The Only Thing Worth Dying For (15 page)

“And he looks forward to showing you Uruzgan,” translated Karzai in return.

Sipping cup after cup of tea for an hour, Amerine felt as if his bladder was ready to burst, yet more and more men streamed into the room, having surreptitiously made the trek from neighboring villages in the middle of the night to lay eyes on Karzai and the Americans. When he finally emerged from the meeting, dawn was less than a couple of hours away. Mag was pacing the courtyard, so wired from nicotine and caffeine that he couldn’t sit down for more than five minutes, and it wasn’t even his shift. Some of the guys were lying awake in sleeping bags on the hard earthen floor of the hut they’d been given. Mike sat against a wall, shivering beneath a paper-thin survival blanket from his go-to-hell pack and hoping his rucksack would show up soon.

Nobody slept.

At daybreak the team saw that the village was situated at a sharp bend on the Helmand River, which created a pocket of calm gray-blue water. They dubbed their new guerrilla base Haji Badhur’s Cove.

Karzai greeted ODA 574 while the village was still in the shadow of the mountains they had landed in the night before. Across the river to the west, farmland that butted up against more mountains was catching the first rays of sunlight. Other than a few compounds built on the floodplain and a road they could see only by the dust kicked up by an occasional vehicle, it was wide-open terrain.

“The villagers have arrived with clothing,” Karzai said. “To help you blend in.” The gate to the compound opened and a stream of young men entered, carrying piles of clothes.

Everyone in Haji Badhur’s Cove knew, or would soon know, that the soldiers were there, and Amerine thought that dressing up would only make them look like dressed-up Americans. Even though they’d all grown beards, their physiques, for the most part, gave them the appearance of a pack of football players next to the sinewy Afghans. From a distance, however, the local garb might provide some degree of disguise from a Taliban patrol.

“Listen up,” JD said, displaying a set of
shalwar kameez
. “Don’t go completely native—find one of these long shirts, with a vest or whatever, and wear it over your DCUs [desert camouflage uniforms]. Don’t bother with putting on the pants. Grab a hat, have fun.”

While ODA 574 rummaged through the piles like shoppers at a garage sale, two other young Afghans carried in the limp shell of an American rucksack and a couple of duffel bags.

Instantly, Mike knew that his once-bulging pack had been plundered.

“I’m missing everything,” he said, opening it. “Dan’s extra laptop, the SOFLAM,
*
a couple of claymores, all my clothes, my sleeping bag, my food, every goddamned thing. Wait a minute. They left me this.” He pulled out a Ziploc bag holding his toothbrush and two travel-size bottles of mouthwash.

The duffels full of medical supplies to treat the locals were also missing.

Karzai closed his eyes for a long moment. Turning to the Afghans who had delivered the gear, Karzai spoke in the firmest tone the Americans had heard him use. The two men looked scared.

“They say they are just delivering it,” Karzai informed the team. “I will speak with Haji Badhur and get to the bottom of this. These two are not responsible.”

Mike was fuming. The Afghans who had seemed so friendly ten minutes earlier now appeared sinister. He thought he caught one checking out his knife, and imagined the man’s thoughts:
When you get killed, I’m taking that off of you, and that, and that…

Sensing Mike’s anger, Amerine said, “Why don’t we recon the village?”

“Yeah,” said Mike.

Haji Badhur’s Cove looked like the American Southwest a hundred years ago: no electricity, not even the hum of a generator, a communal well that supplied drinking water, and single-story mud-walled homes. Amerine and Mike kept their weapons under their long Afghan shirts as they strolled the streets among the locals, some of whom made a show of ignoring them while others, especially children, didn’t hide their curiosity. The Green Berets smiled at the people, all the while analyzing the surrounding mountains, getting a feel for how they would defend the village and where they would go if a battalion of Taliban rolled in.

Returning to the compound, Amerine and Mike found Haji Badhur standing beside Karzai, explaining to the team that the remaining gear was delivered exactly the way it had been found. According to Haji Badhur, strangers must have stumbled upon the cache—which had been left in the middle of nowhere at a location known only to Haji Badhur’s men.

“Tell Haji Badhur that the weapons drop will be delayed unless he finds our gear,” said Amerine.

Karzai translated the words as Amerine and Haji Badhur stared at each other. Haji Badhur’s gaze intensified, then he cracked a grin and said something in Pashto.

“He will speak with leaders in neighboring villages,” Karzai said, “to try and get to the bottom of this.”

That afternoon, Karzai told Amerine that Haji Badhur was giving the Americans their own compound a few “blocks” down the street. According to Haji Badhur, the first compound was too crowded for ODA 574, the CIA,
and
Karzai. Trusting Karzai, who seemed okay with the decision, JD and Amerine went along with the move for the time being, though neither of them cared for the idea of being separated from Karzai.

The new compound was similar in size to the previous one, but had just one large building attached to the western wall. The team opted to sleep in the courtyard while Dan set up his commo equipment in the building that would be used as ODA 574’s headquarters.

Once they had settled in, Amerine returned to Karzai to reiterate that the team had to have its equipment back. He went down the list: The SOFLAM was required for calling in air strikes and was useless to anybody else; the laptop was needed for communication. Karzai promised he would have another conversation with Haji Badhur.

A few hours later, some of Mike’s gear, including the SOFLAM, was brought to them by a villager who “discovered” it under a bush at the side of the road. The laptop and his clothes and sleeping bag, among other things, remained missing.

As darkness fell, JD met with Mike, Ronnie, and Wes, whom he had tasked with running the drop zone for the first weapons drop. Their job was to vector in the aircraft to a narrow strip of farmland between the Helmand River and the mountains. If the plane didn’t hit its mark, the weapons could land in or across the river—something that happened frequently with their Northern Alliance counterparts. “Let’s not fuck this one up,” JD told them.

The four Americans rode with twenty guerrillas in four trucks, parked at the edge of the drop zone, and marked its center with four infrared strobe lights visible only through NODs. Right on schedule, the MC-130 swooped down out of the starry night and into the river valley like a shadow. It glided low, rapidly ejecting several containers, then climbed into the sky and disappeared while the containers drifted slowly down on parachutes.

Amerine had asked Karzai to choose guerrillas with “strong leadership” qualities—that is, men who wouldn’t steal any more supplies—to stand by at the drop zone and retrieve the containers. They were to keep everything together so that it could be properly divided among the tribal leaders scheduled to arrive the following day.

Instead, when the containers hit the ground, the Afghans charged across the field and tore into them as if they were birthday presents. Some contented themselves with the parachutes and harnesses, balling up the unwieldy items and dragging them away into the night.

Others—in groups of two or three—attempted to manhandle heavy crates that had been loaded onto the aircraft with forklifts.

From the sidelines, the Green Berets watched with bemusement as the operation descended into chaos. At last, the more senior guerrillas ran onto the field, shouting and pummeling their frenzied comrades until they were helping to load the waiting trucks.

“How did it go?” Amerine asked when JD returned to the compound.

“Total mess,” said JD. “From now on we get control of the items first and hand them out later. The next drop is going to include food and water for us, so we definitely can’t let them near it.”

“I hope there isn’t going to be a riot tomorrow,” Amerine said. “Hamid is concerned about inventorying everything so he can show he isn’t playing favorites.”

Dan hurried up. “We got something going on across the river,” he said. “The guerrillas are pretty freaked out. Looks like a bunch of headlights.”

Amerine and JD followed Dan up a ladder and onto the mud roof of the building, where they lay prone alongside several Afghans. Alternating between his NODs and binoculars, Amerine counted the headlights of eight trucks parked in an open field a couple of miles away.

“They’re a long way off,” said JD.

“It might have nothing to do with us,” Amerine said.

Casper and Charlie joined them on the roof. “What do we have, skipper?” Casper asked.

“We’re sorting it out. Bunch of trucks way out there.” Amerine offered Casper his binoculars.

“Is there any air cover available?” Casper asked and took a look.

“I’m sure. But I plan on sitting tight.”

“They aren’t bothering us, so we shouldn’t bother them,” said Dan.

“Yeah,” said Amerine. “I don’t think their lights would be on if they thought a threat was nearby.”

“All the same, you should get air standing by,” said Casper.

“We’ll get it if we need it,” said Amerine. “We don’t even know if they’re Taliban.”

“The guerrillas seem agitated.”

“They shouldn’t know any more than we do at this point. I’m going to talk to Hamid about it.”

“I can do that,” said Casper, climbing off the roof.

“Thanks, but I was heading that way,” Amerine said, following.

Amerine didn’t think his men had noticed the subtle tug of war between himself and Casper, and he hadn’t shared with them Casper’s request for a Ranger platoon or told them that the spook was the reason they’d been forced to leave Brent and Victor at J-Bad to make room for the Delta Force soldiers. He
had
discussed all this with JD, and they’d agreed that involving the rest of the team would only create an unnecessary distraction.

As Amerine grabbed his weapon and go-to-hell pack for the walk to Karzai’s compound, JD walked up and quietly said to him, “CIA is still looking for a job, eh? They want to be our link to Hamid.”

“Looks that way.”

“You’re handling Casper just right. Keep ignoring the power play and carry on with business as if they aren’t here.”

Amerine thanked him and shouldered his pack. “I’ll be gone for twenty minutes and I’ll bring along Mike. Contact me immediately if those trucks come near the river. Judging from the map, it would take them hours to get to a crossing point upriver or downriver and reach this village. I’m more worried that they’re a sign of something bigger going on in this area. Regardless, if shooting starts, I’ll bring Hamid back here and we’ll be returning on the street, probably hauling ass, so
don’t
shoot us. If we’re cut off, you know the rally point.”

Unbeknownst to the Americans, there
was
something bigger going on in Uruzgan Province that night—something that could jeopardize their entire mission. Thirty miles to the northeast, the citizens of Tarin Kowt were in the process of storming the “palace” of the Taliban’s provincial governor. If the people were successful in their coup, Tarin Kowt would be theirs—temporarily. Holding the town when thousands of angry Taliban arrived en masse for a brutal retribution would be another matter altogether.

CHAPTER SIX

The Battle of Tarin Kowt

It is the greatest houses and the tallest trees that the gods bring low with bolts and thunder: For the gods have to thwart whatever is greater than the rest. They do not suffer pride in anyone but themselves.

—Herodotus,
The Histories

It was November 16 and the first day of Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, when Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset. It is a month dedicated to worshipping Allah, giving to charity, mending troubled relationships, and finding forgiveness for others.

In Haji Badhur’s Cove it was a day to divvy up hundreds of rifles and thousands of rounds of ammunition. It was the day to arm Karzai’s rebellion.

ODA 574 awoke with the sun. They had increased the number of men on security the night before, but the vehicles across the river had done nothing except rob the team of sleep.

Dan started the day with a hot mocha—one of Ken’s coveted “tea” bags of instant coffee, twice used, steeped in a cup of hot cocoa—while downloading a few dozen encrypted messages from higher command.

“Get a load of this,” Dan said to Amerine after converting the files to readable text. “Has our commander in chief always sent out Happy Ramadan cards?”

“You’re kidding,” said Amerine, looking over Dan’s shoulder at the computer. Sure enough, there was an e-mail titled “2001 U.S. Presidential Holiday Greeting.”

“I’m guessing he didn’t send one of these to the pope,” said Dan, who cleared his throat and started reading the letter in his best George W. Bush imitation:…
We send our sincerest wishes to Muslims in America and around the world for health, prosperity, and happiness during Ramadan and throughout the coming year…

When Dan finished, Amerine jokingly applauded the performance, copied the letter into one of his black journals so he could later read it to Karzai, and headed out into the courtyard.

Standing on the roof of ODA 574’s headquarters, Mike raised his binoculars to examine the craggy mountains to the east. Morning light revealed new details of the formidable cirque that rose behind the village like an amphitheater, with the seats facing west, toward the Helmand and adjacent farmland. Caves dotted the rock face a hundred feet above the floodplain; the team would be able to observe the entire valley if they could reach them. Calling Amerine up onto the roof, Mike pointed out the caves and said, “This place will definitely suffice as a guerrilla base.”