“Ahhhhh… That should about do it.” Ned Tate let out a deep sigh of relief, then buttoned his pants and stared out over the vast plain below them. He let his gaze drift up to the mountains in the distance that marked the imprecise border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. He picked his rifle up from where it had been leaning against his leg and started walking back toward the truck.

“Hunh. You sure you don’t want to take a dump? I would have thought you’d like to leave one before you go… You know, a last great testimony – a monument, as it were – to your time here in Afghanistan.” Ned snorted at Frank’s comment, then smiled.

“Ya know, Mister Slade, you make a very good point.” Tate squinted in the bright sun, even behind his sunglasses. “It would be a fitting end to my time, but…” he paused and took a deep breath, then turned back around and looked off into the distance, “… it would be just my fucking luck to get shot by some dirty haji right as I was copping a squat – and then you’d be in therapy for years trying to cope with that image of me with my trousers around my ankles and my hairy ass out in the sun pinching a loaf.” Ned turned back to Slade, who was standing at the driver’s side door of their Toyota Hilux truck, the door open and one foot on the step, his rifle casually in his right hand.

“Solid point, my friend.” Slade hopped in with a smile, adjusted his rifle so it was barrel down between his left shoulder, leg, and the now-closed door. He did a quick check of the gauges, and a brief visual inspection of the truck’s interior: the Heckler and Koch collapsible-stock forty-millimeter grenade launcher was right where he liked it, between them on the seat; the bandolier filled with a mix of HE and flechette grenades was in its usual spot, slung over Ned’s seat; the Sony Toughbook was on the makeshift shelf he and Ned had made by cutting out a portion of the dashboard and mounting a piece of wood on some brackets, bungee cords holding it in place; spare water, ammo, and a variety of other necessaries were in the back seat, including some food, just in case. Getting a flat out here was a potentially, or even likely, fatal occurrence. They were about as far from home as it was possible to be and still be on Earth.

Slade waited for Ned to get in and slam the door, then he put the truck in gear to begin the long return trip to their current “home,” an old, abandoned Russian airfield, a relic from the Soviet invasion. I’ve lived at that goddamn airfield longer than a lot of places I’ve lived in the States, Slade mused. He grimaced at the thought, precisely because of its truth.

The truck bumped along slowly, unable to manage more than ten to fifteen miles per hour on the unpaved and harsh terrain.

“You think that little fucker can pull it off if we have to go that route?” Slade began. He was speaking of the Pashtun tribesman they had just dropped off in the mountains.

Ned paused, giving the question serious consideration. Frank enjoyed the easy silence and drove in silence. Ned spit some dip juice out the window before he spoke.

“Ya know, I worked with him and some of his clan when we were fighting up in Gardez and again at Tora Bora. Most of these so-called Afghan ‘mooj’ – big fucking heroes of the war with the Russians – can’t fire a weapon to save their lives. I mean, they just spray and pray without even looking where they’re shooting. Hell, it’s a goddamn miracle they stopped the Russians, even with our Stingers.” Ned looked down to find an empty water bottle on the floor of the truck, then grabbed it, worked the lid, and spit in it. Slade laughed.

“I know,” Frank offered. “We did some training with the new terps last week and one of them was talking all this shit about how he’s a legendary mujahidin, killed all of these Russians… You should have seen Craig lose his fucking mind when we did some contact drills out of the truck.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, this dumbfuck squats down behind the tire, points his rifle over the hood, and starts spraying it everywhere, hitting exactly zero fucking targets.” Frank took his right hand off the wheel to form a zero with his right hand. “I thought Craig would have an aneurysm. Some great swearing, too. Craig can really swear… was he a Marine, by the by?”

Ned laughed.

“Nah. Former SF guy, Sergeant Major, I think. He’s old school as a mofo, though. I think he might be a plankholder in Green.” Frank raised his eyebrows in response.

Ned spit and then began again.

“Anyway, this kid we just dropped off? Well, he and his buddies were the real deal, Bro. I mean, they weren’t Marines or Rangers or anything, but they weren’t cowards and they weren’t retards, like the rest of this fucking place. And I gotta be honest, the word came down from on high and we used those guys up front – as cannon fodder at Gardez and Tora Bora when we had bin Laden pinned.” Ned looked over and fixed his gaze on Slade.

“Really?” Slade asked, slight surprise in his voice. No one had included any of this in his initial in-briefings before he left or after he got in country.

“Yeah. They charged right into those AQ and Tally motherfuckers – uphill, Bro. Like Johnny Reb at Little Round Top. They took a pretty good beating. I mean, it wasn’t the Charge of the Light Brigade or anything, but fuck me, I wouldn’t have wanted to be up front.”

“Damn. And he’s back for more?”

“Guess so. Give him credit…” Ned appeared to be lost in a memory, so Slade just drove in silence. “But hey, it’s their country, I guess.” Ned spit into the water bottle and then put the cap back on.

“Well,” Slade, offered, “let’s hope if we get the word to go across, he doesn’t decide to return the favor and fuck us.” He smiled his most cynical smile at Ned.

“Your problem, Bro,” Ned said, smiling right back, and then slapped Slade’s shoulder. “I am short as a Chinaman’s dick in the Himalayas, Yo! My freedom bird arrives on Wednesday.”

Slade just shook his head, but he was happy for Ned. He might not even know his real name, but they had seen and done a lot in their months together. Frank knew war was like that; Afghanistan even moreso. An old Afghan hand in Kabul quipped that being in Afghanistan was like dog years – for every one year here, it was seven anywhere else. The way the Afghans aged, Frank thought, it was something more than just a joke. Frank felt like he’d been In Country forever. He started doing some arithmetic and realized he was coming up on 6 months himself. It felt like a lot longer…

Frank was happy for anyone going home from this place, but he didn’t allow himself to consider it. He knew better from his prior life: part coping mechanism, part superstition, he never allowed himself to start thinking about “fly dates” until he was within a few weeks of leaving. Even though he was well into his one-year tour, he was committed for the long haul – he really wanted to get bin Laden.

“You got any satellites yet?” Frank lifted the palm of his right hand from the steering wheel to look at the gas tank as he asked the question. He made a note of the odometer reading, as well, and did some quick fuel calculations. There was no hint of concern in his voice… no need to be. Not yet, at least.

“Nah. Nothing.” Ned leaned forward and craned his neck to look up into the bright, clear azure-blue sky, squinting behind his Oakley half-jackets, the iridium snap-out lenses filtering the powerful glare that was unique to the high deserts and mountainous areas of Afghanistan. Both men wore the same glasses, with different lenses, as much a matter of fashion as it was pragmatic – every guy liked to see a certain sight-picture when he looked down his rifle – and the Central Intelligence Agency wasn’t skimping on what it got its warriors in the aftermath of 9-11 and the hunt for those who did it.

The sunglasses had been a lesson learned from some of the earliest case officers on the ground. The sun is brutal here, man, paramilitary case officers and SEALs would relay back to their comrades, in burst transmissions or secure text – or over beers between deployments. Get the best, most expensive fucking sunglasses you can, bro. That Afghan sun is no joke. It ain’t necessarily hot in the high desert, or the mountains –  especially not in the mountains – but it damn sure is bright and blue. Maybe it’s because you’re that much closer to the sun up there in the footsteps to the Himalayas… Shit, I don’t know. But it is bright. Get some Costas. Or Oakleys. Something durable, though. Get a spare pair, in fact.

They both had gotten two pairs issued by the CIA, at least insofar as the military term ‘issued’ could be applied to undercover case officers, who were simply handed cash sufficient for the gear the CIA thought they would need to buy. It was nothing more sophisticated than what the earliest case officers spent on average when they had first been dropped into the Afghan mountains to begin the destruction of the Taliban government for refusing to turn over bin Laden. Most, but not all, of the early boots on the ground were former operators anyway, so they knew what they needed. The passage of their knowledge, from those who knew to those who weren’t previously SEAL/Delta/Marine Recon/Rangers/Orange/PJs or whatever other former secret-ninja outfit the US government had in its arsenal, become codified into a gear list and a simple set of instructions to the next generation to come In-Country during the War:

Here’s your gear list. Here’s the cash. It should be plenty to cover what you need – unless you’re a princess or an asshole.  Plus, leave a little room for some personalized items in your kit for whatever snivel gear you like when you’re in the field.

Get a bag that’s rated colder than you think you’ll need. Better to be sweaty than freeze to death in those mountains. It’s no joke up there, it’s austere…like the fucking moon. Keep your receipts because you’re going to have to account for this shit sometime down the road. Oh, and the rule is if it touches your skin, you get to keep it; you’re not turning it back in because only God knows what cooties you might catch or bring back from there.

And then off Frank went, purchasing the items that he thought he would need and want, and likely all he would have for however long it took. No one was counting on Big Mil or US logistics for this mission, especially given where they were going. Slade had found that despite his years in the Corps, it is a very different kind of experience when the trip you’re packing for might very well be the last one of your life. He savored that last memory, his wife and kids constantly interrupting, making excuses to come in while he labored over what to put in his pack, especially his daughters, knowing he was going…again, asking inane questions, almost as if they could simply keep interrupting he would never finish packing and therefore never leave.

He maneuvered the truck over the uneven terrain, both hands on the wheel, while Ned continued to tap the keys on their Sony Toughbook.

“Ya know,” Ned began, then spit some dip juice out the window, “when I first got here, I think I remember reading in some country profile that Afghanistan had something like forty miles of paved road in the whole fucking country.” He paused and looked over at Slade. “You fucking believe that – forty miles? That’s it.” Slade chortled and glanced at his passenger.

“Yeah. I believe it,” he deadpanned. “I haven’t seen any pavement at all, other than the roads between the Kabul airport and the Embassy, or whatever they hell they call the Station there now… And even those roads were stretching the term paved to its limits… Half tank of gas,” Slade added flatly, for Ned’s awareness. Ned grunted in response.

Ned, of course, wasn’t his real first name… and the last name in his passport was also just as fake; same for driver’s license and credit cards. Same for everything Frank Slade had identifying him. Yet there they were, two Americans in the middle of a high desert in eastern Afghanistan, near the Pakistani border, driving a plain, unmarked, Toyota Hilux truck, trying to figure out how to get back to a base that didn’t exist on any non-classified map of Afghanistan.

“I’m gonna cut through that pass over there and see if we can get some reception on the other side,” Frank finally decided, turning the wheel right and pointing the truck up the side of the slope that he had been paralleling. Slade pointed with his left hand to a saddle between two mountain tops. Ned looked up and around briefly, then grunted in reply while returning to work on the laptop.

The sun was at least a general indicator of direction and they knew they needed to be headed back west, away from the Pakistani border, where they had just dropped off one of their few English-speaking sources. They had to get him near where his cover story made sense because diversions into Afghanistan from the other side of the mountains took time, time that had to be made up in order to be consistent with the travel out in this part of the world. Frank and Ned had brought the short, stolid Pashtun tribesman as far as they could to ensure he arrived where he needed to be and on schedule.

“What are you doing, writing your fucking intel report over there?” Frank elbowed him, even though he knew it wasn’t possible that Tate was doing any such thing. They would never have classified information, or God forbid, anything about their sources with them, but Frank knew all too well the bane of every intelligence officer’s existence was the writing that had to accompany Every. Single. Fucking. Meeting, or Operational Act whatsoever; every phone call, no matter how seemingly unimportant, irrelevant, or pointless it all seemed.  Looking for bin Laden was the proverbial needle in a haystack… and that meant recording everything for their colleagues back at Langley to sift through and hopefully find some thread, some piece of information, that would lead them to UBL.