across the Tigris and within range of a firebase.
Driscoll had known the lieutenant’s plan was a disaster in the making. But had he argued strongly enough against it? If he’d pushed it ... Well. This was the question that had haunted him for the past year. And now here again in Indian country, but this time all the decisions—good, bad, disastrous—were all his own.
Eye on the ball, Driscoll commanded himself. Head back in the game.
He took another step forward. Still nothing ahead. The Pashto people might be tough—they damned well were tough, Driscoll had learned—but they hadn’t been trained beyond how to point a rifle and pull the trigger. There should have been somebody in the cave entrance doing overwatch. He saw some cigarette butts nearby. Maybe a sentry had been here and run out of smokes. Bad habit, Gomer, Driscoll thought. Bad fieldcraft. Slowly, carefully, he eased inside. His night-vision goggles were a godsend. The cave was straight for about fifteen meters, rough sides, mostly oval-shaped in cross-section. No lights. Not even a candle, but he could see a right turn coming, so Driscoll kept his eyes tuned for light. The cave floor was devoid of clutter. That told the sergeant much: Somebody lived here. They’d been given solid information. Will miracles never cease? Driscoll thought. As often as not, these hunting expeditions turned up nothing but an empty hidey-hole and a bunch of pissed-off Rangers holding their own dicks.
Maybe the right cave? He didn’t often allow himself to think such thoughts. Wouldn’t that be something? Driscoll thought for a bare instant. Big prize, this one. He set the thought aside. The size of the prize didn’t change how they did their jobs.
The soles of his boots were flexible. Easier on his feet, but more important, quiet. He tucked his M4 carbine in close to his shoulder. He’d left his backpack outside. No need for additional weight or bulk inside the cave. Driscoll was not overly big. A hair under six feet, he weighed a hundred and eighty pounds, lean and tough, his blue eyes tracing forward. He had two soldiers a few meters behind him, and while they heard his breathing over the radio links they all carried, he didn’t speak a word. Just hand signals, which were in any case data-dense in their content.
Movement. Somebody was coming their way.
Driscoll dropped to one knee.
The footsteps approached. Driscoll held up his left fist, telling those behind him to drop, as his carbine came up. The footsteps were casual. Alert ones sounded different to his trained ear. This guy was home, and was comfortable there. Well, too bad for him. Behind him, pebbles skittered and Driscoll knew the source; he’d done it before himself: a boot slip. He froze. Around the corner, the footsteps stopped. Ten seconds passed, then twenty. For a full thirty seconds, nothing moved. Then the footsteps began moving again. Still casual.
Driscoll tucked the M4 to his shoulder and turned the corner and there was the gomer. A moment later he had two rounds in the chest and a third one in the forehead, and he went down without a sound. He was older than the one outside, maybe twenty-five, with a mature beard, Driscoll saw. Too bad for you. Driscoll pressed on, stepping around the body and taking the right turn, then pausing to wait for his companions to catch up. Ahead he could see another six meters or so. Nothing directly ahead. Press on. How deep did this cave go? No telling that at the moment. He cradled the carbine tight in his hands.
There was more light ahead, flickering. Candles, probably. Maybe the gomers needed a night-light, like Driscoll’s young kids. Still the cave floor was devoid of clutter. Somebody had cleaned this place up. Why? Driscoll wondered. How long ago?
He kept moving forward.
The next turn was to the left, a shallow, sweeping turn in the limestone rock, and at the next turn, a lot of light—relatively speaking. Without the PVS-17s it would have been a dull glow at most.
That’s when he heard noise. Snoring. Not too far forward. Driscoll wasn’t moving fast, but now he slowed a bit. Time to be careful. He approached the turn, weapon foremost, turning, turning, turning slowly.
There. That’s what he was looking for. Semifinished lumber. Plain old untreated two-by-fours, and those didn’t grow out of the ground. Somebody had carried them in here from civilization, and that somebody had used a saw to cut them and shape them to