"You look Afghan," Daddy said, smiling eyes on Manny, who'd gone native, allowing his bear to grow in and curly black hair to grow to his shoulders.

  "I'm not," Manny said.

  "There'll be time for bullshit sessions at Iron Man," Bear said. "We're exposed here. Let's get on the trucks and roll."

  The teams loaded gear and themselves onto trucks at the middle of the column. The convoy was a mix of US-made MRAPs and larger Buffaloes manufactured in South Africa. The lead vehicle was an up-armored Humvee covered in mismatched steel plate rough cut and even rougher welded to the body. The MRAPs and Buffaloes were built high off the ground on huge tires along the lines of monster trucks. The bodies of the trucks were V-shaped at the bottom to deflect the blast force of any mine, or IED they rolled over. To that end, most of the armor was concentrated on the underside.

  Each vehicle had shielded turrets atop them, sporting either a Ma Deuce .50 cal or an M-60. One of the Buffalo had a Bushmaster 25mm autocannon static mounted in front of the top hatch. There were patches of gray paint visible where the brush-painted camouflage had scraped off. The Bushmaster was former Navy issue, now seconded to the hadjis.

  Every piece of gear the Afghans carried were hand-me-downs from the US, Canada or the UK. Bits and pieces of French ordnance and webbing were visible, left by the departed Frogs. The Kalashnikovs they were armed with were well cared for but probably either captured from Taliban stores or brought out of mothballs, leftovers from the Soviet invasion. The equipment was functional but all surplus. It wasn't hard to imagine all the enterprising quartermasters across the coalition armies eagerly reducing their inventories of outdated uniforms, web gear, body armor, ammo and weapons to arm the Afghan army.

  The drivers were all Afghan with fifty more ANSF soldiers on board as passengers or gunhands. SEAL Team 3 stayed with Bear aboard a Buffalo but Manny, Priest and the rest of their team climbed aboard spare seats in the back of an MRAP already occupied by a few Afghans. The interior was like a steam bath and it smelled so strong of garlic that Pig looked around to see if anyone on board was making soup. Every surface was covered in a film of orange-tinged dust. The air conditioning that had come standard with the vehicle had been removed sometime back in its history.

  They left the rear hatch open so some air could come down through the turret above them. It was hot air and rich with dust but at least it was moving.

  The two Chinooks lifted off, blades cutting through the same column of dust their arrival had raised. They matched altitude with the gunships and all four banked south and west for re-fueling at Marmal. The pair of Cobras followed them west.

  The center aisle of the MRAP was now stacked with gear bags and lockers leaving no leg room at all. Everyone sat with boots on top of the cargo load. The SEALs made amends for the cramped quarters by opening a goody bag and sharing some hard candy with the Afghans, who accepted it eagerly. As they rolled along, Heath spoke to them in fluent Dari and the hadjis seemed to get a kick out of talking to an actual American black man who could speak their language so well.

  Only one of the Afghan troops did not seem to respond to the gifts of candy and conversation. A young man with a clean-shaven face sat forward in the truck with his back to the hatch that led into the separately armored driver compartment. His hand did not come out for his share of Tootsie Rolls, Red Hots and peppermints. His long fingers rested easy on his combat slung AK. He studied the Americans without expression until Heath spoke directly to him. Only then did the young Afghan smile in return.

  "Does your mother know you're playing soldier?" Heath asked. That made the other Afghans laugh and the young man smiled without embarrassment.

  "She wished me to go fight," the young man said.

  "Your mother is a brave woman," Heath said. The other Afghans nodded gravely at that.

  "Who's that kid look like to you, Heath?" Chili said in English and indicted the now-smiling Afghan with a nod. Afghans did not like being pointed at. That was just one of an encyclopedia of social faux pas the visiting troops were taught in order to make the alliance go smoother.

  "What do you mean?" Heath asked.

  "Doesn't he look like someone to you?" pressed Chili.

  "Shit, yeah," Pig said with a snort.

  Heath took a long look at the smiling face of the young soldier with the eyes looking into his from behind the thick lenses of plastic eyeglasses.

  "I'm supposed to know him?" Heath shrugged.

  "Harry Potter!" Chili said. And all the team but Priest laughed, his awareness of pop culture being woefully uninformed.

  "Yeah, I guess he does," Heath said grinning.

  The kid's smile broadened at this, joining in everyone's amusement. But the glint off those Coke bottle lenses hid his eyes. And his eyes did not smile.

  The trip from Bedrock to Iron Man was ten miles of winding scree following above the banks along the wash until they reached the ring road that would bring them around to the turn-off for the FOB set a half-mile off the highway. The convoy moved with nerve-eroding sloth on the snake whip one-lane through the narrowing valley.

  Two miles on, they were waved to a stop by US Marines who had set up an impromptu checkpoint. It was covered by a pair Humvees concealed in a copse of pines along the valley wall. Jarheads sat up in the turrets, leaning on .50 cals angled at the roadway. The convoy ground to a halt leaving three truck lengths between each vehicle.

  Bear stepped from his MRAP and up to a Marine gunny in full battle rattle. Other jarheads stood on the road watching the convoy with suspicion. Their rifles were combat slung and their hands easy on the grips, with index fingers resting on trigger guards. The little black, red and green flags fluttering from the whip aerials of the approaching vehicles were making them itchy. The gunny motioned for his men to stand down when he heard Bear's Virginia drawl.

  "What's this about, Gunny?" Bear asked and shook the jarhead's hand.

  "We were told you'd be along, sir," the gunny said. "Told us it would be Americans. I see hadji flags and drivers."

  "They're friendlies."

  "Uh huh."

  "What's the road ahead like, Gunny?"

  "Well, that's what brings us here, sir. I'm Sgt. Hamblin, 1st EOD Company, Third Battalion, First Marines. We cleared this road of IEDs up to here and just before the village you're gonna come up on, a klick and a half along."

  "Call me ‘Bear', Gunny."

  EOD. Explosive Ordnance Disposal. Bomb removal. Bear looked around and noticed that the gunny and all his squad wore inflatable tourniquets tied around their thighs over their BDUs. Most casualties in the Afghan theater were from IEDs planted by insurgents, Taliban and Al Qaeda, and whoever else had a hard-on for killing ferangi. These boys were so hardcore that they fully expected to get caught on the business end of a concealed mortar or artillery round and so wore these inflatable tie-offs to stop from bleeding out if one or both of their legs got blown off. They also wore blood type patches (B-NEG, O) velcro'ed on their body armor. The gunny wore a patch that read: IF YOU SEE ME RUNNING---TRY AND KEEP UP.

  That kind of fatalism was breathtaking. Bear removed his sweat-soaked ballcap out of silent respect. He ran a hand back through the bristles, raising a mist of sweat off his scalp.

  "What are my options here, Gunny?" Bear asked.

  "You can wait for us to clear the road down to the highway or take your chances, sir."

  "And what are my chances?"

  "We haven't found anything along this stretch, sir. But it could get hairier closer to the hadji ville. These fuckers like to watch their boomers go off. Past the ville to the highway should be good to go. They use that patch themselves. Unlikely they'd gig it. "

  "How long for your Marines to clear the approach to the ville?"

  "Couple of hours, sir. Can't promise that you'd be away from here much before dark."

  "Hours with my convoy waiting here in the open."

  "Yes, sir."

  "What would you do, Gunny?"

  "I'd make those hadjis you're riding with get out and walk in front, sir. But then again, I don't write the ROEs."

  Rules of Engagement.

  "We'll take our chances then," Bear said and waved an arm back towards the men along the road, who'd taken the opportunity of the stop to get out of the sweltering trucks.

  "Then you want to look out for where we marked the road with a line of yellow spray paint, sir," the gunny advised. "Anything past that line is a mystery."

  "Will do, Gunny."

  "And radio back if you find anything hot, sir. We're listening on channel eight."

  "Roger that, Gunny."

  "Good luck, sir."

  The convoy trundled along the road as it parted company with the dry wash where the valley widened out. They came to a halt at a foot-wide line spray painted on the road surface in day-glo yellow. Below it was painted a crude smiley face with one winking eye. Bear and his two officers were out of their vehicle and ‘Daddy' Basir climbed out of the lead Humvee, eyebrows arched over his mirrored Ray-Bans.

  Bear called to the men in the trucks in English to exit. Daddy repeated the order in Dari and Pashtu and then trotted up to Bear.

  Manny, Heath and the team stood watching a spirited conversation between Bear and Daddy. There was much arm-waving from Daddy, who threw his black beret to the dust and stomped on it. That revealed his shaved bullet head. His eyebrows rose and came together with a life of their own.

  "The hadji colonel looks like Bert," Pig said. "You know, like Bert and Ernie." Only Chili laughed. Priest was watching the kid in the spectacles, who flashed a smile when he sensed Priest's eyes on him.

  Bear broke away from the conversation and walked back to the SEALs. He stuck a Marlboro in the corner of his mouth and lit it as he approached.

  "How good's your Dari?" he asked.

  "We're all solid," Priest said. "Heath's the most fluent."

  "You're walking ahead to the ville with the Afghans while I wait here with Team 3," Bear said and pointed down range, the cigarette between his fingers. "I told Colonel Basir that I needed his men to exercise their commitment and good will to persuade the villagers to point out any IEDs they may have seen planted."

  "I take it he did not like that suggestion," Priest said.

  "The Colonel insisted that this village was loyal to the cause and would already have reported any Taliban activity to us. I told him that if he didn't order his men to cooperate that I would drive these trucks back the way we came and leave him and his troops here to test the veracity of that statement about just how safe this precinct really is."

  "An op with Afghans is like a bad blind date," Heath said.

  "Just make sure we don't get fucked in the end," Bear said and tossed the Marlboro aside.

  "Hell, we paid for dinner. Somebody's getting fucked," Chili said.

  The SEALs broke the platoon of Afghans into three groups of roughly fifteen. Heath and Priest would go with the lead group into the village to parlay. Manny and Chili would follow with the second group to cover them, with Pig honchoing the third bunch as a reserve. If either group ran into trouble then Pig could lay down suppression with the SAW he had strapped on. The big belt-fed beast would keep the Afghan soldiers in line as well. He'd walk drag behind to keep them all in his sight in case anyone lost their nerve or suddenly went all Allahu Akbar on him.

  Daddy Basir remained behind with the CIA officers and drivers while Team 3 manned the turrets atop each vehicle both to defend the column from possible attack and to move in if the shit jumped off in the ville.

  Heath and Priest walked point with the hadji they all thought looked like Harry Potter. The kid never stopped smiling. Behind them, the other hadjis stretched in a ragged line down the center of the road and looked everywhere at once. None of them were buying the colonel's assurances that this neighborhood was down with the government in Kabul. The muttered softly to each other until Priest turned back and silently eyeballed them. They were quiet after that -- so quiet Heath thought he could hear them sweat.

  IEDs could be anywhere and of any size. They could be one mortar round wired up to a radio receiver. There could be all the way up to a half ton of artillery rounds set to be triggered by the weight of a vehicle passing close. Radio detonation, mechanical detonation, det by wire and anything in between. Their killing potential and efficacy were up to the talents and sick imagination of their builders. There were the pros who lived long enough to perfect their deadly craft. And there were the newbies who blew their own asses sky high trying to wire up something nasty for the infidels. Despite the attrition rate, the Taliban was never short of eager recruits.

  Heath and Priest scanned the road surface ahead for signs of freshly disturbed stones or earth. They looked along the verges for dead vegetation that might have been uprooted to conceal a device. They scanned for movement in the thin treeline to the east where eyes might be watching and sweating hands might be clutching a detonator. The village came in sight on the other side of where the road rose up on a hillock.

  It was like a hundred other places they'd come across in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia and other duty stations. One-story huts of brick or stacked stone with flat rooftops. Yards fenced in with wooden stakes and wire, with goats penned within. Grape arbors could be seen on the terraced ground above one side of the ville and nut trees grew in rows along the other. The only signs that this was not the ninth century were a couple of battered Kawasaki dirt bikes leaning against the curtain wall in front of one house and a big, old, eight-foot satellite dish covered in bird shit set on a poured concrete slab. Other than those details, this collection of hovels could have been anytime in the past three thousand years and the long column of armed men marching closer could have been Greek Hoplites, Mongol conscripts or Scots Highlanders. This land had seen them all come and go and the land and people remained the same.

  The SEALs and their nervous Afghan cohort came this far without adventure. That could mean one of two things. Either the road was clear and the people in the ville were just happy Afghans looking to a bright future of democracy and cheeseburgers. Or there was a crowd of jihadis watching them right now and biding their time for the fat convoy just out of sight down the road.

  Heath snapped his fingers and pointed to an Afghan wearing lieutenant's bars on his collar tabs. The Lieutenant trotted over, eyes wide and searching. He was armed with a Skorpion machine pistol: a shitty piece of Russian ordnance that he probably chose as a sign of his rank. No common AK for him. He would carry a space gun.

  "What's your name?" Heath asked in perfect Dari.

  "Tamir, sir," the man answered.

  "You don't have to call me ‘sir', Tamir."

  "Yes..." Tamir faded away, uncertain of how to address this big American black man.

  "Just for now, you're in charge, Tamir. We want it to look like me and my ferangi brothers are only here to observe."

  "Yes."

  "You find whoever's in charge and you tell them we would appreciate their help locating any explosive devices that may have been planted along the road recently."

  "They will be reluctant to assist us in that way..." Tamir almost said ‘sir' again.

  "Well, assure them that if they help us find the explosives that we will have no choice but to believe that they are patriotic Afghans and we'll make certain that President Karzai knows of their cooperation."

  "And should they refuse?"

  "If they refuse, Tamir, and one of our vehicles is damaged by an explosive and any of our men are injured then we will have no recourse but to believe that the people of this village are traitors and terrorists and they will see no reward in Paradise."

  "And how would you assure that they not be granted Paradise?"

  "Tell them we have a truck back there loaded with pig skins and I will see that their eldest males are buried in those skins after we have executed them."

  Tamir's eyes grew wide.

  "But that is not true."

  "Then you have to sell them on it, Tamir. Unless you want to take a chance that the road we just walked isn't clear."

  Tamir looked into the eyes of the black American and could read nothing there. They might have been talking about what they would eat at their next meal or what the weather might be the following day. He glanced at the white American with the black hair and eyes as empty as a pair of gun barrels. Then he turned from Heath and Priest and snapped his fingers to three of his men and they all walked to where some older Afghan men sat at a wooden table in the shade of some pistachio trees growing in the yard of the largest house, the house with the satellite dish. This would be the home of the headman.

  Not a woman or a child in sight.

  A hushed conversation opened up between the lieutenant and the seated men. Heath and Priest stayed in view but kept their distance. Their influence on what came next would be of the silent variety. It was important that Tamir persuade them on his own.

  The cordial exchange was over now. Voices were raised. The oldest man at the table spoke in a high reedy voice. By his tone, the two SEALs knew he was stonewalling. Tamir was having none of it and raised his own voice and waved an open hand at the road with swift jerking motions. There was silence as the two groups of Afghans eye-fucked one another to see who would be the first to blink.

  The oldest villager, obviously the head man, stood and called a few names. A pair of younger guys came from the houses. Teenagers wearing white kufis on their heads and cheap Adidas knock-offs on their feet. They were a sullen pair who stared at the two Americans. They approached the elders at the table with bowed heads.

  Priest shifted his stance so his combat slung shotgun was pointed, ever so unsubtly, in their direction. He sensed Harry Potter off in his peripheral and turned his head to wink at him. The young Afghan goggled at him from behind glasses.

  The elders waved the pair of teens to go with Tamir and his men. The two teens didn't say a word. They walked from the village and down the road back the way the SEALs had come. A hundred yards out from the village they pointed to a messy stack of rocks along the road that was covered over with flowering weeds. Priest walked out alone and crouched to look.