The Americans join the game
Mustafa tolerated his boss's ridiculous western mannerisms because Akhnard was a brilliant leader and he
never failed to make the tough decisions when necessary.
"Oh Mustafa my friend you must sit and watch with me, this Basil Fawlty he is beautiful" Akhnard implored.
"I apologize but duty calls, although I wanted to speak with you about the Frenchman and his American. They
are starting to worry me, and I don't trust that French bastard anyway." Mustafa admitted.
"I am well aware of your opinions regarding Msr. Valjean, but let me ask you a question. How many shipments
have we lost since hiring him?" Akhnard inquired pausing the show.
"One" Mustafa answered.
"And Valjean caught and killed the bastard responsible for that one, and as I recall he worked for.....you."
Akhnard reminded him.
"Fuck his mother, the bastard, but the Frenchman should have brought him to me for punishment" Mustafa
complained.
"Mustafa, my brother you know he pulled a pistol after admitting his guilt, your own men shot him along with
Valjean. You must let it go and stop wasting your time hating the Frenchman, and I don't see how his having a
pet American can be anything but helpful for us. That American will not in his lifetime gain an upper hand on
Valjean, so any advantage in this is for us. The American Captain Hanson and his man are on their way from
Kabul, he claims to have interesting information regarding your good friend Sheik Hariri." Akhnard told him.
Mustafa spat and proclaimed "That bastard is not my friend, did he tell you what?"
"No, but we can expect them mid-morning tomorrow, so it will be you, your French compatriot and the young
American for a working brunch tomorrow." Akhnard decided restarting his show. "Now come watch him abuse
the waiter it is beautiful"
"Next time" Mustafa intoned as he walked off. He knew that part of his hatred of Valjean was due to his
catching a traitor and worst of all a distant cousin of his who he hired only to shut his wife up. But he knew
that bastard couldn't be trusted and he was never going to show the son of a bitch his back or Akhnard's
either.
Hanson and Bluto were stopped at an Afghan Army depot halfway to Akhnard's eyrie and since Bluto
maintained cordial relations with the post commander they had nice accommodations. They were currently
hunched over a map discussing the implications of Hariri's deal with General Khan and what actions they
should take and what to advise/cajole Akhard to do. "Shit sir this sure opens up a can of worms. I mean we
don't know what the hell those two are planning so we have to contingency just about everything." Bluto
opined.
"That is true but let's start with the most likely things." CPT Hanson shot back. "First is that this is a toll
agreement for free passage of products to market. This is certainly part of the overall deal even if nothing
else is. How does this square with Khan's fundamentalism, I mean he runs a taliban-lite there as is."
"Some things trump religion, even for the nutbags sir." Belushi answered "All they gotta do is convince
themselves God wants them to be more powerful and voila a free pass to cash in on the drug trade, just use it
to glorify Allah."
"Then the question is what kind of glory does Khan want to bring to Allah." Hanson asked. " I mean he already
has a couple of hundred thousand soldiers, a significant collection of relatively modern equipment and
weaponry for them. he can't be thinking about coming South can he?"
"No fucking way." was Bluto's response. I mean he knows that even though we couldn't resist with the troops
currently in country, we could destroy everything he would send from the air, that would be suicide. What
about his own country?"
"It's possible, although that was what making him a General was supposed to avoid. They more or less
legitimized his empire in the South, but if he moves against any of the government's interests they can squash
him like a bug for treason. So the only sure element so far is drug smuggling, what else could there be?"
Hanson asked.
"Well there is that whole Islamastan idea." Belushi reminded " Khan is certainly like minded with the other
mountain holy landers. But that still means fighting somebody, because the tajiks aren't just gonna let him
secede."
"What about Hariri, is he that much of a fundamentalist?' Hanson inquired.
"Not from what I've seen sir " Belushi answered " I mean Kev sat in on a couple of sermons at the mosque and
said it was pretty tame, some sharia stuff but nothing like the Taliban. CIA says he wasn't tight with them
although he did grow more than his competitors, but they think that he is just the most religious of the
warlords and the Taliban picked their least worst option."
"When is SSG Murphy back from leave anyhow?" CPT Hanson wondered.
"Kev gets back from Australia in four days sir." Belushi told him " The strange thing is he's been gone 2 weeks
and we haven't received a single call from the Embassy in Sydney informing us that due to his having
destroyed the Sydney Opera House he is currently detained. Did we actually take bets on that?"
"Yes we did and as I recall he bet on himself making it back unindicted and we all laughed and let him."
Hanson recalled.
" Oh that will be some shit if we gotta pay that bastard just because he was lucky and got away every time."
Bluto thought " 'cuz you know that fucker's been calling Dirk and filling him in on every brawl and every piece
of ass and he's been his usual busy self.
"It'll be good to have him back, 'cuz I just get the feeling that all the things we don't know about Hariri and
Khan and all the rest of this are gonna get a little funky." Hanson mused. "So what are we actually gonna do
Bluto?"
"First thing is work on gettin' somebody inside Hariri and then hopefully stick one of those digital recorder
things somewhere useful. We know he sweeps the place but those fuckers just sit there and he'll never find
them, if we have to we can stick one ourselves."
The device he was talking about was a tiny digital voice recorder that was voice activated but didn't transmit
data until activated by a wireless device, then it would burst the data of a week or more's compressed
recordings to someone near in about 2 seconds. Unless the person sweeping the premises was checking at
precisely that moment the device would remain unknown.
"That is a good first start." Hanson said "I hope we can get some good information from Akhnard tomorrow. He
knows a heck of a lot more about Hariri than anyone else."
"I'll tell you one thing, Mustafa hates that bastard like preachers hate sin. It's something from back fightin' the
Soviets. Dirk knows the whole deal let's hear about it before we meet with them." Belushi told him "Once we
have as much info as possible we ask Akhnard to keep his ears open, although we'll get what they know from
the Frenchman"
The Captain didn't have a whole lot of options absent knowledge of what exactly Hariri and Khan were up to.
Basically all he could do was deploy his folks around the region and see if they could pick up any intel that
would help.
"OK then let's set up meets with all the tribal elders and figure out who's going where." Hanson decided. "I'll
also set up a follow up with Rajiv for after we get a chance to sit down with all these people. Hopefully we can
hear more about what's going on across the border."
"Roger that sir, I'm all over it, tell Mahatma I said hey" Bluto responded. He didn't know why but every mention
of Rajiv led him to picture Ghandi in his little diaper and glasses walking around barefoot and it cracked him
up. He pulled out his laptop and began composing a message to his team members announcing their plans
and detailing individual responsibilities and scheduled a link up at their team room for day after tomorrow. "All
the kids have their chores sir, I am off to convince the mess chef that I urgently require some of his meager
ice supply for a matter of national security. then I will smoke a fine Cuban cigar and drink some bourbon while
watching the sunset over the mountains, will you join me?"
"You go ahead Bluto, our new owners at CentCom have a vital need for statistical information regarding our
operations." Hanson answered and Bluto headed out. Hanson thought about the way they came to have their
new owners. His team had been part of 10th group and had a lot of folks with mountain warfare experience
including Belushi, Thorskillen and Murphy. They did a one year stint in Afghanistan that began about a month
after the conflict there began, it was a lively tour and they all gained significant combat experience. They
worked with a unit of the Northern Alliance loyal to Shah Masood who was assassinated just prior to the
invasion. This dealt a large blow to the Northern Alliance as he was their most skilled and respected
commander. He was killed when Al-Qaeda assassins posed as reporters and then killed him in a suicide
bombing by exploding their equipment.
The killing may have hurt the Alliance but it surely motivated his troops and they were spoiling for a fight,
which is not the norm for armies in the area. Pitched battles between the various militias in Afghanistan were
rather uncommon, as disputes were usually resolved through bribery or backstabbing not combat. Mostly
there would be some potshooting from a distance and occasionally heavy weaponry sent in the general
direction of the enemy, but there were no Alamos in Afghanistan. The live to fight another day ethos was
strong, but they loved Masood so they were ready to bring it and ODA 024 helped them do just that.
He could still remember the first time they were out with the scouts and they sighted a Taliban strong point
with tanks and fighting positions. CPT Hanson confirmed with the main body of the NA unit that this was
definitely a Taliban position and not another NA group. They did have the black headgear of the Taliban, but
the last thing he needed was to wipe out the next war lord over on their team, so he checked. Once he got the
OK he said. "Bring the noise Dirk."
Dirk keyed the mic and began detailing the fire mission to the controllers flying around above them.
"Target five armored vehicles and crew-served weapons in dirt fortifications. BN 354 843
Our location BN 261 639"
"Roger I copy target five armor, crew-served and personnel in dirt fortifications BN 354 843 your pos BN 261
639. I have BUFFs (Big Ugly Fat Fuckers) with J-DAMs 90 seconds out. Enjoy the show gentlemen" The
controller returned.
"Roger, out" Dirk answered. "We got fuckin' B-52s on target in 90 seconds sir, this should be fucking beautiful"
J-DAMs were the newest toy which took normal dumb iron bombs which dropped where they dropped, and
added wings and GPS guidance so they went where they were told. And the cool thing was they actually
worked although this was 024's first chance to try them. Overhead as the first B-52's computer told it they
were at the release point it's bomb bay opened and four 2,000 lb bombs dropped free and deployed their little
steering wings while an on board computer aimed them straight at the, completely clueless as to their
imminent demise, Talibanis. The second BUFF hit it's spot and dropped another four 2,000 lb bundles of joy,
now this may seem excessive but the B-52s had been on station for a while and they were getting a little
skosh on fuel and needed a visit to Diego Garcia so a little overkill was justified.
All eyes were focused on the soon to be gone fighting position and when the first bombs hit the scouts threw
themselves flat on the ground and even the Americans were blown away by the concussion they felt almost a
mile away. Everyone had just recovered their wits after the first round when BAKOW! round two and the
scouts were right back on their faces while the team was amazed by the close range domination they
witnessed. No one said anything as the scouts got up and all looked again at the smoke and dust pillar rising
above the location occupied by 40 or 50 bad guys seconds ago.
They stood dumbfounded until Dirk, who was looking through a spotting scope, shouted "It's fucking gone, the
whole thing it's fucking gone. Dude there is nothing left. I mean take a look." he said to MSG Belushi. It looks
like...like a big fucking egg carton man, you know? Where the bombs hit there are craters in a row and it looks
like an egg carton. And dude there is nothing left. I count eight holes and I didn't see anything but those holes
left, it's just fucking gone. Holy shit."
Bluto stepped over and confirmed the assessment. "Sir he's right it's all gone, wow. Dirk call that damage
assessment in and tell them Air Force fuckers thanks"
"Roger that Bluto" Dirk answered and he keyed the mic "Mission successful confirm all vehicles, weapons,
personnel destroyed. Hell you obliterated 'em, thanks for quite a show."
"Anytime, I got planes for days" was the controller's crack.