By Dawn's Early Light (11 page)

1815 LOCAL
ABOARD EL EUS'FUUR LEAD HELICOPTER

Ranger Major Khalid Zafar, aboard the bird squadron lead Alouette, strained against his harness in the open hatch to get a better angle on something he thought he saw on the ground. They had searched for a day and a half now, in ever widening circles from the base without luck. Now that they had reached the foothills their job was one hundred times as difficult as it had been on the open desert. Up here there were hundreds of places for the intruders to hide themselves. They were probably CIA, which meant they were professionals.

“Turn back,” he radioed the pilot over his headset. “I think I saw something on the ground.”

“Yes, sir,” the pilot responded. “Was it the hostiles?”

“No, it was something lying on the ground. At the foot of the hill in the narrow wadi.”

The helicopter slid off to the left, its nose dipping as it gathered speed in a tight, gut-roiling turn. Zafar braced himself in the doorway and glanced at the six elite ranger special ops fighters. All of them were tough, highly trained young men who knew how to kill and whose conscience never bothered them. For Allah and for Pakistan, the same as the eighteen rangers in the other three helicopters under his command.

Zafar, who at thirty-seven was too old to advance much further than lieutenant colonel, was almost as tough and almost as fast as the men he commanded. But not quite. And he was proud of them. He hoped that they would never know the true horrors of a war that had come down to a struggle between the religions of Pakistan and the gigantic India. Better not to be captured, because the Indians would not kill you. Instead your life would be made a living hell.

His jaws tightened. He'd been a young sergeant on the same patrol in which General Phalodi as a young officer had been captured by the Indian Army Fifth Division at Kishangarh. Together with fifty of their men, they had endured four years of torture, Zafar never once wavering in his loyalty to Allah, to Pakistan, and to his officers. For all of that he had been given a battlefield commission when they were repatriated, and then had been all but forgotten about.

That did not make Zafar bitter. What rankled most was that he and his men had been assigned out here to provide depot security under the direct command of the ISI. Colonel Harani had been a tough, but reasonable man. Something happened to him, however, and Captain Amin had been promoted. He was one of the most narrow-minded, mean-spirited fundamentalist zealots whom Zafar had ever had the misfortune to serve with.

One day Amin would make general. There could be little doubt of it, because he had the right friends, he said the right things at the right time, he knew how to take orders and blame his failures on others, and he would not let anything stand in the way of his ambition. He was a perfect match for the Butcher, General Phalodi.

They had come all the way around, and the pilot pulled up into a hover fifty meters above the wadi at the base of the hills. Zafar didn't need his binoculars to search for the object that had caught his attention on the first pass.

“There,” he told the pilot. “Next to the biggest rock. It's a rucksack.”

“Got it,” the pilot said after a few moments, and he slid off to the east to come down for a landing twenty-five meters from the spot.

“Unit two, I want a perimeter to the west. Three and four stay aloft, and keep your eyes open.”

The unit commanders in each of the other three helicopters acknowledged their orders.

As soon as his helicopter was on the ground, Zafar jumped out, deploying five of his men to guard for a possible ambush from the east and south, while he sent the sixth to check out the rucksack for booby traps.

Zafar let his eyes trace the logical route the rest of the way up the wadi and into the hills. He could almost feel their presence here. They had come this far, stopped to rest, and then had continued. Up into the hills, and into the mountains? Were they actually trying to get to the coast?

Corporal Haddid came back with the pack. “Some nine-millimeter ammunition, two canisters of water, some American MREs, a windbreaker, and these.” He held up two pairs of clean white socks and a photograph of a young, good-looking woman in a bathing suit.

“He's a man who likes his comforts,” Zafar said. He looked again toward the hills. “Perhaps we should return the socks to him.”

“Yes, sir,” Corporal Haddid said. “I wonder who the girl is?”

Zafar turned the photograph over. On the back the girl had written a line of
X
s and a line of
O
s, and signed it Rosy. “Evidently a sweetheart,” he said.

1945 LOCAL
IN THE MOUNTAINS

The desert below them was in darkness, but up here the sun was still low on the horizon and the distant higher peaks were brilliantly lit.

Hanson called a halt, and they all sank down gratefully beneath some trees and gnarly bushes. It was starting to get seriously cold. By the time they reached their cache they would be near the snow line. But they had not heard the helicopters in more than an hour.

“What'd it look like?” Amatozio asked.

“What'd
what
look like?” Hauglar asked.

“The sunset. After an aboveground nuclear explosion it's supposed to be fantastic.”

“I don't know. I was too tired to look over my shoulder.”

“It wasn't much. I think the winds blew the dust away too fast,” Harvey said. In fact the sunset had been extraordinary: blues and brilliant hues of greens and reds and violets. But how did you explain that to someone who would never be able to see again?

Hanson took out the satcom, flipped up the antenna, and turned on the power. When the ready message came up, he keyed the
send
button. “March hare, March hare, this is spring wind with red warren, please acknowledge. Over.”

The speaker crackled, then fell silent.

“March hare, this is spring wind. Say again. Over.”

“…hare, your…is breaking up. Say…condition and…”

“March hare, this is spring wind. The package was delivered by airplane. Repeat, the package was delivered by airplane. Do you copy? Over.”

“…March hare, say again your position…”

“March hare, this is flash traffic. The package was delivered by airplane. The package was delivered by airplane. Do you copy? Over.”

The speaker crackled again, but then fell silent.

Hanson keyed the unit. “March hare, March hare, this is spring wind with red warren. Acknowledge. Over.”

There was no response.

“March hare, March hare, this is spring wind, acknowledge. Over.”

The unit remained silent.

“Sonofabitch,” Amatozio said.

“We'll try again farther up,” Hanson said. “It's getting better—”

“Who has my rucksack?” Amatozio asked.

Harvey picked up his own pack from where he'd laid it on the ground, then looked around. “I don't have it. I thought you were carrying it.” He looked over at Harvey.

“I don't have it.”

“Neither do I,” Hanson said. “Did you drop it on the way up?”

Amatozio shook his head. “I don't think so. I had it when we left the depot, I know that much. But after that I don't remember.”

“What were you carrying?”

“Rations, water, ammo, socks, a windbreaker; shit like that.”

“What else? Anything personal?”

Amatozio shook his head. “No—” Then he stopped. “Shit. It was the picture of Rose. I usually keep it in my coveralls vest pocket. But I was looking at it last night, and put it in my pack instead.”

“Anything else?” Hanson asked.

“The comsat radio. But you took it.”

That was down on the desert where they had stopped in the arroyo. “How about afterwards, Don? Do you remember picking up your pack?”

“I don't think so. Sorry. I must've left it down there.”

“If they found it they know that we're up here,” Hanson said, getting stiffly to his feet. “Let's go. We have to get this message home.”

2110 LOCAL
IN THE FOOTHILLS

“Base, this is El Eus'Fuur lead,” Major Zafar radioed. “Request that we terminate operations for the night. We can't see much of anything and we're low on fuel again.”

“Negative, Major. You will remain on duty until you have the infidels,” Captain Amin responded from depot security. “General Phalodi is in total agreement with me that the Americans must not be allowed to escape, or to make it to a position where they can radio a message to their home base. We want them captured tonight. That is a direct order.”

“There will be accidents—”

“I don't care if your entire God-accursed command is destroyed in the process. You will bring us those men.”

“Not on fumes, Captain.”

“We're taking care of that right now, Major Zafar. Stand by,” Amin ordered.

Zafar looked up at the pilot, who was studiously looking out the windscreen. They were parked in the wadi at the base of the foothills where they had found the rucksack. The pilot was listening to the radio traffic.

“Fuel and special equipment are being sent to you,” Amin came back. He gave a grid reference on the mission map that Zafar and the pilot both checked.

The pilot turned around and held up five fingers.

“We'll be there in five minutes,” Zafar radioed back. “What special equipment are you sending?”

“Infrared pods for your helicopters and night-vision units for you and your air crews.”

Zafar suppressed a slight smirk. He had requested the FLIR pods and the night-vision goggles last night, and Amin had denied the request. The search was to be conducted in a timely, cost-effective way,

“What are your orders, Captain? Specifically. Do you want the Americans dead, or do you want them captured alive? How we must approach them will be of necessity different depending on your orders.”

“I want them alive. I don't care how you do it. Do you understand your orders?”

“Yes, perfectly.”

“Then do not fail us, Major.”

2350 LOCAL
AT THE CACHE IN THE MOUNTAINS

Bruce Hauglar opened one of the personal equipment packs, pulled out a light-brown camo jacket that was lined with warm microfibers and helped Amatozio get it on and zippered up. They had stashed the paragliders, extra rations, and most of the weapons and explosives in a wide, shallow cave that was actually just a depression in the side of the hill with a rock ledge for a overhang.

“Thanks,” Amatozio said through chattering teeth. “I guess I was colder than I thought I was.” Hauglar was like a big brother to him. They were family. They looked out for each other.

Harvey was checking out the Stinger hand-launched missile while Hanson powered up the satcom with fresh batteries. Hauglar sat Amatozio down on one of the packs and opened a beef stew MRE for him, then walked about ten feet down the path where he started to gather firewood. It was very cold up here and it was going to get much colder before the night was over.

“What are you doing, Bruce?” Hanson shouted down to him.

“I'm going to start a fire,” Hauglar said. “It'll be damned cold tonight, and without it we're going to end up in bad shape.”

“We're not staying here.”

Harvey and Amatozio looked up from what they were doing. Hauglar dropped the couple of pieces of deadfall he'd picked up and came back up the path.

“What the hell are you talking about, Scott? Don's in no shape to continue tonight. Hell, none of us are. One slip and fall and it'd be a disaster.”

“But that's the way it's going to be. If we stay here we'll die.”

“We haven't heard the choppers all night. The Pakis don't conduct mountain operations in the dark.”

“Not unless the stakes are high enough,” Hanson said. “But my guess is that they went back to refuel and rig for night ops. They have the Chinese FLIR pods, we know that much. And they sure as hell have night-vision goggles.”

“Okay, so we can live without the fire—”

“We're all heat sources, goddammit. We stand out like sore thumbs.”

“We need the rest.”

“We need to stay alive,” Hanson shouted. He glared at the others, his anger boiling over. “I'm not leaving anybody behind. I brought you guys this far, and by Christ I'm going to bring you back.”

“Hey, guys,” Amatozio said after a beat. “You oughtta try this stew. It's not half bad.”

The tension between them was suddenly broken. “We can't stay here. It's suicide,” Hanson said. “Anyway, you're right, it's going to get very cold, so the sooner we get over the pass and start back down, the sooner we'll all be warm.”

Harvey had the Stinger out. Hauglar glanced over at him. “What about all this shit?”

“We're taking it with us,” Hanson said, and he held off Hauglar's immediate objection. “We're going to need it. The Stinger, maybe; the Semtex and Claymores for booby traps; the spare ammunition and food.”

“What about the paragliders? That's a lot of extra weight.”

“We have about three quarts of gas left for each motor. With that much we can cover a lot of ground once we get over the pass. We'll rig something up so that Don and I can ride in tandem.”

Hauglar was finally seeing the wisdom of the orders. He hadn't been thinking completely straight because of his burns and he knew it. When all else fails go with the flow, especially if you trust the boss.

He nodded. “Okay. We can toss a lot of the packaging and combine some of the packs. We should be able to save a few kilos that way. But Don rides with me.”

“Good. And I want everybody to get something to eat. Could be our last sit-down meal for a while unless we get lucky.”

“What's the plan, Scott?” Harvey asked.

“The closer to the coast we can get the easier it's going to be for someone to come get us,” Hanson replied. “Ideally we'll get back to the boat and leave the same way we came in.”

No one said a thing. Getting to where they hid the boat and finding it still there was wishful thinking.

“Okay, let's get it together,” Hanson said. He keyed the satcom. “March hare, March hare, this is spring wind with red warren. Acknowledge. Over.”

“Spring wind, this is March hare. Glad to hear from you guys. What's your situation? Over.”

Hanson gave a big sigh of relief. Finally. “March hare, we're heading back to easy rider, but I have flash traffic for you. We witnessed the package. It was dropped from an airplane. Repeat: They dropped the package from an airplane.” He pulled a map out of a leg pocket and picked off what he figured were the coordinates of their present position. “We are at reference two-three-niner-seven. Repeat: two-three-niner-seven. We have casualties. We need immediate assistance. Acknowledge. Over.”

Even accounting for the signal compression delays both ways there was no response.

“Shit.” Hanson keyed the satcom again. “March hare, this is spring wind. Do you copy? Over.”

There was nothing.

Hauglar and Harvey were watching him, and he didn't want to let his sudden despair show. He gritted his teeth and keyed the satcom again.

“March hare, March hare, this is spring wind. Do you copy? Over.”

At that moment they heard the helicopters far below them, but definitely heading their way.