Jim continued to work every angle. Even should the surrender turn out to be legitimate, he demanded that Zaman agree that if any of the top twenty-two most wanted al Qaeda members listed by the U.S. State Department happened to be in the surrendering group, then Jim and the boys would take them into custody.
He demanded that Zaman pick a spot in the mountains for the surrender at which Jim could get a good look at each of the fighters’ faces before the muhj whisked them away to who knows where. The place chosen was the training field directly in front of bin Laden’s old rubbled home.
Then, in all seriousness, Zaman asked if Jim planned to execute the surrendering al Qaeda prisoners on sight, and if not, would he like Zaman’s men to do it for him? Jim said he didn’t care if they were turned over to American hands dead or alive, but the commandos would follow the established rules of engagement and not shoot prisoners.
Time dragged on, but Zaman was still exuding confidence and insisted that al Qaeda was not stalling. A time had been established on how long the surrender would take. Given the rugged terrain and the dispersal of enemy, it would take several hours for them to navigate in from the distant caves and bunkers and reach the designated surrender location. The warlord’s latest promise was that by five o’clock in the afternoon, it would all be over. The two sides had been haggling since the previous day, and al Qaeda was not yet getting with the surrender program.
Jim intuitively decided that Zaman was dirty.
He told the warlord if any al Qaeda fighters refused to come out of the hills during that obviously elastic surrender time, and were seen carrying weapons by the Americans after the surrender, then he would immediately move the OP teams up and begin dropping bombs. The warlord stood silent for a few seconds after that ultimatum, then turned on his heels and left the field.
While Jim was dealing with Zaman, I dialed up Ashley on the satellite phone and filled him in. He agreed that we had to let the alleged surrender run its course until 5:00 P.M., since we really had no choice. But when that deadline expired, it was important to resume the fight immediately. The negotiation itself was a clear sign of weakness in al Qaeda. The enemy was on the run; we could feel it, and we would not take the pressure off just so the Afghans and al Qaeda could continue bargaining like they were in a marketplace.
Still more players became involved, and a new time element surfaced. News of this magnitude would never hold for long because it had too many headline possibilities for the major personalities, and too many people knew about it. The story that was passed to the media stated that a twenty-four-hour cease-fire had been agreed upon, and actually had started at eight o’clock on the morning of December 12!
We had not been told of that, and would not abide by it. It would mean that things would remain on hold overnight. A whole day and a night of granting respite to a savage enemy that was cracking under the pressure. Keep pounding them, and you hold all the cards. Instead, Zaman was frittering away that advantage. So if we played by their rules, we would have to wait around until 0800 the next morning before going to full speed again. No way.
Overhead, an irritated fighter pilot waiting to drop his load turned the bright blue sky into his personal notepad. He had been given the news, too, and wrote a message in the heavens for all to see. Turning his afterburners on and off to create contrails, he circled back and forth until he spelled out: “ON 8.”
We could not have made it any clearer to everyone below that we were tired of waiting while the enemy fighters were given the priceless gift of time. By eight o’clock the next morning, our forward commandos would have established new positions and the great game would be back on with full fury.
The only time that mattered to us was Zaman’s earlier pledge that it would all be done by five o’clock this afternoon. Screw tomorrow.
Six older, heavyset men with long gray beards came to the schoolhouse. All wore thick gold turbans that appeared four sizes too big and white Afghan men’s dresses that draped down from their shoulders to their toes. The Shura had arrived. We crammed inside General Ali’s small room to listen to the elders describe the village telegraph version of how the surrender unfolded. Word travels fast.
They confirmed that when Zaman’s and Ali’s forces closed in on Hilltop 2685 the previous afternoon, they were met with a surprise offer of surrender. The enemy asked only for a few minutes to collect their modest belongings, but then Zaman showed up and began directing the show.
According to the Shura, the warlord told the enemy fighters to leave their weapons and descend to the foothills, and the councilmen also confirmed that the al Qaeda fighters had asked to be turned over to the United Nations. Zaman gave them a few hours to consider their options and offered to negotiate surrender terms with the American representatives at the schoolhouse.
“Negotiate?” George, the CIA lead dog, was seething. He was in no mood to talk about any surrender with the archenemies of the United States. “America won’t negotiate with terrorists who need to be killed and not pampered,” he barked. “Al Qaeda is a worldwide problem. We must kill them all.”
It was hard to read the Shura, but they got the point. It wasn’t that hard to understand. They stared at George without responding, and then the meeting broke up.
Soon after the meeting, the signals interceptors picked up several radio calls of al Qaeda fighters still negotiating with Zaman. There was no doubt that the whole surrender gesture was a hoax. The “negotiations” were a simple stalling tactic to buy time, and the enemy wanted to drag out the discussions for as long as they could to make the battlefield safe for them to do whatever they wanted.
Afew hours after the Shura departed, Zaman himself came to the schoolhouse in hopes of fulfilling his commitment to al Qaeda over terms of surrender. After listening to Jim’s firm lecture that the bombing would resume, Zaman had driven somewhere to freshen up and had changed into a chocolate brown tailored suit, with shiny brown leather dress shoes and a little silver hat. Perhaps he wanted to look the part of a serious diplomat, but that image was soiled when he arrived with a couple of truckloads of ragged triggermen. Still, he strutted with pride.
George and I sat on a beautiful green, red, and gold carpet that had been spread about twenty meters north of the schoolhouse. The afternoon skies were clear and a very welcome sun warmed us. Now we would get to hear all the details of the cease-fire from Zaman himself.
As we waited for Ali to join us, Haji Zaman said to me, “This is the greatest day in the history of Afghanistan.”
“Why is that?” I asked. He was not aware that we already had concluded that the surrender was a fraud.
“Because al Qaeda is no more. Bin Laden is finished!” he boasted.
General Ali arrived, clad in his standard modest clothing of browns and whites. He obviously was still aggravated that Zaman’s people got to the hilltop first the day before, and now his rival warlord had used that edge to freelance surrender negotiations that Ali had not approved.
George laid the situation out clearly. The CIA deputy chief told the two leaders, in few words, that they were smoking crack if they thought a less than legitimate surrender would weaken America’s resolve to kill or capture bin Laden. Nor would the Americans be leaving the Tora Bora area before that job was done.
“After this meeting, the bombs will start falling again,” George pledged.
In fact, even though the Muslim armies on the battlefield were conducting their cease-fire, the Americans and British had never agreed to it, so some bombs were being called by the boys in OP25-A and 25-B on the higher elevations. No fighter, bomber, or gunship would return home still carrying ammunition, but without the forward observation posts, much of the target area was hidden.
Zaman said a dozen Algerians were ready to surrender immediately but feared that the American commandos would kill them on the spot. The Algerians demanded permission to retain their rifles but would come off the mountain with weapons slung across their backs.
My turn. “No weapons, or risk being shot by my men. No conditions whatsoever,” I responded.
I shook my head side to side and smirked, essentially signaling that I thought Zaman was full of shit. Looking at me incredulously, he asked, “Commander Dalton, why do you not accept surrender? In every war surrender is an option.”
We were tired of his showmanship, and I answered, “Haji Zaman, you grossly underestimate our resolve here.
