Operation Dark Heart

by Anthony Shaffer

  Just as I moved toward the door, I heard the command.

  “Team Alpha, go.” The SEAL team leader’s voice in the helo came in clear over the radio, over a low, but distinctive, hum. The speaker chirped a couple of times with static.

  I decide to loiter to hear the outcome—and hoped it would be good, both for the sake of the HUMINT collection effort and my own ass with McChrystal.

  There were multiple transmissions—conversations all going on at once—nothing I could really discern. Then an eerie silence.

  Well, that probably meant someone got killed. More undecipherable, overlapping voices, and then another break.

  “Clear,” came the last call.

  The team leader radioed in that they had secured the compound without killing anybody, capturing six individuals. Three were suspected Hekmatyar lieutenants. There seemed to be a collective sigh and smiles all through the room. I started to move toward the door and felt good that we had played some small role in the effort.…

  “In the wall,” we heard.

  Just as I moved to go to the door, an excited voice broke in from one of the helicopters.

  “They’ve got a runner. He’s now observable.”

  The runner had taken a back way out of the compound and headed for the mountains.

  Somebody had escaped. But who? In the TOC, the intel guys were starting to formulate questions for the team leader in the helo to get a spot rep on who exactly they had captured.

  Who do they think got out? The team leader relayed the question to the guys on the ground.

  A few minutes went by, and then we heard the team leader’s voice.

  “We don’t have the target. The prime target is not here.”

  “The runner,” said the SEAL commander in the TOC. “Do you have the runner in your sights?”

  “Yeah, we got him,” came back the answer. “We see him.”

  “Can you take him out?”

  A brief pause.

  “Yeah, he can. He’s got a clear shot.”

  “Is there any chance the ground team can capture him?”

  A brief delay.

  “No, we don’t think so. He’s got too much of a lead.”

  Everyone looked around the room.

  “Take him out,” said the SEAL commander in the TOC.

  “Roger.”

  A thirty-second delay.

  “OK, he’s down.”

  “Is he still alive?”

  “Can’t tell. We’ll have someone to him in less than ten minutes.”

  The TOC SEAL commander looked pissed.

  “What the …? Why is it going to take ten minutes?”

  “We’re still trying to secure the compound, sir. Give us a minute.”

  It only took them five minutes to reach the guy.

  “OK. We’re there.”

  “What do you got?”

  “It’s him. It’s the guy we were after. He’s dead.”

  “Do you need us to do site exploitation with the FBI team later today?” I asked.

  “Stand by,” said the SEAL team leader on the helo.

  A minute went by.

  “Affirmative. If they want to bring the guys out of Jalalabad to do the exploitation, that’s fine. We’ll maintain security until then. How soon can they be here?”

  The commander looked at me.

  “Depends on your aviation,” I said. “When you guys can get them out there. Let’s go talk to Keller.”

  “Fair enough,” he said.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. While they hadn’t gotten Hekmatyar, they had taken out one of the senior guys and rolled up a couple of junior lieutenants, so at least the change of mission would alleviate General McChrystal’s concern about refocusing the resources.

  The FBI got to the site by late the next day and found material that provided critical info about additional safe havens relating to Hekmatyar and bin Laden. The problem was, it was all stuff on the Pakistan side of the border.

  We were back to that again. Pakistan.

  22

  “THEY’RE REALLY PISSED AT YOU”

  DECEMBER, like a cold banshee from the iciest parts of the surrounding mountains arrived, yet leaving Bagram to go back to the States was bittersweet. Even after extending twice, my six-month tour was now up.

  As the days ticked down, I spent long hours running along Disney Boulevard (named after a fallen soldier, Jason Disney, not the amusement-park company). My knee was still swollen and sore from my awkward landing coming off that helo in ******, but I needed those runs to clear my head.

  As I passed the 1099 compound and the 180 headquarters, I thought about how I would miss this place that I had become so familiar with. Part of me didn’t want to leave the Spartan conditions of Bagram because, in some ways, it was so “pure”—as much as chaos and savagery can be pure. Performing my mission in Afghanistan was the culmination of twenty years of training and working. It was the nexus of everything I had been taught and everything I had been born to do. In a way, it had all come together: the right people at the right place at the right time in a desperate battle based sometimes on flawed policy decisions.

  Hell, there had even been several times when I was the happiest I’d ever been in my life and, at those times, there was not a place on the planet where I would rather have been. I was doing service for the people I worked with. I believed that when they asked me to get a mission accomplished, I did it. I wasn’t seeking glory or fame; I just wanted to get my freakin’ job done.

  I believed there was a clear path forward to victory. It wasn’t out of arrogance but out of clarity. Anyone could have seen it. I wanted to grab bin Laden, and I believed we could if we were allowed to do cross-border operations. I wasn’t the only one who thought that. Back at the 180 HQ, I briefed Colonel Ritchie, on my departure.

  “Do you have to go?” he asked.

  “I don’t want to, but I have to,” I said. “This was originally a ninety-day tour, and I’ve already extended twice. If I could stay, I would, but it’s programmed in.” My replacement was already in the cue and set to arrive.

  “I’d like you to come back as soon as possible,” he said.

  “I’ll ask,” I told him.

  In a message that day to Bruce Gains, the desk officer for Afghanistan for Defense intelligence, I told him I’d like to return and asked him what he thought. I liked Bruce. He could stay calm and make decisions when things went haywire, and he had an encyclopedic memory. Bruce told me he also wanted me to go back and that his boss, Col. Greg, Bruce also thought it best that I return.

  I ran convoys right up until I left. I figured if the bad guys hadn’t gotten me yet, well, they might get me, but I’d take my chances. I worked with 1099 on its upcoming spring mission, Operation Shadow Matrix. I think the command recognized that its tools and techniques needed to be refined. Winter Strike had routed the enemy out of their winter havens, but it appeared many who hadn’t already fled to Pakistan had done so this winter.

  Everyone needed to take a step back and rethink the tactics. I agreed to think about the scout program and how to better use indigenous Afghan scouts in the upcoming operation.

  I also was asked by my boss, Bill Wilson, to try to capture the methodology that we had either stumbled on, or figured out, for integrating intelligence capability into combat operations. General Lloyd Austin, new commander of 180, had sent a note of appreciation to Defense HUMINT congratulating us on the success of the integration effort. I knew that would piss off DIA because the top bureaucracy didn’t want to see me succeed.

  The going-away party for me was subdued—just a small cookout with what remained of the group I had worked with. Brad borrowed the CIA tent, and there was a band playing that night from the USO—Varicose and His Itchy Veins or something like that. We all stood around and yapped. I had a nonalcoholic beer, while the others in the group, the nonmilitary types, shared a bottle of wine.

  The LTC had been dismantled because of fights between the se
nior intelligence officer and the senior operations officer of Task Force 180. It had been reduced to nothing more than a small cell of analysts that would put together very detailed, very lengthy reports that would be received with enthusiasm by senior leadership, who would pick it up once, look at the cover, and put it down, never to pick it up again. The information would be useless to anyone since it would not be timely or actionable.

  The original team that I served with from summer to early winter—Colonel Negro, Dave Christenson, John Kirkland, Tim Loudermilk, Bill Wilson, Lisa Werman, and John Hayes—had departed. Although in some cases, the replacements were outstanding, a more conventional, conservative thinking was taking hold. There was a return to a more conventional approach—nothing cross border—that focused on securing locations rather than going after the enemy. Essentially, it was a defensive, rather than an offensive, posture.

  Aside from the challenges I was leaving behind in Afghanistan, I had some upcoming issues in my personal life. Rina and I had agreed to spend some time together over the holidays and see if anything was still there. Rina. She was such a free spirit. She’d had her doubts about settling down. When it came to kids, I wanted more; she wasn’t sure. Despite that, we decided to try our relationship again. She had put together a dynamite trip to New York City: to hang out in Chinatown for a few days, then on to a remote bed-and-breakfast in upstate New York afterward. One-on-one time would do us good … or bad … one way or another, time would serve as a catalyst to answer the question of our future.

  Then there was Kate. We spent my last night in Afghanistan together at the Safe House. No sleep. No sex. We just lay awake and held each other. Just as the first gray rays of light crept to the top of the window, came the unforgettable, haunting call to prayer from the mosque across the street from the House. Both of us knew this was coming to an end, and that real life was about to return.

  I felt changed, from the inside out. I was finally able to accept myself for who I was. Maybe it was because I’d never known my real dad that I had kept trying to prove I was a man with high-risk behaviors—always thinking that if I survived, I must be worthy and a good guy. The ghosts that had chased me and pushed me to “prove” my worth were gone. Maybe it was the first time I felt complex. I was more flexible—and less fearful—dealing with life.

  I went through the CIA pipeline to get back to the States, flying on a **********-chartered flight from ***** ** ********* *********** DoD case officers were allowed to travel there to decompress during our tour, but I’d never taken them up on it. There were troops in Afghanistan for a full year. If I was there only six months, why should I get R&R and not them? Didn’t make much sense.

  As I looked out the window of the Bombardier turboprop aircraft, my mind still going at 100 miles an hour, I kept thinking about Dark Heart. If I went back to Afghanistan, I might be able to influence events so that they led more in that direction in ’04. **** ** ********** * *** ** *** **** *** ******** ** **** ******** Always a strange disorientation at first to answer again to my real name, no matter how many times I made the switch.

  Bruce Gains walked me down to navy Capt. Mike Anderson’s office. He was about to become the chief of DH03, the Pacific division of Defense HUMINT, which included the Mideast. Gregarious and friendly, Captain Anderson was becoming a skilled inside operator in DIA. He knew how to work the system, though he’d come out of *** and didn’t have a history with the bureaucracy within Defense intel. He’d seen the request from Colonel Ritchie and recommended that I be sent back to Afghanistan out of cycle. Colonel Becker, who was being replaced by Anderson, seconded that idea. That was a shocker; Colonel Becker was usually one of my adversaries at DIA and had even originally opposed my deployment.

  Before going back, however, Captain Anderson wanted me to work on the desk for a couple of months because Ward was being transferred to another unit down at Fort Belvoir. I agreed, as long as it was a temporary assignment and I could get back to Afghanistan for the spring surge.

  Before starting my temporary assignment, I took three weeks off to decompress. Rina and I took the trip to New York. I thought about the war and Kate. She was so young and so certain about where she wanted to go with her life. I had turned into her mentor rather than her lover—probably a better role for a long-term relationship and one surely to be less dramatic.

  Rina and I began to be comfortable about being real with each other and were upfront about the relationships we’d had. I told her about Kate, and she told me about the romance she’d developed but had ended. We decided there would be no pressure this time around. We would enjoy the moment and see what came of it. Yet I had this feeling of hope, of being accepted for who I was without regard for the past or the future. I made the same effort with Rina.

  On the train ride to New York City, we sat across from Tony Snow and his family. A former speechwriter for President Bush, he was just starting his new radio show on Fox News Radio. We talked about the war. I told him I’d refused to shake Geraldo Rivera’s hand when I ran into him at Bagram as he came out of a Porta-John. “Smart move,” Tony had remarked, “at a number of levels.”

  When I got back to Clarendon, things started to get weird.

  Captain Anderson called me into his office. Something seemed different.

  “I know you want to go back, and I know they want you back, but DIA leadership is very concerned about the Inspector General issues.”

  I was under investigation by the DIA IG, although for issues that were so minor that I couldn’t understand why an IG had even gotten involved.

  “I know what the IG issues are,” I told him. “They’re bullshit.”

  “I agree, they’re bullshit,” Captain Anderson said, “but there’s something else.”

  I couldn’t think of what the hell else there could be.

  “What do you mean, there’s something else?” I asked.

  He wouldn’t tell me. “There’s something else,” he repeated.

  Now I was getting ticked off. “I don’t have the right to know what that issue is?”

  “Yes, you do, but they aren’t talking to me, either. But they’re really pissed at you.”

  I figured he knew but wouldn’t tell me.

  “By the way,” he added, “they’re unhappy that you got the Bronze Star.”

  That blew me away. I’d earned that damned thing.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.

  “Nope, I’m not,” he said. “They’re trying to figure out a way to pull it back.”

  “They can’t do that,” I shot back.

  Captain Anderson said their position was that any award given to someone serving in a DIA billet overseas should be processed through DIA.

  “Captain, I know you’re navy, but that’s not how the army award system works,” I snapped. I pointed out that, by regulation, anybody can nominate anyone for an award, and the army can choose to issue it based on the merit of the nomination.

  “And, further, DIA can’t issue Bronze Stars,” I said. “They’re not a combated command.”

  Captain Anderson, who was from the navy, said he wasn’t familiar with that army regulation. “With all due respect, sir, what they’re telling you isn’t correct,” I added.

  Captain Anderson tried again.

  “I think they’re looking at it as a policy issue,” he said. “DIA wants to control any awards.”

  “It ain’t gonna happen,” I said. “DIA doesn’t have that kind of authority. Plus, as you may recall, sir, Bill Wilson was awarded a Bronze Star by Task Force 180 six months ago. Are they going to try to pull his Bronze Star?”

  Captain Anderson sighed deeply. He seemed to be staring over my shoulder.

  “This isn’t about the Bronze Star,” he said after a short silence. “This is about you.”

  Oh, great, I thought. The love fest between me and DIA continues.

  Captain Anderson tried to reassure me. “I want you to go back,” he said. “There is no doubt that you a
re fully capable and competent to return to your duties and continue the work you were doing. I do need you to help Chris Boston get up to speed on the desk. Can you do that?”

  U.S. Air Force Colonel Chris Boston had been pulled from out of retirement just after the war in Afghanistan had started. He was one of thousands of military personnel brought back after the September 11 attacks. He was a highly experienced case officer who had spent decades doing human intelligence, most of that spent working issues relating to Afghanistan and Pakistan. He was assigned to be the first Defense attaché in the newly established American Embassy in January 2002. He had conducted a successful tour there for about eighteen months.

  “Absolutely,” I told him, “but I want to be back in Afghanistan before the spring offensive.”

  “I understand,” Captain Anderson said.

  * ******* ******* ** *** ***** ********** *********** ******** ** *********** *** ********* Colonel Boston and I instantly hit it off. He told me early on that there had been a high-side (top secret) by-name request for me by the Rangers. They wanted me to be integrated with their task force in the spring surge. Since I wasn’t a Ranger, it was the ultimate vote of confidence.

  I tried then to follow up on other business left undone from my first tour. I called the 9/11 Commission, as Philip Zelikow had asked me to do back when I made my presentation to him in Afghanistan.

  I didn’t have a good feeling dialing that phone. Nothing good was going to come of this, I remember thinking. Nothing good. I knew DIA was going to be pissed off that I had talked to the commission in the first place about the problems it had put in front of me on Able Danger, even though I’d gotten approval from the army to discuss it with the commission. It had the potential for making the DIA controversy over my Bronze Star look like a kindergarten spat. Still, I felt it was the right thing to do—to make sure that Able Danger issues were fully disclosed to the commission.