by Scott McEwen
Gil screamed and slammed his fist against the earth, strangling against the tension pneumothorax in his chest, his blood-soaked face turning blue, lips beginning to swell.
Crosswhite and Forogh dragged him to the back of the canyon and propped him up on his knees over the belly of a dead mare.
“You’re dying!” Crosswhite said, jerking the water tube from Gil’s CamelBak. “I gotta drain that lung. Forogh, hold his ass down!”
A wild firefight broke out at the mouth of the canyon a hundred feet away; rockets exploded among the rocks.
“Do you know how to do this?” Forogh asked, shaking like a dog shitting a peach pit as he lay across Gil’s shoulders.
“I saw it once in a cartoon,” Crosswhite said, grunting against the pain of a cracked pelvis. “Be sure and hold his ass tight.”
He took Gil’s Ka-Bar from its sheath and cut Gil’s jacket up the back to expose his sweat-soaked skin. “Hold on now!” He put the point of knife into Gil’s lower back and slowly pushed it in at an upward angle toward the bottom of where he hoped the pleural cavity would be.
Gil writhed around like a fish on the end of a spear, choking blood, unable to breathe or scream. The fight raged on in the mouth of the canyon, the HIK desperate to kill them all before the next inevitable airstrike. A grenade landed in the middle of the canyon and exploded harmlessly near the first phase line of dead horses. Crosswhite pulled out the knife and stuck his finger deep into the wound, sliding the hard plastic water tube in behind it. He felt the tube slide into what he hoped was the empty space of the pleural cavity, and a few seconds later a pinkish red fluid began to drain from Gil’s body.
“Got it!” he said, slapping Forogh on the shoulder. “Can you fucking believe that?”
After forty or fifty seconds Gil had begun to breathe again. “Get me a rifle,” he croaked, his face contorted with pain, still smeared with gore.
Forogh gave him his AK-47, and Crosswhite took Gil’s pistol and what was left of his ammo. Forogh ran to join his clan among the rocks where he knew there would soon be another available rifle.
Crosswhite took a few moments to get Gil propped comfortably in the crook of the dead horse’s shoulder, careful to keep his wounded side lower than the other. “How you wanna play this?”
Gil took the last grenade from his harness and gave it to him. “Save that for us.”
“Okay,” Crosswhite said with a smile, tucking the smooth green orb into his jacket. “I wouldn’t be able to run even if we had someplace to go.”
65
AFGHANISTAN,
Kabul, Central Command
Couture went back into the office and picked up the phone. “Still there, Mr. President?”
“What the hell is going on over there?” the president demanded, very pissed at having been put on hold.
“Mr. President, one of our men on the ground is already dead. At this time, the two survivors and twenty-some of our Tajik allies are cornered in a canyon just outside the Panjshir Valley, south of the Khawak Pass in the Hindu Kush. They are surrounded by more than one hundred heavily armed Taliban and HIK fighters with hundreds more on the way. I’ve got two B-52s about to drop a JDAM strike, but that’s only going to buy these people ten or fifteen minutes of relief. I do have a few helos on standby to extract our men—both of whom are very badly wounded. What I do not have, Mr. President, is the means to extract the Tajik fighters who have risked their lives on this operation to save our people.”
The president cursed under his breath. “So exactly what are you asking me for, General?”
“Mr. President, I’m requesting permission to declare Winchester, sir.”
The president hesitated, embarrassed to admit that he didn’t immediately know what Winchester was.
“Mr. President, declaring Winchester means that I intend to call upon every single air asset at our disposal in a continuous series of sorties until I have annihilated all HIK and Taliban forces within the Panjshir Valley . . . leaving only the village of Bazarak itself untouched. This will not only eliminate the imminent threat to our personnel and our allies on the ground, but will also eliminate the expanding HIK military presence in the Panjshir Valley.”
Couture looked at the major and covered the receiver with his hand, giving the go-ahead for the B-52 strikes to commence.
“Are you aware, General,” the president asked, “of the parliamentary problems such a military strike against the HIK would create for President Karzai in the present political climate over there?”
“With respect, Mr. President—Mr. Karzai’s political woes are not my concern. My concern at this time are the lives of our people and our allies on the ground who helped to rescue Warrant Officer Brux. What are your orders, sir?”
Couture waited as the president considered his response, pensively watching the screen as the JDAMs struck all around the mouth of the box canyon. Men and truck parts were blown across the valley floor in great sweeping explosions, leaving gaping black craters in their place.
“General Couture,” the president said finally, “I’m going to grant you the authority to use every air asset we have in that hemisphere from Diego Garcia to London, England. In fact, I’m calling the chairman of the Joint Chiefs to tell him you have the tactical authority to call upon whatever you need—be it air, land, or sea. But understand me, General: if you decide to escalate this battle to that level, you had better make damn sure you can bring those people out of there alive. If you fail, I don’t want to hear any excuses. Is that clear? Because I’ve just given you everything you’ve asked for.”
“Thank you, Mr. President. Now, if you’ll excuse me, sir, I have a battle to direct.”
“Very well, General. Good luck.”
“Sir!” Couture hung up the phone and turned to his staff. “Winchester is in effect, people! I want those A-10s in the sky right now, and get those alert B-1s off the ground in Diego Garcia—I want them supersonic all the way to the target!” He stabbed his finger at the screen. “Our priority is to bring every one of these fighters trapped in this canyon out alive! Is that clear? Every one! Now get on the phones—brief your helo crews, your flight leaders, and crew chiefs! Everybody! I don’t want there to be any confusion on this! We are lifting those indigenous people out of the Panjshir Valley!”
Practically everyone grabbed for a phone.
Couture sat down on the edge of the table next to Captain Metcalf. “I damn near cried when they gunned down all those horses, Glen. Reminds of me of what my granddaddy had to go through on Corregidor back in ’42.”
Metcalf thoughtfully stroked his chin. “Your grandfather was a cavalryman?”
Couture nodded. “He was forced to eat his horse . . . and he never got over it to the day he died.”
66
AFGHANISTAN,
Panjshir Valley, Bazarak
Gil was firing single shots over the open sights of the AK-47 when the JDAMs struck at the mouth of the canyon. Great shock waves reverberated off the canyon walls. He and Crosswhite took cover behind the corpses of the horses to avoid being hit by an avalanche of pineapple-size rock that came showering down. The B-52 pilots had been smart, carefully dropping their ordnance much less than danger close to avoid killing friendlies, wiping out the vast majority of HIK and Taliban fighters who had come down from the north but leaving enough of them alive that the Tajik fighters were still engaged in a dangerous firefight. At least now, however, they weren’t in immediate danger of being overrun.
“I’m not sure I can walk!” Crosswhite shouted over the din. “I think my hip’s dislocated.”
Gil was busy flashing back to Hell Week, five and a half days of misery and pain in the cold surf during the first phase of SEAL training, a week specifically designed to determine who was cut out to endure days like today and who was not. He could see in Crosswhite’s eyes that he was beginning to break down mentally and knew that time was running out. Every man had a limit. Gil had his. But even though Crosswhite’s
wounds were not as bad as his own overall, Gil could see that Crosswhite was now much closer to reaching his limit. No shame in that. Had it not been for Crosswhite, Gil would be dead already. This was not a matter of who was the better man. It was simply a matter of who had the deepest reserve of will. Gil would now have to impose that will upon Crosswhite to keep him from giving up so close to the goal line.
He sucked in a deep, painful breath to mostly inflate the still partially collapsed lung and forced himself to his feet. Crosswhite looked up at him wide-eyed, watching as he stepped over and offered him his hand. Both were bleeding from more than one bullet wound, and both were covered in enough blood and grime that their own mothers could not possibly have recognized them.
“Not going to let you ring the bell today,” Gil said, referring to the infamous bell every SEAL knew intimately as throwing in the towel during Hell Week. “Give me your hand, brother. We’re going forward to see this fight through.”
Crosswhite could feel Gil’s strength flowing into him as he grabbed his forearm and hauled himself to his feet. A sharp pain cut through his groin, and he screamed aloud. The joint was definitely dislocated, so Gil supported his left side as they limped past the second line of dead horses toward the mouth of the canyon, where Forogh and his uncles were still trading fire with the enemy.
“Goddamnable waste of horseflesh,” Gil muttered in disgust.
Crosswhite screamed again, trying to slip free of Gil’s grip to the ground, but Gil refused to release him.
“Fuck it! Put me down!”
“They can’t get a chopper in here. Walk!”
“What fucking chopper?” Crosswhite howled.
Gil ignored him, dragging him forward on the good leg.
Two Cobra gunships thundered over the canyon, firing rockets and Gatling guns into the remaining HIK and Taliban forces among the rocks at the mouth. Sparks flew, and rock fragments zipped through the air as bodies exploded and men screamed in agony. The Tajiks threw themselves against the ground, horrified they were about to be annihilated as well, but the Cobras peeled off abruptly and banked out into the valley, their guns still blazing away at God knew who.
A flight of A-10 Thunderbolts flashed briefly overhead, their own Gatling guns roaring with a chainsaw sound that cut through the air in short, ripping bursts of fire.
“Winchester,” Gil said, chugging along like a perforated steam engine. “They popped the fuckin’ cork for us. We’re gonna make it.”
“Let me down!” Crosswhite gasped, crying in agony now. “They can bring me a stretcher.”
They reached the front of the line. Enemy fire raked the rocks from the trees a hundred yards out across the river where the choppers hadn’t been able to spot them. Gil put Crosswhite down behind a boulder, wishing like hell they still had a functioning radio.
“Thank Christ!” Crosswhite said, feeling relief sweep through his body.
Gil saw Orzu looking at him. “I’m sorry about your horses,” he said in English, pointing back at the dead animals and holding out his hands in the gesture of a supplicant.
Orzu stepped forward and turned him around to see the plastic tube hanging out of his lower back. His eyebrows soared, and he patted Gil on the shoulder, saying something in Tajik that Gil hadn’t a prayer of understanding, but the older man’s eyes were telling him not to worry about it, that this was life, and that life was sometimes very cruel.
Forogh joined them. “My uncle asks, What should we do? We can break out now, but there’s nowhere to go on foot.”
“We wait for the helos,” Gil said.
Forogh spoke with Orzu and shook his head with a shrug. “But what about us, he asks? That valley is still full of HIK.”
They stood listening to the jets hammering the valley on the far side of the mountain.
“Not for long, I don’t think,” Gil said.
“They will not get them all. The caves are very deep. The HIK will wait until—”
Gil grabbed Forogh’s arm. “Don’t worry! Tell your uncle you’re all going out with us, or I’m staying here with you.” He looked at the old man and smiled. “Fair enough, Uncle?”
Forogh translated and the old man smiled back.
“He says, Fair enough, Nephew.”
They picked up their rifles and went forward through the rocks to add their own fire to the tree line.
A pair of Night Stalker Black Hawks appeared overhead five minutes later, and three RPGs shot up from the trees after them almost instantly. Only the practiced evasive maneuvers of the pilots averted utter disaster. They banked sharply away, climbing for altitude, their door gunners pouring fire into the tree line.
Gil busted Forogh on the shoulder. “You’d better get your uncle to pull his men back. Air Force will definitely barbecue that fucking tree line now.”
But even as he was speaking, fifty or more Pashtun came pouring out of the forest one hundred yards across the river in a desperate charge to finish off the Tajik traitors, every one of them bent on killing and dying for Allah in this great battle for what they considered to be the soul of Afghanistan. RPGs exploded among the rocks and against the ground as the Tajiks fell back through the canyon with no other option but to give ground rapidly.
Forogh and Orzu dragged a screaming Crosswhite between them, scrambling over the jagged terrain toward the heel of the canyon, where they took cover behind the double phase lines of horses, firing singly at the enemy on semiautomatics, many of them on their last magazine. Were it not for the machine gunners in the Night Stalker helos stationed overhead, they would have been overrun completely or blown to hell by RPGs.
Gil felt the vibration in the canyon floor even before he heard the roar of the General Electric F101 turbofans. “Get down!” he screamed, making gestures with his hands. “Get down!”
A pair of B-1B Lancers streaked through the valley past the mouth of the canyon so low that Gil could have sworn he saw the rivets on their fuselages just before he buried his face against the earth near the belly of the dead horse. When the bombs exploded, the ground shook like the very earth was coming apart at the fault lines. Rocks tumbled down into the canyon, and the Tajiks screamed for their lives until the air was sucked from their lungs in the vacuum. Gil and Crosswhite fared better than the rest, having known to expel the air from their lungs before the bombs went off.
When the explosions ceased and the roar of the Lancers receded, Gil raised up to see an entirely different landscape at the mouth of the canyon than had been there only seconds before. The rocks and the river were no longer really there. Only a moonscape of craters and rivulets of muddy water. A number of the Tajiks were badly battered by the shock wave, and still others were partially buried by the avalanche of rock, but miraculously only five of them had been killed.
Gil got to his feet and staggered forward to help as the pair of Night Stalker helos set down at the mouth of the canyon a hundred yards away. The Cobras reappeared seconds later to stand watch as two more Air Force Black Hawks arrived on station awaiting their turn.
The first Night Stalker crewman to reach Gil was a Master Sergeant that he knew well. His name was Waters, a muscular black man with a bright smile and perfect teeth.
“Master Chief, I’ve got orders to put you and Captain Crosswhite on the first helo out.”
Gil shook his head. “Get Captain Crosswhite out of here. I’m not leaving until the last Tajik fighter is loaded up.”
Waters stepped forward to take a hold of Gil’s arm, not to move him, only to steady him so he wouldn’t fall down. “They’re going, too, Chief. The Air Force helos are responsible for them. Where’s Master Chief Steelyard?”
The last Gil had seen of Steelyard’s body, it was among the rocks outside the canyon. He pointed to the crater at the canyon mouth. “He’s gone, Sergeant . . . just gone.”
Four army medics were working their way through the canyon, tending to the Tajik fighters who needed it most. Two other medics loaded Crosswhite onto a stretcher
and began to bear him out. They could still hear bombs falling in the valley beyond the mountain.
“We’re safe now?” Gil asked, swaying on his feet.
“Yeah,” Waters said, being patient with him, still steadying him to prevent him toppling over. “Ain’t nobody gettin’ back here now. You should come with me, Chief. You’re bad off. I don’t want you dyin’ on me.”
Gil looked at him. “Get those Air Force helos down here, Sergeant. These are my people, and I won’t leave them.” He knew that if Waters decided to pick him up and carry him out of the canyon over his shoulder, there wouldn’t be jack shit he could do about it, but he was determined to use the last of his strength to see his will be done.
Waters got on the radio and requested the Air Force helos land at once.
A badly bleeding Forogh sat on the ground against a rock, a long gash in the side of his face that would take at least fifteen stitches to close. His uncle Orzu lay against him, clutching his chest with both arms, his lungs injured by the blast wave. Gil tried to smile at them and found that he couldn’t, but they smiled back.
“My uncle thanks you,” Forogh said.
Gil felt his eyes fill with tears. “What for?” he croaked.
“He says this battle will be told in the Panjshir for centuries. He says that you have made our clan legend . . . and that he is proud to know you as a warrior. He says to tell you that you will always be his American nephew.”
Gil’s legs gave out and Waters caught him, lowering him gently to the ground.
“Need another stretcher over here!”
67
WASHINGTON, DC,
The White House
Gil spent the first five weeks after Sandra Brux’s rescue in physical rehabilitation for his broken ankle, the gunshot wounds to his leg, and the knife wound to his lung. His wife, Marie, flew to Maryland to be with him at Bethesda Naval Hospital, where he was treated like any other wounded combat veteran during his stay. No one over the rank of lieutenant ever came to speak with him, nor did anyone from the Judge Advocate General’s Office. Upon his release from the hospital, he was given written orders telling him to report to the Training Support Center Hampton Roads at Virginia Beach, Virginia.