Caught In The Crossfire: A Bernadette Callahan Mystery Read online

  Caught in the Crossfire

  A Bernadette Callahan Mystery

  Lyle Nicholson

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  BY LYLE NICHOLSON

  Treading Darkness

  Corporal Bernadette Callahan's life is going nowhere in a small town in western Canada. Her dreams of becoming a detective are stymied by a sexist Commander who wants more of her than she is willing to give. On this day, a decision she makes will change her life.

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  Caught in the Crossfire by Lyle Nicholson

  Copyright© 2019 by Lyle Nicholson

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or recording or otherwise without prior written permission of the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to real people or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  ISBN: 978-0-9959781-2-6

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  1

  Three Weeks Ago

  Ghulam Nasim hurried along the darkened streets of Kandahar. Isha, the last call to prayer, had sounded several hours ago. The cleric’s short legs moved as fast as they could over the recent snow; his leather shoes had become wet. He cursed leaving without his boots. But this was too important. A boy had appeared at his house telling him Imam Sardar Agha, the leader of Kandahar’s largest mosque wanted him at the Shrine of the Cloak of the Prophet.

  Something was wrong; Ghulam could feel it in his bones. The ancient cloak, once worn by the Prophet Mohammed, had been kept in the shrine for centuries. Ghulam’s sole job was to keep the cloak he’d never seen safe in the shrine. It was kept in an ornate wooden box. The boy said the box had been broken, things in the shrine were scattered. He had to come quickly.

  His mind raced over the possibilities, his breaths coming in short bursts. His heart felt like it wanted to explode with fear.

  The imam, Sardar, would have his head if the sacred cloak were missing. How would he explain such a thing? Last night after the fourth prayer, when the imam had been meeting with two foreigners, the box had been intact.

  Ghulam had opened the shrine and let the imam and the foreigners in. One was a thin man with blond hair and blue eyes that darted around the room taking in the artifacts as if he was appraising them for sale. The other man was tall and dark with a thick chest and arms; he seemed to be the blond man’s bodyguard.

  The imam had dismissed Ghulam, telling him to leave the key with him. He could pick it up at the mosque next to the shrine in the morning.

  Now, the cleric panted as he reached the stairs of the shrine. He could hardly make it up the stairs from his exertion.

  He heaved himself through the front doors. It was, as he feared. The ornate box with the brass hinges that Ghulam had polished so lovingly for many years was in splinters.

  He clutched his chest. “What happened? How did this happen?”

  “I thought you could tell us, Ghulam Nasim,” Imam Sardar said as he walked into the room. The imam was much taller and older than Ghulam. He always carried himself with an air of his religious office, however tonight he wore plain brown robes and only a cap. He looked as if he’d been pulled from bed. His fierce eyes penetrated into Ghulam’s, making him feel smaller than his five feet three inches.

  “But, but, I left you alone with the two gentlemen tonight. You said you’d leave the key at the mosque for me this morning.”

  “Enough of your silly explanations, Ghulam. I locked the door myself when I left. I have the key with me. Did you make an extra key and give it to the foreigners?”

  “Of course not. I could not, I would do no such thing,” Ghulam protested.

  “Are you sure? The little one, he seemed quite taken with you last night, asking you many questions. He didn’t offer you some extra money to steal our precious cloak?” the imam asked. His eyebrows rose high in two accusing arches.

  “No, no, no my Imam. I have been caretaker of the sacred cloak for many years. This shrine is my life, I would never sell it to Infidels—to anyone.”

  “Yes, we will see what the videos show. All will be revealed…ah, here is the chief of police. We will have an answer to this great tragedy soon, Ghulam. You had better hope that Allah is merciful.”

  Ghulam felt his heart growing smaller in his chest. How could this be? The sacred cloak, the only thing that mattered in his shrine, was gone. If by some hand of fate he was found at fault, his head would roll, not figuratively, but in the square of Kandahar at the hands of an executioner.

  2

  Chris Christakos wasn’t happy with this morning’s mission. He’d been pulled from his room at 0500. His orders were to escort Jannick Lund, their personal protection client out of Kandahar, to a small village so he could do some recon of a water project he wanted to fund.

  Jannick Lund was CEO of a Non-Government Agency; they called them NGO’s here in the ’Stan, the short name for Afghanistan.

  Chris had signed a three-month contract, leaving his fiancé Bernadette Callahan to come here and show his worth. This was the dumbest thing he’d ever done, he thought as he pulled on his bulletproof vest and strapped his Glock to his leg, then checked his MP5 machine gun.

  He was supposed to be heading for the airport the next day on a flight to Paris to meet Bernadette and rekindle their relationship. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d apologized for being so brash and accepting this job. Sure, it was one thousand dollars a day, a cool ninety thousand good old US dollars tax-free for three months work. But the work! Damn, it was dangerous.

  They’d been shot at and run over IED’s, those lovely big ‘improvised explosive devices’ the Taliban liked to dig into the roads and blow up unsuspecting vehicles. Three of their team had gone back home with injuries. This job was getting more dangerous all the time.

  And last night, doing the personal protection gig for Lund at the shrine with the crazy imam, that about settled the guy as bat shit crazy. Chris hoped they’d get out, check the village and be back in time for him to call Bernadette one more time before she left for Paris.

  They mounted up into the trucks—three dark SUV’s with heavy amour, which they hoped would protect them from IED’s. Secretly, they all knew the trucks were toast if they were hit.

  Stanhope, an ex-British paratrooper was in the lead vehicle with McEwan, a Scot who’d retired from the Black Watch Regiment. He had a wicked sense of humor, while Stanhope had none. With them was Max, his real name was Mahboobolah, which no one could pronounce, their interpreter who spoke Pashtun and Dari. His English was sometimes hard to understand, but they cut through translations with hand signals.

  Lund, their asset, was in the second truck with his driver, Douglas, a young kid of 19, who never should have been hired but they were desperate for warm bodies. Douglas was a wash out from the armed forces but could drive anything. He was a big kid from rural Nebraska with a wide smile who didn’t get rattled. He actually fit into the team quite well.

  Chris was in the last truck, with Cameron who took the wheel. They sped out of their compound, shooting dust into the air. Afghans cursed the convoy as it sped by, scaring
their donkeys and chickens. People dove out of the way to avoid being hit by the three large trucks that looked as if they would rather run over someone than stop.

  “This is bullshit,” Chris said to Cameron.

  “Copy that,” Cameron said. He was a young former marine from Ohio named Cameron Anderson. He’d done two tours with the Marines in Iraq and how the hell he ended up here took a two-hour story and six beers. His long story short was—insanity.

  “Why the hell do we have to drive like we’re protecting some five star general? Who does he think he is?”

  “Yeah, total dumb ass. But his orders are we drive like hell for his protection. He’s paying the bills and Stanhope takes him to the letter. Just like a true Brit,” Cameron said. “And we got some kind of rendezvous with a big Afghan in a village.”

  “Sure, but this just draws attention to us. Kick up a lot of dust when we hit the outskirts of town, you alert every Taliban that you’ve got something important. Puts a target on us.”

  Cameron turned to Chris. “Hey, QC, you’re finally thinking like a true military guy. Wow, from QC to jarhead in three months. Impressive.”

  Chris smiled and stared ahead. His nickname had become QC for “Queen’s Cowboy” when the guys learned he’d been a constable with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Canada. He told them the force was once nicknamed the Queen’s Cowboys by Canadians after Queen Elizabeth of England. The name stuck.

  The convoy sailed past the markets then onto the main highway. They had several checkpoints to go through before they left the city of Kandahar. The ANP, Afghan National Police, manned the checkpoints, took the bribes and made sure they got their cut of anything that was leaving the city. They did well.

  In this case, they’d have to wave the convoy on, for no goods were being transported; Lund always made sure of that or he hid them well. Max showed their credentials and they went through each checkpoint without problem.

  They were soon out in the open. Guard towers appeared on the sides of the roads. Machine guns tracked their progress with young Afghan kids barely out of puberty holding the trigger of a 50 MM machine gun. One slip of the finger and their truck would be toast.

  The convoy sped on. Chris tensed up as they reached the hills. In his imagination, he saw Taliban behind every hill. The landscape looked like uneven brown pancake batter spread over ominous hills. Each hill could hide a Taliban with an AK47 Russian-made machine gun and a cell phone with a transmitter to an IED.

  “We’re approaching our first choke point,” Cameron said. “Clench your cheeks QC ’cause this is the fun part.”

  Chris knew what he meant. Choke points were a narrowing of the road. When the road ran right through a hill, leaving a deep valley, they were vulnerable to attack from two sides. The Taliban loved these hills. They could sit there all day and take out anyone they wanted. The only thing that kept them away was U.S. helicopters and drones.

  “Skies are clear, we should be okay,” Chris said.

  “Once again, QC, you’re right on, true military thinking,” Cameron said with a smile.

  When the skies were clear, the drones were flying high on the perimeter of Kandahar. They were loaded with Hellfire missiles that made quick work of any Taliban who decided to linger over a hill staring down at the highway. Clear skies were their friends; cloudy days made them want to cringe.

  They relaxed as they came out the other side of the valley and into the clear open spaces of the Afghan countryside. There was one more hill left. As they approached, the lead truck started to slow.

  “You think there’s a problem?” Chris asked. He racked his machine gun, pulling off the safety and placing his finger on the side of the trigger.

  Cameron spoke into his collar mic, “What’s the situation?”

  “Lund has to take a shit,” Stanhope replied from the front vehicle.

  Cameron muttered, “Copy that.” He turned to Chris. “Well that’s the biggest brown star cluster I’ve heard of in sometime.”

  “Which means?” Chris asked.

  “Total bullshit,” Cameron said. “You’d think the guy could clear his friggin’ bowels before we left town.”

  “Stay frosty,” Stanhope said over the radio. They knew he meant stay sharp.

  Chris watched Lund walk towards some low hills. “Is he carrying something?”

  “Damn if I know, let me get the binoculars—shit—incoming!

  The whoosh of an RPG round streaked between the trucks and ignited Lund’s vehicle. The truck lifted off the ground before dropping back in a ball of flames.

  “Get out, get out!” Cameron yelled to Chris.

  Chris grabbed his machine gun in one hand, pushing open the door and launching himself out of the truck. He turned on his stomach with his weapon ready. AK47 rounds pinged on the truck. Cameron followed him out the same door, his weapon hitting the ground with a crunching sound.

  Cameron yelled, “QC, follow me—head for the BFR!”

  Chris crawled behind Cameron. The BFR was military code for big friggin’ rock. They got behind it and peered out.

  “I make out ten hostiles from the weapons fire,” Cameron said.

  “Great, that gives us three each. Any chance we can move to that other rock and flank them?” Chris asked. He fired off a quick round of his MP50. It resulted in the other side of their rock being hit with a fusillade of AK47 fire.

  “I think you made them mad, QC. I’ll call in my friendly American chopper buddies. They’ll send a Blackhawk in here to put some missiles up their butts,” Cameron said.

  “Go for it,” Chris said. “This could get old real fast, they got us outnumbered.”

  Cameron took out his satellite cell and dialed a direct line he had to U.S. Forces, Afghanistan. “Lucky I still got friends there that owe me favors.”

  Chris fired off another round from his weapon and pulled his head back, “You mean you still haven’t paid off your gambling debts to the heli pilots?”

  Cameron smiled as he listened for his phone to ring. His smile fell to a frown, “Ah shit, we got no coverage here.”

  Chris shook his head. “Not possible, your sat phone doesn’t work on relay stations, it bounces off satellites. The Taliban must be using cell frequency jammers.”

  “I hate it when the hostiles go all geeky on us. Do you see any of our crew? Can we communicate by visual?”

  Chris looked back to the road. “Looks like they got the lead truck as well. Maybe we can make it to our truck and head back for help.”

  Cameron was about to respond when an RPG round whooshed over their heads, striking their truck. A roar of flame threw the truck onto its roof. Cameron shrugged. “There goes our ride.”

  An Afghan voice yelled out. “Surrender to us and you will not be harmed.”

  Chris stared at Cameron. “What are our options? I’m out of ammo for my MP50. I got nine rounds in my Glock, which means I need them close in, and you don’t have any weapons.”

  Cameron winced at the obvious. His weapon had jammed when he’d jumped out of the truck. It was useless. The sporadic weapons fire from their team in the other trucks who’d made it out had become silenced. They were all out of ammunition. With no cell coverage, they were done.

  “Do you trust these bastards?” Chris asked.

  “They don’t get any ransom money if we’re all dead. Kind of the law of the land,” Cameron said in a dry tone.

  “What about our interpreter?”

  Cameron shook his head. “You know what the Taliban do to interpreters, they shoot them on the spot or torture them to death. There’s no debate on that with them. Our interpreter Max knows that.”

  “Bullshit,” Chris said. He moved his face towards the edge of the rock. “Does your promise of protection go to all of us?”

  A laughing voice answered, “Of course, Allah is merciful to those who surrender to us, inshallah.”

  Cameron yelled to the others in the crew. “Guys, what’s the call? I got no cell, no back u
p. If we surrender, we do it as a group. No one here does a cowboy and starts firing. You got that?”

  A muffled ‘copy that’ came from a rock a hundred meters away and the other men in the crew put their hands up. Chris and Cameron did the same.

  The Afghans came forward with their weapons trained on them. They were herded into a group. Cam looked around; McEwan and Stanhope looked okay.

  “Where’s Douglas?” Cam asked.

  McEwan nodded in the direction of the flaming middle truck. “He didn’t make it out.”

  “What about Lund?”

  The question was answered with Lund coming towards them with his hands over his head. He looked pissed. Chris couldn’t tell if it was his stupid decision to stop at this obvious choke point or if he thought his security team had failed them. He didn’t care; staying alive was his main concern, not the health of this idiot who had gotten them captured.

  Chris looked down at their interpreter; Max was sitting on his haunches, his hands cradling his head as if he expected the worst.

  Max looked up at him. “You must kill me now, please, I beg of you. The Talban kill all interpreters, after they torture them. Your bullet would be a mercy to me, please.”

  “Hey, don’t worry, Max. They said they would be merciful to all who surrendered. You’ll be fine,” Chris said. He couldn’t imagine putting a bullet in Max’s head.

  Max looked up with eyes filled with tears. “You do not understand the true translation of inshallah.”

  “Sure, I do, Max, it means God willing.”

  “Yes, my friend, and it also means, if God wills it. The Taliban can kill us all and say that God willed it.”

  3

  Present Time

  Bernadette Callahan stared out the airplane window at the cold and barren mountains below. She’d be landing in Kandahar in the next half hour. The captain announced they were arriving on time. The weather was 3C/37 F, snow and wind—a normal January day in Afghanistan.