Page 25 of Whisper

“We thank you for your hospitality. To stay at the headquarters of the great Massoud.” Kris bowed his head. He held out both hands to Ghasi. Ghasi clasped his hands, squeezing his fingers.

Ghasi introduced his staff, mostly kids from the village who would be managing the compound for their stay. “They will clean, cook, do your laundry. Anything you need.”

Fazl had summoned a group of Shura Nazar soldiers from seemingly nowhere, and they helped Palmer and his men unload the trucks. George and Ryan hung back, eyeing Kris as he chatted in Dari and held hands with Ghasi.

“May I introduce my fellow officers?” Kris beckoned George and Ryan over and introduced both men to Ghasi. George and Ryan shook Ghasi’s hand stiffly.

Ghasi stepped back. “This main compound is yours.” He pointed to a smaller hut set off from the main cluster. “That is where General Khan’s men will stay. They will protect you. The rest is for you. Your headquarters in Afghanistan.”

“Let’s take a look.”

Ghasi led George, Ryan, Palmer, and Kris around the compound. The first building was an old stable, a C-shaped line of bare concrete rooms with a dirt yard in the center. Palmer and George called out rooms for their equipment, storing the food and essentials on one side, gear and medical equipment on the other.

The second building, set beyond the first, was a rectangle of concrete with Soviet-style skinny double glass doors lining the front façade. The main floor was split, a long foyer overlooking the desiccated courtyard between the two buildings. Beyond the entrance, and down a handful of steps, a sunken central space loomed large, one wall lined with bookshelves and stuffed with old books, their spines etched in Arabic scripts.

Six rooms branched off the center space, with curtains nailed over their openings. A narrow hallway, with steps going farther down, led to two smaller rooms set off the main building by a breezeway. One was the tiny kitchen. The other had a square toilet—a hole in the ground—a spigot sticking out of the wall, and a bucket.

The center space was the perfect place to set up their nerve center. Radio and communications center, intel collection point, and planning station, their nerve center would have someone from the team present around the clock. They’d be able to get radio and satellite reception if they put their dishes and antennae on the roof.

The six rooms off the nerve center would be sleeping quarters for everyone. Two men to a room, plus their gear. It was going to be a tight fit all around.

Even though Palmer’s guys had just puked their guts out, they were already hauling gear into the compound. Their crates of MREs and enough bottled water for an army went to the stables. All comms equipment went to the second building, their headquarters, and Jim and Phillip started working with Warrick, Palmer’s communications sergeant, to set up the array of computers, radios, satellites, generators, and surveillance equipment.

Almost as an afterthought, everyone dropped their rucks in the room they claimed as their own.

Kris searched for his ruck in the dwindling pile of gear in the dirt courtyard.

It was conspicuously missing.

He caught sight Haddad winding his way into their headquarters, hauling two rucks, one in each hand. Kris started after him, but stopped when he saw George pull Haddad aside, say some words, and gesture to Kris’s pack. Haddad nodded, once, twice, and then again. He jogged down the concrete steps as George headed back out.

The Afghan soldiers loaned from General Khan, waiting with Ghasi, watched everything like they were seeing a feast spread out before them. Most Afghans lived on fifty dollars a year. Kris and the team had brought not just millions in cash, but millions of dollars’ worth of gear.

Kris grabbed one of the money-stuffed duffels and slipped the first packet of mission cash out. “AghaGhasi,” he said, using the honorificagha. “I know these men are proud fighters, great men of your forces.”

“They are,Gul BaharAmerican.”

Kris gritted his teeth.Gul Baharmeant “spring flower” in Dari. “I would like to offer to pay them one hundred dollars a week to keep us safe. Us, and our equipment.” He handed out cash to each soldier, pressing the crisp American bill into their palms. American foreign policy, hard at work.

The Afghan soldiers’ eyes lit up.

“That is a good start,” Ghasi said carefully. “But General Khan will want to negotiate. The rest of the army need provisions. Food, winter clothes, ammunition. Weapons. Salaries.”

“We will outfit the Shura Nazar. I promise.”

Ghasi squinted. “I’ve heard American promises before.”

American foreign policy, with all its warts and wrinkles.

Kris held out his hand, palm up. “I’m here now, General. I keep promises.”

Ghasi clasped his hand, shaking it gently. He smiled. “Gul Bahar, I have lived three of your lives. Your country makes and breaks promises as the sun rises and sets. You are here now, but for how long? How long until your promises start to break? I will never understand America. But…” He sighed. “You are here now. So we will see. General Khan will see you tomorrow.”

Phillip and Warrick spent hours setting up the communications array, at least enough so that George and Ryan could send a message back to DC and to CENTCOM, confirming their arrival in-country.

The first order of business, after contacting Langley, was to set up the signals intercept array. With the signals intercept, they could break into the Taliban’s radio frequencies and start listening in on their enemy. Back in the US, it would have been easy. In the Panjshir, working with a single generator and one helicopter’s worth of gear, it was a laborious process.

Satellite dishes, from large to tiny, poked out from under camouflage netting on the roof of their headquarters, and a generator rumbled beside the dishes and antennae, next to a solar-powered battery backup.