Page 42 of What is Found

“Which was?” he asked.

“Whichis,” Driver said before Flowers could respond, “a story for another day.”

Something touchy there.He slipped a sidelong glance at Roni, read the set of her jaw, her stillness.She knows. Driver’s told her the story behind the story, I bet.Which was what?Whywere Driver and his men—all of them probably ex-Marine Raiders—involved at all, andwhywith a CIA guy like Mac? A clandestine unit in JSOC?

And why did it piss him off that she was in the loop, and he wasn’t?

“How many boys we talking about?” he asked.

“I bring today only Biri,” Shahida said. At the mention of his name, the dark-haired child pressed a little closer to Musa, who draped an arm around the boy’s shoulders and murmured something. “I do today only him because I think I have more time.”

“Which didn’t answer my question. How many are left?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“What?” His jaw unhinged. “You want to hustle twenty-seven boys through that mess out there at Abbey? How are you going to explain that? A field trip? I don’t see how you even get without shouting distance of the Taliban checkpoint. Thingsare going to be a hundred times tighter, security-wise, after today’s bombing.”

“Which is why we’re not using that gate,” Driver said. “It’s not the most direct line to where the boys are stashed anyway.”

“Direct line. You mean, from the airport or out of the city?”

“We bypass the city altogether.”

“How? There is only one way out that doesn’t cut through the city, and that’s north. There’s nothing but mountains.”

“Lot of things still left in the mountains, man,” Meeks said.

“Yeah,” Flowers agreed. “Like runaway boys.”

“We would bring them in through the north side of the base,” Davila said.

“Through North Gate?” Technically,Northeast Gate,but no one was arguing semantics. “How? That’s been closed for a couple weeks, just like East Gate and the main airport entrance. It’s also practically Joint Operations’ backyard and already overflowing.” That area, commandeered by the State Department as a final staging area before evacuation, was cordoned off for the refugees who’d passed through multiple checkpoints on the civilian side of the airport. “There have to be hundreds of people still waiting to be processed, some of whom have been standing out there for days. Plus, you got Russian Road on that side of the base.” The road’s real name wasTajikanand although most called it by thenickname, no one could say howthatnickname came to be other than, perhaps, this being the route the Russians had taken to get the hell out of Kabul in 1989. “Too high a security risk. There’s not a chance you’re getting anyone through there unobserved.”

“Let me pose a counterfactual,” Driver said. “Like you said, thousands of refugees out there, right? But evacuating your ordinary Afghan civilian isn’t the mission. Themissionis to evacuate U.S. personnel and U.S. citizens andAfghans who’ve been employed by the military or the government or who are relatives of U.S. citizens. Others, like the Brits and various embassies, are dealing with their citizens, their employees. With me so far?”

“Like I said,” John replied dryly, “I’m used to big words. What’s your point?”

“Just this: how do you getintelligenceoperatives out? Answer: secretly. Or, at the very least, not by the usual methods or ways. Now, you can go over mountains or trek the desert. Or you can have set up, in advance, a way in and out of the country by air. But you got to have a way in for people who you’d rather the Taliban not see.”

“You’re talking spooks like Mac.” A fact not many knew: the very first American KIA in the 2001 invasion was a CIA operative. “CIA personnel and informants.”

“This guy’s good,” Flowers said. “Clean up onJeopardy.”

“What are you, the comic relief?”John snarled.

“Relieves tension.” Flowers was unruffled. “I sense you are not amused.”

“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,” Meeks said.

“I would, if you’d only muzzle him,” John said. To Driver: “We were talking spooks.”

“All those alphabet soup organizations and from all over,” Driver said. “Not all are American. Everyone’s got their own operatives in-country. Many clandestine services have already picked up a boatload of Afghan nationals working for them. You can’t leave them in place. Besides the fact that they’ve got targets on their backs, they know too much. They can finger handlers; they could divulge sensitive information. You’re a smart guy; you get the picture.”

He did—and the conundrum was obvious to anyone who thought beyond the melee of this evacuation. In any war, there were intelligence operatives, from many different countries, operating in the shadows. There were paramilitary operatives and, he assumed, clandestine American soldiers. Dare had been just such an operative in Vietnam: an American Ranger; a sniper-assassin on his own in enemy territory. If not for a fortuitous radio call, his uncle might never have made it out of the jungle to catch one of the last helos out.

“So,” he asked, “how is the CIA getting them past the Taliban?”

“Easy,” Flower said. “Right under their noses.”

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