by Doug Stanton
Booker was worried about gangrene setting in. He didn’t have any bone saws with him, and he definitely was going to have to cut this dude’s leg off, or at least part of it. He reached into the sheaf on his web belt and pulled out his Leatherman tool. It did have one good blade, about four inches, serrated. It would have to do.
As Booker was studying the leg, he looked up, startled to see a pretty woman approach, her dark hair uncovered, her face pale. She looked about twenty years old. She stood at the man’s head and stroked his hair. She began to cry. She was, he guessed, the man’s wife, and in her grief she had neglected to cover herself with a veil in Booker’s presence. Realizing this, Booker averted his eyes, not wanting to offend her or the Afghan men.
One of them lifted a blanket between Booker and the woman so that he could still work on the man’s leg. He could hear him moaning on the other side of the blanket, the song of pain mixed in with soft reassurances from his wife. Booker knew they were praying, and that they understood that the man might not make it.
The explosion of the mine had taken off most of the flesh on the leg. The blast had started at the base of the foot and the shrapnel had chewed up along the shin and scoured the tibia. Everything below the knee was bare bone, sheathed in a thin coat of blood. Booker took hold of the leg and manipulated it, considering whether or not to disarticulate the knee—in other words, if he should disassemble it, taking it cleanly apart at the joint, like you would pop the leg socket on a chicken bone. But he wanted to leave the guy something, some semblance of a stub, in case he could ever get fitted for a prosthetic. He decided to cut three inches below the knee.
Booker had given the guy Nubane, an opiate-like synthetic morphine, to control the pain. But he was bleeding like a sonofabitch. Booker made up an IV drip, providing as much fluid as he could without thinning the guy’s blood too much and blowing a clot, which could result in a hemorrhage. Booker worried that the guy had lost too much blood. Yet he had to do the best he could to save him. He also knew that if the guy were in a trauma center back in the States, he’d make it. The woman on the other side of the blanket was crying and still praying. After a while, it seemed to Booker, they all thought, What’s the use? and the blanket dropped, and he could see the woman’s ashen face. He didn’t want to make her feel even more uncomfortable in the midst of this gore and suffering.
Now, as Booker sawed the tibia, the guy lay moaning gently as the knife blade made a dull whiz-whiz sound cutting bone. Usually at this point, he’d pack the end of the cut with something called bone wax, a substance meant to cap the cut. But he didn’t have any of that either, so he improvised by repacking the marrow in the center of the bone and tried fashioning a plug out of that. It worked. He wrapped the flap of skin over the stub and bandaged it. When he was done, it all looked very neat, but he sensed the guy wasn’t going to make it.
Afterward, Booker was surprised to be asked by the man’s family if the patient should eat some opium, or inject it. The family was obviously thinking of medicating him, and Booker thought, God, I don’t know. Finally he said, “I guess I’d tell him to smoke it because it would be a lower dose that way. If he has to have it, smoke it.” The relatives nodded their understanding.
As soon as Booker finished with the leg, the Afghans brought in a kid, no more than fourteen, who’d been shot in the shoulder. The bullet had entered the front and exited cleanly out the back, something that was called “a through and through.” This kind of wound was a no-brainer, and the kid was bandaged and taken away. More troubling was another young man, who’d been shot in the wrist.
Booker gave him an injection of a local anesthetic, unwrapped a pair of latex gloves, and used the wrapper as a skirt on the kid’s lap. Booker was mindful of the need to conserve supplies, and he figured that the sterile inside of the wrapper would suffice as a clean operating surface. He had the kid lay his arm on the white wrapper and then he pulled out his Leatherman knife. The boy’s eyes widened as Booker extended the serrated blade and held the knife away from him, over the bare dirt, and poured alcohol on the metal to disinfect it. Booker turned back and saw weariness in his eyes, but not fear. Booker shook his head, admiring the boy’s courage.
He pressed down with the knife, careful to cut along the tension line of the skin, on both sides of the wrist, so the arm muscle wouldn’t pop open like a jack-in-the-box. He went in with the mayo scissors and cut out the bruised and dead muscle. That’s what he knew would kill the kid, the dead tissue causing an anerobic infection. You might leave an air pocket in the suture and pretty soon the air would escape, leaving the dark, moist place without oxygen. It was those kinds of infections that killed lots of guys in the Civil War and in World War II.
Booker then packed the hole with Curlex to stop the bleeding. The best thing would have been to close the wound with some sutures for three days and then ask the guy to visit him. But Booker had no idea if he’d ever see any of these guys again.
When Booker was done, Atta’s men came up and thanked him. There was blood everywhere, on the door, splattered on the ground. Booker noticed a dog circling the courtyard, looking hungry as hell.
When he had finished cutting off the first man’s leg, they had set the bone aside, and now Booker spied it lying in the courtyard. He knew it was only a matter of time before the dog made off with it. What was the Muslim custom? he wondered. Did it have to be buried in a special way? And then he started imagining the dog gnawing on the leg bone, and he picked up a rock and threw it at the dog. “Get outta here!”
Finally, an Afghan soldier walked up and carried the bone away tucked under his arm.
Booker had no idea what would become of it, but he was relieved.
As he was considering this macabre turn of events, from across the compound came a disconcerting cry: “The Taliban are coming! The Taliban are coming!”
Booker jumped up, and Dean, Mansfield, and Highland stepped quickly from the house in which they’d been meeting with Atta.
“Are we under attack?” asked Dean.
The shouts were coming from outside the compound wall, but there didn’t seem to be a crowd out there.
Holding their weapons at the ready, Dean and the team ran out of the compound, down a small hill, and took up a hidden position in a small depression in the ground. Looking at it, Dean realized they were in a dry moat that had been dug around the compound. He strained to hear the approach of enemy troops.
Peeking above the berm with his binoculars, he saw about twenty men in black turbans walking along a trail on a ridge across the valley, about a half mile off.
They were being guarded by several of Atta’s men, who were nudging them along with the barrels of their AKs. The group disappeared behind some rocks, and finally, maybe a minute later, reappeared on the trail, this time closer to the compound on top of the ridge. Dean could see—to his surprise—that the men’s hands were bound with scraps of cloth.
Dean and his men climbed out of the moat and hurried into the compound where the prisoners were starting to assemble.
Atta walked up and down their line, speaking slowly and solemnly, as if talking to schoolboys. Dean couldn’t figure out what was being said. He talked for several minutes. The POWs stood humbly before Atta, still bound, looking at the ground. And then Atta beckoned one of his lieutenants forward, who approached the POWs.
To Dean’s shock, the soldier began untying the prisoners. The team tightened the grip on their weapons.
One by one, each prisoner approached Atta, placed a hand over his heart, and humbly swore allegiance.
When a prisoner was done, he stepped away. Then either he walked out of the compound, headed, Dean figured, for home, or he picked up a weapon and joined Atta’s soldiers.
It was clear that many of the Northern Alliance fighters knew some of these Taliban men. They explained to Dean, “No, this man is okay! He is a shopkeeper. He sells oranges. He is my friend.” Either the men had joined the Taliban against their will, or they ha
d seen the error of their ways. Maybe they never wanted to be in the Taliban in the first place.
Dean could not wrap his mind around this surrender. He thought he smelled a rat. He and the team were now surrounded by the very soldiers whom, minutes earlier, they had been planning to kill.
Atta took Dean aside and explained that each prisoner needed to be treated well, as defined by Sharia law, which Dean knew from his study of the Koran. “I will treat them as I would wish to be treated, should I ever be captured,” said Atta.
Dean nodded.
“Stay alert,” he instructed the team. “These prisoners might be fixing to smoke us all.”
A short time later, Dean’s team left Atta’s compound in rain and fog and rode all afternoon, climbing down the rocky trails into the Balkh River Valley, trails so narrow that a slip meant falling into a chasm hundreds of feet deep. Sergeant Brett Walden’s horse reared and the saddle suddenly slid all the way back on the animal, around its ass, and Walden had to grab onto the tail, above the kicking hooves. He let go and rolled off the animal to safety. He remounted the ornery animal and the troops were moving again.
Twelve hours later, they approached the wind-scoured edge of Lalami South, a 5,000-foot mountaintop settlement overlooking Ak Kupruk. Dean judged they’d traveled down the mountain about eight miles since leaving Atta’s headquarters.
Ak Kupruk now appeared less than a mile away, darkening in twilight at the bottom of the valley. Their guide turned in the saddle and told them to stay where they were.
He rode ahead with several other soldiers toward a cluster of eight houses about 100 yards down the trail. These crude mud dwellings belonged to Afghans sympathetic to Atta, but the soldiers were double-checking the security of the area.
Dean watched as one of the doors on a house opened just as Atta’s men approached. A man stood in the doorway listening as the soldiers spoke, and then he held out his hand as one of the soldiers placed what looked like a wad of money in it. The owner of the house turned, looked in Dean’s direction, and waved them on. The Afghans remounted their horses and galloped back.
“It is safe,” one of them said. “We can go in.”
Dean realized that they had just linked up with what was called the “auxiliary”—a fancy word describing the underground of citizens who were supporting the war against the Taliban. Much like the fighters in France during World War II looking for support among the local Resistance, Dean and the Afghans were at the mercy of the man who owned the house. Dean wondered if they’d been compromised. They planned to spend the night here and bomb the Taliban in the morning.
The owner of the house led them to an empty room. They were completely concealed from anyone passing by outside, and Dean saw that this was a well-coordinated plan. He and the men stacked their rucksacks against the walls and slid down next to the bundles. Unable to stetch out their legs in the cramped quarters, they slept fitfully for a few hours, until dawn, when they mounted their horses and started riding again.
They rode with the sun rising at their backs. In places it seemed the animals were wider than the trail, forcing them to step carefully, like tightrope walkers. Dean wanted to dismount and lead his horse, but the Afghans had stayed aboard and so he tried swallowing his fear. His animal plodded ahead as if led by a string. The travel was slow going. The pack animals strained under their heavy loads of American gear. He wondered how many times horses had made this journey along this path and he guessed the answer was in the hundreds. Dean looked down from the saddle as they passed firing positions carved in the rock and he thought about the men who had fought and died in them.
The Afghans grew restless and beat the struggling burros. One of them collapsed and rose reluctantly. Dean looked back and saw that one of the horses had broken a leg and was lying on the trail. Later, when they stopped to rest, Dean asked what had happened to the horse. The Afghans professed ignorance. Dean figured he’d be eating it for dinner that night.
They rode onto a ridgetop, crossed its hard expanse, and rode off the edge, heading downhill. Suddenly, one of Atta’s men held up his hand.
Dean looked around. They were exposed on a rocky face, visible for miles. They must know what they’re doing, he thought. Maybe we’re lost. Try not to be the pushy American.
Dean broke out his phrase book, hoping to talk to them in their native Dari. He looked up from the page to see hundreds of red-painted rocks scattered on the hillside. He calmly replaced the book in his coat pocket and announced to the rest of the team, “We’re in deep shit.”
They already knew.
They had ridden into a minefield.
Dean looked for white rocks designating areas that had been cleared of the explosives. There weren’t any white rocks.
Dean looked to their guide.
“Follow me,” the man said. He turned his horse tightly in the confines of its own shadow, and they rode back up the hill and turned and stopped to consider the situation.
Just then, Dean heard the thud of hooves, and riding up came a dark-haired young man galloping confidently, his hat pushed back on his head. He dismounted, walked straight up to Dean, and said in Russian, “I am Mohammed Sihed.”
Russian! A language Dean could speak.
“Thank you for being here,” said Sihed. “Thank you for helping us with our cause to kill the Al Qaeda.”
“So glad, and a privilege to fight with you,” said Dean. “I heard there are some bad guys in Lalami.”
“There are.”
“Well, I want to kill bad guys,” said Dean.
“Okay, let’s go, me and you.”
“I want to bring Boyle,” Dean said. “He talks to airplanes.”
“No problem.”
“There are land mines,” warned Dean.
“I know the way. We will walk.”
Dean radioed chief Stu Mansfield that he was about to set up a bomb strike, and then grabbed his CamelBak, the water hydration system worn like a knapsack, from which he could drink through a tube over his shoulder. Boyle shouldered a ruck containing his radios, and they struck across the edge of the hilltop, along a snow-dusted trail.
“If you stay on the trail, no problem,” Sihed called over his shoulder.
“Pass it on,” joked Dean.
“Will do,” said Boyle.
After an hour of walking uphill, they were crouched behind a rock facing a towering mountain wall about 2,000 yards away.
Snapping his binoculars into focus, Dean made out the gray, flinty edges of a Taliban bunker emerging from the rock.
He handed the binos to Boyle, who looked through them and lowered them and turned to Dean.
“Taliban or dost?” Dean asked, using the Dari word for “friend.” He pronounced dost so it rhymed with “toast.”
“No dost. Taliban.” Sihed made a slashing motion across his throat, as if with a knife.
Boyle turned to Dean. “I can’t drop bombs on that,” he said.
Dean was shocked. “Why not?”
“Because,” said Boyle, “how do I know that’s an enemy position?”
Dean was incredulous. “What would you like to see to convince you? Listen, man, these people don’t wear uniforms. What do you want to see?”
“I can’t drop bombs on them, sir,” Boyle said. “I am sorry. I just can’t.”
This was the last thing Dean had expected to hear. He knew Boyle was trying to do the right thing. They dreaded dropping bombs in the wrong place.
Dean pointed at Sihed and asked Boyle, “So how do you know he is not the enemy?”
“Well, I don’t.”
“Exactly,” said Dean. “But he is standing here, and he is telling us that those motherfuckers over there are bad guys.”
Dean didn’t exactly know what else he should say. “Listen,” he went on, “we’re never going to know who is a bad guy or a good guy unless they tell us, or someone points a gun at us.”
Boyle agreed to drop the bombs. They called in a JDAM, arriving a
t the grid coordinates by plotting with their range finders. The bomb missed by at least a half mile. Dean and Boyle agreed they’d be more successful using lasers. Dean was embarrassed.
He radioed back to the team at Atta’s and asked that someone bring forward the SOFLAM, which was the laser designator.
“And walk, don’t ride the horses,” said Dean. “There’s land mines. Be careful!” It would be dark in several hours. Dean felt the day was slipping out of his control.
Upon arriving, Booker and Highland were anxious to start dropping bombs. But they also worried that the spot where they stood contained land mines. Sihed assured them that it didn’t.
To prove his point, he ordered his men to run in circles around the escarpment, scuffing their feet and jumping up and down. “See, all clear!”
Holy Christ. Dean expected any minute that someone would blow up. The afternoon went farther downhill from there.
Using the laser, Boyle painted the bunker they had missed earlier and the bomb inexplicably flew off target and hit another bunker nearby by mistake.
Dean wanted badly to impress Atta and he felt nothing but frustration. At dusk, though, he was able to figure out the source of their targeting problem—he was relieved to learn it was not his fault.
As the drafts from the valley floor circulated during the day, supercharged by the sun’s increasing heat, the air had thickened to a brown haze. It was this haze that was actually bending the laser, so that the invisible beam of light was not aimed where Boyle pointed it.
Dean was angry about the impasse. He hadn’t eaten in two days. He’d slept little. A cold wind blew up the mountain ridge and flashed around the dark, slashing at them. Looking down from their perch, Dean saw fires flickering in the far distance, around Ak Kupruk.