Operation Dark Heart

by Anthony Shaffer

  TF 1099 initial strategy was to try to catch the enemy off guard by pursuing them into their winter safe havens in the mountains. Maybe they could get bin Laden, al-Zawahiri, and others. At the very least, they had a chance at picking off some of the chief lieutenants and allies. There were indications, for example, that Hekmatyar and his folks were now the outer ring of bin Laden’s protection—and therefore, a very worthwhile target. If you could find Hekmatyar, then bin Laden probably wasn’t far behind.

  Still, it wasn’t going to be easy. In Iraq, where 1099 was hunting Saddam Hussein, it was more of a traditional military operation since the country was occupied by more than 130,000 U.S. troops and the guy wasn’t very well liked among his people. The hunt for bin Laden and his types would be more of an intelligence mission because they were believed to be hiding out in the mountains—on one side of the border or the other—with help from Muslim radicals and tightly knit tribal communities that had traditionally rebelled against any foreign interference. Even with TF 1099 combat power rolling into town, there would be no more than 12,000 U.S. forces in Afghanistan—a miniscule amount compared to Iraq.

  So Keller needed our capacity for HUMINT operations in the mountains. ******* ************ *** ***** ** ** ******* ***** *** He required feet on the ground to track down these guys.

  We had people who could help, including a local governor on our payroll whose people could watch the border to see if they escaped over to Pakistan. Keller was excited about this and asked me to organize a meeting between himself, his team, and our Safe House case officers on how we could support Winter Strike.

  So I swallowed my disappointment over Dark Heart. Operational concepts tend to cycle in and out of popularity depending on timing and leadership, and I believed that the timing would be right at some point to revisit Dark Heart again after Task Force 1099 had finished with Mountain Strike.

  Or so I told myself.

  I did a mental salute and chose to drive on. “Whatever you need from us, I’ll do everything within my power to support the operation,” I told Colonel Keller.

  Task Force 1099 began arriving in Afghanistan with a vengeance. It had the best technology, the best weapons, the best people—and plenty of money to burn. I had worked with 1099’s parent element for years. *** ***** ******* ********** ******* ******* As the cutting edge of SOCOM and, in reality, the whole Department of Defense. They were **** *** always ready to jump in and perform the nation’s most sensitive, high-risk missions—and had generally done them well.

  This capability grew out of the screwups of the 1980 Iranian hostage crisis and the failures at “Desert One”—the staging area that was supposed to be used for an assault into Tehran to liberate the American hostages held there. The debacle at Desert One was attributed to our lack of a standing, well-funded, well-trained, mission-ready, cutting-edge Special Forces unit ready to jump into any crisis anywhere on the planet. **** *** *** ***** ******* were the answer to that need.

  As 1099 started to roll into Bagram, the very fabric of the base changed. It brought almost a surreal energy. At one point, fully loaded C-17 transport aircraft were landing at Bagram every thirty to forty-five minutes, spending about an hour off-loading and screaming rapidly back into the sky again. I could see pallet after pallet of material coming off the C-17s, neatly lined up and filled with enough high-tech gear to run a country.

  The number of personnel swelled. While its predecessor unit, **** ***** ** had been a tight unit of some 200, Task Force 1099 was going to have several hundred more **** *****

  They set up their initial headquarters in the old **** ***** * command center, but only temporarily. As their folks arrived, they tripled the size of the old ** * compound and built row after row of “B-Huts”—plywood buildings that could serve as anything from offices to sleeping quarters. Massive tents went up. As they unpacked and set up, tent after tent was filling with equipment and technology.

  Task Force 1099 had brought its A game.

  The largest new structure on the compound was its Tactical Operations Center (TOC), warmly referred to by all as the “Death Star.” It was a large green domed tent, which looked black in certain light. It was connected to another tent (known as the Joint Planning Area) that was the size of a football field.

  You could have staged several Barnum & Bailey circus performances in there—if you brought in enough elephants on those C-17s.

  On one end of the Joint Planning Area was the large communications room that housed most of the hardware to drive its cutting-edge ADP (automatic data processing) systems. On the other end—bleachers for briefings and planning sessions. Like fingers from a hand, off-shoot tents ran all along the Joint Planning Area tent. Generally the size of basketball courts, they were designated for single-unit activities—one for an operation center, another for the 75th Ranger’s Operations center, another for its current operations, and so on.

  These areas weren’t hurting for technology, either. Within each one were long desks full of laptops, charts, and flat-screen TVs lining the walls. Back then, those flat screens cost 10 grand a pop. It was impressive although, frankly, I couldn’t connect how having the biggest and most flat-panel displays in the whole of Southwest Asia would help to win the war.

  Most of the Ranger folks were in uniform but, as a signal of the covert nature of their operation, there were small changes to name tags and no patches of any sort to identify them. Some didn’t wear uniforms except when they were in the final planning stages or conducting a raid. Most of the time they dressed like they were preparing for a commercial for Mountain Hardware—guys in great shape wearing the latest in civilian outdoor gear.

  All in all, there was a swagger in the steps of most everyone in ***, all guys who had volunteered to work at a whole different level and thrived in the most challenging of environments. I had trained with them during peacetime in their secret training areas. **** **** ****** ***** ********* They train like they fight.

  Once you are in ****, at any level, you are expected to perform at the top of your game. There is a whole different level of professionalism and personal accountability. While all soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen are expected to perform their duty as directed, **** *** *** **** ** ****, you do so with very little supervision and are expected to show and take initiative. The initiative and personal accountability parts are difficult standards to achieve and maintain, therefore the number of people who are accepted and retained ** **** is limited. Regular troops are generally focused on “process and regulations”—and that is their job. These folks, at all levels, are taught and encouraged to focus on mission accomplishment over following a set process.

  When in doubt, accomplish the damn mission and screw blindly following the process.

  The 1099 grand entrance didn’t sit well with some organizations that had been working in country for a while. The ****** ******** ****** ****** Green Berets (army’s Special Forces)—were bitching about it because they’d spent months working in remote areas with indigenous populations trying to accomplish the same basic mission. Their perception was that their work was being pushed aside, and their perception was largely correct.

  Even so, that’s the military. One minute you’re in and the next minute you aren’t.

  I and the other Defense HUMINT folks ended up trying to serve as peacemakers between *** *** *** ****** ****** It wasn’t fun.

  I was designated to head the HUMINT Support Detachment (HSD) 1099, which would also mean functioning as a liaison to CJTF 180.

  Not that I got rid of my other responsibilities, of course. I was still running convoys for *** *** ****** and doing what-all for CJTF 180. It just meant grabbing less sleep and depleting the *** Starbucks stash even more than usual.

  I informed Bruce Gains, DIA’s operations officer for Afghanistan with oversight and management of the clandestine missions, and others at Clarendon of our intent to support 1099 its mission. There was static. I would have expected nothing less.

 
Two primary teams would support Winter Strike. I wrote two separate Concepts of Operation (CONOP) for our support to 1099. CONOPs, which are the architecture and framework for any given military operation on the battlefield—the equivalent of a business plan in the corporate world or a script if you’re an actor.

  ****** * ***** *** ** **** **** ********** ** *********** ************** ****** ****** *** *** *** ******* ****** **** ***** ** ******* ****** ** ********** ** ******* ****** ** ********* *** ****** **** ********* **** ************* **** ***** **** ** **** ** *** ********* *** **** **** *** ******* *** *** ***** ** ******** ********* **** *** *** ******* ** ** ***** ********** ** **** ****** *** *** *** ***** **** ***** *** ***** ******* ***** ** **** ******* **** **** ***** ** ** *********** ************* *** *********** ***** ** ******** ** ********* **** ********

  The second CONOP was for Randy and the house. They were both going to focus their existing operations on Winter Strike. Their case officer team would work directly for the Rangers. I would direct them on behalf of Colonel Keller.

  While all the supersecret special ops stuff looks cool in the movies, Hollywood never addresses the tons of paperwork and coordination that have to be done. In the real military world, you don’t tell everyone to be at the helicopters at dawn, and expect things to just “happen.” The reality is more sobering and slow.

  As I slogged my way through the CONOPs, I accepted the idea of going into the winter havens. It showed commitment on our part that we would do what was necessary to win. I still felt strongly that to be fully successful, we had to go into Pakistan, but if we couldn’t do that, the more we could do to stir things up, the better.

  17

  BRONZE STAR

  I was still too busy running operations and supporting the house to steam too long about the General Barno briefing, and with CJTF 1099 rolling into town, my workload was increasing exponentially. However, whenever I had a moment of free time, the tapes would start running of the event, and I’d start to simmer again, wondering if I could have done something or said something differently.

  As Task Force 1099 swooped into town, a group of us decided after a long week and a late-afternoon after-action meeting to go to the north dining facility (DFAC) to see if their steamed crab legs were any better than the center DFAC’s crab legs. The north DFAC was about a mile walk off the CJTF 180 Compound and, while getting sandblasted by the wind as you walked wasn’t fun, it was good for stretching your legs. You’d see soldiers of every nationality—Poles, Koreans, Japanese, Canadians, etc., and all ranks, from private to full colonel—walking along the sides of the road. Everyone getting equally shellacked by the wind and burned under the desert sun.

  Colonel Negro suddenly decided to join us. That was unusual. Most colonels don’t comingle with the “simple warriors.” They tend to stay together like a pack of elephants. Safety in numbers, I guess, but this time, a bunch of us—Colonel Negro, Maj. Tim Loudermilk, Maj. Chris Medford, FBI agent Ben McFarlane, and I—walked to the north DFAC in the twilight. Once there, Colonel Negro and I went through the mess line last and took seats by the wall facing one another. The fare wasn’t bad. Besides king crab legs, there was a good amount of vegetables and fresh fruit. I grabbed an apple and stuffed it into my cargo pants pocket for the midnight shift.

  After a loose session of war stories and jokes over dinner, the colonel and I ended up alone at the table when the others went up to get dessert.

  He leaned back in his chair, folded his arms across his chest, and looked at me for a minute. “Airborne,” he finally said. “I’ve been impressed with your actions over the past four months. You’ve redeemed yourself.”

  “Sir, thank you … I think.”

  “You’ve done an outstanding job,” he told me. “I’ve never seen a spook do as much as you.”

  I was surprised. “I’m just trying to do my job, sir,” I said, answering honestly. “I’m here to get things done.”

  There was something about Colonel Negro that inspired you to speak frankly. He had a good bullshit meter. “And,” I added, “I’m having the time of my life.”

  Colonel Negro smiled. “You’ve really forced me to reassess my view of case officers. In fact, I’m so impressed with you, I’m putting you in for an award. Tim is working on that now.”

  I was caught off guard. “Thank you, sir.” I thought back on my checkered past with DIA. “DIA would never do something like that.”

  Colonel Negro nodded and smiled again. “I understand,” he said, “but it’s that very attribute—always pushing to achieve the mission—that I want to see you recognized for.”

  “Sir,” I said, “you don’t need to do this. I do appreciate it, don’t get me wrong, but your recognition is fine. I just enjoy working for you and supporting the LTC.…”

  We both looked up. The rest of the troops were returning with ice-cream bars for the colonel and me. As the conversation turned to complaining about the crappy Porta-Johns, I thought about how this was one of those best-of-times, worst-of-times periods.

  The bad: Dark Heart, a major initiative of Task Force 180 that we believed would have hit at the core of the Taliban and al Qaeda, had been killed off—at least for the time being. I still hoped, with John Ritchie helping me, that it was just suspended and would be reconsidered later, but right now, it was dead in the water.

  The good: working for Colonel Negro and the LTC. And here, Colonel Negro, a commander whom I respected more than just about any other officer I had served under, was looking to reward me for work that I honestly felt was just a part of my job.

  I also thought about Kate, another first-class part of my stay in Afghanistan, but one that came with, well, issues and probably an expiration date.

  Despite our crazy work schedules, we were managing to spend time together. We stole moments for intimacy. The heavy-duty stuff, yeah—but even the simple stuff, like junior high all over again. Watching movies or sitting in the truck near the flight line, holding hands and listening to the local radio station, with jets taking off and landing. Nothing adds to romance like the smell of burnt JP-4 jet fuel coming off the runway, I guess.

  In that harsh environment, it’s amazing how the touch of another human takes on greater importance. Also acts of kindness. Once I left the tent at 2:00 A.M. with a killer sinus headache, and she came by to check on me when she came off her shift at 7:00 A.M. I returned the favor by always making sure that she had enough cigars, even when she couldn’t make a convoy to get them herself.

  By far, she was the best shotgun who rode with me on my convoys. She was fearless, as far as I could tell. Probably because of her rugged Alaskan upbringing. No matter where she was—on a convoy, on foot in and around Kabul—she was always on top of the situation. I got a kick out of the fierce way she would direct the troops to secure perimeters around a convoy when we had a tire blow (which was fairly often). She didn’t take any shit from anyone.

  I was drawn to her energy and her enthusiasm. She had become popular with the ***** team and although I didn’t push her in their direction, it was a natural fit. Her ability to keep her cool and think quickly under stress was something that would serve her well if she decided to try and join the ***** program. I thought she’d make a great HUMINT case officer and offered to write her a letter of recommendation and get her plugged into a recruiter if she wanted.

  She wasn’t sure. She told me that she had her “own plans” for her life. She never spoke to me about them in specific detail—just general stuff. She was on the road to being promoted to staff sergeant at the very young age of twenty-three and she was thinking about going to Fort Huachuca to become an instructor after she completed her combat tour. The kids coming through the school would have greatly benefited from her knowledge, no doubt about that, but I figured she would get bored quickly and long to be back in the shit within thirty days.

  Her only real shortcoming was her youth. She was so damned confident that her life was going to turn out the way she had planned it. I’d
been there: promoted young, thinking I knew more than I actually did. So then you have to learn some tough lessons. In fact, if there was anything painful about our relationship, it was to know what she didn’t yet realize—that control is an illusion.

  That realization comes with age, and we never talked directly about the nearly twenty-year age difference between us. There were glimpses, like when we commented to each other about how fate had put us out of sync by two decades. There was real love between us. She admitted it to me, and I to her. It reminded me of a line from Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice that I’d memorized in high school. “For love is blind, and lovers cannot see the pretty follies that themselves commit.” I quoted it to her once. She thought it was cute. I knew it was true.

  So, with all its pretty follies, the clock was ticking on our romance, even as the autumn turned into winter and our time together kept us warm. We both had other people and other issues in our lives that we’d have to eventually deal with.

  I would also learn just how illusory my control over my life really was.

  * * *

  It was the reality of going back to our real lives that was coming into focus. Even more so when it came time for the presentation of the Bronze Star.

  It came at Colonel Negro going-away party. His tour of duty was up, but he turned his good-bye party into an awards ceremony. Like most things he touched, he was making sure it wasn’t about him but about the team he had put together. He wanted to reward us.

  The ceremony was at the small covered outdoor-barbecue area sandwiched between the plywood B hut (we called them Haji Huts since local Afghans built them) that the LTC staff used for its recreation building and the State Department’s white trailer that was to serve as President Karzai’s secret residence if there was a revolt or coup.

  The event was pretty informal. We all stood around eating Sun Chips, Pringles, and well-cooked hamburgers, washing them down with high-quality, German, alcohol-free beer.