One of Karbala’s most popular attractions was the tomb of the prophet Mohammed’s grandson, Husayn ibn Ali. Known as the Masjid Al-Husayn, the tomb was believed to be one of the gates to paradise and was a popular Shia pilgrimage location. According to U.S. military intelligence, it was also the bombers’ primary target.

The vehicle that Gallagher had fired upon was a white Chevy Caprice. It had swung out from behind the line of cars waiting to be inspected and rushed the checkpoint despite repeated commands to halt. Not even warning shots had deterred its driver. Based upon his rules of engagement, and fearing for the safety of his Marines and the civilians clustered near the checkpoint, Gallagher engaged the vehicle and painted a racing stripe up the center of the hood and right through the windshield of the car.

When the vehicle skidded to a stop just before the checkpoint, everyone braced for impact. Within seconds, the driver leaped from his vehicle and pulled his bloody child from the backseat. He sat down on the road cradling his little boy and wailing in Arabic. When he had ascertained that the car posed no threat, Gallagher-an accomplished medic-personally attended to the boy while the team’s interpreter translated for the father.

The boy was very sick and the father had been trying to get him to the hospital. He had no idea there was a checkpoint, and when he had seen the long line of vehicles, he feared his son wouldn’t survive the wait, so he had decided to risk coming up the shoulder to ask the Americans if he and his son could be granted permission to pass.

Gallagher called in a helicopter for transport, but it arrived too late. The little Iraqi boy bled out in his father’s arms.

Though the father was clearly to blame, Gallagher didn’t see it that way. He had pulled the trigger and his bullets had killed that little boy. It made no difference to him that the investigation had absolved him of any wrongdoing and that the vehicle could very well have been carrying an explosive device instead of a sick child.

Tactically, he had done the right thing, but Gallagher couldn’t get beyond the fact that he had killed a little boy. Finally, he had left the Corps.

At six-foot-four and 225 pounds, Baba G was a big bear of a man and still looked every inch the Marine. He had an intense pair of dark eyes, a full head of gray hair kept at an acceptable length, and a short, wispy beard that, no matter how hard he tried, refused to come in fuller.

He was wearing jeans and hiking boots, along with a denim shirt and a black Duluth Trading Company carpenter’s jacket.

As Harvath neared the truck, Gallagher tossed his book onto the front seat and smiled. “Mister. Mister,” he shouted, mimicking the swarm of Afghan cabbies that had been dogging Harvath since he had come out of the terminal. “You need ride?”

“No thanks,” replied Harvath as he drew alongside Baba G’s Land Cruiser and dropped his bags. “I was told to wait here for a big, handsome Marine. You haven’t seen one, have you?”

Gallagher looked over both shoulders. “There was one here a few minutes ago, but he heard some squid was in town and ran home to lock up his goats.”

“Those Marines,” chuckled Harvath, “always so protective of their women.”

Gallagher pretended to go for his gun, but then stopped and extended his hand. Harvath grasped it and Baba G pulled him in for a hug. “It’s good to see you, brother.”

“You too,” replied Harvath.

Breaking off the hug, Gallagher bent and grabbed Harvath’s suitcases. “You’re just in time for rush hour,” he said as he opened the back of his truck and tossed the bags inside. “Depending on how fast the donkey carts are moving, it could take us at least fifteen minutes to get to the compound.”

“I hate Friday traffic in Kabul.”

“You and me both,” Gallagher replied with a smile as he pointed Harvath around to the passenger side of the Land Cruiser.

Climbing inside, Harvath looked down at the book the Marine had been reading. “Jackie Collins?” he asked as Gallagher climbed into the driver’s seat and shut his door.

“The infidel section of the Kabul library is somewhat limited, my friend,” Baba G replied, as he slid the gearshift, which was surrounded by expired air fresheners, into first. “But we do what we can. TIA, right?”

TIA was an acronym that stood for This Is Afghanistan. It was a catchall phrase that unburdened them of the need for long, drawn-out explanations of things. Both men had come to appreciate that Afghanistan was a country and culture unique unto itself. Here, certain things happened certain ways for certain reasons. To try to explain or understand them in a Western frame of mind was a waste of time. Hence, TIA.

Before letting out the clutch, Gallagher reached behind his seat and withdrew a small, insulated cooler bag. “A little something to help you adjust,” he said as he handed it to Harvath. “Courtesy of the local Welcome Wagon.”

Harvath unzipped the lid and saw that it contained a cold six-pack of sugar-free Red Bull and a 9mm Glock 19. “I feel at home already,” he said as he removed the pistol, checked to make sure a round was chambered, and then tucked it into his waistband before popping the tab on a Red Bull.

“Don’t get too comfortable,” replied Gallagher. “There’ve been a couple of developments since we last spoke and I don’t think you’re going to like what I have to report.”

CHAPTER 10

They splashed through the streets past drab Soviet-era buildings, mud-walled compounds, and stores fronted by pushcarts and wheelbarrows filled with cheap merchandise from Pakistan.

Afghan men squatted in groups alongside the road or shuffled slowly through the cold air that still clung to the six-thousand-foot-high city, their hands clasped behind their backs in the Afghan fashion while women in cornflower-blue burkas filled ratty shopping bags with their marketing or carried large plastic jugs of water. Children ran everywhere.

The late-morning traffic was thick and was accompanied by a cacophony of car horns. The only person who wasn’t honking was Baba G, who was busy answering Harvath’s questions.

“You’re absolutely sure?” asked Harvath one more time.

Baba G nodded as he downshifted and maneuvered his Land Cruiser around one of Kabul’s many traffic circles. At the top of the circle were two trucks filled with Afghan National Army soldiers, all of them armed with heavy weapons, as well as 7.62mm machine guns mounted to the roll bars of their vehicles.

Harvath didn’t know what he liked less, the close proximity of so many cars-any number of which could be carrying al-Qaeda or Taliban militants-or the fact that Mustafa Khan was no longer being kept at Policharki Prison. “Why’d they move him?”

Gallagher smiled and rubbed his left thumb and forefinger together. “For the same reason we thought we’d be able to get him out.”

“Baksheesh.”

“Welcome to Afghanistan.”

Harvath was familiar with the ancient adage that “you can’t buy an Afghan, you can only rent one,” and Policharki wasn’t immune from this long-standing Afghan tradition of trading money for favors. In fact, Policharki was infamous for being able to hold anyone but a rich man. Bribe the right guard, the right family of a guard, or the right elders of the village the guard was from and anyone could be sprung from Policharki.

Harvath hadn’t expected freeing Khan to be a walk in the park. He and Gallagher had assumed that the al-Qaeda operative would have been kept away from the general population and that it was going to take big money not only to get the two of them inside, but also to get back out again with Khan in their custody.

What had bothered Harvath from the start, though, was that if he was thinking this way, then al-Qaeda had to be as well. They would be willing to spend a lot of money to get him back, and this must have been exactly what the Afghan government was worried about. They had come to the conclusion that Policharki couldn’t hold him, so they had moved him. The question was, where?