by Mack Maloney
“Fucking Egyptians!” Nolan exclaimed.
This was significant — and it also explained the bales of hay. Bin Laden’s most-trusted troops were from Egypt. There were at least a dozen of them around him at all times, and they always dressed in black. Whenever bin Laden was on the move for long distances, he was accompanied by several dozen of these black-clad Egyptians. Many times he rode a horse with this small army running alongside, trying to keep up.
It was beginning to add up. The deserted part of the battlefield. The heavy weapons in evidence. The huge gun fired at them and then abandoned. The Egyptians. Even the hay…
He is running, Nolan thought. And we’re right behind him…
The team moved quickly. Protecting one another with covering fire, they made their way up to the cave, the still-shaking Real Deal in tow. But there was no further opposition; whoever had fired at them was gone.
Besides the hay, the team also found a stack of cut firewood outside the cave opening. It was wrapped in plastic and covered by fir limbs and branches for camouflage from above. There were lots of empty ammo canisters scattered about, too, and every tree within 100 feet of the cave was riddled with shrapnel. But most telling, hidden in the brush on one side of the opening was a massive 122mm antiaircraft gun.
Team Whiskey had seen many of these caves before, mostly through night-vision goggles or the scopes of their M4 rifles. But a big AA gun, so well-hidden, protecting a single cave? That was a first.
They checked the opening for tripwires, then threw in two flash grenades. Both exploded with a loud pop! They waited ten seconds, and, receiving no return fire, turned on their gun lights and rushed inside. They were ready for anything — booby traps, mines or even suicide bombers hiding in the dark. But the front part of the cave was empty — except for a lot of trash.
Discarded clothing, bloody bandages, used-up water bottles and dirty socks were strewn everywhere. A woodstove in one corner was still hot, a pan of water on it still boiling. Boxes full of Chinese-made ammunition were piled high in every corner.
“They’re running so fast they’re leaving their ammo behind,” Nolan said.
Most telling, dozens of empty vials and used hypodermic needles littered the cave’s floor.
Batman picked up one vial and sniffed it. “Adrenalin,” he said. “Whoever was here left hopped up like supermen.”
Nolan got the team running, but 200 feet into the cave, they came to a dead stop. Two wooden beams the size of railroad ties were locked firmly in place on the wall, marking the end of the cavern.
But under the glow of Nolan’s gun light, Real Deal pointed to the bottom timber. “Help me move this,” he said.
Nolan and Twitch complied, and the three shifted the beam, causing a huge brick door to swing open. Beyond was a hidden tunnel, at least twelve feet in diameter, which ran straight for as far as their gun lights allowed them to see. On its floor were more discarded ammo boxes and empty Adrenalin vials.
The team froze and listened. In the distance they could hear the unmistakable sound of footsteps running away.
“We’re right behind them,” Nolan said. “Let’s go!”
The team charged into the tunnel and started running full out. Nolan and Batman, in the lead, fired their weapons every few seconds, knowing they probably wouldn’t hit anything, but firing anyway, just to add fuel to their excitement.
But suddenly, Batman went down hard. Everyone skidded to a stop, weapons up, their gun lights pointing in all directions. Nolan was sure the Air Force officer had been shot, but looking over at him he could see he wasn’t bleeding. Instead, he was scraping something off the bottom of his boots. He’d slipped — on horse manure.
“God damn,” Batman said. “He is on a horse.”
They ran for the next ten minutes; finally a faint light appeared ahead. It was the outside world again. They’d reached the end of the tunnel.
They spilled out of the opening. Just as Real Deal had promised, it led into a narrow canyon that ran east to west. It was snowing fiercely here, and they could see footprints in the newly fallen snow. At least three dozen people were heading east. And there was something else: another clump of fresh horse manure.
The team began running again, staying close to the sides of the canyon, which was only fifty feet across at its widest. Its sheer walls went up about twenty feet to where the tree line began and continued to the tops of the north and south peaks. The trees were thick, with so much overhang in some places that parts of the canyon would have been almost impossible to see from the air.
And looming over the eastern horizon, a dark, foreboding mountain.
“Pakistan,” Real Deal said, pointing to it. “Where the dogs are running to.”
The canyon twisted sharply left and then fell off about fifty feet before becoming straight and level again. When Whiskey reached this sharp bend, they could see the bare, elongated shadows of several dozen people cast against the canyon wall about 800 feet ahead of them. They were moving fast. In the lead was the silhouette of a galloping horse and a rider, a man of substantial height wearing robes and a turban.
“Son of a bitch,” Nolan swore. “That’s got to be him.”
He screamed for Crash; the SEAL sniper was soon running alongside him.
“First chance you get,” Nolan yelled over to him.
Crash got the message. He leapt on the first high rock they came to, went into his sniper stance and looked for the fleeing group farther down the canyon. He spotted them, now about 1,000 feet away, took aim and squeezed off a shot — all in one motion. Then he let out a halfhearted whoop.
He jumped down from the rock and was soon running alongside Nolan again.
“I missed him, sir,” Crash told him. “But I might have got the horse.”
They ran on and on and on. It was a chase now, which was OK with Nolan. As long as the fleeing group stayed in the canyon and thought someone was in pursuit, then they would eventually run right into the blocking force of Marines waiting at the other end. It was called a hammer-and-anvil play. And Team Whiskey was the hammer.
They were soon down to the spot where Crash had fired on the fleeing party. A long trail of blood brought them around the next bend. That’s where they found him. Not the rider — but his horse.
Crash had shot it in the head.
The team stopped to examine the dead animal, hoping to find any kind of definitive clue as to who’d been riding it. Suddenly four mortar rounds landed not sixty feet in front of them. In such a confined space, it was like four 2,000-pound bombs going off. The floor of the canyon rose and fell with each explosion. Smoke and dust were everywhere.
Everyone hit the deck, taking cover next to the bloody horse. Behind some rocks down on the canyon floor, not 200 feet away, a rear guard of black-clad fighters had hastily set up four heavy mortars. There were at least twelve gunmen jammed into a small space, trying to work the weapons while the rest of their party continued to flee.
Four more mortar rounds came crashing down, exploding just fifty feet in front of the team, showering them with rock and debris. Then four more shells exploded about fifty feet behind them. Nolan gave his ears a sharp snap, hoping to clear them. It worked just enough for him to hear another series of whomps! — signaling that more mortar rounds were on the way.
This time the four shells landed not thirty feet behind them, again in a perfect row. The people firing at them had both ends of the team in their sights and were zeroing in.
The book said the best way out of this kind of situation was to go back the way you came in, retreating and getting out of range as quickly as possible. But that wasn’t going to happen here.
Nolan turned to Batman, but the Air Force controller already had his sat phone out. A JDAM here would solve this problem very quickly.
Batman started calling for Nail 22, the code name for the B-52 bomber that was supposed to be up there, somewhere. But he got no response. He tried different frequencies, different hailing
patterns; he even called for any available U.S. aircraft in the area, B-52 or not. But to no avail.
His face went taut with frustration. He’d guided smart bombs onto dozens of al Qaeda positions in the past two weeks. Now, when they needed just one more JDAM, there were no more planes, no more comforting doughnut trails overhead.
“I can’t hook up with anyone,” he told Nolan in disgust. “It’s like no one’s home.”
Nolan shook his head. “Like the DCO said, everyone thinks this party is over.”
Another four mortar rounds came crashing down in front of them, even closer than the last. Batman was pissed. He jammed the sat phone back in his pocket. “What the fuck am I doing here then?” he said bitterly.
With no air support, Nolan told the team to lay on the counterfire. This got the black-uniformed fighters ducking for cover. Then he grabbed Gunner and they crawled down the right side of the canyon, getting to within 100 feet of the enemy’s unprotected left flank.
On Nolan’s call, Gunner opened up with his massive Street Sweeper. This started an intense twenty-second gun battle that saw hundreds of rounds from both sides pinging off rocks and ricocheting wildly around the narrow canyon. But in the end it was Gunner’s firing that tipped the balance. Even the promise of heavenly paradise was not enough to overwhelm the fear brought on by his automatic shotgun. After one particularly long burst fired directly into their formation, the men in black finally turned and ran.
Lucky to be unscathed, Team Whiskey was quickly in pursuit again — but the battle had been costly. They were down to their last clips of ammunition. But they knew the Marine blocking force was waiting for the escaping al Qaeda fighters at the far end of the canyon. All Whiskey had to do was keep chasing them, keep the pressure on, and the enemy would run right into 200 jarheads.
They hastily checked the rocks where the al Qaeda fighters had set up their mortar line. Six of them had been killed, but their colleagues had taken their weapons with them.
Looking deeper into the twisting, turning canyon, the team could see the survivors of the gun battle running full tilt, indeed like hopped-up sprinters. And off in the distance, maybe a quarter mile away, they spotted the main party itself, now with the tall man in robes moving on foot, still heading eastward, but at a much slower pace.
“This time we got him for sure,” Nolan said.
That’s when his sat phone came to life. It was division headquarters at Bagram.
From the moment the DCO started talking, he didn’t sound right. The piss and vinegar was just not there. Nolan could barely hear his voice.
“What’s your location?” he asked Nolan.
Nolan had no idea and said as much. “Somewhere near the Paki border.”
“OK,” the DCO said. “You’ve got to come back. We’ve got to end this one.”
Nolan froze on the spot, sat phone in hand.
“Please repeat, sir,” he said “We’re seconds away from driving them into the anvil… ”
The DCO interrupted him. “The Marine blocking force isn’t coming,”
“But you said they were already on the choppers, already on their way.”
“They’ve been recalled,” the DCO said starkly.
Nolan was livid. “Recalled?” he shouted into the phone. “By who? Why? We’re as close as anyone has gotten in this whole thing. We’re seconds away!”
“Washington recalled them,” the senior officer said. “They got wind of all this and decided if 200 Marines suddenly landed on the Pakistan side of the border it might upset the locals. Or at least that’s the excuse. Either way, this came right from the top. From the top of the DoD himself. So start back, return to your IP and we’ll deal with the fallout later.”
Nolan began pleading with him. “Do you realize we have these guys in sight?”
“Get back to your IP,” the DCO repeated. “That’s an order. Conversation over.”
Click.
Nolan didn’t even think about it, didn’t hesitate for even a moment. He just threw away the sat phone, smashing it on the rocks nearby, and said: “Fuck that. I’ll go kill the bastard myself.”
Then he picked up his weapon and started running down the canyon alone.
A second later, the rest of the team was right behind him.
* * *
They ran a half-mile farther, slipping in the snow, gashing knees and elbows, but never slowing down. The canyon began to twist and turn again, and more than once they got fleeting glimpses of some of the enemy fighters as they were going around the next corner, just up ahead.
All the while the large, dark mountain across the Pakistani border loomed over them. It kept getting closer. And Nolan knew that without the Marine blocking force in place, the mountain was the end of the line.
They arrived at one particularly sharp turn, too sharp to go around blindly. The team stopped and Nolan stuck his head around the corner.
He found twenty of the black-clad gunmen standing behind a flimsy wooden barricade, all aiming their weapons at him.
Beyond them all was an ancient gate and an elderly sign hand-printed in Pashto and English. It read: This side is Pakistan.
Now a second gun battle began. Nolan and the others took turns firing their weapons around the rocks and ducking away from the counter fusillades. After five minutes, Team Whiskey ran out of ammunition. But the fire from the other side died down, too.
When Nolan looked around the corner again, he saw a pile of dead bodies lying on the path and the rest of the al Qaeda group running headlong across the border, carrying their dead companions’ weapons with them.
They were escaping across a snowy field, the same one where the Marine force would have landed had D.C. not lost its balls at the last minute. After another fifty feet, they disappeared for good into the thick black forests of Pakistan.
Whiskey just stood there and watched them go, exhausted and furious. With not a bullet among them to fire.
“So much for this football game,” Crash said.
But as Nolan was still processing all this, a stream of gunfire erupted from across the border. Real Deal took the first two bullets right through his heart. He collapsed in Nolan’s arms, looked up at the Delta CO and tried to speak but couldn’t. He coughed once and died.
The same barrage caught Twitch just above the knees, nearly cutting him in half. He, too, fell over at Nolan’s feet.
As the others blindly dove for cover, Nolan bent down to help Twitch. That’s when a single mortar round came in. It hit the canyon wall off to Nolan’s left, exploding in a haze of shrapnel and rock shards.
One of these shards hit Nolan with such velocity that it broke through his goggles and went deep into his left eye.
He fell backward, bleeding profusely.
Crash was soon at his side, a bandage pack ready to be applied. But he couldn’t staunch the blood gushing from Nolan’s gaping wound. The bandage just fell away, as did two more. Even applying the team’s three lucky flags could not stop the bleeding.
Though he was aware of much confusion and shouting going on around him, Nolan was also slipping away. Everything was fading from red to yellow to black.
Finally, he grabbed Crash’s collar with the last of his strength and said: “Just get me to the water…”
2
The Gulf of Aden
Nine years later
The crew of the fishing boat Mindanao Star spotted the first flare just after midnight.
The 200-foot trawler of Filipino registry was one hundred and ten miles off the coast of Yemen, fishing for big-eye tuna. The flare appeared off the ship’s port bow, arcing across the clear, calm night. Thirty seconds later, a second, and then a third flare streaked into the sky, coming from the same direction.
The ship’s captain was woken and apprised of the situation. He ordered the forward searchlight directed to the spot of the flares’ origin. The powerful light revealed a small motorboat carrying four men. Three were waving their arms frantically; the four
th was holding a gasoline can upside-down to indicate the boat was out of fuel. The men looked emaciated, their clothes little more than rags. They were shaky on their feet and seemed confused and seasick — signs they’d been adrift for some time.
The captain ordered the ship to port and told his deck crew to ready a ladder to take the men aboard. The Mindanao Star reached the small craft in short order and found the four young black men, fishermen themselves, yelling “Thanks to you!” to the Filipino crew.
Each man needed help coming up the trawler’s ladder. Once the last was aboard, the captain ordered that they be taken below and fed. Their boat was taken under tow and the Mindanao Star was put back on course to its next destination, the Port of Aden, where it was to take on ice.
This done, the captain looked away to turn off the searchlight. When he looked back again, he saw his chief engineer lying on the deck. One of the men they’d just taken aboard was holding a gun to his head.
Then the other rescued men pulled submachine guns from under their shirts and started firing in the air. All the crewmen up on deck immediately fell to their knees, putting their hands over their heads.
Still up on the bridge, the captain realized what was happening. How could he have been so foolish? These men were pirates. His ship was being hijacked.
He reached for the radio and punched into the IDF, the international distress frequency. He hurriedly identified himself and his position. Then he started saying firmly in English: “Mayday, Mayday — we have been boarded by pirates.”
The radio crackled in response. There was a French warship on anti-piracy patrol just ten miles away, and its communications officer began speaking to the Filipino captain.
“Remain calm,” the French officer told him. “Our helicopter is refueling and is about to launch. It will reach you as quickly as possible, and we will be close behind. But don’t worry. The pirates will not harm you. Just give them what they want. If they hijack you, you will be taken to a spot off Somalia and they will ransom you and your ship. At worst, you will have a couple weeks off in the sun. This happens all of the time.”