Page 9 of Rising Tiger

And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the vehicles’ heavily armed occupants had dismounted and were going house to house. He doubted they were door-knocking to register voters for the next Taliban election. They were looking for someone, and that someone washim. He was sure of it.

Having a fortified position and holding the high ground were two items very much in his favor. The walls of the compound were high enough that he wasn’t worried about them being scaled—not without a ladder or getting one of the vehicles close enough that his opponents could scramble up and over. The weak point of his position, however, was the gate.

If they had chains and could get a man close enough to attach them, they could tear it out. Or they could simply use the truck-mounted .50-cals as can openers and hammer the gate until it dropped.

This was starting to look a little like the Alamo. With his limited ammo, he was going to be able to keep them at bay only so long. He needed to come up with a plan.Quickly.

Retreating inside the building, he returned to the first floor and started tearing through everything.

While the Agency team had left a lot of personal items behind, the one thing they hadn’t left was anythingprofessional—specifically weapons. He would have given a year’s salary at this moment for a single RPG, or some more frag grenades.

Near the front door, he noticed something that had briefly caught his eye on the way in. It had looked like a small fuse box of some sort, but seeing it again, he realized that it was actually a key box.

Opening it up, he saw there were six pegs. Two had keys. One of them had a handwritten label hanging from a piece of wire that read “shed.” The other key had a black plastic head and was instantly recognizable. He grabbed them both and headed outside.

The shed was a small, concrete utility building on the other side of the courtyard. Keeping one eye on the gate, he unlocked the padlock on the shed door and opened it up.

It was filled with junk—buckets, hoses, mops, brooms—nothing useful. Except, over in the corner, something had been hidden under a plastic tarp. He moved to it and pulled it back. Underneath was a dirt bike—a red-and-white Honda XR.

He checked the wheels, the tires, and then the chassis—all of which seemed to be in decent shape.

There was no fuel gauge, so, straddling the motorcycle, he rocked it from side to side and listened. It didn’t sound good.

Opening the gas cap, he turned his flashlight on low and peered inside. The tank wasn’t very large to begin with, probably less than three gallons, but even half a tank of fuel would have made him feel better. By the looks of it, there was less than a quarter.

Placing the cap back on, he did a quick scan around the shed for any extra gas. He didn’t find any and guessed that whatever reserve stock they’d had had been used for the burn barrels and destroying sensitive documents up on the roof.

He hailed Nicholas as he wheeled the bike out of the shed. They had an insider at one of the entrances to Kabul Airport—a man who helped facilitate the ingress and egress of aid organizations.

Crippled by a shortage of food, fuel, and medical supplies, Afghanistan was staying alive only thanks to international assistance. As the SEALs had used aid flights as a ruse in the past, it had been Harvath’s idea to employ the same tactic for this operation.

They based out of Tajikistan and chartered an old Antonov An-26 from Tajik Air. The flight crew were highly experienced and had run multiple operations into Afghanistan for the CIA.

Because of instability under the Taliban, it wasn’t unusual for aid organizations to have to stage outside the country and bring in supplies via smaller, regional aircraft.

For their part, the Afghan government didn’t care where the flights were coming from as long as the critical aid kept flowing.

The facilitator at the airport was named Hamza. He had quite the side hustle going. While aid organizations enjoyed a special, somewhat “protected” status, the treatment aid workers saw could be dialed up or dialed down. This was still Afghanistan, it was still corrupt, and baksheesh still ruled the day. Hamza had been prepaid a healthy amount of it.

He was responsible for getting the rest of Harvath’s team into the airport and out to their plane unmolested. At that point, he would receive an additional envelope filled with cash.

Hamza, however, wouldn’t be at the airport all night. When his shift ended, he would be gone. What’s more, the Tajik flight crew had already filed a flight plan and were expected to return home. That’s why a hard time frame had been placed on the mission.

The dreaded Plan B of having to make it all the way up north, linking up with the smugglers, and traveling through the dangerous mountain passes into Tajikistan was beyond unappealing. Harvath was praying he could catch the plane.

Nicholas wasn’t so sure. “Dalton,” as Hamza had been code-named—after the bouncer in the movieRoad House—“has already delivered the team. I don’t know how much longer he’ll be on-site.”

Before Harvath could reply, Haney’s voice came over the radio. “Just get here,” he said. “We’ll take care of everything else.”

“Not if it means jeopardizing the exfil,” Harvath replied.

“You’re breaking up, Norseman,” the man responded. “Say again.”

Harvath didn’t believe for a second that Haney was having issues with his radio. “You have your orders,” he said to the man. “Follow them.”

“Roger that,” Haney replied, before handing communications back to Nicholas.

Out of time, Harvath explained what he was about to do and what he needed from Nicholas.

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