Read Afghan Storm (Nick Woods Book 3) for Free Online

“We gotta move.”
    They stepped
out quickly, wanting to get as far away as possible from the enclave, as they’d
just left their first potential clue since entering Pakistan.
     

 
     
    Chapter 11
     
    The early
morning silence was shattered by the sound of a boy yelling.
    Tariq
Hijazi, the village’s chief enforcer, raced toward the commotion equipped with
his AK-47. He carried the AK not because of the shout, but because any
self-respecting male over the age of twelve carried their weapons with them in
this part of the country. Always.
    A couple
hundred yards from his compound, Tariq pushed through a group of men to have a
look at the boy, who he now saw was crying over a dog.
    The dog was
dead. He yanked the boy out of the way and nudged the dog over with his sandal.
Three bullet holes marked the head of what had been the enclave’s biggest and
strongest dog.
    His first
thought was that the tribe of ul-Haq was behind this. This tribe resided in the
mountains on the other side of the road below them. Often, boys of each tribe
would try to sneak up on each other’s homes as part of a way to show courage.
    It was a
dangerous game that often left young boys dead, but whoever had made these
three shots was no boy. (They were spaced a couple of inches apart --
remarkable shooting in the dark, and pretty good shooting in daylight.)
    “Tariq,”
someone said behind him.
    “Shut up,”
he hissed. “I’m thinking.”
    The dog was
facing down the draw. Tariq followed the direction of the dog’s look and
spotted a single shell casing ten yards away. He shoved a sleepy yet curious
boy out of his way and picked it up.
    It was a
short, pistol casing. On the base, it was marked “.45 AUTO.”
    Tariq
pinched the casing in his hand. Could it have been an American? The .45 was a
popular American round, and the shooting had been exceptional. And clearly
silenced, since it hadn’t been heard. So, someone with an expensive (and hard
to obtain) pistol attachment had shot the dog with incredible skill in the dark
of night.
    The tracks
in the dirt moved down the hill, and Tariq easily determined that the person
who had done this wore boots. Further possible proof. Most Pakistani and Afghan
men wore tennis shoes or sandals. Boots were a luxury beyond most of their
means.
    Perhaps it
was an American, or perhaps it was a wayward soldier for the Pakistani army.
The Army had moved hundreds of troops into the area, but the terms had been
spelled out prior to the incursion. And a silencer among their troops?
Completely unnecessary and almost impossible to fathom.
    The Pakistani
army wouldn’t interfere with villagers or search tribal enclaves, and local
villagers were supposed to leave the Army alone. But someone -- either an
American or a foolish soldier in the Pakistani army -- had made a big mistake.
Many of the urban-raised soldiers saw the tribal villagers as nothing but
uneducated and dangerous religious zealots.
    Tariq wasn’t
sure who he hated most: an American or a so-called “Muslim,” who had turned his
back on the true teachings of Islam.
    “Round up
our warriors,” Tariq Hijazi commanded to the men around him. “We will hunt down
this fool.”

 
     
     
    Chapter 12
     
    Nick and the
S3 team had pushed hard after the incident with the dog. They now camped four
and a half miles east of the enclave.
    In the other
direction, less than a mere four miles separated them from Ahmud al-Habshi’s
compound. But depending on what was being discovered and decided about the dead
dog they’d left behind, that four miles might as well be another hundred miles.
If they had a hunting party after them, then Ahmud al-Habshi would be their
last concern.
    Worries of
such a threat had caused them to look for a hideout up on a finger -- a high
piece of ground -- that ran down from the ridge, instead of in one of the small
valleys nestled just beneath the higher hills, as they had been. If they were
being tracked, they’d be found either