Allies

by Wolf Riedel

  CHAPTER 7

  SOCCENT HQ, Tampa, Florida

  Monday 05 Mar 07 0800 EST

  Kurt held his hands around his coffee cup still trying to get warm. The boat ride to work that morning at dawn had been a particularly cold one; barely in the mid-forties and with a nippy northerly ten knot wind. The idea of commuting across Tampa Bay from Anna Maria Island to MacDill by boat each morning had been a much better one when it was conceived last summer than it had been during the last few months. Kurt had been forced to wear his CADPAT Gore-Tex combat jacket, gloves and and raincoat to keep the chilling wind out.

  The two cups of coffee at the morning’s Commander’s briefing had helped to warm him but the briefing had been a short one. The briefings from Iraq and Afghanistan had been the usually litany of minor TICs and IED strikes or discoveries. Iraq’s reports outnumbered Afghanistan by a rate of six to one. Particularly noteworthy was the discovery of another cache of six Iranian manufactured Explosively Formed Projectiles. These devices—about the size of a a five gallon paint bucket with a concave copper top—used a shaped charge principle. When fired, the top would be explosively formed into a very high speed molten copper slug easily capable of penetrating most allied armor. Whether or not these devices were being supplied by the Iranian government or unofficial Iranian elements was currently the topic of a public debate between the White House and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

  Phil had assigned his Chief of Staff the job of investigating the Marines incident. There had been a brief discussion about the optics of the command investigating the Marines fledgling special operations unit. Kurt had considered the fact that the lead investigator was a US Air Force colonel with no land combat experience as cutting both ways; lack of land combat experience versus no vested army-centric interest. Phil had been adamant, however, that the investigation should be wide-ranging. One dealing not just with the incident itself but also the unit’s training, preparation, standard operating procedures and post incident actions. Equally adamant had been his direction that the investigation scrupulously follow the appropriate JAGMAN procedures and that there would be no imposed limitations or restrictions on the investigation; the chips were to fall where they may.

  The meeting had gone on with a quick review of ISAF’s upcoming Operation ACHILLES and CJSOTF-A’s involvement. ACHILLES was scheduled to kick off in Northern Helmand province on the 6th and would involve primarily Brits, ANA and Americans but with support from the Canadians, Dutch and Danes; a total of some seven thousand troops against an estimated concentration of nine thousand Taliban most probably led by Mullah Abdul Qassim. The operation hoped to build on the Canadians’ Operation BAAZ TSUKA—also known as FALCON SUMMIT—in Panjwayi District which during the past December and January had gone a long way to separating the Taliban’s Tier 1 cadres from their Tier 2 local volunteers. The battalion that had conducted Op BAAZ TSUKA and the previous Op MEDUSA, the 1st Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment, had now rotated out and been replaced by the the RCR’s 2nd Battalion. They would soon see whether their predecessors had adequately degraded the enemy; the spring fighting season was just starting.

  The final issue had been the ongoing discussion of the operational tempo of Special Forces units who rotated into the theaters of operation for seven month tours while the line units did between twelve to fifteen months. Kurt had no dog in that hunt. While SF tours were shorter in duration, individual units and soldiers deployed more frequently than their line counterparts, on average one tour on for two off and since 3rd and 7th Special Forces Groups were now trading tours in Afghanistan while the 5th and 10th did Iraq, institutional memory was pretty well maintained. The question was how well the system would hold up under the surge in Iraq once the White House made a final decision on the numbers that would be committed.

  A shiver went down Kurt’s back. The temperature outside had gone up maybe two degrees in the last two hours. With luck they may get an afternoon high in the mid-sixties. Bloody hell, he thought. I’m losing my tolerance for cold weather.

  For Kurt the morning hours were the most productive of the day. The trouble was that, beyond checking his emails, at the moment he had no particular project or task that required completion.

  He toyed with the idea of another trip to Afghanistan. He’d been to Iraq with Phil and the command team in January for a major tuning of surge ops but in his view Afghanistan, and ISAF in particular, continued to be a neglected backwater by the US notwithstanding that they now had an American general in charge. Kurt had found it curious that ISAF, since 2002 and until this February, had had no Americans in command. There had been two Brits, two Turks, two Germans, a Canadian, an Italian and a Frenchman. The simple truth had been that during those days the US had run Operation ENDURING FREEDOM separate and apart from ISAF. The moment that the US agreed to put Regional Command-East, its own last sector, under ISAF it sent Major General McNeill to take over command of the force. I doubt we’ll see anyone other than an American in command of ISAF from now on, he thought.

  No. CJSOTF-A was due to rotate at the end of the month to the 7th SFG. It would be better for Colonel Ed Reeder to have a month to settle in before parachuting in to discuss the complexities of the theater with him. While we’re at it we can throw in the issue of JSOC running black special operations separate and apart from us, Kurt thought.

  JSOC reported directly to SOCOM bypassing CENTCOM, SOCCENT and CJSOTF-A. Currently they had a SEAL Team 6 squadron HQ with a troop of SEALs and a Ranger platoon plus some aviation resources hunting high value al-Qaeda, and more recently Taliban, targets. Coordination happened at Bagram but JSOC’s operations had more to do with the indigenous forces that the CIA had under its control than those ISAF commanded. Unfortunately, their operations were pure door kicker shit. While never able to operate at the scale JSOC was operating at in Iraq, it was nonetheless sufficient to piss off the local communities and the Afghan government which ISAF was trying hard to win over.

  Kurt decided to lower his sights considerably from the esoteric and, in his opinion politically hidebound, issues to something he could manage; Winters and the two current investigations.

  He hit Winter’s cell number on his phone’s speed dial and within seconds had a response.

  “Chief Winters.”

  “Mister Winters,” said Kurt. “It’s Colonel Richter. Did I take you away from breakfast?”

  “No Sir. Sal and I are on the road to Leesburg to attend the Lewises’ autopsies. They’re scheduled for this morning.”

  “Anything new since yesterday?”

  “Nothing significant yet, Sir.”

  “I’ve got another matter that’s come up that we’d like you to monitor.”

  “Hang on, Sir. I’ll pull over so that I can take a few notes. . . . Okay. Go ahead.”

  Kurt gathered his thoughts for a second. “Yesterday there was an incident in Nangarhar province in Afghanistan near the village of Bazaar Mar Koh on the Number 1 Highway. It’s about thirty some-odd klicks east of Jalalabad. Marine Special Operations Company-Foxtrot—which calls itself Task Force VIOLENCE—was hit by a VBIED and then opened fire on several people it considered insurgents. The locals say the dead and injured are not insurgents but local non-combatants. Estimates right now are eight dead and thirty-four wounded. MSOC-F belongs to our CJSOTF-A but the ground belongs to Task Force SPARTAN, that’s the 10th Mountain’s 3rd BCT. Got it so far?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  ‘SPARTAN had an MP patrol along with some other troops and the ANA on site within a short time looking into the thing. They weren’t there very long because the locals were getting pretty hostile to US presence.”

  “I get the idea, Sir.”

  “The General has tasked an Article 15-6 investigation this morning. What we’d like from you is to speak to the appropriate CID people there to see if they are looking into this and see if we can get any preliminary word back from the MPs. My guess is that your involvement will be limited because
if we get a whiff of any felony issue it will probably become an NCIS matter.”

  “That would be my guess as well, Sir.”

  “Have you ever been in contact with whatever NCIS field office covers Afghanistan.”

  “If I’m not mistaken they have a field office in Bahrain which covers the CENTCOM area of operations. I’ve never dealt with them before. On the other hand, they do have some specialized offices for the Marines. Do you know what post their MSOC come from?”

  “I think Camp Lejeune in North Carolina,” replied Kurt.

  “That would be their Carolinas Field Office. We’ll have to check as to which office would have primary jurisdiction for this group. My guess is Bahrain but I’ll have someone from my office track all that down.”

  “Thanks Mister Winters.” Kurt looked up to see CSM Jackson wander into his office and take one of the two chairs on the other side of Kurt’s desk. Kurt returned to the phone. “Let me know as things develop. Take care.” He hung up the phone.

  “Winters?” asked Jackson.

  “Yup. Just letting him know about our Marines. He’s going to lay some ground work for us. What’s up?”

  “The boss has another one for us. He’s going to be on a video conference with Todd in ten minutes and wants us both there.”

  “Not this Marine thing?”

  Jackson shrugged. “I doubt it. That’s already tasked out. I think this is new.”

  SOCCENT, like CENTCOM, ran on satellite links and videoconferencing. Kurt recalled the criticism of American Army leadership during the Vietnam War. In Vietnam, battalion and brigade leadership tended to stack up in ever higher layers of orbiting command helicopters exhorting on, or interfering with, the rifle companies and platoons below who trudged through the jungles and rice paddies. Now commanders in North America and Europe could hold face-to-face conferences with their subordinate officers in the Middle East and South and Central Asia and hold satellite telephone calls with individual teams in the field. He vacillated back and forth as to whether or not this new tech capability was really an improvement.

  Phil’s conference room had gone digital long before his own tenure had started. Kurt remembered that this trend started at about the time that large size flat-screen TVs and monitors became readily available—before that no one had wanted to haul the older CRTs into the field; a conference room may have held one old CRT with a VCR that usually sat in a corner and was rarely used.

  Here, several screens on the wall allowed for the simultaneous access to digital maps, air photos, the ubiquitous PowerPoint presentations and video feeds, either from other conference rooms or from airborne surveillance systems. A large SMART Board had replaced paper flipcharts for recording brainstorming sessions. The conference table was equipped with outlets for laptop power and network connectivity at each chair.

  Kurt and Jackson took their seats facing a screen already connected to a live feed from CJSOTF-A’s facilities at Bagram Airfield. Colonel Lou Todd was already seated before the camera at his end reviewing some papers in his hands. As they entered his field of view he looked up, sat back and ran a hand over his shaved head.

  “I guess it’s good morning to you Kurt and to you Sergeant Major.” The hoarse voice was partly explained by the wisps of cigar smoke that were curling up into the air from the desk in front of him.

  “Good afternoon to you, Sir,” said Jackson.

  Kurt nodded toward Todd. “How you doin’, Lou?”

  “Can’t complain and if I did no one would give a rat’s ass anyway, Kurt. You?”

  “Freezing to death. Can’t believe I’m in Florida. It’s the same here today as where you guys are; mid forties.”

  “Wow. I can’t understand why I can’t generate any feelings of sympathy.”

  “That’s because underneath that easygoing facade you’re actually one hard-hearted bastard, Lou,” said the voice behind them.

  “Hi, Sir,” said Todd. “Kurt’s just trying to convince me that a Canadian can’t stand the cold Floridian winters.”

  “He seemed to be okay when we we’re on Takur Gar,” said Phil. “Guess we must have broken him since he got here.” Phil and Kurt had fought together in the snowy Shah-i-Kot valley on Operation ANACONDA in the Winter of 2002. Todd knew this well; he’d been there too. He and the tactical command post from his 1st Bn 5th SFG and several of his ODAs had been there in support of Zia Lodin’s force of anti-Taliban Afghans.

  Phil sat down and looked at Todd. “Go ahead Lou. It’s your nickel.”

  “Thanks, Sir,” he said. “In short, my problem is that we believe we have a command element of an ODA at Patrol Base POWDER on the Pak border in Zabul that seems to be going rogue on us.

  “I’ve had several verbal complaints, just a bit more solid than rumors, and one letter from a captain from the 1st of the 4th Infantry that made several allegations of wrongdoing including unauthorized cross border operations, apparently overly aggressive operations with unusually high civilian casualties, and a potential involvement with drug trafficking.”

  Phil looked concerned. “Just the one? Is he due to rotate out at the end of this month?”

  “Yes, Sir. I’m not sure if there’s more than one involved but he and his whole team are about to come out. We’re in the process of deciding whether or not to keep the PB and its mission to support and train the border police and the locals down there going. My staff is recommending that we pack it in.”

  “You sound like you’re not that sure that’s a good move.”

  “You’re right there. I think we may be overreacting to the rumors. Problem is I can’t get a consistent assessment on that place that isn’t tainted by attitudes, pro and con, about that ODA.”

  Phil pondered that. “They’ve got supporters in the chain of command?”

  “Quite a few. The governor down there loves them while the local ANA battalion commander hates their guts; thinks the body count down there is unecessarily high. The folks at TF ZABUL have mixed feelings about them but then the ODA isn’t part of their chain of command. They’re owned by TF 31 although they aren’t a regular ODA from the 1st of the 3rd. They’re actually from the 5th SFG and this is their third tour at that PB—not all of them of course but the main part of their command team, the det commander, Captain Tom Lesperance, the assistant det commander and the ops sergeant have all been there three times.”

  “That can get rough,” said Phil. “It’s a good thing to have continuity but too much familiarity can become counterproductive.”

  “I think that’s the problem here. It’s good to get in with the locals. Hell, that’s our job to do that, but I think here they’ve developed a life for themselves. I’m not saying they’ve gone native but I think they have chosen sides here, who knows, maybe for a good reason, but their objectivity seems to be gone and they’ve started to identify with and participate in the activities of some of the local tribes there and not necessarily for the overall benefit of the Afghan government.

  “For me the problem is that if these guys were from the 3rd I’d be on them like a shirt but they’re from the 5th and have a lot of supporters down there. It’s kind of like this Marines’ thing; it would be good optics if we could bring an outsider in to look at that.”

  “I think you’re right there and since Zabul comes under RC-South I think I might have a guy with some local knowledge who can help,” Phil said.

  Todd looked at Kurt. “It’ll be good to see you again. I hear it’s seventy down in Kandahar, Kurt. You should love the heat.”

  “Thanks, Lou,” said Kurt. Well that takes care of my having nothing to do.

  CHAPTER 8

  District 5 Medical Examiner, Leesburg, Florida

  Monday 05 Mar 07 0900 hrs EST

  Neither Mark nor Sal had ever visited Leesburg before. There had never been any reason to. Sandwiched between two lakes in central Florida, located about half way between Ocala and Orlando, the town of sixteen thousand had once been a part of a thriving citrus gr
owing region. Killer frosts in the mid-eighties had driven that industry further south and the city was more and more becoming a retirees’ bedroom community, a part of the greater Orlando metro region. While there might be a few Orlando based guardsmen living here, there were no army units or installations in the area, hence not of much interest to CID.

  Florida’s medical examiner system divided the state into twenty-four geographic districts. District 5 served the less populous west-central region of Citrus, Lake, Marion, Hernando and Sumter Counties. Their cream-colored, single-storey building was nestled amongst palm trees and elms in the narrow, eastern isthmus between Lake Harris and Lake Griffin at the edge of residential properties and an industrial zone. Its location, in large part, was dictated by its proximity to the three hundred and twenty-bed Leesburg Regional Medical Center.

  Sergeant Dunn and Detective Anderson were already in the facility’s waiting room when Mark and Sal arrived.

  “Wayne and Phyllis not joining us today?” asked Sal.

  “Nah,” said Anderson. “They’re working the case up in Ocala. We figured one from each of our departments would do it so Gary and I shared a ride down here.

  Mark nodded. This wasn’t going to be a particularly informative autopsy. The causes of death had been fairly obvious at the scene and about the only revelations he was expecting was a bullet caliber identification and possibly, but not probably, trace evidence on the bodies.

  “You guys get anything out of the bosses or Disney?” asked Dunn.