by John Weisman
“Three minutes.” Tom Letter’s voice exploded inside Master Chief Danny Walker’s head. Jackpot unplugged the aircraft headset, settled the olive drab Peltor talk-through hearing protection around his ears, and pulled the boom mike toward his lips. Then he crammed the helmet onto his head, fastened the straps, and dropped his NODs.
He turned his own radio on. “Jackpot’s live. Everybody hear me?” He looked at the upraised thumbs. “Roger that. Three minutes.”
They could feel the Black Hawk decelerate. They were only doing ninety knots now, which Tom Letter would hold until they were thirty seconds out from the target.
At that point, the copilot would start calling both speed and altitude as Letter slowed the aircraft down for his flare above the roof of the main structure. At thirty seconds, the aircrew would open the hatches. The instant the Black Hawk flared, the fast ropes would go out. Followed by the SEALs.
In the cockpit, Letter banked the Black Hawk in a steep right turn, fishhooking into his final approach to the target. He looked down. Below him was the main highway that led north to Mansehra. He glanced at the mission clock. They were eighteen seconds ahead of schedule. Frickin’ A. He glanced at the copilot: “Hit the fireflies.”
The copilot dialed in the frequency he’d written on his cuff and activated the PAIT. “Fireflies burning.”
Abbottabad, Pakistan
May 2, 2011, 0059:44 Hours Local Time
Charlie Becker never heard the Black Hawks until they were right over the compound. Never saw them, either. They were just . . . there. Coming from the north.
The first Chalk came in fast, started to flare just above the third-floor roof of the main house. And then—holy shit, it banked off south and disappeared. Chalk Two veered sharply southward and gained altitude. He couldn’t do anything but stare.
Talk about your fucked-up approaches. Welcome to Abbottabad, guys.
45 Feet Above Khan Compound, Abbottabad, Pakistan
0059:55 Hours Local Time
“I can’t hold it.” Tom Letter knew exactly what was happening—he just couldn’t do anything about it. He had no lift. It was everything going wrong at the same time. He was settling with power.
No way was he going to hit the roof. That could kill them all. He fought the vortex of negative pressure, brought the nose around.
The big aircraft hovered, nose facing south, above the rear wall of the compound. Letter recovered enough control to turn it north. Ahead of him was the large, open western courtyard. He could bring it in there.
He’d almost cleared the wall, when the big bird pancaked. Letter struggled with the controls to keep it from flipping and killing them all.
The tail smashed violently downward into the wall and they were all pitched forward, rotors slicing into the ground.
And then—contact. They’d hit. Instinctively, Letter killed the engine. He turned, wrenching his back as he did so. “Get out get out get out!”
The White House Situation Room Annex, Washington, D.C.
May 1, 2011, 1559:55 Hours Local Time
“My God, it’s going to crash.” Secretary of State Kate Semerad clapped her hand over her mouth.
“I warned you, I warned you,” Dwayne Daley said to no one particular. “It’s going to be another Desert One.”
The president’s eyes were glued to the screen. He hunched forward. The overhead video was too one-dimensional for them to figure out what was happening. But they’d seen the Black Hawk’s erratic movements and now, as they watched, its tail hit the southwest wall of the compound and the aircraft pancaked in, its rotors churning up so much dust that it disappeared completely.
After what seemed an eternity, the dust settled and the Black Hawk came back into view. And they could see the SEALs and Rangers scrambling out, heading for the compound wall.
The president exhaled audibly. So did almost everyone else in the room. Vince Mercaldi muttered “Thank God” under his breath.
The Joint Chiefs chairman glanced in Vince’s direction from across the room and mouthed, “Amen.”
Now the second Black Hawk came into the picture, its rotors whirring as it disgorged thirteen SEALs and Rangers, the K-9—a Malinois named Cairo—and its handler, in the field just southwest of the compound.
“The entire assault package has just been been delivered successfully,” General Franklin said. He swiveled in his chair until his eyes fell on Dwayne Daley’s petulant expression. “We’ve come a long way since Desert One.”
He stared coldly at the presidential terrorism advisor. “A long, long way . . . sir.”
48
Khan Compound Western Courtyard, Abbottabad, Pakistan
May 2, 2011, 0100:55 Hours Local Time
Danny Walker had already scenarioed this particular clusterfuck in his head. They all had. They’d red-teamed the entire assault, coming up with everything that could go wrong and war-gaming the adjustments needed to overcome Mr. Murphy. Shit, the exact same thing had happened to 6-Charlie’s helicopter during a mission in Helmand not nine months ago. For these SEALs it was just another day at the SNAFU office: situation normal, all fucked up.
So Jackpot opened his mike and called “Execute Hotel 53” onto the net. Everything would go as planned. Then he yelled, “Ranger breacher with me, NOW!”
And rolled out of the aircraft followed by his SEALs.
Yeah, they may have been shaken. But not stirred.
And the clock was ticking.
0101:29. Jackpot knows they have to smack two walls to get to the main house. He points the Ranger toward the gate in the ten-foot-high wall. “Blow it.”
The Ranger pulls a pre-primed Spider Charge out of his chest bag, fixes it on the metal gate, slams the shock tube initiator home, and then runs backward, unspooling line as he goes. He backs off twenty feet next to a shed, plugs in his igniter, shouts, “Burning!” and hits the igniter.
The gate blows. Jackpot tells the Ranger, “You stay here. See anything unfriendly, you kill it.”
One more gate to blow before they reach front door.
0102:55. Two and a half minutes behind schedule, the SEALs are set to make entry into the main compound. As they do, they hear another explosion. It’s the Chalk Two element blowing through the compound’s southwest wall. The Chalk landed in the pasture, disgorged its SEALs, Rangers, and the K-9 team, then banked off into the night, heading for the predetermined logger site three minutes away, in the valley west of the highway and just north of Abbottabad. They’ll stay there, rotors turning, until they’re called back.
0103:40. Jackpot is first through the smoke into the fifteen-foot-wide alley. The SEALs fan left and right. Scan north and south. All clear. Gate ahead.
Jackpot: “Heron—blow it.”
0105:15. The enabler aircraft lands once Chalk Two clears the pasture. Rangers charge down the ramp, heading toward the road, where they’d set up a perimeter. They are followed by Paul Fedorko, who hits the ground running, carrying a vest with plate carrier, helmet with NODs, and two prosthetic legs.
0106:37. “Burning!” Heron blows the front door. Jackpot and Gunrunner make entry.
Jackpot: “Gun, right!” Two quick shots followed by three more. “EKIA.”
Troy: “Going left.”
Padre’s voice: “Gate. Breacher!”
Gunrunner in their headsets: “Kids on the left. Babies. No shoot!”
0107:25. In Jackpot’s headset: “Vest, left!”
Followed by shots fired from the guesthouse on the south side of the compound.
In his ear: “EKIAs.” Multiples.
The 6-Charlie SEALs swarm swiftly through the ground floor. Unlike police SWAT teams, which move deliberately and in formation, these operators function on the run, working quickly in pairs or trios.
It looks like organized chaos. They call it violence of action.
At the edge of his NODs’ field of vision Padre sees Z’s got two squalling kids wrapped up in his arms.
Padre likes
that: kids running loose equals no booby traps.
On this level.
0109:35. Heron blows the gate protecting the stairwell.
Rangemaster busts through the smoke and runs up the stairs, suppressed 416 in high ready position, both eyes open as he works the wall, scanning and breathing, the red dot of his night-vision-capable Aimpoint sight bright through his NODs.
0109:55. Rangemaster sees movement. Shouts, “Landing! Gun!”
He fires two rapid shots.
Calls, “Hostile down. Stairwell.”
Keeps moving up to the second-floor landing.
Jackpot follows.
0110:25. Heron’s muzzle is pointed up the stairwell. He sees something on the third-floor landing through his night-vision sight. Face. Gray beard. “Hostile!”
The target looks down at him. Heron squeezes off two quick shots.
Misses. “Shit.”
T-Rob hurdles the corpse, a bearded kid in his twenties wearing a white T-shirt. He drops his muzzle and puts a round in the kid’s head as he goes by.
Insurance. When in doubt, double shoot the sonofabitch. You don’t want them coming up behind you.
0111.00. T-Rob and Padre have already leapfrogged Rangemaster and Jackpot, who are clearing the second floor.
Heron’s close behind. He, too, puts a bullet in the corpse’s head. He hears: “Second floor clear.” Keeps going.
Padre’s voice from above: “Gate—Heron.”
Heron reaches into his breacher kit for the prefabbed charge.
0111.00. Charlie Becker is sitting on the ground, wrapping Ace bandages on his stumps. Satisfied, he takes one of the prosthetics from Fedorko and attaches it, tests, then reaches for the second one.
When it’s on, Fedorko and a Ranger pull him to his feet.
“How they feel?”
Charlie wobbles like a drunk. “Guess it’ll take a while to get my sea legs.” He stands unsteadily. Takes a tentative step. Then another. “Kinda like riding a bicycle, huh?”
He steadies himself against Fedorko. “Thanks, bro.”
“CIA. We deliver.” The Agency man reaches into the breast pocket of his ACU blouse and hands Charlie a big cigar in a silver aluminum tube. “Humongously big one-star at J-Bad gave this to me for you.”
Charlie: “One-star?”
“General McGill. He works for Wes Bolin at JSOC.”
“Eric McGill.” Charlie laughs. “Humongous is right. We used to call him McGorilla. Shit, we were in Iraq together in ninety. And at the Regiment.” He opens the tube and lets the cigar slide out halfway, puts it under his nose, says, “Ahh,” then looks down at the tube through the NODs Fedorko had given him.
“See that? That’s a frickin’ Cuban Romeo and Julieta Churchill.” Charlie holds up his ruined left hand and mimics Churchill’s famous “V for victory” sign, except on him it looks more like a checkmark. “Best cigar ever made.” He grins at Fedorko. “Thanks. I think I’ll save it for later.”
Charlie looks up and down the empty street. “So, now that I’m standing on my own two legs again, who do you guys want killed?” He puts his head back and laughs. It feels great to be vertical.
Fedorko says, “Charlie, I have something that’s better than killing.” He looks at the bemused expressions on the two Rangers’ faces. “Okay, okay, there’s nothing better than killing. But tonight . . .”
Fedorko pulls a set of counterfeited ISI creds out of his thigh pocket and hands them to Charlie. “You are hereby deputized as an officer in the Inter-Services Intelligence service.
“Here’s the way it works: You patrol out here with the Rangers. If the neighbors get nosy, you tell ’em it’s an ISI op in cooperation with the Americans and to go back to bed before they get arrested.”
“Can do.” Charlie peers at his CIA colleague’s green face through the NODs. “What’s my rank? Do I get a weapon?”
“You’re already rank enough, Charlie,” Fedorko says. “And we all know you don’t need a weapon, you are a weapon.”
49
Khan Compound, Abbottabad, Pakistan
May 2, 2011, 0112:25 Local Time
Troy’s first onto the third-floor landing. Movement to his right. Runner disappearing.
Door slams.
He’s there. Kicks it open. It slaps inward, bouncing off the wall.
Heron’s right behind him.
0112:29. Troy makes entry. “Going left.”
Two women in front of a man.
Tall man.
Bearded.
Perpetual scowl.
Crankshaft.
Troy calls “Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo” into his boom mike.
0112:31. The women charge. Screaming “Sons of whores!”
From behind Troy, Heron shoots the closest one in the leg.
She goes down squealing.
Troy hears Padre’s voice: “Going right.”
0112:33. Second woman keeps coming.
Heron rushes them.
The big SEAL swats the charging woman, clubbing her onto the floor.
He catches the wounded woman’s clothing and drags her toward the far wall.
0112:35. The tall bearded man turns straight into Troy. He’s wearing a light-colored shalwar qameez and a Fellaheen knit cap.
0112:36. T-Rob’s crosshairs are on Crankshaft’s center mass.
The women are screaming bloody murder.
T-Rob squeezes off two, three, four quick shots.
Crankshaft’s knocked backward.
Starts to go down.
0112:37. Padre’s 416 is up. He makes a single shot at the guy’s left eye.
Crankshaft’s head snaps back.
He’s dead before he hits the deck.
Heron’s trying to keep the screaming, cursing, flailing women out of the way without killing them.
0112:42. Padre crosses to the corpse, the HK416 in low ready, finger on trigger.
If the sonofabitch even twitches, it’ll be two more in the head.
But the motherfucker doesn’t twitch.
He’s dead.
The hunt had consumed more than a decade. But the finish? Less than ten seconds in a pigsty of a room in a backwater Paki town no one back at home has ever heard of.
Until tonight.
Padre calls “Geronimo EKIA” into his boom mike.
Then he and T-Rob help Heron flexicuff the screaming bitches so they can move ’em downstairs to the Dirty Zone.
0113:45. The three SEALs take a look at Bin Laden’s corpse. The sonofabitch’s hair and beard are all gray. His face is distorted from Padre’s head shot. But it’s him. No mistaking that face. That nose. Those lips.
T-Rob thinks, Thank you, Jesus, for allowing me to be a part of this and not screw up.
Padre thinks, Ten years we’ve been after this asshole, and after all the hype, he looks like every other piece of shit we’ve killed.
Heron thinks, I missed the motherfucker. How could I have missed the motherfucker? Now I’m stuck for the fricking beer.
The White House Situation Room Annex, Washington, D.C.
May 1, 2011, 1613 Hours Local Time
“We got him,” the president said solemnly. “We got him.”
“It’s been a long time.” Secretary of Defense Rich Hansen said. “A long hunt.”
The president nodded in agreement. “Now,” he said, “we have to make sure it’s really him.”
He looked at Vince, standing at the back of the anteroom out of camera range. “That’s being done, isn’t it, Mr. Director?”
“As we speak, Mr. President.”
The president rose. “Then I suggest we all go back into the Situation Room, where it’s a lot more comfortable, and wait for absolute identification.”
He looked for his chief of staff. “Bill, let’s start drawing up a statement,” he said. “I’ll want to address the nation at some point tonight, as soon as we have a hard confirmation it’s Bin Laden.”
1617 Hours
Vi
nce Mercaldi waited until they had all left. He walked over to Joe Franklin and put a hand on his shoulder. “Nice work, General.”
The Air Force officer looked up. “Thank you, sir.”
“Call me Vince.” Mercaldi peered over Franklin’s shoulder at the images on his split screen. He knew what Wes Bolin was doing right now: checking on the other twelve HVT missions that were under way. They’d talk soon enough, so there was no need to call him now. Besides, there wasn’t much to say. The sonofabitch was dead. That was the goal, and they’d achieved it. Time to move on.
Behind him he could hear the chatter in the Situation Room. They’d all be fighting for the credit now. Crowing to their news sources who did what and when. Demonstrating how important they were, what they knew, and how much inside information they’d been given.
Some would; some wouldn’t. Kate Semerad would keep her mouth shut. So would Rich Hansen and the Joint Chiefs chairman. They were professionals. They knew better. But that idiot the vice president, a man who never engaged his brain before he put his mouth in gear, or the president’s political aides, people like National Security Advisor Don Sorken and Dwayne Daley—Vince knew they’d be spilling their guts. So would the clowns on Capitol Hill. Sourcing their friends in the media. Telling everything that shouldn’t be told: who, what, when, where, and especially how.
Except they’d either misstate the facts or spin the truth. Some of it because they didn’t know much about either the facts or the truth. Or they’d spin the facts because they didn’t care much about the truth. Only the legend.
A legend that was being created even now in the Situation Room.
Vince removed his glasses and polished them on his handkerchief. There was a line from an old John Wayne movie, appropriately titled The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, that came into Vince’s head just then: “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
In this case, the printed legend would just happen to dovetail nicely with the White House’s political goals.
Because 2012 was, after all, right around the corner.
Vince hoped Wes Bolin and Tom Maurer could protect their SEALs and Rangers from the tsunami of publicity that was about to wash over everyone. Those young men worked in the shadows, and to be successful they needed to continue working in the shadows.