Chapter 5

Modre appeared peaceful. It looked like any other small village in that area of Afghanistan. It was small with dusty streets lined with dilapidated buildings. The school was the only building of any consequence. Everything was baking in the hot desert sun while the constant dry wind blew sand around in circles and left everything caked with dust. Because noon was the hottest time of the day there were few people about. A couple of tired looking old men in battered straw hats sat in the shade of one of run down structures that threatened to crash down around them. A few faces could be seen peering through grimy, dust filled windows.

Danny Mason ignored them because they weren’t what he was looking for. He was the scout for Ashley’s operation. He was chosen because of his dark features. With a scruffy beard, ragged clothes, sandals and cheap sunglasses to cover his eyes that darted everywhere, it was thought he had the best chance to blend in with the locals. He tried to play the part by slowly ambling down one street of the main street with a pronounced limp and his head bowed.

He spotted the man he was searching for. He was youngish, tall and skinny with a scraggly beard and a haggard looking face. His ragged clothes hung so limply on his bony frame he could have been a fashion model for a scarecrow convention.

He appeared to be lounging nonchalantly in the doorway of one of the run-down buildings but his actions gave him away. It was easy to see he was a lookout for the gang about to attack the village. He was nervous as all hell with his upper body continually twitching. His eyes were fastened on the street but they kept darting to a cheap wrist watch. One of his hands hung close to the cell phone clipped to the belt that held up his pants.

“Spotted look out number one,” Mason reported by casually rubbing sweat off his face. As he did so he talked through a wrist watch that held a mic.

“Great and we still got a little bit of time so see if you can spot anyone else. We don’t want an advanced warning to spoil the surprise party we planned especially for this gang,” Ashley whispered back.

Mason glanced at his watch and saw it 11.30 so he was going to have to make it quick. He continued his limp-filled walk down one side of the street but picked up his pace. As he neared the end of the street, he whispered into his mic again.

“Nobody else caught my eye so these guys must be awful confident or they’re working on the cheap to have only one lookout.”

“That’s okay because it makes the job a lot easier,” Ashley said. “We’ve brought Margo in the picture to neutralize the look out. She’s going to cause some communication problems in the area so phones and computers are going to be useless. That way their look out won’t be able to send a warning when we swarm into the village.”

Margo, the security company’s computer and communication expert heard the exchange from her living room thousands of miles away. The single mother of two children had started with Galaxy Guardian a couple of years earlier. At first she was used only part time and was happy supplementing a meager income, but when the security company realized how good she was with computers they hired her full time. Now, she managed all communications from her home in Florida and was considered a valuable part of the team.

“Ready when you are,” Margo announced. “Just say the word and there’ll be a temporarily communications blackout.”

“What distance will it encompass,” Ashley asked.

“To make sure it’s effective and nobody receives news about this village in time to stop our festivities, I’m going to create what is known as an overload. It’ll blackout everything for 50 miles around,” Margo said. “I’ll make it intermittent with only brief flashes of power so everybody will think it’s caused by extra strong gusts from the incessant winds playing hell with their satellite dishes.

“Go for it. We just need a few moments to get ready for the party.”

The tall, skinny guy in the doorway gave his watch a final glance and saw it was 11.45 with still no sign of any government troops amassing to stop the attack on the school. He didn’t like the idea of kidnapping the girls because he had a daughter that was almost school age. However, when he was offered lots of American dollars he took the money and agreed to act as a lookout.

Confident that everything looked okay except for the couple of strangers who he watched amble down the main street and decided they were of little consequences. He fumbled for the phone the man had given him along with the wad of crumbled up American bills. Unsure of how to use a cell, he frowned in concentration as he stared at the phone and then at the slip of paper his benefactor had given him. Finally, after a couple of failed tries he managed to correctly dial the numbers on the paper. It startled him so badly when a hoarse, gruff voice answered at first he said nothing.

“Well,” the thick, gravelly voice demanded.

“All clear ... the sky is blue ... with ... erh ... augh ... no clouds in sight,” the lookout finally stuttered out the words he was told to say if he thought it was safe for the gang to attack the school.

“Thank you my friend, see how easy it is to earn American dollars. Maybe I’ll use you again,” the harsh voice promised.

It left the tall, skinny guy feeling so satisfied and pleased a smile crossed his lined face. As he lingered about for one final check of the village, he fingered the American bills in his pocket and thought about what he could buy for his family with all his new found wealth. Then he looked up, startled at the sound of vehicles roaring noisily into the village. At first he thought the gang was already arriving, which meant they must have been waiting right outside the village for the okay sign.

His heart sunk, he had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach and the lump that formed in his throat was so large he had a hard time swallowing. A cold sweat broke out on his forehead when he realized it wasn’t the kidnappers. The men and women that poured out of two vehicles were too well dressed to be gang members. They didn’t have the usual bandanas covering their faces, and they were too well organized. Also, they didn’t drive right up to the school so they could scramble out of their vehicles and scare everybody away by shooting off guns and shouting threats. Instead, the group parked a good distance from it and some of them began planting something just beneath the surface of the rough gravel road where it entered the village. The tall, skinny guy wasn’t an explosive expert but he knew what was happening. The unexpected strangers were planting road side bombs to blow up the kidnapper’s trucks.

When other members of the well organized group began walking up the street with rifles in their hands, the lookout frantically made a grab for the phone on his belt. The gang had to be warned because that was why they had paid him so much money. After some fumbling he found the redial button and held the phone to his ear, prepared to give the gruff voiced man a warning to call off the raid. To his consternation there was no dial tone, nothing. The phone seemed to be out of order. He glanced at the battery indicator and saw it was still almost full power but the signal strength was nil.

As the armed group got closer to his position, the skinny lookout panicked. To hell with the warning, he was now mostly concerned about not getting caught by these new people who were going to stop the raid. He cursed, stepped back into the doorway, threw the now useless phone in a corner and hurried out the back door. Within minutes he was scurrying through the rocks, scrub trees and tall grass at the back of the village. He felt the bills in his pocket which gave him some comfort. As he ran from the village, the lookout was already deciding he was going to keep the money, gather up his family and disappear for a while. He thought the plan was good with no chance of retaliation from the gang because he was sure it was going to be destroyed.

Ashley’s scout had earlier marked the tall, skinny guy in the doorway as a possible lookout but her squad ignored his disappearance. With his phone now rendered useless he was no longer a concern. They just hoped that he had given the gang the all clear signal before taking off.

Part of her crew was located back from the road on a hill so they could provide a withering barrage of rifle fire into the enemy. The other half were positioned inside the village and concealed in the doorways of the derelict buildings as they waited for the arrival of the gang. The few locals were no problem. They melted away at the first sight of them.