Chapter 10

WRITER’S NOTE: Crude ASCII map of mission 3 AO at end of chapter.

FOB Fenty, Jalalabad, Afghanistan

Mission 3, Day 1

Cpt Borden’s tension was relieved that Sgt O’Brien’s wound had healed and that there were no signs of infection. He had not looked forward to having to face down Maj Tisdale, much less O’Brien’s people. He had never sees a group of people so ardently determined to go into harm’s way.

O’Brien was dressing under the watchful eye of CW3 Halley. He returned her appraising gaze with brief smile and a raised eyebrow.

“Ya gonna miss me, sir?”

“Decidedly not, sergeant. I am looking forward to not dealing with Jensen and the major on a twice-daily basis ... so who will see to the donkeys? They are the only ones that will miss you.”

“I dunno, sir. Sorta hopin that the captain would talk to Spock and Troi and keep ‘em company. They don’t like Jenkins, and the Major is goin back to Kabul for the next day or two; or at least until we’re back.”

“That could be done. I am certain they are more reasonable than Marines.”

“Thank you, sir. That’d be right neighborly of the captain.”

“So its tonight?”

“Aye, sir. First bird at 2230. Second bird tomorrow at 2030. The medics get everything they wanted?”

“Sergeants Ski and Cohen are geared up and ready, and inexplicably, just as impatient to go as your Marines. I do not want to see any more holes in yourself or your people, sergeant.”

“We’ll do our best, sir.”

O’Brien glanced at the army pilot on his way out to join his troops waiting in the hangar bay. The pilot sported a whimsical, Mona Lisa-like smile. Her smile was not representative of her internal churn. Emotionally, CW3 Halley was ‘caged’. Four days of decreased sleep from serial sex had not sated her desire for the emotionally-detached Marine. She had more questions than answers; none of which would get answered. Sandra Halley had received her orders for Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. She would catch a bird out today or tomorrow. The only emotive farewell with physical contact that the pilot would exchange would be with the two donkeys. She saw Spock as O’Brien’s emotional surrogate.

The millisecond that O’Brien exited the ladder-well, Lt O’Connell was assured that the army NP had medically cleared O’Brien. O’Brien’s pleasant, but not smiling, expression was wiped clean when saw the meeting being held on the hangar deck and heard the voice of his favorite DIA agent.

Jensen, in a controlled whine, “Major, we need to re-assess the insert LZs. The farmers just flooded the target fields. We need to change the schedule for the birds.”

“When did that happen?”

“Approximately 35 to 45 hours ago.”

Maj Tisdale greeted the approach of Sgt O’Brien with a nod, as he entered into the leadership gaggle around two of the plywood tables. Several maps and satellite images were scattered about, being looked at by a looser gaggle formed by O’Brien’s platoon.

Tisdale place his forefinger on a large sat image. “Sergeant?, want to go for another insert?”

“Dunno, sir. How deep is the water?”

“Jenkins?”

“Do not know, major.”

O’Brien provided Jensen with his, now customary, expression of disgust and contempt. “Ya got a pic of before, Mr Jensen? Ya know, before and after photos.”

O’Brien’s class clowns immediately started with a mimic of ‘before and after’ weight loss advertisements by the alternating forced extensions and retractions of their stomach muscles. Neither Mybar or Jerry knew that their corporal was standing behind them until Pistochini smacked both of them on the back of their respective heads.

Jensen withdrew a pic from the bottom of the stack, placing it next to the image of interest. Pistochini pulled out a 15 cm stainless steel ruler and tossed it onto the table. O’Brien retrieved the ruler and measured various feature dimensions and shadow lengths.

“Sir, would the LT call up that solar ephemeris?”

Lt O’Connell retrieved his laptop from the end of the row of tables and bounced around on the keyboard to load said software, “Give me the times, Opie.”

O’Brien rotated both images to enable reading the data block. “Uh... 1421, three days ago ... and 1348 yesterday, sir.”

“Okay, that would give us 52 and 63 degrees.”

Using the back of an unused image print-out, O’Brien scribbled numbers and did some basic trig. “Gonna say its over 70 centimeters deep, sir. That’s a problem. Would the major consider my original proposal, sir? Ms Halley said it could be done.”

“Which of the LZs?”

“The first one, sir. Its below 2000 meters, probably under 1500 meters. It’ll save Pistol’s team a few hours of climbing, and its on the other side of the mountain. Also, its probably good for both insert and extraction.”

“Do it. Send the changes to the 160th people ASAP, Jensen.”

Surkhab Valley, Afghanistan

Mission 3, Day 2

O’Brien looked at his watch, noting they had another 100 minutes to moon-rise at 2445. Looking out the rear of the bird, O’Brien’s cropped vision, vignetted by his position in the middle seats, could only observe the occasional points of lights dotting the dark terrain. His forward view towards the cockpit revealed only a dimly lit instrument panel with a virtual display, monitored by the co-pilot, while the pilot flew with eyes outside of the bird using a type of NVGs that the Marines had never seen.

Heading generally west, the MH-47 was on an intercept with the Surkh Rud, after which it turned southwest into another valley, then back west across several ridges At about 1500 meters MSL, the bird was well above the floors of the passing valleys, and about 100 meters above the top ridges of the foothills of the White Mountain range to the north and south.

The crew-chief took a position further inboard of the edge of the ramp when the bird was racked into a sudden steep port bank, pushing the occupants downward with a force of almost two gs. As the bird rolled level, the crew-chief signaled a ‘two’, then returned to the aft end of the cargo ramp.

Rapidly descending, then entering a high-g flare, he bird slowly rotated 180 degrees, then backed into a approach to intercept a large southwest-facing outcropping. After the noticable thump of the rear landing gear contacting the mounting ledge, Tits Two, composed of Pistochini, Jerry, and Watson, rapidly exited the bird. The three Marines ran about 20 meters directly away and kneeled down as the bird elevated and turned to the west.

As the bird climbed out, O’Brien moved his team, Tits One, to the aft seats. The ranger medic, next to O’Brien, seemed to be falling asleep. O’Brien was convinced that Staff Sergeant Karpasky had slept through the previous 40 or 50 minutes of the flight. Neither Beeman or Mybar had the carriage of a typical 20 year-old lance corporal. O’Brien noted that they were calm and focused and alert.

After a series of maneuvers, that enabled a relatively discrete route through several small valleys and over some minor passes and side-drainages, the bird rapidly descended and banked starboard to head east, parallel to the mountains. The valley floor was gently sloping such that the bird landed with the forward end slightly elevated.

O’Brien pushed his NVGs down, grabbed the climbing equipment bag, and led the three members of his team out into a coal-black environs. Kneeling with their back to the departing bird, O’Brien rotated the G3 rifle to a front sling position.

Standing to observe with all senses, O’Brien deemed it secure, then looked at this watch, noting they were 15 to 25 minutes until direct moonlight. The team immediately extracted climbing gear from the gear bags, rigged their harness, attached ropes and climbing hardware to their rig, then attached their rifles to ruck gear. O’Brien, eschewing the fancy ‘space-gear’ favored by rangers, made his climbing harness by threading flat line around his waist and legs in dual loops, then attaching the ends to a front-loaded locking karabiner.

Walking less the 100 meters to the base of long near-vertical section, O’Brien chose the most direct route, a vertical joint in the rock face formed by an eroded sill. The first segment of the climb was about 60 meters, defined by another intrusive, horizontal, sill. O’Brien stopped to listen and smell. Observing nothing, O’Brien inserted two hexes and karabiner slings, threaded the rope through, then tossing the other end down to Mybar.

Mybar was about to set up a belay for his sergeant until he realized that O’Brien would continue the lead, otherwise unfettered. Mybar, as much as he and his best friend Jerry liked to mimic his boss, idolized the man. His idolatry was reinforced watching O’Brien push up under heavy load and no light and refusing to be slowed by a safety line. Crammer internally praised both Mohammed and Jesus for providing the extraordinary young leader.

O’Brien knew he was near the ridge-top when the rock face changed from metamorphic/igneous to limestone and dolomitic outcroppings. Changing from hexes and nuts, O’Brien used angle pitons on the limestone, two at a time where the slope was nearing vertical. The last 70 or 80 meters was a side diversion to avoid a series of over-hangs.

O’Brien hoisted his ruck up to the ridge-line, extracted a small ‘day’ pack, returned his G3 to the ready, then tossed two thin guy lines down the mountainside for his team members’ gear. Crammer joined O’Brien atop the ridge and begin assisting with hauling gear to the top. Illuminated by a large gibbous moon, O’Brien scanned the valley to the west, unable to discern any details of the village at the termination of the valley, four kilometers to the west, where it branched into smaller canyons and ravines and other drainages.

“Hangnail, get the sat-com repeater set up ... Ski, need you and Crammer to keep watching up and down the valley. I’ll be back in less than four hours. Gonna go up the ridge and see what coverage we got.”

“Boss? What if I can’t get comm?”

“We’ll move it west, further up the ridge. Everybody keep your head-sets on low. See ya.”

O’Brien rapidly traversed the mountain ridge, staying in the shadows cast of a bright moon. But his mind was not focused on his current task.

The west end of the ridge rose to about 2100 meters altitude and was almost 400 meters above the valley floor to the north. The main valley terminated into the canyons of the North face of the east/west White Mountains, and the ravines of the north/south mountain range north of Kuhe Soltan Saheb mountain and about 50 km south of Kabul. The mountainous regions to the south of Kabul and Jalalabad had no towns of any significant size. Most of the villages in these mountains were of specific tribal affiliations, and were organized as communal agricultural concerns. Some of the larger villages had a mosque, and a few had a school.

From the Kuhe Soltan Saheb mountain to the eastern ranges of Pakistan, and the Panjshir Valley, were the birth-place of the Taliban. The Taliban were originally religious students, typically from Afghan and Pakistani Pashtun madrasas, arising during the wide-spread chaos after the Mujahideen war with the Soviet Union. The Taliban saw no logic in a secular government. Their jihad was simple. Kill the interlopers and establish local tribal governances per the will of Allah, according to a mullah’s interpretation of the missives of the prophet Mohammed. There was no Afghanistan to them, there was only the loose association of the Pashtun tribes of eastern Afghanistan and southwest Pakistan.

As such, O’Brien’s Marines were not tracking and targeting an international or national organization of Afghan insurgents; they were combating the tribal Pashtun authorities that were determined to do the will of Allah. And this simple concept was the basis for many American spooks’ inability to deliver usable intel to American politicians or to the Coalition Force flag officers.

The ebb and flow of Taliban operations was tribal. There was no nationalized or central leadership of the Taliban. But the Pakistani ISI did understand this, and all too well. The ISI had become the de-facto centralized organizing authority for the Taliban. They fed information, people, and weapons across the porous Paki/Afghan border segments that were along the mountain ranges, while claiming to be an allied with the coalition forces.

O’Brien was acutely aware of the multiple swirling vortices of global and regional politics, religion, the intrigue of Iranian and Chinese interjections, and tribal forces that comprised the Big Picture for the eastern Afghan AOs. He was a lowly grunt sergeant. The policies that formed the Big Picture were of minimal concern to O’Brien. O’Brien’s parochial and practical concerns lay with finding and eliminating a ring of tribal members that were smuggling weapons and munitions and organizing and training tango contact teams. O’Brien was concerned that his Marines were spread over a path through the valley over 30 kilometers length. He was concerned that neither his nor Pistochini’s team would be able to control any engagements without getting cut off from a timely egress route. He was concerned that the fourth team at the east end of the valley was led by an inexperienced lieutenant, comprised of three equally inexperienced junior Marines.

A disorganized din formed within O’Brien’s mind, stemming from these many tumultuous thoughts. His mental disarray was starting to really piss off his meta-mind. Pausing to deeply breath in the rapidly cooling mountain air, O’Brien virtually wiped away the extraneous issues clamoring for his up-front mind space with a literal wave of his hand.

O’Brien overlooked the confluence of narrow canyons intercepting from the south and two deeper ravines that joined the main valley from the west. The junction of the northern ravine and the main valley was defined by a square kilometer of recently harvested crop fields. At the top of the junction was a jumble of walled-in mud buildings. No sounds emanated that could be heard from O’Brien’s perch atop the west end of the mountain ridge that formed the south wall of the valley. After the moon had climbed above a 40 degree inclination, O’Brien was able to identify two haji watch-standers at opposite ends of the village. There was no logical reason for a farming community to have OPs.

This was the second village that Sgt O’Brien had encountered on the way to the reconnoiter the west end of the valley. O’Brien thought that, for once, Jensen’s intel was correct. This village had been identified as a rally point for small Taliban groups exiting their various mountain strong-holds. And because there were two tangos standing a mid-watch, O’Brien concluded that the buildings contained several tango groups.

“Tits One, this is one actual...”

Beeman’s surprised voice answered. “Boss, this is Hangnail. Go.”

“I am at over-watch of Vill Eleven. Tangos at this pos. Vill Ten appears clear. You have comm?”

“That’s affirm, boss. The big alpha wants you to say hi.”

“Negative on my comm to Big Alpha. Tits Two status?”

“Pistol in place over Vill six and seven. Vill six is clear. Tango signs reported at Vill seven. Jammer reports Vill Five is clear. What’s you status, boss?”

“Gonna stay at this pos tonight. Will advise at daylight.”

“Roger. Tits One out.”

O’Brien pulled his second, over-sized frog out of the small pack to prepare for the early morning cold. After watching the haji watchers succumb to sleep, O’Brien lay back. Looking up through a clear, relatively thin atmosphere, at the spell-binding display of galactic violence, O’Brien felt smug in his knowledge that the galaxy’s vastness, much less the universe’s size, will not ever be understood or known by humans. It perversely comforted O’Brien that humans were probably drifting alone in this sea of fusive bombs and that the trials of earthly life was insignificant to matters of the universe.

O’Brien’s people, along with Lt O’Connell had held two late-night ‘private’ planning sessions back at the FOB, apart from the interference and disagreements that would have blocked any attempt at a devising a reasonable scenario for the control and IAs of four widely-spread teams. The Marines and the two army medics had listened quietly, never voicing an opinion as O’Connell, Pistochini, and O’Brien hashed out details on the coverage of the eleven targeted villages along the 35 kilometer stretch of the valley southwest of Jalalabad.

To that means, Pistochini and Jerry had made their way unobserved, almost three clicks across the valley, and climbed the ridge defining the valley’s northern boundary. His OP was the team’s over-watch for targeted villages number six and seven. The charges planted between the two villages were designed and placed so as to make a big and scary boom; any inflicted casualties would be a happy secondary effect. They only wanted to force the various small groups into a single large haji gaggle.

As did Lt O’Connell and Sgt O’Brien, Cpl Pistochini believed that attempting to cover an estimated 25 to 30 tangos over a 30 click stretch with 14 troops was tantamount to insanity. The intent of O’Brien’s plan was to bunch up the tango column, then move his team to the east while shadowing the rear of the column, eventually catching them in crossfire about 15 clicks down the valley. Perhaps a long-shot, but anything was better than Jensen’s ludicrous expectation that the hajis would blithely walk 30 kilometers down the valley while being sequentially picked off by sniper fire.

Hearing that O’Brien had eyes on the first village at the west end, which was the first step per the platoon’s ‘internal plan, Pistochini and Jerry settled into a long and muted argument about whether Jensen was crazy or stupid. Their eventual conclusion was that the DIA agent was both crazy and stupid.

With the exception of a barely audible goat bleat, the morning atmosphere at the terminal western valley settlement was subdued; it was almost too quiet. O’Brien’s eyes never wavered from the scene below, over 300 meters beneath the ridge-line. His disquieted watch was rewarded twice. Just before 0900 and again after 1030, two groups of three hajis, each group with a donkey, entered the village in a surreptitious manner. The donkeys were obviously bearing weighty loads; the load on the later donkey appeared ponderous, laden with an ill-fitting load. To the hajis credit, the donkeys were relieved of their loads upon arrival at the large building near the north valley wall.

“Tits One. Ya there?”

“Go, boss.”

“Salesman have arrived with their goods. We have two loads.”

“Roger that. We have one at vill seven. And Vill Five is now active. They have one.”

“Say origin of Vill Seven visitors.”

“Pistol is not uncertain. Came from the west.”

“One actual out.”

O’Brien was, again, surprised that the DIA intel was, so far, legit. There were four Taliban loads that had descended from the mountains per Jensen. They were transporting munitions and weapons out of the mountain strongholds before the winter snows entrapped their stockpile of armaments.

The seven members of the teams designated Tits One and Two had the sole task for the next 10 to 14 hours of observing and counting hajis, then waiting for the late-night insertions of the seven members of Tits Three and Four on the eastern end.

Beeman held his breath to better discriminate the sounds bouncing up the length of the valley; he could barely discern the high-frequency whine of a turbine engine then the low-frequency rumble of blades beating the atmosphere into submission. Glancing at his watch, Beeman concluded that Tits Three and Four had been deposited into the valley. Beeman switched to the high-power setting and keyed.

“Boss, heard birds for Three and Four.”

“Roger. Anything interesting?”

“Negative boss.”

“Okay. We’ll wait for their call. Out.”

Beeman and Mybar and SSG Ski settled in, waiting for Tits Three and Four to call in their status while they continued their observation of the dimly lit, and exceptionally boring pastoral scenes 300 meters below the mountain ridge.

The MH-47 had deposited the third and fourth teams about 4 kilometers from the braided widening of the valley, and about 6 and 8 kilometers northwest of the their designated OPs and back-up points. Hartman’s team took the point, as they had further to go, to the opposite (south) side of the valley.

Hartman’s approach diverged and separated from Lt O’Connell’s team as they passed the rise that formed the North side of the valley. Hartman and Malone and the ranger medic passed within 100 meters of the small settlement designated ‘Vill Two’. There were nothing the indicate the small village had night watch or other activity, but he still paused to observe the width of the valley, exploiting all information available from all of his senses. While doing so, his mind wandered, listening to the memory of his sergeant’s lectures on the use of every iota of data that your body could provide. Hartman did, as all members of the platoon had discussed, many a night in the field, that their best chance to survive a tour in the sandbox was to master Sgt O’Brien’s teachings and to follow his instructions.

The army sergeant, per contra senior in rank and senior in time-in-service and much better trained having been to the demanding ranger school, knew that this was the Marine’s barbecue, and that they had a ‘secret sauce’. The young Marines had done nothing to dispel his belief in their principled concept of ‘KISS’ tactics and extended infantry capabilities. He followed L/Cpl Hartman’s lead into the night, across the width of the valley.

Changing course to the south east, Hartman led Malone and Cohen up to the east end of a ridge about 80 meters above the valley floor. Hartman had been careful to navigate well to the east of the sites designated Vill Three, Four, and Five. When they topped the ridge, they were above Vill Three. Vill Four and Five were less than a click to the west.

“Digger, keep watch over this shit. I’m going to go a few hundred meters west to look at Four and Five. Call the LT. Let him know we’re in place ... Sarge, any suggestions, ideas?”

“No. You boys keep doing your thing.”

“See ya, sarge.”

Tits One, this is Four.”

“Four this is one. Go.”

“Tits Three and Four in position. Be advised Tits Three has book-ended to the east with Tits Two for Vill three, four, and five. Say Tits One status.”

“Centered on Vill Eight, Nine, and Ten. Opie pos is Eleven. See you soon, sir.”

Mybar smiled at the thought of the LT running a team; thinking that between Sgt O’Brien and Lt O’Connell, they undoubtedly had it all covered.

“One actual, this is Crammer.”

“Go, Crammer.”

“Everyone is here, boss”

“Roger that. Tell ‘em to keep eyes on everything. Talk to ya’ll in a while. Out.”

O’Brien watched the sun rise as life returned to the village below his OP. He noted a few chickens moving around the legs of the two transport donkeys not previously seen. O’Brien’s reverie, whence the semi-bucolic scene, was packed back into his mental recesses upon the call of his head-set.

“Boss, this is Tits One.”

“Go, Crammer.”

“Tits Four reported early morning movement into Vill One and Two.”

O’Brien almost bolted upright, but kept his tactical discipline and remained below the ridgeline.

“We have a count and their origin?”

“Negative, boss. Still dark when they moved in. They estimated at least ten, probably more.”

“Inform Pistol. Tell ‘em to stay down, keep under ghillies. No movement. Will call when my tangos head east. Out”

O’Brien’s mind went into high gear on the realization that the DIA agent’s intel about the level of support from the northeast plain was just short of worthless. If there was a large insurgent group less than a click south of O’Connell’s team, and the team was observed, then they could be toast before Pistol’s or Cheeseburger’s team could respond. They were too spread out to quickly support each other.

Major Tisdale and Sgt O’Brien had discussed asking for a platoon of army fobbits being on standby as a reactive force, and to his surprise, the major had agreed. They had also discussed the availability of a gunship, such as an army Apache or a Marine Cobra on standby. While Major Tisdale agreed in principle, he did not know if Agent Jensen would agree to the use of air-attack assets in the valley, but promised that he would ask.

The more O’Brien attempted to imagine the various possible reasons for hajis moving into the area just before a major munitions transport, the more he realized that Tits Three and Four could be in a shit sandwich before the end of the day’s festivities. The ponderous mental load of ‘what-ifs’ and ‘whys’ was interfering with his planning of other contingencies, so he put a kibosh on it and returned to over-watch and the determination of possible ways to cause a compressed column that would enable a quick and efficient ambush.

O’Brien was lifting the velcro-secured cover off of the face of his watch when two hajis began their exit from the mud and adobe buildings. The hajis dumped grain onto a rock slab for the donkeys. While the donkeys were chowing down, four more hajis appeared from between the buildings, stationing, presumably ammo crates, to be loaded on the animals. After stacking the ammo cases, they returned, bearing slung AK rifles.

Based on the length of the boxes, O’Brien guessed that they contained RPG or mortar rounds. Either one would be equally bad news for coalition troops. O’Brien’s curiosity got the better of his redneck mind as he observed their loading and lashing method with a keen comparative interest.

“Tits Two, Tits Two. Standby for sitrep.”

“Ready, boss.”

“For immediate re-trans to all teams. Vill Eleven loaded up and heading East. Five hajis with AKs. Estimating Vill Seven at 250 mike. Tits One to find something about 300 meters east of Vill Eight. Tits Two to move directly across Vill Seven. Tits Three to move Opposite Vill Five ... Uh ... Contact will probably be at mid valley as soon as Vill Five tangos exit and load to join the other hajis.”

Crammer quickly formed a mental picture of O’Brien’s plan. As soon as the hajis from the west end of the valley joined the hajis from village seven and started to cross to the opposite side of the valley and the village five people came out and waited, they’d would catch all three haji transport teams, positioned together, in the cross-fire of the three sniper teams. He was anticipating something as glorious as their first mission.

Cpl Pistochini’s reaction to the re-trans of O’Brien’s plan was one of calm satisfaction. He had eight magazines of .50 cal, and ten of 7.62 for the G3. He smugly surmised that the hajis would bunch up and attempt to return to the north side when deluged from the fore and aft oblique fire from the south wall of the canyon, at which time he would proceed to ‘plink’ all day at the survivors that decided to make a mad rush back to the North canyon wall. The only phrase that came to his mind was ‘outfuckingstanding’. He internally repeated it several times, as he extracted an MRE packet.

Lt O’Connell listened to Mybar’s re-trans with interest, surmising that the plan exhibited a supreme and elemental simplicity, having a high likelihood of success. His only concern was his team’s ability to provide supporting fire in the advent that the large unforeseen group of tangos responded to the west, to the Marine’s ambush of the haji column. It was disturbing to O’Connell that many tangos, apparently encamped within the two villages below his OP, had not been anticipated by mission intel briefs.

Hartman stowed the repeater and led his team to traverse below the ridge, avoiding detection from the three villages along the south edge. Threading his way to the west, through the metamorphic rabble, distracted by the raw beauty of the towering mountains to the southwest, remembering the platoon’s trek around and over that same mountain range less then two weeks ago.

As the ridge was traversed, Hartman slowed once for approximately every kilometer of travel to return back up the ridge and observe for any change in the status of valley denizens. At the fourth delay, Hartman noted they were less than 100 meters east of Vill Five. Using his rifle scope, he scanned for Tits Two. He found Watson and Jerry, about 800 to 900 meters west, just below the ridge-line, unassing their packs and donning ghillies. Watson looked east down the south side of the ridge, caught the motion, and gave a slight wave of acknowledgment.

“Sarge. Digger. We’re just east of Five. How you wanna do this? And team one is setting up, they’re less than click west.”

The army medic shrugged as Malone replied, “Don’t care. We got at least an hour, maybe two. Want me to do a range card?”

“Yeah, probably should get it done. Do it.”

Malone donned his ghillie and proceeded to draw a precise, ranged map of a three-kilometer section of the valley.