The Sixth Martyr

  ALPHA SQUAD – THE SIXTH MARTYR

  By Eric Meyer

  Part of the ALPHA SQUAD series

  Copyright 2017 by Eric Meyer

  Published by Swordworks Books

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

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  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter One

  Boston, Mass. September 11, 2001

  The cemetery was in Boston, not too far from New York City. When he left the graveside, he made the call to his brother. He pictured him in the huge corner office, with a magnificent view across Manhattan. Watching over the city almost like a god, dark blue pinstripe suit, like he always wore, and a five-hundred-dollar haircut. Body toned and molded by an expensive personal trainer, all on his generous company expense account. Chuck picked up after the second ring.

  "Tyler."

  “Hi, this is Joe.” They exchanged boisterous greetings, “I’m thinking about coming up to the city for a few days. See the Big Apple. Look around the sights. How’re you fixed for some free time?"

  His older brother chuckled. "I can always make time for you, Joe. Just send me your itinerary, and we can meet for dinner as soon as you get here.” His voice became somber, “How is everything? I mean, you know…you okay?”

  He felt anything but okay. Chuck was his surviving family member, after he lost his wife and three-year-old son. He’d been out of the country on an operation, working out the final month of his two-year contract with Alpha Squad. She’d been shopping in the local mall just outside Boston when a shooter went on the rampage with an AR-15. The shooter had converted the weapon to fire on full auto, and it sprayed bullets almost like they were going out of fashion. His family went down under a hail of bullets, and they’d buried them in this cemetery, along with eleven other victims of the massacre.

  He’d been out in the boonies, running down a lead on a rumored cache of Stinger missiles, along with the other three men of his unit. By the time they got the message through to him, it was all over. During the journey back, all he could think of was the loss of his wonderful family, and something else. He’d like to have taken revenge on the vile psycho who’d snatched their lives. Except the perp committed suicide by cop, leaving nothing left on which to slake his fury.

  Jessica and Joe Junior were buried, and all he had left was a store of photos and videos bearing their images. A house filled with memories. He couldn’t take it, couldn’t go back there, and he put it on the market. He stayed in motels, bummed around for a few weeks, and then decided at the last minute to visit the last member of his family, Chuck Tyler. Thank God for Chuck, at least he had someone. He had a lot to talk over with him. Or maybe he just needed the closeness of immediate family. Men like him didn’t weep, didn’t break down, and trumpet their grief to the heavens. But they needed something. Someone. And sometimes even a shoulder to cry on. Family.

  “I’m good, yeah.”

  “Joe, I’m so sorry. I wish you’d been in touch sooner. Anything I can do, you tell me. Where will you be staying?"

  "I don’t know yet."

  "In that case, you’ll stay with me. You know I have a spare room. What have you decided to do about your contract? The last I heard, you were inside Afghanistan, something mysterious for CIA. You said you were thinking about renewing the contract for another two years, is that still the plan?”

  Joe thought back to the two years he’d spent in that shithole country. A member of an Alpha Squad team, paid out of the CIA budget. Their mission was to chase down those Islamists who'd declared war on the Afghan Government, as well as on their American allies; men who spat on democracy and the rule of law. They called the enemy the Taliban, and they'd crawled out of the woodwork and seized power within days of the Soviet withdrawal. The government of Najibullah had quickly fallen, leaving a power vacuum that the Taliban soon occupied. They entirely lacked friends. One of their most powerful allies was a certain Osama bin Laden. Long sought by the forces of law and order for his frequent attacks on the West.

  The grisly alliance was committed to violence and terror, to the creation of a worldwide Islamic caliphate that would spread its tentacles outward and destroy the fragile political balance of Asia and beyond. A harbinger for the world of violence, disease and death, like a biblical plague. The Afghan Northern Alliance was fighting back, but the disease of Islamic fundamentalism had taken root, and was proving hard to cull.

  The contract with CIA came about almost by accident. He'd been a U.S. Navy SEAL, about to leave the service, and the CIA was recruiting experienced men for the Alpha Squad program. Contractors, they called them, others called them mercenaries, some more accurately, hired guns. He'd taken the job in a spur of the moment decision. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and the pay was enough to quickly fill his bank account. Besides, he’d miss the action. He was still young, still with plenty of fight left in him. Time to consider a tame occupation would come, but in the meantime, he liked what he did. He was good at it, and besides, Afghanistan was going to hell in a hand basket, with the Northern Alliance engaged in a bitter civil war against the Taliban.

  As usual it was the civilians who suffered the consequences, and the country was descending into a deep, dark pit. The victim of a proxy war; fed by unlimited supplies of money and weaponry from the major players. Russia, China, and Pakistan, each with their own agenda.

  The war showed signs of dragging on for many years. He’d fought hard, shed blood, and finished his two years with a hefty body count of bad guys, and CIA pressed him to renew. He told them he’d think about it, and then he came to the news every man dreaded hearing. His wife and son were dead, killed in a useless, senseless mall shooting. After he’d buried them, CIA pressed him for an answer, but they’d have a long wait. He’d lost everything, and when a man has nothing to fight for, what’s the point of fighting?

  "I won’t be going back, Chuck. I'll use my severance pay and take a year’s sabbatical. See the world. Maybe buy a charter fishing boat and start earning easy money from the tourists. Lying out in the sun, catching up on some reading. A few beers in the evening, watching the sun go down.” He didn’t say anything about girls. The memories were too raw, and Jessica deserved a decent period of mourning.

  His brother murmured, “Let me know if I can help. Hey, what the hell is that?"

  Those last five words were the final words Chuck Tyler ever spoke to his younger brother Joe. Over the phone he heard what sounded like a massive explosion and faint screams. A second later, the line went dead.

  * * *

  September 11, 2001

  Chuck Tyler, bond trader, was at the peak of his profession. A lof
t apartment in Manhattan, and fast on his way toward earning enough money to get out of the financial rat race, with enough to live comfortably for the rest of his life. Until now, and it seemed like the world was coming to an end. As if a massive earthquake had hit the building, and a wry thought flashed through his mind. All the hard work he’d put in, the summa cum laude from Princeton, internship with a leading Wall Street brokerage, and finally a corner office almost at the top of the skyscraper. If this was a real earthquake, he could be about to die. It was all for nothing.

  Damn!

  The building shook like a wet terrier, and terrible screams echoed around the eighty-sixth floor. He ran out of his office, looking for the source of the problem. Fire alarms brayed like maddened banshees, and seconds later the power went down. Which meant the elevators would be out, and it was a long way down the stairs. People were running around wearing terrified stares, their minds frozen in terror. They reminded him of rabbits caught in the glare of headlamps. Like statues, frozen into immobility.

  He rounded up the first dozen staff members, shepherded them toward the stairwell, and sent them hurrying down toward safety. He turned and ran back into the offices, looking for more. He found a huddled group, and hustled them toward the stairway to get them out of the building as fast as possible. He didn't know what had caused the disaster, but whatever it was, it had to be something bad, worse than bad, catastrophic. He carried on looking for more. His sense of morals and decency wouldn't allow him to abandon these people. Not until everyone else was safe, and only then would he leave. The building shook again with another explosion.

  Will I ever leave this place? I don’t know.

  That's when the fireball erupted in the offices down the corridor, and it hurtled toward him. The building shook even more, and it felt as if it was on the point of collapse. He found the last of the panicked staffers, three frightened clerks and a junior associate, and he led them toward the stairway. But before he reached it, the fireball picked up speed and it was on them. The building shook, and he looked up at the clock on the wall. The time was 10.28, and the date was 9/11/2001. It was the last thing he ever saw in his life. Moments later the flames engulfed them, and the building had already begun its slow collapse to Ground Zero. Chuck was already dead, and people’s lives were about to change forever.

  * * *

  Boston, Mass. September 11, 2001

  Puzzled, he tried and failed several times to reconnect, and then he entered a bar to grab some coffee and breakfast. The television was switched off, and he asked the barkeep to switch on to a network news channel. The information came in small chunks, but he soon learned the North Tower had collapsed, quickly followed by the South Tower. His brother’s office was on one of the upper floors of the World Trade Center, and after his phone went dead, he knew the worst.

  He settled the check and booked an Amtrak ticket to New York City. Knowing the chaos that would have descended soon after the two aircraft hit the towers; he had to go himself to find out the truth. When he arrived the city was on lockdown, but he managed to thread his way through the streets to Ground Zero. Hoping against hope it wasn’t true, until he finally got the information he’d been dreading. There had been people who escaped from the collapse of the North Tower, but his brother was not amongst them. Few had survived from the upper floors, and although the FDNY held out some hope, he knew Chuck was dead.

  It was too soon after the deaths of Jessica and Joe Junior, and his mind shut down, overcome with grief. He’d seen death, plenty of death during his military career. But not like this. Not his own family, the sole surviving member of his entire family. Almost like a zombie, he wandered around the city, stricken with grief, until finally he checked into a hotel. Joe spent the next few hours watching the network and local news as more details unfolded. Including the name of the mastermind behind the plot, the man who had since claimed responsibility. The psycho who’d declared war on America, a Saudi Arabian by the name of Osama bin Laden.

  He wasn’t a heavy drinker, and he didn’t smoke, so he eased some of the tension in the only way he knew. Long hard walks, fast runs around Central Park, and several sessions a day in the gym until every muscle was on fire. In the end, he knew it wasn't enough, and he made some calls. He managed to reach Sarah Glass, a girl he’d dated some years before. She’d since married but was now a widow. She had a small place in Afghanistan, which her husband Gary had established shortly after the Soviets left. He bred and trained horses, and she met him after she and Tyler split. She’d decided to embark on an adventure, a riding vacation inside the forgotten, empty spaces of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and she met and fell in love with Gary Glass. They married and for a short time enjoyed a good life together, sharing their love of horses. Until the Taliban shot her husband dead and never told her the reason. Sarah wasn’t a quitter, and she stayed on. When she learned Joe needed somewhere to stay for a short time, she told him he could come for as long as he liked.

  “It’ll be like old times, Joe, although I can’t imagine why you want to come back to Afghanistan. Haven’t you had enough these past two years, working with CIA?”

  “I can’t stay here, Sarah, not in the States, too many memories. Afghanistan is all I know. Besides, I need to see a friendly face, someone I know to talk to. We go back a long way, and you’re the closest I have left to family.”

  “We’ve both lost everything, or almost everything. All I can say is, the hurt eases over time.”

  “Does it ever go away?”

  A pause. “Not ever.”

  One week later, he stepped off the Boeing 777-300ER and glanced around the bustling chaos at Kabul International. Hoping he’d done the right thing and he’d been wrong about the shithouse he’d so recently left. It couldn’t be that bad. Could it?

  * * *

  November 2001 – Chiras, Afghanistan

  The boy awoke with the dawn like he always did. He glanced around the squalid room he shared in a tiny, one room stone dwelling with his mother and younger sister, Maryam. As he did every morning, he thought of his father, killed eight years before by local Islamists. The motive for the murder was said to be a comment his father made, criticizing the local Imam for his support of the rights of husbands to beat their wives. Lately his mother had become very ill, and in the coming months, perhaps even sooner, she’d die. Which meant he'd have responsibility for Maryam. Although for now he lived with the illusion his family was here to stay. Permanent and unchanging, and death kept at a distance.

  He roused himself and overhead he heard the roar of fighter jets. They were no threat, not to Chiras. Not yet. The Coalition had declared war on the Taliban, but so far, the fighting hadn’t reached this place. An alliance of American and Afghan troops was fighting to take the country back from the so-called Soldiers of Allah. He disliked the Taliban, in fact hated them with a passion. He kept it a close secret that he continued to pray at the mosque for no other reason than under the current regime, failure to attend would be taken as blasphemy. And the punishment for blasphemy was death. He sighed as he helped his mother prepare the morning meal, and he ate breakfast with her and Maryam. Afterward, they walked the short distance to the Chiras Central Mosque for the first of the obligatory prayers.

  Walking through the streets, listening to the amplified blare of the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer, he was again struck by the poverty of their surroundings. The population of Chiras was comprised mostly of poor farmers, and the town an artificially created island. Not cut off by wide, fast flowing, rivers, or high mountain ranges. Their boundaries were uncleared Russian mines that occasionally snared unwary locals, leaving the victims maimed or dead. As a result, their pastureland, vital to graze the flocks they relied upon to survive, was confined to a few local areas declared safe. Yet already the grass was almost bare, and each day he ventured further from the town, always careful where he placed his feet. Mapping out new routes to find better grazin
g for the few scrawny goats that were all that stood between his family and starvation.

  He'd become an expert in navigating the minefields, and as a result the family herd prospered. They even managed to sell some of the milk to aid the meager rations he hunted for every day to keep them alive. His closest friend was Akram, who was a year older. They spent most days together, watching the herds and shooting at crude targets with the AK-47 that had once belonged to Javed's father.

  Except not today. This was Friday morning, and he stepped inside the mosque, after removing his homemade sandals, and inside he greeted Akram. His mother and Maryam were banished to a bare, cold room at the side of the building. While they waited for the Mullah to appear, they discussed their plans, like they always did.

  "We will go to Kabul next week," Akram said, his face filled with enthusiasm.

  Javed felt his excitement rise. New life and a new hope in the big city, away from the squalid, grinding poverty of Chiras, and the even more grinding medieval practices of the mosque that controlled every aspect of their lives. Although he was worried about his mother and sister, they depended on him.

  What will they do if I leave? Could Maryam manage the goats? Or will I find well-paid work and earn money in Kabul to send home to keep them alive? Perhaps even pay for the vital drugs needed to keep my mother alive. Yes, I will succeed, although perhaps I should err on the side of caution. Surely that is the right thing to do.

  He looked at his friend Akram.

  "We should go there first, look around, and see what we can find."

  The other boy's face fell. "Javed, no, we should just go. If we hesitate, we'll never summon the courage to do this thing."

  He wasn’t convinced. His father was dead, his mother ill, and his sister too young to cope without help. He had responsibilities. "We'll discuss it after prayers."