Chapter 1

She was naked and tied to a bed when I first met her. Now, when I say met, it is a little deceiving. And when I say naked and tied to a bed, what I mean is that she was dirty, bleeding from her mouth, her lip was swollen, left eye blackening, and her hair looked like a rat's nest after a cat gets through with its occupants. Her hands were tied to the wooden headboard and her feet tied to the underside of the bare mattress somehow. Oh, did I forget to mention the five Taliban guys staring hungrily down at her whilst a sixth was dropping his pants to reveal a ... penis. It did not deserve much more of a descriptor than the medical terminology for it; at least that was what she told the rape counselor later.

Why was I there? Hmm, well, it seemed at the time that the bright boys at Intel had once again screwed the pooch. The big Marjah Offensive that everyone had been yammering about for months was finally supposed to start and of course they had to send someone in ahead of time to do recon and establish a forward observation base for artillery and air support. At least that was what the Lieutenant told us. That idiot volunteered us. He had been trying to get us killed for months, in fact. I know some would read this and think I was exaggerating, but the arrogant puppy actually told me to my face that the unit could only have one leader and it would better off if I would relinquish leadership, "willingly or by force." He was one of those officers from OCS (Officer Candidate School) who come out thinking they are just below God in the chain of command and that sergeants are merely there to make sure the troops do what the officer says. I found out later he was a college puke who got his commission because he spoke Arabic and was somebody important's kid.

Anyway, the brass wanted a Ranger team to go set up an observation post at this farmstead on the outskirts of Marjah. It was supposed to be abandoned, the last occupant having gotten killed when his kid got caught diddling the daughter of a rival clan. The rival clan had been looking for an excuse to leave the Taliban's side and join the Alliance. The kid was their excuse. They killed the entire clan and sought U. S. protection in return for their resources and fighters. The Taliban leaders in Marjah were pissed because the farmer was a supporter and grew poppy and food for them.

So there we were, in the middle of a freezing ass cold January, approaching the farm house when we heard a roar from inside followed by what sounded like the scream of a woman. The f•©king place was supposed to be empty. We saw no vehicles all that day and no movement. We later learned the vehicles were in the barn and the farmer had dug extensive tunnels below his outbuildings for his Taliban friends. At the roar I motioned the team forward in two-by-two formation to check all of the buildings. Just as they began moving, the Lt. ordered me, a direct and unavoidable order accompanied by a challenging glare, to take point. His excuse was I had the most experience, and it was true, but it was very flimsy and everyone gave wide eyes when he told me to storm the house.

So I sighed, prayed a guilty little prayer that he, not me, would take a bullet to the head, and moved forward with Specialist Raval behind me. That left the newbie Private First Class Fernandez with the Lt. as I steadied my breath, gripped my gun, and kicked in the door.

And like I said, there she was, naked and tied to the bed. I registered her but ignored her for the six males dressed in Taliban garb with AKs near at hand. Specialist Raval ignored her too. As did PFC Fernandez, despite being his first insertion while with us. I don't know who those guys were, but they were pretty good. For being surprised whilst engaging in what would have been gang rape, they were excellent. As my focus narrowed and zoomed, I shot the guy dropping trou and the only guy I saw with a gun in his hand as he raised it to point at her head. Raval took two others out as they scattered for cover, popping off random shots. Fernandez took out another as he poked his head out for a shot and I took the last guy as he tried to dive behind a table. We searched the house quickly and reassembled back in the main room where we realized the guy who got an aimed shot off had not missed. Lt. Vance was lying in the middle of the floor, eyes wide open, with a bullet hole in the middle of those baby blues.

"Specialist O'Malley, bring your kit and your camera in here please," I said over the unit radio. "Is everything else clear out there? We don't need any more surprises."

"All clear, Sarge, but the brass is gonna wanna talk to the Intel boys when we report back," Corporal Hall said, his voice giddy.

He was another newbie sent to the unit when the last Lt. got himself and four of us killed. Hall replaced my second, Sergeant Guerra, and was overdue for promotion. I know, corporals don't replace sergeants, but we were kind of the shit end of the stick in our unit. We got fresh bodies, not equivalent replacements. Spec. 4 Raval took over for Guerra and PFC Fernandez was replacing him in the unit structure, and so on and so forth. As a sign of how f•©ked up things were, I had a Staff Sergeant as my comm man, rather than him being my second. Just as well, he did not want the job as second anyway and Raval did. He was another one overdue for promotion.

I sighed again, took out my knife and walked over to the bed. "It's okay, ma'am, we won't hurt you," I told the woman in horrible Pashto. At least I think that was what I said. I cut her loose and put a discarded blanket from the floor around her to try to warm her as her skin was almost blue with the cold, a pretty neat trick considering she looked local. "My medic is coming and he will check you over."

"Thank you, Sergeant... , " she said in quavering, unaccented English.

It took me a minute to realize she was waiting for me to supply my name. I smiled at her and shook my head. "Sergeant is fine, ma'am. And who are you, if you don't mind me asking? Most Afghanis are not much on the unaccented English around here."

She started to smile but her lip split, making her grimace. Even as wrecked as she was, there was an almost otherworldly beauty to her that made me fiercely glad that none of these idiots survived. Given Hall's giddiness and the brass' proclivity for letting creeps go if they are useful, they were better off dead.

Her slim, broken-nailed hand rose to her lip to dab the blood. "I am Shameera Afghani and I work for Sky News," she said with a flaring sparkle to her eyes as she examined my face. It is a face that is pretty anonymous, despite being what my few ex-girlfriends have described as ruggedly handsome in a manly man sort of way. Straight, slightly Italian-looking nose, nicely spaced gray eyes, almost too firm chin, wide cheekbones, heavy brow without being too Neanderthalish covered by nice arching eyebrows, and boot camp-cut light brown hair with hints of auburn because I was overdue for a trim. On top of a six foot four, two hundred forty pound frame, I got no shortage of action state-side, when I wanted it. Problem was I hadn't seen state-side for any length of time in almost three years. This was my second Afghan tour in three years only separated by a tour in Iraq, two months in Italy, and two weeks in New Jersey when the folks died.

Anyway, I saw in her eyes what I had seen in a couple of other ladies' eyes after being rescued and I sighed. I was about to ask her what she was doing here when O'Malley came through the door and froze, looking down at the Lt.

"Shit! I never thought the bastard would ever die," he blurted out with fervor. He shook his head and looked up at Raval. "He's dead. Why do I need my kit?"

"Over here. Civilian got mauled pretty badly," I said, rising and going over to O'Malley. I lowered my voice and said, "Two things before you look her over. First, make sure that is your last disrespectful word on the Lt. She is a reporter and we don't need any more shit coming down on us because of him. Got it, Mal?"

"Sure, Sarge! Sorry about that, it just surprised me is all," the kid said apologetically.

I nodded and smiled before adding, "And second, use ranks only when talking in front of her. I want no way for her to track us, me especially, down after this."

He groaned in sympathy. "One of those, huh? Sorry again, Sarge. I will patch her up as good as I can. I can already tell she needs a couple of X-rays, a SART visit, and probably a CAT scan. Did they get in her?"

"I don't think so, but treat her like they did, Mal. Do what you can with what we have here and we will hump her out after I get in touch with base, hopefully on a bird," I told him, ruefully adding, "I doubt we will be staying if Hall was that excited. Pass on what I said about names to Raval and Fernandez while I go see what got Hall so worked up."

I turned back to the reporter and introduced Mal before heading out to see what Hall and the others had found. "Where are you guys at?" I asked over the radio, as I did not see anyone from the front door of the house.

"Head toward the barn, Sarge. You gotta see this!" Hall instructed, almost giggling in his joy over what they found.

Shaking my head, I walked over to the barn and walked into the darkness therein. I did not see anything at first and was about to call on the radio again when CPL Schmidt and Specialist Gomez appeared out of the dirt floor of the rather large wood and stone structure. I only saw them because their darkened forms obscured the larger bulks of several trucks and two sedans.

"Here, Sarge," Gomez said in his hoarse, gravelly voice. "Whatever Intel is using for eyes around here, they need a visit with my Uncle back in El Paso. This wasn't a deserted farm. This was a major cache storage depot. Hall and Ustinov are going through it now, but I think we need to have the Major bring some more folks out this way."

Sighing with irritation at how big a pooch screw this sounded like, I followed my men down the earthen ramp to see shadowy piles of stuff going back towards the other end of the long tunnel dug out beneath the barn. Hall was head and shoulders deep in a crate full of wood chips with PFC Ustinov holding his flashlight on him. The light showed a mound of pelts of some kind behind him and a crate of what looked like poppy next to the crate Hall was digging in. I saw other crates marked in Cyrillic and Chinese and Arabic and closed my eyes, pinching my nose. This was gonna take some serious explanation by the Intel weenies. You don't send a Ranger recon team to a farmhouse expecting it to be abandoned and accidentally find what looked like a major way station for goods smuggled into and out of the country.

"Please tell me I am not seeing this," I said with a growl.

"Oh, Sarge, if the judge back in Knoxville didn't still have me on probation, I would seriously think about retiring on some of this," Hall gushed, his round, heavily freckled face re-emerging from the crate. "Not sure what some of this is, but there is refined opium, raw poppy, weapons, ammo, clothes, uncut gems, you name it! Brass is gonna shit a brick when they hear about this! Intel f•©ked up royally!"

"Where are Jackson and the comm?"

"Straight back and around the right bend, drooling over a Mustang they somehow crammed down here," Ustinov answered with a grin. "Thought he was gonna nut when he saw it! Said something about it being a '67 or something."

"GT? They got a '67 Mustang GT in this tunnel?"

Hall nodded and grinned. "I swear he got hard when he saw it. The palest I ever saw a black man get. Probably wondering how he can drive it back to Shreveport."

Shaking my head, I sidled by the men and walked back and turned. The tunnel branched left and right, both ways crammed with more shit. All that kept going through my head were stories my uncles told about VC tunnels in 'Nam where the Viet Cong and NVA (North Vietnamese Army) practically lived for much of the war in the late sixties and early seventies.

I walked about a hundred feet down the right hand tunnel before I had to pull out my own flashlight to light my way. Another hundred and I saw the glow from Staff Sergeant Jackson's light. It was inside an honest to God '67 Mustang GT. It looked black on the outside with white leather inside. Jackson was running his hand over the leather passenger seat while looking over the console.

"Jackson! I need the comm. We got a civilian who needs medivac, Lt. is dead, and Major Kilbourne is gonna shit when we tell him about this place," I said as I got closer to the car. The tunnel was wider here, wide enough to turn the car around. Wooden posts and joists held up the earthen ceiling, showing that this took time, money, and engineering skills. The more I saw, the less happy I was with our situation. Somebody was going to miss those six bastards sooner or later and I wanted my men and the woman out of here when they did!

Jackson popped his head out of the car with a shocked look on his face. "Motherf•©ka fin'ly croak, Sarge? Woowee! Couldnta happen ta a nicer fella, ay Sarge? You see my cherie, here? If I t'ought I could get from dis here sandbox over ta Lou'siana, I might ser'sly t'ink 'bout desertin'." Jackson was one of the stranger guys I had ever served with. He claimed to be from Shreveport, born and bred, but just listening to him sometimes made me sure he was a bayou boy.

"I'm going to tell you what I told Mal, make sure you say nothing disrespectful about the Lt. around the reporter. Now get out here and give me the comm. Oh, and no names around her either, only ranks."

Jackson rolled his eyes with a wicked grin. "Anudder one o' does, Sarge?" he said as he handed me the comm.