Read Online Disavowed by C. G. Cooper - Free Book Online

clothes. That, along with an ample dousing of road dust, transformed the Marine into just another tired and dirty face in the desert landscape.
    After the chase and the near miss with the Marine attack helicopters, Isnard’s security detachment bolted. The survivors told Isnard not to call them again. The Marines were on their own. That fact didn’t seem to bother the spook. Isnard’s outward calm helped settle Andy’s nerves. The days of captivity were finally catching up to him. He felt weak and it was an effort to put one foot in front of another. Isnard didn’t push, letting Andy take a breather when needed.
    Andy wasn’t one to complain, but he felt the limits of his physical strength waning. Even though there was plenty of food to be had in the makeshift shacks along the way, he couldn’t find the appetite to eat. He forced himself to drink, remembering the nights in his OCS squad bay, chugging canteens full of water as his sergeant instructors watched. The order always included hoisting your overturned canteen over your head to prove that you’d finished it all. That was one way to keep your charges hydrated.
    His stomach grumbled from whatever parasite had laid claim to his insides. Hopefully his bowels could stay intact until they reached Kandahar. Isnard led the way into another tent. They’d struck out in the last five. What they needed was transportation, having ditched their delivery van on the outskirts of Gereshk.
    Kandahar was barely a two hour drive away along Highway 1, but the damn road was wide open. They couldn’t risk going alone. They needed to be part of a larger convoy. Lots of people. Lots of goods moving from point A to point B.
    Andy was proud of his half-stuttering Pashtun, but he marveled at Isnard’s command of the language. The guy knew the people and the language. Within minutes the young man sitting behind a short wooden table invited the two Marines to an early dinner.
    “You’re going to Kandahar?” Isnard asked his new friend.
    “Yes.”
    “How many vehicles?”
    “Twenty five, my friend. Would you like a ride?” the man asked, his eyebrow lifted as if asking to be in on Isnard’s secret.
    Isnard nodded. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble. We lost our car a mile back. Axle.”
    The man nodded with a knowing smile. Driving in Afghanistan wasn’t like driving down Main Street U.S.A. There were potholes everywhere. Sometimes whole portions of road just disappeared. It was part of the Afghan way of life, move around and keep going. The people had learned to adapt.
    “Just the two?”
    “Yes.”
    “Do you want to know how much?”
    Isnard shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “You are a friend. As a friend I know you’ll give us a fair price.”
    The man smiled, his gold canine peeking out from his sagging mustache. “You know how to shoot a rifle?”
    Again the shrug from Isnard. “Who doesn’t?”
    The man nodded, scratching his scraggly beard, thinking.
    “I give you a deal. Ride in the lead vehicle and help protect my goods from bandits and crooked police, and I give you half price.”
    Andy didn’t like it. He wasn’t sure what the full price would be, but he was sure Isnard was good for it. The better play was to hunker down in one of the twenty five vehicles and stay out of sight. It wasn’t that Andy was scared of being shot at or shooting someone else, but being seen wasn’t something they needed right now.
    After a moment to think, Isnard said, “We’d be happy to help, my friend.”
    The two men shook hands.
    “Please, call me Latif. Latif Saladin.”
     
    They waited until dark to leave, their host explaining that checkpoint guards tended to be lazier after nightfall. He was right. An hour in they’d made it through three checkpoints without more than a cursory glance at whatever lay inside the packed cargo holds. Andy was pretty sure it had more to do with the money he saw Latif slipping the guards along with other sundry items from the