Rising Tiger: A Thriller (12)

If Harvath could make it there, he might have a chance of making it the rest of the way onto the airfield. There was just one thing he needed from Dalton—two if you also included fuel.

Nicholas had routed him via back roads, helping avoid any checkpoints. When he arrived at Oxygen, he coasted in on fumes.

The gas station looked like it had been abandoned for years. In exchange for allowing them to use it, the owner had convinced the CIA to take him with them when they left.

Almost anywhere else, someone would have tried to step in and restart the business. Not here. What little fuel that did make it into the country was quickly commandeered by the Taliban. No matter how great the demand, without a somewhat predictable supply of product, running any business was next to impossible.

The place looked well picked over. Harvath doubted there was a single can of gas just lying around. What’s more, he didn’t have a moment to spare to search for it.

Leaning against a brown Toyota sedan, waiting for him, was Dalton. He had a thick, gray beard, gnarled hands, and a weather-beaten face.

According to his file, he was forty-seven years old. He looked seventy. Yet another example of how everything aged rapidly in Afghanistan.

Pulling up next to him, Harvath placed his right hand over his heart in a sign of respect and quickly greeted him with the Arabic phrase common in most Islamic countries, “Salam alaikum.”

Dalton returned the gesture and replied, “Wa’alaikum salam.”

Normally, some back-and-forth pleasantries took place before getting down to business, but in this case there wasn’t any time. His plane was minutes away from taking off.

“What have you got for me?” he asked.

Dalton beckoned him to come look inside his trunk.

Putting down the kickstand, he turned off the ignition, climbed off the bike, and walked over to the rear of the car to peer inside.

The Afghan fixer had a little bit of everything. Pulling back a ratty blue towel, he showed off three frag grenades and a roll of duct tape.

“Good?” he asked.

For opening up a solid steel gate that had been welded shut as the last CIA personnel left the country? It was hard to say. Maybe. But maybe not. This wasn’t a situation in which you wanted to underdo anything. He was going to get only one crack at it.

Seeing the tip of something he recognized peeking out from under a blanket, Harvath pointed at it.

Dalton held up his hand, shook his head, and stated, “No, no, no.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Harvath replied, reaching in and pulling the blanket back. Underneath was an older but hopefully still-functional RPG with an armor-penetrating HEAT warhead.

“Very expensive,” Dalton insisted. Covering it up, he picked up the towel with the grenades and encouraged Harvath to take them. “Good. Good.”

Whether this guy liked it or not, Harvath was leaving with that RPG in the next sixty seconds, if not sooner.

Withdrawing his own envelope of cash—meant to see him through Plan B if necessary—he held it out and offered it to Dalton. The man’s eyes widened, both at the sight of the stack of American currency and the watch strapped to Harvath’s wrist. He indicated that he wanted the timepiece as well.

Harvath wasn’t in any position to haggle. Unbuckling his Seaholm Offshore Dive Watch, he handed it, along with the cash, to Dalton. The Afghan then gestured for Harvath to help himself to the RPG.

The weapon had a frayed sling and only the one grenade. If it didn’t work, he was screwed.

Strapping it to his back, he thanked the man, hopped back on the bike, and tried to start it. Nothing happened. There wasn’t enough fuel.

Harvath hurriedly rocked it from side to side. He could faintly hear some gas sloshing in the tank. Once more he attempted to start the machine and once more, he failed.

Dalton seemed to understand the problem. Signaling for Harvath to get off, he grabbed the bike by the handlebars and laid it on its left side. It took Harvath only a fraction of a second to figure out why.

The gas tank was built over the frame like a set of saddlebags. The fuel, however, entered the carburetor via the left side. Without tipping the bike all the way over, a small remnant of gas would slosh at the bottom of the right side and never be used.

Raising the motorcycle back upright, Dalton indicated that Harvath should try again.

Harvath got back on the bike and it fired up on the first try. Thanking the Afghan one last time, he took off toward the Glory Gate.

Halfway there, he could hear Haney’s voice over his earpiece. The pilots were done with their preflight check and about to fire up the engines. “What’s your status?” his teammate asked.

“I’m still three klicks out,” Harvath replied. “Minimum.”

“The pilots are going to request permission to warm the engines—do a little back-and-forth on the tarmac before takeoff. It may buy us a couple of minutes.”

“Good copy. Just remember—with or without me—you go wheels up.”

“Roger that,” Haney replied. “I saved you a seat in first class, so make sure you get here on time.”

The Soviet-era aircraft was anything but first class. It was amazing to him that not only had it gotten off the ground, but that it had cleared all of the mountains between the Tajik capital of Dushanbe and Kabul. Fingers crossed it would do the same on the return trip.

Watching from the tactical operations center back in Northern Virginia, Nicholas kept Harvath up to speed on everything he could see via satellite.