The Towers

by David Poyer

He’d been surprised to get this mission. Force Recon must have had something else going, not to be prepping the way for their own jarheads. Sweeping farther east, he suspected, to start sealing the Pak border. But better sitting out here with your thumb up your ass than probing the same aperture back aboard Kitty Hawk.

  You could get acquainted with your men, for one thing. Tatie, Two Scoops, Knobby. He’d heard stranger nicknames. Two Scoops had gotten his from a serious accident trying to crap into a Ziploc. His shaved head was bony and yellow. Teddy wondered what kind of hair the guy had that he thought shaving it off looked better. He was from El Centro and had a three-year-old son who lived with his grandmother. Swager, of course, was the skinny SEAL cub who believed the gun porn in the glossy magazines. The one who’d looked as if he was about to faint when they got the word to deploy. So far he’d held up, though. Tatie, squad leader for Echo One, had two years of prelaw at Idaho State but had either flamed out on the tests or lost his tuition money in a poker game, versions differed. Instead of the bar he’d found the SEALs. He had a country-boy affect and looked rawboned dumb, but Teddy suspected he was actually the smartest dude in the platoon. The kind of guy you knew he’d end up someplace significant, if he survived. Plus, he made a great hillbilly tuna, with the packets of mac and cheese.

  Teddy’s job was to get them through it. So far this hadn’t been a demanding recon, but sometimes you turned a corner and suddenly there you were wading through lava up to your balls.

  A green spheroid. A grenade. And Sumo Kaulukukui gives him that look. “War’s a motherfucker, ain’t it?”

  “You fat bastard,” Teddy subvocalized, almost saying it until subterranean discipline muted his larynx beneath the wind-fluttering cover. His fingers dug into the powdery, icy sand like the claws of a reptile. “Why’d you have to be so fucking noble? Why’d we have to be so fucking gung ho?”

  Forget that. Forget it! This was another war. This time the fuckers had attacked New York, Washington. And the SEALs, the Marines, and the Air Force were bringing revenge. Land here and organize, then drive on Kandahar, capital of the Taliban. Bring America’s regards to the too-tall, smiling asshole who’d planned and financed it.

  Teddy tilted his wrist again. As if tied to the glowing numerals, a subtle whine drifted down from the constellations, a thin, dwindling song so vanishingly faint it could only be heard in the lulls of the wind. So distant, really, he couldn’t tell precisely what it was. Probably a lingering Predator.

  Scoops kicked as he came awake, almost getting Teddy in the balls. “Sorry,” he whispered.

  “Get rid of that when you wake up, Petty Officer.”

  “Rid of what, Chief?”

  “That flinch. Get you killed, one of these days.” Teddy debated telling him how it would have killed him if he’d woken like that with someone walking over a hide site looking for him, like in Ashaara, but didn’t. The more the chief talked, the more they would too. No one was around for miles—no question of somebody sneaking up unobserved—but this wouldn’t be the only recon they’d be on in this fight.

  Although it was looking as if it might not take that long after all, the way the Northern Alliance was moving out. He’d expected it to take all winter to stage enough forces in for an offensive, that was how it had worked in Desert Storm, but this thing seemed to be running on a different schedule.

  He low-crawled up out of the depression and peered out over the land. The engine sound from far above waned, as if the aircraft was climbing. He checked his watch again. Close enough. “Let’s go. You two, north end of the field. Scoops and I’ll take the south.”

  He threw off the cover and for the first time in two days rose to full height. His joints cracked, sending pings of pain along steel wires. He slung rifle and pack. Rolled up the cover. Kicked more sand over where they’d buried their shit. Then, when the others gave him the thumbs-up, started off across the desert, patting his chest to make sure he had the grenades.

  Toward the airfield. They had to physically be there, marking both ends, before the helos would come in. Insertion was their most vulnerable moment. The jarheads would be coming in locked and loaded for a hot LZ.

  It felt good moving out, planting one boot in front of the other after being cooped up so long. The bounce of the ruck, the swing of the weapon. He kept the NVGs powered up, kept his gaze moving. If there was another hide team out here … somebody not so well disposed toward U.S. Marines falling out of the sky … they’d be powering up their Stingers or Strelas right about now. He stopped and scanned the south end of the runway with the IR on his rifle, which had a different frequency response from that of the goggles. Nothing. He detoured around a hillock, then circled back and jogged up to check its top. It was unoccupied.

  On across rock-littered sand … the asphalt of the strip glowed ahead, still warmer than its surroundings even after the frigid night past. Partially covered with blowing sand, it wavered in the green dim as if underwater. He put his rifle to his face again and scanned for the other team. There they were, green blobs undulating slowly across the landscape.

  “About here, Chief?”

  “Looks good.” He sank to a knee, breathing hard. His collarbone ached. He checked all around. Were they in someone’s crosshairs? He pulled rocks together, piling a cairn like some biblical altar. Checked his watch one last time, then nodded to the second class. “Go ahead. Pop it.”

  Scoops stripped off the plastic wrapper and inserted the battery. He pushed the switch up and set the IR flare atop the cairn. They stepped back as it powered up with a drilling whine, and Teddy half turned away, not looking directly at it.

  The first white flash of infrared outlined a vast circle around them. Teddy backed off, still not facing it so as not to fry his goggles. He searched the sky, but saw nothing. Lowered his gaze, to see a strobe from the far end of the strip echo his own.

  He was lifting his wrist to check the time again when something black passed over, winking across the roadway of stars. The muffled whump of engine and rotors arrived at the same moment. It passed so swiftly he couldn’t react, just stood holding his rifle and staring up openmouthed at the familiar nose-down, tail-up attitude like a curious wasp, twin comets of hot light coning out glowing-bright behind its engines.

  “Cobras?” Knobby yelled.

  Teddy pulled off his goggles. A vibrating grayness to the east. A mysterious glow that seemed to come up off the desert itself, as if the sand were radioactive. “Yeah,” he yelled back to Knobby’s outline, kneeling a few yards off, face lifted like his own. The blacker black of the strip stretching away before them. Another form raced across east to west, nose down as well but even lower, its wingbeats fluttering in Teddy’s chest, hurtling into a turn that would boomerang it back on them within seconds.

  “Cover,” he screamed, before consciously registering they were rolling into a firing run. And lurched into a clumsy sprint for the hillock they’d just skirted. Behind him came the thuds of Knobby’s boots digging into the friable soil as he too accelerated. Far out over the desert he caught another glimpse of occluding stars; too slow; too slow. He pumped his fists, sucking icy air, jamming his boots deep into Afghanistan. The roar swelled; twin elongated shapes swiftly grew as they rushed across the flat, level plain toward them.

  He jammed every ounce of effort into speed, fighting the inertia of his body and the weight of his gear to push through the invisible wall of the sprint. A light began to flash from the lead machine. Just as they reached the lump in the ground, he reached back, collared the other SEAL, and dragged him down into the lee of the gritty ground.

  The desert cracked open around them in a maelstrom of shattering noise, smoke, dust, and rocks that jarred his teeth and jabbed needles into his ears. A second or two of ringing silence; then a second, distant tack-tack-tack.

  Then the end of the world all over again, mainly on the far side of the hillock but around them too, blasting to left and right and whining overhead. They crouched in its shad
ow as the roar grew, pressed down on them, then dwindled.

  Teddy found himself lying on top of the second class. He slammed a hand down on his shoulder. “You okay? They’re gonna be coming back,” he screamed. The face that turned up to him was dazed. Teddy hauled him to his feet and pushed him toward the hillock. The only cover, but so small. If they used rockets instead of just the gatlings in the turret, they could blast it away. He slapped his load-bearing gear, located the angular hardness of the radio. “Marine Cobra, Marine Cobra, you’re blue on blue, blue on blue. Cease fire, cease fire, don’t you see our strobe? Cease fire, cease fire!”

  A crackle, then an apologetic voice. Teddy gulped air. “You stupid fucking gyrene, what the fuck d’you think an IR strobe is for? Think we’re fucking ALQ down here?”

  “Sorry, man, nobody told us there were friendlies on the ground. Got a Predator report. Unidents, possible Talib patrol. Then saw the flashes and thought you were firing at us.”

  “Those were strobes. To mark the ends of the runway. Read your fuckin’ op order! Call off your buddy, we’re fucking SEALs down here. There’s another team on the north end.” He started to threaten the pilot, decided to leave it until later. File through channels, let the system discipline whoever’d screwed up. He left the radio on, listening to their chatter as they broke off and orbited to the west, accusing each other in turn. He kept a wary eye on them and stayed close to the hill, which was only about half the size it had started off as. Loose rocks lay blasted apart across the sand. A cloud of smoke and dust drifted downwind.

  Then the slow, deep beats of heavy-lift birds penetrated the growing lavender light all along the horizon, and up out of the curve of the brightening desert pushed a throbbing avalanche of sound. Like a cloud of locusts they grew up into the sky, towered, and began to descend as the Cobras circled like sheepdogs at a radius of five miles.

  Flares burst from the lead birds, then from them all, the whole first wave detonating in brilliant showering bursts of hot gold, pale green, tawny orange, all far brighter than they had any right to be. A whole Independence Day display over square miles of uninhabited desert. Teddy covered his face with one arm. Corkscrewing smoke-trails followed the golden comets as they plummeted. One huge bird nosed up, then with a remote clatter machine-gunned out dozens of smaller pyrotechnics that arched out to its flanks, peaked, then fell away, leaving smoke trails like the legs of an immense scorpion looming in the sky above Teddy and Knobby. Depleted canisters thunked around them, raising bursts of dust, rolling to smoking stops. Dust blasted up as the helos settled, rocking, and suddenly it was zero vis, like swimming in mud as grit blasted their faces and the world turned to sand. Teddy grabbed the second class and backpedaled; he didn’t want to be the first shape some scared newbie, green-ass marine on his first combat insertion saw looming out of the murk. They squatted behind the hillock as the second wave rolled in. A squad trotted past in open order, cheeks blackened, bent under huge packs and antitank missiles. The squad leader wheeled, squinting; Teddy pointed to his shoulder, to the flag patch; gave him a salute. The marine nodded and waved his guys on.

  Teddy sank cross-legged, feeling as if something had dissolved away inside. The first wave was lifting off. The second, coming in. More waves of tawny-tasting dust blew past, as if sandblasting him for a new paint job. Fuck, why were his knees shaking?

  Knobby hit the ground next to him. Pulled off his cover and ran his hands though his hair, shaking out dust. “Man, that was close.”

  “No shit.” That was why Teddy was shaking; only now was nearly getting blown away by a fucking trigger-happy pilot getting to him. But look at fucking Swager sitting there gibbering away as if four days in the hide had dammed up inside of him and now it all had to get out at once. Gesticulating like an Italian trying to sell you a lottery ticket.

  The crunch of footsteps; yells on the wind; another squad trekked past, gear bouncing as they lurched in the loose footing. With them was a less heavily loaded pair in black trousers and gear vests and floppy purple bush hats. Teddy’s gaze followed them, riveted by the hats; then sharpened as one turned toward him and pointed something. Teddy’s rifle jerked up; then he got his thumb off the safety; only a camera.

  “And who are you guys? Hey, you’re not marines.”

  “Don’t take pictures of us,” Teddy said.

  “Yeah, we’re SEALs,” Swager contributed. “Turn that camera off.”

  “Public affairs cleared us, man. We’re embedded. The longest raid from the sea in history! We flew four hundred miles, refueled in the air. SEALs, huh? And you were already—”

  Teddy said, “I told you, don’t take pictures. There’s nobody dead here. Nothing you want to see, you bloodsucking asshole.”

  “Hey, take it easy. I’m on your side. I’m—”

  “Turn the fucking camera off!” Teddy grabbed it out of the man’s hands, looked in vain over the silver surface for something resembling a switch, then lost it. The camera flew apart as it hit a rock. The reporter, cameraman, whatever he was, staggered back, started to yell. Then caught something in Teddy’s face. Or maybe, spotted his hand reaching for his pistol. He scrambled to scoop up the camera, shook the sand off, and pelted after his squad, shouting for them to wait up.

  “You weren’t really gonna shoot him?” Swager said.

  Teddy took a deep breath. “Course not. Fuck, no.”

  “Good. Okay.” Swager’s hand sought Teddy’s shoulder. The dust-reddened eyes searched his. “We okay now, Chief? Everything under control?”

  Teddy stared back blankly. Under control? He broke the other man’s grip and elbow-butted him away. “Keep the fuckin’ hands off, Swager. This ain’t my first fucking rodeo, you know.”

  “Okay. Okay!” Swager backed away, hands up. Then turned as Tatie and Scoops emerged from the blowing dust, sand goggles pulled down.

  “Everything cool here, war dogs?”

  “Oh, yeah, Tatie. Everything’s cool. Some asshole just got right up in the chief’s face, that’s all,” Swager said, not looking at Teddy. Who just stood with his hands on his knees, bent over, trying to make them stop quivering.

  16

  Bagram Joint Operations Center

  THE sides of the tents fluttered like sails on a slow passage. Bagram had become an island, isolated and self-sufficient, and in the JOC scores of flat-screen monitors pulsed to the steady thrum of generators. From the airfield the howl of jets never stopped; only waned or grew louder, day or night. Beyond the field was wire, berms, troops, and light armor: the Eighty-second Airborne and Tenth Mountain. And beyond that, half in ragtag camos and the rest still in shalwar kameez and pakul hats, the hastily trained cadres of the new Afghanistan Military Force milled or squatted in the velvety, tan dust. By day, tents and flags rippled in the wind. By night, lights glared on concertina and machine-gun posts. Inside the interconnected canvas tunnels the screens and power lights of dozens of computers and transceivers glowed, and the nets whispered on. The smells of dust and coffee and kerosene heaters, lived-in uniforms and jet exhaust, were the smells of battle here.

  Dan sat slumped, massaging his eye sockets. In front of him a network shifted and danced. Constructed of points connected by lines of varying colors and widths, it shimmered like a spiderweb in a breeze as data streamed through the program. A boxed legend read CIRCE 4.2. DECEMBER 11, 2001. 1455 GMT.

  His team had moved on from targeting, relieved by augmentees from stateside, and relocated into a side tent running off the intel section of the JOC—“behind the green door,” as the saying went. The Fusion Cell had activated days before. Fusion, as in merging all the in-theater intelligence inputs, collating them with what streamed in from outside sources, and, one hoped, producing actionable intelligence. Almost a hundred men and women worked in the never-darkened warren, including dozens of civilians: FBI, CIA, DIA, and agencies that didn’t officially exist. CIRCE had been “fused” into something called the Joint Working Group, although the lines between the v
arious boxes were still in flux.

  By dint of serious scrambling, Wenck and Henrickson had established broadband links back to TAG. CIRCE, or “she” as they occasionally referred to it, didn’t actually reside in Bagram. Only its output, via satellite data link, was displayed before him. It was currently being modified for the project Provanzano had named Template. Template was the intel side of the search for bin Laden, Mullah Omar, Berader, Al-Zawahiri, and the other top-tier ALQ leadership. Once they got a fix, a special ops team called Hatchet would descend from the night sky. The Working Group had four subteams, of which Dan’s was last. He didn’t think that meant they were lowest priority, but being Navy in a mainly Army environment was seldom an advantage.

  The Special Forces had a separate operations center, with its own compound and guard force. Dan had been over several times, for morning and evening briefs. They covered not only the latest enemy dispositions, but the operations of all Coalition special forces in-country, concentrating on the ongoing search for HVTs—High Value Targets. The most interesting had been a two-hour presentation by a former GRD colonel who’d lost an arm in Afghanistan, about mujahideen tactics, topography, caves and supply routes, Soviet mistakes and successes. Each time Dan had come away impressed with the special operating forces’ cultural separation from Big Army. Hatchet, a SOF operation, was supposed to take marching orders from the Working Group, but it seemed as if most of its missions were self-generated.

  “You okay, boss?”

  Henrickson, in Levi’s. A cotton plaid shirt buttoned to the neck and a down vest and waterproof insulated boots made him look like a downsized duck hunter. He grabbed Dan’s wrist as he pulled over one of the rickety Russian metal chairs they’d found in an abandoned revetment and wired back together. “You sleep at all? You ought to get out of here. Go on, man. Get your head down.”

  Dan grunted. He pawed through binders until he found his jacket. His gloves and a black wool watch cap were stuffed into the sleeves.