Bloody Heroes

by Damien Lewis

  The CIA officers had been visiting the fort for several days now, questioning prisoners, and returning to Boxer Base each evening. They’d not brought any long-range communication kit with them, which meant that they’d been unable to contact Boxer Base. This accounted for the lack of any definitive intel on the uprising. And things had started going badly wrong at Qala-i-Janghi some eighteen hours earlier. The previous evening the prisoners were being processed into the fort and searched for weapons. But suddenly, there had been an almighty explosion. One of the foreign Taliban had grabbed hold of Nazir Ali, a senior Northern Alliance commander, and held him in a death embrace, pulling the pin of a grenade hidden in his clothing. Both men had been killed instantly, and several other Northern Alliance soldiers had been injured.

  The Northern Alliance guards had started yelling at the prisoners, as they cocked their weapons and prepared to open fire on them. With their hands above their heads, the captives had been herded below ground to the subterranean cells, to join the other prisoners being held there. In their rush to get them safely below ground the Northern Alliance soldiers failed to search the remaining captives. Later that evening another of the prisoners had pulled the same trick with a grenade, killing himself and NA Commander Saeed Asad. Since this was the second suicidal gesture of defiance, it should have acted as a powerful warning to the Northern Alliance soldiers and their CIA allies. But despite this, the size of the Northern Alliance guard had not been increased that night.

  The following morning two CIA agents armed with pistols and AK47s had gone in to question the prisoners. They were Johnny Michael ‘Mike’ Spann and David ‘Dave’ Tyson. Their mission was to start screening the prisoners for any suspected al-Qaeda terrorists – in particular any that could be linked to the events of 9/11. At 9 a.m., the two CIA agents had gone into the courtyard area in front of the underground cells. They were in the company of Said Kamel, the Northern Alliance’s local chief of intelligence. Prisoners were brought out of the makeshift underground prison for questioning and made to kneel in rows, segregated by nationality: the Arabs were first, then the Pakistanis and, finally, the Uzbeks. With a handful of Northern Alliance soldiers standing guard, the two CIA operatives had started to interrogate them.

  Before joining the CIA, Mike Spann had been a captain in the United States Marine Corps. He was quiet, serious and totally unflappable, with a great sense of humour. He also believed that he could handle himself pretty well. The prisoners all had their arms tied at their elbows with their turbans and were largely incapacitated, so Mike Spann hadn’t felt unduly threatened. At first, he had led the interrogations, while his colleague, Dave Tyson, stood by, filming the process on a small hand-held video camera. New groups of the ‘foreign Taliban’ were brought up to them one at a time. With each prisoner they tried to ascertain the same information: their names and their true nationalities, why they had come to Afghanistan and what they had been doing there.

  ‘Why are you here in Afghanistan?’ Mike had kept asking the sullen prisoners. ‘What did you come here for?’

  From most he had received no answers, just a dark, silent defiance. But one of the prisoners, a slightly built, dark-haired young man, had spoken good English and claimed to be from London. Another of the prisoners had claimed to be from Ireland, yet another from Germany. Around lunchtime, a further batch of prisoners had been brought up to face their interrogators. Most of these were from Uzbekistan. By now, Dave Tyson was doing the bulk of the questioning. CIA Dave was fluent in several of the local languages and was able to speak to the Uzbek prisoners in their own tongue.

  Suddenly, there was the booming echo of a blast below ground, followed instantly by screams and cries of ‘Allahu Akhbar!’ In a split second, all hell had let loose, with the rattle of small-arms fire echoing out of the basement where the remainder of the prisoners were being held, and the Northern Alliance troops opening fire from the fort battlements. Instantly, Mike Spann realised that the prisoners were trying to break out of their underground prison. Mike knew that he faced two choices: he could make a run for the fort entrance and get away to safety; or he could do what his training and his spirit compelled him to do, and advance and engage the enemy – in an effort to help put down the prisoner uprising. Mike Spann elected to step forward and make a stand.

  With barely a moment’s hesitation he started sprinting towards the basement entrance, some thirty yards away. As he did so, prisoners launched themselves off the ground at him, trying to snare his legs and wrestle him to the ground. Mike grabbed his AK47 and opened fire on the prisoners at the basement entrance, where they were surging out and attacking the Northern Alliance guards. Dozens of prisoners had grabbed rocks and knives and were fighting at close quarters. The Afghan guards were hugely outnumbered, and the prisoners wrested their weapons from their hands, killing several as they did so.

  At the same time, one of the prisoners jumped CIA Dave, screaming out, as he did so: ‘ALLAHU AKHBAR! KILL THE AMERICANS!’ CIA Dave immediately drew his pistol and shot his attacker. He jumped to his feet and started to put down covering fire, as his buddy, CIA Mike, advanced towards the basement entrance. But by now Mike was in serious trouble, with prisoners lunging at him, ramming him with their bodies. Mike opened up with his AK47 on the enemy that now surrounded him. As his weapon ran short of ammunition, the prisoners turned attackers closed in, and Mike Spann went down in a flurry of kicks and blows. Suddenly, the CIA agent – married and with three children – had become the first US victim of the uprising at Qala-i-Janghi fort, and the first US casualty of the war in Afghanistan.

  A horrified CIA Dave had seen his buddy go down. He emptied his AK47 at the prisoners, but the courtyard was now a seething mass of enemy fighters. As confusion turned into chaos, CIA Dave was forced to turn on his heel and run. He’d had no choice but to leave his CIA buddy behind. If he’d remained there a second longer he would himself have been seized by the enemy. CIA Dave sprinted for a large building on the northern edge of the fort compound, which was General Dostum’s headquarters. As he burst inside he’d yelled a warning at the first people he saw, two men from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The ICRC workers had come to the fort to meet with the Northern Alliance commanders and negotiate access to the prisoners. Now they suddenly found themselves in the midst of an uprising, with the prisoners baying for ‘infidel’ blood.

  ‘Get the hell out of here,’ CIA Dave had cried. ‘The goddam prisoners are takin’ control of the fort and there’s twenty dead Alliance guys out there. Get the hell out – unless you wanna join them.’

  The terrified ICRC workers had headed for the basement of the building, searching for a way to escape. But they’d found themselves in a dead end. So they had climbed to the top floor of the fort headquarters and hoisted themselves over the wall. From there they had careered and tumbled down the sixty-foot outer rampart, bullets chasing after them. Once on the ground, they’d been intercepted by a group of Northern Alliance fighters and taken away to safety.

  Within minutes of the uprising, CIA Dave was the only remaining Westerner in the HQ building. Although he was in a state of shock and knew that he was in grave danger, Dave had opted to stay behind in an attempt to keep eyes on his CIA buddy. It had looked as if Mike hadn’t stood a chance as the mob had pounced on him, and Dave was almost certain he was dead. But none of the prisoners had had any guns at the moment that Mike had gone down, and there remained just a chance that he might still be alive. In which case, there was still hope.

  In his last communication from the fort, CIA Dave had used a satphone to put an SOS call through to the American Embassy in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan. This was the main base for US and British special forces operating in northern Afghanistan. In that satphone call, CIA Dave raised the alarm about the fort uprising. He reported that his fellow agent, Mike Spann, had gone down, and that Qala-i-Janghi fort was now completely out of control. CIA Dave was unsure if CIA Mike was dead or alive, and he stre
ssed repeatedly that there should be ‘no strikes by air’ because there was an American still in there. Then the batteries on the satphone that CIA Dave was using had gone down and the line had gone silent.

  The first that Ali and his brothers had known about the uprising was when the sudden noise of the explosion had reverberated through the fort’s underground chambers. After processing the night before, the majority of the prisoners had been herded below ground, into a labyrinth of basements and tunnels that ran beneath the fort grounds. Here, they had waited out the night secured by little more than their own black turbans tying their arms. It had been a long night during which few of the brothers had slept. In addition to the dozen men in Ali’s unit, he estimated that there had to be some four hundred other brothers down in the main basement building.

  As the grenade had exploded at the entrance, Ali had realised that a group of the Uzbek brothers had started the breakout without him. One of them had thrown the grenade, injuring some of the brothers and their Afghan guards. The entrance to the basement was now seething with prisoners, as they fought hand-to-hand to overpower the guards. Ali felt a desperate urge to be free of his bounds and above ground now, joining the battle for the fort. Suddenly, he was forcing his way to the front of the prisoners. But there were still over a hundred of them down there, and Ali had to fight to get through them all. Finally, he raised his face to the stairwell leading out of the basement. Standing at the open entranceway and silhouetted against the bright midday sun were two of the former prisoners, a smoking AK47 in each of their hands.

  ‘Allahu Akhbar! Allahu Akhbar!’ Ali began yelling, over and over again, as he surged up the basement steps. ‘Brother warriors! Come untie us, brothers, so we may join you in the jihad!’

  ‘Allahu Akhbar, brothers!’ the two men yelled back, brandishing their AKs above their heads. ‘By the grace of the Most Merciful One, we are free. The Northern Alliance whores and the American dogs are running for their lives, brothers. By the grace of Allah, the Fort of War is ours.’

  ‘Allahu Akhbar!’ came the bellows from Ali and his brothers.

  The crowd of prisoners gathered around the two brothers who had freed them, milling about excitedly, nervously. In the immediate aftermath of the initial attack it was eerily quiet in the fort. There was little fighting now, as the surviving enemy soldiers had all fled from their end of the fort. There were some wounded brothers gathered around the basement entrance, and they would need bandaging as best they could. Across the courtyard Ali could see the bodies of several brothers lying where they had fallen, and there was also a handful of the Afghan guards lying dead. Among them Ali spotted a man dressed in blue jeans and a dark jacket – the ‘uniform’ of a foreigner. As Ali laid eyes on him, his heart leapt. Could it be that the brothers had already killed one of the cursed infidels, one of the hated American dogs? If so, Ali wanted a weapon and a chance to find some more of the kafir to slaughter.

  ‘What now, brothers?’ Ali asked, excitedly. ‘What now? What is the plan, brothers?’

  ‘Make for the armoury,’ the two men urged, pointing out a series of dome-roofed buildings clustered against the fort’s central wall. ‘Some of the brothers are there already, breaking out the weapons. Arm yourselves with whatever you can find. There are RPGs, machine guns, grenades, AK47s. And mortars, brothers. Bring mortars. The mother of all battles is upon us, brothers. This is what we came here for. Arm yourselves, brothers! Jihad! This is jihad!’

  ‘Fetch me a weapon, Brother Ahmed,’ Ali urged, grabbing hold of his deputy’s arm. ‘Get me an RPG and some rounds, and bring them back to me here. OK?’

  ‘Of course, Brother Ali,’ a grinning Ahmed replied, as he set off for the armoury.

  ‘So where are the enemy, brothers?’ Ali continued, turning back to speak to the two men who had just freed him. As he did so, he held out his arms so that his bounds could be cut. ‘Where are the Northern Alliance whores? Where are the American dogs? Where are the cowardly infidels? By the grace of Allah let us hunt them down and slaughter them all.’

  10

  MISSION IMPOSSIBLE

  WITH THE SBS and 5th SOF vehicles now parked up inside the entranceway tower, they were positioned in the only part of the fort that was known to be in friendly hands. As the six hundred prisoners were in full revolt, the whole southern end of the fort had already fallen to the enemy. They had seized RPGs and mortars, which meant devastating fire could be put down on to any section of the fort. It would only take one lucky mortar shell, or a grenade lobbed over the wall, and the SBS Land-Rovers and 5th SOF Humvees would be blown to smithereens.

  ‘Right, get the vehicles in close to the walls, to maximise cover,’ Captain Lancer ordered, having to shout to make himself heard above the noise of battle. ‘I want you lads,’ he continued, indicating his SBS soldiers, ‘to clear and secure this tower. That’s both fire teams. This is our only known bridgehead into the fort, and it’s crucial we hold it. Once we’ve done that, we set up fire positions up top – from where we should be able to cover both ends of the fort. Sergeant Major Trent, I want your fire team to take up positions on the tower’s southern wall. From there you can put down fire on to the southern end of the fort. I’ll take the northern wall. We’ve got to contain these bastards in here, inside this fort, OK? Worst-case scenario is they break out – then we’ve got a totally unknown threat on our hands.’

  ‘Right,’ the lads responded.

  ‘OK, let’s do it. On me.’

  With that, Captain Lancer turned and scuttled in through the dark doorway leading into the tower. Ahead of him, a wide set of stone stairs led towards the top of the building. At ceiling level the staircase split, with one flight of stairs branching off towards the northern side of the tower and the other towards the southern end. Inside the massively thick stone walls the noise of the battle was eerily muted, yet every now and then what had to be much closer bursts of machine-gun fire echoed down the passageways. Clearly, there were some fighters on top of the tower who were still holding out against the enemy.

  Using hand signals, Captain Lancer sent Sergeant Major Trent’s fire team up the left-hand staircase, while his team took the right-hand fork. After climbing up three more flights of stairs, Captain Lancer’s team reached a point where the staircase ended in the open air: the roof of the tower. Up above that there was just a wall of death, as a fearsome volume of fire was scything its way across the roof of the fort.

  With barely a second’s hesitation, the Captain dropped to his belly and crawled up the last few steps and out on to the roof. Mat, Jamie and Ruff followed close behind him. On each side of the tower, thick walls rose up to around chest height. Crouching behind the battlements which looked into the fort were eight Afghan fighters. They were a group of Northern Alliance soldiers dressed in a motley collection of combats, and wearing the traditional Afghan flat woollen hats.

  The Captain glanced over at the nearest fighter. As he did so the Afghan rose up on one knee, squeezed off half a dozen rounds with his AK47 and dived back down behind cover, as a barrage of answering fire smashed into the brickwork all around him. As he hunkered down behind the battlements waiting for the enemy fire to subside, the Afghan fighter turned and caught sight of the British soldiers. Immediately, his face broke into a broad grin, and he began gesturing to the SBS troops to come over to join him. It was an invitation that Captain Lancer and the rest of the team felt unable to refuse.

  As they half ran and half crawled the twenty-odd yards across to the wall, there was a mind-blowing amount of enemy fire coming out of the fort. To Mat it seemed incomprehensible that this battle, any battle, could ever be so intense, so fearsome. Clearly, the six hundred enemy fighters must have got their hands on all the weaponry and ammo stored in the fort armoury. In which case, what on earth would their small number be able to do to stop them? But in a split second, his training had kicked in, and he’d banished such fears from his mind.

  Suddenly, Mat flipped his body up over the b
attlements and was squeezing off three rounds with his Diemaco – Crack! Crack! Crack! Dozens of the enemy were bunched up at the base of the wall, some three hundred yards in front of him. As Mat dived back behind cover, he felt the wall shaking and juddering behind him as the enemy returned fire, and chunks of masonry spun off into the air. Six yards further down the battlements, Jamie followed suit now, forcing himself up on to his knees and pouring down fire on to the enemy positions. He was followed in quick succession by Ruff and Captain Lancer, each man squeezing off a few quick rounds before diving for cover.

  As none of them could speak any of the local languages, they were unable to communicate directly with the Afghan soldiers. Even if they had been able to, the deafening noise of battle made it all but impossible to talk. Yet they were still able to appreciate the universal language of soldiers. As Mat glanced across at the nearest NA fighter, he realised that the guy was staring at him in complete amazement. What is it, mate? You never seen the SBS in action before? Catching the Afghan soldier’s eye, Mat smiled, did a quick impression of shooting one of the enemy, and gave him a big thumbs up. The Afghan soldier broke into a grin and returned the thumbs up to Mat. Reaching across the roof, Mat grabbed the Afghan soldier’s free hand and held it in a crude handclasp for a second.

  From their side of the tower, Mat and the rest of the lads had a view down into the northern half of the fort, the dividing wall between north and south running directly across from them towards the far side. In the centre of that wall was the gateway linking the two halves of the fort, and it was here that the enemy were gathered in the greatest numbers. It looked to Mat as if there were a hundred or more of them down there, although he could only take snatched glances at their positions. The enemy fighters had taken cover in a series of domed buildings that clustered beneath the wall, and behind three white Toyota pickups that were parked up at one side of the gateway.