Hunt the Falcon (2 page)

“Memphis-five-central, we'll soon be approaching along the northwest ridge,” Crocker responded. “Alert your perimeter. Is the path clear? Over.” He'd been trained to compartmentalize his feelings in order to effectively do this job.

“Tango-six-two, we're under attack from the east and the south. Keep following the ridge. I'll send two men out to meet you. They'll disarm the alarms and show you the way down. Do you copy?”

“Copy, Memphis. Have them whistle. Three short blasts in succession, so we know it's them.”

“Three short whistles. Copy, Tango. Welcome and Godspeed. Over and out.”

Crocker saw the wary look on some of the men's faces and barked, “Be sure to stay alert and stick together!”

“And don't feed the trolls,” Akil added.

“You've got the wrong continent,” Mancini growled back. “Trolls are mythological beings from Scandinavian folklore.”

Akil shook his head. “Are you serious?”

“Yes, I'm serious. When you say shit, get it right.”

Crocker had taken a mere twenty steps along the snow-covered trail at the top of the ridge when the first rounds of automatic fire whizzed by, and he shouted to his men to hold fire and take cover behind nearby rocks and boulders. Then the firing picked up and was augmented by a barrage of missiles, mortars, and propelled grenades.

Pieces of hot metal hissed into the snow and ice. Explosions lit up the craggy landscape nearby, but visibility was still limited.

Crocker was high on adrenaline. His mind worked at warp speed, measuring distance, speed, the sequence of information, and making calculations. Something was very wrong.

“Should we return fire, boss?” asked Davis, crouched to his right.

“Negative!” Crocker shouted.

From somewhere behind him Dog muttered, “This situation is double fucked.”

“Double fucked or not, we'll accomplish the mission.” Then Crocker spoke into his headset: “Hold your fire. We don't want to give away our position. Pull back to the other side of the ridge.”

He was referring to the one they had recently climbed. On their way up they had followed a snow-covered trail, and now they literally clung to ice-covered rocks as they moved parallel to the ridge. The muscles in their arms and legs burned as they struggled to maintain balance while carrying roughly a hundred pounds of equipment on their backs. Akil led the way, carefully stepping from one toehold to another, in a generally southeastern direction, keeping his head down to avoid the rocks, snow, ice, and hot metal flying past.

“Tango-six-two this is Memphis-five-central. Report your position!” screamed the voice in Crocker's headset. “Tango-six-two, report!” The fear in it was palpable.

He wished he could tell the major to hold his shit together. Instead he said sternly, “We're proceeding, Memphis-five-central. Over and out.”

A large explosion shook the top of the mountain, dislodging an icy boulder that tumbled and hit another outcropping of rock with a large smash, splitting the boulder in two. A refrigerator-sized piece spun toward the spot where Dog, Phillips, and Jake were standing.

“Watch out!” Crocker screamed.

The men had little room to maneuver, and there was nothing the other SEALs could do but watch the massive hunk of rock glance off the backs of their three teammates, who had pressed themselves against the snow and ice.

Time slowed down. Jake froze, his legs went limp, and he fell backward. Phillips stretched his arms out and caught him. Dog's whole body twisted violently to the left. Crocker saw the acute agony on his face, then watched as the MK43 Mod 0 machine gun flew out of his arms and disappeared into the shower of falling snow. He didn't even hear it land. Could have ended up hundreds or even thousands of feet below.

Gone. Not that Crocker was worried about the weapon as he squeezed past Mancini, Davis, and Chauncey, reaching for the emergency medical pack at the back of his waist and looking down at Jake lying on the narrow ledge, his blue eyes frozen and staring into space as Phillips tried to remove Jake's backpack.

“Don't!” Crocker said.

“But—”

“Don't touch him!”

“Sir, he's breathing but can't speak.”

“He's in shock,” Crocker replied, feeling along Jake's neck for a pulse and finding it higher than normal. He knelt in the snow and carefully reached under Jake's backpack to the place below his neck where the rock had struck. There was swelling and loose, dislocated bone under the skin. Damage to some of the vertebrae.

“Tango-six-two this is Memphis-five-central. Report your position!” the army major from OPM screamed in Crocker's headset.

Ignoring him, Crocker turned to Phillips. “Help me lay Jake on his side and wrap him in some Kevlar blankets,” he said. “He can't be moved. You hear me? Don't move him!”

“Yes, sir. You want me to stay with him?”

The major from OPM screeched again, “Tango-six-two this is Memphis-five-central. Do you copy? Report!”

“Yeah, I copy!” Crocker barked into his helmet mike.

Panic was dangerous. Phillips touched Crocker's arm and whispered, “Sir, you want me to remain with Jake?”

The sounds of combat had moved farther down the mountain to the approximate location of OPM. The Taliban had stopped directing fire at the ridge.

Crocker waved Mancini over and said, “Manny, go back the way we came. First reconnoiter the ridge. If it's clear, retake it. If there are a number of Taliban there, call and inform me. We can't let the enemy hold that position.”

“No, boss, we can't. If we do, I believe the base will be surrounded.”

“Which will make it real tough for us to fight our way in.”

“Roger that.”

“Take three men with you, and let me know.”

“Got it.”

He looked down at Jake again, then watched Phillips carefully slipping a Kevlar blanket under him. A gust of wind rushed up the side of the mountain, creating what sounded like a wolf's howl.

A voice in his head reminded him that Phillips had previously asked him a question. He squeezed Phillips's arm and said, “Yes, I want you to stay with him.” Phillips's long, narrow face reminded Crocker of a marine he had served with in Okinawa, who fell in love with and married a Filipino prostitute—something straight-arrow Phillips would never do.

Phillips looked up with calm, intelligent, light-brown eyes. “You want me to try to monitor his vital signs, sir?”

“Every ten minutes or so, try at least to check his pulse. If it gets below sixty or over a hundred beats a minute, let me know.”

“Will do, chief.”

Crocker scooted over to Dog. Dog was leaning against the side of the mountain holding his left shoulder, which was hanging at an odd angle. A rocket whizzed overhead and Crocker instinctively ducked. For a second he forgot he was in Nuristan Province, Afghanistan—the setting of one of his favorite movies,
The Man Who Would Be King
, and throughout history a very dangerous place to be.

Who wants to be king now?
he asked himself, looking at Dog, whose head was turned away from Crocker. The Tennessean's stocky body trembled. Crocker whispered his name, and when Dog turned, Crocker saw tears streaming down his freckled face.

“Fucking new-guy bad luck,” Dog snarled through small, gritted teeth. “I'm sorry.”

“For what?” Crocker asked, inspecting Dog's shoulder.

“Letting go of the pig.”

“Fuck the pig. Bite into this,” Crocker said, handing Dog a thick square of rubber he kept in a plastic bag in his emergency medical kit.

“Why?”

“Bite on it and tell me something: Who was quarterback at UT when you played there?”

“What—” Dog's answer was interrupted by an unbelievable jolt of pain as Crocker pulled Dog's right arm away from his shoulder, then forcefully pushed it up and into the socket with a pop.

“ELI-FUCKING-MANNING!”

Happier tears streamed from Dog's blue eyes as he lifted his arm and realized that his shoulder worked again and was almost pain free.

“You're a lucky man,” Crocker said in a low voice.

“Thank you,” Dog responded, removing the piece of rubber from his mouth, wiping it on his sleeve, then handing it back.

“Grab an extra weapon from someone.”

“Right away.”

“Let's go kill some fucking Taliban.”

Crocker joined Akil at the front of the column. The barrel-chested Egyptian American former marine raised his arm and pointed out a route he had just explored, which he said would take them along the top of the mountain up to the ridge.

That's when Mancini's voice came over his headset. “Boss, Mancini. We've taken the position. All secure. Advise.”

“Hold, Manny. As well as you can, try to protect the northwest access.”

“Roger.”

“Holler if you see any enemy activity.”

“What's your location?” Mancini asked.

“We're proceeding south.”

Crocker and the remaining six crossed three hundred yards until they were directly above OPM. There they assembled behind a low wall blanketed with snow. Since visibility was still terrible, Crocker blew three times into the whistle he kept on a chain around his neck.

Someone to his right whistled back. He rose with his HK416 ready and tried peering through the swirling mass of snow. In a crouch he proceeded another five feet, until he saw a blurry dark shape standing beside a collapsed stone wall.

“You Chief Crocker?” the voice asked through wind.

“That's right, who are you?”

“Lance Corporal Novak, sir, of Alpha Company. Welcome to OP Memphis, otherwise known as the House of Blues.”

S
everal tense,
difficult minutes later, minutes spent climbing down a rope ladder and sliding down the face of slippery rocks, the seven SEALs arrived in Station Presley, the post's main building and observation point, built on a narrow finger of rock that jutted over the Kunar Valley. The structure was roughly twenty-five by fifteen feet, built of rough-hewn logs, stone, and concrete, reinforced with metal Conex panels and sandbags.

The room itself was a chaotic mess strewn with the debris of battle. Twin M2HGs and an M240 .50 caliber machine gun fired at Taliban attackers below and to the right, spitting hot casings onto the concrete floor, which was slick with blood, spilled oil, and water. About a dozen soldiers crouched before slits in the forward wall, firing M4s, M5s, M27s, MP7s, and HK416s. Others, including an Afghan, screamed over the pounding of weapons into radios. Two army medics attended to the wounded, which included a young African American who had been hit in the face.

The noise was deafening. The cordite in the air made it hard to breathe. The desperation of the men fighting was real and contagious.

Crocker was relieved to learn from Captain Jason Battier that Presley's location made it extremely difficult to assault from above or below. The SEALs had just spent six hours climbing a mountain, then sliding down a rock slope to reach it from the west. Its east side, which faced the valley, fell off into two thousand feet of sheer cliff. About a hundred feet below and two hundred feet south of Presley sat another small grassy plateau that housed two barracks, known as King and Wolf.

At the foremost tip of that plateau another rocky cliff descended an additional hundred feet to a U-shaped band of land that swept around the entire east, north, and south faces of the promontory.

“Where's the officer in charge?” Crocker asked.

Battier pointed to a body at the back of the room covered with a sheet of blue plastic.

“But I just spoke to him.”

“About two minutes 'fore you got here,” he said in a thick Cajun accent, “he caught a round in the head.”

Captain Battier continued, explaining that the narrow U-shaped band of land below was the location of the post's four guard stations, named A, B, C, and D. Stations A and B—directly below Presley and to the left—had taken the brunt of the initial Taliban attack, which had been launched approximately seven hours ago. Both A and B had recently been overrun, resulting in the death of six Pennsylvania national guardsmen, five marines, six members of the army's Alpha Company, and an undetermined number of Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers.

“Where's the hottest action now?” Crocker asked.

“The Taliban are directing everything at Stations C and D. Once they fall, they'll have easy access to King and Wolf, to our right,” Battier said, pointing to a chart on the wall. “Once King and Wolf go, we're fucked.”

He was a wiry, tall fellow with a prominent nose and several days' worth of light brown growth on his face. His camouflage-covered FAST Ballistic Helmet was pulled low over long, narrow eyes.

“They're not going to fall,” Crocker said.

“Why?”

“We won't let 'em.”

“Okay.”

“How many men do you have fighting at Stations C and D, and what are you planning to do to reinforce them?”

An RPG round glanced off the roof and exploded, stinging their ears.

Captain Battier shook his head as if to get it to restart and pointed to his right. “How many men we got out there? Fifteen maybe. Another five or six injured. Three dead. But as you can see, chief, we're spread so thin. I only got eight men guarding King and Wolf. That's where our supplies are. Maybe we should think of pulling back.”

“We're not pulling back. Who's in charge down there?”

“Marine Staff Sergeant Perez. A tough Chicano, former gangbanger from East L.A. Crazy motherfucker.”

Crocker said, “I need you to send a medic and a couple of soldiers to retrieve an injured teammate of mine.”

“Where?”

“I'll draw a map.”

As they conversed, an Afghan officer in a crisp green uniform spoke into a push-pull radio. “Who's he?” Crocker asked.

“He's our ANA coordinator. His name is Major Jawid Mohammed. We call him Weed.”

“How many men does he have here?” Crocker asked, noting that Weed was a handsome man of about five feet seven, with a short black beard and, like most Afghans, compelling eyes.

“Weed? Shit, I don't know. Yo, Weed, how many men you got?”

The Afghan frowned when he heard Battier's question, clutched the radio under his arm, and held up eight fingers.

“That all?” Crocker asked.

“About fifteen of 'em ran soon as the battle started,” Battier answered.

“What's Jalalabad telling you about the storm?” Crocker asked.

Another rocket-launched grenade exploded into the south wall, throwing back two marines who had been firing through the closest port window and sending smoke and shards of rock and wood flying inside.

Crocker helped one of the marines to his feet. He had several long splinters of wood stuck in his face, which made him look like a character from a slasher movie. “You know where you are, son?” Crocker asked.

“Does it matter?” the marine grunted back. He retrieved his weapon, returned to his position, and resumed firing.

The second marine was sitting up and shaking his head. He asked no one in particular, “Don't these people ever fucking stop?” An army medic knelt beside him and gave him water.

“The weather's bad, chief,” Battier said. “Not looking good at all. Jalalabad is saying another four hours minimum before they can launch a single drone. Six, seven maybe before a bird can make it up here. Four more hours, we'll all be dead.”

Crocker grabbed the front of his camouflage jacket. “Don't talk like that. You hear me?”

“Chief?”

Technically the captain outranked him. In spite of that Crocker growled, “Man up, Captain. Your men are counting on you.”

“Yes.”

Crocker motioned to Akil to join them. Then, nodding toward Weed, who continued talking into the radio, he asked, “Who's he talking to?”

Akil listened and answered, “He's speaking in some strange local dialect, boss. I don't know.”

“Any idea what he's saying?”

Crocker imagined for a moment that he heard the blades of an approaching helicopter, but it was the
pop-pop-pop
of one of the big guns.

“I think he's talking about us,” Akil answered. “You know, the arrival of seven more Americans.”

Crocker nodded, then turned to Battier and said, “My men and I are going down below to relieve Stations C and D. I'm counting on you to keep order up here. Concentrate your fire on the enemy attacking C and D.”

Battier said, “Okay, chief. But how are you planning to get there?”

“The fastest way possible,” Crocker responded, pulling on his pack and grabbing his HK416.

Battier said, “Jonesy's our best climber. He'll show you. Jonesy, yo!”

A tall African American kid with a shaved head stopped firing his MK19 automatic grenade launcher, walked over, and removed the purple plastic plugs from his ears. “What's up, Captain?”

“I need you to take Chief Crocker and his men down the chute to Station C.”

“The chute, for sure. You bad boys ready?”

“Hell, yes!”

The SEALs reentered the wet and bitter cold weather. Snow continued to blow in all directions. Blasts and automatic arms fire echoed from the valley below.

“Follow me,” Jonesy said, walking with an M27 resting on his shoulder as if he was taking a stroll in the woods.

“I like this guy,” Akil commented to Crocker, who was thinking ahead, trying to cobble a plan together.

Jonesy spoke as he walked. “Mofos musta been planning this assault for some time, waiting for the first big winter storm. The major, he thought he'd been building up good relations with the elders in the village. All the time, they been aiding the Taliban. Now he's dead. Mofos must have been assembling in that damn village, man, storing weapons and supplies, 'cause that's where they attacked us from.”

Beyond two large pine trees they arrived at the edge of the cliff and a narrow gully in the rock. In warmer weather, it probably carried water, Crocker thought. He couldn't see where the natural gully ended; fog and snow had reduced visibility to less than three yards.

“How far does it descend?” he asked Jonesy.

The skinny soldier hitched up his camouflage pants and answered, “Over a hundred yards. Most of the way down to Station C.”

Jonesy shook the snow off a plastic cover, lifted it off, then picked up a large coil of rope, which he heaved into the gully. The end of it was tied to a U-shaped pipe that had been cemented into the rock.

“You guys are SEALs, right?” he asked. “Then this kinda shit is probably like pissing in a pot to you. You want me to lead the way?”

“Sure,” Crocker answered. “We'll be right behind you.”

As he pulled on a pair of worn leather gloves, Jonesy said, “Somebody's gotta stay behind and pull this sucker up so the Tal-i-bads can't use it.”

Crocker turned to Dog and barked, “You're not gonna be able to do this with your shoulder, so on my signal, pull up the rope.”

“Yes, chief.”

Jonesy spit into his gloves, made sure the M27 was strapped securely across his back and shoulder, grabbed the rope, and started to shimmy down. Crocker went second, followed by Akil, Davis, Ritchie, Cal, and Yale.

Twelve feet down they entered a cloud of mist so thick Crocker couldn't see Jonesy in front of him. All he heard was the hiss of snow and dull percussions in the distance. The scene reminded him of dreams he'd had as a kid, and similarly thrilling experiences skydiving through clouds. There was something exhilarating about not knowing what was coming next.

At twenty feet he heard the explosion.
Wham!
It hurt his ears and sent pieces of rock flying, crashing into him. Still, he managed to hold on to the rope.

Jonesy screamed, “Mofos! Stupid mofos! Why you gotta be pissing me off?”

A voice overlapped in Crocker's headset. “Boss. Boss!”

Secondary explosions followed, thankfully none of them as close. Bullets flew their way, loose rock falling on top of them, hitting their shoulders, backs, and helmets.

“Boss! Boss, what the fuck?”

“Down!” he shouted at Jonesy. “Fast-rope down!”

His feet and hands eased up on the rope and he started flying down fast, still surrounded by fog, trying to count the distance in his head. Twenty feet, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy. At eighty he started to tighten his grip around the line.

Into the mike in his headset, he shouted, “Slow down at eighty feet. Remember to slow down!”

The rope burned through his gloves. The heat and pain was intense by the time he emerged from the mist and saw ground, and Jonesy rolling onto a patch of moss-covered dirt.

“Hit the ground and roll!” he exclaimed into the mike before he hit, lowering his head and shoulder, and executing a modified parachute landing fall, popping up into a crouch. He spotted Jonesy waving him over to a group of boulders that formed a natural wall.

The enemy were still directing their fire above them into the gully. Crocker suspected that the Afghan major with the push-pull radio might have something to do with it.

He helped the remaining five and directed them to where Jonesy waited. Over the radio he ordered Dog to pull up the fast-rope, then joined the group huddled behind the rock. The sounds of battle were crisper and closer—so close he could make out men shouting in a foreign language.

Jonesy said, “The Taliban's about a hundred yards in front of us. Station C stands over there to the right.”

Crocker turned and looked in the direction of a smooth rock that rose like the back of a blue whale. Beyond it sat a higher patch of land that was barely visible. Through wisps of fog and a patch of low shrubs, he thought he saw the top of a flat, fortlike structure.

“That it?”

“You got it, boss. We're kinda behind the freakin' Tal-i-bad lines.”

The fresh, piney smell reminded Crocker of happier times, in the White Mountains of New Hampshire where he spent summer vacations as a kid. He turned to Davis. “Get Sergeant Perez on the horn and tell him we're approaching north-northwest.”

“Roger.”

“Follow me.” This wasn't the first time he'd rushed into something blind. He hoped it wouldn't be the last.

He ran in a low crouch until he reached the slick, smooth surface of the rock, and holding on to it, started to scurry upward on all fours. Tough going. Every foot gained was a struggle. He was out of breath by the time he reached the top and spotted the shrubs ahead. Beyond them and to the right he saw the backs of three men wearing black turbans. One was kneeling on the ground setting up a machine gun.

Crocker aimed his HK416 and raked fire across their backs, left to right, then left again into the slumping, twitching bodies. One shouted an oath to Allah that echoed past him.

Akil, Jonesy, and Cal hurried up behind him.

“What the fuck was that?” one of them exclaimed, interrupted by the clank and clatter of metal against rock. Crocker located the grenade and pointed at it. Together they sprinted, then dove to the opposite side of a berm and hit the ground.

Crocker felt his chin crash into the ground as snow entered his nose and mouth. The explosion lifted his chest and belly into the air. Shards of metal fell around him as he hit earth again and saw stars.

A big gun was pounding. It seemed to be firing from a position closer to the cliff. His head spinning, he tried to lift himself up as voices called, “Chief! Chief!” Couldn't tell who it was, but he realized it had to be coming over his headset. When he reached for the mike, he realized his helmet had been pushed back off his head. He was trying to adjust it when he noticed Akil pointing at him. A third man Crocker didn't know was standing with him. Jonesy hurried over and helped him up.