Combat Ops

became more worn, and my spirit seemed harder to kindle.

When I raised my right hand and they swore me in, I never thought I’d have to wrap my head around no-win situations in which everyone I dealt with was a liar, in which my own institution was undermining my ability to get the job done, and in which my own friends had drawn lines in the sand based on philosophical differences.

Before my mother had died from cancer, she’d held my hand and told me to make the best of my life.

I figured she was rolling over in her grave when they started calling me a murderer…

Treehorn had a good ear and better eyes, and I glanced back to where he’d spotted the movement along the mountainside. My night-vision goggles revealed two Taliban fighters peering out from behind a pair of rocks, but before I could get on the radio and issue an order, Beasley appeared from behind a few rocks and slipped down toward the Taliban thugs. As they turned back, he took one out with his Nightwing black tungsten blade while Nolan, who dropped down at Beasley’s side, broke the neck of the other fighter.

Beasley called me and said, “Looks like only two up here, boss. Clear now.”

I called up Ramirez, who was packing our portable, ultrawide-band radar unit that could detect ground movement up to several hundred meters away. I’d considered leaving the device behind in case we got zapped again, but now I was glad we had it. I hadn’t expected sentries this far up into the mountains. Within a minute Ramirez would be scanning the outskirts of the town.

Off to the northeast, along a section of wall that was beginning to crumble, a pair of jingle trucks were parked abreast. The trucks were colorfully painted and adorned with pieces of rugs, festooned with chimes, and fitted with all sorts of other dangling jewels that created quite a racket as they traveled down the potholed roads between villages. These trucks had become famous and then infamous among American soldiers. They were typically used by locals to transport goods, but in more recent years they had become instruments to smuggle drugs and weapons across the borders with Iran and Pakistan. Thugs would hide weapons within stacks of firewood or piles of rugs, and young infantrymen would have to search the loads while wizened old men glared on, palms raised as they were held at gunpoint. I must’ve seen a hundred roadside incidents of search and seizure during my time in country.

That Zahed had several of these trucks in the village was unsurprising. That there was a man posted in the back of one truck and pointing his rifle up at us gave me pause.

Treehorn already had him spotted with his scope, and he’d attached the gun’s big silencer, so he could do the job in relative quiet.

I told him to wait while I scanned for more targets.

“Ghost Lead, this is Ramirez,” came the voice in my headset.

“What do you got?”

“Just the one guy in the jingle truck so far. The compound we hit looks empty. Picking up movement from all the farm animals in the pens. Nothing else, over.”

“Roger that. Hume, talk to me about the drone.”

“Nothing. Just flying around. If they’re here, they’re not taking the bait. Not yet, anyway.”

“All right, just keep flying over the town. Maybe get in close to the mosque.”

“I see it. I’ll get near the dome and towers.”

“Ghost Lead, this is Treehorn, I have my target.”

“I know you do. Hang tight for now. Still want to see if they take the bait, over.”

“Roger that. Say the word.”

I continued scanning the village, which stretched out for about a quarter kilometer, swelling to the south with dozens more brick homes that had open windows and rickety wooden ladders leading up to storage areas on the roofs. Most windows were dark, with only a faint flickering here and there from either candles or perhaps kerosene or gas lanterns. I imagined that somewhere down there, sprawled across a bed whose legs were buckling under his girth, was the fat man who wielded all the power in this region.

“Still no takers on the drone,” reported Hume.

I listened to the wind. Glanced around once more. Scanned. Saw the shooter still sitting there in the truck. Time to move in.

“Treehorn, clear to fire,” I said.

“Clear to fire, roger that, stand by…”

I held my breath, anticipated the faint click and pop, no louder than the sound of a BB gun, and watched through the binoculars as the gunman in the jingle truck slumped.

“Good hit, target down,” reported Treehorn.

“Ghost Team, this is Ghost Lead. Advance to the wall. Hume, get that drone in deeper, and feel ’em out. Two teams. Alpha right, Bravo left. Move out!”

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I was an adrenaline junkie and that this part of the job quickened my pulse and was entirely addictive. You stayed up nights thinking about moments like this. And there was no better ego-stroking in the world than to play God, to decide who lives and who dies. There was nothing better than the hunting of men, Ernest Hemingway had once said, and the old man was right.

But I always stressed to my people that they had to live with their decisions, a simple fact that would become terribly ironic for me.

“Ghost Lead, this is Ramirez. Radar’s picking up something big behind us.”

“Ghost Lead, this is Brown. Paul and I are all set here, but FYI, two Blackhawks inbound, your position, over.”

Even as he finished his report, the telltale whomping began to echo off the mountains, like an arena full of people clapping off the beat, and abruptly the two helicopters appeared, both switching on searchlights that panned across the desert floor like pearlescent lasers.

“Ghost Team, take cover now!” I cried, dodging across the sand toward the jingle trucks.

Ramirez, Jenkins, and Hume rushed up behind me, while Nolan, Beasley, and Treehorn darted for a large section of fallen wall, the crumbling bricks forming a U-shaped bunker to shield them.

“Hume, bring back the drone,” I added. Then I switched channels to the command net. “Liberty Base, this is Ghost Lead, over.”

“Go ahead, Ghost Lead,” came the radio operator back at FOB Eisenhower.

“I want to talk to Liberty Six right now!” I could already see myself grabbing Harruck by the throat.

“I’m sorry, Ghost Lead, but Liberty Six is unavailable right now.”

I cursed and added, “I don’t care! Get him on the line!”

Meanwhile, Ramirez, who like all of us had received Air Force combat controller training, gave me the hand signal that he’d made contact with one of the chopper pilots, as both helicopters wheeled overhead, waking up the entire village. I listened to him speak with that guy while I waited.

“Repeat, we are the friendly team on the ground. What is your mission, over?”

I leaned in closer to hear his radio. “Ground team, we were ordered to pick you up at these coordinates, over.”

Ramirez’s eyes bulged.

“Tell him to evac immediately,” I said. “We do not need the goddamned pickup.”

Ramirez opened his mouth as a flurry of gunfire cut across the jingle truck, and even more fire was directed up at the two Blackhawks, rounds sparking off the fuselages.

With a gasp, I realized there had to be twenty, maybe thirty combatants laying down fire now.

I knew the choppers’ door gunners wouldn’t return fire. Close Air Support had become as rare as indoor plumbing in Afghanistan because of both friendly fire and civilian casualty incidents, so those pilots would just bug out. Which they did.

Leaving us to contend with the hornet’s nest they had stirred up.

“What do you think happened?” Ramirez cried over the booms and pops of AK-47s.

“Harruck figured out a way to abort our mission,” I said through my teeth. “He’ll call it a miscommunication, and he’ll remind me that I needed company support. But those birds had to come all the way from Kandahar — what a waste!”

“Well, he didn’t screw up our entire mission,” said Ramirez, then he flashed a reassuring grin. “Not yet!”

A breath-robbing whistle came from the right, and I couldn’t get the letters out of my mouth fast enough: “RPG!”