Page 12 of What is Lost

“From?”

“That’s just it. I can’t place him. Might have seen him around Mountain Warfare, but that bunch looks paramilitary. If I were putting down money...” She thought about it. “I’d say CIA.”

“Seriously? What could the CIA be doing at this point? The war’s over. We’re evacuating.”

“Yeah, but I bet they have assets and paramilitary in-country to evacuate.”

“Ah.” The CIA had tried this same kind of “third option” many times before in places like Vietnam, Tibet, Nicaragua, Somalia; in Pakistan with the Mujaheddin which had given birth to Bin Laden…the list just went on and on. John never could figure how the CIA kept getting funding considering how many of their covert armies never worked out to anyone’s benefit. “What are they calling them this time around?” he asked. “The CIA’s Afghan paramilitary guys?”

“Zeroes.”

“As in zero-probability of success?”

“Very funny.” She nibbled her lower lip. “I’ve heard that some units have been a problem.”

Oh, what he would give to be that lip. “Settling scores, you mean. Tribe against tribe.”

She nodded. “Weird that these guys are on our transport. CIA and paramilitaries usually have their own.”

“Go say hi and get the lowdown. What’s the worst that can happen?”

“It’s the wrong guy or itissomeone I’ve met, but he doesn’t tell me anything. That would be awkward.”

“Or you make a new friend. Or you guys catch up.” When she didn’t move, he said, “So, you’re just going to toss not-so-surreptitious glances all the way to Qatar.”

“I guess so.”

“Maybe I’ll wander over when we land.” When he looked again, the guy seemed absorbed in a thick paperback, though he couldn’t read the title. “Chat him up. See what’s what.”

“Well, John, you do that, and he has to kill you afterward,” she said, working another stitch, “don’t blame me.”

He didn’t talkto the guy.

Instead, he sweated the flight to Qatar and braced for disaster on approach. But the wings stayed on, the pilot didn’t have a heart attack, and none of the engines exploded. Once the Boeing taxied to a stop, the jocks were motioned off first. They went without a word or backward glance. The last John saw of them there, the men were crossing the tarmac and heading for a group of similarly outfitted buff guys. As they shook hands all around, a Humvee rolled up, came to a halt, and another man—thinner, a bit weedy, clean-shaven, kitted out in NATO cammies—unfolded from the passenger seat and waded into the middle of the group.

“Ten to one that office-type is chief of station,” Roni said as, after a brief exchange, the thin guy waved the group toward the Humvee.

“Still thinking CIA?”

“Oh, yeah,” she said as the dark-haired jock she’d scoped out climbed into the vehicle. “I just wish I knew who that guy was. I feel like I should know him.”

“Maybe we’ll see him again in Kabul,” he said, standing and grabbing his gear from the overhead. “If they’re getting assets out like you say.”

“I sincerely hope not.” Tugging out her owngear, she joined him in the aisle. “If you believe my dad, CIA almost always means trouble. Me, I like soldiers who operate in daylight.”

“They’re not vampires.”

“Maybe,” she said as they headed for cabin door. “At least with a vampire, you know what it’s after.”

They wereon the ground just long enough to pee before the battalion boarded a C-17 for their final leg from Qatar into Afghanistan.

During his time in the Army, John discovered soldiers had a nickname for the C-17 Globemaster:Moose.Why? Because, during refueling, when pressure relief vents opened to expel air, the sound was like a moose’s bellow. Never having hunted or run away from a moose, he took all that on faith.

There is also absolutely nothing glamorous about a Moose. A C-17 has no windows or exit rows. Packs and other cargo are loaded onto pallets secured to the deck under cargo nets to the rear of the plane. There is one full bathroom at the front and a urinal behind a curtain at the rear which the loadmaster normally uses. If the bathroom is out of order, there are always buckets.

In other words, they were flying into Afghanistan in the equivalent of an airborne metal tube. This meant thatanythingcould be happeningoutside,anything…and John would never see it coming. There would be no time to prepare, sort options, decide on next steps.

They were so doomed.

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