by Tom Clancy
Our shadows shifted across the cool brown stone, and a faint glimmer seemed to join our light, the flickering of candles or a lantern, not a flashlight, I knew.
Treehorn paused, looked back, put a finger to his lips.
We killed our lights and listened.
For a moment, I think I held my breath.
The cries we’d heard earlier were gone, replaced now by footsteps, barely discernible but there. I cocked a thumb, motioning for Treehorn to get behind me. I gingerly slipped free the bowie knife from my calf sheath.
Seeing that, he did likewise, his own blade coated black so as not to reflect any light. We held our position, unmoving, but our curious tunnel guest still seemed drawn to us.
As he rounded the corner, I slid behind him, grabbed his mouth with one hand and, with a reverse grip, plunged my blade deep into his heart. I felt his grimace beneath my fingers, the hair of his thick beard scratching like a steel wool pad. The forefinger and thumb on my knife hand grew damp, and after a moment more he struggled, then finally grew limp. I lowered him to the floor. The guy had been holding a penlight, and Treehorn picked it up, shined it into the guy’s face.
He was no one. Just another Taliban guy, wrong place, wrong time. We took his rifle, ammo, and light, then moved on, the tunnel growing slightly wider, the floor heavily trafficked by boot prints. Voices grew louder ahead, and I froze.
The language was not Pashto but Chinese.
We hunkered down, edged forward toward where the tunnel opened up into a wider cave illuminated by at least one lantern I could see sitting on the floor near the wall. Behind the lantern was a waist-high stack of opium bricks, with presumably many more behind it.
A depression in the wall gave us a little cover, and we watched as ahead, Chinese men dressed like Taliban hurriedly loaded the bricks into packs they threw over their shoulders. So Bronco’s Chinese connection was a fact, and I wasn’t very surprised by that; however, to find the Chinese themselves taking part in the grunt work of smuggling was interesting.
There were three of them, their backpacks bulging as they left the cave, their flashlights dancing across the floor until the exit tunnel darkened.
We waited a moment more, then followed, shifting past stacks of empty wooden crates within which the bricks had been stored.
Treehorn was right at my shoulder, panting, and once we started farther into the adjoining tunnel, I flicked on my flashlight because it’d grown so dark my eyes could no longer adjust.
Somewhere in the distance came the continued rattle of gunfire, but the heavy mortars had ceased. We reached a T-shaped intersection. To the left another long tunnel. To the right a shorter one with a wooden ladder leaning against the wall. I raised my chin to Treehorn, pointed.
He shifted in front of me, rifle at the ready. I pushed the penlight close to my hip, darkening most of the beam.
We neared the ladder. I was holding my breath again. Treehorn took another step farther, looked up—
And then he whirled back, his face creased tightly in alarm as a salvo of gunfire rained straight down and he pushed me backward, knocking me onto my rump. We both went down as yet another volley dug deeply into the earth.
I imagined a grenade dropping to the foot of the ladder, and my imagination drove me onto my feet, and Treehorn clambered up behind me. I stole a look back and saw the ladder being hoisted up and away. We raced back to the intersection and moved into the other tunnel. I kept hearing an explosion in my head, that imaginary grenade going off over and over.
The beam of my penlight was jittering across the walls and the floor until I slowed and aimed it directly ahead.
Still darkness. No end to the tunnel in sight.
I stopped, held up my palm to Treehorn. “This could be one of the biggest tunnel networks in the entire country,” I whispered.
“Yeah,” he said. “Goes all the way to China.”
I grinned crookedly at his quip, then started on once more, turning a slight bend, then eating my words.
The tunnel abruptly dead-ended. Unfinished. In fact, the Taliban still had excavation tools lining the walls: shovels, pickaxes, wheelbarrows…
I looked at Treehorn.
“Well, I ain’t digging us out of here,” he groaned.
I put my finger to my lips. Footsteps. Growing closer.
TWENTY-TWO
Working as a team leader in an ever-changing environment with ever-changing rules and restrictions becomes, as my father once put it, “an abrasive on the soul.” Having toiled many years in the GM plant and enjoyed as many years out in his woodshop, Dad was a man who celebrated predictability. He did repetitive work at the plant, and when he created his custom pieces of furniture, he most often worked from a blueprint and followed it to the letter. He felt at peace with a plan he could follow. He always taught me that practice makes perfect, that repetition is not boring and can make you an expert, and that people who say they just “wing it” are hardly as successful as those who plan their work and work their plan. He told me he could never do what I did, though, because he would never find satisfaction in it. He needed something tangible to hold on to, sit on, photograph, admire… and he needed a plan that would not change. My father was a curmudgeon to be sure.
We’d argue about this a lot. But when I slipped off into my own little woodshop to produce projects for my friends and fellow operators, I understood what Dad was trying to tell me. You cannot replace the satisfaction of working alone, of listening to that voice in your head as it guides you through a piece of furniture. There was great beauty in solitude, and I sometimes wondered whether I should’ve become a sniper instead of a team leader. The exquisite artistry of making a perfect shot from a mile out deeply intrigued me.
Oddly enough, I was pondering that idea while Treehorn and I stood in that tunnel, completely cut off. I wished I’d had the luxury of only worrying about myself instead of feeling wholly responsible for him. When I was a sergeant, my CO would tell me that I’d get used to leadership but it would never get any easier. I doubted him. I assumed I’d find a comfort zone. But there isn’t one. Not for me. There’s a happy place of denial that I go to when things go south, but I can only visit there for short periods before they kick me out.
Thus, the big sniper was at my shoulder, in my charge, and I swore to myself I would not get him killed.
A figure materialized from the darkness.
I shifted reflexively in front of Treehorn as the figure’s light came up and a second person shifted up behind the first. I was blinded for a second, about to pull the trigger, when the shout came:
“Captain! Hold fire!”
I recognized the voice. Ramirez. His light came down.
I sighed. My beating heart threatened to crack a rib. “Joey, how the hell did you get in here?”
“We saw you get pinned down. So we came back up, pushed through a couple of rocks. It looks a lot worse than it is. It caved in, but up near the top of the pile we found a way in.”
“You all right?” Brown asked, moving up behind Ramirez.
“We’re good. I want C-4 at the intersection. What’s going on outside?”
“Rest of the team’s at the rally point,” Ramirez said. “A couple more Bradleys came up. They put some serious fire on the mountains, so those bastards have fallen back. I think we’re clear to exit.”
I looked hard at Ramirez. “Thanks for coming back.”
He averted his gaze.
That reaction made me wonder if he’d come back only because Brown had spotted us and left him no choice. Or maybe he was trying to get past what had happened and show me he still had my back; I just didn’t know.
I shook off the thought, and we got to work. Within two minutes we had the charges ready.
“You sure about this?” Treehorn asked. “Still got that other tunnel down there where they had the ladder… who knows what’s up there…”
“We can’t leave this open. We need to make it harder for them to cross o
ver without being seen.”
“You’re the boss,” he said. “Bet there’s another exit we haven’t found, anyway. If we get back up here, we can search for that one, too.”
I nodded. “I bet we’ll get our chance.”
We left the intersection and reached the towering wall of dirt and rock, noting the fresh exit created by Ramirez and Brown, just a narrow, two-meter-long tunnel near the ceiling. We’d crawl on our hands and knees to exit. I was concerned about all the rock and dirt between us and the charges, so I gave Brown the order to detonate before we left. He clicked his remote. Nothing. I knew it. We’d gone too far off for the signal to reach through the rock.
But then I wondered if maybe his remote detonator had been damaged by the HERF guns. I’d forgotten about that. We all had.
“I’ll do it,” said Ramirez, removing the detonator from Brown’s hand.
“And I’ll come with you,” said Brown, hardening his tone. “Could go with a regular fuse.”
“I’ll be right back.” Ramirez took off running.
“Go after him,” I ordered Brown. I had visions of Ramirez blowing himself up. “The detonator might not work.”
“Like I said, I’ve got some old-school fuses. We’ll light it up.”
Treehorn began pushing his way through the exit hole. It was just wide enough for the big guy, and he moaned and groaned till he reached the other side.
Then he called back to me, “Hey, boss, why don’t you come out? We’ll wait for them on the other side.”
“You watch the entrance,” I told him. “We’ll all be out in a minute. You scared to be alone?”
He snorted. “Not me…”
From far off down the tunnel came the shuffling of boots, a shout of “Hey!” from Brown. Aw, hell, I needed to know what was happening. “Treehorn, if we’re not back in five, you go! You hear me?”
“Roger that, sir! What’s going on?”
I let his question hang and charged back down the tunnel. When I reached the intersection, I found Ramirez shoving one of the Chinese guys toward me. The guy’s wrists were zipper-cuffed behind his back, and Brown was shouldering the guy’s backpack while he lit the fuse on the C-4.
“Look what we found,” Ramirez quipped. “They dropped a ladder over there, and he came down here for something.”
The Chinese guy suddenly tore free from Ramirez and bolted past us, back into the dead-end tunnel.
Ramirez started after him.
“Fuse is lit,” shouted Brown.
“It’s a dead end, Joey!” I told him.
“Good! He’s a valuable prisoner,” Ramirez screamed back.
Brown cursed, removed his knife, and hacked off the sparking fuse. “I want to blow something up,” he said. “I haven’t got all night.”
I made a face. No kidding.
The unexpected report of Treehorn’s rifle stole my attention. He screamed from the other side of the cave-in: “Got a few stragglers coming up! Let’s go! Let’s go!”
I ran after Ramirez, and I found him at the dead end. The Chinese guy was lying on his back, straddled by Ramirez, and my colleague was pummeling the prisoner relentlessly in the face.
Although the image was shocking, I understood very well where Ramirez was coming from. He needed a punching bag, and unfortunately he’d found one. I wondered if he’d kill the guy if I didn’t intervene. I gasped, grabbed Ramirez’s wrist, and held back his next blow. The prisoner’s face was already swollen hamburger, his nose bleeding.
“What’re you doing?” I yelled.
Ramirez just looked at me, eyes ablaze, drool spilling from his lips. “He wouldn’t come. Now he will.”
I cursed under my breath. “Let’s get out of here.”
We dragged the prisoner to his feet and shifted him forward, and then suddenly the Chinese guy spat blood, looked at me, and said, “I’m an American, you assholes!”
The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. My father used to say that all the time when referring to middle and upper management and to Washington and politicians. I was no stranger to decentralization, to being on a mission and realizing only after the fact that hey, someone else has the same mission. That my commanders were often not made privy to CIA and NSA operations in the area was a given; that spook operations would interfere with our ability to complete our mission was also a given.
That a Chinese guy we captured in the tunnel would give up his identity was damned surprising.
“I’m CIA!” he added, spitting out more blood. “I needed to bail on my mission.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Because I know who you are. I can smell you a mile away. Special Forces meatheads. I’m not at liberty to speak to you monkeys.”
I snickered. “Then why are you talking now?”
“Look at my face, asshole!”
“Why’d you run?”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“What the hell are you doing here?”
He smirked. “What’re you doing here?”
I looked at Ramirez. “Cut him loose and help him get outside, then cuff him again.”
“Hey, spooky,” I said, breathing in the guy’s ear. “If you resist, we monkeys will do some more surgery on your face. Got it?”
He turned back and glared.
Ramirez shoved him away. I regarded Brown. “You ready to blow this mother?”
He grinned. “I think this mother is ready to be blown.”
“Indeed.”
The glowing fuse was, for just a few seconds, hypnotic, holding me there, a deer in the headlights. I thought back to those moments when I was the last kid on the playground, swinging as high as I could, hitting that place in the sky between pure joy and pure terror. The teacher would be shouting my name and I’d swing just a few more seconds, flirting with the combined danger of falling off and getting in trouble.
With a slight hiss and even brighter glow, the fuse burned down even more. I wondered, how long could we remain in the tunnel without blowing ourselves up?
“Okay, boss, let’s go!” cried Brown.
I blinked hard and looked at him.
“Scott, you okay?”
I stared through him. Then… “Yeah, yeah, come on, let’s go!”
Brown and I had just cleared the other side of the passage when the explosion reverberated through the ground like a freight train beneath our boots.
Treehorn was still near the tunnel’s edge, the stars beyond him. He was crouched down, his rifle raised high. “Still out there,” he said. “Just waiting to take some potshots at us.”
“We need to get those Bradley gunners to help suppress that fire so we can make a break,” I said.
“How?” asked Treehorn. “No comm.”
“What’re you talking about?” I said. “We’re the Ghosts. If we were slaves to technology we’d never get anything done. Watch this, buddy…”
I fished out my penlight and began flashing SOS.
“Are you serious?” he asked me.
“As a heart attack, bro.”
Whether the Taliban to our flank and above us could see the tiny light, I wasn’t sure, but I continued for a full minute, then turned back to the guys.
And then it came: a flashing from one of the Bradleys.
“What’re they saying?” asked Treehorn.
“I have no clue. I don’t remember my Morse code. But we are good to go. So listen up. I’m going to make a break. I’ll draw the first few rounds. You guys hold off a second or two, then get in behind me and we’ll take the path to the east. Those Bradley gunners are ready, I’m sure. Got it?”
“Why don’t we send out the spook to make a break?” asked Brown. “He wants to run away so badly.”
“Hey, that’s a good idea,” I said. “You want to go, spooky?”
“I like your plan better,” he said, licking the blood from his lips.
“I figured you would. Hey, you don’t happen to know a guy named Bronco?” I
wriggled my brows.
“Yeah, he’s my daddy.”
“Well, let’s get you home to Papa.” With that, I bolted from the cave, drawing immediate fire from the Taliban behind our right flank. I had no intention of getting hit and practically dove for the next section of boulders that would screen me.
Once the Taliban had revealed themselves by firing at me, the Bradley gunners drilled them with so many salvos and tracers that the valley looked like a space combat scene from a science fiction movie, flickering red tracers arcing between the valley and the mountainside.
Brown hollered to go. Treehorn, Ramirez, and the prisoner came charging down toward my position. Brown brought up the rear.
Once they linked up with me, I led them farther down while the Bradley gunners continued to cover us. We were clearly identified as friendlies now.
My mouth had gone dry by the time we reached the rally point five minutes later, and I asked if anyone had a canteen. Ramirez pushed one into my hands and said, “Our boy’s got some explaining, eh?” He cocked a thumb at the prisoner.
“Should be interesting…”
The Bradley gunners broke fire, and for a few long moments, an utter silence fell over the mountains…
I glanced back at Hume, who was still sitting near Nolan’s body. A sobering moment to be sure. If I stared any longer, I feared my lungs would collapse.
Out of the silence, in an almost surreal cry, a lone Taliban fighter cut loose a combination of curse words he’d probably memorized from a hip-hop song. Once his shout had echoed away, roars of laughter came from the crews and dismounted troops around the Bradleys.
We’d never heard anything like that. The Taliban were usually yelling how great God was — not swearing at us in our own language. And I didn’t want them polluted by America. I wanted them maniacal and religious and steadfast. They seemed a more worthy adversary that way. To believe they could be influenced by us was, in a word, disconcerting.
Harruck had a small planning room, and we all filed in, unfolded the metal chairs, and took seats around a rickety card table. The spook’s face had been cleaned up by one of Harruck’s medics, and he was demanding to make a phone call.