by John Weisman
He knew damn well that he, Dick Hallett, and Stu Kapos could protect Charlie Becker, Spike, Ty Weaver, and the kids who had staffed Valhalla Station. Because they would never talk about them. Or reveal their roles. And because Charlie and the rest of them were professionals, they’d keep silent, too.
Because they knew, just as Vince did, that you never know when you’ll have to do it all over again.
“Vince?”
The CIA director blinked and put his glasses back on.
It was the White House chief of staff.
“Yes, Bill?”
“The president would like to congratulate you.”
“Thanks. I’ll be right in.”
Vince sighed and clapped Joe Franklin on the arm. “And so it begins,” he said, and walked out of the room.
50
Third Floor, Khan Compound, Abbottabad, Pakistan
May 2, 2011, 0117:25 Hours Local Time
Commotion on the stairwell. Troy turned to see who was coming.
It was Mr. Loeser, Jackpot, and the captain, fluorescent and specter-like seen though his NODs.
Tom Maurer was first into the bedroom. Looked around at all the mess. “What a shithole.”
He checked out the flexicuffed, screaming women and turned toward Danny Walker. “Master Chief, get someone up here to transfer them downstairs for questioning.”
The DEVGRU commander stared down at Crankshaft’s body. There was a lot of blood.
He looked at Padre. “Who killed him?”
“We did,” Padre said. “All of us.”
The CO bent over and examined Crankshaft’s wounds. “Well done. Bravo Zulu.”
Padre gave his commanding officer a brief smile. “For God and country, right, sir?”
“You got it, son. God and country. That’s why we wear the white hats.”
Troy asked, “Who was the kid on the second floor?”
“Khalid Bin Laden,” Loeser said. “One of the sons.”
He stared down at the body, trying to think of something pithy to say. But there was nothing to say. The corpse said it all.
He looked at his men. “Well done.”
Maurer turned to Loeser and Walker. “We’ve already got the slurpers working,” he said. He pointed at the corpse with his thumb. “Get him tagged and bagged, and let’s get the JMAU started on DNA and the other identifiers.”
“Aye-aye, Captain.” Walker had been at war most of his adult life. Most of it had been either clandestine or covert—and kept that way. This hit, however, would make news. Global. Cosmic. He hoped the unit would stay in the black. The master chief scanned his troops. They’d keep their silence. He hoped the pols would, too. But that was asking a lot.
Well, it wasn’t his problem. “T-Rob, Padre, tag and bag this scumbag.”
Maurer checked the big watch on his left wrist. “We have twenty-two more minutes on the ground, and we still have to blow the damaged Black Hawk. But the Paks have no idea we’re here, so I want to exploit every fucking second we have.”
He paused. “Hey, you guys, clear out and let the slurpers in so they can start picking up.”
“Lots of intel, sir?” Heron asked.
The CO nodded affirmatively. “Goddamn place is a treasure trove. Hard drives, flash drives, laptops. This is going to keep the intel squirrels busy for months—and make our schedule even rougher.”
Troy said, “You mean we got job security, Captain?”
“Job security?” Maurer grinned. “Hell, son, you’ll be working twenty-four-seven, three-sixty-five right up to the time you do your thirty.”
The captain looked through his NODs at his men as they headed down the stairs.
He was proud of them. They’d had a rough start, but they had surmounted it.
They’d followed the credo above the Dam Neck shoot house front door: ADAPT, OVERCOME, OR DIE.
They’d done the first two—and Crankshaft had obliged them with the third.
Maurer regarded his SEALs, the Rangers, and the rest of his package in the way the best commanding officers think of their troops: with a combination of pride, humility, and intense gratitude that he had been allowed to lead these incredible Warriors into battle.
And bringing all of them home alive? And killing Crankshaft? Icing on the fricking cake.
What had gone on tonight, he understood in the marrow of his bones, was one of the most totally awe-inspiring experiences an officer can have. Now he understood why the great Warrior Commanders like Stan McChrystal, Wes Bolin, and Bill McRaven had insisted on going out on CONOPs not as flag or general officers but as just one more shooter in the package.
Gives you perspective. Keeps you honest. And humble.
51
Just South of the Khan Compound, Abbottabad, Pakistan
May 2, 2011, 0130 Hours Local Time
Charlie Becker stepped up to the body bag on the plowed wheat field just as two young SEALs were about to load it into the big enabler helo. He put his arm up like a traffic cop and shouted over the whine of the big twin idling Lycoming jet engines, “Hey, dude, lemme see him quick.”
The SEALs started to give him a dismissive once-over. Then they saw Charlie’s seven-month beard, matted hair, and filthy clothes, topped off by the helmet, NODs, and the Ranger vest. By the time they got to the vest, their expressions had morphed into holy-shit wide-eyed.
Because this was him.
Archangel.
The double amputee who’d been in fricking Abbottabad undercover for months. Working without a net. No support. One tough motherfucker. The bearded OGA guy had called him The Lone Ranger.
“For sure, bro.” They lowered the bag back onto the deck and the baby-faced one unzipped it from the top. Charlie hit the button on his green-lensed Surefire and peered down. It was him, all right, even though the face was distorted. Bullets tend to do that. Especially Barnes 70-grain TSX fired at a distance of under fifteen feet.
One round had hit just above the left eye. Crankshaft’s head must have been turned toward the shooter because the heavy bullet exited out behind the right ear, taking a fair amount of skull and brain matter with it. Between the green light and Charlie’s night-vision equipment, the blood and brain goo registered black. But that wasn’t all. The shock and kinetic energy had ballooned the head itself so it looked almost hydrocephalic.
Nasty stuff, those hand-loads.
Even in the green light he could see that the corpse’s unkempt scraggly beard and kinky hair had turned mostly gray. So the sonofabitch had dyed his hair to make all those videos. That brought a smile to Charlie’s face. He thought, Wonder what it says in the Quran about using Just for Jihadis.
He reached down and pulled the zipper to waist level.
Whoa, Crankshaft had taken a wholesome burst dead-center mass. Three, four, maybe five, even maybe more rounds. Turned most of his chest cavity into squishy, blood-colored jelly. Faint fecal scent told Charlie maybe they’d even nicked the colon.
No way Washington was going to admit to any of that. Charlie made himself a bet that the official report would read something to the effect of “one round to the chest and one round to the head.” After all, we wear the White Hats. Turning the architect of 9/11 into hamburger? That would be worse than politically incorrect. It would be . . . un-American.
Still, the sight brought a smile to his face. The kids did good today. No embarrassing arm or leg wounds.
A clean kill.
The best kind. Next to a dirty kill, that is. Charlie Becker, he knew all about dirty kills.
He turned toward the youngest-looking SEAL. The kid had such a round baby face he looked like the Spanky McFarland character in those 1930s Our Gang comedies.
Charlie shouted above the jet whine, “He say anything?”
The SEAL shook his head. “Not a word. Sank like a sack of you-know-what. But the wife, boy does she have a potty mouth.”
“Women, huh? Can’t live without ’em, can’t live with ’em.” He laughed and
pointed at the corpse. “Well, he sure can’t anymore.” Now they all laughed.
The other SEAL adjusted the sling on his suppressed short-barreled rifle as the Ranger hitched up his long, baggy trousers, trousers that covered a quarter-million-dollars’ worth of prosthetic legs. The kid seemed lost for words. Finally, he pointed, awkwardly, like a teenager, somewhere in the vicinity of Charlie’s knees. “Where’d you lose ’em?”
Charlie pulled the Velcro tighter on the vest and body armor he’d been given. It was way too big. He’d lost twenty, twenty-five pounds in the past half year. “Iraq.”
“When?”
“Oh-four.”
“When?”
The retired Ranger used his hands to reinforce the message. “Zero-four!”
The SEAL caught sight of Charlie’s hands. His expression showed respect. He pointed at the prosthetics. “How they work?”
“Pretty good. They’re low mileage, though. Tell you in about ten years and fifty thousand miles.” Charlie gestured toward the women and children, all flexicuffed and sitting against the compound’s outer wall atop a clump of wild cannabis. “What are they gonna do with them?”
“Leave ’em here for the Pakis.”
Charlie nodded his head approvingly. “Way it should be.”
He pivoted the flashlight to illuminate his way toward the chopper’s lowered ramp and half-turned.
Then turned back. “Hey, you guys, thank you. Real nice work,” he told the SEALs. “Bravo Zulu. Now, go put him on board.”
The kids beamed. “Aye-aye, sir.”
Charlie: “Oh, I’m no sir, Sonny.”
The SEAL said, “Then who are you, Pops?” He said it smiling.
“Who am I?” It was a good question.
Charlie didn’t quite have an answer yet.
So, instead, he preceded them up the ramp, gritting his uneven, ruined teeth during the short climb because he hurt like hell but wasn’t about to show it. He strapped himself into one of the canvas benches that lined the MH47’s fuselage and massaged the tops of his prostheses. He hadn’t worn them in more than five months, and they were killing his stumps and the muscles in his ass.
He pulled the big Cuban cigar General McGill had sent him out of its tube, bit off the end, and lit up, regardless of pilots, crew chiefs, and any rules or regulations there might be about smoking on a U.S. military aircraft.
Because he’d earned this one the Ranger way.
He got the stogie going, took a couple of huge puffs, then held the cigar in front of his nose to admire the leathery, peppery perfume of the vintage Churchill.
The SEALs got the body bag on board, stowed it against the port side bulkhead, and strapped it down.
The baby-faced SEAL started to leave, but stopped in front of Charlie. “C’mon, Pops, you can tell us. You gotta be real special to be here, and you’re here. Which makes you like, real-real special. So, who are you, anyway?”
Charlie took a l-o-n-g pull on the Churchill. He held the smoke in his mouth so he could really taste it. Then he blew a perfect smoke ring.
Oh, the pleasure. All that wonderful sweet, spicy stuff you get with only the best Habanos.
That’s when he gave the kid a big, shit-eating grin.
And told him the truth: “I’m an Airborne Ranger going home, Sonny, is who I am.”
Epilogue
Aboard CVN 70, the USS Carl Vinson
May 2, 2011, 1224:47 Hours Local Time
The lieutenant commander who signed his emails EyeSpy because he served as the Carl Vinson’s deputy intelligence officer watched from the captain’s bridge as two CV22B Special Operations tilt rotor Osprey aircraft came in low across the North Arabian Sea. He looked up and saw the MC130J Combat Shadow II tanker from which they refueled during the long flight circling lazily overhead.
The flight deck had already been emptied of all but the few senior deck crew necessary to land and tend the Ospreys. Way before noon the Captain had ordered all the ship’s audio-visual equipment to be turned off. No closed-circuit TV of the deck, the island, the bridge, the bow, or the stern. In fact, for the past twelve hours the ship had been in lockdown. There was no phone, internet, or email service; the crew—except for a few senior personnel—was sequestered below decks. There would be no iPhones, BlackBerrys, or smart phones sending home snaps, videos, or texts of the day’s events. There would be no blogs, no emails, no letters, no phone calls. No Skype. No Facebook or YouTube. No Hushmail. Nothing. Not today, especially between 1200 and 1330 Hours. Hopefully, not ever.
The Admiral himself made the announcement himself just before noon. There would be visitors. What went on during and after their arrival was no one’s business, and would not be talked about, whispered about, written about, blogged about, or gossiped about. Violations would lead to severe—he repeated the word twice for emphasis—disciplinary action. Whether now, or in the future.
Being an intelligence officer, EyeSpy understood something was up for the past twenty four-plus hours. He’d been one of the few to know that VIPs were coming; that something big was in the wind. But nothing more specific than that.
Oh, he had inklings, because he saw just about all of the secure traffic. And he had friends at JSOC. So he had . . . thoughts. Yeah, it could be him. UBL. The Grail. But you couldn’t be sure. Operations like this always used deception—make ’em think you’re going to the Carl Vinson when in fact you’re going to another carrier, or just going to lower the ramp and oops, jetsam Usama from ten thousand feet.
And so he hadn’t nailed it down. Until now.
Because now, in a heartbeat, he realized what was happening. Who—no, what—had been flown to the Vinson.
It was the Grail. Bin Laden. Or, more accurately, Bin Laden’s corpse. They were going to bury it at sea. From his vessel.
Transfixed, he watched as the the two tilt-rotor craft settled onto the gently pitching deck. They shut down quickly. Of course they did: the downward exhaust from their engines might injure the flight deck surface.
Then the ramp of the first Osprey dropped. EyeSpy raised his field glasses. It was a group of operators—Navy SEALs in full battle gear. They spread out and moved toward the second Osprey as that craft’s ramp lowered onto the deck.
Two SEALs debarked the second aircraft. Then another pair. Then another. Then a bearded guy in what looked like Pakistani clothes, wearing a bulletproof vest and a US-issue helmet. Then another bearded man in blue jeans and a blue button down shirt.
EyeSpy squinted, forehead wrinkled in puzzlement. Then: Ahh: they must be the Imams.
EyeSpy watched as the SEALs joined up. Then two of them went back inside the Osprey.
They emerged carrying a dark body bag, which they set down on the aircraft’s ramp.
A master chief approached. He spoke to one of the SEALs, obviously the senior guy. EyeSpy trained his glasses on them but couldn’t read their lips.
The master chief pointed toward EL 4, the aft, port-side elevator. The senior SEAL nodded. He spoke to the man in blue jeans and then to the two SEALs who’d carried the body bag.
They lifted it again. When they did, EyeSpy caught his breath. The bag had left a dark smudge on the aircraft’s ramp. It had probably been lying in a puddle of oil during the flight.
Then he focused on the stain. No—it was dark red.
The entire retinue, led by the master chief, walked onto the elevator, where they set the body bag down again. After about sixty seconds, the elevator slowly dropped out of sight. EyeSpy had his glasses trained on the body bag. And yes, there was a puddle underneath it, too.
EyeSpy watched the elevator disappear to the hangar bay. Then he trained his glasses on the horizon, until he saw the C-130 about five miles out, circling the carrier. Y’know, he thought all of a sudden, that’s strange. Strange that they used EL 4, because that elevator was port side, adjacent to the stern, and customarily, bodies are buried at sea amid-ships.
Garbage goes off the stern.
Not to mention the fact that the big nuclear-powered carrier had four big, nuclear-powered screws and each screw had five big blades. Drop something off close to the stern and there was a chance—remote but still a chance—it would be turned into chum. Fish food. Shark bait.
Just desserts.
Desserts for sharks, that is.
The thought brought a grim smile to EyeSpy’s face. He’d lost friends because of the corpse in that body bag. He was feeling no pity. None at all. He swiveled and looked at the others on the bridge. There were no smiles, no cheers, no high-fiving. Of course there weren’t: they all knew the war wasn’t over. Not by a long shot. But this single battle—a significant battle, too—had just been won. For good.
EyeSpy, USNA 1998 and third generation Navy, sighed, and gave thanks. God bless the Blue and Gold.
It was almost 1300 when EL 4 reappeared on deck with the full complement of SEALs and the Imams. The one wearing the helmet had an unlit cigar in his mouth. EyeSpy focused on the guy. He was smiling as he climbed aboard the aircraft.
EyeSpy turned and swept the elevator with his glasses. Every trace of blood had been completely washed away.
Acknowledgments
I couldn’t have had a better colleague on this project than my editor, Adam Korn. Adam’s suggestions made this a better book, something for which I am eternally grateful. The team at Morrow, its publisher Liate Stehlik, Associate Publisher Lynn Grady, Marketing Director Jean Marie Kelly, Associate Director of Publicity Danielle Bartlett, Managing Editor Kim Lewis, Production Editors Lorie Young and Andrea Molitor, and Editorial Assistant Trish Daly have been wonderful to work with: innovative, energetic, and hugely, hugely supportive of this project. I think of you all as my own Asymmetric Warfare Group.
The Sun Tzu of agents, Paul Fedorko, got behind the idea for this book from the get-go.