Shag did his best to get my questions answered, but the two locals knew little more than we did about what awaited us. Halfway into the trip to the front, word came from back at the schoolhouse that Hopper, the Admiral, and Adam Khan had been pinned down by enemy fire, had been abandoned by the muhj, and had made a “Warpath” call. Our boys were in deep shit, escaping and evading, which made our mission even more urgent.
Not only were we on our way to take care of bin Laden once and for all, but we also had to weigh the significance of three of our men being in trouble and needing our help. This same classic dilemma is presented in military schools around the free world. What is more important: accomplishing the mission or taking care of your men? Sergeant Major Ironhead, Bryan, and Jim were wrestling with the situation as well, but they would look for me to make the call. I probably had about fifteen more minutes to ponder our response.
We had initially felt that the news of bin Laden being found was too good to be true, and as we proceeded slowly along the bumpy and narrow dirt road, that doubt bubbled to the surface again. This just didn’t have the feel of being the ultimate battle that would capture the most wanted man in the world, and the twilight time of day weighed heavily in our thoughts. The muhj had already abandoned three of our guys, so it was no sure bet that they would stick around after dark with us.
When we rounded a tight corner, we came face-to-face with a long convoy of vehicles that was blocking the road, with the good general himself in the lead vehicle. They were heading away from the fight!
Ali ceremoniously exited his SUV and approached us, illuminated by the headlights of our two vehicles crisscrossing each other. Ali ignored the jumpy Afghan guys in the front seat and approached Shag’s window, leaned inside and extended his right hand toward me, gave a victory smile, and said, “Commander Dalton!”
Then came a torrent of Pashto, and Shag and I had no idea what the general said, although it was obvious he was welcoming us and was happy about our arrival.
After only a minute or two of geniality, Ali was back in his SUV and once again was on the move, heading north, away from the fight. But he left us with the impression that he was merely looking for a place where he could turn his convoy around, so we could all move to the sound of the guns. That was not going to be the case. Not even close.
I didn’t want to believe what was really happening, but Shag pieced together enough of what our guides were saying to determine that Ali’s fighters were finished for the evening. They were all headed home to break their Ramadan fast.
The muhj force that we thought had bin Laden surrounded and trapped apparently had packed it in for the day and was hightailing it off the mountain in full retreat. It didn’t matter.
For the next few hundred meters, we wormed through a giant traffic jam as if swimming against a riptide. Dozens of muhj fighters were crammed inside the beds of pickup trucks or perched on the sides, most of them wrapped in blankets. Some strained their necks to get a look at our newer pickup trucks with mounted M-249 squad automatic weapons or M-240G machine guns, and loaded with Delta commandos who were strangely heading toward the fighting after dark.
Hope was fading that one of the general’s vehicles would eventually zip in front of our convoy, take the lead, and guide us to where we needed to be so that, together, we could all assault bin Laden’s location. The harsh truth was that we would not be seeing General Ali again for the next fifteen hours.
Something good was happening back at the schoolhouse. Reinforcements were coming in, trained professionals who could be an instant quick-reaction force if we needed help.
We had scooped up every task force member except Bernie, who was left at the base to monitor the radio and brief our squadron commander, Colonel Ashley, who was bringing in the new force-seven more Deltas and a couple of dozen Royal Marine commandos.
Lieutenant Colonel Al and another CIA man marked the landing zone for the inbound helicopters. They dropped five infrared light sticks on the sandy ground in the shape of a Y, to direct the pilot of the lead MH-47 helicopter to approach from the north, fly directly over the schoolhouse, and land facing the mountains. Instead, the bird ended up with the tail facing an adjacent building, with its big rotor whipping up an instant sandstorm.
Once the ramp hit the ground, the troops exited the helicopter carrying their heavy rucksacks and immediately headed into the nearest, but wrong, structure. The second helicopter mirrored the lead of the first and landed next to it and the rest of the troops hustled into the same building where their buddies had gone. A CIA operative hurried over to retrieve them.
The rotors of the two helicopters had created a blinding, massive brown ball of dust that roiled and churned over itself, darkening it to the point that only the static electricity of the rotor blades was visible. Within that dark and swirling cloud, one of the helicopters began to roll… directly toward the schoolhouse.
After moving roughly thirty yards, the helicopter’s front refuel probe smacked a three-foot-high stone wall and pierced it like a temperature gauge going into Mom’s roast. Colonel Al ran up the back ramp, grabbed the crew chief, and hauled him off to show him the damage.
“It was a brownout!” the crew chief calmly yelled over the engine noise, apparently not upset in the least. “Pilot must have taken his foot off the brake!”
By now the giant rotor blades were spinning violently, with the tips just a few feet above the roof of the schoolhouse in which Bernie was huddled. The helicopter had rolled itself into a mess. The pilot couldn’t back up, because any attempt to change the rotor blade pitch would have sheared off the roof of the schoolhouse and been catastrophic for both the aircraft and anyone inside or nearby.
So, he just gave the helicopter all the power it had and slowly lifted from the ground right there, the fuel probe simply forcing its way up through the loose stones of the fence. Fortunately, the United Nations had only built a single-story schoolhouse.
The British Royal Commandos were not too happy about having carried their heavy rucksacks into the wrong building, and that they were not welcomed by anyone. The CIA man rounded them up, when the helicopters were gone, and pointed them in the right direction. They ran across the yard to the schoolhouse and took a knee inside the yard.
One of the Brits remarked to Lieutenant Colonel Al, “Well, mate, that was quite the faf [
Up the road, our convoy continued through the night, driving in blackout mode, with headlights off on all but the lead vehicle to prevent al Qaeda from seeing that an entire convoy was approaching. In retrospect, I probably should have jumped into the driver’s seat, killed the lights and driven on by using my NVGs. But I didn’t know where we were going, and giving the NVGs to the driver would have been of little use, for I doubted any Afghan local’s ability to drive with only 10 percent illumination and no headlights. We just had to rough it out. Perhaps General Ali had radioed ahead for his remaining troops to pick us up.
The boys up in OP25-A spotted the headlights probing through the darkness and Dugan commented with his Georgia drawl, “Those guys are gonna get hit if they don’t turn off those white lights. There’s still a mortar tube out there.” Sure enough, a couple of rounds soon impacted near the rear of the convoy.
Our guides became nervous, whispering, “Al Qaeda, al Qaeda.” When our driver came to a stop, I expected to see some muhj force that could guide us to within striking distance of bin Laden’s “surrounded” cave. Short of leading us to such a point, perhaps they would navigate us through the front lines and get us halfway there, or join us to make sure that we didn’t shoot the wrong folks.
There were no friendly muhj waiting, and our hired guides frantically pointed toward the dark peaks and warned us al Qaeda was only fifty meters down the road. They were nervous wrecks and had gone as far as they planned to. Beyond this point, they would not budge.
Jim sorted things out up and down the convoy, and the boys took up security positions. I walked up the road to see if I could make out any sign of friendly or enemy activity. Nothing! I radioed Ironhead, who was bringing up the rear of the convoy, to ask about Ali’s column.
Ironhead said that there was nothing behind us but pitch-black darkness all the way back down the road we had just traveled. No sign of the general or his muhj army in back, and no linkup party in front. Not good.
