The Towers

by David Poyer

  Dan cleared his throat and turned away; licked dry lips, trying to lubricate them. He kept thinking about all those years at sea. The dreams that hadn’t come true. He’d always thought his duty wasn’t to make war, but to prevent it. Now they faced an enemy that could never be vanquished. A war that would last forever and change America into something it had never been. That those who founded it had meant it not to be. He was overcome abruptly with such weariness he almost collapsed into the dead grass.

  Maybe Provanzano was right. Maybe he was a dinosaur. But “the lengths that may be necessary” … he could only come up with a German phrase he’d heard somewhere once: Ohne mich.

  “Without me,” he said.

  The CIA man waited, eyebrows raised. “So what’ll you do, then? When you get out?”

  “I don’t know.” Dan shivered. He hugged himself against a chill that penetrated flesh, bone, into the heart. So the world wasn’t what he’d hoped it was. Maybe it wasn’t possible, to always make the right choice.

  But sometimes it was possible to avoid the wrong one. He cleared his throat again and spat into the dust. “See you around the compound.”

  “Oh, you will,” the civilian said, smiling to himself. Reaching again for the bottle. “You will.”

  22

  Tora Bora

  INSTEAD of holding their position they were relieved before dawn by solid-looking troops in Flecktarn and field caps and here and there a maroon beret. The KSK, German Special Forces. Verstegen and Teddy held a short confab with their cadre, then pulled out. They trudged back toward the extract point, slipping and staggering, clumsy with fatigue and lack of sleep. The SBS, which had held their left flank during the night, was headed down into the cauldron. They’d help the Green Berets stiffen the Alliance forces, who seemed disinclined to press the attack. Echo was being pulled back. Verstegen seemed disinclined to talk. He didn’t meet Teddy’s eyes.

  “You okay, sir?”

  “Sure. Sure, Chief.”

  Dollhard’s death still eating at him. Well, he’d get over it. “Back to Camp Jaguar, L-T?” Teddy asked him.

  “Not at the moment. Hold at the LZ on one-hour notice. They’re flying in resupply. Find out what the guys need and I’ll have Wasiakowski radio it in.”

  Actually Teddy’s job, but Verstegen seemed to be leaning on the Echo One squad leader. Okay by him; he’d rather be tactical than get tied down in loggies. They hit the stream again. It felt good going downhill. He stepped off the trail and as each man went past asked how he was doing, what he needed. He caught each man’s smell as he went by. An empty canteen bobbed with a hollow pook. There was a run on batteries and 5.56 ammo, but not one man had used a grenade.

  The sun was coming over the ridges when they got to the LZ. He put three guys out on security. Everyone else dropped his gear. Men leaned back to shrug off rucks, then collapsed. They broke out smokes or chews and started PMSing weapons. Teddy got out another MRE and wolfed through a package of sticky-sweet pineapple, suddenly ravenous. As soon as he was done, the helo arrived with thermos containers of hot hash and eggs. He ate two platefuls and had a truly wonderful, blazing-hot cup of coffee. He loosened his belt and lay back on his ruck, ankles crossed, watching the sun creep across the rocks. Musing on how torn up his boots looked. Making sure his rifle was still handy, of course. The jagged, nearly vertical peaks towered up all around them, and the scrub pines would be perfect cover for a sniper.

  At 1035 word came on the command channel. Return to Jaguar. The men stirred and bitched, but without venom. Teddy figured they’d be back soon enough; judging by the pace of things in the valley, this wasn’t going to be over soon. He sent two men to check out a rise that had begun to worry him, but they waved back an all-clear when they reached the top and squatted in the brush, disappearing as soon as they lowered themselves below the horizon line.

  The flight back. He sat twisted on the nylon seat looking out the tail ramp. A frigid wind blasted through the gunners’ doors, down the two lines of SEALs, out the back. A real freeze locker. But it wasn’t hard to fall into a doze. Then suddenly Mud Cat was shaking him and the bird was pitching up and the frame jolted and bounced. He lurched to his feet, every muscle protesting, and filed out.

  Verstegen went off to report. Teddy sent everybody back to berthing but told them to consider themselves on strip alert.

  When he checked in with the master chief, Stroud squinted up, startled. “The fuck you doing here?”

  “Relieved by the KSK.”

  “I was listening to command net last night. Somebody fucked up royal. You?”

  Teddy told him he had no idea, likely one of the air controllers down in the valley.

  “Okay, get me what you need and I’ll have it out by the strip.”

  “By the airstrip. We going out again?”

  “Chief?” Doc Dipper, at the door. “They want you over in the head shed.”

  * * *

  THE comm suite was putting out continuous noise, the wind was buffeting the tent, the intel pukes were running back and forth with maps. Dust milled under swaying overhead lights, and despite a roaring heater, the air was so cold their breaths puffed frost. Lieutenant-Commander Laughland had circles under his eyes that hadn’t been there back in the States. He introduced an Army helo pilot from the 160th SOAR. Dusty Palladino was short and shaved bald. He had warrant bars pinned to a three-color BDU, a festive red scarf looped around his neck, and a Glock in a black nylon thigh holster. He said he was sorry about Lieutenant Dollhard.

  “He was a solid operator,” Laughland said.

  “None better, sir,” Teddy said, remembering how he’d overhanded a grenade square through the doors of the burning garage. “Sorry about the remains. We brought in all there was.”

  “We’ll need statements. We’ll try for a Silver Star. Can I get those ASAP? Handwritten’s fine.”

  Teddy doubted it’d go through for a Star, getting blown up by a friendly, but didn’t say so. Why hadn’t they put Dollhard in when it might have meant something to him? But all he said was “Hooyah, sir. On your desk today.”

  “What’s the procedure, Commander?” Verstegen asked. “Do we get another replacement OIC?”

  Laughland looked harrassed. “We’ll get somebody slotted in. But right now, we have a time-urgent mission. You’ll OIC Echo for the time being. With Chief Oberg’s expert advice.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Higher suspects the Tora Bora valley’s leaking. The Afghans aren’t just lagging on the assault; some are actually letting escapees through. Whether for cash, Islamic sympathy, the weather, you name it. There aren’t enough eyes to cover all the ways out.”

  Someone asked about the Pakistanis who were supposed to be sealing the other side of the range. “They haven’t even started moving out yet,” Laughland said. “Shitty, but there it is. ETA’s the fifteenth now, and nobody’s guaranteeing they’ll be there then.”

  Some cursed; others looked bewildered. “Can’t we get some conventional dudes in there?” Teddy asked. “The Marines. Or the Tenth Mountain?”

  “Negative, denied. There’s a force cap in-country. But we’re scrambling the whole JSOF. We can do this, Chief. Unless you don’t think your guys are up to it.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Laughland called one of the intel guys over. Not SEALs, but they worked hand in hand, and Teddy had never felt inclined to pull the saltier-than-thou act with them. They could fuck you any number of ways.

  “We had a firm intercept,” the briefer started, setting up a notebook and bringing up a screen. “He’s in Tora Bora, all right. But if we can’t keep him pinned, the CIA thinks he’s going to try to slip out. Either to the south, or more likely, to the east.”

  “Across the White Mountains,” Teddy said.

  “The Safed Koh—the border with Pakistan,” the intel guy agreed, zooming back to show it, then pushing in again. “We’re putting Rangers on the direct route. But there’s a back way. It’s diff
icult. Easy to get lost. But the local tribes know it. If BL pays the Ghilzai enough, or promises them guns, they might guide him. The trail leads south, over this mountain. Then down again. It comes out here, in this part of Pakistan that juts toward the west.

  “It’s called Parachinar—or sometimes, the Kurram Valley. Once he gets to the Tribal Areas, we lose him. Even the Pak army stays out of there.” The briefer traced a dotted line and toggled back and forth between topo and imagery. “That route starts here. Only twentysome miles to the border, depending on which ravine he goes up, but they’d be twenty very hard miles. No roads. Damn near not even any goat trails. But smugglers use the routes. The CIA mule-packed weapons in over them, during the Soviet War. And we’re seeing activity. Here. And here.” Teddy peered; the tiny figures were dwarfed by snow and rock. “We think they’re either deserters from the fighting, or advance parties for a larger movement, possibly by a VIP. And the Brits picked up SIGINT. In Arabic. Bin Laden knows the area. He fought his first battle against the Soviets at Jaji.” The intel guy put his finger on a map. “In Afghanistan—but on the route to the Parachinar.”

  “I want Echo to cover that route,” Laughland said.

  Teddy peered at the figures, blown up to the limits of magnification. The shots had obviously been taken in IR, by either a Spectre or one of the specially configured P-3s the Navy was operating.

  “Elevation?” said Palladino.

  “Highest point, around fifteen thousand feet, MSL.”

  “This is behind Tora Bora?” Verstegen asked. Teddy frowned. Had he been listening?

  “Roger, behind and above. Down here’s where you were this morning. See? The trail runs up the mountain, heading south. Then into this high pass, between these ridges. The crest of the mountains is the Pak-Afghan border.”

  Laughland said, “I want you to insert via two of Dusty’s E Chinooks on offset LZs and block the route.”

  “Can we cross the border? Once we’re boots on the ground?” Teddy asked. Thinking, a black op. Direct action. At night. Excellent.

  Laughland said, “Maybe I didn’t explain myself adequately. You’ll be across the border. You’ll touch down in Pakistani territory. And you’re a stop group. The mountains funnel anyone trying to get over right into your position. You stop, meaning stop, everyone trying to get down past you. Clear?”

  “Clear now, sir.”

  “But especially, watch for and take down HVTs. One in particular. We clear which one?”

  “Yes, sir,” Teddy and Verstegen chorused. Palladino rubbed his scalp, turned half away, coughed into his fist.

  “That’s the primary mission. We’re not looking for recon or intel.”

  Teddy asked the obvious question. “Kill or capture, sir?”

  “Bin Laden won’t be alone. They’ve already sent the women and kids out. Anybody you see up there will be either hard-core Taliban or Brigade Fifty-Five. Black turbans. Black capes. Chechens, most of them. If you encounter bin Laden, we need to confirm the kill. If you can’t manage the body, bring in the head. If you run into him on the wrong side of the border, get him to the right side before you report in. He goes down in Afghanistan, not Pakistan.”

  “Clear,” Verstegen said again.

  “Nothing against you, sir,” Teddy said to the pilot, “but did anybody look at a HALO insertion? A helo makes a hell of a lot of noise, even at night. And everybody knows, ever since Mogadishu, shoot one down and the wheels come off our bus.”

  Laughland said, “Chutes are too vulnerable to updrafts in the mountains. We can’t get you there by vehicle, and it’d take days to get up there on foot.”

  “I’ve flown three missions into these mountains, and in from K2 eight or ten times,” Palladino put in. “The fucking weather changes by the hour, and the ravines and valleys channel it. You can have thirty knots of wind at the valley mouth, and it’s sixty by the time you get down into it. Snow. Dust obscuration. Zero viz. Downdrafts, on granite cliff faces. We have FLIR and multimode radar, and even for us, it’s going to be edge of the seat.”

  “Your kind of mission, Chief Oberg,” Verstegen said.

  Teddy gave him a side glance. “As long as you don’t put us down right on the trail.”

  Laughland said, “You’re going to have to leave exactly where to Dusty. He’ll make a decision on the inbound. We’re going to string Echo out along these three passes. Find OPs overlooking the trails. But the weather’s getting worse. Like he says, it’s not going to be easy getting you up there.”

  “And I may not be able to pull you back out,” the pilot added. “Our motto is ‘plus or minus thirty seconds,’ but at some point we have to consider crew safety, operational risk assessment. If the weather gets much worse, we might have to ground.”

  This sounded better all the time. “We’ll manage,” Teddy told him. “Go in heavy with MREs and ammo and wad ourselves in with extra blankets. Don’t worry about us.”

  The lieutenant commander pinched his nose. Said carefully, “Laying it on the line: if you get pinned down, we may not be able to reinforce you. Or pull you out.”

  “Yeah, who’s gonna be our QRF?”

  “That’s what I’m telling you. We’re putting everybody out there to cut these guys off. There’s not going to be a quick reaction force. Oh, we’ll get somebody out there eventually, if you get your balls in a crack. Maybe the Rangers, out of Bagram. We can get you elint support—that’s a Navy asset. Call sign Whale Watcher. But exactly who, right now, would go in after you…?” Laughland shrugged.

  “No problem,” Teddy repeated. “But how about extract? The warrant here, Dusty, he says he might not be able to come back. What happens then? We exfil on our own?”

  “Again, we’ll deal with that later. Once more: if you’re not comfortable with it, just say no.”

  “We’ll deal with it,” Verstegen said.

  “All right, get your people together and brief out. You’ll launch at”—Laughland checked his watch—“twenty-one hundred local; seventeen hundred Zulu. Dusty?”

  “Check. Seventeen Zulu. Oh, and one thing. Do not bust out my windows. If you bust out my windows, you’re not flying with me again, and I will personally fuck you up. Copy?”

  Teddy grinned. “We won’t, Dusty.”

  Laughland said, “Gonna be cold up there. You’ll be at fourteen, fifteen thousand plus. Make sure—well, I don’t need to tell you. You know the drill.”

  “No sir, you don’t,” Teddy said. All three officers looked at him, then away.

  * * *

  HE had four hours before they loaded out. Not long enough to do a timeline, and really, no need to. Starting this early, they’d be in position before daylight, even with other stops en route. From there on, they’d just have to get resourceful. Adapt. Cope. All those good SEAL attitudes.

  Unless things didn’t go as planned. Like for Lieutenant Dollhard.

  He shook his head and went back to the hootches and passed the word. The squad leaders got Echo together, and he and Verstegen laid it out. Everybody was on board, though he caught thoughtful looks when they heard no QRF had been identified.

  When they broke, Teddy went to his own tent and dragged his duffel out and laid out every piece of warm gear he owned. He pulled hard plastic weapons cases from under the bunk and lined them up and snapped them open. The M4 had worked okay last night, but three hundred yards had been a long shot for a 5.56. Up in the mountains, he might have to shoot across ravines. He gave the bolt another spritz of CLP and fitted the part back into its recess in the carrying case. Snapped it closed, and slid it back.

  He snapped the upper and lower together on the SR-25, a heavier rifle but with better performance at long range. He ran a patch down the bore. It came out waxy from the white Teflon grease he coated the barrel with for storage. He racked the rear sight all the way down and locked the night scope and the laser on. Then thumbed open earth-colored cardboard boxes and loaded all five magazines with M118 heavy-bullet sniper rounds. He st
uffed the suppressor and cleaning kit in his ruck with five more boxes of cartridges. Slid his thin-blade knife out of its sheath and wiped the dust off. He stripped the cartridges out of his pistol mags, checked the action, and reloaded the magazines. He put fresh batteries in the rifle scope, in his NVGs, and in his MX-300.

  He hefted the ruck, grown shockingly heavy, and grimaced at a hot ice-pick in the crook of his shoulder. His collarbone hurt, and his hip ached where he’d fallen on the MX. Every fucking mission he seemed to pick up more fucking twinges.

  When he had his gear squared away, he went to the next tent and collared the comm petty officer. He got extra satcom packages and the primary and backup and extraction freqs. He grabbed Knobby as the petty officer went by and told him he’d be carrying Teddy’s spotting scope.

  He went to the mess tent for rib-eye steak and mashed potatoes, bug juice, and ice cream. Then went back to his hootch to try to sleep. He was almost there when he remembered: the after-action report, Lieutenant Dollhard’s write-up. He groaned, got up, found some paper.

  At 1500 Zulu he was back at the strip. The guys were bucket-brigading two Hummers’ worth of gear and MREs into the helos. Stroud stood with his clipboard, micromanaging everything and generally being a prick. Teddy looked around but didn’t see the commander, so he handed the master chief Dollhard’s write-up and asked him to give it to Laughland.

  Echo reboarded in whirling dust so thick he couldn’t see fifty yards. Cold as hell, but it would be much colder up high. Teddy kept flexing his shoulder. He’d thought about getting it looked at, but didn’t want to risk a medical hold. As long as he kept eating Motrin, it was bearable. Once they got in the mountains, he could pack it with snow. They were inside this time, not straphanging off the outside with tailbones perched on six inches of aluminum. He squirmed around, elbowing himself some space, then plugged into the comm system and signed in with the crew chief and copilot. He leaned, looking along the line of huddled bulks. Blankets, parkas, watch caps, balaclavas, gloves, goggles.

  Swager, boyish looks overlaid by black camo paint and fatigue. “Hey, Chief. Guess what?”