Raid on Afghanistan, page 6
Nolan nodded, crossed to the Lieutenant’s side of the cabin, and checked his gear, front and back. He turned around, and Talley did the same for him.
“It’s good to have you back, Chief,” he murmured, pulling hard at the webbing straps to check their security.
“Thanks, Boss,” Nolan replied, embarrassed. He checked that the aircraft intercom was switched off and changed the subject. “That Afghan guy, do you trust him?”
Talley looked up the fuselage. At the other end of the cabin was their Afghan liaison officer, Major Abdul Siddiqi of the Afghan National Army.
“I dunno. He seems okay, but I had a word with SOCOM about him. I was that worried. He was assigned to ISAF, who put him with us for this mission. His family is well connected inside the government, and they want to make a good impression with the Americans. He’ll probably wind up running a Pizza Bar in Los Angeles.”
“Or blowing one up,” Nolan said quietly.
“Yeah, maybe. But he’s from this region, so we should be able to make use of him.”
“Right. Did he have anything to do with Charlie Platoon before they were ambushed?”
“No, I checked that one out. He was in the States on a training exercise at Bragg.”
Nolan grunted. “Has he ever done a LALO drop?”
Talley shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“Two minutes,” the jumpmaster was standing by the ramp, which was slowly lowering to the full-open position. Talley and Nolan went to the rear of the cabin, next to the ramp, and looked around to check on the men. Major Siddiqi was in the middle of Nolan’s stick. In case he had second thoughts, there were men behind him who would give him any necessary push. Stick was the technical word for their formation; lines of men ready to jump from an aircraft. But in reality, when they jumped this time, it would be in a disciplined, staggered group. The technique was known as LALO, Low Altitude Low Opening. It was a very dangerous insertion technique, and different from a normal airborne drop in that the aircraft flew at a low altitude of about 500 to 600 feet. Due to the rate of descent, if the main chute failed, there was no time to deploy a reserve chute. The insertion method was used when, as now, the troops had a better than average chance of being detected during their descent. They’d all done this kind of drop many times before. Except for Major Siddiqi.
The inside of the Chinook was black as the entrance to hell. And hell was what they were taking to the enemy. They’d switched to night vision goggles, the new panoramic PNVG which doubled the field of view by using four 16 mm image intensifier tubes. The goggles were issued to ground attack A-10 Thunderbolt pilots, and to the AC-130U Spooky aircrew, as well as a selected few of the Special Forces. Including Bravo Platoon.
“Green light, go.”
They stepped off the ramp without undue haste. It was more the relaxed movement of a body of men, almost as if they were stepping off a bus. But each man was already preparing, looking ahead, choosing his space, looking for a piece of ground to drop onto. Both Nolan and Talley gave a quick glance backwards to see if Siddiqi had hesitated. But he had no chance for second thoughts, the platoon shuffled to the ramp and stepped off, and the Afghan major went with them, caught up in the tight mass of men. Automatically, Nolan was pulling the cord to release his ‘chute and surveying the ground beneath him, as well as looking around for potential problems. A collision with another Seal, especially on a night drop, could be fatal. Within seconds, he saw the hard, rocky ground coming towards him. He bent his legs and glided in for a landing that kept him on his feet. He kept moving, unsnapping the ‘chute, bundling it out of the way, and bringing up his HK416 assault rifle to the ready position. Then he knelt and waited as the others came down around him and assumed similar positions of watchfulness. Through his earpiece, he heard Talley.
“Chief, where are you?”
“Kneeling next to the cairn of rocks. I’ll stand.”
When he stood, Talley saw him and walked over. “The GPS looks good. We’re in the right place. Have you seen the Major?”
“Not yet, I’ll go look for him.”
When he found him, Brad Rose and Will Bryce were rolling up the cuff of his pants.
“What’s up?”
“Ankle sprain,” Brad replied. “Will’s about to strap it up for him.”
Nolan swallowed an angry comment.
SOCOM should have seen this coming and not sent an amateur. They never learned the cardinal rule. It was fatal to mix politics with military operations.
In the green glow of the night vision goggles, he could see the Afghan’s face was screwed up in pain. He knelt down.
“You’ll need to walk about ten miles to the target, Major. We need to be there before dawn, so you’d better swallow a whole heap of painkillers.”
“I don’t think I can walk at all. The pain, it is bad.”
“Yeah, so are the enemy, real bad, and they’ll skin you alive if they find you. Petty Officer Rose will have a bunch of pills and drugs to help out. He can inject straight into your ankle, and it’ll numb the pain.”
He turned to Brad. “You need to hurry it up. We’re moving out in three minutes.”
“Roger that.”
He left them with the Major and went off to round up the platoon. Three minutes later, they were hurrying across the hard, uneven ground in a long, snaking line, using their PNVGs to steer away from rocks, potholes, and other obstacles. His earpiece clicked. “Chief, the Major wants a word.”
“Roger that.”
He dropped back to the center of the line where Siddiqi was hobbling along with difficulty.
“Mr. Nolan, I need to stop and rest for a short time. The man I asked refused my request, but it is essential that I…”
“That answer is no, Major. You can rest as much as you like after you’re dead. We can’t fall behind schedule. If the platoon doesn’t reach the target on time, the whole mission could fall apart.”
“In that case, I will take a rest and catch you up later.”
Nolan took out his Sig Sauer P226 and started screwing on the sound suppressor. Siddiqi watched him.
“What are you doing?”
“I don’t want the enemy to hear the shot, Major. I’ll shoot you, and we’ll hide your body in the rocks. It’s the best I can do.”
“What! You’re not serious? I am an officer in the…”
“You’re a pain in the ass, Major, and a liability to this mission. If we leave you and the insurgents pick you up, they’ll find out we’re here and what we’re doing. We can’t allow that to happen. I’m sorry, but there’s no option.”
They were still walking at a good pace, though not as fast as the platoon, and they were dropping back. Siddiqi looked across at Nolan.
“I will do my best to keep up.”
“That’s good news, Major, but you’ll need to speed up. We’re already falling behind. Understand? There’re two choices.”
“Yes, I will do my best to stay with the platoon.”
When they caught up with the main group, some of the other men had overheard the conversation and were grinning at Nolan. Siddiqi saw them. He confronted Nolan.
“Would you have done it, Chief? Killed me?”
“Sure, that’s a dumb question, Major. You keep moving now.”
But they only made a few paces.
“Freeze.”
The single word of command came from PO2 Dave Eisner who held point. They froze.
“Guy moving across to the front. May be a herder, something like that. There’s goat shit all over the ground. I’ve got him covered. If he keeps moving, he’ll be out of our way in a few minutes. I can take him out if you want, Boss.”
Talley considered the option for a few seconds. “No. Let’s give him a few minutes. He may be a civilian.”
“Roger that.”
They held their positions, frozen in immobility. Under low light conditions, such as the dim, starlit landscape they were crossing, they would be invisible, unless they moved. Eventually, Eisner came back on the commo.
“He’s outta the way. Moving off from us now.”
Nolan checked his watch. They were just past the half way mark and making good time. He dropped back to check on Siddiqi.
“You okay, Major? Do you need more painkillers?”
“Not yet, thank you, Chief Nolan. That goat herder, would you have killed him?”
“Sure we would.”
“But he’s an innocent. He doesn’t deserve to die.”
“They never do, none of us do. We have a mission, and that’s what matters, nothing else. Who lives, who dies? That’s something to think about afterwards.”
“Even if the lives lost are your own?”
Nolan stared at him. “They often are, Major.”
They reached the outskirts of Adasabad a half hour before dawn, and the platoon made certain they were in deep cover. Their position was half mile from the town, and invisible under a camo net that was covered by a mix of branches and loose scree. Talley reported in with the secure encrypted commo while Vince Merano surveyed the town through the Leupold riflescope.
“It all looks quiet. Nothing moving. No, wait, there’re a couple of guys and a donkey. That’s it, no obvious hostile threat.”
Right at that moment, a loudspeaker clicked on, and a voice began wailing as the Muslim muezzin began the call to prayer for the faithful from a tower near the edge of town. Maybe the call was for the not so faithful too. They all had painful experiences of Islamist fighters. What separated the ragheads from regular soldiers was their willingness to kill innocent men, women, and children, for no good cause or purpose. Except to commit murder. For them, it was enough. In the West, people used demonstrations to make a political point. The Islamists used indiscriminate murder.
They all watched Major Siddiqi. He was a Muslim too, so what would his reaction be to the muezzin’s call? But the Major sat quietly, making no move to fall to his knees and wave his ass in the air the way they did.
Maybe he was in too much pain, Nolan reflected. It was strange, though, that he had no reaction at all. What were his politics, his beliefs?
“Okay, men, you can get some sleep,” Talley murmured quietly. They’d unstrapped the night vision equipment, and some were checking and double-checking their camo cream. Daylight was the danger time, when it was much easier for the enemy to catch sight of a threat.
When Nolan awoke it was bright sunlight. For a few moments he thought he’d had another blackout. Where the hell was he? But he realized he’d only been sleeping, a real, healthy, exhausted sleep after the hard grind of preparing for the task ahead. He got his thoughts together, and started to prepare for the mission. Some of the men had taken Afghan costume out of their packs and changed into the unfamiliar garb. The rest were still sleeping. Unsurprisingly, with the huge quantity of weapons that each man carried, they looked like any insurgent warrior, draped with weapons and ammunition belts and carriers. Maybe they carried a few more weapons than the average Afghan fighter, and maybe those weapons were more modern than most of the locals carried, but the difference was marginal. Close up, they’d be spotted straight away, but when they got close up, it would be the kind of fighting they’d trained for, quick and silent. Lieutenant Talley, dressed as an Afghan warlord, a huge, curved knife in his belt, called the men around for a briefing.
“I want us all wearing Afghan costume, so make yourselves look as ethnic as possible. Will, you’re gonna have to disguise that black face of yours.”
PO2 Bryce nodded. “I’ve brought a shemagh. I’ll wrap that around my face. I reckon that should do it.”
“Yeah, that’s good. Anyone looks too white or too black, do the same. The closer we can get to looking like these characters, the better. We’ll lie up here until twilight, then we’re going in.”
“What are the RoEs, Boss?” Vince Merano asked.
Nolan glanced across at him. With his dark, Mediterranean skin and Afghan pakul hat, he would almost pass for a Mujahideen almost anywhere; until he spoke in English or Spanish, his second language, and with a strong, New York accent. But it would be better if no one saw him close up. Nolan and Merano’s jobs were straightforward. Find a sniper stand, and as soon as the action looked about to start, kill the enemy, starting with the commanders. Talley looked at him.
“Nothing too complicated, Vince. The town is Taliban through and through. Just bear in mind that some of the women and children will be non-combatants, although many of them won’t be. Other than that, it’s open season. They’re all enemy fighters.”
Nolan looked at him. “You’re saying most of the women and children are Taliban?”
Talley nodded. “Yeah, they’ve learned to kill Americans almost since birth, but I guess not all of them. Some of those women are reputedly training for suicide missions, some of the kids too. Use your judgment, that’s the best you can do. If they look like a threat, take ‘em out.”
Merano and Nolan swapped a glance. It was the kind of order that could lead to a world of pain afterwards when questions would be asked. They both indicated their understanding. Both knew they would shoot anybody or anything that threatened their buddies. And that included women and children, so if these Afghan civilians wanted to live, they should veer sharply away from anything that might indicate they presented a clear and present danger.
“I’m going to spend some time going over the ground with the riflescope,” Nolan grunted quietly to Merano. “I want to be sure where everything is before the shooting starts.”
“Anything I should worry about?”
“Nah, I just to be on the safe side.” He left them to find a stand on the edge of their camp where he could overlook the town. Something about the mission bothered him, and he couldn’t put his finger on it. He remembered the old adage, ‘Act in haste, repent at leisure.’ Ever since Charlie Platoon had been hit, the Brass was burning for revenge. This mission was worthy in its own right and would be some repayment for the deaths of the men of Charlie Platoon, as well as a body blow to the enemy. But in his opinion, the planning for the operation had been too quick and too neatly packaged. And there’d been too much Afghan involvement. Maybe they were on the up and up, and maybe not. He had his own maxim, ‘Revenge is a dish best sampled cold.’ He pulled on his ghillie suit over the tribal robes, threaded with pieces of scrub taken from the ground around where they lay. He was invisible as he surveyed the broken ground that lay between them and Adasabad.
* * *
Major Abdul Siddiqi watched the Americans, these Navy Seals, as some moved around purposefully, preparing for war, and the others slept underneath their camouflage nets. His ankle hurt like hell, but he knew that they were right. If he’d been left behind and discovered by a Taliban warband, wearing the uniform of an Afghan National Army officer, he could have been skinned alive. He suspected they would not have shot him if he’d insisted on being left, and that the threat had been made to save his life. These were strange people. No matter how much the Afghans shot at them, bombed them, and generally did their best to drive them out of the country, they persisted in carrying out what they saw as an essential mission to save the Afghan people. So they had saved his life, despite the fact that he was leading them into a battle that they must lose, even with their obvious military prowess. He wondered where the warband would meet them and initiate a firefight that would obliterate them. It was almost a blessing from Allah when he’d hurt his ankle as he’d hoped to stay away from the engagement altogether. Now he would have to rely on the ambushers recognizing him and not shooting at him. He’d no idea what they had planned, only that he was to make certain these troops approached the town from the south, which they had. They were infidels, certainly, but he could see they were good men. Honorable men, professional soldiers much like him, although he acknowledged their obvious superiority in all things military. Still, it was a pity they had to die in a battle that must look convincing. It was the will of Allah.
* * *
Talley checked his watch, and looked at the sky, twilight. The time when it is neither night nor day, but a confused period when vision was at its most difficult. He made a quiet call on the encrypted satellite commo.
“This is Bravo. In position.”
A short hesitation, then the voice came through loud and clear.
“Your mission is a go, Bravo.”
“Roger that. Any change to the mission brief?”
“No change. Proceed as planned.”
“Roger. Bravo out.”
He turned to the men. They were all waiting.
“That’s it, we head straight in on the track Major Siddiqi indicated. We’ll just walk straight in like we own the place.”
“I don’t like it.”
He looked at Nolan. “What don’t you like, Chief?”
“Heading straight down that track with no cover. We should approach across the broken ground to the east, and curve into the town from the other side.”
“What’s the ground like over there?”
“It’s doable. There are a couple of goat paths that I identified. We could approach unseen.”
Siddiqi leaned forward, his expression troubled. “That is a bad idea. If we slink in, they will assume we are the enemy and open fire on us. It is essential that we go in openly, like genuine insurgents.”
Talley looked thoughtful. “You’ve got a point, Major, but so has the Chief. Here’s what we’ll do. We’ll approach out of sight, and come in from the other side. But when we’re in the town, we’ll show ourselves and walk around openly as if we do belong there, until we find the target.”
“I don’t like it,” Siddiqi muttered sulkily.
“I hear you, Major. But we’ll do things my way,” Talley replied in that quiet, firm voice that cut off all argument. “You all have the photo of Gemal Rahimi?”
They nodded.
“Do we have any ID on the bombmaker?” Vince asked.
Talley shook his head. “We’ll have to play that one by ear. No one has ever seen him, but we all know what to look for. We’ll capture a couple of the fighters and question them. We all know what kinds of questions to ask. Some of them are bound to know who he is. It’s critically important we get both of them, this Rahimi as well as the bombmaker, and send confirmation that they have both been terminated, that answer you, Vince?”
