Hunt the Falcon

Chapter Two

Several tense, difficult minutes later, minutes spent climbing down a rope ladder and sliding down the face of slippery rocks, the seven SEALs arrived in Station Presley, the post’s main building and observation point, built on a narrow finger of rock that jutted over the Kunar Valley. The structure was roughly twenty-five by fifteen feet, built of rough-hewn logs, stone, and concrete, reinforced with metal Conex panels and sandbags.

The room itself was a chaotic mess strewn with the debris of battle. Twin M2HGs and an M240.50 caliber machine gun fired at Taliban attackers below and to the right, spitting hot casings onto the concrete floor, which was slick with blood, spilled oil, and water. About a dozen soldiers crouched before slits in the forward wall, firing M4s, M5s, M27s, MP7s, and HK416s. Others, including an Afghan, screamed over the pounding of weapons into radios. Two army medics attended to the wounded, which included a young African American who had been hit in the face.

The noise was deafening. The cordite in the air made it hard to breathe. The desperation of the men fighting was real and contagious.

Crocker was relieved to learn from Captain Jason Battier that Presley’s location made it extremely difficult to assault from above or below. The SEALs had just spent six hours climbing a mountain, then sliding down a rock slope to reach it from the west. Its east side, which faced the valley, fell off into two thousand feet of sheer cliff. About a hundred feet below and two hundred feet south of Presley sat another small grassy plateau that housed two barracks, known as King and Wolf.

At the foremost tip of that plateau another rocky cliff descended an additional hundred feet to a U-shaped band of land that swept around the entire east, north, and south faces of the promontory.

“Where’s the officer in charge?” Crocker asked.

Battier pointed to a body at the back of the room covered with a sheet of blue plastic.

“But I just spoke to him.”

“About two minutes ’fore you got here,” he said in a thick Cajun accent, “he caught a round in the head.”

Captain Battier continued, explaining that the narrow U-shaped band of land below was the location of the post’s four guard stations, named A, B, C, and D. Stations A and B-directly below Presley and to the left-had taken the brunt of the initial Taliban attack, which had been launched approximately seven hours ago. Both A and B had recently been overrun, resulting in the death of six Pennsylvania national guardsmen, five marines, six members of the army’s Alpha Company, and an undetermined number of Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers.

“Where’s the hottest action now?” Crocker asked.

“The Taliban are directing everything at Stations C and D. Once they fall, they’ll have easy access to King and Wolf, to our right,” Battier said, pointing to a chart on the wall. “Once King and Wolf go, we’re fucked.”

He was a wiry, tall fellow with a prominent nose and several days’ worth of light brown growth on his face. His camouflage-covered FAST Ballistic Helmet was pulled low over long, narrow eyes.

“They’re not going to fall,” Crocker said.

“Why?”

“We won’t let ’em.”

“Okay.”

“How many men do you have fighting at Stations C and D, and what are you planning to do to reinforce them?”

An RPG round glanced off the roof and exploded, stinging their ears.

Captain Battier shook his head as if to get it to restart and pointed to his right. “How many men we got out there? Fifteen maybe. Another five or six injured. Three dead. But as you can see, chief, we’re spread so thin. I only got eight men guarding King and Wolf. That’s where our supplies are. Maybe we should think of pulling back.”

“We’re not pulling back. Who’s in charge down there?”

“Marine Staff Sergeant Perez. A tough Chicano, former gangbanger from East L.A. Crazy motherfucker.”

Crocker said, “I need you to send a medic and a couple of soldiers to retrieve an injured teammate of mine.”

“Where?”

“I’ll draw a map.”

As they conversed, an Afghan officer in a crisp green uniform spoke into a push-pull radio. “Who’s he?” Crocker asked.

“He’s our ANA coordinator. His name is Major Jawid Mohammed. We call him Weed.”

“How many men does he have here?” Crocker asked, noting that Weed was a handsome man of about five feet seven, with a short black beard and, like most Afghans, compelling eyes.

“Weed? Shit, I don’t know. Yo, Weed, how many men you got?”

The Afghan frowned when he heard Battier’s question, clutched the radio under his arm, and held up eight fingers.

“That all?” Crocker asked.

“About fifteen of ’em ran soon as the battle started,” Battier answered.

“What’s Jalalabad telling you about the storm?” Crocker asked.

Another rocket-launched grenade exploded into the south wall, throwing back two marines who had been firing through the closest port window and sending smoke and shards of rock and wood flying inside.

Crocker helped one of the marines to his feet. He had several long splinters of wood stuck in his face, which made him look like a character from a slasher movie. “You know where you are, son?” Crocker asked.

“Does it matter?” the marine grunted back. He retrieved his weapon, returned to his position, and resumed firing.

The second marine was sitting up and shaking his head. He asked no one in particular, “Don’t these people ever fucking stop?” An army medic knelt beside him and gave him water.

“The weather’s bad, chief,” Battier said. “Not looking good at all. Jalalabad is saying another four hours minimum before they can launch a single drone. Six, seven maybe before a bird can make it up here. Four more hours, we’ll all be dead.”

Crocker grabbed the front of his camouflage jacket. “Don’t talk like that. You hear me?”

“Chief?”

Technically the captain outranked him. In spite of that Crocker growled, “Man up, Captain. Your men are counting on you.”

“Yes.”

Crocker motioned to Akil to join them. Then, nodding toward Weed, who continued talking into the radio, he asked, “Who’s he talking to?”

Akil listened and answered, “He’s speaking in some strange local dialect, boss. I don’t know.”

“Any idea what he’s saying?”

Crocker imagined for a moment that he heard the blades of an approaching helicopter, but it was the pop-pop-pop of one of the big guns.

“I think he’s talking about us,” Akil answered. “You know, the arrival of seven more Americans.”

Crocker nodded, then turned to Battier and said, “My men and I are going down below to relieve Stations C and D. I’m counting on you to keep order up here. Concentrate your fire on the enemy attacking C and D.”

Battier said, “Okay, chief. But how are you planning to get there?”

“The fastest way possible,” Crocker responded, pulling on his pack and grabbing his HK416.

Battier said, “Jonesy’s our best climber. He’ll show you. Jonesy, yo!”

A tall African American kid with a shaved head stopped firing his MK19 automatic grenade launcher, walked over, and removed the purple plastic plugs from his ears. “What’s up, Captain?”

“I need you to take Chief Crocker and his men down the chute to Station C.”

“The chute, for sure. You bad boys ready?”

“Hell, yes!”

The SEALs reentered the wet and bitter cold weather. Snow continued to blow in all directions. Blasts and automatic arms fire echoed from the valley below.

“Follow me,” Jonesy said, walking with an M27 resting on his shoulder as if he was taking a stroll in the woods.

“I like this guy,” Akil commented to Crocker, who was thinking ahead, trying to cobble a plan together.

Jonesy spoke as he walked. “Mofos musta been planning this assault for some time, waiting for the first big winter storm. The major, he thought he’d been building up good relations with the elders in the village. All the time, they been aiding the Taliban. Now he’s dead. Mofos must have been assembling in that damn village, man, storing weapons and supplies, ’cause that’s where they attacked us from.”

Beyond two large pine trees they arrived at the edge of the cliff and a narrow gully in the rock. In warmer weather, it probably carried water, Crocker thought. He couldn’t see where the natural gully ended; fog and snow had reduced visibility to less than three yards.

“How far does it descend?” he asked Jonesy.

The skinny soldier hitched up his camouflage pants and answered, “Over a hundred yards. Most of the way down to Station C.”

Jonesy shook the snow off a plastic cover, lifted it off, then picked up a large coil of rope, which he heaved into the gully. The end of it was tied to a U-shaped pipe that had been cemented into the rock.

“You guys are SEALs, right?” he asked. “Then this kinda shit is probably like pissing in a pot to you. You want me to lead the way?”

“Sure,” Crocker answered. “We’ll be right behind you.”

As he pulled on a pair of worn leather gloves, Jonesy said, “Somebody’s gotta stay behind and pull this sucker up so the Tal-i-bads can’t use it.”

Crocker turned to Dog and barked, “You’re not gonna be able to do this with your shoulder, so on my signal, pull up the rope.”

“Yes, chief.”

Jonesy spit into his gloves, made sure the M27 was strapped securely across his back and shoulder, grabbed the rope, and started to shimmy down. Crocker went second, followed by Akil, Davis, Ritchie, Cal, and Yale.

Twelve feet down they entered a cloud of mist so thick Crocker couldn’t see Jonesy in front of him. All he heard was the hiss of snow and dull percussions in the distance. The scene reminded him of dreams he’d had as a kid, and similarly thrilling experiences skydiving through clouds. There was something exhilarating about not knowing what was coming next.

At twenty feet he heard the explosion. Wham! It hurt his ears and sent pieces of rock flying, crashing into him. Still, he managed to hold on to the rope.

Jonesy screamed, “Mofos! Stupid mofos! Why you gotta be pissing me off?”

A voice overlapped in Crocker’s headset. “Boss. Boss!”

Secondary explosions followed, thankfully none of them as close. Bullets flew their way, loose rock falling on top of them, hitting their shoulders, backs, and helmets.

“Boss! Boss, what the fuck?”

“Down!” he shouted at Jonesy. “Fast-rope down!”

His feet and hands eased up on the rope and he started flying down fast, still surrounded by fog, trying to count the distance in his head. Twenty feet, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy. At eighty he started to tighten his grip around the line.

Into the mike in his headset, he shouted, “Slow down at eighty feet. Remember to slow down!”

The rope burned through his gloves. The heat and pain was intense by the time he emerged from the mist and saw ground, and Jonesy rolling onto a patch of moss-covered dirt.

“Hit the ground and roll!” he exclaimed into the mike before he hit, lowering his head and shoulder, and executing a modified parachute landing fall, popping up into a crouch. He spotted Jonesy waving him over to a group of boulders that formed a natural wall.

The enemy were still directing their fire above them into the gully. Crocker suspected that the Afghan major with the push-pull radio might have something to do with it.

He helped the remaining five and directed them to where Jonesy waited. Over the radio he ordered Dog to pull up the fast-rope, then joined the group huddled behind the rock. The sounds of battle were crisper and closer-so close he could make out men shouting in a foreign language.

Jonesy said, “The Taliban’s about a hundred yards in front of us. Station C stands over there to the right.”

Crocker turned and looked in the direction of a smooth rock that rose like the back of a blue whale. Beyond it sat a higher patch of land that was barely visible. Through wisps of fog and a patch of low shrubs, he thought he saw the top of a flat, fortlike structure.

“That it?”

“You got it, boss. We’re kinda behind the freakin’ Tal-i-bad lines.”

The fresh, piney smell reminded Crocker of happier times, in the White Mountains of New Hampshire where he spent summer vacations as a kid. He turned to Davis. “Get Sergeant Perez on the horn and tell him we’re approaching north-northwest.”

“Roger.”

“Follow me.” This wasn’t the first time he’d rushed into something blind. He hoped it wouldn’t be the last.

He ran in a low crouch until he reached the slick, smooth surface of the rock, and holding on to it, started to scurry upward on all fours. Tough going. Every foot gained was a struggle. He was out of breath by the time he reached the top and spotted the shrubs ahead. Beyond them and to the right he saw the backs of three men wearing black turbans. One was kneeling on the ground setting up a machine gun.

Crocker aimed his HK416 and raked fire across their backs, left to right, then left again into the slumping, twitching bodies. One shouted an oath to Allah that echoed past him.

Akil, Jonesy, and Cal hurried up behind him.

“What the fuck was that?” one of them exclaimed, interrupted by the clank and clatter of metal against rock. Crocker located the grenade and pointed at it. Together they sprinted, then dove to the opposite side of a berm and hit the ground.

Crocker felt his chin crash into the ground as snow entered his nose and mouth. The explosion lifted his chest and belly into the air. Shards of metal fell around him as he hit earth again and saw stars.

A big gun was pounding. It seemed to be firing from a position closer to the cliff. His head spinning, he tried to lift himself up as voices called, “Chief! Chief!” Couldn’t tell who it was, but he realized it had to be coming over his headset. When he reached for the mike, he realized his helmet had been pushed back off his head. He was trying to adjust it when he noticed Akil pointing at him. A third man Crocker didn’t know was standing with him. Jonesy hurried over and helped him up.

The stranger said, “You can’t rest now, sir. You’ll miss all the fun.”

Some fun.

The man looked Hispanic-high cheekbones, a tribal tattoo on his neck. He said, “Chief Crocker, Sergeant Chino Perez.” His two gold front teeth gleamed in the muted light.

“You with us?”

“Fuck, yeah.”

Crocker still felt woozy, but he managed to run with them toward the guard station. The next thing he remembered, he was sitting on a sandbag. Someone handed him a bottle of water. When he swallowed, he tasted blood.

“Boss, you okay?”

Davis looked down at him with a face smudged with dirt. Crocker used his tongue to feel along the ridge of his mouth and realized that a piece of one of his front teeth was missing.

“You see the rest of my tooth?” he asked.

“Did I see what?”

“Never mind.”

The noise in the cramped, smoke-filled room was hellacious. He saw bodies thrown into a corner and covered with a blue tarp. Blood and entrails peeked out from under it.

Perez, kneeling beside him, said that including himself he was down to four men.

“Four men? How many behind us in D?”

“Another five, sir.”

“Any of them Afghans?”

“No.”

“No?”

Then who the fuck was that Weed guy talking to?

One of the gunners in front of them called out, “We’re running low on ammo for the fifty-cal!”

Perez shouted back, “Conserve, guys. Select fire.”

The gunner growled, “Then we better start collecting rocks.”

Crocker tried to think clearly and consider their options. He asked, “How many enemy?”

“Unclear, sir,” Perez answered. “They just keep coming.”

“Best estimate?” Davis asked.

“I don’t know. Fifty, a hundred, a million. Maybe there’s a hole and they’re coming up from Middle Earth.”

Crocker turned to Davis and yelled, “Call Captain Battier. Tell him we’re gonna need ammo and reinforcements.”

“Okay, boss.”

Twin.50 caliber machine guns continued to pound away in front of him. He saw Ritchie firing a MK19 grenade launcher. Remembering something, he stopped Perez, who was dragging a box of ammo over to the M2HG. “What about the six SEALs who were dropped in last week?” he asked.

“Two of ’em are behind us in D.”

Davis broke his train of thought, which had drifted to his friend Neal Stafford. “Boss! Yo, boss! The captain says no can do.”

“No what?”

“No reinforcements.”

“Let me talk to him.” He grabbed the receiver and spoke in an urgent but authoritative voice. “Hey, Captain, we’re a hair away from being overrun here. We got a lot of men down and are in dire need of support and ammo, fifty-cal rounds especially. What can you do?”

A mortar round tore into the sandbag-reinforced wall on the right side of the station and exploded, sending the gunner of one of the M2HGs sliding across the floor. He scurried back, wiped a stream of blood from his nose, righted the machine gun, and continued firing.

“Captain, do you hear me?” The gunner in front of him shouted a stream of curses. Apparently he’d burned his hand on the hot barrel of his weapon.

“I hear you, chief. I hear you loud and clear. Where are you, exactly?”

“Station C.”

“Have you considered pulling out of there?”

“For a whole lotta reasons that I don’t have time to explain now, it’s not an option.”

“But I’m unable to send reinforcements,” Battier responded via the radio receiver.

“What about ammo?”

“Negative on that, too.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“Chief, I’m looking at the big picture. Presley, King, and Wolf are my priorities,” Battier responded.

“You’ve got men dying down here, Captain. The position is eminently defendable with help!”

“Sorry, chief.”

“I’m sorry, too. Fuck you!”

He threw down the radio and peered through a slit in the reinforced wall, guns pounding all around him, casings spilling onto the floor. Saw the sparks of guns firing from Taliban positions behind rocks, trees, and other natural barriers.

Perez, beside him, was peering through binoculars. Crocker asked, “Where are the bastards coming from?”

“You can’t see from here, but there are a couple of trails up from the valley that are in the vicinity of Station B, which was the first to fall.”

Snow continued to drop, and the light seemed to be fading. Crocker glanced at his Suunto GPS watch, which read 1642 hours. In another hour the sky would turn dark and they’d be even more vulnerable. Screwed, most likely.

“What’d the captain say?” Perez asked, putting down the glasses and grabbing his MP7 4.6x30mm submachine gun.

“We’re on our own.”

“I thought so.”

Crocker hated the thought of giving up the station. His instincts told him to make a stand. “What have you got in terms of supplies?” he shouted to Perez over the tremendous racket.

“Bottled water, MREs, boxes of energy bars, heaters, lamps.”

“Ammo?”

“There’s a storage bunker behind Station D that contains some explosives, but no mags or fifty-cal rounds.”

“What kind of explosives?”

“C-four and claymores.”

“Okay.” He started to turn to Ritchie on his right and stopped. “You told me two of the Team Six guys were behind us in Station D. What happened to the other four?”

Perez lowered his brown eyes. “Taken out resisting the initial charge.”

Crocker was afraid to ask, but had to. “Neal Stafford?”

Perez nodded and pointed over his shoulder to the tarp-covered bodies in the back corner. Crocker pictured Neal’s pretty, blond-haired wife and young sons. He wanted to beat the shit out of something, or scream so loud that time stopped and rewound. But he swallowed hard and summoned Ritchie instead. With his arm around the tall man’s shoulder, he led him to the back of the bunker so the two men could hear themselves speak.

Crocker said, “Take Jonesy with you and go back to Station D. There’s a…” Neal’s smiling face flashed in his head. He gathered himself and started again, “There’s a storage bunker there, back of D. I want you to grab all the explosives you can find and bring them here. Ask the SEALs there to help you.”

Ritchie, his eyes burning with intensity, pointed to his backpack stacked against the back wall. “I’ve got blasting caps and detonators. You okay, boss?”

“I’m fine. I want to do something bold. Imaginative. Insane. Get the stuff.”

“You want bold? You tapped the right man,” Ritchie said, grinning. “Depending on what we find in D, I’ll give you cataclysmic.”

“I like the way you’re thinking. Now go.”