by Mainak Dhar
I lay down in the grass, looking at the trees and rocks up ahead.
I spotted movement immediately, men moving from cover to cover, mostly dressed in local clothes, but with a few black-clad grunts among them.
What would Khalid’s play be?
If the man had been in the SOG, he would know better than to just rush a defended base. Yes, they would get to us before we could shoot all of them down, but they would take casualties.
As if in response, I saw at least a dozen muzzle flashes from among the trees. They fired at the base, no doubt trying to shake us up before they attacked.
I crawled towards the tree line, holding my breath, wondering with each foot forward whether they would see me and focus their fire at me. If they did, my plan would have a short and painful end.
Luckily, they were focused on the base. Amidst the harsh, guttural sounds of automatic rifles, I heard the sharp crack of a sniper rifle. A man fell, his legs sticking out of the tree line.
Karzai had begun to work his magic.
I heard a man shout out where the shot had come from, I knew Karzai had already moved, as the men began firing towards that position.
I just a few feet away from the attackers, when I heard another crack of Karzai’s rifle.
I don’t know if he hit anyone this time, but the men, recognising that a trained sniper like him was the biggest obstacle to their rushing the base, were now focusing on where he was shooting from.
A smoke trail emerged from the trees, as an RPG snaked out towards the base. Seconds later, I heard an explosion behind me.
I had to hurry now, as I realised that they didn’t really need to rush the base in a hurry. If they had enough RPGs, they could shred Karzai and Rachel to pieces at leisure from their cover in the tree line and from behind the rocks.
I had planned to work my way to the rear of the attackers and then strike, hopefully panicking and delaying them more, but seeing the RPG in action made me act.
I was counting on Karzai to cover me, but I needed to cover him as well.
I unslung my rifle from my shoulder and crawled behind a rock. A man got up just a dozen feet from me, the RPG launcher at his shoulder.
I shot him in the chest. As he fell, I rolled away as bullets slammed into the rocks where I had been and came up in a crouch.
Another man, this time one wearing a black uniform and mask, stood before me, his gun coming up.
I thanked Karzai silently as the man’s head exploded in pink mist and he fell.
I shot another man and then rolled away behind some larger rocks.
I had brought two grenades with me. I threw them in quick succession, ducking behind a rock as they both exploded within seconds of each other. I had no idea if they did any damage, but the firing stopped as the men seemed to pause, wondering what they were heading into.
No doubt they had been told that we were holed up in the base and were hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned. To suddenly take losses and now realising that an attacker was among them, was perhaps making them rethink their tactics.
I kept moving forward in a low crouch, back down the pathway these men had come up. One man popped up from behind a rock.
I stood there, like a deer caught in the headlights, wondering if he would raise the alarm or shoot.
The idiot waved at me, maybe thinking me to be one of his buddies, never processing the fact that a man with a gun on the hill could be anyone but one of his pals. His momentary lapse proved fatal, as a shot from Karzai took him in the neck.
Our attackers stopped firing now, and hunkered down. They all knew that before they had done any damage, they had taken several casualties.
I don’t know how many of them knew they were up against a legendary sniper, but by now they knew that they were not just up against two random, cornered men with rifles.
I heard shouts all around me. Then the sound of an exploding grenade, followed by another and another.
Rachel was putting her throwing skills to good use. I heard at least two shouts of pain. Karzai’s rifle barked twice more in quick succession.
At least one of the shots hit home, as it was followed by a scream. I saw two men crouched behind a rock. As I eased close to them, I heard them speak to each other in English.
‘What the fuck’s going on? There were supposed to be two of them.’
‘Damned if I know. The boss is screaming for us to hurry. Dave’s got the mortars set up. That should sort them out while we charge the base.’
Shit!
If they started lobbing mortars, Aman and Rachel would be in real trouble. I called Karzai on the sat-phone I carried with me.
‘Incoming. Mortars. Take cover. Be careful.’
‘You are the one who needs to be careful. You’re out there, major.’
I crawled closer to the two men and saw that one of them was my fat buddy, Rasool. His face was swollen. I guessed that the Chinese man had beaten him to try and get to the truth of my allegations.
I hissed out the words. ‘Rasool, three men are here. All claim to be your father.’
He got up and made his way towards me.
‘Who the fuck said that?’
His pal was sniggering, something that ended abruptly when I shot him through the chest.
Rasool was about to bring his gun up when I barreled into him, sinking my knife into his chest and pulling it out. He was a big man, and no mean slouch when it came to grappling.
I felt him lift me off my feet and he flung me against a tree. That hurt and gave me renewed appreciation for how strong he was. I mean, I am not a small man, and to pick me up and throw me was impressive.
But now I had bigger concerns, as he stepped towards me, a serrated knife in his hand.
‘You talk too much, now I’ll cut out your tongue. You got the Chinese to beat me with your wild stories.’
‘I’d say it helped your looks.’
He growled and came towards me, swinging.
Whatever Rasool had done in his previous life, he had been trained well. For a man of his size, he moved fast, feinting right and then left, and then stabbing straight at my chest. I blocked him just in time, stepping back, cutting him across the forearm.
He shouted and came at me again, this time doing some damage as he cut my thigh and then just below my shoulder.
I hate knife fights. It’s almost inevitable that you’ll get hurt to some degree and winning isn’t half as much fun when you’re also bleeding and cut up.
Plus, I didn’t have time to dance with Rasool.
I could hear gunshots and two loud explosions as mortar rounds slammed into the base. They had at least two mortars, and I had to get to them, otherwise they would just keep lobbing them in, and even if they didn’t kill or wound Karzai, they would force him to take cover while these men got in close and finished him.
Rasool came in again. This time I took a long step back, falling down in a heap. I saw the look on triumph on Rasool’s face as he towered over me. That look turned to confusion, when he realised I had faked my fall to get him to break his stride.
I swept him off his feet and as he came down to his knees, I stabbed him in the neck. Once, twice, thrice.
But Rasool managed to cut me once. Then his hands went slack by side and he fell. When I was sure he was dead, I rolled off his body.
I heard a loud explosion, and then another.
I had to get to those damn mortars. I ran through the trees, reloading the mag in my rifle as I moved.
I saw a man firing at the base.
Without breaking stride, I fired at him, seeing him dive to the ground.
Whether I hit him wasn’t as important as the fact that I was disrupting the attack and buying some time for my friends at the fort. I skidded to a stop in a clearing, where I saw the first mortar team.
Two men, one looking at the base through his binoculars, calling in the shots while the other adjusted the mortar before loading a shell.
It was when I broug
ht my rifle up that I first felt the pain shoot up on my left side. I realised then that Rasool had cut me up real bad, but I had no time to check just how serious the injury was.
I shot the spotter first. As he fell, the other man dropped the shell, scrambling to his side for the rifle that lay there. But he was too late. He died as I shot him twice in the chest.
I paused then, bending over in agony.
The Chechen had cut me up and then Rasool had done his bit. My whole body was on fire and covered in blood. While I wasn’t sure how bad any of the individual wounds were, together they added up to whole lot of agony.
Another loud explosion.
Damn.
I really had to get to the second team.
I was so focused on that, that I didn’t pay attention to the figure to my left.
I turned at the last moment to see Khalid there, holding a pistol in his right hand.
I turned towards him, but was too late. He fired twice.
I felt a piercing pain in my side as I fell.
***
Khalid booted my rifle away and stood over me, his pistol pointed at me.
I heard the bark of Karzai’s sniper rifle once, and then two more explosions as more mortar impacted inside the base.
I strained to hear more shots from Karzai, but there were none.
Khalid smiled at me. ‘You have bigger things to worry about than your sniper friend. It was brave of you to come out here but it was too little, too late.’
My left side felt like it was on fire. I felt a wet patch there, where the bastard had shot me.
I tried to get up, but he kicked me down.
‘It’s better this way than if I had found your corpse in there.’
‘Why? Do you fancy a chat? Just shoot me and get it over with.’
Khalid knelt beside me and held up his left hand. I could see a bloodied bandage on it. At least three fingers seemed to be missing.
‘That Chinese bastard wanted to make sure there was no truth in what you said to him. So, he took three of my fingers before he was truly convinced that I wasn’t on the payroll of the Americans or the Indians. He shot one of my best men as well.’
He pointed his pistol at my leg and was about to fire, when I heard the whup whup of helicopter rotors.
‘Too late, Khalid. Your pals are here.’
Soon, we heard a distinctive sound – like that of canvas cloth being ripped, as US helicopter gunships began working the hillside over with their Gatling guns.
Two screams came from the clump of trees nearby, as the shells found their targets. I could see the hesitation in Khalid’s eyes. He knew it was game over. There was no way that his men were going to take over the base with American gunships overhead and a chance that ground troops were also moving in.
‘Khalid, Ross and that Chinese fucker are probably long gone. They sent you to do the dying and killing, while they escape. How stupid do you feel now?’
He bared his teeth, shouted at me to shut up and raised his pistol again.
While the American helicopter had provided the distraction, I had taken out the knife from my belt and threw it at Khalid at the same time as he fired.
The knife lodged just below his right shoulder, jerking his hand up, and the bullet hit the ground inches from my head. Ignoring the searing pain in my left side, I rolled towards my rifle and picked it up, firing again and again into Khalid before he could recover. As he fell dead, two of his men stumbled towards us, running down the hill as more American shells rained down around us. I covered my head and hid behind a rock, as bullets streaked the area around us for a few seconds.
When I got back up, both men were dead, lying shredded to pieces. That was when I realised the danger I was in.
The American pilots were using thermal imaging. To them, every human on the hill was a legitimate target. Even though Karzai and I had trackers to show our positions courtesy Dhar, friendly fire has been a known cause of lives in the heat of the moment.
I knew I couldn’t stop my body heat, but could show I wasn’t a threat by pretending to be wounded. So, I went back down and lay still, as the Americans continued to work the hill over.
I could hear deeper sounding rotors now, probably troop carriers. No more mortars had fired for a while now. There was no more shooting around me. The attackers were either all dead, or trying to get back down the hill, now that they had realised just how badly the tables had turned against them.
As I lay there, all I could think of was getting back to Zoya and Aman. I didn’t know how badly I was wounded, but having come so far, I wanted nothing more than to see them.
I could now hear automatic rifle fire, not the harsh sounds of AK-47s, which had dominated the hill so far, but the slightly softer sound of the M-4s American special forces carried as the American troops swept the hill, eliminating the remaining non-existing resistance.
The trees to my right rustled and a masked man ran by, turning to fire precisely aimed shots at his pursuers.
My vision was blurring and the pain was getting worse. I hoped that bastard Rasool hadn’t hit any internal organs, otherwise I was likely not getting out alive from this one.
I crawled to where Khalid’s body lay and picked up his pistol.
The masked man noticed me then, but it was too late for him as I fired three shots at him, sending him crashing back into the tree behind him.
I lay down, exhausted. My throat was parched, my body hurt in a dozen places and I didn’t think I could pick up the rifle again.
If another hostile were to come by, I doubted I could do more than just roll over and wait to be killed.
The sat-phone by my side rang.
When I picked it up, it was Sandberg. ‘Major, you are either insanely brave or just plain insane. Our drone caught you slipping out. We’ve been seeing thermal imaging of you at work. You delayed them long enough for help to get there. It’s all over other than the last couple of tangos our boys need to mop up. How are you?’
‘I’m shot, cut up and bleeding to death. Other than that, I’m having a great day.’
I heard him chuckle, as he said, ‘Our boys are coming down the hill. Hang tight.’
That wasn’t hard to do.
Before the Americans got to me, I felt my eyes closing and then there was darkness.
Twelve
The first face I saw when I came to was Zoya. She was grinning from ear to ear, though her eyes told me that she had been crying. She held up Aman, who looked at me curiously, as if wondering which vaguely familiar creature I was.
As I looked around me, I realised I was in a hospital bed, my torso covered in bandages, my left hand swathed in bandages. There were bandages on the right side of my face as well. I must have taken a hit there that I hadn’t even registered.
I tried to turn towards Zoya but groaned and quickly lay back, racked by the pain which shot through my body.
Zoya held out her hand and grabbed mine. God, it felt so good to just be able to hold her hand again.
‘Relax, Aadi. You’ve got a bunch of stitches on the left side.’
She was about to say something else, but teared up and leaned forward, her head resting against my right shoulder, which thankfully was the one part of my body that didn’t seem to be banged up, bandaged or stitched up.
I reached around her with my right arm and hugged her, closing my eyes, thanking whatever gods up there had decided that I not die, bleeding on some god forsaken hillside in Afghanistan, that I get a chance to hold my family again.
As I lay there, holding Zoya and Aman, it all came, the torrent of memories and feelings gushing through my mind.
I almost sat up with a start. ‘Aman, Rachel. Where are they? Are they okay? Where am I?’
Zoya pushed me back into the bed gently.
‘Rachel’s okay and you’re at an Army hospital in Mumbai. Ravi and Rekha are also here to meet you. I’ll go ask the doctor if they can come in.’
As she turned to leave, Z
oya picked up a remote and turned on the TV.
CNN was on and behind the anchor was a graphic with the words, ‘Into the Valley of Death’ written on it. The anchor was reading from notes in front of her.
‘…As we’ve reported over the last two days, US Special Forces rescued Rachel Harmening, the daughter of the former US President, and well-known journalist and activist, from the abandoned base in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley where she was being held hostage after her flight was hijacked. According to US government sources, a joint operation had been carried out by US Navy SEALs, supported with air strikes from Predator drones and US Air Force air support. Our sources say there were no casualties among US ground forces, though a helicopter had been shot down earlier, resulting in six deaths. Significant casualties had been inflicted on enemy forces. Miss Harmening is reported to be in stable health and is on her way back to the United States, after being checked by medical personnel at a base in Afghanistan.’
The video cut to a person whom I had never seen before, but whose voice I had grown familiar with. The text at the bottom of the screen identified him as General Sandberg, commander of US forces in Afghanistan. He was looking straight at the camera. His voice radiated the confidence that came with commanding men in uniform for decades. I saw that in his demeanor and the look in his steely, grey eyes, while the reporter on the ground asked him questions.
‘General, can you share any details of the op to free Miss Harmening? Anything about the incident where the helicopter was shot down and how our forces managed to rescue her without any further loss of life, despite the clearly well-defended position the enemy occupied?’
I could see the beginnings of a smirk form on Sandberg’s face. I knew that look well. I suppose I had sported it as well, when civilians asked for details, as if combat was not a bloody, messy affair, but something to be reveled in, like an action movie.
‘My thoughts are with the families of those brave young troops, who died when the chopper came down. We are in the process of notifying the next of kin. Till that time, it would be incorrect to reveal their identities and any other operational details. This is also to protect the identities of their families. As to the mission itself, all I will say is that the United States Armed Forces defeated the enemies. What complicated matters was that it was not just a mission to seek and destroy the enemy, but also to ensure that the hostage was safe. I will not go into details because this will reveal operational tactics which for obvious reasons, I would not want public.’