The Fourth War

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The weave of natural caverns extended deep into the earth, more deeply than the rain of American bombs could ever hope to reach. But the smoke, black and acid, that poisoned the air had forced the few soldiers that remained to take refuge in the back of the caves on the south side of the mountain. There they listened in the darkness, waiting for death to appear.

The soldiers had pledged to sacrifice their lives to God, though few expected the opportunity would present itself so soon.

Still, the bombing confirmed what the Taliban had been told. The Americans — smooth-faced and soft like a fat woman’s belly — were too cowardly to fight them man-to-man on the ground, and too callous to care how many they killed. So let them rain down fire and steel from the sky. If they brought death, that was fine; death only brought paradise, and other warriors were always ready to step into their place.

The soldiers cowered in the caves and listened carefully. Over the past weeks they had learned to tell which kind of attack aircraft it was — the slow and lumbering B-52s, with their monstrously noisy engines and long contrails of smoke, or the sleek and speeding B-1s, which streaked in very low, their bombs reaching their targets before the sound of their engines arrived.

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