Page 39 of The Devil's Ransom

I heard, “Pike, just give us the bare bones here. Are you complete?”

“Sorry, sir. Yes, we are. Jahn and his niece are recovered. We left five dead bodies at the target, and have one live one with us now. We located the target through airborne assets and then penetrated. We got out clean, but there’s a mess that’s going to be found in the morning. We’re currently headed away from Dushanbe to Bokhtar airfield. I’m going to pack up my kit from the dig site and evacuate in the morning. I’m going to need a transfer location for both Jahn and the Taliban we captured.”

Blaine took that in and I could imagine him looking at George incredulously. I heard, “Five dead? Did you say you had five dead?”

“Yes, sir. It’ll be in the SITREP, but we had a forced entry. It was their call, not mine. It’s not a worry. They’re all Afghans.Nobody’s going to come looking for Americans on this thing. It’s clean, but there’s something else that’s not.”

George cut in, saying, “How can you be sure you’re clean with five dead?”

Getting a little aggravated, I said, “Because we were silent. Everything was silent. Nobody reacted. I left Jennifer on the roof for an hour after we exfilled. Nobody showed any interest. They’ll be found in a day or two when the Airbnb contract runs out. Now can I get to the new threat you guys need to worry about, or do you want to keep worrying about what I just told you?”

“Okay, okay. What is it?”

“I told you we had a prisoner, and between him and Jahn, we’ve learned a few things. The national security advisor gave Jahn his flight out, and he also stole something called the Bactrian Treasure. I don’t know what it is, but it’s something big for Afghanistan. The Taliban want it back really bad, and they have two teams out. One was to find Jahn and bring him back for torture and propaganda—which, of course, isn’t going to happen now because we killed all of those savages. The other was to recover this treasure. And they’re on the hunt right now, with the linkage target being the national security advisor. Some guy named Ahmad Khan, who’s connected to some Russian.”

“Yeah, we know about Ahmad Khan. He’s okay. He turned himself in to the consulate in Zurich, Switzerland. He’s in the fold.”

“In the fold? What about the Russian?”

“I don’t know about any Russian. He appeared at the consulate all by himself.”

“And this treasure? Where’d it go?”

“Honestly, it’s the first I’m hearing about a treasure. And Ireally don’t give a shit. That’s some Afghanistan thing that doesn’t matter to me. We have another problem, and you’re the closest to solve it.”

“Wait, I just told you that there’s another team looking for Ahmad Khan. They’re from the Badr 313 Battalion. They aren’t goat herder Taliban guys. They’re fluent English speakers and most have spent time in Europe or the United States. They’re hunting him, and he’s somehow dealing with Russians. It stinks to high heaven. What kind of protection does he have?”

“Pike, he’s in Switzerland. They aren’t going to find him there. We have another problem.”

I gave up, saying, “Okay, okay, what is it?”

“You know we’ve been hit by ransomware, right?”

“Oh, yeah, I know. I had to solve this last problem all by myself. Why?”

“We have a location for the people who did the attack. A last known location, anyway. It’s in Zagreb, Croatia.”

Now really confused, I looked at my two Land Rovers, one holding two freed hostages and one holding a terrorist. I slowly said, “Okay... I’m in the middle of an operation here. Exfil is not complete.”

“We’ll deal with that. You need to get to Zagreb, and investigate this.”

“Are you serious? What’s the mission?”

“The president is sick of these ransomware attacks. Colonial Pipeline, hospitals, schools, it’s like we’re impotent. He wants to send a signal to people like them.”

“And what’s that?”

There was a pause, and I said, “Sir?”

“Honestly, I don’t know right now. Just investigate this targetand use your best judgment. I’ll send you a complete package with everything we know. We’ve done some work on our end and we have a location down to an apartment. We don’t know if it’s him or not, and that’s what you’re going to figure out. Right now, it’s Alpha. Just explore and see what linkages you can make.”

“If I make them?”

“Then it’ll probably go to Omega, but not DOA.”

While we always had the right of self-defense—like we’d done in Dushanbe—our charter was always to capture the target. DOA meant the threat to national security was so grave the target could be resolved dead or alive. If capture wasn’t feasible, but killing was, then we had a green light to kill—but only if capture wasn’t feasible. It was rarely given.

On the teams, while the Oversight Council called it “Dead or Alive,” like we’d make the choice depending on our ability to capture juxtaposed against the time frame of the threat involved, we colloquially called it “Dead on Arrival,” because if you gave me the DOA authority, I was going to kill him with the least threat to my team. Why would I attempt a capture when I could put a bullet in his head from a thousand yards out?

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