The Mullah's Storm Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The Story Behind

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO BY THOMAS W. YOUNG

  The Speed of Heat:

  An Airlift Wing at War in Iraq and Afghanistan

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  Publishers Since 1838

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA •

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Copyright © 2010 by Thomas W. Young

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. Published simultaneously in Canada

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Young, Thomas W., date.

  The mullah’s storm / Thomas W. Young.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-44320-0

  1. Soldiers—Fiction. 2. Afghan War, 2001—Fiction. 3. Survival after airplane accidents, shipwrecks, etc.—Fiction. 4. Prisoners of war—Fiction. 5. Taliban—Fiction. 6. Afghanistan—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3625.O97335M

  813’.6—dc22

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  IN MEMORY OF CHIEF MASTER SERGEANT FRED WILLIAMS

  CHAPTER ONE

  A leaden overcast covered the sky above Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, hanging so thick and low that the afternoon became a long twilight. Peaks of mountains surrounding the Shomali Plain disappeared into the cold, gray mist.

  Inside the C-130 Hercules transport plane, Major Michael Parson blew into his cupped hands to warm them, then pulled on his Nomex gloves. He donned his flight helmet and turned up the interphone volume at the navigator’s panel.

  The rest of the crew strapped in. The pilot and aircraft commander, Lieutenant Colonel Fisher, adjusted his boom mike and said, “If we don’t get out of here soon, we won’t get out at all.”

  Parson’s weather sheet told him why. The coded forecast read: “+BLSN, PRESFR.” Heavy blowing snow. Pressure falling rapidly.

  At the flight engineer’s station, between the pilots and just forward of Parson, Sergeant Luke tapped on his calculator. With his grease pencil, he wrote numbers on a laminated takeoff card, then handed the card to Fisher.

  “They need to get that son of a bitch out here now,” said the loadmaster, Sergeant Nunez. Nunez was back in the cargo compartment; Parson heard him on the interphone.

  A blue van stopped in front of the airplane.

  “Here he is,” said the copilot, Lieutenant Jordan. He tapped his fingers on the side console.

  Two security policemen bearing M-4 rifles escorted the prisoner, a high-ranking Taliban mullah. They guided him out of the van and steered him toward the crew door, just downstairs from the cockpit. Shackles bound his hands and feet; he had just enough length of chain between his ankles to mount the steps. He wore blacked-out goggles. Long beard more gray than black. Desert camo coat and prison overalls.

  Parson thought the mullah looked smaller and more frail than he had on CNN. But that had been just brief clips of the man exhorting crowds at Friday prayers, or older footage of him when his hair was all black, hoisting a Stinger launcher triumphantly over the smoking wreckage of a Soviet helicopter.

  A woman in an Army uniform followed the prisoner. An interpreter, Parson assumed. A middle-aged, bald man in civilian clothes accompanied her. Agency, Parson guessed.

  From the cargo compartment, Parson heard chains clanking as Nunez and the security police seated the mullah. Nunez was singing loudly, “Guantanamera, guajira guantanamera, guantanamehhhhhra. . . .”

  “Don’t do that,” Parson said over the interphone.

  “Why not?” Nunez asked.

  “It’s not professional. And they’re closing Gitmo, genius.”

  “That’s all right. We got other places to put these pendejos.”

  “Ready for checklists?” Fisher said. An order, not a question. “Let’s get these engines started.”

  Terse, clipped commands crossed the interphone and radios, and the roar of spinning turboprops split the winter stillness. Parson scrunched his nose at the odor of jet fuel exhaust until Nunez closed the crew door. Large snowflakes splattered onto the windscreen and turned to running droplets on the glass. The cargo plane began lumbering, and Parson noticed the snowflakes getting smaller and flying sideways. The mountains off the far end of the runway dissolved in a white haze.

  “Flash Two-Four, Bagram Tower. Clear for takeoff, Runway Two-One.”

  Fisher lined up on the runway and advanced the throttles. Parson felt the vibration in his shoulders through his flak vest, and the acceleration pushed him back in his seat. The runway centerline stripes grew shorter and shorter until Jordan said, “Go,” and the ground fell away. A moment later, the windscreen went solid gray as the C-130 entered the cloud deck.

  “Positive rate,” Fisher called. “Gear up.”

  Parson watched his radar screen as the airplane climbed. In terrain-mapping mode, it showed the mountains ahead as if they were a green photograph.

  “How are we doing, nav?” Jordan asked.

  “You’re good as long as you stay on the departure procedure,” Parson said. He cross-checked the radar screen with his chart, monitored the plane’s progress. On the pilots’ instrument panel, he saw the digital numbers on the radar altimeter running down, then up, then back down. A
mountain, then a valley, then another ridge.

  Parson looked forward to breaking out above the cloud layer. Fisher would level off and put the Herk on autopilot. Nunez would make coffee. Luke would probably want to borrow Parson’s copy of Shooting Sportsman. Easy mission from then on.

  Just as Parson turned back to his radar screen, missile warning tones shrieked through the cockpit.

  Fisher whipped the yoke to the right, rolled the C-130 into a steep bank. Parson’s arms grew heavy with the pull of G forces.

  “Flares, flares,” Jordan called. “Missile three o’clock.”

  Parson grabbed the pistol-grip trigger for the antimissile flares. Punched off a salvo. The flares torched across the sky, trailing parabolas of smoke through the clouds. Parson hoped the fast turn and the flares, burning hotter than the engines, would fool the heat-seeker.

  It was not enough.

  An explosion rocked the airplane. Impact somewhere out on the right wing. Fragments slammed against the fuselage, sounded like thrown gravel. The aircraft yawed to the right. Then it began to vibrate hard. On the instrument panels, white needles inside black gauges trembled into unreadable blurs.

  “Fire in number three,” Luke called. A red light glowed in the number three engine’s fire handle. Then the light next to it came on.

  “Fire in number four.”

  “Oh, fuck,” Fisher said. “Shut ’em down.”

  Jordan and Fisher began running emergency engine shutdown checklists. Parson took over the radio calls. He flipped the wafer switch on his comm box to UHF1.

  “Mayday, mayday,” he called. “Flash Two-Four is an emergency aircraft. Taking fire. Two engines out. Ten souls on board.” He hoped his voice didn’t give away the fear he felt.

  Jordan pulled the fire handles. Luke’s hands played across the overhead panel, shutting down fuel pumps and generators on the burning engines. The airplane was already half dead.

  “Flash Two-Four, Bagram Departure. Say intentions.”

  “Stand by,” Parson said. The altimeters showed a slow descent. Could be worse, Parson realized. Fisher still had some control. Parson saw him shove the two good throttles all the way up.

  “That’s all she’s got,” Fisher said, pushing hard on the left rudder pedal to keep the nose pointed straight. “We’re going down, boys. It’s just a question of where.”

  “Right turn zero-six-zero for a heading back to Bagram,” Parson said.

  “I don’t have enough speed to turn into the dead engines.”

  “There’s rising terrain to the left,” Parson said. “We can’t climb over it now.”

  “Damn it. Just find me someplace to set it down.”

  “Come left five degrees,” Parson said. “I’ll try to get you into a valley.” Mountains blocked a full turn left, and physics prevented a bank to the right.

  Parson could see nothing out the windows except cloud. Inside, the radar showed more lines of jagged ridges. His heading took the plane between two of them. Farther from Bagram with each second, but maybe the landing would be survivable.

  “Bagram, Flash Two-Four,” he called. “We won’t make it back to the field.” Parson transmitted coordinates for where he predicted touchdown. Nearly fifty miles from the base.

  Jordan flipped a red guard from the alarm bell switch. He gave six short rings: Prepare for crash landing.

  “I can’t see shit,” Fisher said. “I’ll just try to keep the wings level.”

  “Stay on this heading,” Parson said. The numbers on the radar altimeter counted down as the plane neared the valley floor, but Parson saw only mist and swirling snow. He rotated his seat to face forward for the crash. A smell like burned oil filled the cockpit.

  “Loadmaster,” Jordan said, “give us a scan on that right wing.”

  “Heavy smoke from number four,” Nunez said. “The whole turbine section’s blown off number three. Fuel misting out of the external tank.”

  “I’m keeping the landing gear up,” Fisher said. “Engineer, pull the breaker for the gear warning horn.” Luke leaned from his seat to trip a circuit breaker.

  The C-130 broke through the cloud deck, revealing the stark terrain ahead. A scattering of evergreens stood among boulders and shale dusted with powder. Fine snow roiled in the air like a spray of milk. Parson felt a spike of fear deep in his chest. He’d hoped for a nice, flat field.

  “Strap in tight,” Fisher ordered. “This is really gonna suck.”

  Jordan gave a long ring on the alarm bell: Brace for impact.

  “Flaps to a hundred percent,” Fisher called. “Feather one and two.”

  Just feet above the ground, Jordan shut down the two remaining engines so they wouldn’t burn on impact. Eerily quiet now, the wounded airplane glided back to earth. No sound but the whistle of the slipstream until Parson felt the first wrenching jolt of a wing striking a tree. Then another, and another.

  A scraping noise came from the back of the airplane as the tail crashed into rocks. The fuselage slammed to the ground. Parson jerked against his shoulder straps. His arms flailed. He felt stabs of pain as he bit his tongue and cracked his right wrist against the edge of the nav table.

  The left wing separated with a grinding crunch, the sound of metal ripping like the aircraft itself roaring in pain. What remained of the plane swerved hard, sent up an arc of flying dirt and snow.

  Then, for a moment, stillness and silence. Parson closed his eyes and braced for the fireball, fearing his flameproof flight suit would just prolong the agony. He smelled JP-8 fumes from ruptured fuel tanks. Breathing the kerosene odor was like inhaling needles.

  But no fire came. Parson exhaled, felt cold air rushing into the broken flight deck. Shouts came from the back.

  “Allah-hu akbar! Allah-hu akbar! ”

  Then a dull thump. Metal against flesh.

  “Shut the fuck up!” Nunez yelled. “Do you fucking understand me? Bet you understand this.” Whack.

  Then the woman’s voice: “That’s enough.”

  Parson unbuckled his harness, took off his helmet, spat out a mouthful of blood. Still stunned, he saw tiny points of silver floating across his eyeballs. He heard Fisher groan.

  “I think my legs are broken,” Fisher said. “Somebody check on the others.”

  “I’m all right,” Luke said. “I’ll look in the back.”

  Parson stumbled to the copilot’s seat, leaned on it with his right hand. That launched waves of pain that brought him to his knees.

  “I fucked up my wrist,” he said through gritted teeth. He cradled the wrist with his left hand and examined it. Maybe not broken, but sure as hell cracked and bruised.

  The copilot didn’t move or make a sound.

  “You okay?” Parson asked, nudging Jordan’s shoulder with his good hand. No response.

  Parson pulled himself to his feet. Now he saw Jordan’s open eyes staring lifelessly at the floor. He checked for a pulse at the carotid artery, and when he did he felt an odd bulge at the side of Jordan’s neck.

  “I think his neck’s broken,” Parson said. “He’s dead.” It still hurt where he’d bitten his tongue, and the pain slurred his words.

  Fisher closed his eyes and grimaced. “See if you can get somebody to help me out of this seat,” he said.

  Parson descended the flight deck steps. He found Luke and Nunez pulling first-aid kits off their wall fasteners, and he swallowed hard when he saw the mess in the cargo compartment. The civilian spook sat slumped to one side, his seat belt still holding him in the troop seat. A gash in his skull revealed spongy tissue. One of the security policemen held a compress on the other’s chest. The injured SP was on his back, blood streaming under and through the gauze pad. The blood ran across the floor and pooled in the tie-down rings.

  “What happened to them?” Parson asked.

  “Shrapnel, I think,” Nunez said.

  “Jordan’s dead. Fisher’s legs are broke. Can you help me move him?”

  The prisoner sat quietly, si
lenced at least for now by Nunez’s blow. The woman guarded him. The uninjured SP checked his partner’s pulse and placed an ABU jacket over the man’s face.

  Parson climbed back to the flight deck, then supported Fisher’s thighs as Nunez carried him down the steps and into the cargo compartment. Fisher cried out with each bump. His fingers clawed into Parson’s arm. They laid him down across the troop seats.

  “Let’s see if I can get outside,” Luke said. He rotated the handle on the crew door, kicked the door hard. It opened about halfway, and the flight engineer turned sideways to crawl through. “I’m going to make a radio call,” he said.

  Parson watched him let go of the bent door frame and drop to the ground. Luke pulled his PRC-90 from his survival vest, extended the antenna, pressed the transmit button. He squinted against the stinging ice pellets.

  “Mayday, mayday, Flash Two-Four down. Any station, Flash Two-Four down.”

  “Flash Two-Four, Bookshelf. Say location.”

  Parson gave Luke a thumbs-up, relieved that the engineer had already made contact with the AWACS bird orbiting far overhead. Parson handed Luke a scrap of paper with the crash site coordinates, which Luke transmitted to the AWACS.

  “We’ll relay to search-and-rescue forces,” the AWACS controller said. “But be advised weather conditions have everything grounded in your sector.”

  “We kind of figured,” Luke said. He stared at the murk above.

  Parson heard what he thought was the pop, pop of burned metal as it cooled. Blood spurted from the flight engineer’s throat. The radio dropped from Luke’s hand, and he crumpled to the ground. Then came a burst from an M-4 firing out a troop door behind Parson in the cargo compartment. A man in a black turban ran toward the airplane and fell.

  Nunez scrambled for the dead SP’s rifle and covered the other open troop door. He fired a trio of shots. The brass casings flipped through the air, rattled as they dropped.

  The interpreter kicked the prisoner to the floor, held him down with her foot, aimed her rifle at him. “Peh zmekah tsmla,” she ordered. “Chup shah.”