Silent Enemy Read Online Free Page B

USAF. On his right sleeve he wore the patch of the 455th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron, embroidered with the word “EVACISTAN.”
    “The MCD told me,” he said. He seemed worried. When he wasn’t checking Mahsoud, he kept smoothing the fabric on the legs of his flight suit, as if he couldn’t decide what to do with his hands.
    One of the American patients stared up at the ducting and wires in the ceiling, breathed hard. Just three of the Afghans were awake, and she told them in Pashto what was going on. One of them said only, “ Wali? ” Why? Another began to recite the Shahadah. The one who had lost both legs and an arm did not seem to care.
    At the front of the cargo compartment, two loadmasters began breaking down a baggage pallet, apparently following Parson’s orders to search for anything unusual. Gold found her backpack and pulled her flashlight from a side pocket.
    “I’ll help you look,” Gold said.
    “Thanks, Sergeant Major,” a loadmaster said. “You don’t mind if we search your bag?”
    “Not at all.”
    The loadmaster unzipped the backpack, paused to note the patch sewn onto the outside: the AA of the 82nd Airborne. Gold supposed he hadn’t seen a lot of women who were jump qualified. He pulled out Gold’s spare ACU uniform, a pair of jeans, a civvie sweater. Running shoes. Underwear, toiletries bag.
    “Sorry, Sergeant Major.”
    “You’re just doing your job,” Gold said.
    Then he found one of her books in Pashto. The Diwan of Rahman Baba. He looked at her without smiling.
    “Is this a Quran?”
    “It’s a book of poetry,” Gold said. “I’m a translator.”
    “Oh.”
    He thumbed through the pages as if looking for a razor. Then he put it back, replaced all her clothes, zipped up the backpack.
    “No bomb in there,” he said.
    Guess he thinks I’ve gone native, Gold thought, or maybe that I’ve switched sides altogether. Doesn’t matter what he thinks.
    Gold helped the loadmaster look through the rest of the bags. It felt strange to examine the mundane details of every life on board. The traditional clothing of the Afghans. Little else in their U.S.-issued bags. In the luggage of the Americans, hints of their tastes and lifestyles: an electric shaver, Men’s Fitness magazine, an iPod. PDAs and computer games. A bundle of letters from Alabama. Nothing out of the ordinary.
    After they had searched all the bags, the loadmaster paused to listen to his headset. Then he shook his head, keyed his mike, and said, “Yes, sir.” Unstrapped the baggage pallet again.
    “Major Parson talked to an EOD guy at Scott,” the loadmaster said. “He wants us to check all the electronic devices. Anything that doesn’t work could be a disguised bomb.”
    They dug through the bags again. Gold tested four portable DVD players, a half dozen MP3s, two laptops. All powered up okay.
    She wondered if the next ON switch would send her and everyone else to oblivion, but figured that probably was not how the bomb would trigger.
    “Well, it isn’t here,” the loadmaster said finally.
    Gold looked around the cargo compartment. Plenty of other places it could be, behind all the panels and tubing and wiring. A crew chief shone a light under a walkway along the left side of the aircraft, inched along on his knees.
    “I need to go check on someone,” Gold said.
    Mahsoud lay awake now. He gave a thin smile as Gold approached him.
    “My friend,” Gold said, “we have another problem.” She told him about the bomb threat.
    “Is it real?” Mahsoud asked.
    “We don’t know.”
    Was it real, indeed? Gold wondered. Parson seemed to think not, though he was doing a good job of making sure. Bet he’d feel differently if he’d been in my office a while back.
    “Were I not a useless cripple,” Mahsoud said, now in Pashto, “I could help you.”
    “You are hardly useless,” Gold said, “but now you should try to rest and let us deal with this.”
    “I have studied these matters.”
    “I know,