by Damien Lewis
‘Could be,’ CIA Bob answered, non-committally. ‘That’d fit with the intel we’ve been given on this area and the threat.’
‘Looks like a big mobilisation drive to me,’ Mat remarked. ‘Means this must be one massive terrorist recruitment ground.’
‘Possibly,’ said CIA Bob. ‘But somehow it just don’t feel like that to me, buddy.’
‘What else could it be then, mate?’ Mat asked. ‘I mean, it’s no village fête, is it? You see any cake stalls? You see any apple-bobbing going on down there? Coconut shies? Are the Women’s Institute down there, mate, selling raffle tickets for goldfish in bags or giant teddy bears?’
‘Apple-bobbing? Coconut shies? What the hell you on about, buddy?’ CIA Bob retorted.
‘I’m just saying it’s no village fête, is it?’ Mat countered. ‘And what the bollocks is going on down there – if it ain’t a terrorist rally.’
‘Well, let’s look at this another way,’ said CIA Bob. ‘For starters, you see any guns down there, buddy? You see a single AK? A Degtyarev? An RPG? A pistol? A grenade, even? No. An’ I don’t either. We got more hardware among the seven of us than those couple thousand Afghans down there. Now, don’t that strike you as being just the slightest bit strange, buddy? Especially now you’ve listened to my history lessons, and you know what a warlike race the Afghans are?’
‘What’re you suggesting, then?’ Mat asked. ‘You saying it’s a rally for global peace or something?’
‘Nothin’. I ain’t suggestin’ nothin’. I don’t know what it is. I got no idea, buddy. No goddam idea. We just gotta sit here and do nothin’ and watch and wait. An’ we just gotta keep on doin’ that until we figure out what the hell they’re up to down there. It’ll come to us, buddy, just takes a bit of time is all.’
‘Fair enough, mate. Whatever you say.’
‘Tell you what, though. It’d be real useful if you could grab a bunch more shots with that camera of yours. I wanna upload some to headquarters, so our boys back there can take a look see.’
Mat was glad to have something to do, so he went off to fetch his Nikon and the giant telephoto lens. By mid-afternoon the gathering was reaching some kind of climax, and Mat shot off several dozen photos. As Mat and Sam did a rough headcount, CIA Bob uploaded some of the shots back to JSOC headquarters. There were around 2,500 people down in the valley now, and every minute the behaviour of the crowd was becoming wilder and wilder. As the rally built to a crescendo, the women began an ululating, chanting cry that was repeated over and over and over again. Even at such a great distance it felt strangely hypnotic to the watching soldiers.
While the women wailed the men formed up into a long line, stretching up into the foothills. Then the team spotted a long, squarish object being hoisted up on outstretched arms and transported overhead. It moved along the line of men as if it were on a gigantic human conveyor belt. As the object passed, the women rushed forward to touch it, as if it were somehow magical or sacred.
‘Goddammit!’ CIA Bob suddenly cried out, as he smacked his fist against his forehead in frustration. ‘Goddammit! I got it! That ain’t no goddam al-Qaeda recruitment rally. You guys know what that is? It’s fuckin’ simple. It’s a traditional Muslim funeral, that’s all. It’s just a fuckin’ funeral.’
‘Holy fuck. You sure, mate?’ said Mat.
‘Take a closer look at what they’re carrying, buddy. You see it? It’s a fuckin’ coffin is all. A coffin. It’s just a normal everyday goddam funeral takin’ place in the Naka Valley, that’s all it is.’
‘You mean we’ve been uploading digital images of a bloody funeral back to headquarters at JSOC?’ Mat asked, incredulously.
‘You’re goddam right we have, buddy,’ CIA Bob responded. ‘Jesus, I should’ve spotted it hours back. It just goes to show what preconceived ideas can do, don’t it? I was seeing it like it was an AQT recruitment rally cos that’s what we’d been told to expect. Do your headcount again, guys. But this time, only count how many women and children there are down there. See, it all depends on how you look at a situation, what perspective you take on it. It could be a terrorist training camp. And they could be Taliban. They could be al-Qaeda. Or then again they could be just a bunch of Afghan villagers. And it could just be a simple village funeral.’
‘So what’s the big idea with the coffin going overhead like that?’ Mat asked.
‘Simple, buddy. The men line up and move the coffin hand over hand – representing the journey from death to Paradise. The women, hell, they wanna piece of the action, too. So when the coffin goes past they rush forward to touch it, to pay their last respects to the dearly departed. See, the line of men goes uphill towards the base of the mountain – that’s where they’ll have their cemetery. In the Muslim faith the body has to be buried before sundown on the day of death, so they’re carrying the coffin away to the burial ground. Simple, ain’t it, when you don’t view it all through a filter that says it’s gotta be a fuckin’ terrorist recruitment rally?’
‘All right, but if you reckon it’s only a village funeral where does that leave us with unleashing the mother of all air strikes?’ Mat asked. The ramifications of what CIA Bob had been saying were just starting to hit home. ‘I mean, those early-morning “unarmed combat training sessions” we were told about in the mission briefings – they could just as easily be schoolkids doing their physical training lessons. PT at the local village school. Couldn’t they, mate?’
‘Exactly what I just been thinkin’, buddy,’ CIA Bob said, quietly.
‘I mean, you ignore the pre-mission intel briefing that the Naka Valley was the mother of all terrorist training camps,’ Mat continued, ‘and then you take what we’ve seen over the past few days at face value. And what does it all add up to? Bugger all. One enemy patrol with the world’s biggest radio looking for a lost goat. And a few Talibs driving around in circles in their pickups. As for those two villages down there, all we’ve seen is one pretty wild funeral and what may as well be some early-morning gym lessons. It’s a fookin’ joke to mallet the place for that, ain’t it?’
‘Too right, buddy,’ CIA Bob responded. ‘But it’ll cause a lot of upset back at headquarters if that’s what we go an’ tell ’em now, three days before the mother of all air assaults an’ all. There’s a lot of people if they were put in our shoes would stay firm on the original analysis, so as not to cause any dramas. Take the easy path and bomb the valley anyways, just in case.’
‘What, it’ll look stupid us changing the story now so let’s go ahead and bomb the cunts anyway – is that what you’re saying?’ asked Mat, angrily. ‘You’re telling us it ain’t nowt but a village funeral. And a village school. But let’s bomb the fookers, anyway, just to be on the safe side? Is that what you’re saying?’
‘Hey, take it easy, buddy. That ain’t what I said and I don’t appreciate you puttin’ the words in my mouth that I did. I’m just tellin’ you there’s a lot of high-up intel boys who’ve staked their reputations on this one. So, if we’re gonna turn round now and tell ’em they’re full of shit, we’d better be ready for the blow back. We’ll have a fight on our hands, that’s all I’m saying. We’ll have a fight on our hands and we need to be prepared for it.’
‘He’s right, bro,’ said Sam. ‘He’s just tryin’ to warn you what’s gonna happen if we report back that there’s a school and a funeral and fuck all else to hit in the valley. Lot of big egos involved. Lot of unhappy boys back at home. But Mat’s right, too,’ Sam continued, turning to face CIA Bob. ‘No ways can we bomb the shit out of this place if there’s just a bunch of innocent villagers down there. That’d be a war crime, and it sure ain’t somethin’ that I wanna be part of.’
‘Me neither, buddy,’ said CIA Bob. ‘Listen, I’m with you boys all the way. You think I’d have told you it was a fuckin’ funeral if I wasn’t? No way can we obliterate the place on the present evidence. So, unless a bunch of AQT boys turn up in the valley with Osama Binliner himself carryin’ an atomic b
omb in a suitcase or somethin’, I vote the air strikes are off. We came here with a job to do – to gather accurate intel on the target. We done our job. Right now, the intel we have says the targets’re a couple of innocent villages. Intel says there ain’t gonna be no bombing.’
‘Too right, mate,’ said Mat. ‘Looks like the intel boys gave us a load of intel that was a crock of shite. So what’s new? Takes men on the ground to work out just how shite it really was, though, don’t it?’
‘Ain’t it always thus,’ Sam remarked.
‘You’re right though, Spooky mate,’ Mat said. ‘There’ll be nowt so difficult as convincing the fuckers they got it all wrong. Green Slime’re a bunch of arrogant wankers. And they think us lot’re a load of numpties with nowt between our ears. They’ll have a right fit when we tell them they’re full of it.’
The three men turned back to observe the valley. It was late afternoon by now and the funeral ceremony was coming to an end, villagers drifting off in various directions. It was time for CIA Bob and Mat to put together a report outlining their reassessment of the situation. The way they figured it, the more notice they could give that the target was a no-go, the easier it would be to get the air assets reassigned to other missions, which would make it easier to justify calling off the air strike. Their report was short and to the point, and once it was ready CIA Bob dialled up the satellites and prepared to send it to JSOC headquarters. But, as he fiddled with the lead connecting the Psion’s serial port to the satphone, he couldn’t get a connection. Eventually, he realised that the lead must’ve been damaged during the climb up the mountain and had finally stopped working.
‘Goddammit!’ CIA Bob cursed, throwing the lead to the ground. ‘Fuckin’ lead’s shot. That’s all we need.’
‘What’s the problem, mate?’ Mat asked. ‘The satphone still works, don’t it? There’s nowt wrong with that. Just dial ’em up and tell ’em the air strikes are off for the reasons following.’
‘Look, trust me, I know these guys,’ CIA Bob responded. ‘Without concrete evidence – photos and a written report they can place in front of the guys who call these things – there’s no way they’re gonna call this thing off. Careers are at stake. Heads can roll. No one wants to make the call. This thing could go as high as the President. And without a report and some images they can throw on the big man’s desk, we stand about zero chance of gettin’ them air strikes cancelled.’
‘Listen, mate, take it easy,’ said Mat. The frustration that CIA Bob was feeling was written all over his face. ‘I’m a wizard with me hands, as all the girls in Poole know to their delight. I’ll take a look at your lead – but in the morning, when it’s light. In the meantime, Sam, you shoot some video of that funeral. Just in case they do try to flatten the bloody place we want as much evidence as possible to stop ’em. And Bob, why don’t you make the satphone call anyway? Warn them that it ain’t a justifiable target, and that we’ll be getting the hard evidence to them in the morning.’
‘You reckon you can fix it, buddy?’ CIA Bob asked, hopefully.
‘I reckon,’ Mat replied, with a grin. ‘Let’s sleep on it. Tomorrow’s a new day. And I’ll be fresh as a bleedin’ daisy in the morning.’
As Mat bedded down in his sleeping bag and tried to get some kip, his mind kept replaying the events of that afternoon. It was weird how things could have changed so quickly. One minute it was a massive terrorist training camp, the next a couple of innocent villages. Once CIA Bob had realised that it was just a funeral he and Sam had done another headcount, which was the deciding factor. Three-quarters of the people in the valley were women and children. Mat’s mind drifted to Suzie, his girl back home. Mat knew he was good with children: nieces, nephews and those of their friends. He made them laugh. They liked him. He’d make a good dad, of that he was certain. And he’d only make a good soldier if he got the air strikes called off. He was dead certain of that, too. Just the very thought of bombing the Naka Valley now sent shivers up his spine.
After their fourth freezing night on the mountain summit, Mat awoke to an overcast, grey morning, with freezing fog blanketing the OP. It was bitterly cold, but he forced himself to get at least halfway out of his down bag, so that he could work on the Psion lead. After unscrewing the back of the serial connector with his Leatherman, he could see that three of the wires had come loose from their connecting pins. They would need resoldering if the lead was to work again. He broke out his tiny hexy stove and set light to a couple of the paraffin fuel blocks. As the flames started burning blue, Mat began heating up the tip of his Leatherman blade. Once he had it red hot, he used it to melt the remains of the solder on the connecting pins. After several unsuccessful attempts, he finally succeeded in reattaching all three wires.
‘Was wondering why I brought that stove with me,’ he said to CIA Bob, as he screwed the serial connector back together again. ‘Seemed a bit pointless as we’re on hard routine. But I’m bloody glad I did. Here you are, mate. Fingers crossed. Fire up the Psion and give it a whirl.’
The men gathered around CIA Bob as he got his computer up and running and set up the satphone. Then he connected one end of the lead to the phone and the other to the Psion, and started to dial up headquarters. Within seconds, the look on CIA Bob’s face told Mat and the others that the lead was working. They slapped each other on the back, as CIA Bob gave a grinning thumbs up. Shortly after making a successful connection, the urgent intel report calling for the cancellation of all air strikes on the Naka Valley had been uploaded to JSOC in the USA.
‘Message sent,’ CIA Bob said, as he glanced up from his computer screen. ‘Now we just gotta sit back and wait for the reply.’
‘How long d’you reckon, mate?’ Mat asked.
‘No telling with these guys,’ CIA Bob answered. ‘But it’s forty-eight hours or so ’til the air strikes’re scheduled to go in – which is more than enough time, I’d say. Or should be.’
They spent the rest of that day checking on any further activity in the valley, just to make certain that they’d not made a wrong call. But all they could see now was a couple of villages and a school. No one was armed in the villages. The majority of the inhabitants were women and children, and the men who were there seemed to be living with their families. Of course, the Taliban was a religious movement and a sense of identity, so in theory any one of them could have been ‘Taliban’. But the same could be said for any village across the country. There was certainly nothing that justified the intel assessment that the Naka Valley was the biggest terrorist training facility in the whole of Afghanistan.
‘You still glad we called off the strike?’ Mat asked Sam, as they were resting in the afternoon heat.
‘We ain’t called if off yet, bro,’ Sam replied. ‘But am I glad we trying to? You’re damn right I am. Afghan terrorists attacked my people on 9/11. They hit Washington and they hit New York. But that don’t mean the whole Afghan nation are my enemies. I can’t see those young kids down there pulverised by my own countrymen. Fact is, it’d be a war crime, and we’d have failed.’
‘Reckon you hit the nail on the head, mate,’ Mat said ‘Hey, Bob, there any reply yet from JSOC on the report we filed?’
‘Yeah … there’s a reply of sorts.’ CIA Bob turned around from his computer. ‘It says our intel conflicts with their previous intel assessment of the target. So, they’re sending a patrol up overnight to link up with us, go through all our intel and get eyes on the target. Patrol should be with us first thing tomorrow morning.’
‘Who’s it coming, mate?’
‘Some Delta boys. Maybe a couple of CIA guys, too. It’s some of Commander Jim’s lot who’re out in the area anyway. Probably been deployed to help lase the targets when the air strikes go in. The air strikes that ain’t now happening, that is.’
‘So JSOC don’t trust what we’re telling them?’ Mat asked.
‘Somethin’ like that, yeah, buddy,’ CIA Bob replied. ‘Still, let ’em come. Be kinda fun to see if th
ey can manage to go against our analysis, won’t it?’
By late that afternoon, Mat knew that their water situation was becoming desperate. His men had been without water for nearly twenty-four hours now. Despite having exceeded their original water rations and getting the resupply from the spring, all of them were starting to feel badly dehydrated. The classic early symptoms of dehydration are extreme swings between hot and cold, slurred speech, an inability to think straight or even to make the simplest of decisions. In the mid-stages fingers and feet become numb, body muscles cramp up and the tongue starts to swell. Finally, hearing and sight are affected and serious hallucinations occur: a shadow becomes an enemy soldier or a dangerous wild animal. Eventually, brain seizures can occur.
At 12,000 feet of altitude and suffering extremes of heat and cold, the patrol’s resistance to dehydration was greatly impaired. Mat knew that he was suffering badly, and that some of the other lads were worse. His speech was becoming slurred, his movements sluggish, his thought processes laboured and muddy. But there was clearly no way that they could pull out of the OP. If they did, the bombing of the Naka Valley would go ahead, of that he was certain. From being tasked to guide in the mother of all air strikes, Mat and his team had suddenly become the protectors of the valley. It was an odd feeling for men who were basically trained to wage war. But if they were to stay on the mountain Mat knew that they had to find water. The one half of his brain that was still functioning properly was screaming at him that he had to get some fluid into his body, and fast. Desperate situations called for desperate measures, as far as Mat was concerned. Rousing himself, he ordered his men to break out all the trauma packs from their medical kits. Each pack contained three saline drip bags, or the equivalent of two litres of water. Forcing himself to keep going, Mat attached the first two bags to the branches of an overhanging fir tree. Then he got CIA Bob and Sam, two of the worst affected, and inserted a drip into their arm.