Page 10 of Stand Fast

The third woman also denied knowing anything about The Jackal. Zaid didn’t buy it. Even out here people would know who he was. They might be telling the truth about him not being here, but Zaid wasn’t leaving anything to chance.

All the intel said The Jackal had either been here within the past few days, or was about to move a shipment through here. And Zaid had noticed that all of the women had remained seated atop a threadbare rug on the floor with their children, rather than retreat to the corners of the room when he and his teammates had burst in.

With a few calm orders, he got the women and children up and moved to the front room of the tiny house, leaving the woven rug vacant. Lifting a corner of it from the dirt floor, Zaid found a sheet of plywood beneath it.

Bingo.“Got something,” he said to the others, who came over immediately.

Holding a flashlight in one hand, he checked for anything that hinted at a booby trap before pulling the plywood aside, revealing a shallow, rectangular pit in the ground. A thin layer of plant material covered the bottom of it.

He reached in to grab some and brought it to his nose to smell it, then looked up at his teammates. “Hash.” Only a tiny amount, though, not nearly enough to reach the arrest threshold. And definitely no Jackal hiding in the hole with it. “You guys find anything?”

“No.”

Zaid relayed his findings to Hamilton, who reported the same from the rest of the team. “Anything?” Zaid asked him.

“A few old rifles, probably for hunting. Nothing to write home about. Target’s not here, and neither is the dope. NIU’s turned up nothing either.”

Damn.The taskforce had seemed so sure that they were closing in on The Jackal, that this op might nail him. Agent Rabani was gonna be pissed that they’d hit yet another dead end even with Barakat’s tip, and Zaid didn’t blame her. He actually felt bad for her. She’d been working her ass off trying to get a break in this case, and because he liked and admired her, he wanted to see her succeed.

Setting aside his frustration, Zaid took pictures of the pit and checked a few crates stacked in the corner to make sure he hadn’t missed something. Back outside, the bitter wind stung his face as he reconvened with his disgruntled teammates. Looked like this op was a total bust. “Maybe we’re early.”

“Maybe,” Hamilton muttered, sounding totally unconvinced as he looked around at the NIU finishing their own search of the village. The wind continued to howl around them, buffeting against the rock wall the village was set into, slicing at their faces. “Go with the NIU and start questioning some of the elders. Find out what they know.”

“You got it.”

Within half an hour, it was evident that the elders knew nothing. Or at least pretended they didn’t. If The Jackal had planned to use this village as a smuggling base, no one knew anything about it. Oh, they’d heard of him. Everyone had. But there hadn’t been a shipment of drugs or any outsiders here recently, and none were expected.

Bullfuckingshit, but they’d definitely hit a dead end. All they had for their trouble was a small pile of weapons they’d confiscated, including a British Enfield left over from the 1800s. These people needed rifles to hunt to feed their families, so the NIU would only confiscate the handful of automatic weapons.

Zaid relayed the disappointing info to Hamilton, who gave a terse nod and reported it back to HQ. Agent Rabani would be there, waiting for word. She and her superiors weren’t going to be happy that they were no closer to finding The Jackal’s trail after all her work on this. She needed to have another talk with young Barakat and find out what the hell had gone wrong.

He shouldn’t be thinking about her so much, and for sure not when he was on an op. Zaid sighed and looked around him at the pissed-off villagers all going back into their homes. Maybe they’d come too early. Maybe the smugglers hadn’t been able to make it up the mountain in these conditions.

Or maybe Barakat had lied to their faces to throw them off The Jackal’s trail, playing one side off the other and taking money from both.

Zaid wouldn’t put it past the kid. Hell, after the things he’d seen and heard about over here over the past decade, nothing would surprise him in this country.

“All right, let’s get out of here,” Hamilton finally said, and pivoted to head out of the village.

Cold and discouraged, Zaid and the others started down the mountain with the rest of the unit. The reward for their efforts tonight was a long, cold hike to reach the exfil point, where they’d wait for helos that would fly them back to Bagram.

****

“The shipment made it across the border without incident.”

The Jackal closed his eyes and let out a relieved breath at the news from his contact. “God is great.”

“Yes, God is great. I wanted to alert you as soon as I knew.”

He grunted. The intelligence planted through his network had worked, and led FAST Bravo to the wrong location. “Any further word on the boy yet?”

“Not yet. I’m working on it though.”

“I should hope so.” He knew which funnel the informant was working through. Now it was just a matter of time before he found out who it was. “Keep me informed.”

“Of course.”

Setting his phone down on the table, he rose and crossed to the window that overlooked the sleeping city. A gust of wind rattled the glass in its frame. Lights dotted the darkened landscape of Kabul spread out before him as snowflakes drifted past.

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