his agents delve carefully into the medical records, but those had been picked clean, overtly and covertly—the former by lawyers representing the estates of the deceased, and the latter by bribing petty bureaucrats for the original documents and further checking for evidence of a hidden addendum that might be filed separately, all to no avail. The Emir was writing to an operative evidently living in Vienna who’d been sent to look into an odd case, the man who’d apparently stumbled under a streetcar, because, the Emir said, he’d been such a spry boy as a youngster with horses—not the type to fall under a moving vehicle. But sure enough, the Emir’s man replied, fully nine people had seen the incident, and by all accounts he’d just slipped right in front of a tram, something that could have happened to anyone, however sure-footed he might have been at the age of eleven. The Austrian physicians had been thorough, and the official autopsy had been clear: Fa’ad Rahmin Yasin had been carved rather messily into half a dozen chunks by a streetcar. His blood had been checked for alcohol, but nothing was found but some residual traces from the previous night—so the pathologist assumed—certainly not enough to affect cognitive judgment. Nor were there any traces of narcotics of any sort in such blood as they’d managed to recover from the mangled body. Conclusion: He’d slipped and fallen and died of blunt-force trauma and exsanguination—a fancy way of saying he’d bled to death.
Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, Jack decided.
8
ONE THING Driscoll and his Rangers had long ago learned was that distances on a map of the Hindu Kush bore little semblance to the reality on the ground. In fairness, even digital-age cartographers had no way of calculating the spatial impact of every rise, fall, and switchback in the terrain. In planning the mission, he and Captain Wilson had multiplied all their estimates by two, a variable that seemed to generally work, and though this mathematical adjustment was never far from Driscoll’s mind, realizing that their hump to the LZ was not in fact three klicks but closer to six—almost four miles—was almost enough to bring a string of curses to his lips. He quashed the impulse. It wouldn’t do them any good. Might even do a little harm, showing a crack in front of the team. Even if their eyes weren’t on him every minute, each of his Rangers was taking his cues from him. Both shit and attitude did indeed roll downhill.
Walking point, Tait stopped and held up a closed fist, bringing the staggered column to a halt. Driscoll dropped into a crouch, as did the rest of the team in near unison. Down the line, M4s came around, each man taking a sector, eyes watching and ears listening. They were in a narrow canyon—so narrow, Driscoll doubted the ten-foot-wide ravine actually qualified as a canyon—but they had little choice. It was either take this three-hundred-meter shortcut or tack another two klicks onto their route and risk a daylight pickup. They’d heard and seen nothing since the ambush, but that didn’t mean much. The URC knew this ground better than anyone, and knew from experience how long it took pack-laden soldiers to cover it. Worse still, they knew there were a limited number of LZs from which the enemy could be retrieved. From there, setting up another ambush was simply a matter of doing the math of moving faster than your quarry.
Without turning, Tait gave Driscoll the underhand move up signal. Driscoll did so. “What’s up?” he whispered.
“Coming to the end. Another thirty meters or so.”
Driscoll turned around, pointed at Barnes, held up two fingers, then gave the move up signal. Barnes, Young, and Gomez were there in ten seconds. “End of the ravine,” Driscoll explained. “See what there is to see.”
“Right, boss.”
They moved off. Behind Driscoll came Collins’s voice: “How’s the shoulder?”
“Fine.” The six ibuprofen Collins had given him had taken the edge off, but every jostle sent ripples of pain through his shoulder, back, and neck.
“Get your pack off.” Collins didn’t wait for Driscoll to protest, slipping off the shoulder strap. “Bleeding’s slowed. You feel your fingers?”
“Yeah.”
“Move ’em.”
Driscoll flipped him the bird and grinned. “How’s that?”
“Touch each finger to your thumb.”
“Jesus, Collins—”
“Do it.” Driscoll complied, but each of his fingers moved sluggishly, as though rusted at the joint. “Get your pack off. I’m distributing your load.” Driscoll opened his mouth to protest, but the medic cut him off.