by Tom Clancy
And he’d become my good friend.
“Joey.” I gasped.
“I’ll get him out of here,” he said. “Just have them cover me. I can see the Hummer down there!”
Before I could do anything, he scooped up Hendrickson’s body and started shakily down the mountain. Nolan came running up and cried, “Wait!” He was already sloughing off his medic’s pack.
“Too late,” I said. Then I raised my voice. “Everybody, fall back! Fall back! Let’s go!”
We started a serpentine descent, following the ridge lines and those areas where the outcroppings provided some slight cover from the Taliban behind us.
Treehorn and Brown covered our withdrawal, retreating only when they spotted a guy shouldering an RPG. They vacated their position only seconds before the rocket struck, heaving fiery flashes and pulverized rock.
At the foot of the hills we were met with a curious sight: About a half dozen Afghan National Army troops had driven up in a truck, and beside them was Bronco. He waved me over and cried, “Let’s go, Joe!”
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“We’re the cavalry. We’ll cover you.”
“How’d you know we were out here?”
He rolled his eyes, then climbed back into the truck as the Army troops dropped to the ditches and began firing on the advancing Taliban.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked.
“I like it when people owe me,” he said.
The rest of my guys came darting over and, using Bronco’s truck for cover, returned a few more salvos before breaking off to make one last run for the Hummer.
Two more vehicles pulled up, a big Bradley and another Hummer, and rifle squads bolted out: the security team from the construction site.
I talked to the sergeant there, handed over the fight, and jogged back to the Hummer. The earlier wounds in my leg began throbbing again.
Harruck confronted me before I could climb out of the Hummer.
I barely heard what he was barking about. I just spoke over him: “Warris was cut off from us during a cave-in and he’s missing. He might’ve been captured by the Taliban.”
“Say again?”
I did. His jaw fell open, then: “Well, isn’t that goddamned convenient for you!”
“My mission is to capture Zahed. I can and will do that without interference. Our mission tonight was completely within my rights.”
“I sent him up there to relieve you of command.”
“I know. But we got attacked.” Not exactly a lie. Not the full truth, either. “His driver was also killed on the way out of there.”
“And what did you gain?”
I looked back to the Hummer, and Nolan got out, carrying one of the HERF guns.
“This is how they’ve been knocking out our Cross-Coms. Also, I’ll be sending you a rough map of the tunnel complex they’ve got up there. We need a team to blow it up, otherwise they’ll plan their offensive against your school and police station.”
He studied the HERF gun, then faced me. “Are you really trying to help me?”
“Simon, I understand where you’re coming from. I don’t have to like it. With the all crap going down in Helmand, I bet Gordon can’t spare another guy to come out to relieve me. If they got Warris, you need to let me work on that, work on taking out Zahed.”
“And we’re back to square one, with you stirring up the nest and me crying foul.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. I’ll be filing my report. You can read it. You can suggest I’m relieved of command all you want. But I’ll fight you all the way. Keating knows I get results. Hard to argue with that.”
I turned around and walked back toward the truck before he could reply.
At the comm center, Colonel Gordon told me that they’d received a good signal from Warris’s GFTC. Every Ghost operator had a Green Force Tracker Chip embedded beneath his arm. The GFTCs were part of the Identification, Friend or Foe (IFF) system so we knew who was who on the battlefield. Warris was being moved, but the colonel said that Warris’s chip suddenly went dead. Either they’d taken him to a deep cave where the signal was blocked, or they’d cut the chip out of his arm and found a way to deactivate it. If they knew about our Cross-Coms, they might’ve known about our chips…
Back in our billet, I collapsed onto my rack and just lay there a moment, staring at the curved metal ceiling. The guys were removing gear, groaning about aches and pains, and recounting moments from the battle. I glanced over at Ramirez, who was sitting on his bunk, shirtless, with his face buried in his palms.
We both knew the talk was coming.
But all I wanted to do at that moment was sleep. So I draped an arm over my eyes and found myself back in the tunnels, as Warris confronted me with a band of Taliban at his shoulders.
“See, Scott, you never know who’s working for who. I work for the Taliban. And so does Harruck. In fact, the whole Army’s in bed with them, everyone except you. You’re the only idiot who didn’t get the memo.”
I wrote my report in the morning, hating myself with every word I typed. I lied about the time of the attack and about me resisting Warris’s attempts to take my command.
But more important, I lied about Private Thomas Hendrickson’s death. He’d been shot point-blank in the back, but no one would question that. An AK-47 had been used, and seasoned Special Forces operators were vowing that the kid had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Hendrickson was a private, a cherry, with barely any experience. That he’d gotten killed would hardly raise a brow. I couldn’t help but do some morbid research on the kid. And what I’d learned just broke my heart.
After a few conversations with the others, I felt certain that no one else had seen Ramirez shoot the kid.
At breakfast, Ramirez avoided me like the plague, and then, afterward, I asked him to join me on a ride up to see the construction site.
Oh, he knew it was coming.
“Maybe we should talk about this elephant in the desert,” he said.
I couldn’t help but snort. “The elephant? You mean the one being ridden by a murderer?”
He slammed the door on the Hummer, and I drove. We left the main gate and headed about halfway down the desert road, and then I pulled off to the side, and we just sat there in the growing heat. I was reminded of the times when my dad was mad at me and would take me out for a drive and a talk. In fact, it dawned on me only then that I was doing the same thing…
After breakfast, I’d put in a call to my sister and brothers and was still waiting to hear back on Dad’s condition. I could only pray for an improvement.
“Scott, before you say anything, can I talk?” Ramirez’s voice was already cracking.
“Go ahead.”
“As soon as you started having problems with Harruck, he came to me and Matt, set up a conference call between us and the battalion commander. Basically, they were trying to recruit us as spies and allies. They were trying to convince us that our mission was going to do more harm than good here.”
I chuckled darkly. “I’m not surprised.”
“You know what we told them to do with that offer…”
“Good.”
“But still, they put a lot pressure on us. I don’t think Matt ever caved in, but I know they’re gunning for you and gunning hard. Not sure if you’ve made an enemy upstairs or what, but I started thinking that maybe this whole mission to get Zahed is just a way for them to get rid of you.”
“Whoa, now you’re getting paranoid.”
“Scott, I don’t think I could do this without you. If you’re gone, I’d just drop out of the Ghosts. I would. I wouldn’t trust anyone else.”
“That’s crazy. But Joey, listen. None of this is justifying what you did — and do you really understand what you did?”
He lowered his head. And my God, he began to cry.
Special Forces operators never say quit. And we certainly do our best NOT to cry.
“He was going to b
urn us,” he said. “I could tell. I just snapped. And I did it.”
“Did you know anything about him? About how his dad fought in the first Gulf War, about how he’d come from a long line of military guys? Did you know he had a girlfriend who’s pregnant?”
Ramirez shook his head, turning away from me to sink his head deeper into his hands.
“You know, being in Special Forces is one thing. But we were chosen to be in the Ghosts because we don’t just talk about the tenets of being a great soldier, we live by them. We live by the creed. And I quote, ‘I will not fail those with whom I serve. I will not bring shame upon myself or the forces.’”
I guess hearing myself say those words was a little too much to bear. I screamed at the top of my lungs, “JESUS CHRIST, JOEY! JESUS CHRIST! WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know! Please don’t turn me in. I got nothing else. You know that. This is my entire life. Scott, please…”
“I lied in my report. Do you realize the position you’ve put me in? I need to call Gordon and tell him you killed that kid to protect me.”
He backhanded tears from his eyes, then looked at me, trying to catch his breath. “Why do you need to do that?”
“Because I swore an oath. Because you swore an oath.”
“If you go to them, they’ll make me talk. They’ll make me tell everything. You refused to be relieved. That’ll come out. And we’ll both be burned.”
“I know.”
“Then what the hell, Scott?”
“Joey, I just can’t believe any of this…”
“How about I make it easier for you to stay quiet. You can blame it all on me. I’m telling you right now, that if you turn me in, you’ll be hanging from the rope next to me. I’ll make sure of that, not because I want revenge, but because you’re too damned good of a leader for the Ghosts to lose. Don’t you get it, Scott? I killed a guy for you! You can’t just throw your life away now! I killed a guy!”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do. I really don’t. I thought I had enough going on already. I didn’t expect this. Not from you, Joey. Not from you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Tell that to the kid’s family.”
SEVENTEEN
We returned to the road and reached the construction site about ten minutes later. A tent village had been erected behind the half-built school, and there I noted about twenty or thirty children seated in neat rows on blankets and listening as two teachers took turns reading to them. The kids were surprisingly attentive, still wiping their noses and scratching themselves, but their gazes were fixed on the storytellers. Many of them had no shoes or simply thick socks. The boys wore short hair and the girls had scarves draped over their heads. Chalkboards stood on easels, and several small tables held other props like balls, water pitchers, and clay pots. Plastic crates brimmed with dusty, weather-beaten books.
In truth I’d gone to the site in part because I thought I might run into Anderson again. I needed a pretty face to help temper all the ugliness around me. She was watching a group of laborers erect the walls of the school on the broad concrete foundation. Just behind her stood the sandbagged machine gun nests my team had helped build.
“I’m glad you’re getting a chance to see them,” said Anderson, turning toward me and gesturing to the tent full of children.
“I assume they’ll have desks, once they move inside…”
“Yes, they will. These kids need a sense of dignity. And we’ll give that to them. We’ve made a great deal here. We train the teachers and provide the educational materials if the community provides us with those teachers. And we’re trying to recruit more girls to the classes, at least thirty percent for us to receive full funding from some of my sources.”
“The Taliban doesn’t want girls educated,” I said.
“It doesn’t matter what they want. It’s what the people want. And if the Taliban know what’s good for them, they’ll follow the example of some of the other villages up north. This works. I’ve seen it.”
“It works until we leave. And hey, you haven’t called me about these guys turning over their paychecks to the Taliban.”
“I know. I think they know I’m watching them, and they’ve become more discreet. But it’s going on, I know it.”
“All part of the great legacy we’re building here.”
She hoisted a brow and looked me dead in the eye. “When Harruck told me about trying to build a legacy, do you know what I told him?”
“That he’s dreaming?” I guessed.
“No, that it’s obvious: This school is the legacy. But we need to protect it. We need to train the police and whatever National Army troops we can get here.”
“We’ve already done what we can,” I said, gesturing to the sandbagged nests and the observation posts beyond. I lifted the binoculars hanging around my neck and panned the horizon, coming to a stop on a cluster of Taliban fighters, at least ten of them, perched on the mountainside, watching us. Our machine gunners were watching them, too.
“No, that’s not enough. We need more police, more Afghan Army troops. We need a garrison here. We need police to patrol the town.”
“Talk to Harruck.”
“I already did. I’m talking to you.”
“Why do you think that’ll make a difference? You don’t even know who I am…”
She smiled as if she did. She couldn’t. Unless, there was much more to her than met the eye.
“I know who he is,” she said, gesturing toward an old white sedan that was rumbling toward us, its hood caked in dust, its windshield wipers still working to clear away more dust. Bronco was behind the wheel. She continued: “I know you guys talk.”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss this any further.”
“I’m just telling you, please… help us.” She gave me a curt nod, and Ramirez and I stepped away as Bronco parked near the school tent and climbed out.
“You’re not looking for me, are you?” I asked.
“I figured you’d be looking for me. Buy me flowers. Something for saving your ass,” he said.
I wished I could tell him my ass was far from saved.
“What’re you doing out here?” I asked.
“Saw you. Figured I’d let you know about your buddy.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“They captured one of your men. I heard about it. I talked to a few of my contacts in Sangsar. They’ve got him. I’m sure you’ll hear from them soon.”
I glanced over at Ramirez, who just shook his head and sighed.
Though I hate to admit it now, when Bronco said he had news concerning “our buddy,” I’d hoped that Warris had been killed. That’s a terrible thing to wish on the man, but that was how I felt.
And I just knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Keating would want me to rescue Warris, the very man who would burn me at the stake when we got back.
“All right, thanks for the info,” I told Bronco. “Always nice doing business with the friendly neighborhood spook. And now, what is it you want from us, because I know you want something.”
He smiled — an unfortunate grin that revealed his aversion to modern dentistry. “I want HERF guns. You came back with two of them, didn’t you?”
“Classified,” I said.
“I need one.”
“Too late. Already turned them over to Army intel.”
He looked away. “Damn it.”
“So that’s why you’re here?”
“Among other things. We’ve got some Chinese agents in Sangsar. They’re supplying the HERF guns.”
“You got proof?”
“I got it. But hard evidence is always better. It allows me to more definitively make a move. It allows me to have my three-letter agency call your agency and get the job done right.”
I nodded. “Assholes or allies. Hard to tell the difference sometimes…”
“That it is.”
“How come you’re willing to
play nice all of a sudden?”
“Because now it benefits me. What else you need to know?”
“Just where my guy is and where I can find Zahed…”
“I’ll get back to you on those…” He winked and hobbled back toward his car. Only then did I notice his limp and the deep scar running across his ankle. What I didn’t notice, though, were all the lies he’d just told me. He could’ve won an Oscar for that performance.
I dropped off Ramirez back at the base, then headed over to Harruck’s office. I was about to open the door to enter the Quonset hut when I noticed a car parked outside and an old man, a local from Senjaray I figured, unloading luggage from the trunk. I opened the door, stepped inside, and just as the door was closing behind me—
A thundering explosion rattled the walls followed by the pinging of debris.
Ahead was Harruck, seated at his desk, talking to a dignified-looking man with gray beard and expensive-looking Afghan clothes. I assumed he was a government official of some sort, and I was correct.
As Harruck and the other man shouted behind me, I took a deep breath, then slipped back outside.
The car had exploded, the man removing the luggage lying in pieces across the dirt, the flames still pouring up from the shattered windows. I raised an arm against the intense heat as Harruck’s security people were screaming and rushing to get fire extinguishers.
Harruck came out behind me and screamed orders to his people, while the older man hollered in Pashto, then covered his eyes and began speaking so rapidly that I barely understood a word.
We watched as Harruck’s teams began putting out the fire, and the black smoke sent signals to the Taliban in the mountains and everyone in Senjaray — indeed, something had happened on the American base.
Harruck ushered the old man back into his office, and I entered behind them. The old man collapsed into his chair and tried to catch his breath. His eyes brimmed with tears.