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quickly. I would have to comb through the entire house.
She seemed to know exactly where he’d be.
She made the decision for me. I released my grip on
her at the sound of approaching men, and she bolted
around the bar before I could grab her.
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The men passed, heading toward the basement door,
and she ran out into the hall, waving to me.
So it was the middle of the night in a small town deep in
the desert of southern Afghanistan, and I was chasing a
teenaged girl carrying a pistol through a terrorist’s
house. If I started a conversation like that, would you
believe me? I wouldn’t believe me.
Hila ran all the way down the hall, made an abrupt
right-hand turn, and when I followed, I found her stopped
dead, raising her pistol at another man coming toward us.
She shot him right in the heart. As he fell, she ran past
him, down another hall with doors lining both sides. I
was indeed crazy. I’d turned the girl into a cold-blooded
killer; then again, maybe Zahed was responsible for that.
As we ran I couldn’t help but realize this wasn’t a
house but a mansion, perhaps the biggest place in the
entire town, although you wouldn’t know it when look-
ing on Sangsar from above. The buildings were so closely
situated that it was hard to tell where one ended and the
other began. The doors here were ornate as well, heavy
oak, deeply carved. The fat man had spared no expense.
Hila reached a door at the end, pushed through it,
and ran inside.
I called after her, reached the doorway, turned into
the room, and found her at the far end, ru
a window, a real window, which was rare to find.
We were in a massive bedroom with a four-poster
bed, heavy furniture, and yet another flat-screen TV.
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It was like a room in a five-star hotel that had been built
in a neighborhood of utter squalor. Very surreal. I’m sure
parts of the village didn’t have electricity, but Zahed
sure did; either that or he ran his TV off a generator.
I rushed to the window to find Hila pointing. “There!”
she cried. “There!”
Across a long, tree-lined courtyard, past fig trees and
a wall covered in rose bushes, were the silhouettes of
three men standing near a wrought-iron gate.
One of them had to be the fat man. He was tall, six feet
five at least, and huge, more than four hundred pounds, I
guessed.
Stacks of luggage were lined on the walkway beside
them. They were waiting to be picked up.
Damn it. I tried the window. Locked. I couldn’t find
a way to open it! I turned back—
And when I did, a man was standing in the door with
his AK pointed at us. “What’re you doing?” he asked in
Pashto.
I shifted in front of Hila but didn’t raise my rifle.
“The infidels come from the basement,” I tried to say.
The man took a step forward and frowned. Aw, no. I
must’ve made a mistake. Maybe I’d told him his mother
was a whore, I wasn’t sure.
Before I could react, another man jogged up beside
the first and began screaming and tugging at his buddy.
I stole a look out the window.
A car had rolled up outside.
The first guy shouted at me again. I threw myself to
one side, raised my rifle, and fired a salvo into him and
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his buddy, no silencer, just me and the AK dishing out
lead loud and clear. Both went down, but the first guy
had started firing—
And Hila let out a scream.
As both men fell, I clambered up, shouldered my
rifle, and rushed to Hila, who’d fallen onto her back and
was clutching her side. I immediately pulled away her
shirt and saw that a round had pierced the right side of
her abdomen, no exit wound.
I chanced another look out the window. The wrought-
iron gate was open. The three men were fighting over
something, their voices raised as they rushed to get in
the car while two others hurried to load the luggage.
“This hurts,” said Hila. “Please. Can you help?”
“It’s not that bad. You’ll be okay.”
She clutched my hand. “Please. I need help.”
“But I need to go,” I told her. “He’s outside. He’s
going to get away . . .”
She grabbed my hand even tighter as tears welled in
her eyes.
T WENTY-NINE
I’d thought Hila would beg me to stay with her, but she
narrowed her gaze and said, “Okay. Get him. Then come
back to help me.”
“I will.”
“Okay.”
I understood now. She had wanted to die, but ironi-
cally the gunshot now gave her the will to live. I dragged
her behind the bed, out of view from the doorway, and
then I grabbed the pistol I’d given her, tucked it into my
waistband, and bolted to my feet. I seized a pillow from
the four-poster bed, then braced the pillow in front of
my face. With a ru
let out a string of curses as I crashed through the win-
dow and landed in a shower of glass on the dirt below.
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The three figures ran toward the car now, a black
Mercedes, probably fitted with bulletproof glass. I came
rolling up with the pistol in my hand and shot the two
guys loading luggage.
The driver opened his door and raised a pistol. I shot
him, and then, as I sprinted toward the gate, I got my
first clear look at the men:
Bronco.
His Asian buddy “Mike.”
And the fat man himself, decked out in silk robes and
clean turban and with a beard that splayed across his
chest. He wore big gold and diamond rings, and when
he faced me, he frowned for a second as both Bronco
and Mike reached down to draw weapons.
“Unh-uh,” I said, tugging down my shemagh.
“Aw, Joe, I can’t believe you’re this stupid,” said Bronco,
slowly raising his palms now. “Didn’t you get your new
OPORDER? We got you pulled off this job. Finally . . .”
“You’re bluffing. I got nothing.”
Zahed eyes narrowed in fury, and he turned to
Bronco and began screaming. I didn’t catch very much,
but he’d said something about Bronco being the fool.
All three of them backed toward the car.
“Don’t move,” I warned them.
“We have to leave,” said Mike. “You have no idea
how important this is or the extent of this operation.”
I craned my head at the sound of multiple helicopter
engines echoing off the mountains. We couldn’t see them
yet, but they were coming . . . and more gunfire echoed
from the hills. Harruck had committed some forces all
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right, and I wondered if the Predator controller had
finally been granted permission to unleash his bombs.
“Tell Zahed I’m taking him into custody,” I told