“Ballad of the Green Berets."
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Chapter Five
We met Mike and Echo for lunch and let our noses lead us to a cluster of restaurants.
The first place we came to smelled really good, but I took a hint from the cowering doorboy and shooed the group on past. In the doorway of the second, our uniforms got too audible a growl from the clientele crouched about the half-dozen tables inside, too bug-eyed a look from the proprietor. Echo growled back at the nearest table, but Mike pulled him out of the doorway before we had to fight.
The third place had no doorboy. Worse, it didn't smell right. I did an about-face and elbowed past Echo. The others faded out of my way.
Another truck passed: yet another crew cab Toyota pickup with yet another plywood machine-gun mount behind the cab. If you piled all the Toyota crew cab trucks we'd seen in one field and every other motor vehicle in the next field, the Toyota truck pile would be bigger. In this one, the gun had been dismounted and was cradled in the arms of a beefy man in black with a coyote-and-black shemagh scarf. CIA. Or, as they were called here, OGA. Anyone else would be wearing camo.
He'd probably paid twenty bucks for a three-dollar shemagh. Unless he'd taken it as a trophy from a corpse.
Across the street and up one building, a doorboy bowed eagerly, entreating us to come to eat clean, fresh, delicious food. I eyed his neatly ironed clothes and smiled. He opened the door and invited us to smell.
Mutton, dal, ginger, cardamom, cashews, onions, and pistachios tantalized me...and naan. Fresh naan. My stomach growled, and mine wasn't the only one. Inside, an old man threw up his one arm and called out an enthusiastic greeting.
Mike sighed happily. “Even I know that pick-hair means we're welcome here."
Privately, I'd bet he knew a whole lot more than that.
"Or our money is,” Echo muttered.
Certainly.
At the other end of the room, a lithe young man—or man-tall boy—with heavily lined eyes danced for a group of men. They clapped and cheered for him.
The half-dozen men crouched around the largest table drew their chooras—each with a blade half again as long as my knife—and laid them among the dishes and cups on their table. They muttered in Dari. I couldn't quite pick out what they were saying, but it didn't sound friendly, and it didn't sound local.
The men at the far table kept their weapons on their backs, but their clapping and cheering lost some of its enthusiasm.
Three Kalashnikovs, an M16, something shotgun-like that I couldn't see well, and a PSL rifle with a beautifully cut-out wooden stock joined the chooras.
The proprietor pretended to see nothing untoward and waved us to take a nice table in the back. We pretended not to understand him. If we had to fight our way out from that table, it would be ugly. We settled at the smallest table, closest to the door.
The Dari speakers raised another round of muttering, but the set of their shoulders lost some tension. I knew taking the seat by the door was a sign we considered ourselves lower in status than the other inhabitants of the room, and they knew it. For all I knew, even Echo knew it. But we were here to eat, not to establish our status.
Oscar grabbed the seat that put his back to the wall. I put my back to the door simply because that would let me get out of here in exactly three steps. Echo and Mike put their backs to the room.
Oscar casually unslung his rifle and laid it on the table, not exactly pointing at the Dari table, made two minute adjustments with a small screwdriver, then reslung it and laid a scarred KA-BAR on the table. Considering how he'd sized up the blade market, I'd have expected something put out by Strider or Randall, or a fixed-blade Hissatsu. But maybe the custom rifle and the no-nonsense blade together conveyed a message he found useful.
Echo to my left had his SAW across his lap; his blade stayed sheathed. Mike's rifle stayed on his back, though
[Back to Table of Contents]
Chapter Five
We met Mike and Echo for lunch and let our noses lead us to a cluster of restaurants.
The first place we came to smelled really good, but I took a hint from the cowering doorboy and shooed the group on past. In the doorway of the second, our uniforms got too audible a growl from the clientele crouched about the half-dozen tables inside, too bug-eyed a look from the proprietor. Echo growled back at the nearest table, but Mike pulled him out of the doorway before we had to fight.
The third place had no doorboy. Worse, it didn't smell right. I did an about-face and elbowed past Echo. The others faded out of my way.
Another truck passed: yet another crew cab Toyota pickup with yet another plywood machine-gun mount behind the cab. If you piled all the Toyota crew cab trucks we'd seen in one field and every other motor vehicle in the next field, the Toyota truck pile would be bigger. In this one, the gun had been dismounted and was cradled in the arms of a beefy man in black with a coyote-and-black shemagh scarf. CIA. Or, as they were called here, OGA. Anyone else would be wearing camo.
He'd probably paid twenty bucks for a three-dollar shemagh. Unless he'd taken it as a trophy from a corpse.
Across the street and up one building, a doorboy bowed eagerly, entreating us to come to eat clean, fresh, delicious food. I eyed his neatly ironed clothes and smiled. He opened the door and invited us to smell.
Mutton, dal, ginger, cardamom, cashews, onions, and pistachios tantalized me...and naan. Fresh naan. My stomach growled, and mine wasn't the only one. Inside, an old man threw up his one arm and called out an enthusiastic greeting.
Mike sighed happily. “Even I know that pick-hair means we're welcome here."
Privately, I'd bet he knew a whole lot more than that.
"Or our money is,” Echo muttered.
Certainly.
At the other end of the room, a lithe young man—or man-tall boy—with heavily lined eyes danced for a group of men. They clapped and cheered for him.
The half-dozen men crouched around the largest table drew their chooras—each with a blade half again as long as my knife—and laid them among the dishes and cups on their table. They muttered in Dari. I couldn't quite pick out what they were saying, but it didn't sound friendly, and it didn't sound local.
The men at the far table kept their weapons on their backs, but their clapping and cheering lost some of its enthusiasm.
Three Kalashnikovs, an M16, something shotgun-like that I couldn't see well, and a PSL rifle with a beautifully cut-out wooden stock joined the chooras.
The proprietor pretended to see nothing untoward and waved us to take a nice table in the back. We pretended not to understand him. If we had to fight our way out from that table, it would be ugly. We settled at the smallest table, closest to the door.
The Dari speakers raised another round of muttering, but the set of their shoulders lost some tension. I knew taking the seat by the door was a sign we considered ourselves lower in status than the other inhabitants of the room, and they knew it. For all I knew, even Echo knew it. But we were here to eat, not to establish our status.
Oscar grabbed the seat that put his back to the wall. I put my back to the door simply because that would let me get out of here in exactly three steps. Echo and Mike put their backs to the room.
Oscar casually unslung his rifle and laid it on the table, not exactly pointing at the Dari table, made two minute adjustments with a small screwdriver, then reslung it and laid a scarred KA-BAR on the table. Considering how he'd sized up the blade market, I'd have expected something put out by Strider or Randall, or a fixed-blade Hissatsu. But maybe the custom rifle and the no-nonsense blade together conveyed a message he found useful.
Echo to my left had his SAW across his lap; his blade stayed sheathed. Mike's rifle stayed on his back, though
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