Afghan Storm (Nick Woods Book 3) Read Online Free PDF

element moved across a dangerous sector.
But S3 was too small to split up, and Nick wanted to rely on speed and keeping
his men together. That way, if the shit hit the fan, they could fight together
or work their way back.
    Thankfully, they crossed the field and the rocky path without incident.
The four men pushed up the steep hill on the opposite side of their insertion
route without difficulty, other than hauling up all their heavy gear. But they
soon started running into compounds, which presumably had mud homes behind
their walls. Red shifted their course left and right to dodge them, and they
progressed further up the hill without detection.
    Soon, their legs and backs were shaky and weak with fatigue, but they’d
done it. Now they were back to where there were no trails, no wandering
villagers, not even a single pile of dog droppings.
    And it was a good thing. Dawn was approaching, and it was time for them
to hunker down.
     
     

 
     
    Chapter 10
     
    It had been less than
twenty-four hours since their near run-in with the Pakistani army, and despite
the detour having cost them an entire night, Nick was filled with relief. After
crossing back over to their original infiltration route, they had not seen a
single sign of troops lurking anywhere in their vicinity.
    Still it had been
unsettling to go from marching night after night in the wilderness with little
to no trace of human existence, and then to nearly run smack dab into the
middle of an army campground. Back on their route, the men of S3 remained on
edge. Phantom patrols seemed to be hiding behind every rock and bend, wearing
on the ragged nerves of the already fatigued shooters. Eventually, after a few
hours of no visible threat, the men began to settle down, and their original
routine continued.
    Remaining faithful to the
routine, the S3 team suffered through another night of painful, arduous hiking.
Nick looked and felt like shit. He reeked from nine days of no bathing, and his
clothes could be heralded as “the next big thing in fashion,” that is if Bum’s
Wear Quarterly were an actual publication. He was also now sporting a
throbbing ankle and sharp lower back pains from some kind of wrenched nerve or
muscle spasm.
    He could tell that the others were silently pushing through various
dings, twists, and injuries, as well. They knew their target was close.
Computer geek Ahmud al-Habshi sat in his compound just eight miles away, and in
two nights, they’d bag his ass, seize his computer gear, and drop any idiots
who were stupid enough to tangle with them.
    Nick and his team were
ready to do the job they’d been hired to do. They’d walked too many miles and
slept far too little; they not only itched for some action, they needed it.
After all, al-Habshi’s compound was just the first step in this whole mission.
They still had Deraz, the terrorist masquerading as a spiritual leader, to hunt
and take down.
     
    Unfortunately
for the men of S3, their luck ran out again. On the very next night, Red called
a halt and pointed out more Pakistani army troops ahead.
    Nick nearly
screamed with rage. For more than ten years, America had asked Pakistan to deal
with the mutinous tribes along their lawless border. President Bush had pleaded
with the country and supposed ally, and President Obama had followed, trying to
convince them, as well.
    But Pakistan
had tried and learned its lesson. The area was officially called, “the
Federally Administered Tribal Areas,” and the inhabitants were almost all
Pashtuns. They were fierce fighters, who were practically impossible to
control.
    The area’s
ferocious independence went back to the 19th Century, during the British
colonial period. The British failed to ever gain full control of the tribes and
settled on allowing the dangerous region to serve as an effective buffer to
Afghanistan. Pakistan itself failed to control the area once the British left.
In the ’70s, those passing through the Khyber Pass were warned by