All the Ways We Kill and Die

by Brian Castner

  In the Eagle, Evil had no one sitting in the back. Just him and one airplane and two wings dripping with missiles and (with luck) a sky full of similarly hostile aircraft to shoot down. That was how he always thought war would be. Gene had a thousand humans in his loop, but for Evil, three could be too many. He had to smell their farts, listen to their snores, keep them engaged to alleviate boredom, and jar them loose when they locked up in an oversaturated helmet fire.

  While chat rooms viscerally held little of the same urgency as air-to-air combat, there was a dearth of enemy aircraft to shoot down over the last fifteen years, and fighter pilots had to find new ways to get in the war. Some, like Evil, waited until the last minute and ended up in the MC-12. Others, like Gene Rich, permanently switched to Predators early on. Either way, they didn’t go meekly. Evil and his brothers seized the opportunity before them, bullying their way into the operations development offices that were writing the new book on how each aircraft would optimally be employed. In both cases, manned ISR and unmanned RPAs, the fighter pilots applied to the task their two primary skills: obsessiveness and tactical thinking.

  “You get a bunch of fighter pilots in a room,” Evil told me, “and if they are real fighter pilots, it doesn’t matter what they fly or what country they are from, they all tell the same stories. It’s why our wives hate us. We are all competitive, and we all try to make everything perfect.”

  Perfection in an MC-12 meant applying the philosophical underpinnings of BFM, Basic Fighter Maneuvers, the fundamentals of air-to-air combat, to their new less-than-ideal circumstances. Novelty is at the heart of the aerial duel: highly trained humans are not only trying to out-think each other, but they are attached to a machine subject to ever-changing weather, electronic interference, and malfunctions.

  Evil specialized in this tactical thinking, first breaking a problem down into its component variables, and then solving the equation repeatedly as each variable changed second by second. In the Eagle, the variables had become comfortingly familiar: air speed, heading, altitude, missiles, gun, radio, radar, wind speed, direction, cloud ceiling, the Cons, restricted airspace, wingman’s location, wingman’s heading, target, tactics. Double that number to consider the enemy’s equivalent of each. Computing and computing and computing every second as he pulled the stick and pressed the pickle button and killed another jet.

  And all the while, compartmentalizing the fear of killing yourself or someone else. Your rickety old airplane tries to kill you. Your new inexperienced wingman tries to kill you. The thunderstorm tries to kill you. Can you put that aside, shut off the reptilian in favor of the distantly sublime and rational, have the poise to put the sensor on the one person who needs to be shot, and not the three that don’t?

  Fighter pilots in the low and slow MC-12 discovered this same process—continuous problem solving, fear suppression—applied to hunting IEDs and the Engineer on the ground. It was a problem to be solved, an opposing mind to outwit, a climate to endure, a gizmo to optimize, a team to lead, a plane to fly. The variables changed but the tactical process for beating them looked familiar. Some pilots from other backgrounds, tankers and heavies, were unused to the pace but learned to adapt quickly. Others struggled with the fluid schoolyard pickup game nature of the fight and descended into helmet fire.

  The crews of the MC-12 became very good at hunting bombs and emplacers and tracking their networks to target the inner rings of their oil spot. This was the breakthrough of the aircraft’s employment: the realization that the greatest weapon in its arsenal was not its camera or laser or antennas but the finely tuned human brains of its occupants. In an age of long-range air-to-air missiles, fighter pilots still teach BFM to their hatchlings because they have discovered no better way to train people to think quickly and confidently.

  “If you are going to put a man in the platform, give him that much more situational awareness, how do you want him to think? What will they do with the increased knowledge?” Evil asked in a rhetorical way that made it clear he knew the answer.

  Under optimum conditions, and when his crew was engaged to their highest potential, Evil would act as mission commander and coordinate all air support for a given special ops mission. His copilot would fly the plane and act as air warden, providing clearance for a variety of other aircraft to transit their airspace. His enlisted sensor operator would run the camera and sparkling targeting system, “put the thing on the thing” in Evil’s words. A good one was worth their weight, Evil said, and could make or break the mission.

  The last seat in the airplane was filled by the cryptological tech.

  “And what did your cryptological operator do?” I asked Evil.

  “They worked all the beeps and squeaks,” Evil said. “Dude, you should have seen the shit we had onboard this thing. The stuff it could do was scary. Things I can’t tell you a lick about. I just hope we never need to fly them over this country.”

  Unlike Gene in his Predator, Evil did have a sensor for “suspicious.”

  A SNAKE EATER in a tight black Task Force 373 T-shirt walked up to Evil in the chow hall. Every detail about every task force was classified—their members, their branch, the countries that supplied them, their targets, their capabilities, their sources, even their code names—so Evil always wondered where they got the T-shirts made. The super secret spy shop?

  Evil recognized him. Here at the main base he was a task force liaison to headquarters, but previously, when he did time out at Salerno, they had surely worked missions together, over the radio. Based on the perfect hair and the fact that his waist and shoulders formed an equilateral triangle, he was probably a SEAL. Evil knew if he asked, the guy wouldn’t tell him. Might mention he was from Little Creek, a hint that was close to confirmation. Everyone here was from Little Creek or North Carolina, all from inside the fence. In the Khowst Bowl, the US had given up on creating Gallieni oil spots and was only dismantling them.

  Evil got one meal a day, between flying and workouts and sleeping, and he preferred the task force chow hall. Hang out a bit with the guys in the ground, the few people on this massive air base who knew what was going on. The Pred crews just stayed in their little shelter, launching and catching, talking to pilots at Nellis rather than operators here. The rest of the base was even worse. One day he tried to stop into the finance office to get his pay fixed, and there was a sign in the window that said they were closed for training. Closed for training? Evil thought. Do they even know a war is breaking out?

  Evil waved, and the unnamed Virginian laughed as he approached, pointed to Evil’s jet-black mustache, the ends twisted up into l’as Adolphe Pégoud fighter-ace points with wax; Evil was a Dapper Dan man.

  “I got a team prepping now. You flying tonight, bro?” the brick wall asked.

  “They’re calling for weather, 19 to 02,” Evil answered, and had visions of his last late winter mission, hail beating on the side of the plane, tossing ice from his prop every couple seconds, the updraft relentlessly trying to push him over the border and into a Pakistani mountain.

  “Scared it’ll be rainy?” They both knew the ODIN contractors never flew in weather. It was a running joke.

  “No. But for me, it’ll be lightning-y too,” Evil said.

  “Touché.”

  “No, we’ll be there. I’ll make sure I take their line,” Evil confirmed with a nod, and earned a clap on the shoulder as he tucked in to his cold, hard chicken nuggets.

  “TYRANT 17, DUDE 21, checking in for ROZ Boggs.”

  “DUDE 21, FREEDOM 64 is the air warden for ROZ Boggs, target Objective Wade. When able go with laser codes, Rover codes, and products. You are approved Echo-5 for ROZ Boggs, angles 240 block 260.”

  “FREEDOM 64, DUDE 21, copy all, laser codes to follow: DUDE has products v2.1 for Objective Wade.”

  “DUDE 21, FREEDOM 64. Those products are current, timeline is as fragged. Stand by for follow on to the 200 series when LZ is cleared by JTAC. Report exit ROZ Boggs.”

 
; “FREEDOM 64, DUDE 21, copy all, wilco.”

  And so ended the chatter in Evil’s ear, as his air warden copilot Two Time coaxed the pair of F-15Es into the three-dimension column of space above the small house where Objective Wade slept. The air warden built the stack, the layers of fast-mover B-1s over these new F-15Es over their MC-12 over Predators over Apache gunship helicopters over the CH-47 Chinooks dropping off the task force, the JTAC and snake eaters, to kick in Objective Wade’s door.

  Evil could see none of these aircraft. Out the MC-12’s front window he saw only deep night, a cloudless sky after the weather passed, a faint moonshine outline of mountain peaks that formed the imaginary border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, sporadic cooking fires along the ground. The Khowst Bowl, the valley containing the city of the same name, was a busy place at night. Multiple Restricted Operation Zones (ROZs), their five-mile radius circles overlapping due to the density of the targets, and a pile of airplanes above each. Not for the last time, Evil scanned the ridges and Hindu Kush foothills that nearly completely encircled the bowl. He and his crew always kept skulls out, watching for the bright flash of a surface-to-air missile (SAM) against the uniform dark. There were Soviet SA-7s, and classified rumors of 14s and 18s, all over this country. Plus we sold Stinger missiles to the Afghans when we called them anti-Communist freedom fighters instead of insurgents or muj or Taliban or Al Qaeda or bad guys.

  The MC-12’s only defense against SAMs were flares. SA-14s and 18s don’t see flares. With his lights off, Evil hoped the bad guys couldn’t see him. He circled his ROZ, two-mile orbit, checked mIRC, checked his watch. The task force with his JTAC—his air controller contact on the ground that served as his conduit, his link to the shooters—would be landing at their LZ soon. Evil couldn’t see them either.

  THE ENGINEER APPROACHED the outer wall of the compound. Two machine guns were trained on him. DShKs? No, PKMs probably. He said his name, and the large steel doors opened and he drove inside.

  His host met him in the courtyard. They exchanged salaams and news. But his host could tell he was impatient, and so he took his leave and directed the Engineer to the small guest house against the outer wall.

  The Engineer opened the door and looked inside. His newest wife sat on a toshak next to her teenage brother. She was young, and her brilliant white eyes sparkled when she saw him. He approached her and knelt and kissed her hands and then the top of her head.

  We are going home, the Engineer may have said. We will leave for Pakistan soon.

  AS EVIL FLEW over ROZ Boggs, waiting for his team to snatch Wade, the JTAC on another team texted him in the mIRC classified chat room.

  TYRANT 33: Hey FREEDOM 64, u up there 2night?

  FREEDOM 64_MC12_MC_EVIL: Yo bro, it’s Evil, what up?

  TYRANT 33: Hey, we’re about to go. You’re supposed to have 2 Apaches for Boggs and I only have one Pred for Mantle. Your JTAC says I can have your gunships. Cool?

  FREEDOM 64_MC12_MC_EVIL: Cool with me.

  TYRANT 33: We’ve got a long walk and your guys have a short 1.

  FREEDOM 64_MC12_MC_EVIL: I got ya. Callsign for ROZ Mantle Pred?

  TYRANT 33: Disco 11 on feed Red 11. + check the latest products on Wade. New update on the satellite.

  FREEDOM 64_MC12_MC_EVIL: Already got them

  TYRANT 33: Awesome. peace out

  Evil checked the map, found ROZ Boggs and ROZ Mantle were close but didn’t overlap. He and the Pred wouldn’t be sharing airspace, so Two Time hadn’t put him in the stack, but still, it was good to check in and be sure.

  FREEDOM 64_MC12_MC_EVIL: Disco 11 what’s your latest?

  A flood of other chatter in the busy virtual room, but nothing from Disco.

  FREEDOM 64_MC12_MC_EVIL: Disco 11 latest for ROZ Mantle?

  TF_INTEL_DO and CSAR_TOC and RC_EAST_FIRES and DUDE_OPS and TYRANT and PYRAMID, but no DISCO. Evil scrolled up through the mIRC history, found the last DISCO 11 entry, over an hour old.

  DISCO 11: Copy – I’ll watch the house.

  Not a good sign. Predator crews had a reputation for simply taking their last tasking and mentally checking out. Evil had access to the video feeds of other ISR platforms in the Khowst Bowl, and so he swapped out his own sensor picture and pulled up Red 11 on his touch screen tablet. The grainy gray IR picture appeared, a gentle circling of a walled compound. The target was multilevel, a center courtyard and a variety of stables and maintenance buildings and larger living quarters in the back. Not a soul in sight, ours or theirs. Nothing but the slightly shifting view as the Predator rotated on its orbit and the sensor camera panned to follow.

  But however frustrating it was that the Pred had checked out, this wasn’t his mission tonight, so Evil turned back to the task at hand.

  “Hey, Painter.” Evil swiveled to his cryptological operator sitting in the back, using her last name. “Can you pull up the latest on Objective Wade off the satellite?”

  Objective Wade was not the Engineer. He was a cell leader and organizer and financier, but not the original brains. But if we’re lucky, Evil thought, we might catch more guys while grabbing Wade. Maybe somebody like the Engineer would be with him.

  Who has time for kingpins? Frost had asked. Evil only did kingpins.

  Evil read through the JPEL dossier that appeared on his screen. It was packed with information from Soliman and Hayes, listed Objective Wade’s name and noms de guerre and variations thereof, a photo of his ugly mug from the SEEK for visual confirmation, fingerprints taken from a sweep through his village, a history of him and his family, and a laundry list of every attack US intelligence could tie him to. Dates, locations, IED types, triggers, smuggling routes, cell identifiers, and names of the dead.

  Evil read the list of names. Every American solider Wade had killed, every amputee. It would fill a small-town obituary page. Evil flipped from dossier to dossier on the satellite, from Objective to Objective, Wade and more and then finally on to the Engineer.

  Evil checked the Engineer’s list of dead and maimed Americans. It could have read Schwartz and Fye and Frost. It could have read those names and then thousands more. Each name was one too many, as far as Evil was concerned. One name was every name.

  It was this list of names that scrolled endlessly through Evil’s mind as his task force of snake eaters hopped off their blacked-out CH-47 helos, snuck the short way to Objective Wade’s qalat, broke down the door, and latched him in flex cuffs. It was over in less than a minute. There was barely a shot fired. Evil’s help was hardly needed at all; he did nothing more complicated than eat a bag of sunflower seeds. His JTAC, TYRANT 17, kept him informed out of courtesy, a line of radio updates until a new sound emerged in Evil’s ear.

  Explosions. Evil was startled to full awareness. They were distant, muffled, yet unmistakable. They had to be detonations, filling the background of TYRANT 17’s radio calls.

  “TYRANT 17, FREEDOM 64, are you taking fire?” Evil radioed down.

  TYRANT 17 stopped speaking, as if to listen. Another explosion. Two Time reached in the bulkhead-mounted pocket next to him for the opera glasses, the night vision goggles that he would hold up to his eyes to better see out the left side of the aircraft. If there was a battle going on, he would want to watch.

  “FREEDOM 64, negative. You hear the intersquad radio speaker. It’s the next op over, ROZ Mantle.”

  The JTAC switched radios to talk to his counterpart on the other team, but kept the aircraft radio keyed, to maintain the connection. Evil overheard the conversation.

  “TYRANT 33, this is 17, bro, you okay?”

  “Our Pred’s not answering the radio. Tell Evil we’re pinned down and we need some help.” Detonations, gunfire, gunfire.

  “Hey, dude, did you hear that?” TYRANT 33 said to Evil.

  “Yeah, I got the products right here,” Evil said.

  Evil swapped his tablet video to Red 11, saw Mickey’s compound awash in light. The Predator feed continued silently, unmoving, an inert witness to a task
force’s ambush.

  In the view from the opera glasses, Objective Mickey’s multilevel compound was visible several miles away, the bright green flare of muzzle flashes forming a continuous ring around the perimeter. The center courtyard, where the task force took cover, was dark.

  Evil keyed the radio for the general aviation freq.

  “DISCO 11, FREEDOM 64, you there?” Evil spoke into the mic. Seven seconds later, a speaker in Las Vegas should have come to life.

  “DISCO 11, FREEDOM 64, do you copy?”

  FREEDOM 64_MC12_MC_EVIL: Disco 11 – answer the radio

  FREEDOM 64_MC12_MC_EVIL: Disco 11 – please respond

  Evil pulled up the mIRC direct message system—whisper mIRC they called it—and opened a private line with Disco 11. It would automatically pop open a new window on the Predator pilot’s screen; no way he could miss that.

  FREEDOM 64_MC12_MC_EVIL: where are you?

  FREEDOM 64_MC12_MC_EVIL: answer the fucking radio

  What could he possibly be doing back there?

  “Hey, Painter, check the log, how long ago was it that the Pred last checked in?” Evil yelled to his crypto in the back of the aircraft.

  Painter kept detailed notes of every interaction. Her answer was to the minute, and far too long.

  Fuck. The multi-factor equation in Evil’s brain was solved almost instantly.

  “I’m swapping over to the other op. You guys run this one. Call the JOC and let them know what’s up. I’m going to work ROZ Mantle.”

  The Joint Operations Center (JOC) on FOB Salerno looked like SOCOM’s J2 at Bagram: a miniature version of NASA’s famous control center in Houston, and the TIC lights would have been flashing away. It wasn’t Pred porn but the MC-12’s live video feed that held a place of honor there, projected twenty feet wide by twenty feet tall. So when Evil’s crew called the JOC to inform them of a rapidly deteriorating mission at ROZ Mantle, the staff listened.