“I have to get out of here—I am not going to Jalalabad to be questioned by them,” I told Jim. “They are not getting anything from me.”
“I’ve got it. But you need to wait until they leave. I am going to pack some things and send Abe to get you.”
“Okay.”
I got off the line. I told Imran I needed Chevy to bring me some large black plastic trash bags. A minute later, Chevy appeared with the bags. In Ish’s room, I packed all my critical gear into three of the bags. Then I waited.
AS THE INVESTIGATORS DESCENDED, Abe and Shafiq were far north of Chowkay in a poor mountain village in Konar’s Asmar District, where Abe was born, on an unusual mission.
A few days before, Abe had misplaced the golden Cape Hatteras lighthouse necklace that Jim and I had given him after his oldest brother died—either that or it had been stolen, along with a bundle of his money. Few could match Abe’s bravery or passion for fighting, but he was forgetful and was always losing things. Distraught because he knew the lighthouse meant so much to us, he was determined to find it. Like many Afghans, Abe could be highly superstitious. So he and Shafiq, guided by one of the arbakai from Chowkay, were seeking out a certain old mullah, Mullah Baba, who was famous for finding lost objects.
“The mullah can look at a child’s fingernail, and see things in it as if he were watching on a television,” Abe had told me.
Abe steered Shafiq’s old Toyota Corolla high up the mountain until the road ended. Then they got out and hiked through a wood of tall pines for another fifteen minutes to the village. Finally, they reached the mullah’s mud house, set on a terraced slope.
The mullah’s family was poor but friendly and immediately offered their visitors a simple meal of corn bread and milk tea, served with raisins and dried chickpeas. Then Mullah Baba entered the room, his dark eyes offset by a flowing white beard.
“I lost the money and I lost this lighthouse necklace,” Abe explained. “It was with my clothes in a bag and someone took the bag. I don’t care about the money, but I want the lighthouse.”
The mullah looked around the room, his eyes glossing over Abe and his companions and focusing in strange places.
“You know, I cannot find things all the time,” he said. “When the genies are here, I can ask them. They often come early in the morning, or at midnight. But they are not here now.”
Abe was crestfallen. Mullah Baba offered him more tea.
Just then Abe’s phone rang. It was his brother, Ish.
“Ibrahim, you need to get back here!”
Abe had rarely heard Ish sound so desperate.
“What is wrong?” Abe asked, listening over the phone for gunfire. “Did they get attacked? Was someone killed?”
“Get back here. I will tell you,” Ish said, not wanting to say more on a phone that could be monitored.
Abe, Shafiq, and the arbakai excused themselves and ran back down the trail. But when they got to Shafiq’s Toyota they found its battery dead. They had to borrow a solar-powered battery from Mullah Baba to start the car.
Abe drove like a madman back to Chowkay and the qalat.
AT ABOUT 11:30 A.M., Solheim called Jim from Penich.
“Jim, I am headed your way,” he said. “We need to talk.”
By then, Jim had packed up a large plastic trunk with his and my belongings. When Abe and Shafiq pulled in, Jim rushed to meet them and briefly told them the news.
Jim knew they had only a few minutes. Ish had called the Afghan National Police (ANP) at the White Mosque Bridge and asked if they had seen the U.S. convoy approaching.
“Yes, I can see it coming now,” the officer said.
“Abe, brother, this is bad,” Jim said, his voice low and tense. “No one is our friend. They stabbed us in the back. Now take this shit, and get the fuck out of here. Move toward Ann. Ann is at Penich. Get Ann to safety.”
Jim was blunt for a reason. There could be no gray area, no doubt in Abe’s mind what his task was now.
He looked at Abe, whose face told him everything.
“I love you, brother,” Jim said.
“I love you, too, sir,” Abe said. He understood. This was a mission—a mission for Jim, for me, for all of us.
Abe turned his back and walked down the road. He picked up his AK-47 and 9 mm pistol, climbed into a white ALP truck, and drove off. With him were Shafiq, the mercenary named Assad, and two arbakai, who rode in the back. Abe drove through the Chowkay bazaar, crossed the Konar River at the Hakimabad Bridge, and took the small back roads toward Penich in order not to cross paths with Solheim’s convoy.
Jim called me one last time.
“Abe is on the way. He will protect you with his life. I love you,” he said.
“I love you,” was all I had time to say. Then he was gone.
AT THAT MOMENT, THERE was nothing more I could do for Jim and the mission we both believed in and risked our lives for—nothing but to try to escape the U.S. military and disappear into Afghanistan.
I shut down emotionally. I had to act, quickly.
“Imran, get Salim and Chevy!”
I was standing behind one of the wooden huts with the black plastic garbage bags full of my gear.
Salim came around the corner, looking worried. No more than five feet tall, Salim carried himself with confidence—especially since Jim had made him an arbakai and given him an AK-47 just before we left Penich for Chowkay. He also had poise and was an excellent horseman; as a tour guide on the beach in Karachi, he rode a white steed decked out with garlands, brandishing a sword as the horse reared. I had spent hours talking and joking with Salim in the kitchen at Mangwel. His mother had suffered from a long illness, and Jim had paid for her medical care in Pakistan. She had passed away only a few weeks earlier. But this was the most serious I had ever seen Salim.
Chevy was not far behind. A bit of a troublemaker, Chevy used to careen around the qalat in Mangwel in an all-terrain vehicle until Jim threatened to boot him. His mother was ill, too, and Jim paid for a surgery for her. All the soldiers liked to wrestle with Chevy, who was like a little brother to them. Now he looked at me questioningly.
“Take these bags for me,” I said, handing them the garbage bags with my critical gear. All of my notebooks, my passport, my cameras, and my computer were inside. But I could not risk being seen carrying anything as I tried to slip away.
Imran explained that they should take the bags out the small back gate of the fenced Special Forces compound to the edge of COP Penich and drop them there. They did.
Next, I sent Imran to make a reconnaissance of the main gate.
He came back to the room, breathless.
“They put two Special Forces guys to watch the gate,” he said.
Our first plan, to walk out the main gate to meet Abe, wouldn’t work. We needed a vehicle.
Just then my phone rang. It was Abe.
“I am outside on the road,” he said.
“Stay there. I am coming,” I said.
Imran and I walked out the back gate of the Special Forces compound and down a dusty road that ran between the compound wall and the perimeter of COP Penich. There, sitting on the side of the road, were the black garbage bags with all my gear.
Imran walked swiftly ahead of me to the hut of the Afghan Security Guard (ASG) commander who was also a friend of Jim’s—they used to eat dinner together—and was conveniently in charge of manning the guard towers at Penich. A few minutes later, the commander rolled up in a dark blue pickup truck. Imran gave him the garbage bags and told him to drive them out to Abe. He put them in the back and took off.
We stood there waiting. Chevy and Salim came and joined us. It seemed like forever, but the commander finally returned.
I was next.
“Take care, ma’am. I will see you soon,” Imran said.
Chevy hopped in the front passenger seat next to the beefy ASG commander, who was aptly nicknamed “Engineer.” I climbed in the backseat and crouched down in the footwell,
covering myself with a scarf. Salim climbed in the back and sat down near me. Looking straight ahead, expressionless, Salim picked up a crumpled pink hat ornamented with plastic flowers that was in the truck and placed it over my head to further conceal me. The truck lurched and bounced over the dirt and gravel road toward the main gate. I held my breath.
CHAPTER 32
AT THE QALAT IN Chowkay, Jim hastily gathered Tribe 34 in the windowless, mud-brick operations center. He had changed out of his Afghan clothes and was wearing his dark green uniform.
“Men, they are coming to get me,” he told the team huddled round him. “Take care of each other. Take care of the Afghans. Accomplish the mission. Whatever happens here, it will be all right,” he said.
Everyone was silent, somber.
“Whatever I did, it was to keep you guys alive,” he said. “I took care of you.
“Now, I am giving you an order: do not lie about anything. I will go to prison for you. I will kill for you. I will die for you. No matter what, just tell the truth.”
Dan spoke up, his voice strong and unwavering.
“Brother, I will go to jail with you. I am with you,” he said.
Jim looked at Dan—his medic, his best gunner, his close comrade for nearly a decade—and, surrounding him, his last team.
“It was my life’s privilege to serve with you,” he said. “Strength and honor, men.”
Jim left the room and walked across the courtyard and out the front gate to wait for Solheim.
At about noon, two heavily armored vehicles and a mine-resistant personnel carrier came grinding up the narrow road to the qalat. Jim went out to meet them. An entire ODA of Special Forces soldiers, led by Capt. Fleming, piled out wearing helmets and body armor with their weapons up. They followed Jim in, fanned out, and took up position in the qalat. Solheim and McCafferty were with them, as were Kirila and Lt. Col. John Corley—all outfitted in their full combat gear.
Solheim walked over to Jim.
“Jim, it’s over,” he said.
“All right, man,” Jim replied. “Let’s do this.”
Jim went into our room in the back of the qalat, followed by Solheim, Kirila, and Corley.
Kirila spoke first.
“Major Gant, you do not have to answer any question or say anything. Anything you say or do may be used as evidence against you in a criminal trial—”
“Sir, I am not going to make a statement,” Jim interjected.
“You are being suspended from your duties,” Kirila continued tersely. “An Article 15-6 is being opened, and you are being investigated for multiple offenses. We are going to take you out of here.”
He showed Jim the memo signed by Schwartz directing his suspension from duties and listing the allegations against him. Jim acknowledged receiving it. Then Kirila took out an order forbidding Jim to have any contact with me. Jim refused to sign it.
“Is there anything I need to know for our safety?” Kirila asked.
“Yes, sir,” Jim said. “Abort criteria has been met—time now.”
Jim knew on a visceral level—far more than Kirila or Solheim could even imagine—what a gravely dangerous situation they had created. The U.S. command could not have devised a better way to sabotage the Chowkay mission and alliance with the Safi tribe than by pulling Jim out in this way. It was another demonstration of their inability to grasp the importance of genuine relationships with the Afghans. If the Afghans sensed Jim was threatened, they could have turned on these new Americans in a second. Sadiq could have called his Taliban relatives: “Hit them! Put an IED in the road!” It even crossed Jim’s mind that if he wanted to, he could ensure that none of them made it out alive.
I have to keep everyone calm. The less I say, the better, he thought.
Just then, explosions sounded up the mountainside. One of the observation posts manned by the arbakai was under attack. The gunfire quickly intensified. Jim picked up his M4 carbine and started moving toward the door.
“Sir, I am still the ground force commander. Do you want me to do anything?”
“No,” Kirila said.
These guys don’t even see me as stable. They see me as a danger, Jim thought.
The sudden realization was like a blinding slap in the face. As if punch-drunk, Jim slowly lifted up his M4 carbine and pushed a button to release the magazine, which crashed to the floor and lay there. He pulled back the charging handle with a sharp clack to clear the rifle, put it on safe, then set it on the floor. He grabbed his 9 mm pistol and did the same thing. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his cell phone and tossed it on the bed next to Kirila. Then he ripped the Special Forces tab off the shoulder of his uniform.
He slumped down on Ish’s cot, angry and overwhelmed. A wave of utter exhaustion swept over him.
“We are going to take you to BAF [Bagram Air Field]. There is a helo landing at two-thirty,” Kirila said. “Pack your shit.”
Kirila walked out of the room and went to the operations center, where he summoned Dan.
Dan walked in.
“Who are you?” Kirila asked him.
“I am Captain McKone,” Dan replied.
Kirila read Dan his rights, then asked curtly: “Do you have a statement?”
“No, sir,” Dan said, looking at Kirila’s compact face, which struck him as resembling that of a weasel. Jesus, what a fucking tool!
“Captain McKone, you are being suspended from your duties.”
Back in his room, Jim began packing. Ish came in, looking miserable. He sat on his cot, and tears started rolling down his face. Jim hugged him, then began giving Ish his U.S. military gear—the chest rack that held his ammunition, his boots. As he packed, Jim was filled with resentment toward the commanders who were acting against him, as well as toward the new team that he knew was not invested in the mission. But he could not allow them to be overrun.
“Ish, there is one thing you must do for me,” Jim said.
“Anything, sir,” Ish said.
“Introduce the new team to Haji Jan Dahd and Haji Jan Shah and ask them to take care of these guys,” he said. At the moment Jan Dahd was in Jalalabad and his son was in Asadabad, so Jim had no chance to make the request himself.
Then Ish called Jan Dahd’s younger son, Zia Ul Haq, a tall, beardless, and delicate-faced man who was also an ALP commander. Zia Ul Haq met them in the courtyard, and Jim took him aside.
“Brother, I am so sorry. You did nothing wrong. Tell your father I will never forget what he did for me,” Jim said. “The only thing I ask is, treat these guys the way you treated me. Help them. They don’t know anything,” he said.
Zia Ul Haq nodded.
There was still a half hour until Jim and Dan would be taken away. Rumors of what was happening were spreading around the qalat, sending shocked expressions across the faces of the Afghans.
Ish overheard someone say that the Americans were going to handcuff Jim. Incensed, he walked up to Sgt. Maj. McCafferty.
“Hey, if you handcuff Jim it will be ugly,” Ish warned.
“No, we won’t handcuff him,” McCafferty said. Lying, he added, “He is fine. We won’t do anything to him. He will be back.”
Jim asked Ish to bring Sadiq, Zia Ul Haq, and the mercenaries to talk with him. He squatted on his toes in the courtyard, with Dan by his side, and the Afghans gathered around him, forming a horseshoe.
“It is over,” he said. “I am sorry it ended this way. I love you and I care about you. Keep fighting,” he said. “And please take care of these guys. They don’t have anything to do with it.”
After a moment of stunned silence, sobs started coming from the Afghans, and Jim and Dan started crying, too. Within a minute, the entire group was openly weeping.
“We are losing a brother,” said Sadiq, tears running down his face. “We will never forget you.”
As this was happening, Solheim was meeting with Jim’s soldiers and noncommissioned officers in the room of the team’s air controller, Air Force Sr
. Master Sgt. Brooks, trying to reassure them. It wasn’t working.
“What is going to happen with security?” asked Fernando, the intelligence sergeant.
“We understand it is a turbulent time for you,” Solheim said with a consoling tone.
“You don’t understand,” Fernando shot back. “These people are like our brothers. You don’t know all the work we did to get these guys so close to us. Major Gant and Captain McKone are the nucleus,” he said.
“The new ODA is here to replace them. They have your security,” Solheim said, speaking louder now.
Fernando was nonplussed.
“It’s not the same,” Fernando said. “We are in danger right now, because these people are watching this go down.”
“Sergeant, you need to drive on,” Solheim said. The room was silent. After a few more exchanges, Solheim wrapped up the meeting and left the room. But as he walked into the courtyard, he was stunned by the sight of the Afghans weeping with Jim. Also surprised were the soldiers on the armed ODA that had taken up positions inside the qalat, waiting to relieve Jim and Dan. They lowered their weapons and stared.
For several minutes, Jim, Dan, and the Afghans cried together, hugging one another. Then Dan left the group and walked down the stairs to the arbakai room to see Abdul Wali. He found the arbakai commander lying on the floor under a blanket, still on duty even as he nursed his wounded leg. His deep-set eyes were tired, but they lit up for a moment when Dan appeared.
“I am sorry,” Dan said in Pashto. “I hope you will be all right. They are making us leave,” he said.
American Spartan Page 36
