The Last Platoon

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

  “If the colonel announces that the spooks are listening to every call,” Cruz said, “that’ll end it, unless that snuffy has a single-digit IQ. We don’t have to turn the whole base upside down and piss everyone off.”

  Barnes laughed in nervous relief.

  “I like it!” he said. “Occam’s razor, the simplest path is the best.”

  “There’s, uh, one other thing. That CIA team wants to get a fix on their target off to the east.”

  “You heard the colonel. The ANA’s taking care of patrolling. We stay buttoned up.”

  Cruz shook his head.

  “Our east flank is open,” he said. “The colonel will fry me if we lose anyone here on base.”

  Barnes smiled, confident now that he was back on his own solid bureaucratic ground.

  “You really want this, don’t you? OK, I’ll do what I can in the ops meeting.”

  He pointed his finger at Cruz.

  “But when I raise the topic, you don’t say a word.”

  20

  Reappraisal

  When Cruz entered the ops tent for the evening brief, Lasswell was waiting.

  “Barnes told me you want to patrol,” she said. “He asked for my support with the colonel. I’m all for it.”

  “Appreciated,” Cruz said. “You can’t defend a castle from inside the drawbridge. It’s just a matter of tactics. Nothing personal between me and the colonel.”

  Lasswell widened her eyes.

  “Hello, Earth calling moon,” she said. “This is totally personal! To the colonel, you’re the problem. He’s a clever manager, sensitive about who he never was. You remind him of what he hasn’t done.”

  “Come on, he could care less about me. I’m the temporary help.”

  Lasswell shook her head in exasperation.

  “You’re here because you and General Killian fought the war together,” she said. “Coffman never deployed. When you mentioned Sangin, that was like saying, ‘I fought on Iwo Jima in 1945, while you sat on your ass in the States.’ You cut his pride. Let Barnes and me take the lead on this, OK?”

  They sat down at the folding table. Coffman kept his meetings brief and on point. He let Barnes, as XO, step through the agenda, checking on the weather, personnel, and a dozen other items essential for managing the organization. When he reached the communications section, he stopped and looked at Coffman.

  “Before we deployed,” Coffman said, “I said there’d be no cell phones or other personal digital devices. This isn’t a state troopers’ barracks. We’re never off duty. So if Lance Corporal No Brains calls his sweetie, it’ll be intercepted and he’ll face a court-martial. Pass that word.”

  Coffman sat back, pleased with himself. A messy situation, neatly dispatched. Barnes moved on to the next subject. Toward the end of the meeting, he showed the picture of the yellow jugs unloaded at the compound a kilometer east of the firebase.

  “This happened about three hours ago, sir,” Barnes said. “Taliban traffic on the ICOM net has increased. They’re on the prowl.”

  “Tell the ANA,” Coffman said, “to search that farm.”

  “They only have enough men for one patrol a day, sir,” Barnes said. “With the Taliban planting IEDs, they have to move slowly. They can’t cover to the east.”

  Barnes paused, letting Lasswell pitch in.

  “If we take fire again,” she said, “my men are exposed. A few patrols like you sent out this morning, Colonel, seem good insurance.”

  Her tone was neutral. The sun will rise, the wind will blow, the snipers will come, her artillery crew will be hit and the mission disrupted. She glanced into middle space, resuming the camouflage of the deferential subordinate.

  “It would increase security, sir,” Barnes said, “if Captain Cruz occasionally patrolled to the east. Richards’s team has volunteered to help.”

  Coffman didn’t snap back. He was thinking about his conversation with Killian. An occasional patrol would help his standing with the general. He looked at Cruz.

  “What do you have in mind, Captain? Keep it short.”

  Cruz pointed on the map to a canal a kilometer to the east.

  “If we patrol out one click to that canal, sir,” he said, “we keep the muj beyond sniper range.”

  “All right,” Coffman said. “Now, let’s move on. Our mission is to provide fire support. Let’s keep focus on that.”

  When the meeting concluded, Cruz walked over to Lasswell.

  “Thanks for bailing me out,” Cruz said.

  “Purely selfish on my part,” Lasswell said. “I’ve done my service time. My future includes a high-tech job, a loving husband, three adorable kids, and a beach house. Defending the ramparts against sword-wielding maniacs, I leave to you.”

  IT WAS TWILIGHT WHEN CRUZ RETURNED to the platoon tent. The squad leaders were waiting, sprawled in the dirt, swapping items from their MRE packets. Sergeant Denton was sitting with his left leg fully extended, his rifle resting on a rough cane.

  “We’re cleared to patrol tomorrow,” Cruz said. “Break out your maps and tablets.”

  Cruz had invited the CIA team to attend the meeting. He gestured toward them.

  “Mr. Richards and his team will be joining us,” Cruz said. “They’re known as Other Government Agency, OGA, as in CIA.”

  Everyone grinned.

  “Third Squad’s up tomorrow,” Cruz said. “Sergeant Binns, why don’t you lead us through the op order?”

  With his lips pursed as he squinted through his black-rimmed military-issue glasses, Sergeant Oliver Binns looked like a teacher perpetually disappointed by the behavior of his students.

  “First, I need to know,” Binns said, “how many CIA are coming with me?”

  “Four,” Richards said. “Stovell and I will trade off carrying the ruck that contains our computer. With us will be Tic, our terp, and Eagan, our shooter. We’re all prior enlisted. We won’t be any bother.”

  Binns opened up his notebook.

  “OK,” he said. “Let’s go through the patrol brief.”

  21

  Hunters of Gunmen

  Cruz had assumed the full CIA team wanted to hear the brief. But Binns hadn’t plodded through five sentences before Eagan gulped down a handful of Skittles and popped to his feet.

  “Gonna check sight data,” he said to no one in particular, “before we lose the light.”

  Eagan was wearing expensive shooting glasses with a faint yellowish tint. A V-shaped face squeezed his features together and his eyes flickered restlessly, as though charged by an alternating electric current. Short and overly muscular, his head seemed too small for his thick shoulders. He reminded Cruz of a badger or wolf, a predator constantly scanning for danger and prey.

  Eagan walked back to his tent, opened his gun bag, and took out a long rifle with a polished mahogany stock inlaid with the date 8 June 1999. From an aluminum case, he extracted a telescopic sight with three lenses and five dials on the right side. After attaching the scope to the barrel, he climbed to the top of a nearby revetment. He screwed into the rifle’s underside a slender steel rod with three extendable legs on the bottom. Standing upright, he pushed the tripod into the dirt, tugged the rifle butt into his shoulder, and peered at the distant fields. He pressed a side button as though taking a picture, shifted the rifle slightly, squinted, and clicked again.

  Several Marines were watching this procedure. A thin black Marine nudged his companion.

  “Lamont, is that him?” Sergeant Colin Ashford said.

  Sergeant Brian Lamont, who had a reddish complexion and startling blue eyes, wasn’t sure.

  “He’s got that hawk face I remember from Soldier of Fortune,” Lamont said. “But, Ash, that dude’s fucking old, maybe forty.”

  “Maybe he’s a photographer,” a third Marine quipped. “We’ll be on Fox or CNN.”

  “Don’t talk like a motard,” Lamont said. “That’s a boss HOG.”

  The Marine looked mystified. Lamont tugged at his rune,
a bullet with a hole in its center dangling from a leather thong around his neck.

  “Ashford and me, we’re HOGs. Hunters of Gunmen, boot. Every sniper carries a bullet with his name on it. That way, he won’t get shot ’cause he’s carrying the bullet destined to snuff him.”

  Lamont pointed toward Eagan.

  “You think he’s taking pictures for CNN? Hell no! He’s plotting aim points, getting set for his next kill.”

  When Ashford picked up his rifle, Lamont did the same. Together they walked up the revetment and stopped a few feet below Eagan.

  “That’s a cool stock,” Ashford said. “What you shoot?”

  “Six point five polymer,” Eagan said. “Hollow point.”

  “We’re 0317s too. We got Mark 13s with Nightforce scopes,” Ashford said, holding up his rifle. “Solid hits at a thousand meters with 300 Win Mag hard point.”

  “No targets here that far out,” Eagan said. “Terrain’s not that open.”

  Eager to agree, both Marines nodded.

  “Never seen a scope like that,” Ashford said.

  Eagan smiled wryly.

  “These software chips will put us HOGs out of business,” he said. “I click on the target and the computer calculates windage, drift, humidity, and gravity. Once the computer locks in, it follows the target even if it moves. See for yourself.”

  Ashford squinted through the scope.

  “Shit,” Ashford said. “I can count the hairs on a goat’s ass. What’s this package cost?”

  “One hundred K for rifle and scope.”

  “Oh man,” Lamont said, “the Corps will never spring for that.”

  The two Marines took turns looking through the scope. Lamont stroked the inscription on the stock.

  “1999. You win that year?”

  “Tricky crosswind,” Eagan growled. “Gave the home boys an advantage. I took second.”

  “Sounds like ancient history,” Ashford said.

  When Eagan’s face tightened, Ashford stumbled back.

  “My bad,” he mumbled.

  Three seconds of silence, then Eagan grinned.

  “OK, wise ass, this your first time downrange?” he said.

  Lamont and Ashford shifted uneasily.

  “We got one pump each,” Lamont said. “No shooting time, though.”

  “It kind of sucks,” Ashford said. “The Green Machine not snoop’n and poop’n like it used to.”

  “Going out tomorrow?”

  Both nodded enthusiastically.

  “We’re attached,” Lamont said. “Any advice would be appreciated.”

  “Not in my job description,” Eagan said, shaking his head. “I don’t want to get cross with your patrol leader.”

  The Marines exchanged a disappointed look.

  “How many rounds you carrying?” Eagan said.

  “Hundred each.”

  Eagan looked at them sharply.

  “Uh, two hundred?”

  “Sounds better. What’s your call sign?”

  “Winmag.”

  “Should’ve guessed,” Eagan said, walking off the revetment. “See you on the firing line.”

  “Think we’ll get into some shit tomorrow?” Lamont said.

  “What’d you hear today?”

  INSIDE THE PLATOON TENT, Binns was droning on. Cruz was only half listening as he wrestled with what role he would play. He didn’t know these NCOs. As the temporary commander, he should let the squad leaders do their jobs and stay out of their way. If he pushed, he’d be resented. Don’t run the show. Let them go out, get shot at a little bit, earn their Combat Action Ribbons, and tell war stories when they got back home. Plus, he owed his family to return in one piece. Another reason to stay in the background.

  It took fifty minutes for Binns to wind down. By then, Cruz had a sense for how the squad leader would react outside the wire. Thorough, Cruz thought, but plodding.

  “That wraps it up,” Cruz said. “And Sergeant Binns, I’ll tag along in the morning. Need to stretch my legs.”

  He kept his tone conversational and offhand, but Binns wasn’t having it. He looked startled, then offended.

  “Sir, I can handle my own patrol,” Binns blurted out. “You heard me go over our immediate action drills, and my countersniper plan. I’m no boot.”

  Out here, you’re a boot, Cruz thought. The whole platoon is. Binns was walking the line of insubordination, but Cruz didn’t want him sulking. He decided to deflect the resentment with banter.

  “The OGA are our guests,” he said. “I’m going because I’m the host. You’re the patrol leader, Sergeant.”

  As long as you do it right.

  Day 3

  APRIL 8

  22

  The Green Zone

  At midnight, Cruz set out to check the lines. He heard the mosquito buzz of a drone overhead, its muffler removed to remind the enemy they were being watched. He walked slowly so the sentries could see the infrared strobe attached to his body armor, and in the bunkers he kept his conversations low in order not to disturb those asleep a few feet away.

  His last stop was inside the ops tent, where he stood behind a UAV operator. The thermal image on a large screen showed three men shoveling in a ditch. They could be farmers working at night to escape the day’s heat.

  “This is the fourth group I’ve spotted,” the operator said. “They know the UAV’s watching them. One guy mooned us.”

  “Setting in IEDs?” Cruz said.

  “Or clearing out weeds,” the operator said. “They’re playing Whack-A-Mole. They know the rules. We can’t kill ’em for working for a living.”

  Cruz returned to his tent and had barely dozed off when he was awakened by a wailing siren. Across the base, Marines scrambled into trenches, but nothing happened. No explosions, only a few faint crumping sounds.

  The Taliban had hastily fired several shells from a single mortar tube. The shells were instantly detected by counter-mortar radar. Even before they exploded outside the perimeter, a computer calculation of the launch point had been sent to the artillery and mortar crews.

  As Cruz reached the ops tent, he heard the sharp reports of outgoing shells. The thermal screen showed two black figures crumbled in a field. Farther away, a dark smudge from an exploding shell blossomed and faded. A dozen Marines were laughing and exchanging high fives.

  Cruz walked over to Lasswell.

  “That was fast,” Cruz said. “How’d you get permission to fire?”

  “No one’s ever court-martialed an algorithm,” she said. “Once we had the point of origin, we fired. Lobbing mortars at us is a sucker’s game. They’d be crazy to try it again.”

  CRUZ WENT BACK TO SLEEP. At first light, he met Richards and Binns inside the ops center. Two Pashto-speaking Marines with headsets were listening to the local radio chatter.

  “What’re you picking up?” Cruz said.

  Sergeant Ishmel Ahmed, born in Kandahar and now living in Laguna Beach, was short, slightly overweight, and in his late twenties. His tortoiseshell eyeglasses and long-stemmed pipe gave him an academic look that was reinforced by his deliberate speaking cadence. Ahmed walked to the photomap and swept his hand to the right.

  “Most ICOM and VHF traffic is coming from the east,” he said. “A few Talib bands of four to six, typical stuff.”

  “Pakistan on the line?”

  “Most definitely,” Ahmed said, affecting the clipped Pakistani accent. “All the usual partridge in a pear tree code-word garbage. They are most upset with our presence, sahib.”

  Cruz turned to Richards.

  “Do you have any questions?”

  “Have you heard Farsi accents?” Richards said.

  Ahmed’s eyes widened.

  “Ah-ha! A CIA plot afoot!” he said.

  “Share and share alike,” Richards said. “My team helps you, you help us.”

  “We haven’t heard any Iranians,” Ahmed said. “Only locals bitching that the Americanis will spoil the harvest. We’re as w
elcome as cholera.”

  That provided an opening for Binns. The captain thinks he’s so fucking smart, Binns thought, but he’s bungled this one.

  “Sir, we don’t have a terp,” Binns said. “We can’t talk to the hajjis. So we’ll get no info?”

  Cruz caught the accusatory tone. He looked at Ahmed, who recoiled.

  “I don’t make house calls,” Ahmed said. “Those are animals out there.”

  “My terp will translate for all of us,” Richards said.

  “Fine,” Cruz said. “Let’s get started.”

  ON THE FAR BANK OF THE HELMAND RIVER five kilometers northwest of the base, Zar lived in a spacious compound shaded by a grove of olive trees. The four guard posts on the compound wall sat atop decaying mounds of sandbags. Only one sentry dozed at his post. The fighting had ceased years ago.

  The main house was tastefully furnished. Hand-knotted red Isfahan rugs covered the aromatic cedar floors, a fifty-five-inch TV provided entertainment, and a french-door Samsung refrigerator held cold tea and ice cream. To smother its noise, the twenty-kilowatt Kohler generator was tucked against the outside wall of the compound, while at the opposite end a small room housed a huge clay oven where servants prepared the meals. Large yellow sunflowers and rose bushes lined the path from the guest quarters to the main house.

  Inside the comfortable guesthouse on the other side of the courtyard, Zar sat sipping morning tea opposite the fretful Persian. In the distance they heard the occasional boom of the Americani artillery fire. A map was spread out on the rug between them. The Persian was poring over names and numbers in a black notebook.

  “I have to visit at least fifteen farms today,” he said in a challenging tone.

  Zar pointed at the camel-skin valise.

  “How much is left?”

  “About a million.”

  “Good.”

  “No, it’s bad,” the Persian said. “The Baloch are saying we can’t move our heroin. If the Americanis find the lab, we’re finished.”

  “All Baloch are liars,” Zar said. “You attend to the buying. I’ll take care of the infidels.”