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 Targeted Age Group:: Adults
Afghanistan: where friends look like enemies and enemies pose as friends.
Everyone in Uruzgan province, from street vendors to the American military, relies on Security Day: a weekly convoy under the command of the vicious warlord, General Mir Hamza Khan, protecting supply trucks from Taliban attacks as they cross the Kandahar desert. Security Day has made General Khan the uncrowned king of Afghanistan but American withdrawal threatens his reign.
Rookie intelligence agent Dan Bing arrives in country eager to prove himself, but he quickly finds himself shut out when he runs afoul of the emotionally unstable American commander who is fooled by General Khan’s lies. Dan instead finds an unlikely ally in Toor Jan, a loving family man turned spy with deep ties to the Taliban.
General Khan, Dan, and Toor Jan tangle in a tense and surprising tale of espionage, betrayal, deadly vanity and mercy that climaxes into the world’s most dangerous game of survival.
Based on a true story, readers call Security Day “very different and exciting—a spy and adventure story teeming with vivid, memorable characters” that is “one of those books you can’t put down.”
Link To Security Day On Amazon Kindle Unlimited
What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
This novel is based on my own real life experience in Afghanistan as a spy handler and interrogator with Special Operations.
I wasn't an operator. Or a shooter, or a soldier, or an infantryman. Not a grunt. My job was to meet and talk to people—sometimes under adverse conditions—and build rapport. Rapport was drilled into us during training, even for interrogations.
A good interrogation isn't based on power, or fear, or "torture." At the core it's about connection and—though some would call this "falling in love with your source"—empathy.
Because I wasn't doing the shooting part of war, I truly got to know Afghans and the way they viewed the world. I felt an affinity with their ancient values: love your family, honor the elders, protect our village against all comers. An encounter with reality that stark and clear alters your life. If war can make anyone a better person, then I am a better person for knowing them.
Security Day is dedicated to the Afghans who, whatever their reasons, helped us.
How Did You Come up With Your Characters?
Every character, from Afghans to Americans, is based on a person I actually knew or a composite of several people. I wanted to tell their stories, often unknown, and the great lengths the Afghan people were willing to go to protect their families and survive.
Book Excerpt/Sample
ZUBAIR GATHERS THE WEAPONS
Outside Tarin Kowt City, Tarin Kot District, Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan, 13 October 2012—
They didn’t know who had given the order. But they all met anyway after the last prayer, inside a copse of poplar trees, and waited for their local commander, known as Zubair, to lead them up the mountain where the weapons were hidden. Five young Pashtun men, blankets wrapped around their shoulders, water bottles hanging from their waists by cords, squatted in a half circle and looked at the ground.
They didn’t question their simple missions. Moving ammunition, rifles, and rockets under the cover of darkness was the best way to eat and do their duty to their village. But it was cold and the traditional fighting season was over. The big commanders had returned to Pakistan. Who was planning a large attack when they should be resting? What trouble would it bring?
Their hushed chatter stopped when Zubair appeared inside the wood line and pointed up the nearest rocky slope. The men spread out, walked across a field of winter wheat, and pushed up the scree field skirting the mountain. Their lungs burned as the incline grew but everyone knew this was the easy climb, light as they were with only their turbans and sandals. Coming down they would suffer, encumbered by the weapons.
Going up the slope they could be killed by anyone: Americans, the Afghan Army, the Afghan Police, bandits using caves as hideouts, other talibs they feuded with, villagers who resented their presence. Every noise, crack, slip on a rock, baying dog, even the whiff of smoke from a cooking fire raised a stiff hand from Zubair, signaling the men to stop and listen. Halfway up, Zubair hissed the most frightening command: “Lie down.”
In the valley, a motorcycle headlight bounced toward the mountain. The rider might have seen their dark silhouettes against the darker slope. If the rider was a bandit, he could radio other bandits already hiding in the mountain’s caves to descend upon them. They would be surrounded instantly. The armed bandits would then force them to continue up to the buried cache and steal the weapons on their behalf. If the bandits chose to let them live, they would be punished by their talib commander for losing the weapons. Each had a vision of how their lives could end that night.
Down below, the rider stopped—his motorcycle reverberating through the valley—then turned and chugged away from the mountain. Zubair breathed again and ordered them forward. They sprinted one after the other over the last bit of rock to the peak, slowing only to squeeze between the boulders at the summit. Their rasping lungs reminded them that they had to earn their money. The squalling wind froze the sweat to their skin.
The weapons cache, buried under a finger of rock, was located at an intersection of mountain paths. The Pinowa Valley sat to the east and a web of donkey tracks dropped down to the west, into Chorah. From this place the men could bring the weapons anywhere in Uruzgan Province. But the orders were to bring the weapons back to the poplar trees they had started from and wait for a truck. They didn’t know what type of truck, or when it would be there, but they must ensure the weapons arrived before sunrise.
The men cut the weapons out of tightly wrapped plastic and divided them among the group. They ate naan from their pockets, tearing into the stale bread, gulped coppery water from their bottles, and turned back down the mountain. The sun would soon rise over the Tarin Kowt Bowl.
Down, down, down, they picked their way through the rocks, fighting against the pull of gravity. Once more, they faced danger, Zubair screaming this time for his men to get down, as an American helicopter rose from the valley like a wasp. Its rotors beat overhead and they prayed to the Most Gracious and Most Merciful not to spare their lives for the sake of life but to spare them because they were so close to delivering the weapons and being paid. The helicopter floated momentarily above their heads before lifting over the mountain. It was some time before the fear left them and they could again feel the cold sweat that had soaked through their kameez.
Inside the poplar trees again, they stacked the rifles and rockets in a pyramid and covered everything with brush. Zubair ordered the men to wait. They wouldn’t be paid until the weapons were on the truck. The men, tired and impatient, complained to themselves and zipped their prayer beads along nylon string.
As the sun washed over the mountains, an Afghan National Police truck, an American green Ford Ranger, flashed its lights across the field. The truck didn’t approach and the police officers inside didn’t dismount but they flashed the high beams again for a short interval. Some of the men worried—the police were their natural enemies—but Zubair knew this was the truck. He ordered them to move the weapons.
The tired men struggled across the winter wheat field with the weapons, threw the rifles and rockets in a heap near the truck and fell exhausted into the dirt. The police officers yelled at the talibs to pick the shit up and put it in the bed, under the tarp. The sun was almost high when the talibs, wrapped in their blankets, lined up to be paid, happier with each rupee Zubair slipped into their hands. Zubair, his job done, turned to leave.
“Where are you going?” a police officer said. He was fat, with a bushy moustache and a grease-stained blue uniform. “Get in the truck.”
Zubair clicked his tongue at the order but did as he was told.
The truck drove down a thin, dusty track through Pinowa. When it stopped at a crossroad, the fat police officer told Zubair to get out and move the weapons across a freshly plowed plot and into a small, abandoned compound. He threw Zubair three Afghan Police uniforms and told him to take those too. The purpose of the uniforms was obvious, but where would it happen? And why now? Who wanted this done?
The fat police officer and the others got out of the truck, started a fire, and turned on a hand-cranked radio. They ignored Zubair as he made repeated trips back and forth to move the weapons. His purpose wasn’t their concern. After he had finished, Zubair was to wait inside the compound’s courtyard for three Pakistanis. The police officers left without putting out their fire.
Zubair slept in the dirt courtyard until the rusty scream of the gate woke him. He jumped to his feet as three Pakistani men entered and surrounded him. Zubair clutched his beard. The Pakistanis’ kameez hid their human shape and only their black eyes, popping with eyeliner, gave them any familiarity. Zubair feared the chaos these foreigners would bring.
Only one spoke Pashto. He told Zubair that they were on their way to Kabul when they were called to Uruzgan. Zubair wished the Pakistanis had ignored the call, but an order was an order and he waved to the tarp with the weapons on the ground.
Glee bubbled from the Pakistanis as they drew a Russian PKM machine gun, rocket-propelled grenades with launcher, and some old American grenades. They put on the police uniforms: a blue blouse and pants. The Pashto speaker asked if there was an explosive vest or belt. They were trained in Pakistan to be bombers and hoped to fulfill the training.
Zubair’s fear became disgust. Of course there was no belt because there was no glory in that. You won glory by facing your enemy. He gathered the ends of his kameez and walked through the compound gate without answering.
Zubair was not like these foreigners. He had the honor of a warrior.
Author Bio:
Matt Cricchio served in the United States Navy as an interrogator and spy handler, deploying to Afghanistan with Special Operations Forces. He earned an MFA in fiction in 2017. He currently lives in Richmond, Virginia with his family and their dog, Chewy, a rescue from Afghanistan. You can find him @mattcricchio on Instagram or at www.notmfa.com
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