“I need you to take Chief Crocker and his men down the chute to Station C.”
“The chute, for sure. You bad boys ready?”
“Hell, yes!”
The SEALs reentered the wet and bitter cold weather. Snow continued to blow in all directions. Blasts and automatic arms fire echoed from the valley below.
“Follow me,” Jonesy said, walking with an M27 resting on his shoulder as if he was taking a stroll in the woods.
“I like this guy,” Akil commented to Crocker, who was thinking ahead, trying to cobble a plan together.
Jonesy spoke as he walked. “Mofos musta been planning this assault for some time, waiting for the first big winter storm. The major, he thought he’d been building up good relations with the elders in the village. All the time, they been aiding the Taliban. Now he’s dead. Mofos must have been assembling in that damn village, man, storing weapons and supplies, ’cause that’s where they attacked us from.”
Beyond two large pine trees they arrived at the edge of the cliff and a narrow gully in the rock. In warmer weather, it probably carried water, Crocker thought. He couldn’t see where the natural gully ended; fog and snow had reduced visibility to less than three yards.
“How far does it descend?” he asked Jonesy.
The skinny soldier hitched up his camouflage pants and answered, “Over a hundred yards. Most of the way down to Station C.”
Jonesy shook the snow off a plastic cover, lifted it off, then picked up a large coil of rope, which he heaved into the gully. The end of it was tied to a U-shaped pipe that had been cemented into the rock.
“You guys are SEALs, right?” he asked. “Then this kinda shit is probably like pissing in a pot to you. You want me to lead the way?”
“Sure,” Crocker answered. “We’ll be right behind you.”
As he pulled on a pair of worn leather gloves, Jonesy said, “Somebody’s gotta stay behind and pull this sucker up so the Tal-i-bads can’t use it.”
Crocker turned to Dog and barked, “You’re not gonna be able to do this with your shoulder, so on my signal, pull up the rope.”
“Yes, chief.”
Jonesy spit into his gloves, made sure the M27 was strapped securely across his back and shoulder, grabbed the rope, and started to shimmy down. Crocker went second, followed by Akil, Davis, Ritchie, Cal, and Yale.
Twelve feet down they entered a cloud of mist so thick Crocker couldn’t see Jonesy in front of him. All he heard was the hiss of snow and dull percussions in the distance. The scene reminded him of dreams he’d had as a kid, and similarly thrilling experiences skydiving through clouds. There was something exhilarating about not knowing what was coming next.
At twenty feet he heard the explosion. Wham! It hurt his ears and sent pieces of rock flying, crashing into him. Still, he managed to hold on to the rope.
Jonesy screamed, “Mofos! Stupid mofos! Why you gotta be pissing me off?”
A voice overlapped in Crocker’s headset. “Boss. Boss!”
Secondary explosions followed, thankfully none of them as close. Bullets flew their way, loose rock falling on top of them, hitting their shoulders, backs, and helmets.
“Boss! Boss, what the fuck?”
“Down!” he shouted at Jonesy. “Fast-rope down!”
His feet and hands eased up on the rope and he started flying down fast, still surrounded by fog, trying to count the distance in his head. Twenty feet, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy. At eighty he started to tighten his grip around the line.
Into the mike in his headset, he shouted, “Slow down at eighty feet. Remember to slow down!”
The rope burned through his gloves. The heat and pain was intense by the time he emerged from the mist and saw ground, and Jonesy rolling onto a patch of moss-covered dirt.
“Hit the ground and roll!” he exclaimed into the mike before he hit, lowering his head and shoulder, and executing a modified parachute landing fall, popping up into a crouch. He spotted Jonesy waving him over to a group of boulders that formed a natural wall.
The enemy were still directing their fire above them into the gully. Crocker suspected that the Afghan major with the push-pull radio might have something to do with it.
He helped the remaining five and directed them to where Jonesy waited. Over the radio he ordered Dog to pull up the fast-rope, then joined the group huddled behind the rock. The sounds of battle were crisper and closer-so close he could make out men shouting in a foreign language.
Jonesy said, “The Taliban’s about a hundred yards in front of us. Station C stands over there to the right.”
Crocker turned and looked in the direction of a smooth rock that rose like the back of a blue whale. Beyond it sat a higher patch of land that was barely visible. Through wisps of fog and a patch of low shrubs, he thought he saw the top of a flat, fortlike structure.
“That it?”
“You got it, boss. We’re kinda behind the freakin’ Tal-i-bad lines.”
The fresh, piney smell reminded Crocker of happier times, in the White Mountains of New Hampshire where he spent summer vacations as a kid. He turned to Davis. “Get Sergeant Perez on the horn and tell him we’re approaching north-northwest.”
“Roger.”
“Follow me.” This wasn’t the first time he’d rushed into something blind. He hoped it wouldn’t be the last.
He ran in a low crouch until he reached the slick, smooth surface of the rock, and holding on to it, started to scurry upward on all fours. Tough going. Every foot gained was a struggle. He was out of breath by the time he reached the top and spotted the shrubs ahead. Beyond them and to the right he saw the backs of three men wearing black turbans. One was kneeling on the ground setting up a machine gun.
Crocker aimed his HK416 and raked fire across their backs, left to right, then left again into the slumping, twitching bodies. One shouted an oath to Allah that echoed past him.
Akil, Jonesy, and Cal hurried up behind him.
“What the fuck was that?” one of them exclaimed, interrupted by the clank and clatter of metal against rock. Crocker located the grenade and pointed at it. Together they sprinted, then dove to the opposite side of a berm and hit the ground.
Crocker felt his chin crash into the ground as snow entered his nose and mouth. The explosion lifted his chest and belly into the air. Shards of metal fell around him as he hit earth again and saw stars.
A big gun was pounding. It seemed to be firing from a position closer to the cliff. His head spinning, he tried to lift himself up as voices called, “Chief! Chief!” Couldn’t tell who it was, but he realized it had to be coming over his headset. When he reached for the mike, he realized his helmet had been pushed back off his head. He was trying to adjust it when he noticed Akil pointing at him. A third man Crocker didn’t know was standing with him. Jonesy hurried over and helped him up.
The stranger said, “You can’t rest now, sir. You’ll miss all the fun.”
Some fun.
The man looked Hispanic-high cheekbones, a tribal tattoo on his neck. He said, “Chief Crocker, Sergeant Chino Perez.” His two gold front teeth gleamed in the muted light.
“You with us?”
“Fuck, yeah.”
Crocker still felt woozy, but he managed to run with them toward the guard station. The next thing he remembered, he was sitting on a sandbag. Someone handed him a bottle of water. When he swallowed, he tasted blood.
“Boss, you okay?”
Davis looked down at him with a face smudged with dirt. Crocker used his tongue to feel along the ridge of his mouth and realized that a piece of one of his front teeth was missing.
“You see the rest of my tooth?” he asked.
“Did I see what?”
“Never mind.”
The noise in the cramped, smoke-filled room was hellacious. He saw bodies thrown into a corner and covered with a blue tarp. Blood and entrails peeked out from under it.