Someone to his right whistled back. He rose with his HK416 ready and tried peering through the swirling mass of snow. In a crouch he proceeded another five feet, until he saw a blurry dark shape standing beside a collapsed stone wall.
“You Chief Crocker?” the voice asked through wind.
“That’s right, who are you?”
“Lance Corporal Novak, sir, of Alpha Company. Welcome to OP Memphis, otherwise known as the House of Blues.”
Chapter Two
If you’re going through hell, keep going.
– Winston Churchill
Several tense, difficult minutes later, minutes spent climbing down a rope ladder and sliding down the face of slippery rocks, the seven SEALs arrived in Station Presley, the post’s main building and observation point, built on a narrow finger of rock that jutted over the Kunar Valley. The structure was roughly twenty-five by fifteen feet, built of rough-hewn logs, stone, and concrete, reinforced with metal Conex panels and sandbags.
The room itself was a chaotic mess strewn with the debris of battle. Twin M2HGs and an M240.50 caliber machine gun fired at Taliban attackers below and to the right, spitting hot casings onto the concrete floor, which was slick with blood, spilled oil, and water. About a dozen soldiers crouched before slits in the forward wall, firing M4s, M5s, M27s, MP7s, and HK416s. Others, including an Afghan, screamed over the pounding of weapons into radios. Two army medics attended to the wounded, which included a young African American who had been hit in the face.
The noise was deafening. The cordite in the air made it hard to breathe. The desperation of the men fighting was real and contagious.
Crocker was relieved to learn from Captain Jason Battier that Presley’s location made it extremely difficult to assault from above or below. The SEALs had just spent six hours climbing a mountain, then sliding down a rock slope to reach it from the west. Its east side, which faced the valley, fell off into two thousand feet of sheer cliff. About a hundred feet below and two hundred feet south of Presley sat another small grassy plateau that housed two barracks, known as King and Wolf.
At the foremost tip of that plateau another rocky cliff descended an additional hundred feet to a U-shaped band of land that swept around the entire east, north, and south faces of the promontory.
“Where’s the officer in charge?” Crocker asked.
Battier pointed to a body at the back of the room covered with a sheet of blue plastic.
“But I just spoke to him.”
“About two minutes ’fore you got here,” he said in a thick Cajun accent, “he caught a round in the head.”
Captain Battier continued, explaining that the narrow U-shaped band of land below was the location of the post’s four guard stations, named A, B, C, and D. Stations A and B-directly below Presley and to the left-had taken the brunt of the initial Taliban attack, which had been launched approximately seven hours ago. Both A and B had recently been overrun, resulting in the death of six Pennsylvania national guardsmen, five marines, six members of the army’s Alpha Company, and an undetermined number of Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers.
“Where’s the hottest action now?” Crocker asked.
“The Taliban are directing everything at Stations C and D. Once they fall, they’ll have easy access to King and Wolf, to our right,” Battier said, pointing to a chart on the wall. “Once King and Wolf go, we’re fucked.”
He was a wiry, tall fellow with a prominent nose and several days’ worth of light brown growth on his face. His camouflage-covered FAST Ballistic Helmet was pulled low over long, narrow eyes.
“They’re not going to fall,” Crocker said.
“Why?”
“We won’t let ’em.”
“Okay.”
“How many men do you have fighting at Stations C and D, and what are you planning to do to reinforce them?”
An RPG round glanced off the roof and exploded, stinging their ears.
Captain Battier shook his head as if to get it to restart and pointed to his right. “How many men we got out there? Fifteen maybe. Another five or six injured. Three dead. But as you can see, chief, we’re spread so thin. I only got eight men guarding King and Wolf. That’s where our supplies are. Maybe we should think of pulling back.”
“We’re not pulling back. Who’s in charge down there?”
“Marine Staff Sergeant Perez. A tough Chicano, former gangbanger from East L.A. Crazy motherfucker.”
Crocker said, “I need you to send a medic and a couple of soldiers to retrieve an injured teammate of mine.”
“Where?”
“I’ll draw a map.”
As they conversed, an Afghan officer in a crisp green uniform spoke into a push-pull radio. “Who’s he?” Crocker asked.
“He’s our ANA coordinator. His name is Major Jawid Mohammed. We call him Weed.”
“How many men does he have here?” Crocker asked, noting that Weed was a handsome man of about five feet seven, with a short black beard and, like most Afghans, compelling eyes.
“Weed? Shit, I don’t know. Yo, Weed, how many men you got?”
The Afghan frowned when he heard Battier’s question, clutched the radio under his arm, and held up eight fingers.
“That all?” Crocker asked.
“About fifteen of ’em ran soon as the battle started,” Battier answered.
“What’s Jalalabad telling you about the storm?” Crocker asked.
Another rocket-launched grenade exploded into the south wall, throwing back two marines who had been firing through the closest port window and sending smoke and shards of rock and wood flying inside.
Crocker helped one of the marines to his feet. He had several long splinters of wood stuck in his face, which made him look like a character from a slasher movie. “You know where you are, son?” Crocker asked.
“Does it matter?” the marine grunted back. He retrieved his weapon, returned to his position, and resumed firing.
The second marine was sitting up and shaking his head. He asked no one in particular, “Don’t these people ever fucking stop?” An army medic knelt beside him and gave him water.
“The weather’s bad, chief,” Battier said. “Not looking good at all. Jalalabad is saying another four hours minimum before they can launch a single drone. Six, seven maybe before a bird can make it up here. Four more hours, we’ll all be dead.”
Crocker grabbed the front of his camouflage jacket. “Don’t talk like that. You hear me?”
“Chief?”
Technically the captain outranked him. In spite of that Crocker growled, “Man up, Captain. Your men are counting on you.”
“Yes.”
Crocker motioned to Akil to join them. Then, nodding toward Weed, who continued talking into the radio, he asked, “Who’s he talking to?”
Akil listened and answered, “He’s speaking in some strange local dialect, boss. I don’t know.”
“Any idea what he’s saying?”
Crocker imagined for a moment that he heard the blades of an approaching helicopter, but it was the pop-pop-pop of one of the big guns.
“I think he’s talking about us,” Akil answered. “You know, the arrival of seven more Americans.”
Crocker nodded, then turned to Battier and said, “My men and I are going down below to relieve Stations C and D. I’m counting on you to keep order up here. Concentrate your fire on the enemy attacking C and D.”
Battier said, “Okay, chief. But how are you planning to get there?”
“The fastest way possible,” Crocker responded, pulling on his pack and grabbing his HK416.
Battier said, “Jonesy’s our best climber. He’ll show you. Jonesy, yo!”
A tall African American kid with a shaved head stopped firing his MK19 automatic grenade launcher, walked over, and removed the purple plastic plugs from his ears. “What’s up, Captain?”