The Ghost Agent

by Alex Berenson

  A Kevlar cable was coiled on the floor, its end knotted to the helicopter’s frame. Wells threw it out the side. He shimmied down, hand over hand, feeling the cable’s rough fibers under his gloved fingers. AK-47 rounds whistled by, and he wondered if he should have chosen heavier armor. Five feet from the ground, he jumped, landing lightly despite his gear.

  The sun was gone now. But the quarter-moon and stars shined on the open plateau, making Wells’s night-vision goggles a distraction. Wells pulled up the goggles and took stock. The plateau was a half-mile long and five hundred feet wide. Boulders and stunted trees littered the ground, offering decent cover.

  Around the drop zone, the Hellfire missiles had done their job. Burned men were strewn across the plateau like trees tossed by a category 5 hurricane, the stench of their barbecued flesh heavy in the air. A guerrilla in a long white robe twitched and moaned beside a rock seventy-five feet away.

  As planned, the attack had caught the guerrillas building campfires for dinner. Sheep and goats were tethered near the caves, maybe the same animals that had provoked Bashir Jan, the village headman, to reveal the existence of the camp. Somehow, the animals had survived the missiles. Their desperate bleats cut through the night over the crackle of the automatic rifles and the roar of the Black Hawks. The goats, the fires, the dead men: the scene was a waking dream, a twenty-first-century Goya painting, Wells thought.

  The satellite photos had shown three encampments across the plateau. The Apaches had targeted most of their Hellfires at the northern and center camps, trying to drive the guerrillas south, toward the 10th Mountain. But either the southern camp had been the biggest, or the plateau as a whole had held more men than they’d been told. Thirty or more men were scattered behind rocks and trees to the south. A smaller group was half-hidden behind boulders that obstructed the entrance to a cave west of the loading point.

  Wells unstrapped his carbine and dropped to the ground. The plateau was cold, more stone than dirt; a rock poked at his groin. The men by the cave were the immediate threat, he thought. They had already almost taken out a Black Hawk with their RPGs. He opened up at them with three-shot bursts, hoping to distract them from the helicopter.

  Thump! Thump! Hughley landed beside him, followed by the rest of B Company, as A Company hit the plateau two hundred feet to the southeast. When the last soldier touched the ground, the Black Hawks pulled away.

  ‘We’re in it now,’ Wells yelled to Hughley.

  ‘Yeah, and we ain’t getting out till the sun comes up.’

  The men of B Company fanned out in a two-hundred-foot arc. Wells and Hughley lay nearest the caves. A Company had set itself similarly. The position looked more solid than it was, Wells thought. Already the Talibs to the south were spreading out, enlarging the battlefield, giving themselves new angles to fire on the SF soldiers. Guerrillas – like civilians – usually clustered when they came under fire, hoping for safety in numbers. The fact that these men had done the opposite offered more evidence that they were getting professional help.

  ‘Shit!’

  Even without looking, Wells recognized Hackett’s voice. The stocky sergeant hopped on his right leg toward Hughley and Wells. Ten yards away, he fell. Wells ran for him, picked him up, and threw his shoulder under Hackett’s arm. Together they struggled toward Hughley like kids in a three-legged race.

  ‘Sir, I took one.’ Hackett spoke evenly – he could have been talking about someone else – but the pain in his voice was unmistakable. ‘Left leg. Bad, I think.’

  Wells put Hackett down and shined a penlight on his leg. The bullet had hit low on the thigh, just above the knee. Blood pumped steadily out from the wound, shining under the light. The popliteal artery. Hackett grunted as Wells palpated the area around the wound. Hughley put a flashlight to the sergeant’s face. He was pale, his massive jaw gritted against the pain.

  Get a tourniquet on him, Wells thought. Cutting off the artery might cost Hackett his leg, but the alternative was worse. A trauma surgeon could sew up the wound, but the nearest surgeon was in Bagram, so the tourniquet would have to do.

  ‘Take off your pack, Sergeant. I’m gonna wrap it tight.’

  ‘A tourniquet?’ Hackett’s voice lifted slightly.

  Hackett knew what a tourniquet meant, Wells thought. He wanted to give Hackett a hit of Demerol, but the sergeant had already lost too much blood. An opiate would put him in shock. ‘It’s gonna sting a little. Bite on this.’ Wells found a mouthguard in his pack and pressed it into Hackett’s hand. Beside them Hughley fired short bursts at the cave.

  ‘How we doing?’ Wells said to Hughley.

  ‘Worry about my soldier.’

  Wells grabbed a combat tourniquet – a black plastic band big enough to fit over a man’s leg, with a sturdy plastic handle attached. He pulled on latex gloves and tugged the band above the spurting wound. The sergeant groaned and bit hard on the mouthguard. Wells pulled the loop of plastic tight around Hackett’s thigh.

  ‘Just a few seconds more.’

  ‘Down!’ Hughley yelled as a guerrilla popped up from behind a boulder beside the cave to fire an RPG. It exploded behind them, lighting the night.

  ‘That the best you can do?’ Hughley said. He fired a burst at a guerrilla who’d foolishly stood to watch the RPG. The Talib screamed, his hands rising to his throat. He fell hard and didn’t move.

  ‘Hold tight, Sergeant,’ Wells said. He turned the handle of the tourniquet, tightening it around the meat of Hackett’s thigh. Hackett’s shoulders trembled. He moaned softly, a low sound hardly recognizable as human.

  The blood slowed to a trickle but didn’t stop. Wells wiped down the wound and taped a thick, clean bandage around the sergeant’s leg. He pulled off his gloves, slick with blood. ‘Sergeant. It’s over. You’re gonna be okay. Just get comfortable. Keep your leg up.’

  ‘Yessir. I’m cold, sir.’

  Wells pulled an aluminum blanket from his pack and wrapped it over Hackett’s shoulders, then grabbed a water bottle and dumped in a pouch of Gatorade powder. ‘Drink this.’

  ‘He gonna make it?’ Hughley whispered.

  ‘If I knew, I’d say.’

  ‘All right.’ Hughley nodded at the boulders where the men with the RPGs were hiding. ‘Gotta take them out, protect our flank. Can you handle it with Gaffan? Gonzalez can give you some support while he watches Hackett.’

  Two guys against five, maybe more, Wells thought. Not great odds. But he saw Hughley’s problem. B Company was already down two men, since Gonzalez, the medic, would have to take care of Hackett. That left the squad at nine soldiers, including Wells. A Company had ten more. Facing at least thirty guerrillas to the south, Hughley couldn’t spare a third guy on the flank.

  ‘Sure,’ Wells said. Through his tactical radio, Hughley ordered Gaffan and Gonzalez to their position. As the men reached Hughley and Wells, another RPG flared out from the boulders.

  ‘Shit!’ Gaffan and Gonzalez threw themselves down as the grenade exploded behind them.

  Hughley pointed toward the rocks. ‘Gaffan, you and Wells are taking out that position. Danny, you’re staying with Hackett. I’ll link the rest of the squad up with Alpha.’

  ‘Yessir.’

  Hughley sprinted off. They had a long night ahead, Wells thought. Instead of fifty guerrillas, the camp had held a hundred or more before the attack. Even now the bad guys outnumbered the Special Forces two to one. They should have had at least one more squad to even up the odds. But second-guessing the plan now would be a waste of time, and they couldn’t afford to waste time. They had to move fast, get control of the battlespace. The Talibs surely knew of trails that led up the mountain and would give them angles to shoot down on the plateau. If they put snipers above the battlefield, the SF soldiers would be exposed, sitting ducks. Before that happened, Hughley had to drive the guerrillas off the southern end of the plateau and into the valley.

  Meanwhile Wells had his own problems to solve. Hackett lay on his back, breathing
in fluttery bursts. He would be lucky to get through the night, Wells thought. ‘Gaffan.’ Wells pointed to the rock seventy-five feet away where the guerrilla in the white robe lay. ‘Let’s move.’

  Wells laid out a covering burst as Gaffan sprinted for the rock and slid in. Five seconds later they switched roles, Gaffan firing as Wells ran to the rock. Up close, Wells saw that the wounded guerrilla was in terrible shape, the left side of his face gone. His right eye opened wide as he registered their presence. He twisted away, his hands scratching at the dirt.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Wells said. ‘Watch the cave.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Watch the cave, Sergeant.’

  Wells leaned close to the man and said in Arabic, ‘Dear Lord, pour patience upon us and make us die as Muslims.’ The Quran, verse 7, line 126.

  He unholstered his Makarov, shoved it into the man’s mouth, and pulled the trigger. The single shot echoed into the darkness. The guerrilla’s skull exploded, spewing a devil’s volcano of blood and brains. Another thousand sleepless nights, Wells thought. He pushed the corpse away, furious that the man hadn’t had the decency to die on his own. The body flopped over, arms askew. No one who died tonight would get a proper burial.

  ‘Maybe I’m just projecting, but I swear he looked relieved,’ Gaffan said.

  You’re just projecting, Wells didn’t say. Warned you not to watch. He put the man’s cracked skull out of his mind. He’d save the nightmares for later. ‘Let’s do this, get close enough to lay a forty in that cave.’ A high-explosive 40-millimeter grenade, fired from the M203 launchers attached to the carbines he and Gaffan carried.

  Wells pulled open the barrel of his 203, popped in the grenade – a cylinder that looked like a shotgun shell – and cocked the barrel. He pointed to a stunted tree a hundred feet to their right. ‘Ready?’

  Gaffan nodded.

  Wells popped up, fired, and dropped down. His grenade blasted into the mountainside, a red-white explosion that faded fast. He’d missed, but not by much. Now let them fire back. The Talibs were loose with their ammo. Let them shoot until their magazines ran dry. Then Wells and Gaffan would break for the tree, where they’d be close enough to do some damage.

  But the Talibs refused to play along. Instead of random AK-47 fire, they fired only a few well-aimed shots. Two rounds hit the dead Talib, making the corpse jump, a caricature of resurrection. Gaffan had no chance to move from the shelter of the rock.

  ‘Somebody’s been teaching these guys to shoot,’ Wells said.

  ‘I’m thinking that too, sir.’

  Now Wells and Gaffan were pinned. The guerrillas had them targeted and would cut them down the next time they poked their heads up. They watched helplessly as two guerrillas emerged from the boulders by the cave and ran left, diving behind a mound of dirt kicked up by a Hellfire missile. From their new position, the Talibs had an angle on Gonzalez and Hackett, who were stuck because of Hackett’s leg. Sure enough, rounds began smashing into the low, flat rocks that sheltered Gonzalez and Hackett.

  ‘Pinned here, sir,’ Gonzalez yelled through the night. Then: ‘¡Maricón! ¡Puta! Bitch got my Kevlar.’ He fired back ineffectually.

  Not good.

  ‘Now what, sir?’

  Wells thought for a few seconds. Could he aim a grenade well enough to drop it over the boulders that hid the guerrillas? Doubtful. But –

  ‘Load up with CS.’ CS was a powerful chemical irritant that left its victims temporarily blind and gasping for breath. All SF soldiers carried CS grenades in addition to the traditional high-explosive variety. Wells popped a gray-and-green aluminum CS grenade in the 203.

  ‘But sir –’ Gaffan said.

  ‘Sergeant. Stop calling me sir. Call me John, Wells, dogface, whatever. Not sir. Makes me feel like I’m two hundred years old.’

  ‘Yes, Mr. Wells.’

  ‘Mr. Wells? All right, it’ll do. Now stop arguing and load up.’ Lying on his stomach, Wells crooked his arms at the elbow so that the barrel of his carbine pointed up like a mortar. He imagined the gas grenade arcing out of the M4 and landing behind the rocks like a perfectly thrown football. He squeezed the trigger. The carbine jerked back as the grenade soared out.

  A few seconds later, white smoke drifted down the side of the mountain, a hundred yards above the entrance to the cave. Not close enough. Wells stayed on his stomach, keeping his arms still.

  ‘Gimme your M4 and reload mine,’ Wells said. Gaffan put his own carbine in Wells’s hands. Wells tilted his arms back slightly, calculating, again imagining the gas canister landing behind the boulders. He fired. The grenade landed thirty yards short. Better, but not good enough.

  AK fire rattled at Wells and Gaffan as the white CS smoke dispersed across the plateau. A rocket-propelled grenade flared out from a gap in the boulders, sailing over their heads. Good. The men behind the boulder were getting anxious.

  ‘Again,’ Wells said. Again Gaffan traded carbines with him. Wells lowered the barrel slightly and squeezed the trigger. Pop! This time the canister landed on the rocks where the guerrillas had hidden. Smoke poured out in all directions, as Wells had hoped. He had chosen to use the CS grenades instead of standard high-explosive grenades because with the CS he didn’t have to have perfect aim. If he could get reasonably close, the gas would disperse over the boulders, doing his work for him.

  Men yelled in Arabic. Seconds later the coughing began, a vicious hacking as if the men behind the boulder were trying to spit up their poisoned lungs.

  ‘Again.’ Again Gaffan handed him a reloaded carbine. Wells adjusted his aim infinitesimally and fired again. This time the shot went slightly long, landing on the mountainside a few yards above the cave. But the smoke seeped down into the area where the guerrillas were hiding. The coughing grew louder.

  ‘Get your mask on,’ Wells said. ‘One more, then we go in.’

  Wells fired the fifth canister, then pulled on a gas mask. The mask made breathing a conscious decision rather than an automatic fact. Inhale. Fill your lungs. Exhale. Hear air rattle through the activated charcoal filters. Inhale again.

  Wells pulled his helmet back on and popped a fresh grenade – standard high-explosive, not CS – into the 203. Two men in brown robes crawled from behind the boulders, their bodies shaking, clots of white phlegm dripping down their faces.

  Gaffan took aim. ‘Wait,’ Wells said. But no more men joined the two.

  ‘Okay. Drop ’em.’

  Gaffan squeezed the trigger of his carbine. The first guerrilla twitched spasmodically and collapsed face-first. The second man stood and turned toward them, raising his arms blindly, in defiance, or surrender. Gaffan didn’t wait to find out. He fired again. The man pressed a hand to his robe, twisted, and fell.

  ‘Looks like we got the dumb ones,’ Gaffan said. Behind the boulder, the desperate coughing continued. At least two men left back there, Wells thought. No point in waiting any longer. CS was nasty, but its effects wore off fast. ‘Cover me,’ he said to Gaffan. ‘On three.’

  ‘I’ll go, John.’ Gaffan started to stand.

  Wells shoved him down. ‘You cover.’ Wells crouched in the shadow of the rock. It was 250 feet to the boulders in a straight line, though he would be zigzagging to keep the guerrillas from getting a clean shot. He wasn’t as fast as he’d once been, but he was fast enough. He held up three fingers to Gaffan, two, one. He took off.

  And as his legs pumped over the plateau’s broken rocks, the mania of hand-to-hand combat filled him. He knew he would survive. God, Allah – whatever He was called, whatever He was – wouldn’t let him die out here. He was invincible. Indestructible.

  Wells sprinted, the M4 cradled across his chest, hurdling a low rock, always moving, cutting over the field like a running back who’d made the safety miss and knew the end zone wasn’t far off. When he was a hundred feet away, a man stepped from the shadows of the boulders, white, holding an AK in both hands, wearing a jean jacket –

  And a gas mask like We
lls.

  A gas mask. Choose now or never choose anything again. No point in trying to shoot. He was running too fast to have a chance of hitting the guy. Instead Wells pulled the second trigger on the carbine, launching his high-explosive grenade. Maybe he’d be close enough at least to rattle the man in the mask –

  Thata-thata-thata. The guerrilla’s AK exploded with a staccato burst.

  Wells dove to his right. He landed hard on his shoulder and rolled, reaching for his carbine.

  The grenade blew in an enormous white flash. Wells ducked his head as shrapnel rained around him. When he looked up, the man in the jean jacket no longer existed.

  Wells sat up. He didn’t think he’d been hit, but his right arm hung out of its socket and his shoulder felt as though it were on fire. Wells reached across his body and cradled the shoulder in his left hand. He grabbed his right biceps and tugged his arm forward, trying to pop the joint into place. The pain was the worst he’d ever felt. A river of agony flooded through his chest. Tears flooded his eyes and filled his gas mask. Wells dropped his arm.

  He caught his breath and again wrapped his left hand around the top of his right biceps. In one convulsive movement he jerked his arm forward. The world spun. He pulled even harder. He could feel the joint give. The stars merged and the sky glowed a chunky white. Wells didn’t stop pulling. Then the joint popped back into place and the pain lessened. Wells tried to lift his arm and was amazed to find he could. Then he picked himself up and ran for the rocks, to see if anyone else was still back there.

  But when Wells finally ended his 250-foot marathon and reached the mouth of the cave, he didn’t find anyone. Anyone alive, anyway. The grenade had slammed into the chest of the man in the jean jacket, a one-in-a-million shot that had blown him apart. His headless torso lay in a thick pool of blood. The head, still covered with the gas mask, lay ten feet from his body. Through the clear plastic mask its eyes watched Wells, promising to visit him while he slept. ‘Asshole,’ Wells said aloud, unsure if he was talking to himself or the man he had killed.