Combat Ops

“I’m not good with setbacks, you know that. I figured we’d capture this guy tonight and get out.”

Harruck wriggled his brows. “Yeah, I mean he’s a fat bastard. He can’t even run.”

I smiled. Barely.

“You need to relax, Scott. You’re only here a few days. And the last time you were here, that didn’t last long, either. You’ve been lucky. It’s eight months for me now. Damn, eight months…”

“Still smiling?”

“To be honest with you — no.”

I shifted to the edge of my seat. “Are you kidding me?”

“This might sound a little hokey, but you know what? I came here to build a legacy.”

“A legacy?”

“Scott, you wouldn’t believe the pressure they’ve put on me. They think this whole war can be won if we secure Kandahar.”

“I hear you.”

“They’re calling it the center of gravity for the insurgency. That’s some serious rhetoric. But I can’t get the support I need. It’s all halfhearted. I’m going to walk out of here having done… nothing.”

“That’s not true.”

Harruck leaned back in his chair and pillowed his head in his hands. “I know what these people need. I know what my mission is. But I can’t do it alone.”

I averted my gaze. “Can I ask you something? Why did you do this to yourself?”

“What do you mean?”

I took a moment, stared at my empty glass.

“Another one?” he asked.

“No. Um, Simon, this isn’t any of my business, but you could’ve been a Ghost.”

“Aw, that’s old news. Don’t make me say something I’ll regret.”

I smiled weakly. “Me, too.”

I’d had no idea that Harruck was exercising tremendous reserve in that meeting, when, in fact, he’d probably wanted to leap out of his chair and throttle me.

Forward Operating Base Eisenhower lay on the northwest side of Senjaray. It was a rather sad-looking collection of Quonset huts and small, prefabricated buildings walled in by concrete and concertina wire. The main gate rose behind a meager guardhouse manned by two sentries, with more guards strung out along the perimeter. The usual machine gun emplacements along with a minefield on the southern approach helped give the Taliban pause. The juxtaposition between the ancient mud-brick town blending organically into the landscape and our rather crude complex was striking. We were foreigners making a modern and synthetic attempt to assimilate.

Harruck knew he’d never get his job done by hiding behind the walls of the FOB, so nearly every day he went into the town to communicate with the people via TCAF interviews (we pronounced it “T-caff”), which stood for Tactical Conflict Assessment Framework. Harruck’s patrols were required to ask certain questions: What’s going on here? Do you have any problems? What can we get for you?

And he’d get the same answers over and over again: We need a new well, we want you to rebuild and open the school. We need a police station, more canals. And can you get us some electricity? The diesel power plant in Kandahar serviced about nine thousand families, but nothing had been provided for the towns like Senjaray.

The following week, Harruck’s patrols would ask the very same questions, get the same answers, and nothing would be done because Harruck couldn’t get what he needed. The reasons for that were complex, varied, and many.

Despite the cynicism creeping into his voice, I still trusted that he’d fly the flag high and struggle valiantly to complete his mission. He said that at any time the tide could turn and assets could be reallocated to him.

We Ghosts didn’t have the luxury of leaving the base. In fact, higher wanted us to protect our identities by remaining in quarters when we weren’t conducting night reconnaissance, so I told my boys we were ghosts and vampires while in country, but that didn’t last very long.

I finished up a quick conversation with General Keating via my satellite phone, and he gave me the usual: “We need Zahed in custody, and we need him talking to us about his connections to the north and the opium trade. It’s up to you, Mitchell.”

It was always up to me, and I had a love-hate relationship with that burden.

Keating’s trust in me was like a drug. Sometimes I felt like he was grooming me for his own job. I’d already turned down a promotion only because that would mean less time in the field, and I thought I was still too young to rotate to the rear. Scuttlebutt about the military restructuring was rampant, with talk of a new Joint Strike Force, and the general told me I needed to catch the wave. But I believed I could make a greater difference in the field.

I guess, even after all these years, I was still pretty naive in that regard, probably because most of my missions had allowed me to turn the tide.

With the sun beating down on my neck with an almost heavy-metal pulse, I headed toward my quarters. Up ahead, Harruck was coming into the base, riding shotgun in a Hummer. He waved to me as the truck came under sudden and heavy gunfire.

Rounds ricocheted off the Hummer’s hood and quarter panels as I dove to the dirt, and the two guys on the fifties on the north side opened up on the foothills about a quarter kilometer away. But the fire wasn’t coming from there, I realized. It was from inside the FOB.

Three insurgents had somehow gotten past the wall and concertina wire and were firing from positions along the south side of one Quonset hut, which I recalled housed the mess hall.

Harruck and his men were climbing out of the Hummer when one of the insurgents shifted away from the hut and shouldered an RPG.

“Simon!” I hollered. “RPG! RPG!”

He and the two sergeants who’d been in the vehicle bolted toward me as behind them the rocket struck the Hummer and exploded, flames shooting into the sky, the boom reverberating off the huts and other buildings, whose doors were now swinging open, soldiers flooding outside.

I had my sidearm and was already squeezing off rounds at the RPG guy, but he slipped back behind the hut. At that point, reflexes took over. I was on my feet, catapulting across the yard. I rushed along the hut between the mess hall and the insurgents, reached the back, rounded the corner, and spotted all three of them — at exactly the same moment the machine gunners up in the nest did. I shot the closest guy, but only got him in the shoulder before the machine gunner shredded all three with one fluid sweep.

At that second, I remembered to breathe.

Up ahead came a faint click. Then the entire rear third of the mess hall burst apart, pieces of the hut hurtling into the sky as though lifted by the smoke and flames. The explosion knocked me onto my back, and for a few seconds there was only the muffled screams and the booming, over and over.

Something thudded onto my chest, and when I sat up, I saw it was a piece of the roof and accompanying insulation. And then it dawned on me that there’d been personnel in the mess, still coming out when the bomb had gone off. Wincing, I got up, staggered forward.

A gaping hole had been torn in the side of the mess, and at least a half dozen of Harruck’s people were lying on the ground, torn to pieces by the explosion as they’d been heading toward the door. Some had no faces, the blast having shredded cheeks and foreheads, skin peeling back and leaving only bone in its wake. I began coughing, my eyes burning through the smoke, as Harruck arrived with his sergeants.

“I’ll get my people out here to help!” I told him.

He nodded, gritted his teeth, and began cursing at the top of his lungs. I’d never seen him lose it like that.

The facts were clear. We Ghosts had brought this on the camp; the attack was payback for our raid the night before. Innocent soldiers had died because of what we’d done.

I felt the guilt, yes, but I never allowed it to eat at me. We had orders. We had to deal with the consequences of those orders. But seeing Harruck so cut up left me feeling much more than I wanted. Maybe that