Black Site (5 page)

But from half a world away Pam Archer deftly piloted the aircraft from her station, communicated with the CIA/Delta command and control center at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, and, when so equipped and so instructed, fired the Hellfire missiles that hung on the wing pylons of her Reaper hunter-killer aircraft.

Pam did not control all the Reaper’s bells and whistles herself. Two sensor operators in another room in the Ground Control Station ran the cameras and recording devices and other system monitors. An hour earlier these men had detected the goat trail over which the element now traveled, putting the operation back on schedule after an earlier delay with the helo insertion into eastern Afghanistan. This success earned Pam and her team some hearty “atta-boys” from Bagram, but these were strident professionals. They didn’t bask in the moment. Instead, the two sensor operators concentrated closer still on their screens, and Pam flew on to the next waypoint, watching over the Delta boys from above.

Pam’s unit, the 17th Reconnaissance Squadron, often worked with CIA and Delta, providing the agency with remote eyes and standoff killing capability. Pam herself had flown her Reaper or a smaller Predator UAV into Pakistan forty times in the past year on reconnaissance operations, and six times on hunter-killer flights. She’d launched her Hellfires four times, once killing a minibus-load of al Qaeda jihadists, and twice taking out Taliban encampments.

Battle damage assessment of her other strike had been inconclusive.

Although UAV overflights of Pakistan had become so routine that many in intelligence circles referred to America’s “unblinking eye” over the theater, actual ground incursions were quite rare. More often than not,
much
more often than not, the Delta boys working the border would get word that a strategic reconnaissance mission in their current area of interest was under consideration, and they would begin the process of prepping gear and transport, only to be told, invariably at the last minute, that the SR was a no go. The politics in Washington, the politics in Kabul, the politics in Islamabad. Somebody in D.C. would decide somebody somewhere else would get their panties in an especially tight twist if American troops were known to be waltzing around inside Pakistan. For every “boots on the ground” operation over the border that received sanction, fully a dozen had been proposed, and certainly fifty had been warranted.

But recently things had been heating up, and this uptick in OPTEMPO resulted in Pam Archer’s bird roaming the western Pakistan skies over the four-man Delta element as they moved to a waypoint six klicks into South Waziristan. This foray into Pakistan’s lawless tribal area by Hunter 29 had been given the auspicious title of Operation Infinite Reach 09. It was the sixth mission over the border for elements of Task Force 33, part of the larger joint CIA/Delta-run Operation Denied Redoubt, an eighteen-month-long campaign to target Taliban rally points on the other side of the border.

CIA intel sources had indicated that a way station for jihadists lay hidden in a dry gorge south of the Tochi River. It was more than just a hut for overnight lodging—intelligence reports told of a complex warren of tunnels and camouflaged structures, replete with an armory, a bomb lab, an infirmary, a barracks, even a mosque to administer one last inculcation of fervency in advance of the fighters’ and suicide bombers’ missions into Afghanistan. Five farewell cell phone calls from suicide bombers to loved ones in the Middle East coming from the area had been intercepted by signals intelligence crews in the last three weeks. Further SIGINT raised the stakes even higher. Word was a high-value target from Chechnya who had been operating in eastern Afghanistan for months had recently arrived at the way station to lick his wounds and plan another hit-and-run raid over the border. If Hunter 29 could get eyes on the HVT, then either they would take him out themselves with a sniper rifle, or, if the location was determined to be free of noncombatants, they could “request and clear hot” a launch from the UAV. Within seconds Pam Archer’s bird could send a Hellfire or two down a laser’s path and kill the Chechen AQ leader. Further, if Raynor and his men could reconnoiter the valley and determine the area to be of sufficient value to the enemy, then CIA/Delta command and control would send in two Chinook helicopters full of Delta assaulters the following evening to take it down.

Captain Archer tilted her control stick gently to the right. Instantly the image on her lower monitor turned, altering the infrared camera’s viewpoint. She continued her bank until her Reaper’s nose pointed due east. Now that she had monitored the border crossing, it was her job to fly on and surveil the path on the way to Hunter 29’s next waypoint to locate any threats ahead.

SIX

“Hunter 29 for Eagle 01. Are you receiving, T.J.?” Raynor spoke softly into the microphone of the satellite radio. It was past 3 a.m. now, five hours since the helo insertion. The snow had stopped and Kolt had led his team down below seven thousand feet. Here at Waypoint Echo he’d had his men take a knee, and then he’d set up the small dish and adjusted the angle of the SATCOM antenna to the correct azimuth; now he waited for a response from the other side of the border.

“Eagle 01 reads Hunter 29. Go ahead, Racer.”

“Hunter 29 is at Echo.”

Racer and T.J. had been best friends since Ranger Selection, eight years earlier. Though they were both thirty-four years old, T.J. had been an officer since West Point, whereas Raynor had begun his service as an enlistee and only entered Officer Candidate School in his midtwenties. Consequently T.J. was a lieutenant colonel to Raynor’s major, but their friendship negated the need for much ceremony. Josh Timble—his initials had inexplicably been reversed to form his code name—referred to Kolt as “Major” only when he felt the need to condescend, and Kolt called Josh “My Colonel” only as a smart-ass platitude.

Now T.J. and his Eagle 01 element were billeted in a safe house just twelve kilometers inside Afghanistan, where they served as direct command and control of Operation Infinite Reach 09. They communicated directly with Racer’s element, Hunter 29, and relayed commands to Delta/CIA Joint Operation’s command in Bagram, who in turn was in contact with Archer’s UAV team in Nevada.

T.J.’s voice came over the satellite. “Racer, you’re not going to like this. Just got word from Creech that something on the UAV went tits up and it has to turn back for Bagram. Seventeenth Recon has another bird on the way, so just continue on to the edge of your next waypoint and lay up until it gets on station.”

Raynor leaned his head back against the pine in frustration. “So much for ‘Infinite Reach.’”

A pause. Then, “Just carry on to Waypoint Foxtrot, take a load off, and stand by.” T.J.’s voice was clipped, clean, and disciplined. Raynor knew their communications were being monitored by generals, Delta colonels, and intelligence technicians, as well as by CIA and others back at the JOC. T.J. was surely as frustrated as his friend—he was just
much
better at hiding it than was Raynor.

Raynor looked to his watch. Replied with his best display of radio protocol: “Understood, Eagle 01. Uh—we’ve got just about two hours till BMNT.” “Beginning of morning nautical twilight” was Armyspeak for dawn. “Request we continue to the objective. If we don’t press on we’ll have to lay low till nightfall.” While he waited for his friend to respond over the radio, Kolt pulled out his GPS.

“Negative, Hunter 29. Get to the next waypoint and find a ROD.” A “remain over day” site was exactly what Racer wanted to avoid.

“Uh, roger all, Eagle 01. We’ll monitor and check in on schedule. Send weather update ASAP. Hunter 29, out.”

Raynor shut down the sat link, reached into a pouch on the right side of his load-bearing vest. He pulled out a satellite phone, switched it on, and swiveled a cigar-shaped antenna into position. He knew his request for a weather update would mean T.J. would be calling, and within ten seconds a light flickered on the phone. Major Raynor brushed tree bark off his neck as he answered.

“What’s the deal, T.J.?” Both men carried Globalstar satellite phones that were not monitored by other parties. These were used chiefly for mundane logistics communication and weather updates, but Raynor knew he could speak freely to his friend over the Globalstar, and he did not hesitate to do so.

T.J.’s voice was different now that he was not being listened to by others. “Here’s your weather update, bro. It’s gonna turn dark and stormy over your head if you don’t check your tone. Smart-ass remarks over open comms aren’t gonna win you any friends.”

“Yeah, sorry. Just came out. Apologize on my behalf.”

“That’s what I’m here for.” T.J. was pissed, his radio protocol of a few minutes ago was long gone.

“What’s up with the Reaper?” Raynor asked, changing the subject.

“I don’t know. It’s gonna be a couple of hours before they can replace it.”

“Look. Foxtrot gets us less than two hundred meters from a decent overwatch on the target. We can go ahead, make it before BMNT. If we lay up two hundred lousy meters short we’ll shove the entire timetable back twenty-four hours. That’s twenty-four hours where something can go wrong.”

“If you find a good ROD nothing will go wrong.”

“I can think of a half-dozen things off the top of my head. The HVT might leave the target area. Taliban spotters might hear the UAV and get spooked enough to double security. A Pashtun farmer might stumble onto Rocky while he’s taking a leak. Some suit in Washington might pull the plug on the whole op. Every minute we sit around short of target is another minute this whole thing can go south. I know. I’ve been here before.” Kolt had led this same element over the border on Infinite Reach 02 and 04, and both times he’d been ordered to turn around for reasons never made clear to his satisfaction. He took it personally.

“Wait for the UAV.”

“We’ve only got two hours to dawn.”

“Yeah. I’ve got a watch.”

“It’s just two hundred meters.”

“Yeah, I’ve got a map, too.”

Raynor gritted his teeth. T.J. always was the more careful one. “Fortune favors the brave.”

“Fuckups favor the brave too, Major. I don’t want to have to fly down there and save your impatient ass.” In the event of an emergency there was a Ranger Quick Reaction Force up in Bagram and a pair of Chinooks prepared to fly them in over the border to extract Raynor and Hunter 29. But Raynor knew that T.J. was closer, and Raynor also knew his best friend would move mountains to get to him if he needed him.

Raynor blew out a long sigh. Waited a little longer than necessary to respond, just to show his friend that he thought the order to find a ROD was stupid.

“Understood, Colonel.”

*   *   *

In Nevada, Pamela Archer cussed into her mike. “We’ve got a team over the border and they’re pulling us offline for a software glitch? The bird flies. The cameras see. This is crazy!”

“Come on, Pam. We’ve got two sensors showing ice buildup,” barked back her commanding colonel over the radio.

“She’s not freezing up! I’ve seen those readings before. Everything else is in nominal range. De-ice controller is working. Flight characteristics are unchanged. It’s just the software misreading the fluctuating air pressure on the wings. It thinks the antifreeze is blocked in the weeping holes.”

“If those wings ice up—”

“They won’t.”

“You want to risk losing the bird?”

“You want to risk losing the men?”

“Damn it, Captain! We fly inside operational limits. On a mission this big I’ll let you fudge it a bit here and there if I have to, but two simultaneous ice readings take this UAV offline. I’m not going to let a Reaper go down in Pakistan. We’ve got another crew that can have their ship there in three hours. You bring yours back to base ASAP! This discussion is over!” The colonel left the conversation. Pam imagined him ripping his headset off and throwing it down as he paced back and forth in the UAV Operations Center a few hundred yards from where she sat.

Pam’s earpiece was silent for several seconds. Then a tinny voice came through from the next room.

“Great job, Pammy. An hour ago we
were
the shit, now we’re
in
the shit.”

“It’s just stupid, Myron.” Myron was one of the Reaper’s two sensor operators. “Is she flying like her wings are iced?”

A pause. “Negative.”

“Exactly. My four boys are blind down there facing every Taliban and AQ fighter in the region. They
need
us.” The emotion in her voice revealed more than just frustration over the order. She was genuinely concerned about the men. This was her third flight over the element with the call sign Hunter 29. She hated leaving them alone in enemy territory.

Myron’s voice chided her over the mike. “You’re not their mother. They’re Delta—they can handle it till another crew gets overhead.”

“I hope so.” She watched the GPS coordinates change on her navigation monitor. As her bird crossed back over the mountainous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan she said aloud, “Good luck, Hunter 29. You’re on your own.”

SEVEN

First light dawned at five thirty. Racer, Musket, Rock, and Jet lay spread out over ten meters of tall snow-covered brush on a ridgeline overlooking a small gorge. Below them a dry stream bed narrowed to the south, but widened to the north as it snaked around a bend away to the east. A lower hill rose in front of them, and ended a hundred meters to the north to form the southern bank of the stream bed’s curve.

Just on the other side of the little hill, intel suggested, the sprawling enemy complex lay camouflaged on the floor of a larger canyon.

One hundred sixty meters away from Hunter 29’s layup point.

“This sucks,” barked Raynor. Vapor from his breath turned to wisps in the frigid morning air.

All four men rested while they surveilled the area through their night vision goggles. As they did so some dug into First Strike Rations, a pared-down Meal, Ready to Eat for ops when even MREs were too bulky. Raynor sucked energy gel from a foil pouch, squeezed the calories and caffeine and sugar into his lean body, washed it down with water infused with small amounts of salt to aid in hydration.