Page 62 of The Fourth Option
“Fuck,” Walker said, handing the binoculars to Naji and keying his radio.
“Three MAMs visible,” he transmitted, using the term for military-aged male. “Probably at least one more in the truck. I’d say they are Haqqani Network.”
“How much money do we have left?”Staub asked over the radio.
Walker opened the center console to look at the remaining cash.
“Enough,” he said.
“I hope you’re right.”
“Ask Mr. John how Rina and Fatima are faring,” Naji requested.
Walker keyed his radio. “How are your passengers?”
“All good here,”came the reply.
“They’re good, Naji. We will be across the border soon.”
“You know as well as I do that the border means nothing here.”
“It means something to Pakistan. We’re linking up with a contact my organization has in the Turi tribe. They are fiercely anti-Taliban and anti-Haqqani. They are going to see to your safe passage farther into Pakistan.”
“How do you know they just won’t kill us?”
“We are going to give them ten thousand dollars.”
“Why wouldn’t they just take it and kill us anyway?”
“Because with America leaving, they want to continue to be paid. They will pass us information in exchange for compensation. They don’t want to jeopardize that relationship.”
“And you will leave us with the Turi?”
“I’m sorry, Naji. That’s the best we can do. They shouldn’t be much farther past this checkpoint.”
“It is in the hands of Allah.”
“Chris,”came Staub’s voice over the radio.
“Go.”
“These guys are getting the deal of the century out of our withdrawal. I don’t see why they’d fu—”Cognizant of the child in the back seat, he corrected his language.“I don’t see why they would jeopardize the deal. They want money, not heads.”
Staub made a good point. Why would the men in the truck screw up this truce? In another week, the Americans would leave everything. That was the dirty deal the U.S. government had made with the Taliban. The soon-to-be-rulers of Afghanistan were getting what they’d always wanted, foreigners out and a modern army’s abandoned equipment. The old Tali-Bar at the Ariana Hotel would probably be their cabinet room again in a matter of weeks.
Walker wanted to believe it. The simple fact was, they had already moved through one checkpoint and had been spotted by this one.
“Good copy. Let’s buy our way through,” Walker replied.
He turned to Naji’s daughter in the back seat. Her eyes were wide, not with fright but with wonder.
The vehicles continued forward.
They rolled to a halt and switched off their engines.
The checkpoint ahead was a bleak reminder of what America had accomplished in its twenty-year war: rusted oil barrels, a pile of yellow plastic water jugs, a makeshift gate of strung barbed wire, and three men with AKMs across their knees on the open tailgate of the Cruiser.
“These men look different than the last ones,” Naji said. “They have the look of the devil. Let me come with you.”
