Open Season A Breed Thriller Cameron Curtis To Rudyard Kipling and Danny Dravot JOIN THE INKUBATOR MAILING LIST You will be the first to learn about new releases plus the many FREE and discounted Kindle books we offer! bit.ly/3tpZe28 Contents Maps Foreword Chapter 1 Executive Protection Chapter 2 The Contract Chapter 3 Return to Bagram Chapter 4 The General Chapter 5 Infil Chapter 6 The Rescue Chapter 7 SAMs Chapter 8 Broken Arrow Chapter 9 On the Run Chapter 10 Robyn’s Capture Chapter 11 Sniper Duel Chapter 12 Rear Guard Chapter 13 The Bridge to Lanat Chapter 14 Flight from the Bridge Chapter 15 Deep Reconnaissance Chapter 16 The Caravan Chapter 17 Soviet Outpost Chapter 18 Zarek’s Base Camp Chapter 19 Robyn at Base Camp Chapter 20 Robyn’s Plan Chapter 21 Robyn’s Escape Chapter 22 Exfil and Ambush Chapter 23 Zarek’s Entrance Chapter 24 The Swim & The Hunt Chapter 25 Zarek’s Tales Chapter 26 The Trail to Arwal Chapter 27 The Battle Chapter 28 The Warranty Chapter 29 The Secret Chapter 30 Debrief Chapter 31 The Bonus Chapter 32 The Assassin Chapter 33 The Survivors’ Club Chapter 34 Safe House Chapter 35 Puzzles Chapter 36 On the X Chapter 37 West Wing Chapter 38 Watches & Time Inkubator Newsletter Acknowledgments Also by Cameron Curtis Rights Info Maps Afghanistan and Surrounding Region Afghanistan Northeastern Provinces Kagur Valley Foreword I wanted to write a novel that was a war story, a thriller, and a love story. Most of all, the plot had to be a chase. What if Taliban hunted an American unit sent to rescue a captured officer and a woman soldier? An unrelenting hunt over an unforgiving obstacle course. The story had to be contemporary, hence the war in Afghanistan. Not the arid desert of the south. The high mountains of the northeast—the Hindu Kush. Those mountains and the hardy mountain men who inhabit them have beaten would-be conquerors since Alexander the Great. He told his mother about that land. Easy to get in, not so easy to get out. The Afghans beat him. Then they beat the Moguls, the British (three times over), and the Soviets. Now they are fighting America and a multinational coalition to a standstill. The action takes place where Afghanistan is bordered by Pakistan and China to the east, and Tajikistan to the north. The three northeastern provinces of Afghanistan are Badakhshan, Nuristan, and Kunar. They are stacked one on top of the other with Kunar at the base. The capital, Kabul, lies a hundred miles west of Kunar. To the east, Kunar is bordered by Pakistan. A reader of Rudyard Kipling’s The Man Who Would Be King will be familiar with Kafiristan. Kafiristan did exist—it has been renamed Nuristan. It lies above Kunar. Badakhshan is the northernmost of the three provinces. It is also the largest, butting up against Tajikistan to the north and Pakistan to the east. One other feature of Badakhshan is remarkable. Like a long panhandle, the Wakhan Corridor extends from Badakhshan, between Tajikistan and Pakistan, and reaches into China. The harsh mountains of the Hindu Kush dominate these three provinces. Altitude varies from 3,000 to 25,000 feet. High mountain valleys, thousand-foot cliffs, hot days, and freezing nights. The Soviets learned armored forces could not secure that terrain. Only helicopters gave them an edge. An edge eliminated when America supplied the Mujahedeen with man-portable air defense missiles—MANPADs. The terrain is so disorganized it defies description. In general, major rivers run north-south, but that is not always true. Major rivers are fed by numerous smaller ones and have multiple tributaries. Where the mountains run north-south, small rivers run east-west and feed larger rivers that flow north-south. Over the millennia, these rivers have cut the mountainsides into steep ridges. Look at a map and search for Nangalam. You will find it on the Pech River, in Kunar. Over the years, American forces held Nangalam and used it as the hub of a network of forward operating bases and outposts in the Korengal and Waygal Valleys. In many ways, Nangalam is the base of a network of rivers and valleys extending north from Kunar. The geographical features described are an accurate description of the northeast. In this wild country, I created my obstacle course. The land of Open Season is a closed abstraction, true to the spirit of Afghanistan, but designed to create a pressure-cooker battlefield. The terrain is so brutal the pace of a hunting party and their human quarry is measured in hours per mile rather than miles per hour. The Kagur River is fictitious, as are the mountain and the valley for which it is named. It runs north-south through Badakhshan, straddling the boundary with Nuristan. The Arwal River is equally fictitious. In fact, it is the Kagur River, renamed as it continues further south into Kunar. Surrounding the Kagur valley are three fictitious mountains of interest. Shafkat lies to the west, Kagur-Ghar to the east. North of Kagur-Ghar is Lanat. A fourth mountain, Parkat, lies east of Kagur-Ghar. The bridge from Kagur-Ghar to Lanat is my homage to Kipling and Danny Dravot. The Kagur valley tapers as one approaches the origins of the river. In the northern reaches of Badakhshan, it provides access to Tajikistan, China, and Pakistan’s Kashmir region. Such is the obstacle course for Open Season. Battles around three mountains, long-range reconnaissance patrols to Tajikistan and China, base camps hidden in northern Badakhshan. The Kagur and Arwal provide a highway from the north all the way to Nangalam. Following the withdrawal of the Soviet Union, Afghanistan descended into a civil war. The area described was dominated by the Mujahedeen of the Northern Alliance. The remainder of Afghanistan was ruled by the Taliban. The character Zarek Najibullah is a Mujahedeen warlord. He has no love for the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. The war in Afghanistan is America’s longest war. There are many in America who would like to withdraw. There are also those who are passionately committed to maintaining a military presence. The politics of this dynamic provided motivation for the hunt. As America has drawn down its presence, other countries have taken on more of a role. These include Germany, Norway, Sweden, Hungary, and Turkey. These, and other countries, have not been named in Open Season because of my desire to maintain a tightly focused plot… not out of any lack of appreciation for those countries’ considerable contributions. I hope
