Combat Ops

TWENTY-TWO

Working as a team leader in an ever-changing environment with ever-changing rules and restrictions becomes, as my father once put it, “an abrasive on the soul.” Having toiled many years in the GM plant and enjoyed as many years out in his woodshop, Dad was a man who celebrated predictability. He did repetitive work at the plant, and when he created his custom pieces of furniture, he most often worked from a blueprint and followed it to the letter. He felt at peace with a plan he could follow. He always taught me that practice makes perfect, that repetition is not boring and can make you an expert, and that people who say they just “wing it” are hardly as successful as those who plan their work and work their plan. He told me he could never do what I did, though, because he would never find satisfaction in it. He needed something tangible to hold on to, sit on, photograph, admire… and he needed a plan that would not change. My father was a curmudgeon to be sure.

We’d argue about this a lot. But when I slipped off into my own little woodshop to produce projects for my friends and fellow operators, I understood what Dad was trying to tell me. You cannot replace the satisfaction of working alone, of listening to that voice in your head as it guides you through a piece of furniture. There was great beauty in solitude, and I sometimes wondered whether I should’ve become a sniper instead of a team leader. The exquisite artistry of making a perfect shot from a mile out deeply intrigued me.

Oddly enough, I was pondering that idea while Treehorn and I stood in that tunnel, completely cut off. I wished I’d had the luxury of only worrying about myself instead of feeling wholly responsible for him. When I was a sergeant, my CO would tell me that I’d get used to leadership but it would never get any easier. I doubted him. I assumed I’d find a comfort zone. But there isn’t one. Not for me. There’s a happy place of denial that I go to when things go south, but I can only visit there for short periods before they kick me out.

Thus, the big sniper was at my shoulder, in my charge, and I swore to myself I would not get him killed.

A figure materialized from the darkness.

I shifted reflexively in front of Treehorn as the figure’s light came up and a second person shifted up behind the first. I was blinded for a second, about to pull the trigger, when the shout came:

“Captain! Hold fire!”

I recognized the voice. Ramirez. His light came down.

I sighed. My beating heart threatened to crack a rib. “Joey, how the hell did you get in here?”

“We saw you get pinned down. So we came back up, pushed through a couple of rocks. It looks a lot worse than it is. It caved in, but up near the top of the pile we found a way in.”

“You all right?” Brown asked, moving up behind Ramirez.

“We’re good. I want C-4 at the intersection. What’s going on outside?”

“Rest of the team’s at the rally point,” Ramirez said. “A couple more Bradleys came up. They put some serious fire on the mountains, so those bastards have fallen back. I think we’re clear to exit.”

I looked hard at Ramirez. “Thanks for coming back.”

He averted his gaze.

That reaction made me wonder if he’d come back only because Brown had spotted us and left him no choice. Or maybe he was trying to get past what had happened and show me he still had my back; I just didn’t know.

I shook off the thought, and we got to work. Within two minutes we had the charges ready.

“You sure about this?” Treehorn asked. “Still got that other tunnel down there where they had the ladder… who knows what’s up there…”

“We can’t leave this open. We need to make it harder for them to cross over without being seen.”

“You’re the boss,” he said. “Bet there’s another exit we haven’t found, anyway. If we get back up here, we can search for that one, too.”

I nodded. “I bet we’ll get our chance.”

We left the intersection and reached the towering wall of dirt and rock, noting the fresh exit created by Ramirez and Brown, just a narrow, two-meter-long tunnel near the ceiling. We’d crawl on our hands and knees to exit. I was concerned about all the rock and dirt between us and the charges, so I gave Brown the order to detonate before we left. He clicked his remote. Nothing. I knew it. We’d gone too far off for the signal to reach through the rock.

But then I wondered if maybe his remote detonator had been damaged by the HERF guns. I’d forgotten about that. We all had.

“I’ll do it,” said Ramirez, removing the detonator from Brown’s hand.

“And I’ll come with you,” said Brown, hardening his tone. “Could go with a regular fuse.”

“I’ll be right back.” Ramirez took off running.

“Go after him,” I ordered Brown. I had visions of Ramirez blowing himself up. “The detonator might not work.”

“Like I said, I’ve got some old-school fuses. We’ll light it up.”

Treehorn began pushing his way through the exit hole. It was just wide enough for the big guy, and he moaned and groaned till he reached the other side.

Then he called back to me, “Hey, boss, why don’t you come out? We’ll wait for them on the other side.”

“You watch the entrance,” I told him. “We’ll all be out in a minute. You scared to be alone?”

He snorted. “Not me…”

From far off down the tunnel came the shuffling of boots, a shout of “Hey!” from Brown. Aw, hell, I needed to know what was happening. “Treehorn, if we’re not back in five, you go! You hear me?”

“Roger that, sir! What’s going on?”

I let his question hang and charged back down the tunnel. When I reached the intersection, I found Ramirez shoving one of the Chinese guys toward me. The guy’s wrists were zipper-cuffed behind his back, and Brown was shouldering the guy’s backpack while he lit the fuse on the C-4.

“Look what we found,” Ramirez quipped. “They dropped a ladder over there, and he came down here for something.”

The Chinese guy suddenly tore free from Ramirez and bolted past us, back into the dead-end tunnel.

Ramirez started after him.

“Fuse is lit,” shouted Brown.

“It’s a dead end, Joey!” I told him.

“Good! He’s a valuable prisoner,” Ramirez screamed back.

Brown cursed, removed his knife, and hacked off the sparking fuse. “I want to blow something up,” he said. “I haven’t got all night.”

I made a face. No kidding.

The unexpected report of Treehorn’s rifle stole my attention. He screamed from the other side of the cave-in: “Got a few stragglers coming up! Let’s go! Let’s go!”

I ran after Ramirez, and I found him at the dead end. The Chinese guy was lying on his back, straddled by Ramirez, and my colleague was pummeling the prisoner relentlessly in the face.

Although the image was shocking, I understood very well where Ramirez was coming from. He needed a punching bag, and unfortunately he’d found one. I wondered if he’d kill the guy if I didn’t intervene. I gasped, grabbed Ramirez’s wrist, and held back his next blow. The prisoner’s face was already swollen hamburger, his nose bleeding.

“What’re you doing?” I yelled.

Ramirez just looked at me, eyes ablaze, drool spilling from his lips. “He wouldn’t come. Now he will.”

I cursed under my breath. “Let’s get out of here.”

We dragged the prisoner to his feet and shifted him forward, and then suddenly the Chinese guy spat blood, looked at me, and said, “I’m an American, you assholes!”

The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. My father used to say that all the time when referring to middle and upper management and to Washington and politicians. I was no stranger to decentralization, to being on a mission and realizing only after the fact that hey, someone else has the same mission. That my commanders were often not made privy to CIA and NSA operations in the area was a given; that spook operations would interfere with our ability to complete our mission was also a given.

That a Chinese guy we captured in the tunnel would give up his identity was damned surprising.

“I’m CIA!” he added, spitting out more blood. “I needed to bail on my mission.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Because I know who you are. I can smell you a mile away. Special Forces meatheads. I’m not at liberty to speak to you monkeys.”

I snickered. “Then why are you talking now?”

“Look at my face, asshole!”

“Why’d you run?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“What the hell are you doing here?”

He smirked. “What’re you doing here?”

I looked at Ramirez. “Cut him loose and help him get outside, then cuff him again.”

“Hey, spooky,” I said, breathing in the guy’s ear. “If you resist, we monkeys will do some more surgery on your face. Got it?”

He turned back and glared.

Ramirez shoved him away. I regarded Brown. “You ready to blow this mother?”

He grinned. “I think this mother is ready to be blown.”

“Indeed.”

The glowing fuse was, for just a few seconds, hypnotic, holding me there, a deer in the headlights. I thought back to those moments when I was the last kid on the playground, swinging as high as I could, hitting that place in the sky between pure joy and pure terror. The teacher would be shouting my name and I’d swing just a few more seconds, flirting with the combined danger of falling off and getting in trouble.

With a slight hiss and even brighter glow, the fuse burned down even more. I wondered, how long could we remain in the tunnel without blowing ourselves up?

“Okay, boss, let’s go!” cried Brown.

I blinked hard and looked at him.

“Scott, you okay?”

I stared through him. Then… “Yeah, yeah, come on, let’s go!”

Brown and I had just cleared the other side of the passage when the explosion reverberated through the ground like a freight train beneath our boots.

Treehorn was still near the tunnel’s edge, the stars beyond him. He was crouched down, his rifle raised high. “Still out there,” he said. “Just waiting to take some potshots at us.”

“We need to get those Bradley gunners to help suppress that fire so we can make a break,” I said.

“How?” asked Treehorn. “No comm.”

“What’re you talking about?” I said. “We’re the Ghosts. If we were slaves to technology we’d never get anything done. Watch this, buddy…”

I fished out my penlight and began flashing SOS.

“Are you serious?” he asked me.

“As a heart attack, bro.”

Whether the Taliban to our flank and above us could see the tiny light, I wasn’t sure, but I continued for a full minute, then turned back to the guys.

And then it came: a flashing from one of the Bradleys.

“What’re they saying?” asked Treehorn.

“I have no clue. I don’t remember my Morse code. But we are good to go. So listen up. I’m going to make a break. I’ll draw the first few rounds. You guys hold off a second or two, then get in behind me and we’ll take the path to the east. Those Bradley gunners are ready, I’m sure. Got it?”

“Why don’t we send out the spook to make a break?” asked Brown. “He wants to run away so badly.”

“Hey, that’s a good idea,” I said. “You want to go, spooky?”

“I like your plan better,” he said, licking the blood from his lips.

“I figured you would. Hey, you don’t happen to know a guy named Bronco?” I wriggled my brows.

“Yeah, he’s my daddy.”

“Well, let’s get you home to Papa.” With that, I bolted from the cave, drawing immediate fire from the Taliban behind our right flank. I had no intention of getting hit and practically dove for the next section of boulders that would screen me.

Once the Taliban had revealed themselves by firing at me, the Bradley gunners drilled them with so many salvos and tracers that the valley looked like a space combat scene from a science fiction movie, flickering red tracers arcing between the valley and the mountainside.

Brown hollered to go. Treehorn, Ramirez, and the prisoner came charging down toward my position. Brown brought up the rear.

Once they linked up with me, I led them farther down while the Bradley gunners continued to cover us. We were clearly identified as friendlies now.

My mouth had gone dry by the time we reached the rally point five minutes later, and I asked if anyone had a canteen. Ramirez pushed one into my hands and said, “Our boy’s got some explaining, eh?” He cocked a thumb at the prisoner.

“Should be interesting…”

The Bradley gunners broke fire, and for a few long moments, an utter silence fell over the mountains…

I glanced back at Hume, who was still sitting near Nolan’s body. A sobering moment to be sure. If I stared any longer, I feared my lungs would collapse.

Out of the silence, in an almost surreal cry, a lone Taliban fighter cut loose a combination of curse words he’d probably memorized from a hip-hop song. Once his shout had echoed away, roars of laughter came from the crews and dismounted troops around the Bradleys.

We’d never heard anything like that. The Taliban were usually yelling how great God was — not swearing at us in our own language. And I didn’t want them polluted by America. I wanted them maniacal and religious and steadfast. They seemed a more worthy adversary that way. To believe they could be influenced by us was, in a word, disconcerting.

Harruck had a small planning room, and we all filed in, unfolded the metal chairs, and took seats around a rickety card table. The spook’s face had been cleaned up by one of Harruck’s medics, and he was demanding to make a phone call.

“What do you think this is?” I asked him. “County lockup?”

“We’ll get to your phone call,” Harruck told the spook in a softer tone than I’d used. He faced me. “What the hell is going on? Did you destroy the caves?”

“Most of them.”

“And him?”

I took a deep breath and exhaled loudly for effect. “He’s CIA and posing as a Chinese opium buyer or smuggler. His cover got blown. He ran into us before he could skip town.”

“I demand to be released.”

“Those are good demands,” said Harruck. “We like them. Just give me a couple of minutes.”

“No, right now.”

Harruck’s expression darkened. “What the hell are you people doing on my mountain? Why is your backpack full of opium? What the hell is your mission here?”

“Aren’t you going to ask me about my face?”

Harruck looked at me. “No, I’m not.”

The door suddenly opened and in walked Bronco, escorted by one of Harruck’s lieutenants.

Bronco spoke rapidly. “Captain, we appreciate your help and assistance here, and if there’s nothing else, I’d like to escort my colleague off the base.”

Harruck eyed an empty chair. “Sit down, Bronco.”

“Whoa, take it easy there, Joe. You got no idea what you’re dealing with here.”

I smote a fist on the card table, and it nearly collapsed. “I just lost another man. And I’m not walking out of here until you tell us what’s going on, what your mission is here, and how it might affect what we’re trying to do. As a matter of fact, XO, do us a favor and lock that door. Armed guard outside. No one’s leaving until you two spooks cough up the truth.”

“You can’t do that, buddy. We have the right to walk out of here.”

“Yes, you do. But we’re way out here in the middle of nowhere,” I said. “And we’re all going to get along nicely, otherwise bad things will happen. Bad things.”

Bronco shifted up to me. “Don’t threaten me, soldier boy. I’ve been at this a lot longer than you. And as far as we’re concerned, you know all you need to.”

“Do you know the location of our captured soldier?” Harruck asked the prisoner point-blank.

“No.”

“What’s your name?”

He thought a moment. “Mike.”

“Okay, Mikey,” I began. “You guys are working on some Chinese connection with HERF guns and opium. I get that. I’m just a jarhead, a monkey, but I get that. Does your operation tie directly to Zahed? I just need a yes or a no.”

Bronco, sighed, frowned, then sighed again. “Does our operation link to Zahed? Well… not exactly.”

I closed my eyes and thought of murder.