The Only Thing Worth Dying For (12 page)

For the rest of the day, Amerine contemplated Mulholland’s order. He was envious of his fellow captains working with thousands of hardened Northern Alliance soldiers in the north, while Karzai was having a hard time guaranteeing a couple hundred guerrillas. Then again, Amerine was confident that the man he was allying with was not a violent, unscrupulous warlord. Nearly all the Northern Alliance generals had been accused of human rights violations, but Karzai had no blood on his hands.

The victory at Mazar-e-Sharif was a good indication that the Northern Alliance, with the support of the U.S. military, would continue south, reclaiming Uzbek, Tajik, Hazara, and other ethnic-minority territory from the Taliban. If the Northern Alliance were to attack the Pashtun tribal belt, civil war was inevitable. The ensuing lawlessness would create a ripe environment for the next Taliban—and a haven for the next al-Qaeda.

ODA 574 had to infiltrate with Karzai; the consequences of abandoning him, Amerine decided, were too dire.
Now,
he thought,
is the time to help Hamid rally the Pashtun—before the Northern Alliance moves into the southern provinces.
But to do that, he would have to work around an apparently overly cautious CIA officer and convince his own 5th Group commander that it was necessary.

That evening Amerine wrote in his journal, “It’s a fucked-up war when you are more worried about fighting your chain of command than the actual enemy.”

The fall of Mazar-e-Sharif was good news for Operation Enduring Freedom, but it increased the urgency of the work of James Dobbins, a former U.S. ambassador who had been appointed envoy to the Afghan resistance only ten days before. He had built his reputation as a diplomat specializing in crisis management and “state-building” in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo. The State Department had told him that in Afghanistan, the military operation was gaining momentum but “the political track was not keeping pace.” While the Taliban regime would certainly be defeated, Dobbins later wrote, there was “no clear idea of what group could be put in its place or how to do it.”
⁴

Dobbins had identified three key milestones essential to stabilizing Afghanistan after the war. First, all six of Afghanistan’s neighboring countries would have to agree on the successor to the Taliban and the interim government. Second, Dobbins needed to identify Pashtun leaders who were untainted by association with the Taliban and remained popular in the Pashtun tribal belt. Third, he must convince the Northern Alliance leadership, which represented minority ethnic groups, to share power with this figure.

In Dobbins’s estimation, the Northern Alliance and the supporters of former king Zahir Shah
*
were the two most significant opposition groups in Afghanistan, but he was having trouble bringing them together for a meeting. The leaders of the Northern Alliance were in no hurry to share power with Afghan émigrés who controlled no forces on the ground—they were too busy winning a war.

During their customary stroll that night, Amerine informed Karzai that the infiltration was scheduled for November 14—five days away and the darkest night in the current lunar cycle. They reconvened for tea afterward in the safe house meeting room, where Amerine told Karzai of his dilemma: Mulholland’s order that he not infiltrate until a force of three hundred Afghans was ready to join them.

“The support is there,” Karzai insisted. “The people will join us. They will rise up.”

“I know this, but…”

“Then we will make our own way back into Afghanistan,” Karzai said, uncharacteristically interrupting Amerine.

“No, Hamid,” said Amerine. “What can we do
now
to bolster your numbers?”

“I should return to Uruzgan immediately with the tribal leaders. I have been absent too long already.”

“I don’t believe that would be a good idea,” Amerine said. “We need you here.”

“Then I will discuss this with the tribal leaders,” said Karzai, who stood and left the room.

He returned an hour later. “They are ready,” Karzai said. “Bari Gul is already packed and waiting at the door. They will go to Uruzgan while I remain here to complete the plan. They will have your three hundred men.”

Karzai held Amerine’s eye without a blink or a twitch to reveal any misgivings.
This man would make a hell of a poker player,
thought Amerine.

The plan had always called for the tribal leaders to return to Afghanistan in advance of Karzai and the American infiltration, but not this far in advance: The longer these Afghans were on the ground, the greater the chance that the infiltration plan might be leaked or accidentally disclosed to a Taliban spy or sympathizer. But now they needed this additional time to rally more recruits. Amerine coordinated with Casper and Hadley on the spot, arranging to insert the tribal leaders back inside Afghanistan the following night.

“In the meantime,” Amerine told Karzai, “you should sit down with Alex and identify any villages in need of humanitarian aid. He can coordinate the airdrops. If you can contact the leaders, let them know that you personally requested the aid.”

On November 10, Amerine’s split team at J-Bad went “Christmas shopping” for the insurgency. The U.S. military and the CIA had settled on Russian weaponry in large part because the AK-47 was the iconic weapon of the Mujahideen, originally supplied by the United States in great numbers during “Charlie Wilson’s War,”
*
when the
CIA could not afford to be linked to the weapons it supplied to Afghan freedom fighters during their insurgency against the Soviets. Many Afghans had lovingly maintained the rifles, adorning them with engravings and bright paint and passing them along to their sons.

The weapons list read: 300 AK-47s; 150,000 rounds of ammunition; 300 ammo pouches; 5 PKM Russian machine guns with 200,000 rounds; 100 rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs). As the weapons sergeants finalized what would be their first lethal weapons airdrop once ODA 574 was in War Jan, Wes received a message from Task Force Dagger.

He found Amerine at the hangar, flying the terrain on Big Mama in preparation for that night’s mission to deposit the tribal leaders back in the Uruzgan Mountains. “Task Force Dagger is sending the rest of the team over,” Wes said.

“Good news,” Amerine said. He assumed Mulholland or Rosengard decided that training three hundred guerrillas warranted a full-strength ODA 574, and though Amerine looked forward to seeing the rest of his men, he was certain that all was not forgiven for having ditched them at K2.

Wes continued to hover.

“Something else?” asked Amerine.

“Yes, sir. The guys, we wanted to have a little powwow with you about tonight, when you get a chance.”

Wes left, and a civilian entered the room. “She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” the man said to Amerine, looking at Big Mama over his shoulder. “Really purrs.”

“Yep,” said Amerine, who presumed that the man was CIA and had the clearance to be there. “Well, I just wanted to introduce myself,” the man said, handing Amerine a business card. “I’m making sure everything is working for you guys. But give me a call if your command at Fort Campbell wants to drop in on something like this. I can fly out, give you a demo.”

Amerine glanced at the card before throwing it in the trash.
Unbelievable
, he thought. Here he was, getting ready to go to war at a high-security, supposedly secret base, and he had gotten pitched by a civilian software salesman.

Mag was waiting for Amerine when he walked into the safe house late that afternoon.

“Sir, about tonight. I’m ready. Bring me along.”

“No, Mag. I’m going on this one alone.”

“You’re not going to take me? You’re not gonna take your pit bull?”

Amerine laughed.

“Sir, you gotta stay back,” Mag said as they entered the team’s room. “Something happens to you, you get shot down, they’ll scrub the mission.”

“One of us should go with you,” added Mike, who was waiting just inside the door.

“Is that what this is all about?” Amerine looked around at the rest of his split team. “This isn’t about me getting my feet wet first,” he said. “This is about showing good faith, an officer going in with other officers. Hamid isn’t too happy that we don’t have weapons for them yet. These guys are his officers—the highest-ranked leaders he’s got. Casper’s going, the aircrews, and the guerrillas. There’s no more room. It will be in and out.”

The men were quiet. At last Mike said, “Sir, we could give the guerrillas some of our frag grenades. So they’ve got something to fight with.”

“Good idea. Can you put together what we can spare?”

“Roger that,” said Mike.

Every member of the split team—Alex, Ken, Wes, Mag, Mike—looked concerned about their captain. Or maybe they were just tired: Sleep was minimal and stress levels were high.

“All will be well,” Amerine told them. “I’m going to start prepping to leave. Mag, get the rest of the guys situated when they arrive. I’ll brief them first thing in the morning.”

Casper entered the room as Mike was delivering the sack of fragmentation grenades to Amerine.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, skipper,” said Casper, eyeing the weapons.

“We’re dropping our guerrillas into a location where they could get into trouble,” said Amerine. “They’re my men, they deserve a fighting chance, and they are crucial to the completion of the mission.”

“That’s fine, just don’t hand them out before the flight.”

“Does he think they’re gonna go suicidal?” asked Mike after Casper left. “Blow up the helicopter?”

“I’m not sure
what
he’s thinking,” Amerine said. The CIA team seemed solid, and ODA 574 respected them, having heard about some of their previous missions. But Casper’s comment about the grenades and his request for a Ranger platoon, made behind Amerine’s back, worried the captain. Casper would have little authority in the ground force campaign once they were in Afghanistan, but here in Pakistan, he seemed to have enough pull to get the mission canceled. It was imperative that Amerine keep the peace until they were in-country.

Amerine, Casper, and Karzai’s seven tribal leaders boarded an AFSOC Pave Low helicopter shortly after nightfall. Watching Casper closely, Amerine thought the spook seemed edgy, his eyes more alert and his mannerisms more deliberate as they flew to a barren airstrip flanked by flat grids of farmland less than fifty miles east of the Afghan border.

There they loaded onto two Black Hawks, sleek helicopters that flew low and fast on a northern heading into Afghanistan. Amerine smiled at the tribal leaders, and they responded in kind; toothy grins were their only visible features in the darkness. “Welcome to Afghanistan,” said the air mission commander once they entered Afghan airspace.

Amerine knew he should have been excited, but he dreaded leaving these men, whom he now considered his guerrillas, in the desert at night while he returned to safety in Pakistan. If the mission was called off, he feared he would never see them again.

It took two and a half hours to reach their landing zone in Uruzgan Province. Stepping off his helicopter, Amerine felt a surge of adrenaline in his legs. Quickly he scanned the surrounding area through
his NODs. All appeared clear, and he got the tribal leaders out of the Black Hawks and made sure they were crouching safely on the ground. He gave them the bag of grenades, and took two additional fragmentation grenades out of his ammo pouch and placed them in Bari Gul’s hands before climbing quickly back through the open side door, the helicopter lifting off before he was even seated.

The Black Hawks gained elevation, dropped their noses, and screamed across the landscape, the familiar pull of G-forces tugging at Amerine’s stomach as his pilot navigated the mountainous terrain. Casper was in the other helicopter, and it felt strange to Amerine to suddenly be alone in the back of the bird. He ate a sandwich that he had surreptitiously taken from a bag of food beside one of the pilots, then lay on the floor with his go-to-hell pack under his head, the banking of the helicopter rocking him to sleep.

The absence of city lights made for pitch darkness as Amerine waited on the tarmac the following evening to meet the other half of ODA 574, whose arrival at J-Bad had been delayed by a day. He heard the MC-130 land and experienced a feeling of vertigo triggered in part by fatigue—he’d slept just two hours since returning from the drop-off in Afghanistan.

The roar of the props grew, then died down as the massive airplane taxied, stopped, and lowered its ramp to reveal JD, Dan, Ronnie, Victor, and Brent in the dim light of the cargo hold. Amerine’s exhaustion evaporated when he saw his men. Heavily shadowed by the lighting, their expressionless faces made them look ghostly as they silently descended the ramp, JD giving a brief nod to Amerine, who had to stifle a chuckle. Were these seasoned Green Berets actually pouting? But he couldn’t blame them. Had he been in their boots, he would have been pissed off, too.

“Have them throw their bags in the truck and we’ll get moving,” Amerine said to JD. “Mag will show you to your rooms. Drop your bags, then join me in the meeting room. I want to get you guys caught up before you go to bed.”

Still silent, JD, Dan, Ronnie, Victor, and Brent filed into the room and sat down on the chairs Amerine had arranged to face a map of southern Afghanistan. It bothered Amerine that Mag and the others followed in a second group: ODA 574 was one team, and he had to bring it back together.

“Welcome to Pakistan,” Amerine said, noting that most of the new arrivals were slouched down in their chairs, studiously avoiding eye contact with him. “For the last seven days, we have been working with Hamid Karzai to develop an unconventional warfare campaign to start an insurgency in the Pashtun tribal belt. Hamid is the only tribal leader in southern Afghanistan working with the United States. Our mission is to support him in starting an insurgency from the ground up in Uruzgan Province, the birthplace of the Taliban movement.