Open Season by Cameron Curtis (early reader books TXT) 📗

Walking on a terrace, one can step off the path right onto the roof of the house on the level below.

Crucially, two long sets of steps, one on either side, lead up the side of the mountain and away from the village. These steps lead to goat trails. The goat trails are barely visible, but they each run another hundred and fifty feet to the tree line. There, they disappear into the forest.

“You know the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, don’t you.”

Takigawa grins. “Are Grissom and Trainor held in the house we think.”

“Exactly. The other day, satellite photos showed them entering together. We don’t know if they have been moved.”

I focus the binoculars on the lowest level. Third house from the left. I adjust the diopter.

“No guards,” Takigawa observes.

On the satellite photos, we had seen what we thought to be sentries in front of the third house.

“Damn. No sign at all?”

“There are sentries on the riverbank. And another pair on the high terraces. General security. They aren’t dedicated to any house in particular.”

“We sit all day if we have to. If we don’t see anything come nightfall, we’ll have a decision to make.”

Hours pass. Koenig and Lopez sleep. Takigawa and I take turns at the scopes.

“Breed.”

I jerk myself alert. Raise the binoculars. A slight figure in American digital camouflage has stepped from the third house and is walking toward the river. The figure’s head is swathed in a dark headscarf and veil. It’s a woman, carrying a plastic bucket with a wire handle.

“Trainor,” Takigawa says.

“I’d bet on it.”

A Talib carrying an AK47 follows the girl. She goes to the river, fills the bucket, and carries it to the house. The pair disappear inside.

“Confirmed.” Takigawa lifts his eye from the spotting scope and leans back, propping himself on his elbow.

“I’ll feel better if we can confirm Grissom is in the same house.”

“We may not get that confirmation,” Takigawa says.

“It would be nice if we did.”

“He’s got to take a leak sometime.”

“So does she. The communal toilets are out back.”

“Fuck.”

We’re not planning to descend the mountain before 0300 hours. I’ll wait all day and night. Nice to rescue Trainor, but…

Grissom is the mission.

Koenig squats on his haunches next to me. “What’s the story, Breed?”

I lie prone behind Takigawa’s spotting scope. We’ve attached a clip-on photomultiplier tube to its front element. It’s 2300 hours, and I’m still watching the house. Takigawa is preparing his M110. He’s loaded a magazine with subsonic rounds and clipped an AN/PVS-30 photomultiplier to his 3.6x-18x daylight optic.

“The girl’s in the third house from the left.” I speak without moving my eye from the scope. “We cannot confirm Grissom is in the same house.”

“He’s got to be in the same house.”

“They could be holding him somewhere else, out of prudence. They could be holding him somewhere else to torture him. They could be holding him somewhere else to keep him from speaking with the girl. He could be dead and buried. There are any number of possibilities.”

“What do you propose we do, Breed?” Koenig sounds ready to burst with frustration. “Wait another day?”

“That’s your decision, Captain.”

Takigawa sets his rifle aside, takes out his Mark 23 .45-caliber pistol. Clips on a silencer. The .45 ACP round is subsonic. The Mark 23 is silent except for the sound of its action. If you’re prepared to operate with a single-action weapon, our pistols are equipped with slide-locks. Slide-locks prevent the actions from cycling altogether. The result—totally silent pistols that need to be cycled by hand.

“Goddamnit.” Koenig rises, paces with his hands on his hips. “Why not wait another day?”

“We don’t know what Shahzad’s main body is doing. All we know is they moved north yesterday. They could show up on our doorstep at any time.”

“We should abort.”

“That’s an option,” I tell him. “But they might kill both Trainor and Grissom. Without our having made an effort. We might have saved at least one of them. General Anthony will have a lot to answer for.”

A twinkle in his eye, Takigawa glances at me.

“Of course,” I add, “you could call General Anthony. The buck stops with him.”

I lift my eye from the spotting scope. Koenig is so worked up, I do a double take. He is an average officer, but I have never seen such a case of decision-lock under stress.

“What do you recommend?” The captain is quivering.

I smile. “There remains a ninety percent probability Grissom and Trainor are being held in the same location. We should go in as planned.”

6 The Rescue

Kagur-Ghar

Wednesday, 0400

We descend Shafkat like death’s shadow. Followed by Takigawa, Koenig, and Lopez, I lead the way. It’s slow going. The difficult terrain looks ghastly in the glow of my NODs.

Takigawa and I carry M110s, slung across our chests. Our daylight 3.6x-18x scopes have been equipped with powerful photomultipliers. By starlight, at a thousand yards, we can drop a man with a single shot.

Behind us, Koenig and Lopez hold their HK416s low ready. Their job is to provide cover.

At eight thousand feet, there is no light pollution. I flip my NODs out of the way, and scan the terrain with naked eyes. The village is dark against the black bulk of the mountain.

I stop at the edge of the tree line. Drop to one knee, hand-signal the others to do the same.

Prone on the rocks, I unlimber the M110 and open its bipod. Takigawa lies to my right and does the same.

The night is still. The only sound is the whisper of water flowing under the little wooden bridge. Kagur village looks like a house of cards stacked against the side of the mountain. I pick out the façade of our target. It sits at the lowermost tier of buildings, in the center of the village. The front of the house is built from gray stones, each a foot across. They’re piled high, stacked like pancakes and braced with heavy beams. The structure looks as formidable as a Scottish castle.

To our left, at the edge of the village, are the stone stairs