COUNTDOWN:
THE LIBERATORS – ARC
by Tom Kratman
***
For my mother, Agnes Quinn, nee Henchey
8 January, 1936, Boston, MA
10 October, 2008, Radford, VA
***
PROLOGUE
When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains
And the women come out to cut up what remains . . .
-Kipling, "The Young British Soldier"
D-815, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan
No one had intended it as a joint op, let alone a combined one, but the nearest support to the beleaguered SEAL team had been a team of Army Special Forces, under a captain named Welch. Because of that, once they were committed, the next echelon in had been the green beanie's boss, one Colonel Wes Stauer. And Stauer had come with a company of Afghan commandos, trained by his own people and paid for directly by the United States.
The valley was high and the air thin. The passengers on the Blackhawks could feel the rotors straining to keep the things in the air. They could look up and still see mountains. But they could also look down and still see clouds.
It was a relief, then, to almost all concerned, when the choppers, nine of them, touched down in staggered trail formation along either side of a dirt trail running between two ridges. It was a relief even though the air around the landing zone went from still and clear to a thick, choking cloud of dust in half a second.
First off was Stauer, though the ninety-odd Afghans accompanying him weren't far behind. The latter bolted for the ridges, to relieve the American Special Forces currently providing a thin guard.
He was a big man, Stauer, six-two, graying but still with all his hair. Framed by deep crow's feet, his eyes were a pale blue that both saw too much and had seen too much. He was widely considered to be a son of a bitch. Most of those he worked for were of that opinion; though only a smaller percentage of those who worked for him shared it. And even they were more often than not of the "but he's our son of a bitch" persuasion.
This was his straight third year in Afghanistan, this time. He'd had four year-long tours previously, unusual in special operations. But why not? No wife, no kids; Stauer was married to the Army and had been since graduating Notre Dame ROTC thirty plus years before.
Stauer didn't think they were going to win the war. He hadn't thought so in a long time. Oh, the troops did well. Washington's influence he found baleful. Sometimes he wished it were over. But what else do I know how to do?
He stepped off the chopper into the dust and ran, bent over, to a point outside the sweep of the rotors. Though he had a pistol in a shoulder harness, he also carried a rifle in one hand. He didn't wear any armor. Up this high, in air this thin, the protection the armor gave just came at too high a cost, protecting the enemy as much as the wearer, or perhaps even more so.
Stauer's beanie was stuffed into a pocket against the chance of it being sucked into one of the Blackhawks' engines. He wouldn't put it on until either the helicopters left or he was well out of range.
A SEAL with a recruiting poster jaw met Stauer about fifty meters past the rotors. If Stauer was big, the SEAL was effing huge. "They've got my lieutenant and one of my SEALs," the SEAL told him. Stauer read the swabbie's nametag, "Thornton," and thought, So this is Biggus Dickus, himself. Gotta help a man with that kind of rep.
Thornton pointed at the adobe and scrap rock village down below and added, "And none of these people will tell me shit. I want my people back, sir." Thornton's voice was plaintive, remarkably so for a man who exuded as much strength as he did.
Thornton was a senior chief, the rank equivalent of a master sergeant in the Army. Enlisted from a Midwestern town so far from the sea he'd never actually seen it before joining the Navy as a young man, he'd started real life as a Navy corpsman, a very thoroughly trained medic, supporting the Marines, before switching over to SEALs. He probably had more decorations than Stauer and, given that the Navy was cheap with medals and that the Army overly generous, especially with officers, that was saying something.
"What's your case that they know where your men are?" Stauer asked.
"We watched 'em drag our people through the town, leading 'em by ropes around their necks," Biggus said. "They sure acted like they knew each other, the Muj and the townsfolk. Sir, you know what's going to happen to my people if we don't get them back quick."
Stauer nodded and said, "Yeah, I know. Lemme think for a minute."
"Okay, sir," Thornton replied, as all but one of the Blackhawks began taking off again, raising a still more enormous cloud of dust as they left.
It had been a long war, and a hard one . . . and, so it increasingly appeared, a losing one. After all the years, all the treasure, all the blood and pain, the tide of victory was receding. First Russia had cut off reliable transport through it or its satellites; though they still occasionally let some things through when they needed some concession or other. Then Pakistan had openly and officially granted the enemy safe asylum across the convoluted, mountainous border. This, naturally enough, had caused the United States forces – though not generally NATO allies-to treat the border with no more respect than the enemy did. Indeed, once Pakistan effectively ceded sovereignty, it could hardly claim to still have it. Nonetheless, the U.S. incursions had had the unfortunate effect of bringing down the Pakistani government and seeing installed one still more firmly committed to helping the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Of course, the Pakis had also cut off surface transportation. Worse still, they used some of their own special operations forces, by no means contemptible, to support the enemy, just as they sometimes had against the Russians, decades before.
Now the war was being waged purely on the aerial resupply ticket. And it wasn't enough. Five divisions were needed to win, at least five. They had the equivalent of, and could barely support, three, one of these a mixed NATO formation that sucked up logistics but added little or nothing to the war effort. (There were feelings, among Americans, Brits, and Canadians, that, but for the latter two, the non-U.S. NATO contribution represented a net minus.) It was a formula for eventual defeat.
And everyone who mattered, not least the enemy, knew it.
These were not the first Americans Stauer knew of who had been captured. What had happened to the others, except in the rare case where a timely rescue had been possible, was horrible beyond belief. And frustrating, as the entire war had been frustrating. As the idiocy emanating from Washington had been frustrating. As the refined idiocy coming from Kabul had been frustrating.
Seven years of war can do odd things to a man. Thinking about the fate in store for his countrymen, Stauer felt something give inside him. It might have been his sense of restraint.
Pacing, Stauer clasped his hands behind his back. Never mind that you wanted stars, Wes. If that's your most important value you don't deserve to have them, just like most of the motherfuckers wearing them. So skip that. Even if what you have to do costs you stars; you haven't lost anything you could have saved.
He looked down at the villagers, the men from Welch's team surrounding them in the village center. One man alone, Welch's medic, was watching the women and children, who were kept separate.
And what's the worst case if all this gets out? Again, forget prison. If you're afraid of that you're also not worthy of stars. What's the worst case to the war effort?