slipped off the base, but you know what? I’m just too
lazy and just don’t care anymore. We’re heading up to
find, fix, and destroy the enemy. We’ve got enough
actionable intel to justify this raid. If we let ’em keep
moving in and doing overwatch of our construction site,
they’ll set up their offensive, and all of Harruck’s work
will go to hell. So you need to go back now and tell him
that. Tell him we’re out here to save his ass.”
“You can tell him yourself. We’ll contact him right
now.”
“I don’t have time for this—”
“Captain, I’m here to relieve you of command.”
“Okay, but can you give me about an hour?”
Warris’s voice came in a stage whisper, but he would’ve
shouted if he could: “This is serious shit, asshole! I’m
relieving you of command!”
“I’m sorry, sir,” said Ramirez, butting in and ignor-
ing my glare. “But we don’t recognize your authority
here, nor will we obey your orders.”
“You think you speak for the rest of them?” Warris
asked.
Ramirez looked at the others. “Oh, yes, sir. I know I
do. We won’t follow you. Trust me.”
I shook my head. “Freddy, the problem is you’re try-
ing to play by the book with people that don’t exist.”
He looked lost for a second, then said, “I’m not going
anywhere.”
“That’s fine. You can wait for us.”
“No, I’m coming on this mission.”
152 GH OS T RE CON
“Negative. I need you to return to the FOB, and
bring your driver along.”
“Excuse me? I’m here to relieve you.”
“I am notrelieved.”
“You’ve got no authority to refuse me.” He glanced
around at my team. “Captain Mitchell has been relieved
of command and will be returning to the base with my
driver.”
“Guys, just ignore him. I’m in command. Prepare to
move out.”
“Scott—”
Now Iwas talking through my teeth. “You listen to
me, and you listen good. Each one of my guys has got
two rifles. One’s their favorite toy. The other’s an AK
confiscated from the Taliban. Do you understand what
I’m saying?”
“That I could accidentally get shot? You gotta be kid-
ding me. You don’t threaten me with that. We’re on the
same team, and you just need to suck it up. I’m in.
You’re out.”
He told the private to hold his position and wait for us.
Ramirez whispered to me, “The hell with it. Let him
come. We can babysit. He could get hurt . . .”
I lay there, panting. If I abandoned the mission, I’d
still go home to be hung. So the hell with it. We were
going.
Biting back a curse, I got to my feet. “Guys, you will
ignore any and all commands from Captain Warris.
Moving up. Let’s roll.”
CO MB AT O P S
153
I looked at Warris. “What’re you going to do now,
Freddy? Phone a friend?”
“No, I’m still coming along. I’ll document all this
insubordination, and by the time I’m done, you and this
entire teamwill go down.”
Then he told me to fuck myself and broke off with Jen-
kins, Hume, and Brown, our Bravo team. I took Ramirez,
Nolan, Smith, and Treehorn. I put Treehorn on point.
Bravo shifted off to the north side. I told them to activate
their Cross-Coms and to watch what they said—we were
being recorded.
Ramirez looked back at me, as if to say: Oh my God,
what’s happening now . . .
I just steeled my gaze and got back on the horn.
“Brown, this is Ghost Lead, over.”
“Here, Ghost Lead,” he said, as I patched into his
Cross-Com’s camera and watched them scurrying along
the foothill, climbing higher along a lip of gravel and dirt.
“Stay in touch.”
“Roger that.”
Warris didn’t know it, but Brown was in command of
that team. He would be reporting to me, and I knew
that Hume and Smith would fall in line.
Ramirez hadn’t lied. The military might have been
full of backstabbers and ass-kissers, but my men were
fiercely loyal—every last one of them. They would do
anything for me. I mean anything.
I kept close to Treehorn as we ascended, hunched over,
our computers scanning the mountainside for enemies.
154 GH OS T RE CON
Clear so far. We climbed for another fifteen minutes, mak-
ing good progress, when Treehorn called for a halt, and I
zoomed in with my camera to see the ragged depression in
the mountain, like a bruise against the stone.
“Cave entrance, right there,” reported Treehorn.
“We got one, too,” said Brown.
“I’ll report that,” cried Warris. “We’ve got a tunnel
entrance. Can’t get a good read on it, but I’m guessing
it runs deep. Could connect to your entrance, over.”
“Roger that. If we get in too deep, we might lose
contact with the satellite.”
“Understood. Recording. Let’s do it.”
I hadn’t mentioned anything to Warris about our
Cross-Coms’ being knocked out during our first night
raid, but I’d assumed he’d read it in my report. I won-
dered if being inside the tunnel would protect the gear
from whatever the Taliban was using against us.
The answer would come shortly.
As in the second we entered the caves.
It all went dead. Again. Everything. High-tech gear
reduced to crap.
We’d taken along some old MBITR radios, standard-
issue stuff as backup, and strangely enough they still
worked. Maybe they had thicker casings and were better
shielded from EMP waves or other countermeasures.
We had penlights taped to our rifles. Even as I turned
mine on, the first wave of gunfire stitched across the
mountain. They were coming at us from outside, from
above the entrance.
CO MB AT O P S
155
“Move, move, move!” I screamed, driving the group
into the tunnel.
Treehorn rushed forward. He hadn’t taken along his
sniper’s rifle; instead he had a terrifically loud shotgun,
and when it boomed, sending pellets into the face of the
Taliban guy rushing toward us, I dropped to one knee
and crouched tight to the dusty rock wall at my shoulder.
“Ghost Lead, this is Brown! We are taking fire inside
and out, over!”
“Roger that,” I said. “Move in. Flush them out!”
“He’s right,” said Warris. “Let’s move in!”
Like I needed his confirmation.
The tunnel was barely two meters high, about three
meters wide, but it grew more narrow as we stepped over
the guy Treehorn had shot.
Pops and booms echoed from somewhere deep in the
tunnel, telling me that yes, Bravo team’s tunnel was, in
fact, connected to ours.
“Look at this,” said Ramirez, crouching down beside
the dead guy. In the dirt lay an odd-looking rifle with a
funnel-like barrel.
“I know what that is,” said Nolan. “HER F gun for
sure. Like EMP. High-energy radio frequency. Just what