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
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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 buck-
ling 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
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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 think-
ing 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 heli-
copters 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,
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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
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77
up at the two Blackhawks, rounds sparking off the fuse-
lages.
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 theyhad
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 miscommunica-
tion, and he’ll remind me that I needed company sup-
port. 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!”
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
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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