The Last Platoon

by A Novel of the Afghanistan War (retail) (epub)

  “Apparently, it’s a temporary base, sir,” Balroop said. “A negotiating gambit to force the Talibs to stick to their agreement.”

  “That base has suddenly popped up at the end of the harvest season! How do we protect our thirty million?”

  The ISI plucked the highest achievers from the two-hundred-thousand-man army. At the age of forty, Balroop was chosen because he adapted quickly.

  “We may have to settle for a bit less, sir,” he said. “But I do have a way of driving out the Americans.”

  For the next thirty minutes, Balroop laid out his plan, step-by-step. When he proposed his solution, the general was impressed and wary.

  “Daring,” he said, “but it depends on the weather.”

  “Exactly. The Pashto call it ‘The Wind of 120 Days,’” Balroop said. “The chances of a few strong storms are one hundred percent. Our meteorologist reports that one is forming now. We need to get everything in place.”

  “All right,” the general said. “I’ll clear it with Islamabad. No written reports and don’t use the internet. Not one Pakistani is to cross the border, including you. This can never be traced back to us. Never.”

  BALROOP SPENT THE MORNING dispatching and receiving couriers from the Quetta shura, the council of Taliban elders who lived in middle-class compounds on the city’s outskirts. By noon, he was prepared for his visitor. Through a corner window, he watched as two Pakistani jeeps escorted a black SUV into the parking lot. Minutes later, Mullah Khan entered Balroop’s office, dabbing his forehead with a white linen handkerchief. His cheeks glowed with perspiration.

  “Six hours jouncing in that damn Cadillac,” he said. “And the air-conditioning didn’t work!”

  Iranian mullahs had long ago shed the appearance of pious modesty. Their preference for American status symbols amused Balroop. Usually the urbane Mullah Khan prefaced negotiations with a droll quip. Not this time. As soon as they were alone, he burst out.

  “Balroop, this is a disaster!” he said. “I paid for the harvest, and now we can’t ship it. The Americans have drones, cameras, spies, helicopters, all near the mosque!”

  Balroop pretended to be unfazed.

  “No reason to be upset,” he said. “The Taliban overreached. They thought they could goad the Americans into leaving faster. A tactical mistake.”

  “Tactical? They’re idiots!”

  “I’m meeting with the shura. I know how to take care of this.”

  “I can’t move the product. That kills our profits! We have to adjust our agreement.”

  The mullah had taken out his iPad, clutching it like a pacifier while pecking at the screen.

  “I persuaded the Republican Guard to put in the fifteen million,” he said. “So the Guard takes the first fifty. That’s fair.”

  Balroop’s face hardened. If he broached this with his general, his career was over.

  “Fair? I don’t hear you offering to reduce your four percent. Let me remind you: the heroin comes out through our part of Baluchistan. Without us, you get nothing.”

  The threat by the self-assured Pakistani enraged the mullah.

  “America has cut off aid to your country,” he said, his voice trembling in anger. “China gives you nothing. And now the ISI makes an enemy of the Islamic Republic of Iran?”

  Balroop had anticipated pushback and was ready with a counter.

  “America is squeezing Iran harder than us,” he said. “We stick to our agreement. You provide the cash and we deliver the security.”

  “You call Zar ‘security’?” the mullah said. “That lunatic thinks Allah is talking to him. He beheads people! He calls me ‘the Persian,’ when I am Pashtun. Security? I’m here talking with you because those damned Marines are back!”

  “Not for long,” Balroop said. “I know what to do. Once Americans bleed, they leave. But the Republican Guard has to pledge a few dozen 107s to Haqqani.”

  The Persian snorted his disbelief.

  “Haqqani! He’s like Zar, a demon!” the Persian said. “He’ll launch those missiles at Kabul. The markings will point back to Iran. You shelter him, so give him your own missiles.”

  Balroop laughed.

  “You’re the open enemy of America,” he said. “Our relationship is…more complicated.”

  The Persian held his tongue. His complaint about Haqqani was achieving nothing. Recriminations were excuses for failures.

  “What does Haqqani contribute in exchange?”

  “It’s best your Iranian bosses not know until things fall into place.”

  “You don’t trust us?”

  Balroop couldn’t resist a jibe.

  “Why risk a leak?” he said. “What if you’re captured?”

  The Persian twitched, almost dropping his iPad. Balroop laughed.

  “All you have to know is that America doesn’t learn from past mistakes.”

  “You ISI people, speaking in riddles,” the Persian said angrily, “running your own state within a state.”

  “And the Republican Guards you work for? Are they any different?” Balroop said. “Look, your uncle the general delivers a few missiles, and we get the assets to drive out the Americans.”

  “Has the Quetta shura agreed to this?” he said.

  “I’ll deal with the Taliban after you agree to the missiles,” Balroop said.

  The Persian sipped his tea. As a Sunni Pashtun, he had not prospered in Shiite Iran by being obstinate. The art of negotiating was compromise.

  “I can persuade my uncle,” he said, “if he receives the first twenty-five million.”

  Pleased that the Persian had reverted to haggling, Balroop smiled. He didn’t need a calculator to do the math. Even after Iran and the Taliban took their cuts, Balroop could still deliver thirty million dollars to the ISI.

  “Always the accountant,” he said, “hedging so you come out ahead. All right, I think I can sell your adjustment.”

  “And you’ll persuade the Quetta shura?” the Persian said. “There can be no resentments. I don’t want that maniac Zar hacking off my head!”

  The Persian’s eyes were so wide with fear that Balroop almost laughed.

  “The Taliban need you,” Balroop said. “You’re the man with the gold. Oh, one smaller matter. What are you carrying on this trip, two or three million?”

  “I have about a million left,” the Persian said. “I’ve bought most harvests, but not all.”

  “Put aside three hundred thousand dollars,” Balroop said. “You’ll know when to pay it. Both our futures depend on it. Be patient for a few days.”

  “A few days? That quick?”

  “It won’t be long. So keep that three hundred thousand dollars close at hand.”

  10

  Contact

  Shortly before noon, Colonel Coffman climbed atop a steep earthen berm and proudly surveyed Firebase Bastion. In front of the bunkers along the perimeter, work crews were staking in coils of razor wire, an added precaution to the laser beams of the LADAR scopes monitoring each side of the square encampment. Looking at the defenses, he was confident no Marine would be killed on his base. Instead, they’d exact a bloody toll on their enemy, while living like field Marines. Piss tubes, crappers, MREs, tepid bottled water, no showers, no cots, no cell phones—expeditionary to the core! When it was over, he’d write a classic article for the Marine Corps Gazette.

  Satisfied, he entered the ops center tent and glanced at the console displays. One screen was monitoring the feed from a UAV. It showed in sharp detail a column of seven vehicles skirt around an armored bulldozer and depart the encampment of the Afghan National Army, six miles to the northeast.

  “XO,” Coffman said, “is that the ANA, finally on the move?”

  “Affirmative, sir,” Major Barnes said. “Heading to our pos. I dispatched two drones to scout for them.”

  INSIDE NANTUSH’S COMPOUND, anxiety had given way to curiosity. Women, children, and workers had secured vantage points on the roof, peering at the clouds of
dust and listening to growl of engines to the west. A courier raced up on his motorcycle and, full of self-importance, took Nantush aside and whispered a message. Nantush then called together the agitated workers.

  “Go back into the fields,” he said. “And no one is to shoot at the Americans! I don’t want my home destroyed.”

  Nantush knew his workers would obey him. Few of them owned even one jerib of land, and none had a steady job. In his view, most lacked ambition and came from the lower subtribes. It annoyed him that his eldest son, Ala, called them mujahideen—Fighters of God. Over the past three harvest seasons, Ala had sweated alongside them. Around the fires at night, smoking hash and sipping scalding herb tea, they had bragged about their battles, how Itzek had set in the IED, how Ahmed had downed the helicopter with his RPG. Thanks be to Allah!

  As the workers returned to the fields, Ala scurried to a shed, where he unwrapped from an oily cloth the AK his father had given him last month on his sixteenth birthday. He had dry-fired it hundreds of times, sighting in on imaginary infidels. He fished into a meal sack and pulled out a magazine loaded with nine bullets he had filched from his father’s neglected and rusty AK. Unseen, he slipped out the compound wall and onto a path that led to a small rise two fields west of the compound. Imitating what he had seen on television, he built an amateurish sniper’s hide, twisting together vines and branches before wedging the rifle barrel into the crook of a small tree.

  He crouched low, peering at the dust raised by the noisy machines grinding away several hundred meters to the west. Squinting through the saplings, he could see the outlines of black artillery tubes and occasionally glimpsed the americani, tiny figures that popped up and down. He tried to sight in, but his hands shook. He sat down, breathing heavily. Four or five times, he repeated standing up and sighting in. Gradually his heartbeat slowed. But no americani stood still long enough for him to get a sight picture.

  Finally, he aimed at the top of an artillery tube jutting above a berm. When he jerked the trigger, he was surprised how loud the shot sounded. He ducked, convinced he had been spotted. When nothing happened, he peeked out. The americani camp was still noisy and dusty. No one had noticed. This time, he carefully sighted in, drew a breath, and fired twice more, squeezing instead of jerking the trigger. He heard a slight ping! Yes! He had hit something!

  INSIDE THE OPS CENTER, the intel, fire control, and perimeter security sections each had a bank of consoles to monitor. Cruz and Sullivan were sitting in a corner, making small changes before posting the watch assignments for the next day. There was the sharp crack! of air snapping shut after a bullet zipped through the tent. Several Marines dove into the dirt. Two more shots followed, neither hitting the tent.

  “Corpsman! Corpsman up!”

  The shouting came from an artillery pit where most of the Marines had sought shelter or were crouched over, not sure what to do. A few had continued with their chores, trying to appear unfazed. Coffman rushed out of his office in the rear of the ops center.

  “Casualty report!” he shouted.

  “No one’s hit, sir. One twisted ankle.”

  “Location of the sniper?” Coffman yelled.

  An operator watching a video screen spoke up.

  “Nothing showing on the downlink, sir,” he shouted. “Thermals can’t pick up anything under the tree lines.”

  Ignoring Cruz, Sullivan leaped up and strode over to Coffman.

  “Take the QRF out, sir?” Sullivan said. “I think the azimuth of the shooter is about zero seven zero.”

  The question startled Cruz. Sullivan was acting as though he commanded the security platoon. Coffman too was caught off guard. He had no combat time, no way of judging the risk of being lured into an ambush. But if he did nothing, he’d look weak.

  “Launch the Quick Reaction Force, Staff Sergeant,” he said. “God knows you’ve rehearsed this enough.”

  Sullivan rushed outside, where Sergeant Trey Denton was waiting with 1st Squad, the designated QRF. . On the photo map on his iPad, Sullivan pointed to a tree line. Denton nodded and quickly briefed his squad. Each Marine was told his sector of fire, radio call signs, and rally points. Cruz noticed Denton’s rhythm: read the written order, look at the Marines, point at the map, and glance at Sullivan for approval. Denton was a steady man who knew his way up.

  It had been thirty minutes since the three shots. The video from the UAV showed harvesters still in the fields, normal patterns of life inside the scattered farm compounds, and vehicles and motorcyclists on the roads. It was as though the shots had never been fired.

  Sullivan lined the grunts up for one final inspection, the grins gone, their expressions determined. After the radio check, Cruz took Sullivan aside and spoke quietly.

  “Stay in visual range of the base. The shooter can’t be more than a click out. I’ll be up on the net.”

  Sullivan’s face tightened.

  “Roger, I got that,” he said. “Departing the wire, sir.”

  Cruz watched as the patrol wended its way through the fields, alternately bobbing into sight before plunging into another fold in the foliage. He resented being cut out. But on balance, the incident wasn’t a big deal. The UAVs overhead would detect any large group of fighters sneaking toward the firebase. The odds were high that some local show-off, after firing a few random rounds, had already run away.

  11

  Marine Down

  Cruz watched the patrol cross a footbridge and disappear into the undergrowth on the other side. Sergeant McGowan was standing beside him, working a wad of tobacco in his cheek.

  “Should’ve waded across, not taken the risk,” McGowan said.

  “Have 2nd Squad on deck,” Cruz said. “You’re on five mikes alert…”

  “Standing by, sir,” McGowan said. “Semper Gumby.”

  “Know why Gumby is always flexible?” Cruz said. “Because Gumby is a clay toy. You keep dipping that split, your lungs will be clay.”

  SULLIVAN’S PATROL WAS PROCEEDING SLOWLY. Lance Corporal Nick Mason, the engineer at point, kept his eyes down, watching the dials as he swept his mine detector back and forth. Behind him, a Marine squirted the shaving cream for the others to follow. From farther back in the file, Sullivan occasionally pointed for a slight change in direction.

  “Check out those goats, Denton,” Sullivan said in a relaxed tone. “Maybe we bring one back for dinner.”

  “I’d prefer a sheep, Staff Sergeant,” Denton said.

  “I don’t trust what you’d do with a sheep,” Sullivan said.

  He was enjoying himself. It was good to be outside the wire, a combat leader respected by the colonel, in charge of his platoon while Captain Cruz was sitting back in the ops center.

  Several meters ahead, Mason had stopped at the edge of a small marsh marked by tangles of soggy hassocks and spindly reeds. An irrigation canal separated them from a thick stand of trees and undergrowth on the far bank. Sullivan gestured to cross the canal. Holding the mine detector above his head, Mason waded out a few feet before sinking up to his waist. As he scrambled back, Sullivan walked forward. It had now been an hour since the last shot had been fired.

  “The shooter’s gone,” he said. “We’ll cut across this low spot and work our way back to base.”

  The muddy depression in front of them was about fifty meters wide, with high, dry ground on the far side. Sopping wet, Mason started across the spit, followed by PFC Michael Tadcomb with the can of shaving cream. Sullivan and Denton slid in behind the lead pair. With ten other Marines strung out behind them, they sloshed forward in the sedge. The mud, thick as wet cement, tugged at their boots. After several steps, the muck had reached to their knees, then to their thighs. Each Marine had to slowly pull up one leg after another, trying not to lose a boot in the sucking ooze.

  “We’re going to stink for the rest of the deployment,” Tadcomb muttered.

  ALA WAS CROUCHED IN HIS HIDE on the other side of the canal, his heart fluttering. There! Kafirs! So close he co
uld hit them with a stone. He aimed in.

  TADCOMB WAS LEANING FORWARD, right arm upraised to keep his rifle clean, when the bullet hit him under his armpit. At the sound of the shot, Sullivan twisted around, thinking a Marine had fired an accidental round. Tadcomb was facedown in the mud. Adrenaline surging, Sullivan grabbed him by the armored vest and pulled him up. Denton bulled forward and together they dragged Tadcomb forward across the spit.

  “Cover! Cover!” Denton was screaming.

  The Marine behind him froze, unsure whether to go forward or back. Crack! A bullet whipped by his face. He flinched and fell, bumping into the Marine behind him and setting off a chain reaction. Inside a few seconds, the ten Marines had scrambled back up the bank they had just left. Once on solid ground, they fired short, aimless bursts at the leaves, trees, and sky.

  ALA WAS CONFUSED. The Marines had stampeded so suddenly, most running back and a few forward. Now they all were hidden in the bushes, shouting back and forth. He couldn’t pick out a single figure to shoot. A few bullets snapped over his head so high that he wasn’t afraid. Instead, he was anxious to fire again. He had shot one infidel, and he had four bullets left. To escape, the infidels would have to wade back across the mud pit. He settled down to wait.

  Sullivan and Denton dragged Tadcomb into a tangle of underbrush. Breathing hoarsely, they lay on either side of him. Mason, the engineer, was lying down a few feet away. He started to rise to his knees.

  “Stay the fuck down!” Sullivan shouted.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” Mason stuttered. “We’re cut off!”

  “Shut the fuck up and help me.”

  Together they stripped off Tadcomb’s armor. Sullivan looked at his rib cage, so filthy with mud that the dark blood seemed to be only trickling out. Tadcomb’s eyes were closed, and his slim chest was heaving. Sullivan fumbled for his compression bandage.

  “See an exit wound?” he asked Mason.