Spycraft - Melton [206]
The team once more transferred the gear, this time into the palace. The nearly three-day trip had left them exhausted and sleep was a priority. However, not four hours later Mark was awakened with urgent news. A man claiming to have important information had come into the courtyard telling a story about explosives buried within the palace. Fighting grogginess and working through an interpreter, Mark engaged the slightly built man dressed in tunic and turban.
Speaking in a calm, deliberate voice the volunteer explained that the retreating Taliban hid explosives in the palace’s earthen roof. The explosives, he said, were to be detonated just after sundown that day, at the start of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, the three-day celebration marking the end of Ramadan.
The walk-in seemed credible—so credible that Mark could not suppress the suspicion that he had helped plant the explosives and was now having second thoughts. With the fall of the Taliban, loyalties in the country were shifting daily. The volunteer, who spoke matter-of-factly about explosives possibly only a few meters above their heads, would not have been the first Taliban loyalist to switch sides.
Inside the palace, everything seemed normal with the American and British troops and Afghanis, all involved in their own tasks. More than fifty people were already present, preparing for the Eid festivities, and within hours the assembly hall would be filled with the principal leaders of the southern third of Afghanistan, guests of the new governor, Gul Agha Sherzai, who was hosting the event.
For experienced OTS officers who had picked through many post-blast scenes, it was easy to imagine the sudden death and destruction from a rooftop blast. Destroying Afghanistan’s southern leadership on a Muslim holy day would be a cruel, audacious act and a devastating blow to the new government and the United States. Delay could prove fatal to the local officials and guests, more than a hundred U.S., Australian, and British military personnel, as well as America’s Afghan policy.
Within fifteen minutes of the conversation, Mark made the decision to send one member of the team to the roof. Putting an officer on the roof in daylight was risky. If the building was under surveillance, anyone on the roof was certain to be spotted and a terrorist could decide to detonate ahead of schedule. Mark calculated the risk, taking into account the approaching nightfall and the start of Eid. Both were less than four hours away.
Frank Shumway, a tech experienced in using thermal imaging equipment, was rousted from a sound sleep. After Mark explained the situation, Frank agreed to climb onto the roof. Strapping on a hundred pounds of equipment, including communications gear to keep him in constant contact with the team, Frank would report each movement and every observation. These transmissions would be recorded, and should a detonation occur, by accident or command, the recorded information could provide valuable data for post-blast investigators and future operations.
After navigating the narrow ledge of the perimeter wall that joined the two buildings, Frank climbed a ten-foot ladder to reach the earthen roof above the palace’s assembly hall. Its smooth and hard packed surface showed no signs of recent disturbance, but as soon as he switched on the thermal imager, the results immediately contradicted everything Frank saw through his own eyes.
The small screen identified four distinct “hot spots,” each giving a signature of recent excavation. What the human eye cannot see registered clearly on the screen. No matter how well a recently dug hole is refilled and disguised, it will absorb heat at a different rate than an undisturbed area.