“This way, Sir.”
We are ushered into the ground floor of the modern annex. The corridors are clean. A stark contrast to our uniforms, filthy from three days in the mountains. We are shown the same conference room we occupied the day of our briefing. The sergeant leaves us alone with the hum of air conditioning.
Robyn looks bewildered. I sit next to her, take a load off.
The other men relax. For them, the hard part is over. This is the usual debrief, the traditional after-action Q&A. They are looking forward to a shower, hot food, and a decent crib.
General Anthony enters, a staff captain in tow. The captain opens a laptop computer, sets a digital recorder on the desk. Reads the date, location, and a list of those present into the record.
“Welcome back, gentlemen.” The general’s tone is curt, no-nonsense. “Sergeant Trainor, it is gratifying to have you returned to us after such a long spell in captivity.
“This will be an informal session. A more detailed debrief will follow with each of you. We are under pressure at the moment, and I need to know what happened. I understand the team was separated at the bridge to Lanat. I want Captain Koenig to relate the after-action report to the time the group was separated. Breed, you tell the story from there. Understood?”
Koenig and I respond together. “Yes, Sir.”
“Very well. Captain Koenig, the floor is yours.”
Koenig relates the story from the moment of our infil on Shafkat. When he reaches the point at which Takigawa and I entered the house to free the prisoners, the general interrupts him.
“You say at this point you engaged sentries on the upper terraces of the village. How did that occur?”
“Not much to tell, Sir. Breed and Takigawa were in the dwelling. A sentry stepped from around a house on the third terrace and spotted myself and Sergeant Lopez. He raised his rifle and pointed it at us. Sergeant Lopez engaged.”
“That correct, Sergeant?”
“Yes, Sir.” Lopez stares at the general. “At first, I froze. Hoped he hadn’t seen us in the dark. When he raised his rifle, I shot him.”
“How many rounds did you fire?”
“Two or three. Short and sweet, aimed fire. I hit him, but as he went down, he fired his AK47. The sound of shooting caused another sentry on the third level to engage. After that, more Talis emerged on every level.”
Lopez’s story matches my own recollection. I was angry with Koenig for not doing a better job of concealing himself and Lopez. They might have waited at the approach to the bridge, rather than venturing onto the escarpment. At the bridge, the structure would have broken up their outlines, made them more difficult to spot.
“Carry on,” Anthony growls.
Koenig relates how he and Lopez leapfrogged each other over the steps. How they provided cover for us from the second terrace. When he comes to the shooting of Grissom, the general stops him a second time.
“Where did the shot come from?” the general asks. “The one that hit Colonel Grissom.”
“Impossible to say, Sir.” Koenig straightens in his chair. “It was a lucky shot, for both the Tali who fired it, and the colonel. The Talis were firing on full auto. Connecting with the colonel was pure fluke.”
Lopez pipes in. “Another inch and the shot would have blown the colonel’s brains all over those steps.”
Koenig continues. He relates our surprise to find Shahzad’s men had SAMs. He thinks they are SAM-7 Grails. Invites me to describe how Hubble was killed, and my rear-guard action as a sniper element.
“It was bad luck your team was separated at the bridge,” the general tells Koenig.
“Yes, Sir.”
“Only a fool dismisses luck,” General Anthony says, “but you had more than your share working against you that day.”
“It also worked for us, General.” I tilt my head toward Robyn. “Sergeant Trainor and the rest of us wouldn’t be here today had the captain and Takigawa not been able to cover our withdrawal. They delayed Shahzad’s force for more than an hour.”
The general grunts. “Alright, Breed. What happened on the west face?”
I continue the story, careful to relate Grissom’s death in a manner that leaves out Robyn’s behavior. Her suspicion of Lopez. I wait for the others to provide further color, but they remain silent. I cannot fault them. Impressions of other individuals and their behavior are subjective. These can be articulated in one-on-one debriefs.
After our trek to the Soviet fort, the story becomes more straightforward. We were in radio communication with the general before the ambush at the village. Lopez tells of how he handled the point position.
“I was wary of an ambush,” Lopez says. “That village gave me the creeps. I went past it like I was walking on eggs. I saw a shadow move in the tree line and hit the deck. Next thing I knew, they lit us up.”
I continue the story, leaving out my resentment at the general’s refusal to provide the least air cover. I tell of how Zarek’s vanguard relieved us from the siege.
Koenig says, “After the battle at the bridge, a detachment of Shahzad’s force followed us onto Lanat. It looked like they might have SAMs, so exfil by LZ Three was out. We knew from Breed’s transmissions that he was trying to exfil from Shafkat, so we tried to catch him. It was then we saw that Shahzad’s main body, a hundred and fifty men, was heading in the same direction.”
“Carry on.”
“Not much more to tell, Sir. We reached Kagur village too late to participate in the action. Najibullah’s force had already beaten off Shahzad’s attack. That’s when Sergeant Takigawa and I rejoined the team. From then on, we enjoyed Najibullah’s escort to the Arwal.”
The general should have spotted a glaring incongruity.
“Shahzad’s main body
