The rocket-propelled grenade lit up the night as it streaked across the wall and exploded at the foot of the concrete bricks near the rest of my team.
As the debris flew and the smoke and flames slowly dissipated, I led my group along the wall and back toward the brick pile, where we linked up with the others, who were stunned but all right. Nolan had found a hole in the wall, and we all passed through, reaching the first row of houses and rushing back toward them, where to our right the wall continued onward until it terminated in a big wooden gate. “We’ll get out that way,” I hollered, pointing.
We reached the first house, sprinted to the next, and then had to cross a much wider road, on the side of which stood a donkey cart with the donkey still attached but pulling at his straps. The moment I peered around the corner, a salvo ripped into the wall just above my head. I stole another quick glance and saw a guy ducking back inside his house, using his open window and the thick brick walls as cover. We could fire all day at those walls, but our conventional rounds wouldn’t penetrate.
Another glance showed a second gunman in the window next door. Two for one. Double your pleasure. Wonderful. We were pinned down.
I turned back to the group and gave Beasley a hand signal:
Over the years I’ve come to appreciate advances in weapons technology for two reasons: One, as a member of an elite gun club called the Ghosts, I couldn’t help but be fascinated by the instruments that kept me alive, and two, like everyone else in the Army, I enjoyed things that went BOOM!
The XM-25 launcher that Beasley was about to present to the enemy made one hell of a twenty-five- thousand-dollar boom, which was the CPU or cost per unit.
“Hey, wait, before he fires, maybe we can call Harruck and ask for mortar support,” said Ramirez, making a very bad joke.
I snorted and gave Beasley the all clear.
The team sergeant lifted the launcher, which was much thicker than a conventional rifle and came equipped with a pyramid-shaped scope.
With smooth, graceful movement, Beasley laser-designated his target, used the scope to set range, and then without ceremony fired.
Each twenty-five-millimeter round packed two warheads that were more powerful than the conventional forty-millimeter grenade launchers. Next came the moment when gun freaks like me got our jollies: The round didn’t have to burrow through the wall and kill the guy on the other side, no. The round passed through the open window and detonated in midair, sending a cloud of fragmentation inside that would shred anyone, most particularly Taliban fighters attempting to play Whac-A-Mole with Ghost units.
The moment his first round detonated, Beasley turned his attention to window number two, got his laser on target, set his distance for detonation, and boom, by the time the echo struck the back wall, we were already en route toward the wooden gate, even as that donkey broke his straps and clattered past us.
“This one’s a keeper,” Beasley told me, patting the XM-25 like a puppy.
Before Ramirez could try the lock, Jenkins put his size thirteen boot to the wooden gate panel and smashed it open. We rushed through and ran to the right, working back along the wall while Treehorn lingered behind, throwing smoke grenades into the street to create a little chaos and diversion.
The choppers were still whomping somewhere over the mountains, out of range now, as we charged toward the foothills, only drawing fire once we reached the first ravine. There, we dove for cover, rolled and came back up, on our bellies, ready to return fire—
But I told everyone to hold. Wait. Keep low. And watch. Treehorn’s smoke grenades kept hissing and casting thick clouds over the village.
Many of the Taliban were running from the front gate, and two went over to the jingle trucks and fired them up.
“They’re going to chase us in those?” Ramirez asked.
“Looks like it,” I said. “Let’s fall back. Up the mountain, back to the pickup trucks.”
We broke from cover and ran, working our way along the mountainside and keeping as many of the jagged outcroppings between us and the village as possible. I wish I could say it was a highly planned and skillful withdrawal performed by some of the most elite soldiers in the world.
But all I can really say is… we got the hell out of there.
Up near the mountaintop road, we climbed breathlessly into the pickup trucks as down below, headlights shone across the dirt road. My binoculars showed the pair of jingle trucks and two more pickups with fifty-caliber guns mounted on their flatbeds. I breathed a curse.
Since Harruck had already sabotaged my mission, I decided not to throw any more gasoline on the fire. We wouldn’t engage those guys unless absolutely necessary.
Treehorn took us down the mountain road at a breakneck pace, and I was more frightened by his driving than by the Taliban on our tails. The pickup literally came up on two wheels as we cut around a narrow cliff side turn, and that drew swearing from everyone as the road seemed to give way in at least two spots.
“This thing’s got some power,” Treehorn said evenly.
We came down the last few slopes and turned onto the dirt road leading up to the bridge. With our headlights out, Smith and Brown were watching us with their NVGs and gave us a flash signal. We found them at the foot of the bridge, and Brown climbed in the back of our truck.
“Good to go, Captain,” he said. “Just give me the word.”
“Soon as we cross,” I told him.
“You don’t want to wait and take them out, too?” he asked, cocking a thumb over his shoulder.
“Nah, it’s okay. This’ll be enough.”
A double thud worked its way up into the seats, and we left the bridge and crossed back onto the sand.
“All right,” I cried back to Brown. “Blow that son of a bitch!”
He worked his remote, and the C-4 that he and Smith had expertly planted along the bridge’s pylons detonated in a rapid sequence of thunderclaps that shook both the ground and the pickups themselves. Magnesium-bright flashes came from beneath all that concrete, and just as the smoke clouds began to rise, the center section of the bridge simply broke off and belly flopped into the ink-black water, sending waves rushing toward both shorelines.
The drivers of the jingle trucks must have seen the explosions and bridge collapse, but the guy in the lead truck braked too hard, and the truck behind him plowed into his rear bumper, sending him over the edge where the concrete had sheared off. He did a swan dive toward the river, while the second guy attempted to turn away, but he rolled onto his side and slid off the edge. Three, two, boom, he hit the water.
Behind them, the two pickups with machine gunners came to brake-squealing halts and paused at the edge so that the drivers and gunners could stare down in awe at the sinking trucks—
As we raced off toward Senjaray in the distance.
EIGHT
While I was blowing up bridges and trying to hunt down my target, the president of Afghanistan was in the United States, making speeches about how his government and the United States needed to build bridges in order to unite his people. He argued that not all Taliban were linked to terrorist groups like al Qaeda and that many Taliban wanted to lay down their arms and reach reconciliation with the national government.
That may have been true. But I wanted to know how you sorted out the friendly Taliban from the ones wiring themselves with explosives, even as the Afghan president allied himself with his neighbors: Iran and Pakistan, nations that served as training grounds and safe havens for those wanting to destroy the United States.
Everyone had answers that involved false assumptions, sweeping generalizations, and a skewed understanding of the complexities, contradictions, and culture of Afghanistan.
But that was all politics, right? None of my business. I just needed to capture a Taliban commander. One of the first things I learned after joining the military was to focus on my mission and leave the debates to the fat boys
