Black Site (44 page)

Kolt breathed a sigh of relief. “I can’t believe you are still around, dude.”

T.J. was all business. “We are on the cell floor of the stockade, covering up the stairwell. There are Chechens above us on both floors. Suggest you guys come flash-bang the hell out of that front room and assault simultaneously from the two windows.”

“T.J., I’m not part of the hit. I’m kind of off to the side on this. I’m at the southwest tower. I blew up the rear chopper, then the boys came in overhead.”

Another slight pause. “Dude, if you blew up the rear chopper, then you just saved our asses and smoked four senior AQ who were ten seconds from freedom. Best you keep your head down till the boys get things cleared up. Don’t do anything stupid. Just sight tight.”

“You, too, brother.”

“Listen, do you guys know about al-Amriki?”

“Al
who
?”

“Shit. Okay, there is an AQ senior operator running this show. He is—”

Gunfire on T.J.’s side of the call interrupted the conversation. Kolt heard the radio go dead as his friend took his hand off the Transmit button to return fire.

“T.J.? T.J.?”

FORTY-SIX

The Delta assault was led by Master Sergeant David “Monk” Kraus. He, Colonel Webber, Benji, and others had been studying the satellite photos of the compound for the past three hours, even when it seemed highly unlikely they’d get the go-ahead for the cross-border incursion. Webber knew time would be critical if the call came, so he had the attack force kit up, load into ten helicopters, and head off into the darkness.

The four Little Birds flew to a covert forward refueling point set up just over the border in Afghanistan, not eight miles from the black site. The sixteen assaulters who would fly on the external pods of the Little Birds arrived shortly thereafter, flown to the refueling point in an MH-47J Chinook Dark Horse along with a massive fuel bladder for the choppers. Once the Little Birds gassed up, the assaulters strapped themselves into their outboard positions, and waited. Sixteen more assaulters sat in three MH-60J Black Hawks, waiting on the ground like their mates in the Little Birds.

Webber remained in near-constant contact with Pete Grauer, and he watched the feed from the Radiance UAV that flew over the Sandcastle. CIA Reaper drones were supposedly on the way, but they had been delayed for some inexplicable reason, so Grauer’s drone had the only eyes on what was happening. Once Webber saw the live feed of the smoking structures and the assault by the enemy Black Hawks, he radioed Monk at the forward refueling site.

“Monk … we’re still waiting on word for the hit.”

An angry delay. Monk’s professional “Yes, sir” was delivered in a clipped tone.

“I’ll tell you what,” Webber continued. “Nobody said we can’t get up in the air, at least. Maybe you guys could head east, straddle the border, be ready to shoot over if we get the call.”

Monk liked this order. “Will do, sir.”

Forty-five seconds later all nine birds involved in the attack were airborne.

Twenty minutes after this Webber connected with Monk again. The master sergeant’s headset broadcast the thumping of the Black Hawk’s rotors above him.

“Sir?”

Webber’s order was succinct, as there was not a second to waste: “Execute.”

Thirty seconds later, a pair of AH-6M Little Birds armed with two 2.75-inch rockets and M-134 7.62 mm miniguns flew into Pakistan, just a couple hundred yards from the Torkham border crossing. The choppers flew below rooftop level—often their skids raced above the N25 highway at no more than four feet off the ground. They shot through the morning traffic of jingle buses, taxis, and private cars and trucks, going around or just above vehicles on their way. They continued hugging the terrain as they left the road and turned up a narrow valley with sheer walls on both sides, streaking through the Khyber Pass at over one hundred miles an hour. The rest of the force crossed the border exactly sixty seconds behind the first helos. They hugged the terrain as well, four Little Birds with four assaulters on each ship, and three Black Hawks with eight men on board each of the first two craft, and only the flight crew on the third. All raced east over Torkham, and over the heads of hundreds of astonished Pakistanis.

The lead pair of Little Bird gunships joined up with the Torkham Road again, followed it for no more than a minute before banking hard to the left, climbing a rocky hill, and “popping up” to one hundred feet above the earth. They appeared simultaneously over the southern wall of the black site just in time to see an explosion at the southwest tower. The pilots turned their attention to the three other towers, where they could see men with RPGs lifting them to fire.

The choppers’ noses dropped and they dove at the black site. Rockets poured from their two seven-tube outboard launchers. After a single screaming pass by the gunships, all three occupied towers blazed with fire, and debris rained down around them.

On the second pass the Little Birds switched to miniguns, tearing up anyone who fired on them in the large dirt courtyard of the Sandcastle.

The four small helicopters full of assaulters appeared from the hills to the west now and shot over the compound. The men on the slicks fired their HK416s at targets below and around them.

The assaulters knew their assigned targets—two birds came to a hover low over the stockade, and four men dropped from each, five feet down to the building’s roof. The eight men fired through the parapets at enemy near the smoldering UH-60 Black Hawks that were parked in the courtyard.

The other two birds found their landing zones in the courtyard fouled with debris, so they also slowed to a hover at thirty feet. The assaulters reached above them, and each pulled a five-inch silver cotter pin, which released a forty-foot dark green nylon twist fast rope, which dropped to the ground. The men unsnapped their safety lines and slid down the ropes like expert firemen.

Once on the ground the assaulters quickly oriented themselves and sprinted to their designated outbuildings, searching for targets and opening doors at their destinations. The men did not hesitate, they did not confer with one another, they did not stop to find cover.

They were assaulters—they attacked.

The first MH60 Black Hawk landed outside near the main gate. Monk led the way off this helo, his 416 on his shoulder, and he ran forward toward the entrance to the fortress. The second MH60 landed behind the Sandcastle. The third flew above in reserve in case Delta found al Qaeda or Taliban prisoners to evacuate. Both teams of assaulters on the ground offloaded and spread out to secure the areas and to prepare to reinforce the teams inside by blowing the locks off the gates and hitting the courtyard.

Benji led the first Little Bird assault team to hit the stockade. He and the seven men with him tossed flash-bang grenades through the windows and entered the ground floor through these windows.

After the explosions, Benji followed a mate inside. A Chechen in a Ranger uniform had been stunned by the banger—he leaned against the wall, his weapon low and weaving back and forth with his deep breaths.

Benji fired a burst into the man’s head, and then another burst into his body after he was down.

They cleared the room counterclockwise, using a technique called “Free Flow Close Quarters Battle on Unknown Floor Plans.” The men searched for friendlies, dropped enemies, and made sure every armed Chechen was dead before leaving him behind.

The main room now cleared, Benji’s team leapfrogged past him toward the stairwell. At the top of the stairs a Chechen ran away from the Americans. He was shot in the back with an HK416.

The stairwell was tight, so the assault team began heading down single file.

*   *   *

When the courtyard was clear of enemies Monk ordered a pair of assaulters to check each tower for survivors. He then checked on his wounded. He had three injured: two had been slightly hurt when a grenade exploded on the roof of the stockade, and another man had been shot through both legs breaching one of the mud-walled outbuildings. A team medic was already working on him over by the smoldering enemy helicopters.

A pair of young assaulters approached Monk from behind. He hadn’t been looking in their direction. “Hey, Monk, this asshole says he knows you.”

Monk turned around. He wore his typical game face, but still he cracked a half smile. “I’ll be damned. What the fuck you doing here, Racer?”

Kolt was all business. “T.J. is on the cell level with four friendlies. Tell the assaulters.”

Monk did not hesitate. He barked the warning into his radio, and Benji transmitted back that he understood.

Monk began heading up to check on the casualties. He said, “You look like shit, Kolt.”

Raynor had more intel he was desperate to convey. “Listen, I think you’re gonna get hit from the ground.”

Monk stopped in his tracks. “More crows coming?” he asked, using the Delta term “crows” to denote enemy forces.

“I … I don’t know for sure. I figured they’d be here by now. But the Pakistani Taliban were involved in the op, and they haven’t shown up yet. They just might be on the way.”

Monk looked up at the Black Hawks and the Little Birds circling above. He knew they’d already be monitoring the highway below. Fights like this often turned into “spectator sports,” with civilians grabbing guns and running to the battle. But nobody was looking for a planned attack on the Sandcastle. He’d rectify that immediately.

Monk reached for his radio and warned the men circling above. As soon as he ended the transmission another assaulter radioed to him from over by the burned Black Hawks. “Monk, don’t know if you want to see this.”

“What you got, Sheepdog?”

“I got a dead hajji in black pajamas holding a high-end video camera.”

“Is the camera intact?”

“The camera is, but the hajji isn’t. Looks like he lost a staring contest with a minigun.”

“Secure the camera and I’ll come take a look.”

Monk wondered if they’d managed to kill a journalist.

FORTY-SEVEN

Daoud al-Amriki had stripped down to his underwear, and now he pulled a pair of jeans and a Banana Republic T-shirt from his backpack. He had made his way through a window in the back of the stockade just as the choppers arrived overhead, and he’d entered the stairwell just as he heard Timble and the other prisoners come through the front door. Now he was in a small dark closet at the end of the hallway on the second level. Timble had passed by the hallway heading down toward the empty cells below, and now the Americans fired up at a group of five surviving Chechens who’d sought refuge on this level. More American soldiers were above on the stairs, firing down on the al Qaeda soldiers. The Chechens were caught in a crossfire, with only this small hallway for cover.

Al-Amriki remained in the closet. He did not go out to fight and die with the doomed Chechens.

He finished changing, then smeared blood from his broken nose all over his face. He hid his rifle and his Ranger uniform under dry goods in the corner of the closet, and he waited for either the Chechens to come down the hall to his position, or the Americans to find him.

Looking across the small closet, he found a breaker for the lights to the building. He pulled it down, and the lights went out. He peeked out into the hallway and saw small emergency lights glow dimly in the stairwell.

*   *   *

As the lights went out Benji ordered two of his team to prepare to toss bangers into the hallway of the second floor. He’d just received word that Eagle 01 was two levels below his position, but between him and them were two levels of Chechens.

“Hit ’em!” Benji ordered, the pins were pulled on the flash-bangs, and the canisters bounced down the stairs. The six Delta men turned away from the blast and noise, actuated their rifles’ SureFire flashlights, and then descended hurriedly in a tactical train.

They made it to the first-level basement hallway, exchanging fire as they closed on a group of Chechens. The assaulter in front of Benji lurched back onto his heels and fell to the ground. Benji stepped in front of him and covered him while advancing into the hallway. He moved to the right to get more of his men in with him, and in seconds it was over.

Three Chechens in Ranger uniforms lay facedown in the dark hall. Benji and his men riddled them all with more gunfire, allowing no one to play possum. Some of the assaulters reloaded while others covered, and then the first group covered while the second got their guns reloaded and back in the fight.

There were two doors at the end of the hall, both closed.

Benji checked his men. Touchdown had been shot several times in his ballistic plate. He lay on his back and struggled to catch his breath, but a medic checking over him wasn’t finding any blood.

Benji moved forward through the darkness. “We’re going to bang those doors, roger?”

“Roger,” came the reply from the three men behind him.

They opened the first door, tossed in a flash-bang, and entered behind the noise and light. One man stayed in the hall to cover the other door.

The room was an empty communications center. Benji and his team exited and approached the other door.

“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” The voice on the other side of the door was clearly American.

“Come on out, hands high!” Benji shouted. The door opened slowly. A young, clean-shaven American in a T-shirt and jeans, his face streaked with a small amount of blood, stepped out into the dazzling beams of the weapon lights. His eyes blinked with fear.

“Joey Barnes. I’m with the CIA.”

Benji nodded to Tomahawk, who stepped forward and grabbed the man by the collar. It was odd that an Agency man would say “I’m with the CIA.” It sounded stilted and “Hollywood” to Benji. Normally CIA people would say “Agency” when in the field, if they said anything at all. But Benji had already turned with the rest of his men to head down and clear the next level. The young man behind him had sure as shit been through a lot in the last couple of hours, and he sure as shit would be motivated to get his point across that he wasn’t like all the Chechens that Delta were killing around here.