Smiling, Baseer signaled that the meeting was over. As Elam Badar embraced him, the elder held on for a little longer than normal. “We will make this right. I promise you. Your family and your village are important to us.”

Elam Badar felt indignant, but he tried to push the emotion back down into the pit of his stomach where it had begun. “Thank you,” he replied.

The other elders embraced Elam Badar and summoned the villager he was friendly with to walk with him back to his truck.

When they stepped outside, the sun was already slipping behind the mountain peaks that surrounded the village and the temperature had begun to drop.

Baseer watched Elam Badar descend the wooden stairs and disappear from sight beyond the copse of trees. Beneath his breath, he silently cursed Mullah Massoud. He and all of his Taliban brothers were going to be the death of Afghanistan.

CHAPTER 18

KABUL

When Mei began sending out buckets of beer and enormous plates of food from the kitchen, Gallagher turned off the TV and rang the dinner bell.

As people selected seats around the table, Mei ditched her husband and grabbed the chair next to Harvath. Flirtatiously, she tucked her arm through his and glancing heavenward said, “Finally, a real man. My prayers have been answered.”

“Mine too,” replied Hoyt as he grabbed a large bowl of fried rice and scooped a portion onto his plate. “I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in months.”

Everyone laughed. In addition to Harvath, Mei, Hoyt, and Gallagher, there were three of Mei’s Chinese girlfriends and two of ISS’s other employees seated at the table for dinner. Mark Midland was a twenty-six-year-old American communications expert who functioned as Tom Hoyt’s right-hand man and helped run the ISS ops center. He was tall and thin, with strawberry blond hair, pale skin, and a face full of freckles.

Across from him was a thirty-four-year-old Canadian, Daniel Fontaine. He was a former member of Canada’s storied counterterrorism unit, Joint Task Force 2. While he claimed he had left JTF2 to get into the private security world in order to make enough money to pay for a ranch he had his eye on back home, Harvath had never believed him. There were plenty of other outfits that paid a lot more than Hoyt and Gallagher.

The Canadians were a smart bunch when it came to gathering their intel. Harvath’s guess was that Fontaine worked for the Canadian Intelligence Security Service and was in Afghanistan to gather intel for the Canadian military operating within the country under NATO command. His ISS job was just a cover.

Fontaine was a handsome, six-foot-one man with dark hair who was used to commanding most of the attention from Mei’s girlfriends, as well as any other female visitors who came to the ISS compound.

If Fontaine wasn’t working protection on one of the ISS security contracts, he spent most of his evenings out partying with the Western ex-pat community. And what Gallagher and Hoyt referred to as “partying,” Harvath saw as most likely developing relationships with non-Canadian nationals and gathering intel.

But no matter what Fontaine’s true marching orders were, both Gallagher and Hoyt praised him as being an exceptionally talented operator. He was also an immediately likable guy, and though he and Harvath had only met once before, they had gotten along very well.

The sticky part for Harvath was whether Fontaine could be brought into what Hoyt comically referred to as their “circle of trust.” Both Gallagher and Hoyt not only knew that Harvath was in Afghanistan to spring Khan, they were being paid to help him do it.

While Fontaine might be a good guy to involve in their operation, if he was what Harvath suspected him to be, he’d feed all of their plans straight back to Canada. So, as much as Harvath liked him, he decided to keep him out of the loop on Khan. As far as Fontaine was concerned, Harvath was in-country to drum up leads and help consult on the Gallo kidnapping.

As the meal continued, everyone was drinking except for Harvath. His jet lag weighed on him and he decided to stick with caffeine. They also had yet to hear from Rashid, and Harvath wanted to keep a clear head until they had a better angle on what was going on. That went for Gallagher too.

When Harvath saw him reaching for his third bottle of beer, he shot him a look. Baba G was Harvath’s right arm while he was in-country, and he needed to stay sharp. He was getting paid a lot of money to be on call twenty-four hours. He wouldn’t be good to anyone drunk.

After Rashid had missed the two-hour call window by an hour, Harvath gave up looking at his watch. TIA, he reminded himself. He was on Afghan time now, and a promise from an Afghan to get back to someone in two hours didn’t necessarily mean he would get back to you in two hours. You have watches, but we have time, the Afghans were fond of saying.

When the cell phone in his pocket did begin to vibrate, it took Harvath by surprise. He fished it out, only to realize it wasn’t his Afghan phone ringing, but his U.S. BlackBerry.

Standing up from the table, he excused himself and stepped outside into the cold night air. A fire was going in the courtyard’s fire pit and Harvath walked toward it as he activated the call and held the device up to his ear. “This is Harvath.”

“Scot, it’s Oz,” replied his pal back at CIA.

Harvath was glad to hear from him. He hoped the man had good news. “Were you able to speak with anyone from the Afghan desk?”

“I talked to two of them as well as an agent who’d been senior on the Soviet desk when the Russians pulled out.”

“And?”

“You were right about one thing,” said Ozbek. “The agency did have operatives there taking advantage of the troop withdrawal in 1988, as well as the collapse of Afghanistan’s Kremlin-backed government in 1992 when the Russians shuttered their embassy.”

“How about the hard intel I need?”

“According to these guys, not much was left behind. And what the Russians did leave was pretty well sanitized.”

“So no drawings, no blueprints, nothing about the old Soviet base?”

“I’m sorry.”

Harvath filled his lungs and exhaled, watching his breath float upward. “All right,” he said. “Thanks for trying.”

Disconnecting the call, he slid the BlackBerry back into his pocket and stood for a moment warming his hands over the fire. From inside the dining room, he heard more laughter. In the ever-worsening hell that was Afghanistan, it was good that they could relax long enough to laugh.

That made him wonder what Julia Gallo was experiencing at the moment. She was undoubtedly cold, hungry, and very scared. She also probably had no idea whether she was going to live or die. Kidnapping was one of the cruelest tortures a person could be forced to endure. Every time the jailer’s key turned inside the lock, every bump or shuffle outside your cell door made you wonder, Is this it? Are they finally coming for me? Is this the moment I die?

He picked up a piece of brittle scrap wood and dropped it into the fire. Somewhere behind him, he heard the door to the dining room open.

Turning, he saw Baba G with his jacket on and his cell phone in his hand. “Rashid just called,” he said. “He’s got something for us and wants to meet.”

Harvath wasn’t surprised that the man had reached out to Gallagher. They were the ones with the relationship. He was a stranger. He just hoped that trusting Rashid wouldn’t turn out to be a mistake.