Combat Ops

FIFTEEN

I’d read some accounts of Marines and other Special Forces operators who’d dropped into Afghanistan just after 9/11. They’d discussed how difficult it was to flush the enemy out of the labyrinth of caves and tunnels that lay along the border with Pakistan. One Special Forces operator from the storied group known as “Triple Nickel” had described the tunnels as “great intestines of stone” that were, in fact, “part of the innards of some ancient warrior who’d died millennia ago.”

That was damned poetic. I would describe them as damp, dark holes that made perfect burial grounds, like the catacombs of Europe. They smelled and foretold of death and were the setting of many of my nightmares.

Ramirez ceased fire, reached out, grabbed something, threw it. I realized those fools behind us had tossed in another grenade. I didn’t know where Ramirez got his reflexes, but I wasn’t complaining.

“Get down!” I screamed, but my order was lost in the second explosion, this one much louder, the debris striking more fiercely as up ahead, a flurry of gunfire also vied for my attention. Smith, Brown, and Hume were advancing toward the intersecting tunnel where the explosion had occurred, and they were engaging more troops.

The air grew thicker as the ceiling collapsed and heavy rocks and earth poured in from above. Ramirez rose and began running back as pieces of the ceiling the size of truck tires came down and split apart across the floor. The stench of the explosives and the choking dust had me coughing, along with the others, and my eyes burned as I turned forward and called, “Brown? Brown?”

I couldn’t hear myself screaming through the echo of the explosion. I finally staggered to my feet, and, dragging a gloved hand along the wall for balance, I moved forward to find Brown, Hume, and Smith about four meters down the intersecting tunnel to my right. A wall of rocks and sand blocked the entire path, and the guys were covering their faces and letting their penlights play over the obstruction.

“Where the hell’s Warris?” I asked, swinging around.

Brown shook his head.

“What?” I cried, growing even more tense. “Is he dead?”

“I don’t know. He was on the other side when the grenade went off.”

I got on the radio, tried to call him, nothing. “Wait,” called Smith, pressing his ear against the rock while Ramirez and Nolan approached to cover us.

“I hear something,” Smith added. “Sounds like him! He’s calling for help.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“All right, start digging,” I said.

“We’ll cover the back tunnel,” said Ramirez, waving Nolan after him.

“Do it,” I said.

“Bad night,” said Brown, grabbing the first large rock he could find and groaning as he lifted and threw it aside. “Very bad night.”

“We’ll be here for hours,” said Smith. “And they’re probably massing for us outside.”

“We’ll need backup,” Brown said.

“You guys are right,” I said. “Go back down there, tell that private we need a digging team out here and two rifle squads. Then get right back.”

As they were about to leave, Ramirez and Nolan opened fire on the tunnel ahead, and I remembered only then that all other exits had been blocked by the caveins. There was only one way out.

Brown realized it as well and said, “Guess, we ain’t going anywhere… yet!”

“All right, everybody, mask up!” I said. I didn’t like it, especially within the confines of the tunnel, but the Taliban guys were ready for us, so we had no choice. I fished out a couple of CS gas canisters and let them fly down the tunnel.

We waited as the gas hissed into a thick fog, and then we rushed forward, enveloped in the smoke, Brown and Smith covering our rear, Treehorn and Ramirez up front.

“How deep does this go?” I said aloud, though no one could hear me. We ventured on at least another hundred meters, then turned to our left and saw an opening and the faint stars beyond.

Treehorn and Ramirez moved up front and signaled to me that they’d check it out.

I gave them a thumbs-up and kept back with the others. They reached the opening, a narrow leaf-shaped break in the stone, and shifted warily forward. Both men vanished for a second, then Ramirez ducked back inside and waved us on.

We emerged on the mountainside facing Sangsar, and all the booming from inside the mountain had not gone unnoticed. Lights burned from the houses nearest the wall, and two pickup trucks loaded with Taliban were already bouncing across the desert, en route to us. I ripped off my mask, as did the others, and then said, “There’s got to be another entrance. Warris must be looking for it, too.”

I whirled around, faced the ridgeline, got my bearings, and waved the rest of the team up, toward a cluster of outcroppings that looked promising.

We got there in a hurry — because several Taliban had already reached the ridge just below us and had opened fire. With dirt popping at our knees and making us grimace, we reached a broad wall of stone and ducked behind it. I waved my team on, one after another, and we all huddled behind the rock.

“We got a problem,” said Ramirez. “Even if we find the other entrance, we already know it’s a dead end. And if we all go in there, they could pin us down, drop in some grenades, and that ruins my plans to marry a supermodel.”

“Mine, too,” said Smith with a wink.

“All right, Joey, me and you go up and look for the entrance,” I told Ramirez. “The rest of you set up here along the rocks. See if you can hold them for a just a couple of minutes.”

I rushed forward with Ramirez on my heels. We ascended through a steep passage that reminded me of a vacation I’d taken to go hiking in Sedona, Arizona. Ramirez spotted the tunnel exit before I saw it, and we both came across the top of the next outcropping and headed toward a narrow seam in the rock. We got within ten meters when a Taliban fighter appeared.

Again, Ramirez put his lightning-fast reflexes to work and gunned down the guy before I could blink. We rushed forward now, coming around him, and came up on both sides of the entrance. I looked at him, raised three fingers. On three, two, one—

We rolled away from the wall and rushed inside, him dropping to one knee to shoot low, me on my feet, standing tall to strike high.

And there, standing before us, like a lost puppy, was Warris’s private, the kid who’d driven him up to the mountain. He clutched his pistol and just looked at us, trembling. He had to be just eighteen, and thinking about buying his first shaving kit…

“Dude, what the hell are you doing here?” asked Ramirez.

He lowered his weapon. “I heard the shooting. I came up to help.”

“You had orders to stay there,” I said.

“Didn’t seem like anybody was obeying orders.”

I snickered. “What’s your name?”

“It’s right here on my uniform.”

I ripped off the Velcro-attached name patch and read the word: Hendrickson, then shoved the patch back at him. “All right, junior, you just got promoted to Special Forces. Did you see Captain Warris on your way in here?”

“No, sir.”

I cursed. “But this tunnel cuts through the mountain?”

“It does, sir.”

“Any bad guys in there?”

He almost laughed. “Not when I came through, sir.”

“All right.” I was about to turn back to Ramirez when a series of explosions rocked the mountain, and just a few seconds later the rest of the team came sprinting up toward the entrance.

A breathless Nolan reported, “RPGs. They’re moving in fast. We need to move now! Got twenty or thirty coming up. It’s going to get hairy, boss.”

“Gotcha. Everybody? This is Private Hendrickson. He’s in charge. Where do we go to get out of here, Private?”

The kid looked around and nearly passed out from the weight I’d just dumped on his shoulders. After blinking hard he finally said, “Follow me.”

We dropped in behind him, as the shouts of the Taliban rose behind us. Ramirez set two more CS canisters just outside the entrance to delay them, while Brown and Smith hung back to plant a small amount of C-4 on a remote detonator, which they confirmed still worked.

Once they rejoined us about fifty meters down the tunnel, they detonated the charges. Twin thunderclaps shook the walls around us, and I imagined a cave-in that would help in our escape.

We came around another long curve and reached an intersecting tunnel. “You go down there?” I asked Ghost Leader Hendrickson.

“No, sir.”

“Ramirez?” I called. “The rest of you hold here.”

We hustled down the intersecting tunnel, which grew so narrow at one point that we had to turn sideways just to pass through. Then it opened back up and filtered into a broad chamber. To our left was a pile of rocks and dirt — the cave-in where Warris had been. We were on the other side now. No sign of him. My light played over the floor. Nothing. No evidence.

“Well, he ain’t here,” groaned Ramirez.

I tried calling Warris on the radio again. No answer.

Consequently, I stood there, wiping dirt off my nose and cheeks. “How am I going to explain this shit?”

“When we get out, we need to get on the same page,” Ramirez said. “And we need to buy the kid.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“He overheard everything. He’s a problem.”

“Whoa, Joey.”

“Scott, Harruck wants to burn you. Warris is MIA. This is way out of control.”

“I know. Let’s just get out of here, then we’ll talk to the kid.”

“All right, but what happens if he decides to burn us, too?”

“We’re not going to do anything to him. Don’t even imply that, all right?”

“If you say so…”

We returned to the intersection, where Treehorn told me he’d heard voices from the tunnel behind us. The C-4 had not sealed up the tunnel, damn it. The Taliban were climbing over the debris and coming.

“Get some more ready,” I told him. “We’ll blow the exit.”

The group charged forward, with the kid leading the way. He burst through the exit and quickly turned left, coming along a very steep ridge, where he almost lost his balance and tumbled down the mountainside. For a dark moment, I wished he had.

Treehorn and Brown planted the charges. We rushed along the ridge and ducked behind a jagged section of rock that shielded us up to our shoulders.

“Just wait for the first guy because you know the rest are right behind him,” I said.

Too late. Three guys came bursting out of the entrance, and while Ramirez and Nolan took them out, Brown triggered the explosives. A chute of rock-filled smoke lifted as the deep boom resounded, the vibration working its way into my boots.

“Aw, hell,” said Smith, pointing up at the ridge lines high above the cave.

At least twenty or more fighters had already cleared the summit and were coming down. They obviously knew a shortcut to get up there, and as they ascended they opened fire on us, the incoming dropping like hail and forcing us tight against the rocks.

About fifteen meters to my left were Ramirez and the kid, huddled against the rock. And I’ll never forget how it all looked—

The silhouettes of my two men as Ramirez popped up from behind cover and cut loose with two salvos from his own AK-47…

The lightning-bug flashes of muzzles drawing a jagged line across the mountain…

And the next moment, as I blinked and looked again at Ramirez, who pulled back from the rock, fired up at the Taliban again, then turned his rifle on Private Hendrickson.

My mouth opened.

I thought for a second that Ramirez had seen me. Everyone else was engaging the enemy now, complete chaos all around us, with only me, the conscience of our team, shouldering the stone and watching as Ramirez pulled the trigger and put three rounds in the private’s back, dropping him instantly.

He immediately huddled to the rock and screamed, “He’s hit! Hendrickson is down! Nolan! I need a medic! Medic right now!”

I dodged over to Ramirez’s position and rolled the kid onto his side. He didn’t move. I checked for a carotid pulse. No, he was dead.

“I’m sorry. I tried to cover him.”

I was beginning to lose my breath.

My men were fiercely loyal, all right.

Agonizingly loyal.

Another spate of incoming drove both of us to the rock, and Ramirez faced me with a blank stare.