put on a show until JAG takes its best shot or you’re last
month’s news.”
“Sir, Joey Ramirez is still MIA.”
“I know that, son, and the search will continue. But
we’ve got Warris running off at the mouth and trying to
ruin your career. I want you out of there.”
“Warris is an asshole. Sir. He’d bitch if you hanged
him with a new rope. It’s my word against his.”
“For now, he doesn’t need witnesses, Mitchell. Because
I believe him.”
326 GH OS T RE CON
“Sir?”
“Easy, son. I agree. He’s a fool. But I know he’s tell-
ing the truth—because I know you. And your men. But
between him and the CIA, they’re not going to back
off. I’ve got to deal with it.”
“Where does all this leave me, sir?”
“From where I’m sitting, this operation has become a
perfect storm of botched communications. And because
of the political ramifications in Kabul, as well as here,
higher’s out for blood. It’s why they have officers, son.
Someone’s got to fall on his sword. Someone will take
the fall for this mess.”
“And blood flows downhill . . .”
“It’s Newton’s law, Scott. Simple as that.”
I closed my eyes and massaged them. “I understand,
sir. For the good of the service . . .”
“That bastard Zahed needed killing, and you gave it
to him. You did a fine job, soldier, no matter what you
hear, no matter what they say.”
“But you still don’t have my back, do you, sir?”
He took a deep breath, looked torn—
And broke the connection.
By dinnertime the team had packed up the billet. We
were being driven to Kandahar, where we’d catch the
first of many flights back home.
They’d refused to allow us to participate in the tun-
nel search, but before we left, Harruck sent a man out to
fetch me. The guy led me to a small tent behind the
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327
hospital, the makeshift morgue, where Ramirez lay
across a folding table.
He’d been shot in the head. Point-blank.
“Oh, dear God,” I said aloud.
“Any other wounds?” I asked one of the other sol-
diers there.
“Nope. Must’ve caught him by surprise.”
I cursed and rushed out of there.
And all I could see was Warris raising a rifle to Ramirez’s
head and pulling the trigger.
I found the punk lying in his bunk, staring at the ceiling.
He had no time to get up. I leaned over him and screamed,
“YOU KILLED HIM, YOU RAT BASTARD, DIDN’T
YOU? YOU KILLED HIM! YOU KILLED HIM!”
I guess Brown had seen me running toward Warris’s
quarters and had come after me because he burst
through the door and rushed over, believing I was going
to strike Warris. He grabbed my wrist and hung on.
Warris started cursing and told me I’d lost my mind
and why the hell would he kill Ramirez?
“Because he knew you were going to blow the whistle
on all of us. And he probably threatened you, didn’t he?
He told you if you talked, he’d kill you, right?”
A guilty expression came over Warris, and he tried to
hide it by tightening his lips.
“You killed him!” I repeated.
“Your career is over, Mitchell. It’s all over now. You’re
old news. Even the Ghosts are a waste. Every other agency,
State, DoD—the entire alphabet tribe—undermines what
we do. We’re history.”
328 GH OS T RE CON
“No, you’re history. Count on it!”
I shoved Brown aside and hustled out of the room. I
stormed back to the billet, wrenched up my duffel, and
lifted my voice to the men. “Let’s get the hell out of here!”
But we didn’t leave right away. The guys wanted to
pay their last respects to Ramirez, and they all went over
to the hospital and did that. I waited by the Hummer
and found myself in an awkward conversation with
Dr. Anderson.
“So now you go home, and the next Zahed takes
over? We have to start from scratch.”
“I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Don’t you even care?”
“I care too much. That’s what’s killing me. That’s
what’s killing us all.”
EPILOGUE
We weren’t ghosts who returned home. We were zombies.
War-torn. Down three men. Feeling little joy in our “mis-
sion completed.” I spoke briefly with each of the men, and
they shared my sentiments.
Colonel Gordon told me that Warris had friends and
relatives in high places, which was why his loyalties
tended to lean toward regular Army operations, even
though he’d chosen a career in Special Forces. In fact,
Gordon said that Warris had even written an article pub-
lished in Soldiersmagazine detailing his thoughts about
a dramatic shift in Special Forces operations and mental-
ity, an argument against elitism and what he deemed as
special privileges granted to our operators.
330 GH OS T RE CON
Well, the punk really got a taste of our “special privi-
leges” by spending some time in a hole full of crap.
That’s how we prima donnas in SF live the high life.
During one layover, I got a call from Harruck, who
told me Anderson had placed the girls in a good orphan-
age, but then the facility had been raided by Taliban
who said the girls had been raped and that they were all
going to face charges. Hila was, of course, among that
group. Would she spend twenty or more years in jail? I
didn’t know, but Harruck said he had a few ideas. He
then surprised me: “You were wrong about me, Scott.
I’m not a politician. And I’ll prove it to you.”
And then, as we were boarding our final flight back
to Fort Bragg, Gordon called again to tell me the spooks
were going for a charge of murder.
Apparently, Mullah Mohammed Zahed wasn’t just
the Taliban commander in the Zhari district. He was
the warlord leader of a network of men—warlords, Tal-
iban leaders, and corrupt public officials—who were part
of a massive protection racket in the country. It seemed
the United States was paying tens of millions of dollars
to these men to ensure safe passage of supply convoys
throughout the country.
We imported virtually everything we needed: food,
water, fuel, and ammo, and we did most of it by road
through Pakistan or Central Asia to hubs at Bagram air
base north of Kabul and the air base at Kandahar. From
there, local Afghan contractors took over, and the pow-
ers that be thought hiring local security was a brilliant
idea so we could promote entrepreneurship. Indeed, it
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331
had struck me as curious when local Afghan trucks
showed up at the FOB loaded with our military supplies.
I’d assumed the Chinooks had brought in everything,
but I was wrong.
So . . . Zahed was indirectly being paid by the United
States to provide protection to the trucks delivering sup-
plies to our base, even though we were his mortal enemies.