The Renegades by Tom Young

Author:Tom Young [Young, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯), Fiction, War & Military, Suspense, Action & Adventure, Thrillers
ISBN: 9780399158469
Google: IMXCj_Lpf9QC
Amazon: 0399158464
Publisher: Berkley
Published: 2012-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

14

Gold still kept contacts with the Afghan National Police. She had spent a tour helping run a literacy program for new recruits, and she decided to see if anyone knew anything about this Lieutenant Aamir and his kidnapped son. At the moment, she could do little else to help Parson.

After several phone calls, she finally reached Sergeant Baitullah in Kabul. He had lost both feet in last year’s bomb attack on the police training center, but the police needed reliable people so badly, they let him stay on in a desk job.

“Salaam, my teacher,” he said. “It is good to hear your voice.”

“And yours, Baitullah. I have missed you and your classmates.” She especially missed the ones she could never talk to again.

“How may I serve you, teacher?”

She told him about Parson and Rashid, the Mi-17 forced down, Lieutenant Aamir.

“Kidnapping was a curse upon this land long before Black Crescent,” Baitullah said. “True Muslims consider it among the foulest of sins because it is a sin against family.” Gold listened closely to his voice, the cadence of his words. He sounded more self-confident than she’d ever heard him, in command of information. His tone thawed just a little of the ice in her heart, made her feel perhaps not all her efforts were wasted. “I must check our records on these crimes,” he added. “Sadly, there are many.”

Baitullah promised to call back after he did some research. Cell phone service was still intermittent; she could only give him a landline number that would ring on a field telephone in command post. If we were both Taliban, Gold mused, he could just turn loose a pigeon.

She was taking a walk with Fatima when Baitullah called back. The Giant Voice speakers strung around the base crackled and hummed, then announced: “Sergeant Major Gold to command post. Sergeant Major Gold, please come to command post.”

Gold brought Fatima with her. The girl seemed excited as she looked around at the computers, telephones, and radios. Perhaps she thought this strange facility could somehow bring back her brother. Gold felt a twinge of regret; she’d been so careful not to encourage false hope.

When she picked up the phone, Baitullah sounded regretful, too.

“I can find nothing on Lieutenant Aamir,” he said. “I presume he has not reported the crime.”

“He probably has not,” Gold said. Parents who suffered a kidnapping could not count on swift and skillful response by Afghan authorities, so they usually cooperated with abductors.

“These events often end badly,” Baitullah said. “In 2011, the insurgents hanged the eight-year-old son of a police officer. The officer had refused to give the terrorists a police vehicle.”

Gold knew of that case. She didn’t want to talk about it.

“What about Lieutenant Aamir himself?” she asked. “Is there anything to suggest terrorist ties?”

“Nothing. His record was clean until now.”

A promising career ruined, then, in addition to everything else. A tragedy within a tragedy.

“Thank you for your help, Sergeant Baitullah,” Gold said. “I will keep you informed.”

“Allah’s blessings upon you.”

Outside, gusts roughed the tents of the refugee billeting and the medical teams.

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