True Allegiance

At night in Kabul, temperature dipped to below freezing. The good news was that the cold had helped stop the bleeding. The bad news was that he was in danger of going into hypothermia. He could barely keep himself conscious—he’d only been able to do so thus far by jabbing the butt of the M9 into his wound to feel that sharp pain. Now his arm was numb. If he fell asleep, he’d be a carcass by morning.

“Get up, pal,” he said to himself, shaking off thoughts of his wife. “Time to go to work.”

At night, the streets emptied completely. Even the Taliban fighters didn’t want to be in the open—they’d be in nearby apartment buildings, no doubt huddled around their primitive fires. Electricity had gone out in the city periodically over the last few weeks, with Taliban fighters bombing electrical substations. Every morning, allied forces were finding more and more freezing bodies in the streets, despite the pitiful hamlets they’d set up for the poor around the city. That was all bad news, but for Brett, it was convenient—there was nobody to spot him hobbling toward the Kabul airport.

The airport would still be in American hands, Brett knew. It was located just north of the city, about nine miles from the center of Kabul. If there was any place left in Afghanistan that would remain in American hands, that would be it. The American military essentially owned the northern portion of the airport. If he could make it that far.

Brett struggled to his feet.

He knew he’d have to stay quiet—with the Taliban presumably running the place, there would be a bounty out for US soldiers—but every time he brushed his shattered arm against a wall, swollen to twice its normal size, he gasped in pain. Then, reluctantly, he took the magazine out of the gun and bit down on it. Hard. Better to crack a few teeth than to be featured on CNN being dragged through the streets. And the empty gun wouldn’t be of any use anyway.

The airport, he told himself.

The airport.

He’d seen the footage of the last helicopter taking off from Saigon, and he’d always groaned in horror at seeing it—it meant the end of a country. Now all he could think about was how the last soldier in that last helicopter must have felt.

Relieved.

By the time Brett spotted the airport, he couldn’t feel his legs. The airfield was exposed, with plains surrounding it on every side to avoid the potential for snipers or antiaircraft attacks on the runways. Thank God, Brett thought, it’s a dark night.

He stumbled forward toward the gates as he reached the empty field. The gates grew larger with every agonizing step.

Then, miraculously, the gate was before him. Brett grinned as it materialized in the darkness.

Except that the gate was open.

Blown wide open.

Then he saw it. To the northwest, something was burning. The acrid smoke of burning oil and flesh cut his nostrils. He wiped the sweat off his face and walked toward the helicopter. My God, he thought. There is no last helicopter.

He knew before he reached the helicopter what had happened. The smoke billowed in great black plumes against the blue-black night sky; the soft, angry flames spurted from the landing gear. The runway was clear except for the helicopter and the dozens of uniformed corpses lying nearby. Brett knew some of the corpses—they had been his men at the embassy. Many had been shot at point-blank range in the head.

Obviously, the Taliban had taken the airport, and they’d been ready and waiting when the ambassador’s chopper arrived. A massive, coordinated assault. The Tet Offensive, except successful in every way.

The Taliban had waited for the helicopter to land, and then they’d shot it to pieces and executed the survivors.

“Son of a bitch,” Brett muttered to himself.

Brett glanced at the horizon. The sun would be up soon, and the uniform would be a target. The field would soon be swarming with Taliban allies. He had to find a place to hole up and think.

The only place in sight was a nearby hangar, one of the military’s famous steel made-to-order jobs. Brett didn’t know whether it was occupied, but at this point, he didn’t care—he felt a wild anger rising in him. He instinctively gripped his pistol tighter.

He made for the hangar. Even before he stepped inside, he could smell the death there. The horror when he did enter made him step outside again. The nausea felt hard and cold on his stomach. He shook it off, his head thickening.

Then he went in.

Blood covered the floor, the walls. It slicked the floor like oil at a transmission shop. The Taliban had used the hangar as an execution post, and there was a line of bodies lying on the floor, many of them wearing American uniforms. Those bodies had been mutilated obscenely, despicably. Limbs and organs were missing, flesh burned. They’d done it slowly. They’d enjoyed themselves. There couldn’t be any other explanation.

“Animals,” he said softly. “Fuck these animals.”