The Hard Road

Chapter 32

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Americans were pouring into the small air field base every minute of every day, which created ever growing mountains of paperwork. Exacerbating the situation was the fact that Tanner was not exactly what you call a "Planner." He wasn't really a "Leader" either. What he did have were connections with now-senior members of the resistance they would be teaming up with.

While his men helped repair rickety airfield runways and planned for their portion of the coming attacks, Tanner carried him all over hill and dale to meet with gray-haired, surly fellows with overgrown eyebrows and baggy, brown camouflage clothing. As he soon came to understand, the "Base Commander's" primary function appeared to be doling out massive piles of cash to local war lords. They had pallets of the stuff under close guard, but basically no accounting of where it went.

While the men clapped Tanner on the back, nodded, and gave cheerful assurances, Draco's quick occulmency surveys painted a different picture. Not a single soul trusted The Americans, and they trusted that man even less. They were apprehensive after twenty-years of empty promises followed by mumbled apologies on the heels of missing resources. This new money was great, but it couldn't provide trained troops on the ground or tanks or field artillery support in anywhere near the timing needed.

What these fellows needed was several key, early victories to rally the existing forces, bolster their own power, and show the Americans actually meant business. America's leaders needed to show quick progress and decisive action while their war machine lurched into motion.

Unfortunately, Tanner's vision was the same as it always was - stir up domestic turmoil that would magically result in some sort of organic revolution which would never happen. He couldn't risk his men on that sort of ineptitude.

Draco studied the yellowing, Soviet era map glued to the wall. Afghaistan really had not changed much. Being divided along ethnic and tribal lines, the Afghan government was much weaker in The North than it was in The South. The Taliban's military outposts were in the same places as they had been on the old map. There were three key bases which still ran the same aging Soviet era tanks and obsolete field artillery. Troop strength wise, there were maybe a couple hundred professional soldiers bolstered by however many untrained conscripts they could draft locally.

On the other side were the warlords. These were mostly former military officers who could each muster a few hundred ex-soldiers. Their supply lines were reliable when kept short and local. They could operate within perhaps a fifty-mile radius, but they had no reach past that. Their equipment was mostly the same, a few years older but better maintained. The key difference was that the war lords lacked official government budgets.

Last were the coalition troops. These were all special forces. While they were far more deadly and effective than normal troops, their numbers were small and they were specialized. They generally didn't have the capability to directly engage against a fully equipped, mechanized force, but when carefully applied, their effect was overwhelming.

With the full picture in mind, the solution became clear. Careful use of their special forces bolstered by withering close air support would overwhelm the existing Government bases. Without military control, the Afghan government could not exercise any political influence over areas where they had no ethnic loyalty base. The local war lords would fill in the gap and ensure that the region didn't collapse into chaos. The whole thing relied upon the Americans provide a herculean supply effort to keep the whole thing from grinding into the ground.

He stuck some Post-it notes to the map while jotting down his thoughts on resources and timing. Soon, Oliviera came looking for him, and they ended up discussing the idea. It didn't take long before he had a half dozen American master sergeants carefully critiquing, asking questions, and making notes. As it turned out, their exercise with thumb tacks and sticky-notes was the only actual plan anybody had based on the conditions on the ground. Soon, everybody had assignments and the giant machine started moving.

The next two weeks was a race against the clock. Draco's initial worries about not getting enough supplies or equipment were unfounded. Within twenty-four hours of the tacks and scraps of paper being stuck on the wall, transport aircraft were coming and going, one after another, twenty-four hours a day, with barely enough time in between to shove the dirt back into the crumbling runways. Next came construction equipment, jeeps, and pickup trucks with machine guns mounted in their beds. The thirty-six hour mark brought three dozen attack helicopters and another four dozen transport helicopters complete with flight and gun crews. Forty-eight hours later, they had full maintenance crews to maintain and refuel everything going in and out.

As Tanner's acting "assistant," nobody seemed to question any of the orders or plans, especially not when basically everything was vetted through their most trusted front-line men. Never mind that the base commander didn't really bother himself with any of the "Detail" stuff. Ironically, the man was always busy with "Local Liaison" work when the teleconferences with the American Military brass happened. Draco carefully noted schedules, plans, and equipment readiness while each of the command Non-commissioned officers chewed through their particulars with the big guys. It was like a huge chess game with a million moving parts, and the only thing keeping it all straight was Draco's Day-planner binder full of schedules listing every single item. Merlin, he loved Natalia.

At the two-week mark, everything was as ready as it was going to get. The plan was simple enough. A late night special forces surprise attack would catch the enemy off guard and breach their defenses. The freshly supplied and properly bribed local warlords would then provide the bulk of conventional ground forces to secure and manage the bases. Reinforcements and supplies would follow immediately after.

In the mean time, the American special forces boys had nicknamed him "Posh Spice," until the Legion troops told them the stories from Basic about Rosencrantz's hatred. That was deemed much too funny to pass up. From then on, everybody, including the American command, called him "Sister act."

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The Afghan "military base" was more like a worn out police office right smack in the middle of a small town half an hour from the border with Iran. Like everything else here, the place was ex-Soviet construction from the early nineteen-seventies. The square cement box probably started white, but that had faded into beige like the court house, truck stop, and elementary school. Inside the double rows of chain link fence topped with rusting coils of razor wire lived a dozen double-axle troop transport trucks, double that many worn out Toyota pickups sporting machine guns mounted in the beds, four aging, trailer mounted field artillery guns, and a single tank from the nineteen seventies. That was the real prize here, and it was what kept the interest of gray haired "General" Kourosh and his two "Captains," who were incidentally the man's sons.

As the discussions unfolded, it was evident that the Americans had some hang up with Kourosh, and soon, the whole affair was dumped into Draco's lap. As it turned out, the fellow had been an officer in the Iranian army. His family was from the borderland between the two countries. He had been the local "mayor" prior to the Taliban. His father and grandfather had been governors of the region prior to the civil war. The man was part of the "Persian" upper class who had run things for ages. Because of the family's prominence and Iran's ongoing efforts to keep Afghanistan's terrorists out of their country, he still had had close ties with the Iran's regional government.

And that was the problem.

The Americans were at diplomatic loggerheads with that country, but France was not. As such, bribing off and supplying Kourosh was now his responsibility. The arrangement was simple. The Americans would provide giant heaps of money and military gear, but it had to go through his hands. Luckily, Draco had absolutely zero qualms about buying loyalty with someone else's money.

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The night was black dark from a low haze of clouds when Draco and two of his men slipped the locks and ducked into the shadows of the brown concrete block wall. Inside, the house was quiet. In the second bedroom off the kitchen, they hauled the man and his wife out of bed. Draco whispered in his ear. "Surrender the base and you can keep your family."

Half an hour later, the base's chain link gate swung open for Draco and ten Legionnaires. They drove right in and called an all-hands meeting. The base commander quietly announced that there had been a political change. The base was now under the leadership of Kourosh and the Northern Alliance. Any men who wished to leave could do so now. Any who stayed would retain their rank and pay with The Northern Alliance's forces. The vast bulk of the troops were locals and were happy to stay. Perhaps ten of the sixty decided to go with the former Base Commander. That one was busy wrangling a deal with the Americans to take command of the Afghan base in his home town once the invasion started. While it wasn't a big show, nobody wanted a bloody firefight. Draco called back to the command and informed them of the mission completed two weeks early.

The next few days saw the political control transfer just as quietly. Nobody particularly liked the crazy outsiders who didn't even speak their language. Worse, they had instituted a whole bunch of stupid rules nobody wanted. Within a week, music filled the open spaces and all their daughters were back in school.

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Draco was in the middle of negotiating deals with displaced local political leaders when his men chased him down with an urgent call on the radio. The American on the other end was gruff and stiff, and yelling, "God-Dammit! No more of this EU bullshit! I want somebody who speaks English, and I want him now!"

Details about which politicians and local militia leaders would get which bribes and timelines for the same stuffed his brain. He answered, and was immediately subjected to an earful by an American general. Fitzsimmons wanted every single man he had and he wanted them now.

The American Airborne Rangers had been double-crossed by the so called friendly's Tanner had wrangled. They were holed up and taking fire from the Afghan government forces to the east, and the locals from the west. The only other force on the ground was a battalion of American Marine raiders, but they were tied up in firefights on the other end of the country supporting their part of the invasion.

Transport helicopters would be there in two hours. He made arrangements with Kourosh to back them up. The old warlord was not happy with the prospect of trying to make his way all the way across northern Afghanistan without supply lines, especially not when the local peace was extremely fragile. He agreed with the assurance of air support, another mountain of money and supplies, but still made Draco promise to call him off early if he wasn't needed. Getting his tanks and artillery there would take a solid three days, but Draco needed some semblance of an actual regular military in reserve.

Of course, The Americans weren't happy that a scrum of Legionnaires and the warlord allied with The Iranians were the cavalry, but they also realized that this was the only game in town.

The huge dual-rotor transport helicopters arrived and swallowed up all their gear and troops. Inside, the pilot passed him a folder to review the situation on the ground.

With such a small force, the only advantage they could lean on was the full moon. Given the state of the Afghan military, the enemy forces were more or less confined to day fighting. The Afghans had already run a few raids to smoke out The Rangers, but took heavy losses. Still, with over eight hundred hostiles along with tanks and field artillery between the Afghan and Northern Alliance forces, the forty-two Rangers were stuck in a losing battle.

His men huddled around the maps and satellite photos as they talked through terrain, enemy forces and formations, and intelligence. A key consideration, like the first time, was trying to avoid destroying all of the enemy's tanks and artilery. The old Soviet era equipment were rugged prizes that would play a major factor in buying loyalty. This meant Draco couldn't allow American Air Support to obliterate everything in sight. Their command griped endlessly, as they were salivating at the chance to bathe the entire country in napalm, but grudgingly acquiesced.

The helicopters dumped them in the desert twenty-kilometers out. They slung their heaping packs over their shoulders and began the moonlight fueled run across the sand dunes. He was drooling at the prospect of a good fight, and the gallop helped burn off the stress of wrangling between all of the various factions.

They started with a silent reconnaissance of the forces. The locals were clustered in a tight semi-circle around a stone walled compound. The Afghan Taliban forces were set up in a loose scrum a kilometer off the other side.

The plan had the lycanthrope main force wait for his signal. Draco flash apparated Fils and Poulliard, two of their best straight to the commander's tent. The magic exploded around them, flattening three rows of tents and sending blue lightning skittering through equipment. Men were rolling around, gripping bleeding ears, and screaming while the werewolves ripped and tore. He fisted the startled leader, flashed fiery yellow eyes and sharp teeth, and drawled in Pashto, "There seems to be some question of your loyalty."

Dark streaked the man's brown pants a second before yellow liquid drizzled off of his sandal clad toes. The man stuttered and begged until a low growl rumbled out of Draco's lead sergeant. The lycanthrope's lips curled to reveal long, white teeth. The man was pleading and begging, giving all sorts of hollow excuses, but Draco's focus was digging deep into the minds of three others crawling around the room.

Two were followers. Probably useful, but not what he needed in the moment. The third, though, was the man's military commander, and an old friend of Kourosh. That one had his sons, nephews, most of his relatives, and nearly every man out of his home town in this force, and he knew every single one of them would be dead when The Americans filled the sky with the liquid fire and razor sharp shrapnel he had witnessed firsthand in Iraq.

Draco passed the leader to one of his lycanthropes, gently brushed off the military commander, and said, "This is your opportunity to take command. The wolves are already inside the gates. I've got gunships and bombers full of napalm on the way, but I would much rather have you with me."

The man's eyes flicked to werewolves ripping through men like they were made of marshmallow, then to the commander, and narrowed his eyes. "Fucking traitor! You would have sent me and my own sons to their death. And for what? Do you see this?" He turned to Draco. "The offer still stands?"

Draco nodded. The man fished an old folding knife out of his pocket and stabbed it deep into the leader's chest half a dozen times. The old man flailed once and slid to the ground.

Draco nodded as the orders were given. Lycanthropes took charge of the frontline ranks and their field guns. Tanks backed off of the small compound and fired into the Afghan army's exposed flank as their field artillery opened up, sending salvos over the pocked tin roof and into enemy's the front lines.

Troops rushed around the walled farm into the ragged gaps in the confused enemy forces. Draco stayed with the field commander while his men galloped off.

Soon, the Afghan army was backing out and on the run. The werewolves tore through their rear and quickly captured their tanks and artillery while the main force poured out into the desert like rats fleeing a sinking ship.

As much as he wanted to share in the carnage, Draco was stuck on the radio. The Americans had gunships and bombers loaded to the brim with napalm, and they wanted blood. He was happy to give them the victory they craved, just not the opportunity to barbecue his men.

He clapped the new military commander on the shoulder and said, "Want to watch a show?"

The man begged off. He had to go collect a dozen "new" tanks and artillery, as well as recover the heaps of guns and gear left behind by the Afghan retreat. After that came "Business" back in Lashgar Gur, meaning the ancient tradition of murdering the former leader's family and confiscating all the American bribe money.

With that, Draco turned Kourosh around before heading down to the stone hut half buried in sand dunes to check on The Americans. Command wouldn't allow his force to radio the Rangers directly, but they said they would pass the word along. They didn't, and the Americans wouldn't come out at night, so Draco rejoined the lycanthropes for a joyful night of ferreting out and eating escaped Taliban.

The next day, Draco approached the compound under a French flag and hailed them in English. It took three tries until their senior non-commissioned officer recognized Draco from the airbase. Four of the Rangers had sustained serious injuries and half of them needed some sort of medical attention. As their story unfolded, the whole thing was a mess. Instead of linking up directly and employing a joint attack as originally planned, they had attacked with Tanner's assurance that the militia forces would follow and back them up. That's when they got ambushed and were forced to retreat. The so called "Cavalry" then proceeded to attack them. They fled out of town to where they holed up in the compound. They endured fifty hours of nonstop attacks before the whole thing turned last night.

The master sergeant eyed Draco. "Damn, Sister Act. Didn't figure you for the ground pounder sort, not with you bird-dogging that spook all over creation. You one of them? The howlers?"

He nodded.

One of the sergeants clapped the man on the shoulder. "I told you it was him. Big fucker, too."

The master sergeant continued, "Yeah, well, no disrespect, sir, but we weren't opening the door for nobody after you took two in the chest then ripped that hajid in half and ate him."

Oliviera was going to kill him for getting shot again. Draco drawled, "Well, as you know, combat operations work up quite the appetite."

A chuckle chuffed out. Then a second, and soon, the men were laughing.