by Alex Ryan
Nick stretched out on the bed and closed his eyes, and for the first time in a long time, he let his mind drift back to the rugged foothills of Jalalabad in Afghanistan.
Chapter 14
Six years earlier
SEAL team platoon, call sign Mustang
Southeast of Jalalabad, Afghanistan
0230 hours local, October 2010
Nick bounced the heel of his left boot up and down against the armored floor of the modified Humvee. Not because he was anxious. Not because he was afraid. This was pent-up energy leaking out at the seams. He was like a bottle of soda all shaken up—if he didn’t unscrew the cap and bleed off some pressure before the party, he just might pop.
His unit had been operating in the shadows of the Hindu Kush in northeastern Afghanistan for several weeks now, and this was the first time they had real, actionable intelligence they had to move against. According to the CIA spooks, some notorious Taliban badasses were hiding out at an isolated compound in the mountains. Tonight’s mission was a capture/kill raid: take whoever or whatever they could off the target list and neutralize whoever or whatever they couldn’t. All their previous ops had turned into relationship-building endeavors—winning the hearts and minds of the locals. Basic intelligence gathering begins with grassroots relationships, or so he’d been told by the career guys. With the enthusiasm of a rookie who was trying to prove his worth, Nick had immersed himself in the task. Tonight, however, he was beginning to wonder if he was becoming too invested in the lives of the locals he’d met.
Unlike some of his SEAL teammates who preferred to live in the black-and-white world of “us versus them,” Nick often found himself wandering in the gray divide. He had never planned to be a SEAL. In fact, his plan had been to join the Peace Corps and travel the world to help the less fortunate. But during his junior year of college, he had taken a twentieth-century military history class on a whim. He had always been a fan of history, and with all that was going on around the world since 9/11, the course sounded fascinating. The professor, a retired Navy admiral, had been a SEAL and had argued that unless the forces of evil spreading oppression were unseated, the oppressed peoples of the world would never live in peace and prosperity—no matter how many bridges, or irrigation systems, or primary schools the NGOs of the world built. There is evil in the world, and evil must be stopped, no matter the risk. No matter the personal sacrifice. Three days after the semester ended, Nick had dropped out of college—to the shock and dismay of his mother—and had enlisted in the Navy, intent on becoming a Navy SEAL.
During his time in Afghanistan, Nick had come to understand how war—unlike combat—lingers after the bullets stop flying. Long after his unit finished its tour and headed home, the Pashtun would still be here, struggling to safeguard their families from the al-Qaeda and Taliban crazies that infested their homeland. No matter how long coalition forces remained in the country, no matter how many covert operations the SEALs completed, Nick knew they would never eliminate violent Islamic extremism from Afghanistan. In war, ideology is bulletproof. He thought about the village children—showing off their street soccer skills and then dancing for joy when he surprised them with chocolate bars afterward. How many of those kids would reach adulthood? How many of those kids would live long enough to play soccer with children of their own?
Not enough, he told himself.
Not nearly enough.
“About ten minutes to our IP,” the Senior Chief, Nick’s SEAL platoon leader, said into his headset.
Nick pushed the thoughts from his mind and concentrated on the mission at hand. He checked his kit by feel, counting extra magazines for his rifle and the pistol in the drop holster on his right thigh. He tapped the fragmentation grenades on the left side of his kit and shifted in his seat to retrieve the trauma bag from his back. After a quick inventory of his medical gear, he said a silent prayer that he would not need any of it tonight. He was ready.
A few minutes later, the three Humvees formed a tight circle and the SEALs jumped out. They formed up into two groups of six, each warrior scanning the perimeter through their night vision goggles while the Senior Chief radioed the Head Shed. After getting confirmation that the mission was a go, Senior made two quick hand gestures and they headed west. The assault teams diverged as they moved down a shallow, sloping embankment toward the compound. They would make their assault from different vectors, offset by one hundred twenty degrees. They moved quickly and quietly over the shale and gravel toward the target, which was now only about a kilometer away. Nick pictured the details of the compound from the aerial surveillance pictures in their briefing. The compound comprised four single-story buildings with a crumbling stone wall encircling the perimeter. In his mind’s eye, he surveyed every nook and cranny in advance—noting hideouts for the bad guys and cover for the good guys. Senior had briefed that “one way or the other,” they would be in and out of the compound in under five minutes. The aggressive timetable was designed for team security, since the sounds of the firefight would echo for miles in the mountain passes and valleys.
According to the CIA liaison providing intelligence for the op, the closest Taliban reinforcements were miles away from the compound. Equally important, there were no civilians in the area, which meant that everyone on the “X” was a bad guy. For Nick, this changed the entire dynamic of the mission and took a ton of pressure off. In this scenario, capture or kill decisions were dictated by team safety and nothing more. The CIA spook finished his brief with a promise that “the high-value targets will be there.” Nick noticed that the more senior SEALs had traded cynical glances at this comment. During the Humvee ride over, Nick had asked one of the NCOs why he didn’t trust spooks. As far as Nick was concerned, all intelligence provided to date had been spot on, and the grassroots work their unit had been doing supported the claim that the Taliban was operating out of this particular compound. The senior SEAL had smiled and simply said, “It’s the shit they don’t tell you that gets guys killed.”
Now, as he scanned over his rifle for movement in the eerie green-gray world of night vision, he tried not to think about that.
“Hold.”
Nick took a knee on the Senior Chief’s command in his headset. He felt the muscles in his neck tighten, and he immediately began the tactical breathing he had been taught to slow his pulse. He scanned his sector and saw nothing but small rocks and scrub bushes sparsely scattered throughout the last twenty yards to the compound—absolutely no cover should they need it. This was no-man’s land, the most dangerous part of the approach before the perimeter breach.
His headset crackled.
“Alpha set,” he heard the Senior Chief say softly in his ears. Nick tapped the focus adjust on his night vision goggles and the crumbling rock wall ten meters ahead sharpened with perfect clarity. He tightened the grip on his M4 rifle and scanned along the top.
“Bravo is ready,” came the voice of “Bronco,” a former rodeo star who led the other half of the team.
“The spooks didn’t get us that Predator overflight I wanted,” Senior grumbled under his breath next to Nick. “Hopefully everything’s the same as a few hours ago.” He sounded irritated but not worried, so Nick decided not to worry either. Twelve SEALs on eight to ten bad guys was an easy day—like target practice on the range.
Senior keyed his mic. “Set.”
Nick rose into a combat crouch. His fellow SEALs did the same, and the team spread out into assault formation.
“Go.”
They closed on the perimeter in unison, rifles up, legs churning beneath controlled torsos. Nick was on the left, with the other five SEALs spread out and offset just enough to cover the target without putting each other at risk from overlapping fire. Upon reaching the wall, he steadied his rifle atop the stone ledge and scanned ahead. A single light shone through the windows from the closest of the four structures, but he saw no movement inside. Senior signaled and the SEALs slipped over the rock wall into the compound.
Chunks of the wall exploded beside Nick’s head, and he felt a searing burn in his right shoulder. He jerked reflexively away from the line of fire. His elbow went white hot with pain, and the two fingers on the outside of his right hand went numb. He ignored all this and took aim at the muzzle flares on the rooftop of the building directly in front of him. He squeezed the trigger, sending bullets flying at a roof sniper. Gunfire flashed all around them—from the rooftops, the windows, and the covered corners.
“Heavy contact—heavy contact!” barked Senior’s voice in his ear. “Pull back over the wall.”
They backpedaled to the rock wall, returning fire as a storm of enemy bullets whirled around them.
Nick vaulted over the perimeter wall and landed in the dirt. He crabbed low over the ground until his back was pressed against the wall. “Eight to ten guys my ass,” he heard someone say. Nick closed his eyes and collected himself with two deep breaths. Then he rose and sighted. He spied a Taliban sniper on the rooftop, squeezed the trigger, and noted the impact location of his missed shot. He adjusted, squeezed again, and watched the figure crumple. He dropped down below the wall and slowed his breathing.
Fire and move, fire and move, he told himself. Find a controlled rhythm.
He popped up again, but this time a flash of bright light washed out his night vision. “RPG!” He yelled, dropping to the ground. The world vibrated with a deafening explosion. When the dust cleared, he saw that a huge section of wall had been vaporized five feet beside him.
“To the east corner,” Senior announced. “On me.”
They moved together, hunched and taking turns rising and engaging targets inside the compound as they covered fifty yards along the perimeter in a blur. Nick could hear converging fire as the other team of six SEALs approached the rally point from other side. He recalled an aerial view of the compound in his mind, based on the satellite imagery from the premission CIA brief. From the east corner, they could retreat into a snaking ravine that stretched out for miles. There, they would find cover—scattered boulders, scrub trees, and access to rising terrain. Given the overwhelming enemy force of fire, retreat to the Humvees back across no-man’s land was impossible.
The burning in his right hand reminded Nick that he had not made it through “round one” unscathed. Immediately, he wondered if anyone else on the team had been hit. He counted five crouching silhouettes beside him and exhaled a sigh of relief. His half of the assault team was intact, with no mortal injuries. He could assess the other half of the unit when they regrouped.
Step one in treating the injured in combat is to defeat the enemy or move to safety, he reminded himself. Rendering care is impossible when you’re being cut to shreds.
“Shit, Senior,” someone whispered from the dark, “that’s gotta be twenty to thirty fighters. What the fuck is wrong with those intel assholes?”
“Save it,” Senior barked back. “We’re gonna pull back to the ravine, regroup, and then reengage.” The seasoned veteran operator keyed his mic. “Bravo, sitrep?”
“Moving east for cover in the ravine,” came the reply.
They fanned out in a reverse V, crouching and firing at the compound as they retreated. They hadn’t made fifteen yards when muzzle flashes lit up the darkness on their right. Nick counted at least six muzzle flashes, coming from the hill they had descended on their approach.
“Contact right,” he hollered, returning fire as bullets smacked the ground around him.
“Where the hell did they come from?” someone yelled as the twelve SEALs spread out to find cover among the boulders on the sloping wall of the ravine. For an instant, a terrifying image popped into Nick’s mind—a dozen SEALs, hands bound and kneeling before a black-robed jihadist with a camcorder, waiting to have their heads sawed off. “Screw that,” he mumbled. He sighted a fighter moving down the loose shale hill, put the red dot of his infrared sight just ahead, and squeezed the trigger. The terrorist crumpled in a heap to the ground as Nick’s magazine clicked to empty.
Muzzle flashes lit up the countryside as the Taliban fighters engaged en masse.
There was no “fire and move” now—there was barely enough cover for the team where they were. Nick pulled his head down and tried to sink closer to the ground while the rounds ricocheted around him. He swapped magazines in his rifle and waited for a lull to return fire.
“Mustang Main, this is Mustang Actual,” he heard Senior on the encrypted radio behind him. “Heavy contact. We need air support right now. We are pinned down and in deep shit.”
The NCO was on a different frequency, so Nick didn’t hear the reply, but a moment later he heard Senior on the radio again, now on the frequency for the air support.
“Chevy two-five, Chevy two-five, this is Mustang Actual. We are in the ravine just east of the compound. Twelve souls—all to the east. The compound is enemy fighters only. Cleared in hot. Danger close—I say again—danger close.”
Danger close, Nick thought. A request reserved for situations where the requestor believed the alternative was certain death at the hands of the enemy. The Senior Chief had just authorized the pilots to break the rules and drop ordinance perilously close to their position. As the team’s leader, Senior was taking full responsibility for their lives. In the unfortunate event the ordinance delivery was off target by the slightest margin, and one or more SEALs died from friendly fire, the pilots were not to blame. Ironically, the thought of being vaporized by an Apache gunship was much more appealing to Nick than having his head chopped off and streamed on the Internet for his mom and dad to see.
“Two minutes,” the Senior Chief called out.
Taliban rounds ricocheted off the rocks all around, kicking up dust and spraying them with stone fragments.
“Oh, shit,” said a voice to Nick’s right.
Nick glanced right and saw Simmons burrowed between a shallow groove in the ground and a pitiful excuse for a rock, barely big enough to shield a child.
“You all right?” Nick called.
“I’m hit,” Simmons said. “It’s bad.”
“I’m coming,” Nick said and mentally ran through his trauma procedures as he popped his head up and fired several shots at the hillside. Despite having a heavy pack full of advanced trauma equipment on his back, for expediency Nick decided he would use the blow-out kit in Simmons’s own left cargo pocket. The cover by Simmons was shit, and he didn’t dare try to unpack.
“Hold where you are, Foley,” Senior barked. “There’s too much fire, and we have danger close incoming less than a minute out.”
Nick jerked his head back behind his own rock, closed his eyes, and made a decision. If they made it out, he’d tell Senior he didn’t hear the order. He was the team medic; if he didn’t take the initiative to help his wounded teammates, he didn’t deserve the position. He rolled to his right and then slithered forward. He came first to Simmons’s Oakley boot and inched along his teammate’s right side. He leaned against the rock and raised partway up on a knee. Muzzle flares lit up the hillside again, and twice as many flashed from the rooftops in the compound. The tracers looked like a laser blasts in a Star Wars movie, crisscrossing the night sky in both directions as the SEALs returned fire.
“It’s me, Tom. It’s Nick. Where are you hit?”
The voice beneath him was no longer that of a tough Navy SEAL.
“Right shoulder, at the base of my neck.” The voice was muffled and wet, like someone had shoved soaked cotton in Simmons’s mouth. “I can feel the blood spraying out of me.”
Nick saw a shadow on the hillside moving in his direction, maybe twenty yards away and lit from behind by orange tracers. He lifted his rifle, aimed, and fired. The figure arced backward and fell.
“Pull out your blow-out kit and hand me the packing,” Nick yelled, as enemy gunfire erupted ahead. Bullets ricocheted off the rock beside him, blasting his cheek with rock shards.
&
nbsp; “Here,” Simmons said, shoving a thick trauma dressing up at him.
Nick knew it would be a mistake to sling his rifle. “The best care under fire is to return fire,” went the mantra. He grabbed the dressing in his left hand and steadied his M4 in his right, firing at movement on the rooftop closest to him. He looked down through his night vision goggles at the black puddle pooling beneath Simmons’s head. He shoved the dressing into an impossibly large, gaping hole in the base of his Simmons’s neck and felt hot, wet blood soak through his left glove.
Fuck, that’s a lot of blood.
“Everyone down,” Senior Chief shouted just as the roar of the two Apaches engulfed the ravine. “Incoming!”
Nick pressed the already soaked dressing hard into Simmons’s neck and then used his body to shield his teammate from the coming firestorm. Four streaks of orange fire stretched out from the attack helicopters like the fiery fingers of an angry god. Nick hugged Simmons, closed his eyes, and tried to make himself small.
For a moment, it seemed his worst fear had been realized . . . he was being vaporized by a Hellfire missile. It was as if the sun had swallowed the earth—light so bright, it penetrated him; heat so hot, it weighed like a blanket; and noise so loud, it shook his bones to dust. Then, a microsecond later, it was dark, cool, and quiet.
Nick raised his head and saw the entire compound engulfed in flames. On the far rooftop, fire moved across the roof and then fell into the compound. It took Nick a moment to realize it was a terrorist engulfed in flames, running until he fell off the roof. Sporadic gunfire continued from the hillside, but what was left of the enemy force was retreating. He thought about returning fire, but he was shaking too much to steady his rifle. In his peripheral vision, he saw his fellow SEALs rising into tactical crouches, rifles up and engaging the fleeing terrorists on the hill.
