Harvath’s first thought was that it had rusted shut. He knew how hard cast iron was to cut. The proper way to do it was with a plasma torch, but he doubted they were going to find that kind of torch in Kabul, especially in the middle of the night. The grate was set in the thick cement wall, so somehow working it free wasn’t an option either. There was the possibility of trying to saw the grate or to blow it out with plastique, but making that much noise was out of the question.
Harvath was about out of ideas when he saw Pamir place his flashlight in his mouth and insert a dental mirror on an expandable wand between the bars of the grate. Ten seconds later, he held his thumb up in the air and handed the flashlight and mirror to Marjan, who held them for him as he went to work on the padlock he had found on the other side.
When Pamir had the second and final lock removed, he held on to the grate while Marjan searched for oil to lubricate the hinges. When they were good and soaked, Pamir slowly pushed the grate in toward the tunnel. It moved without making a sound. Pulling it back toward the mechanical room, Pamir put it back in place and then he and Marjan joined their American counterparts near the gear and began getting ready.
Harvath and Baba G struggled with both their boots and their uniforms, which were a bit on the small side, but would have to do. Next came armor. Rashid had provided four sets of chest rig plate carriers used by the Afghan Special Forces along with the plates. As an added precaution, Tom Hoyt had lent Harvath some Point Blank brand soft body armor which he wore beneath his uniform. Gallagher was doing the same with his.
Hung from the chest rigs were numerous pouches loaded down with everything they saw themselves needing. Baba G then handed out the encrypted Motorola radios and bone mics that would allow them to communicate, albeit only if necessary and only with each other, as the radio signal would not pierce the heavy concrete of the subterranean passage. They did a radio check and then Gallagher handed Marjan and Pamir each an AK-47.
Harvath removed Hoyt’s twelve-gauge Mossberg shotgun and laid it on the table next to Gallagher’s. Both had been outfitted with Blackhawk Breachersgrip-style pistol grips that cut recoil in half and even allowed for the weapon to be fired one-handed.
Opening the Storm case Rashid had presented him with above the rug store, Harvath loaded both weapons and secured six extra rounds of the highly specialized munitions in the sidesaddle of each shotgun.
After divvying up the rest of the equipment, Gallagher slipped into the stairwell to exchange final situation reports via text with Hoyt back at the ISS ops center.
Three minutes later Gallagher returned and flashed the thumbs-up. They were good to go.
Rolling his balaclava down over his face, Harvath picked up his weapon, pulled open the grate, and gave his team the signal to move out.
CHAPTER 29
The tunnel was pitch-black and Gallagher only had two pairs of night vision goggles, also known as Night Observation Devices or NODs. As he and Harvath were the designated hitters for the operation, the night vision devices and their IR illuminators went to them. This meant that Marjan and Pamir would be quite literally left in the dark.
Going through Gallagher’s gear, Harvath had found two Streamlight Sidewinder flashlights and remembered something a buddy of his had been teaching to high-end tactical units back in the States. For nighttime and low-light operations, the flashlight could be set to emit green light and clipped to an operator’s belt. With the articulating head pointed toward the ground, the Streamlights would throw out just enough illumination to allow the NDS operatives to see where they were going, without alerting anyone farther down the tunnel that they were coming.
The team lined up in a formation known as a “stack,” with Harvath in front, followed by Pamir and Marjan, and then Gallagher in back carrying a small backpack loaded with extra equipment.
The tunnel was wide enough to drive a jeep through. It was constructed entirely of concrete and its walls were covered with peeling paint and faded Cyrillic writing. Harvath hated it. Tunnels were deathtraps that funneled gunfire and improved the hit rate of even the poorest of shooters. There was no cover or concealment anywhere. If they got into a firefight down here, they were going to be in deep trouble.
Harvath tried not to think about it as he kept a watchful eye for booby traps, as well as any monitoring systems that might tip the Afghan Special Forces off that they were coming.
Pamir had assured Harvath that very few Afghans actually knew of the tunnels, much less exactly where they ran and how they connected.
Knowing that the gossip-loving Afghans had invented viral marketing, Harvath found that hard to believe. Nevertheless, Pamir had insisted that while there were rumors about the tunnels, only a handful inside the NDS actually knew of them and that was only because the information had been passed to them by their counterparts in Soviet Intelligence. He was very confident that the Special Forces soldiers guarding Mustafa Khan hadn’t been read in on them.
To bolster his point, Pamir pointed to how Marjan had worked in the interrogation facility, but didn’t know anything specific about the tunnels.
Though Harvath wouldn’t bet the farm on it, it wasn’t impossible either. The NDS was highly compartmentalized. In fact, it was about the only organization in Afghanistan that could keep a secret. Their units didn’t even have names, just numbers like fifteen or twenty-six; they were that secretive. Harvath just hoped that Pamir was right. If the Afghan Special Forces were watching the tunnels, he didn’t like their odds of being able to snatch Mustafa Khan, much less get out of this operation alive.
As per their target, the aging interrogation facility was built beneath the old Soviet officers’ quarters. Based upon the open-source satellite imagery Harvath had pulled, the distance from the hospital to the officers’ building was about 350 yards. When they were planning everything out it hadn’t seemed very far, but now that they were underground, in the dark, and taking pains to watch out for trip wires, electronic sensors, or anything else, the distance felt a lot longer.
According to Pamir, the tunnel ended at another mechanical room, beyond which was the interrogation facility. From what they had been able to gather, the base was empty right now except for the Special Forces soldiers guarding Khan. Active Afghan National Army units were out doing training exercises in the mountains, prepping for the Taliban’s impending annual spring offensive.
Marjan anticipated a squad of eight to fourteen soldiers at the most, and knowing what he did about them, he didn’t expect more than two to be down in the interrogation facility actually watching over Khan. And the only reason there’d be two and not one was that the last thing the Afghan president would want was for the al-Qaeda operative to be able to strike a one-on-one deal with one of his guards to help free him from captivity. Having two men on him at all times would, he hoped, keep the soldiers honest.
The rest of the Special Forces soldiers would be upstairs in the barracks, with a couple of men keeping watch outside.
As the end of the tunnel came into view, Harvath signaled for everyone to stop. Gallagher moved up to the front of the column and Harvath crept forward to sweep the rest of the tunnel and make sure it was clear.
Their entry point was another cast-iron air grate, just like the one back at the hospital. He tried to peer inside the base mechanical room, but boxes or crates of some sort on the other side made it impossible to see.