Page 86 of Cross Down
Boom!
I uncurl myself from the hidey-hole I had hurriedly dug underneath an overhanging slab of rock, toss off the ground tarp that was about the same color as the surrounding soft dirt; dirt and small rocks slide off the tarp.
I pull out my pistol, and in three long paces I get to where I left my M4, rucksack, and an army-issue M67 fragmentation grenade, pin pulled and placed under the heavy rucksack.
There’s a haze of smoke and the smell of burned gunpowder and blood, and my attackers are spread out, a bloody mess. I do a quick count in the mess of legs, arms, and torsos: there are five heads.
My rucksack is gone, my M4 is in pieces, but it’s a fair exchange.
I still have water, the hand-drawn map, a compass, my pistol, a spare grenade, and three magazines of nine-millimeter ammunition on my MOLLE harness.
That’s all I need for the next several hours.
From the pile of shattered bodies, I hear, “You…you…”
I go over.
It’s what’s left of Bibi. One eye is gone, and there’s blood all over him. It looks like he was shielded by one of his fighters when the grenade went off.
He stares up at me with anger and hate, and I say, “Yep, it’s me.”
I shoot him in the middle of his forehead.
Chapter
97
Elizabeth Deacon fordsthe Panj River and enters Tajikistan. She’s tired but feels a burst of energy, knowing she’s almost there, almost back to the CIA base, and from there she can get home.
She turns around and looks back into Afghanistan, wondering how John Sampson is doing. Is he still alive, and if he’s alive, how far behind her is he?
Could he have made it?
She doesn’t know.
Waste of time to worry about it, though. Too many other things to think about.
In her rucksack is a sat phone she can use to reach her contact in the air force, who’ll provide quick transport back to DC.
But there’s one more thing she has to do.
Deacon pulls out the broken circuit board Sampson gave her a few hours ago. She stares at it, then gently places it on a rock near the slow-moving and shallow river.
She looks around, finds another rock, and pounds on the circuit board until it’s in pieces, and she makes sure all of the broken pieces are swept into the moving water.
Chapter
98
It’s less thanan hour since I crossed back into Tajikistan, and based on the map Gul gave me, I’m close to the airstrip and the small CIA installation.
I scramble up a rocky rise, and at the top, as I catch my breath, I see two beautiful sights.
First, the tents and buildings of the CIA outpost.
And second, a U.S. Air Force SST jet, either the one that brought us here or its twin.
I start running down the hill and think,Where first?
