A SOLDIER'S CREED

📖📖 Chapter 4 - The Dust Of Kandahar

Location: CIA Safehouse, Kandahar City

Time: 22:15 Hours – Two Days Later

The C-130’s ramp groaned open, and a blast of hot desert air flooded the cabin. The smell hit first—diesel fumes, dust, and something faintly metallic that clung to the back of the throat. Kandahar was no welcoming city. It wasn’t built to embrace strangers. It was built to swallow them.

Michael Rockefeller led his team down the ramp, boots crunching on the cracked asphalt. The airfield was dimly lit, guarded by men in mismatched uniforms with rifles slung too casually over their shoulders. Afghan National Army, maybe, or some militia paid to look official. Michael didn’t care. He’d seen enough borderland armies to know their loyalty could be bought with dollars—or bullets.

A pair of black SUVs idled near the runway, engines running, headlights cutting through the haze. A man in a gray suit stepped out, his tie loose, his face drawn from too many sleepless nights. He didn’t smile.

“Colonel Rockefeller?” His accent was clipped East Coast.

Michael gave a curt nod. “That’s me.”

“Welcome to Kandahar.” The man’s eyes flicked past Michael, scanning the operators like a man who already didn’t trust them. “I’m Casewell. CIA field liaison. My job is to make sure you don’t get killed before you do what Washington sent you here to do. Bags in the back. Move quick. This place doesn’t stay quiet for long.”

The team piled into the SUVs, weapons cradled close. As the convoy rolled out of the airfield, Michael caught the way Casewell’s driver kept glancing in the mirrors, shoulders tense, like every corner could explode. Kandahar at night was a city of shadows—narrow alleys, half-lit markets, mosques with their minarets standing against the stars. Men loitered at corners with blank eyes, children darted through trash-strewn streets, and every rooftop felt like it carried a scope aimed at the convoy.

Bear muttered under his breath. “Feels like we’re driving through a damn graveyard.”

“Shut it,” Sarah said softly. “Graveyards don’t watch you back.”

---

Location: CIA Safehouse – Kandahar City

Time: 23:00 Hours

The SUVs pulled up in front of a nondescript compound—two stories of weathered stone, steel doors, and sandbags stacked against the entrance. Casewell led them inside, past armed locals who wore American tactical gear but carried themselves like mercenaries. Their eyes tracked the operators like predators.

Inside, the safehouse was dim, the walls scarred with cracks, the air stifling. Maps, satellite photos, and handwritten notes littered a long wooden table in the center. A single fan spun lazily overhead, doing nothing to push away the heat.

“This is your staging ground,” Casewell said, tossing a folder onto the table. “Welcome to paradise.” His tone was sour, bitter. “We’ve got eyes on Qadir’s compound twenty miles west. But let me make something clear—intel here isn’t gospel. It’s rumor, whispers, fragments. What you’re walking into, nobody knows for certain.”

Michael opened the folder. Blurry drone images showed a sprawling compound cut into the desert, high walls, towers, a patchwork of mudbrick and reinforced steel. No clear weak points. No obvious escape routes. Just a fortress in the middle of nothing.

“CIA operatives?” Michael asked without looking up.

Casewell scratched his chin, avoiding his eyes. “We’ve got chatter. A voice intercept in Pashto, mentions of prisoners. Could be our people. Could be bait.”

Naomi leaned against the wall, arms crossed. “Bait’s worked before. Qadir’s not stupid.”

Casewell smirked without humor. “Stupid men don’t last long out here.”

Michael closed the folder. “We’ll confirm ourselves. Anything else we should know?”

The CIA officer hesitated, then exhaled like a man carrying weight he didn’t want. “Qadir’s got friends in the city. You’ll hear it on the street—Taliban loyalists, smugglers, maybe even some of our supposed allies feeding him information. Assume this: whatever you plan, he already knows. The walls have ears here.”

The room went quiet.

---

Location: Rooftop – CIA Safehouse

Time: 01:15 Hours

Michael stood on the rooftop, looking out over Kandahar. The city stretched in every direction, glowing faintly orange under scattered lamps, a mixture of ruins and new construction. Dogs barked in the distance. Somewhere, a motorcycle backfired. And beneath it all, a constant hum of tension, like the city itself was waiting for blood to spill.

Footsteps approached behind him. It was Kruger. He carried no weapon, just a cigarette between his fingers, the ember glowing red in the dark.

“Hell of a place,” Kruger said, exhaling smoke into the hot night air. “I’ve worked in cities like this. They chew you up, spit you out, and ask if you’re still hungry.”

Michael didn’t look at him. “Go get some rest. We move soon.”

Kruger smirked. “Rest is for men who don’t know what’s coming. I know.” His words lingered in the air, heavier than they should have been. Then he turned, walking away without another glance.

Michael’s jaw tightened. He had fought insurgents, cartels, warlords. But something about Kruger’s calm confidence chilled him more than all of them combined.

---

Location: Safehouse Operations Room

Time: 07:30 Hours – The Next Morning

The operators gathered around the table. Coffee steamed in metal mugs, its bitterness barely masking exhaustion. Casewell had fresh intel spread out—hand-drawn sketches from locals, intercepted radio chatter, more drone photos. None of it gave a complete picture.

Sarah pointed at a grainy image of a watchtower. “That’s a DShK mounted heavy machine gun. Field of fire covers most of the eastern wall. No chance of scaling without suppression.”

Naomi tapped a separate map. “Locals say there’s an irrigation ditch two hundred meters north. Dry now, but it might lead close enough to approach under cover.”

Bear grinned. “Or it might lead us straight into a kill zone. Either way, I’m in.”

Michael studied the images, piecing it together. Every option was a gamble, every route a coin toss. And that was before factoring in Kruger’s mercs, half of whom looked like they’d sell their mothers for the right payday.

Casewell leaned forward, voice low. “Clock’s ticking. Washington wants this handled before the end of the week. Fail, and those CIA operatives die on camera. Qadir gets his propaganda victory. We lose another war before it even starts.”

Michael straightened, his decision made. “Then we move at dusk. Recon first. No contact unless necessary. We see the compound with our own eyes before we commit.”

The team nodded, each operator silent, but their expressions set like stone.

---

Location: Kandahar Alleyways

Time: 10:45 Hours

Before they could vanish into the desert, Casewell insisted on one last step—information from the street. Michael took Naomi and one of Kruger’s mercs into the maze of Kandahar’s back alleys.

The city by day was no less dangerous. Markets buzzed with traders selling fruit beside ammunition, kids ran barefoot through dust, and men in sandals carried Kalashnikovs slung as casually as backpacks. Whispers followed the Americans. Eyes narrowed. A foreign face here was more than unusual—it was a target.

They stopped at a tea stall run by a bent old man with one eye clouded white. Casewell’s contact. The man poured bitter black tea into cracked cups, muttering in Pashto as Naomi translated.

“He says Qadir’s compound has been busy. More guards, more weapons. And…” She hesitated. “He says prisoners were brought in last week. Foreign. American.”

Michael’s pulse quickened, but he didn’t let it show. Proof. Or close enough.

The old man leaned closer, his voice a rasp. Naomi translated again. “He warns you. The walls have more than ears. Qadir has a serpent inside your circle. One who smiles.”

Michael froze. His eyes flicked instinctively to the merc at his side. The man smiled thinly.

---

That night, back at the safehouse, Michael gathered his team. He didn’t mention the old man’s words, not yet. But they echoed in his mind, cutting deep.

A serpent inside your circle. One who smiles.

And he knew the storm hadn’t even started.