. We can put a Predator in orbit, but ETA is ninety minutes. Do you want to hold?”

  Chunk sighed. Of course we lost the satellite. Why would it be easy?

  “Stand by, Mother,” he whispered and lifted his spotter scope.

  He saw two sentries standing by the front gate, smoking and joking. He could not see a roving patrol, but he knew there was one. As far as a ranging patrol outside the fence line, the original satellite pass had not shown any thermals outside the wire, but that data was nearly an hour old. Intelligence indicated this particular group of insurgents maintained a second site—a single structure five miles to the south. Chunk had no idea if the second building housed fighters, but he did not like the idea of potential enemy QRF being located so close. Worst-case scenario, he estimated any QRF would take several minutes to mobilize and ten minutes minimum to cover the rough terrain. A Predator with air-to-ground missiles in orbit would be nice to have to provide immediate fire support just in case, but the MH-6 they had on standby could be on station in less than fifteen mikes. The little bird was equipped with an M134 Minigun and could easily hold off any QRF assaulters en route. And bonus, it also had the FRIES rope system for rapid extraction of anyone not able to make the rally point. So he had that in his back pocket . . .

  “Popeye Three is now God,” Saw announced, confirming he had found a satisfactory sniper hide on the ridge.

  “Two is Pensacola,” Spence said, indicating his element was in position at the crotch of the ridge to the north, setting ropes for their infil to the target.

  Chunk finished scanning the compound, then directed his gaze to ridgeline on the other side of the crater. As he did, a time-proven adage popped into his head . . .

  No plan survives first contact with the enemy.

  What if these assholes had their own overwatch set up on the other side? What if a convoy of ATVs was already en route? He couldn’t safely move on the target with enemy position data that was an hour old. And they sure as hell couldn’t wait ninety minutes for a Predator to get on station. So he keyed his mike and whispered, “Four, One—send up a hornet. Survey the compound, then give me a bird’s-eye look down the road.”

  “Check,” came the reply.

  Above the north face, the tech-savvy Edwards would be pulling a small black case from his pack, containing the newest model of the more widely known PD-100 Black Hornet drone. Resembling a miniature helicopter, this generation of the nano UAV was slightly larger than the original, but still fit in the palm of a hand. It was faster, zipping around at nearly twenty miles an hour, and had a control range of three miles over line of sight. Most importantly, however, it was now equipped with three cameras, HD, night vision, and a FLIR thermal imager. Chunk pulled out a small tablet from his cargo pocket and waited for it to sync automatically to the drone. The screen flickered to life, and he watched the camera feed skim across a pant leg and boot, then turn to focus on Edwards’s face. The Senior Chief lifted his eyebrows three times in rapid succession and the image rocked and tumbled, then stabilized as the drone lifted silently into the sky. Chunk tracked its progress as it skimmed from the ridgeline toward the compound.

  Once the drone had repositioned, Chunk’s screen refreshed into a three-way split, with thermal, night vision, and HD cameras all streaming simultaneously. The HD feed on top was dark, but the middle screen showed the compound in silvery gray, and the bottom frame depicted bright yellow-orange silhouettes of humans, their body heat visible only in the IR spectrum. He saw the two sentries by the gate, still standing next each other and shooting the shit. He counted three stationary images in supine postures—sleepers—in the far building, which was designated Building One. The closest building, Building Two, showed no thermals. The rear structure, Building Three, formed the bottom of the U and held multiple occupants. The camera feed zoomed in on two thermals—one male, one female—seated close together.

  “One, Four—looks like we found our hostages,” Edwards said.

  “Copy,” Chunk said.

  The video panned to two other warm bodies, one seated and the other pacing. Unfortunately, it was impossible to tell if these two guys were hanging out in a separate room from the hostages or if the structure had one big open floor plan.

  “No change in intel on the compound, Mother,” Chunk whispered. “Two hostages in the rear building with two guards. Two roving sentries outside. Three tangos appear to be sleeping in the far building.”

  “Roger, Popeye One.”

  “One, Four, you ready for a look down the road?” Edwards said.

  “Yes,” Chunk answered. The drone immediately began a vertical climb for a bird’s-eye view down the southern access road. Seeing no inbound vehicles he said, “Four, One—before you pack it up, let’s make a pass along the west ridgeline for snipers and take peek on the other side, just to be safe.”

  Edwards confirmed with a double click in his ear and the nano UAV zipped across the crater.

  “Shit,” Edwards’s amplified whisper exclaimed in his ear. Two thermals had materialized as the drone crested the slope. “You seeing this, boss?”

  “Get a closer look with IR,” he whispered back.

  The duo could be a sniper team providing overwatch, a wide-perimeter roving watch, or civilians not affiliated with the terrorist compound. As the drone zoomed in, Chunk saw the figures were two men armed with rifles . . . but not sniper rifles, it appeared. Since they were west and below the crest of the ridge, they didn’t have a clear line of sight into the crater. At the moment they appeared to be taking a break, sitting on rocks and drinking from a shared bottle or canteen. Still, they had high ground and, called into the fight, they would be a problem.